Diamondbacks play, win, get ready for San Francisco Giants

A strong effort from the starting pitcher, a bullpen that
doesn’t allow a run
and Justin Upton getting hit by a pitch.

Ho hum, just another day in the 2011 season for the first
place Arizona
Diamondbacks.

Josh Collmenter tossed six innings of two run baseball,
Miguel Montero hit
his second three run homer in as many days and the D-backs
came away
with their ninth straight win, a 4-2 victory over the
Colorado Rockies.

“The streak we’re on, the starting pitcher just hands the
ball from one guy
to the next so you don’t want to be the guy that messes
that streak up, so
you want to make sure you go out there and give your team
a good chance
to win,” Collmenter said.

Collmenter’s night got easier in the bottom of the first
when a familiar
script played out once again at Chase Field.

It goes like this: Justin Upton gets hit by a pitch (for
the 16th time this
year), looks upset while the fans boo. Upton trots to
first while Miguel
Montero steps to the plate. Next thing you know the ball
is in the bleachers
and Upton touches home plate just before the D-backs
catcher, whose
three-run homer did about as good a job of avenging the
team’s star as
anything.

Montero said he only tries to put a good at bat together,
and that he
happens to be getting good pitches hitting behind Upton.

“It’s pretty nice because he’s pretty much every time on
base,” Montero
said, “he either gets a hit or he gets hit.”

Indeed, things seem to have a way of coming up D-backs
these days.
Whether it’s Gerardo Parra throwing Dexter Fowler out at
the plate or Sean
Burroughs coming up with a big RBI, the team is officially
on a roll as they
head to the bay to take on a reeling Giants team.

“San Francisco, we’re not going to take them lightly,” D-
backs manager
Kirk Gibson said.

Of course Gibson would say that, and the team echoed those
sentiments.
They have their eyes squarely on the task at hand and are
taking nothing
for granted.

“Just like we went through a funk and then the next thing
you know we win
eight, nine in a row, the game just kind of works like
that,” centerfielder
Chris Young said. “You never go into a series thinking
that somebody is
just going to lay down, especially with us coming to town.

“I’m sure no matter how they’ve been doing lately, I’m
sure they’ll be able
to get amped up to play us that series.”

You better believe it, but the Diamondbacks have to see
this as a chance to
essentially put the defending champions away and win the
NL West.

“They already got their rings, so this year is another
year,” Montero said,
adding there are a lot of good teams out there. “You can’t
look and say
‘they’re the defending champs’, you just have to go out
there and play like
that’s the Giants and we’re the Diamondbacks, so who
cares?”

Follow @theAdamGreen