D-backs’ Corbin not surprised by early success

Patrick Corbin is one of the biggest surprises of the 2013 Major League Baseball season.

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ lefty is 5-0 and boasts an ERA of 1.75. The win total is tied for second in the National League, whereas his ERA is ranked fifth.

For a guy who didn’t earn a spot in the rotation until the very end of spring training, Corbin sure has done a good job of making it seem like all this could have been expected.

“I wouldn’t say I expected to come out and do this,” he told Arizona Sports 620’s Burns and Gambo Friday. “But I felt like last year I learned a lot and thought I was capable to go out there and come out to a good start.”

Corbin appeared in 22 games for the D-backs last season — including 17 starts — and posted an ERA of 4.54 to go along with a 6-8 record. And while he’d been looked at as one of the team’s better pitching prospects, few pegged him to be at the top of the list.

However, he earned a job in the spring and has essentially run with it.

“I feel like there was a reason why [Manager Kirk Gibson] and [General Manager Kevin Towers] wanted me on this team, and they knew I could go out there and pitch well and help this team win,” Corbin said. “And I feel like I could do the same, and that’s what I believe in.

“I feel like I can just go out there every start and help this team try to win a ball game.”

Corbin has done exactly that, and the D-backs have won each of his seven starts. Corbin’s pitched at least six innings in all of them, and has not allowed more than two runs in any of them.

He’s been the team’s most consistent — and best — starter, and attributes his success largely to a more consistent slider as well as better fastball command.

The Diamondbacks will take it.

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