D-backs snap 5-game losing streak, find some offense in San Francisco

The Arizona Diamondbacks still aren’t quite getting back to their brand of baseball that has made them successful the past three seasons, but at least they scored some runs Friday and got a victory.

Even with starter Taylor Clarke only making it 3.0 innings, the D-backs’ six runs were just enough to hold on for a 6-5 win over the San Francisco Giants.

In a run of losing 13 out of 14 games, Arizona hasn’t been blown out in most of them. It has come down to little mistakes compounding in close games, and those are the types of mistakes and losses the D-backs aren’t used to under D-backs manager Torey Lovullo.

“We have been in a lot of games,” he said. “And we talk about winning the inches out there that are all over the ballpark. For several of the games that we have not executed defensively, or had that type of at-bat, or made a particular pitch at the right time — that’s been the difference in the game.”

“We hung on, and we kept adding on, and we were having good at-bats,” he said.

Ketel Marte had four hits and two RBIs, Nick Ahmed added three hits with one RBI while Daulton Varsho had his first multi-hit game and RBI in the majors.

The Giants had three straight answers for the D-backs, scoring in the same inning as Arizona for the first, third and fourth innings.

The difference was Varsho’s two-RBI single in the fourth was matched by only one Giants run off a Mauricio Dubon RBI single, leaving the scoreline at 4-3 after one run for each team in the first and third innings.

And the D-backs offense kept coming, with two more in the fifth via Kole Calhoun’s sac fly and Ahmed’s single to make it a three-run cushion and 6-3 scoreline.

“Those are those good push wins,” Lovullo said of battling and answering. “Those momentum wins you’ve gotta feel good about.”

Arizona reliever Yoan Lopez gave up one run in the fifth and Brandon Belt’s solo bomb into McCovey Cove off Hector Rondon in the seventh made it a one-run game in the last two innings.

Stefan Crichton, though, made it nervy by loading the bases with no outs in the eighth, even when he got out of it unscathed. Kevin Ginkel bounced back from his blown save in Los Angeles on Wednesday by picking up his first of the season on Friday.

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