Sedona Red Recap: Castillo fuels late rally as Diamondbacks edge Giants 6-5

The Arizona Diamondbacks haven’t been winning a lot of games lately. And they really haven’t been rallying to win games late at all this season.

That changed on Saturday – for one night, at least.

Welington Castillo drove in four runs, Paul Goldschmidt provided the defense and Patrick Corbin scattered two earned runs over 5.1 innings as the D-backs knocked off the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants 6-5 in front of 30,683 fans at Chase Field.

Castillo picked up his first RBI of the game with a double that scored Jake Lamb in the fourth inning. But he did his real damage with a three-run shot into the left field seats in the eighth. Arizona trailed 5-3 at the time, but promptly took the lead with that hit. Then Brad Ziegler came in to finish the job.

Corbin actually surrendered five runs on the evening, but only two were earned as the D-backs had some fielding issues early on. He also served up home runs on back-to-back pitches in the fourth inning, but was able to settle down and stop the bleeding afterward.

That set the stage for the eighth inning rally, something Chip Hale’s squad hasn’t had enough of this season. To put it in perspective, Saturday’s victory is just the third time in 44 tries that Arizona has picked up a win when trailing after seven innings in 2016.

THE GOOD

-Castillo has now homered in two straight games. He’s 7-for-12 overall in his last three outings.

-Goldschmidt made two pretty spectacular plays at first base, diving to rob Angel Pagan of an extra-base hit in the eighth, then making a nice grab on Conor Gillaspie’s hit to end the game.

-Even though Lamb saw his homerun streak end at three games, he still went 2-for-3 while reaching base three times. And he came close to getting that homerun when he drove a double to deep center in the sixth.

THE BAD

-Jean Segura had a rough second inning in the field. With runners on first and third, he grabbed a Mac Williamson grounder and fired home in plenty of time to get Buster Posey out at the plate. Problem is, he threw high and wide, allowing Posey to score and all the other runners to advance.

-Later in the second, Segura bobbled a grounder off the bat of Jeff Samardzija that looked like an inning-ending double play. Instead, he was only able to get the out at second base, allowing a third run to score.

-Corbin surrendered homeruns to Brandon Crawford and Williamson on back-to-back pitches in the fourth. And the one Williamson hit actually connected with the scoreboard in center field.

STAT OF THE GAME

428: Estimated distance, in feet, of Chris Herrmann’s fourth inning double. He ripped it to deep right-center, where the homerun line actually goes vertical to connect the top of the center field wall to the much lower right field wall. If it had been a couple inches to the right it would have been his seventh round-tripper of the season. Instead, it was an extremely long RBI double.

HE SAID IT

“You know, we always joke around that solo homeruns aren’t going to beat you. But when he gave two up on two pitches, he was like ‘well, maybe…’. So we thought about at that point, maybe we’re going to have to get him out early. But he really – as I told him when I took him out – he locked it back in and pitched well after that.” – Chip Hale, assessing Patrick Corbin’s performance on the mound.

NOTED

-Chip Hale was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the sixth. It’s the fourth time in his career that he’s been ejected, and the second time this season (June 7 vs Tampa Bay).

-Arizona is 2-0 in the games Hale has been tossed from this year.

-Nick Ahmed was placed on the Paternity Leave List, and Enrique Burgos was called up from Triple-A Reno before the game.

UP NEXT

These two teams will meet at Chase Field for the rubber match of this three game series on Sunday. Robbie Ray takes the mound for the Diamondbacks, while Albert Suarez gets the nod for the Giants. First pitch is set for 1:10 p.m., with pregame coverage beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

Ray (4-7) has looked better over his last four outings, going 2-2 with a 3.60 ERA in that stretch. He’s dropped his last two starts though, including an 8-0 loss against the Philadelphia Phillies on June 27, when he yielded four runs over 6.0 innings.

In his other meeting with San Francisco this season, Ray delivered 6.0 shutout innings in a 3-0 win back on April 19.

Suarez (3-1) will be making just his sixth career Major League start. He’s won each of his last two decisions, though he didn’t factor into the outcome during his last appearance – a 13-11 defeat at the hand of the Athletics on June 28.

This will be the first time he’s ever faced Arizona.

Follow @LukeLapinski