Goldy, D-backs back Greinke, hold off Halos

ANAHEIM -- The D-backs rebounded from Sunday's crushing ninth-inning loss by beating the Angels, 7-4, on Monday night at Angel Stadium.
Not surprisingly, it was Paul Goldschmidt who helped turn the page quickly with a two-run homer in the first inning as he remained scorching hot at the plate.
"It was exactly what we needed and we had the right guy step up in Paul," D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "Hit that big two-run home run that got us playing downhill baseball and immediately left [Sunday] behind."
Jon Jay hit a grounder back up the middle to lead off the game with a single against Jaime Barría and Goldschmidt followed with the homer, his 15th of the year and his seventh in his last 13 games.
"I was just trying to hit something hard," Goldschmidt said. "I was able to get it up in the air, I wasn't sure if it was going to go and fortunately it did and we did a good job tacking on. We knew they were going to keep coming at us and keep scoring."
In his past 12 games heading into Monday, Goldschmidt was hitting .500/.561/1.020 with six doubles and a triple.
Goldschmidt started out the season in a deep slump and was hitting .198 after the May 22 game with the Brewers.
"You knew he would go on a hot stretch," starter Zack Greinke said of Goldschmidt. "You never expect it to be as hot as it is. It's pretty impressive. The slump lasted a little longer than he expected, but you knew he was going to turn it around for sure."

The win was the eighth in the last 11 games for the D-backs, who led the Mets 3-1 on Sunday heading into the ninth inning. Closer Brad Boxberger, though, gave up four runs as the D-backs fell, 5-3 and missed an opportunity to take three of four from New York.
"[Sunday's] loss was a tough loss there's no doubt about it," Lovullo said. "But these guys have been battle tested and tough and you've got to be able to digest those types of days and be ready the next day and these guys were."
Putting tough losses behind them has been somewhat of a hallmark for the D-backs this year and it's why Goldschmidt downplayed any impact his first-inning homer had in terms of what happened the day before.
"It's not like we came to the park talking about it," Goldschmidt said. "There's tough losses if that's what you want to call them, all throughout the year when you have the lead with one out to go, and then there are times where you win some games [in which] you're kind of losing the whole time. I'm not going to say they even out, but I think our mindset is leave it. You can't carry yesterday into today or try harder. You just try to win today and if you lose, you just try and go out and win the next day."
Ketel Marte followed Goldschmidt's lead in the second inning with his fifth homer of the year off Barria, and Nick Ahmed also went deep with his 10th home run in the eighth inning off Akeel Morris.

MOMENT THAT MATTERED
Sweating it out: With the Angels having already scored one run to cut the Arizona lead to 7-4 in the eighth, Lovullo brought setup man Archie Bradley in with two outs and two on. Ian Kinsler was at the plate with the always-dangerous Mike Trout on deck. Kinsler battled Bradley for 10 pitches before grounding out to short to end the inning.
"I was trying to remain as calm as possible," Lovullo said. "But on the inside I wanted him to make an out as quickly as possible."
Lovullo elected to leave Bradley in to pitch the ninth after getting through the eighth, but it wasn't because he was taking Boxberger out of the closer's role. The manager made it clear before the game that Boxberger was still his closer. Postgame, he explained that Boxberger had pitched three out of four days and he wanted to give him a day off.
"We've got to guard our guys against fatigue and taking steps backwards late in the season," Lovullo said. "It was my decision, Brad felt like he could have pitched and it just was one of those situations where I felt like it was the best thing for him and this team."

YOU GOTTA SEE THIS
When the ball left Justin Upton's bat in the seventh inning it seemed like it was destined to go over the wall in center for a game-tying grand slam. Based on similar balls that were hit that way, Statcast™ measured Upton's ball as having a 95-percent hit probability.
Center fielder Jarrod Dyson, however, had other plans as he sprinted back to the wall and made a leaping catch. It was hard to determine if the ball would have gone over the wall for a homer as not even Dyson was sure, but it would have at least been extra bases.
"It feels sweet to take four off the board right there," said Dyson, who on two other occasions this year has reached over the wall to pull back home run balls. "I take a lot of pride in my defense. I feel like I got back there pretty quick. It was hit pretty hard, so I knew I had to bust my behind to get back there. Got up on the wall and made a play."

UP NEXT
Matt Koch will get the start for the D-backs on Tuesday night as they wrap up a two-game series with the Angels. The right-hander is 3-0 over his last four starts. Last time out against the Mets, he allowed two runs over six innings. He took the rotation spot of Taijuan Walker, who was lost for the season after Tommy John surgery. Koch will oppose Felix Peña, with first pitch scheduled for 7:07 p.m. MST.