PHOENIX -- The Diamondbacks needed this one. After 16 games in 16 days against teams who would qualify for the postseason if the season ended today, they were able to cruise to an uneventful, 8-0 win over the Rockies at Chase Field.
Coming on the heels of their win in the final game of the Giants series Wednesday, this marked the first time the Diamondbacks have won back-to-back games since April 30-May 1.
In addition to playing against extremely tough competition, the reason the Diamondbacks weren’t able to string together wins according to manager Torey Lovullo was some lapses fundamentally or defensively at crucial moments.
Friday, though, against the team with the worst record in baseball, the Diamondbacks put together a complete effort offensively and defensively, but it all began with their starting pitcher.
Corbin Burnes struck out a season-high 10 batters while allowing two hits and walking three over six innings.
“It was a pretty clean baseball game,” Lovullo said. “And those are the types of things that we're looking for. When you come to the ballpark [after] you have a day off, I think everybody's a little bit refreshed, refocused. And the guys came out and did a really nice job from start to finish and that's all I can ask for. Corbin was fantastic. It was six innings, 90-plus pitches, 10 strikeouts, just in command. Every pitch that it seemed like he wanted to throw he was landing it.”
The offense gave Burnes plenty of runs to work with early, building a 5-0 lead through four innings and then kept tacking on later in the game.
Gabriel Moreno went 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles, while Eugenio Suárez drove home three runs and Geraldo Perdomo chipped in three RBIs.
“It makes my job that much easier when they're putting up crooked numbers early and giving you the lead to go out there and just attack the zone,” Burnes said. “They did a great job staying on it all night.”
Burnes only really ran into trouble once when he allowed a pair of walks and the Rockies loaded the bases with two outs.
The right-hander, though, then struck out Mickey Moniak to end the inning.
Burnes missed a start two weeks ago due to some inflammation in his shoulder. It was something that he felt was trying to work through for a few starts before deciding to skip a turn and get a cortisone injection.
The shoulder began feeling better, which allowed him to work on some of the mechanical issues with his cutter with pitching coach Brian Kaplan.
In his two starts since his skipped turn, he has not allowed a run in 13 innings.
“We'd been kind of working on stuff all year,” Burnes said. “The shoulder made it difficult to kind of get the full extent of what we were trying to work on. So now that the shoulder stuff is kind of behind us, we're kind of starting to see the stuff that we worked on really starting to show up, which is good.”
Burnes wasn’t happy with the three walks and thought in the middle of the game his cutter started to not be quite as sharp, something he will continue to work on.
Meanwhile, the Rockies, who fell to 2-21 on the road and 7-37 on the season, were left with their own frustrations after striking out 14 times in the game.
“He’s really good, don’t get me wrong, Corbin Burnes is a fantastic pitcher,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “But what was it, 14 punchouts, for the second night in a row? That’s not gonna get it done. I don’t care if it’s Corbin Burnes or somebody else. You gotta tip your hat to him, and we gotta take better at-bats.”