Anderson's brilliant debut lifts D-backs to series win

CHICAGO -- Chase Anderson was making his big league debut, but the D-backs right-hander looked like a seasoned pro Sunday afternoon.

Anderson held the White Sox to just one run over 5 1/3 innings as the D-backs won, 5-1, at U.S. Cellular Field.

"He was pretty calm and locked in and he seemed pretty focused on what he was doing," veteran catcher Miguel Montero said. "I liked the guy, his mentality out there. He wasn't really afraid of anybody."

The victory gave the D-backs their third consecutive series win as they finished with a 6-3 record on their nine-game road trip.

After an 8-22 start to the season, the D-backs are now 15-25 with a six-game homestand on the horizon.

"It's the kind of team we are," shortstop Cliff Pennington said of the improved play. "It's what we expect to do. We're going to have to have stretches like this."

The Arizona offense did its best to help Anderson get settled, scoring a run before he even took the mound.

"Nothing better than the starting pitcher going out there with the lead already," Anderson said. "Even if it's one run or two runs, you can relax a little bit. I've always had a pretty good way of controlling my emotions my whole life. It's just something I was born with, I guess. I can't really describe that. After I threw the first pitch, I was like, 'OK, this is the same game.' I just tried to attack the hitters, so it was fun."

Gerardo Parra led off the game with a fly ball to center that Alejandro De Aza played into a triple by tripping while coming in on it.

Martin Prado followed with a single to right and the D-backs led Hector Noesi and the Sox, 1-0. The D-backs added to their lead in the fifth when Parra smacked a two-run homer to right, his fourth of the year, to put Arizona up, 3-0.

"[Anderson] threw well, but it was pretty uninspired by us all the way through," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. "It started from the first play of the game and continued on and it stunk, pretty much the whole thing. Hector pitched a heck of a game to at least give us a chance, everything else stunk."

Anderson displayed an outstanding changeup, did a nice job mixing in his curve and got ahead in the count often as he kept the White Sox off-balance. Despite not having pitched in 10 days, Anderson was sharp from the very first pitch.

"Fastball command early, being able to flip my curveball for strikes when some guys were sitting on the fastball and threw my changeup for a strike and a strikeout," Anderson said. "So command of all three of my pitches was great today."

Through the first five innings, the lone blemish on Anderson's line was a second-inning single by Jose Abreu.

The White Sox finally got to Anderson in the sixth when Moises Sierra hit a one-out homer to left.

After Anderson walked the next batter, Tyler Flowers, on four pitches, D-backs manager Kirk Gibson elected to go to his bullpen.

"I was a little tired at the end there," Anderson said. "My arm felt good, my body was just getting a little tired. Just building up to these days you're a little nervous and exhausted, so I was just a little tired. I was trying to go right after him, but command was a little off."

The two hits given up by Anderson were the fewest allowed by an Arizona starting pitcher making his big league debut since Micah Owings allowed one in five innings on April 6, 2007 against the Nationals.

Before taking the mound each inning, Anderson did a pull-up on the dugout.

"I saw Tim Lincecum do that one time to keep his shoulder loose in between innings," Anderson said of the two-time NL Cy Young Award winner. "And I started doing it and I started having success so I just kept doing it. Right before I go back out every inning, just one pull-up."

Montero hit his fifth homer of the year in the ninth, a two-run shot, to give the D-backs some breathing room.

"We knew we were a better team than what we showed," Montero said. "It was a really tough start of the season, but it's over. You can't really change that. You've just got to go and I guess take baby steps. Go one day at a time and play your butt off every day and see what happens."