Looking to get their stagnant offense going, the D-backs found themselves in the right spot Monday night -- Coors Field.
Their hitters pounded out 18 hits to outslug the Rockies, 12-8, and even their record on their current road trip to 2-2.
“This is a great place to hit, I think that’s no secret,” outfielder Kole Calhoun said. “It feels like it’s going to be a slugfest no matter what. It’s definitely nice as a team for everybody to get a little bit of confidence in the box.”
Before Monday's game, D-backs general manager Mike Hazen placed the responsibility for the team’s 7-9 start on the offense.
“We've kind of suffered from everybody [struggling] at once,” Hazen said. “Hopefully that's a good thing moving forward, when everybody kind of clicks it together at one time, too. The offense hasn't been what we had hoped, necessarily, at least through these first 16 games and we're hoping for better moving forward.”
Indeed, everyone got in on the action, with all nine hitters in the lineup reaching base at least once, and Calhoun, Ketel Marte, David Peralta, Christian Walker and Nick Ahmed each having multi-hit games.
Calhoun got things started with a leadoff homer to left on the very first pitch of the game from Jon Gray.
“It helps when your leadoff batter shoots the first pitch of the game, just smashes it over the opposite-field fence," Ahmed said. "Just gets the boys going a little bit. We came out strong and, you know, it’s good to score early. We haven't scored early a whole lot and we just jumped out and kept building.”
Calhoun’s homer was noteworthy in that it went to the opposite field just like his two-run double in the seventh, as the veteran has worked recently to go back to using the whole field after getting pull happy early on.
“I think when everything is going right the whole field is in play,” Calhoun said. “I think there are a lot of times it could be some kind of mechanics, where you start to pull off and start working uphill and you see a lot of pull-side ground balls. Obviously, we’re not trying to do that. We know there are three guys [shifted] over there for a reason and that’s probably a bad idea. Definitely nice when you can use the whole field, especially when some of those balls fall.”
The D-backs had plenty of hits fall. Of their 18 knocks, only Calhoun’s left the yard, though they did manage four doubles.
One of the issues for the D-backs in their struggles to score runs prior to Monday was being overly aggressive at the plate. That can happen when a team is scuffling and each player wants to be the one to lift the team out of its slump.
On Monday, though, the D-backs worked counts, but they also didn’t try to do too much. Several of their hits were back up the middle or the opposite way.
“I can’t possibly give you the list that’s this long right now,” Lovullo said when asked about those types of at-bats. “It’s guys sacrificing for one another, advancing runners, giving up part of their swing to get 90 feet with guys in scoring position. It is teammates picking up one another with a two-out base hit when you leave somebody out at third base with less than two outs. Just a really good team concept with our approach today. I’ll look for that to continue.”