Goldy rush: D-backs slugger rips walk-off blast

PHOENIX -- Paul Goldschmidt's D-backs teammates have long since stopped being surprised by anything he does on the baseball field.

Goldschmidt once again played the role of hero Friday night, as he hit a one-out home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to help the D-backs walk off with a 5-4 win over the Mets at Chase Field.

Center fielder Adam Eaton, who played with Goldschmidt at Double-A Mobile a few years ago, remembers being amazed at what Goldschmidt could do at the plate and in the field.

But where he would marvel at Goldschmidt's feats back then, nowadays he's like the rest of his teammates.

"Now it's like I'm not even shocked anymore," Eaton said. "He goes up there and I'm like, 'He hit a walk-off, no big deal, it's just him, he's going to do it.'"

After Mets reliever Scott Atchison started the ninth by retiring the first batter, Goldschmidt smacked a 1-1 pitch over the wall in right-center.

"He got ahead with his slider, missed with a curveball and then he threw [a cutter] and luckily it was up, and I was able to hit it hard and get it out of here," Goldschmidt said.

The homer was the 27th of the year for Goldschmidt, the most by a first baseman in franchise history, surpassing the 26 that Tony Clark hit in 2005.

"I worked him like anybody else," Atchison said. "Tried to be aggressive, get in there and get ahead. I was able to do that, and then just left a cutter up. He's a good hitter and obviously has some good power to all fields, especially there. He made me pay for a bad pitch."

It was Goldschmidt's second walk-off homer of his career and his third career walk-off hit.

"He was the right guy to have up there," D-backs manager Kirk Gibson said. "That's pretty impressive, that was a bullet, a line-drive bullet out of the park. That was what we needed."

The homer helped avoid what could have been a dispiriting night after setup man Heath Bell allowed the Mets to tie the game at 4 with a pair of runs in the eighth inning.

That rally cost D-backs starter Patrick Corbin his 13th win of the season as he left with a 4-2 lead after six innings.

Corbin did not seem to be his usual sharp self as he threw a wild pitch and hit two batters while walking three over six innings.

"My mechanics were off a little bit," Corbin said. "I didn't really control my pitches too well tonight, but I think down the stretch I made some pitches, felt a little better."

The wild pitch helped the Mets claim a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning, as Josh Satin drew a two-out walk, moved to second on the wild pitch and scored when Justin Turner singled to center.

The D-backs' offense, though, continued its recent revival, scoring a pair of runs in the fifth on back-to-back RBI doubles by Eaton and Martin Prado to go up, 2-1.

Again, Corbin's lack of command raised its head in the sixth.

After Daniel Murphy led off with a single, Corbin hit Marlon Byrd with a pitch to move Murphy to second. From there, Murphy was able to move to third on a flyout to right by Satin and then score on a single through the hole at short by Turner to tie the game at 2.

"He didn't have a good slider like he has in the past," Gibson said. "But he battled and got through six. Shame he didn't get the win."

While the bullpen let Corbin down, the defense certainly did not.

In the second inning, Byrd smoked a drive to center that hit off the overhang and caromed hard and away from Eaton. The ball rolled all the way over to Prado in left. When he saw the ball essentially in no-man's land, Byrd tried to stretch his triple into an inside-the-park homer.

Prado, though, picked up the ball cleanly and threw a strike to second baseman Aaron Hill, who in turn threw a one-hopper to home to narrowly nail Byrd.

Then in the seventh with two outs, Juan Lagares hit a ball to right-center. Lagares unwisely tried to stretch a sure double into a triple, and another perfect relay -- this one from Eaton to Hill to Eric Chavez -- at third nailed Legares to end the inning.

"We played good defense tonight, period," Gibson said. "The relays were great. That's the way you want your relays to be turned over. Those were big plays."