A dominant three-hit performance from the Arizona Diamondbacks' pitching staff paved the way for a gritty four-run eighth inning against the Cleveland Guardians.
It took until the eighth inning, but the Arizona Diamondbacks' offense finally came alive.
Things weren't looking good when the Cleveland Guardians scored a run in the first inning, but Arizona answered with four of their own in the eighth.
Ultimately, those would be more than enough to guide them to victory, 4-1.
Arizona improved to 58-52 on the year, an astonishing six games above .500 as they're now 27-30 on the road.
As for Cleveland, they fell to 56-55 as they continue to flirt with being .500 overall, though they did fall to 27-27 at home.
Eighth inning featured four singles and two walks
Despite designated hitter Adrian Del Castillo striking out to begin the inning, the D-backs put up an incredible fight in the eighth. Tim Tawa got their late rally started with a six-pitch walk, and two pitches later Ryan Waldschmidt lined a single that forced the Guardians to change pitchers.
Sadly for the Guardians, that wasn't a decision that worked out for them. Tanner Bibee may have cruised through seven innings, but he ended up being responsible for two of the four runs that scored.
Erik Sabrowski came in but couldn't record a single out as he immediately issued a five-pitch walk, then was pulled after giving up a pair of singles on his next five pitches.
Ketel Marte won a five-pitch battle against the Guardians' third pitcher of the inning, but sadly, Max Kepler grounded into a double play one pitch later to end the inning. Either way, Marte drove in a run, as did Gabriel Moreno and Geraldo Perdomo.
Diamondbacks pitching staff shines in win
All it took was one crooked inning for Arizona to get the job done, mostly thanks to their pitching staff. Mitch Bratt, the 23-year-old rookie, went five innings for the second time in his young career. Sure, a first-inning walk later turned into him allowing an RBI against Rhys Hoskins, but from there he and the rest of this pitching staff really locked in.
Shockingly, Bratt allowed more walks (four) than he did base hits (three). In total, he had two of the team's five strikeouts. The D-backs weren't getting a ton of swing and miss out of these Guardians, but it's important to note that Bratt's trio of hits were the only three Arizona allowed all game.
Taylor Clarke pitched a scoreless frame in the sixth while Jonathan Loaisiga got lucky and picked up his third win of the year.
Loaisiga improved to 3-3 on the year while Kevin Ginkel recorded his 11th hold and Brandyn Garcia picked up his third save. As a team, this bullpen combined for four shutout, no-hit innings with three strikeouts and just one walk.
