Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Christian Walker smacked back-to-back homers and Alek Thomas added a three-run blast to help the Arizona Diamondbacks notch a 7-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night at Phoenix.
Joc Pederson went 4-for-4 with an RBI in his Arizona debut. Eugenio Suarez also had a run-scoring single and Ketel Marte went 3-for-4 for the Diamondbacks, who had a 14-7 edge in hits.
Merrill Kelly (1-0) pitched 6 2/3 strong innings as the Diamondbacks defeated the Rockies for the second straight night and picked up their 2,000th win as a franchise. Arizona rolled to a 16-1 victory in Thursday’s season opener.
Elias Diaz homered for Colorado and Charlie Blackmon delivered an RBI triple.
Kelly (1-0) allowed one run and three hits and struck out eight without issuing a walk. He retired the last 15 batters he faced before being removed with two out and nobody on in the seventh.
Cal Quantrill (0-1) gave up five runs and nine hits in five innings in his Colorado debut. He struck out one and walked one.
There were two outs in the bottom of the first inning when Gurriel homered to left, his second blast in two days.
Walker followed with an eight-pitch battle with Quantrill and sent a sinker 411 feet over the fence in left center to make it 2-0.
Diaz ripped a homer to left center with one out in the second — it also traveled 411 feet — to get Colorado on the board.
Ezequiel Tover followed with a single but Kelly picked him off first. Kelly then retired Elehuris Montero to start his string of 15 straight batters set down.
The Diamondbacks tacked on four runs in the sixth.
Pederson singled and Gabriel Moreno walked before Suarez lined a run-scoring single to right to make it 4-1. Thomas then ripped a three-run blast over the fence in right on the second offering from Jake Bird to make it a six-run margin.
Arizona’s Joe Mantiply struck out the first two batters in the eighth before Brenton Doyle singled and scored when Blackmon tripled to deep right center. Blackmon scored on a wild pitch by Ryan Thompson.
–Field Level Media