Zack Greinke grinned as he stepped to the plate in the sixth inning Thursday afternoon Cheap Taven Bryan Jersey , and then swung at the first pitch for another hit.
The Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander pitched seven innings and was an offensive dynamo , too, helping to beat the Miami Marlins 4-0.
Greinke singled twice, drove in a run, stole a base and scored. No wonder he looked to be enjoying himself.
”It’s more fun when you’re doing good,” Greinke said. ”Today was a lot of good results, so it was a fun day.”
His offensive feats were impressive, but maybe not that surprising. He leads Arizona pitchers this year with four RBIs and four runs, raised his season average to .300, and is now 7 for 7 lifetime in steal attempts.
Greinke became the first pitcher since Bob Gibson in 1969 to have a hit, an RBI and a stolen base in at least two games in a season.
”He’s a baseball player, and I don’t say that about a lot of pitchers,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. ”He probably has a better swing than 70 percent of the guys in the big leagues, and I’m serious about that.”
As for pitching, Greinke (8-5) won for the fifth time in his past six starts. He allowed seven hits – all singles – but walked none and benefited from several good defensive plays. The outing matched his longest this year.
”As the game goes Authentic Johnny Townsend Jersey , you kind of get that flat feeling,” Mattingly said. ”He was just a handful. He’s able to do some different things with the ball and change gears on you.”
Three relievers completed a 10-hitter for Arizona’s fourth shutout of the season.
Paul Goldschmidt continued his recent tear with three hits, and Nick Ahmed added two hits. Each scored and drove in a run.
The Diamondbacks (47-34) finished 8-2 on a three-city trip
”I can’t think of a day where we played bad really,” Greinke said. ”The defense was good, pitching was good, hitting was good, baserunning was good. It was just a lot of good things, and we never beat ourselves.”
The Diamondbacks matched their season high by climbing 13 games above .500. They won the season series against Miami 6-1.
The finale started at 9:10 a.m. Phoenix time, but the Diamondbacks were ready to go and led 3-0 by the second inning.
”The biggest thing was being ready to go on the first pitch and not sleepwalking into it,” Goldschmidt said.
Greinke helped get his teammates going. In the second he singled, easily stole second and scored on Goldschmidt’s two-out single. He added a two-out opposite-field RBI single in the sixth to make it 4-0.
Greinke improved to 7-0 in 12 games against the Marlins. At Marlins Park, he’s 6-0 in six starts with a 1.48 ERA.
Trevor Richards (2-5) allowed three runs in four innings. Miami rookie Brian Anderson went 0 for 4, ending his 24-game on-base streak, the longest active string in the National League.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Greinke on matching Gibson’s offensive feats: ”There’s a record every game. You’ve just got to look hard enough for it.”
D-BACKS’ D
With runners at the corners in the second, Goldschmidt charged Bryan Holaday’s grounder to first and started a nifty ending-inning double play. Right fielder Jon Jay made a catch as he slid into the wall in foul territory to rob Anderson. Second baseman Daniel Descalso committed an error in the third but made amends later in the inning by lunging to snare Starlin Castro’s sharp grounder and save a run.
STREAK ENDS
Miami backup catcher Holaday had thrown out a team record nine consecutive runners attempting to steal Authentic Thomas Rawls Jersey , but Greinke got a huge jump to end the streak.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Marlins: C J.T. Realmuto (wrist) missed his third consecutive game but expects to play Friday. Miami is 26-29 when he starts and 6-21 when he doesn’t start.
ROSTER
After the game, Marlins RHP Nick Wittgren was optioned to Triple-A New Orleans.
UP NEXT
Diamondbacks: LHP Patrick Corbin (6-3, 3.24) is scheduled to start Friday when Arizona returns home to begin a weekend series against the Giants.
Marlins: RHP Sandy Alcantara, Miami’s top pitching prospect, will be recalled from New Orleans to start Friday against the Mets. Alcantara, acquired in the trade that sent OF Marcell Ozuna to the Cardinals, will make his Marlins debut. He’s 5-3 with a 3.71 ERA in 14 starts for New Orleans this year.
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The Minnesota Wild lost the puck and the lead – and eventually Game 1.
Patrick Laine tied it at 4:51 of the third period off the turnover, defenseman Joe Morrow scored with 6:13 left and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Wild 3-2 on Wednesday night for the first playoff victory in franchise history.
”It’s nice to have won one now because that was kind of what people talked about before – this team has never won a playoff game, they’ve only been there twice,” said Bryan Little, who joined the team in 2007-08. ”It’s nice to get that off our backs and, hopefully, we get a lot more.”
In the franchise’s only other playoff appearances since joining the NHL in 1999 in Atlanta, the club was swept in 2007 by the New York Rangers and 2015 by Anaheim.
”We had an opportunity with the lead in the third period and our goaltender playing good, we thought we had a chance to win Connor Williams Color Rush Jersey ,” Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”You can’t give No. 29 (Laine) a chance right down the slot to score on a turnover. You’re looking for disaster there.
”It was a bad turnover. When you turn the pucks over in the middle of the ice. He deked our player, we didn’t hold the middle, and he got to come right down Main Street.”
Nikolaj Ehlers set up Morrow at the point for a one-timer that beat goalie Devan Dubnyk.
”I’ve had a major roller-coaster of an NHL career so far,” the 25-year-old Morrow said. ”To have a little, I don’t even know if you want to call it a Cinderella story of a night tonight, it makes you feel good. It makes all of the bad times and all of the times you’ve battled so hard to try and get an opportunity, it makes them go away. It washes them away and you get to enjoy it in front of a crowd like this and a city like this.”
Morrow was acquired at the trade deadline from Montreal in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick.
”Awesome to see a guy step in, new to the team a little bit, and have a huge effect,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. ”He’s fit in seamlessly with our group. For a guy like him it’s tough, because he’s never really had an established role. Somebody who’s kind of on the outskirts, or in and out a bit.”
Mark Schiefele added a power-play goal, and Connor Hellebuyck made 18 saves for the Jets.
Matt Cullen and Zach Parise scored for Minnesota, and Dubnyk stopped 37 shots.
Game 2 is Friday night in Winnipeg.
Laine tied it at 2 at 4:51 of the third period, putting a high wrist shot past Dubnyk on the glove side.
Winnipeg outshot Minnesota 13-4 in the scoreless first period. Dubnyk had to make a couple of big saves in the last three minutes Terrelle Pryor Sr. Jersey Jets , including a pair from close in by Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Copp.
The Jets had the game’s first power play 24 seconds into the middle period after Minnesota’s Eric Staal was called for tripping.
Dubnyk made a save on a blast from Scheifele, while two of Laine’s trademark blasts from the right circle went wide of the net and the other was blocked by Nate Prosser’s arm.
Byfuglien was sent to the box six minutes later for roughing and Minnesota put a few shots at Hellebuyck, but it was the Jets who capitalized on their second chance with the man advantage.
Twenty seconds after Prosser was called for holding, Blake Wheeler sent a pass to an open Scheifele in the slot for his one-time at 17:37.
The Wild outshot the Jets 12-8 in the second.
Cullen took a backhand pass from Jordan Wheeler and beat Hellebuyck on the blocker side at 1:46 of third period to tie it.
Parise quickly put the visitors ahead at 3:58 on a 2-on-1 with Mikael Granlund after a Winnipeg turnover.
”We were able to give ourselves a chance a grab a lead there and even when it’s tied we were still in good shape,” Parise said. ”I don’t think (we took our foot off the gas). …. They were aggressive all over the ice. I think when we didn’t get it behind them. That’s when we let them keep coming back at us.”
Laine’s tying goal came 53 seconds later after Jets center Paul Stastny absorbed a hit to give Laine some time and space.
Connor Hellebuyck made 18 saves for the Jets, who finished second overall in the NHL and Central Division with 114 points (52-20-10).
Matt Cullen and Zach Parise scored for Minnesota. Dubnyk stopped 37 shots for the Wild, who were third in the division with 101 points (45-26-11).
Cullen and Parise scored a little over two minutes apart to give the Wild a 2-1 lead at 3:58 of the third, but Laine tied it at 4:51.
”I think we view this as a missed opportunity,” Cullen said. ”I don’t think we played as well as we can. I think we showed pieces of our game, but I don’t think we played to our level.”
Minnesota is competing in its sixth straight post-season. Last year, the Wild lost their first-round series to St. Louis in five games.
Fans are primed for these playoffs. The ”whiteout” crowd of more than 15,000 were chanting ”Go Jets Go” and waving white towels before the puck even dropped. Next door to Bell MTS Place, a block was closed for a street party, highlighted by the game shown on two giant screens for fans in the NHL’s smallest market.
Jets forward Mathieu Perreault left in the second period with an upper-body injury and head coach Paul Maurice had no update.
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