Fast Facts and Reax: D-Backs 2, Phillies 1

Diamondbacks 2, Phillies 1

Diamondbacks (20-15), Phillies (16-20)

Allowing 11 baserunners through six innings is playing with fire. But Cole Hamels surrendered only two runs, as he has in all but one of his last six starts, and that should be good enough to win – unless you’re an ace on the Phillies.

Once again, the lineup was poor in a Hamels start, and cost them in a 2-1 series opening loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field tonight.

The Phillies hare 1-7 in Hamels starts this year.

Their 1-4 hitters went 0 for 14 tonight. They went 1 for 8 with men in scoring position, bumping their four-game rate to .181 in 33 at-bats. They’ve now provided Hamels two runs of support or fewer in four of his last six starts, and only 17 runs in his last 41 innings.

Domonic Brown worked a chance late, crushing a one-out double in the ninth off Diamondbacks closer Heath Bell, who’d entered after two straight days out and having been worked this year for a .409 average against lefties and .450 at Chase Field.

Carlos Ruiz and Delmon Young stuck poor at-bats for easy outs, and Laynce Nix offered a rare pinch-hit dribbler to end the game.

Arizona starter Patrick Corbin (5-0, 1.75 ERA) was stellar tonight, and fed the Phillies 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball. If not for plunking Ruiz in the chest in the third, the 23-year-old second-year left-hander would’ve sat down 16 straight Phillies out of the chute.

But even Corbin allowed seven baserunners – two of them before the second out in the seventh. Somehow, John Mayberry Jr., standing inches from the play, poorly judged a Kevin Frandsen RBI pinch-hit blooper a fingernail out of second baseman Cliff Pennington’s reach and was thrown out at second. Instead of men on first and second with one out, there was one with two.

Hamels (1-5, 4.18 ERA) could’ve been better. He entered the year with only four five-plus walk games in his career. After issuing five freebies (one intentional) tonight, Hamels has had two this year. Still, none of those runners scored, and the lineup has to be better.

Or, like Arizona’s were tonight. Talk about small ball. Corbin dribbled an RBI ground-out in the fifth to score Martin Prado, who slapped the first of back-to-back leadoff singles. Then Gerardo Parra poked a bunt toward first in the sixth to score Cody Ross, who after a leadoff double was pushed to third on a Prado fielder’s choice.

Prado and Ross combined to go 3 for 7 with a walk and two runs scored.

That’s how you play without power.

Up next: RHP Tyler Cloyd (0-0, 0.00) gets a second chance at the bigs in place of Roy Halladay in a favorable draw against RHP Ian Kennedy (1-3, 5.19).