PHOENIX (AP) — Adrian Del Castillo hit the winning homer in just his second game in the majors, hammering the first pitch of the ninth inning to give the Arizona Diamondbacks a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.
Arizona’s Ryne Nelson threw 7 1/3 brilliant innings, giving up just three hits and two runs, walking one and striking out nine.
The Phillies rallied from a 2-0 deficit, tying it in the eighth on a two-out RBI double from Johan Rojas that scored a hustling Nick Castellanos from first.
That set up Del Castillo’s ninth-inning heroics. He jumped all over a 97 mph fastball from Jeff Hoffman (3-2), launching it deep into the right-field seats for his first big league homer. Del Castillo was called up this week after starting catcher Gabriel Moreno went down with a groin injury in Cleveland.
Del Castillo finished with three hits and two RBIs. It was the D-backs’ seventh walk-off win of the year.
Justin Martinez (5-3) pitched the ninth for the victory.
The Diamondbacks took a 1-0 lead in the first when Del Castillo hit a looping RBI single to left center. Joc Pederson made it 2-0 in the third with a solo homer to right, which was his 19th long ball of the season.
Meanwhile, Nelson put on quite a display of strike throwing, retiring the first 12 batters he faced and throwing first-pitch strikes to the first 17 batters. At one point in the sixth inning, he had thrown 51 strikes and just 10 balls.
Harper finally got to Nelson in the seventh, driving an opposite field homer to left field for his 26th homer of the year to cut it to 2-1.
Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler gave up two runs on seven hits over six innings. The right-hander walked two and struck out eight.
MAKING MOVES
Diamondbacks: Called up RHP Scott McGough and optioned RHP Slade Cecconi to Triple-A Reno.
Phillies: OF Austin Hays (hamstring) was placed on the 10-day IL and LHP Kolby Allard was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. OF Cal Stevenson and RHP Max Lazar were promoted from Triple-A. 1B Darick Hall and RHP Max Castillo were designated for assignment.
UP NEXT
The D-backs will start RHP Zac Gallen (9-5, 3.75 ERA) on Saturday night. The Phillies counter with RHP Aaron Nola (11-5, 3.54 ERA).
