Zac Gallen stretched his scoreless streak to 41 1/3 innings, Daulton Varsho and Jake McCarthy each homered and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1 on Sunday in Phoenix.
Gallen (11-2) turned in another dominant outing, allowing two hits with one walk and seven strikeouts while throwing 103 pitches over seven innings.
He also tied the major league record for most consecutive starts without allowing a run by logging his sixth straight scoreless outing. Don Drysdale, Orel Hershiser and Zack Greinke are the only three other pitchers to accomplish the feat.
McCarthy had two hits and three RBIs for Arizona, which took three of four against Milwaukee. The Brewers were held to a pair of singles before Hunter Renfroe's two-out homer in the ninth against Mark Melancon.
Milwaukee was flummoxed all afternoon by Gallen, who improved to 7-0 with a 0.61 ERA in his last nine starts and has not lost since June 10.
Gallen is on the verge of eclipsing Brandon Webb's club record of 42 consecutive shutout innings in 2007.
Arizona took an early lead in the second when Corbin Carroll drew a one-out walk, moved to third on Carson Kelly's infield single and scored on Alek Thomas' sacrifice fly.
Varsho opened the third inning with his second homer in as many games, a 381-foot shot against Brewers starter Jason Alexander (2-2).
The D-backs tacked on another run in the fifth after putting two runners on with two outs. Hoby Milner relieved Alexander and gave up McCarthy's run-scoring single before striking out Carroll to end the inning.
Alexander yielded three runs on five hits with four walks and three strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings.
Milwaukee put the leadoff runner on base for just the second time in the game when Kyle Nelson hit pinch hitter Victor Caratini with a pitch to begin the eighth. Nelson then retired the next three batters in order to end the inning.
Arizona extended its lead in the bottom of the eighth on McCarthy's two-run homer against Brent Suter.
Varsho had two hits for the D-backs and also turned in the defensive play of the game on a running catch of Tyrone Taylor's fly ball to right-center field in the second inning.
--Field Level Media
Milwaukee | Arizona | |
Jason Alexander | Player | Zac Gallen |
Loss | W/L | Win |
4.2 | IP | 7.0 |
3 | Strikeouts | 7 |
5 | Hits | 2 |
5.79 | ERA | 0.00 |
Milwaukee | Arizona | |
Hunter Renfroe | Player | Carson Kelly |
2 | Hits | 2 |
1 | RBI | 0 |
1 | HR | 0 |
5 | TB | 2 |
.500 | Avg | .667 |