@D-backs 3, Rockies 2 (10): Patience at the plate usually pays off, but don’t tell that to the Rockies right now. They drew 7 walks from Arizona starter Wade Miley in his 4.1 innings, including 4 in the opening frame, but didn’t score off him.

A start with 7+ walks in 13 outs or less, but no runs, hadn’t happened in more than 50 years. But we’ll get to that.

The Snakes won on a 408-foot sac fly that scored A.J. Pollock, who had a big night. He homered for the early lead, beat out a hit to start the 6th, and created the winning run with a leadoff single and a steal, taking 3rd on the overthrow. Cody Ross hit the winning out, and drove in the other run with a 2-out triple in the 1st.

Colorado didn’t get another walk after Miley left, but they tied the game with single runs in the 6th and 7th. Jeff Francis and four relievers went unscathed from the 2nd through 9th. Arizona’s best threat came in the 7th, when Gerardo Parra went first-to-third on a wild pitch with 1 out. But Cliff Pennington whiffed (he’s 1 for his last 29, now batting .176), and Martin Prado lined to RF.

The Rockies rumbled in the 8th with 2 quick hits, but ran it into rubble. Miguel Montero picked Michael Cuddyer off 2nd base, and Wilin Rosario apparently thought there were 2 outs and got doubled off on an easy liner to RF Parra.

• Fowler was on base 4 times (raising his OBP to .404, OPS to 1.023), and saved a run with this diving catch in the 6th.
• Prado went 0-5, including 3 RBI shots with 2 outs. He’s now 1 for 23 with RISP, batting .208 for the year.
• Rosario went 3-4 with a solo HR — but he also fanned with the bases full and made mental and physical errors, the baserunning blunder and the bad throw that set up the winning run.

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Miley’s Wild Ride

Wade Miley was one of the premier control artists last year, ranking 7th among qualifiers with 1.7 walks per 9 innings, and no more than 3 passes in any of his 29 starts. He’d walked the first batter just once in 40 career starts — Dexter Fowler, way back in his 3rd game. He was 4-0 in 6 games against Colorado, with just 5 walks out of 150 batters faced. He hadn’t walked a man in his last 3 starts against them, totaling 21.2 IP.

But tonight he walked Fowler leading off on five pitches, and Jordan Pacheco strolled on four straight. Carlos Gonzalez took a strike and fouled one off, and bounced into a 4-6-3 DP. Miley got ahead of Troy Tulowitzki, 1-2, but lost him, and a five-pitch walk to Michael Cuddyer filled the bases.

That brought up Rosario, a hard man to walk, and a dangerous man to pitch to. Rosario took two balls and a strike, fouled one off, and went down swinging.

In the bottom half, Jeff Francis came out throwing strikes, 15 out of 21 — and gave up 2 runs on 3 hits.

Miley worked an uneventful 2nd. But Fowler led off the 3rd with another walk. A DP cleaned the sacs, but CarGo dropped a bunt single — an odd move by a power hitter with 2 outs and his team trailing — and Tulo lined a hit to right. Cuddyer took two balls, then lined to CF, caught for the 3rd out.

In the 5th, Fowler drew his 3rd leadoff walk, and raced to 3rd on Pacheco’s single. CarGo worked a full count, but popped out. Then Tulo walked on four straight, and Miley’s departed after 98 pitches, leaving the bases full with 1 out. But Brad Ziegler is made for such occasions; his 30% GDP rate last year was 7 points above any other pitcher with 30+ innings. Cuddyer hit the 2nd pitch to short, and the threat was history.

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The last scoreless start as short as Miley’s with 7 walks or more was on July 31, 1959, the first career start by Earl Wilson. Pitching for the Red Sox in Detroit, Wilson walked the first 3 batters, then fanned Al Kaline and another, and got out of it. Two leadoff walks in the 2nd were bunted up, but Wilson worked free again, fanning Charlie Maxwell. A leadoff walk in the 3rd went nowhere. Finally, with 2 outs in the 4th — after driving in a run in the top half for a 4-0 lead — he walked the bases full and was excused. For the game, the BoSox suffered 15 walks and 3 HRs, while producing 4 walks and no HRs themselves, but the prevailed, 6-5.

In his next start, Wilson was knocked out after one inning, 5 runs. And in his next, he walked 8 in 3.1 IP. In 4 starts that year, Wilson lasted 11.1 IP and walked 23. He didn’t get established in the majors until 1962, but went on to make his mark on both sides of the ball, with 121 wins (high of 22); 35 career home runs, 4th among pitchers; and one very special game where he did it all.

By the way, can you spot the greater historical significance of that game on 7/31/59? Answer at bottom.

In other games….

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OK, Brandon Crawford’s first 4 HRs were all well and good. But his 5th came in Petco, his first off a lefty this year (2nd career).

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Matt Moore won his 5th straight start, tying for the 2nd-longest streak in Rays history. (The record holder, Scott Kazmir, was also in action tonight, taking his 2nd turn for Cleveland in his comeback from a 2-year absence.) Moore already owned their record streak for the start of a season. He’s allowed 4 runs and 13 hits in 32 IP.

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Justin Upton’s 12th HR was his 10th straight solo shot. He’s 5 for 31 with men on base, 2 for 12 with RISP. Don’t get me wrong; even solo HRs have big value, and he’s leading the team by far in Win Probability Added. But he does have a bit of an RISP shadow on his career. Counting sac flies as ABs, he has a .244 BA and .773 OPS with men in scoring position, compared to .287/.866 with the bases empty.

Last 159 games for B.J. Upton: 193 strikeouts, .223 BA.

In their last 4 games, the Braves allowed 55 hits in 36.1 IP, with 22 Ks. Some would call it a correction: Through 19 games, they averaged a league-low 7.2 H/9 despite a K rate near the bottom.

Through Friday, there were 116 pitchers with a SO/9 of 9 or better in at least 5 innings. Craig Kimbrel is the only Brave on that list.

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Another big day for Travis Mize, er, Hafner.

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Joel Hanrahan, P.C., was ineffective and now hurt, while Mark Melancon (acquired by Pittsburgh in that trade) leads MLB with 9 Holds, allowing 1 run and no walks in 14 IP. Melancon is 28 but still pre-arbitration, making half-a-mil, or 1/14th of Hanrahan’s pay grade.

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Shin-Soo Choo has a .504 OBP and 10 HBP. The highest modern OBP by a man with 20+ HBP was .425 by Minnie Minoso.

The top 25 modern season marks in OBP (.489 or better) belong to only 6 guys: Ruth and Williams, 8 each; Bonds 4; Hornsby 3; 1 each by Mantle and Arky Vaughan. None of those seasons had more than 10 HBP.

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Historical significance answer:

July 31, 1959 — The first start by a black man pitching for the Red Sox. Earl Wilson had debuted in relief on July 28, one week after the Red Sox finally integrated with Pumpsie Green’s pinch-running appearance. Green had a couple of singles in the ensuing days, but had his best game to date in Wilson’s first start, going 3 for 3 with a triple. However, Wilson bagged the first RBI and first extra-base hit by a black man for the BoSox, a double off Jim Bunning in the top of the 4th. Green, who mainly batted 1st, got off to a fine start (.423 OBP in his first 100 PAs), but didn’t get his first RBI until August 8, his 13th start.