Chris Young's starting to earn quite a reputation for clutch home runs. For the second time this month Young belted a walk-off homer, this time capping a D-backs comeback from six runs down in a 10-8, 10-inning win over the Devil Rays on Tuesday night in front of 19,761 at Chase Field.
"You don't get used to them honestly," Young said. "It's something that doesn't happen too often, but it feels great when it does."
Young never would have had the opportunity to win a game that tied a franchise record for the largest comeback victory if not for the heroics of a hitter well-accustomed to clutch home runs in ace pinch-hitter Tony Clark.
Clark jumped on a 2-1 changeup for his third pinch-hit homer of the year and 10th of his career, tying a game the D-backs once trailed, 8-2, in the sixth. Both shots came off Tampa Bay closer Al Reyes (1-1), who blew his first save in 17 chances.
"I was fortunate enough to get enough of it to go," Clark said. "It wasn't unleashed, and it wasn't crushed, but it was hit hard enough to go over the fence."
A Clark blast also factored largely in Arizona's comeback from a six-run deficit May 19 at Pittsburgh, a contest in which he hit a game-tying grand slam.
"TC came up in the ninth and does what he normally does," Young said. "He's so good in that situation. He's one of the best I've ever seen in that situation, and after he does that, we're motivated through the roof, so after that, you really feel like you're going to win the game and you try to go make it happen."
Young made it happen by just trying to hit the ball into the gap, saying he ends up popping up when he tries to hammer a ball out of the park.
"What the pitcher basically wants you to do is get too excited out there and try to do too much, so I just try to stay within myself and go out there and hit a ball hard, and if it happens to carry out of the park, that's great," Young said.
Things looked bleak in the sixth with Arizona trailing by six, but the bullpen shut down the Devil Rays offense to allow a comeback to materialize.



After Jailen Peguero gave up a run in the fifth, Juan Cruz, Tony Pena and Brandon Lyon (5-2) combined for five hitless innings.
With a lead like the one Tampa Bay owned, manager Bob Melvin said it could be demoralizing when the other team starts coming back, because the focus is on holding the opponent off rather than adding onto the lead. "We've done that several times this year where we've got off to leads, and it's like, 'OK pitchers, go ahead and do your job,' and once it gets close, you're going, 'We don't have anything left in the tank here,'" Melvin said. "All our optimism was gone, we're just trying to hang on, so I can't speak for them, but we've been in that position a couple times this year."
Melvin said, once the D-backs cut the lead to 8-4 heading into the sixth, the team felt like it had a chance, especially because the club brought a good approach to its at-bats, something that did not happen in the middle innings of recent games.
"It's tough, but at the same time we understand that we have the skill to be able to come back in a game like that as long as we don't give up," Young said. "Bob Melvin, he's been preaching to us how we can't get lackadaisical out there at any time just because you never know what could happen. Even if we're up 5-0, you still have to keep that same mentality, you have to keep pushing, so that's what we did."
Despite the win, Arizona left the bases loaded three times and stranded 13 runners overall. Orlando Hudson twice struck out looking with the bases full, the last time in the seventh after the D-backs trimmed the deficit to two, although that's easily forgotten with the late-game heroics from Young and Clark.
The comeback helped Doug Davis avoid losing his third straight start to an American League East opponent. He tied season highs in runs allowed (seven) and fewest innings pitched (four) while giving up nine hits and allowed multiple runs in three of his four innings.
In his last three starts, Davis sports an 11.08 ERA, which has caused his season ERA to rise from 3.05 to 4.26. Melvin blamed the poor outing on poor command, saying when Davis threw the ball over the plate, Tampa Bay hit it.
Combined with Livan Hernandez's poor start Monday, Arizona pitchers have given up 13 runs in 10 innings the last two nights to the Devil Rays.
"You're going to get into a little bit of a rut at times, and obviously the last couple days haven't been great, but to be able pull it off offensively in one of them, kind of minimizes the damage psychologically for the starting pitcher," Melvin said.
Although it looked like much of the same between these expansion twins when Davis left the game trailing by six, the comeback helped Arizona beat Tampa Bay for the first time in eight tries.
"It ended up being a huge win for us," Melvin said, "and we finally beat the Devil Rays."



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