D-backs win 1st series on Calhoun's walk-off

For the second night in a row it was Kole Calhoun who sparked a D-backs win.

On Wednesday night, it was the veteran outfielder’s inside-the-park homer that catalyzed a nine-run rally. On Thursday, his two-run double down the right-field line gave the D-backs a 5-4 walk-off win over the Astros at Chase Field.

The victory gave the D-backs their first series win of the season, and it is the first time they’ve won back-to-back games this year.

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Now they head out on the road for a six-game trip to San Diego and Denver with a little bit of a tail-wind.

“I think a lot of guys got hits [Wednesday] night, kind of felt like we knew what we were doing up there a little bit and the hard work was paying off a little and some of the balls started to fall,” Calhoun said. “You get that confidence, it helps. It helps in this game, big time. It really helps in anything. We’re feeling confident. We can have a happy flight right now. Hopefully we can keep going and keep playing as a team.”

It looked like the D-backs were going to be leaving town without many positive thoughts when Alex Bregman hit a two-run homer in the eighth.

That erased a 3-2 D-backs advantage and had them on the ropes.

And while Calhoun’s game-winning double will deservedly get the bulk of the attention, you can’t overlook the walk that rookie Andy Young drew to start the ninth off Astros closer Ryan Pressly.

Called up just a few days ago, Young had two hits in his first two big league at-bats in a reserve role Tuesday, and he was in the starting lineup for the first time Thursday. He didn’t look like a rookie as he coaxed a six-pitch walk to start the inning.

Before his at-bat, Young retreated to the tunnel behind the Arizona dugout. He took a couple of swings in the cage and looked at some video of Pressly. He told himself he didn’t want to chase the cutter/slider out of the strike zone, and in fact it was a slider off the plate that he took for ball four.

“Incredible leadoff at-bat by Young,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “He worked the count, did a really nice job. We got that leadoff man on, and I think that gave us a big boost and a tremendous amount of energy in the dugout.”

The D-backs loaded the bases with no one out, and that brought Calhoun to the plate.

After spending his career with the Angels, Calhoun has seen plenty of the Astros and has a history with Pressly, having gone 2-for-8.

“It’s a guy that I faced a few times having been in the same division,” Calhoun said. “He’s had a ton of success over in Houston and I’ve never had success against him. I faced him before, had an idea of what he likes to do, what he trusts.”

And when it came to facing Calhoun, Pressly was going to stick with his breaking ball, particularly the slider. It was what he threw to Calhoun on 1-1, a sharp biting pitch that started out over the inside corner and broke off the plate. Calhoun swung and missed and cursed himself.

“I knew the one I swung through was a ball,” he said. “[After that] just tried to get him on the plate a little bit more, something I could handle. The last two years of his career have been based on guys swinging and missing at that pitch. He’s good.”

Pressly came back with a curveball inside that Calhoun laid off to push the count to 2-2.

Then on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Pressly tried to go back inside with a slider and Calhoun lined it down the line in right.

“Just got a pitch I could handle and put a pretty good swing on it,” he said.