• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Owings helps Diamondbacks jolt Giants

Apr 16, 2008 - 2:46 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Micah Owings is starting off this season the same way he ended 2007.

Owings pitched six strong innings and Conor Jackson and Chris Young each homered to lead the Arizona Diamondbacks to an 8-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday afternoon.

Owings (3-0), who has not lost a game since September 3, 2007, allowed one run, three hits and two walks while striking out six. Tony Pena, Chad Qualls and Brandon Lyon each worked an inning to seal the win.

"I felt pretty good," Owings said. "Again, I tried to trust my stuff and let my defense work behind me. I worked on getting back ahead in counts. When we get the lead, I do my best to keep us right there and keep us in the ballgame."

Jackson also had a run-scoring double and Eric Byrnes added a pair of hits for the Diamondbacks, who snapped a two-game skid.

"We're coming across the board," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "Guys are maturing as hitters and everybody in our lineup has got a chance to hit the ball out of the ballpark. Sometimes it's the top, sometimes it's the bottom, sometimes it's the middle.

"When we're swinging pretty well, there's really not a breather. We can bite you in the bottom of the order just as easily as we can in the top or the middle. Balance has been the key for us this year. We've driven in some runs throughout the lineup, no matter what spot it is."

Kevin Correia (1-2) surrendered five runs and five hits in six innings for the Giants, who saw their two-game winning streak come to an end.

"I felt great," Correia said. "I thought I threw the ball better than I did my last start. With pitching, that happens sometimes. I think I located better. I was throwing four pitches for strikes, and pretty much where I wanted them, and they just took advantage of the couple of mistakes that I did make. I would really only like to take away a couple of pitches out of that whole outing."

Jackson, who has homered in consecutive games, hammered a 1-1 fastball into the bleachers in left field in the second inning to give the Diamondbacks a 1-0 lead.

Young followed suit in the third, belting a two-run shot to left for his fifth home run of the season.

Arizona plated two more runs in the fifth as Byrnes delivered an RBI single and Jackson drew a bases-loaded walk for a 5-0 cushion.

"That's the type of lineup we have," Young said. "There's really not a weak link in the lineup, especially today with Micah pitching. It's going to be a battle for any team to get through us easy. We're going to go up there and work hard every at-bat so that when some guys are struggling, you're going to have other guys to pick you up."

San Francisco plated its runs on groundouts in the sixth and seventh innings.

Fifty years to the day after the Giants brought Major League Baseball to California, the team honored its past with a pregame ceremony commemorating the historic date.

On the field were the grandchildren, grand-nephews and grand-nieces of late Giants owner Horace Stoneham and family members of late Giants general manager Chub Feeney. His daughter, Katy, currently is the senior vice president of scheduling and club relations for Major League Baseball.

"Coming out here was more the excitement of moving from New York to San Francisco," said Feeney, who was 9 years old at the time. "California, in those days, was sort of this far-off magic land. We didn't realize we were breaking people's hearts. We thought we were having this big adventure because we were just kids."

The game started at 1:34 p.m. local time, the exact time of the Giants' first contest against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 15, 1958. Before the game - at the location of 16th and Bryant Streets where that ballpark once stood - the team unveiled a bronze plaque marking the first home of the Giants at Seals Stadium.