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Tracy's homer lifts Diamondbacks past Royals

Jun 14, 2008 - 5:38 AM PHOENIX (Ticker) -- Chad Tracy belted a walk-off home run with one out in the 10th inning to lift the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 1-0 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.

Tracy waited on a changeup from Yasuhiko Yabuta (1-2) and drilled it into the right field stands to end a game that was scoreless through nine innings despite the teams combining to leave 20 men on base.

It was just the third home run of the season for Tracy, who missed all of spring training and most of the first two months of the campaign while recovering from a knee injury.

"This is my first career walk-off home run and now that is has happened, I don't think there is any better feeling in baseball than ending a game with a walkoff home run," Tracy said. "It is special because of all I went through to get back."

The win went to Billy Buckner (1-0), who worked around a one-out hit in the 10th to pick up the win in his first appearance of the season.

Making it sweeter for Buckner was the fact the victory came against his former team, which traded him to the Diamondbacks in the offseason.

Despite having runners draped all over the bases, starters Doug Davis of Arizona and Zack Greinke each worked seven scoreless innings.

Making his fifth start since having surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid, Davis allowed six hits, struck out seven and walked four.

"That is me. It seems like I am always getting runners on but then I am able to make a pitch," Davis said."It was the most I have thrown my curve. I just felt that I had a good release point and I was able to throw it early in the count and bury it late in the count. I also threw some two-seamers, which I never had before."

Greinke remained winless since May 18 despite yielding just three hits. He struck out five and walked a season-high seven, escaping a pair of bases-loaded jams.

"They took a lot of close pitches, just off the plate. You can't really attack them too much, they are aggressive and have a lot of power," Greinke said. "That is why I walked so many. I got myself in jams and luckily got out of them. I just made it hard on myself."

Stephen Drew and Tracy each had two hits for the Diamondbacks, who managed just five total off four Royals pitchers.

"There were a lot of runners left on by both teams, a lot of opportunities," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "Both pitchers pitched great and typically in 0-0 games like that a lot of times it takes a homer run. Everyone is trying to hit one. The further those things go along the more you tighten up.

"You want to be the hero and there is a little more pressure on you. But it takes one at-bat to win a game like that."

Mark Grudzielanek, Alex Gordon and Joey Gathright collected two hits apiece, but it was not enough to prevent Kansas City from falling for the 12th time in 14 road games.

"Not being able to get the big hit. Guys in scoring position a couple of times and we couldn't get the big hit," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "It is unfortunate the way it came out but we didn't get the big hit. We have Randy Johnson tomorrow so hopefully we will figure out how to get some offense."