Diamondbacks Get Offensive and Beat Expos

MONTREAL —  The Arizona Diamondbacks don’t mind working for their wins.

Greg Colbrunn homered and had three runs batted in as the Diamondbacks defeated the Montreal Expos, 8-7, Tuesday night.

“Every game is important from here on out,” Colbrunn said. “It’s been important all season. If it takes 3 1/2 hours, 8-7, 10-9 or 1-0, we just want to win some ballgames.”

Colbrunn hit a two-run homer in the fifth and an RBI single with one out in the seventh to break a 6-6 tie as Arizona moved within 2 1/2 games of first-place San Francisco in the NL West.

After Montreal tied the game on Michael Barrett’s RBI double in the sixth, Expo reliever Scott Forster (0-1) walked Tony Womack and Danny Bautista to lead off the seventh.

Both runners advanced on Luis Gonzalez’s grounder and Colbrunn followed with a run-scoring single to make it 7-6. Arizona went ahead 8-6 on Scott Finley’s sacrifice fly.

Montreal closed to 8-7 in the bottom half on Vladimir Guerrero’s RBI single off reliever Byung-Hyun Kim.

“It was an offensive game tonight,” Colbrunn said. “Any time we’d jump ahead, they’d come right back.”

Dan Plesac (4-0) relieved Geraldo Guzman after Barrett’s game-tying double with one out in the sixth to get the win. Matt Mantei pitched a perfect ninth for his 11th save.

“Our pitchers finally got some people out and we were able to hang on,” Colbrunn said. “Matt came in and faced the heart of their lineup and went 1-2-3, which is probably as impressive a performance as he’s had all year.”

After Plesac struck out pinch-hitter Wilton Guerrero for the second out in the sixth, third baseman Matt Williams made a great diving stop to his left to field pinch-hitter Fernando Seguignol’s smash down the line and threw to first to end the Expos’ threat.

“I made a pretty good pitch on a changeup that was down and [Seguignol] just went out and hooked it, and hit it hard,” Plesac said. “Fortunately for us, Matty made the play--that saved the game. If that ball gets down the line, they take the lead.”