Irvine remains unbeaten in Cal League

Stick Lucas Irvine anywhere on the planet and, as he showed on Tuesday night, he'll be all right -- so long as there's a pitcher's mound.

"I've played all over the world and all over the country, so this year has kind of been like a microcosm of my career so far," the 27-year-old rightphander said.

In his eighth start of the season and sixth in the California League -- the D-backs farmhand gave up one run on one hit over 6 2/3 innings as Class A Advanced Visalia shut down Modesto, 3-1.

"[Catcher Tyler] Baker and I got on the same page pretty much from the start and that kind of snowballed into success," Irvine said. "We've been stubbing our toe lately. We've had good starts and we've been swinging it well, but we weren't putting it all together. It's nice to do that and it was good to keep us in a low-scoring game."

Irvine improved to 3-0 while lowering his Cal League ERA to 2.98. Fittingly, two of his three wins have come on the road. The Oklahoma native made his Triple-A debut in an April 17 relief appearance for Reno in El Paso, then debuted at Double-A with an April 25 spot start for Mobile.

"I've been in a bunch of new environments, and I'm glad to do it," he said. "I'm glad they think enough of me to have me pitching wherever they need me."

Travel is nothing new to Irvine, who was picked by the Rays out of Northwestern State in the 27th round of the 2011 Draft, cut at the end of Spring Training a year later and played independent ball from 2012-15 with a stop in Mexico and a season in Japan. He signed with the D-backs last Aug. 28, in time to go 2-0 with a 2.13 ERA in two starts for the Rawhide.

"Any indy baller will tell you the reason you still do it is to get back into affiliated ball. It's a great organization and I clicked really quickly with everyone in Visalia last year," Irvine said. "That's a key to a lot of success, is comfort. Being back in affiliated ball and moving up and down like I have, there's a lot of moving parts. It's a little more intense."

The lone hit he allowed on Tuesday came with two outs in the first inning, when eighth-ranked Rockies prospect Dom Nunez lined a single to right field. Working with a full toolbox -- a fastball, cutter, sinker, curveball and a changeup -- Irvine then retired 16 in a row.

"In the middle innings, I thought I was staying back well and I was mixing all five pitches in," he said. " I threw maybe only six or eight curveballs, maybe only four or six changeups, but they were in key situations. And if you mix them in there, it's enough to let the hitters know it's something they have to worry about in that arsenal."

He induced eight groundouts compared to five in the air.

"We had some great defense. Modesto has lot of room out there in the outfield," Irvine said. "[Victor] Reyes ran down some balls [in right] and [center fielder] Chuck [Taylor] chased some down and kept track of them against that weird sky."

In the seventh, he ran into the kind of trouble his defense couldn't help with, walking Wes Rogers to open the inning. One out later, he walked Collin Ferguson, then threw three straight balls to Drew Weeks before getting him to pop out to third baseman Dawel Lugo.

"I kind of lost my feel on some of my pitches," Irvine said. "I didn't run out of gas, I just hadn't thrown out of the stretch in a while and I was rushing to the plate and having trouble with my timing. I pride myself on making adjustments, and I did, but ... But going from the 3-0 count to getting the popup, I thought that was a big part of a good night."

With that out in the books, he handed the ball to Jared Miller, who gave up an RBI single to Max White before getting out of the inning. Miller also worked the eighth and Bud Jeter struck out three around a pair of hits in the ninth to register his second save.

Lugo was 2-for-3 with a triple, an RBI and a run scored, while Baker contributed three hits, an RBI and a run scored.