Wilson bails out Diamondbacks

She was pulled after walking both hitters and watched teammate Lenzi Cram throw a five-inning no-hitter.

But when the Diamondbacks needed someone to bail them out of trouble in Wednesday’s home game against Clark, they turned to Wilson.

And she delivered.

Wilson relieved Cram in the sixth inning and retired the only two batters she faced to preserve a 6-5 lead, then, after giving up the tying run in the top of the seventh, Wilson drove in the winning run with a grounder to shortstop as the Diamondbacks (5-9, 4-0 Southwest) outlasted Clark, 7-6.

“She’s a competitor,” Desert Oasis coach Jerome Streets said. “I can not be too hard on C.J. because she’s harder on herself than anybody. She did a great job today.”

Wilson inherited a mess Wednesday as Clark’s first seven batters of the sixth inning reached base, though one was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.

She came in with runners on first and second and one out and got a flyout and a popout from the first two batters in the Chargers’ order to end the threat.

“I just tried to throw strikes,” said Wilson, who didn’t let Monday’s outing affect her. “I would have taken myself out (Monday), too. I struggled really bad that game. I was ready to move on.”

Clark (6-7, 3-1) tied the game in the seventh when Julia Hagen was hit by a pitch leading off the inning and Anna Jaehn followed with a triple to left.

Jaehn was the potential go-ahead run, but Wilson struck out two batters, with a groundout to third sandwiched in between, to preserve the tie.

Cram doubled to left-center to start the bottom of the seventh and was lifted for pinch runner Taylor Beacham.

Beacham advanced to third on a wild pitch that didn’t get far from Clark catcher Julianna Thornock and raced home on Wilson’s grounder to short.

The throw home was high and wide, though Beacham might have beaten it anyway.

“Our first six games, we had leads and we let teams back in it and didn’t come back,” Streets said. “Being battle-tested early on against good teams, they didn’t get down on themselves.”

The Diamondbacks took advantage of four Clark errors in the first two innings to build a 6-0 lead on six unearned runs.

Cram didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning, when Clark scored its first run and had a runner thrown out at the plate to end the inning.