By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO — Chris Stratton’s storyline ran hot in April, May and the first half of June, and just that quickly, times changed.

Dereck Rodriguez and Andrew Suarez raised their profiles and became the story, Stratton didn’t pitch as well, and with the 28-year old showing wear and tear, the Giants pushed the reset button.

Stratton was demoted on August 3rd and of course, in San Francisco and other major league outposts, we didn’t hear much else. But Stratton’s story and his breakout season wasn’t quite finished.

The Diamondbacks got introduced to Stratton a year ago. On Monday, the NL West leaders and the crowd at AT&T Park were reintroduced to the Giants’ first round pick in the 2012 draft with his eye-catching display.

In his best start of the season, Stratton shut down the D-Backs, going in eight innings in a 2-0 Giants’ win. It marked Stratton’s ninth win of the year, and the lengthiest outing of his big league career.

“He was really good,” manager Bruce Bochy said of Stratton. “Really good with his command and all his pitches: curveball, slider, change, really spotted his fastball well, and we needed it, their guy threw well.”

Of all the statements made about Stratton Monday, the fact that his performance rivaled Arizona starter Patrick Corbin’s outing spoke volumes. Corbin was dominant, shutting down the Giants without a peep outside of the 3-1 pitch thrown to Steven Duggar in the second inning that exited the park in a hurry.

“It might have been off the plate, but a really good swing there to put some runs on,” Corbin said. “It was still early in the game there (and) it felt like just put up some zeros and just tonight their guy pitched a little better than me.”

Outside of that pitch, Corbin allowed three other hits, struck out nine and walked one in seven innings. And whike it felt as if Arizona would support Corbin’s brilliance, it never happened. The D-Backs went quietly, managing just a pair of ninth inning walks after John Jay tripled with two outs in the fifth.

The Giants and D-Backs continue their series Wednesday night at 7:15 pm PDT.