Diamondbacks 'in a good spot,' inch closer to postseason with rout of Giants

Torey Lovullo did not want to think about the alternate universe, the one in which his team lost on Wednesday night. He did not want to consider what it might have meant — not just to the wild-card race, but to his team’s state of mind. Lovullo could not fathom it.

So, call it what you want, a crucial game, a must-win. Lovullo probably would not have debated it, not before or after his team's emphatic 8-2 win over the San Francisco Giants at Chase Field.

“I think we’re in a good spot,” Lovullo said. “We have been in a good spot, we just hit a little speed bump.”

Right-hander Zac Gallen turned in perhaps his best performance of the year, striking out a season-high 11. The Diamondbacks’ patient offense allowed them to score five times in the first four innings to take control of the game. Pavin Smith blasted a pinch-hit, three-run homer late to put it away.

It added up to a desperately needed victory. Win No. 88 came after three consecutive losses, two to the Giants, and at a time when it felt like their postseason hopes were at risk of going up in smoke.

“I think we had to prove to ourselves to get back on track and find a little confidence, a little swagger,” Diamondbacks first baseman Christian Walker said. “… I think we checked a lot of boxes as far as taking a little bit of load off and taking some of the pressure off and remembering how good this offense can be.”

A night earlier, the Diamondbacks were blasted, 11-0, by the Giants. Two days before that, they coughed up an 8-0 lead in Milwaukee, the largest blown lead in a loss in franchise history. The mood, it goes without saying, was not great for a team that had seen its lead shrink to just a half-game in the wild-card race.

But it seemed like the script flipped on Wednesday night. With the win, the Diamondbacks will take a one-game lead over the Atlanta Braves into their final series of the season, a three-game set against the San Diego Padres that begins on Friday night at Chase Field.

They know where they will end up if they keep winning games. Well, not exactly. They know they control their destiny when it comes to a wild-card spot, but they might have to wait until Monday — when the Mets and Braves are scheduled to play a doubleheader due to cancellations stemming from Hurricane Helene — to figure out where they would be playing.

The Diamondbacks (88-71) have three games left. The Mets (87-70) and Braves (86-71) each have five. If the Diamondbacks sweep the Padres, they are assured of a wild card. If not, they will need things to fall their way since they do not own the tiebreaker against either the Mets or Braves.

“We very much feel like we control our own destiny in here,” Walker said. “If we play our game and win some more games, we’ll be in a good spot.”

After they were pounded on Tuesday night, Lovullo called a team meeting and delivered a message. As the Giants continued to score runs that night, Lovullo grew angrier and angrier. He told himself he was going to unload on them. But he thought better of it before stepping into the room.

“They already felt terrible,” Lovullo said. “I didn’t want to jump on them and make them feel worse. I wanted to tell them how I felt: that they’re a good team. And they deserved to hear that. Even if the circumstances were out of our range of comfort.”

What he told them, he recounted on Wednesday, was that they did not get lucky 87 times. They won that many games because they were good. He told them they did not need to do more over the final four games than be themselves and that the rest would take care of itself.

“It was a good motivation,” Smith said. “I think we all knew how important these games were. It wasn’t like, ‘You guys need to pick it up.’  It was more like, ‘You guys just need to be who you have been the whole year and not put that added pressure.’”

That is pretty much what they looked like on Wednesday. They came through with timely hits. They let opposing pitchers light themselves on fire with their inability to throw strikes. And they delivered a knockout blow late in the form of Smith’s eighth-inning homer, which pushed the score from 5-2 to 8-2.

But Lovullo was smart enough to time his meeting well.

When he managed the Diamondbacks, Bob Brenly held team meetings before Randy Johnson started. Bob Melvin did the same thing only on the day before Brandon Webb pitched.

Gallen has not pitched to his previous standards this year, but he turned in a dominant performance on Wednesday, allowing only one run on two hits and two walks across six innings. After giving up an RBI double to Tyler Fitzgerald in the second, Gallen retired 12 consecutive batters and 14 of 15 to end his outing.

“That’s probably the best I’ve felt in a while,” Gallen said. “I felt like I had everything working for the most part.”

He thought his mentality on the mound might have best explained his success.

“I think I was pitching to win, not pitching to not lose,” Gallen said. “I feel like when you get into a tight spot you can be — I don’t want to say timid, but you’re maybe waiting for something to happen. I was trying to be on the attack, trying to be aggressive today.”

—Nick Piecoro

Lovullo focused on his team as Mets-Braves postponed

While the Arizona Diamondbacks are fighting to remain a wild-card team Wednesday and into the weekend, the teams they’re battling for two National League wild-card postseason spots won’t play until Friday.

Instead, it could be Monday night before the Diamondbacks, if they are still in contention by then, know where they will end up in the wild-card standings and what opponent they will face if they qualify.

Major League Baseball announced Wednesday afternoon prior to the Mets-Braves and Giants-Diamondbacks games that the scheduled Wednesday and Thursday games between host Atlanta and the visiting Mets at Truist Park have been postponed due to the forecast and the inclement weather.

The games, according to MLB’s announcement, are to be made up as part of a doubleheader on Monday in Atlanta, beginning at 10:10 a.m. in Phoenix. The second game of the doubleheader will begin 40 minutes after the last out of the first game.

The situation came about as Hurricane Helene began bearing down on Florida and Georgia, already bringing rain to the Atlanta area Wednesday.

The Diamondbacks aimed to take a one-game lead over Atlanta for the third wild-card spot with a win Wednesday night, and pull into a virtual tie with the Mets for the second spot.

Arizona is off Thursday so, following the Diamondbacks' result Wednesday night, the records for the three teams will remain the same until Friday's games are played.

New York is at Milwaukee over the weekend and Atlanta is home to face the Kansas City Royals, who are trying to lock up an American League wild-card spot.

By Sunday, the Diamondbacks, if they lose three of their final four games of the season and the Mets and Braves sweep their respective weekend series, could be eliminated from contention.

The New York Post’s Joel Sherman reported Wednesday that if the Diamondbacks are eliminated over the weekend and the Mets and Braves have not yet settled seeding, it will be at the MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s discretion whether to play Monday for seeding purposes.

“Clearly we're aware of it, and it doesn't make a difference to me," Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said before the Diamondbacks' game Wednesday. "I can honestly say that I'm so concerned about what we're able to do in our dugout and our clubhouse and go out and perform the best way we know how. That's what I continue to talk to these guys about. Put it on us, take care of what we do best and control what we can control."

If Monday becomes critical to the Diamondbacks' playoff hopes, the team will be watching the Mets-Braves games, Lovullo said.

"I want to honestly let you know that we are in a good spot, because we deserve to be in a good spot, and we're going to embrace this role," Lovullo said. "The Braves and the Mets are going to compete and they're going to go out and do the exact same thing we're going to try and do, and we can't be blinded by what's going on out there."

Lovullo said he's aware that the Diamondbacks do not own the tiebreakers over either team.

"It is what it is," he said when asked about not being able to play out a standings tie on the field. "We know the ground rules going into it, so we'll accept anything that's going on.

"The rules are rules. As long as we know the landscape before it starts, we're going to accept it."

-Jose M. Romero

Top Diamondbacks prospects on Fall League roster

Major League Baseball announced the rosters and coaching staffs of the 2024 Arizona Fall League on Wednesday. The AFL begins on Oct. 7 when the Mesa Solar Sox play the Surprise Saguaros at Sloan Park in Mesa, the spring training facility of the Chicago Cubs.

Diamondbacks prospects on the Salt River Rafters roster are left-handed pitchers Philip Abner and Yu-Min Lin, right-handers Kyle Amendt, Alfred Morillo and Dylan Ray, infielders Gino Groover and Tommy Troy and outfielder Kristian Robinson.

Troy is the fifth-ranked Diamondbcks prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, with Lin No. 7 and Groover No. 9. Ray is listed at No. 16.

Robinson was out of the organization from 2020 to 2022 due to legal matters, and spent 2024 with Double-A Amarillo.

-Jose M. Romero

Paul Sewald, Ryne Nelson injury updates

Right-hander Paul Sewald threw 17 pitches in his second bullpen session since landing on the injured list, Lovullo said.

Sewald’s next step is expected to involve facing hitters in some capacity, Lovullo said.

Sewald served as the Diamondbacks’ closer until being bumped from the role in early August. He had posted decent results in 12 outings since then, logging a 4.15 ERA with just three walks compared to 15 strikeouts over 13 innings.

He landed on the injured list during the previous homestand due to what Lovullo described as a “disk problem” that was causing discomfort on the left side of his neck and left shoulder area.

Right-hander Ryne Nelson (shoulder) played catch on Wednesday and continued to trend toward a return this weekend. Lovullo intimated that Nelson would be reinstated from the injured list in the next day or so.

—Nick Piecoro

Coming up

Thursday: Off.

Friday: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (5-0, 3.71) vs. Padres LHP Martin Perez (5-5, 4.25).

Saturday: At Chase Field, 5:10 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (3-4, 5.56) vs. Padres RHP Yu Darvish (6-3, 3.18).

Sunday: At Chase Field, 12:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (10-10, 4.80) vs. Padres RHP Michael King (13-9, 2.95).

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks 'in a good spot,' inch closer to postseason with rout of Giants