'A sign of a good team': Diamondbacks down Pirates, claim another series victory

The Arizona Diamondbacks won another game on Saturday night, this time thanks to an offense that was too potent and too relentless to be held in check.

A night earlier, they won because of a bullpen that snuffed out a would-be rally. Taken together, it makes for another series victory, an outcome that is becoming the norm for this team in recent weeks.

For months, it felt like this might not be the Diamondbacks’ year. Injuries piled up. Mistakes were amplified. Down years were hard to overlook. And it felt like the Diamondbacks could never seem to do enough things right on a regular enough basis to call themselves a good team.

But after beating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-5, on Saturday night, it is becoming clear that something else was happening over those first few months of the season. They might not have been doing enough right to win all the time, but they weren’t doing so much wrong that they were constantly losing.

Call it what you will — holding serve, staying afloat, breaking even — but ultimately what the Diamondbacks did was bought themselves time for what has happened over the past month.

Their win on Saturday was their 16th in their past 23 games. It moved them to 55-50, putting them five games over .500 for the first time since last season. They suddenly have the look of a team that is not only capable of winning every night, but one that knows it is, and while they might still be a half-game out of a wild-card spot, they are playing like a club that will find its way into the postseason once again.

They certainly looked that way on Saturday. Jake McCarthy had five hits to lead a 13-hit attack that also received homers from Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte. Right-hander Brandon Pfaadt had a rough fifth inning but still managed to get through the sixth. Lefty A.J. Puk made his Diamondbacks debut and tossed a scoreless eighth inning.

It added up to the Diamondbacks improving to 7-0-1 in their past eight series.

“I think when maybe our hitting isn’t there, our pitching picks us up — and vice versa,” McCarthy said. “It just seems like we’re all picking each other up. It’s timely hitting, it’s really good bullpen appearances. I just think it’s well-rounded, and I think when maybe one of us has an off night, someone picks us up. I think that’s a sign of a good team.”

Earlier in the year, the Diamondbacks, for long stretches, did the opposite of what McCarthy described. When they were hitting, they would not pitch. When they would get a good outing from a starter, their offense would go quiet.

They had good reasons for their struggles. They lost chunks of their rotation to injuries. They lost key position players. They knew they were a depleted team. They knew they just had to keep their season from careening off the road.

“The group did a nice job of just kind of keeping that ship on its course and fighting hard every single day,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “There’s a lot of winning players in that clubhouse and I think that’s a catalyst for some really, really good results. Even on bad days, I felt like there was always a positive sign, something that was very encouraging that was making us feel like it was going to be OK.

“Did I truly feel like we were going to get on this type of run? Probably not in the first couple of months of the year. We were taking on haymakers, we were taking on a lot of water. But it settled down and we’re in a good spot right now.”

The Diamondbacks led, 4-1, after four innings on Saturday only to watch the Pirates rally for three to tie it in the top of the fifth. The Diamondbacks snatched the lead right back in the bottom of the inning, then added three more runs an inning later.

“We kept fighting back after giving up some leads,” Lovullo said. “That’s one of the great qualities of this team as of late. It was a really good game offensively.”

The Diamondbacks are healthier now, with shortstop Geraldo Perdomo and center fielder Alek Thomas back. And more of them are looking more like themselves, with Gabriel Moreno and Eugenio Suarez producing closer to expectations.

“As we were layering back in these guys I felt very strongly we were going to start to play our best baseball once we got the entire squad out there,” Lovullo said. “We still haven’t quite got there. We have a couple more starting pitchers (Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez) that are working their butt off to join us and hopefully things will get even better.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'A sign of a good team': Diamondbacks down Pirates, claim another series victory