Diamondbacks’ heroics in Texas could be the start of an epic turnaround
Two heroic wins in Texas have the Diamondbacks on a roll and feeling good, a feeling Valley sports fans haven't had in awhile, Dan Bickley writes.
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It’s easy to feel cursed in Arizona. It’s natural to be cynical in a market that produced one major professional championship in nearly 150 seasons as a four-sport town.
But magic happened on Wednesday. We saw it with our jaded eyes.
The Diamondbacks conjured up their most important victory of the season, beating the Rangers with a ninth-inning blitz from nowhere. Down to their final out, James McCann muscled a home run. Blaze Alexander was hit by a pitch. Following a walk, Ketel Marte blasted his second game-winning home run in as many days.
In the end, the hyped battle between Zac Gallen and former teammate Merrill Kelly was overshadowed by the resilience and spirit of a Diamondbacks team that has been cut to the bone, decimated by injuries, diminished by a major sell-off at the trade deadline. And look at them now.
They are 8-4 since the trade deadline. They could easily be 11-1, having squandered two games in San Diego, along with the opener in Texas on Monday. If they sweep the Rockies in a four-game series in Colorado, they will be a winning team (63-62) once again with 37 games to play. If that sounds unreasonable, remember the Rockies are historically bad, a team that is just 16-42 at home in high altitude.
There are other promising signs. After a lengthy malaise, Marte is heating up. His home run on Tuesday was huge, as it came from the right side of the plate, where he has struggled mightily with pitch selection and plate discipline. His home run on Wednesday was even bigger, the stuff of legends, and you could almost hear the collective groan of Rangers fans in attendance.
That felt good. It felt like payback for Corey Seager and Game 1 of the 2023 World Series.
Against all odds, the Diamondbacks are re-establishing an offensive identity; their overmatched bullpen is holding up better than anyone could expect; and they have fresh energy and enthusiasm that seemed inconspicuously absent for much of the season.
Meanwhile, manager Torey Lovullo has spent most of the season on a hot seat, pushing the wrong buttons, gaslighting the audience with unrelenting praise for an underachieving team. But the Diamondbacks have not folded after flying the white flag. Quite the opposite. They’re fighting hard. The manager deserves a lot of credit for that.
At the very least, the Diamondbacks have given themselves a chance to make things interesting in September. Instead of succumbing to zombie baseball, they are still playing to win and keeping fans on the edge of their seats. And just imagine if they pulled off a sporting miracle – an Arizona team that actually met high expectations, but only after an avalanche of injuries, trades and heartbreaking losses.
That would feel dramatically different. Almost like a curse had been lifted.
Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station.
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Comments
21 Comments
He says this all the time after a win or 2 lol
As my father told me when I was young: "if the dog didn't have to stop for a crap, he would have caught the rabbit!"...when I gave him an excuse of "IF this didn't happen, we would have won, etc." The expression "If the dog hadn't stopped for a crap, he would have caught the rabbit" is a colloquial and somewhat crude way of saying that something prevented a desired outcome or success from being achieved.
The reality is that local media hasn't called out the Dbacks management of not fixing the real problem of the Dbacks...pitching! The Dbacks pitching has been ranked at the bottom of the MLB since the 2020 season. To have a team that goes to the playoffs, you need to have good pitching then good offense...look at the 2001 WS Dbacks...their pitching was ranked 4th in the MLB. You can't score 20 runs a game every game like it is a slow pitch softball game. The Dbacks have a losing record when scoring 11+ runs this year...that is how bad the pitching has been.
The Arizona Diamondbacks' team ERA for the 2025 MLB season is 4.54. This places them 25th in the league for ERA. They also rank 22nd in home runs allowed (148), 24th in WHIP (1.34), and 23rd in batting average against (.255).
Ryne Nelson: 3.47 ERA
Brandon Pfaadt 5.03 ERA
Zac Gallen: 5.31 ERA.
E-Rod: 5.68 ERA
I have not heard this question on 98.7 when the Dbacks management have been on: "The Dbacks pitching has been ranked in the bottom of the MLB since the 2020 season. The pitching hasn't improved. I know that there have been injuries but other teams have had injuries as well. Where are the pitching prospects from the Dbacks farm system? There have been only 'successful free agent signing (Burnes) which has been limited due to injury but Montgomery and E-Rod have been total busts...who are making these signings? In six seasons, the pitching hasn't improved. Why hasn't the third base coach been fired?
You can be respectful by asking the fair and tough questions...not cheap shots...but fair and hard questions. Instead, the interviews are love fests.
"So you're saying there's a chance?" DB is climbing on a rickety band wagon.