Ketel Marte’s heater continues in D-backs win vs. Rockies

PHOENIX — Baseball oftentimes requires patience, and Ketel Marte’s start to the 2026 Arizona Diamondbacks season required some, but we also knew we’d be rewarded if we showed some.

The reward is here, and led the D-backs to another win this week, a 5-4 final over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday.

Marte reached base four times and a destroyed 424-foot, two-run bomb in the fourth was the decider.

When creating a timeline that begins with Marte’s walk-off dinger on Tuesday, across his last 19 plate appearances, Marte is 10-for-16 with two doubles, three homers, three walks and has scored six times.

His OPS has jumped over 100 points in that time. Not bad. He is now indeed getting luckier, as the advanced numbers said he should.

In late April, D-backs manager Torey Lovullo moved Marte out of the leadoff spot and into the two-hole. That didn’t help his numbers much, nor Geraldo Perdomo’s, the guy that moved up to first.

Lovullo and Marte then had a 1-on-1 meeting in Texas two weeks later, just after Lovullo had moved Marte back to the top spot of the lineup. Marte said that’s where he wants to stay, Lovullo obliged and it has worked wonders.

“It’s the hard work he’s putting in,” Lovullo said. “It’s not the fact that he’s leading off every game that he might think is the reason. The reason is he’s a good player. He’s a good hitter, he’s hot and that’s what happens. He can carry the workload for us and win us some baseball games.”

Zac Gallen gave up three earned runs in 5.1 innings pitched with six hits allowed while walking two. His general flow was more in line with the lower form we’ve seen from him in 2026 but it was still the type of start the D-backs can work with if they get enough from their offense like they did on Saturday.

While Gallen was only at 82 pitches, Lovullo pulled him at that point, citing it was somewhat by design because this is a portion of the season when it’s smart to pull back a few times. The D-backs have trends and data that support that choice. Gallen referred to it as the “first fatigue wall” of the season, something he’s learned how to navigate by now as a league veteran.

The hope is Gallen can manage these types of outings while the core issues get worked out.

Our own Alex Weiner detailed the drastic drop-off for Gallen’s swing-and-miss numbers, tanked specifically by the plummeting of the whiff rate on his four-seam fastball, a trend that continued on Saturday.

To emphasize how low the number has been on the four-seamer, there are 117 pitchers in baseball that came into Saturday having thrown at least 200 four-seam fastballs this season. Gallen ranked last among all of them in total whiffs with six, four fewer than anyone else, per Baseball Savant. And here’s the kicker: Gallen had tossed 316, the 40th-most in baseball.

Gallen’s career whiff rate of 25%, which is also the league average, has been reached by him only three times in 10 starts. Even worse, it has been 15% or less in five other outings. The season number entering Saturday was 18.7%.

The Rockies (20-33) on Saturday swung and missed 24% of the time on Gallen, so that’s a slight improvement. In even better news, this wound up being just the second outing for Gallen in which he got multiple whiffs on his fastball, tying the previous best of two. His six strikeouts were also a season high. The D-backs need whatever small victories they can get from their former ace at the moment, and those are a few.

A transition to the marquee portion of the bullpen was handled by Brandon Pfaadt, who retired the first five batters he faced to get the game to the eighth inning before the first hitter T.J. Rumfield hit a solo shot to left-center, reducing Arizona’s (27-24) lead to one run.

The next batter Tyler Freeman singled off Pfaadt and that would do it for him.

If Pfaadt hasn’t yet arrived at the point of no return in regards to getting stretched back out to becoming a starter again this year, he’s just about there. Following Wednesday’s one-inning appearance in the eighth inning with the D-backs holding a 6-3 lead, Pfaadt handled the rest of the sixth and all of the seventh before he couldn’t get an out in the eighth. It felt like a heat check from Lovullo to keep Pfaadt in one more inning, even though the first five outs felt fairly effortless.

Kevin Ginkel then walked the next batter to put two on with nobody out.

Ginkel would have to escape an eighth-inning jam for the second time in three days, and he did so. Ezequiel Tovar’s bunt attempt had too much on it, heading right for Ginkel at the mound before first baseman Eduardo Vargas made a terrific play cutting him off by fielding it, spinning and throwing to third all in one motion for a force out.

Chad Stevens flew out on the next at-bat and Ginkel had done it again.

Paul Sewald got the ninth to pitch for the first third time in four days and recorded his 12th save that puts him in a tie for fifth in MLB.

Troy promoted, Gurriel to IL

Outfielder/infielder Tommy Troy was called up on Saturday in place of starting left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain. Lovullo indicated pregame that Gurriel should be good to go shortly after those 10 days run out, if not immediately. As for Troy, Lovullo said he will exclusively be used in left field at the moment despite his infield roots. He was not in the lineup on Saturday but will presumably get a handful of looks in left before Gurriel comes back.

Saturday’s attendance

33,891

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