Diamondbacks hire Matt Herges as pitching coach

The Diamondbacks have tabbed Matt Herges as their new pitching coach, replacing Mike Butcher after the latter was relieved of his duties at the end of this past season.

The news was initially reported by Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic.

Herges spent the last two years as the bullpen coach for the San Francisco Giants, Piecoro added. According to his bio on the Giants’ website, Herges previously worked in the minor leagues for the Los Angeles Dodgers and had been the pitching coach for Triple-A Oklahoma City.

He also pitched 11 major league seasons, almost exclusively as a reliever, compiling a 3.91 career ERA with the Dodgers, Expos, Padres, Giants, D-backs, Marlins, Rockies and Indians.

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo joined 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station on Thursday and wouldn’t confirm the hire — which at the time had not been officially announced by the team — but did discuss the hiring process.

“We had a really, really thorough process. I got the chance to sit down with some really, really wonderful candidates,” he said. “It was something that was very important to me. It was very important that I got out there and got the right guy that’s going to help us take this to the next level, and those were some of my comments. And that was the reason why we did make the change.

“I just know that we did a really good job and a lot of people dug in from the front office to the medical team to our analytics team. We put our candidates through the ringer, and we met some really good people.”

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