The defending National League champs have won four more games than they did last year.
Still, the Diamondbacks will need to sweep the majors’ hottest team since the All-Star break to assure themselves a spot in in next week’s wild-card round.
Anything less than that, and the Diamondbacks will need help this weekend from Milwaukee and Kansas City. Or they’ll have to watch their TVs on Monday, when the Mets and Braves play a doubleheader in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
This is where manager Torey Lovullo finds his team as the Padres arrive for the final weekend of the regular season.
“I think we’re in a good spot,” Lovullo told reporters Wednesday night after an 8-2 win over the Giants snapped a three-game skid. “We have been in a good spot. We just hit a little speed bump.”
The timing of it was nearly catastrophic.
As of the third inning on Sunday morning, the Diamondbacks had won four straight, had built an 8-0 lead in Milwaukee and had a rare four-game road sweep in hand. Then the pitching crumbled, Arizona suffered its largest blown lead in franchise history and the fragility of the D-backs’ playoff hopes compounded with losses on Monday and Tuesday to Bob Melvin’s Giants.
A team that had matched the Padres step for step in the second half, that leads the majors in runs scored, that was poised to build off last year’s improbable World Series run, was teetering.
Lovullo sensed it.
He was ready to tee off on them, too, after Tuesday’s 11-0 drubbing at the hands of the lame-duck Giants.
Then he called an audible as he walked in for a postgame meeting.
“I could have been critical,” Lovullo told reporters. “I could have blasted off on them. I’ve been in that range. It’s ugly. But I chose not to do that because nobody needed to be ripped into with four days to go. I didn’t need to start pinpointing guys and targeting guys. So I sat on the high side. Just as a reminder, like boys, this is who we are, and those are the ones that I enjoyed. It’s OK to feel the way you’re feeling. It’s OK to think the way you’re thinking, but I bet on you guys. I come in here and I bet on you guys, because I love you guys and I care about you guys. But we got t to figure some (expletive) out, and we got to do it now.”
The result was an 8-2 win, powered by a Zac Gallen gem, that re-asserted the Diamondbacks footing a bit heading into the final weekend of the season.
They are one game ahead of the Braves and in a virtual tie with the Mets for the NL’s second wild-card spot. The Diamondbacks have three games left on their schedule, all against the Padres. The Mets and Braves both have five games left, with Atlanta hosting the playoff-hopeful Royals and New York traveling to Milwaukee.
If playoff spots are still up for grabs, the Mets and Braves will head to Atlanta for a doubleheader on the eve of the start of the wild-card round.
Because both teams have tiebreakers over Arizona, what the D-backs need to get in seems to compound exponentially with every loss they take against the Padres.
To date, the Padres and Diamondbacks have split the first 10 games of the season.
And while for the longest time it seemed as if the Padres and Diamondbacks had decided to win and lose on the same days since the All-Star break, Arizona falling back to earth a bit this month has allowed San Diego to push to the top of the wild-card standings.
After a stellar July (17-8) and August (18-9), the Diamondbacks are 12-11 in September, thanks in large part to a pitching staff that has seen its ERA swell to 5.56 this month, worst in the majors.
Gallen is seemingly is off the table after starting Wednesday. Merrill Kelly, coming off a start in which a calf cramp forced him from the game in the sixth, starts Friday’s opener. After that, the Diamondbacks appear to be choosing between Jordan Montgomery (6.62 ERA in September) and Eduardo Rodriguez (6.00 ERA in September) on Saturday, with Brandon Pfaadt (8.31 ERA) slated for Sunday.
Right-hander Ryne Nelson (5.56 ERA in September) should return from shoulder inflammation to pitch at some point in the series.
Either way, it’s the Diamondbacks’ offense that may have to carry the load.
Ketel Marte leads the team with 35 homers and a .934 OPS, and four others — Eugenio Suarez (29), Christian Walker (26), Joc Pederson 23) and Corbin Carroll (21 ) — all have more than 20 home runs. The reigning NL Rookie of the Year, Carroll has surged since the All-Star break (.920 OPS, 16 HRs) after a poor start (.635 OPS), while Walker has just three homers in 20 games (.749 OPS) since return from his oblique strain.
Former Padres first baseman Josh Bell initially provided a trade deadline boost as he arrived from Miami, homering four times in his first 12 games. The switch-hitter since has just one home run over his last 28 games (.684 OPS), but other role players— Randal Grichuk and Pavin Smith both have six homers and an OPS will over 1.000 this month — have maintained the lineup’s potency.
It’s what Lovullo was selling when opted to lean into the love side of the tough love he delivered Tuesday.
“I think we had to prove to ourselves to get back on track and find a little confidence, a little swagger,” Walker told reporters after Wednesday’s game. “… 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.”
Walker added: “We very much feel like we control our own destiny in here. If we play our game and win some more games, we’ll be in a good spot.”