PHILADELPHIA – Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo stared into the abyss on Aug. 11, 74 days before his team won the National pennant with a 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in an improbable, months-long comeback against their more touted opponents League captured in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. The prospect seemed slim just two months ago when the Diamondbacks lost their ninth straight season. The club had lost its influence on the NL West. The chance of making the postseason seemed to be dwindling. “We have to make sure this thing stops,” Lovullo said. “Somehow. Somehow.”
The Diamondbacks didn’t have a miraculous recovery. The club won the next day and ended the skid. The next day they won again. They won more than they lost the rest of the month. They won enough in September to advance to the postseason as the sixth and final seed. They were an 84-win team with a run differential that suggested they should have done worse. But they had a ticket to the dance. That was all Lovullo’s team needed. Not since the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, who won 83 games, has a team reached the World Series with this small amount of regular-season success.
Yes. It is true. The Diamondbacks are going to the World Series. You can say it again if the sentence sounds foreign on the tongue. You can read it again if it looks strange on the page. They may, like many in baseball, reflect on how Arizona got here.
Ask the Diamondbacks if they care. Ask the 45,397 fans at Citizens Bank Park if they can believe it, not after Philadelphia won the first two games of this series and returned home after Game 5 needing just one more win. Ask anyone in this sport if they predicted this – that person is probably cheating.
As Arizona completed its comeback and secured its first World Series berth since 2001, it showed all the grit and hustle that had gotten it to this stage. Corbin Carroll, their sensational rookie outfielder, recorded three hits, scored twice and delivered a game-winning sacrifice fly in the seventh inning. Fellow rookie Gabriel Moreno delivered two RBI singles. The relief corps stood firm behind a third rookie, starter Brandon Pfaadt, who avoided runs from Phillies sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper for four innings. Arizona reliever Kevin Ginkel did the same with Trea Turner and Harper to ease a jam in the seventh inning.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson was wise in his decision to stick with third baseman Alec Bohm in the mop-up spot. Bohm delivered a home run and scored another run. But little else went right for Philadelphia. The team was unable to capitalize on its chances in the fourth and fifth periods before Arizona took the lead. They could hardly defend themselves against Joe Mantiply, Ryan Thompson, Andrew Saalfrank, Ginkel and Paul Sewald, a quintet of substitutes who can spend the next few days studying the Texas Rangers. Game 1 of the World Series is Friday night at Globe Life Field.
Watching the World Series without Philadelphia will be breathtaking. When these teams left Philadelphia after Game 2 last week, this series seemed all but decided. The Phillies won the first two contests, including a 10-0 win in Game 2. Arizona retreated to the desert without a qualified starter in the lineup for the next two games. But Pfaadt had an excellent performance in Game 3. A day later, as Lovullo dominated a bullpen game, his hitters took advantage of strange strategic decisions by Thomson.
Thomson elected to pull his own starter, Cristopher Sánchez, midway through the third inning. Instead of using one of his other two starters, Taijuan Walker and Michael Lorenzen, for an inning or two, Thomson preferred his regular relievers. The decision backfired when veteran Craig Kimbrel blew a two-run lead in the eighth inning. Arizona even managed to win the series. Philadelphia won Game 5 but dropped Game 6 on Monday, losing for the first time this postseason at Citizens Bank Park.
All of this led to something that felt unthinkable last week: the Phillies on the verge of collapse and the Diamondbacks on the verge of a pennant. And it also allowed Lovullo to once again dig through his receipt bag, a continuing collection of insults to the press and public. The latest came from SiriusXM host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, who vowed to “immediately retire” if Arizona wins.
The bet made Lovullo smile. He said he considered Russo a friend. “But I would like to see him give up if we won today,” Lovullo said. “You know what I mean? There’s nothing better than when a smart New Yorker says something and then has to act on those words.”
For Lovullo, Russo’s comments fit a pattern this offseason: “There’s an overarching theme here that, A, we don’t deserve to be here, B, we’re going to get our asses kicked, and, C, there is “Tyrants” throughout the National League who can manipulate us,” he said. “It really excites me to know that we’re playing in Game 7 and we’re on the verge of doing something incredible. And we love proving the naysayers wrong.”
Thomson took a different approach. While Lovullo seemed open to any national discussion about his club, Thomson seemed determined to avoid any talk. He insisted he didn’t listen to local sports radio station 94.1 WIP’s complaints about his refusal to change his lineup, leaving Bohm in the mop-up spot. “At this point it just doesn’t make sense to me to move people,” Thomson said.
Arizona emphasized the importance of scoring early to calm the crowd. The team completed that task in the first inning on Tuesday. Rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll hit an infield single. Rookie catcher Gabriel Moreno blasted a single into right field. Carroll raced from first to third, where he scored on a groundout by Christian Walker, who lunged through the pocket to prevent a double play.
Bohm brought the crowd back. He knocked down an elevated sinker from Pfaadt. The baseball landed in the left field seats. It was only Bohm’s second extra-base hit of the series. The timing was exquisite. Harper left the dugout to applaud Bohm. Schwarber leaned over the railing to admonish the crowd.
Schwarber had a chance to keep the fans going in the third after outfielder Brandon Marsh led off with a single and led off a bunt by outfielder Johan Rojas. But Pfaadt calmed down and struck out Schwarber a second time. Pfaadt spotted a 2-2 sinker at the bottom of the zone, close enough for referee Adam Hamari to call Schwarber. The inning ended when shortstop Trea Turner hit a sweeper into the dirt, stranding Marsh.
In the fourth round, Bohm got the team going again. He drew a one-out walk in which he followed up with a series of errant fastballs to set the table for Stott. Pfaadt tried a 2-2 sinker. Stott sent a sharp shot to left midfield, a brace that scored Bohm and gave Philadelphia a 2-1 lead. A single by catcher JT Realmuto placed runners on the corners. Pfaadt limited the damage. He knocked down collapsing outfielders Nick Castellanos and Rojas.
The Diamondbacks didn’t stay down long. A leadoff single from third baseman Emmanuel Rivera got the Phillies bullpen moving. Jeff Hoffman, Thomson’s right-handed fireman, had been warming up off and on since the second inning. He was ready to face Moreno, a right-handed hitter. But before Thomson made a move, Carroll rolled a game-winning two-out single up the middle for his third hit of the night.
Carroll continued to torment Hoffman. When Hoffman made his first pitch, Carroll darted to second base and grabbed a sack, as he had done 54 times during the regular season. The extra 90 feet resulted in a run when Moreno hit a slider to right field, giving Arizona a 3-2 lead.
Hoffman held out until the seventh round, when Thomson turned the game over to Jose Alvarado, perhaps his most trusted backup. Alvarado pitched for the fourth time in the series. The Diamondbacks looked comfortable. Gerardo Perdomo greeted him with a single. Ketel Marte hit a brace. Carroll overcame Alvarado’s platoon advantage and threw a 99.8 mph fastball deep enough to right to hit Perdomo and double the lead.
Lovullo’s bullpen defeated the Phillies in the final frames. Ginkel overcame a tricky period in the seventh and got both Turner and Harper out. He struck out the side in the eighth round. In the ninth, Sewald overwhelmed the bottom of Philadelphia’s lineup. The final out nestled on Carroll’s glove in right field, a harmless fly hit by pinch hitter Jake Cave. The crowd shuffled toward the exits as Carroll sprinted toward his teammates.
The Phillies went home. The Diamondbacks went to the World Series. It doesn’t matter if you couldn’t predict it. Arizona has turned this series and this season around. Somehow. Somehow.
(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)