Returning from the Bay with a disappointing series split but a 0.5 game lead over the Padres for the final Wild Card spot, the Diamondbacks would welcome the red hot Philadelphia Phillies into town for a quick 3 game homestand where they would look to add to their Wild Card lead over San Diego while also closing the gap between them and the Cubs/Phillies for the 2nd and 1st place spots.
The Snakes would be getting some reinforcements back to start the series as 2nd baseman Ketel Marte would be activated
off the IL and play his first game since the series in Atlanta and the first one since the whole Marte saga was all the media would want to talk about for 2+ weeks.
The Dbacks would wind up dropping the series against Philly while struggling at the dish the entire time, Wednesday’s 1-0 win saved them from a sweep at the hands of the Phils but also gave them back their 0.5 game lead over the Padres after they dropped 2 of 3 in Cincy.
Lifeless Offense
A topic that is becoming all to familiar when discussing the 2026 Arizona DIamondbacks is their lack of clutch hitting abilities with runners in scoring position, and sadly that would be another issue that reared its ugly head in these 3 games as the Diamondbacks would not have a single hit with RISP (0-17) and would score just single run in each game. A big part of the lack of offense throughout this series can be attributed to the top 3 in the lineup in Geraldo Perdommo, Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno basically disappearing and all combined to go 5-35 with only 1 walk.
It’s been no secret that Carroll and Perdomo have both had their struggles in 2026 (Perdomo did show signs of that turning around as he had a monster month of August) but the best hitter for the Diamondbacks for seemingly the last 2 months in Gabriel Moreno being limited to 2 hits was something that I’d guess most of us weren’t expecting.
Big Game…Bullpen?
In my years of being a DIamondbacks fan (24 of the 28 that I can actually remember at least) I have seen some bullpen arms have a solid season or two (Papa Grande, Putz, David Hernandez, Ziegler etc) but they would be one of the few reliable arms to call upon where I wouldn’t have an “oh boy…here we go” feeling as they came in for relief. The 2026 D’Backs bullpen on the other hand has been nearly the complete opposite, as Mike Hazen has put together the best bullpen he has had in his entire time as the Diamondbacks GM.
Previous years I would have heard “tomorrow is going to be a bullpen game” and my excitement would be drained almost instantly (Maybe I was still having flashbacks to Joe Mantiply starting game 4 of the 2023 World Series), but Wednesday’s masterclass from the pen arms, where they would allow just 3 hits, 2 walks while striking out 9 showed why a lot of us fans haven’t had the doom and despair mindset in regards to this bullpen for most of the year. As of the writing of this article, the Diamondbacks have a total of 8 relievers in their bullpen with an ERA below 3.00 (some of them have been in smaller sample sizes like Dennis Santana, Derek Law or Justin Martinez but hey 8 sounds better than 5).
Gabe wanted to give his unsung hero recognition to Brandyn Garcia and what he can provide for this team out of the pen in any situation, whether it’s the 7th against a tough lefty or in the 9th to close out a save situation. Brandon on the other hand believed that Morillo and his consecutive scoreless streak of 17 straight outings earned him the recognition, saying that while every outing hasn’t been the smoothest of rides he has been one of the most reliable arms all throughout 2026. I personally went with Taylor Clarke specifically because of his ability to be used in any situation from being an opener, to being middle relief or even being called upon for more high leverage outings later in games.
Midtember Call Ups
September 1st is the time of year when MLB rosters expand from their usual 26 players to 28 for the final month of the season. For most teams this means that fans might get to see their top young prospects finally get the call to the big league level and either get them excited for the next season (if their team is already out of the playoff race) or maybe even see if they can get an extra spark to ignite their push for October, but us Diamondbacks fans get to see Blake Walston and Lourdes Gurriel Jr as our additions to the roster.
Instead of seeing young names like Spencer Giesting, Yu-Min Lin, Ashton Izzi or heck even Kristian Robinson get the call and maybe add a little juice to this team that could use any extra boost it can get, we got treated to a soft tossing left handed pitcher in Walston and an outfielder that could barely even seem to hit Triple A pitching as of late.
Blake Walston was a former 1st round draft pick (26th overall in 2019) by the organization but has struggled to really develop as a pitcher (I’ll take 500 for “Least Shocking News” please) and has also dealt with injuries along the way. He doesn’t seem to have much life on his fastball and in this day and age of baseball, MLB hitters aren’t going to be fooled often by 89-90 MPH fastballs. Lourdes on the other hand is now the 7th Outfielder on the roster along with Carroll, Lawlar, Nootbar, Barossa, Waldschmidt and Kepler (Kepler has to have some kind of blackmail on this team, I have no idea how he’s still on this roster) and struggled heavily during his rehab in Triple A Reno, slashing just .107/.182/.107 in his 28 AB’s.
The three of us all had the same level of disappointment and confusion in regards to these moves, as Gurriel will only be taking AB’s away from the young outfielders in Lawlar and Waldschmidt, while Blake Walston seems to be another draft pick from the early Hazen era that they refuse to give up on and mark as a failed first round pick.
Heading Down to H-Town
With this disappointing but somewhat successful (Didn’t lose any ground to the Padres in the WC at least) series against the Phillies, the Diamondbacks would get ready to head to the Lone Star State to take on the Al West leading Houston Astros and former Diamondbacks in Christian Walker and Dalton Varsho. While yes the Astros are a division leading team, they are only in that position due to the American League West (and most of the AL in general) being mediocre at best on most days.
The fellas and I agreed that this is a series that the Diamondbacks should be able to at minimum win with the potential to sweep and could be a great time for the Snakes offense to wake up again as the Astros have the 3rd worst ERA for any starting staff in all of MLB. The Astros do have some pop in Jeremy Pena, Isaac Paredes and AL MVP favorite Yordan Alvarez, but outside of them the rest of the Houston lineup is filled with hitters that have sub .700 OPS’s on the year, so it could be the best chance for some of our struggling starters to turn it around and then hand it over to the bullpen to hopefully lock it down.
