After the latest dramatic comeback win of the season last night, the D-Backs turned to their onetime ace Zac Gallen against their former number two in Merrill Kelly for a series win. It certainly was not a grudge match nor was it a brotherly affair, but maybe closer to a friendly match. There were plenty of smiles as the former D-Back faced off for the first time against several former teammates and friends. Still, it was jarring seeing Kelly in an entirely unfamiliar uniform even if he was putting
on a very familiar performance on the mound.
The Rangers wasted absolutely no time in lighting up the scoreboard. In the home half of the first, they used a leadoff single from Josh Smith, a walk to Marcus Semien, and a slapshot single to right-center from Evan Carter to take an early 1-0 lead. They struck again in the fourth when Jake Burger absolutely demolished a Gallen fastball that was left over the plate to score Carter’s leadoff double and extend the Texas lead to 3-1. That would comprise most of the Texas offense through the middle innings of the game until the home half of the eighth when they used a two-out single from Burger and a Josh Jung double that split the right field alley for their final run of the game.
On the other side of the ledger, the D-Backs’ offense was inordinately lopsided. The top four in the lineup went a combined 7-16 (obviously buoyed by Ketel Marte’s 4-for-5 night) while the rest of the lineup had just two hits and no other baserunners. That’s exactly the kind of problem you create when you ship off two of your most productive hitters, regardless of how necessary the move was. Thankfully, Marte was unfazed by the departures for tonight at least. After Geraldo Perdomo worked a one-out walk in the third and then stole second base, Marte looped a ball over Corey Seager to tie the game at 1-1. Perdomo would again be at the center of the next scoring opportunity in the fifth as he also brought his power lumber to Texas and launched his 13th homer of the season into the Texas bullpen to make it 3-2 Texas. The D-Backs tried to play small ball too in the same inning as Marte followed the blast with an infield single and Corbin Carroll collected his only hit by singling through the infield. But when Adrian Del Castillo lined a hit by Marcus Semien and Marte tried to score, he was easily nabbed at the plate with an excellent throw from Ezequiel Duran. That play was the last scoring opportunity Arizona would create for the next three innings and enter the ninth inning trailing by two runs.
That set up the least likely hero for the D-Backs: James McCann. After two pathetically easy outs, McCann quickly worked the count into his favor and then jumped on a lifeless sweeper that sat in the middle of the plate for a no-doubter into the left field bleachers. The journeyman catcher was originally expected to simply operate as a stopgap until either Gabriel Moreno returned from injury or Del Castillo was ready to return to the majors, but his leadership and good-enough offense has kept him on the roster. Tonight though, he was an absolute catalyst as Blaze Alexander got plunked and Perdomo worked a walk for Marte to once again act as the hero by somehow getting around an inner-third curveball and depositing it into the right-field seats to snatch the lead at the last possible moment and set up the win.
Make no mistake though, this game was an absolute masterclass from Marte. Yes, he had an ugly error in the field and getting thrown out at the plate never feels great, but he more than made up for those missteps with the bat. It’s not often you have a four-hit day and drive in four runs all by yourself. But we’ve seen this play before for Marte. He’s absolutely capable of carrying a team’s offense for certain periods and it’s exactly why the team signed him through the probable end of his career. It’s unlikely he’ll be able to match or eclipse Randy Johnson’s 50.9 bWAR with the D-Backs given his age and career trajectory, but he’ll easily land in the top two for career WAR with the franchise. He truly is a special player and it’s a joy to watch him every night.
This was a tight, exciting series. It wasn’t particularly clean or well-played – the teams combined for six errors in the series – but there was plenty of late drama that made up for the sloppiness. Two out of the three games were decided by a single run, there were nine runs scored in the seventh or later, and each team had an inning where they scored four runs. It was the D-Backs’ resilience that stuck out the most to me though in this series. We all expected they would play well against the hapless Rockies, but this series was on the road in a hostile environment, against a well-balanced team very much in the hunt for a playoff spot. I don’t think it would have shocked any of us to see the D-Backs struggle in this series – especially when the bullpen struggled late. Instead, the D-Backs looked much more like their more resilient selves from previous years and even from earlier this year. There’s little chance the D-Backs will be able to qualify for the playoffs – they’ve dug too deep of a hole for themselves for that – but that shouldn’t stop them from acting as a spoiler to plenty of other playoff-hopefuls and play exciting, entertaining baseball through the end of the season.
