Recaps
[AZ Central] Diamondbacks fall to Dodgers in series finale on 9th-inning homer – “I’ve just seen a lot of young guys, particularly in the bullpen and position player-wise, who have really stepped up and been contributors,” Carroll said. “With that, they’ve brought a lot of energy with them and it’s been contagious.” Said Pfaadt: “We’ve played good baseball, almost better baseball than we were before the deadline. Just giving (young) guys a chance to prove themselves, I think, is paying off.” People
in the organization talked about the final two months of the season being a chance for the club to rediscover its identity. In some ways, that seems to be happening — and that injection of young players likely has something to do with it.
[Arizona Sports] Corbin Carroll’s game-tying home run not enough as Dodgers walk-off D-backs in series finale – The Diamondbacks trailed 4-1 headed into the eighth inning as lefty reliever Tanner Scott took the mound for the Dodgers. He retired the first two hitters of the inning before Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte both registered two-out singles. Carroll then stepped up to the plate and hit a 97 MPH fastball to left center field that cleared the wall at Dodger Stadium to tie the game. Sunday’s home run marked the second game in a row in this series that Carroll hit a late-inning home run after breaking a scoreless tie with a homer in the seventh inning on Saturday in the D-backs’ 6-1 win against the Dodgers.
Team News
[Dbacks.com] D-backs can’t seal sweep, but head into September on a roll – After taking two out of three over the Dodgers to end August with a 17-12 record, manager Torey Lovullo described his ballclub as “improving, but incomplete.” “I want us to play our best baseball right now,” Lovullo said. “I want us to play meaningful games in September — that’s all I ask these guys. Just go out and play hard so we can scoreboard watch a little bit in September. You’ve got to earn the right. So we’re going to turn the calendar month, and we’ve got to keep our heads up. We’re in this.” The D-backs’ top-of-the-order bats — Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll — all swung hot bats in August, combining for a .305 average with 15 homers and 51 RBIs. But since the departure of Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor at the Trade Deadline, a different supporting cast has emerged.
[SI] D-backs Manager Had Strong Statement After Failing To Sweep Dodgers – “It’s just unfortunate how it ended up. I still think it was a good series, I’m proud of us,” Lovullo said. “But I’m looking to win every game that we play, especially here in Dodger Stadium. You look at it, we’ve won four of our last five games. So I’m very pleased with that. And I’m not an idiot, [the Brewers and Dodgers are] two of the best teams in baseball. But our standard is to win every single game we play. It doesn’t matter who we play. I’m proud of us.” It doesn’t seem likely they’ll be able to get close enough to earn a Wild Card appearance, even with their recent stretch of good baseball. But anything can still be possible — for the time being — if everything is executed properly.
[Burn City Sports] Perdomo discusses chemistry with Marte on Betts’ podcast – “For me, I feel it’s a gift,” Perdomo said on the podcast. “At the end of the day, you have to know who [your partner is]. You have to know what is his best path to catch that ball… I know exactly where I have to throw the ball to [Marte] because he got really good hands.” Perdomo and Marte have shared a strong personal connection outside of the diamond, as both hail from the same country. The Diamondbacks’ shortstop believes that connection translates on the field and makes communication more efficient. “When you know your partner, when you know where you have to throw the ball, when you know whose running, it makes it easy,” said Perdomo. “We sometimes do 40, 30 ground balls together in Spring Training. That’s how you start learning chemistry.”
And, elsewhere…
[Fangraphs] How Much Candy Is in a Major League Dugout? – I used a brute force research methodology, hunting for sweets through thousands of photo service pictures of dugouts, bullpens, Dubble Bubble celebrations, and Gatorade baths. The hit rate was infinitesimal. Unless they’re taking a few establishing shots of gum and sunflower seeds during spring training, there’s no reason for photographers to waste their time on the snacks in the dugout. The pictures I found were usually candids, players who happened to be photographed holding a bag of seeds, dumping snacks on the player who just hit a walk-off, resting in front of the Hi-Chew tub, or digging through it looking for a very specific flavor.
[Reddit] With today’s win, the Rockies have officially avoided being the worst team in the Modern Era – It felt like Colorado was well on its way to one of the worst marks in baseball’s Modern Era, and even among the worst of all time. That’s no longer the case. The Rockies have gone from historically bad to just plain ol’ 100-loss-season bad. They’ve gone 30-48 since that day, including today’s 6-5 walk-off win over the Cubs. That victory means that the Rockies will finish ahead of the 36-117 mark set by the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst in the Modern Era. The other marks they seemed destined to fall behind – the worst in the 162-game era and the worst in the Live Ball era – are just a few wins away.
Fight or Flight (2025)
Rating: B
Dir: James Madigan
Star: Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Katee Sackhoff, Julian Kostov
Feeling like this year’s version of Nobody, it shares the same tongue-in-cheek approach to its hyperviolence, and both have a reluctant hero, dragged into and eventually responsible for much of the resulting mayhem… The opening scene certainly grabs attention, a mass brawl, complete with a chainsaw, unfolding in the aisles of a plane to the tune of The Blue Danube. We then get the inevitable “12 hours earlier” caption, and see how we got to that point. I was mostly interested in seeing how they got the chainsaw. Checked baggage is the answer, though there are a lot of guns in carry-on bags. We’re going to have to go back to taking our shoes off, if the TSA see this.
