Despite the Diamondbacks’ postseason chances growing slimmer each day, manager Torey Lovullo remains positive about his team. (File photo by Truitt Robinson/Cronkite News)
PHOENIX – Down the hall in the underground corridors of Chase Field, the smell of champagne lingered in the visitor’s clubhouse, mixing with the happy chatter of Los Angeles Dodgers players and their families celebrating the team’s clinching of the National League West, a division the Dodgers have won 12 of the last 13 years.
Over in the home clubhouse, outfielder Corbin Carroll glumly turned to face reporters after the Arizona Diamondbacks lost a game they desperately needed, putting their playoff hopes on life support. Before he could answer a question about what the Diamondbacks need to do in their vital three-game series this weekend in San Diego, Blaze Alexander, sitting two lockers away, offered a solution.
“Just win, baby!” Alexander said, loudly and with a smile.
The 2025 season has delivered a rollercoaster of emotions for Diamondbacks fans and players, from early high expectations and World Series aspirations to a sell-off at the trade deadline. Few baseball teams have endured more turbulence than Arizona.
“We are in the land of nothing making sense,” manager Torey Lovullo said before the incomprehensible happened and the surging Diamondbacks were shellacked Thursday by the Dodgers, 8-0, dropping two games behind the New York Mets and one game behind the Cincinnati Reds in the NL wild card race heading into Friday.
Yet the Diamondbacks are still alive, and have a chance to turn the tables on a team that crushed its playoff hopes in 2024: the Mets.
Lovullo stressed the importance of saving his prime arms for the do-or-die series in San Diego that begins Friday and ends the regular season Sunday.
“Zac (Gallen) could use an extra day to rest, that was a big piece of the puzzle, same with (Eduardo Rodriguez),” Lovullo said, explaining why he chose to start and end the game against the Dodgers with his bullpen rather than starting Gallen, a risky move that backfired.
During his past two starts, Gallen has battled an illness and was “gassed,” Lovullo said. His idea on paper seemed questionable, but Diamondbacks coaches agreed that resting Gallen for San Diego was the best option.
This script, however, did not go according to plan.
While the key arms got a day’s rest, the game unraveled quickly for the Diamondbacks. Opener Jalen Beeks only lasted one inning after allowing a home run to Freddie Freeman. Nabil Crismatt then came in and gave up three more to put the Dodgers up 4-0. The Diamondbacks couldn’t recover, as the bats went cold and were not able to deliver a late-game comeback like they had in the first two games of the series.
“At this point we just gotta go out there and win,” Carroll said. “We win and we give ourselves a chance.”
Gallen and Rodriguez will need to bring their A games in the final weekend series in San Diego, as the series loss to Los Angeles makes the Diamondbacks’ playoff chances extremely difficult. One saving grace for them was that with the loss to the Dodgers, Los Angeles clinched the division, making the Padres ineligible to move up to the third seed.
Nonetheless it is an uphill battle for the Diamondback hitters, as Yu Darvish will open the series Friday. While Darvish hasn’t been his prime self, he has been solid against Arizona with a 3.78 career ERA.
Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo offered insight on the team’s mindset, especially knowing they still have a chance.
“It means a lot,” Perdomo said. “You know everybody is ahead here of what’s going on with the other teams. It’s the last three games of the season so we have to give it everything we have.”
The Padres’ offense also bolsters its own type of firepower, with veterans including Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and young star Jackson Merrill leading the charge. A below league average strikeout team, striking out the third least among all teams, it will be an even taller task for the Diamondbacks’ pitching staff, which has struggled mightily all season.
Besides having to worry about San Diego, the Diamondbacks need help from other clubs. The Reds will be the biggest threat, holding the tiebreaker over the Mets and Diamondbacks. While the snakes do hold the tiebreaker over the Mets, New York has a much lesser opponent in the Marlins to deal with in the final regular season series, putting even more pressure on Arizona, which will likely need to sweep the Padres to make the postseason.
The best course of action for Arizona would be to control its own destiny and, like Alexander said, just win. It’s easier said than done, but with their three best starters taking the mound – Gallen, Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt – chances seem to be in their favor.
With a 5-5 tie in the season series between Arizona and San Diego, neither team has the playing edge, so it will look to be the most competitive series yet for both teams. The biggest key for the Diamondbacks will be trying to get an early lead, and not be playing from behind as they consistently did against Los Angeles. Offense needs to be found early and often and that starts with the biggest bats in the lineup and younger role players towards the bottom of the lineup.
While many pundits dismissed the Diamondbacks after they unloaded at the July 31 trade deadline, the one person who has never lost faith in his team is Lovullo. The ups and downs and decisions he has made throughout the rollercoaster season have been tough, and considering how different the roster looks from Opening Day, it seems like a miracle that the team is even still alive in the last week of the regular season.
But even as the Dodgers celebrated down the hall on Thursday, Lovullo’s spirits remained high.
“I don’t want to sound desperate, act desperate, because I think the players pick up on that.” Lovullo said. “I want to believe in them, but they know that once again, it’s a razor-thin margin of error.”
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