Torey Lovullo does not look like a manager who has lost his voice or his team. To the contrary, he is doing his best work at the end of a long, hard season.
He is making a strong case to pilot the Diamondbacks in 2026, when he would become just the 118th manager in baseball history to reach 10 years at the helm of a major league club.
Welcome to another plot twist in one of the strangest seasons in Arizona history.
Not that long ago, it appeared Lovullo’s goose might be cooked.
His team was not sharp or prepared coming out of spring training. He struggled with the simple chore of naming an Opening Day starter, siding with loyalty over talent. He spent much of the season pushing the wrong buttons and spent too many postgame press conferences gushing over an underachieving team, like a parent unwilling to discipline a spoiled child. And when Ketel Marte decided he needed a break from his All-Star break, bailing on his teammates and infuriating the organization with his detour to the Dominican Republic, many blamed Lovullo for enabling and coddling his star player.
Now look at them.
The diminished, decimated Diamondbacks (66-69) will not give up the fight. They just split a four-game series with the best team in baseball, going toe-to-toe with the Brewers in Milwaukee. The details are staggering.
In the first two games of the series, the Diamondbacks rallied from 6-0 deficits. A team that has quit on the manager does not rally in such fashion on the road against a quality opponent. On Thursday, they prevailed with starting pitcher Nabil Crismatt, who was signed to a minor league contract on Aug. 9th; and a relief pitcher making his major league debut at age 29.
Lovullo rolled the dice with Taylor Rashi, leaning on a rookie to throw three innings of relief. If Rashi failed in the ninth inning, the manager would’ve been blasted for exposing a young player, for asking too much and ruining what should’ve been a successful debut. But it worked to perfection, further proof the calculus might be changing for Lovullo.
Rashi became the 16th Arizona pitcher to record a save, illustrating how ravaged the bullpen has been in 2025.
Now comes a series in Los Angeles, at a time when the Diamondbacks are just three games below .500, when they are clearly a problem to the teams they are facing, rallying around their underdog status.
After the Diamondbacks sold off a sizable chunk of its team at the trade deadline — which some players in the clubhouse partially blamed on the actions of Marte — it would be easy for Lovullo to succumb to the writing on the wall. But his relentless positive energy has never waned, revealing the very best traits of manager and fueling a team that simply won’t bow out of playoff contention.
Once again, a great man is performing like a great manager. If the Diamondbacks continue to play spirited, relentless baseball … if they somehow finish with a winning record … Lovullo deserves another shot in 2026. And if he makes it to Year 10, he might be here forever.
Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on 98.7 FM and the Arizona Sports app.
