The Diamondbacks and Padres lined up with Jose Cabrera and Michael King on the mound, but the bigger picture in this matchup was Arizona’s strange habit of landing in the exact same spot after 91 games.
The D-backs sit at 45-46, and that is the same mark they carried after 91 games in both 2024 and 2025. The similarity ends there. Neither of those seasons ended with a playoff berth, but the paths they took after that point were wildly different.
In 2024, Arizona caught fire from there, finishing 44-27 and posting the second-best record in the National League over the rest of the schedule. Even that wasn’t enough, because the Mets surged too, going 45-28 and forcing a three-way tie at 89 wins. That set up the infamous double-header against the Braves, with both teams winning the tie-breaker against Arizona.
The 2025 follow-up was much flatter. The Diamondbacks went just 35-36 the rest of the way and finished with 80 wins.
The playoff bar was lower that year, too, with 83 wins enough for the Reds to get in. The Mets were the club that got burned by the tiebreaker that time.
Arizona still had a chance in its penultimate series. The D-backs walked off the Dodgers to reach 80-77, and winning three of their final five games would have gotten them to 83 wins as well, though they had already lost the season series to Cincinnati. Instead, they dropped all five of those games and were eliminated after Friday night’s loss in San Diego.
So the question hanging over 2026 is simple enough: what happens next? The club could buy or sell, and that decision might matter.
Or maybe it won’t. Mike Hazen sold last year, and Arizona still put together a late run that kept things alive into the final week.
In 2024, the team bought A.J. Puk and Josh Bell, sat 2.5 games clear after 140 games, and then went 10-12 the rest of the way to miss out.
For now, the only certainty is this: after matching the same 45-46 record at this point in three straight seasons, the Diamondbacks are due for a different ending.
In Other News...
Diamondbacks Finally Make A Drastic First Base Decision
The Diamondbacks are making a significant roster shakeup at first base, moving on from a veteran presence who had become increasingly hard to keep in the everyday mix. Christian Walker has been designated for assignment after a stretch defined by offensive struggles and injuries, a difficult turn for a player who had been a steady part of Arizonas lineup before things started to unravel.
In the short term, the club is turning to a different kind of look by recalling rookie outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt from Triple-A Reno to fill the active roster spot. Arizona now has five days to work out a trade or place Walker on waivers, and if nobody claims him, the expectation is that he would accept a Triple-A assignment rather than leave the organization entirely. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Just Made A Painful Move Fans Saw Coming
Pavin Smiths season has been heading in this direction for a while, and the latest roster shuffle only underscored it. After a win over the Padres, Arizona moved to add some fresh outfield depth by bringing up Ryan Waldschmidt from Triple-A Reno, a sign the club is still trying to keep its bench and lineup flexible as the year wears on.
Smiths slide has been shaped by both performance and health, with elbow surgery to remove loose bodies costing him the next two months and limiting what he could offer even before the bat went quiet. The Diamondbacks have not officially announced the move yet, but the direction is clear enough for fans who have watched this unfold: a once-promising roster piece has reached a difficult crossroads, and the team is choosing to look elsewhere for now. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Just Got A Stunning Ohtani Update Before Friday
Fridays matchup in Los Angeles just got a different look for Arizona, with Shohei Ohtani no longer lined up to take the mound against the Diamondbacks. Instead, the Dodgers are expected to piece together the game with a bullpen approach, a notable shift in a series that already carried plenty of weight for both clubs.
Ohtani is still expected to stay in the lineup as the designated hitter through the rest of the weekend, so Arizona will have to deal with his bat even without the pitching assignment. The bigger question now is how the Dodgers manage the rest of his workload after the series, with his status adding another layer of intrigue to a stretch the Diamondbacks were already watching closely. [Read more 🡒]