The Padres did Arizona no favors on Thursday night. By beating the Dodgers 4-2 in Los Angeles, San Diego locked up a playoff berth and left the Diamondbacks staring at one remaining opening in the National League race.
That slot now comes down to Arizona and Philadelphia, with the Diamondbacks entering Friday two games back of the Phillies. For Arizona, the math is simple and brutal: they need an improbable sweep of the Padres this weekend to stay alive.
The Padres’ win also keeps plenty in play for San Diego. Even with the postseason ticket punched, they still have a shot to host the National League Wild Card series at Petco Park.
The Diamondbacks’ postseason push has become tangled with bigger questions around the organization, too. Torey Lovullo is on a one-year contract and has not been extended beyond 2026, and earlier reporting had framed the playoff chase as a straightforward test of whether he would stay on.
Lovullo himself had acknowledged that possibility. But Derrick Hall’s latest comments suggest the decision may not hinge so cleanly on whether Arizona reaches October.
That has opened the door to another layer of uncertainty around the manager’s future. As Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro put it, “I highly doubt that Torey Lovullo would accept a one-year deal. This guy has been here for 10 years; he took a team to the World Series, he’s 11 games over .500 this year … There seems to be an ownership group that is not totally convinced that he’s the right guy for the job,” Gambadoro said.
“If that’s the case, then maybe he does decide to say ‘let me see what’s out there.’”
Elsewhere around the league, there was another note of momentum from a very different club. White Sox catcher Quero said a recent interview had actually been set up months before the 2025 season, when he predicted Chicago would improve because of its youthful energy, even after 121 losses.
“I mentioned it again in Spring Training,” Quero told MLB.com during a recent interview. “Maybe some people think I was crazy, but I’m not. The guys are proving it right now.
“I’ve played with a lot of players here in the Minor Leagues, we played in the playoffs, too. It’s the base of a really good team we play with right now. You can see the guys are hungry and we play really good baseball.”
In Other News...
D-Backs Lose Corbin Burnes At The Worst Possible Time
Corbin Burnes is headed to the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation, a frustrating turn for a Diamondbacks rotation that was already trying to steady itself in the seasons final stretch. He was supposed to take the ball for his next scheduled start, but Arizona now has to reshuffle its plans with the last weekend of the year looming.
Burnes has been dealing with a string of setbacks since Tommy John surgery in 2025, and his recent return to the mound did not come with the kind of sharpness the Diamondbacks had hoped for. For a club trying to get through the finish line, losing a pitcher of that caliber at this point forces another round of adjustment, with little time left to sort it out. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Enter Final Weekend With Their Season Hanging On
Several playoff spots are already spoken for, but the race that matters most in Arizona is still very much alive heading into the final weekend. The Phillies are sitting in front in the National League wild-card chase, yet the Diamondbacks have kept themselves in position by owning the tiebreaker, which gives this stretch run a different kind of urgency than a standard late-September climb.
Seeding across the league may still be shifting, but for the Diamondbacks the focus is simpler: survive and get in. With clubs like the Padres, Cubs, White Sox and Guardians already in, the last open doors are narrowing, and Arizonas path depends on one final push while Philadelphia tries to finish the job first. [Read more 🡒]
Ketel Marte Has Created An Ugly Diamondbacks Problem At Worst Time
Ketel Martes 2026 season has become a far different conversation than the one the Diamondbacks expected to be having about one of their most important hitters. Jayson Stark of The Athletic went so far as to name Marte the National Leagues Least Valuable Player, pointing to both his absence during a series and the downturn in his production at the plate. For a club that has leaned on him for impact in the middle of the lineup, it has been a sharp and unwelcome shift.
The bigger concern for Arizona is that Martes numbers no longer look like those of a player carrying a lineup, but more like those of an average bat after two strong seasons. His on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS all fell off, leaving the Diamondbacks with a problem that arrives at the worst possible time. When a player of Martes caliber stops providing that edge, it changes the feel of an offense, and it leaves Arizona trying to sort out how much of the gap is temporary and how much might linger. [Read more 🡒]