The Diamondbacks didn’t just beat the Dodgers on Friday night. They ripped the lid off Chase Field with one swing and turned a game that looked gone into a walk-off jolt that kept the NL West race from slipping any farther away.
Arizona entered the opener of the four-game set with Los Angeles having split a series with the Padres, and the timing couldn’t have been better. The Dbacks were playing well, the Dodgers were mired in a season-long seven-game losing streak, and the gap in the division had already shrunk from double digits to 8.5 games before first pitch. A sweep would have tightened that race even more and given Arizona its first season-series win over LA since 2018.
For most of the night, Merrill Kelly looked like he was going to set the tone. Arizona led 2-0 after five innings, and Kelly had the Dodgers quieted while working toward what would have been his first regular-season win against them. But Los Angeles scratched out a run in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings and flipped the game, pushing the Dodgers within three outs of ending their skid.
That’s when the ninth inning got wild.
Dodgers closer Edwin Diaz, who carries a $69 million price tag, came on to finish it. Instead, Max Kepler drew a leadoff walk, pinch runner Jorge Barrosa stole second with one out, and Ryan Waldschmidt stepped in with a chance to change the night.
He did more than that. Waldschmidt turned on a hanging slider and launched it over the left-center wall, the ball landing in the lap of a Dodgers fan for his second career homer and his first MLB walkoff hit.
It was the kind of moment that sticks. The kind hitters dream about, and teammates don’t forget. The discussion afterward centered on Waldschmidt’s approach in the at-bat and on how nights like this become part of a player’s and a fan base’s memory.
The win also fit the larger story of this Diamondbacks rotation, which has been carrying real weight for most of the season. Outside of a brief rough patch from late April into early May, the starters have been outstanding.
Michael “Maple Maddux” Soroka has bounced back. Eduardo Rodriguez has put together a career-best season and earned his first All-Star nod.
Brandon Pfaadt has looked like a different arm since coming back from Reno.
Pfaadt’s recent run deserves a spotlight of its own. He stretched his scoreless innings streak to 25 and has posted a 1.32 ERA since his recall from Triple A Reno. Even more impressive, he fired seven shutout innings against one of baseball’s best lineups, a group that had also seen him more than 10 times and could have been better prepared for his stuff than most opponents.
Kelly’s outing belonged in that same conversation. Even in a no-decision, he has been looking like the version Arizona has leaned on in recent years, and over his last 38.1 innings he has put up a 2.82 ERA.
Eduardo Rodriguez may have had the grittiest start of the bunch. He threw 115 pitches across seven innings, and Torey Lovullo later revealed that four bullpen arms were unavailable, or redlined.
That extra context matters. Knowing the bullpen was stretched helps explain why Rodriguez’s effort stood out so much.
The bigger picture is still in play, too. A sweep of the Dodgers would have cut Arizona’s deficit to 5.5 games and pushed Los Angeles to nine straight losses. Even after Friday’s win, the Dbacks trimmed the gap from 8.5 to 7.5, which is still a far cry from where the Dodgers usually are at this point in the season, but enough to keep the division race alive.
There was also some talk about what all of this could mean for the Wild Card race and for the Dodgers’ ability to line up the finish the way they want. Gabe and I were on the same page that forcing Los Angeles to keep fighting deep into the final week would be ideal, while Brandon pointed out that there were reports in 2023 suggesting the Dodgers may have had trouble getting back up to speed after time off.
Do the Diamondbacks or Padres have great odds to run down the West? Not really.
The source material put both teams at +3000 or higher on most sites. But stranger things have happened, and the 2011 Cardinals were the example raised - a club that was 10.5 games out of the NL Wild Card race on August 25 and still ended up stealing the spot from the Braves on the final day.
Arizona’s next challenge now shifts to the Rockies, who come to Chase Field for the third and final NL West matchup of the homestand. Colorado is nearly 30 games under .500, but there’s still real talent there, including former Snake Jake McCarthy, who has been excellent in his first season in Denver with a .305/.341/.516 line, an .816 OPS and a 122 OPS+.
The Diamondbacks will also see RHP Tomoyuki Sugano for the third time. In his previous two starts against Arizona, he has allowed two runs in each outing, with his splitter doing most of the damage.
August isn’t getting any easier from here. The Diamondbacks still have the Braves, Red Sox, Cubs and Phillies on the schedule before the calendar turns, which makes this series a chance to bank wins now.
A series victory is the minimum. A sweep would put Arizona in a much better spot heading into a tough six-game stretch in Atlanta and Boston.
In Other News...
Brandon Pfaadt Is Forcing A Diamondbacks Question No One Expected
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Arizona moved McCarthy to Colorado earlier in the offseason for pitching prospect Josh Grosz, and the deal already has become one of those trades that gets re-litigated every time the former Diamondback catches fire. With McCarthy putting up career-best numbers since landing in Colorado, the reaction back in Arizona has been predictably split, with some fans seeing a player they wish the club still had and others waiting to see whether the return eventually changes the conversation. [Read more 🡒]
Diamondbacks Add Risky Pitching Depth As Wild Card Pressure Builds
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Littell arrives with plenty of recent big league mileage and a track record of bouncing between roles, the sort of profile clubs lean on when the calendar turns and every game starts to matter a little more. For the Diamondbacks, the appeal is simple: add depth now, sort out the rest later, and hope the new piece can steady a rotation and bullpen that have both been asked to carry too much for too long. [Read more 🡒]