Two years after suffering through a 110-loss season, the Arizona Diamondbacks are spraying champagne and heading to the National League Division Series.
They feel like they belong, too.
“In ’22, you kind of saw the shift toward the end of the year, and then we came in this year and this is what we expected to do,” Zac Gallen said on Wednesday after he pitched the Diamondbacks to a 5-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers and a sweep of their wild-card series. “We expected to be playing in October.”
Photo: AFP
It is the first Division Series for the franchise since 2017. The Diamondbacks take on National League West champions the Dodgers in the opener of their best-of-five series tomorrow in Los Angeles.
National League Central champions the Brewers have dropped nine of their past 10 playoff games, a stretch that started with their Game 7 home loss to the Dodgers in the 2018 National League Championship Series.
“The playoffs are a tough animal to conquer,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “They are. Unfortunately, we have not.”
Ketel Marte put Arizona ahead for good with a two-run single during a four-run rally in the sixth inning as Milwaukee right-hander Freddy Peralta faded after a strong start. Gallen allowed two runs in the first inning, and then sailed through the rest of his six innings.
The sweep was another step in a rapid climb for the Diamondbacks.
Arizona’s 52-110 record in 2021 tied the Baltimore Orioles — another team currently in the playoffs — for the MLB’s worst record that year. The Diamondbacks went 74-88 last season.
Now they are in the playoffs thanks to Taiwanese-American outfielder Corbin Carroll’s breakthrough rookie season, as well as stellar performances by Gallen and Merrill Kelly atop the rotation.
“Considering what we’ve walked through and the dark times that we had, this is a pretty special moment,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “There’s a lot of emotion inside of this organization, inside of this clubhouse right now.”
Arizona showed their grit by rallying each of the past two nights. They erased an early 3-0 deficit against Corbin Burnes to win 6-3 in Game 1. They trailed 2-0 on Wednesday and were hitless for the first 4-2/3 innings.
The only other teams to win their first two post-season games after trailing each by multiple runs are the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays and the 2009 New York Yankees.
“You’re down like that, you can’t get back into the game with one swing, right,” Carroll said. “You’ve got to have a full team bought in willing to take quality at-bats. We had that both nights.”
One swing from Alek Thomas sure helped, though. Thomas gave the Diamondbacks their first hit when he homered on a 2-0 changeup from Peralta in the fifth inning.
“I think maybe my at-bat maybe changed a little bit of his flow,” Thomas said.
Arizona took the lead in the sixth inning as Peralta and Abner Uribe faltered on the mound.
Geraldo Perdomo drew a leadoff walk and moved to third on Carroll’s double, a broken-bat shot that got past first baseman Carlos Santana and went down the right-field line. Marte singled home both runners and advanced to second on the throw to the plate.
Tommy Pham then greeted Uribe with a single to right that put runners on the corners. One out later, Jose Herrera walked to load the bases. Uribe threw a wild pitch that brought home Pham and then allowed an RBI single to Lourdes Gurriel Jr before departing with the Diamondbacks ahead 5-2.
The Brewers tried to put together a late rally, but an Arizona bullpen that was criticized earlier this season closed it out. Arizona’s relievers combined for 9-1/3 scoreless innings in the series.
Milwaukee loaded the bases with one out in the eighth inning, but 26-year-old rookie Andrew Saalfrank preserved Arizona’s 5-2 lead with some stellar relief work.
When Sal Frelick hit a comebacker to the mound, Saalfrank threw Christian Yelich out at the plate. Willy Adames then hit a shot up the middle, but Marte was positioned perfectly behind second base and stepped on the bag for the final out.
The Brewers had runners on second and third after Yelich’s two-out double in the ninth inning, but Paul Sewald struck out William Contreras to end the series.
“I think the bullpen has been our MVP [most valuable player] the last month or so, and I think it’s the part of our team that’s kept us in a lot of games,” Gallen said.
Elsewhere, all the other wild-card series also ended in sweeps as the Rangers routed the Rays 7-1, the Twins blanked the Blue Jays 2-0 and the Phillies thrashed the Marlins 7-1.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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