Once more, with feeling…
It’s weird, but I find myself calm and at ease with whatever happens today. I would prefer it if the Diamondbacks grasped their own destiny and (with a little help elsewhere) moved on into the post-season, obviously. But if they end up missing out, either today or tomorrow, then I would do not much more than sigh and shake my head for a moment, then get on with life. I’ve enjoyed watching this team, but for whatever I do not feel as invested in them, on an emotional level, compared to previous Diamondbacks’ seasons. Perhaps I’m still in the recovery process from the dark days of 2020 and 2021, when my general interest in baseball was on life-support.
But I think it’s partly sequencing. I wasn’t particularly invested in the September D-backs last year either, who similarly did not play their best baseball over the final month. I think the most memorable seasons may follow the classic three-act structure, building to a rousing climax, with the team playing their best. This year peaked, I’d say on August 25, when we finished the sweep of the Red Sox in Fenway. Since then, Diamondbacks games have been more a slog than a pleasure to sit through. It has been like watching the final thirty minutes of Return of the King – y’know, after the king has returned – and wondering how many more fond farewells and hobbits hugging they’re going to have.
Swap August and September, and the fan narrative would be very different, with the D-backs mounting a late charge for a playoff spot. Fail under those circumstances, and it would be, “Such a good effort,” rather than “What a bunch of chokers!”, even if the final record was exactly the same. But I guess the difference right now is, we don’t know yet whether this is over or not. There’s about one chance in three this will be a TRUE “backed into the playoffs” scenario, with another chapter yet to be written, where anything can happen. It could end up being the ultimate post-credits scene, as if Peter Jackson popped up with “Sauron’s back, and here’s a battle to make Helm’s Deep look like The Lego Movie.”
Playing a meaningful Game 162 is one of the best possible outcomes for any baseball fandom, although the difference between winning and losing it is clearly stark: this is very much Schrodinger’s Baseball Game, and we won’t know the result for a few more hours. But to quote Lord Tennyson, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Regardless of the outcome, I’ll take this and last season over almost any pair of consecutive D-backs’ campaigns since 2001-02. Maybe there’s still a twist or two to come before a line gets drawn underneath this one.