PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks’ regular season concluded, and yet, no one knows whether they have played their last inning.
The hurricane-caused postponement of a series between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets last week resulted in a Monday doubleheader to decide the final two National League Wild Card spots. The Diamondbacks are the odd-man out waiting at home to watch their fate on TV.
If the Braves and Mets split their doubleheader, both NL East rivals will be off to the postseason while the D-backs enter an offseason full of what ifs after winning 89 games. Arizona had not won that many games since 2017. A sweep of either side would vault Arizona into the Wild Card Series against the Milwaukee Brewers with Game 1 on Tuesday.
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“It’s hard, but it’s not right?” Corbin Carroll said after the D-backs ended their regular season with an 11-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Sunday.
“Like, the work is over, we ended up with 89 wins. I think that should be viewed as a positive and improvement on last year (84). But obviously we’d like to have control of our own fate and a game or two more in that win column does that for us. At this point, it is what it is. Sit back and see what happens tomorrow, and be ready to go.”
This past week obviously sticks out when looking back on how the Diamondbacks ended up in this situation. The D-backs blew an 8-0 lead last Sunday in Milwaukee, let it linger in two losses against the San Francisco Giants and dropped two of three to a San Diego Padres team that rested half of its starters for most of the series. The Padres scored five runs in the ninth inning on Saturday for a 5-0 win, hitting two home runs off a reliever who had not allowed an earned run in nearly two months in A.J. Puk.
But manager Torey Lovullo will think back a lot further.
The D-backs do not have either tiebreaker with the Mets or Braves due to head-to-head record, and even the first road series of 2024 in Atlanta is digging at Lovullo.
“It sucks, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Lovullo said of relying on other teams.
“We made this bed, we got to sleep in it, but we’re going to hope for the best. I know they’re two great franchises. They have two great managers, and I don’t think either have the gene of laying down in either one of those games. That’s my gut feel of knowing the players on the teams, knowing the managers and knowing those franchises.”
“Might be a little bit pissed right now … you reap what you sow.”
The Diamondbacks have to hope the Mets OR the Braves sweep their doubleheader tomorrow to help Arizona make the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/pd87nmtoib
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) September 30, 2024
The Diamondbacks will have to wait out the entire doubleheader, because either the Braves or Mets will clinch after Game 1 and the other will play for its postseason life in Game 2.
The D-backs plan to be at Chase Field, working out and watching together with the hope that this season does not abruptly stop.
“It’s either going to be really fun or it’s going to be awful,” Jake McCarthy said. “I might not even watch the first game. It’s all about the second one. I don’t know who is starting the games or whatever, but it’s definitely going to be weird being invested in a game we’re not involved in.”
“We did our best today, we played good baseball and we got to cheer for somebody tomorrow,” Eugenio Suarez said after hitting his 30th home run. “It’s something you don’t see every day. So whatever they have for us, whatever baseball has for us, we got to take it and see what happens.”
The Diamondbacks possess many qualities of a dangerous team to see in October. The offense scored more runs than anyone in baseball with 886 and finished with the second-highest OPS at .777. It is a more balanced attack than last year with the combination of speed and power and platoons that have done damage.
The defense entered Sunday second in the league with 32 outs above average and finished with the fewest errors at 62.
Arizona also had to run through injury adversity all year, as six of its nine starters on Sunday spent time on the injured list, as well as starters Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Ryne Nelson, Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Montgomery.
Pitching shortcomings plagued the team throughout this season, both injury-caused and not. The offense before Sunday had a down week at the worst time, leading to questions about pressure and how it affected them.
Through all the ups and downs, Lovullo is not ready to say goodbye to this bunch. There are a lot of moving parts to this upcoming offseason, from Christian Walker’s free agency to mutual option decisions on Joc Pederson and Randal Grichuk along with seemingly obvious team options for Kelly and Suarez.
The odds are against this group receiving one more shot to see what can happen in October if they just get in like last year, but it is far from forgone.
“I might be a little pissed right now. But you reap what you sow,” Lovullo said. “We put ourselves in this position. We’ve won 89 games. We’ve had a really, really good year. I don’t want it to end. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I’m going to remain as optimistic as possible.”
The doubleheader will begin at 10:10 a.m. with New York’s Tylor Megill on the bump against Atlanta’s Spencer Schwellenbach. If the Braves need to win Game 2, NL Cy Young favorite Chris Sale will start.