Arizona Diamondbacks, the team nobody saw coming, headed to the World Series

PHILADELPHIA — The team with less talent, the one with less power and less stuff, with less experience and smaller salaries, the one no one saw coming, the one with a rookie pitcher starting and with 23-year-olds sprinkled throughout the roster — that team won Game 7 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night.

That team is going to the World Series.

The Diamondbacks, who won just 84 games during the regular season, beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2, to win the National League pennant for the second time in club history.

“It’s so improbable,” Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll said. “It doesn’t make sense on a surface level. I think there’s just something about this team that people have tried to put their finger on all year and I don’t think anyone’s quite managed to do that yet. There’s just something about this team that finds a way.”

The Diamondbacks will fly on Wednesday to Dallas, where they will face the Texas Rangers in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night at Globe Life Park. Game 2 is on Saturday, with Game 3 — the first World Series game in Arizona since Luis Gonzalez walked off the New York Yankees in 2001 — set for Monday night.

Carroll, the player most responsible for the organization’s turnaround, had been quiet for most of the series, but he put the Diamondbacks on his back in Game 7, collecting three hits, stealing two bases and driving in a pair of runs. He knocked in the tying run and scored the go-ahead run during a pivotal fifth inning, then brought home an insurance run with a sacrifice fly two innings later.

Fittingly, he recorded the final out, drifting toward the right-field line to catch Jake Cave's fly ball with two out in the ninth. Carroll then raced to celebrate on the mound with his teammates, whose screams could be heard throughout a deathly quiet Citizens Bank Park.

“Better squeeze it,” Carroll said he was thinking as the ball came down. “You know, just they fought us hard all series, and so to be able to finally put it away and run towards that dog pile, man, just a hell of a feeling.”

The Diamondbacks trailed, 2-1, when Carroll grounded a two-out RBI single to center, stole second and scored on Gabriel Moreno’s opposite-field single.

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Ketel Marte, who had a hit in all seven games, going 12 for 31 (.387) with five extra-base hits, was named the series MVP.

The Diamondbacks have leaned into their distinction as heavy underdogs throughout the postseason, using it as a sort of bonding agent, as motivation, seemingly savoring the disrespect. They backed into the playoffs, losing their final four games, but once they arrived they looked like a team with nothing to lose.

They swept through the first two rounds of the postseason before facing adversity for the first time against the Phillies, who took the first two games of NLCS. The Diamondbacks evened the series before dropping Game 5, backing themselves into a pair of do-or-die games in a ballpark in which the Phillies had not lost all postseason. They won them both.

“Watching them prior to this series, I don’t think anything scared that team,” Phillies superstar Bryce Harper said. “I don’t think they had any doubt in their minds of coming back here and playing in Philadelphia. They did it to the Brewers, they did it to the Dodgers and then they were able to do it to us, as well. I just don’t think that team is scared of any situation or any spot. I think they got that going for them.”

The Diamondbacks won despite losing both games started by their top starter, Zac Gallen, and another by their No. 2 starter, Merrill Kelly. They won despite getting little from Carroll prior to Tuesday and even less from first baseman Christian Walker. They won despite being outscored 30-21 in the seven games.

They won with just enough timely hitting. They won with a defense that did not falter. And they won with a pitching staff that got big outs at the biggest moments.

“I think we just played our game,” Gallen said. “We played good defense. We pitched. We got a good bullpen. We move the runner over, things like that. We’re not a team that’s going to out-homer you. We’re a team that’s got to do all the little things right. I think that starts of Day 1 of spring training. We’re going to do the fundamentals and see what happens.”

Time and again on Tuesday night, Diamondbacks pitchers rose to the occasion. With runners on first and third in the fourth, manager Torey Lovullo stuck with his rookie starter, Brandon Pfaadt, and was rewarded as he watched him strike out Nick Castellanos and Johan Rojas to escape.

The Diamondbacks wiggled out of trouble again an inning later, with lefty Joe Mantiply giving up a leadoff double but recording the next two outs before Ryan Thompson entered to induce Alec Bohm, who homered earlier in the game, to pop up for the third out.

Right-hander Kevin Ginkel worked out of an Andrew Saalfrank-created jam in the seventh, getting both Trea Turner and Harper to fly harmlessly to center, then struck out Bohm, Bryson Stott and J.T. Realmuto in order in the eighth.

Closer Paul Sewald recorded the final three outs, retiring the side in order in the ninth.

In both Games 6 and 7, the Diamondbacks handed leads to their bullpen — a unit that was viewed as unreliable as recently as August — and watched the relievers slam the door.

“They started ripping off some pretty good stuff during the middle of September and really started to carry us,” General Manager Mike Hazen said. “From that point moving forward, they barely gave up a run.”

Two years ago, the Diamondbacks were among the worst teams in baseball, losing 110 games. Ownership contemplated changes but opted to stick with both Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo. That patience was rewarded.

A young core of players acquired under Hazen’s watch emerged over the past two seasons, a group led by Carroll, a top draft pick, and Moreno, who was picked up in a December trade. Others, including Pfaadt and center fielder Alek Thomas, have risen to the occasion this October.

But what happened during that 2021 season was on Lovullo’s mind throughout the postgame celebration.

“I’ve thought about it 100 times, for sure — I’ve thought about it 110 times, how about that?” Lovullo said. “I can’t wrap my arms around it. I know the Rangers are in a very similar boat. It goes to show you that with perseverance, persistence, hard work, that anything is possible. We’re a small-market organization and we’ve done it from within. It makes it very sweet.”

They entered this season as a dark-horse contender, a team filled with young talent that became a favorite of experts to perhaps win a wild-card spot. They did that — barely — gaining entry as the league’s sixth and final playoff team. They have made the most of the opportunity.

Well, not the absolute most. Not yet. They will try to do that starting on Friday.

“We came this far,” Gallen said. “Might as well just finish the thing, right?”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks, the team nobody saw coming, headed to the World Series