Diamondbacks avoid sweep against Orioles with offensive outburst
BALTIMORE — The play might have seemed like an unusual choice for Torey Lovullo to highlight. After a game in which the Diamondbacks blasted past the high-flying Orioles, 9-2, their manager stood in his office, praising not one of their eight hits, or even one of the 18 outs Zac Gallen recorded. He isolated, instead, an innocuous walk from Tucker Barnhart.
The Diamondbacks, up 1-0, had runners on the corners with one out in the fifth inning when Barnhart walked to the plate. He fouled off two difficult pitches, working the count full before laying off a sinker beneath the zone. It was a nice walk, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Here, though, it proved crucial. With the bases now loaded, Corbin Carroll’s bouncer to third was enough to force the Orioles into an error at the plate, scoring one run. The next batter, Ketel Marte, drove another home on a sacrifice fly.
For the first time all series, the Diamondbacks had breathing room. And they had it, in part, because of the contributions from a portion of the order that came up big throughout the game.
Jake McCarthy pulled a home run to right field, Kevin Newman went 2-for-3 with a double and Barnhart drew two walks. Even Randal Grichuk — a bench piece called into pinch-hitting duty — contributed with a double.
“The top of your order is typically the better part of your order,” Lovullo said. “When you get guys on base ahead of them, it tightens down the opposing pitcher's ability to execute and I think puts us at a really, really strong advantage.”
That was the case not just on Sunday, but throughout much of the Diamondbacks’ 4-2 road trip. The Diamondbacks have six position players on their current roster who would not be in their first-choice starting lineup. Over the past six games, those players — Barnhart, McCarthy, Newman, Grichuk, Blaze Alexander and Pavin Smith — combined for a .759 OPS, well above their season-long levels.
“It's infectious,” Newman said. “Our at-bats are for each other. Working counts, whether it's a walk, a hit, whatever it is, we're trying to get the next guy up, trying to execute and I think when you've got nine guys trying to do that, it just rolls through the order.”
This week, those players tucked at the bottom of Lovullo’s lineup helped provide depth to an offense that has often been heavily reliant on Ketel Marte and Christian Walker. And they also helped the Diamondbacks produce one of their best-played weeks of the season. Even after losses on Friday and Saturday in Baltimore, Lovullo praised his team’s performances — a tone he has rarely offered this season as they started the year 14-20.
The offense, of course, was not alone in spurring the Diamondbacks’ improvement. They got two strong starts from Gallen, including Sunday’s six-inning, two-run effort in which the Orioles didn’t record a hit until the fifth. Jordan Montgomery, Slade Cecconi and Brandon Pfaadt also delivered big performances. The defense and baserunning — two pet peeves of Lovullo’s for much of the year — were improved.
The run production, though, stands out. In a 2-7 stretch that ended last week, the Diamondbacks scored 1.8 runs per game. Since then, they’ve averaged 5.9, despite running into occasional hard luck, as they did Saturday.
“We're getting stubborn, we're getting strong at the right times,” Lovullo said. “It's been very pleasing.”
All of it led to what Lovullo described as a “close second” for the Diamondbacks’ best week of the season, behind only their performance on Opening Weekend. But as they packed their bags for a return trip home, there was still a sting reverberating from Saturday, when a two-run lead slipped into an extra-inning loss.
“We're four outs away from being 5-1 (on the road trip),” Lovullo said. “And that's ultimately what I want us to get to.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks avoid sweep against Orioles with offensive outburst
