Ketel Marte, Brandon Pfaadt save season for Diamondbacks in NLCS Game 3 win

It doesn’t take a baseball fan to know that Phoenix, at its heart, is a baseball town.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, that on a Thursday afternoon in late October, about 47,000 people played hooky from work or skipped school to come to the ballpark and cheer on the home team, a stubborn group of underdogs barking up the tree of the mighty Philadelphia Phillies.

Brandon Pfaadt — the rookie whose last name is pronounced like the past tense of “fight,” as in “Arizona Pfaadt back” — knew he would need every one of these people to do his job.

“Getting our fans on our side is going to be big for us,” he said a day before taking the mound in the biggest game of his life.

Arizona was down 0-2 in a best-of-seven National League Championship Series against last year’s pennant winner, a Philadelphia team that spends more money on its top five guys than the Diamondbacks spend on their entire roster.

Pfaadt was such an unlikely hero that somewhere up in heaven, David stopped to ask the good Lord to send the poor kid a slingshot.

Pfaadt reminds people of their little brother’s best friend, a baby-faced 25-year-old who probably still follows directions, eats his vegetables and helps with the dishes.

He earns a good living playing baseball, about $370,000 a year, and he's a top prospect, but he’s still learning what it takes to stay in the big leagues. Pfaadt spent most of the season shuttling back and forth between the major-league Diamondbacks and minor-league Reno Aces.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo has spent much of his time protecting the kid, pulling Pfaadt out of games after a few dozen pitches or so, before opposing hitters have a chance to figure him out. He lost three times as many games in the regular season (9) as he won (3).

Yet, here he was taking the mound to pitch against Trea Turner ($27 million), Bryce Harper ($26 million), JT Realmuto ($24 million) and Nick Castellanos ($20 million), who look like the kinds of guys who hang out with Nelson the Bully, just waiting on a chance to stuff guys like Brandon into a locker.

Pfaadt’s job was to give the Diamondbacks a chance.

A loss would most likely end the season. It takes four wins to advance in a seven-game series, but it’s so rare for teams to come back from an 0-3 deficit that it inspires books and documentaries when they do.

How it happened: Ketel Marte, Brandon Pfaadt save season for DBacks in NLCS Game 3 win

Aside from that, Philadelphia’s leadoff hitter, Kyle Schwarber ($20 million), had drilled three home runs in the past two games off the best two pitchers on Arizona’s roster. Also, Schwarber probably started shaving in the fifth grade.

In Game 1, Schwarber cream cheesed the first pitch he saw into the Philadelphia stands.

In Game 2, he led a 10-run parade through South Philly that had fans thinking the rest of the series was a formality.

There was no plausible reason to think the $116 million Diamondbacks would be able to snake their way past the $243 million Phillies.

But Pfaadt fought back at Philadelphia. (Say that three times fast.)

Charged up by those 47,000 screaming fans, Pfaadt struck out Schwarber twice. He got Harper to ground out into a double play. And he threw a fastball past Castellanos in the fifth that evoked such a mighty swing, the Philadelphia right fielder spun around like one of the Gas-House Gorillas facing Bugs Bunny.

“I was just going out there and attacking,” Pfaadt said after the game. “Just trying to do my job.”

Pfaadt did his job, all right. He pitched into the sixth inning without giving up a run, tallying nine strikeouts.

Arizona fans booed when Lovullo took him out of the game.

They cheered as Pfaadt walked off the field.

The runt of the litter had given his teammates a chance.

“He was good,” Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson said after the game.

Lovullo had a bit more to say.

“Brandon was unbelievable,” he said. “Brandon threw the baseball as good as you possibly could have hoped or imagined. … It’s a young kid stepping into a huge environment and executing at a very high level.”

After that, a foursome of Phoenix relievers held Philadelphia to just one run, and when the Diamondbacks came up in the bottom of the ninth, the stubborn group of underdogs barked.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. walked, then he stole second.

Pinch hitter Pavin Smith singled, sending Gurriel to third.

Emmanuel Rivera reached on a fielder’s choice as Gurriel was thrown out at home.

And then Ketel Marte came to bat.

He’s quietly been one of the best players in the National League ever since the Diamondbacks' last playoff appearance in 2017.

Marte was the only Arizona hitter to show any moxy in the Game 2 debacle, and Lovullo rewarded him with the leadoff spot Thursday.

He had a pair of doubles in his first three at-bats and came up in the final inning with the score tied and the bases loaded against Craig Kimbrel, one of the best closers of his generation.

Marte calmly smacked a game-winning RBI to right centerfield.

“I was just focusing on trying to make good contact,” Marte said through an interpreter in Spanish.

Once again, Lovullo had a bit more to say.

“Ketel thrives in that situation,” Lovullo said. “He has the heart of a lion, and he wants to get the job done. He wants to be the main guy to help his team win a baseball game.”

Arizona won 2-1, the same as Philadelphia’s lead in the series, thanks in large part to Pfaadt’s fight.

“It feels great to pick up the team,” Pfaadt said. “We went down 0-2. That was a big win for us … coming out with that win, if it helps us get some momentum on the other side, we’ll see where that takes us tomorrow.”

Game 4 is Friday at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix, and the home team has a chance.

Expect a big crowd.

Phoenix, at its heart, is a baseball town.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Ketel Marte, Brandon Pfaadt save season for Diamondbacks in NLCS Game 3