What to know about Brandon Pfaadt, Diamondbacks' World Series Game 3 starter
ARLINGTON, Texas – The defending champions in Houston were sent packing. The last great hope for the East Coast, those slugging, swaggering Philadelphia Phillies, turned out the lights on Tuesday night, the party over.
And still, Major League Baseball sees fit to contest the World Series.
It opens Friday night, and perhaps you’re not planning to watch. With no Bryce Harper, no Jose Altuve, and no Red Sox or Yankee even allowed into these playoffs, recognition is low – and unless the Series stretches at least six games, ratings might be even lower.
Yet these Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks have several characters worth your time.
“We’re just an exciting, young group of players that have a tremendous amount of passion for the game,” says Diamondbacks third baseman Evan Longoria, who celebrated his 38th birthday earlier this month and makes a World Series return after 15 years. “When you watch our team play, that comes across quickly. A lot of smiling, a lot of playing the game the right way – running hard, taking the extra base.
“We’re doing a lot of things right. And that’s why we’re here.”
Both teams have trucked the field, with a combined 18-6 record, including a 14-2 mark that included a pair of Game 7 triumphs in Houston and Philadelphia. Their names aren’t likely known in your household.
But here’s a quartet of off-Broadway Diamondbacks you need to know, anyway, as this 119th World Series jumps off from Globe Life Field:
Kevin Ginkel: Eighth is enough
The jog from the bullpen to the mound can be a lonely one, even when upward of 50,000 people are hurling invectives, hoping against hope for your miserable failure.
Eight times this postseason, Kevin Ginkel has faced that music, entering high-leverage spots in the seventh or eighth inning. The results have been disquieting for the opposition: Nine innings pitched, 13 strikeouts, no runs.
“He makes my life extremely easy,” says Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald, “knowing that whatever the score is going in, it’s going to be the same after.”
Invariably, any “How are they doing that?” postseason story is significantly authored by a dominant and often anonymous bullpen. Ginkel, 29, fits that bill: A 22nd-round pick who flailed in his first two seasons when Arizona counted on his contributions from the jump.
This October, nobody’s been better.
“I’ve been on the other end of the spectrum, too: I’ve gotten outrighted, I’ve been optioned,” says Ginkel. “Nothing’s been handed to me.
“And here we are now.”
Ginkel says he loves watching old videos of Mariano Rivera, Brad Lidge and Andrew Miller in playoffs past. All had their signature pitches, but Ginkel’s slider – which features some three feet of vertical break – stands up to all of them.
“He throws his fastball and his slider off of a mountain, it looks like,” says lefty reliever Joe Mantiply. “The swing aind miss ability – you see guys waving at pitches in the dirt and it’s so good, they can’t help themselves but swing.
“Where they think the ball’s going to be – it’s not there.”
Ginkel has tried to keep it medium, a San Diego County dude who loves his golf and his burritos and his community outreach in Phoenix. On the other side of I-8, he loves finding himself at Albert’s, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint in El Cajon, where he swears by the surf-and-turf burrito.
Almost as good a 1-2 combo as his fastball and slider.
“The stuff that he possesses,” says Mantiply, “is unbelievable.”
Gabriel Moreno: Young sage
We’re not here to make premature comparisons, but know this: Yadier Molina was in his age-23 season when he guided St. Louis Cardinals pitchers to a World Series title after an 83-win season.
Just saying: Gabriel Moreno is in his age-23 season as an 84-win Diamondbacks team has a shot at a World Series title.
OK, no telling if Moreno stays on a path similar to Molina, a nine-time Gold Glover. But his work behind the plate is, for now, similarly precocious.
“Gabby is 23,” says Arizona’s Game 1 starter, Zac Gallen, “but I feel like he's 33. Just the way he's super cool, super calm, collected. The moment doesn't seem to faze him. And the talent is just off the charts.”
In what may be remembered as the best trade in Diamondbacks history since Curt Schilling was imported from Philadelphia in July 2000, Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. were acquired from Toronto for outfielder Daulton Varsho last December, a curious transaction given that the young Venezuelan catcher carried significant promise.
It’s not yet a disaster for Toronto, which won 91 games and reached the playoffs, but Moreno’s pitch-framing, his studious determination to help pitchers and his offensive upside suggest the Blue Jays may long regret the deal.
“We definitely study the batters a lot and definitely try to attack some of their weak points, but at the same time, try to focus on our pitchers’ strengths, as well,” Moreno says through a translator. “It’s been tremendously important, just to get to know each individual pitcher, their strengths, their pitches.”
The Diamondbacks appreciate the art that Moreno applies to his science – and that he will likely continue to do so into the next decade.
“He’s done a good job of figuring out, what pitch does he have that night? We’re just going to go with that pitch and throw it a million times that night,” says Sewald. “Rather than, ‘Well, the card says, I have to throw a certain amount of sliders, a certain amount of fastballs.’
“He’s done a great job, especially for somebody 23 years old, to process that information.”
Brandon Pfaadt: A name to remember
His name is Brandon Pfaadt, pronounced “Fought,” from Bellarmine University – that third syllable pronounced “Men.”
The young pitcher has heard both names butchered more times than he can remember.
“I get more ‘Fats’ than anything,” he said ruefully.
That should be changing soon.
Pfaadt will start the first World Series game in Phoenix in 22 years Monday night, when he gets the ball for Game 3. If Gallen and Merrill Kelly are the team’s ace and No. 2, Pfaadt is the man who must break serve, to win those 50-50 games.
So far this October, he’s been perfect.
The Diamondbacks have won all four of his starts, perhaps none bigger than NLCS Game 3, when the D-backs were in a 2-0 series hole and facing a must win. Pfaadt carried a shutout over 5 ⅔ innings, striking out nine to neutralize Ranger Suarez’s similar effort for Philly.
Arizona eventually won 2-1, and could not have done it without a guy whose season started with promise, only for a handful of shellackings to send him to Class AAA Reno for a dozen starts.
“It’s tough to go down,” says Pfaadt, “when you’ve already been up - going down and working on things and coming out being a better pitcher.
“It was definitely a good reset. It slowed things down and we were able to relax a little bit and work on the things we needed to and have that confidence to come back and compete.”
Pfaadt has already faced full-throated crowds in Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Monday, he’ll have the Valley behind him, a deserving salute to a guy who bounced back and helped key this postseason run.
“He handled it well,” says pitching coach Brent Strom. “It was a case of him really starting to feel like he belonged.”
Brent Strom: More vindication
At 75, Brent Strom is older than any major league manager, and perhaps likelier to encounter a “parting of ways” than some colleagues. And that’s how it went down in Houston, where Strom was the pitching coach from 2014-2021, guiding three staffs to World Series appearances along the way.
And then, he was gone, in what was termed a retirement that only lasted a week – before the Diamondbacks snapped him up.
And getting back on this stage means the world to one of the game’s preeminent architects in blending old-school sensibilities with progressive methods.
“This is called the World Series?” he asked rhetorically Thursday. “This is great. This is fun. Our second year with Houston, we went into New York and (Dallas) Keuchel shut out the Yankees, 3-0. We got beat the next round.
“But this is kind of the same arc that’s taken place.”
The Diamondbacks cut their losses from 110 to 88 in Strom’s first year before edging into the playoffs this season. While there’s countless factors in that rise, it’s undeniable that Strom’s ability to turn high-end talent into results is one of them – even coaching pitchers nearly a half-century his junior.
“I have the size. I’ve got the arm. It’s a gift, honestly,” says Ginkel. “But he’s helped me so much with the mindset and knowing I can pitch in the big leagues. Giving me that confidence and trust.
“He’s just a really good teacher. He doesn’t make it bigger than it is. He’s very relatable.”
Now, Arizona can take it a few steps further than the surprise Astros of 2015.
“It’s been a little bit of a dry spell for a while,” says Strom of Arizona’s lean years. “And I’m really happy to be a part of it.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brandon Pfaadt, Diamondbacks World Series players you need to know
