Traffic's a breeze with D-backs playing for pennant

This story was excerpted from Steve Gilbert’s D-backs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

PHILADELPHIA -- Rather than fly right after Game 5, the D-backs left for Philadelphia on Sunday morning, arriving in the late afternoon and heading straight to Citizens Bank Park where they went through a brief workout.

Pitchers threw their bullpens, hitters took some swings and the team went through defensive drills as well.

With the Eagles playing a home game at their stadium next door to the ballpark, the D-backs were given a police escort.

“I think perhaps the coolest part of the day was getting a police escort all the way from the airport to the field,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “Felt like we had that big man energy and we were going right through, cutting through it like butter. It was nice to get here, get back on the field, feel this cool air. It's very cold out there right now. It's not 105 degrees as it was in Phoenix. So I was glad that we were able to get on the field and get some quality work in.”

The D-backs know that they will be facing a loud, sold-out stadium for Game 6, but there is some benefit to having experienced it in the first two games of the series.

For example, Game 6 starter Merrill Kelly said Saturday that having pitched there recently will help him as he is familiar with the mound and the sight lines from the mound.

Reacclimating with the field was one of the reasons Lovullo wanted the team to get in a workout, even if briefly, Sunday night.

“This crowd is very loud,” Lovullo said of what they’re expecting for Game 6. “Their top end is about what we heard at Chase over the past couple of days, but they're intense for nine innings. There's a certain buzz that they maintain, a certain level that they maintain from pitch to pitch. So this crowd is something that we got used to over the two days that we were here. And whether it's loud for us or loud for them, we both have to hear it. We both have to deal with it. We just might have a chorus of boos over the cheers, but I think our guys are conditioned for that.”