D-backs' hopes bolstered with 4th straight win
PHOENIX -- Are the D-backs finally ready to get on a roll?
Thursday night’s 11-5 win over the Dodgers at Chase Field was their fourth in a row -- one shy of their longest winning streak of the season -- and while they remained 4 1/2 games behind the Cubs for the second National League Wild Card spot, they have shown encouraging signs of late.
“We’re in a good spot,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “We’re in a really good spot right now. There’s a ton of energy in the dugout, there’s a ton of energy in that clubhouse right now and these guys are ready to go.”
Lovullo has felt that way before, and each time the D-backs were unable to follow his words with a sustained run.
With just 28 games left in the season is this time different?
“I think so,” D-backs shortstop Nick Ahmed said. “We’ve still got to come out tomorrow and do it again. I don’t know how many -- I think we’re under 30 games left -- and hopefully we can put a good string together and can finish strong and make it interesting. We’re still fighting. We still feel like we’re in it. We’re playing well right now.”
The D-backs passed the Mets in the Wild Card standings, but remain behind the Brewers, Phillies and Cubs.
Still, it’s a lot different feeling than it was Saturday in Milwaukee after they had dropped the first two games of their series to the Brewers and had lost three straight.
“That’s the beauty of what can happen,” Lovullo said. “It can happen fast right now. I think one of the comments that I made around that time is within a week we could be having a totally different conversation and feel really good about where we’re at.”
It was a slow start Thursday night for the D-backs, who managed just one hit against Hyun-Jin Ryu over the first three innings, while the Dodgers grabbed a 3-0 lead.
That quickly changed in the fourth when the D-backs scored four times against Ryu with the red-hot Wilmer Flores delivering a two-run double and pinch-hitter Ildemaro Vargas giving Arizona a 4-3 lead with a two-out bloop single.
This browser does not support the video element.
“Like I said, we’re not giving up,” Flores said. “We’re giving it everything we’ve got. We have September left. We’ve waited for this.”
Ryu (12-5) seemed to have settled back in after the Dodgers scored a run in the fifth and he retired the first two batters in the bottom of the frame, but the D-backs strung together five two-out hits to score three runs and take a 7-4 lead.
“I think we just executed well, used the whole field,” Ahmed said. “[Ryu’s] not a guy who throws a lot of fastballs right down the middle. He mixes a lot, hits his corners. We were just fighting it and trying to get good pitches to hit, and I guess not try to do too much with them. I think we did a good job of that, using the whole field. We hit all different kinds of pitches, the cutter, the changeup -- everything, I think.”
This browser does not support the video element.
Eduardo Escobar put the game on ice in the sixth with a three-run homer off Joe Kelly. It was Escobar’s 30th homer of the season as he became one of just four switch-hitters in history to collect at least 30 homers, 20 doubles and 10 triples in a single season joining Ripper Collins (1934), Mickey Mantle (1955) and Jimmy Rollins (2007).
“You’re putting him in company with some of the all-time greatest switch-hitters, one in particular by the name of Mickey Mantle,” Lovullo said. “So when you’re getting mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle, you know you’re doing something really darn good.”