'Hungry' D-backs showcase pillars of a great team vs. Nats

WASHINGTON -- When a young team enjoys newfound success early in a season, there are several ways to try and gauge whether that success is real, and in turn, whether it's sustainable over the course of a 162-game season. One is how the team responds to adversity, how well it can turn the page and rebound from tough losses. Another is how it plays against bad teams.

Good teams are difficult for anyone to beat. But good teams, more often than not, generally do well against bad teams, and after a particularly heartbreaking loss, a matchup with a lesser opponent can be a panacea for a talented young group -- or a trap.

The D-backs avoided that trap in emphatic fashion on Tuesday night, responding to their crushing loss on Sunday afternoon with a well-rounded 10-5 win over the Nationals at Nationals Park. With the victory, upstart Arizona took over sole possession of the National League West lead as it began a stretch of four straight series against clubs with a losing record.

More than one-third through 2023, the D-backs are 11 games over .500 (36-25) -- 10 wins better than their record a year ago -- and in a position to start stockpiling wins, with their next 12 games against the Nationals, Tigers, Phillies and Guardians. They’re where they are in large part because of their 22-11 record against teams with a losing record, as well as in large part due to the emergence of NL ROY front-runner Corbin Carroll and other youngsters.

“We have good players who are hungry,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “I think we have hungry players who just want to go out and win baseball games.”

In that vein, one of the NL’s surprise clubs of 2023 is thriving because it does certain things really well, things that “hungry” players do. Several were on display in Tuesday’s come-from-behind victory:

They put pressure on the defense
The D-backs put up 10 runs with 12 hits in the series opener. But only one went for extra bases -- Pavin Smith’s two-run homer in the seventh. The rest were singles, which Arizona strung together and amplified by pushing the envelope and taking extra bases.

They converted four out of five stolen-base attempts, advanced multiple runners on deep flyouts twice and scored two runs on key sacrifice flies during their pivotal fifth inning, when Arizona used a small-ball rally to tie the game and jump ahead for good against Washington’s middle relief.

It was a microcosm of what the D-backs’ balanced, dynamic lineup has done all year.

This was the sixth time they’ve stolen at least four bases in a game this season, tied with Tampa Bay for the most such games in the Majors (no other teams have more than three). Arizona ranks second in the NL in steals (third in MLB), is tied for fifth in MLB in sac flies and ranks first in the Baseball-Reference metric Extra Bases Taken, which measures how often teams stretch singles with their legs.

“They run on everybody, not just us,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “I mean, that’s what they do … but we knew that coming in. If they get on base, they’re going to run.”

They take advantage of mistakes
The four Nationals pitchers that Arizona burnt through Tuesday issued eight walks, hit two batters, issued a costly balk and the Nats committed two errors defensively. That’s a lot of free baserunners and extra outs, and the D-backs seemed to make them count.

“We just chipped away,” Lovullo said.

All five of Arizona’s run-scoring hits followed either a walk, or an error, from Emmanuel Rivera's first-inning RBI single to Smith's seventh-inning homer. Between the fifth and seventh, seven D-backs reached base via a walk, hit-by-pitch or an error. Six scored.

“I’ll tell you how to stop them from running: Don’t walk guys so much,” Martinez said. “Keep them off the bases and they won’t run.”

They pitch
The bedrock of this D-backs team is its rotation, anchored by Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly at the top. But the bullpen is improved from years past, as well. That was plain to see on a night Tommy Henry fell victim to an early Stone Garrett grand slam, following up the best start of his career by allowing five runs in 4 1/3 innings.

But the D-backs got scoreless outings from José Ruiz, Scott McGough, Kyle Nelson and Kevin Ginkel behind him, providing them the breath to mount a death-by-a-thousand-cuts style comeback.

“I knew we just had to hang around for the offense to score some runs,” Henry said. “They put up a 10-spot, and we’re going to win a lot of games when they do that.”