Díaz proves his resilience in walk-off win

DENVER -- Elias Díaz’s phone was blowing up Wednesday afternoon. As he returned to his locker in the Rockies’ clubhouse at Coors Field, drenched from a Gatorade bath moments before, he picked up the device and saw text message after text message about what had just taken place on the field.

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Díaz delivered a walk-off two-run single to right field in the ninth inning to lift the Rockies to a 6-5 win over the White Sox. Although he had lived the moment in the flesh just a short time earlier, he was reliving it over and over again with all of the messages on his phone, many of which included the clip of his game-winning hit.

“I watched it like a hundred times,” the Rockies catcher said with a big smile.

Díaz earned that moment and that smile after going through a difficult first half of the season, during which he struggled at the plate and behind it. It all seemed to reach a nadir for him in mid-June. On June 11 at Petco Park, he threw a ball meant for third base into left field, enabling the Padres’ Manny Machado to score the game-winning run in the first game of a doubleheader. Over the next two games, Díaz committed three more errors, including another throwing miscue that proved costly in a loss to the Guardians on June 15.

There are few lonelier feelings than when a player commits an error that leads directly to his team losing. Díaz has been there, with spectators’ eyes darting back onto him after his throws sailed into the outfield. There’s only one person the camera is trained on when that happens, and Díaz knows all too well what that’s like.

While the walk-off single was the story of Wednesday’s win, the most significant moment for Díaz may very well have come in the top of the fifth. That’s when Chicago’s Leury Garcia found himself too far off third base following a pitch to Díaz’s counterpart, Seby Zavala.

It was that time again: Time to make a snap throw to third base.

There have been many Major League players whose ability to make accurate throws -- whether as pitchers or infielders or outfielders -- rapidly deteriorated once a couple of costly errors had been charged to their names. But there was no split-second paralysis for Díaz on Wednesday. His throw was on the money to pick Garcia off third and end a significant White Sox threat against starter Antonio Senzatela.

“No, no, no. You’re going to make errors,” Díaz said. “If you’re afraid to make errors, you’re never going to have the chance to throw runners out. Earlier in the season it was tough; I was trying to throw it hard and wasn’t controlling my body and my mechanics.”

Much as he has done with his defense, Díaz has turned things around at the plate, too. Over his previous eight games entering Wednesday, he was hitting .482 with five doubles, one triple and one home run. And dating back to June 10, when he was below the Mendoza Line for the season, he was slashing .313/.380/.566 with four homers in 26 games.

Anyone who has reached the Major Leagues has mental fortitude. But that fortitude has to reach another level to survive the game-ending throw into left field in order to deliver the game-ending single to right field six weeks later.

It’s that sort of toughness that led manager Bud Black to make a prediction about Díaz for the rest of the season.

“Elias, last year, played great defense, especially in the second half, when the hitting came along, too,” Black said. “He was, for me, one of the better catchers in the National League the last three months of the season. This year, a slow start in both areas. … But now he’s starting to get it together a little bit. I can see that getting better and progressing to the point where you’re going to see more games like today showing up in the next couple months.”

If Díaz has proven anything, it’s that a slow start doesn’t get him down. His even demeanor and steely calm in the worst of moments have given way to the joy of triumph in the best of them. Last season, after posting a .672 first-half OPS, his OPS after the All-Star break was .866 with 11 homers in 55 games.

Something like that appears to be happening in 2022, as well.

“You have to have a strong mind,” Díaz said. “You have to click over, move on and try to be good.”