The Arizona Diamondbacks appeared to concede the season at the trade deadline, but they have made a surprising surge into the National League wild-card race.
Arizona has won six of its past seven games to move closer to .500 and will aim for a fourth straight victory when it faces the Colorado Rockies on Friday in Denver.
The D-backs will send Brandon Pfaadt (12-7, 5.03 ERA) to the mound against Colorado’s Tanner Gordon (2-5, 8.37), the rematch of a Sunday meeting in Phoenix.
Arizona won the opener of the current four-game series 8-2 on Thursday.
Pfaadt is 3-2 with a 5.26 ERA in five career starts against the Rockies, including a 1-1 mark with a 6.30 ERA in two outings this year.
Pfaadt earned a win on Sunday after allowing three runs on 11 hits over five innings. He got plenty of run support in that 13-6 victory, and one of the offensive heroes was Ketel Marte, who had three RBIs.
Marte has been on a tear since the beginning of August, including hitting ninth-inning go-ahead home runs in consecutive wins at Texas this week. He has reached base in all 12 games he has played this month, producing a .354 (17-for-48) average with three homers and 14 RBIs.
He has raised his average nine points to .296 and has 23 homers on the season.
“My body is good, I’m healthy,” Marte said after his three-run homer on Wednesday gave Arizona a 6-4 win over the Rangers. “I’ve just got to believe it. That’s the kind of player I am.”
The D-backs’ offense has been strong overall of late. Arizona has scored at least one run in the first three innings in each of the last 12 games and has scored a big-league-high 15 runs in the first inning since Aug. 1.
Colorado has been victimized four times against the Diamondbacks, including a three-game sweep in Arizona last weekend. The Rockies bounced back to take two of three at St. Louis heading into the current series before their modest two-game winning streak ended on Thursday.
Gordon has been knocked around by the D-backs in his short career, going 0-2 with a 21.94 ERA in two starts. He gave up 10 runs on 12 hits over 4 2/3 innings on Sunday. In his first start against the Diamondbacks, he got just two outs and yielded four runs (three earned) in a start at Arizona on Aug. 14, 2024.
Colorado has lost eight of 10 meetings with the Diamondbacks this year. Arizona has outscored the Rockies 33-16 in the four matchups this month and is averaging 7.5 runs this season against Colorado.
The Rockies need 10 wins in their final 41 games to avoid matching the 2024 Chicago White Sox (41-121) for the most single-season losses by a major league team in the modern era. Colorado was 22-74 at the All-Star break but began the second half 8-6 to put itself on pace to surpass 42 wins, but nine losses in the past 11 games have slowed that momentum.
“The results haven’t always been there for us, but there’s not much quit in this team,” catcher Hunter Goodman said. “I mean, we’re showing up every day (and) we’re trying to get better.”
–Field Level Media
