D-Backs find a new way to win
Fuentes’ 1st career HR downs Phillies
PHILADELPHIA – The Diamondbacks received a subpar outing from their starting pitcher, blew a threerun lead, trailed entering the ninth and still found a way to win, getting a home run from a player who had never before hit one in the major leagues to lift them to a 5-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.
The victory gave them a threegame series sweep at Citizens Bank Park, improved their record to 5-0 on the current road trip and, perhaps most impressive, made them a winning team on the road, where they're now 18-17 after dropping 10 of their first 16 away from Chase Field.
After Rey Fuentes launched a goahead homer in the top of the 10th – the first of his career – and closer Fernando Rodney struck out the side in the bottom of the inning, the Diamondbacks shook hands on the field as the fans booed the Phillies, whose standing as the worst team in baseball remains comfortably intact.
The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, continued their upward trajectory. The win, their seventh in a row, moved them to 44-26, the best record after 70 games in franchise history. That they found a way to win in the fashion that they did comes as little surprise; the unexpected is becoming commonplace for them.
The Diamondbacks are Fuentes’ fourth big-league organization, the third with which he’s played at the major-league level. When he stepped to the plate in the top of the 10th, he had 140 at-bats to his name at the majorleague level and zero home runs.
But with a 1-1 count, he launched a no-doubter, a ball that traveled 424 feet and landed amid shrubbery beyond the fence in dead center field. It was meaningful enough, being his first, but even better, he said, was the timing.
“It’s very special – even more today since it’s Father’s Day,” Fuentes said.
After Rodney had recorded the final out of the game, Fuentes looked behind him and saw a member of the grounds crew rummaging through the bushes. When the home-run ball was located and passed along to the Diamondbacks' director of team travel, Roger Riley, Fuentes knew right away where it would eventually end up.
“I’m going to send it home to my dad,” said Fuentes, whose father, Pedro, lives in Puerto Rico.
Fuentes wasn’t the only role player to play a big part in the win. The Diamondbacks needed a ninth-inning rally to get to Fuentes’ heroics, with the key hit coming from Gregor Blanco, who followed a Nick Ahmed walk and a David Peralta single by knocking a base hit into right field to tie the game at 4.
“They’re very resilient,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “We had a couple of tough moments today, and these guys didn’t let that affect them. Overcoming tough moments, cycling it through and then coming out the other end is something good teams do. We do that very well.”
Though the Diamondbacks led 3-0 after the first – an inning in which Paul Goldschmidt (two-run shot) and Chris Owings (solo) both hit home runs – the Phillies chipped away at Diamondbacks lefty Robbie Ray, scoring single runs in four different innings. It was a far different showing from Ray than what he’d exhibited his past five starts, when he gave up just one run in 37 innings.
He wondered if his lack of command could have been attributed to having a week between starts, but just as likely were the brutal conditions in the early innings, with suffocating heat and humidity.
Either way, the Diamondbacks were able to overcome it all, winning to stay in lockstep with the similarly red-hot Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers. All told, the three division rivals are seemingly running away with three National League playoff spots.
The Diamondbacks will have their third off day in their past eight days on Monday, after which they’ll open a three-game set with the Rockies at Coors Field, a series Lovullo says he’s eagerly anticipating.
“I think we all are,” Lovullo said. “We haven’t played them in a while. It’s the team that’s ahead of us. It’s a chance for us to gain some ground and play some good baseball. We’re not going to take anything for granted. We’re going to be ready on Tuesday for a great three-game series.”