Arizona stumbles, prompting a team meeting

MIAMI, Fla. – The Diamondbacks’ status as an unconvincing contender remained intact with an 11-6 loss to the Miami Marlins, an ugly performance that prompted an apparent team meeting in the visitors’ clubhouse at Marlins Park on Monday night.

Manager Torey Lovullo wouldn’t say what was discussed in the meeting, nor would he even acknowledge there was one – though he didn’t deny it, either.

In back-to-back series against lastplace teams in the Baltimore Orioles and Marlins, the Diamondbacks went 3-4.

The games were seen as an opportunity for the Diamondbacks to reassert themselves as a team that ought to be adding at the trade deadline rather than subtracting.

Instead, not only do they continue to look like a team that should sell, they looked like a group that might have been distracted by that possibility.

“It could be,” Lovullo said.

“What I would say to the guys is, this game is hard enough as it is and if you’re going to add in some outside distractions you can’t really control then you need to regain that focus and go out there and do the things you can do. … Maybe there’s a connection, I’m not sure.”

The Diamondbacks committed a pair of errors in an ugly six-run second inning on Monday, with right-hander Merrill Kelly throwing a ball up the line before left fielder Tim Locastro – who was alertly covering second on a play that went haywire – dropped a throw from second baseman Wilmer Flores.

“I have a problem even saying it’s a part of the game because I feel like we have a say in that,” first baseman Christian Walker said of the team’s sloppy play.

“It’s unfortunate. We work really hard at playing the game a certain way and pride ourselves on it, playing clean, smooth, always having the pitchers’ backs, but today wasn’t our day.”

Kelly was charged with seven runs in six innings, the second consecutive ugly outing for the club’s de facto No. 3 starter.

“For my standards, the last two games are definitely unacceptable and I have to be better,” Kelly said.

Stroman effect?

Reaction to the trade that sent righthander Marcus Stroman to the New York Mets in exchange for two pitching prospects – lefty Anthony Kay and right-hander Simeon Woods-Richardson – seemed mixed, at best, when it came to Toronto Blue Jays’ return. A pair of rival executives quoted by

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal did not believe the Blue Jays got enough back.

That could be a bad indication for the Diamondbacks in their efforts to trade lefty Robbie Ray. Like Stroman, Ray has another year of arbitration remaining, and the two were considered among the better starters said to be available at the deadline.

However, another high-ranking executive on Monday morning had a much different view.

“I think the Jays did a good job,” he wrote in a text message.