2 regulars sitting, but team won’t ‘shut down’
There’s no tiptoeing around it. Things have changed for the Diamondbacks after being eliminated from postseason contention on Sunday.
Still, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo insists that, although the club is in a different situation now than it was not too long ago, the Diamondbacks are doing everything they can to win each of the remaining six games on their schedule.
The end of the road kicked off Monday with a three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chase Field. Although not probable, the Dodgers do have an outside chance to clinch the NL West in Phoenix.
Lovullo opted to leave first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and outfielder David Peralta out of Monday’s lineup against Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw.
Goldschmidt’s absence stems from a conversation Lovullo had with his first baseman about a month ago where Goldschmidt was told he would sit out the first game following either the Diamondbacks’ playoff clincher or their elimination from the postseason. In this case it was the latter.
As for Peralta, Lovullo said it had more to do with the matchup against Kershaw than anything else.
“Look, we’re not playing for the same goal we were a week ago,” Lovullo said. “But these guys are going to play. … We don’t want to make anything easy on (the Dodgers). I think that’s our job here, to play the best baseball we know how from start to finish. We’re not going to shut down for the next 6 days.”
Lovullo was adamant that Monday’s lineup was in no way an attempt at going easy on the Dodgers. He even went so far as to call Rockies manager Bud Black, whose team entered play Monday 1 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the standings, to explain his reasoning.
“I just called him yesterday and wanted to make sure he knew what my thoughts were,” Lovullo said of his conversation with Black. “Our team is a little emotionally spent and I think we’ve all felt like for the last three weeks. What happened the other day when we put those extra players in the game, it gave us a little energy. I told him that would be the reason for doing that.”
Lovullo is referring to Wednesday’s 9-0 win over the Chicago Cubs in which replacement players Patrick Kivlehan, Ildemaro Vargas and Christian Walker led the Diamondbacks to victory.
And while the Diamondbacks likely won’t roll out drastically different lineups such as that one on a daily basis, Lovullo does expect to get a good look at some younger players.
“You saw what the Rockies did over the past few days,” Lovullo said of the club’s most recent series.
“They came in with a totally different focus than we did. Even though we were still alive, it looked to me that we were two different teams and two different levels. … I’m going to mix in some younger players, some guys that I’m anxious to see get a chance to play in spurts. I think that will sprinkle in a certain energy, but the regulars are still going to get starts.”
Yoshikawa introduced
Japanese right-hander Shumpei Yoshikawa, 23, went through his first day with his new organization on Monday, participating in an instructional league workout in the morning at Salt River Fields, then being formally introduced to the media in the afternoon.
Yoshikawa’s deal, which included a $650,000 signing bonus, officially was announced on Sunday.
The signing was unique in that he was an amateur signed out of Japan’s equivalent of an independent league. Most Japanese players first spend time in Nippon Professional Baseball, the country’s top league, before leaving for the United States.