The Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t move above the .500 mark for good this season until beating the Toronto Blue Jays on July 12.
Six-plus weeks later, the Diamondbacks are the hottest team in the majors. Arizona will aim to move 20 games over the break-even mark when they face the New York Mets on Tuesday night in the opener of a three-game set in Phoenix.
Arizona has won 24 of its past 30 games entering the pivotal set against the Mets and will follow up with a four-game home set against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Diamondbacks trail Los Angeles by three games in the National League West while leading the NL wild-card chase.
Last year, Arizona snuck into the final playoff spot and ended up in the World Series. The consensus is that the Diamondbacks have a better overall squad this season.
“I know everybody in this clubhouse feels a certain way about this team,” Arizona right-hander Merrill Kelly said. “I know a lot of our guys, if not all of our guys, feel that we’re a better team than we were last year going into the playoffs.
“So everybody’s opinion outside of this clubhouse, in my opinion, doesn’t really matter. But I know that we know that we have a really good team and that we have a chance to do something special.”
The Diamondbacks are riding their second six-game winning streak of the month.
Arizona lost three straight to the Tampa Bay Rays to start a nine-game road trip before winning the final six contests. The Diamondbacks scored 45 runs while posting three-game sweeps of the Miami Marlins and Boston Red Sox.
Eugenio Suarez fueled the sweep of Boston by going 8-for-13 with two homers and 10 RBIs. After a miserable first three months of the season, Suarez has 14 homers and 47 RBIs since the start of July.
“I’m not trying to be a hero,” Suarez said. “I enjoy my process. I work hard and put everything I have on the field.”
New York entered Monday’s play trailing the Atlanta Braves by 2 1/2 games for the final wild-card berth.
The Mets are coming off a four-game road split against the San Diego Padres, the second-place team in the wild-card race. But the series ended on a highly damaging note.
The Mets led 2-0 entering the bottom of the eighth on Sunday before San Diego’s Jurickson Profar hit a tying homer. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Jackson Merrill drilled a walk-off homer off New York’s Edwin Diaz to give San Diego a 3-2 triumph.
“Obviously, it hurts, because we’re going up against a team that we’ve got to beat to be there,” J.D. Martinez said of the wild-card race. “But it is what it is. We’ve just got to turn the page and get ready for this next series.”
New York manager Carlos Mendoza downplayed the missed opportunity.
“The biggest takeaway is we played a really good series,” Mendoza said. “That’s a really good team right there, and it felt like a playoff atmosphere, a playoff game.”
New York’s Sean Manaea (9-5, 3.48 ERA) will face Arizona’s Eduardo Rodriguez (2-0, 3.94) in a battle of left-handers.
Manaea, 32, lost to Arizona on June 1 when he gave up six runs (five earned) and six hits over 5 2/3 innings. He struck out 10 and walked two.
Overall, he is 4-3 with a 3.91 ERA in 12 appearances (nine starts) against the Diamondbacks. Randal Grichuk is 6-for-16 with two homers off Manaea.
Rodriguez, 31, is making his fourth start of the season after dealing with lat and shoulder ailments. He is 1-0 with a 1.46 ERA in two career starts against the Mets.
Martinez is 3-for-5 with two homers against Rodriguez.
–Field Level Media