A comeback that kept getting stranger
If you were following the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night, the finish had that kind of Valley sports energy that makes you sit up a little straighter. According to the Arizona Republic at azcentral.com, the D-backs were staring at a 4-0 deficit before turning the game into a 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs at Chase Field.
The rally started to feel possible in the eighth inning, when Gabriel Moreno came up with two on and two outs. The Arizona Republic described the play as one Moreno kept calling “crazy,” because the ball he hit seemed to go from foul to fair to foul again before finally touching the first-base bag. However it looked in the moment, it worked out for Arizona: a run scored, and Geraldo Perdomo followed with a two-run single to make it 4-3.
That set the stage for the kind of moment teams remember for a long time.
Waldschmidt ends it
In the ninth, manager Torey Lovullo sent rookie Ryan Waldschmidt to the plate as a pinch hitter with a runner on, and the Arizona Republic reported that he delivered a walk-off, two-run home run. That made it a 5-4 final and capped a comeback that had looked a long way off earlier in the night.
The timing mattered, too. The Republic noted that Arizona had lost 7-0 the night before, and Lovullo said the club had been dealing with “some stuff” and hadn’t had much positive momentum or good vibes lately. In that kind of stretch, even a strange bounce can feel like a reset.
Waldschmidt’s homer also added another layer to the story. The Arizona Republic reported that he had been brought back to the majors six weeks earlier after a month-long stint in Triple-A Reno, and that his first run in the big leagues had not gone the way he wanted. On Tuesday, though, the rookie gave the D-backs exactly the kind of swing that can change the mood around a clubhouse in a hurry.
For Arizona, it was more than just one win. It was the sort of comeback that can remind a team how quickly a game — and maybe a week — can turn.
