Arizona Diamondbacks' crushing, walk-off loss comes with a silver lining

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Diamondbacks had just suffered what might have been their most crushing defeat of the season — they were walked off, 6-5, by the Texas Rangers in the bottom of the ninth after rallying for the lead in the top of the inning — but the vibe in the Globe Life Field visitors’ clubhouse on Wednesday night was not that of a decimated team.

The Diamondbacks had flooded the bases for most of the night. They had watched their hitters battle through deep counts. They had run the bases smartly, aggressively. They had received a great performance from their starting pitcher.

They did not win, not after closer Paul Sewald blew his first save of the season. But they seemed to do more things right in this loss than they had in some of their recent victories.

“When you look at the full body of work,” manager Torey Lovullo said, “I thought today there was so much progress.”

It only sort of felt that way through eight innings. Entering the ninth, the D-backs trailed, 3-2, after having gone 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position. They had hit some balls hard and drawn seven walks, but they had been unable to truly cash in on their myriad run-scoring opportunities.

That changed in the ninth. Corbin Carroll led off with a hustle double to right field, then smartly took third on a pitch in the dirt. Geraldo Perdomo followed with a walk, bringing Nolan Arenado to the plate with men on the corners.

Earlier in the game, Lourdes Gurriel had battled through an 11-pitch at-bat before lining out to center. Perdomo had worked a walk after 10 pitches. This time, it was Arenado who kept spoiling pitches from Rangers closer Jacob Latz before rifling a double into the left-center field gap to tie the game.

Ildemaro Vargas followed with a two-run single, and Arizona appeared to be on its way to its second consecutive series victory.

Instead, the Rangers executed a comeback of their own. Jake Burger hit a broken-bat single to left off Sewald, and Danny Jansen followed by lining the walk-off hit inside the third-base line against reliever Juan Morillo.

Sewald, who allowed three hits and a walk, wondered if he might have been doing something to telegraph his pitches.

“It felt like they were on every pitch today,” he said. “I’ll go back and take a look. I felt like they knew what was coming. We’ll try to look at it. I just felt like when I threw good pitches, it didn’t matter.”

With the loss, the D-backs dropped the series, their fourth series loss in their past five. They fell to 20-22 and are 7-14 over their past 21 games.

But for as bleak as that sounds, they seemed like they could see a beam of light in the darkness.

“It was great to see our offense fight back,” Arenado said. “We’ve been having trouble scoring some runs here the past few weeks. Just to see us kind of climb back there against some good arms is a great sign for us.”

Said Carroll: “I liked what I saw. I thought there was a lot of fight. It was good to see.”

Some D-backs hitters have appeared to be pressing in recent weeks. Others have looked caught in between, unsure whether to be patient and work counts or aggressive and come out swinging. There was some hope that their success on Wednesday could have a carryover effect in Colorado, where their road trip continues this weekend.

“We’ve seen this before,” Lovullo said. “We’ve seen this lineup do what they did today.”

He added: “We play games like this — and I know they’re very eager to get back out there and show what they can do — we’ll be just fine.”

Coming up

– Friday, May 15: At Colorado, 5:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (2-3, 7.62) vs. Rockies LHP Kyle Freeland (1-4, 6.00)

– Saturday, May 16: At Colorado, 12:10 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (4-0, 2.25) vs. Rockies RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (3-3, 4.07)

– Sunday, May 17: At Colorado, 12:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Michael Soroka (5-2, 3.53) vs. Rockies RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-5, 6.55)