Diamondbacks Pick Each Other Up in Victory Over Rays

Winning clubhouses almost always seem to have good chemistry. One can debate if that is because the chemistry caused the winning, or the winning caused the chemistry. I suspect it's a bit of both. In the case of the Diamondbacks however, good chemistry and the desire to pick each other up wasn't just manifested in their 8-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays tonight. The build up to the brotherhood that is on display on the field, in the dugout, and in the clubhouse has been years in the making.

Whether it's young players that came up through the minors together or veteran players that went through the crucible of the 2021 season in which they lost 110 games, they've all been going through the bonding process with each other for years now. The young players and veterans have merged into a cohesive unit and now that the team is winning they are able to build off those bonds and pick each other up at the most important times.

That's what happened tonight. The team's ace pitcher and the players in the lineup and on the field behind him took turns picking each other up.

The D-backs scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning off Rays starter Taj Bradley, highlighted by a booming three-run homer off the center field wall by Corbin Carrol and a majestic high fly homer to left by Christian Walker. They were the 17th and 16th homers for the team leaders respectively.

Spotted the five runs, the unthinkable happened. Gallen proceeded to have a strange and terrible inning. Sandwiching two walks around a double, he loaded the bases with nobody out. He spiked multiple curveballs and changeups into the ground. Then with Manuel Margot at the plate he uncorked not one but two wild pitches, bringing home two runs. An RBI groundout was followed by a solo homer from Jose Siri and the score was suddenly 5-4.

Reacting to the bad inning, Gallen said "I'm trying not to hang the guys out there to dry, they got me five early. I could feel it in the dugout so my job was to go back out there and slam the door."

Gallen did just that pitching a scoreless top of the third. Then in the bottom of the inning Evan Longoria came up and launched a long, no-doubt homer 436 feet into the left field bleachers that the Rays defenders all just turned around and watched sail out of the ballpark. For Longoria it was a milestone as he became the 70th player in MLB history to homer against all 30 teams. He wasn't even thinking about that however. The opportunity to pick up Gallen and provide some more cushion was far more important.

"He's picked us up all year", Longoria said. "It's pretty evident by his home ERA that he hasn't had many struggles here and that inning was kind of flukey....you don't really see him do that too much. It's nice to be able to extend the lead little by little and he went back out there and settled down and did what he normally does.'

Ketel Marte homered in the fourth inning, his 15th of the year, stretching the lead to 7-4. Gallen meanwhile retired the side in order in the 4th and 5th innings. He ran into a speed bump in the 6th however when with one out and a runner on, Geraldo Perdomo bobbled the ball on what should have been an inning double play. It was Perdomo's first error of the year, coming on June 27th after over 500 innings in the field. He felt terrible about it.

But his pitcher was there to pick the young infielder up. Gallen induced a ground out and struck out the final batter to get out of the inning. When a pumped up Gallen came back to the dugout, Torey Lovullo was there to have a long conversation with him.

"Torey picked me up there pretty good after the 6th inning, saying that's what the elite guys do. It's not going to be seven shutout every time. You gotta do your job and keep us in this game."

The back and forth nature of teammates and manager picking each other up all night and all season is a trademark for this team.

"That's just kind of a testament to this clubhouse really. Everybody cares. Perdomo apologized to me three times today within the span of 10 minutes. I joked with him, man you cost me an inning, I was gonna go back out for the 7th. But I said hey man, just go get a big hit and he drove in an insurance run for us. People don't see what that means, but that insurance run maybe saved us from having to throw McGough tonight, who's thrown a lot. So that's just a testament to this clubhouse that everyone is just trying to pick everyone up"

Gallen's record is now 10-2 and the D-backs improves to 48-32. The D-back hold on first place remains at 2.5 games over the Giants and 3.0 games over the Dodgers as both those teams won tonight.

Tomorrow Zach Davies will face the tough Rays lineups while Tampa Bay sends 9-game winner Zach Eflin to the mound. Game time is 6:40 P.M.