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Diamondbacks Takeaways: Christian Walker owns Dodger Stadium, Zac Gallen throws how hard?
LOS ANGELES — With the trade deadline fast approaching and the Diamondbacks currently out of the playoff picture, Arizona’s front office will soon have to decide if adding to the current roster is a worthwhile investment.
Over the past three days in Los Angeles, it sure looked like it.
Highlighted by a continued run of unfathomable success from first baseman at Christian Walker at Dodger Stadium, the Diamondbacks took two of three from the division rival Dodgers, pulling to within one game of .500. They outscored the Dodgers 26-13 in the series — and 20-3 after the first inning of Wednesday’s game.
Entering a three-game series this weekend with the San Diego Padres, the Diamondbacks are 2 1/2 games out of the NL playoff picture, with a chance to gain ground on one of the teams ahead of them.
Their series win in Los Angeles felt like a big push.
“Momentum is what we’re after right now,” Walker said. “We talked about it yesterday, bringing the same energy into San Diego. Another good series coming up, a challenge ahead of us. You build on it, you take it in stride, but definitely don’t take it for granted.”
Here are five takeaways from the series for the Diamondbacks, starting — of course — with Walker.
1. Christian Walker, minority owner of Dodger Stadium?
Maybe “minority owner of Dodger Stadium” sells him short. According to Wikipedia, Walker owns the whole damn thing:
In three games at Dodger Stadium, Walker went 8-for-13 with five homers, nine RBI, one double and three walks.
In his career at the venue, Walker is now slashing .341/.401/.783 in 152 plate appearances. If we extrapolate that over a full season of at-bats, Walker would be on pace for roughly 83 home runs and 140 RBI. That is 2001 Barry Bonds level production.
“He’s a badass,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo remembers saying to someone in the dugout after Walker’s second homer on Thursday.
Said Joc Pederson after the game: “It’s incredible to see someone in person go on a run like that. It doesn’t happen often, and he won us the series.
“Go Walk.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts eventually decided he’d had enough of Walker late in Thursday’s game.
With a runner at second and two outs in the fifth, Roberts opted to put Walker on first with an intentional walk. Several innings later, with runners at first and second and two outs, Dodgers reliever Nick Ramirez clearly pitched around him.
Lovullo said after the game that he would have done the same thing if he were in Roberts’ shoes. “I wouldn’t have let him hit his third home run,” Lovullo said.
Added Gallen: “When they walked him, I’m like, ‘finally.'”
After homering twice on Wednesday, Walker was asked to explain his utter dominance at Dodger Stadium. He did not have much of an answer. After hitting two more homers on Thursday, he was still dumbfounded.
“It’s getting worse,” Walker said. “I have less for you than I did last night. It’s just a crazy thing. Yeah. Speechless.”
Walker’s outrageous three days at Dodger Stadium brought his OPS to .871. He ranks third in OPS among NL first basemen, trailing only the Philadelphia Phillies’ Bryce Harper and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman.
Whether Walker finds his way into the All-Star Game later this month remains to be seen; it might depend on whether Harper, who is currently on the injured list with a hamstring strain, is able to return in time.
Nonetheless, Walker’s case is strong.
“He’s playing at an All-Star caliber level,” Gallen said. “I hope Major League Baseball sees that and they find a way to put him on the team. He’s been unbelievable. He’s carried us over these last few games.”
Walker has never made an All-Star team in his career.
“It’s always a goal for sure,” Walker said. “I think anytime you’re recognized, you’re in the conversation, you’re doing something good. My obligation is to the team. My goal is to come in and drive in runs and hit balls hard every day. If that gets me some recognition, that’s cool.”
2. Justin Martinez’s big bounce-back performance
Diamondbacks 22-year-old flamethrower Justin Martinez experienced possibly his lowest point of the year in Tuesday’s series opener.
Martinez entered in the seventh inning with the D-backs up 3-2. Two batters later, the Dodgers led, 4-3. The Dodgers went on to win the game by a run.
The stinger for Martinez was not Shohei Ohtani’s 433-foot homer. It was the fact that Martinez walked the No. 9 hitter, Gavin Lux, before Ohtani came up. Instead of just tying the game, Ohtani’s homer gave the Dodgers the lead.
On Thursday, Martinez responded with perhaps his most impressive outing of the season.
With Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen turning in an unusually short four-inning outing and multiple key relievers down, Martinez stepped up to throw three scoreless innings to preserve a tight D-backs lead.
“He was unreal,” Lovullo said. “We won this game because of Justin Martinez and Christian Walker.”
The outing lowered Martinez’s ERA for the season to 1.54, and set the table for the D-backs to put the Dodgers away late.
“J-Mart keeping us in that game early gave us the confidence to keep going and keep swinging and keep attacking,” Walker said.
The Diamondbacks have been slowly easing Martinez into higher leverage situations. It seems likely that there will be more of those to come.
3. Gabriel Moreno looks much improved after IL stint
Buried in all of the Christian Walker pizzazz is the fact that Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno looked excellent in his first series off the injured list.
Having started all three games, Moreno went 7-for-13 with two doubles, a homer, four RBI and a stolen base. It was by far his most productive three-game stretch of the season.
After Moreno got off a slow start — he had a .659 OPS when he went on the IL on June 22 — Lovullo feels like that 10-day breather might have done Moreno some good.
“I think it’s a little bit of a blow, a little bit of a refresher for him,” Lovullo said Wednesday, “watching the game through a different lens; maybe creates a little bit of extra hunger, knowing that you had to step out because of that injury.”
Moreno’s hot start off the IL brings back memories of last season. Moreno had just a .676 OPS when he hit the IL with a shoulder injury on July 23. From the day he returned on Aug. 13 through the end of the season, Moreno slashed .311/.382/.496.
Perhaps this year could follow a similar narrative.
“He’s letting the ball get deep,” Lovullo said. “The bat path has been very pure and clean and right to the baseball, and he can cover both sides of the plate.
“He’s not missing it.”
4. Zac Gallen threw how hard?
Zac Gallen turned in a relatively poor outing on Friday. He allowed three runs in four innings of work, walking three and striking out three. It was his shortest outing (non-injury-related) since May 19 of last year, when he threw 3 2/3 innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Nonetheless, the biggest story of Gallen’s Thursday start was probably his velocity.
Prior to his last start against the Oakland A’s, Gallen had never thrown 97.0 mph or higher in his career. Gallen did that twice against Oakland last weekend. On Thursday, he did it 10 times, including the seven hardest pitches of his career.
For the game, Gallen’s four-seamer averaged 95.9 mph, the highest mark of his career.
“It’s a good sign that I’m feeling healthy and feeling rested,” Gallen said. “It’s good to know that it’s in there.”
So, why the sudden velocity uptick?
“I honestly don’t know,” Gallen said. “Maybe just a little bit more of an efficient delivery, maybe a little bit of rest.
“I haven’t really felt the physical toll of [throwing 240 innings last year], but maybe, subconsciously, it’s just in there. Maybe to get a couple weeks off to be able to kind of just reset everything, that could be a product of it.”
Gallen’s velocity topped out at 97.9 mph on Thursday, a full mile-per-hour faster than he had ever thrown prior to his start against the A’s.
Reaching triple digits might be unrealistic, but Gallen is motivated to get there. Gallen said that, around the time that he was a senior in high school, he made a bet with one of his catchers that he would throw 100 by the time his career was done.
“I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll get it tonight,’ and then tapped out at 98,” Gallen said. “For the sake of my wallet, I’d like to hit 100.”
Gallen said that he has never thrown harder than he did on Thursday.
While his wallet might benefit from hitting 100, it seems that has fastball command would not, given the way he sprayed it around on Thursday:
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Gallen said of his uptick in velocity. “But at the same time, if it’s 96 with a little better command, I’ll take that all day.”
5. Diamondbacks are overcoming ‘house of horrors’ past at Dodger Stadium
From August of 2018 through the end of the 2023 regular season, the Diamondbacks went 8-34 at Dodger Stadium.
Since the start of the 2023 NLDS — in which the Diamondbacks outscored the Dodgers 15-4 — they have gone 6-2 at Dodger Stadium.
“This has kind of been a house of horrors for us over the last five, six years, whatever it’s been,” Gallen said. “Coming in here last year for the playoffs and then coming back after getting a gut punch in Game 1, it’s like, you know, we can answer the bell here.”
Now having won two series at Dodger Stadium this year, the Diamondbacks are not scheduled to return to Chavez Ravine again until next season — unless, of course, they find their way back there in the playoffs.
On paper, that is a realistic possibility. The Dodgers are currently the No. 2 seed in the National League, and the Diamondbacks could make the playoffs via the third wild card spot. That is precisely the setup that resulted in the Diamondbacks facing the Dodgers in the division series last year.
“We’ll see what happens in the coming months in the baseball season,” Lovullo said. “We might play more games here. Hopefully, we do.”
Given all the success that Walker has had at Chavez Ravine, you might think that he’d be disappointed that the Diamondbacks will not play any more regular season games there this year.
“To be honest,” Walker said, “it’s okay checking it off the list.”
Top photo: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
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