Trade Deadline looming, D-backs know every game matters

PHOENIX -- The baseball season is a long grind of 162 games, all of which, in theory, count the exact same in the end. Of course, the games in the final week or so of the season are magnified when a team is fighting for a postseason berth.

These games coming out of the All-Star break, in a lot of ways, feel like the final 10 days of the regular season for the Diamondbacks. That’s because the July 31 Trade Deadline is approaching, and Arizona’s players need to secure every win they can between now and then in order to keep GM Mike Hazen from selling rather than buying.

This is a group of players who have been together for a while, through the 110-loss 2021 season to the unexpected run to the World Series in ’23. It’s a tight-knit group that wants to stick together.

Three wins against the Cardinals over the weekend brought the D-backs back to .500 and began to make a case that, despite all their injuries, they could still get back into the postseason chase.

Monday, though, they took a step backwards, falling 6-3 to the Astros at Chase Field.

Arizona is now back below .500 and is 5 1/2 games out of the NL Wild Card chase behind four teams.

While the D-backs faced a rookie pitcher in Colton Gordon on Monday, they will have to tangle with left-hander Framber Valdez, one of the game’s better pitchers.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo acknowledged the importance of this stretch of games for his team and likened it to a few other times in the baseball calendar. The first being the opening week of the season, when a team wants to get off to a good start; the second being the final couple of weeks of the season, when you’re fighting for a playoff spot.

“There's a lot of intensity in the dugout every single night,” Lovullo said. “And our guys are playing hard and that's my job, to make sure they play hard, focused baseball, and as long as they're doing that on a nightly basis, I'm satisfied with it. But yeah, we know what these next eight games mean, and we're going to go out there and do our best.”

Rookie Brice Matthews, who came into the night having played just four games, collected his first -- and then second -- big league homers. He hit a three-run shot in the second and a two-run blast in the seventh. Matthews struck out in his other two at-bats.

"We got clipped,” Lovullo said. “We got clipped by one guy that hit two home runs and had five RBIs. And we’ve got to be able to gameplan and figure out that piece of the puzzle.”

Zac Gallen gave up both of the homers to Matthews, allowing a total of six runs over six-plus innings.

Gallen is one of five free-agents-to-be that the Diamondbacks could look to move at the Deadline, along with first baseman Josh Naylor, third baseman Eugenio Suárez, right-hander Merrill Kelly and outfielder Randal Grichuk.

“We're taking it as kind of motivator, in a sense,” Gallen said of the Deadline. “I would venture to say the guys in here like playing with each other. I think for us, obviously, it's no secret the injuries we've had and just kind of how we've had to battle through adversity. So I think just from a team standpoint, we're just trying to answer the bell and just play a little bit better and give the front office and ownership a reason to add [at the Deadline]. We feel like we still have a lot of good talent in this room, and we’ll see what happens.”