Gallen leads shutout of LA as late-season turnaround bid continues

LOS ANGELES -- This is the Zac Gallen the Diamondbacks -- and the right-hander himself -- always believed was in there.

Gallen carved up the Dodgers’ lineup Friday night, holding the defending champions scoreless across six innings on two hits with eight strikeouts as the D-backs took the series opener at Dodger Stadium, 3-0.

Gallen isn’t shy about his underwhelming first-half performance. But the 30-year-old is not that far removed from consecutive top-five finishes in the National League Cy Young race in 2022 and ’23. It seems he has rediscovered his form this month, tossing five quality starts in August with a 3-1 record, a 2.57 ERA and 28 K’s against only nine walks in 35 innings.

“Just have gotten on a pretty decent roll here,” Gallen said. “I’ve put in a lot of work. Obviously, the first three months didn’t go how I intended, so obviously just to kind of pick yourself up off the mat and still go out there and be able to make pitches and put up a pretty solid month. It’s not to say there’s not still another month left. There's still five or six starts I have left, so for me, the job’s not finished.”

Gallen said the biggest change he’s noticed is minimizing walks.

“It just didn’t feel like I had the best command [early in the season],” he said. “I didn’t really know where the baseball was going, as much as I was just trying to be over the plate. So for me, I think, the delivery is just cleaned up a little bit more, and just been able to be a little bit more aggressive and kind of have a better idea of where the baseball is going, which tends to make my job a little bit easier.”

Manager Torey Lovullo credited Gallen for improving his fastball command in particular. The Dodgers noticed.

“I think he was using his fastball and hitting the corners,” said Teoscar Hernández. “He put it in a spot that, basically, it’s hard to make good contact. It’s one of those days where he was pitching really good.”

Gallen’s only real trouble came in the bottom of the sixth, when the Dodgers put runners on first and second with two outs. But Gallen got Will Smith to fly out to left -- on a 353-foot fly that would have been a home run in a third of MLB ballparks -- to escape the jam. It was the only time all night that a Dodger reached second base.

Gallen thanked Mother Nature for keeping Smith in the ballpark.

“Marine layer, I think, got me,” he said. “That’s kind of what I was saying to myself coming off the mound. Not at night. I think maybe [in the] daytime, that ball might be a home run. So it was nice to get away with a mistake there.”

The D-backs’ offense backed Gallen up, too. Blaze Alexander cranked a 400-foot two-run homer off Blake Snell in the fourth, and Arizona tacked on another run in the sixth on a Gabriel Moreno RBI single. The club improved to 11-3 when Alexander records an extra-base hit.

Moreno was not in the D-backs’ original lineup, but he replaced James McCann, who typically catches Gallen but was scratched with low back tightness. Moreno has been on a tear since returning from the 60-day injured list, posting a .360/.385/.640 slash line (1.025 OPS) with eight RBIs in six games.

Lovullo applauded his pitching staff for shutting down a dangerous lineup -- allowing only three hits and one runner in scoring position.

“I had a really low heart rate for most of this game today, it felt real good,” Lovullo said. “In this stadium, against this team, there’s never a guarantee and it switches real quick. So our pitchers did a great job today, they deserve a lot of this credit.”

While Gallen is focused on keeping the D-backs in the playoff hunt, he knows what awaits him on the other side: free agency.

“Obviously, you want to finish on a strong note and kind of do yourself the best service you can in that standpoint,” Gallen said. “But for me, I’m focused on, we’re not out of this thing. It kind of felt like the first half of the year, I kind of left the guys out to dry in some starts.

“So for me, second half of the year, we’re still playing meaningful baseball, we’re not out of it by any stretch of the imagination, so [my goal is] to give these guys 10 to 12 starts of the best I can give them, and give us a chance to win and see what happens.”