ANAHEIM -- After three straight losses and four in their last five games, the Diamondbacks entered the All-Star break with a much-needed win, beating the Angels 5-1 Sunday to avoid a series sweep.
Starter Merrill Kelly improved to 8-5 on the year after holding the Halos to one hit and one run across five innings with six strikeouts and four walks. Over his last eight starts dating back to June 1, Kelly owns a 2.68 ERA.
And Kelly was picked up by an offense that continues to score at a prolific rate. The D-backs capitalized on an error by Angels third baseman Yoán Moncada in the fourth inning, scoring four in the frame, thanks to back-to-back doubles from Blaze Alexander and Jose Herrera.
Four appears to be Arizona’s lucky number.
The series finale win was the D-backs’ 47th on the season, 41 of which have come in games in which the team scored at least four runs. Entering play Sunday, their six wins when scoring fewer than four runs were the third fewest in MLB, ahead of only the Braves (3-40 in those games) and the Nationals (5-41). The D-backs’ .176 win percentage (6-28) when scoring fewer than four runs was eighth worst in MLB entering Sunday.
“At the end of the day, I think we’re all frustrated by what’s happened the last few days,” said manager Torey Lovullo. “I think they block out all the noise, all the things that can possibly be a distraction on the last day of the first half, and they won a baseball game. I couldn’t be more thrilled for them. I saw the reaction in the dugout, that’s the stuff we’re looking for. It was a good game, well-pitched game, well-executed on the mound.”
Kelly called his start an “adventure” -- especially surrendering four times as many walks as hits. He said he didn’t locate his pitches as well as he would have liked, but with the tough run the D-backs had been on, a win entering the break was most important.
“Our job is to go out there and give the team the best chance to win, and try to get a win every day,” Kelly said. “Regardless of if we’ve won 10 in a row or lost 10 in a row, my job is to try to win every day and luckily we got that done today.”
As they enter the break, Kelly said he and his teammates know that they have their work cut out for them.
“I don’t think anybody is going to sit here and say that we played the baseball that we think we can,” Kelly said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to sit here and say that we’re in the position that we thought we would be at this point in the year.
“I never like to use the injuries as an excuse, because everybody still has to do their job, and the next man up has to do their job. Being on a team, that’s kind of part of it, you need to come up and produce. ... We’ve got to shake it off, and we’ve got to regroup within the next four days, and come back and try to right the ship.”
Lovullo said he has seen signs that his team was capable of playing better than it has, especially pitching and defense. Sunday’s win was a start.
“It was a really good baseball game, right?” he said. “Nice little backhand play by [Geraldo] Perdomo in the ninth. It just kept coming, everybody was out there doing their jobs, and it was full throttle.”
The D-backs enter the All-Star break at 47-50, in fourth place in the NL West and 5.5 games back of a Wild Card spot.
“I encouraged them, I got in front of them, just said, 'Look, enjoy the break, decompress,'” Lovullo said. “'Give yourself a couple days to unplug.' But at some point on Wednesday and Thursday with our optional workout, we start to dial it back in because we got a very tough team walking in on Friday. We’ve got to chase some teams down.”