Passan: Why the D-backs belong in the World Series
-
Jeff Passan, ESPN
IN THE SEVENTH inning of the game in which the team he built clinched a World Series berth, Mike Hazen repaired to the visiting clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park and sequestered himself in the manager’s office. Hazen, the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ general manager for the last seven years, bebopped around the room — sitting in a chair, squatting on the toilet, standing in the shower of the bathroom with the lights turned off. His nerves were fricasseed; he couldn’t bear to watch the game play out on the field. Instead, he was watching the crowning moment of his career on a 5-inch cellphone screen.
Typically, Hazen’s neuroses don’t prompt him to forsake the live view for a delayed TV feed until the ninth inning. “Got a lot of ninth-inning scar tissue,” Hazen said, a nod at the Diamondbacks’ major league-high nine blown leads in the ninth inning this season. But the gravity of everything in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series overwhelmed him to the point that he needed to seclude himself two innings early — even wearing a pair of noise-canceling headphones to drown out the crowd noise that would spoil his streamed feed.
Yes, it had taken seven years of hard work, but it somehow still felt like it was all happening so fast. Over the last year, Hazen has adjusted to life without his wife, Nicole, who died in August 2022 after fighting glioblastoma for more than two years. His team spent most of the first half of the season atop the National League West division, then cratered in July and bottomed out after a nine-game losing streak left it at 57-59 on Aug. 11. All of this — backing into the playoffs as the final wild-card team with 84 wins, ousting Milwaukee in the wild-card round, sweeping the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the division series and now, as he witnessed from manager Torey Lovullo’s office, coming to Philadelphia down 3-2 in the NLCS and beating the Phillies in Games 6 and 7 — blindsided him.
“I didn’t really even anticipate us getting to this moment,” Hazen said after the clinch. “We’re not preparing for the offseason, we’re not having meetings. I am stressing and walking the streets of Philadelphia. It’s the end of October, and we’re still playing baseball. That’s what I think about every day when I wake up — and we have at least four more baseball games to go.”
The most improbable World Series ever starts Friday in Arlington, Texas, when the Diamondbacks face the American League champion Texas Rangers, who themselves snuck into the postseason at 90-72. Two years ago, Arizona tied for the worst record in baseball at 52-110, and the Rangers, with a 60-102 record, weren’t much better. This would be the Diamondbacks’ second title, after they won their only other appearance in 2001; Texas has never won a championship in its 63 years of existence. But put pedigree and record aside: This is a pair of teams that make up in quality what they lack in other areas.
Texas, at least, was acting like a team with World Series aspirations. General manager Chris Young arranged a squad of stars, complemented them with talent from Texas’ robust farm system and supplemented them with aggressive acquisitions at the trade deadline. Despite their roundabout journey to this week — backing into a wild-card round, dropping three straight games to the Astros at home in the American League Championship Series — the Rangers found their power stroke in the postseason and followed a tried-and-true October formula: ball go far, team go far. The Diamondbacks are the bigger surprise.
And yet they are not to be discounted. These are not the Diamondbacks of August, whose ninth-inning foibles brought out the irrational in Hazen. They stomped the Brewers, embarrassed the Dodgers and went toe-to-toe with the Phillies — then razed them, too. Arizona embraced a nobody-believes-in-us mantra because it’s true that nobody believed they could find themselves here. For all the consternation about the best regular-season teams missing from the 119th World Series, about this matchup of wild-card teams that happened to save their best baseball for October, it’s advisable to avoid falling into that trap.
So much of the attention paid to the Diamondbacks concerns what they aren’t. Maybe it’s time to focus on what they are.
“WE PLAY THE right brand of baseball,” Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy said, and by the right brand, he means something very specific: Arizona plays like a team from the 1980s that has time traveled to 2023.
The Diamondbacks are not immune to some modern flourishes of the game — they regularly pull their starting pitchers around when the opposing lineup turns over for the third time — but otherwise, McCarthy is right. They do not rely on home runs. They value excellent defense. They steal bases and take extra ones at will. They bunt, for crying out loud. They operate with an attention to detail that forces opponents to make plays and punishes them if they don’t.
“We play old-school baseball,” Arizona setup man Kevin Ginkel said. “Everyone else wants to slug, everybody else wants to punch out tickets. We do it a little differently. We run the bases really well. Play really good defense. Focus on bunts, bunt defense. And everybody takes accountability for that. That’s a credit to our coaching. That’s a credit to the leadership. That’s a credit to everybody, because we take pride in it. And it’s just one of those things where everybody cares. It’s not what’s going to get you on the highlight reel, but when it comes to crunch time and winning baseball games, we do it.”
Stitching together a roster of 26 players who embrace this philosophy took efforts from all corners of the organization and came together over the course of years. Star rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll and rookie right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, who started Game 7, came via the draft in 2019 and 2020, respectively. NLCS MVP Ketel Marte (in 2016, Hazen’s first major acquisition), ace Zac Gallen (in 2019) and 23-year-old catcher Gabi Moreno (in 2022) arrived in trades. First baseman Christian Walker joined Arizona as a waiver claim after being dumped by three teams in spring training six years ago. Game 2 starter Merrill Kelly was signed in 2018 after playing in Korea for four years. Shortstop Geraldo Perdomo signed at 16 out of the Dominican Republic. The only free agent signings from last winter on Arizona’s roster are veteran Evan Longoria and reliever Miguel Castro.
Not until late August, however, did Arizona find the version of itself that’s been on display all October. On Aug. 27, Ryan Thompson, a 31-year-old sidearmer whose sinker lives around 91 mph — about 3 mph slower than the average big-league fastball, something common on a Diamondbacks team that ranked 28th of 30 teams in fastball velocity this year — pitched a scoreless inning less than a week after Arizona signed him to a minor league deal. He had gone through waivers unclaimed by every team before Tampa Bay released him and the Diamondbacks, desperate for bullpen help, took a flier.
He threw 5.2 sterling innings in the NLCS, paving the way for Paul Sewald, the indomitable closer Arizona acquired from Seattle at the trade deadline, who has allowed three baserunners in eight scoreless innings this postseason. Along with Ginkel’s nine shutout innings, the trio has transformed Arizona’s bullpen from Hazen’s recurring nightmare into a placid dream.
The bullpen saved the Diamondbacks’ season, as they eked out a pair of one-run victories in Games 3 and 4 to send the series back to Philadelphia, where they rediscovered an identity that had temporarily gone missing. Over the first five games of the series, the Diamondbacks stole only one base, a far cry from their serial thievery — 166 bases, the second most in MLB — during the regular season. Then they stole eight in the last two games of the NLCS, their desire to run a constant burr in the side of Phillies pitchers.
It speaks to adjustments that reveal Arizona’s game-planning expertise. While Phillies manager Rob Thomson stuck with the same lineup for all seven games and their starting pitchers did the same with their pitch arsenals, Arizona tweaked and tinkered, trying to exploit deficiencies in Philadelphia’s vaunted lineup.
Arizona’s pitching room is loaded with keen and curious minds, from pitching coach Brent Strom to Dan Haren, a three-time All-Star who serves as a pitching strategist. As the NLCS went on, Kelly and Pfaadt particularly relied far less on the four-seam fastballs that Phillies batters were hunting. Kelly’s six-pitch mix has always vexed hitters, and he used that to his advantage in his second appearance: The changeup he threw more than any pitch in Game 2 was his fourth most used offering in Game 6. Pfaadt went from 32 four-seamers in Game 3 to half that in Game 7, throwing as many sinkers as heaters and unfurling more sweepers than both.
That sort of attention to detail embodies the Diamondbacks’ approach. If their roster doesn’t suit the pervasive style of baseball played these days, they figure out how the information analytics offers can best suit them. It’s the sort of pragmatism perhaps best seen in something as simple as defense. When a team’s offense lacks the firepower to homer its way to wins, the little things matter exponentially more. So from the beginning of spring training, Lovullo preached the import of playing clean baseball. The message took.
Arizona committed just 56 errors, the second fewest of any team in baseball history.
Defense, bullpen, a focus on the little things: This is how a team that homers only five times in the LCS — one-third of the 15 Texas hit on the other side of the bracket — gets to the World Series.
IN MID-AUGUST, smack in the middle of that second-half swoon, some Diamondbacks players gathered around Dave McKay, the team’s first-base coach, for story time. Toward the end of the 2006 season, when he was coaching in St. Louis, the Cardinals lost seven consecutive games. They finished the season 83-78. And over the next month, they beat one division champion (San Diego), conquered another in seven games (New York) and went on to win the World Series. The 2006 Cardinals are the only team with fewer than 84 wins to capture a championship.
“The beauty of a World Series and playoffs is it’s not always the best team that wins,” said McKay, in his 40th year as a coach. “I’ve been to six World Series. Two we should’ve won and lost. Two we should’ve lost and won. It’s just about whoever plays better.”
To be sure, the Rangers are a force. It’s not just their home run power. Game 1 starter Nathan Eovaldi and expected Game 2 starter Jordan Montgomery have owned October. During the regular season, Texas was extraordinary in the field, too, committing just one more error than Arizona. Like the Diamondbacks, the Rangers are far more formidable than their record would indicate.
Consider the Diamondbacks nonplussed. They respect the Rangers, of course — they, too, saw Adolis Garcia single-handedly mash as many home runs in the ALCS as all the Diamondbacks did in the NLCS. Knowing the depth of Texas’ lineup and that future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy is at the helm, the Diamondbacks recognize they can’t rest on what they’ve done. All that matters in October is what you do next.
They also feel prepared for that challenge, in large part because of what this month has already given them. For Carroll and Moreno and Perdomo and Pfaadt, it’s an education. For Gallen and Kelly and Marte and Tommy Pham, the outfielder acquired at the trade deadline who radiates intensity, it’s validation. For Hazen, even with the agita of ninth innings, it’s comfort.
Before Game 7 started, Lovullo walked by his office and saw Hazen sitting with Mike Fitzgerald, a Diamondbacks assistant GM. A few minutes before the most important game of any of their lives, Lovullo poked his head in to speak with them.
“No matter what happens today,” Lovullo said, “I love you guys.”
Who are the Arizona Diamondbacks? They’re a team that knows how lucky it is to be in the World Series. And one that earned it, too.
-
Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
Tennessee‘s Nico Iamaleava has been cleared medically to play Saturday against Georgia and is set to return as the Vols’ starting quarterback, sources told ESPN.
Iamaleava, a redshirt freshman, missed the second half of the 33-14 win over Mississippi State last week after suffering a blow to the head. He was listed as questionable earlier this week on the SEC availability report but has been removed in the latest report.
Iamaleava practiced this week, including team periods, and there was optimism among the staff that he was trending in the right direction and would be able to play. But the final call was made by medical personnel. Iamaleava was examined by doctors for what sources told ESPN were concussion-like symptoms after leaving the Mississippi State game. He did not return to the sideline for the second half.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on Monday that he felt like Iamaleava would be in “great shape for Saturday” and noted that Iamaleava was with the team earlier Monday morning for meetings and team activities. The Vols’ first full-scale practice was Tuesday.
Iamaleava was having his most productive outing against an SEC team this season before leaving the game against Mississippi State. He completed 8 of 13 passes for 174 yards, no interceptions and a pair of touchdowns as Tennessee built a 20-7 halftime lead. In Iamaleava’s previous five SEC games, he had accounted for three touchdowns and turned it over five times. He was also sacked 15 times in those five games.
Redshirt senior Gaston Moore filled in for Iamaleava in the second half last week and finished 5-of-8 for 38 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.
Getting Iamaleava back for the Georgia game is big news for Tennessee, which is right in the middle of the SEC championship race and College Football Playoff picture.
Receiver Dont’e Thornton (hand) has also been given the green light to play for Tennessee after earlier being listed as questionable.
Week 12 is here as we take a look at an SEC matchup that has College Football Playoff implications, learn about three of the nation’s top passers who all played under the same coach and see what’s going on in the Big 12.
No. 7 Tennessee will visit Sanford Stadium as it takes on conference opponent No. 12 Georgia on Saturday night. With so much at stake, what can each team improve on ahead of this SEC showdown?
The Big 12 has six teams in the hunt for a spot in the conference title game. With the final CFP rankings coming out in less than a month, what scenario looks most realistic for the conference in terms of how many of its teams could make the 12-team field?
Our college football experts preview big games and storylines ahead of the Week 12 slate.
Jump to a section:
Tennessee-Georgia | The coach behind three top QB passers
What’s going on in the Big 12 | Quotes of the Week
What has each team done well in conference play? What improvements can be made?
It has been a historic (and dominant) season for Tennessee’s defense, which has yet to give up more than 19 points in any of its nine games. Against SEC competition, the Volunteers lead the conference in scoring defense, giving up 16.7 points per game, and also lead the way in third-down defense and red zone defense. In other words, they’ve given up very little of anything on defense and are buoyed by a line that’s both talented and deep. Tennessee plays a ton of players up front and has been especially good at forcing key turnovers. In 23 trips inside its own 20-yard line, the Vols have forced six turnovers.
The reality is that Tennessee has played to its defense for much of this season out of necessity. The offense has lacked consistency and struggled to generate explosive plays, particularly in the passing game. It’s not all on redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava, either. Iamaleava has thrown only five touchdown passes in six SEC games, and the Vols are tied for 10th with an average of 7.5 yards per completion. Iamaleava, who sustained a head injury in a win over Mississippi State last week, has been the victim of poor pass protection at times, and his receivers have dropped some costly passes. Iamaleava has also been shaky when it comes to overthrowing receivers and occasionally holding onto the ball too long.
The bright spot on offense for Tennessee has been running back Dylan Sampson, who has a school-record 20 rushing touchdowns. He has been a constant for the Vols on offense and has an SEC-leading 772 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in conference play. As good as he has been, the Vols are probably going to need more from their passing game to win in Athens. — Chris Low
The Bulldogs didn’t do much of anything well in last week’s 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, which was the first time in a long time that Kirby Smart’s team was manhandled on the lines of scrimmage.
The good news for Georgia: It’s heading home to Sanford Stadium for the first time in more than a month. Georgia hasn’t dropped back-to-back games in the regular season since 2016, Smart’s first season, and it has bounced back after each of its past eight losses. The Bulldogs have won seven of their past eight games against the Volunteers.
For all of quarterback Carson Beck‘s turnovers, Georgia’s problems on offense probably start up front. The offensive line hasn’t done a good job of protecting him, and the Bulldogs’ lack of a potent running game has prevented them from effectively utilizing play-action passes. Their banged-up offensive line is going to face another formidable defensive front Saturday. Georgia has 27 dropped passes, fourth most in the FBS, according to TruMedia, so its receivers need to become more reliable as well. — Mark Schlabach
The coach behind three of college football’s top passers
Miami‘s Cam Ward, Washington State‘s John Mateer and North Texas‘ Chandler Morris are three of the top five quarterbacks in total offense this season in FBS. All three have the same head coach to thank for where they are today.
North Texas coach Eric Morris coached Ward at Incarnate Word and Washington State, recruited Mateer to the Cougars and signed Morris out of the transfer portal this offseason. All three hailed from Texas and are putting up big numbers this season. Morris, a Mike Leach disciple, knows what he’s looking for when it comes to QBs.
For each one, the journey was different. Ward was a zero-star recruit out of West Columbia, Texas, played in a wing-T offense and had no scholarship offers. But he showed up to Incarnate Word’s camp in 2019 and impressed with his quick release and accuracy. Morris saw appealing traits, too, in Ward’s multisport talents.
“He was such a good basketball player,” Morris said. “He was a bigger guy who could really handle the ball and move with ease. He had a twitch and quickness about him that was almost Mahomes-esque, where he’s not fast but you see him get out of the pocket and scramble and he’s nifty on his feet. He saw the floor great and shot the basketball great.
“It might be easier at an FCS school to take that risk, but it was something we were really confident in.”
Ward came in with extreme confidence, telling coaches he’d win the starting job over their returning all-conference player (and he did). He followed Morris to Pullman, Washington, out of loyalty to the coach who believed in him. Now he’s playing on a big stage, chasing a College Football Playoff bid and a Heisman Trophy with the No. 9 Hurricanes.
“It’s been fun to watch him flourish and get rewarded for being patient all these years,” Morris said.
When Morris left UIW to become Washington State’s offensive coordinator in 2022, he brought Ward but needed another QB. On his first recruiting trip in Texas, he stopped by to check out Mateer. The two-star recruit had a prolific senior season at Little Elm High School but was committed to Central Arkansas. Morris didn’t understand what FBS programs were missing and convinced Mateer to flip.
After two seasons behind Ward, Mateer has emerged as one of the top dual-threat QBs in college football with 2,332 passing yards, 805 rushing yards (excluding sacks) and 33 total TDs.
“I think the sky’s the limit,” Ward said. “He’s just so dang hard to tackle in the open field. Just a kid that loves ball and was under-recruited. The tide’s turned and he ends up being a big-time ballplayer.”
Chandler Morris was not an under-the-radar talent, but he’s having his best season yet at North Texas. He began his career at Oklahoma, won the starting job at TCU in 2022, sustained a knee injury in its season opener and then watched Max Duggan lead the Horned Frogs to the national title game.
Morris had a six-game stint as TCU’s starter last season before injuring the same knee. At UNT, he’s leading the nation’s No. 3 passing offense with 3,244 total yards and 30 TDs. Like Ward and Mateer, he processes information quickly, makes plays with his feet and throws outside the pocket with accuracy. If you ask Eric Morris, those traits are a must in today’s game. When paired with his version of Air Raid ball, you get big-time results.
“It’s been fun to see him get his swagger back,” Morris said.
Eric Morris points to Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels. The QBs thriving at the highest level are becoming unstoppable by creating plays out of the pocket. And so are his guys.
“Everybody obviously watches Cam and the magic he makes,” Morris said, “but I think all three of ’em can make plays when it’s not a perfect play call. There are a bunch of really good pure passers nowadays, but that’s what sets them all apart.” — Max Olson
What’s going on in the Big 12?
Two-thirds of the way through the Big 12 schedule, six teams are still in the hunt for a title-game appearance: BYU (6-0), Colorado (5-1), Arizona State, Iowa State, Kansas State and West Virginia, all of which are 4-2. There are too many variables to discuss all the scenarios, but the conference has a straightforward tiebreaker policy.
It’s possible to come up with scenarios in which the Big 12 could get two bids, one bid or shut out altogether.
For the Big 12 to get two bids, BYU probably would have to finish 12-0, then lose a close game in the championship to a two-loss team (Colorado, Iowa State or Kansas State). A 12-1 BYU team would get consideration, but it would become a question of how far it would fall and what else happens around the country.
The most likely scenario is the Big 12 will get one team in: whichever one wins the conference title game. If BYU wins out, it will have a bye, but if it slips up even once — or if another team wins the title — Boise State might be in position to get a first-round bye, assuming the Broncos win out.
The doomsday scenario in the Big 12 is if the conference champion has two or three losses and Army and Boise State win out. If that’s the case, there is a good possibility both of those schools would be ranked ahead of the Big 12 champion and the Big 12 would be left out. — Kyle Bonagura
Quotes of the Week
“They’re stubborn, man. They’re physical. He is an elite runner. The runs they run are sometimes nontraditional. They run some runs that other people don’t run because of the space in the box. He’s very patient. He hits small creases. He’s hard to tackle. How many touchdowns has he got in the SEC? Twenty-something? That’s crazy. In the SEC? The SEC is the hardest league in the world to run the ball in on because they’ve got the most size defensive lineman, and he continues to do it at a crazy pace to me.” — Kirby Smart on Volunteers tailback Dylan Sampson.
“I never try to take a step back. I try to take a step up. I’m always putting my head out the window. I’m trying to see around the corner, not trying to see straight ahead. It’s normalcy for everybody to see what’s in front of them. I’m trying to see around the corner. That’s the relationship I have with the Lord, to help me see around the corner so I can help navigate these young men as well as the women that’s attached to our program to a better way and a better life. So I don’t get caught up in the ‘You go, boys!’ or the ‘You ain’t nothing.’ You know, if I would’ve listened to you guys earlier, I’ve gotta listen to you now. So I might as well just put some headphones on and block you out. Notice I don’t have a sponsor for headphones, but that would’ve been a good placement for a sponsor.” — Deion Sanders when asked if he takes time to step back and appreciate the magnitude of Colorado’s turnaround.
“I hope anyone who has ambitions about playing in the National Football League, let’s see what you’ve got against Clemson. Let’s see you play your best game here. If you weren’t focused for Virginia, which I can’t imagine you weren’t — and I’m not saying anybody was not focused — but if they didn’t get your focus, I imagine Clemson will get your focus when you put the tape on.” — Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi on whether playing Clemson gets the attention of his players.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway