With a global pandemic running its course and no April baseball in sight for the first time since 1883, Arizona Diamondbacks fans deserve to take a few minutes to remember the good old days.
No, I’m not talking about the 2001 World Series. That would be cliché, and besides, game seven literally aired on national TV less than two weeks ago. I’m talking about that stretch of regular season from August 2017 to April 2018 when the best team in baseball couldn’t solve the Arizona Diamondbacks to save their lives — with one of their players going so far as to say he was tired of playing them.
That team, of course, was the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Diamondbacks fans everywhere never seem to tire of reveling in their demise. To be fair, I used the “regular season” qualifier for a reason. The 2017 National League Division Series was a different story, but humor me and pretend that didn’t happen for now.
The day was Aug. 29, 2017, and the D-backs were set for a three game series at home against LA. The Dodgers were far and away the best team in baseball. Their record was 91-38, a full 12.5 games ahead of the next closest team. They were on pace for 114 wins, just two shy of the 2001 Seattle Mariners’ record of 116 wins in the modern era.
The D-backs, meanwhile, had won 6 of their last 7 games, restoring their position as the leading Wild Card team in the National League with a two-game lead over the Colorado Rockies.
Game one in Phoenix began with a bang. The D-backs tagged Dodgers lefty Rich Hill for 5 runs in the first inning, spurred by A.J. Pollock’s first-inning homer and a two-run double by Brandon Drury. The Dodgers pulled within a run, but the D-backs escaped with a 7-6 win.
Co-aces Robbie Ray and Zack Greinke made games two and three of the series seem easy. Ray delivered 6.2 innings of one-run ball with 10 strikeouts in the second game of the series. Greinke followed suit by allowing just one run over six innings with six strikeouts in game three. The D-backs became the first team to sweep the Dodgers in 2017.
Fast-forward to September 4, and the D-backs found themselves at Dodger Stadium for a three game series. It would go down in history as one of the most memorable days in D-backs history.
Recent trade acquisition J.D. Martinez pelted four home runs, becoming the 18th player in major league history to do so. Meanwhile, Ray dazzled again, striking out 14 over 7.2 shutout innings. The D-backs cruised to a 13-0 shellacking in front of 47,192 stunned Dodgers fans.
Game two of the series pitted Greinke against Dodgers lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu. They were both stellar, and the game ultimately went to extra innings in a 1-1 tie. The D-backs’ offense managed just four hits all game, but a throwing error by Justin Turner in the 10th gave the D-backs a 3-1 lead. Fernando Rodney tossed a scoreless inning, sealing the win.
Game three followed a similar pattern. Taijuan Walker and Kenta Maeda each held their opponent to just one run, but the D-backs clutched up in the 7th with a pair of runs. Their back-end of Jorge De La Rosa in the 7th, Archie Bradley and his 1.25 ERA in the 8th, and Rodney in the 9th held up again. The D-backs had won a franchise record 13 games in a row, six of them coming against baseball’s best team.
Their 13-game winning streak was snapped the very next day, but their regular season win streak against the Dodgers would continue into 2018. After the D-backs took two of three against the Rockies at home to start the season, the Dodgers were next in line to visit the desert.
In game one, the D-backs trailed 6-3 in the 9th inning when Chris Owings mashed a three-run homer against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen. The game went to extra innings, and neither team scored until the 15th inning. Chase Utely notched an RBI single to give the Dodgers a 7-6 lead, but the D-backs weren’t finished. Nick Ahmed tagged an RBI double to tie the game, and career .195 hitter Jeff Mathis sealed the win with a walk-off single. The game took 5 hours and 46 minutes.
That game lasted longer than the next two combined. In games two and three of the series, the Dodgers never led. Patrick Corbin stole the show in the series finale, tossing 7.1 shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and just one hit allowed. The D-backs swept the Dodgers again.
That brings us to Los Angeles on April 13, when the two teams clashed again. The D-backs shot on top 5-1 in the third inning, ultimately holding on for an 8-7 win. Game two saw the D-backs mash four homers, cruising to a 9-1 win in Dodger Stadium. It was their eleventh straight regular season games against the team that represented the National League in the World Series in both 2017 and 2018.
Only a gem from future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw on Jackie Robinson Day could stop the D-backs’ run. Kershaw notched 12 strikeouts over 7 innings of one-run ball. The Dodgers won, 7-2.
Since that day, the D-backs have gone just 14-18 against their NL West rivals, and half of those were determined by one run.
Maybe their 11-game win streak against baseball’s best is just another example of baseball’s random nature, akin to the “Moneyball” Oakland Athletics rattling off 20 straight wins in 2002 — an event that statistically had a .0014% chance of happening.
For quite a while, valley sports have lived in the shadow of their coastal neighbors. Local fans have become used to the Lakers and Dodgers burying local teams into frustrating irrelevance.
But from Aug. 29, 2017, to April 15, 2018, the D-backs and their fans learned what it’s like to be the big brother for a while — at least in the regular season. That might not mean much, but it sure felt like it did at the time.
The Beat @APU 