Phillies clinch first; Diamondbacks' last climb ends 9-4 at Petco

Arizona needed two scoreboards to break its way. Neither did.

The Diamondbacks lost 9-4 at San Diego on Sunday, CBS Sports reported, finishing 86-76. Philadelphia beat Tampa Bay 7-3 earlier and clinched the National League's third wild-card berth. Arizona entered the day one game back and still mathematically alive only if it won and the Phillies lost.

The Phillies led 4-0 before first pitch at Petco Park, the same AP account noted, and never gave Arizona's dugout a live second board to chase.

The result ended Arizona's season for the eighth time in nine years. The club improved by six wins on last season's 80-82 mark, but the 2023 World Series run remains its only postseason appearance since 2017 despite five winning records in that stretch, CBS Sports reported.

The hole September did not fully climb out of

Arizona won six of its last seven games heading into Sunday, including wins over the Yankees and Padres, Yahoo Sports' final-week roundup noted. The earlier skid still mattered. A 2-6 stretch from Sept. 9-18 left a deficit that a late push could only shrink, not erase, once Philadelphia took care of business at home.

Nolan Arenado, speaking after the finale and quoted via Sports Illustrated in AZ Snake Pit's Monday roundup, pointed at that earlier home stand: the club showed fight to the end, he said, but did not take care of business when it needed to and put itself in a hole.

Corbin Carroll called the room "super disappointed" and said pinning the miss on one week misses the totality of 162 games.

Manager Torey Lovullo, after removing Justin Martinez with the bases loaded in the seventh, gathered the infielders on the mound - an arm around Geraldo Perdomo, a hug for Ketel Marte - as recounted by D-backs.com and relayed in the same AZ Snake Pit digest. At that point the Phillies' clinch had already rendered Arizona's remaining outs academic.

The final 9-4 score became a footnote on a day decided elsewhere.

How Petco closed it

Randy Vásquez threw six innings of one-run ball for San Diego. Griffin Canning then blew a three-run lead in the seventh as Corbin Carroll, Tim Tawa and Lars Nootbaar drove in runs for Arizona, CBS Sports reported. Jake Cronenworth drew a bases-loaded walk from Martinez at almost the same moment Philadelphia finished its 7-3 win.

Freddy Fermin followed with a two-run single. Gavin Sheets had led off the fourth with his 17th homer.

San Diego rested Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill and Xavier Bogaerts in a finale that no longer shaped its own October. The Padres finished 91-71 after a 17-3 closing surge and will host the Cubs in the Wild Card Series beginning Tuesday, with Michael King lined up for Game 1.

Moreno's title without a Sunday at-bat

Gabriel Moreno was scratched about an hour before first pitch with a sore left hamstring after trying repeatedly to go, Lovullo told reporters in Sports Illustrated's account. Moreno finished at .311, a point ahead of Philadelphia's Luis Arraez (.310), who was out with a sprained ankle.

Moreno becomes the first Diamondbacks player to win a batting title and the first catcher to claim one since Buster Posey in 2012, CBS Sports reported.

"It feels good," Moreno said in the SI piece. "It's something that you dream about when you are playing baseball since you were 2 years old, 4 years old, winning a batting title. Doing it here in the big leagues means a lot to me and to my family."

Lovullo said Moreno could not rotate over his left side and that risking further damage for a non-productive at-bat was not worth it - a decision that also protected a batting race Arizona could have lost on an 0-for-1.

Lovullo's own contract status now rides into the winter. Speaking to Arizona Sports and quoted in the AZ Snake Pit roundup, he said Arizona is his home and that he wants to be wanted as decisions get made. That is an offseason story. Sunday's story was simpler: a six-win climb, a one-game deficit, and a Phillies clinch that arrived before Arizona could rewrite it.

Sources

CBS Sports

Sports Illustrated

azsnakepit.com

Yahoo Sports