PHOENIX – On Friday night, the Diamondbacks got a strong pitching performance from Eduardo Rodriguez, an amazing throw from center fielder Blaze Alexander and their offense was relentless in making the Red Sox pitchers pay for their lack of command.
And just like that, they found themselves back at .500 with their slim postseason hopes still alive after a 10-5 victory at Chase Field.
The Diamondbacks passed the Reds in the NL Wild Card race and remain 5 1/2 games behind the Mets for the third spot and they are 1 1/2 games behind the Giants with 20 games left on the schedule.
Five days into September and they are fulfilling manager Torey Lovullo’s wish to play meaningful baseball over the season’s final month.
It’s the first time the Diamondbacks have been at the .500 mark since they were 50-50.
“It’s not our final destination either,” Lovullo said. “We want to keep playing good baseball. We want to fight every single night and see where this thing goes, see where it takes us. Getting back to .500 is a nice feeling, but we got 20 games left. We gotta win more baseball games. So we’ll see where we can go with that.”
Rodriguez, who was signed to a four-year, $80 million deal prior to last season, missed most of 2024 due to injury and has had an up and down 2025, but he kept the Red Sox in check Friday, allowing just one run over six innings.
“That’s what they pay me for here – to go deep in the game and keep the team winning,” Rodriguez said. “I used all my pitches later. The first few innings, the command wasn’t there, and then I made an adjustment.”
The Red Sox would have had at least one more run against Rodriguez, if not more, had it not been for Alexander’s throw that ended the third inning.
With two outs and runners at first and second, Romy Gonzalez lined a single to center. Alexander, who has only played a handful of games in center, charged the ball and came up firing a 95-mph strike on the fly to nail Omar Narvaez trying to score to end the inning.
Alexander airmailed the cutoff man on the play, a mistake that Lovullo was more than willing to overlook given the result.
“For me it was a ‘no, no what are you doing, oh yes, that’s awesome, way to make the play,’” Lovullo said. “His comment to [outfield coach Dave McKay] was, ‘I got more than that too, by the way, just in case you want more, I got more.’”
Alexander said that as a kid he used to watch outstanding throws by Major Leaguers like Roberto Clemente or Ichiro on YouTube.
“That was a cool moment to save a run,” Alexander said. “You know, just doing that for the team, doing that for E-Rod, it’s a cool moment for me, but super, super cool moment for the team. Truly, I’m just trying to hit the cutoff man on that. I know I had a chance to kind of get that guy and threw it over the cutoff man. Mac talked to me already kind of about it, like, ‘hey, keep that low, keep that throw low.’ And, I understand.”
Alexander, whose effervescent personality makes him popular with his teammates, also had another message for McKay.
“I don’t know what it got clocked at,” Alexander said of his throw. “I’m not tooting my own horn, but I’ll throw a couple at 100 mph here pretty soon.”
The Red Sox made a valiant comeback in the eighth, scoring four runs to pull to within 6-5, Corbin Carroll keyed a four-run eighth with a three-run homer, his 30th homer of the season, surpassing the 25 homers he hit during his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2023.
“He’s just a slug machine and 30 home runs, in my opinion, I felt like that day was going to be coming for him,” Lovullo said.
