Snake Bytes 9/17: Lamb & Fish Tacos

Arizona Diamondbacks 7, Miami Marlins 5

[D’backs.com] Lamb plays key role in D-backs’ late rally - It won’t erase the frustration for the way his season has gone, but for one night, at least, Jake Lamb deserved to feel good. Lamb’s two-out double in the seventh inning drove home three runs as the D-backs rallied to beat the Marlins, 7-5, on Monday night at Chase Field. The win was just the second in the past nine games for the D-backs, who saw that losing stretch all but end their postseason hopes. Arizona trails the Cubs by 5 1/2 games for the second National League Wild Card spot. Lamb, who missed time due to a shoulder injury for a second season in a row, has had trouble getting going offensively. He came into the game hitting .199/.330/.354 in 161 at-bats.

[Arizona Sports] D-backs’ Nick Ahmed leaves game with apparent right hand injury - Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed left Monday’s game against the Miami Marlins with an apparent right hand injury. In the eighth inning with the D-backs up 7-5, Ahmed was fielding a groundball hit to his position. While Ahmed went to field the ball, he placed his right hand in his glove to control the ball once it arrived. The problem is that Ahmed either mistimed his hand placement or misread the path of the ball, leading to the ball hitting him directly on the bridge of his fingertips. Ahmed completed the play before having a trainer and manager Torey Lovullo come out and look at his hand before he was taken out.

[AZ Central] Robbie Ray dominates as Diamondbacks score more than three runs, rally for win - Robbie Ray pitched 5 2/3 innings of no-hit ball, Jake Lamb hit a crucial three-run double and the Arizona Diamondbacks rallied for a 7-5 victory over the Miami Marlins on Monday night. Arizona, clinging to slim postseason hopes, remained 5½ games back of the Chicago Cubs for the second NL wild card with 11 to play and also would have to leapfrog Milwaukee, Philadelphia and the New York Mets. At 52-98, the NL-worst Marlins matched their loss total of last year and appear headed to their first 100-defeat season since 2013. Ray had his no-hit bid stopped in the sixth when Starlin Castro sent the left-hander’s 86th pitch up the middle for single. Arizona led 3-0 at the time.

Diamondbacks News

[AZ Central] Diamondbacks’ Carson Kelly searching for way out of offensive funk - Carson Kelly has been slumping at the plate for weeks, but the Diamondbacks catcher believes he’s close to rediscovering the swing that led to his offensive breakout earlier this season. “I’m looking back at the times I’ve done really well,” Kelly said, “and I’ve seen a difference in the video of my swings.” Kelly said he identified the flaw and has been working to correct it over the past 10 days or so. The bigger challenge, he said, has been trying to stay in the right place mentally as his struggles have become more pronounced.

[The Athletic] ‘It feels like everything is against us’: The Diamondbacks are grappling with another September slump - The Diamondbacks’ offensive slump couldn’t have come at a worse time. All season, the offense has produced. Individual hot stretches and slumps have come and gone, but the team has always scored runs. Through the first five months of the season, the Diamondbacks averaged better than five runs per game. The team’s overall offensive performance month-to-month remained remarkably steady. Pitching may have been an adventure at times, but this was a team that could score. Except for in September, it seems. For the second straight year, the Diamondbacks are mired in a skid down the stretch and, for the second straight year, that skid is extinguishing whatever postseason hopes they harbored. They’ve scored just 3.07 runs a game this month and just 14 runs total in their past nine games.

[Arizona Sports] D-backs minor league affiliates capture multiple championships - The Hillsboro Hops, Arizona’s short-season Single-A affiliate, won the Northwest League championship on Wednesday in a dramatic five-game series. The team’s season saw seven of the D-backs’ eight players selected in the top-93 of this year’s draft play for them, including three that were with them for the title... It’s the team’s third title in six years after winning the league back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. Another Class-A affiliate, the Visalia Rawhide, won the California League title on Saturday night, the team’s first since 1978... Lastly, the Jackson Generals in Double-A won the Southern League Championship on Sunday, making it back-to-back titles and their third in four years.

Around the League

[CBS Sports] Joe Torre defends MLB’s rejection of Mets commemorative 9/11 hats, says league policy is unlikely to change - Joe Torre, Major League Baseball’s Chief Baseball Officer, said that he does not foresee MLB changing its rule on clubs wearing commemorative hats during games. Torre’s comments come less than a week after Mets rookie Pete Alonso had pushed for the league to allow New York to wear hats that paid tribute to first responders during a game on Sept. 11. Alonso’s attempt was rejected by the league.

[Sporting News] Nationals manager Dave Martinez has cardiac procedure after chest pains during game - Nationals manager Dave Martinez will be away from the team indefinitely after undergoing what general manager Mike Rizzo called a “minor” cardiac procedure Monday. Martinez, 54, left Sunday’s game against the Braves during the sixth inning due to what was described only as an illness. Rizzo told reporters Monday in St. Louis that Martinez had experienced chest pains in the dugout during the game and underwent a cardiac catheterization Monday.

[MLB.com] Papi: ‘At some point, I started losing hope’ - As David Ortiz held court Monday afternoon with two reporters who covered his entire playing career with the Red Sox, he looked like the Big Papi of old. He moved without pain. He laughed easily. He communicated freely even after discussing his harrowing experience over the past three months. This was noteworthy because it in no way described how Ortiz looked or felt just a few short weeks ago. Ortiz feared first for his life, and then for his quality of life, when doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital performed a third surgery on him in early July as a result of complications that stemmed from the gunshot wound he suffered in the Dominican Republic on June 9. “I thought I wasn’t going to be able to be who I am right now and go back to normal, you know? At some point, I started losing hope,” said Ortiz, in what is a startling admission from someone who has always carried himself without fear, be it on the baseball field, in public or with his family.