PHOENIX — The Diamondbacks’ Cinderella story isn’t ready to turn into a pumpkin quite yet.
Before a packed and raucous sellout crowd at Chase Field, Arizona’s young miracle team produced yet another one late Friday night, giving itself a real chance to pull off the upset of this October. The young upstart squad that never quits overcame a late deficit to defeat the Phillies and tie at two games apiece an NL Championship Series that was supposed to be over by now, but will at least return to Citizens Bank Park now for a sixth game — and maybe a seventh.
The Diamondbacks, who have already advanced three rounds beyond their preseason expectations, victimized the Phillies’ two best relievers late, overcoming a three-run deficit for a 6-5 victory. Alek Thomas smashed a two-run home run in the eighth inning off Cooperstown candidate Craig Kimbrel and Gabriel Moreno lashed a run-scoring, game-winning single off Jose Alvarado, the Phillies’ best reliever.
With the Phillies’ help, the long-shot Diamondbacks have won two straight games at home and forged a fighter’s chance to pull off the upset over a team that appeared unbeatable when the teams arrived in the desert. If Arizona can somehow win two of the next three games, it will become that rare 84-win team to reach the World Series, joining the 1973 Mets (83 wins actually) and 2006 Cardinals (84 exactly).
“Momentum is a real thing,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said before the game. “The narrative definitely has changed. And I think our team is always ready to go out and scrap, fight, do battle — do whatever it takes to do whatever they have to do to win a baseball game.”
The Diamondbacks are certainly doing their part, but the Phillies suddenly look like a shell of the juggernaut that took out the powerhouse Braves and started this series just as impressively. When they got here, Bryce Harper was looking like the “MVP” (of October anyway), Trea Turner was being considered a $300 million bargain and Nick Castellanos, who set a postseason record with back-to-back multi-homer games, was being credited for being the key to their ultra-long lineup as a No. 7 hitter who looked more like a cleanup man.
For the first two games at least, the Phillies could do no wrong. And nearly everyone except the Diamondbacks themselves was starting to give up on them. That includes some of their fans. Internet prices for “get in” tickets for Game 4 had dropped about 90 percent from around $100 to around $9.
Who could blame them? The Phillies certainly appeared unstoppable after they won Game 2 by a 10-0 score and eventually pushed their postseason lead in home runs to 20-4 over their opposition, which also included in the wild card round the Marlins, who actually won more regular-season games than Arizona. But while the Marlins have been busy firing or forcing out some of their key decisionmakers, the Diamondbacks are staging a party out here.
They were already seen as perhaps the game’s biggest overachievers (maybe tied with the Marlins). And the story just keeps getting better by the day.
The Phillies stand with the fourth-highest payroll and a collection of stars, both position players and rotation stalwarts, that made them an overwhelming favorite in this series even before it began. And get this: their stars have played exceptionally well, from Zack Wheeler to Aaron Nola to Harper to Turner. But it may not be enough.
Could the stars actually be aligning for the Diamondbacks? It was a positive sign when Turner, who stole about a million bases in a row, was picked off by Joe Mantiply in the first inning — the reliever’s only inning as the opener in a bullpen game that worked for Arizona.
The Diamondbacks, picked by almost everyone to finish fourth in the NL West this year (below the Padres and Giants as well as their forever nemeses, the Dodgers), do the little things. Which is great because they don’t do a lot of big things.
It’s tough to explain how they got to Game 5 despite struggling to score runs until their final inning last night. Really, their whole year is hard to explain.
Another surprise: It’s pretty darned loud at Chase Field. While they may not match the crazed fans at Citizens Bank Park, they raised their own roof. Some Phillies fans were said to have been stocking up on those $9 and $10 tickets without any intention to attend, but just to lower the decibel level. (Now those are some real fans!)
In any case, the energy was impressive considering everyone has to be hot (the high temperature was 103 for a second straight game, necessitating the roof be closed again). The fans seem pretty stoked at having an opportunity to return to the World Series for the first time since 2001, when Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and a very veteran team beat the Yankees in one of the best World Series of this generation.
This is a very different kind of Diamondbacks team. But right now it looks pretty darned dangerous.
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