Diamondbacks blow late lead in brutal loss to Athletics

If the Diamondbacks’ postseason chances come down to one game, as manager Torey Lovullo believes they will, and if they end up falling short, the events of Friday night might haunt their winter.

Facing an Oakland Athletics team that ranks among the worst in baseball, the Diamondbacks handed an eighth-inning lead to one of their most reliable relievers. Not only did they watch the lead go up in smoke, they watched the game get out of hand.

The A’s scored three runs in the eighth and three more in the ninth, sending the Diamondbacks to a gruesome 9-4 loss at Chase Field, their fifth defeat in their past six games.

But unlike the previous four losses, this one did not come against a formidable opponent. It came against an A’s team that entered the day with the third-worst win percentage in the majors, a team that had not won a road game since the beginning of the month.

With reliever Ryan Thompson set to work the eighth and closer Paul Sewald waiting to pitch the ninth, the Diamondbacks’ late, 4-3 lead felt like it would stand.

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“I felt like it was game over,” Lovullo said. “Thompson to Sewald. Book it. It just didn’t happen.”

Entering Friday, Thompson had been as good at his job as perhaps anyone this season — not just anyone on the Diamondbacks, anyone in baseball. Despite not throwing hard, he had used his funky delivery and odd angles to dominate the opposition, giving up just four runs in 32 innings.

But, on this night, he did not have it. He served up a game-tying homer to Tyler Soderstrom to start the eighth. He walked a batter with one out, then fired a sinker over the heart of the plate that Zack Gelof smashed into right-center for a go-ahead triple. The next batter, Max Schuemann, chopped a single over the drawn-in infield. Just like that, the Athletics had a 6-4 lead.

“I just wasn’t my best tonight,” Thompson said. “I wasn’t making adjustments when I needed to. Simple as that.”

Thompson said he could tell his delivery was off, but none of the adjustments he tried to make seemed to take. It led to what he described as a miserable combination: Some pitches were sharp, moving the way he wanted, but they darted out of the zone. Others were flat and stayed over the plate.

“That’s the formula,” he said, “you’re not looking for.”

Thompson said it wasn’t until after he departed, when he looked at his delivery in front of a mirror, did he realize what he was doing wrong.

“It’s frustrating to fix it after I get off the field,” he said. “But it’s better than not fixing it at all.”

The Diamondbacks endured another short outing from a starting pitcher, the fifth time in the past six games that one of their starters failed to pitch deep into a game. This time, right-hander Slade Cecconi lasted only four innings despite having what looked to be at times overpowering stuff.

He elicited a whopping 19 swinging strikes on his 88 pitches; that is tied for the fourth-most in club history for any Diamondbacks starter through four innings. But he also was saddled by deep counts and burned by a pair of walks that scored in the third.

“I think it’s all predicated on the starting pitching,” Lovullo said. “The starting pitching needs to be better. You look at what we’ve absorbed — I think it was four (innings) today, it was (2⅔ innings) yesterday, (3⅔ innings) the day before — that isn’t going to be good for us to win baseball games and do what we need to do.”

The Diamondbacks dropped to 39-43, falling to four games under .500 for the first time since June 12. A week ago, they had a percentage-point lead for the third and final wild-card spot in the National League. Now, they find themselves 3½ games back.

That is not an overwhelming deficit, but with a tough stretch of games coming up against the Dodgers, Padres and Braves, it could become one soon — especially if they continue to get tripped up by a team like the A’s.

“We’re in a little bit of a rut right now,” Lovullo said. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve got to find a way to do it tomorrow.”

Saturday’s Diamondbacks-Athletics pitching matchup

Athletics at Diamondbacks, 1:10 p.m., Cox, Ch. 34

Diamondbacks RHP Zac Gallen (5-4, 3.12) vs. Athletics LHP Hogan Harris (1-1, 2.72).

At Chase Field: Gallen will be making his first start since May 30, when he walked off the mound at Citi Field in New York with a hamstring strain. … He has pitched in two simulated games at Salt River Fields, most recently throwing four innings on Monday morning. … He has faced the A’s twice in his career, giving up two runs in 11 innings. He hasn’t seen them since 2021. … Harris, a third-round pick in 2018, has been one of the A’s better starters in recent weeks. He moved into the rotation the same day Gallen was hurt – May 30 – and has made five starts in that span, posting a 2.28 ERA with 10 walks and 20 strikeouts in 27 2/3 innings. … He averages 93.3 mph with his four-seam fastball and also throws a curveball, change-up and slider, getting most of his whiffs on his curveball and change-up. Five of the six homers he has allowed have come on fastballs.

Coming up

Sunday: At Chase Field, 1:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (3-6, 4.45) vs. Athletics RHP Luis Medina (1-3, 5.25).

Monday: Off.

Tuesday: At Los Angeles, 7:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Ryne Nelson (5-6, 5.69) vs. Dodgers RHP Bobby Miller (1-1, 6.75).

Wednesday: At Los Angeles, 7:10 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Jordan Montgomery (6-5, 6.03) vs. Dodgers RHP Gavin Stone (9-2, 2.73).