D-backs embrace the chaos, advance to World Series

PHILADELPHIA — For most of the D-backs’ 26-year existence, the franchise’s one indelible image, the portrait that time has never come close to erasing, is that of Luis Gonzalez’s bloop hit to beat Mariano Rivera and the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. Other memorable seasons have followed. Other players have had their moments. Nothing, though, has come particularly close to comparing.

At long last, Arizona has a chance to recreate that type of legacy. In beating the Phillies, 4-2, in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday, the D-backs won the second pennant in franchise history and their first since 2001. More than that, they overcame a series of so-called better teams and long odds to prove their mettle as the NL’s best.

Two years ago, Arizona lost 110 games. Rebuilt behind rookie Corbin Carroll, a more developed rotation and a wholly unrecognizable bullpen, the D-backs turned around their fortunes and won 84 games this season. They have since won nine more to reach the World Series, becoming the first NL team with a negative run differential to win the pennant.

“There were some dark days there, some long nights for players and coaches,” Carroll said. “We came out of it better; we really did. We found some things that carried us.”

Ketel Marte, whose seventh-inning double extended his postseason hitting streak to 16 games, earned NLCS MVP honors after batting .387 with four doubles and a triple among his 12 hits in the series.

Quiet for so much of the NLCS, Carroll broke out with three hits, two stolen bases, two runs scored and a sacrifice fly. It was Carroll’s RBI single off Ranger Suárez in the fifth inning at Citizens Bank Park that scored the tying run, and his stolen base moments later that allowed him to score on Gabriel Moreno’s hit to right. With that, the D-backs took a lead they would never relinquish.

Rookie Brandon Pfaadt, who held the Phillies to two runs over the game’s first four innings, gave way to a small army of relievers to hold one of the league’s top lineups at bay. The Phillies never stopped pressing, most notably drawing two walks with one out in the seventh. But Kevin Ginkel extinguished that rally to maintain the lead for Arizona.

“I think this team battles,” Ginkel said. “I said it the other day: We find different ways to win games. We slug, we pitch, we play defense. When it was my spot to come in, I tried to do the best I could, and I did that. … I’m going to the World Series. It’s insane.”

The D-backs will face the Rangers in the World Series beginning Friday in Arlington.