Under The Radar, All Over The Postseason Box Scores

Arizona general manager Mike Hazen identified Ketel Marte early. Hazen’s first big move after joining the Diamondbacks in the fall of 2016 was to sign manager Torey Lovullo. His second was acquiring Marte in a four-player trade with Seattle.

Marte has been a franchise ride-or-die guy since.

From moving from shortstop to center field to second base, from making an All-Star Game to missing time with injury-shortened seasons, Marte has been a constant if under-publicized piece of the Diamondbacks’ core. His career brackets the team’s two most recent playoff appearances, their brief stay in 2017 and the one now that is bordering on storybook.

A feisty Lovullo set the agenda before Game 6 of the NLCS on Monday when said: “We didn’t come cross-country to get our asses kicked.”

Marte was among a crew that ensured that would not happen. Marte had two hits and two RBIs in the 5-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park, evening the series at three games apiece and bringing the Diamondbacks within one game of their second World Series after an 84-win regular season.

We could have seen it coming. Marte extended his postseason hitting to 15 games (it started with four games in 2017) to tie Marquis Grissom’s major league record with Atlanta in 1995-96, and his bat has been a primary offensive weapon as the D-Backs have come back from the edge.

Marte’s bases-loaded, walk-off single beat the Phillies 2-1 in Game 3, a virtual must-win after Philadelphia took the first two games at home and arrived at Chase Field after a dominating 10-0 victory in Game 2. Marte singled and scored the winning run in a four-run eighth inning of a 6-5 comeback victory in Game 4.

After home runs by Tommy Pham and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. staked Arizona to a 3-1 lead after four innings Monday, Marte supplied the insurance. He tripled in a run and scored in the fifth to give Merrill Kelly a 4-1 lead, and he in a run in the seventh. He is 18 for 48 (.375) with seven extra-base hits and seven RBIs in the NLCS.

Marte is a soft-spoken standout, and spending his career outside of the major media markets has done little to raise his profile.

“I’ve been battling, and I consider myself a grinder,” Marte said after Game 3. “To come up and come back and give the team a win, it’s just the most important thing.”

Christian Walker, along with Marte the only remaining players from the D-Backs’ 2017 playoff team, has seen growth from a teammate who despite an .844 OPS, 25 homers and 82 RBIs in the regular has been a bit overshadowed by the team’s youth movement.

“There is a lot of intent and there is a lot of intentional work that happens,” Walker said. “He’s so gifted. He’s so talented. I think what we are seeing is that he is learning about himself. He knows what contributes and what doesn’t contribute.

“I can see him make up his mind before an at-bat. ‘Hey, the team needs a single here,’ or, ‘Maybe the team needs me to lose on right here.’ That’s what separates guys, that maturity, knowing when to let it fly and when to execute something small.”

The Diamondbacks seemed to know what they had all along. Marte, who turned 30 on the final day of the regular season, signed a five-year, $24 million extension in the spring 2018, a year before he was eligible for arbitration.

The D-Backs signed him to another extension before last season, a five-year, $76 million deal that included a $3 million signing bonus. Marte earned $11 million season and is to make $13 million in 2024, $16 million in 2025 and 2026, and $14 million in 2027. The D-Backs have a $13 million option with an $3 million buyout for 2028.

His postseason play makes that look like a bargain. Marte had a homer in the two-game sweep of Milwaukee in an NL wild card series and had another in the three-game sweep of the Dodgers in an NLDS. His homer was one of four solo shots in the clinching 4-2 victory over the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLDS.

“Any time a guy has having potentially a career year and nobody is talking about is, it means some other guys are doing some real special stuff,” Walker said. “Ketel deserves a lot of credit. Could have been an all-star. Maybe it’s on purpose. Maybe he doesn’t want the attention.”