PHOENIX — As giddy as the Arizona Diamondbacks get seeing second baseman Ketel Marte destroy baseball after baseball during his ramp-up back from a hamstring injury, they are remaining smart.
Marte on Saturday morning hit two home runs in an extended spring game across four at-bats and three innings in the field. Manager Torey Lovullo said he has been “almost like playing a video game” with the way he is hitting the ball in competitive environments.
The third-place finisher in the 2024 NL MVP race has been out since April 4, and after a projected timeline of late April to early May was issued by Lovullo, it’s about that time.
The manager said at Saturday’s pregame presser that the upcoming road series against the New York Mets, which begins on Tuesday and ends on Thursday, is a bit ambitious for Marte’s return. Arizona’s next three days after that are in Philadelphia against the Phillies before seven straight days with games at Chase Field.
Would it be too awkward to send Marte across the country for just a day or two before coming all the way back for a full seven-day week in the Valley?
“Not too awkward for me! Sounds like a really good idea to me!” Lovullo joked, clarifying that he doesn’t know what’s going on after the Mets series in terms of a potential return plan.
Seems like that Philly that weekend is not off the table, though.
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The manager was encouraged that Marte’s work on Saturday included coming out of the box and running the bases as well.
Arizona will be extra delicate here given Marte’s history of these types of injuries and how he could easily re-aggravate them and miss much more time, as he has done in the past. Lovullo agreed all that history regarding Marte and knowing what works with his rehab helps.
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Part of “easing him back into it” has involved discussions of using Marte as a designated hitter.
The easy solution is using Marte against lefties, a pitching matchup white-hot DH Pavin Smith has only seen in four plate appearances coming into Saturday. That would give Marte a nice mix of no fielding time and full days off to fully get back up to speed and ensure a problematic part of Marte’s injury history is handled with as much precaution as possible.
The D-backs could sure use him.
After defying all expectations at the start of the season and maintaining the pace of the elite offense they were last year, Arizona has slowed down significantly in the last full week, ranking 25th in OPS (.642) over the last six games prior to Saturday. It is averaging 3.7 runs, 6.8 hits and 4.2 walks per game over that span. The D-backs are hitting .203 with runners in scoring position for those six contests.
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