Ketel Marte just turned Chase Field into a Game 7 atmosphere on a random Tuesday in May. And he might have hit the coldest celebration of the entire MLB season while doing it.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, two runners on, and the Diamondbacks trailing the Giants 3-2, Marte stepped in against Matt Gage. He saw a 1-0 slider, and the moment it left his bat he started his routine. Bat flip first. Helmet toss second. Slow walk to the dugout while the ball was still climbing into the left-field seats. By the time he reached home plate, the Phoenix crowd was losing its mind, and his teammates were waiting to dump a cooler of water on his head.
Final score: 5-3 Arizona. The Diamondbacks completed the sweep.
It was Marte’s first career walk-off home run, which is hard to believe given how many big swings he has produced. It was also his sixth home run of the season, and the second time in the game he had hit the ball hard enough to leave most ballparks. In the eighth inning, he had launched a 411-foot flyout to dead center that would have been a homer in 24 of 30 stadiums. He just missed his first chance to tie the game, then made sure he did not miss the second one.
The celebration is what people will be sharing tomorrow. The bat flip alone would have made the highlight reel. Marte added the helmet flip almost as an afterthought, then stared into the dugout like he had been waiting his whole career to do exactly that. The Giants reliever did not protest. He just walked off the mound and accepted that he had been beaten by a star having his star moment.
Arizona needed this. The Diamondbacks have been one of the more frustrating teams in the National League so far. Their lineup is loaded, their rotation has been inconsistent, and a slow start put them in the basement of the NL West for most of April. Sweeping the Giants at home in dramatic fashion is the kind of weekend that flips a season.
Marte is the reason. He has carried this offense for stretches before, and his second-half history is even stronger. If he is locking back into this version of himself, the Diamondbacks have a real path back into the playoff picture before the All-Star break.
The Giants are the team that should be worried after this. San Francisco came into the series hoping to stay close to the Dodgers in the division. Losing three straight in Phoenix, including a one-run game decided on a Marte walk-off, is the kind of week that turns into a long flight home and a tense clubhouse meeting.
For Marte, this is what stardom looks like in baseball. A clutch swing on a Tuesday night, a celebration the internet will not stop posting, and a moment his teammates will bring up in the dugout for the rest of the season. Walk-offs do not have to be polite. This one was not, and it was perfect.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
