Arizona Bets Its Wild-Card Race on Ketel Marte

Ketel Marte returned to the Arizona Diamondbacks lineup on Monday and heard more boos than cheers at Chase Field. The second baseman went 1-for-3 with a walk in a 2-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, two weeks after he failed to show up at Fenway Park.

Manager Torey Lovullo still will not guarantee it will not happen again. That is the wager Arizona is making in a half-game wild-card race with a star it can no longer trade without his consent.

Marte Is Back, and Chase Field Booed Him

Arizona activated Marte from the 10-day injured list on Aug. 31 and wrote him in as the designated hitter, batting fourth. He had not played since Aug. 16 in Atlanta. He spoke to reporters before the game, then stood in front of his teammates and apologized for the Aug. 17 absence in Boston.

The home crowd did not wait for the apology to land. Boos met him in each at-bat. He grounded out in the second, then singled in the eighth. In the ninth, with Arizona down a run, Ryan Waldschmidt and Corbin Carroll beat out infield hits and a wild pitch put the tying run at third. Marte was on deck in the ninth when Gabriel Moreno grounded out to short. The Padres won that night too, and Arizona fell a half-game behind San Diego for the last National League wild-card spot.

Thank God they accepted my apology. The most important thing is for me to help them out. I stood in front of them like a man and I apologized, and thankfully they accepted.

Ketel Marte, Diamondbacks second baseman, after Monday’s game at Chase Field

He said he felt strange in his first at-bat and hoped that would fade. On Tuesday he was in the middle of the order again as the DH, and the first at-bat drew boos once more before the sound mixed with cheers. The knee is still keeping him off second base. Ildemaro Vargas has been there instead.

Four Years of the Same Disappearing Act

Lovullo told reporters Monday that the Fenway night was not new. John Gambadoro, the Phoenix radio host who first laid out the earlier incidents, had the 2023 Yankees game on the record, and Lovullo called that account pretty accurate. The through-line is not injury. It is a player who leaves the building when the race is tight.

THE WALK-AWAYS ARIZONA ALREADY LIVED

1. Sept. 24, 2023: Marte is in the lineup at Yankee Stadium and does not arrive. He stays at the hotel, believing a rain delay will become a postponement the way Saturday’s game had. The game starts 50 minutes late in wind and rain. Every other player is there. Arizona is trying to clinch a playoff spot. He later plays all 17 postseason games and wins NLCS MVP.
2. Late September 2024: A day after Arizona blows an 8-0 lead to Milwaukee, Marte tells the staff he needs the next game off if they want the best version of him for the last week. Six games remain and Arizona holds a wild-card lead. He pinch-hits against San Francisco and strikes out. He goes 4-for-20 down the stretch. The Diamondbacks lose four of their last six and miss the playoffs by one game.
3. July 18, 2025: After the All-Star Game in Atlanta, Marte does not take the team plane back to Phoenix. His Scottsdale house is burglarized the night of the game. He said $400,000 in property was taken. Penciled in against St. Louis, he does not show and does not answer calls. He finally checks in by iPad from the Dominican Republic after the club threatens a suspension and a fine. Arizona sweeps those three games without him, then puts him on the restricted list from July 18 to July 20.
4. Aug. 17, 2026: He travels to Boston, is seen at the team hotel the night before, and is written in as DH. The club holds the lineup until about 20 minutes before first pitch. He never arrives and does not call Lovullo, general manager Mike Hazen, or his teammates. Arizona places him on the restricted list, loses 11-1, and spends the next days getting little back from his phone.

On Aug. 20, Marte and agent Charisse Espinosa-Dash sat with Hazen and Lovullo for several hours at Salt River Fields. An MRI showed left knee inflammation, he received an injection, and the club moved him to the 10-day injured list. Because he had been on the restricted list, the IL stay could not be backdated. The earliest return was Aug. 30. He came back Aug. 31.

The day after that meeting, while Arizona hosted Cincinnati and won 9-0, Marte was photographed at Talking Stick Resort during the game. Lovullo said he was free to do what he wanted as long as he posted for work the next morning. Marte later called the casino trip personal time. He has been hurt before, he said. Fans did not treat a roulette floor during a home game as a closed matter.

Why Arizona Still Bats Him Cleanup

The front office is not confused about the talent. Marte is a three-time All-Star, a two-time Silver Slugger, and the 2023 NLCS MVP. He is a career.278 hitter with 192 home runs, and this is his fourth straight season with 20 or more. He already has 21 homers and 67 RBIs, which still lead the club even after the missed time. FanGraphs has him at 2.2 wins above replacement in a down year.

THE BAT THE DIAMONDBACKS KEEP BETTING ON

This season’s.760 OPS sits 58 points under his career mark, and his.315 on-base percentage would be his lowest since 2016. Over his last 30 games before the layoff he hit.209. The October version is why the club eats the rest. He hit .387 in the NLCS against these same Phillies, then kept a postseason hitting streak alive into the World Series. That streak opened his playoff career at 16 games and reached 20 before it died in Game 5.

He is in year two of a seven-year $116.5 million contract that runs through 2031 with an $11.5 million player option, $46 million of it deferred. This year’s salary is $15 million. In April he crossed 10-and-5 rights, 10 years in the majors and five with the same club, so he can block any trade. Arizona shopped him last winter and did not like the return. Now it cannot move him unless he agrees. The production still outruns the check. That is the math that keeps writing his name in ink.

What He Told His Teammates After the Cameras

The unusual order of Monday was the tell. Marte met the press first, with an interpreter, and had not yet spoken to the clubhouse. Teammates had been texting him for days after Fenway and getting little or nothing back. Hazen had already said the Aug. 20 meeting was productive and that Marte would talk to the group at some point. CEO Derrick Hall had called the original absence a complete mystery.

WHAT HE ANSWERED, AND WHAT HE WOULD NOT

• The manager: He said he failed Lovullo by not showing up, and that he still gets along with him. He said no one made the decision for him.
• That morning: He called it a moment of frustration, said his body was in pain, and said he could not react. He would not say what the frustration was. He does not like to talk about his life, he said.
• The casino: Personal time, he said, and he has been injured before.
• The fans: Asked if he had a message, he shook his head no. After the boos, he said he had not understood the word in the question and that he will never stop loving the fans.
• The room: He told the team he did not want any teammate to go through what he went through that morning. He said they accepted the apology.

The head-shake is what Chase Field answered before the walk-back. John Gambadoro put the local argument in one line, asking whether anyone could really disagree that the fans were owed an apology too. The second night’s mix of boos and cheers was not forgiveness. It was a crowd waiting to see if the bat would make the rest of it expensive to remember.

Geraldo Perdomo had gone out of his way to defend Marte after last summer’s trip, even stepping into a Lovullo press conference. Other voices in that clubhouse had already tired of the days off, including a 2024 request in the last week of a race. Monday’s closed-door session was brief, Lovullo said, and Marte did what was asked. Brief is not the same as settled.

Lovullo Will Not Promise Marte Shows Up

Lovullo has spent two weeks as the shield. On Aug. 17 he still thought Marte would walk through the door. He said he had been reaching out and getting little back. By Monday he was describing a personality, not a one-off, and he would not give the guarantee reporters wanted.

It’s not the first time. He’s definitely a retreater. When things are on his mind, some things I cause when I crash down on him. I know you guys want me to sometimes bury him and make him feel even worse than he already does. He doesn’t respond to that. But I feel like it’s my job to do that sometimes. When I do it, he retreats. When something doesn’t go well, he retreats. So this is not the first time.

Torey Lovullo, Diamondbacks manager, Monday at Chase Field

He said this is as much progress as he has seen, because Marte is talking about those traits at all. Fastball, middle, homer, that is usually all Marte wants to think about, Lovullo said. Marte told his manager he will not go missing again. Lovullo wants to believe him. Asked if he had any guarantees, he said, “I don’t.” The other times, he asked for it never to happen again. He called it a work in progress. He called Marte human, and not perfect.

That is a manager betting his September on a player’s word after four public tests of it. The clubhouse is being asked to do the same thing in a race that flipped in a night.

San Diego, Houston and 22 Games to Go

Arizona is 73-67, a half-game behind the Padres at 73-66 for the last wild-card slot, and has lost three in a row. The Phillies came in rolling and have kept rolling. The Cubs and Phillies sit well ahead in the wild-card field. Miami is several games further back. The Diamondbacks have 22 games left. They go to Houston on Sept. 4, and they finish the year at Petco Park against San Diego from Sept. 25 to 27. That last series can settle the head-to-head tiebreaker and, if the math stays this tight, the seat itself. Wild-card rounds open Sept. 29.

WHERE THE RACE SITS

• Arizona: 73-67, half-game behind for the third wild card, three-game losing streak.
• San Diego: 73-66, holds the last playoff slot, and hosts Arizona in the final weekend.
• The month: 22 games left, Houston this weekend, Phillies still in the building at Chase Field.

Marte can still change the sound in that building. He can also leave Lovullo holding another lineup card 20 minutes before first pitch. Arizona has already chosen which risk it will carry to the finish. The standings will score it in public.