The Arizona Diamondbacks comeback win column read 40 by the time Tuesday night was over, most in the majors, and the 40th one arrived in the least likely way there is: a rookie off the bench, two outs left in the season's evening, a two-run homer that turned a loss into a 5-4 win over the Cubs.
Ryan Waldschmidt was not in the lineup. He was a name on a card, held back for exactly this, and when the moment came he did not foul off four pitches and work a walk. He ended it. Pinch hitters live a strange baseball life: one at-bat, cold muscles, a full bullpen arm throwing his best stuff, and no second chance to make an adjustment. Most of them make an out and jog back to the dugout to get their jacket. This one got all of it.
Forty comeback wins is the number that actually tells you something about this club. You do not stumble into 40. It means the bullpen kept handing the lineup one more inning to work with, and it means the lineup kept believing that inning was worth something. Teams that quit in the seventh do not stack these up. Arizona has stacked them all summer, which is a large part of why they are still in the playoff conversation in late August instead of packing bats for October vacations.
Checked the almanac: the standard for pinch-hit theater is still Kirk Gibson in 1988, Game 1 of the World Series, one at-bat off the bench and one swing off Dennis Eckersley. Nobody is putting a Tuesday in August next to that. But the shape of it is the same, and the shape is why we watch.
The Cubs get their answer this afternoon, 3:41 ET in Arizona, the finale of the set and their chance to leave the desert without that image in their heads. What I'm watching is whether Waldschmidt's name shows up on the card at first pitch instead of in the eighth. Managers have handed out bigger promotions for less.