Max Kepler lined a walk-off double to right in the 10th inning Sunday and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7, completing a rally from seven runs down that, per the Associated Press, tied the largest comeback in franchise history — matching a 2022 win over Philadelphia. The victory clinched the series and pushed Arizona to 51-48, half a game out of the final National League wild-card spot.
It looked finished early. Eduardo Rodriguez was knocked out in the third, charged with five runs in 2.2 innings as St. Louis piled up a 7-0 lead by the fifth, with Blaze Jordan driving in three and Alec Burleson adding two RBI against starter Andre Pallante‘s solid 5.1 innings. From there the bullpen shut the door: after Drey Jameson allowed two in the fifth, Philip Abner, Taylor Clarke, Ryan Thompson and winner Juan Morillo combined for 5.1 scoreless innings the rest of the way.
The comeback came in pieces. Ketel Marte‘s RBI single and bases-loaded walks to Gabriel Moreno and Tyler Locklear made it 7-3 in the sixth. In the seventh, Geraldo Perdomo lined a two-run, inside-the-park home run to left — his seventh homer of the year and the kind of full-sprint baseball this roster is built on. And in the eighth, Nolan Arenado tied it with a two-run shot off Gordon Graceffo, his 13th of the season and the 1,999th hit of his career. Kepler finished 2-for-5, and his 10th-inning double scored Jorge Barrosa for the winner.
Arizona has now won back-to-back games over a St. Louis club it is chasing in the wild-card race — Saturday’s 5-3 win preceded this one — and a half-game deficit with an August 3 deadline approaching makes the front office’s next two weeks considerably more interesting.
For fantasy purposes, Arenado sits one hit from 2,000 and has quietly steadied his season at third base, Perdomo continues to add sneaky speed-and-power value at shortstop, and Kepler remains a matchup streamer — but the name to watch is Morillo, who keeps surfacing in high-leverage innings for a team suddenly playing meaningful baseball.
