CHICAGO -- The best thing that can be said about the Diamondbacks’ road trip, which started with two games in Mexico City, included a three-game stop in Milwaukee and then, finally, a three-game series with the Cubs at Wrigley Field, is that it's over.
The Diamondbacks boarded their chartered flight back to Phoenix on Sunday night following an 8-4 loss to the Cubs, hoping to leave their poor play behind. They'll have an off-day on Monday before opening a three-game series with the Pirates and then the Mets.
It surely will be better, because after this 2-6 trip, it would be hard for it to be as bad.
The Diamondbacks opened the trip three games above .500, a good start for a team that battled injuries and a tough schedule. They split two games against the Padres, dropped two of three to the Brewers and were swept by the Cubs.
They return home a game under .500, searching for answers.
"Bad," shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said. "Really bad. Win two out of eight? That’s not us. It was really bad. It was a disaster."
The starting pitchers, who were so good at the beginning of the year, have struggled. The last starter to pitch at least six innings was Michael Soroka, back on April 17.
The club has uncharacteristically run into outs on the bases, and its once-stalwart defense has committed not just physical errors, but too many mental mistakes for manager Torey Lovullo's liking.
Merrill Kelly, who is still trying to find his sea legs on the mound after opening the year on the injured list, felt like he made some progress with his command in Sunday's outing, but it still didn't go the way he wanted as he allowed six runs over 4 1/3 innings.
"We just haven't been playing good baseball," Kelly said of the trip. "We'll have games where we jump out and score runs early, and then the offense kind of goes to sleep. We [the starting pitchers] obviously haven't had a very good couple of turns in the rotation. We're definitely not doing our job of giving the team deep efforts and putting our bullpen in a good position to finish out games.
“This series, we had some defensive stuff that happened that affected the game big time. We just haven't been playing the same brand of baseball that we were earlier in the year. We just had a bad road trip, and hopefully we'll get home and turn the page."
Lovullo was so frustrated by some lapses in Friday's game that he screamed, "Wake up!" in the dugout. On Sunday, the manager made the rounds in the clubhouse, talking quietly with individual players.
Perdomo, the team's unofficial captain, had a message for Lovullo when he got to his locker.
"I just told Torey that we’re going to be good," Perdomo said. "At the end of the day, we’re going to be in the playoffs and we’re going to be good. This happens sometimes. The way we’ve been has been horrible for us. But we’re still working, we’re still fighting. We’ve got to make good pitches, take good at-bats. I think that’s the key to be fine at the end of the day. We haven’t done that this past week."
Spotting the problems is easier than finding solutions. For now, all they can do is vow to keep pushing forward.
"I stand before you guys every single day and tell you that we're working hard and things are going to turn, and we're going to have good days. And I'm going to continue to believe in that," Lovullo said. "Because I see how hard these guys work, and I think they just get frustrated when they don't have results. We've got to get the tide to turn a little bit. We'll have an off-day [Monday], and I'll expect their absolute best on Tuesday."