CINCINNATI -- Things were not looking good for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Trailing 3-1 heading into the ninth inning Thursday afternoon, the D-backs were looking at losing three of four games to the Reds after just dropping two of three in Pittsburgh. That would have made for a long postgame flight to Philadelphia, where they're set to open a three-game series Friday against the red-hot Phillies.

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Then in the span of five batters, the D-backs went from the season possibly spinning away from them to a morale-boosting 5-4 comeback win at Great American Ball Park.

Alek Thomas had an RBI single during the inning to pull the D-backs to within 3-2. And it was Josh Rojas who delivered a two-run single to push it to a 4-3 lead.

Inside the jubilant visiting clubhouse, the music blared, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

"We have so much more momentum," Rojas said of the late lead change. "This is such a momentum game. You lose that game, it's a completely different feeling here. You might get some panic even for myself. If I don't get a hit there, I'm hitting the cage tomorrow early trying to figure out what's going on. And you get a hit like that, and now I don't even know if I need BP tomorrow. It's such a crazy game."

The D-backs went into this road trip hoping to make up some ground while playing three teams under .500.

They won the first game in Pittsburgh, but then lost in walk-off fashion in the second and were shut out in the third.

Then the Reds took the first two games of this four-game set. And as they have several times this year, the D-backs seemed on the verge of falling off a cliff.

Merrill Kelly pitched them to a 7-0 win Wednesday to stop the bleeding. The veteran was aware that when the D-backs have started to struggle this year, it has brought back bad memories from last year's 110-loss season.

"Anytime that we start losing games in a row, I think there's a lot of people probably around here [where] last year starts creeping into their heads, right?" Kelly said. "And it's hard not to after what we went through last year. So to be able to kind of stop that skid and get some momentum turned on the other way is big."

Keep in mind that Kelly was saying that after the D-backs handily won Wednesday's game, so you can multiply that relief after Thursday's unlikely victory.

"It's all about results," Rojas said. "Results change your feels. When you get good results like this, even if it was late in the ninth inning, it completely changes the mood and how you feel going into the next game, next series."

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo has gone out of his way to not talk to his players about last season. Even during Spring Training, he vowed not to bring it up to them, believing that this was a different group with a different mindset.

"That's the beauty of this team," Lovullo said. "I think they have unbelievable character. I've been saying now for about two or three weeks, they've got a great heartbeat. There was never any panic in the dugout. We felt like if we just kept scratching and clawing and we got into their bullpen, we'd give ourselves a chance."

And with the win, the D-backs still have a chance for a winning road trip, something that seemed unlikely with three outs to go Thursday.