BALTIMORE -- Ketel Marte is back in the Diamondbacks' lineup batting leadoff for Wednesday’s matinee finale against the Orioles after he was a late scratch with lower back tightness before Tuesday night’s 4-3 win.
Marte was slotted in as the designated hitter and Adrian Del Castillo was at catcher. Ildemaro Vargas got the nod at second base again after he spelled Marte there on Tuesday and hit a decisive three-run home run.
Manager Torey Lovullo said Marte’s back issues flared after the first night in Baltimore, the final stop of a three-city, nine-game East Coast swing.
“We’re human beings, too, we sleep in different beds all the time, and I think the hotel bed here got him,” Lovullo said. “He said it was a little bit too soft for him and he knew after Day 1 it might be a problem. So we all know what that’s like.”
Marte’s return comes after he notched the 12th multihomer game of his career in the opener Monday. He took Dean Kremer’s first pitch of the game and launched it a Statcast-projected 443 feet, becoming the first Diamondbacks slugger to reach Eutaw Street in the history of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. (It was only Arizona’s 13th game in club history at the venue.)
Marte followed with a third-inning solo shot that also sailed well beyond the out-of-town scoreboard in right.