This story was excerpted from Steve Gilbert’s D-backs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Torey Lovullo was emotional following Game 5 of the World Series last November. His Diamondbacks team's unexpected run through the postseason came to an end that night and Lovullo tried to honestly sum up his feelings.

“I want to run away and hide for a few days,” Lovullo said. “I want to go camping and just sit in the tent and suck my thumb and eat ice cream. Is that the weirdest answer you guys have ever had? And just let it run its course the way it's supposed to.”

For the record, Lovullo did not go camping during the offseason. And, according to him, he did not suck his thumb.

He did, however, eat ice cream.

Lots and lots of ice cream.

It was hard for Lovullo to resist because it kept, literally, showing up on his doorstep.

“I want to say thanks to all the fans out there that sent me ice cream,” Lovullo said this past week as the D-backs opened Spring Training. “I don't know how you guys got my address. Some of them were hand delivered with no postage on it. They were just showing up on the doorstep. So I had a ton of ice cream. It was delicious. I put on 10 great pounds, my winter coat, and I need to work that off in Spring Training. I don’t know how they did it, but they got the flavors right, too. I’m chocolate and peanut butter.”

Lovullo, understandably, took the loss to the Rangers hard and for a while it was difficult for him to fully appreciate just how much his team accomplished.

As the offseason went on, he began to get through it and then he had an epiphany last Sunday while he watched the Super Bowl. The Chiefs beat the 49ers in overtime and a realization came to Lovullo as he watched San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan walk off the field dejected.

“I felt his pain,” Lovullo said. “I felt what he was feeling. I’ve lived that and I know the heartache that he had. At the end of it when I walked out of the room I'm like, ‘But that's a pretty cool year.’ He was a Super Bowl runner-up. He got there and that’s awesome and he should be really proud of himself. So I kind of told myself that same [thing]. And maybe that was the last thing that I needed before coming here so I could totally turn the page and make sure that I was ready.”