ST. LOUIS -- D-backs manager Torey Lovullo made it clear Thursday that he has not "benched" second baseman Brandon Drury, but instead has "pulled back" on Drury's playing time while he works on some things at the plate.
"He's still a young player," Lovullo said of the 24-year-old. "He's had a great offensive year in spurts, the numbers are very solid and we just want to make sure he continues to learn and grow. I wanted to pull back from the moment and work on a couple of things."
Over the past month, Drury has hit .205 entering Thursday, and after the All-Star break, Lovullo sat down with him to discuss reducing his playing time a bit.

"It's probably now about a two- or three-week period of time where he's been missing pitches," Lovullo said. "Something will happen during an at-bat or maybe a fundamental part of his swing where he wasn't getting off and attacking the ball and squaring it up as he was earlier in the year. He shared a couple of thoughts with me, we bounced some ideas back and forth, and I made the decision that it was time to maybe go back to the drawing board and work on some things."
Once Drury is able to incorporate those changes, Lovullo said he will go back to his everyday role.
Hazen adding depth
The D-backs on Thursday acquired Minor League catcher John Ryan Murphy from the Twins in exchange for lefty Gabriel Moya. Murphy was assigned to Triple-A Reno.
"Kind of what we talked about where every deal wasn't just going to be about the immediate season and Major League team," general manager Mike Hazen said. "Even at the Deadline, we're still looking ways to improve short and long term, ways to strengthen the organization in various areas, and this was one of those."
More trades coming?
Hazen filled the club's biggest need when he acquired outfielder J.D. Martinez from the Tigers earlier a little more than a week ago, but he is still working the phones.
"Not anything that you would feel confident comes to fruition," Hazen said when asked if anything else was in the works. "We're still looking for ways to improve the team, long-term, nothing close, we're talking to a lot of different teams about a lot of different areas, still going to look at our pitching to make sure we feel confident getting through the next two months pitching-wise from a depth and volume standpoint."
Gardy back
D-backs bench coach Ron Gardenhire missed the first two games of the previous series with the Braves due to an illness that was not related to the prostate cancer surgery he underwent during Spring Training.
Jerry Narron, who filled in for Gardenhire during his absence at the beginning of the season, took his place.