David Peralta stood on deck with a bat in his hands, but when the ninth spot in the Diamondbacks’ order rolled around in the top of the sixth on Monday night, Peralta retreated to the dugout. Alex Young, the club’s lefty reliever, came to the plate instead.
It was, to say the least, an odd situation for a reliever to be taking an at-bat: bases loaded, two out, tie game. But to hear manager Torey Lovullo explain it, he did not have much choice, not with a bullpen that could offer only three more innings in a game that had four to go.