Seventeen pitches. One-third of an inning. A slider with no bite left over the heart of the plate. And a rookie who didn’t miss it.
On August 7, 2026, at Chase Field, Edwin Díaz entered the ninth inning with the Dodgers leading the Diamondbacks 3-2. He walked Max Kepler to start things off, then faced Ryan Waldschmidt — Arizona’s No. 9 hitter, a rookie — and threw him a 90 mph slider that sat flat in the upper-right quadrant of the strike zone. Waldschmidt hit it to left-center. Two-run walk-off home run. Final score: 4-3 Diamondbacks.
Los Angeles dropped its seventh straight game, and its lead in the NL West shrank to 7.5 games.
The pitch that used to end at-bats
Díaz’s slider is one of the most feared pitches in baseball — at least it was. In 2022, it generated a 50.2% strikeout rate. At its best, it runs 92-93 mph with sharp, late break. Right now, post-surgery, it’s averaging 90 mph and arriving without that aggressive movement. The difference of two or three miles per hour doesn’t sound like much. Against a big-league hitter — or a rookie with nothing to lose — it’s the difference between a swing-and-miss and a walk-off.
His line on the night: 0.1 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 17 pitches. Blown save No. 2 of the year. Record: 1-1.
After the game, Díaz sat in front of the media and kept it simple: he’s a big-league pitcher, he needs to make better pitches, and he’s here to help his team win. No excuses. No deflection.
The weight behind the numbers
Díaz didn’t arrive in Los Angeles under ordinary circumstances. He signed in December 2025 for 3 years and $69 million — the highest average annual salary ($23M per year) ever paid to a reliever in MLB history. He earned it: in 2025 with the Mets, he posted a 1.63 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP in 66.1 innings with 28 saves, the second-best ERA among qualified relievers in all of baseball that season.
Then April happened. On the 22nd, the Dodgers sent him for arthroscopic surgery to remove five loose bone and cartilage fragments from his right elbow. He missed 85 days. He came back July 29 and has pitched four times since, allowing 4 earned runs and 2 home runs in 3 innings. His combined 2026 ERA stands at 11.00, WHIP at 2.44.
The question Dave Roberts has to answer
Manager Dave Roberts has kept Díaz in the closer role. But with Tanner Scott available as an alternative and the postseason getting closer by the week, every ninth inning in Los Angeles now feels like a managerial decision waiting to happen.
It’s worth remembering where this guy has been. In 2023, Díaz tore his right patellar tendon at the World Baseball Classic and missed the entire season. He came back in 2024, rebuilt his game, and was an All-Star for the second time in 2025. Now he’s facing his third major setback in four years — this time carrying the heaviest contract ever handed to a reliever, in a new city, on a team chasing a pennant.
What happened at Chase Field isn’t the final word on Edwin Díaz. It’s the starting point of another comeback. He’s done it before.
