2011 MLB Playoffs: Arizona Diamondbacks Need to Remain Comeback Kids

Two games, two losses. The Arizona Diamondbacks now must win three in a row against the Brewers to advance to the NLCS—a daunting, but not insurmountable, task.

The Diamondbacks will come home Tuesday night with a chance to stay alive in the playoffs, and much like their entire season, they will be heavy underdogs.

The pitching matchup alone makes pundits close their books on this NLDS before the first pitch is even thrown.

The Brewers will send Shaun Marcum to the mound. He was acquired via trade to shore up the rotation in a final push during the last year that Prince Fielder would be with the team.

Josh Collmenter, an early-season call up from Triple-A who tops out at 90 mph, will be pitching for the Diamondbacks.

The first two games were full of missed opportunities and questionable in-game decisions. Gibson’s intuition, which had served him so well for 162 games, had suddenly abandoned him.

Ian Kennedy was one out away from going seven innings, while only giving up two runs, in a game where he did not have his best stuff, laboring the last few innings. He was clearly not as sharp as he was nearly every time he took the field in the regular season.

Unfortunately for Kennedy and the Diamondbacks, any mistake would be one too many, since they were going against Yovani Gallardo, a pitcher who has completely silenced the Diamondbacks' bats during the regular season, and the first game of the NLDS was no different.

In the second game, the Diamondbacks were able to score some runs off Zach Greinke and stay in the game, despite a disappointing outing from Daniel Hudson. But they were undone when Brad Ziegler took over and proceeded to have one of the worst performances a pitcher could possibly imagine.

The Diamondbacks will need to have short memories if they are to get back in this series.

They will need to get back to the team that won 94 games, the team that was not afraid of any opponent and refused to believe they were out of it, no matter what the inning or what the score.

The Diamondbacks had the most come-from-behind wins of any team in baseball during the regular season. Now, they’ll need to stage their biggest comeback yet.