Following a one-out double by Jake McCarthy, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo turned to Pavin Smith off the bench to deliver the knockout punch in the ninth. Batting for a struggling Eugenio Suárez, he faced rookie right-hander Randy Rodriguez, who was throwing upper 90s velocity with a wipeout slider. Smith came up huge, hitting a to the home run porch in center field to make Arizona 4-2 winners over the San Francisco Giants. It was the first career walk-off hit in Smith’s life.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“It’s pretty crazy,” Smith said to PHNX’s Jesse Friedman in the postgame media scrum in the clubhouse. “It’s stuff that you dream of, you play it in your mind almost every day. If that situation comes, I want to be able to do that.”
Pavin Smith said this was his first walk-off homer in his life.
"It's pretty crazy. It's stuff that you sort of dream of and you play it in your mind almost every day." pic.twitter.com/ma4moTMKpe
— PHNX Diamondbacks (@PHNX_Dbacks) June 4, 2024
In that situation, Smith was looking just to get a single with Jake McCarthy at second and representing the winning run. He got a 98 MPH fastball that split the middle of the strike zone and crushed a deep fly ball to center, with an exit velocity of 105.7 MPH off the bat.
“I wanted to be ready for his fastball,” said Smith. “I felt like on previous pinch-hits I was a little late on fastball.”
Smith worked with the velo machine starting in the fifth inning to prepare himself to face high velocity fastballs. In the eighth inning, he felt hungry and ate a banana. In the postgame media scrum in the clubhouse, Smith joked about adding that to his daily routine.
Pavin Smith said he ate a banana in the bottom of the eighth inning, shortly before his walk-off homer.
"I think that’s going to be into the routine now. That's gonna be every day." pic.twitter.com/lhSqMYlRvw
— Jesse Friedman (@JesseNFriedman) June 4, 2024
It’s been a tough road for the former first rounder. On top of his own struggles, he’s had difficulty finding a role on the team with Christian Walker emerging as the everyday first baseman. He’s played a fifth outfielder/pinch-hitter role on the team that past two seasons and has delivered some big hits in the regular season and the postseason.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona Cardinals for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
