Incredibly, the Diamondback’s season truly is coming down to the wire. In one sense, it’s an immense privilege that their postseason hopes are still alive at this point in the season. But it’s also incredibly frustrating to know their fate isn’t entirely their own and it’s tempting to look back at all of the wasted opportunities that could have made the difference. Ultimately, they can only control the outcomes of their own games and will have to hope the rest works itself out.

The D-Backs’ offense has not been particularly potent in the first inning – they prefer to do their damage later in the game as befits their comeback moniker. They own a modest .239/.304/.423 slash line in opening frames and have scored just 71 runs on the season, but you could have been fooled differently on Wednesday night. After Lars Nootbaar struck out to open the game, Ketel Marte lined the ball into left field, but instead of an easy second out, Zac Veen just completely whiffed on the ball and Marte ended up at second on the error. From there, the D-Backs took full advantage of the mental error with an RBI single from Gabriel Moreno and a pair of two-out singles from Pavin Smith and Nolan Arenado, the latter of which plated Moreno. But the coup de grace was a picture-perfect liner along the foul line from Corbin Carroll that resulted in his majors-leading 17th triple that scored both Smith and Arenado to give the D-Backs and Merrill Kelly an immediate four-run lead. Maddeningly, after the first inning, the D-Backs were mostly shut down offensively. They went down in order in four straight innings (six times overall) and even when they did get baserunners, they found ways to get themselves out of it with two separate double plays. Their final run came on a solo home run from Tim Tawa that just barely escaped the ballpark.

Kelly, who’s had anything but an easy year, did what the team needed him to do – especially when playing with a lead. He wasn’t dominant by any means, but he minimized the amount of traffic around him and pitched to contact wherever he could. His changeup was particularly devastating, generating four of the eight whiffs he had on the night. There were a couple trouble spots, particularly in the second and third innings. In the former, a one-out walk to Kyle Karros quickly turned into a run when Adael Adamor drove Carroll right up to the right field wall where he tried to make an incredible leaping catch but couldn’t quite complete the play that allowed the Rockies to get on the board and Adamor to reach second. Then in the fourth, consecutive singles from Ezequiel Tovar and our old friend Jake McCarthy opened the frame to put Rockies on the corners. Kelly did manage to strike out Cole Carrigg, but Hunter Goodman was able to elevate an inside slider deep enough into left field to score Tovar on the sacrifice fly. As has been talked about increasingly frequently, the Arizona bullpen is a real strength of the team and Torey Lovullo has stated he wants to dip into it as soon as he realistically can. It delivered once again tonight with 3.2 innings of one-run ball (a solo shot from Tovar that just cleared the fence) to provide a (mostly) stress-free win.

Of course, the D-Backs’ game was only half of the equation. The other half went down in Chavez Ravine where the Padres took down the Dodgers to move into the top Wild Card spot and bring Arizona’s elimination number (the combination of Arizona losses and San Diego wins) down to two. Their path to the postseason is not quite closed, but it’s so narrow that it’s difficult to even be able to see it. For now, they’ll need to win tomorrow for the sweep against the hapless Rockies before going into San Diego on Friday with their season on the line. It should be a fun, exciting few days of baseball as the season comes to a close.

The Denver Broncos enter this week with a couple of lingering injuries from their running back position group. RJ Harvey was held out last week with a hamstring, but both JK Dobbins and Jonah Coleman were dealing with injuries that came up during their win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. All three will bear monitoring this week.

The good news is both wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. and Harvey were back practicing today. That bodes well for all three running backs and Mims to get back onto the field for Sunday Night Football against the Los Angeles Rams. Coleman did not participate, but it is believed to be a minor ankle issue that shouldn’t affect his gameday status. We’ll have to wait and see how that goes.

Meanwhile, the Rams have had a couple of very physical games to start the season. The biggest name on the list will be Puke Nacua and reports seem to suggest he may be doubtful to play this week.

Here is your full Broncos-Rams practice participation report for Wednesday.

BOLD – Indicates change in status; NIR­- Indicates not injury related; *- Team conducted a walk-through or did not practice / report is an estimation; UNDERLINE– Player is on Reserve or Exempt List and has returned to practice
STATUS DEFINITIONS: Did not participate (DNP); Limited: means less than 100 percent of a player’s normal repetitions; Full—100 percent of player’s normal repetitions; Out: will not play; Doubtful: Unlikely to play; Questionable: Uncertain to play