Three-time All-Star second baseman Ketel Marte has spent much of this season underperforming with the bat.

But the Arizona Diamondbacks star is on a hot streak and has increased his batting average 42 points in just seven games entering Sunday afternoon’s contest against the Colorado Rockies in Phoenix.

Marte went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer to lead Arizona to a 5-4 victory over the Rockies on Saturday night. The Diamondbacks improved to 2-1 in the four-game series that will conclude on Sunday.

Marte’s homer came in the fourth inning, when he slammed a first-pitch fastball from Michael Lorenzen 424 feet to right field.

That was the signature swing of the night as Marte improved to 14-for-28 (.500) during the seven-game stretch. He has three homers, three doubles, nine RBIs and has scored nine times while lifting his batting average to a season-best .251.

Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said Marte is locked in and not swinging at pitches out of the zone.

“When he’s stubborn, you can see these results; that’s what happens,” Lovullo said.

Not surprisingly, the Diamondbacks are 6-1 during Marte’s hot streak.

Nolan Arenado helped the Arizona cause with a two-run double against his former club on Saturday. Arenado has 11 extra-base hits (nine doubles, two homers) this month.

Left-handed-hitting TJ Rumfield homered to left-center as part of a 3-for-4 night for the Rockies, who have dropped 10 of their past 14 games.

Rumfield’s blast ended a power drought that saw Colorado match a franchise record by going seven games without a homer. The Rockies previously had seven-game outages in 2007 and 2014.

Troy Johnston had two hits and an RBI to raise his batting average to .323, and Hunter Goodman also had two hits for Colorado.

Rumfield, who is batting .289, leads major league rookies with 54 hits.

“TJ put up four solid at-bats on a night in which the ball definitely wasn’t flying,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “To get it the other way, that’s real strength. TJ’s had a solid approach since the beginning of the year.”

Colorado’s Jake McCarthy, who spent the past five seasons with Arizona, is just 1-for-13 in the series.

Rockies infielder Willi Castro was scratched prior to Saturday’s game due to low-back tightness. Castro told reporters he thinks he’ll miss two to three more games.

Arizona placed left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the 10-day injured list Saturday because of a hamstring strain. He was hurt during the sixth inning of Friday’s game while making a sliding catch of Rumfield’s fly to shallow left.

The Diamondbacks were mindful that Gurriel returned to action last month after a right ACL tear sustained last September. He was back roughly 7 1/2 months after being hurt.

“He probably would have gotten better in three or four days, but we wanted to make sure that we give him enough time, given what he’s worked through, and put his body through to get back to this point,” Lovullo said.

Rockies left-hander Jose Quintana (2-2, 4.08 ERA) will oppose Diamondbacks right-hander Ryne Nelson (1-3, 5.19) on Sunday.

Quintana, 37, beat the Texas Rangers 7-6 on Monday when he gave up three runs and seven hits over 5 2/3 innings. He has struggled against the Diamondbacks, going 1-3 with a 6.85 ERA in nine career starts.

Arenado is a lowly 3-for-26 against Quintana despite hitting two homers, and Corbin Carroll is just 1-for-10 vs. the left-hander. Marte is 5-for-14 with a homer.

Nelson is winless in seven starts since defeating the New York Mets on April 8. He is 1-1 with an 8.80 ERA in three career starts vs. Colorado.

The Rockies’ Ezequiel Tovar is 3-for-7 against Nelson.

–Field Level Media

The Los Angeles Angels will try to finish their first three-game series sweep of the season on Sunday when they close their 10-game homestand with a contest against the Texas Rangers in Anaheim, Calif.

The Angels, just 8-24 over their past 32 games, followed a 9-6 win over Jacob deGrom in Friday’s series opener with a 5-2 victory against Nathan Eovaldi on Saturday.

A win on Sunday would match the longest winning streak of the season for Los Angeles, which won three games in a row from April 4-6.

You have to go back to Aug. 11-13, 2025, to find the last time the Angels swept a three-game series. The opponent was the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

Left-handers Reid Detmers (1-5, 5.07 ERA) of the Angels and MacKenzie Gore (3-4, 4.78) are the scheduled starters on Sunday.

Detmers is 3-3 with a 4.43 ERA in 16 career appearances (10 starts) against the Rangers, and Gore is 0-1 with a 2.35 ERA in two career starts against the Angels.

On Saturday, Mike Trout hit a two-run homer in the first inning — his 13th homer of the season and the 417th of his illustrious Angels career. It also was the 108th first-inning homer of his career, which ranks seventh all-time. He needs two more to pass Frank Thomas for No. 6 and four to push Ken Griffey Jr. out of the No. 5 spot.

“He usually comes after me, and I was just trying to be aggressive and got a good pitch to hit,” Trout said of Eovaldi, who had allowed just one run in his three previous starts covering a span of 22 innings.

Angels manager Kurt Suzuki was pleased with the first two games of the series.

“It was good team performances the last couple of nights,” he said. “Timely hitting, pitchers making pitches to get out of innings, and the energy is really good. It’s fun to be a part of when you’re doing something like this on a nightly basis. I know it’s only been two nights, (but) it’s a good reminder of how we can play and, when things are going good for us, how good we can be.”

Texas, which fell to 3-5 on its nine-game road trip, left 11 men on base Saturday. The Rangers were 2-11 with runners in scoring position.

“We just left guys on base all night,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “Bases loaded three times. Tough not to get any runs across there.”

The Rangers, already without shortstop Corey Seager and outfielder Wyatt Langford because of injuries, took third baseman Josh Jung out of the game with left- shoulder soreness after he dived for a ground ball by Zach Neto in the third inning. Jung had labrum surgery on the same shoulder in 2022, but he appears to have escaped injury.

“It scared me more than anything because I had that labrum tear in ’22,” Jung said. “I hadn’t had any pain or weird sensation in that area in a while. So it freaked me out a little bit. I think it’s more precautionary. All the tests are negative, so I think I’m all right.”

Gore was removed from his most recent start Monday after one inning at Colorado due to left lat tightness, but an MRI of the area came back negative. He had allowed one run on three hits in eight innings in his previous start, a 7-4 victory over Arizona on May 12.

–Field Level Media

The Washington Nationals have an opportunity to become the first team to clinch a road series this season against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday afternoon in the finale of the three-game set.

Washington evened the weekend series on Saturday in an atypical way for the upstart club. The Nationals, who lead baseball in scoring (286 runs) but also own the second-worst ERA in the National League (4.87), allowed just one hit in a 2-0 win over Atlanta 2-0.

As Washington looks to climb back to .500, taking two of three from the Braves will be no easy task.

Left-hander Foster Griffin (5-2, 4.02 ERA) will be eager to turn around a rough pair of starts for Washington. After yielding just one earned run across 20 innings in three previous starts, Griffin has allowed 14 earned runs in his last two outings.

Despite giving up five runs in five innings to the New York Mets on Tuesday, Griffin earned the win as the Nationals posted a 9-6 victory.

“I talked to him for a while after the start and just kept telling him how great of a job he did,” Washington manager Blake Butera said of Griffin’s last appearance. “Obviously he would’ve liked to have less runs up on the board, but he grinded through that one. The fact that he was able to get us through five and keep it where it was, that was huge.”

Griffin, a former first-round pick in 2014 by the Kansas City Royals, signed a one-year, $5.5 million deal with Washington in December after spending the last three years playing in Japan. He had seven career games with the Royals and Toronto Blue Jays in 2020 and 2022.

Griffin faced Atlanta for the first time on April 21, tossing six innings of three-run, five-hit ball in an 11-4 win.

The Braves suffered just their fourth shutout of the year on Saturday, but their third in the last 10 games. Atlanta’s pitching staff, however, has remained a constant. The Braves lead the majors with a 3.06 mark.

Veteran Martin Perez (2-2, 2.85 ERA) will make his 11th appearance (seventh start) of the season for Atlanta in the series finale. Perez, 35, tossed five innings in a no-decision against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday, allowing four runs on five hits, while striking out a career-high 10 batters. The Braves won 8-4.

Perez, a starter for most of his 15-year major league career, has filled in any role the team has asked of him.

“He’s been a great pro,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “I told him that he’s got a punch card from my office, because I’m always calling him in and telling him we’re changing roles with him. Going to and from the bullpen, into the rotation, sometimes late notice based on our needs. He’s done it with a smile and has been really valuable for us. What a pro.”

Perez is 1-2 with a 6.20 ERA in six career appearances (four starts) against the Nationals.

-Field Level Media