Ketel Marte’s Diamondbacks return plan emerges — along with manager’s plea for fans
Ketel Marte will rejoin the Diamondbacks next week — they hope.
The All-Star second baseman mysteriously disappeared before a game in Boston two weeks ago, an absence the team has not fully been able to explain. The plan is for him to return on Aug. 31 against the Phillies in Arizona.
“That’s what we’re thinking about,” manager Torey Lovullo told reporters Monday. “I think that will be the 10th day or the 11th day, so there is definitely a strategy to get him back on the field, get him healthy.”
Marte was placed on the restricted list after he no-showed for an Aug. 17 game against the Red Sox, and he has since been moved to the 10-day IL with inflammation in his left knee.
He reportedly still has not addressed the bizarre absence with his teammates as they fight for a playoff spot — they entered Monday’s slate two games behind the Padres for the third Wild Card berth. On Friday, Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro reported Marte was at a Scottsdale casino “for hours” as the Diamondbacks faced to Reds.
“We’re trying to create the softest space for him to re-emerge back in this environment,” Lovullo said Monday . “That’s up to him however he wants to do it. I cannot force a human being to do something that I want to do, or anybody in this room wants to do, or a fan wants to do.
“One of the things that makes Ketel such an extraordinary player is he goes to the beat of his own drum. I respect that.”
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Lovullo has offered plenty of support and emotional response to Marte’s disappearing act and is imploring fans to do the same when he finally takes the field again.
“Ketel is a very loving young man,” he said. “I don’t want (booing) to happen. I understand it’s a possibility it could happen, but we’ll all rally around him.”
Marte is slashing .249/.314/.446 over 118 games on the season with 21 home runs and 67 RBI this season.
It’s not the first time he’s gone AWOL on the Diamondbacks, having returned home to the Dominican Republic and missing three games after his house was burglarized in 2025 — an incident he apologized to this teammates for.
