Former Cleveland Indians Player and Minor League Manager Torey Lovullo leads Arizona Diamondbacks to World Series

The Arizona Diamondbacks punched their ticket to the World Series on Tuesday night with a 4-2 game seven victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Diamondbacks will face the Texas Rangers who also got a game seven victory in the American League Championship Series.  

The Rangers defeated the Houston Astros 11-4 on Monday night to clinch the American League Pennant.

Managing the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series will be former Cleveland Indians player and Minor League Manager,Torey Lovullo.

Lovullo has been the Diamondbacks manager since November of 2016.

Before Lovullo managed for the Arizona Diamondbacks, he was a player in the MLB. 

Lovullo played in the MLB for parts of eight seasons from 1988 to 1999 amassing a career batting average of .224 with 15 home runs and 60 RBI.

In 1998, Lovullo played six games for the Cleveland Indians.

In those six games, he had four hits in 19 at bats for a .211 batting average. In the last game Lovullo played for the Indians on August 25th, 1998, over 43,000 fans were in attendance to see Cleveland defeat the Seattle Mariners 10-4. 

Lovullo was a late inning replacement for third baseman Travis Fryman.

In that game, Charles Nagy got the victory and Manny Ramirez went 4-4 with a home run. Also, Omar Vizquel was 3-4 and Kenny Lofton was 2-5.

After Lovullo’s playing career came to and end, he got his start in coaching with the Cleveland Indians organization in 2001. 

After coaching and managing for four years in Single A, Lovullo led the Cleveland Indians Double A affiliate, the Akron Aeros, to a 2005 Eastern League Championship.  

In 2006, Lovullo was promoted within the Indians organization as he became the manager of Cleveland’s Triple A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons. 

Lovullo managed the Bisons until 2008, when the Cleveland Indians changed their Triple A affiliate to the Columbus Clippers. Lovullo managed one season with the Clippers before joining the Boston Red Sox organization.

Since the 2017 season, Lovullo has compiled a 495-537 record and in 2017 he was named the National League Manager of the Year.

In the 2023 season, Lovullo led Arizona to a 84-78 record.

As Lovullo reflected last night on his journey to lead a team to the World Series, he said that there is nothing he would change.

“I just try to be my true authentic self every single day,” said Lovullo. “I have to lead the team and sometimes make some tough decisions and have tough conversations. But I wouldn’t trade one single piece of my career for how it went that led me to today.”

Lovullo will manage the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Texas Rangers on Friday night in the first game of the World Series.