{"id":114074,"date":"2026-02-13T21:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=114074"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:24:20","slug":"zac-gallen-returns-to-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/13\/zac-gallen-returns-to-the-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Zac Gallen Returns to the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Starter Zac Gallen and the Arizona Diamondbacks are nearing an agreement on a new contract (one year, $22M), according to sources. <\/span><a  href=\"http:\/\/mlb.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MLB.Com<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was the first to report the initial agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hearing that the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Dbacks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Dbacks<\/a> are closing in on a deal to bring Zac Gallen back to Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Steve Gilbert (@SteveGilbertMLB) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SteveGilbertMLB\/status\/2022492448388452393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 14, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>About Gallen<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gallen, nicknamed &#8220;The Milkman,&#8221; has established himself as a frontline starter. Known for his elite command rather than overwhelming velocity, Gallen utilizes a diverse repertoire. It includes a four-seam fastball, a sharp 12-6 curveball, and a deceptive changeup. Before his recent free agency, he was the backbone of the Diamondbacks&#8217; rotation. He notably helped lead the team to a 2023 World Series appearance. Gallen also earned the start for the National League in the 2023 All-Star Game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gallen&#8217;s career is defined by his historic consistency and a record-breaking scoreless-innings streak in 2022. He surpassed <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/webbbr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Webb<\/a>\u2019s franchise record by tossing 44.1 consecutive scoreless innings. It&#8217;s also the seventh-longest streak in MLB history. A product of the University of North Carolina, he was originally drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2016 before being traded to the Miami Marlins and eventually to Arizona in 2019 for <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chishja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Throughout his tenure in Phoenix, he consistently finished near the top of Cy Young voting, cementing his reputation as one of the most reliable right-handers in the league.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Gallen\u2019s 2025 Season<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 2025 season proved to be a challenging anomaly for Gallen, as he finished with a career-worst 4.83 ERA and a 13\u201315 record across 33 starts. While he remained a workhorse, pitching 192 innings and striking out 175 batters, he struggled significantly with &#8220;gopheritis,&#8221; surrendering a career-high 31 home runs. Despite these struggles, he showed flashes of his former self late in the year, posting a 2.68 ERA over his final nine outings. Following the season, Gallen entered the free-agent market after rejecting a $22.025 million qualifying offer from the Diamondbacks, seeking a multi-year deal to reset his career trajectory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, he returns to Arizona, looking for a bounce-back before re-entering free agency after 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><b><i>(Top Image Credit: David Frerker-Imagn Images)<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starter Zac Gallen and the Arizona Diamondbacks are nearing an agreement on a new contract (one year, $22M), according to sources. MLB.Com was the first to report the initial agreement. &nbsp; Hearing that the @Dbacks are closing in on a deal to bring Zac Gallen back to Arizona. \u2014 Steve Gilbert (@SteveGilbertMLB) February 14, 2026 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5663,"featured_media":114079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2,1071,35],"tags":[326,1820],"class_list":["post-114074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diamondbacks","category-featured","category-mlb","category-news","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-zac-gallen"],"modified_by":"Matthew Nethercott, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114074"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114080,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114074\/revisions\/114080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}