PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Are Injuries DOOMING the Diamondbacks’ Playoff Hopes?

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

📬 Arizona sports in your inbox! https://gophnx.com/newsletterThe news was not good on Monday, with Corbin Carroll being placed on the 10-day IL with a left wrist chip fracture and both Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor exiting the game against the White Sox with injuries of their own. Do these players being added to the long list of injuries spell disaster for the Diamondbacks’ 2025 season? An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/APS:  Find instant rebates, discounts and special offers on smart thermostats, energy-efficient appliances and more at https://marketplace.aps.com/default/heating-cooling/smart-thermostatsChicken N’ Pickle: Family friendly fun awaits! Visit chickennpickle.com to plan your visit today!bet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets!Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order!Vme: Download the Vme app and play today using code PHNX! Available on the App Store and Google Play. Vme – Anyone. Anything. Anytime. https://getvme.com/?vmereferral=PHNXGametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!Monarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/phnxAll Pro Shade Concepts: Call 623-204-1476 or visit https://allproshadeconcepts.com/ now to schedule your free estimate!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's your mayor, PHNX, Derek Montia, the dog and everyone, Damon Dog, Damon Farrell, and we are here to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks crushing amount of injuries. This is on the back of news last night from both Tori Lobolo and by Nick Picoro from AZ Central, that Corbyn Carroll is going on the 10-day IL with a chip fracture in his left wrist. And I don't know about you, Damon, but that pretty much killed what was left of my soul when I heard this news. This came on the same day that Gino Suarez was removed from the game after he got hit in the hand. And Josh Naylor was removed from the game with right shoulder discomfort after a really awkward swing. It's hard not to see what happened yesterday and lose complete hope in this season.

Not only have the Diamondbacks experienced a huge amount of injuries already prior to this, but three of their best players offensively went down in the same day. And I just don't know how they recover from this. Yeah, I guess it comes down to how much rope does this team have left, right? Because it feels like with each injury, with each passing injury, you're like, yeah, that's terrible. But this team, you know, they could still buckle down and maybe bring in a guy to replace Corbyn Burns. Not that you're going to get a guy as good as him, but maybe a, you know, middle rotation starter at the deadline or something. you know, if this team continues to be competitive.

But with each passing day, it feels like you just lose more and more players. Right. And yesterday was pretty demoralizing, of course, with, you know, the MRI results for Corby and Carroll up in the air. And then obviously you get the report that he's going to be headed to the IL. And with that comes two injuries to two of the only players that have stayed healthy all season. And, you know, more news on that here in a second. But it just, it's, it's demure. I think is just the best way of saying it.

I'll go back to that term. And yeah, Derek, it feels like, like how long can this team really hold on before this starts catching up to them? And morale just hits the floor, right? So that's what it comes down to. You got to give them a lot of credit, though, right? For that, right? For the fact that they have experienced so many injuries.

And somehow, some way, this team has kept it together. This team has found a way to win games and currently be above 500. But like yesterday, in a way, was once again such a metaphor for their season. Even when they go out there and put it to the White Sox and win a game by 10 to nothing, it comes with a cost, right? Their season has been that. Every time they go on a run, something devastating happens.

Some injury occurs that either sets them back or at least makes their playoff chances seem that much further out of reach. Yeah, win 10, nothing and feel like crap about yourself. Yeah, because you lost two of your. best players in that game and then at the end of the game you get even worse news about one of your guys that's already on the iL in fact at one point during that game the only two position players that were available for tori lovallo to come in should something happen was corbin carroll who obviously wasn't going to come in because we hadn't really heard the news yet so we just were we're saying he is available and james mccan who the diamond bags just picked up and added to

their roster so things are things are very thin for the diamondbacks right now they are to With Corbyn Carroll going to the IL, the Diamondbacks do recall Jake McCarthy from AAA Reno. Jake gets another call here, and that's a great thing because I know a lot of people are big fans of Jake. In fact, Jake's had a decent season in Reno, which is what he goes to Reno and does, unfortunately. He's like a lot of guys that put up good numbers in the PCL, but haven't had them translate over to the major leagues at least this season. Jake's slashing 314-40 with an OPS of 840. But once again, the Diamondbacks are lucky because of their depth, because they didn't go out there and trade guys like Jake or Alec Thomas. They do have these guys available.

And you know you can rely on Jake McCarthy. Yes, he's hitting below 100 in the major leagues this year. But let's give him another chance now after he's had a chance to kind of go down to Reno and get right. And again, we know defensively that he's going to be solid. So it's like you don't have to worry about somebody that is kind of an unknown coming up. Jake has major league experienced. Same thing with Josh Naylor. We did have good news about Josh Naylor.

He was in the lineup today, but he was a late scratch. According to Tori Lovelo, he was at 85%. So they're going to give him today off. And then Josh Naylor will be back. He will hopefully start tomorrow, which is a very good sign, considering we didn't know the extent of that shoulder injury. And as many people saw in the broadcast, Gino was in the dugout after that hand injury, after he left the game of getting hit.

He was smiling. He was joking. his hand wasn't wrapped. It didn't appear to be bruised. It looked a little swollen, but it would appear that Gino is okay and the Diamondbacks dodged a bullet there. However, this is a similar situation with Corbin where x-rays were negative for Corbin, X-rays are negative for Gino, but they are going to get an MRI done and they're going to get a CT done. And hopefully that won't bring back the same results that we got from both Corbin and Gabby Moreno, who will be out for weeks with a similar fracture in his hand. Talking about Jake McCarthy, I think that this is such an important, it might be make or break for Jake.

Yes, with this franchise at least. But yeah, with the Arizona Diamondbacks for his Diamondbacks tenure, like, you know, it feels like we get so doomsday about Alec Thomas and Jake McCarthy all the time in particular because at any given time one of them needs to be, at least one of them needs to be a prominent, you know, role in this team, right? And Alec has performed admirably this year. but Jake went back down to Earth after having a great season in 2024. Now he gets this extra chance. And as far as a Corbyn replacement, obviously you're not going to replace Corbyn's power. No, no. But Jake does in a way replace Corbyn's speed to an extent, which gives the Diamondbacks something to play with.

For sure. But he needs to get back to his 2024 form. And he needs to find it for this team because they're going to need that bat and that extra help. Another lefty as well with Corby, you know, kind of complimenting that Corbyn, role, but had experience hitting high in the lineup for this Arizona Diamondbacks team in the past. I just think that this is such a pivotal moment in the season for this team in particular. You're playing the White Sox. You're playing the Marlins. Can you survive these games and give yourself a little bit of leeway with Corby and Carroll not being out for an extended period of time,

hopefully knock on wood, but he is out for right now. So it's like, can this team stay afloat? Can they continue to win games for this short 10? day stretch that Corbyn is out for and, you know, keeping this playoff hunt without, you know, playing bad baseball without their, you know, best, second best offensive player. Well, things just like took a turn on the Diamondbacks. And this season has already been incredibly bad for injuries, but they were actually kind of free of their position players being injured outside of a stint for Cattel, a little stint here and there for guys. And it was mostly focused on the pitching.

But, you know, like the final destination movie, whatever terrible evil force is hunting down the Diamondbacks players and injuring them, it had its fill of the pitching staff. And now it's turning on the position players. Corby and Carroll, broken wrist, currently unknown as far as his time out. He's on the 10-day I-L and he's been replaced there by Jake McCarthy. You have Josh Naylor and Gino Suarez, who are both day-to-day, but hopefully that day-to-day injury status doesn't last for too long for either one of those. guys. Gabby Moreno is out for weeks. And Gino could be out for weeks should that hand injury be similar

to what Corbin and Gino are going through. Then you also have Gino's backup that a lot of people wanted to see ADC. He is currently injured. I believe it's a back injury. He's out day to day. Then pitchers. You got Jeff Brigham, Dre Jameson, Christian Manna. Dre Jammison and Jeff Brigham,

they're, I think, on the 15-Day IL. You got Christian Mena on the 60-day IL. You got Kendall Graveman on the 15 day IL. Then out for the season, you have Corbin Burns, A.J. Puck, Justin Martinez, Tommy Henry, Jordan Montgomery, Blake Walston, Christian Montez de Oka. All of those guys except Montes de Oka having elbow surgery that is going to put them out for an extended period of time beyond just this season and into much of 2026. When will the pain stop? And I mean that literally.

I don't mean that just for me mentally or. for me physically, I mean, when will the pain stop for this team? And I think that this comes down to what do what does the front office? What does Mike Hazen believe out of this roster? What do they think that this team can still get it done? We've talked about how important this stretch is, Damon, but it goes beyond this stretch because, yeah, you're playing the white socks, right? But it's similar to what people's responses were to Eduardo Rodriguez, who has been one of

those guys that stepped up in the absence of some of these other injured pitchers. But because he had such a great day yesterday with 10 strikeouts and no earn runs a lot, a lot of people were like, so what, it's against the White Sox? And it makes you wonder that if this team even does good over this stretch against the White Sox, the Rockies, and the Marlins, is it enough for this front office to believe in this team going forward and to add to it at the trade deadline instead of selling off some of these very lucrative parts in a seller's market? that they could probably get a ton for.

I understand what you're saying. I guess the only thing that I push back on a little bit just from looking at this particular team and that being the Arizona Diamondbacks because I think in general, you're totally correct about baseball teams. But the Diamondbacks are a team that don't seemingly struggle against the top competition.

I like when they play the Dodgers. It feels like they're up. They get up for those games and that those moments, like they don't shrink in those moments. They kind of feel like that the pressure, is on the other team in a sense. And they seemingly perform well in those big games, in my opinion, at least. Like, look at a guy like Zach Gallen.

Yeah. You feel so much better when Zach Allen's on the road against a playoff team than when he's playing the Rockies. Yeah. And he gives up seven in five innings. Please put Galen in a game in Philadelphia at the bank. You know what I mean? This team struggles with beating teams that they should be for sure.

So if they can actually get out of this stretch with a good record, with a winning record that makes people feel positively about this team, I feel like that, that shows me something. That shows me that this team is actually taking care of business. And I'm not sitting here being like, well, it was only against the Rockies, White Sox, and Marlins. Because I think that those are the teams that they actually need to beat if they want to make the playoffs. That's good point.

Those are teams they should be and haven't been necessarily. Totally. And that's where I, that's what I'm saying is that just that from a Diamondbacks perspective, that matters to me more than I guess against it would in another team. perspective. Well, and to be fair, I really do think Tori Lavello thrives in an underdog role, and I think so do a lot of members of this team. They don't know what to do when they're the favorite, but they know what to do when they're the underdog, and they know how to motivate each other, and Tori knows how to motivate them. He's received a lot of flak, including flak about

these injuries. And I will just go out and say, one of the craziest takes I've seen in response to these injuries has been people blaming the medical staff for the injuries. to the hitters that have been hit in the hand by baseball, which I, like, I understand people's frustration. And I do understand that there is a point with having the list of pitchers gone for the season due to elbow surgery that I listed off how people feel like there's someone that needs to be blamed, that the medical staff needs to be blamed, that Tori needs to be blamed. And I can empathize with that feeling.

But I will just say that in some cases, there are. just unlucky stretches for teams. And I don't believe that there's anything the Diamondbacks have done to have pitchers fall to injury. In fact, I do still believe that they are a team that actually falls on the conservative side as far as use, as far as shutting guys down when they're not feeling right, just in general the way that they proceed medically with guys. I do feel like they take care of their players and that their players' health is a priority. So I, I know people want want to blame someone but I would I would calm down with blaming the medical staff for at least guys going on the I'll for getting hit in the hand I think that's a

little bit out of there yeah there's nothing there's nothing you can do uh in regards to that um but yeah I mean I certainly think there's needs to be questions asked of the medical staff in terms of Tommy Johns not that I have any knowledge base of that I'm not saying it's even their fault I'm just saying that you you would be not doing your your due diligence if you didn't look into why is this happening to us all of a sudden so frequently. That's fair to. So I think that there needs to be an overall review on it at the end of the day. But yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to place hit by pitch fractures on a training staff.

Well, Brian, Brian. They didn't throw the pitches that hit these players. Very true. But yeah, I think overall, I do think that you need to review and see what's going on. The one thing I will say to wrap up my point here is that the people that blame Tori Lovola for injuries are maybe the craziest lunatics on planet Earth. He does take care of his players. Exactly why.

These are the exact same people who don't think Tori can fill out a lineup card by himself. He's not intelligent enough to put a team of nine together on a field, which even I have my own problems with Tori's lineups from time to time. I'm not saying he's infallible. But again, the reason why that you typically have a problem with this lineup is because he'll sit a guy when he's hot or whatever, right? Like a lot of things don't make sense. and the reason why a lot of decisions are made at the end of the day are health.

He's giving the guy day off because that was a planned day off. He didn't plan on, you know, Corbin or Cattel or Geraldo having three, four hit days in a row leading into that day. But unfortunately, because he feels that it's about health and prioritizing player health, he feels like that's important and he still needs to sit them regardless of how hot they are. And that's something that a lot of people disagree with him on. Yes. Yet, you know, again, that's what he feels like in his. mind is best to keep these guys from getting injured and hopefully making it through the marathon that is 162 game season.

It's just the people that think that he's so simple-minded, he can't fill out a lineup card that are also like, how did Tori not see that through the MRI results that Gabby Moreno got and play him anyways? And you're like, so he's supposed to know better than the people that are the scientists in the room, but he's also not, he's too much of an idiot to put a lineup together. Those things don't compute. There was criticism about how long it took for Corby's results to come back for his MRI, but swelling needs to go down before an MRI can be taken and for it to show the results.

And that's why you have an MRI to ensure that the x-ray, yes, is negative, but you go in there to make sure that there's no minor airline fractures, which there was in both the case of Gabriel Moreno and Corbyn Carroll. Hopefully the Diamondbacks can avoid that with Gino Suarez. He was all smiles in the dugout, and it made me feel at least something. Also, Josh Naylor being in the lineup even briefly today, made me feel a little hope because we know how dangerous shoulder injuries can be. And of course, if it's a, you know, if it was something dramatically bad, the dime backs, again, are fairly thin when it comes to first baseman. There's a good chance we could see Trey Mancini, you know, come up.

But again, I don't really feel like this team overall is in a great spot right now. We'll see, though. We'll see going forward. They do have a lot of time here before, you know, the trade deadline to make a good impression. And so far, the guys that needed to step up stepped up yesterday. But stop blaming Brian Kaplan. That's a weird thing, too. It's just so ironic that the guy that they hired as a pitching coach who is so focused on player health, once again, has experienced this amount of obvious problems here with injuries.

But we will be back, of course. Make sure follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore Kman with the K. This guy's a Damon Dog with a DAWG. Show is at PHNX underscore DBAX, but as always all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Thank you guys so much. Have fun, I guess.

Try not to blame everybody for these injuries and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when your guys can play baseball and aren't hurt.