PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Brandon Pfaadt SHINES as Diamondbacks salvage finale against Mariners

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

While the Diamondbacks offense caused some sleepless nights in Seattle, Arizona managed to win in the finale on the back of a strong performance from Brandon Pfaadt. We take a look at the numbers from the three-game series and a look ahead at the D-backs upcoming home stand against the Dodgers. We also answers to your Mailbag Monday questions and a goodbye to the PHNX Coyotes show. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.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!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome in to another edition of the PHNX devax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This man next to me is my snake known as JJ. And of course, that is your vice mayor and your thunder stick. Occasionally known as Jesse Friedman. Diamondbacks come off a tough series in Seattle where the offense definitely left us wanting a little bit more. But they did manage to salvage the finale on a strong performance by, by Brandon fought and keep at least from being swept like the suns were swept.

But yeah, starting pitching was solid for the Diamondbacks. It was just the offense that was missing in the series. Yeah, it was not a great performance for the Diamondbacks by any stretch of the imagination. Their starting pitching, as you said, was quite good in that series in Seattle. Zach Gallen, of course he left his start on Friday early, but certainly kept the Diamondbacks in the game. Slate Cicone was out. standing on Saturday.

Not enough offense there. The debacks only score one run. And then Brandon fought on Sunday. Just an outstanding performance from him. Six innings, two runs sets a career high with 11 strikeouts. And, you know, if fought doesn't go out and do that, we might be looking at a series sweep and a Diamondbacks team that is 12 and 17. And again, no game at this stage in the season is must win.

But 13 and 16, going into this three game set against the Dodgers feels a whole lot different than, you know, 12 and 17. Woods. So a really big win for the Diamondbacks yesterday and some timely hitting late to get it done. You said that a couple of times about this team, but that's right now where they are as far as teetering on the verge of it being more of a disaster than actually is. Towing the line with full-scale disaster. Yeah. I think that's fair. Because record-wise, things are great, right? Record-wise, of course, I think they're tied with the Padres essentially or might even be essentially behind the Padres. and are fourth in the National League West.

And the Dodgers keep improving and becoming the Dodgers. So they're starting to add some distance between themselves and the pack. However, there's something to be said here about some of these encouraging, you know, moments, even if the Diamondbacks lost, right? Slade going six innings, giving up three hits and one earn run is a godsend. And right now with the way Slate is pitching, the way Brandon fought is pitching, the Diamondbacks aren't really missing the starting pitching element here when it comes to the team. Hopefully that can, you know, increase some confidence in the clubhouse,

increase some confidence among the offensive players to maybe not feel so much pressure to go out there and get it done, especially when they're able to win a three-two victory like they did on Sunday with fought on the mound. Like that's important building towards a team that is more capable of winning close games than what we've seen so far out of this team this season. These close games, they kind of let slip away. You can almost feel like the pressure of the moment is too big for them, and that's the reason why we see a lack of performance there. And this is a team that just played in the World Series. So it's not like they're not used to pressure.

I think it's just... We've seen them come up in some pretty big situations in the not too distant past. Yeah, distant past, right? But the problem is, Jesse, is that, again, this is why I think Tori was so dead set on trying to change that word expectation. because the expectations this year have changed. And you cannot stop expectations. You just can't.

You can try to relabel them as something else. You can try to say you're setting a standard, which Tori has done. It doesn't matter. Really, at the end of the day, the expectations are that this team, with the additions they made and the success they had in the postseason last year, should be better than they are. And honestly, like the injuries are a good excuse as to the reason why they're not. But still, it is an excuse as to.

why they're not performing as well as, you know, most people thought this team would be performing this year. That Sunday win was was so, so big for the Diamondbacks just to be able to salvage salvage victory there. You feel a lot better about a four and six road trip than you do a three and seven road trip. And the way that it happened to, like this felt like the type of game that the Diamondbacks have been losing time and time again over the last few weeks. And in many ways, I mean, the way that the Mariners lost this game was pretty similar to how the Diamondbacks have lost some of their games this season. The Mariners jump out in front pretty much instantly. Josh Rojas hits his second leadoff home run of the series.

This man was a beast. He was pretty, he was had a decent series for himself. The Diamondbacks did follow that. The next inning Christian Walker got a hold of one, tied the game. But then the Mariners, you know, get back out in front. They take a two one lead. And then this time it was the Diamondbacks. jumping on the opposing team's bullpen, scoring a really big run.

Ketel Marte coming through with that big RBI double and the eighth inning to put the D-backs out in front, the kind of big hit that has just eluded the Diamondback so many times throughout this season. And on the flip side, the D-backs bullpen was very, very good. Brandon fought after those six stellar innings. You get Joe Mantiply in the seventh. He was good. A one, two, three, seventh inning.

Only like 10 pitches, I want to say. Ryan Thompson in the eighth. Kevin Ginkle in the ninth. It was, I mean, that's sort of the way that you, that you draw it up. Yeah. Right. You want to get to those guys with a lead. That's something the debacks have not been able to do much recently and they were able

to close the door this time. Great reception by the fans for Gino. Yes. From the Seattle fans, you can just tell how much he is loved by that fan base. And this was kind of the former player revenge series in a way. Because Josh Rojas started the damn thing off with the first pitch from Zach Gallen of the series being hit for a home run. He has two home runs in this series.

Mitch Hanigur had that big Grand Slam, former Arizona Diamondback. And then especially in Sunday, you had two former Mariners and Gino with his huge RBI double that tied Sunday's game. And then Cotell with the go-ahead RBII double that gave the Diamondbacks the win. And you just know Paul Seawald would have shoved in this series if he was available. But there is some news in regards to Paul Seawald, by the way. We do have this tweet. Just an update. It sounds like the Diamondbacks are going to.

to kind of pull back a little bit on Paul Seawald, according to a tweet from, from Steve Gilbert, and according to this tweet from Jody Jackson, Alec Thomas played in the game yesterday, had a couple of at-bats and ran the bases, still not playing defense yet. Paul Seawald will throw bullpen on Wednesday.

So instead of another live game for the Reno Aces, he's going to throw a bullpen. Any concerns there? It sounded like Paul Seawall was maybe, had a little soreness after, after his last outing in Reno. I mean, you guys didn't really expect Paul Seawall to return without some kind of a setback, right?

Given the Diamondbacks injury luck in the last few weeks. I've been saying it all. That was off the table, Derek. I've been saying the entire time that the speed in which Paul Seawall was coming back was scary to me. I felt like it was entirely too fast. And the Diamondbacks, of course, you know, they say, and this is true, they don't really have say over how fast Paul Seawald comes back. It's a matter of Seawald and the medical staff

kind of, you know, coming together and seeing how he's feeling and then making sure that he's actually not lying about how he's feeling just to come back sooner. I just think that, again, with the state of the team right now, please take your time. Please, you know, make sure that you are healthy before returning. And that goes to Seawald, the medical staff, the team. There, I mean, right now things are about as bad as they can be health-wise for this team and the last thing you want is a setback caused by any of these players coming back too soon yeah and it is it is an interesting situation you're right that the diamond backs were pretty aggressive and how quickly see wald seemed to be tracking to return and it was a similar story with edwarda rodriguez right edwarda rodriguez was down for a week

with his lad injury before he started throwing again and it's it's hard from the outside to gauge whether the diamondbacks made some sort of mistakes here or if this is just the kind of thing that's sort of unavoidable where all signs are good, everything checks out and then all of a sudden, you know, there is a setback like this. The good news with Seawald is it doesn't sound like the oblique is really the reason for the setback necessarily. General Soreness is the way that it was described. And yeah, he is going to pitch again on Wednesday and we'll see where this goes from there.

I don't like that. I don't like general soreness. I mean, that's the way this whole thing started, right? But, yeah, I think there's still a world in which Seawald returns within a week or two, and this isn't actually that big of a deal. Look, I would be lying if I didn't experience general soreness every single day of my life at this point. However, I'm not being evaluated. And as you guys, I'm already on the 15 day I L for my elbow.

So things can't get any worse for me. But what is that? That's retroactive to which date again? I think it was retroactive to. April 13th, if I'm not mistaken, but I'd have to go back and do the new. Okay, so you're eligible. You're eligible to come off just not ready yet. But I don't think that's going to happen. Should we put you on the 60 days? So we get that 40 million yet. Should we put you on the 60 days? That's probably a good idea at this point. We can get that retroactive back to my birthday.

I'm sure that's when my actual injury started. But let's go ahead and work the count with the numbers from this series presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. Here we finally have a look at a series number. where the Diamondbacks looked like like they lost the series. So I guess that's one thing that's comforting here. Yeah, somehow it might, yeah, D-Bax fans might take comfort in the fact that they lost the series and they it actually looks from these numbers

like they should have lost. Right, right, right, right. I hate that. But I get it. It makes more sense this way. Five runs, huh? Is that right? Five five whole runs in three baseball games? They scored five. They, I know for a fact that there's at least a dozen games where they've had more than 12 hits and more than five

runs in a single game, I feel like. And this is what they're able to put up over three games, Jesse. Our buddy Teo Mackey over at the Republic, he tweeted out after this series that the Diamond Back scored 48, they scored 48 runs on this road trip, which is an average of 4.8 runs per game. Not bad. You see that number and you're like, yeah, the debacks offense, like not great, but solid, right?

Yeah. And then you realize the distribution of those runs. where the Donovanback scored 31 of those runs in two games, right? 17 against the Giants, 14 in that game against the Cardinals, and they scored 17 runs in the other eight games of this road trip, which is basically an average of two runs per game. And yeah, this past weekend in Seattle, there wasn't the big 15 run outbreak.

It was just one run on Friday, one run on Saturday, and then the three runs on Sunday, which wound up being enough. So it continues to be a rough. stretch for the offense and the lack of consistency there very much continues to be a trend. But that's why, I mean, that game on Sunday finding a way to salvage a game, even though the offense is not tracking, that was really, really big. Mariners just won this series in every way. They outscored the Diamondbacks 11 to 5, out hit the Diamondbacks 14 to 12.

Runners in scoring position, they hit 500, 4 for 8, Diamondbacks 2 for 15. The Diamondbacks first hit with a runner in scoring position was Gino. Oswarez double that tied the game in the seventh. Yes, it took on Sunday. It took 24 innings of offense in Seattle before the Diamondbacks got their first hit with runners in scoring position. The offense is just an absolute mess right now. And I will credit you because before we even started this series, you were like,

I feel like this is going to end in you blaming me for this. No, well, that's later. That comes in the mailbag Monday question. For now, I'm going to give you your flowers because you looked at the three pitchers, the Diamondbacks were facing. And even though one guy had a six ERA, one guy has a five ERA, you're like, yeah, I don't like the way this bodes for the Diamondbacks offense. And you were right, five runs over three games.

The bullpen for the Mariners was excellent against Diamondbacks. Let's take a look at those numbers once again. Starting pitching ERA, sick, 1.40 for the Mariners. George Kirby was so good on Saturday. You're going to take 3.18 from the Diamondbacks for starting pitching over a three game series, right? But I mean the Mariners just again they kind of outclassed them when it came to pitching 1.40 starting ERA 2.35 relief pitching ERA for the Mariners seven backs again 3.18 starting pitching 5.63 relief pitching ERA

Not great in both of those in the Friday game and the Saturday game within three batters of the Dback starter being removed the Seattle Mariners hit a multi-run homer on Friday it was a grand slam off the bat of Mitch Hanigur against Scott McGuff. Granted, tough spot for McGuff having to come in, you know, when Zach Allen was hurt. That was a difficult spot. But then on Saturday, you saw it again where Slade Cicone did what Slade Cicone did. It was an outstanding performance. And then Bryce Jarvis gets the seventh inning and two batters in, you know,

Ty Francis at a two-run Homer to really push the Mariners toward victory in that one. So, yeah, the bullpen has been, it's no secret. It's one of the weaknesses of this team. We've talked about it for a while. And in those games where the debacks are down, Tori Lavello has been using, he talks a lot about the positive role guys in the bullpen and the negative role guys in the bullpen. Those negative role guys have taken games that were pretty close and competitive and oftentimes

put them out of reach for the diamondbacks. And especially with, you know, when you're only scoring one run a game, games get out of reach pretty easily. But yeah, that was kind of a trend this whole past week, this whole road. trip where deback starter does pretty well, but the moment they're out of there, you know, McGuff, Castro, Kyle Nelson, you know, back when he was healthy, those guys really struggle right away and suddenly the game gets lopsided pretty quickly. Known baseball GM, Elise in the comment says, can we talk about Ryan Thompson and Kevin

Ginkle throwing so little on this road trip? I guess we weren't winning, but used them to keep a deficit close, not just once a week. And that's kind of what Jesse is talking about there. I know they're high leverage guys, but again, Tori, the first. fact that Tori focuses so much on guys having roles in certain situations, whether they're losing, whether they're winning, it doesn't seem to really be working out because, yes, like you said, so many of these deficits were close when the starting pitcher left and the bullpen immediately, you know, made it, especially for the way this offense was performing, made it an unwinnable situation.

So, yeah, I don't know. Sunday was encouraging, though, and it definitely was a step in the right direction as far as the Diamondbacks being able to properly put together that bullpen properly put together a win late. Of course, as we've talked about, I am a notorious liar. You cannot believe most things I say. But the numbers, they definitely don't lie. So let's take a look at Jesse's numbers from this series. Jesse, what do you got for this week's or this, I guess this game's edition of numbers don't lie? Yeah.

So we're going to talk little Brandon Fott here. The number is 5.1. and 5.1 represents Brandon Fotz's strikeout to walk ratio since July 22nd of last year. July 22nd was the day that he was called up for the third time last season when it stuck and he was in the majors the rest of the way. Phone call from good old Brent Ström. Yeah, this is post Brent Strom phone call after moving from one side of the rubber to the other. A 5.1 strikeout to walk ratio is very, very good. And in that stretch, since July 22nd of last year, looking at qualified major league starters, that 5.1 number ranks ninth in all of baseball among qualified starting pitchers.

The guys in front of Brandon fought on that list, George Kirby, who we saw on Saturday, that man can pitch. Zach Eflin has been very, very good with the Tampa Bay raise the last couple of years. Terrick Scoobel, who is one of my favorite pitchers to watch in all the baseball right now. Zach Lattel of the Tampa Bay race, someone you might not know that like many Tampa Bay Ray's pitchers, shoves and is a lot better than people might realize. Sunny Gray,

Freddie Peralta, Pablo Lopez, Logan Webb. And then at the number nine spot is Brandon Fott with his 5.1 strikeout to walk ratio. And what I keep coming back to you with Fought is as long as he's striking out guys in an above average clip and he's walking guys at a well below average clip,

he's probably going to find a way to be a pretty pretty good starting pitcher. There's still too many mistakes in the zone. There's still, there's maybe always going to be a bit of a home run element to his game, given that he is a fly ball pitcher. But it's hard to have this many strikeouts and this few walks and not be a pretty effective major league starter.

And I think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about Fott's future for that reason. A piece of Yoshi in the chat says fire DeRege. Who's DeRege? Yoshi. I think that's, I think that's you. No, I don't. I wouldn't know that because he watched it. J and K are pretty close on people.

I don't care. We don't accept mistakes around here, Jesse. We definitely point them out. You know that. David knows that. David, no, David, you should be, you should be. Brother, I know it more than any. You want to jump on any mistakes being made here?

I think Yoshi should get drug. I'm not going to say anything. How about this, Derek? I'm not going to say anything. No comment from me on Yoshi's spelling mistake because I hope Yoshi would provide me the same leeway in the future if I make a graphic or I have a mistake on it. He might give you that leeway, but we never will. I absolutely am not going to do that.

I am not going to definitely not. He won't give me that leeway either. You crazy? Yeah, that's insane to even think he would. Of course, we do thank Yoshi and all of you for being here in the Ph.N. Exports YouTube channel right now, especially known troublemaker Mark Salera, who is here on his lunch break. We thank you for being here as well. You have not subscribed to the channel yet.

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And maybe we'll take a boy's trip that I'll be involved with. We'll see. We'll think about it. Jesse and me and Jesse Jr. Yes. We're going to have a, we'll have a. We'll have a conference. We'll have a call about it, Jesse.

We'll talk business and we'll see if it's okay. Your people call my people. Well, I mean, this is, we do this a lot around here, this, this bit. I don't like it. I don't like this bit. But you know the bit I do like is the thing we do on Monday because, of course, every year on this show is our year. Every month on this show is Black History Month. Every month on this show is Women's History Month.

And every month on this show is Black Women's History Month. Every week on this show, Shark Week. Every day on this show, Passover. We already talked about that. Yes. But of course, every Monday, we go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go to the mailbag. My mailbox.

Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while there's a letter that makes me go, wow, wow. My middle. All right. Let's get our first question in here. It comes from our guy. Travis Moore, of course, our first question, asker.

As always, Travis says, holding off my temptation to not ask about Corbin struggles again. I've long what what's the problem over there oh I'm sorry because see I just go into it you're right we were gonna Damon Damon dog do me a favor get down on these questions with us can you tell the people what happened first yeah first I'm gonna I'm gonna say I came in here I screamed at Damon in the face like face nose to nose I was like you son of a bitch you read questions on the cardinal show I saw you during one of your guys's nine hour marathon episodes you did you're a liar and a fraud and he looked at me

innocently. He said, Derek, if you want me to read the questions, I'll read the questions. And I was still at a 10. You know, I was almost at an 11. Yeah, I want you to read the questions. I had a hard time. Yeah, that's how I came back to it. I was like, yeah, you stupid bitch, read the questions. And then here I go,

starting off the first question, just reading it. And he's looking at me like a dejected puppy that's been beaten for no reason. A small dog that has no idea why you spanked it. And I hear I am like the monster reading the question. So, Damon, please. Let's get into the mailback, huh, Derek? Yeah, let's do that. Sounds good. We got Travis Moore making me put two on one

graphic here. Crazy. Crazy amount of work. Temptation to not ask about Corbyn's struggles again. I've long thought pitching development in draft picks has been an organizational weakness. Are the young pitchers up contributing at the major league level a treatment to the idea that is becoming a strength? Jarvis Nelson, Henry, Cicconi, Jameson, all of these guys have showing positive contributions and I feel may even be missing one or two off the top of my head. I think that's a good assessment. I mean, we have talked about how, like, it does feel like the Diamondbacks don't really develop pitchers that come from their system.

Like, typically, their best pitchers have come from, you know, other acquiring them in other ways. And it does. It feels like kind of like what we've said a little bit about the coaching staff. Like somehow this coaching staff has done a great job of making young players comfortable that when they come up, they are performing pretty well. Even if they eventually come back down to earth, like we saw out of guys like Ryan Nelson and, you know, Dre Jameson when they debuted. Sure.

Like they were incredible out of the gate and you just knew eventually like these guys can't be aces like this, right? You know, like it almost seemed unbelievable. And even though they did kind of come back down to earth, they both have had, you know, some great success so far at a major league level. And I mean, part of it might be attributed to the coaching staff. Part of it might be attributed to, you know, the development and the organization. Yeah, I think there's still a ways away from pitching development being a strength. I mean, Brandon Fott is impressive and I think has a bright future ahead, but he's really the first starting, like in-house, homegrown starting pitcher that the Diamondbacks drafted

and developed that he's had some success, some sustained success in quite a while. And he obviously still has to prove that moving forward. So I think we're still ways away from that point, but there have been positive signs for sure it's not just fought you've seen some good things from bryce jarvis even though he struggled a little bit more lately uh slade sikoney as we said earlier was dominant on saturday uh talk about having big shoes to fill with merrill kelly i mean taking that spot in the rotation and turning in two six inning performances that have both been really really good better than what we've seen out of him at any point yeah i mean slade's outperforming i think anybody's expectations of how he you know what he would

do at a major league level. And I don't think Slade's going to have a, you know, one ERA and the long term, but I do think that he looks better to me. He looks like a better version of himself than we've seen in the past. A lot of that has to do with the movement on his fastball. He's not a guy who gets much vertical ride on his fastball at all. There's not a lot of vertical movement there, but there's a ton of horizontal movement. His horizontal movement on his four seamer.

It's only a couple of starts, but generally these numbers don't fluctuate much. about seven inches more than the league average horizontal so there's a ton of run there's a ton of arm side movement on his fastball almost like nathan iovaldi pretty similar fastball shape and iovaldi's obviously an accomplished major leaguer so there's still a ways to go he still needs to prove it over a longer period of time but the diamondbacks might have something in slate sikoni and that would be another huge victory for them pitching development wise if that winds up being the case i was going to laugh at Jesse because, you know, he's once again talking about vertical break and

horizontal break. I am. You know, he's the king of that. I'll never learn my lesson. I can't stop. He can't help himself. That's me. All right, Damon.

Next question. What do we got? We got from Brian Bobbett B.B. underscore Nitro on Twitter. Is there any obvious answer to fix the offensive inconsistency? No. There is absolutely not. The next question. Corbyn being good at baseball.

I will say that, like, at times, I do get a. a little bit frustrated as to how Tori manages one game versus the next, right? Like there's some inconsistencies even with his managing, right? There's a close game late. I mean, these games in Seattle, they were fairly close until the bullpen came in and gave up, you know, some big, you know, big, beginnings, big runs. And of course, that doesn't help the offense when they're struggling to be in the right mindset.

However, I just think that in some cases, manufacturing runs and doing things like, especially late in game when things are close to try to add on or to try to come back. It hasn't really been there at times. And it is in certain situations, but it's almost like this team as a whole has this attitude. Like once they get burned by something, they're not willing to try it again, right? Like, and I get the apprehension because right now, Tori as a manager is definitely trying to figure out how things work. But it's almost like what I was saying the other day about like their home run celebration stuff, right? You know, it's. It's not actually because of a fucking stuffed snake in the, you know, in the dugout that you guys stopped hitting home runs, right?

Like that wasn't the reason why at one point during last season you guys started hitting home runs. Yet somehow the snake felt like it was to blame like they were being too cocky with having a home run celebration item in the dugout, even though it's what every single team in baseball was doing last year. So they abandoned it as quickly as they adopted it because you could feel like they were like, oh shit, that's bad. It's bad juju. It's not bad fucking juju. It's not real. It's just an item. And like you guys need to overcome that thought process that like something you brought in like a home run vest or something like that is causing this team to all of a sudden, you know, be stagnant offensively.

Right. So like I don't know, but it does seem like a mental aspect there because when you factor in things like that, you factor in Tori kind of second guessing himself about making lineup changes late because he got burned having to have Scott McGuff hit in a big situation. at one point, right? Like, it does feel like this team is just kind of all over the place as far as, you know, the direction and, and their mental, like, confidence in their ability to win games. I mean, I think it's a valid point that one way that they could get back on track offensively is to bring back a home run celebration of some sort. They can't have this guy, though.

Fully on board with that. How fucking magnificent did Josh Rojas look with that Trident? Come on, you guys. I was like, that was amazing. I could, we just saw the video. I could only imagine what the still images look like. He probably looked like fucking Namor, Aquaman, coming in with that shit. It was great.

I love it. I want the timing backs to have that because it's a vibe. It's a confidence that it just brings to your team. It's a fun thing during a long season. On a more serious, you know, there are no obvious. There are no obvious answers. I mean, I think you just have to figure that this offense is talented, has a lot of hitters, with good track records,

I continue to believe that this is an above average offense at the end of the day. And obviously, Corbyn Carroll is a big part of that and still have to believe that he's going to get things going, even though it's been really,

really ugly here, especially over the last week or so. How crazy is it that we're talking about Jesse saying stuff like, I still think this is an above average offense and they're like top five in runs scored. Yeah, that's how wild. They don't do that.

Those runs came in six of the games. Like it feels, It just feels bad. I know. You know? Yeah, one other point I'll make on that note. There's a school of thought in baseball that if you're scoring a good number of runs, but you're not distributing those runs very well, as the Diamondbacks are, right?

Where they're scoring runs in bunches and then not really scoring runs in other games. There's a school of thought that like, okay, things are just going to kind of balance out in the end. It's like this is just there's a level of randomness to this. And over time, if you continue to score, a high total of runs over a long period of time, you're going to be able to spread those runs out fairly well in time. But I will also say that the Diamondbacks in those two games, the game in San Francisco,

the game in St. Louis, a lot of the runs that they scored were against pitchers who were sent back to AAA the next day. You know, I think pretty much all of the Giants relievers that they used in that game were guys who have pitched significant innings in AAA, if not this season, than last season, not established major leaguers. Zach Thompson, you know, they put seven runs on him in that St. Louis game.

So the debacks do still have to prove that they can score runs against the best pitchers that the opposing team has. That's fair. And so that's not the point, though. Like the point is, is that when you ask why a team would run up the score on another team the way the Diamondbacks have, it's not just to, it's not to make them look bad. The purpose of it is to keep the offense rolling because, God forbid, you tell guys, like, hey, let's like, let's cool it.

Yeah, you're not going to let up. Yeah, you don't want to let up. And then have that literally like, have your offense also stop and, you know, going forward. But no matter how many runs you score, no matter how good your offense is in one game, it doesn't mean it's going to carry over. And that's exactly what we're seeing against the good pitchers, against the elite relievers especially. Yeah, the elite relievers, that's something we haven't seen a lot of.

The VACs have really struggled against some of the better back-end relievers. And granted, I mean, all teams do. right like that's why they're back in relievers but you'd like to see a little bit more success in those situations i think there's a mental block as well that comes with losing all these close games like i i do that's not something that will ever show up like in like underlying right numbers or analytics and stuff like well and that's what i meant about we got a we got a savant staff for that damon yeah it's uh no you might not be familiar but it exists yeah a lot of dimebacks are blue in that area right now but yeah no you're right though i mean like it's like the podres last year like we keep talking about it's uh They had a good run differential. They had a star-studded team from top to bottom, and they lost every close game they played the whole season. It just clearly they got in their head about it. Right, right.

Yeah, at the end of the day, as much as I love to bury myself in baseball, Savant, like these are human beings. And yes, you have to execute when it matters most. You can't just, you know, bury yourself in the team stats or the reds and the blues of all the savant pages and everything. Like, yeah, they're real people. and the debacks have struggled in a lot of the big moments. And in time, there's still good reason to believe that'll turn around.

And that's what I mean. Like, there's just kind of a thing where you look at this team. And some of the things that link one loss to the next is kind of not being strong mentally, especially late in games, not being able to perform, right? Like, having a big lead and letting it slip away and not being able to put up any more runs throughout the game and just kind of letting an opposing team come back. Like there's a lot of shared traits there amongst, you know, the Diamondbacks losses that kind of can be attributed back to them, like just lacking confidence, right?

Especially when it comes to their production late in baseball games, you know, like I don't know. Obviously that has something to do with the bullpen as well. You can't, you can't just say, oh, it's the Diamondbacks falling apart late. However, you can say that like there is like just kind of a non-clutch factor right now to this team. And that's really what feels like. like it's holding them back at times. All right, what else we got, Damon?

Next question comes from Michael Rokiki. What would you rather have a fully healthy team or a fully functioning Corbyn Carroll? Why do we have to do this? Why do we? I hate this. Of course, a fully healthy team. Like, that's an absurd question.

I get it. I would love a fully functional Corbyn Carroll, but this team isn't built on one guy being the guy. This team is truly built on them, handing the baton off to the next guy and having confidence in the fact that on any given night, any member of the offense can get hot and be the driving force behind a win for this team.

We've seen it from so many different guys already this season. So I don't think the team's success relies entirely on Corbyn Carroll getting right again. Would that be great? Yes. What someone said in the chat, like why isn't the team using the fact that Corbyn Carroll's speed is there to bunt more and have them just get on base in some way, shape, or form? I'm sure it's something they're considering. However, at this point of the season, they're more concerned about trying to get him right, get him normal at bat.

Not going to get him right by just having him by having him butt. That might even make things maybe a little worse because then he starts feeling the loss in confidence from the coaching staff in him. And then it just impacts his confidence even more. Yeah, I mean, he's already batting eighth. Right. I think he's batting eighth again today. Right. DeBaks have already made that move.

I, you know, a few days ago, maybe a few weeks ago, I think I might have. picked Corbyn Carroll or been been more likely to pick that. But at this point, the injured list is so long that the impact of having all of those guys back was really pretty enormous. I mean, you think about the rotation tomorrow being fully, you know, Gowan, Kelly, Montgomery,

E. Rod, Brandon fought. You, you know, you throw Slate Ciconey and Ryan Nelson into the bullpen. Wonder what that could be like. You know, Seawald back at the back end,

Alec Thomas. You get his defense and center back. Heraldo Perdomo, the stability, he brings a short stop. Drey Jameson, heck, you know, coming up, coming up big in it, you know, maybe easier, maybe easier your bridge to the, you know, last few relievers there or something. So. Jaymeson, I don't know how outspoken he is in the clubhouse, but he truly could be like the confidence guy, you know, the vibes confidence guy.

It's a certain fire about him last year for sure. In his blood, in his blood, in fact, Jesse, yes. I don't know how I made that comment. and didn't make the connection. Why did you not expect me to dunk that? That was the perfect decision. It was the alley you. But of course, no, there is something to be said about a guy like Dre who couldn't wait

to tell us, you know, what his 40 time was, you know, while injured, you know, exuding that confidence amongst his teammates, right? Tommy Fam already had a hysterical interview his very first day with the White Sox, where apparently they wanted to shoot one of those videos of Tommy Fam getting the call up. You know what they do with the young guys? They wanted to shoot one of those. And I don't think Tommy Fam was with it. The thought of filming something like that with Tommy Fam is that would be incredible.

It would be incredible content. He's like, oh, word. Cool. All right. I'm going to go get my stuff. I do believe the White Sox won the first two games did Tommy Fan play it. Of course he did. There is a level of X factor there.

But it's the X factor. He's in there screaming and calling people MFers in the clubhouse right now getting those guys fired up. But yeah, Stan. answer the question. I think we both agree as much as we want Corby and Carol to get right, it's a, it's a fully healthy team by a mile, by a mile. And you still figure that. Maybe that counts for Corbin. Corbin can get right in, in time. Yeah. Exactly. Even if it, even if it's not today, you still, still betting on that to happen at some point. Ryan Simmons forgot that Erod is even on the team. Same. Yeah. I mean, that was for a while,

that was the biggest move the debacks made in the off season and you haven't felt his impact at all. I mean, Jordan Montgomery, the other biggest move, probably the biggest move at this point, he's only made two starts. Like, you have, Aohenio as far as so far has not been an upgrade over what the Diamondbacks had at third base last year, or at least if an upgrade, a very small one. So you haven't really felt outside of Jack Peterson. You haven't really felt the impact of much of what the debacks did this offseason. That's fair.

It's fair. All right. What else we got, Damon? We got a fourth question here from Stone. Fox, Stone Fox 360 on Twitter, do you think the Diamondbacks would even consider sending Corbyn to Reno to get right?

Foof. Hmm. I think they would. You think they would? I think they would. And I say that from a perspective of, I don't think anything is above this organization like feeling

someone is costing them potentially wins, right? And I'll say that. Like they've been aggressive in making those kind of news. Right. And making those kind of moves. And I think if there's anybody that they would give an extended amount of time to, it would be Corbyn Care. He is the future of this franchise. He is currently the kind of the face of this franchise, even though you could argue, you could tell Marte with his performance and everything like that is the actual superstar here. But Corbyn Carroll

is the name that has become a household name in Major League Baseball. A lot of people know. So I think that they would refrain from doing it as long as possible. But if he went through a very long slump and was truly just not being productive. Yeah. We could see that. And I think Reno might help. I think that Reno could help in several ways. I mean,

I don't think Corbin doesn't take this seriously. I think he is the most dedicated baseball player they have in the organization as far as addressing, you know, the struggles that he's having and trying to get right. But I think maybe it's just a matter of maybe too much, right? Like too much pressure on himself, too much,

overthinking the situation and how he can rectify it himself. So, I mean, maybe going down to Reno might not be the best answer, but I mean, I could definitely see the Diamondbacks considering it. April 25th last year, that's the date that Jake McCarthy was sent down. Jake McCarthy and Corbyn Carroll in two very different positions as far as this franchise is concerned, right? McCarthy's been up and down a decent amount the last couple of years. To do that with Corbyn Carroll would be a bold, a bold move in a lot of ways.

I mean, this is a guy you just gave a $111,11 million extension to someone who last year certainly showed that he deserved every penny of that and more. I don't think you're close to making that move with Corbyn Carroll. I wonder if they would maybe take the mystery IEL stint approach, you know, where maybe if he's a little banged up in someone, I mean, maybe he is legitimately. There's something behind the scenes that we don't know about. I don't think there is, but, you know, with veteran players, players that are in a big standing, you know, in a prominent position within a franchise,

you see that kind of thing more often. So I don't think the Diamondbacks would do that with Corbyn Carroll. And I don't think they're going to need to or even really have to consider that. I still think that Corbyn is going to turn this thing around. But it's a valid, it's a valid question at the very least. Elisa's She never does anything to help her case About us alleging she's a major league baseball GM

Right here she comes with if anything Corby would be injured rehab in Reno I think they try that first right as we're coming out of Jesse's mouth Yeah and and surprise she didn't say I think we'd try that first Yeah I know Mike Hazen The other thing real quick is that Jorge Barroso and Alex Thomas both hurt right now So it'd be an unthinkable move to make right now

The Diamondbacks just, they need Corby. Like they need Corby and Carol. They don't have anyone in Reno that I think you'd want to bring up in that spot. So it's something you couldn't even consider right now. And even once those guys get healthy, it's still not something that I would expect to happen. Benjamin Hunley says, can someone please talk about how good Jake McCarthy has been? Yes, Jake McCarthy has been incredible. He's currently hitting 300 with a 721 OPS.

And I think that, you know, Jake, Jake, McCarthy is the exact reason why the diamondbacks don't want to get rid of players, right? This is the exact thing you would see from Jake on another team, just like we're seeing with Josh Rojas. And, you know, look at how much the Diamondbacks ended up needing him with the amount of injuries that they've had this season. Jake's been a bright spot right now for an offense that really isn't performing great. He was out for three yesterday, but he has been very good so far this season.

And I mean, again, like Slade, he's kind of. been asked to come up in an emergency role. And for the most part, has performed in a way where, like, that his contributions aren't the problem right now with this team. And just like Slade, he's, he's definitely helping hold things down in the meantime.

Jake's hard hit rate is, is below 20%, which is very, very low, frankly. So I think, you know, I don't want to take anything away from what he's done. He's really come up big. Like Jake McCarkey's had a few really big hits early in the season. which is something that debacks haven't had a lot of.

But I'm not so sure that his, I'm not so sure that it's, he can maintain what he's done at to this point in the season with, with, you know, what some of the batted ball numbers are looking like. So still early in the season, for sure,

the results have been good. But still kind of, still kind of need to see more before I'm willing to call this, you know, like the Jake McCarthy of, of the latter half of 2022. I think, I think we're still a little ways from that.

a piece of Yoshi is suggesting that we give, I think, Corbin, the Trey Turner treatment, where we all stand and applaud him. And I still hate that more than I hate most ideas that I've ever heard in my life. Trust me, Trey Turner has said that he very much appreciated it, and he felt encouraged by the fans. And I still think it's one of the most patronizing things

that a fan base could do. Hey, you're doing bad right now. Let's all applaud him. You can do better, you know? It's a fine line. It's a fine line. Like, I think there are some players in the league that would like Trey Turner, like really appreciate that. And Trey Turner was better for the Phillies the rest of the way, although he wasn't very good for them in the NLCS, as we all saw.

But I am not really sure that Corbyn is the kind of guy who would necessarily love that. But I don't know. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that a lot. All right. Speaking of notorious troublemaker piece of Yoshi, we got another question from him. What are we got? We got piece of Yoshi here.

saying, do you think Corbyn Carroll will return to form if we sacrifice Jesse? Okay, so I have questions. Do we mean Jesse or Jesse Jr.? First, because you don't know, we're not sacrificing Jesse Jr. He's off the table. We'll consider. As far as sacrificing. Jesse Friedman, we'll consider it.

In what way do we have to sacrifice him? I just, are we talking about murder? Are we talking about it in a different sense? I was thinking like Aztec style. Like, do I have to give him to Mike Loo? Luke as a co-host now and he has to go cover your U of A? Like that's, I mean, if I get Petey in return, then that might be, I'm not going to get rid of you. I'm just saying if we have to sacrifice you and I get Petey in return, then it might ease the pain of losing you.

I refuse to comment on. I would absolutely sacrifice Jesse for Corby Carroll to return to form. And that means me like having to write and go to games again. And that sucks, but like, yeah. I knew it. I mean, I like going to games. Don't get me wrong. But this guy lives at Chase Field.

I can't, I can't express that enough. He's always there. You're always there. It's kind of gross. Yeah, you're done talking about giving me away to someone else? No, no, I think we have another question. What does Jacob have here? We got another question from.

Yeah, Jacob Schult, with the sun's getting swept, the Salt Lake City Hockey Club leaving Arizona and the debacks starting below 500. My question is, why does God hate Phoenix? Follow up question. How can we blame Jesse for? It great question Jacob I love this question God hates Phoenix for a very good reason And that's because

He decided to make it a hundred and twenty five degrees here in the summer It's actually a We just put up fucking houses and concrete and we were like Screw your desert he was like humans aren't supposed to live there And we were like we'll live where we want to God And he was like oh okay Yeah, see if you guys ever win more than one championship, boom, right? Roasted, literally during the summer, we get roasted.

But yes, really, at the end of the day, the big question here, can we go back to that question one more time, Damon, in regards to Jesse's role here? They want to know how we can blame you for all of it, Jesse. Do you expect me to comment on that? Well, I actually have, I want to feel, I want to say like a good reason because like, okay, like, things. were on the up swing and then you moved here right so like I want to blame your presence but then you were like there at games when the diamondbacks were going to the world series so I'm conflicted yeah I don't I mean I don't have a whole lot to add no but yeah yeah you know his his existence is the reason why all this bad stuff is happening no um it's because jesse loves local sports so much that

that that's something he had to bring him down he's always so chipper uh he's always so chipper uh he He has the best attitude of anybody I know. So it's just life's way of chipping away at him and making him as miserable as it's made me. So we thank you guys, of course, for your question. We'll get back to some more. But we did want to let you know that if you want to join us for some of these baseball games, including tonight's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, you can get your tickets last minute at game time, save up to 60% by buying last minute

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create an account and redeem code P HNX for $20 off. Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Also, make sure to join Damon over at Illegal Pets. He's always there, and they always have the strongest margaritas in Arizona. They also have a wonderful patio. I know it's hot. I know it's going to be 95 degrees, but that is patio season weather, my friends, because remember, it's going to get way hotter than that.

So you might as well enjoy this weather while you can and do it over at Illegal Pets. They have irresistible drinks and mouth-watering food that will fill all of your heart's desires. And of course, also join Damon, get the reverse nachos. You'll have a great time. Illegal Pete is here to bring you a win with their legendary sound check deal. Bring in your ticket stub from any ticketed event and get a draft beer or house margarita for just a penny. Illegal Pete wants to celebrate with you, whether it's a pregame or post game party,

they got you covered on all your game date needs. Must purchase an adult entry to redeem Illegal Pete's sound check deal. Illegal Pete's your go-to spot for burritos, buddies, Damon, and beer. All right. We got some more Mailbag Monday questions. What do we got? Or mailbag. Question number seven, Zach Granky question mark.

Just Zach Grinkey question mark? Bozozozozozozozozo Zoh Zazzozo Zoh Zoh Zoh Zat Grinke? Yeah. I mean, in what sense this could go so many different ways. Do we want to call upon Zach Granky to save this franchise? I don't feel like we want to do that at this point. So do we just want to just Zach Granky? Yes, the answer is yes.

Right? I guess we could have the is Zach Rinky a Hall of Famer question? I feel like he should be in the Hall of Fame for his responses to reporters questions alone. Like he could have his own wing

in the Hall of Fame. He could. Just based on those interactions. Yeah, yeah. You're probably right. We'll have to reach out to Josh Routch and pitch the idea. Derek is happy to help curate that.

Josh. I'm all over that. Yeah, I think Zach Rangke's a good pitcher and he probably belongs in the Hall of Fame. I think the question was whether we should sign him. Is that the question? I'm pretty sure. No, that's no to that. Yes to the Hall of Fame.

He wasn't real good last year. Granky, I mean, 2022, super impressive stuff. Granky struck out 4.8 batters per nine innings in 2022. It's still at a 3.6 a R.A. 26 starts, which is absolutely wild. but yeah last year he had a 506 ERA he is 40 years old yeah he's 40 years old now I think point by Ryan in the chat we do need his bat in this lineup we need his bat in this lineup that's true that's true maybe we can get him or mad bum as a dh I don't know but all right that wasn't that wasn't funny that last thing I said wasn't funny

what else we got there damon next question from cogs here Marvin harrison jrison is going to inevitably throw a first pitch is he going to throw a strike will it be from the mound. Oh, it's, it's definitely going to be from the mound, right? I think he'll go

right off of the mound, like right on the edge of the mound, and I think it will be a strike. Yeah. Because it generational talent. Is it, well, there's that.

Of course, we know that. Yeah. Is it because of his respect for the game that he wouldn't dare actually step on the pitcher's mound? Like, he's not a pitcher,

so he would know better than to like touch the rubber? Or are you just thinking in general, he doesn't want to go all the way back, that extra two feet? I think he's going to be wearing some, sick ass white shoes and like Gucci shoes and they're going to be like no I'm not stepping on that man

what are you crazy I'll be over here on the grass I think he's going to throw uh 70 74 miles an hour feels about right but I think he's going to miss glove side I just I don't know if he has the I don't know if he has he's not a quarterback I don't know that much about it on a on a pitch to like an opening pitch is that is pretty hard but he's an NFL player like he's not just going to go up there That's full wind up. Like you're getting everything into it. Full extension. Yeah.

I bet Marvin Harrison Jr. can throw more than 74 months now. Maybe, but you're right. For a first pitch, like you're not, you know, you're not trying to get the, the rookie catcher killed, right? Right. 67. Let's go 67. But I stand by that he will miss gloves.

I need the stat cast data on that pitch when it finally happens. Nicholas with a great idea. He says we need MHJ to throw that first pitch on Saturday, though, when we have our first take over because we are taking over Chase Field this Saturday. True. Gabby Moreno. That would be so electric. We are going to have a great time.

We're going to have a great time. The lads are getting mark bets. I don't know if you've heard about that, but the barg bats are happening. Can we start to hold the line chant if he actually throws out the first pitch? We might just start a hold the line chat chant just because we did it because we held the line. We might. That's a better chant. Held the line.

Held the line. We did the thing. All right. What else we got? Let's get on to our next question. Next question comes from Trash Hound on Twitter. Jesse, can you please explain how they calculate the war stat? I am confused.

Also, my husband surprised me with seats behind the dugout at the Sunday game in Seattle. We are in Christian Walker's home run highlight video. It was amazing and they won. First of all, fantastic job to your husband. It's not only surprising you would seats behind the dugout, but getting you in the background of a highlight. That's one of the best feelings of the sports fan. Besides catching the home run ball itself, being in the background of a homer like that,

fantastic. Jesse, explain more. The whole thing from start to beginning. All right. Well, our one hour show just beginning with two hours show. No, it is, I mean, I can give you the formula. The formula for wins above replacement. Batting runs plus base running runs plus fielding runs, plus positional adjustment, plus league adjustment, plus replacement runs. All of that divided by runs per win.

So there you go. You guys got that? It's that easy. It's literally addition, division. Do you want me to get the trackboard? Do you want to figure this out? I think a sixth grader could do this, Derek. I mean, this is not, this is a low level of Mac.

No, I mean, the literal calculation itself, as you heard, it is just addition and division. But the way that those numbers are calculated, a little bit more complicated than that. But the general idea is that you add up the number of runs. All of these things are measured in terms of runs. So how many runs have you been worth as a. hitter as a base runner as a fielder there's a positional adjustment as you heard because you know if a catcher has an 800 ops that's a lot more valuable than if a dh has an 800 ops right uh so that is also factored in they have like uh they have numbers that are built in that are just kind of standardized

across all hitters that they that they insert into those um and then you divide it all by runs per win because once you've once you figured out how many runs that player has been worth then you just divided by how many runs it takes to win a baseball game, which is, I think, around nine. If a player is worth nine runs, then that translates to about one, one war. So you do that division to finish the calculation. So, yeah, it's, it's complicated. I can't really get, get too deep into it. Now explain why baseball reference has one war and why fan grabs has another war.

Yeah, they are, they are calculated differently. They, uh, they, they wait different things. So like fan graphs for one of the biggest differences is defense. So baseball reference uses defensive runs saved, whereas fan graphs uses outs above average. So that's a difference. And then they have different ways of awaiting other things as well. I think fan graphs really values walks a lot.

So players who walk a lot will probably be higher on fan graphs than they are in baseball reference. But yeah, I think I've already lost like half of our audience. So I'm just going to I'm just going to stop talking. I hope you're happy. We're going to cover FIPP next time. All right. What else we got? We got last question here.

Last question. From Don's bread. Diamondback's Hunger Games, who wins, who's a love story, who gets the most support? Oh, wow. All right. Well, that one was for me, and this one is for you, Derek. All right. I guess I will handle this one.

I think what we're looking for in the winner of Hunger Games is obviously a well-rounded skill set. For sure. You know, obviously when you talk about who would get the most support, Jesse and Hunger Games, it's a televised event, right? People are watching. Yeah. So you can get sponsors to send you things to help you. And then a little like metal, like little thing comes down and drops them off like medicine or weapons or whatever. So that person receives aid.

I feel like Geraldo Perdomo. Yeah. I always about to say. Yeah. I think Geraldo Perdomo would be the star of this entire. thing. And I mean, as much as I want to say he would go on to win it, I feel like Corbyn Carroll is going to come out of nowhere and do something to still, even though it would not be the favorite here, still get enough support and still have the well-rounded skill set to win.

Well, Corbin's elusive. So when you're going after him, he's out of there already. Exactly. See, now, most of you don't know this, but I won the Hunger Games Discord for our PHADX diehards. And I want it. ultimately because Jacob, aka Fodge, stepped on a landmine. That's how, I didn't even put the landmine down.

Jacob just stepped on it and boom, he's done for, right? So I think there's some savvy there. I think there's some savvy there. I think the biggest question is, who's the love story? And I think the answer

is obviously Gabby Moreno and Lordus Curio. Yeah, even I could figure that one out. We knew that. I mean, the nuzzling in the dugout, what? more. I need to see more of that. I want to know the ups and downs of their relationship. I'm very

much interested in the reality show of those two being a love story. So I think that that pretty much sums that one up. And again, thank you to Mark for always being our troublemaker when it comes to asking questions. It gives me a chance to really shine here on the show, which I don't ever do. And as piece of Yoshi has pointed out several times in the chat, all of my mistakes. So, I thought we weren't doing that today, but I do appreciate him keeping me honest here. Of course, a great way to keep you honest is with a good financial institution. And I say that because you need to save your money, right? Can't go out there spending your money all frivolously.

You can do it on our events and our shirts and our merch and our diehard membership and all that. But don't do it anywhere else. Make sure to save your money and a great place to do so is with Desert Financial Credit Union. For more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union. You can look to Desert Financial for checking and savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more. They got me started on my home ownership

journey, my savings journey, and they get you started as well. When you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 and bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. All right. And also, a great way to get over some of these losses. The Diamondbacks I've been experiencing. It's with our friends at OGs. Whether life is good or whether life is bad, you can celebrate with OGs. They have a wonderful line of products, including their sleep edition gummies. They have their new OGs naturals for vegans.

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and please enjoy responsibly. Before we get out of here, of course, we do want to thank you guys for all of your mailbag Monday questions. You guys make this show what it is. You guys make Mailbag Monday is always a wonderful experience. Let's take a look ahead at the upcoming series that starts tonight with the Los Angeles Dodgers. I know most people aren't excited about the thought of Dodgers fans once again taking over Chase Field. So let's show up and show

out. Let's come out and support this team. Here are our probable pitchers for this series. Diamondbacks have Tommy Henry going in game one against James Paxton. They have Jordan Montgomery going in game two against Land and Nack. And in game three, we got Zach Gowan, hopefully going against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, which is going to be an incredible pitching match up there. Don't do not. Don't do that. I want to do that. Don't put Yoshi in the same level of Zach Gowan.

I'm just saying it's going to be fun. Can it just be fun? Can I have a good time? He has the worst ERA on this list, Derek. I'm looking at it right now. Landon Nack is better than Yoshi Yamamoto. James Paxby is better than Yosh Yamamoto. You're crowning this guy.

putting him on Zach Gowan's level. I did not crowd. I just said I'm excited to see the pitching matchup, and I hope Zach Gallin is healthy for it. That's all I said for the love of God. He's in Yamotas been pretty good lately. He has. Thank you.

Don't listen to it. Don't listen to it. Don't listen to. Don't watch ratios 37 to 6 start his major league career. Zach Allen, any updates? We think he's still going to be good. He said he was going to be good. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we might find out. more about that today whether Zach Gallen is set to go for that that Wednesday start I think it'll depend on how is how his bullpen goes between outings um so yeah that's still sort of TBD on Wednesday whether gallon is is going to go or not but either way it sounds like this isn't a major injury and if he if he did miss this start you know he could be back in there maybe for his next start I don't think it's an extended absence or anything like that so fingers crossed all right fingers crossed Well, a great way to get you ready for this series is to check out on the record with Jesse Friedman.

He had L.8 Times beat writer Jack Harris on, which. Yeah, Jack was great. We talked about whether this is a big series for the Dodgers, like whether Dodgers players are viewing this series as being a little bit special given what happened in October and how disappointing that was for them. And he had some really interesting insight on that question and a whole lot of other things. I think that's up now. And if it's not, it will be up probably momentarily after our show. ends. So yeah, be sure to check that on YouTube and we'll throw it over on me on the audio only side as well. And also we would like to just give a shout out to our PH&X Coyotes crew

that just recorded their last episode of the PHNX Coyotes podcast as we know it. It's devastating to us here. And I don't even want to get into how sad the loss of our NHL team has made me personally. I just want to say that the job Leah, Craig, and PD have done on that show has been incredible and an inspiration to me so many times. P.D. had the audacity to tell me that I helped bring out the funny side of him. That's ridiculous to even say. PD is one of the most incredible, one of the most creative people I've ever met. And not to mention how much Craig has meant to our entire office with his experience, with his professionalism, with everything that he brings to sports and everything he's brought to that coyote's beat. Not to mention how incredible Leah

has been and how much Leah has meant to this office. I know most of you may or may not know that she has a much bigger role around here behind the scenes. And she has done just an amazing job of hosting that show with those two wild men as her co-hosts somehow keep. keeping that show on track at times and just being an absolutely delightful host of a live show. So I just from a personal note, I am going to miss that show very much. But I'm more than anything going to miss, you know, just the community that that team created and just everything that they brought to PHNX. Like the amount of times we were in a staff meeting where the Coyote's Beat was credited

for being the biggest contributor. to our diehard community. The model or being the model for the way that they want these shows to ran. It was, and it was well-deserved because they really are the model of what we want to build here at PHNX. Yeah, yeah. I mean, very well said. I agree with all that. Yeah, we're going to miss.

We're going to miss not only the hockey team, but, I mean, for me, honestly, as someone who's never been a huge hockey fan necessarily, I'm going to miss the PHNX Coyote show, you know, probably more than I'm. I wasn't necessarily watching Coyote's games day and day out, but I was watching that show a lot because they're just three people that you love to hang out with, right? And as someone who works here, I've gotten the pleasure of being able to hang out with them like in person and, you know, see them in the office here every day. And they're every bit as delightful in person and fun to be around as they appear on that show. So, yeah, we know they're going to do great things moving forward and excited for for their futures as well here at PH&X is not, you know, not. the end for those guys around here.

So yeah, tough, tough day for all of us, though, seeing seeing that show officially come to an end. I want to say that Leah made a video package of the highlights from their show. And if you haven't watched the entire show or you don't intend to, I implore you to at least check out the video package that they aired towards the end of the episode. The amount of inspiration I drew from just standing there, just watching the collection of clips that that team has put together in a short time really made me feel inadequate. Like, I'm not doing enough over here for the Diamondbacks beat. Like, that's what, that's what, that's how good of a job that they do that.

Jesse and I were just talking about that actually with you. Shut up because you're part of this. What an adequate job. The three of us are doing. The three of us are doing. Whoa, whoa there. Yeah, just bringing you into it. No, but I mean, seriously, some of the moments they've had are,

like not only my favorite of PHNX, but like when it comes to a beat, a show covering a beat like they do, it's some of my favorite moments I've ever seen. They had our office filled with dogs. They were in the GM's house for Christmas doing a show in front of his fireplace. Yeah, that was cool.

Petey just hangs out in the parking lot and stocks members of the team. Like there's just so many incredible moments. Not a single moment. It just runs up on their parking lot on their way into the arena. Everybody just loves PD so much. it's hard to tell them no.

So I just wanted to once again just say what what an awe-inspiring job they did of covering, you know, the move of this team and being such a primary source for information and just overall, how entertaining they made that show. So like Jesse said, I'm going to miss the show almost more than I'm going to miss the hockey team. But I am going to miss the show. I am going to miss the show more than the hockey team.

But make sure to stay tuned because we have some big things coming up for everybody around here. And we're very excited to, again, see what. but what all of those, what all of those wonderful people have coming up next. But again, we thank you guys very much for joining us here for the Ph.NX Diamondback Show. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Cave Man. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, we are all in awe of this man behind the Mac.

It is the people's producer, Damon Dogg. You can follow him at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. And we are Damon's Dogs. Bark, bark. Our show is at P-H-N-X underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at pHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Thank you again for your time.

Appreciate you stopping by. We will see you tomorrow with a postgame show. And until then, have a wonderful night. Go Diamondbacks. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Brandon fought shoves.