PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Braxton Garrett Out-duels Zac Gallen In Lifeless Diamondbacks Loss To Miami Marlins

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

After picking up some much-needed momentum in Los Angeles, the Diamondbacks seemingly gave it all back in a 3-0 loss to the Miami Marlins on Friday night. The offense had few answers for Braxton Garrett, who tossed a complete-game shutout. We discuss what stood out from the game, why the D-backs can’t seem to win after off-days and more.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers 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. Terms apply.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. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. 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.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.

Welcome in to a Friday night edition of the PHNX Devax podcast. My name is Jesse Friedman, joined here by the one, the only Damon Dog, Damon Farrell, because Derek is off doing Vegas shenanigans and frankly probably having a whole lot more fun doing that than watching what we just witnessed the Diamondbacks go through on this Friday night. Before we get into the details of the game, I do want to give a shout out to OGs, the official sponsor of Flammons, flavoring Fridays. This, of course, is a flavoring Friday here on the PHNXDBACs podcast. OGs is not your

average cannabis-infused gummy. They absolutely knock it out of the park when it comes to flavor and the effects of their gummies are a total slam dunk as well. Head on over to OGs.com to see their full lineup, including their two newest gummies, the OGs naturals and the big OGs and find out where you can purchase. Well, Damon, I think I'll just kick it over to you. What did we just witness? We witnessed, I feel like what we've been witnessing maybe the entire year with this team, which is every time you feel like there's a chance to build some ground, build some momentum, you know, become a team that, you know, a lot of the national media and the outside perspective

thought that this team was going to be before the season. And then, you know, you lay an egg, you know, in a situation that seems favorable. Like you're playing a not-so-good Marlins team. you're at home after a road trip and, you know, you just, the bats just stink it up tonight. Yeah, this is one of, I mean, I know the D-Backs only lost by three runs, but I think we can all agree this is one of their worst losses of the season. Braxton and Garrett threw a complete game shutout, which still hasn't totally set in my brain. Apparently, that's a thing that happened tonight.

The last time that happened against the Diamondbacks was Walker Bueller back on April, 25th of 2022. He threw a complete game shutout with 10 strikeouts that day. Braxton Garrett is not Walker Bueller. He is a I will say he's a good pitcher though. He had a 10-24 ERA, I believe it was, coming into this game. But that was deceiving. He'd been out with injury.

His expected ERA on stat cast, I think, was 4.06 coming into tonight. So there was some bad luck on his end in his first couple starts. Last year, he was actually a pretty darn good starting pitcher for, the Miami Marlins. They went to last two years. Yeah, the last two years, absolutely. Yeah, I heard, I didn't look this up myself, but someone in the press box told me that the Marlins were 21 and nine last year

when Braxton Garrett was on the mound. So apparently he was just, they just won a whole bunch of ball games behind him. But the Diamondbacks, yeah, this was, this was ugly on all fronts. The offense manages just four hits against him in this game. And I guess let's go to some, some coaches, some players. Here's what manager Tori Lavello had to say

about a pretty brutal loss for the devax tonight. Offensively, I felt like we were just digging things out at the bottom of the zone. We do that they're starting to put you up a really good sinker and we were going to see the ball out, but we just kept beating in the ground on the pole side.

And I think there were several approaches that were conducive to how he was operating and working us. But I just think the consistency of it wasn't there today. Zach, you know, gets clipped for a couple runs, a couple scratch runs, because it's a long run, but he goes

seven really strong innings. This is the quality start. So I know, you know, typical Zach outings are ahead early in the count and then goes on the attack. I think he had to really grind through those seven days because he didn't get ahead

of as many hitters as were normally He used to seeing him, but he dug in there real deep and he pitched and he kept us in the game. So unfortunately, you couldn't get anything wrong. Damon, I actually think that Zach Gallen, in a sense, like, you have to respect the outing that he had. Like, he really, as Tori said there, he really didn't have his best stuff. It wasn't a typical Zach Day. But for Zach to go out there and give you seven innings and only allow three runs in the process, like the debacks didn't lose this game because of him.

He found a way to grind through it. Yeah, and I think I'm going to start a new tally for the rest of the way and maybe go back through Zach Gallen's old starts where this season where we say Zach Gallant didn't have his best stuff. I'm just going to start marking it down so that we can go out through the season and I can look at all of his outings and be like, how many times did Zach Gallen have his best stuff? Because I feel like we say that a lot. But it did feel like a Brandon fought outing rather than a Zach Gallen outing today, like get banged up a little bit early and then just like, strap in and get just six, seven innings and keep the team in it. And, you know, I thought we were going to be coming into this postgame show being like, Zach Allen just was, didn't have it today.

Like, he's the reason maybe that we, we lost this game. But it ended up being, you know, he, he performed decently well. It was, it wasn't really on him, you know, giving up three runs. You expect to at least have a shot at winning the game. And they just had no shot of winning this game based off the way it went. Yeah. Yeah. Well, with that said, let's see what Zach Allen had to say after, after this one.

Yeah, I feel okay in the first and then the second to the fifth. I feel like I was kind of grinding out there. Just didn't feel, you know, particularly too sharp. It's kind of clicked in the sixth and the seventh a little bit. I started to kind of get back to what had been working in the last few starts. So yeah, just, you know, being able to recognize it, you know, maybe a little bit quicker. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely a grind,

but I try to do my job. Just keep you a chance to win. What do you think? It wasn't quite doing 100% of it? Just delivery, really. I felt like I was probably maybe a little too straight, just direction-wise. So I'm happy that, you know, the 6 and 7th,

I feel like I'd be able to correct that mistake. But, yeah, obviously, I've got to be able to correct it a little bit sooner. But I just try to make pitches. this team that likes to swing and just kind of some bad counts and just kind of had some pitches and not ideal locations just resulted in some hard contact, so by that. But, you know, I'll take a grinder at, you know, seven innings, three runs. He allowed 13 hard hit balls in this game, Damon. So that's 13 batted balls of 95 miles an hour or higher off the bat.

That is tied for the second most in any start in his career. His career high is 14 batted balls of 95. or higher. So, yeah, there was a lot of hard contact. And let's face it, this Miami Marlins offense is not great. At least on paper, we said the same thing about the Detroit Tigers offense last weekend. And then we saw them coming here now. Yeah, yeah, they had a pretty great piece of series said that, you know, he's the best player

on the field. Right, exactly. Yeah, Hobby Baez is Colt Keith. All the, all the tigers with 450 OPSs, you know, all the greats. They doubled their numbers in one. weekend it felt like uh but yeah yeah this wasn't a this wasn't a great outing uh by galen by by any means uh you heard there him talk about an adjustment that he had made midway through the game um really interesting actually something that i'd noticed uh during his last start uh some people

watching on tv might have noticed as well gallon is kind of switched up his line to the plate a little bit uh so his delivery starts a little bit more kind of toward the third base left field side and then he sort of brings it back as he over the course of his delivery. I might be, I'll probably be writing about that at some point. It's a pretty interesting tweak that he made. And I think it's somewhat responsible for the Velo uptick that we've seen. Gallin's Velo was still up today and has been over the last few starts since he implemented that change. So he basically described this as him getting kind of away from that change a little bit in the first few innings of this game and then getting back to it in the later innings and finding his way.

But yeah, I feel like we probably shouldn't be talking about Zach Allen too much because this was ultimately on the offense. And Damon, I don't really know where to start on that front. But it was pretty ugly all the way around. Yeah. I mean, I guess we can we can just talk about how insane it is that Braxton Garrett is throwing a complete game at Chase Field in 2024. Like that's like this isn't, you know, 2004 where like, you know, your start. are just pumping the whole, the whole, you know, eight innings, nine endings, like, that's so crazy. The fact that he was, he wasn't just like, you know, grinding out outs.

Like maybe, you know, we hit a few balls hard tonight, got a little bit unlucky, but his pitch count was really, really low. Like, he, he, it wasn't like a matter of like, well, we just got to keep him in because, you know, he's shoving out there. It was like, yeah, he's got a lot left in the tank right now to keep going because it was like easy work. So you hate to see that in particular. Like that's that's the only way a shutout really how a complete game even happens in today's day and age. And it's just it's just pretty unacceptable really. Yeah. I mean it yeah, we don't we don't see this sort of thing all that much

at this point in baseball. I know a lot of people are talking about aohenio Suarez in the chat. I believe he went 0 for three with three strikeouts. If my memory serves me correctly, yes he did. over 3 with 3Ks, tough day. Tough day for Gino Suarez. I mean, pretty much tough day for just about everyone in this DBAX lineup. They just had a really difficult time squaring anything up from Braxton Garrity. He didn't have a ton of swing and miss in this game. I believe it was six strikeouts, but he was keeping the ball on the ground

and just keeping DVACs hitters from really getting anything going. I thought it was interesting what Christian Walker said about Braxton Garrett after this one. so let's go ahead and roll that. I think he's throwing a lot of strikes. That low pitch count. It's like you want to wait out and wait them out and get better pitches to hit, but also felt like everybody started 01, 02. So, I mean, if you're filling up the zone like that,

we got a swing. I just getting to turn around to throw them up for whatever reason. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of balls so hard. I'll hit four or five balls over 100 miles an hour. I think I hit three over a hundred Gabby's line drive there in the right. Corbyn's at the end. There's hard hit balls. Just couldn't get him the ball.

Yeah, he technically has a point, Damon. I know people are maybe rolling, rolling their eyes at that. But the Diamondbacks in this game, I mentioned that Zach Gallen allowed 13 hard hit balls in this game. Braxton Garrett allowed 14 hard hit balls in this game, which is pretty wild. Granted, a lot of it was on the ground, which we'll get into that a little bit more. a second. But I don't know, Damon, do you do you buy that? I mean, certainly the eye test,

it didn't really look like that the devax were super locked in tonight. I just, I think Christian Walker's reaction there at the beginning is extremely telling. Like he didn't, you could tell he was not overly impressed. He didn't, he, he wasn't like, oh yeah, like we faced Corbyn Burns tonight. And you know, Corbin Burns is just an elite level pitcher. You know, he was just cutting us up. Like he had all of us planned out. No, Christian Walker was pretty clearly like he threw strikes, I guess. Like he didn't really know what to say, you could tell. And I think that's, that's like pretty interesting to me.

Like it feels like he thinks that they got a little bit unlucky tonight without saying those words explicitly. And like you said, like, I don't know if it really felt that way from a viewing perspective. They looked, you know, lifeless. But I'd say, I guess the stats. technically disprove that. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like a dominant, dominant performance in a sense. Like Braxton Garrett, as I mentioned earlier, there's only six strikeouts. He only had 11 whiffs in this game.

So deep back, deepx hitters weren't really swinging and missing at much of anything throughout this game. But he had 21 called strikes. Like, he really was filling up the zone. He threw a first pitch strike to almost every single hitter. I think it was all, but maybe maybe three deepax hitters. or something like that by the end of the game. Yeah, it felt it felt pretty much automatic.

And as you heard Walker described there, like once you're down 0102, it's just, it's tough as a hitter. Like that's why people talk so much about the importance of getting ahead and counts. Like even if you don't have great swing and miss stuff, like you've got, if you're ahead in the count, you're in the driver's seat and it's going to be harder for the opposing team to square anything up. Braxton, Braxton, Garrett certainly did that, did that well today. another interesting storyline from tonight damon this actually came up before the game during our pregame presser with tori levello and then very much after the game as well after the debacks lost this one they are now one in six after off days this is something that tory brought up beforehand he said that jeff banister had approached him maybe like a week a week or so ago about this and how they need to find a way to correct it it's a

a little bit hard for me is like, I don't know, someone who stares a lot at like random baseball stats. A lot of times the, these, these kinds of stats feel kind of meaningless. Like, it's like, okay, you're, you know, you're one in five or whatever. They were one in five coming into today. They're one in six now. But is that just kind of part of the ebbs and flows of the season and just sort of baseball weirdness? Or is there actually something there? And that became a pretty big topic of conversation after this one. Here is what Tori Lavello had to say after. about the debacks losing yet another game after an off day. Free game, weren't you?

I mean, it's, yeah, I know that I brought it up to you guys when we're aware of it. And that's our job. Like the trends and habits, we've got to pay attention to it. We've got to stay ahead of it as coaches. And sometimes we don't. And, but I mentioned it because it's something that is there. You know, we haven't really been. sparkling after off days.

And that's, we're going to figure that out. We've got to figure that out. We have more off days. Sure. Or I guess in the first game of series, right? I don't know. What's that?

First game of series? Yeah, I know that we haven't done a great job in the first game of series, right? So it's just where we're at right now. We just got to keep fighting and grinding through it. You know, you got to win each day. That's how we look at. You have to go 1-0 each day. And it's nice to win the first game with the series, but it doesn't guarantee that you're

going to win a series. I just want to play engaged baseball. And what we do, we're really good. And when we don't, it looks like we've lost a little bit of focus and we're not staying with our approach or our plan. And it ends in games like tonight. We talked, of course, a lot about the other thing that was mentioned here, which is the first games of series.

I think the devax, I want to say it's three and 14 at this point in the first game of series, which isn't great. They beat the Rockies on opening day, and then they won the first game in both of the Red series. Outside of that, they have lost the first game of every single series they have played this year. So I don't know. Yeah, my weird numbers brain, Damon has a hard time making heads or tails of this stuff. And part of me wants to dismiss it is kind of a non-story, but how do you feel about the devax struggling after off days and also opening up some of these series. I mean, I think, yeah, it bears noting that they just lose every series opener,

but it does seem like a concerning sample size at that point, to me at least, that what were seven games in and it's one in six, you said? Is that correct? Yeah, I think it's six out of seven losses after off days. And then, yeah, the first game of series, I think that's 14 out of 17 losses. So the sample there is actually, that's a pretty decent. concern me it it seems like they're doing something that's you know not preparing them well enough for for at least series openers like they i don't know what it is uh i think that everyone's bound

to have a little bit of a world series hangover it happens all the time especially because baseball is such a sport that has so much parity like you know the dodgers aren't making it to every world series even though they're you know the one seed in every national league but so it it It makes it where wildcard teams can have down seasons and stuff, but I don't know, man. It just like something about this season is just off all the way through. And it's just, you know, there's been so many winnable games that they've lost. But this one wasn't even really a winnable game. There's also games where they just lay complete eggs.

And I don't know why they do it, what happens, but it happens. Yeah, it's kind of what you said from the top. or like the debacks several times this year have gone on a nice little run or won a big series or whatever. And then it feels like, all right, this is where the team is going to really turn things around. They're going to be above 500 within a week or whatever. And then something like this happens where it's like, all right, you've got a 17 and 34 Marlins team. And you let their opposing starter who technically had an ERA over 10 coming into today, throw a complete game shutout.

Like that's not great. that's not a way to build any kind of momentum after taking two out of three from the Dodgers. So I think they were I think they were six and four in their last 10 before this game. And, and you know, like obviously it's not like fantastic. But if you can keep that trend throughout the entire season, you know, you're going to be in and around the playoffs. So, you know, we're in reality, you know, we're one game removed from being on a decent, somewhat decent pace. but it's it's like it's like i just i've mentioned a few times like these losses are demoralizing like they they're they suck the momentum out of a team because you look at the offense you're like

this is they stink like if it'd be one thing if it was like six to eight in the marlins win and it was just like uh we lost or or you know it was like uh you know grinded out three two game and you had a chance at the end but you just couldn't come through like that that happens but like to just get carved up by like a kind of of average starting pitcher he's good like you know derrick and i talked about it when you weren't on the show on on thursday and i was like you know his era's a little deceiving like he's a pretty good pitcher he's been he's been a good pitcher the last couple years but like this guy is like he's not good enough to be throwing a four hit complete game shut out against like a team that has

playoff aspirations like it's just it's just so completely unacceptable from like a competitive team and like I'm tired of watching games like this consistently throughout this season. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. Cotel Marte, rip the we have nothing. We have nothing, Jesse. We have nothing is nothing to smile about in my life. It's that's that's exactly how I feel right now. There's there's no joy.

Everything is sad in darkness. The one thing we had, even in losses throughout this stretch is we could be like, Catell's hit streak is going is going strong. Now we don't even have that anymore. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty, pretty rough. Not a great day for Catell at the plate. Not a great day for, again, much of much of any deep back sitter at this point. I guess, I don't know, does it make you smile, Damon,

that this game was the, believe, the fourth shortest home game in Diamondbacks history, an hour and 58 minutes? Does that make you? That would make Derek smile. I don't know if it makes me smile. It doesn't make me smile because it doesn't make me smile. because it happened against, it's because we sucked so bad that that happened. Like, it'd be one thing that was like Zach Gowan throwing like close to a no hitter or

if Zach Gowan threw a complete game shut out. Like I'd be like, oh, hell yeah. But like quick games because your offense is, you know, like emaciated. That makes me sick. I want nothing to do with that. Yeah. I want to tell everyone real quick about our friends. over at Desert Financial. If Derek were here, he would be bragging about how they got him started

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There's no juice there. Don't touch that game. No, of course. Don't touch that at all. But looking at the Marlins' DBAX game for tomorrow, the debacks are minus 185. Jordan Montgomery is on the mound against Sixtho Sanchez. I could get involved in that a little bit.

That makes that, you know, that puts that, that interests me, you know, six or Sanchez. Not a great pitcher. You know, Jordan Montgomery hasn't been fantastic this year, but he'd like to see him do well against a struggling offense. I'm interested in that on the BetMGM sports book. And even though today's game didn't go so well with, you know, any offense whatsoever,

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Damon, you're supposed to do it with me. Come on now. I think you're muted. I am muted. I tried to do it. I tried to do it with you. I wasn't really prepared for it because it's just not usually it's not my job. It's not my job. You know? Yeah, I have to sing by myself when Derek isn't here. I wear a lot of hats around here, but that's not one of them, Jesse. Yeah, that's fair. I am expecting you to bark at the end of the show. No, I refuse to. I will never bark for myself. No. That's probably fair. Okay. Hey, let's look at the count from from this game, which is. presented by our friends over at Desert Financial Credit Union.

I don't know if anyone really wants to look at this. Probably not, but the Diamond Pags lose 3 to nothing. They were out hit 9 to 4. They had one measly opportunity with a runner in scoring position in this game. They went 0 for 1. The Marlins went 2 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Jake Berger, of course, hit the only home run of this game, which I believe went 441 feet.

That was an absolute shot off the bat of Jake Berger. And then we have our hard hit rates here. you're there uh not derrick uh damon it's okay it's okay it was bound to happen at some point during the show it's bound to happen uh but yeah the uh the marlin 62.1 percent a hard hit rate in this game which is very very high and also again to christian walker's point debacks at a 56 percent hard hit rate which is actually quite high as well league averages um i believe somewhere in the high 30s low 40s something like that so both both of these numbers are are pretty high um Yeah, pretty weird, pretty weird game, Damon, and that we had quite a few hard hit balls and yet very little offense to speak of.

Yeah, I mean, you put those numbers in. I texted you for that number in particular. And my first reaction to you through text was those seem extremely high based off of a three zero game where, I mean, it's not like the Marlins offense was exactly humming. They had a good start to the game, but they didn't really do anything at all after that. and the D-BAC's offense was putrid. So in a game where those two, you know, there's three combined runs scored, you don't really expect the hard hit rates to be as high as they were. But that's baseball, I guess, man. That's, you know, that's why every game is in it of itself and in its own vacuum.

And you have to, you have to really analyze each game because that's, you didn't feel like that at all. But I guess that's what the stats say. The numbers don't lie, Damon. The numbers don't lie. People would say that, yeah. Some people lie. The numbers don't lie.

We'll get it. The numbers don't lie here in just a second. But there's been a lot of people talking about Gino in the chat. He was, as we said earlier, 0 for three with three strikeouts in this game. His season numbers have dipped pretty significantly at this point. It's no secret that Ehio Hohani Oswarz has come in. And, of course, the debacks were hoping that he could be an upgrade over the third base situation they had last year. He has not really been that so far.

As of right now, Damon, he's sitting 211 with a 596 OPS. I'm curious, what is your concern level with Gino Suarez at this point? I mean, it's got to be fairly high, but I feel like we could, I mean, he's obviously been maybe the worst of everybody. But can't we do this with like, let's look at Gueriel minus the first 10 games this season. Like, good Lord in heaven. He he he's down to 237, which is just so bad based off of how he started, a 658 OPS for Lourdes. Like there's so many guys on this team that are not pulling their weight and that like when we looked at this Diamondbacks lineup before this season, we thought to ourselves, there's not a whole lot of superstar level hitters. Like there's Cateau, there's Corby and Carole.

But then there's a lot of guys who are just really good, but not necessarily great. and guys like Lordus and Gino who are supposed to be those those just like really good hitters that, you know, could round out middle of your lineup. Like they're the ones that are struggling the most right now. And that's it's a little, it's demoralizing for sure. I think I'm kind of of the mindset that if they, if one of them, if they start breaking out a little bit more like Corbyn starts hitting the ball and they go on a little bit of a run that they'll all kind of break out altogether. like it's it's more of like a mental block than anything but yeah i don't know if that ever will happen to be honest with you like that's that's not something that i'm expecting to happen i just think that the possibility of of them all breaking out is kind of like something that i'm holding in the back of

my head that i think could happen yeah that's fair i mean i mean the offense was was pretty pretty decent in l.a right like they struggled a little bit early on and in that first game of the series they came back, we were able to put up four runs in that game. And then they, you know, they scored seven on Tuesday. And then they scored six on Wednesday. And a game started by Tyler Glassdown. It felt like maybe that was sort of the push that the offense needed to really turn things around. It was a really good game.

Yeah, it was. It absolutely was. But now we're, now we're here talking about a complete, a complete game shutout, which is still baffling to me. We do have a Kingsnake for this game somewhat reluctantly. I don't know how. I really feel like a undeserved it. But hey, the Debex had four hits today, Damon,

and Blaise had two of them. I just wanted to say this is by far the most pathetic Kingsnake I want to give out of this entire season. I don't want to give out a more pathetic Kingsnake than this. But here we go. There you go. Yeah, Blaze Alexander, two for three in this game with two singles and one fly out. And normally, Damon, I wouldn't bother to. put like they're out.

It's unbelievable. But I did in this case because he got the ball in the air. And that's something that the debacks did not do very much of tonight. If we go to our numbers, don't lie here real quick. I'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and do that. Today's number is you're going to have to put it up for me because I don't remember what it was. There it is.

18. Tonight's number was 18. and David 18 represents the number of ground balls that Diamondbacks hitters hit tonight again, Brackton Garrett. And that goes back to the earlier conversation of like they did have a decent number of hard hit balls in this game. And to be fair, some of them were line drives.

We saw Corby Carroll hit a nice line drive toward the end of this game. Gabby Moreno had one. There were a couple of others as well. Maybe a little bit of bad luck in this game for the debacks. But at the same time, when you have 18 ground balls, when you are just smacking the ball into the ground that much over and over and over again, it's going to be hard to get any kind of offense going. And yeah, that's what happened tonight.

If I ever have to write an out on a on a Kingsnake graphic again, I'm going to be so sick to my stomach. I, like, I'll refuse to do it. Like, you can, you can make your own Kingsnake graphic that night. That's the one pass I'm given all season on that. And Phimatic is right. It is a Mickey Mouse King Snake. But granted, I will say he did hit that ball pretty hard. Like he got it in the gap. It just stayed up a little bit too much. But I actually, it was a pretty quality at bat that he had given where the ball ended up, you know, you don't always get a hit every time that you hit the ball hard. But yeah, that makes me sick. I hate it, Jesse. Well, in a game like this, like even if you got out, like you got, you get at least a pat in the back if you put the ball, if you got the ball up in the air.

Gross, no. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't operate that way. But anyway, I do want to give a shout out real quick to tonight's home plate umpire. Yeah, Bob Drake. Let's talk about him. Just because I thought this was one of the worst, like from a ball strike standpoint. I mean, I believe it was Lorda Scuriel who was up in the ninth inning. And I don't know if Rob Drake just felt bad about what was happening with the debacks

offense. But I think it was a two-strike pitch. And Braxton Garrett literally threw him a, it was right down the middle. Like it was effectively right down the middle. I'm going to grab this because it's that funny. I think I think we need to show it. Are you like you're going to show us like the location of the pitch? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to try to grab it for us. Okay. Yeah. It was one of the worst. Like, I don't know. It's one of the worst calls I've ever seen for sure. I've seen, I've seen, like, videos of stuff like that on Twitter.

I don't think I've ever attended a game where there was that obvious of a strike that was not called. There was also, I don't remember which inning this was. There was also one of the Jazz Chisholm at Bats. There was an at bat that, I believe it ended with a Jazz Chisholm strikeout. It didn't wind up necessarily affecting the outcome of that at bat or much less the game, large. But Rob Drake missed three calls and one at bat. Like pretty- And they were going both ways. Yeah. One of them went in Gallin's favor and I think two of them went in Jazz's favor, if I'm remembering correctly. Or maybe I might have that. No,

I think it was two, two were for gallon and one was for gas. Yeah. Two in Gallin's favor, one for jazz. Yeah. And that, I mean, that was in a bat where, yeah, we had three pretty obvious missed calls within one at that. And there were some others, there were some others as well. I remember I remember a Zach Gallen first pitch curve ball at some point in the game that was clearly off the plate and down at the same time. And somehow that was a strike call. So, yeah, I mean, the D-BAC's offense, like, they performed worse than anyone who was involved in this baseball game. But Rob Drake was maybe like, I don't know, not too far away. It was one of the worst umpire performances of the year, I'd have to say.

I mean, just look at this. Look at this location. I've never seen anything like that in my life. it's so unbelievable yeah that's i didn't even yeah that that that's wild you didn't you didn't know it was that down the middle i i knew it was pretty right down the middle but oh my gosh yeah that's even more astonishing to even to look at and what was also funny is um we can't unfortunately we can't play that like a replay of this or anything but he thought about it like you don't you don't often see umpires like kind of start to do this called strike three thing uh but he like kind of

started and then decided not to like we got like a little window into rob drake's brain as this whole situation was unfolding uh and yeah it was it was terrible i'd love to know where the apprehension for him came in like where what what about it made it where he was like it was it a strike i don't know like because it just seems like it could be more obvious that that's I mean that's that's the most strike ball I've ever seen in my entire life like I've never that's the worst call I've ever seen in a strike and in a from a ball strike standpoint yeah it's pretty is pretty pretty terrible but yes the the diamond backs did not lose this game because of rob drake if if anything they probably should have lost by more than

they did because yeah they got help I think yeah it felt like they got the majority of those calls But someone in the press box told me I wasn't aware of this. But apparently Drake is if you go to like umpire scorecard, that sort of ranking stuff, he tends to be near the bottom. So I think it's, I think he doesn't have the name credit that like an Angel Hernandez or CB Buckner has. But apparently it's sort of a known thing at this point that he's not, he's not so great back there. He's electric. Yeah.

Benjamin Hunleases, Pridomo would have would have gotten a hit tonight. Yeah, probably. I'm sure in your mind, Damon, if Perdomo had played in this game, I mean, it's a, the vibes change, he gets a couple of knocks, draws a walk or something like that, dazzles at shortstop maybe, and the D-Backs find a way to win this game? Is that what you, is that what you're envisioning? The way, the way I see it more is just like, imagine, imagine this is your world that you live in, Jesse, where Perdomo's the nine hole, and he's getting on base, you know, drawing, you know,

10 pitch walks, you know, hitting a, hitting a ground ball through the alley in between first and second base, just like he always does. And then Corbyn Carroll's up to the plate who's struggling, but all of a sudden, pitchers are going right at Corbyn because there's a runner on base and Ctele's Marte is right behind him. Like I think that the continuity of the lineup does improve with Perdomo in the back half of it because if he's getting on base, like at the clip that we expect him to, you know, Corbyn gets a little bit more better pitches to hit because no one wants to face Catelle right now.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but that's just my optimistic look about it. Yeah, I mean, I personally think, Damon, like, if Pardomo is in this game, like, I don't know if Braxton Garrett gets out of the fourth inning. Like, I think it's just that level of, maybe that maybe that's a little. Yeah, for sure. You got it. I'm starting to figure it out from you, Damon. You're right. You're eventually finally rubbing off on me, I guess.

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Jesse does enjoy himself from time to time of wow wheat. That's really the only time that you'll ever see Jesse drinking in that. I feel like that's pretty high praise. Like, if that's really the only beverage you're enjoying, really, I mean, that's got to be, that's got to be said for something. No, you're absolutely right, Damon. Pretty much wherever, yeah, if any place has Four Peaks beer and Wow, Weed is an option, that is my go-to. But of course, the best place to get it is at Four Peaks itself.

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There's two new products over there at OGs that they've made with live rosin and Rick Simpson oil. They got the OGs naturals and the big OGs. which they make, I think specifically for Derek. I'm pretty sure that the big OGs is literally a Derek Montia, the mayor exclusive, trademark that pull TM at the top of it. And they also have some vegan gummies over at OGs. So the big OGs here is a mega version of Peggs Raspberry Orange, Rick Simpson Oil, one of the company's most popular products.

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OG sprints.com must be 21 plus to enjoy responsibly. Looks like there's some chatter about Kevin Newman potentially taking over at third base, I suppose. Yeah, that was a- Perdomo returns and play shortstop. That is something that we learned today. pregame no huge surprises but manager tori lovela did say the ones for domo has returned from the injured list which i still think could happen within the next couple of weeks he will be the

everyday starting shortstop leaving kevin newman to fill some sort of other role um so yeah i guess the the interesting question there is given the struggles with gino swaris right now is there do you try to play kevin newman at third or i guess maybe blaze alexander could could play some third base as well. The debacks do have some other options that they could explore at third base, especially after after Perdomo gets back. Yeah, I mean, I would explore it. I don't know that it's something that I think that this team at its ceiling would be that would be like the ideal scenario. Like I don't I don't necessarily envision us in September and Kevin Newman's playing third base for the Diamondbacks. Like I think if we get to the playoffs, Gino is going to have to be

playing decent baseball potentially and be the everyday third baseman. But I do think that maybe you could use Kevin Newman to get Gino right, get him, you know, a rest day, a mental health day, and just kind of be like, hey, man, we know you're struggling. We know you're a good ball player way better than what you've showed. But, you know, we do have a guy that can kind of, you know, I think that kind of, that kind of most of the time with high level athletes, that breeds the best out of people is having a little bit of competition. So I would try it for every now and again. I don't, what is, is there any split that makes the most sense there, Jesse? Like Kevin Newman and Gino for, from a lefty, righty standpoint that you could mix Kevin Newman in at third base for from time to time.

Yeah, it's a little, it's a little tough because, I mean, with, with Gino and Newman in particular, they're both right-handed hitters. Yeah, that's kind of what I would be. Yeah, they're both going to be better against lefties. I mean, the, the platoon that could make some sense, which I mean, the, the platoon that could make some sense, which I know you're not going to like this, is getting Newman some time maybe at shortstop because he hits lefties probably better than Geraldo Perdomo does.

For sure. Yeah. He has very much struggled up to this point in his career against lefties. I don't know if the debacks are necessarily like in spring training. They certainly seemed pretty set on getting Perdomo everyday opportunities at shortstop against both lefties and righties. They really wanted to see his right-handed swing as a switch hitter kind of come around. He obviously didn't have a ton of time to really prove that to anyone.

He only played a handful of games before the meniscus injury happened. But yeah, I don't know. How would you feel about a Newman-Perdomo situation in short stuff? I think Kevin Newman's earned it about as much as you can, given, you know, the role that he's been given. So, I mean, I don't want, I think obviously Blaze should even despite his Mickey Mouse Kingsnake tonight, should probably go down and be into Reno and work on his defense. little bit. That just makes the most sense in terms of options and how Kevin Newman's played this year. And I do think that it should be somewhat of a platoon, at least, when Jerry first gets back.

And then if, if, if, if Pridomo starts performing the way that maybe he did last year, then all of a sudden I start giving him the reins full time. And then Kevin Newman can kind of fill in on off days for Cattel and for, you know, Jerry and for Gino even on particular days. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's reasonable. It sort of sounded to me today like Prudomo. I think Prado is going to play against pretty much everyone. I mean, I'm sure they'll get him a day off here and there. But I don't think they're going to hold him back or anything once he returns. Sounds like he's going to be pretty much the everyday option, the shortstop.

Okay. Or he's going to kind of figure out what Kevin Newman's role is from there. I did want to touch on the D-BAC's upcoming schedule real quick. Okay. Because it's really not like after that Dodgers series and granted some of the teams that they faced in recent weeks didn't wind up being nearly as formidable as we kind of expected several weeks ago. We were looking at them. Like we thought the Reds would be at least a pretty solid team. And they wound up at least at this stage in the season when the D-BACs caught them.

They were very much not that. But moving forward, the D-BACs, Damon, have a pretty nice, pretty nice upcoming schedule. you've got these two more with the marlins you do have a couple games against the texas rangers next week uh the world the world series rematch which should be those those means those games are those games are big the rangers are are actually struggling quite a bit uh so far they're not great uh so that those aren't those aren't you know quite as difficult games as you might think they would be i do you know what corey seger's ops is right now jesse i mean i i i don't know what it is but i would

I guess it's probably it probably starts with a six, right? 680 maybe. It's it's 769, but that's still pretty freaking bad for Corey Seeger. Like he's he, Corey Seeger pretty much, I feel like at least after the World Series run for them last year, cemented himself as like a top five hitter in baseball. Like he pretty much just carried.

It felt like he carried them on his back and like, we should have just walked him every single bat that he got up there. In the World Series, we probably would have fared better. Um, but it makes me sick to look at his stats and see him hitting in the 250s and, uh, you know, have a sub 800 OPS. And it's, I talked about it on the show with Derek, but like I feel like I got a ring stolen from me. I feel like I got robbed like at gunpoint. Like that like Corey Seeger all of a sudden, he's not good anymore.

After I watched him just like be the best player I've ever, watch him be Barry Bonds in the playoffs. Like it's, it's unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, but like aren't the aren't the Phillies out there saying the same thing about Corbyn Carroll or whatever, right? Like, oh, this guy.

Corbyn was not good in the Phillies. That's fair. That's fair. Who's the guy in the Phillies? He wasn't fantastic. Who would be the guy that you would be like, like pissed off as a Phillies fan about? I don't.

I mean, I don't think any one Diamondbacks hitter really like carried them in the end. Like Corbin did have game seven that DeBacks won very much because of Corvin and because of yeah but but that makes sense that's like winning because of Bryce Harper it's like yeah right right that's like cool that's not like super yeah maybe maybe just I mean like I know that it was kind of a meaningless

home run but maybe just Perdoma like I feel like he's just perennially that guy like when he hit that home run to kind of get the vibes back and then like it just felt like he was just never like afraid of the moment even when it was like look like the dimebacks were out of it he just always was kind of a a thorn in their side so I guess maybe that would be the best comparison. Someone said. Brandon fought, really. Yeah,

it really would be Brandon fought. Yeah, Brandon fought was, was unreal. You know what? It is Alec. It's absolutely, that's stupid of me,

like to not, it's absolutely, Alex doesn't hit that home run. We lose. Like, we do. That was, that home run was everything.

It saved the season. So for Alec Thomas to hit a no doubt home run off of, off of Greg Kimbril in that moment is like, yeah, that Philly's fans, like he he he kind of owns them and they have to they have to hate him a little bit no doubt yeah yeah uh going going back to the scheduling stuff real quick so uh so they have these two next games with the marlins then they play the rangers for a couple of games they have a four game set

at new york against the met's next weekend the met's are pretty meh at this point in the season uh you've got three against the giants four against the padres uh then they have the angels the white socks and the nationals. Those are the upcoming opponents with the Diamondbacks. Then they have the Phillies June 21st to 23rd. And obviously the Phillies are playing extremely well right now. But that's a window, Damon, where despite what happened tonight and, you know, it is just one game as ugly as it was and it's hard to watch as maybe this game was for a lot of people,

understandably. So they still have a chance to win this series against the Marlins, which if they were to do that, it would be okay. If they took two out of three, that would be fine. And these next few weeks, they're not going to play a really, they're not going to play a clearly above average baseball team until June 21st to 23rd, which is almost almost a month away. Yeah.

I mean, it definitely is a good opportunity to start stacking some wins. I'm not ready to call the Rangers not a good baseball team. I think that that game, that series, I still go into it thinking that that's going to be a tough one to, I mean, I'll be happy with a split. 2.0, I'd be over them. I'd be thrilled with. So speaking on the Rangers again, like almost everybody's been underperforming for them. Somewhat similar to us, whereas like other than tell everybody's kind of been underperforming,

like Adoles Garcia hasn't been that great. Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter, they're two like big time rookies have both been pretty bad. So like they haven't had a very good season either in a similar vein. And then they have DeGrom and Max Scherzer on the aisle right now that they're going to get back at some point this season. And so I'd say in the National League and the American League, in my opinion, the two teams that really could shoot up second half of the season potentially would be the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, funny, funnily enough, you know, a World Series rematch. But yeah, I mean, I think mostly I just want to keep it to this series. Like, we got to win this series. I have this probable starters here. Like, and I didn't update it yet. But like, who's going to be pitching on that third game? I think it will be Blake Walston, but that is, to be clear, that is not, that is not backed by science. That is not official reporting. That is sort of my speculation.

But Tori, when I was in Los Angeles, Tori when I was in L.A., he was asked about who will start that Sunday game. And someone said, like, Walston and Henry would be like the options. And Tori said, yes, he said, we will go in that direction or something. So it appears that Henry and Walson would be two options there. Tommy Henry just pitched yesterday, I believe, so he cannot start on Sunday. That would be short rest for him and would not really make any sense. So Blake Walston is the guy that I'm sort of thinking that it will be. But who knows, Damon?

Maybe they have maybe they do the opener thing, although that doesn't make a ton of sense to me against the Marlins. So our openers are kind of. it's kind of been good for us. It's kind of a decent strategy for us. But yeah, I think we got to win tomorrow. Six of Sanchez versus Jordan Montgomery. No excuses. You laid an egg yesterday.

Come out. Put on a show for the fans. Win convincingly. Like that's what I expect tomorrow. And then that last game, Ryan Weathers is not that good. Like his stats look decent this season, but I've looked at his stats last couple years.

Like, I don't, he's not an overly impressive pitcher. Blake Walson should be able to compete with them and our lineup should frankly just be better than the Marlins lineup like it just it is on paper it is from a money standpoint like what we're paying these guys it is from what they did last year we got to just be better than them so in that

that third game like I need a series win here after dropping game one where you have your ace on the mound like I think I think you need to win this series I said the same thing when we lost game one of the Tigers but it didn't work out the way I won wanted it to, but this is not a great team. And like, you can still salvage this.

But it's, it's going to, it's going to take no room for air at this point for the rest of the series. It's already been three straight Sundays now that the debacks have, have avoided sweeps. They avoided a sweep on May 5th against the Padres. That was a Sunday game on May 12th against the Orioles. They avoided the sweep there. And then last week, they did it with, with the Tigers. So yeah, they absolutely, Jordan Montgomery against Sixtho Sanchez, that certainly works in their favor. As for that Sunday game, another thing I'll say real quick is that the debacks are not, at least Tori Lavello said the other day that they are not going to skip that spot in their rotation.

The Soconi spot, they're not planning to skip it. They are planning to bring in someone to make that start. So for people wondering, they do, because of the off day, they theoretically could just skip his spot. but that is according to Lavello not what they're what they're planning to do. A few injury updates here before we, sorry, did you have something you wanted to add there? It kind of coincided into the injury update thing. I was just going to ask you if like you had any sort of ERAD timetable. Yeah, yeah.

So time, we don't have really timetables for much of anyone as frustrating as that might be. Tori Lavello did say today that everyone who is on the IL, right now is asymptomatic. So Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez, Alec Thomas, Rol de Pardomo, at least those four. Like, okay, I guess Drey Jameson might not be asymptomatic. There's other guys too.

But those four that we're expecting to come back are all are not feeling any kind of pain according to what Lavello said today. So that's certainly a positive development. But of course, not feeling any pain is not the same as being ready to go, you know, play baseball against major leaguers again.

So Alec Thomas, we heard today that Thomas is, he's been doing some light jogging. He's been doing live, he's been taking live A-Bs as well. He's still been able to do that. But there's not really a clear timetable at this point for him. Heraldo Pardomo is closer than Alec Thomas, pretty much for sure. He's running at 80% effort at this point. So once he gets to 100%, which could happen fairly soon, I would think, then he just has to play in some sim games maybe or head out on a rehab assignment.

Shouldn't be too long before he's ready to go. As for the pitchers, I know you mentioned EROD. EROD, we don't really have any kind of a firm timetable at this point. Lavello said he made some interesting comments today about EROD. He said that he's out to 60 feet with his throwing program. And he said that they've talked about pulling back on him a little bit, not because there's a setback or because he is feeling pain again or anything, but I'm just getting the sense that they're being very careful with Eduardo Rodriguez,

given the setback that already happened last month. They do not want that to happen again under any circumstance. So he's still apparently just out to 60 feet. I think he has to get to 120, I believe, is what he has to reach before he could actually start throwing off a mound. So we're still, I think, more than a week at least from him pitching off a mound. So you're talking about like he's going to have to build back up to a full starter's workload. He's going to start from nothing, basically, as far as his pitch count goes. So you're over a month from Erod being back and potentially well beyond that.

It's a little bit hard to say at this point. If you had to guess, who would you guess comes back sooner, Merrill or EROD? Probably Erod, because Erod has started throwing, and that's something that Merrill has not done yet. However, the news on Merrill is that he had imaging again on his shoulder, and Lavello said today that it showed significant healing. But again, the debacks are being pretty cautious there. Lavello said that they're seeking further opinions. They want other people to read this MRI and sort of confirm that he is good to go and good to start a throwing program. but they haven't they haven't gotten to that point that point just yet so yeah erod is ahead of

merrill but yeah if you want either of these guys to be pitching in the next couple weeks in the majors you're you're going to be disappointed that that's not going to happen gotcha well Tommy henry we're going to need you bud hope you're ready to go yeah I mean it it it continues to be a sort of tricky situation where they've got three established starters and Gallon Montgomery and fought. And then you've got these two other spots. And it's Ryan Nelson. It's just like last year.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it kind of is. Ryan Nelson has struggled for the most part, but he was pretty good, obviously. The other day against the Dodgers, of course they had the opener. They sort of tried to set him up for success that way. And that worked pretty well.

But yeah, if it's Wollston, who comes up, you know, he's not exactly. exactly a proven commodity at the big league level. So you just kind of have to hope that these guys are able to keep you in some games. I liked what I saw at a Walston in the last game. You know, I think he gave up a run or two. I think it was against the Dodgers, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, he had a decent amount of swing and miss stuff.

Like guys were whiffing at a lot of his pitches. His curveball looked pretty good. So I thought that, you know, he had some, at least something to build off of there. I'm not all the way out on Blake Walston, even though. I feel like he's one of the more under-heralded prospects that we have in the organization in terms of where his draft position was, maybe where he ranks in the current farm system rankings and like no one really talks about him all that much, maybe because people thought he was going to be a lot better than he maybe currently has been in the minors, but that talent

is clearly still there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's only 22 years old. So you've got a 22-year-old who's already spent. It's a full season in AAA. There's something to be said for him, him getting to this point so early in his career. So yeah, maybe it's Walson on Sunday.

We'll see, we'll see what that looks like, see what the next couple of days, how these next couple of days go against the Marlins. See if the devaks are able to do what they did against the Dodgers, which is lose the first game of the series, but bounce back and play really good baseball for two days. And you leave the series and you feel pretty good about how things went.

Yeah. But yeah, that is all that we have tonight. We very much appreciate all of you hanging out with us and waiting a little while. I know because Derek isn't here, we couldn't start until after all of the post-game interviews and whatnot we're done downstairs. We appreciate you all sticking around and waiting for that. Be sure to give all of us a follow on Twitter. You can find me at Jesse and Friedman. You can follow Damon, of course, at Damon Dog.

I am Damon's dog, bark, bark. doesn't none of that feels right uh be sure to follow our beat account at p h and x underscore debacks and of course all roads lead to at ph and x underscore sports that's on twitter instagram and facebook thank you all once again uh for being here tonight we really appreciate your time uh and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun when the opposing pitcher doesn't throw a complete game shutout