PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Corbin Carroll BREAKS Clayton Kershaw But Diamondbacks Lose Shootout To Dodgers 10-9

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

The Diamondbacks jumped all over Clayton Kershaw early in game one of this four-game series at Chase Field against the Dodgers. But after he was removed due to a toe injury, this became a bullpen game for L.A. and the D-backs struggled to score with runners in scoring position. Meanwhile, Paul Sewald out of Arizona’s bullpen was a disaster. We have more on the silver linings from this loss, Corbin Carroll going yard and breaking Kershaw, and Torey Lovullo’s response to the outcome.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose your offer!Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Sanderson Ford: The Sanderson Ford Summer Sales Event is here and they are teaming up with the boys of summer for a final Playoff Payoff Sale. You get the payoffs like deals on 24 Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend. Lease one today for as low as $299 a month for 36 Months with only 10 percent cash down.Zbiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/phnxdbacks to get 15% off your first order when you use PHNXDBACKS at checkout. Pre-Alcohol is backed with 100% money back guarantee so if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, they’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order!Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks.  $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details.Gametime: 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!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.Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items.Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Better dog than Decoy. Welcome in, of course, to the PHNX Debax podcast, brought to you by our friends at Bet365. Go download the Bet365 app right now. Use our code of PHNX365 when you sign up, choose your offer, and find out why it is never ordinary at Bet365. And of course, as we say, almost every single night on this show after reading that opening, it is never ordinary when you're watching an Arizona Diamondbacks game. Of course, welcome in. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally.

usually known as your mayor of PHNX, maybe not for much longer. Honestly, if Esco really is going to bring in lunch every Monday, I might even vote for him. But this man next to me, of course, is the people's producer. It's Damon Farrell. And we will be joined by Jesse Friedman from Chase Field here shortly. But of course, Damon, this game absolutely sucked. I know we're going to toss a lot of blame around about this loss.

And honestly, everybody deserves some blame. Tori deserves a lot of blame for the way he managed this game. Paul Seawald deserves a ton of blame for the way he pitched in this game. And let's be honest, Zach Galen did not give this team a very good chance early on, even though I will give him credit. He did get things back on track. But, of course, a wild ninth inning did show at least a silver lining here

that this team is never out of any game. But unfortunately, those runs allowed by Paul Seawald and the rest of the bullpen. I'm not going to say that it, The bullpen isn't free of blame here. Joe Mantiply struggled today as well. It was just a bad game, and this team still only lost by one run. However, again, on the silver lining side, Corbyn Carroll is still on fire, and he might have broken Clayton Kershaw.

Damon, what do you want to get mad about first with this game? Where do you want to even start? I actually have the perfect place to start, Derek. And I think that's you apologizing to me about our discussion we had about Paul Seawald, just a couple post games shows ago. Oh, I have to apologize. Would you like to start that apology? I have to apologize for what?

In what way? You told me that we need him to be a useful part of this bullpen. I need to never see him step on the mound for this in our team ever again. A high leverage situation isn't the situation to be putting Paul Seawald in. And he proved that today, absolutely. That wasn't exactly that high leverage, though. We were down already in the game. By one run.

I mean, by one run. By one run, you're trying to get somebody to go in there and hold the game. This isn't a chance. What I said was that Tori was going to continue to give Paul Seawald opportunities like he did. I said he was going to do it to try to get Paul Seawald right. And based on Tori's own words, he was trying to move him closer and closer to that ninth inning. We said that's crazy. I thought we were together on that until you're here demanding.

an apology for me on Paul Seawald's behalf. But I never was capping for Paul. I was never saying he was good. He's going to be good. You're your best friend. He might even be paying you money at this point. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it might be, might be in on it for sure. But he hasn't really shown anything besides, you know, again, he's had outings where he

didn't give up any runs, but he was still hit extremely hard in those outings. And we just said there was a lot that still wasn't encouraging about what we were seeing out of Paul Seawald. Tori, though, remains committed, including in tonight's post-game press conference when he said that, regardless of what the line says, that there were still a lot of encouraging things

about Paul Seawalt's outing, and I fail, I fail to see those things that he's talking about, you know? I mean, that's, that's, you know, it is what it is. Like I said, there's a lot of blame to be placed. Tori definitely deserves blame for, you know, that the bullpen didn't do their job.

So again, there's times like this where I have to say, as much as you want to blame Tori, these are grown adults that are baseball players that are getting paid money to go out there and do their job, and they're not doing it. Dylan Floro didn't have a ton of success while he was out there. Joe Manzapply, even though he struck out Otani in the at bat,

had a kind of infuriating wild pitch that allowed to run the score, which gave the Dodgers that lead. But even up to that point, I mean, Zach Gallen is the Diamondbacks guy, right? Zach Gallin is their ace. He's the guy that you wanted out there on the mound in game one against the Dodgers in the series. And he just could not locate his fastball early on. He could not find the strike zone.

And of course, Jesse would like me to point this out that Jesse talked about this in his article that he wrote about Zach Gallen and what was wrong with him. Right. It's his inability to locate his inability to get ahead early in the count, specifically with his fastball. But his change up a knuckle curve were very good today. and eventually he relied on those pitches. And he just got stronger and stronger as the outing went on, right? So even though he had given up five earned runs up to that point, he still finished very strongly and there's still some encouraging things about his

outing. But again, unfortunately at that point, even though it was a tie ball game, that that was, you know, it's a very un-Zack-Gallon-like outing. You expect Zach Gallen to go out there and give you three earned runs or less. Yeah, I think Zach Gowan is like, there's a lot of times, feel like where he starts off really rough. And then Tori and Brent Strom trust him enough where they think, you know, he's going to give us six innings and limit the damage a little bit. And he's pretty good at that. But I'm tired of getting off to these slow starts with Zach Allen all the

time because we need him to be the ace that, you know, he's on this roster for. So. Well, and El Gaios says something that I actually thought watching the game because that Gallon was at a pitch count where I just knew you weren't reasonably going to bring him back out after, you know, the fifth inning, right? But I did want to see him throw 120 pitches because it felt like there at the end, Gallin was at his best. He struck out five of his last eight batters faced, which included Shohei Otani, Freddie Freeman, and Teasca Hernandez. And he just looked solid. Like suddenly he could locate the zone with his fastball and kind of throw it where he wanted. And it just it just looked like in this game he very much wasn't ready to go early on.

And as it progressed, it was like he was kind of getting warmed up and getting in a groove. And he got there. He definitely got there. It was just too late by that point. He had given up too many runs. Of course, the offense did keep them in it up to that point. And somebody else said it in the chat. But it's Nathan Perez said those first three innings have been the wildest three

innings. I've seen this whole season. That was a wild. a wild start to this one, David. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was good out of the offense. I liked what I saw out of the offense. Perdomo starting it off after a rough top of the first inning with a double. And then, of course, just, you know, Corby and Carroll continues to hit the hell out of the baseball, which is, which is great to see for us. Yeah. So you're, you're not wrong entirely about there being some silver linings in this game. There, there are, you know, the Dodgers used majority of their

bullpen already. Corbyn Carroll continues to just knock the cover off the baseball. But, you know, this it's also, I think what we've dropped three of four now, you know, two of our last three series we've lost. We're, you know, about to maybe hit the third one and four, which, you know, has been very foreign to this team. And since the All-Star break in. Let's calm down.

Well, you know, three out of four series is not something to scoff. No, I'm talking about giving it to the Dodgers up, four-game series to the Dodgers just because they lost game one. I think that's... No, but you're down in the series. I'm just looking at reality, Derek. That's all. I'm saying that it's...

You can't let these losses keep stacking. That was more my point that I'm making because they've been playing such great baseball. We've become so accustomed to these wins. Yeah. Let's not continue piling these losses because I think, you know, we're going to need big outings out of Merrill Kelly and Brandon fought in particular. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you this much. They need something.

They need something because this Dodgers team, it just is relentless, right? You have Otani being the first 43-43 guy in Major League Baseball history. Freddie Freeman hit that two home run in the first inning that put the team up early, you know, and the Diamondbacks kind of were working from behind from the get-go. And this one, this one sucked in a lot of different ways. And then also, again, you got to be encouraged by the fact that this team, just didn't quit, even with how much this game sucked, because this one was not going their way,

and it still ended up being a 10 to 9 game. But yeah, you're right. R.A. here in the chat says games with Dodgers, Brewers, Padres, Houston, very little room for error. And you're absolutely right. And it starts now. You can't even say, like, beyond this. And like, they also have a lot of games left against the Giants.

They have two series game, two series left against the Giants before the end of the year. Two series against the Brewers left. so they play those teams a lot. If they struggle against those teams, Giants, brewers have their number for some reason when they play them, that's dangerous for this team. And it's absolutely a cause for concern right now. And also it's cause for concern that, like, again, I mean,

you just have these guys that aren't performing that at one time were performing, were absolute studs either for this team or another team. and you feel obligated to use them. You know, you have Jordan Montgomery, which is a similar situation as Paul Seawald, where it just hasn't worked out this season, you know, at least, you know, the majority of the season, much like Paul Seawald, where he was actually good for a significant stretch. And then all of a sudden, the wheels seem to fall off, right? And that's kind of the case for both of these guys.

I don't know how you manage that. I mean, in the, you just kind of have to figure out a role and use them. And it almost sounded like that's what happened today with Seawald, right? Like it was last, I believe last Saturday, it was the last time he had pitched. So this was basically, you know, the time to get him in, I guess, regardless of the game situation. Yeah, I just don't see how you can. I understand that he hasn't pitched for a while. So you need him, you need to keep his arm warm at a certain point.

But I just, there's like no excuse for pitching him when Kevin Ginkle is available. Right. And it's a game that you're trying to win. And I think at this point, like, I mean, you're right. It was high leverage. It's not the same high leverage as a safe situation, but it was more what I was trying to say. But you're right. It was a high leverage situation.

I think that should never happen until Paul Seawald has proven that he can put together solid outings, consistent outings, you know, when Tori calls his number, it's like, I'm done with the Paul Seawald in games that matter. experience. That's that's over for me. Well, and and there could be those opportunities for him to pitch in the ones that that don't, but it's like this was a one run game and Tori kind of managed it in a way like it was already, had already slipped out of their hands, right? You also had an odd thing there when they were down by the significant margin that they were before they made that wild comeback in the ninth inning. You had, you know, Kevin Ginkle, who is a really good reliever

for this team being used in kind of a throwaway game. And I know they're probably not going to turn to Montgomery again this early since his last outing, but still it seemed like a pretty, I don't know, pretty insignificant use of, of, you know, ginkle at the time, right? And I mean, in hindsight's 2020, considering what this team was able to do and ginkle went out there

and he gave up one hit and worked one inning of, you know, but still, it's just a lot of questionable decisions in this one. And you've got to wonder if maybe something goes to Diamondbacks way a little bit differently. You know, there's the extra home run that Paul Seawald gave up after he came back out in the next inning, which didn't feel necessary after what had happened in his inning of work, right? And then he gives up a solo home run. And the Diamondbacks lose by one. They also gave up one on a wild pitch that they end up striking out, Otony.

in the at-bat so like oh there's just so many opportunities for this game to not have gone this way and for it to have been one of those you know games where we are sitting here screaming about this being an incredible comeback in the ninth inning i mean if if we won this game me and you would be acting a fool on this oh we would be right now courageable it would so it's yeah it's it's crazy how little or how like marginal a difference you know that it can be between like depression and like we're winning the world series this year. Well, and you're playing these teams that it's very important to win against, right? The Mets.

Yeah, for sure. That's the same way. Like, it's not like the Mets are that close, but yes, now they are. And they helped their chances by beating the Diamondbacks two out of three and helping decrease that deficit that they had as far as the games back in the wild card. You have a similar situation here where the Diamondbacks could have helped their cause. And again, I know winning the National League West is something we've still debated. whether there's importance or relevance to that.

But you do want to win the division ultimately at the end of the day, no matter what this guy here says. So you want to increase your odds. You want to increase your chances here by stealing one from the Dodgers. And I felt like they did. But again, some silver linings here is that Corbyn Carroll might have broken Clayton Kershaw or just phantom injury because the Diamondbacks were doing exactly what they did to him in this game that they did last year in the NLD.

But of course, they did get those runs back early on. The offense was able to get some hits. They just really couldn't capitalize. They had a base running error there with Josh Bell, who did get an RBI single. But he also – That was awful. Or he didn't get an RBS single. He was on base.

Oh, he did get an RBS single. I'm sorry. I'm all over the place. But then he also got caught trying to advance, thinking a ball hit by Gino Suarez wasn't caught when it was caught. But back to Corbyn Carroll. of course that home run to lead off the second inning literally broke Clayton Kirschaw. Of course, that home run is our Sanderson Ford deep drive of the game.

So shout out to our friends at Sanderson Ford because that's Corbyn Carroll's 18th home run. And he is on a tear right now. We want 19. We want 23. We are on the quest for 23. We are on the class. We're on the quest for 23. But it was 18.

And the man just can't stop. hitting home runs right now. He is Damon. Now the only left-handed hitter in Major League Baseball history with two home runs against Clayton Kershaw's curveball. Is that good? I don't know. I don't know, Derek.

It sounds pretty good to me. Apparently, at one point was one of three people, one of three people who had one home run off his curveball. Now he is the only one with two. He also flashed some leather in this game. He had some good catches, including one in the ninth inning there that was pretty spectacular. But Corby, Clayton Kirchow would leave the game following the home run by Corbyn Carroll and the Dodgers allege that he left the game with left big toe pain.

I'm not going to, I'm not going to go on that on that realm with you, Derek. You can be the one that's that calls that. I can't confirm, but that's what they say. You didn't say anything. You just looked at the camera in a very auspicious way, but that's okay. Yeah, I mean, Corbyn Carroll is just, he's back to being the MVP of this team right when you needed him most with Catelle Marte out. I guess, like you could argue, it hasn't really translated to wins as much as, you know,

when Catell was the MVP guy, but we just got to get him both back. Move Corbyn back up in the lineup, get Cattel back, and this is going to be one of the scariest teams in baseball with, you know, not quite Dodgers level, you know, show hey, Mookie, Freddie Freeman. But Corbyn, Cattle Marte back to back is not a good sight that any opposition wants to see. Nicholas Gruders makes a great point, though, and he was responding to someone else, but he did say that lineup just scored nine runs. the pitching is the problem. It's not so cool. I mean, they scored nine runs against, yes, they scored nine runs in a bullpen game, basically, right?

But we know the diamondbacks in the past actually have kind of struggled with those. So once Clayton Courtshaw left the game, I know I was disappointed. I'm sure a lot of you were as well, because it felt like the diamondbacks were absolutely knocking the cover off the ball against Clayton Courtshaw. And then we only get him for a very limited amount of time before the Dodgers have to go to their bullpen.

Now, again, the benefits, as we alluded to earlier there, is that this is a four-game series. So the Dodgers had to use a lot of pitchers in this game, and that helps the Diamondbacks' odds throughout the rest of this series, period. That's a good thing. But, again, a better thing would have been winning this goddamn game. And there were a lot of avenues to them getting to a win, right? Avenues are big kind of a few self-inflicted wounds. And then mostly, like Nicholas said, bad pitching, right? some really bad pitching in this game and of course the diamond back still they got themselves

some free runs as well right i'm not going to act like they didn't they got a uh a run on a bach at one point from joe kelly uh jose herrera had a big hit in that inning that scored the game at five um might as well be a bach might as well be a bach yeah but the bullpen man i mean florro allows a lead off double to max muncie that scores on that wild pitch uh when um mantha ply was facing Otani and that one just drove me nuts Damon because man you do all that work to strike out one of the best hitters in baseball the potentially you know uncrowned MVP of the national league right and you still give up the run by a pitch getting past Jose Herrera and that's again one of those moments where you can't help but think if Gabby's back there does Gabby let that that pitch get

past him right there's those moments and also going back to what you were saying about Corbyn Carroll. This team didn't win when Cotel Marte was doing it by himself. That was the problem was that Cotel Marte was doing it by himself. And right now, Corbyn Carroll at times has been forced to kind of do that a bit. And I mean, he did have some support today. I'm not going to act like he didn't. Josh Bell was three for five, right? That guy continues to be a hitting machine for this team and just a sorely welcomed, you know, replacement for Christian Walker, who the Diamondback should be getting back here pretty shortly and should be getting Cotel back pretty shortly. The unfortunate timing of it is they probably are not going to get them back by this series.

So they have to figure out a way to get it done. Catell doesn't pitch. Christian Walker doesn't pitch. That wasn't the problem today because the guys were able to get nine runs here against the Dodgers. It's just, Tori, do you want to still entertain this idea of Paul Seawald ever getting back to being your closer again? you know, I said that that was something he said just to encourage Paul Seawald to try to get the most out of him. At this point, I don't feel like he deserves even that encouragement.

He allowed three runs to score on two home runs. That ended up being very much a part of the reason why the Diamondbacks lost, if not entirely the reason the Diamondbacks lost. This team has had some pretty flawless appearances from their bullpen, and maybe we got spoiled by that. They had a 0.84 ERA in the last series, And that's a series that the Diamondbacks lost two out of three, right? So, I mean, again, we've gotten some good pitching out of the bullpen.

It's just tonight they didn't. And it wasn't just Paul Seawald either. It was bad pitching from, you know, Floro, who, you know, really has not been great since joining this team, Joe Mantiply, who was kind of great there in that one, you know, sequence and also kind of bad in that sequence. But, man, Paul Seawald, this is just. one of those situations where, you know, much like Jordan Montgomery, you can't let this guy impact your baseball games. You just can't. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's it's back to this age

old question with the diamond backs that we keep finding ourselves in. In the last couple of years, it feels like we've been in about five scenarios exactly like this where it's like this guy did used to do good things for this team and this franchise. But they're currently a net negative. and they've been fairly cutthroat with with these with these you know situations but this is one where I don't understand really what the what the deal is but Torrey can't shake Paul Seawalt he's that's the that's the one that got away for Tori and it's just in the back of his mind he can he'll never let it go Derek so I I hope like yeah I get what Tori's saying a little bit right and sometimes, like, being married, sometimes you got to pick and choose your battles.

Sometimes you just got to know when to internalize that shit. Like, Tori is always going to stick up for his guys, which is why his guys play so hard for him, right? True. And it's both something he does well and something that is a problem for him, right? He gives guys too much time. He has too close of a relationship with his players, thus making it that much hard. to make the difficult decisions. He was talking about his old manager, Sparky,

and some of the managers that he's played for, these guys that never let you into their personal lives as a player. They didn't even want you to know who their spouse was or what they did as a hobby. And the reason why is because we're not friends like that. I'm your manager. You're my player. And when I need to cut you,

I don't want to be like Derek when his wife brings those animals home that he can't part ways with, right? Like I want to be able to make those tough decisions. And I don't want to have a personal relationship with you, which as callous is that. seems is probably a reason why managers, you know, managed their team like that, right? Tori, meanwhile, is a great guy to his players. And in that aspect, there's things about it where he comes out in a press conference like

this after Paul Seawald is very much to blame for the way things went and has to say something about it being encouraging and they're being parts. Like, maybe there were. But now is not the time to talk about those. Now is the time to probably just say, so Seawald didn't do it. his job tonight it's unfortunate you know i'm i'm still pretty proud of the team and the way they fought back there yeah the look of saying of saying he you know he's figuring some things out after tonight is crazy it was crazy you don't have to say no no should not should not say that this is not a guy

who's figuring stuff out but that's why baseball is the way it is no matter what level you're at no matter how long you've played this game there comes a time where suddenly you're not good at it anymore, right? Some guys can figure it back out. Some guys still have that ability. And then there's guys that don't. And that's the reason why they don't play baseball any longer. And some of them were not very old when that time came, especially guys that were part of this Diamondbacks franchise, right? I still have a really hard time, you know, looking at Brandon Webb. I know that was an injury and I know that was different. I'm not trying to say his skills diminished and that's why he doesn't play. But sometimes it's just unbelievable that certain guys that were so good

that we didn't get more out of their careers. And it's unfortunate when it's cut short due to any reason, especially injury. But it also sucks when it's cut short suddenly due to the fact that you just can't, you know, be effective as a major league pitcher anymore. So I don't really know what the nine-and-backs are going to do. But I imagine that Tori is still not going to give up on Paul Seawald. And yeah, as much as we want to send him down to Reno, he ain't got those options. That ain't where Paul Seawald is added in his career, right?

you still DFA Paul Seawald, you still have teams jump all over it. As unbelievable as that sounds, there are still teams in this, in the, in the, in the playoff hunt that would jump on a Paul Seawald, you know, a chance to get him, pick them up and watch them go shove for that team. And then just really make us all want to burn the world to the ground, right? But anyway, that's the debaq special, but I don't see that. I don't either, I don't either, but there's teams that are still in the race, And there's a lot of things happening.

You have the damn cubs now who are rooting against us tonight, our own CHGO brother in these animals. But, you know, that's the way it is because people that, you know, this team has been so unstoppable that now that they're losing games, there's blood in the water. Teams smell it. There's teams that are close. The dogs are way closer than they should be, to be honest.

I had no idea. Like they're like seven games back, which still is probably too far back for them to be even talking right now. But as I say that, you never know what's going to happen. They're eight and two in their last 10 games, and they've been playing some good baseball. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks have not, like you said, they lost that last series. They've now lost three out of their last four games. And, you know, things don't look great right now.

But they could if they turn things around and end up, you know, winning this series against the Dodgers or at least splitting it, you know, before they move on. So we'll see what happens there. But kudos to them for those four runs scored in the ninth inning. I thought that was a great job. the game interesting. And once again, once it started happening, I started to believe. They let me down. Didn't happen. But I believe the team has just done it now enough times that like despite the deficit being like outrageously significant to the point where you shouldn't believe

that they should come back. They made it a one run ballgame. Yeah. I mean the, I'll say I'll tell you exactly when I was peak believing when Corvin was up three one in the cast before he passed up foul. Yes, me too. Me too. Yeah, if there was like a one of those ESPN matchup, like predictors of based off how I was feeling from that pitch to the next, we were here to off the screen. But yeah, I mean, it's just, I think a lot of these late comebacks recently in this kind of, you know, since the Tampa Bay series, really, where they've not been playing as good

of baseball as they were prior. I you know those those comebacks have come up just a little bit short like we're talking about losing on the margins here in about probably three four games which is a lot of what we were seeing early in the season um but I can't help but feel and you mentioned it a little bit earlier that in some of those circumstances it like in a few of those games really it felt like mistakes from our catchers are are hugely costly and like it's just one of those situations where where Gabby has proven he's so into role to winning for this team. And it's very, very glaring that we don't have them. Even in a game that we won recently, when ADC doesn't put that tag down and puts that lazy tag down, we almost lose because of that. Gabby's a difference maker from a defensive standpoint in a way that's just like you can't, it's not really tangible. But if we had him for this stretch, we probably win three more of the. these baseball games that we've lost here.

Our guy, Yoshi says, I was fantasizing about Luis Eorme-Waq-off. I know you were like, Corby just get on base and Giorme, send us home, baby, send us home. Well, that did not happen.

That's not the reality that we live. And unfortunately, we live in this reality where the Diamondbacks lose by a score of 10 to 9. But of course, you know, we'll still, we'll still believe.

We'll still believe in this team. There's still a lot of baseball left to play. And of course, we do have Jesse joining us. with probably some more excuses from the clubhouse on what happened tonight, but it'll be a fun time. Of course, we thank you guys for being here in the PHANXport's YouTube channel. If you have not subscribed to the channel yet,

make sure to do so right now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when our shows go live. And more importantly, most importantly, more than anything, leave a like. HTL, hit that like button. We love when you leave likes. Again, it's self-affirming for me.

I have very low self-esteem, despite the way that I was dressed at our draft yesterday. That was not the garb of a man with the self-esteem that I have. Can we talk about something real quick on that? I just need to mention this real quick. There is a portion of yesterday's draft. I believe it was the third round. And Jesse asks sweet, sweet innocent Jesse,

who doesn't know anything about football, asks Derek for some help. For three years now. For some help. Oh, who would you go with here? Oh, Damon told me to take Travis Kelsey. Derek tells him to take me out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Let's tell. Can I at least tell what my side of it is here? Jesse said nothing about Damon saying Travis Kelsey. So I was never, I would never go against your advice that you were giving him. He said, I don't really want to take Travis Kelsey here is what Jesse said. And I said is exactly what I said to him was I get that, right? he have no idea what he's going to do this year and like he's you just you know what i mean like you just assume Travis Kelsey is going to be better but i don't think he's even the best tight end

in the draft is why i told him which i was talking about sam la porta who was i was thinking i was going to take i was going to take sam la porta which is why didn't you right after me huh why didn't you take sam lepore i'll tell you why because it's travis kelsey and rind bush gave the show i fucking saw him sitting there and felt like even though I really did. The one thing was, is if Jesse wasn't going to take, or if he did take Travis Kelsey,

I was actually considering taking the exact same running back that Jesse took, a guy who I had on my team last year. So when he said that, I was like, that's actually a good pick. So none of the information I gave Jesse was wrong, but Jesse also has no business asking one of his competitors in his fantasy football league for advice.

That's insane. That's crazy person behavior. You can't trust. anybody, including the guy you host the show with, that you stabbed in the back when given the opportunity by ESPO. And now I'm not, it's not crazy people behavior with each other. But I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, maybe, maybe don't wrong me is all I'm saying. There's a gentleman's rule in fantasy that I gave him.

I gave him legitimate advice. I gave him legitimate advice. Just because I picked up Travis Kelsey next. Jesse, I think I had two running backs at that point. Jesse needed running back. Doesn't matter. I don't care. Jesse's biggest mistake was trusting you.

To everybody's biggest mistake, Damon, it's everybody's biggest mistake. Because I'm out to win. I'm out to win. Look at this. You don't get the championship ring by making friends. You get the championship ring by making wins. Derek, I think this would actually be. I take scoreboard victories.

This would be a perfect time for an ad that I actually. had to play. So here we go. Oh, God. This is Rhett Reese, Arizona Native, and writer-producer of Deadpool and Wolverine, and I support Espo for mayor. I'm Espo, and I approve this message. That's garbage. Like what, you think that that hurts my feelings that it's the Deadpool-Wolverine writer? I don't care about that one bit. I need to verify that man's credentials. But anyway, We do have to talk about this game more, even though we don't want to.

But first, we do have to let you guys know about branded bills. Elevate your brand with branded bills, the perfect headwear and apparel company. Of course, whether you need snapbacks, truckers fitted, beanies or teas. Branded bills has you covered with performance and style. Saw that they had an amazing ASU hat, and it was like an ASU hat for people from Texas. So they have themselves an incredible selection, some really cool hats specifically for or, you know, to make you stand apart from the crowd. I'll tell you, I speak as a guy that does not like to have the same clothing items as other people.

So branded bills will help keep you fresh when it comes to that. They have partnerships with ASU, U of A, as part of their campus collection, and they are a local company from right here in Mesa, Arizona. So head to brandedbills.com and use code PHNX for 20% off your first order. Also, speaking of our draft, what a time we had. Damon, that seems like a fever dream that we had our draft. in person at Heela River Resorts and Casinos last night. It was an incredible experience.

You want to tell them about what we did after we finished up our draft? Yeah, I do. I do. We went down. We headed over. We rode the red wave. We jumped on some roulette tables. Even though Red was hitting, we just kept hitting on it.

We just made ourselves some money. We had ourselves some good time. Everybody abandoned me. So I spent some time by myself playing Buffalo, getting back on the roulette table. And I walked away with a little tidy $200 payday. You can have fun like that at Healy River Resorts and Casinos. You can do you. They have that amazing gaming floor with over 800 slot machines,

15 blackjack tables, live table games like the roulette, and so much more, not to mention Arizona's largest casino sportsbook. They also have some fine dining options, casual dining options, whether you're looking for like a nice steak at a steakhouse or like me, you're looking for a double XL fat burger after you've had some drinks. they have you covered. They have a wonderful that fat burger. I know Max is probably right now losing his mind,

listening to this free ad, but it's inside a Healer River Resorts and Casino, so it counts. It's fair territory. You can't come after me, but you head to Hela River Resorts and Casinos and let them show you what the next level is all about. We will be hosting our events there all year long,

including watch parties with the Sons and the Cardinals. So join us for all that. We're going to have some fun. And thank you to everybody that joined us last night, because you, the audience, made it so much more fun. It was great to see so many of our diehards. Chris and Phoenix, that is a man. That is a myth to me.

It was great to meet him in person last night. So, again, thank you guys for coming out. You guys make those events so much fun. And make sure to join us for more stuff as we head down the road. Of course, you can always do you at Heela resorts and casinos. Visit play atheela.com for more details. Of course, now we got to go to the man, the myth, the legend. We're talking about a myth in Chris and Phoenix.

We got to go to our own legend. in here in the one and only thunder stick jesse friedman coming to us from chase field jesse this one was competitive and then not competitive and then very competitive again there in the ninth inning but it felt like there was some real uh mistakes obviously uh maybe maybe some questionable decisions uh on on bullpen you know arms and such like that what were your thoughts on the way this game went yeah i don't i don't really know where to start with this one Eric, I mean, there are so many, so many different things that we could talk about along the way. I guess I'll start with Zach Allen and the fact that he just wasn't great in this one, obviously,

especially those first couple of innings, seven of the first Dodgers hitters reached against him. They were making a ton of hard contact. The first three fastballs that Dodgers hitters swung at in this game, they were all absolutely destroyed, of course, by the first three hitters in Otan. Betts and Freddie Freeman. So, yeah, Gallon did not get off to a good start. Good on him for finding a way to bounce back and at least get through five innings, help the diamond backs to be better set up for tomorrow.

But this was going to be a tough one. I mean, part of what happened against the Mets yesterday is that the diamondbacks were down a couple of key relievers in this one. Justin Martinez, we heard from Tori after the game, was unavailable or at least And unless the diamond backs were, you know, very much in position to win a game. They were not going to go to Justin Martinez tonight. It sounded like it was a similar story with Ryan Thompson. Jordan Montgomery was not available to pitch as a long man,

although I don't think that would have really mattered with how this one turned out. So, yeah, it was, Tori was in a tough spot with his bullpen usage. And I know people are not happy about that. We'll get into that a little bit later. But I thought there were also some missed opportunities for the debacks. I think back to, you know, Josh Bell's base running mistake in the first inning. Who knows what happens the rest of that inning if that's just a Gino Suarez sack fly and you've still got two on, two out. Maybe Corby and Carole hits that home run and hits a three run shot.

It happens in the first inning instead of the second. And you're looking at getting a lead that the Diamondbacks never had the rest of the way. There were there were a number of opportunities like that throughout this one. I also think of the wild pitch that Joe Manciply through. that allowed the Dodgers to take their first, well, not their first lead, but to take a lead that they wound up keeping the rest of the way in the middle innings there.

So a lot of different things you can point to just all the way around a pretty tough loss. It was a tough loss, but I mean, also it's one of those situations where, like, I don't know what to do here with, you know, with Paul Seawald. I know that he's had, you know, some encouraging outings, but after the game, Tori, you know, you were present for it.

Tori said that there were, you know, a lot of positive things he saw out of Paul Seawald. And I'm sure a lot of fans are like me where they really struggle to see what those positive things were that Tori saw out of him. Yeah,

well, we do have some video. That is among them. So the people who didn't see that on the broadcast will play that here a little bit. Oh, boy. Oh, they're going to love that.

Yeah, they're going to absolutely love that. I mean, look, Tori is in a position where, like, what do you expect Tori to do? when he's asked specifically about Paul Seawald and why he believes in him. It's Tori's job to make the best out of what he has on his roster. And right now, Paul Seawald is on his roster.

Even if deep down, Tori Lavello did believe that, you know, Seawald really had no business being on this baseball team or whatever. Like, you can't come out and say that publicly. So I don't know what people were, you know, were really expecting to hear there. I understand the frustration with the comments. I mean, I think what this comes down to for me, Derek more than anything.

We will get into the bullpen usage discussion and whether Tori maybe could have maneuvered differently. But the reality in my head is that the Dodgers just have a better bullpen than the Diamondbacks do. And I don't think that bullpen looked great today. DeBack's offense did a pretty good job against a lot of those guys. Joe Kelly certainly did not have a good day. But outside of Joe Kelly, like this Dodgers bullpen is pretty good. There really isn't anyone in that group that comes in and you don't feel great about.

And on the Dback side, like, I think they have an above average bullpen. I think it, I think it's a solid unit. But it's not, it's probably not quite the same at this point, right? Like Paul Seawald, if he is in the bullpen, you can't never use him. Like, you do have to use him on occasion. Dylan Floro hadn't pitched in a week coming into today. You do have to use him to a certain extent. So I think the Dodgers just have a little bit more depth.

And it goes back to some conversations we had around the. trade deadline where we wondered, you know, the debacks got AJ Puck and that was great. And Dylan Floreau, you figured would be a nice complimentary piece. But should they have gone out and gotten a Tanner Scott, you know, gotten that that piece that that you really feel good about at the back end of games, they maybe didn't push the chips in quite to the extent that they could have. And it feels like we're kind of seeing this group be a little shaky now from time to time. Well, and I mean, Dylan Floreau, right?

you can't you can't fault them for going after dylan florro considering the numbers that he was putting up it's just right it didn't work out right a j puck meanwhile feels like he has been outside of like one bad outing that he's had he's he's been everything the diamondbacks we're hoping he would have been coming out of there it's just you can't ride the guys that you trust every single day and i get that it just gets to a point where i don't know like you got to got to figure something else out. And I mean, bringing Paul Seawald into a six to five ball game against the Dodgers when it's, you know, still a lot of baseball left wasn't, I get why you tried to use them there.

I just don't think it's the best decision. But let's take a look at the count presented by Desert Financial Credit Union. Tells the tale a little bit of this game. Diamondbacks outscored by the Dodgers 10 to 9. Diamondbacks out hit the Dodgers 13 to 10. Runners in scoring position, both teams had three hits. Dodgers were three for 15 while the Diamondbacks were three for 12. Extra base hits is where the Dodgers really knocked the ball around against the Dodgers.

They had seven or against the Diamondbacks, seven extra base hits to the Diamondbacks four. But here's where that interesting expected batting average stat comes in the play. We talked about the Diamondbacks being fairly unlucky today. They had several balls that they hit very hard that went right into defenders' gloves or defenders made some fairly spectacular plays on the Dodgers end. and yeah, that tells it where the Diamondbacks expected batting average in this game was 403. Yeah, that is also a really big narrative in this game for sure is that I do.

I mean, this was, this is one of the best played games that I think the Diamondbacks offense has ever had. Just the way that they were working at bats, especially early on. I think they saw 77 pitches in the first three innings of this game. That's really impressive. The way that they were working at bats, it reminded me of the Dodgers, frankly. It was like, yes, this is what one of the best teams in the league is able to do, just sort of wearing out opposing pitchers. So, yeah, I mean, I think it was a great day for the offense.

They did have 13 hits, as you just, as we just saw on the screen. They had, I believe it was four walks. There were a few hit by pitches as well. the diamondbacks have around 20 base runners in this game roughly and when you have 20 base runners like that's a pretty darn good day at the office for the offense and they obviously found a way to make it close at the end which it just feels inevitable that they always will a little shocking in some ways Derek that they got as close as they did and didn't finish the job because it lately it's felt like if they get close then they are going to finish the job uh but

yeah, they just obviously fell a little bit short. Yeah. And that, you know, I guess, you know, in this one, you got to be proud of the way they fought back. And they came one run short. They came one run short. So I just, I don't, like, I don't know how to feel about this game. Seawald obviously gets the blame here from the majority of the fans. That's like the emotional feeling based on the way things went.

And I understand that. I was even kind of pushing back to say like it was still the whole the whole bullpen and not just Seawald. I'm not trying to blame everybody. And Seawald's definitely was the worst outing of all of them. But Dylan Floreau did not, you know, have a great outing, Jomantyply, even though he had some impressive parts of his outing, didn't have a great outing, right? So, and then you still have the very confusing usage of Kevin Ginkle there late when the game was a five-run game. And it didn't seem to really matter at that point.

So, you know, Tori sent Seawald out there for an extra inning. he gave up another solo and run. I didn't really understand the usage, you know, of Ginkle there. But early on, again, we talked about Zach Gowan. Zach Gowan was not good today. And he really didn't give this team a chance to win. He ended up getting really good, Jesse, like, you know, later as we got closer to, you know, his outing ending, he seemed untouchable.

But early on, he just, like you said, he really struggled getting behind an account. He struggled to find it. His fastball just couldn't find. the strike zone. Yeah, it was another day where it just seemed like he didn't have a great feel for his pitches and we do have our videos ready now. So let's go ahead and hear from. Well, hold on.

Let's be before we do that, no, we do not. Let's give let's first do our, our king steak because you, you, you come in here from your goddamn baseball field thinking your boss, you let me host the show. I'll do the thing and then we'll do your videos when it's time for your videos. Damn it. but we do have King Snake and of course we can't help but give it to Corbyn Carroll obviously

two for four day a big home run a gigantic home run for this team and I mean honestly you could have given it to a few other guys with some late heroics there Josh Bell also had a three for five day with two runs scored and an RBI but again

Corby Carroll he just can't be stopped lately Jesse 18 home runs this season and the man continues to hit the cover off the It's just been really fun to watch him be himself again. I think that's the thing is, is like, you're back to Corbyn dominating. You're back to Corbyn being the star on this team. And, you know, it kind of feels like all is right with the world.

We just need, we need some more support. We need Catele back. We need Christian Walker back. And even as I say that, right, you know, his replacement, Josh Bell was three for five today. So we're not really missing at times Christian Walker's production as much as we're missing. like I feel like Catea just overall is, you know, just him being on the team. Yeah, Corbin looks great at the plate. I mean, there's no other way of saying it.

You guys probably already touched on the fact that Corbin is the first player in MLB history to have two, the first left-handed hitter in MLB history to have two homers on Clayton Kershaw's legendary curveball. He had, of course, another one of those today. And yeah, he looks really good at the plate. I said it to some people up in the press box before the game started that I think it might be time to move Corbyn up in the lineup against lefties. There was a period of time where it seemed like he was really sort of catching his stride against right-handed pitching but still looked pretty uncomfortable against lefties. And we still see an uncomfortable at bat against lefties every now and then. He didn't look great against David Peterson yesterday.

But with the state of this offense right now, not having Cattell, not having. having Walker, not having Gabby Moreno, you know, frankly, Geraldo Prudomo does not have good career numbers against lefties. And it just seems like having him in the lead off spot, maybe not an ideal situation, given how hot Corbyn is at this point, it feels to me like it might be time to move him back to the top where he was for, you know, pretty much all of last year was him and Catel Marte sort of going back and forth, depending on the matchup. So based on what we've seen, Derek, I think, I think Corbin is back. I think we're, I think we are now at that.

We already declared that, Jesse. We already cleared he's back and he's him. We don't need to, he doesn't need to be more back. But of course, we do need to go to a commercial break really quickly. But when we come back, we'll get to those videos, Jesse was alluding to. But first, there's one person that was very mad, Jesse, that I got that vehicle from Sanderson Ford, or I guess I should say one member of my family. And that's this guy right here.

uh, Cosmo did not get to ride in the in the Ford Bronco big bend, uh, because he sheds a lot. And he drove a lot. I love how we can hear we can hear Cosmo breathing. Yeah, he's not very high quality audio right now. He's not happy about it. It's good stuff for the audio podcast listeners who by the way give a shout out to them by the way. Uh, but of course still, uh, it was really fun to drive that Bronco sport. And of course, if you want to check out all the wonderful, all the wonderful, all the wonderful. bars Sanderson Ford has to offer. Check them out at their 65 acre facility and get lunch while you're there. Said that plenty of times. But also check out everything that they have to offer. It's an amazing company. They give back to local charities. They support St. Mary's Food Bank, Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, and so many more, including Military Assistant Mission, Special Olympics, Arizona and New Life Center. So, Sanderson Ford is an absolutely great company to do business with, and they have some great

deals going on right now. They are, of course, pushing for the playoffs and you get the payoffs with deals on that 24 Ford Bronco Sport, Bronco Sport Big Bend, just ranked highest quality in its segment by JD Power. You also get 0% financing for 36 months with no payments for 90 days on the Ford F150, the escape, the edge, explorer, and expedition. So check out the Sanderson Ford Summer sales event, which is here right now. And of course, they are teaming up with the boys of summer for a final playoff payoff sale, purchase, or lease any new Ford and get four tickets for your family to see the debacks push for the playoffs get zero percent for 36 months oac from for credit see dealer for details and of course when you do get that new vehicle make sure to

stop by circle k to fill it up with gas if you missed it inner circle birthday day was this week and you got the chance to save 40 cents on gas of course if you were already part of the inner circle you would have gotten the message on that from circle k but if you join it for right now uh join the inner circle right now for free by downloading the Circle K app today, you can save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five fillups. You also save three cents off per gallon every day after that. Terms and conditions do apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details.

But of course, check that out. Not only will you save money on gas, but you save on all sorts of wonderful things, including those polar pops and frosters, which right now, regardless of if you're an inner circle member or not, you can get for 79 cents. And of course, you can save even more with a whole lot of discounts in the Under Circle app. All right, Jesse. Well, of course, shout out also to our diehards. I talked about them all being here.

So many of them coming out for our draft yesterday. That was a whole lot of fun. Of course, if you haven't signed up for the diehard membership, join the family today over at go phtonx.com. You'll get yourself all sorts of awesome merchandise. Or excuse me, you'll get yourself a free piece of merchandise and 20% off all future purchases. And right now, not sure if you guys are aware,

but all of our all city brands have come together under one roof for merchandise. So now if you are die hard, you get 20% off all the merch, whether it's for PHNX, DNVR, PHLY, CHGO, or our brand new brothers and sisters from DLS. So make sure to check that out because it's a wonderful offering. And again, you might not be a fan of those teams, and that makes you a good person for not being a fan of those teams, but you might have one of those fans in your life. and those people, even though they're not as nice as you are, they might want some of that merchandise.

So make sure to check out all of the benefits by being a diehard member. All right, Jesse, what do you got from the clubhouse? Let's hear about it. We're allowed to play the videos now. That's my cue. No, no. Damon, I don't know. Should we let him play the videos now?

Because I feel like he's getting fresh with me here. But yeah, what do you got? Well, people are going to lose their minds about the toys. your stuff. So let's just start with that. Yeah, yeah. Here is Toray talking about who is down in the bullpen today as well as his decision to put Seawald in in that seventh inning instead of Kevin Ginkle. We're trying to stay away from Martinez. Thompson was down. Yeah. So look, I know I had some 50-50 balls. I can't run away from everybody in the bullpen. I'm going to wear our guys down. So I was I was excited to get Flora in a game. He hasn't pitched in five or six days.

Paul Seawald, the same thing. You know, we just got clipped. We got clipped in a couple really key situations. Why Paul in that situation? Just what I was saying, you know, I can't run away from everybody. And I want to give Paul a chance to get some rhythm and go in there and find his way. And it's getting better. It's getting better.

Believe it or not, I know it's hard for me to sit here and convince you guys of that based on what does line score look like, but it's getting better. I think we're an arm fake away from executing an out of third base and being out of that inning. You know, that's the type of play that you set up for months. You know, it's like calculus. I keep track of what we do with each one of our first and third opportunities. And, you know, sometimes we throw, sometimes we don't. We've been in a very big rhythm of throwing through in those situations.

Dodgers clearly thought we were going to throw through. And we got, we had the right call. We just didn't execute. And I think that was, that for me is the part of the game that bothers me more than anything tonight. Not the pitching, not the balls that get by our catcher. But the fact that we need to execute a big out first and third. Total difference in the game. That's what bothered you the most.

Jesse. I get what he's saying. I know, and I know a lot of fans aren't going to even hear most of what he said or even try to think logically here about why he's saying that. But a manager for a baseball team does not make the roster decisions. A manager is merely stuck with the roster that he has or is given the roster. that he has, depending on whether you're a glass half full, glass, half empty kind of person, right? But, you know, he does.

He can't run away from guys, right? He has, he has to play the arms that he's given because he has a limited number of arms in the bullpen and he can't just continue using the same guys over and over again. As much as I complained in the show several times about it, like, I get it. It's, you couldn't refrain from using Paul Seawald anymore. And honestly, I think that it's amazing. to me that we don't get to a point where as

fans, we don't just blame the pitcher. I get blaming the manager for putting the pitcher in, but does there come a time where we just say like, damn, Paul Seawald can't do this anymore, right? Like, it's, the, like, Tories's job is to trust these guys and to put them out there

at times and let them do their job and let them be major league baseball players and when they can't accomplish that. Like, I know, I know none of us wanted to see Paul Seawald in there, but like, what are you supposed to do? Like what literally are you supposed to do?

Just have him in the bullpen and just run one man short of the amount of guys that you actually have in your bullpen? Yeah, I mean, my understanding of the situation is that given that the Diamondbacks were trailing in this game, I think if they had taken a lead, I did ask later on about the fact that Kevin Ginkle was warming up before Paul Seawald even entered this game. the time where that happened. Right. And Tori said that he would have gone to Ginkle earlier if the Diamondbacks had taken a lead. So if the D-backs had taken a lead, it's a different story and the usage looks different. However, given the state of like how the runs that the Diamondbacks scored and when they scored them, either Tori Lavella was going to use Seawall there in the seventh in the spot that he did

or he could have still used Ginkle because, yes, he wound up using Ginkle anyway. which doesn't feel great. No. He could have flip-flopped that around and used ginkle in that spot. However, my understanding is that Seawald still would have had to pitch then later in the game. So you would have had to bring them in an even more high-leverage situation, essentially. Exactly. You would be looking at using Seawald in the eighth inning or the ninth inning.

And the other part of this is that I think that matchup-wise, this was about as good as Tori could do. I mean, both, it was kind of, I mean, it took forever in the moment, right? It was Joe Mantiply and it was on the mound and Gavin Lux's coming up. And then Dave Roberts calls back Lux and brings up Kike Hernandez. And then Tori walks out to the mound and goes to get Paul Seawald. From a matchup standpoint, Seawald against Kike Hernandez, who has not hit Ritees at all really this year. And also Will Smith, who has really struggled lately. you look at Will Smith's numbers over the last 30 games or so.

He's really been struggling and certainly is a better hitter against lefties than he is against righties. I mean, matchup-wise, this was about as good as you could do. I do think there's something to be said for the clean inning argument. Like, you know, matchups aside, would you rather just given Seawald a situation where there's nobody on base? And obviously, he's a little bit home run prone, even at his best. Seawald can be a little bit home run prone. And so obviously the home run was really costly because you already have two guys on base. And, you know, he still got, he got the first out.

There were two outs in the inning. But that home run by Will Smith, you know, drives in three runs instead of driving in one. So I can maybe understand the case there. But again, based on when the Diamondback scored the runs that they did, it was going to be Seawald in the seventh or was going to be Seawald later on. And I think Diamondbacks fans probably would have been somewhat disgusted either way, whether he, you know, know, came in and struggled at the spot that he did, or he came in and struggled later. So it's a tough situation. I'm not going to say that, you know, Tori nailed it.

You know, it's a bad look to be going to a high leverage arm and ginkle when you're down by five runs. I guess the debacks did wind up closing the gap fairly significantly. But in the moment, it doesn't feel great when you're using an arm like that and it feels like the game is over. Well, we do have some super chats to go to really quickly before we get on the more videos here piece of yoshi uh is accusing me of being a dodger fan and a seawald fan boy now i guess even though i've said nothing but bad things about paul seawald and blamed him um that piece of yoshi

is just always right derrick at this point we just have to we just have to sort of go along with it you know um he says something else he has another one he said we stalled a whole minute for seawald to take a big fat brown dump all over chase field thank you for your super super chats. A Zcats G says Derek, good seeing you on Tuesday. Baird down. Damon, yeah, it was great seeing you, man. It was nice meeting all of you guys. And yep, there's Damon holding that up. AZ Catch G was out at the Diamondbacks game for his birthday. So happy birthday again to you, sir. It was great seeing you out there. But of course, yeah, this, what else we got from the bullpen? Because this one still just stings. Yeah, I don't think this is going to make people feel any better.

but Tori was asked why he still has confidence in Paul Seawald, and here's what he had to say. Yeah, I think he's an unbelievable competitor. He's just going through a little bit of a little bit of a rough time. The thing I like about him is he's landing a slider, and I know last year it was kind of reversed. It was just a lot of four-scene fastballs and couldn't find the slider. So I think the slider is in play for me,

and to me that's separator for a relief pitcher. He's got to find that fastball location. I didn't see it. I just heard it, heard about it. I think it was supposed to be down in a way to Smith and it was left middle in. I'm not sure if that was accurate. I only heard it.

Those are the types of things that we've got to figure out with Paul, and he'll get there. Now, while I will say that that probably frustrates a lot of people hearing that, let's just remember that there was a time that Tori was saying similar things about Corbyn Carroll and A. UNio-Swarres. And as crazy as they sounded in the moment, those guys both turn things around.

And I think that that's the perspective that a manager and a baseball team looks at players at differently than we as fans do. We as fans that live and die with the results of every single game over 162 game season. These guys couldn't get out of bed in the morning if they took some of the losses

as hard as we as fans do, right? But there are things about players even when they're struggling that are encouraging. And we heard things about that with all of these guys. guys and you kind of say bullshit to it until realistically you start to see it actually flourish and then those guys come back around and then you have guys like so many of you in the chat saying I'm sorry for what I said about Gino I'm sorry for doubting Corbyn, right?

It's because it's hard to not doubt them when they're playing baseball so poorly and that's what is happening to Paul Seawald right now. But again, there was this period of time where Paul Seawald I think had what 10 consecutive saves without blown opportunity before we got to the month of July or something like that. So it's like there was a stretch where Paul Seawald didn't struggle at all, right? And I mean, again, that's what a manager, how a manager views this differently than we do. Paul Seawald, Derek, if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, had a 0.54 ERA two months ago today and was the least of Diamondbacks fans concerns, right? Yeah.

It is remarkable how how quickly those narratives can change, especially with a relief pitcher. What I'm seeing with Seawald right now from like a pitch standpoint is that his fastball command, which is usually, at least historically, has been quite good, just isn't there. He's just leaving way too many of these pitches in bad spots right down the middle or even low in the zone where that pitch can be, especially vulnerable. The one to Smith wasn't terrible. I think it was maybe a touch in off the plate. but it's a pitch that's most effective thrown up in the zone. I know Tori did describe there that maybe that one was supposed to be on the outside corner,

like low and away. Maybe they were trying to do something different there, but he certainly missed his spot. The pitch doesn't have quite the same life maybe that it did a year ago. The Velo continues to be down just about a tick. It's not a ton, but with a guy who's throwing in the lower 90s, one mile an hour can make a decent difference. So, yeah, it's, I don't know where the debilow.

back to go from here with CWald's. I mean, there's been all the discourse recently about how they want to get Cewald back in the closer role. I wrote about that in my notebook story earlier today, that they're like the way that Tori Lavello has talked, like he really wants to get Paul Ceywald back in the closer role. He thinks that's the best version of this team. But realistically, I mean, Seawald's been scored upon in three straight appearances now. And I think the conversation has to shift from getting him back into the closer role to what role does he have? in this bullpen do you like what situation are you willing to put are there are you willing to use paul seawald in when it comes to october and i don't know if the debacks have a ton of other options

there are some other guys in the miners that we could maybe talk about but that's a conversation that that we're probably going to be having here for the for the next few weeks is what you know what is it what does the role look like for seawald if it's not in the back end uh because that that just doesn't look very realistic right now Well, again, I know that everybody's going to put the blame on this one on Torrey and on C-Wald. Zach Gallen, again, not very good today. We had more from Zach Gallen on his outing. Here's what Zach had to say about his day.

I mean, it's like I pitched two different games, honestly. Just the first three innings just falling behind guys. Just letting the bottom of the order get on, you know, waste pitches, you know, run my pitch count up. So, yeah, and then just kind of. I saw, you know, the guys were battle in the offense, so I had to do my part just to kind of try and keep this in it, really. I didn't really let it out of hand. So, yeah, it's kind of a weird one, but no, not my favorite game.

What changed to get you kind of hit together? Just, you know, the guys just, you know, them putting good to batts together, fighting clawing back out of a, you know, five-run hole, or I guess it was a two-run hole and then a three-run hole. so I just know and I can't leave them out to dry so just tried to lock it in and give us some length

and you know just try to make pitches. That's so well put. I'm so glad that he takes that accountability to say I feel like I pitched two different games today because that's absolutely what it did feel like. Like there was a stretch where he was awful and you just were convinced that he was going to have as short of an outing as Clayton Gershaw did

and then next thing you know, he looked unhittable in this outing. all in the same game. So it was wild, but Zach Gallin showed us, you know, again, why he's so good, especially considering that most pitchers would have a hard time giving up those five runs and then, you know, locking in and giving the team the link that he gave on. But still, just concerning that he went out there and, you know, struggled the way he did early on. Yeah, I know we touched on it a little bit earlier. I think you talked about it too with Gallen and his fastball command. pitch just continues to get hit so much harder this season than we're used to seeing it hit in the past.

Today, I believe the average exit velo against Gallin's four seamer was was 99 miles an hour. That's really, really high. And it's just not something that we're that we're used to seeing. We're used to Galen throwing his fastball half the time and stealing a bunch of strikes with it and using it as a putaway pitch. And there were signs of that, like toward the end of the outing, I think you saw the impact of and being able to throw his four seamer in the zone, you know, make it so it's at least competitive and it is getting guys to think every time he's throwing it.

But early in the game, there were a lot of wide misses. There were a few that were just getting way too much of the middle of the plate. And as we've been saying for a while now, that just makes a huge difference for him. Well, Tori also referenced having a bigger problem with that play, the double steel play there where Jose Herrera didn't get Mookie at third. Here's what Jose Herrera had to say about that play. We had a play, so we're going to go for the runner at third,

and that's what we, that was we were trying to chase, and we tried to chase the Lerun. Was Gino at the base, or was he a little far away? He was just a little far away. He was waiting to his base. He tried to do his base to get there. So that's why you had to hesitate to throw, just because he wasn't quite ready to receive it?

Yeah, that's what I take a little time just waiting for him. but that was the play that we were on and we try our best to execute it. Little things, man. Little things like that play, little things just didn't go their way. And like all they needed was a couple of things to go their way for this deficit to not be,

you know, what it was and for this team to possibly be talking about a win instead of a loss. Yeah, I mean, you put together that play, which for context, that was in the seventh inning. That was while Seawald was on the mound. Theoretically, if the devax execute that, they get Seawald out of the inning and maybe this game has a very different outcome.

It was a double steel where sometimes the diamond backs have been throwing down to second base in those double steel situations in which case the opposing team can try to take home with the guy at third. And that's sort of what happened here except the debacks fake to throw to second base. And sure enough, Mookie Betts did look like he was breaking for home. But Gino Suarez, as you heard Jose described there, was maybe just a little bit late getting to third base. And that didn't allow the debacks to complete that play.

So you combine that with Josh Bell's base running mistake that happened in the first inning, you know, the wild pitch that Joe Manton's apply through that turned a 5-5 game into a 6-5 Dodgers lead with maybe a little bit of poor batted ball luck for the debacks going back to their expected batting average being north of 400 in this game. Yeah, it's a tough one to swallow given that the diamondbacks only wound up losing by a run. on. Well, we have another one, actually, three more here with the Dodgers. Unfortunately, this is our last show of the week. We'll be out there at Chase Field. So of course, if you do see Jesse or myself at these games against Dodgers, make sure to hit us up. But we actually are a lot of people here. A lot of people. A lot of people. There's 46,000 plus. And it was very hot in this building. It was a little maybe it's warmer like up in the press box. I'm not so sure. Maybe there are certain areas of the ballpark that felt a little nicer, but it reminded me of the Philly series for sure,

where when you get over $40,000 in this building this time of year, it is a little toasting here. But the environment was very cool. Obviously, there were a ton of Dodgers fans here. That's sort of to be expected. But both sides were very loud. And it was a fun atmosphere to be in for sure. Well, of course, that is going to be only more full,

I think over the next three days, of course, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday being Labor Day. We are off on Monday. So Jesse, of course, myself and Archie. Of course, Archie, most importantly, gets a much needed day off. So we will be back on Tuesday with a postgame show. So make sure to join us then. In the meantime, you can follow us all on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K.

Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Of course, the people's producer, Damon is at Damon Dogg. that's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark-bark. Our show is at P-H-N-X underscore D-BACs. That's us. But of course, all roads lead to at

P-H-N-X underscore sports. Of course, we thank you guys again for your time. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Hope you have a wonderful Labor Day. Be safe out there. Enjoy yourselves. And most importantly, relax.

Relax. And I mean both when it comes to the results of baseball games and just in general, you've earned this. So there won't be, there won't be much relaxing, Derek, if the next few games or anything like this one was. This is one of the craziest games the Diamondbacks have played this year.

I mean, all of the back and forth and all the pitches that were thrown early, this was a pretty entertaining one to watch, even though it obviously didn't wind up going their way. Yeah, well, of course, like I said, it's, it is what it is. They still have a chance to win the series, though, or at least split the series, which feels like a win at this point against this Dodgers team that can't seem to be stopped. So we'll see what happens throughout the course of the course of this weekend.

But stay tuned to us. Stay tuned, of course, to the PHNX Sports channel. We'll still be bringing you updates. And of course, we'll definitely be bringing you stuff on Twitter. So make sure to follow us there if you haven't done so already. Hope you enjoy your weekend very much. We will see you back here on Tuesday. Until then, behave yourselves.

And remember kids, baseball is fun. but it's so much more fun when you have relievers you can count on.