PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs After Dark: Ke-tell Me We’re Not Doing This Again

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

The Diamondbacks have been a weird team over their last 10 game stretch. But nothing is more weird, or annoying, than Ketel Marte rumors popping up once again. Derek and Rok discuss Marte taking a day off due to injury (and probably Shohei Ohtani), self care being a common part of modern day sports, and why we want to see people attach their names to these anonymous rumors. Limited-time offer! Become a Diehard for just $36: https://gophnx.com/intro-offer-youtube JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4 An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/ Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order! Husband & Wife Law Team: If you’ve had a serious injury, Call The Husband & Wife Law Team first at 602-783-8841 or visit https://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotes bet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets! Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/ Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 40% 2+ pairs of off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you! 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.

You are now listening to PHNXD backs after dart. Bro, what even is this team? What, what, what, what even is this team lately? I, I, I have never seen a team with a bigger identity crisis than this Arizona Diamondbacks team, man. It's fucking weird. I had to check, I had to check to make sure I wasn't watching highlights of the 2025 and 2024 Diamondbacks. Oh, don't do that. Because I'm like, wait, we just came off of a 13-game stretch and looked amazing.

And then just fucking fell flat. Yeah, yeah, fell flat against Seattle. Yeah. I mean, arguably, they stepped up to the challenge against the Dodgers. Splitting a four-game series with the Dodgers is probably the best you could hope for. And then anything above that is like icing on the cake, right? Yeah, I mean, the split was better than them dropping three. of four no brother because i mean i was shirtless with my fellow tarps off brothers you were never never

never never never have i ever experienced the joy of community like that before my life it was fucking magical right and then we come off of that high yeah to getting i mean don't get me wrong the boys played good on sunday they finished the job they ensured that they didn't get swept but even in that game it felt like when it was just one one it very much felt like the the nationals were still going to come back well not even that man when that honestly that that game it should have been 10-1 yeah yeah that's because we we diamond back a little bit too hard with with runners on base no outs you know there was back-to-back innings no outs run absolutely third absolutely basically position yeah it was just yeah that that's fucking frustrating more than anything man

And again, like, when we sit here and try to pick apart what's actually wrong with this team, you could look at chase rate. You could look at all sorts of stat cast data. I feel like at the end of the day, what's wrong with this team is that every single guy on this team just tries to do too much. Every single guy in this team feels the weight of the world on their shoulders. And they're just trying to hit three home runs and one at bat. Luckily, the Diamondbacks keep calling up. the young guys, right? We got another debut, your guy,

Lou Bron James Groover. Lou Brom James Groover, baby. That's all credits of rock for that nickname. That's going to stick in my head for a minute. But, I mean, he had himself a rough series, man. I mean, he really did. He got stepped on in game two in a

He really, he got spiked. Well, on that, let's be honest. That was his fault, right? Oh, no, it was 100% his fault. 100% of his fault. sucks that that happened. It sucks to see that young man go down like that. With all of the injuries, this team has experienced, that was devastating. You know, to see what. Honestly, man, I'm just glad he got back up because his mom and his dad were like seven rows up. Like, they were there. Like, heartbreaking if he, if he, if he, if he went down in his second game, you know, as a major

leaguer. And if that would have been the case. If I'm a first baseman, I don't want to play for the Diamondbacks. Oh my God. Don't even get me started. Again, Danhausen. We need Danhaus. We need Dan I'm sitting here right now wearing a Knicks shirt just because of Danhausen. But more importantly, we have human monies. I know. And teeth. We have lots of teeth after, especially after all the collisions that have happened at first base. We have plenty of human teeth available to give him.

But it feels, though, like something that Damon and I have talked about on the show entirely too much. It feels once again like this is what's happening. The offense seems to go the way that could tell him. Marte goes like they were able to do it without him today on Sunday and win the finale against the Nationals. But it just, it feels far too often like this entire offense goes. Like, like this offense feels like it just falls one Marte hit short of coming up big, right? And now, talking about frustrating.

Now I'm frustrated. we got the Catelle Marte is is is is a bad teammate bad employee rumors coming up again. Thanks to Bob Nightingale saying this article that people are turning. Like they love they love to talk about Catele Marte. He took, you know, he took one day off. Was the timing odd? Was the timing weird? Maybe.

But you know what? Again, I didn't have a fucking problem with that shit. look let's be honest the timing might have been very apparent as to what was going on with shohay otani who has been dominant on the mound and that coinciding with a kattel marty day off right but sure why not why not damon said it like he hates the idea that the kutel marti or that game That game that Shohei Otani pitched was essentially managed in a way that it was like an automatic loss. Well, they lost seven to nothing, Rock. It was a fucking automatic loss.

They kicked our fucking ass. So in a very game where you are going to predict that you are going to lose and that that might just be a good game for a guy who has played 60 out of 67 baseball games, or at least at the time, you know, whatever it was, right? but like up till now 60 out of 67 for kattel uh he's actually played more than than some of his teammates and i'm like guys get day guys get days off this is nothing new for a tori lavello man is diamondbacks team he has scheduled days off real i think the talking heads might not like the days of these scheduled days off fall on you know but like for them to start the narrative

again that he's a bad teammate and blah blah blah blah blah you know what I don't see that shit on the field. I see his teammates there to pick him up. I see him picking his teammates up. I see them celebrating harder than he does sometimes when he does something great. Like, let the man be. I feel like there is obviously a real critical view of load management in the NBA, right? Yeah.

Where you're going to rest healthy star players during the regular season. Yeah. Once you've got a good idea of where you're at or to prevent injuries, reduce long-term fatigue. You're also going to do it just because you might not want the fact that one of your stars is going to go out there and just get bodied by one of the best defenders in the NBA that night, right? Is it cowardly? Sure.

But at the end of the day, is it still smart management of those players? A lot of people would argue, yes, considering the teams that do that tend to make it pretty far, not only during the regular season, but into the playoffs. right but you're not you're going to have michael jordan you're not going to have michael jordan signing off on that shit you're not going to have fucking michael jordan ever talking about missing a fucking game against the other biggest star in in in the NBA because guys from that period of time are cut from a different fucking cloth period the end those guys want the challenge they want the smoke they want to go out there during a fucking preseason game regular season game postseason game

fucking backyard game game at the park it doesn't fucking matter they want to go out there and they want to beat you and they want to prove that they are better than you for no other purpose than this herculean masculine effort to be the alpha male right that's not the way athletes process shit anymore. It's just not. Like, dudes just don't do that because now athletes are treated in a completely different way when it comes to their career, when it comes to a season, and when it comes to their importance in high leverage critical games like playoff games or whatever. Right there, you just said it. High leverage critical games. I'm sorry, a June 3rd,

June 2nd game against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the grand scheme of things, nothing it really doesn't he really sit out a game in September he didn't sit out a game in and the heat of the fucking playoff race right calm down talking heads well and this is to me this is similar to when he missed time last year around the all-star break and people were talking about it but it was like yeah but the Diamondbacks won those games he missed so yeah what's the problem right in this case this is kind of the opposite they got their teeth kicked in seven or nothing that night, right? Was Catelle, who has been struggling over this past week offensively,

going to go in there and hit seven home runs? Probably not. That usually doesn't happen in a baseball game. You know, could he have had an impact? Sure. Could he have helped his team possibly, you know, make that game a different game and not just such a one-sided affair? Sure. But the one thing that's not talked about is the fact that Cotel has had ongoing lingering back and hamstring issues, and he was experiencing a flare-up of that. I am 45 years old. Rock, you're not a spring chicken yourself over here, bro. I'm 45 years old, too, sir.

I'm saying, right? I woke up today with a sore back, and I don't know why. Look, I couldn't, I woke up on Saturday morning, and I couldn't hear out of my left ear. What the fuck is that? I couldn't hear out of my left ear. That's not even a fucking joint issue or sleeping on my neck wrong.

No, I was just deaf in my left ear as a new fucking thing that happened. Just fucking death. Yeah, my wife had to go, like, do a Walmart order and get, like, earwax removal kits and other shit. We just randomly sat here and web-m-ded this together as a group. I'm back about 75% now in my left ear. I'm almost back to 100%.

You're getting there. But brother. I'm just saying on any given Sunday I could wake up with back and hamstring issues, right? So for Ketel to have that happen and for Tori just to give them the day off, you know, it's it is what it is and it's kind of how it should be, right? You need to manage your health over the course of a season like this. Yeah, what's crazy. There's 162 of these games they play.

162. The only people in the comments on these stories that were against Kattel taking days off were people that were fans of other teams that were like, yeah, this is terrible. Send him to Tampa Bay. That'll show him. You know, that's, that's, that just goes to show. The support was thorough throughout, including other fan bases saying, yeah, he sounds like a terrible teammate. Send him to our team. We'll take him off your hands.

for you, right? Because everybody wants a Catele-Marté, even if he's going to only play 150 out of 162 games. Yeah, God forbid. Get out of here. 12 days off during the season, God forbid. I've, I'm fucking fed up with the anonymous internal problems with Cotel Marte. Right? Because that's all we hear. We hear anonymous internal reporting that people are upset with. Kutel Marte, stand on business. Fucking attach your name to something. Have some guts. And if you're going to talk shit about Ketel Marte,

fucking talk shit with your name attached to it. Stop all of this anonymous reporting that causes weird finger pointing and people internally to believe that, you know, oh, this person or that person, you know, has a problem with what Cotel Marte is doing. Look, I'll say this much. We had our guy, Gonzo on the show, and Gonzo made it very known about his position as far as any athlete in any sport taking time off.

That is the exact kind of position that I feel like you should take if that's how you feel. Gonzo had no problem standing on business when it came to saying that he had a problem with the way that athletes, not Cetel, not baseball players alone, just anybody because he himself felt a responsibility back in his day, which wasn't that long ago, but was 25, 30 years ago of feeling like when he came to the ballpark, it wasn't about

just the sport and about winning or losing that day for his team. It was about the fact that people were ticket purchasers to come see that event. And as a paying ticket holder, you come to see a Catelle-Marté. You came to see a Luis Gonzalez. You came to see a Randy Johnson, right? And they, he at least expressed it that he felt an obligation to be out there on the field for the paying customer to see him play the game. Right. That, that's a different level of commitment to this whole thing that I don't think modern day players are ever going to ever have again. I'm sure some of them do.

And I'm sure maybe at an earlier age, like some of these new guys that have gotten called up, they might feel. that kind of emotion when it comes to this sport. But with time, I don't think any modern day athlete really thinks of the paying ticket holder in that way. They think of their own body, their own health, how they feel, you know,

and all that kind of stuff far, far more than they think of, you know, the fact that people pay money to come see them play the game. Right. So that's just the way that old school athletes and old school people in general, you know, that are older than you.

I probably take all of this, right? But I'm just kind of done with the anonymous reporting when it comes to having something to say about Cotel Marte. Yeah. Come out and say it, attach your name to it, and make your feelings known because this is not doing anybody any good to have a story dropping like this where it's just anonymously, people internally, which we don't aren't naming and can't tell you who it is, are upset with Catelle for missing a day off against the Dodgers last week when he was experiencing

back in hamstring issues. Yeah, there's nothing more annoying than scrolling my social media fees. And it's like positive posts about the debacks, positive Cotel pose, and then talking heads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fuck off. Right? I mean, it's kind of like the, the Geraldo Pardomo stuff was the same way where, like, you know, I don't know how Perdomo became so hated just because he's been underperforming. However, I will say that sometimes you've got to look at the body of work of a player

and realize that sometimes that season that they had, just like the month illamara Vargas had, was more of the outlier than, you know, what they're going to necessarily bring to you consistently every single season. I am not surprised at all to see Geraldo Perdomo take a small step backwards from where he was last year, you know, but still, I also think that, you know, moving him in the lineup was a smart move because that's how you should treat anybody that isn't like your your lineup and it should always be altered should always be changing. But the the weird like, excuse me, fan vitriol towards, you know, Perdomo just because he, he's been, you know, underperforming at the plate a bit is weird to me.

And it feels sudden. Like, give the guy a chance to kind of get out of this slump that he's in. So far it feels like he has been. Like it feels like he's working. The baseball season is a grind. He is working through everything. And Tori moving him out of the top spot, you know, and dropping him down, I think was fantastic. Because he's had a, he had a great series of the plate against the, who the fuck do we just

playing? The nationals. The nationals. He had a great. He had a great series of the plate. He's doing a Jerry's Jerry in the fucking field. He hasn't, he's had a couple like mishaps, but I mean, every fucking defender does. He's going to turn it around, man.

He's not going to be batting 2.30 or 240 for the rest of the year. Right. He's too good. And also, I think the age old thing, I think he's in his head too much. And I think he can tell right now, you can tell at the plate, he tells in his fucking head again. Yeah. He's true. And you're right.

He's trying to hit a goddamn. damn home run every fucking at bat and he's like you know what that's great if you do it but you're great in other aspects there's so much more you can do with the plate so i i just always hear that these guys don't you know get exposed to too much of this outside noise but i i worry because you know again katel is sensitive when it comes to the way he's perceived i feel like the reason why is because kattel is a good teammate is a good player is a good guy. He plays baseball like he's 12 years old still out there smiling, having a good time, having a good time with the opposing team, even though Damon hates that.

You know what? If Catell was taking these days off and his effort in the field wasn't translating or didn't appear he was going 100, you know, giving his all, then I think you have a discussion. That man doesn't do that. When he's out playing second base, he's trying to be the, best second baseman in baseball right you know so he's not out there half assing it he's not slow jogging it on the fucking ground out to first he you know he's doing well it's funny you bring that up he did that the game before he took the game off right and there was some talk in the press box about him doing that the one but then troy addressed it when he gave him the day off the next day he said he felt it on the first play when he ran down the first baseline that's why he slowed up

right so perception is everything yeah we're sitting there you know from a hundred feet up in the air in the press box judging him because we're sitting there going this man runs faster on a walk than he does on a ground out and it was a particular ground out where when the ball was thrown over to you know freddie freeman at first he didn't miss it or it wasn't like a play that he would have been safe but freddie freeman kind of got pulled off the bag a little bit and he had to step back on it right well again it It was revealed the next day that Cattel's hamstring and back were not feeling good, and he felt it running out of the box on that first play.

So it was injury. And if that's a truth, I support that because I don't want Coutel Marte to blow his fucking hammy out on the fucking ground up first. Right, right, exactly. And again, it's like I feel like there's times where you, even if you feel like something's going to be perceived poorly, you have no choice but to do what's best for you and your health as an athlete. And I feel like that's what's happening with Catelle. And I feel like that's why they gave him the day off. And it's still, even though Tori came out publicly sat in front of a microphone and said it was his decision,

it's still somehow being. It's Cotel's, yeah, it's Cotel's being written as it's Cotel's fault, you know. Yeah. I will, I will defend that man. because I see him in the way that I see him in the clubhouse. I see the way he is with his teammates. I see how much he loves this team. I hear it from him directly,

not just this team, this state, this city, this, you know, brother, I love to tell Martin so much. I was ready to end my Diamondback fandom.

If they would have traded him in the off season, I would have literally wiped my hands clean of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Yeah, that's fair to say. Well, I don't even understand what this story is insinuating, but guess what? It's not a story. But you know what? No trade clause.

So we, we aren't going anywhere. We aren't going anywhere. That's the major point. Collectively, all of us. We thank you guys so much for checking out the show. We thank you for being here with us. As always, you can follow us on social. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K.

Rock is at Rock Knowledge. That's RO Knowledge. Our show is at PHNX underscore DVax, but as always, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Thank you guys so much for your time. Appreciate you. Hope you join us this week.

We'll be back on Monday at 12 p.m. Until then, have a wonderful rest of your night. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun after dark.