PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs After Dark: Lovullo Ain’t Leaving

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Torey Lovullo is sticking around as the Arizona Diamondbacks manager for two more years, and Derek & Rok are not mad about it. The Bad Mouth Boys discuss Lovullo’s impact over 10 years, how his acceptance of blame has not helped his popularity with the fans, and why Ketel Marte is more to blame for the D-backs not making the postseason than Torey.BECOME A DIEHARD: gophnx.com/join JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/ACE HVAC: If you are having an AC, Plumbing or electrical issue, call our friends over at ACE: [phone] , tell them PHNX sent you, they’ll take great care of you!Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX15 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 visithttps://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotesGametime: 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!New DraftKings customers sign up with code PHNX, spend just five bucks, and get two hundred in rewards within 21 days. That’s code PHNX. In partnership with DraftKings. The Crown Is Yours. Gambling problem? Call one eight hundred NEXT STEP. Twenty-one plus. Arizona only. Eligibility restrictions apply. Fifty dollars in non-withdrawable Bonus Bets issued every seven days via click-to-claim for twenty-one days. Bonus Bets expire seven days after issuance. 1 football Boost per customer. Maximum bet limits and restrictions apply. Tokens expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered. Terms at d k n g dot c o slash offer.  Limited time offer.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 P HNXD Bax after Dark. Dad's back. Yeah. Tori Lovelo back for the Arizona Diamondbacks Rock. I know you weren't against him. I know you weren't an anti-Torri guy. No, not at all. I love Dad.

Yeah. As most of us do that have not villainized him and made him the sore, the sole focus of the Diamondbacks, you know, mistakes. Now, again, I got a lot of grief for the way I reacted the other day because people found me screaming about Sunday dinners being back on to be a bit much. And while I will admit it is a bit much, I was more excited about the dinners necessarily than Tori. However, I'm very much in favor of LaVolo coming back. I think for nothing more, I think that it is a really bad time considering what is looming in

2027 to be looking for a new manager. I feel like it's a really bad time to be changing philosophies, coaching staffs, perhaps players, making big changes all during one of the most tumultuous off seasons that

baseball might ever experience. You know? And again, I just feel like it's a it's not a mistake bringing him back. for this two years. It's not a mistake aligning his contract with the end of Mike Hazen's contract.

And it's not a mistake to give this particular regime that took this team at one point to the World Series when they had no business sniffing probably even playoffs that year, you know, as far as they did. Like I think that they earned it. I also understand where people are sick of the same old results that we've had over the last three seasons. I almost feel like if they were just flat out terrible one of those years like in 2025 like they just had a bad record and they weren't anywhere close to the postseason i i think people would feel differently about it the pain of seeing your team come within a handful five games or less of making the postseason and not making it is like your team mounting a comeback when they're down seven to one and scoring five runs to

only lose seven to six. Somehow seven to one would have been better than seven to six, which seems heartbreaking. And that's what the last three seasons have ended in is heartbreak. Yeah. I mean, this, you know, this last weekend, we were sitting there on Sunday. And we knew before our game was over that our season was over. The year before that, we knew that following Monday when there was that one game playoff when it didn't matter who won that game because we were screwed anyway.

So I'm happy he's back. It also gives another two years for Mr. and Mrs. Lavello to extend the invite to family dinner to me as well. Because I would love to go to one of these dinners and sit at the Lavello table and just listen to Dad talk. Apparently, you've got to shill for Tori for a long time. You've got to apologize on Tori's behalf. You have to make excuses for Tori because that's what we've been accused of doing for years. I have from now until opening day next year. to get my I'm a Tori Lavello guy t-shirt made.

And I will be wearing that proudly to Chase Field when I attend Diamond Bad game next year. I do feel like... Is that in fact a Tori Lavello guy? You are. And I do feel like it's almost become like which side are you on ordeal for Diamondbacks fans.

You know, that's why several people that I like and respect are upset with me and upset with other local media personalities and people that cover this team for yeah i mean the the general consensus amongst everybody is that they're glad tory's back and i will be the first person to speak on the media's behalf and say yes part of it is because tory is a likable guy i hate to say it but it's true if he was a prick and wasn't fucking fun to cover i uh don't think that many of us would be would have that little extra reason to be glad he's back i just do think

objectively that fans again are are mad at him for the lack of having a proper roster or lack of the team's performance right versus it all being on Tory I think once they've determined that the failures are on Tory then they you know can it's easy for them to to point their finger at him he's been here for 10 years bro I mean he's endeared him to this fan base. You know that there's guys in that locker room that would die on a sword for him. And vice versa for him as well.

So, I mean, and another reason why he's really not technically going to go down as the greatest manager in DeBack's history currently is only because Bob Brunley won a World Series in 2001. Toro Lavello is heads over, head over tails a better manager than Bob Brindley. But the only reason why,

he doesn't have a championship. So and if it wasn't Tori, who were you going to bring in? Because I tell you this much, Tori Lavello wasn't going to have a hard time finding job if the debacks didn't bring him back. No. He didn't say that almost likely. He did say that a lot of that stuff was just rumors. He never got contacted by a team and there was never any, never any actual discussions being had. It just.

There may not have been, but I mean, suitors would have been knocking at his door. Yeah. Yes. I mean, the way that they had Dan Wilson. informed the public that he was fired of you know that was weird even though it was it's all this weird is the houston situation with joe ispar finding out midwether oh yeah we're not bringing you back next year you can stay for the rest of the season or you can quit now yeah that's just so like like what kind of like it's like did you want him to quit because

why would he quit on his guys and that's something tori would never do for the diamond him back. Tori would never quit on his guys. No, no, no, no, no. But Derek Hall brought up how they made the decision to bring him back before the end of the last week of the season and felt like they did him a disservice by not. They did. Telling him about that. Well, because it, well, because you look at that press conference where he said he just wants to feel wanted. If he would have known that they were going to bring him back, he doesn't have to do that publicly. And like, yeah, he looked like an emotional wreck saying that. Yeah. Like, he was, there was so much emotion. And, and, and, and, and,

his face and his words. It's almost, it almost kind of pisses me off a little bit. Like they knew of the week prior you were going to bring him back. Why don't you just tell Tori and just don't tell nobody else? That way, Tori doesn't got to fucking talk about, like,

and say what he said. I wonder if part of it was to keep that motivation there for him to try to win out and, and be a little desperate as far as trying to make the postseason. I think another part of it was just decisions get made internally all the time. They do. With teams. and then they don't inform the people until it's time to inform the people, right?

And I think that, yes, it could have taken some pressure off Tori and made him a little less emotional. But I do think that they still got the best out of him there late. I don't think, you know, again, I don't think that Tori was not trying to win baseball games. I don't think Tori, you know, I know, I know he blew it bringing Jose Cabrera in. I think we've talked about that. And we've said that that was a bad move on his part. We also said it was a bad move the way he managed game one to have guys like Ryan Nelson and Zach Gowan not be available for game due, considering he knew before game one started that they were not going to have Corbin Burns for that start.

So there's a lot of things to judge and blame Tori about. And again, maybe he was just trying to pull out all the stops at the end there to kind of win every single game. He managed game one like it was game seven of the World Series and then managed game two like it was game two of the regular season. Yeah. Honestly, man, just looking back on last weekend, like the, I pretty much knew when the Phillies lost that Saturday and we lost instead of winning that we were pretty much cooked. And it just, there was hope. I had hoped that something miraculous would happen on Sunday. But lo and behold, all of a sudden, the Tampa Bay DeVosorays decided to let the fucking Philadelphia Phillies just put it on them.

And here we are talking about hopefully next season because we, I mean, to be frank, we don't know what next season looks like if there is a next season. Right. There's so many variables after this wonderful playoff run that I'm thoroughly enjoying so far ends in November. Like, who knows what happens after that? Well, I will say this. Tori made a comment when he was on 98.7 with Gambo about the players. and Catele Marte and changing how he manages them next season. And he, this said it was directed at Cattel,

but if you listen to what Tori said, he was actually just saying this to the entire roster. And he was saying the decisions you are going to make, the decisions you make are going to be on you now. I am going to eliminate protecting you the way I have. I can't do that anymore. At a certain point, I have to allow them players to advocate for themselves. And I think that what one of the things Tori is eliminating there by doing that is this fucking perception that he's at fault for everything because he takes the blame for everything.

And now what that's turned into over 10 years is this fan base, a good portion of it, not a I wouldn't say a majority, but I would say a vocal minority that loves to be on social media. you know, fucking makes him the sole focus of every mistake and every loss and everything. And then they, just like Tori, give credit to the players when the players win and the team wins and they do well. But then Tori takes all the blame. I think that that, which is Tori's philosophy and the way he handles being a coach, has put him in the position of people blaming him for everything. So to a degree, he is at fault for the fact that. this fan base, a certain percentage of it,

blames him for everything because of the fact that he does take all of the blame for the losses and gives all of the flowers when the team win, right? He is the shield. He has been the shield for his players. But what that results in Rock is... With him saying what he said, I don't think he was wrong because I hate to say it, him being the shield he's been the past couple years,

has done more harm than good for him. You know, like he tries to protect these guys so. much and he's the only one that gets beat to shit aside from katell because everybody in the media if katele sneezes it's because you hates the diamondbacks but that just started that just started last reason when he missed time at the ball's probably not going to stop because i think there's a set of people that want the debacks to trade him and i think they're stupid because he has not that's what they'll right now yeah so they just want him off this team even if it's going to be a detriment to the team and they want to view it the same way as they view conduct by like a player that gets arrested

for committing a crime. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. 2027, midway through the season, all-star break comes and goes. Catell pulls a Cattel. At that point, what do the Diamondbacks do with him? Do you fucking just sit his ass down and send him home for the rest of the year? I don't, I kind of hear Tori's comments and I think,

about the way they handled the Gatel Marte situation, and that was kind of basically what had happened. Yeah. It's like Tori finally came to an impasse that he cannot protect Catell anymore. No. You can't. And I think that, again, this is probably the right move. I think it sucks to find out that this is an incident, a reoccurring incident that's happened more times than we, as the public even know.

We know about the two big ones. the two recent ones yeah yeah yeah about this past this past break and then last year when he went to tell them they'd end up going back to the DR and whatever but there was a there's a reference of course to this happening before there was a reference to happening in 20204 so I don't know man I think that overall it's hard to it's hard to wonder how they would

handle it going forward I could say that you know at at this point you're on your last you know I think you're on your last warning, your final warning, right? I think he's well past. I think he's on this happens again. That's what I mean. That's what I mean by final warning. I mean, essentially like if we were talking about you and me at work,

they got to make a real difficult decision if he pulls some shit again because you can't keep him on the team, but it's like, goddamn, man, you're going to trade him for fucking pennies on the dollar at that point. And it's like... Let me give you for instance, in five years of what? at PHNX, I've never missed today. I don't think I've ever called out. I think I've come to work sick where they sent me home and didn't want me there because

they didn't want me being sick at work and getting the office sick. I think that there's been times where I was physically incapable of doing the show, but I could probably count those times in five years on one hand, right? And I think the idea there is that one thing I've never done is like call out out of nowhere and leave my, you know, team and the people I work with hanging. Okay. So again, if that were to happen, I'm sure it would be tolerated a few times. But considering we do what we do, it would only be tolerated so much before I would start

getting in trouble for that. And there would come a time where ESPO would be forced to one way or another, you know, make me say like, hey, if this happens one more time, it doesn't matter how much you bring to this company. It doesn't matter how much I like you. it doesn't matter how important you are to the fan base or to the Diamondback show or to the people in the office, we're going to have to let you go. And I think that even with Cotel Marte, there comes a time where that's the case. And obviously with a player of his magnitude, you don't let him go.

That's the point where at the trade deadline, you actively shop them around. You let it be known that you're shopping him around. I don't think fans would be mad at you at that point if you were shopping them around because they would fully understand based on it happening again. And that would be how it would end, right? Yeah, I'd be in the front of the line with the trade-in sign if you pull some shit again. And I love, I love Catell-Marte. I think when that guy is, when Cattel-Marte is Cotel-Marte, that's a bad, bad man. And there's nobody else that I want at second base for this team moving forward.

The problem is we don't always get Cotel-Mar-Tay being Cotel-Marte. And we've talked about this at Nauseum since all this bullshit happens. So we don't need to go back into it. we just got to hope that we don't have to talk about this shit ever again and we can focus on the debats having a successful 2027 and we know we know the team's not going to handle it the same you know that this is going to be oh no yeah the strong i think katel's got to know that you i mean you you don't have the protection you once had and it's only and honestly it's your own fault like troy would have died for you oh yeah but you literally you're making him change his whole policy and the way he handled managing his team like you're literally making him do that i'll say man marty though you know again this kind of and not to uh defend myself any further but i'll say never never that no but i'll say that again it's all marty has been a person that i have said time and time again is

one of my favorite players as far as watching people play the game of baseball and even i've gotten and to that point now where I can't defend him any longer, and I can 100%, not 99%, not 98%, say that Cotel Marte doing what he did is more of the reason why the Diamondbacks didn't reach the postseason than Tori Lavello's managing this year. That's what I'll say. I will say that Cotel Marte being the distraction, he was unnecessarily, and doing what he did in Boston, I think cost this team more.

than any losses that Tori registered as a manager throughout the season. But I will also say that, again, if the Diamondbacks have another season in 2027, where they once again, no matter what 20s, 27 is, no matter how many games are played, but if we get to a point in 2027 where this team somehow misses whatever the postseason looks like in 27, by a handful of games once again, I will also be the first person at the front of the line to say,

that Tori Lavallo shouldn't see 2028. Yeah. Yeah. I hate. Right. So I, because I can't take that. I can't take another coming this close and and falling short. How do that, man? It's like if that happens again, like you don't want to go into the, you don't want to go into 2028 when he's after we've had these four failures in a row to and then have to just at that point just cut your losses. Thank you for your service, Tori. We got to go a different direction. You know, at that point,

I would understand letting him go and not bringing him back. because clearly there's something that's not happening that should be happening. Right. You know, if they make the playoffs next year and they have a decent run, you have 2028, and then at that point, whatever happens after that is what happens after that. But first, we need baseball in 2027. That's what we need. We need.

That's what we're fucking right about that. Give me my goddamn baseball in 2027. It's all I want. Do not do this. Do not do this, owners. Do not do this MLBPA. PSA, billionaires and millionaires. Come together, figure some shit out.

Yeah. And keep making money. Because I'm going to keep giving you my money. I love giving you my money. I love giving you my money. I know how to fix this. Yes. Cockfight.

Because it's all about dick swinging, right? So like, let's just get the head of the MLBPA and the head of the owners out there. And they can have a good old dick swinging fight. And then, like, we can all decide who's better and who's manlier. and who is mas forte and then we can we can get on to the numbers and get this settled before a single spring training game or a single regular season game is missed but that's you imagine if you had to have a fucking cockfight with the head of the MLBPA against the head of MLB and that the winner decides who wins put it on paper view and make two billion dollars off of it there's your money

right there put that shit on the MLB network let Matt Ferry and fucking Harold Reynolds and all the No, I wouldn't mind underground fight club style of settling this. You know what I mean? A bunch of players with money in their hands. Fucking Jeff Passett would eat that shit up. Oh, it'd be great. It'd be great. All right.

Well, we are going to get out of here. We thank you guys for your time. You follow him on social at Rock Knowledge. That's R.O. knowledge. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. The show is at P.H. and X underscore Dbacks. But as always, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Thank you guys so much for your time.

We'll see you back here next week. And until then, hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun after dark.