PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs After Dark: We ACTUALLY Beat L.A.

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

The Arizona Diamondbacks won the series finale on Sunday over the Los Angeles Dodgers, which also gave the Snakes their first season series win over their NL West rival since 2018. Derek and Rok discuss the series win, the D-backs adding free agent pitcher Zack Littell, and why Arizona shouldn't just settle for the Wild Card. Five debates. One ballot. Rank your G.O.A.T.s and rep your city: https://gophnx.com/the-goat-debate/ 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 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 visit https://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotes 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. They fucking did it. They did it. We actually beat L.A. We beat L.A. We beat their ass. We did. We beat them in the series.

And more importantly, not only do we take the three game series over the weekend, winning on Sunday by a score 4 to 2 Rock. God damn it. We take the season season. series seven games to six over the Dodgers. And now we don't have to play them for the rest of the season. No, we're not going to see them again until the playoffs. That's when we're going to see them again.

I like that. And I like that, too. I like that attitude. I mean, I think we caught this team at the right time. You know, they're kind of scuffling. We're doing, we're handling our business. I mean, Eduardo was dragging his nuts today, man, to go out there and do what he did, dragging those big Venezuelan balls across that matter.

Brother, brother, I got more for you than just this one game and four starts this year against the Dodgers. Erod has a 1.88 ERA. He has five earned runs in 24 innings pitched. Yeah. Suck it. Erod. Erod, I'll never forget. I'll never fucking forget.

when erod said that the one thing he learned about playing in the al a l a lease when he was part of the red socks is just like look at those guys over there meaning the yankees is of course referencing but just looking at those guys over there and just being like those are just dudes and other laundry right those are just dudes and other you know it's not you can't over think it like show a otani is a great baseball player freddie freeman's a great baseball player mookie betts is an amazing podcaster um you can't yeah i fucking went there my point being is they're all human no matter what they're good at whether it's podcasting and i do truly believe that like you kind of have to have that chip on your shoulder about playing this team you have to go in there realizing that yeah they paid a ton of money for their team yeah they're an all-star team blah blah blah whatever but nine times out of 10, it feels like super teams that are created like this don't typically work out in the way that it's worked out for the Dodgers. And there's got to come a time when those, those hens come to roost.

Is that what it is? Is that what the phrase is? Yeah. There's got to come a time where those contracts come to be detrimental to the team in the way that like, no offense, again, not attacking him, but mooky bets is definitely not worth the $32 million. plus that they're paying him this year, right? With a sub 700 OPS, he's not worth the money.

And you feel like hopefully that that time is coming sooner than later for the Dodgers where as good as those guys have been, they're not going to continue to be that good for the rest of those long-term, huge contracts of the Dodgers have given them. No, there's no way. It's not sustainable because at the end of the day, the one thing that's always going to end up winning is going to be father time. All these guys are getting older.

Like, Freddy's getting older, Moogie's getting older. Shoah is not a kid. I mean, showy's got a lot of time ahead of him. But like Freddie, Mooky, a lot of those guys that they're paying out the ass, like they're not going to be, you know, the top guys. And it's only because, I mean, again, father time is going to win every time. So. Well, and I mean, overall, it's just, it's just that feeling that after getting swept by this team to start the season, it has been so good to watch this team now go seven and three rock the rest of the year against a Dodgers and take this, this series.

I mean, we were literally a couple pitches away from back to back sweeps of the Dodgers, series sweeps. sweeps. Like literally, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. Yeah.

Saturday, they fucking blew it. Let's just be honest. They fucking blew it. They fucking blew it. They tied the game in the bottom of the ninth and they had the winning run. 90 feet away with less, with no out. Bro. And that in that,

in that, in that, it was Corbyn Carroll. It was Corby and Carol at third. You could have done a suicide fucking squeeze and I was just about a better chance to win the game. Right? Am I, am I crazy to think that?

No, but if you're ever going to do it. So fast, and even if you know it's coming, the fucking amount of pressure on you mentally to know that you have to catch the fastest fucking guy in baseball suicide squeezing on you is a lot, is a lot. And that's not a quality third basement they got standing over there. No respect.

But fuck that. That is not a quality third basement standing over there. Yeah. That would have been. I'm all for being aggressive. I'm all for because you tie the game up. You tied the game up and you simply went out there and you fucking blew it with the three outs. You're right.

This easily should have been a sweep, but I don't want to dwell on that because they still win the series and they still have done such a good job. You just, you can't go in there expecting to sweep the Dodgers ever. You got to be thankful. No, and you should. You should because the Dodgers are still, unfortunately, the fucking Dodgers. you know, and they're capable of being the team that they're on paper, they can be that good. You know, they're just, they're in a spot right now. And I'm okay with that because fuck them.

But more importantly, here's the thing. I think, and I am going to continue to stand on business about this, no matter how many people tell me I'm crazy, no matter how many comments we get, I'm going to stand on business after hearing Mike Hazen say that the cost of doing business, for some of these free agents or excuse me trade candidates at the trade deadline was too goddamn high even though they give up Daniel Egan even though they give up a guy who I think is going to also be a very good very good reliever eventually but more importantly they only make the one move for Lars Newtbar yet now today according to Nick Picorro the Diamondbacks have signed free agent pitcher who was

DFAed by the Nationals. Zach Lattel. Right? And like, again, they got themselves a starter, a capable starter that can add to their depth for the rest of this season. Not to mention the fact that they also went out and got themselves a outfielder that can also do H. And I am starting to look at this situation more and more,

especially after the Diamondbacks put up eight earn runs on Casey Mize, in four innings. Yeah. I think maybe Derek's not so crazy. And maybe fucking maybe just maybe Mike Hazen isn't so crazy for not giving up more just to make flashy trades at the deadline when the price of some of these trades or some of these players that teams were requesting was just too high in his estimate. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, I mean, you. You don't want us to go into a situation where we're depleting our prospect pool or, you know,

right. And essentially for someone that we may only have control of for a year or two years. And, you know, is it worse? Even two years, though, right? Even two years is far more than what some of these guys that they were going after were, you know, we're a contract for it. You know, we're talking about guys that like Casey Mize, once again, a guy that's just a rental through the end of the season.

A few of these guys were that. But also, what I heard, or I read, more importantly, because I didn't hear the comments, but read them in Steve Gilbert's article about what Mike Hazen said, Mike Hazen said one year removed after he felt like he got, you know, a haul for certain trades. And I'm sure he's referencing specifically the Merrill Kelly trade. Yeah, he has to.

With Mitch Bratt, Cole Drake, and David Hagman as the returns on that. not to mention, once again, it was a, it wasn't a hall, it wasn't a fleecing, it was a robbery. It was an inside job. It was that we sent Merrill Kelly in Ocean's 11 style in a safe. He stole David Hagamon, Cole Drake, and Mitch Bratt from that organization, and the four of them all eventually escaped in the safe without anyone knowing that the robbery took place, right? And because of the Rangers also. Yeah, also that. also that oh by the way i want to bring up the fact that there is a merrill kelly bobblehead night there is

happening against the rangers it is i really wish i really wish it wasn't just a meryl kelly bobblehead night i wish it was a three-man bobblehead night and i wish there were smaller bubbles on the side of mitch drake and cole of mitch bratt cole drake right next to maryle kelly the maryl kelly trade bobblehead night oh my god but i mean you know it's it's it's it's I know it's fun to say. I know it might be a little far-fetched. We're getting to the point now, though, with the Dodgers kind of reeling the way they are,

that it's not unthinkable to say the Diamondback can start looking far past just the wild card and start actually looking at the Dodgers. I mean, we don't control our destiny as far as playing them any longer. No. Our season is done against them, but we want it. So should something come up like, possibly us tying them for the same record at the end of the year, we would win the National

League West. How many gaming back are we right now? Right now we're seven and a half get back, seven and a half. And I'm not going to act like seven and a half back is close. Four and a half back isn't even close, right? You would probably have to be less than three to start realistically talking about that with, you know, essentially 20 days left in August and then the month of September left to go.

So not a lot of time. monumental like collapse on LA's part if that were to happen sure absolutely and also payroll with the stars in that lineup oh my god that'd be hilarious to watch happen in real time brother i will also tell you that that team came into this series with the diamondbacks losing six in a row and with the one victory it was seven in a row so it's not unthinkable right they have problems they have injuries things are happening to that team and again they don't They have a great farm system. They have a great team.

They can spend all the money they want. But at the end of the day, even though they are doing an excellent job at trying to acquire the best talent, as he saw in the series with Edwin Diaz, Edwin Diaz does not seem to be the lights out closer that he was at one time with the New York Mets. And that's got to be frustrating to the Dodgers,

considering that they go out and spend the amount of money on these guys that they do and guys like Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz don't work out for them. But I will also say, once again, profoundly and as loudly as I can, fuck the Dodgers. Fuck them. I don't care that things don't work out for them. I don't care that things don't go their way. I hope they fucking don't.

I think that that is the only way for the baseball gods to prove to us mortals that they exist is by simply smiting the goddamn Dodgers and saying to the rest of us, hey guys we got it we'll figure out a way to fucking even this out you know the blue jays were this close to beating them in the world series last year we were all blue jays fans absolutely blue jays fans but this feels more like the actual ebbs and flows of the season are happening to the dodgers yeah they are because even even the best teams have losing streaks and even the best teams have injuries and they're having all of those things happen to them and all of those things are impacting them, which is kind of the case for every team in baseball.

Luckily, the debacks have been able to overcome a lot of those, you know, hurdles in the road for them getting to this point. Speaking of hurdles, man, I was ecstatic to see Catell Marte hit that jack today to get things started for us. Man. Is anybody, because, man. Brother, you're not wrong. Our boy could tell was up.

You could tell that. But he was trying, but that boy was scuffling at the plate. Yeah, he's been struggling, man. And again, it's got to feel good to have that cathartic moment. I know that the debacks were already up, right? They were already up two to nothing at that point. But still, that was just so huge for this team. And with the way the Dodgers haven't really been scoring at all in this series,

I mean, they won last night's game, what, three to three to one? Three to two or three to three. Right? Yeah. So they have, it's not like they've been knocking the cover off the ball against the Diamondbacks. They just squeeze, squeaking by.

If you look at it, I mean, all three nights, all three of our starters gave us a chance to win each and every fucking game. Oh, absolutely. You know,

and Brandon Fott not getting a W on Saturday. It's not Brandon Fott's fault. Brandon Fott left us in a position where we had a chance to win that ball game. A hundred percent. If you're looking at our rotation right now, like our rotation is looking pretty good, man. And we're getting, we're getting one of our horses back on Monday.

Well, and not only are we getting one of our horses back, but we're getting Zach Lutel. And again, this is a guy that in the past, we've talked about adding to this team via free agency. Yep. A lot of teams thought in general he was going to be a trade candidate for the nationals. And instead, they end up DFAing him.

So it's definitely a, it's the exact kind of situation for the Diamondbacks that you would not be surprised to see it work out for them. You know what I mean? Like it's the kind of Zach, or excuse me, not Zach, Zach Let's tell. It's the kind of, well, we like guys named Zach. We get plenty of pictures on this team. We do.

It's the kind of Mike Hazen signing that you're like, watch this actually, you know, work out for him. And again, I know he has a 4.970 RA, but again, in May, He went 5 and 0 with a 2.35 ERA. And over his last 15 appearances coming in to being designated for assignment, he posted a 4.03 ERA, which made the DFA kind of surprising. And it did make you feel like the like the nationals could have gotten something for him. He did look like a likely trade chip because of his durability and track record just a month ago.

But again, he really struggled coming down the stretch. And he's just a guy that, again, he's a low risk pick. up for this team that you feel is the perfect fit. We just said this on Thursday about him. We did kind of a profile on him. And I was truly hoping of the three guys that we talked about, which was Austin Hayes from the Chicago White Sox, Marcel Azuna, from, you know, the piloted, I would have been angry about that one. Right. Not a good fit. Not a good fit. But Austin Hayes, I still feel like maybe wasn't a good fit due to the addition of large new bar, but had the Diamondbacks to Pat at the trade deadline. Austin Hayes.

might have been a great addition as well. But Zach Liddell, again, he's just a guy that for a contender needing rotation depth or long relief seems to be a perfect fit. Again, very low risk at this point for the rest of the season, especially considering the Diamondbacks needed to do whatever they needed to do at the trade deadline with a certain budget, right? They were limited on who they could trade for because they couldn't trade for someone with a big contract, even though they just have to pay their remaining contract for the rest of the year. still have to stay under that luxury tax threshold that the Dodgers had no problem just blowing right fucking through this year and they're going to pay $140 million for a team in 2026 that I'm going to stand here on my throne or my soapbox or whatever you want to call it right now and say is not going to win the World Series in 2026.

Yeah, I'm going to second that. I don't know I won't win that shit at all. I dove into their record because I was excited. I was thinking Rock for a minute that maybe I'd come up with something slick that like, oh, man, maybe the Diamondbacks might be one of the only teams to have a season, like, season win. Series win over the Dodgers. No, that is not the case, in fact.

In fact, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a lot of series right now that they're actually behind. They still have games to play against those teams. So it's undecided, right? so I'm not going to say it's done. But like it's mostly that the Dodgers have beat up on the weak teams, the teams that they've played a lot. Just like the Diamondbacks, I mean, we're not immune to saying that we got plenty of wins out of the Rockies and the Giants and so have the fucking Dodgers as well, right?

I looked around the league. There's a lot of teams that they currently have like a losing record against. So this team might not be as special as we think it is. No. And you mentioned the Rockies, man. This three-game series starting off this next week is crucial. The Diamondbacks take the series, whether it's two out of three or you sweep them three out of three. We cannot see this team do what they've done earlier this season where they take care of business against the teams.

They're beating the teams that you're like they should struggle with. And then they're losing to the team. They should be beating easily. So this is a big one. This is a big series coming up, especially for the wildcar standings too. I hate that you're right. We're neck and right. Yeah.

And the Padres aren't going away. And I feel like that last series of the year against the Padres is going to be so important. I think that one's really that one could have some pretty big ramification. Yeah, like it's going to be a playoff series before the playoffs. You know what I mean? I mean the Phillies, the Phillies right there. The Phillies are, we're neck and neck with the Phillies right now. And we got a series early late August, early September against them.

That's going to be really important. There's a lot. There's a lot of baseball that matters. A lot of series that matter. I'm going to say it right now. If Jake McCarthy beats us, I might never forgive Mike Hazen. Oh, my God. Not big Jake.

If big Jake McCarthy, big Jake McCarthy. By the way, the man who told me that my hair was going to look great in purple. Well, you know what looks great in purple? Jake McCarthy and that fucking fur coat that they put him in after he hit two home runs in yesterday's game, Rock. Two home runs. The man, the man captured history. He was the first player in history. to do what he did.

I don't even remember what it was. I think it was like two stolen bases, two home runs. I mean, he didn't hit for the cycle, but damn, he might as well have with how many hits he had and all that he did yesterday's game. Wish you would have done all that here. I can't even get my mind around it. It feels like once again,

you and I were talking before the show about Spider-Man. That feels like an alternate timeline where Jake McCarthy is one of the greatest players in baseball, but had he stayed on the Diamondbacks, he would have never gone through that portal in the TVA to be in that timeline. And I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, you could be right. It's like when Daniel Egan ends up being one of the greatest pitchers in baseball, you're like there's no way he would have developed into that here. But, hey, that's also something negative. I'm leaving, we're leaving the negative out. Let's throw the negative in the trash. We beat the fucking Dodgers.

That's all that matters. And we're not just going for the wild car. now we are going for the goddamn division rock let's go fuck the dodgers then now forever all right well let's let's uh let's go ahead and let's go ahead and get get ourselves into the playoffs and then that's right fucking ruin their lives in the playoffs but until then follow us on social media i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k he is at rock knowledge also with a k but it's r o k but then it's r o knowledge I probably said too much there. You know how to spell the word knowledge.

You're smart people. Add an R and an O to the front of it, and you will find rock knowledge. Our show is at PHNX underscore DBAX, but as always, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore DBAX. But of course, wait, I said at PHNX underscore sports. I'm just pumped about the DBAX. Go DBAX.

At DBACs, follow the DBAX, follow us. Do all that stuff. Yes. Let's go, snakes. Let's fucking do it. We beat the Dodgers. We can beat anybody. We are a fucking wagon.

We are so fucking wagon. We are so fucking back right now. We're so fucking back. We've never been more fucking back. Adjust your tige, gentlemen. We've never been more fucking back. Never. I tried to resist the masculine urge to say we're back, but I'm not going to.

We're fucking back. All right. Well, you guys join us this week. We'll be back for another version of the. this show at some point until then love you guys uh appreciate you and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun after dark and when you go l a doctor's yeah fuck l a also when you beat fucking l a