PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs After Dark: We need a F’N Starter

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

The Arizona Diamondbacks dropped two out of three to the Washington Nationals with two rookies from the starting rotation taking the losses. Is this enough to cause the D-backs front office to change their trade deadline priorities? Derek and Rok discuss the losses, the current state of the pitching staff, and why making decisions like this is an unenviable position.   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/ 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/   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   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: 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. Phoenix Raceway: Get your tickets now for March 5-8! https://www.phoenixraceway.com/march-cup-weekend/?CID=PIR_DI_TP_BA_PHNX26Spring_251120 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. 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. Baseball is amazing, isn't it? You can have your team win four in a row. You can have your team score 25 fucking runs in 14 innings. And you could feel like your team is more back than they've ever been. And then two games later, the sky is falling. I don't even know if we're going to make it through the trade deadline anymore without being completely disassembled and sold off for parts. I hate it, man.

I hate it because you're right. They couldn't have been more back Wednesday. Like, literally, as soon as you came and sat with us in that section, dinger, danger, danger. It was the most fucking amazing thing I've ever experienced. I've never seen that many home runs near me in one game. a short amount of time. And God knows neither of us have seen the Diamondbacks hit that many fucking home runs. No.

Over the course of three innings. No. It was like that. And then I left. What happened after I left? Nothing. Just ball is falling at the warning track? Yeah.

As soon as you're right, as soon as you walked away, it was like warning track, warning track ball. So I think it needs to be a thing. You have to sit in section 140, row 21. seat three for every home game. We need you to do that for the team. It's like I was like, it was like I was, magnet for home ball.

I, that's the first home game that I've been to that they've won and I couldn't tell you the last time I saw them win a home game because every game that I've been to this season, they've lost. So yeah, those, so yeah.

Well, you, you love going to the Wednesday getaway games. That's what you love going to. I love the Wednesday getaway games. Playing a little hooky from work going out there. You know, I spent it entirely too much money up at Bones and Bourbon.

We did spend a lot of money at Bourbon and Bones. Oh my God. Hey, I'm sorry, bourbon and bones. You know what? And you're right. They were, it was, they were never more back than they were Wednesday afternoon. No, no. And then today I'm like, damn it, they really dropped a series of the damn nationals.

Yeah. Again. Again. Again. And I fucking knew it because. The Nationals have the second best offense statistically in baseball. Yeah. But their starting pitching is mid and their bullpen is literally the worst.

I mean, the Rockies, I think, have the worst or the athletics have the worst in all actuality. But we know why both of those teams would have the worst bullpen based a lot on the stadiums that they play. Yeah. Right. But the Nationals aren't them. They just have a shitty bullpen. But they didn't get a chance to really take advantage. of that today. You know, the Diamondbacks just did not get a chance to, I mean, they did,

they did take advantage of it, but I just know that I feel like that team's just, it doesn't match up well for the Diamondbacks because they can't consistently produce that much offense. It's hilarious that they win the game that they score three runs in and lose the game that they score seven runs in. Yeah. Because of course, right? But. And, and I, you know, I really need our commentators to stop telling us how well our relievers are doing before they're about to start a half inning because every time you do that that's a good point they start throwing meatballs because you were talking about how brandon garcia was the hottest reliever in the game right now and then he got shelled that inning stop doing it to be fair almost every believer got shell today except for

ryan thompson he was the only fucker that made it out safe but i'm just being dramatic i will say that Overall, the very idea that the Diamondbacks were going to need starting pitching at the trade deadline is so outrageous to me yet again to even discuss. After watching them lose two out of three to the nationals, though, it's hard not to say that starting pitching might now be their top priority over adding a first baseman. slash d h it's because and it's because we have so many questions because yes we supposedly have these guys that might come back but it's not a guarantee right you know and you're right if whose name that i was it jose soriano's name i saw pop up today as a potential he's for the angels is the angels starter yeah that the name i saw and i could have swore i saw that name pop up um yeah i mean yeah starting pitching might be a priority because

because you don't know what you're, you don't know where you're going to get from when Michael Sorrogo comes back. You don't know what you're going to get. If when Zach Gallen comes back, you don't, and honestly, I hate to say it, you also don't know where you're going to get start, to start from Merrill Kelly sometimes.

That's very true. You also don't know if Corbyn Burns is going to pitch again for this team. And then if he does come back, is he going to be effective? You know, you don't know. You don't know. There's so many damn, and that's why,

winning these winnable series are so crucial for this team right now. Yeah, that's very true. Because I don't want this, I don't want them to be at the devlin in a position where it's like, well, we can try to make a move and maybe do something, or we can trade off some guys and get, gain some additional assets for the next couple seasons.

Because I'm afraid if that's where they're at, I think they're going to go for the ladder of the two. They're going to choose to, you know, get rid of what they can. And I don't classify the series against the nationals as winnable. I mean, winnable, yes. Winnable, yes, but not like, okay, this is a bad team that we should be. Not like losing to the A's.

I'm losing a series of the A's. Very true, right? Like, I'm still mad they even lost a game to the A's, right? So that's- Fucking two. That's different. That's different. The nationals just, again, they match up really well with the Diamondbacks. It's kind of the same thing with the pirates that they take on.

here next and I don't feel very confident about that series, right? Plus, you just have... Are we going to see Skeins? I'll take a look at that. I don't know. I don't know the last time. There's a good chance. Oh, he killed.

He dominated us the last time. Well, I know. Yeah, well, and that's why I'm asking. Like, are we going to see Paul Skeins' this three game series? Yeah. Can we, can we skip him? I would not be mad. It looks like we, it looks like we miss Paul Skeins.

Nope. We got Mitch Keller, Bubba Chandler, and Jared Jones. So by the grace of God himself, we miss Paulskiy. I mean, very important series, right? But still, I'm just saying the pirates are a better team than they were. You can't write them off as being an easy win. And the guardians are in a fight for their division too. So it's a tough stretch.

I knew it was going to be a tough stretch. I'm proud. I am so fucking proud of this team. for having played as well as they have in July because this was such a tough month for them to get through. They did. Even if they finished the month 500 overall when all of a sudden done,

I still find that to be a huge success because I had a hard time getting them to 500 when I was originally looking at how July was laid out. Well, especially how they played going into July, it wasn't the greatest. So you couldn't help. And then you knew that, daughters were in the mix and during July.

Like, you just, there's a, there was a lot of, you were like, oh. Yeah. You know, and then. Exactly. You know, then they, you know, sweep them hose and here we are talking about them losing a series of the nationals. Right. And it being shocking because they came into the series as like the hottest team in

the national league and, you know, yeah, it's baseball. Baseball. This is baseball. And it's, it's a long season and it beats down on us as fans and it beats down on the team. And that's the thing is there's still a lot of baseball still left to play. We have two months, over two months of regular season games to play. After watching Mitch Bratt put up five runs in five innings

and watching Coltrade give up four earned and four innings pitch today, I don't have the confidence that those guys are going to be able to help this team get wins and get across the finish line. That's one. One small little caveat to that, to today's game. game the ball was flying out of their extremely odd today that's fair that's fair you know like they weren't like it's not they were hitting like nukes off of him yeah they were home runs but like you weren't you weren't sure when it went off the bat because the things were it was the

win with the well something was going on in dc balls were carrying extremely weird on both sides we we we took advantage of it the nationals took advantage of it better so how much did did Cole Drake fucking pay you to say that? You know, I don't be throwing out bail, just to be throwing out bail. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just saying, man.

This feels like you're, this feels like you're wearing six caps for Cole Drake right now. And I'm not wearing, I don't even wear cats. That's the, that's even funny. I don't even wear caps. I'm just saying. Oh, man. I just can't believe it because at one point, I argued with Damon on the show about the very concept of the diamondbacks even needing to go after a starter yeah and i felt you know strongly

that they they needed some help but it feels like every injury has a setback it feels like every timetable gets pushed back when it comes to arms for this team and again michael saroka went from tori lovolo at one point saying at a press conference that he felt like there was a good chance that Soroka was going to be back before the All-Star break. Yeah. And now here we sit at the end of the month of July, still not knowing when Soroka is going to be back as a starter for this team. And my God, they need him.

In fact, I would even go on record and probably sound crazy doing it to say they need Zach Gallen back, you know? And I mean, you know how bad Zach Gallen was. You felt like he was going to still give you more length and perhaps a better chance to win than these two rookies that they have in the starting rotation right now. Now, and again, I'm not throwing Cole, I'm not throwing Drake a bunch of bail. His first outing, man, he deserved that W. He looked good.

He looked good. He deserved it. It was actually kind of ironic because Mitch Bratt hasn't walked, didn't walk anybody in the minors. And he's come up and given up a shit ton of walks. Meanwhile, Cole Drake gave up all the walks. That was his biggest blemish as a part of the Diamondbacks organization. And he came up at least in that first game.

And he shoved, man. He looked great. So I'm not ready to ride him off yet. I just don't know with, we're recording this on Sunday evening with a cocktail in our hands. Yes. But one week from tomorrow is the trade deadline. I know. So I can't imagine that these guys are going to, you know,

get too many more opportunities to make an impression on the front office. Mike Hazen sits in an unenviable position right now to try to determine if he needs to kind of panic and make a move for a starting pitcher with some pretty good reinforcements coming not too long from now. But like you said, we don't know what Michael Soroka is going to be when he returns after this layoff. Hopefully the layoff and the rest and everything, makes him good, but baseball's

stupid. And Ryan Nelson also, there's still the question about if Ryan Nelson is going to come back as a starter or reliever, because if he comes back as a reliever, he could come back earlier than getting fully stretched out. And we know Nellie and his

fastball plays. So like, the idea of Ryan Nelson being in the pen, it almost tempts you to think maybe he's closer material. Maybe he's the guy that can come in in the ninth inning. and start firing off that very, very good fastball and be the guy to shut things down.

Yeah, I'm asking you this, your opinion. Any level of, not concerned, but Eduardo hasn't been as sharp in his two starts since the All-Star break. Fair to say. And Eduardo was argued, not even arguably, he was our best pitcher the first half of the season. Any level of concern that, you know,

or you know it's kind of like you know i think you what he's i think you lost one and one one right yeah yeah didn't look great in either no i think the team won both of them but one of them it was the seven-inning comeback game yeah that's the cardinal that's right that's right after he gave up a ton of runs early right so i'm not mistaken no you're right no i don't have a ton of concern I do know that people that love analytics have been looking at his numbers all season long. Yeah. And I've discussed all of his expected stats suggesting that he has been getting very lucky compared to what those expected stats say. And I, meanwhile, say, fuck your expected stats.

That's usually the position I take. I don't live by your goddamn expected stats. though I understand their importance, especially when Catelle is struggling to show Catell that he's still hitting the ball 110 miles per hour off the bat, but it's just somehow magically finding a defender's glove every single time, right?

That's one of those moments where you just want him to know, keep doing what you're doing, and eventually it will stop finding a glove. But it's hard, and you get frustrated as a batter without, you know, with looking just primarily at your batting average and your other statistics that are real numbers and not expected stats, right? I do think that Eduardo has been incredibly impressive,

far exceeding expectations, far exceeding even my expectations for this season. And I was very much a flag waiver that Eduardo was going to have a big season before this season happened, just because I felt like this was not only his first chance at being 100% healthy, but I did think that the WBC was going to give him the advantage that it kind of gave him, which is... That's weird, because I think he's one of the few players that I think came out of the WBC and was rolling because of most, a lot, not most of, a lot of guys went from the WBC and we're in the dumps, like the first part of the season. That's what working with Salvi Perez will do for you sometimes, but obviously it's not doing wonders for the rest of that.

I love Salvi, man. I love Salvi. I love Salvi. I love Salvat. I love Salvador Perez. I just think Erod sometimes I think every pitcher sometimes needs to have somebody they respect, remind them of how good they are and give them that one piece of advice, right? Like I still think about Brandon Fought

who again is an arm that this team has to rely on and is an arm that despite how good he's been, you still are like kind of on the edge of your seat when fought pitches in a few innings knowing that he has still those tendencies to have those big innings. He just hasn't had them yet since returning from the minor league, right? He's been locked in.

When fought switched to the other side of the rubber, he became a different pitcher. And it was just something as simple as that. And that piece of advice came from his pitching coach at the time, Brent Strom. Right. So sometimes one little piece of advice, like, you know, your change up is good. Go to it more. Use that a lot. That's your, you know, sometimes someone like Salvi Perez looking at you in your face

and telling you that is enough for you to start believing it's true. And plus, plus I do think that this Jeremy Blyche pitching strategy of pitching more to contact and trying to get outs rather than strikeouts and trying to pitch

in the zone more versus trying to be fine along the edges that pitchers love to be, I think it's working. And I think it doesn't work for everybody. I don't think it's work for Zach Gallen specifically. but I do think it's worked extraordinarily well for Erod. So I don't think that he's going to have some sort of big collapse, but I wouldn't be surprised to see his extremely good ERA, you know, come back down to Earth a little bit.

I think he's like two, two, three right now. And that's just way better than I think we ever expected to see from Erod. He's top. I want to say he's top 10 in the league, I think, in ERA. If you get Michael Soroka coming back and pitching like he did. Yep. And you have at least back there bolstering the back end, Brandon Fought and Merrill Kelly, right?

And you get Corbyn Burns back there as the number one right ahead of Erod. That's a starting rotation that I- That's scary, man. You won't want to fuck with as an opposing starting lineup, right? So I don't know if we'll ever see that starting rotation. I don't know if all of those guys will be healthy and pitching for us all at the same time. But that starting rotation is like a month away theoretically. So again, what do you do is my KZen?

What do you do? Do you really feel like you need to mortgage a portion of your future by trading away prospects or other young players for a starting pitcher to get you through the month of August. And if you don't, do you make it through the month of August and find yourself still in a wildcard position or do you have things go poorly on you as they did in games two and three of this series?

It's a lot, man. It's a lot of decisions be made in the next week. Yeah, man. The next eight days are going to be very interesting for this team because it's going to come down to how well they perform these next two series. It also comes down to resources. like what becomes the priority, what becomes the biggest priority,

what opportunities come up for this team to trade for. Like I feel like at the very least, you could say that a first baseman slash DH is now as important to this team as going after another starting pitcher. Yes, sir. And I say that because we still don't know what we're going to get out of Tyler Locklear, but to give credit where credit is due, he has looked extremely good so far in his return from AAA Reno.

And it makes you feel a little more confident that he could, in fact, be the future over there first. I'm not ready to make that claim just yet. I'm just saying he's given me that thought, right? He's given me enough to think that about that. He's definitely done enough to give Mike Hazen, you know, some things to think about there. But, yeah, you know. Hopefully, hopefully. Interesting eight days.

Yep. Dog. I know we're, yeah, I'm going to be watching these next two series very closely and hoping that this team does what they need to do. Because I don't want to see this team, quote unquote, pack it in. Yeah. I think I almost feel like there's not really a situation where they're going to be a seller at this point. I feel like the two paths now are do they make a big move, even though it's going to require them to sacrifice something to get it? or do they stand pat and feel like waiting for those reinforcements to come back,

waiting for Jordan Lawler to come back off the, you know, IL and all of those pitching arms that they have to come off the IL is going to be enough. What's up in George anyway? Where's he at projections wise? Have they even said? I know the last case was the MRI came back clean. He's been healing and he was doing light baseball activity. And again, he's a position player.

So he doesn't require stretching out that a pitch. does. Once he's at 100%, he'll probably have like one rehab start and then be right back here, maybe two rehab starts at the most, and then be right back to the starting lineup. But they could use him, but more importantly, they could use some help with their pitching staff for sure. But we appreciate you guys so much for checking out this show, as always. You can follow us on social. I am at Kappa underscore K-man with the K. He is at Rock Knowledge. That's R-O-K on social. shows at PHNX underscore debacks, but as always, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys. We'll see you back here next week. Until then, let's keep our fingers crossed that this team play some good baseball this week. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun after dark and after the trade deadline.