PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs end longest losing streak of the season

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the D-backs ending their losing streak at 6 games with a win over the Chicago Cubs, the bullpen working like it should, and whether or not to blame MLB for the D-backs' offensive inconsistency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX, and I'm joined by my vice mayor, the one and only Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. The losing streak is over. It is officially ended. Yeah, that's a good feeling to have a losing streak like that be ended, especially against the team that started it. But we'll get to that shortly.

Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks. at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now and get down on the third round of NBA playoffs action. Jesse, the NBA playoffs are a snooze fest. I don't like 30 point blowouts, whether it's my team doing it or not. I don't like this.

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turn a small bet into a big payday over at the Draft King's Sportsbook. Jesse, the Diamondbacks did finally break their six game losing streak. Most of that was actually against the Los Angeles Dodgers. So I don't know. It's kind of funny to think of it as a big losing streak. Last year, they had big losing streaks. Last year, things got pretty bleak around this time of the year. But the Diamondbacks didn't let that happen.

They had a strong win today behind Zach Gowan against the Chicago Cubs. Our friends over at the CHGO Cubs can politely suck it. And the Diamondbacks, even essentially the season series with the Cubbies with this win, any thoughts that you could take away from this game? see kind of all the all the components working i suppose i mean offense is a funny thing to me because offense is only considered to be working when when they score enough runs to win the game but right they they definitely uh had everything working in their direction in this game i yeah i think the story is really zach gallon right i mean i mean the guy once again five innings one run in his

ERA goes up as a result, which is still, yeah, I mean, his ERA is going to go up every single game unless he basically doesn't allow a run. Like, like the moment that Zach Gallen allows a run, his ERA is going to go up even if he goes to seven. Unless he pitches a complete game. That's the only way. I'm pretty sure that's, that's the only way. But, but, but yeah, he was, he was really solid. I mean, honestly, it wasn't his best game of the year. Far from it, really. Um, he through 40 pitches in the fifth inning and somehow didn't give up a run, which I found myself wondering, like, what's the highest number of pitches that a pitcher has ever thrown in an inning without giving up a run in that inning? And I'm asking this great question when I,

unfortunately, have no answer for it. But I thought you were going to drop the knowledge. I normally, I know I have a reputation to uphold here where I'm the knowledge driver, but I do not know the answer to that question. Maybe I'll figure it out and post it on Twitter or something about 40 pitches. It's crazy. Pitch counts can be driven up by guys just fouling balls off, so you have no way of knowing. It doesn't even have to be a situation where our team necessarily loaded the bases in order for it to have been the most pitches thrown in an ending without giving up a run.

It just takes a lot of those long at bats with a lot of fouls, a lot of, you know, a lot of pitches, a lot of balls being thrown. Zach Allen, though, he continues to be incredible for this team. I think that there was an interesting point where I thought it was funny, too, where he basically struck out the batter, but because of the fact that there was a runner on base who stole second,

and I don't know, the umpire, I guess just kind of checked out there while the picture being run. But even with that happening, he did a great job. And also, kudos to the bullpen for another strong outing. And for it going the exact way, I imagine that Lovolo dreams for it to go, for him to hand it off to Sean Poppin or whoever the case may be, then be able to bring in Joe Mantiply in the next inning, and then Ian Kennedy and Mark Melanson, and have everybody be essentially as effective as they were.

I mean, Ian Kennedy once again gives us a little bit of a thrill ride. I think, though, the one thing that I love about Ian Kennedy, if I want to, you know, praise him is that he doesn't, he never looks worried. He never looks concerned. This is all, he's been, he's been doing this for so long that he could load the bases with no outs and just still not bad an eye about the situation, it seems like, right? So, like, that's a trait that not a lot of guys in the bullpen share with him,

I don't think. I think Mark Malanson might be the other guy that probably, you know, has that same temperament to be able to kind of stay cool under the pressure of letting some guys get on base. But, you know, again, it was another, it was one of the few times this season. It's all worked out, I think, perfectly for Tori Lovel. So why you draw it up? I mean, Sean, popping in the six, Joe Manipli in the seventh, Ian Kennedy in the eighth, Mark Melanson in the ninth. I mean, that's the way that you draw it up right there. And yeah, I mean, Ian Kennedy and Mark Malanson, like you said, those guys have a tremendous amount of experience in the bullpen. And at this point, yeah, they're not going to be really phased by the situation. If anything

goes wrong for them, it's going to be that their stuff just isn't quite what it needs to be in order in order to get guys out. But it's, you know, it's never going to be a mentality thing with guys who are, who are that experience. But yeah, I mean, to go on on what you said earlier, if we're going to, you know, try to, try to poke at this game like any, any negative things that we can find, the offense wasn't great. And the offense continues to be not great. And, and it's going to be hard for the diamond backs to dig themselves out of this roth that they've been in recently. If, you know, it's still two or three runs on, you know, five or six hits every night. And that's, you know, this game, they had three runs on six hits, which was enough to win the game.

But they just are going to need more. They can't afford, you know, Pavin Smith in the two hole going over four with two strikeouts, like night after night after night, which he's done a lot lately. Um, Christian Walker has been great lately overall. He had a rough one in this game, but I think you kind of let that go. but just the offense as a whole. It's no one guy right now. The offense as a whole just has to be better.

And, you know, the Zach Gowan games, you're a little spoiled. You can win with Zach Allen on the mound without scoring a whole lot. But that's not going to be the case with everyone else out there. So hopefully the offense is able to find a rhythm this weekend. It's weird because we are, I think we are very picky with this team, like I said, about the offense. I mean, offense is down across major league baseball, and that's actually an article that I'm writing right now for GoPhNX.com. If you're not a member, obviously, we'd love you to sign up to become a member. That way, if you do it, do it now, you can get ready for that article once it drops.

But there is, it's kind of staggering, Jesse, across major league baseball, how much offense is down. So by comparison, yes, the Diamondbacks are having a problem putting up, you know, crooked numbers consistently. and really piling it on. I think that's the thing that you might be talking about there is in some of these games, you'd love to see them just kind of not have it be so close to not have so many one-run games. You know, they're eight and six right now in one-run games this season. But more importantly, in home runs on the road, the debacks are second in the

national league with 25 home runs in road games. So they only trail to Phillies with 20. 28 home runs. And, you know, again, it's, it's, it's not consistent. The offense is not consistent. But I think the frustrating part at times is that they have this ability to play right up to what their opponent is doing. So we've seen them put up seven runs in a game. We saw them put up some pretty big runs in, in one or two games against the Dodgers, right? But they still weren't able to do enough to win the game. I do want to give a shout out to Dalton Varshow. He has hit safely now. now in 13 of 15 games in the month of day.

And, you know, when you talk about the inconsistency across the lineup, around the lineup, Dalton Varsho is the one, the guy that continues to deliver. And again, he had that big, uh, the big home run that that was the difference maker in this one. He, he's probably going to hit 20 home runs. He might at 25. I mean, that's, that's just what Dalton Varsho is on pace for. And I don't think that, you know, he's drastically overperformed or he's getting lucky. Like this, this is pretty much who he is.

He's been this guy pretty much since the middle of the season last year. So, yeah. I mean, honestly, like from what we saw at the end of last season, what you're referring to, he could even get hotter than the streak that he's on right now. Yeah, I agree. I think if anything, he's probably going to get even better. A question I want to ask you, you've been around Tori Lavello longer than I have. Alec Thomas still bats eighth

every single game that he plays and he's been arguably the Diamond Back's best offensive player over the last two weeks since he came up. I mean, he's still hitting 316 with a nearly 900 OPS. What's your take on how long it will take Tori to inch him up in the lineup? It's kind of funny because when you look at the lineup,

it's almost like they're stacked in an experience kind of order, right but yeah that's so accurate it's like the young guys are at the bottom and then we're all and marty walker all at the top yeah i mean i think part of me thinks that look tori lavello doesn't see this as a lineup of one through nine he he sees it as the top half of a lineup and then a second lineup in the bottom half he's described that before in the past so where in in Lovallo's mind, even though we don't see it that way, even though it doesn't come across that way, he's not hitting in the eighth hole. He's hitting in the second three hole, you know, in the second half of the lineup.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really is the way that Tori Lovolo has described, you know, stacking his lineup before in the past. Obviously, it was different because they had the pitcher batting before and they've never had the D.H. prior to this season. And I don't know if Alec Thomas's performance is going to get him moved up in the lineup. And I don't know if that's necessarily what LaVala wants to do. I'm just wondering, like, what does he have to do? Like, does Alec Thomas have to hit 370?

Like, how long does he have to maintain this for? I mean, we've talked about because you made me read books, you know, about RBI kind of being a bullshit stat. RBI is, yes. I mean, having over 100 RBIs in a season is great. It's not like it's a bad thing, and I don't want to take anything away from that. But RBIs are kind of situational.

It's based on the guys in front of you, being able to get on base. Right now, if I had guys like Catele, Marte and Alec Thomas hitting the way they were, I would be playing those gentlemen near each other. I would be playing one in front of the other. I would be playing Varshot. and, you know, Cattel second and probably batting Alec Thomas cleanup, you know, but I also have a huge man crush on Alec Thomas.

And I have for a while now, okay, because we've been talking about Alec Thomas since this show started. I believe we spoke about Alec Thomas on our very first episode. This guy has just been a part of this show because we were so excited. Now he's, he's a major leaguer and he's doing all the things we dreamed he could. be doing at a major league level and he's still hitting eighth so there's no way to make it reasonable to us we're not going to understand lavello's two lineup system or even if even if he explains it to us in a logical way that makes sense we're still going to be like yeah i don't know though that's bullshit does he does he really has he said that i i mean i i've been in some press conferences he he he's

said that alec thomas is his oh no no no second three like what is that even mean. No, he hasn't said that, but he's described his, like, looking at the lineup as like two, like a, I've heard the like, it's pretty normal for, for managers to talk about, especially with the DH, like the number nine hitter is really like the second leadoff guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so, so does that mean, like, Alex Thomas is like the third lead off guy? Like, no, I don't, I don't know. It's like it's one through five. And then it starts over again with a one through four. But that's, that's objectively like not, like that's not how baseball works i know jessie i know i'm not look i'm not trying to make it make sense to you i'm just saying that that's the way like because in in their mind a lot of times you don't

get through those first five hitters you know like in an inning so yeah if if you do a good job maybe if you get it run maybe if you get two runs all five of those guys will be up there right but then then the idea is that then in the second inning that this next lineup is taking over so he's viewing it in a way of having like essentially got you know uh one through four or one through five and then you have six seven eight nine right you have your four final file four guys and that would make six like a a lead off guy and seventh like your best hitter of the second half and the third is like the cleanup and you know i mean like that's that's the way he's seeing it uh or he's described it at times i don't even know if that's the case because i really feel like he's kind of

open to taking like input from his new coaching staff. And if someone like Jeff Bannister told him that idea is trash, I think he might be willing to part ways with that philosophy, right? But I don't know. Maybe he's got other people to buy in on it. Or maybe people aren't really, you know, taking away from it because it's not a bad idea. I don't know.

But going back to your question, if you're asking me, I don't, that's the only answer I would have for not. having one of the guys that's hitting best in your lineup, you know, not hitting in a better spot. And especially, it's not just a better spot. It's also a good chance that that guy who's hitting better than everybody else on the team right now is going to get more at bats. And that's the purpose of having him hit higher up in the lineup. I'm, I'm just trying to think through like, this might really be the first time Tori's ever had a situation like this. Like, when was the last time the Diamondbacks called up a prospect who was someone,

somewhat highly touted. They haven't had many in Tori LeVello's era. And more than that, who actually, like, came up and, and performed well right away. Like, Dalton Varsho was not,

but he wasn't performing well. Right, right. He was not, he did not come out well out of the gate. Haraldo Perdomo, I guess, was, was pretty good toward the end of last year.

So maybe that's a slight comparison. But, like, Alec Thomas is here. And he, any, by all indications, he's here to stay. He's not going back down

AAA anytime soon if he keeps doing this. And Tori is having to decide like, oh, wow, I have this 22-year-old kid that, you know, I started out batting eighth and he just continues to rake and he's been like the best hitter on my team in these two weeks. Like, he doesn't really have a system in place for that because he's never encountered it before. There's things that they'll do to follow a certain protocol at times that I think could even be detrimental to the team.

I will say this, though, it's also maybe in their mind not being too reactionary about a small sample size. Yeah, which is smart. Yeah. And we haven't really done much, right? In relation, it could be like people wanting Mark Melanson to be fired from the closer position, right? And move on and try somebody else in that role, right? Right. Again, another great article you wrote about the closers under Hazen, which you can also find over at go phnx.com.

And I told you guys, sign to become a member, get this wonderful articles. If you're not a member already, annual membership will get you a free t-shirt over at the PHNXLocker.com, which you absolutely want because we have a wonderful variety of t-shirts. And I'll tell you what, if you hit me up,

I'll sell you the stack of sun shirts at a discount. Yeah, the sun shirts are all on clearance. That's a side deal that I got going on, Jesse. Don't worry about that. But of course, if you're not interested in the annual membership,

sign up for the month-to-month membership. You'll get your first month for just $50. You can try out the website, view these wonderful articles, decide if you want to stick around. And then maybe if you do, then you can transfer over and do an annual membership. Regardless of your membership status, you will get access to our members-only Discord, as well as discounts like the sunshirts over at the PHNX Locker.com. So do that. But Jesse, of course, going back to the point I was making, Mark Melanson,

had a good outing, came out, did his job today, right? But people wanted the Diamond Back. to move on from him, even though he only has blown one save this year. His, the five losses besides the one blown save, the other four losses were all situations where the diamondbacks were tied or down by, or no, pretty much all tied. I think it was all tied. All tied, right? And Lavello gave it over to Malanson for the ninth.

Just maybe stop doing that. Maybe don't do that. And then everything is fine. But again, Melanson, back on track a bit, just like the Diamondbacks are. And again, we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves. But that's the reason why I think, going back to your question, we don't see Lavello overreact in some of these situations. With that being said, they have been very quick to act about some of these guys so far this season.

They have been very quick to react. I mean, certain guys, it's kind of spun my cap a little bit about how quickly they got rid of them, especially, like Matt Peacock and certain other guys that, you know, again, they seem like they were trying to work through some issues that they've had, but at times they were, you know, reliable relievers for this team. But Caleb Smith was definitely one of those guys. He had a great showing in the Dodgers series, and he just continues to really kind of evolve and kind of show the pitcher, I think, that the Diamondbacks saw in spring training that they gave that starting rotation spot to for one outing.

I think, yeah, you're making a good point about, like, sample size. I'm thinking back to Seth Beer and the start that he got off to. And, you know, you could make the same case that after those first couple weeks when Seth Beer was still batting, you know, 375 or whatever, you know, why isn't he batting third every game, you're right? And, of course, he has the over 37 and now he's down in AAA. So you do have to be careful about about small samples. With Melanson, I didn't, unfortunately, I didn't get to see it live.

So I didn't see every pitch he threw. I know it appears the velocity was still down for him in this outing. And he was still having some issues locating. Yeah. He would not give up on the outer edge. He refused to give up on the outer edge, but he wasn't hitting it. He wasn't even coming close at times. So he's still having having issues with his accuracy.

Nine strike, seven balls. That's, I mean, and you don't want to nitpick like that on, you know, every single thing he does. But I'm just looking for signs of Mark Malanson really being like the old Mark Malanson. And I'm not sure that this outing really swayed me in that direction. I think the strikeout that he got was like a, it appeared to be like a 90 mile an hour cutter that was really pretty much right down the

middle. And there's some deception there between his cutter and his curveball. so, you know, he can get away with that from time to time. But I need to see more of Mark Melanson and more of him looking like his former self before I think I'd be too comfortable buying into him being back. But I know I've gotten some comments on Twitter from people, you know, the article that I wrote talking about the Diamondbacks closing situation and how it's been like this for a while. Some people have pointed out, and rightfully so, that Mark is a good. closer and has been for many years. And just like Fernando Rodney did in 2017, there's still plenty of time for him to bounce back.

I'm just not quite sure if I've seen any signs of that happening just yet. You know, absolutely doesn't get the credit he deserves. I mean, obviously, Zach Gallen is doing tremendous things, right? We know Zach Gallen is doing some great things. But somebody, please, stand up and clap your hands for Joe Man. because Joe Mantiply has just been killing it. The man has a 0.57 ERA. He leads the league in scoreless appearances.

19 of his last 20 appearances have been scoreless. And I don't know what else to say because, again, last season, Joe Mantiply was by far not their most reliable option coming out of the bullpillar. I know he, I think he missed some time with injury. I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly, but, you know, there's a good chance that he maybe wasn't right last year. A lot of guys weren't right last year.

But Joe Mantiply is just incredible for the Diamondbacks. He currently, Jesse, did you know, here's another Joe Mantiply fact. Joe Manteply currently has a 17 game streak without you. yielding a walk. Wow. Wow. That's impressive. So I guess he walked a guy in his first outing of the year and he hasn't walked anyone since. Correct. He also has never allowed a home run to a left-handed hitter. He's hardly allowed a home run in his career. I mean, the guy, the guy, like, he's allowed one home run since the beginning of last year. And that's covering more than 55 innings. One home run in 50. I mean, that is, there's no way you could possibly maintain that, like,

overall career. But that is insane that he's managed to limit the long ball to that degree. I mean, I don't understand. And I know, I know, I know we created, I don't care about anybody says, we created the phrase the Joe Mather effect and we created the phrase the Brent Strom effect. I didn't know the Brent Strom effect was this powerful. I didn't know it was this magical.

but I mean what some of the guys are doing on the staff really is impressive just because of the turnaround from what they were doing last season. I'm not talking about, you know, it's the, I'll tell you, Brent Strom will be the first person that will give all the credit in the world to the pitchers themselves. But I mean, all the little things that he's been doing, all the little tweaks that like everything for every guy seems to be working. So I don't know. I mean, eventually, eventually Brent Strom's going to have to take a little bit of a bow. I know he doesn't want to, but we're going to need Stromi to take a bow because, again, this, this is impressive what is happening with this team. It's not every single guy, but it's, it's enough guys across the board to still find it pretty incredible what the, the effect literally that he has on a

pitching staff. it really has been incredible. And yeah, it's, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is Brent Strong and what's, and what's not Brent Strong. But it's clear overall that, like, he's having an effect. I mean, the results the Diamondbacks pitching staff has had as a whole is, is far different from where things were out last year. And so he certainly played a big role in this.

And, and yeah, I mean, props to a guy like Joe Mantiply, who is 31 years old. I mean, he'd hardly pitched in the major leagues entering last season. Prior to last year when he was 30, Joe Manciply had pitched 10 games in the majors. He made his major league debut back in 2016 with the Tigers. Didn't fare particularly well. He was back in the majors with the Yankees. He made one appearance in 2019.

He made four appearances with the debacks in 2020. Those didn't go particularly well. And here he is at age 31. And dare I say, Derek, the diamond backs seem to have found themselves an effective reliever, which is something that they have very much struggled to do over the last 25 years. I mean, really, really since this franchise even started existing back in 98. Yeah.

And honestly, they have a couple of guys that could still join him. And I don't, I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. I think Noi Ramirez continues to be very good. And Caleb Smith, I mean, again, it's about consistency, but it's not about stuff with him. He's got really good stuff. It's just about consistency.

And yeah, yeah, if they can work with them. I mean, again, this is another reason why as crazy as this plan was, this off-season plan of investing mostly in a coaching staff and not really in free agents, didn't seem that crazy to us. And I kind of understood a little bit at the time what they were going forward to see what this coaching staff could do with this team. But this is a bit beyond my even wildest imaginations. Like if I would have told you that they would be doing these things,

I don't think even I would have believed it back prior to the beginning of the season or prior to this coaching staff actually working with the players. So it's good to see. And again, it's still a very new relationship. So as they continue to bond, as they continue to do things like go on road trips and be around each other a lot. This coaching staff is only going to rub off on these players that much more. Guys are going to share ideas and,

and, you know, hopefully we'll see this team continue to blossom. Early on, they've looked good. Right now, they are still below 500, 19 and 21.

But in good news, it took them until July 1st of last year to win their 21st game. And, well, they've only won 19. so far. I know. I know they're 19 and 21, but I'm saying there's a good chance that they reach 21 much sooner than July 1st this year. That's fair. Which I feel like again is going to be a little bit of a relief because that 21st win came after so much fucking losing, Jesse,

that it was hard to stomach. I wish we would have had a partnership with OG. back then because I could have used their delicious selection of gummies to forget the 2021 season while it was happening. But of course, we can do that. We don't need to forget now. Now we can get excited about it. This is where you take one of those uplifting sativas that they're talking about in the ad and have yourself a wonderful afternoon or evening watching Arizona Diamondbacks win

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If you're interested in trying the amazingly delicious variety of flavors that OG's brands has to offer, go to OGsbrands.com. That's OGEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. And by the way, Jesse, somebody in a lot of, our, uh, somebody in our chat decided in the ninth inning to go ahead and bet on the Cubs to win. And I'm glad that that person lost their money. I don't often get excited about people losing their money, but it's one of the few times that I was kind of glad they did. I was kind of glad they did. I hope you learned your lesson not to be bar. Well, don't, don't bet against Mark

Malanson. Don't, don't bet against Mark Malanson in a safe situation. That's right. That's the narrative. It would have been completely different. I still, I, I, I have to be honest. I personally am very skeptical of that line of thinking, and I know there's tons of evidence for it because Mark has literally been, I mean, he's eight for nine in saves. He's been statistically very good in save chances. But if, I mean, if you're a good pitcher, you're a good pitcher.

And it's not going to matter what situation you enter the game in. So everyone out there, just stop pitching Blanson and tie games. For starters, if you do that, Mark Malanson is like hardly a rosterable. player because there's not enough save situations for a guy to like sit sit and rot in the bullpen, you know, pitching one or two games a week at times. Sometimes a baseball team can go a long time without a safe situation. So even if, even if it was the case that bizarrely he was only effective in safe situations somehow, you could never do that. It just wouldn't, he would

hardly ever pitch, right? So I, I'm skeptical of that line of thinking, Derek. I'm, I'm with you on that. I didn't, Jesse, I'm going to confess something to you. I didn't even know that was a line of thinking until after the big meltdown Mark Melanson had in the tie game in the ninth. And other reporters in the press room with Toy Lobello started bringing that up. They started bringing up how historically a lot of great closers, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman had a terrible record when they were put into games that were a non-save situation. Yeah. when the team was up by a lot or when the game was tied, like either situation.

So like, yeah, I'm with you on that. I guess that the thing that came up there was like the closer mentality and how they're not in that focused closer mentality that they are not the same picture that they are when they're coming in to close games. I don't know, though. I'm with you a bit there, Jesse. I do find a bit of bullshit in that. in that idea. And if you are a solid pitcher, you should be able to come in and do the damn thing,

regardless of the situation. But okay. Okay. So I have some numbers here to help us evaluate this situation. So in Mark Malanson's career in save situations, he has a 2.44-ERA, 323 strikeouts, over 347.1 inning. So solid numbers across the board. In non-save situations, Mark Malanson has a 3.36 ERA with 289 strikeouts and 335 innings. So there's not a huge disparity in some of the underlying numbers, but it is notable.

His whip is about 0.2 higher in non-save situations, and his ERA is almost a full-run higher in non-save situations. So for the, I mean, that's the first time I've seen those numbers. So looking at those, I mean, I don't know how convincing. I mean, the disparity is not huge, but it is a disparity that I'm, I'm not going to say I'm changing my mind based on that, but it is interesting. Well, regardless of if you agree with that thought process or not, Mark Mlanson's here to stay.

I think that's the important thing. And Alec Thomas is probably going to stay in the eighth hole if he stays on the major League squad and Lavello's just going to try to keep everything as consistent as possible because he's never been like that before in his entire time managing this team. I will say that he's going to continue to change lineups and I wouldn't be surprised to see Thomas move up eventually. But again, I really think it's just trying to not be reactionary, which is something I do far too often on the Draft King's sports book, Jesse. I am very reactionary to yesterday's wins and losses. And I often bet in that direction.

I'm trying not to. I'm trying to be better at that. So for this week's draft king's pick of the week, I'm going to give you some reasonable bets here. I'm giving you, I'm going to take Charlie Morton and the Atlanta Braves over Trevor Rogers and the Miami Marlins. I am absolutely smashing the take button on the Los Angeles Dodgers

and Julio Urius covering over the Philadelphia Phillies. And I'm taking the New York Yankees over the Chicago White Sox. sorry to our friends at the CHGO White Sox, but you guys have been far too inconsistent this year, just like we have been, and the Yankees have not. So I'm going to take those three. If you want to go ahead and take one of those,

feel free to do so. If you want to combine them into a multiple game parlay, you can do that. You can add all sorts of additional legs. You can do whatever you want over at the Drafking Sportsbook. And if you're a new customer right now, what you're going to want to do is bet $5, using our code of PHNX on any NBA team to win their game in the third round of NBA

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bet $5 on any NBA team to win their game, and you will get $150 in free bets if they do. That's promo code PHNX only at the Draft King Sportsbook. 21 and over only, Arizona only gambling problem, down 100 next step, new customers only, minimum $5 deposit required. eligibility restrictions apply see draft kings.com slash sportsbook for details diamondbacks uh have a game later today against the cubs this is a four another four game series that they have their second four game series in a row hopefully they can uh do to the cubs what the dodgers just did to them and get those four games back find themselves right back over 500 before we are here again with you guys on sunday with the post series wrap up after

this series. So again, we thank you guys for taking the time with us to check out and talk about the Diamondbacks and getting this team back on track. I know it was because of us, all together, collectively. Us on Twitter, we got the prayer circle going. So, but we thank you guys again. If you want to follow us on Twitter, I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there and leave us a five-star review.

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they're all in their off season. So, you know, we're top dog for once. That's the way things go around here. We go live whenever we want to. They have a very set schedule like we used to have. So you guys remember that, but now things are crazy for us. And you know what? Who knows what's possible with this team?

I will say, yes, they were definitely outclassed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in those four games, but the Dodgers did not look unbeatable. And the Diamondbacks did not play nearly as perfect as we know that they can. And as we know, we've seen them play this season. So still keep hope alive, folks. We thank you guys again so much for checking out the show. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate you tuning in. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you don't lose seven in a row.