PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-backs Recap: D-backs Suffer EMBARRASSING Loss in Braves Opener

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

The Arizona Diamondbacks suffered an embarrassing loss in the first game of their four-game set with the Atlanta Braves. The Mayor recaps Ryne Nelson’s rough start on the mound, Kevin Ginkel’s inability to stop the bleeding in the 5th, and why James McCann isn’t going to work out in the bullpen. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, hello and welcome in to an episode of D-BACs recap, getting you caught up on all the things that have happened between our last post-game shows with the Arizona Diamondbacks. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, and occasionally known as somebody that doesn't want to claim any responsibility for this baseball team after they drop their opening game of their four-game set with the Atlanta Braves by a score of 17 to 2 in an absolute. absolute ass whooping. And of course, this final score is outrageous, but there were a lot of factors that went into this, including the Diamondbacks waving the white flag early on in this game. However, the fifth inning has so many things to be concerned about, and we need to dive right into that.

Of course, Ryan Nelson was on the mound for the Arizona Diamondback, somebody who we all want to see succeed, and somebody who we all feel is a very necessary component to the Diamondback, success in 2026. Nelson has been one of the most consistent starting pitchers in the Diamondback starting rotation for the last two seasons and just seems like a guy that the Diamondbacks will need to be in order for them to have any hope of reaching the playoff. But as it stands, Nelson has not had a very good start to his season. And in fact, this game really went sideways on him quickly.

I'll start off by saying even though the fifth inning was awful. Nellie did not really have his best stuff early on. He made some mistakes, including right away in the first inning, to Matt Olson, a man who's played 1,500 baseball games in the last two seasons somehow. Matt Olson did not take too much time to hit his first home run of the year. But it was on a Ryan Nelson pitch where he threw essentially two 97 mile per hour, four-seem fastballs right down the middle of the plate. and he should probably be thankful that he got away with the first one that Olson felled off,

but Olson did not miss on the second one, and he gave Atlanta an early one-nothing lead. There was another solo home run that was added there in the top of the third inning. Dominic Smith hit a lead-off home run to start the third. And that one I don't fault Nelly for nearly as much. That was a high fastball, high in the zone, probably exactly where Ryan Nelson wanted it. But unfortunately, Dominic Smith did a great job of,

of climbing the stairs, climbing the ladder there, and hitting that one out of the park for a home run. Meanwhile, the one shining bright spot of good news that the Diamondbacks have from this game is in the bottom of the third inning, Jordan Lawler hit his first home run of his major league career, and that made this a two-to-one ball game. And at the time, vibes were high.

Things were looking good. Here, once again, the Diamondbacks were having another one of their young players have a breakout game. And, you know, at the time when score was two to one, it felt like that one was going to lead to something special. It was 105.5.5 miles per hour off the bat. It was a no-douder, went 424 feet to left center field. And like I said, Lawler, he got the silent treatment.

He got everything in the dugout that he, you know, that you want when you hit your first home run. And it was a great moment. Unfortunately, later on in the game in the bottom of the seventh inning, Jordan Lawler got hit by a pitch and had to be removed from the game due to it. According to Nick Picoro from AZ Central, the initial x-rays are negative, but there will be an MRI completed on Friday to perhaps get some more information about this. Hopefully, Jordan Lawler does not miss any time because that would be just another huge injury blow to this team.

And I don't even need to tell you guys that. You guys already know how devastating another injury would be. I will say that if you want to have a silver lining to that dark cloud, the Diamondbacks do have reinforcements coming as well as Jorge Barrosa and other options that have been playing well. Ildemar Vargas also been playing some good baseball. So even though Lawler has been doing a great job, I mean, Jordan Lawler is still currently hitting 333 with a 956 OPS.

you know, the Diamondbacks do have some guys that can play that position if he should miss time. But again, that even though that's an injury, even though that's Jordan Lawler missing time, that is not my biggest concern from this game, which just goes to show how bad that fifth inning was. Started off with an Ozzie Albee's challenge pitch, which eventually, which was overturned and Albee's walks to get a base runner on to lead off the inning with one out. Ryan Nelson walks Dominic Smith, his second walk of the inning. And then Maricio Dubon reaches on a fielder's choice, which ended up being a fielding error that was charged to Nolan Aronado.

Nolan Arnado did not make a clean play. And again, my concern there is Arnato's defense is obviously the main reason why the Diamondbacks acquired him. He's the main reason why he's in the lineup. With the way that his bat is going right now, the last thing we need to see is Arnato making, you know, fielding errors like this. And it's very, very uncommon from the platinum glove winner there. But it did cause the inning to stay with just one out, which is important.

And it did cause the bases to be loaded, which is also important because Ryan Nelson would then walk yet another batter in the inning. He'd walk Ronald Ocuna, and that would cause, I believe, is Ozzy Albies, who was originally the first batter on. to score, making it a 3-1 game. But things would just get worse from that point. It looked on the very next play, like Drake Baldwin, who's been red-hot for the Braves, hit into a inning-ending double play. Instead, the Braves challenged the play, and it turned out that Drake Baldwin was safe at first base. So there's only two outs in the inning, and Dominic Smith scores to make it a four-to-one baseball game.

And then here comes Matt Olson again, who doubles on a sharp line drive. That causes yet another run to score. Now you have Drake Baldwin on third, Matt Olson on second with a double. Dubon scores, and it's a 5-1 game. And that would end Ryan Nelson's night. Now, obviously, a big part of this all falling apart was that throwing error. And, you know, several runs probably wouldn't have scored if it wasn't due to that. Ryan Nelson was only charged with two earned runs in this one, but his line does not look good.

And those two earned runs probably save his ERA from looking equally awful. Ryan Nelson ends up going four and two-thirds innings. He gives up three hits, seven runs total, but two of them are earned due to the error. Three walks and three strikeouts. Gives up two home runs, and his ERA currently sits at 5.79. But my bigger concern is that the Diamondbacks then turned to, the Kevin Ginkle to come into the game and get the final out of the inning. And he very much did not do that for a while.

Kevin Gingle gives up a double to Austin Riley, which scores both Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson. He walks Mike Yershtremski. Ozzy Albies comes back up again in the inning. He singles on a fly ball to Jordan Lawler out and left, scoring Austin Riley and making this an eight-to-one ball game. and then Michael Harris Jr. doubles scoring Mike Yistremski and Ozzy Albies, and now the game is at 10 to 1.

And I will say the Diamondbacks have given Kevin Ginkle as many chances as you can give a guy. And I know with him being such a big part of that 20, 23 roster in that run, that it's hard to, you know, necessarily not like let a pitcher try to work their way through the struggles. that they're working their way through. But, you know, Kevin Ginkle's ERA right now stands at 15.43. And he comes into this game after the inning completely unravels and gives up a double, a walk, a single, and a double before finally getting Dominic Smith to ground out for the final out of the inning.

Five runs score. You know, when Ryan Nelson leaves the game, it's a five-to-one baseball game. It's bad. But it's not like it's not something the Diamondbacks couldn't come back from as we've just, as we just witnessed in the Tiger series. But Yinkle comes in and lets things get completely out of control. And the game ends up 10 to 1. The Diamondbacks at that point don't care. They kind of write this one off obviously as a loss.

And know that at this point they kind of got to save their bullpen arms to hopefully try to win some more games. in this four-game series. So they put Joe Ross in for two innings. The first thing Joe Ross does is give up a solo home run to Maricio Dubon in the top of the sixth inning to make it 11-to-one ball game. Now, I know you're always going to need guys that can come in and clean up a game. And as you can tell, Kevin Ginkle's usage has been moved up way earlier in games. Kevin Ginkle is not coming in in the eighth inning or the ninth inning of games anymore.

It's not even coming in in the seventh inning. But it's safe to say as far as the bullpen is concerned, there are some pieces that are working like Andrew Hoffman, who did come in for one inning of work. He got two strikeouts. He did walk one. He did give up one hit, but he didn't allow any runs,

and he has not allowed any runs this season. His ERA still stands at zero. Right? But when you're assessing the bullpen and the parts that are and aren't working, it would appear that there are definitely some replacements that are needed, including of Joe Ross and Kevin Ginkle. And I'm a huge Kevin Ginkle fan. And Damon is probably going to kill me for listening to this audio podcast and hearing what I said about Kevin Ginkle.

But in order for this bullpen to truly be competitive, the Diamondbacks need to make some changes. And it might start right there with Kevin Ginkle and Joe Ross. Joe Ross, that's a much easier change. There isn't the attachment there nor nearly the, you know, payroll connection as there is with Kevin Ginkle. Kevin Ginkl is personal. It's, you know, it's somebody that we love, and it's somebody who, quite frankly, we want to see work out. But it's a business, and the Diamondbacks have a lot of young relievers

that were left off of this roster and missed getting an opportunity due to essentially guys like Ginkle being locked in based on his years of service and what we know he could be. But right now, he's not being that for this team. Also, Kevin McCann, excuse me, James McCann, just combining their two names there. James McCann is not a good reliever. He did come out in the ninth inning for one inning of work. And James McCann, as a catcher, effective.

As a reliever does not have a very good slider. He gave up seven hits and five earned runs in his one inning of work, including a home run. McCann's ERA stands at 45. currently. So I do not think that he will be working out as a member of the bullpen. But again, overall, I will say that the Diamondback's lack of offense also is troubling. And even though they did just win a baseball game, one to nothing, you can't expect to win many baseball games when you're only scoring two runs.

Il-Demarro Vargas added a solo home run, I believe there in later in the game. or excuse me, an RBI. But that's it. That's really it for the Diamondbacks. Two runs scored in this game, six hits. They were 0 for seven with runners in scoring position. And even if Kevin Ginkle and James Buchan didn't let this game get completely out of control with the end score of 17 to 2, you still feel like the Diamondbacks would have lost this one.

So waving the white flag early on and trying to do everything you can, save your bullpen for you know the remainder of the series made a lot of sense and uh the diamondbacks are still in a position to win or split the series with the brave so they could have scored a hundred runs and and they'd still be in the same position right so so there's that but uh they have to figure out their offense for sure and uh they definitely have to kind of shuffle through their bullpen and decide which guys are worth keeping and which guys uh they might need to move on from in order to give other pitchers that are doing well and have performed well throughout spring training an opportunity.

You got to figure this out. But an embarrassing loss for sure to the Braves in Game 1. We will be back with a postgame show with Damon and I and our guy Pat Brown joining us for game too. So make sure to lock in for that after Friday's game. Of course, you can follow me on social media. I am at Cap underscore Caveman with K or shows at PhDX underscore D-Backs. 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 for a postgame show on Friday night. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you do not give up 17 runs.