PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks Get SHAM-ROCKED In Both Games on Notoriously Anti-Snake Holiday

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

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It might be St. Patrick's Day, but we're going to tell you right away why we don't celebrate that crap around here. Also, are the Diamondbacks ever going to name an opening day starter? All of this and the results of them getting absolutely shamrocked on an anti-snake holiday on this episode. Don't you go anywhere. We're starting in 30 seconds. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNXDVACs podcast. On PHMX, my name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as a very lonely, lonely, lonely podcast host.

also your mayor, PHMX, but I am not lonely on this show all the time. I got my man, large intimate, Kevin Thomas on the ones and twos. How you doing, my friend? Happy St. Patrick's Day. I am good, Derek. I am very good. You know, it's a same. No, we're doing this differently now.

Put yourself on screen. That's my guy. Hello. Right there. Kevin Thomas, presented by all pro-shade concepts, as well as the show. I am presented by all pro-shade concepts today. Shout out to our good friends over at All-Prochade. It's concepts.

They would shade you from that light that's right in your face right now. That's for sure. But hello to you all and hello to you, KT. We don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day on this show. We are no fan of St. Patrick around here. For those of you that may not remember, this is the man that drove all the snakes out of Ireland on a podcast hosted and watched by snake a fictionalos? No, sir.

No, sir. The earliest writings about Patrick, I'm going to call him St. Patrick, ridding Ireland of snakes. I are by Jocelyn of Furness, according to Wikipedia, in the late 12th century, who says that Patrick allegedly chased them into the sea after they attacked him during his fast on a mountain. Now, I will say, fasting will make you angry, right? I mean, I think we can all agree on that. But angry enough to chase all the snakes out of Ireland, get out of here.

It's all, it's all lies. All lies. Also, per the keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, Kevin. At no time, has there any been, have there any suggestion of snakes in Ireland? So there was nothing for St. Patrick to banish. He's a fraud. He's a fraud. And on this, on this show, on this show about snakes, we don't celebrate frauds, especially on a day where, as our headlines suggest, the Diamondbacks absolutely got shamrocked in both games they played today.

The Diamondbacks lost by a combination of 23 to 6 in two games today. So not a great day. So we're not going to celebrate it. But we are going to celebrate all pro shades concepts because it's already hot. My air conditioning kicked on today. Not good stuff happening already in Arizona because things are getting sunny really fast. So make sure to call them to add to your outdoor living space. But the debacks lose today by a score of 11 to 5 to the Angels.

They were actually quite in that game at one point. Kevin Newman, former Diamondback, he was a problem for us defensively today. They lose that one, 11 to 5. Merrill Kelly went two and two thirds, innings pitched. He gave up six hits, allowed three earned runs, didn't walk anyone, struck out four. Not a great day for Merrill giving up the six hits and the three earned runs, but still not anything as bad as what happened out in surprise Arizona to one Ryan Nelson. Corbyn Carroll was two for four in today's game. He had a triple, he had an RBI.

No real concerns in this one. I don't think the majority of the damage was done late in the eighth and the ninth inning. And that was by some minor league relievers in Edgar Ossia in his first game of spring and Zach Barnes. But yeah, they got beat in that one. Hello to all of you in the chat, by the way. Jagurtha is here. So, of course, that means it's going to be an incredible day. And the journey making his first time.

watching live this season. Definitely not driving while I type this. Be safe. That's all I have to say. And that goes for today in general because it's St. Patrick's Day. I had some beers around here somewhere, but they hid them from me. So that's probably for the best because I need to drink after watching the Diamondbacks lose one game 11 to 5 and the other game to the Royals by a score of 12 to 1. Ryan Nelson, I have no idea what happened in this game because I wasn't paying attention. I was I was watching the other game and, you know, working a bunch of other jobs. But the Diamondbacks Ryan Nelson got kind of knocked around a bit. In three innings, he allowed 11 hits, gave up nine runs, eight of them earned.

He didn't walk anyone, and he only struck out one. So if you want to get crazy about the standings here, I think, Kevin, what we need to do is we need a graphic that shows the three remaining Diamondbacks pitchers that are all violent. for the final spot in starting rotation is like one of those like horse races at the state fair right because uh really what's happening is it feels like on any given day one guy gains a tremendous amount of space on another one inexplicably just because uh you rolled the ball into the nine hole or whatever the case may be i'm pretty sure that's how that game works at the carnival but uh speaking of the guy that he's up against that would be branded fought and fought was fabulous uh on i believe it was on sunday yeah it was on sunday uh he went

five innings pitched, allowed two hits, no runs, zero walks, seven strikeouts. I'm going to say this as loudly as I can because J.A. wanted to know, he said, what about fought yesterday? How can you consider sending this man down to Reno? I know it's a spring training game. I say that all the time. We have to. I repeat myself constantly on this show, mostly because I'm by myself here and I just don't even, I just ramble on sometimes as you guys are well aware. But it's also because these things are, I mean, again, this is kind of a crazy thing when you see Brandon Fott go out there and shove like this in a game and to think that

this man might be the guy that ends up in Reno. Again, just due to circumstance, not due to his own fault, not due to anything other than that. But it's hard to imagine that that is the outcome of this whole thing. We still have Jordan Montgomery to make his next start in a Cactus League game. And again, that, I think I said this 20 times on the show on Friday, that remains to be seen what happens on his next start, right? And how all of this factors in with just, you know, I think as Candace said,

10 days left to go, right? At this point, we have not a lot of time left between now and opening day. So the Diamondbacks have a handful of starts to see the guys that they really need to make a decision on. And not only that, but Tori has a decision to make still about his opening day starter. and more than half of the league has already announced to their opening day starter at this point is. And we have maybe some speculation on why Tori hasn't announced that yet. But again, going back to the results of the weekend, at least, the Diamondbacks won both games there. Might have been just by a little bit.

But again, if you care about those things during spring training, the Diamondbacks did win both of their games. Corby and Carroll had an Apo Taco home run. Great to see him back from that lower back tightness. And, man, leading the way, right? Corbyn currently leads the team in home runs. He has a 387 batting average of 441 on base percentage, 1312 OPS, four home runs and 10 RBI. So big, big season coming in potentially for Corbyn Carroll, if he can keep this up and stay healthy, that's for sure. And Ina Jackson taking a step back.

She said fought will be super hard to knock out of the top five rotation. Yeah, man, I mean, again, if the Diamondbacks are going to put the best, guys in the rotation, then you're right there. But if it's a victim of circumstance, then we'll see how it plays out. And then the journey says, how weird is it that technically the MLB season starts tomorrow with the Cubs and Dodgers, but we still have a week and a half of spring training and left to go. It's very weird, very weird.

And we're going to talk about hopefully how those effects impact those teams negatively because that's really what we want here. We got to, if you're, you got to root for one team and that team is the diamond back so but yeah corbin carroll looks great a lot of players might not look so good this spring might not want to put too much uh concern to into that but uh you know again when you want to highlight how good uh some of the guys especially you know uh naler continues to be good corbin carroll continues to be good for this team so uh they they win those two games over the weekend on friday we discussed it briefly but the diamondbacks had um their spring breakout game against

the Royals. They won that by a score 5 to 2 over the Royals prospects. Our guy Lou James, Gino Groover, had a big night, two for three with a double, a triple, and an RBI. Drew Jones had a two hit night himself. Ryan Waldschmidt went one for two with two RBIs and a walk. And then Dylan Ray earned the win after going to scoreless inning. So a fun night to go out and see the youngsters and Diamondbacks guys got it done. Great night for Diamondbacks baseball. But overall, again, the big story here is that Ryan Nelson really struggled today.

And as far as his future is concerned, it would appear that, you know, he's not necessarily fallen out of the race extremely. But it feels like he's kind of always been the guy, despite the fact that we've said it's three pitchers vying for one spot. It feels like Nelson is the guy that is most likely to either end up in the bullpen. or in Reno. And today's performance, unfortunately, did not help that one bit. His line, once again, three innings pitched, 11 hits, nine runs allowed, eight earn runs, no walks, one strikeout. Kevin, is it too much to put it that way?

Is it too much to think that, like, especially when the Diamondbacks are really trying to, you know, figure out the best candidate. And these guys are also close for Tori Lavello and his pitching staff or his coaching staff. staff, excuse me, that like one big, you know, I guess one bad, really bad outing like this could really drop you out and, and kind of make you no longer a consideration of that race. Yeah, I mean, Derek, it's a great problem to have for this coaching staff and management, obviously, to have so many arms. But if you are one of those arms, it leaves you a lot less room for error.

I think you are right on that. There's a lot of pressure. Because there's a lot of competition, right? And if the competition is that strong, you do have to bring your best every day because that is what you're being judged off of. Because they know the talent that you have. But if they have a ton of talent, it's about who's producing at that point. So, yeah, I think you're right on that. Yeah.

And it's, you know, again, you see Brandon Fogg go out and shove like you did on Sunday. It puts a lot of pressure on you to come out and perform on Monday. And once again, Monday being a notoriously anti-snake holiday. And I'm not going to let this go. I need Jesse Jr. over here. I should have him right now. I'm concerned about where he is. There's a lot of talk and chat right now about Alec Thomas. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right about that. There is a question in regards to Alec Thomas, Centerfield, who's going to end up there. Obviously, Jake McCarthy feels like the natural fit. It doesn't really feel like Jake has won the job as much as, come here, my friend.

Bring him in. It doesn't feel like Jake has won the job like hands down. at his numbers, which we will hear based on one of our mailbag Monday questions. I don't feel like Jake's running away with it, but I also don't feel like Alec is doing much to make a case for himself. And unfortunately, when it comes down to it, Jake McCarthy is very good defensively. Alec Thomas is very good defensively, somewhat of a wash. It's really going to come down to, I think, how they're performing at the plate. I haven't seen a lot this spring out of Alec.

Some questions in the chat, El Gaios says, can we agree Alec Thomas is washed? I don't think so. I still have a lot of faith in Alec Thomas. I just, I know he's a big leader, and I know he's struggling right now, but I definitely think he can make adjustments and be coached out of this that he's going through. Candice says, I believe Jake is the way to go. I love Alec, but you can't deny that Jake is the smarter move in my opinion. You're not wrong there.

I mean, especially, like I said, Jake, when you watch Jake play center field, again, Alec has very good instincts and he's extremely athletic. So he makes plays look easy. Alec makes or Jake makes things look very natural, to be honest. So I don't know. There's a couple of battles still left in camp, but it really does feel like a certain number of guys have already kind of won their spot. I don't know how the outsiders, even those guys performing really well,

like a Trey Mancini, who is not only playing incredibly well, but is a tremendous story that we've discussed on the show. I don't know how he can crack into the 40-man roster. I really don't. So it's difficult because it's not a matter of even necessarily being able to do enough to win a spot. It's more based on the fit for what Tori and his staff are looking for to fill that spot. There's one backup position or one backup position for the positional players available. And it's going to go to one of the guys that's going to be.

be the infielder. We'll talk about that here shortly as well and who the best candidate could be for that. But the Diamondbacks have tough decisions to make and then beyond that, they got to figure out how they could continue, especially some of these guys that might end up trying to land potentially with another team elsewhere, how they can convince them to stick around and, you know, be a part of the depth that this team is going to need as this regular season, you know, kind of goes on, right? So I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I know kev i'm i'm i'm not i'm not ready to write ryan nelson out of it but i feel like between the fact that he has the versatility to go to the bullpen and the versatility to go down to reno you know makes

him a little bit easier of a target to do one of those two things with brandon fought you're going to keep him stretched out no matter what so if he's not in the starting rotation especially the way he's pitching right now you're you're going to have him starting in reno you're going to have him starting on opening day in Reno and you're going to have them available based on, you know, the emergency situation of one of the starting pitchers getting hurt. Yeah, Derek. And I think Ina Jackson in the chat brought up a good point about FOP being extended to five innings and how important that is for projecting this forward, right?

Because if you look at who you want more looks at, right? I think that you want guys stretched out and warmed up that you're going to actually utilize to start the season. So I think Ina Jackson might be on to something with this one, Derek. Well, she knows her stuff. And also Jordan Montgomery, going back to him, he's not stretched out, right? Like he's had a limited number of appearances. He's only pitched in one Cactus League game up to this point.

And that game was a disaster. So I don't really know how, you know, how quickly he can factor in to the starting rotation. I kind of, I was suspicious about it. I speculated it on it. I don't know how they're going to do it. I still had this feeling that some way Jordan Montgomery is. going to end up on like the 15 day IL before opening day. And that's kind of what the initial decision is going to be.

There's no indication for that. This is purely me recklessly speculating. However, it feels definitely like that could be what we see. I just don't know. I don't know how soon he's going to be ready to pitch. And it doesn't really feel like even if he's been pitching on in, you know, backfield games that he's ready for major league starts, you know. So this next start in the Cactus League for Montgomery is going to be huge.

It's going to be huge. And that might, again, just be reckless speculation on my part. But I can't imagine it not being huge for him, huge for Tori, huge for the organization, to determine on what the next steps are for the starting rotation and for Jordan Montgomery's career. So a lot of pressure there. Hopefully he can live up to it. On the other side of this break, though, we are going to talk about the last position available on the Arizona Diamondbacks and who is kind of leading the way there. A lot of good backup candidates for the infield.

We're going to discuss them on the other side of this break. Don't you guys go anywhere? You're watching the PH&X Diamondback show. Well, again, big shout out to all pro shades concepts, not only for their tremendous commercials, but for the way that they have been shading the valley with their amazing custom fit awnings. They have hundreds of designs and colors to choose from, and they can work with your HOA for approvals because we know how that goes. They're a company from right here in the Valley.

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Not only when we're eating pizza, but we're watching the game. Get all the info on the watch parties and pizza basketball contest at Spanados pizzeria.com. Spanados, the official pizza of the Phoenix Sons. All right. Well, we still have no opening day starter for the Diamondbacks. According to Tori Lavello in his press conference today, he is going to make that decision to more. on the off day. So that is going to be finally something will probably get word out to us, the media on

Wednesday. But I don't know, Kevin. I, again, I'm doing a lot of reckless speculation on this show. It's what I do when I don't have facts or information. But I feel like the reason why this is a tough decision for Tori. And again, complete speculation is he wants to go with Corbyn's. and you need to break that to Zach Gallen, right? Like, and not only that, but you got to consider how that decision is going to impact

Zach Gallen. Like, Zach Gallen's a professional, but he's a human. He's a person, just like the rest of us are, right? So considering that you want to really do your best to make Zach Gallen happy in a walk here and do everything you can to show him all the love and respect and everything, I mean, don't you think that that factors into the decision making here? because otherwise I feel like this is a no-brainer for Tori to decide on who the opening day starter is. I think you're on the money with that, Derek, but I also think our guy, Dalton Feely accurately predicted that when he popped on the pod.

And he said, look, I don't really care who starts as long as they are okay with it. Right. So if you, as Tori Lavello, have in mind who you would want and who you would prefer to be the day one starter, and now you just got to kind of figure out how to massage that information and maybe drag it out a little bit to maybe lessen the impact or if, There is an impact or whatnot. Yeah, I think it's a locker room chemistry thing. You kind of want to, this is important information to divvy out in a careful way. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you're right. But it's one of those things that it's just funny in baseball that by April 15th, none of this matters. Exactly. None of it matters by April 15th, right? You know, Derek, if you want to go down the speculation route, you know, just a little bit further, I feel like this is a contract year for Zach Gallen. You, you know, you really don't want to upset a guy. You really don't want to, you know, oh, I've been the, the franchise. guys do that this is my this is my day to start if he's one of those guys right and then you come back

and be like hey we're actually going to give it to the new guy uh we think he's uh we think he's the ace you know what i mean i feel like maybe you know you just you want to make sure everything goes right yeah on your honeymoon derrick no that's what i mean that's that's the whole feeling like i don't trust me jack gallon doesn't strike me as a kind of guy that would care about such things he really doesn't and he is me either for the record i don't think that he does right if we're going down that route that's about no no absolutely but again you know you have I get my feelings hurt easily all the time by your YouTube comments almost every single day. But I still, I'm still here.

I'm still plugging along. I'm still trying my best. I'm trying to make you guys happy. But I, you know, again, with Zach Gallant, he has feelings, you know, there are those feelings that could be there. But I also think like, again, I just wonder how much of that matters to them and how much of that matters to more to the fans, right? Like I don't know it seems important though because Tori really takes his time on making this decision He puts a lot of thought into it and he's kind of discussed agonizing over it which is kind of wild right like like I don't know it once again shows how much Tori cares But it also shows how Tori cares so much that like his caring can maybe be even a little bit of a weakness right

And I'm not I'm not saying that and you know we we know a connected team is a dangerous team. Don't make me, I'll do the speech. And I'll edit myself and the curse words and it'll be weird, but I'll still do it. It's just, it's the fact that in this kind of case, maybe that's a little bit of the problem is that it's, you know, too much caring, not necessarily enough. Just decision making and just having it be a thing that happens. Again, other teams, it's much easier. They don't necessarily have the turnover. Their ace is their ace.

So they know who they're going to go to. Diamondbacks, a little different here in this case. Tori also provided an update. This one's courtesy of our friend Jack Summers from Sports Illustrated. One of my favorite people in the whole ed world. Tori provided us with an update on Kevin Graveman, who has missed quite a bit amount of time due to some lower back tightness.

Here's what Tori had to say about Graveman. Graveman is for right now in the old treatment phase, still trying to figure out exactly what's going on with his side or his back as well. But, you know, I think overall he has good days and bad days. And we just got to figure out how to have a good day every day. And we're still in that process of figuring that out. And I had a brief conversation with him today.

I know you were over there. I appreciate you stepping away so I could talk to him. It was a good feel on your part. Let's say that the other guy with no hair would have a great feel in that situation. And I just said, look, if, you know, I want 100%. of you at all times and whenever we get there you're going to know it and when you're 100% and 100% of you

for six months plus of baseball we've done that before we've had guys come back too early and and had them you know have those multiple stints throughout the year so understand that tory wants to hold off but also with with grave minute it you know it poses a difficult you know situation for him to not really be able to earn a spot in that bullpen. Again, if one of those starting pitchers like Ryan Nelson ends up in the bullpen, there's really only one spot up for grabs when you look at things realistically. And, you know, again, it didn't really get too much of an opportunity to, you know, compete for that. But another competition is going on, one that we talked about a little while ago.

That's the one for essentially our backup player. The Diamondbacks have one position player spot up for grabs. And that's a backup in field job. We got a couple of guys here that are, you know, in the mix, Garrett Hampson. We got Ildemarovarer. And we got Jordan Lawler. Now, this is how the guys stack up this spring, at least at the plate. Hampson is batting 242 with a 3.42 on base percentage and a 675 OPS.

Obviously, he has the weakest offensive numbers up there. Ildomaro Vargas, great spring so far, batting 298, 372, 898. Jordan Lawler also having a great spring 294 the batting average a 368 on base percentage and an 897 OPS now when you look at those numbers up there Kevin if you wouldn't mind putting those back up you'll see like obviously I know fans are very excited about Jordan Lawler right but the problem here with Lawler is that he is the guy that is kind of the future of this team this spot that we're discussing isn't a player that's going to get ready to regular playing time, though they might, right? We saw that with Kevin Newman last season, a guy who we didn't know what kind of impact he was going to have on this team and ended up having a big impact. But Lawler, most likely, is going to end up in AAA on opening day. And it's not because of the way he's performed and it has nothing to do with how he competed

during spring and has everything to do with the Diamondbacks, not wanting them to sit on the bench and be a backup. It pretty much has to do with them wanting him to play every single day, get that playing time, and get better, you know, and be that guy, right? Like, we have quite a few numbers, we have quite a few players who are going into a walk year, and it's not just the pitchers that we discussed. Lawler could definitely be an everyday starter next season, depending on how things shake up. So the Diamondbacks want his development to continue. So it really does feel like it's down between Garrett Hampson and Ilamar Vargas. Now, the big thing there with Hampson is that he has a lot of defensive versatility.

Tori has talked about him playing kind of everywhere. So I think that the super utility aspect to Hampson is really appealing. You know, we look at the numbers. We look at other things. We look at those stats that we just put up. Whereas Tori is thinking more about what he could get out of a guy that can also play the outfield as well as the infield. and play them honestly fairly well. I don't want to say he's an outstanding defender anywhere he plays.

He might be a little bit of a jack of all trades and a master of none, but he can play all those positions, and that allows Tori quite a bit of versatility. I mean, and again, that's something that if you've watched the way he's managed in the past, you know he loves that. He loves a guy, especially in a backup role, that he can use as a backup a lot, a guy that's going to get a lot of playing time.

All of these players have really received quite a bit of, a playing time this season. Or this spring, I should say. So these guys have really had a chance for Tori to see them and take a look at them. You can tell based on their numbers, based on their at bats, that they've kind of exceeded some of the everyday starters a bit at times. I don't know if they're still there, but they've been up there, you know, as far as they're at bats and how often they've played.

So Tori really has another tough decision there to make. Let's see what we have. Billy the kid in our chat says. because Nailer is a star so far. You couldn't be more right. Not to mention I, I love the Diamondbacks fan base. The baseball fans that root for this team

are an incredible group of people. Very knowledgeable, very fun, and honestly, a bunch of maniacs. And I think the minute that the Diamondbacks traded for Nailer, I much like many of you thought of that clip of him headbutting, several people while not wearing a helmet while they were wearing a helmet and I just I knew he was going to be a great fit I knew he was going to be a fan favorite but how exciting is it when a guy like this comes in and is playing this well right like you feel there's going to be a bit of a regression to

the means and you would almost hope it happens in spring before we get to opening day but uh maybe not maybe just nailer hits 412 this season and when we get to see him just absolutely go off uh j a says Walker who and he might have said that at the best possible time i promise i'm not paying him uh to that was a very that was a very good alley up i think i think kevin it's time for us to do a little spying on our exes can we spy on our exes for a little bit uh let's take a look yeah let's spy on our exes uh we got some exes that we know have moved on guys that we were sad to see go maybe guys that we very much wanted to uh have back on this team similar to the way that we ended up bringing Randall Gritchick back.

But Jock Peterson, not having a great spring. This is a crazy stat, though, for you. Jock Peterson has a 208 batting average. He has a 269 on base percentage. And he has a 936 OPS. Make it make sense. If he's making contact with the ball, it's hard contact and he's getting multiple bases.

It's really what's going on. Three home runs for Jock, 9 RBI. most importantly, there are so many water burgers in Texas. And I know that makes Jock so incredibly happy. So kudos to him. And at least for the time being, based on the numbers we're seeing from Randall Gritchick and Josh Naylor, we're not too sad right now about that. Christian Walker, though, sadly still has not played due to an oblique injury.

And yeah, I mean, Tori brought this up in the press conference. Candice brings it up in the chat. She says we still love Walker, though. We really do. Talk about a guy that normally when a player leaves your organization, a player that you were considering signing for a number of years and a whole lot of money leaves and then immediately experiences an injury on another team. You kind of feel like you dodged a bullet.

You kind of feel like a sense of relief. I don't feel that with Christian Walker. I like Christian Walker so much as a person and as a person. a player that it makes me tremendously sad that this is happening to him. It's sad that it's happening to the Astros. Per Astros manager, Joe Espada, though, he said, quote, I'm optimistic. He should be fine for opening day. So there you go for Christian.

And again, that's an oblique injury that had a missed time during a very critical portion of the Diamondback stretch last year. You know, hopefully he could get right. And like Tori said, we want Christian to get right. be right for six months and not just for a little period of time and do very well except when he's playing the Arizona Diamondbacks. Somebody brought it up in the chat, and yes, you were absolutely right. The Tokyo series starts in, what are we, in about a few hours, not that long away, 12 hours shortly or less than 12 hours away from Shoda, throwing out the first pitch of the 2025 MLB season.

And he will be pitching to one Shohayotani in front of a sold-out crowd. at the Tokyo Dome, a place where I've always wanted to go to watch a New Japan per wrestling January 4th show. But that's a whole other story. We should be troubled, though. I want to say this. I read an article about it. And basically the Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, was quoted as saying to this extent that every team in baseball should be jealous of what the Dodgers have going on. And you're absolutely right.

And we should be troubled by the reach that they're gaining. in Japan because they are very popular there. They are becoming beloved and it's just gaining a further, you know, advantage for a team that already has a number of advantages. I'm not going to sit here and whine and complain about it. I'm not going to say it's unfair. I'm going to say that the Dodgers are once again are an incredibly well-run franchise. And this is another example of that.

They understand the impact that this game has. And I'm not not comparing it to the Diamondbacks going to Australia or anything like that. I am saying, though, that when you have a chance to go to a country like this, where there are very, very good young players that are making a decision to play in the NPB and then maybe come over here and play in Major League Baseball that, you know, the Dodgers have said they made it no secret that they want these kids to grow up Dodgers fans and they want them growing up for their favorite players from Japan on the Dodgers. And they want that to be a resource for them, a resource that's, you know, very, especially when players have the choice. you know, signing as an international draft, you know, or international signy, they have the choice of where they go, pretty much, like what we saw was on Roki Sasaki.

So I don't know. It makes me sad. It makes me, once again, jealous, like Dave Robert said. And the only thing I'm hopeful of is that maybe going back to that season, the Diamondbacks opened the year up in Australia, maybe this does to the Cubs of the Dodgers what it did to the Diamondbacks, because that was a terrible season. And everything just went wrong for them after.

for that point. And again, no offense to either of those teams and their fan base. But yes, all the offense to those teams and their fan base. I want all the bad things

to happen to both of your teams and nobody but your teams. There, I said it. And I've no, I'm not taking it back. I'm not taking it back. But that's because I'm feeling brave. You know what today is?

You know what day it is and you know what we do around here. And me and Kev, we're going to do it on the other side of this break. Don't you go anywhere. You're watching the PHNX Diamondback show. Well, I can always use some pure edible.

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And that thing we do around here is presented by Waymo, who always gets us home safe. Thank you to Waymo. But every year on this year is the year of the snakes. I know 2025 is the year of the snake, but every year on the show is the year of the snake. Every month on this podcast right here, this baseball podcast, every month is women's history month.

Every week on this show, of course, is Shark Week. And every day on this show is Earth Day. but Mondays are special. Kev, what do we do on Mondays? Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything. All right, Kev, what do we got? What a banger that one is?

It's a notorious banger. Our guy Travis Moore wants to know, corn, beef and cabbage. Yes or no. Travis likes it. Also, stay safe on this St. Paddy's Day, everyone. Always opt to calling a Waymo. Waymo.

Let's all get to an opening day next week. Healthy and ready to yell at the TV. That's right. Shout to Wail. Stay home. always all up to call Waymo. Corned beef and cabbage. I don't know, Kevin.

I here's what I will say about myself. I am open, first of all, to any food now that I may not have tried or traditionally wouldn't eat, especially on a holiday. So do I like corned beef and cabbage not particularly, but will I eat it on this day, on this anti-snake holiday? Yes, I will. I will because I love traditions. I love holidays. I love learning more about other people's culture. It's what makes things great.

I have great friends that come from all sorts of different cultures. They've shared their food with me. They've shared their, you know, traditions with me, and that part's great. But I'm leaving it on St. Patrick's Day. I'm not having it any other of the 364 days a year. I love corned beef and other forms. You know what I mean? I'm not a huge corned beef and cabbage guy, but when in Rome, when in Rome, like you said, do as the Romans do.

That's right. Yeah, on St. Patrick's Day, I'll let it fly. It makes it like don't be don't be that guy. Don't be that guy that goes out on St. Patrick's Day and get yourself a burger. I mean, unless that burger comes with corn, beef and cabbage on top. Or the bun is green. Now we got an Irish.

Can the bun be green and still be possible? Yeah. Now just do something fun. That's all I'm saying. Do something fun. All right. What else we got? Question number two.

Craig Jr. wants to know D-Backs make their own luck. Extensions. Zach Gallin. Do we try to lock him in now? Gino is extending him now an option knowing we need to make room for Loller. If he goes lights out in the first half of the season, would sure be hard to see him go to free agency.

Yeah, no, you're not wrong, man. I mean, what I will say is, is Gno is getting older and the Diamondbacks have done a good job at knowing when the right time is to move on potentially from that player, right? We're seeing it with what happened with Christian Walker just a little bit. And it's not the end of the world. It's not to say, like, I don't want to be like, oh, Christian Walker was, you know, put him out to pasture.

He was, he was past his past, prime look at what's happening with the oblique injury no i said it time and time again on this show that the best replacement for christian walker was christian walker but you know you do get to a point where you know you got to start moving on to the future especially when you have a very talented player jordan lawler down there uh and i i mean i don't know i i will say taking a step backwards in the question the zach gallon extension doesn't feel like something that you don't want to do it's more of a Zach Gallin not wanting to do it kind of thing. I have a feeling that the Diamondbacks, again, this is speculation because quite frankly,

Mike Hazen does a great job keeping his cards close to his vest, right? He's told us straight up before that there's nothing to gain from Mike Hazen or the Diamondbacks admitting to pursuing a free agent that they missed out on or, you know, of course, like going after a guy that may have wanted to leave a free agency. the only thing it looks at the end of the day like is that the organization failed in their pursuit of that player, right? They made it clear that they want Zach Gallag back. And there's no doubt in my mind that they haven't attempted negotiations or had some sort of talk in some way about contract negotiation or about contract extension. It really comes down to Zach wanting to test the waters for free agency and see what he can get. And at this point, I am leaning towards, you know, depending on what kind of year he has, I'm leaning towards the diamond back. is having a chance still at bringing him back.

I think it might be a bit more like the Lord is situation or the Randall Gritchick situation, where if they do, perhaps he tests free agency first, gives the team a fair shot to match it or beat the offer that he's receiving, and maybe he wants to stay here. I don't know. Gallin does strike me as the kind of guy that, like, besides wanting more money, I feel like Gallen might want, you know, to play on a bigger stage, right? to play for one of those teams that, unfortunately, are the big teams in baseball that get all the

national attention and get all the love, right? So there's a little bit of me that wouldn't be surprised to see Gallen end up in a New York Yankees uniform or as a Boston Red Sock or something like that. Just nothing in the National League West at all. I won't permit it. I won't allow it. I won't permit it and I won't allow it. I think I said that twice in a row. And much like I tell my daughter, when I say things twice in a row, I mean it. I mean it. I, Mean it. Kevin. What else we got in the in the mailbag? Real quick, Derek, we were talking about, uh, Japan earlier. Yes. And, and the game's going on over there. Did you catch the Danes B Swanson camera angle that they got at the Cubs game? You should look it up the full video. It is gorgeous. It looks right out of a video video game. Look at this, Derek. Let's see it. So it's a, it's a, it's a behind him. Stop it. Third person like video game style angle. Is this an actual view of an actual baseball game right now? Yeah. Our good friends over at a, uh, S. I.

Shout out to Jack Summers. They have an article about it. I was making sure it wasn't AI on my Twitter or something because it is that beautiful. Yeah, it looks like video game footage. Yeah. This is like an MLB, the show, be a player, kind of an angle that the Cubs stream that the Cubs stream had in Japan. So I thought that was a crazy thing that the MLB needs to implement. That's like that 4K camera when they started getting that for like the Sellies and NFL and stuff.

Oh yeah. Like out of the huddle shots. Yeah. You were just like, oh my God. When did I start watching Matt? Yeah. When did Christopher Nolan become head? the production at the NFL network.

Cinema. Cinema. All right. What else we got? All right. You talk about testing Waters. Eddie Waters wants to know. We've been doing a lot of pitcher talk.

Thomas or McCarthy. What have we seen this spring and what will end up happening at center? I hate this. It's going to be Jake McCarthy. That's what my gut says. That's how I feel. And again, I think that really at the end of the day,

what it comes down to is what could, what adjustments could Alec Thomas make at the plate to have a better, you know, approach, right? Jake McCarthy, he so far this spring is batting 233 with a 250 on base percentage and a 622 OPS. Those numbers aren't screaming at you that he's won the position, right? But unfortunately, when you take a look at Alec Thomas's numbers, they're even worse than that. So it's like, it's hard to imagine Alec Thomas right now having done much at this point with batting 171 with a 550 OPS. That's really done much to win the position over Jake McCarthy. I don't really know the answer here, but I feel like I'm leaning towards Jake.

I think Jake, uh, kind of already had an advantage there. And realistically, Alec had to kind of have himself a really good spring. I think it's unfortunate that Alec is having, you know, the, the lack of success that he's having right now. And again, as I said earlier, I still feel like he's a great baseball player. I still feel like he's one of those guys that if, you know, continued adjustments and continued coaching could get him right back to where he once was, where he was much more productive at the plate. But you're just seeing those, you know, dribblers, the little soft, you know, rollers to shortstop and to second base far too often.

And I just, I don't know. I mean, I think right now Jake McCarthy is, is edging him out. But again, he hasn't done a whole lot this spring to really, you know, to set himself that much distance between him and Alec. it really comes down to what the guys are working on and how the coaching staff internally feels, no matter how these numbers stack up. It comes down to are they making the adjustments that they're being asked to? Are they doing the things that Tori and Mather are asking of them?

And I don't know. I mean, I've been around both guys. They're really, really good baseball players and really fine young gentlemen, both of them. They both had kind of a similar career path, a similar. personal life path both of them you know uh marriage happening or or at least engagements happening for both of them recently so uh this is something that again it comes down to maybe maybe these numbers are what matters more um and and right now that would definitely be jake uh caesar in the chat or caesar says where do you think luller will end up and again i don't know if you were here

earlier but uh it really comes down to luller getting every day at bat so he's been having a great spring i think he should be on the roster it just there's no there's no room for him and it's a matter of getting him every day playing time so i think he's going to end up uh in reno as well unfortunately and and see how things go but you know again he's one of those guys that uh one injury away from making the major league roster one bad couple of months potentially from being called up to to you know to help out there uh maybe at third base maybe at short stop so we'll see how uh obviously this thing progress the season how that plays out but my gut instinct tells me jake mccarthy ends up in center field and both alec thomas and jordan luller end up uh in reno let's get one more in and then we got some

we got some ads to read before the buzzer flea ball do you think tory has turned the page when it comes to random days off how many games for gino if he stays healthy 162 ha ha ha ha on a troy lovela team madness craziness never no tory hasn't turned the page on anything. Tori probably at times feels even more validated in the way that he runs his team based on kind of running out of steam at the end of the season last year, right? Having guys get injured, having those guys miss time. He definitely has remorse still about what happened with Christian Walker and his oblique injury. He felt like he brought him back too soon and got a chance to reagravate it. I know he had those feelings about Eduardo Rodriguez with his

injury early on. So no, I do not think Tori changed his ways at all. I think Tori is always going to be a manager that understands that a 162 game regular season is a marathon and not a sprint. And as much as we would like to see, Gino out there playing every single day like he did for

the Mariners or Ketel Marte never have a day off. That's never going to happen. Tori will fist fight these guys to keep them in the dugout before he let them play 162 games. I don't even see any guys playing 150 games in a Tori Lavello managed team. It's just not how

he runs the team and it's he's never going to change that because in his opinion in his mind, keeping guys fresh and giving them those days off are a huge part of how you get through 162 game season. And he's really big on that during spring training. Like, I think

tomorrow is an off day for them and Tori will demand that these guys go and spend personal time and go golf and do fun stuff and get completely away from the game. And meanwhile, Corby and Carol will probably want to sneak into another high school and smack dingers around with his mom throwing batting practice or something. I don't know.

That guy never stops. But we have to take a quick break. We have to take a stop here real fast. But we will be right back on the other side of this break with a few more mailbag Monday questions, including some really good ones. You know the best ones always come in the final segment. So don't you go anywhere. You're watching the PHA next time in Beck Show.

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Monday. Shout out to our guy Moore, Travis Moore, for reminding everybody to get home safe with Waymo. And let's get to it. We got some more questions. This is it. Andrew Dang says, dang, I'm late. That's kind of funny, considering your last name.

Andrew Dang. Dang. Dang's late. The journey's leaving us, but he will be back. Thank you so much for stopping by. Glad to have you here on a live episode. And you are not late, Andrew Dang. You made it right in time for the best part of Mailbag Monday. I'm just going to say right now, if you're watching over on go phnx.com or you're watching on TV,

head on over to go phnx.com to catch the rest of this episode because we're definitely not stopping at the one hour mark. We got too much to go. The journey's just taking away Mo' home so you can continue watching the show. So we got him. We got them. All right. What else we got? What do we got in the mailbag? All right. Coming out of the mailbag comes from Michael Rokickeki, triple threat match. This is why I'm on camera. Triple threat match for the fifth rotation spot. Brandon Fatt versus Ryan Nelson, Jordan Montgomery. I'm going to say in Brussels on Monday Night Raw. Okay.

With T-time as a guest referee. Who wins, Derek? And you're right. We're talking about this. Okay. How am I booking this match? All right. So you got Jordan Montgomery, the obvious heel here in this situation, right?

Obviously, yeah. Big time bad guy. Crowd booze, all that stuff, right? When he comes out. But he's a heater. He's got, he's got something to work with. He's a ball room brawler, if you will. So I definitely have him kind of in that he's he's got to take that dominant role in this match.

Then he got two young baby faces in Ryan Nelson and Brandon fought. Now Ryan Nelson, I imagine as a pro wrestler would throw something similar to like, what do we decide? Like a Logan Paul punch. Yeah, we were kind of making fun of Logan Paul by saying Ryan Nelson would have the Logan Paul move set, which is really just the hangman page. The page moves set, right. Yeah, like, yeah, definitely. I feel like, you know, again, it would be the, the, the, the bionic punch, uh, really. It's just he has the one thing, but it's devastating and he can locate it.

So, uh, that's his fastball, right? Then on the other side, you have the obvious baby face, Brandon Fott, right? Straight out Louisville, Kentucky. I said it right that time, Brandon. Uh, very unassuming calm, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe takes a beating early in this match, but he's got to have, he got to have that much. I don't want to say, I don't want to say he, Sammy Zane almost. There you go. He's Sammy Zanes. I was going to use another wrestler that I don't want to

ever talk about it. And we're not saying he's a bad guy, but the guy where he who shall not be named. Yeah, right. Sammy Zane has some of those traits in his matches. Brandon Fought definitely has a Huluva kick in him, you know, for sure. I mean, you could even say Jordan Montgomery and Brandon Fott are the, are the, Kevin Owens and Sammy Zane in this match, right? Oh, I kind of love that.

Right. You know what I was going to say? Because like I said earlier, Ryan Nelson, he's not really in it. He's not really. So he's Logan Paul in this triple threat match. They don't care about him. They're not concerned with him. Ryan Nelson might easily pick up a win here.

They just have to book Ryan Nelson. They got down to almost the PLE and realized, oh, we don't got a booking for Ryan Nelson. Right. We need something for Ryan Nelson. Yeah. Yeah. So let's throw in this triple threat. Yeah.

Yeah. But I was going to say on the Kevin Owen, Sammy's aim comparison, you're on the money. We're thinking on the same brain here because I said, what would you? Jordan Montgomery's finishing move be in my head. And I thought power bomb. Power bomb. Pop-up power bomb. Maybe even a small package pile driver because that's pretty heinous, right? Like, that's what he's going with now lately? Who wins the match, though, there?

What's the finish? What's the finish of the match? In my opinion, it's Jordan Montgomery dominating, dominating, dominating, dominating. And then, like, he maybe just slips up. And then you get Brandon Fott just coming in for the win, coming in hot. Like I said, a lubea kick, maybe a little springboard off the, top rope action and then, you know, just doing something you wouldn't expect him to do. Because again, pacifist comes out to a calm song.

Doesn't really sound like a guy that's hyped and ready to like fight. Definitely doesn't come out to a Sammy Zane tune. No. He would come out to like Angina or something. No, no, no, no, no. It's coming out to AGAR. That's the hypest he's getting is AJR. But yeah, no, I'm putting Brandon fought over in that match.

I am having Montgomery power bomb fought through a table onto the outside. of the ring, right? He goes to war with Ryan Nelson in the middle of the center of the ring. And then power bombs Ryan Nelson is going to go for the pin fought from the outside recovers. Little small package pin right there from behind. Smart. Yeah, a little trickster. Then he rolls back out. Yeah.

And runs away with the referee. Hold up his hand. I love it. I love it. We booked this. We're ready for WrestleMania. All right. What else we got?

I know we got more wrestling questions. Ryan Hanley says 10 chops to the chest. a low blow. Kev, oh my God. So we're talking here, real chops to the chest. Yeah, like Rick Flair chops to the chest.

Which I have been chopped before by a pro wrestler named Caveman Ugg. And there's video of this that I really don't want to let see the light of day. I was going to say you didn't give me that to put on the show today. That's kind of crazy. I know because it's on purpose. Sometimes when some bad things happen to you, you want to hide it.

When it's embarrassing, you don't like, I come from a time. where people had shame Kevin. I don't know if you know what that's like but obviously I don't I don't follow that philosophy any longer of having shame but definitely definitely have one of those being chopped is one of those things that I feel like after the first time especially if it's a good chop you're going to go numb now for those of you not familiar with pro wrestling terminology a chop is when another grown man slaps you

in the chest. Right. Yeah, you can be a backhand. It could be a forehand. It could be back. It could be both. It could be like that. It could be. But there's some instances, like one time when I saw Gunther versus PCO at Joey Janella's spring break that two men basically made each other just bleed and black and blue from chopping each other. So it's, it's an aggressive thing that is real. There's not, there's no, you're just really slapping another person on their chest. Meanwhile, he's also talking about low blow, but he's talking about low blow and real. life. Now, I'll take being chopped a thousand times over ever actually being low bloat, especially the way they do it in pro wrestling. They don't just like they go, yeah, Kevin gets it. They go with the whole thing. They'll get you with like part of their elbow in here. That doesn't look like it feels good at all. I don't like that one bit. No, I'm going, I'm going with the chops there. And something we didn't mention about the chops. You can go to your friends and say, hey, this pro wrestler chopped me. Like I got one of those. I know what it feels like. Yeah, you're not bragging about getting low blood. You got hit below the bell.

Well, they'll definitely care. Well, they'll care, but it's like, they'll want video of it for you. If it's set up in a way where it's like, hey, I'm going to go get hit low blow. It's like, okay, that's kind of a strange choice that you made there, you know, but the chops are like, oh, that's cool. What's like, what's that like? You know, I think on some level, a lot of people know what it's like to have some pain, you know what I'm saying? Like that. But yeah, Derek, I'm with you on that.

Yeah, I don't know, Kevin. I'm definitely going with the chops for sure. What else we got? Next up. Mark, FMK, drinking Guinness, singing with the last. Lads over drinks for big giant green hats. Oh, boy. All right.

Well, I mean, this one's, believe it or not, this one's actually fairly simple to me. Can we put it back up there just so I have my reference point here? Okay. Drinking Guinness. Drinking with the lads. Singing with the lads. Big giant green hats.

Okay. This is so easy to me. And the reason why is because there's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to marry singing with the lads over drinks. I want to marry. I want to I want to singing with the lads over drinks to be an every weekend occurrence for the rest of my life until the day I die. I want to commit.

I want to put a ring on singing with the lads over drinks. Does that not sound like the best time? It does. Yes. We're kind of aligned. But also every day. Like every single day. So there's that.

I mean, it might might get old after a while, but I don't care. I'm taking it like like a good marriage. Maybe it does get old, but you still enjoy it and you love it and you're having a great time every single day. So, yeah, there, I'm taking that. The F part, probably drinking Guinness because I definitely want to kill the big green hats. Yeah, they're just kind of, it's kind of just the third option there, right? I just don't, I don't want a big green hat. You have two good options and then you got a big green hat.

Have you seen, do you see the Diamondbacks hats today with the little shamrocks? They read like little shamrock print on it. They're a green hat. That's kind of fire. It's totally fire. I'm going to wear it one day a year and I want it more than anything I've ever wanted in my whole entire life. So if anybody's looking to get me a birthday present next week, there you go. But besides that, yeah, no, I don't, I don't know.

I don't want any kind of big green hat. So yeah, no, those are those are getting killed. That's, that's the easy FM, easiest FMK ever. We're really close on this, but I'm actually going to swap. I'm going to swap them for the same reason you ended up at with at the end of the day, the singing with the lads, the actual activity of singing might end up getting a little repetitive. But what you miss with the first option of just drinking Guinness, you could do whatever and drink a Guinness except for drive.

Whatever and drink a Guinness. You know what I'm saying? You can have Guinness and maybe you meet out with the lads later. It wasn't exclusive. So would you rather just sing with the lads or maybe drink a Guinness and decide after that? I have the option to drink Guinness now and I choose not to. I drink other beers. And this is no free ad for Guinness or other beers.

But the point is that when given the choice, I am free will and I choose not to drink Guinness so I'm going to go maybe have a fling with Guinness every once in a while I'm going to have a one night stand with Guinness. Guinness is a booty call. Guinness is not

what I want to do with my time all the time. I want to sing with the lads over beers all the time. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Every single weekend. We established for those to tune into PHNX Puffs last night. Shout out to Groundhog Mama who is a regular in that chat.

I'm not a big karaoke guy. So I think singing with the lads is inherently a little less desirable to me than just having a Guinness. You know what I mean? Guys broke me on that. Saul broke me on that. Me and Saul sang dick in a box together. So we have bonded in a way that me and no other human being will ever bond. Maybe except for Guinness.

Except Guinness. Yeah. Sometimes occasionally. All right. Before we get kicked off of air here. Yeah. What else we got? Question number eight.

Jacob Schult wants to know which. player coach is the first to the pub after the game. Oh, wow. Which player or coach? Doug, Tori seems an obvious answer there, but we're talking St. Patrick's Day. So part of me wants to say Merrill Kelly,

but I know that the correct answer has to be Scott McGuff, right? Like, that's going with Irish things there. Yeah, you are going with Irish things there, Derek. I was going to say, like, you know,

you know the actual individuals in this locker room a lot better than I do. Yeah, it would be Christian. Walker, no doubt. Christian Walker would have been, and it wouldn't have been for a Guinness. He would have been there for a strong bourbon, a very expensive bourbon. And yes, he would have been the first one there. But I don't even know if he needed to because he had a whole entire bar in his locker. So first person, oh, man, see, that's hard because so many, honestly, like when I think of the Diamondbacks players, I don't think of any of them as drinkers. I don't, I mean, I know that they probably partake in drinking. I know several of them probably enjoy it quite a bit. I feel like in a very dad way, it would probably be Joe Mantiply. Not like a big Joe Mantiply just strikes me as like the like the most daddy dad that you've ever seen. I just I said dad.

I was like, I was like that. I was like that. That was like. Whoa. That was like we were coming out. But, uh, Caesar says set up the beer. Yeah. We are off the rails.

Says beer. It was an obvious answer. But yeah, no, I mean, I don't know. Joe Mantiply seems like the kind of guy that would settle up, um, to the bar and have drink. His family was involved in cattle ranching, so I think that's why I strongly feel that. But again, just speculation on my part. What else we got? We got one more? Last but certainly not least. It's Elizabeth question. Elizabeth, if you could have Damon and Kevin compete in a series of challenges, what would you have them compete in and who would win?

I will let you ISO on this one because I am involved in the question. That's such a good question. Immediately the thing that comes to mind is which Nicola and show am I putting you guys on? Am I putting you as a team on double dare to go into the big nose and find the flag? I don't think so. Am I sending you to Legends of the Hidden Temple? That's too much fun. I refuse to do that.

The challenge I'm putting you guys through is the agro-crag on guts. That's what I'm putting you through. And Kevin is far too young to even probably understand that reference. Literally no idea what you're talking about. See, I knew it. I was actually, I thought maybe, you know, hole in the wall. You make me sick. Hold on the wall could be fun.

Oh, holding the wall would be fun. Oh, holding the wall would be great. Crazy, you know, contortions to our body and try to fit through the wall. I would actually, I'm watching a show right now called Extracted. And the idea of you being the guy that works with Damon, the premise of the show is the contestants are out in the wild by themselves, trying to survive with very little supplies and very little assistance. and should they either, you know, freak out and need help or get medically injured or just not want to be out there anymore,

they can like ask their person, their people back at the HQ to extract them. And that's when you lose the game. And I feel very much like you guys would be a terrible team, but it would be hilarious to watch you guys. Like Damon, Damon would be out there just the whole time being asked to be extracted. Like, bro, this isn't fun anymore. And Kevin would be back and be like, you've been there for six hours. Go make a tent. You know, like it would be like that.

Dave would be like, it's chilly. Extract me. That would be great. I feel like me and Damon, like you said, we're a good team. But I feel like in that kind of a context, we would end up strangling one another. Yeah. That's definitely what I feel like. I mean, I don't know.

I think. I still like the idea of you guys being on a Nickelodeon show together, though. That definitely amuses me. Derek, who wins? Cesar wants to know who wins in a 999 challenge between me and Damon. I do feel like this answer may be obvious. Yeah, it's Damon. What? It's Damon.

Yo, what? I feel like you are immediately going to the size thing. Are you not? Yeah, but also I can eat. Like, the reason I was so big for a long part of my life is because I was eating a lot of things. Yeah. I mean, I get it. I also eat a lot of things and always have. It doesn't mean that I didn't experience my own setback and disappointment when I attempted the Waffle House challenge. I know you. It's not, it's not the nine hot dogs that I'm concerned with you consuming because that's what you're focusing on. It's the nine beers. Okay. It is the nine beers.

Okay. And it is the speed of it. I am no longer equipped for these kind of challenges. And I've realized that now. And I have no problem stepping back and saying my time and the spotlight is over when it comes to eating challenges. But, you know, I'll take my extraction dub. Damon can have the nine nine nine challenge. Okay.

I feel like there's levels to this. All right. Well, it's again, it's nothing personal. It's mostly about the alcohol consumption. But I know so many people are going to do that exact thing on this day. So I'm going to let you guys go get to it. But I do appreciate you stopping by to celebrate this anti-snake holiday with us as always. I love you guys. Make sure to leave a like before you get out of here. I did have a programming note. We talked about it a little bit with our diehards. Of course, make sure to drop us a comment or your thoughts. thoughts on this or contact me on Twitter. But during regular season post game shows, we're going to be coming to you a little bit later than we normally have. So I can go do some postgame coverage, including discussing the game with Tori, going into the clubhouse for player reactions. So again, hope you guys all stick with us in regards to that. Hope you enjoy us being able to bring as close to the amount of content as we used to last season. So I love you guys.

Appreciate you. As always, of course, make sure you follow us. on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore Kman with K. My guy Kev is at Kev-O posts. Kev on stage is still dominating that that search bar when you go to look for his name. It's crazy because he doesn't even go by

Kevo. It's just his happenstance that the next word. You're never going to meet Kev on stage. You're never going to meet him. Don't underestimate me, dear. He is simply a comedian. He's a very niche audience, but everybody loves Kev on stage. I actually also love his content.

We all do. But of course, our shows at PHNX underscore D-backs. As always, though, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time. Again, have a very safe night. Enjoy this anti-snake holiday,

but enjoy it safely. Make sure you get home safe. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. We're going to be joined by one T-Time, Ryan Thompson on that episode to talk a little bit about his thoughts on this team, especially considering he's becoming a grizzled old vet around these parts lately. So make sure to join

us back here on Wednesday for that. Until then, have yourselves a wonderful evening and a wonderful Tuesday. Be safe. Behave yourselves. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Tori finally announces an opening day starter.