PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks injuries keep piling up, Braves sweep series in Atlanta

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

The Diamondbacks continue to lose key members of their lineup to injury, resulting in a tough series sweep at the hands of the Braves. We discuss the infuriating numbers from Atlanta, the mistakes that lead to the losses, and more. We also have your updates from Jordan Montgomery’s first start in Reno and our answers to your Mailbag Monday questions!An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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.

to another edition of the PHNXTVax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This is my vice mayor, your Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. And of course, does this music make you feel better about what happened over the weekend? You mean Cody Rhodes winning the WWA championship? No, Derek, that's not. Yeah, I'm good great about that. He finished the story, baby.

Let's go, Cody. A big shout out, by the way, to my guy, Cody Rhodes. and also Drew, I'm sorry. But shout out to all of you for being here. Of course, ski to you all. And welcome in to another edition of this show. We don't really want to talk about what happened this weekend. I don't think it's fair that I should have to.

I don't think it's fair that I didn't go to Philadelphia. I could have been on stage during Roman Raines's entrance, playing the drums with my friend Tick and Megarand. But instead, you know what I was doing? I was here watching the Diamondbacks lose every single game. and each time it took a little piece of my soul that I don't think I'm ever going to get back. That absolutely sucked. We talked about how the Diamondbacks just winning one game would have felt like a victory,

considering that they had both Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson going in the series. We felt like, you know, avoiding the sweep at least was encouraging. I think this hurts more than anything we could have imagined because instead of avoiding the sweep, the Diamondbacks do get swept. and they get swept in spectacular fashion where they had a lead or were tied in every single game and in fact had a huge lead in two of those games blew them blew the games late and ended up losing all three games in the most painful fashion that they could have yeah i mean pretty much right i guess the the silver lining from sunday was that they was that they didn't they didn't lose four

consecutive one run games um Miguel Castro gave up a couple of runs late which made it a three And loss. That does not make it feel better. Nothing you said makes me feel better. I mean, clearly eases the pain. No, these are three just brutal games for the Diamondbacks.

And yeah, I mean, going in, we talked about expectations for the series and given the way the pitching matchups lined up, it did not at all look favorable for the Diamondbacks. But as things turned out, Diamondbacks starting pitchers, like actually kind of held their own in this series.

Even Ryan Nelson on Sunday, five innings three runs. He got 16 whiffs in that game. He hung in there pretty well. against Chris Sale. But at the end of the day, it was just kind of the same thing over and over again, where the debacks, you know, in that Saturday game, they score six runs in the first inning.

They were up eight to two midway through the fourth in that game. And the Braves just keep chipping away and shipping away and shipping away. And the Diamondbacks bullpen obviously had a bit of a rough weekend. They continued to struggle scoring runs late in games. And on the whole, I mean, I don't think the Diamondbacks as a whole, like, totally embarrassed themselves in Atlanta, like they hung in there against a really good Braves team, you know, without a lot of key players, which are going to talk about in a second, all the injuries that have sort of decimated this roster in the last few days and the last few weeks, really.

But yeah, I mean, just to lose these games and have these games all be as close as they were and make some of the key mistakes that the Diamondbacks made along the way, it was a rough watch for sure. More importantly, the Diamondbacks have been the best team in baseball at scoring runs early, but Cannot produce runs late. And in fact, we will get around to how good they made the bullpen here look in a second for Atlanta. And Atlanta does arguably have a very, very good bullpen. But the Diamondbacks, first in baseball when it comes to scoring runs innings one through three,

in fact, have scored nearly 40 runs already. 38 runs total, which gives them number one overall. They also have a 1.030 OPS in those innings, which is also first in Major League Base. Baseball. Great. What happens after that, Jesse? It's not great. Innings four through six, I guess.

I mean, it's not totally terrible. The Diamondbacks have scored 15 runs to this point in the season, the season innings four through six. That is tied for eighth in all of baseball. So not bad. They have a 764 team OPS in those middle innings, which is seven, so not bad. And then you get to inning seven through nine, Derek. And that's where the Diamondbacks offense has been basically useless this season. they've scored five runs in inning seven through nine this season.

Five runs. Only the Chicago White Sox have scored fewer runs in inning seven through nine of the nine backs. The lowly Chicago. The lowly White Sox. It's never good when you're mentioned in the same sentence as that baseball team. And a four and possibly even worse, I mean, actually literally worse, a 449 OPS in inning seven through nine that is worse than even the Chicago White Sox. I don't know what to say about this.

I mean, what are your thoughts here? Is it a matter of some of the managing decisions that we've seen where the lineup changes late in games? Or is it the dog in them, Jesse? I mean, is it the dog? Does the dog turn to a puppy late in games? I feel like there is something to be said about the fact that typically so far, we've seen comebacks, even in the wins.

We've seen teams kind of muster up some runs late and come back. It almost feels like the Diamondbacks have such a lead early that they get on their heels and the whole team bullpen offense everybody is kind of you know just just kind of playing a little scared instead of having that same level of confidence that they have when the game starts i just i can't explain that drop off and run production for inning seven through nine yeah i can't really explain it either i mean 10 30 ops in the first three innings of four forty nine opses in inning seven through nine we're still early enough in the season that i'm hesitant to really latch on to any of these things

is being like, like, is this a thing or is it just kind of what's happened in the first 10 games? Like do the Diamondbacks actually, is there something systematically wrong with how they're approaching hitting in the later innings versus the early innings? Or is this just kind of an early season aberration

that will kind of correct itself over the course of the year? At this point, we're dealing with such a small sample size that it's kind of hard to know. Gabriel makes an excellent point there. He says to be fair, they're facing teams with, with bullpens with a lot of lefties.

And the debacks have kind of killed like the lefty starters that they face for the most part. I mean, what they did to Max Fried the other day. I know Chris Sale was pretty good. Debacks have kind of killed almost every lefty starter they've encountered this season. Here's the other thing that would track the opposite direction of that is that they're getting to the starting pitcher early, right? So you would think that like the change of pitcher in a game, essentially theoretically, they would jump all over that pitcher.

when they came into a game, right? So it's like hard to really, like you said, put your finger on what is wrong with this team. But we do want to take a look at the numbers from this series with the Elam Brave. So let's take a look at the count. And as you can see here, things kind of don't really track for the Diamondbacks,

I guess. Doesn't look like a series. It does not look like a series suite. Especially with the runners in scoring position, the run production here, 20 Atlanta runs to the Diamondbacks 15 runs. 34 hits for the Braves, 26 for the Diamondbacks, a 351 batting average for the Braves with runners in scoring position.

The snakes had a 333. And then the starting pitching ERA, the Braves had a 9.22 starting pitching ERA. Jesse, if I told you that they went up against these three pitchers in Spencer Strider, Max Freed, and Chris Sale, and the result was that they had a 9.22 collective ERA in these three starts, I think you would say, how the hell did that? they lose, but then a zero point. They did not give up one run in the series. They did not get one run against the bullpen.

It's so infuriating. Like you would think just out of luck that they would get a run scoring in one of those games. But of course, the starting pitching ERA for the Diamondbacks 5.74, not great. But again, you'll take that when you have Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry both in that series along with Brandon Fought, who has been excellent. so far this season. But of course, again, didn't give really, didn't give him that win. The Diamondbacks relief pitching ERA, pretty terrible at 6.75, but still not enough. I think that would these numbers don't add up to you getting swept in a series like that.

They just really don't. Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't think so. I mean, getting outscored 20 to 15 in a series against arguably the best team in baseball is far from an embarrassing outcome on paper. Right. I mean, the Diamondbacks really did go in there with their three through five. starters and and they really did hold their own in a lot of ways and yet at the end of the day all that really matters is how many games did you win and the answer to that question is zero the diamondbacks

didn't win any games we've already talked about the friday game quite a bit right we did our post game show for that uh that was the yeah that was the two big mistakes in the ninth inning that sent the game to extra innings diamondbacks lost that one that was in my mind probably the toughest loss of the of the series probably the season so far i don't know though saturday Saturday was pretty rough to you. Diamondbacks up six nothing early, as we said. This guy, this guy texted me, eight to two several innings later. Eight runs isn't going to be enough.

Gross, gross, gross, gross that you were so right. I hate that you were so right. But I hate that that statement came to be true. That the Diamondbacks at one point, they didn't have, I don't think a substantial lead. I think when I texted you that I was nervous, I think it was eight to five. Yeah, that was right after the three run Homer against five. But it was insane that you're sitting. You're saying that a three run lead shouldn't be something that.

they should be able to hold for the next hour of time, right? Like, it's just, it's really bad. There's a lot of bad things happening. I mean, there was some mistakes. Obviously, the Jake McCarthy throwing error was there was a there was an unearned run in that game and the diamond backs lost the game by one run. So you could attribute it maybe wasn't quite as egregious as the night before where the debacks literally turned a win into a loss pretty much is with those two defensive mishaps in the ninth inning. Uh, but yeah, and Saturday's game, Jake McCarthy had trouble getting off a throw in the eighth inning after a Ronald Acuna single. It allowed Acuna to get to second base.

And he wound up scoring later in the inning. And he would not have scored on paper if McCarthy hadn't made that mistake. So, yeah, you could also attribute Saturday's loss, at least in in pretty significant part to that mistake made by Jake McCarthy. And then Sunday's game, you know, it was a three run loss. It doesn't feel like the debacks were, you know, right there necessarily in the same way, that was the case with those first two games. But still, Blaze Alexander, there was a play in the second inning. Marcel Ozuna hit an infield single.

It wasn't scored in error, but it was a play that I think Geraldo Pardomo probably makes. Blaze going to his left, he did a nice job getting to the ball, but his throat took Christian Walker off the bag. Marcelo Zuna reached and Ozuna later scored on a sacrifice fly. And again, it wasn't ruled in air, but it was a play that I think a lot of other short stops probably make. and on paper, if that, if that doesn't happen, then instead of it being a three, two, Braves lead in the eighth inning, then you're tied, right? It's a two-two game. And at that point, the Diamondbacks probably don't go to Miguel Castro in the eighth inning.

They probably go to someone else that they feel a little better about, maybe Ryan Thompson. And who knows what happens from there if that, if that mistake isn't made. So the Diamond Beck just killed themselves with defensive misuse. You know, there's a lot of things you can pick out in the, in this series, the offense. and, you know, needing to tack on is certainly one of them. But, man, to lose with as many defensive mishaps as they did. And for Blaze Alexander to be as prominent as he was, I think I count, I count four plays in three games that Blaze Alexander didn't make that I think

you probably should make. Like, that's pretty rough. I think it's time that I say something. As founder and proprietor of the Blaze Alexander fan club, I'd like to issue the following statement. We have no comment at this time. Okay. They clearly felt the absence of Perdomo.

Yeah. And Paul Seawald and the other starters. These injuries have just absolutely piled up. I mean, we talked about it in the off season a couple of times when we talked about what are they going to do with all this depth? Where are they going to do with all these guys? This is what happens during a baseball season. It just doesn't happen like this much.

with this critical of personnel, like right to start the season. But other teams are absolutely experiencing this. The Braves have a devastating loss there with Spencer Strider potentially. Yeah. We know that there's a lot of talk about how the pitch clock factors in. The pitch clock's getting blamed for stuff when someone actually pointed out. No, it's the fact that we're making small children throw at 95 miles an hour when there's still small children. That's a whole other story.

Yeah, maybe it's not the pitch clock. Maybe it's that you're nine-year-old is pumping like 86 in the back. I mean, Tyler Glassnow had an interesting thing about grip and how like, you know, the way they have to grip the ball differently and gripping the different size balls, the inconsistent size of the balls is a huge problem from a pitcher perspective because sometimes you have to grip it differently and that's how this muscle down here can potentially falter, fail, get torn, whatever the hell happens there. But right now, things aren't good. Prudomo is expected to miss some time. According to Nick Picoro, he will have surgery and is expected to miss four to six weeks from what. one perspective, at least this is early on in the season where you still have time to rebound from this and have Predomo fully healthy for the rest of the season.

Yeah. Sounds like, according to LaVolo, why they decided to go that route instead of maybe just cortisone shots. Right. Yeah. At this point in the season, I mean, four to six weeks is something that you can put up with, right? And it doesn't mean it's easy.

The Diamondbacks did as we discussed the other day, putting Prudomo on the aisle is going to be tough because it would require them to make a 40-man roster move. in order to bring Kevin Newman up, which is what they wound up doing. So Corbyn Martin has been designated for assignment. Which is infuriating to me. That's infuriating. Debacks have, I guess it'd be six more days to figure out what to do with him, whether he gets traded or if it's possible that he could clear waivers.

I don't necessarily think that's totally out of the question. It's not necessarily what I expect. We'll see what happens there. But yeah, I mean, you know, four to six weeks is in the grand sense. scheme of things not all that long but we've seen just in the last few days since perdomo went down the diamondbacks haven't won a game since heraldo perdomo went down with injury and that injury i mean in all in every single game the diamond backs have lost i know i know i know damon is getting really excited as i say this but perdomo uh yeah i mean if the diamond backs had perdomo it's

it's hard to see all of these games going the way that they did oh he's disgusting That's disgusting. Do you have anything to say? Do you want to say? Coincidence? I think not. No. No.

It's only the thing that Damon's been saying this whole time, which is that Jerry P is the backbone of this team. You don't have to believe that Perdomo is like a star level player to see the very big impact of not having him, right? Because the diamond backs without him are forced to have a rookie shortstop in there. Or in the case in the case of today's game against the Rock. They've got Kevin Newman playing shortstop and then Blaze starting at DH instead. Even that is a little tricky because Kevin Newman is doesn't really have a great track record as a shortstop.

He's played the position in the past. He does have some majorly experience, which is, I suppose, good. But, but if you look at his defensive metrics, he has not generally been a very good shortstop at all. Jesse, how many times have I yelled intangibles at you in like the last six months about Pardoma? Like I've probably done it. Six months. Probably about 100 times, I'd say. More than I cared to count.

Just screaming intangibles. It's the truth. It's the damn truth. The Diamondbacks are absolutely decimated right now by injuries. In fact, let's take a look at the whole list of injuries because, ugh, this is rough. Leach Jordan Montgomery got his first start underway there in Reno, which we'll talk about here shortly. But Alec Thomas, of course, with the hamstring, Geraldo Perdomo with his knee, Jordan Lawler, thumb, Eduardo Rodriguez, his lat, Paul Seawald, oblique, and of course,

Dre Jameson will miss the rest of the season with his elbow injury, most likely. Why is Jordan Montgomery listed as an OG? Well, because he's a, he's an OG. I appreciate you, Jesse. I put a lot of time into making an nice looking beautiful graphic for you. I genuinely thought you were trying to, like, make a statement. Like, oh, he's an OG. He's Jordan Montgomery.

He just wants to point out to the whole audience, all, all, all 56 of you beautiful people watching. Here's the one mistake David made on this great looking graphic. He's an offensive guard. The rest of the graphic looks great, Damon. I just want you to know that. No, no, it's cool.

It sucks. It sucks. It sucks and I should get fired. Just throw the whole graphic in the trash now. But, uh, of course, can, can you give us something to be positive about here with this team? I don't, I don't have it in me to do this, Jesse. Yeah.

I mean, my, my biggest positive right now is that the diamond backs are going to play baseball game in about four hours and they are not going to be playing the Atlanta Braves they're going to be playing a team that is very very very far from the Atlanta Braves and the Colorado Rockies we saw how that went last week I want to ask the question I want to say but what if but I'm not going to I'm not going to say about a series with the Rockies I will say that at least the Diamondbacks haven't been striking out a lot right they have in fact the lowest strikeout rate at 17 point for 17.4% and they rank 11th in walk rate at 9.6%. So not not terrible there.

Yeah. Yeah. They just need to be that patient throughout the entire game and not just innings one through six. Yeah. I mean, and the other thing I'll say as far as the injuries go real quick is that a lot of these guys should be back pretty soon. If the diamond backs were or in this position and playing the way that they were and Alec Thomas and Geraldo Pranomo and Paul Sewell, were out three or four months or something like that, you'd feel a lot different about this. But really, I mean, Alec Thomas could be back in a few weeks, I think. Nick Piccolo said that he could start a running progression this week,

which feels pretty quick coming off the hamstring injury. Eduardo Rodriguez threw a bullpen session on Friday. That was also in Piccaro's story. Paul Seawald got out to 90 feet throwing over the weekend, another positive step in his progression back. I think it's possible that all of these guys, are hurt right now with of course the exception of dray jameson jordan lawler might take a little bit longer you could have all of these guys back in a month and a half which is only about a quarter of the season

and it's not to say that they're going to have zero injuries the rest of the way necessarily that's not a reasonable expectation but none of these injuries are super long term and yeah and you know if you get some of these guys back in a few weeks suddenly this roster starts to look pretty darn good and you know who looked pretty darn good was brandon fought said a career high with 20 whiffs the other day and just continues to progress in a direction of him being everything we thought he could be in more. We talked about what version of Brandon fought would we see this season. Would we see that playoff version of him?

And so far, it does feel like he has made significant steps forward as far as perhaps being that guy that we saw there in the postseason a bit more than what we saw in the middle of the season last year. I mean, I know like the peripheral stats mean basically nothing at this point. So I'm not really going to read much into them. But if you go off of pretty much all of those numbers, Brandon Fott has been the Diamondback's best starter so far. You look at the quality of contact against him.

It's generally been pretty poor. Obviously, he left a pitch in a bad spot. And Marcelo Zuna hit a really big three run home run the other day. But I thought Fott pitched a lot better than his final line would tell you. I think it was five runs and five and two thirds innings. 20 whiffs is a really, really big number. Like we only see Zach Gallen hit that number, maybe, you know, a handful of times in an entire season. That's, that's really impressive.

It was a career high for Fought. He had 17 in NLCS game three last year, which of course was an enormous game for him when he had nine strikeouts against the Phillies and basically retired every single hitter he faced. So, yeah, I think Fought has looked outstanding so far. It would be really, really cool to see him just continue to progress throughout the season. and the kind of pitcher that he can become here in year two. Obviously, we are also waiting for Jordan Montgomery's arrival, and we wonder what kind of pitcher he could be for this team. He did make his debut with the Reno Aces, and so far look pretty good.

Yeah. Has, you know, again, there's something to be said about the fact that this is his first game against an actual opposing team and not a bullpen, not a simulated game, not anything like that. But very encouraging, and of course, you know, this is part of it, him giving some kind of live real at-bats and not starting out in major leagues, right? Yeah, yeah. He pitched pretty well.

Four innings, three hits, two runs, three walks, three strikeouts, at elevation, of course. So welcome to the moon, Jordan Montgomery. You don't have to stay in the Pacific Coast League for too long, but enjoy your stay. I think he's pitching in Tacoma next timeouts. That'll be a nice respite from some of the very, very, very, hitter-friendly environments there. But yeah, his sinker average 91.2 miles an hour. So his Velo was down about two miles an hour from where it was last year.

Last year, he averaged 93.3. I don't think that's something to read into a whole lot at this point. As you said, it's his first start against like actual competition. And it's still a start in the minor. So maybe the adrenaline isn't quite there the same way it would be. Get comfortable. That's the point of it, right? Is to get comfortable actually pitch against real batters.

and not just, you know, teammates or people in the organization on the back lot. And I mean, of course, the big thing here is that when Jordan Montgomery said that he will pitch on the 19th, he meant it. Because according to Nick Picoro, his contract stipulates that. Yeah. He has to start for the Diamondbacks by April 19th. I guess, I mean, I guess it just says he has to be on the active roster by April 19th. Oh, okay. They could just like bring him up, but just have him chill on the roster for however long.

but yeah, that's not going to happen. Yeah, right, because they want them to be ready and stretched out, right? But we talked about Merrill Kelly is currently, if you, if you, if everything stays on the current path that it's on, Merrill Kelly would pitch on that day. So it depends on if Tori moves Merrill out, but I think, I think Tori will move Merrill out. Yeah, but Tommy Henry is pitching the next day on the 20th. So theoretically, he could also slot in there. But it would make sense to give Merrill that extra day off and to just kind of bring him in there to, break up, you know, the combo of Gowan and Merrill and have that left-handed pitcher there in the

middle. Yeah. And I mean, I saw a stat on Twitter. I'm forgetting, I think it was maybe D-backed stats and info. The ERA of Diamondback starting pitchers named Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly and the ERA of the starting pitchers who are not. Of course, there's a really big discrepancy there. I think it was a 660 ERA for starters not named Zach Gallen or Merrill Kelly. And that's very much a repeat of last season, right? When it was a really big. wasn't when you didn't have either of those guys on the mound starting, there were some, there were some long days at the ballpark for, for D-Backs fans watching Zach Davies, watching Madison Bumgarner, watching some of the young starters.

The name Jack Davis just had completely escaped my brain. I was like, oh yeah, he was a pitcher on this team last season. He made like 14 starts for the Diamondbacks last year. He was for a game or two. Yeah, at the beginning of the season, Zach Dayes is the best pitcher on this team. But yeah, and that's just not something we expect to continue, right? You're just not going to have an ERA over six from the non-Zack Merrill starts the rest of the way because theoretically, if all goes well in a few weeks, you're going to get Eduardo Rodriguez back.

You're going to get Jordan Montgomery back. Brandon Fott is actually pitching quite well, despite what his ERA might tell you at this point. I think he's looked pretty darn good in his first couple of starts this season. This rotation still has the makings of being one of the best in baseball. There's really no evidence to believe otherwise right now. And that's why at the end of the day, Derek, I'm really not. I'm really not that concerned with anything that I've seen over the last few days. Debacks have lost four in a row.

It's been a rough stretch. You would have liked to at least get one of those games in Atlanta. The fashion in which they lost, I think, was really tough for people to swallow. But at the end of the day, I mean, this team is second in baseball and runs scored. Yeah. They have a 778 team OPS, which, yes, it's weird how that is, you know, way better in the first few innings than the last few winnings. It would still try and to figure out why that is. but a 778 team OPS is still very good.

The Diamondbacks have hit well. Their pitching, by and large, has actually been pretty good. They have a team ERA of 3.90, which is pretty solid. Their bullpen ERA even, this might be surprising to people. They have a bullpen ERA of 3.55. Well, I think part of it is the extra any runs with the ghost runners are unearned, right? Those are unurned. Even though you think about a lot of runs that they've given up, a lot of them have been

unearned runs, and also due to the mistakes, they are unearned runs. So that's not, I mean, it's not that surprising if you've actually been watching this team. But you do feel like the bullpen takes takes on much more of the responsibility here for some of these losses. The bullpen has not been great. Like many of you said, Miguel Castro has just flat out stunk. There are certain guys that, yeah, it's been pretty much all that. He doesn't feel he's not going to be comfortable singling him out. I will, I'm fucking singling people out because our dog Ryan Thompson ain't one of them.

In fact, Ryan Thompson has been exceptional. I mean, I just, I can't, I just am having a hard time fathoming, Derek, how the Diamondbacks pick this guy up. From the raise just because he was released last year. Just too bad games. I mean, it's not just, it's not just that he like pitched well in the postseason. He gave up one run in 13 innings down the stretch last year and he's come back this season and is given up like a couple of hits in his five innings. He hasn't given up a run yet. It, it's been real.

I mean, Ryan Thompson is not going to have a. 0.6 ERA for his entire Diamondbacks career. I don't think, but like, I'm not totally sure, Derek, because he just keeps doing this. And it's, uh, it has been pretty remarkable to watch. I can't wait to see him so that we can talk about Cody winning the championship last night. I'm sure. I will be, I'll dip out. That is absolutely.

Jesse's just going to piece out when we do have that conversation. I feel like with this team, like essentially everything has gone wrong to start this season. Yeah. And with the record that they have. Like with, when we were looking at the buy the number. for the Yankee series and they were better in every single statistic and they lost that series or against the Braves when they're like it's pretty evenly matched up and then they got swept like whether it's whether it's injuries or Tori making bad managerial decisions at times or or just

whatever like we're losing on the margins and we're so close to having a really really good record and that's why it just hurts because it's it feels like we could we could be like one of the best teams in baseball record-wise right now. So the things this team did last April so well was playing flawless baseball. And they are absolutely not playing flawless baseball right now. And when they were playing flawless baseball, it could make up for some of their shortcomings like the bullpen not being as good as it ended up being by the end of the season and things like that.

However, it catches up on you because if you need to play flawless baseball in order to win baseball games, the minute you start playing like this, you are losing those close games. You are making those mistakes late. you are letting the other team gain that momentum. Momentum's a real thing in baseball. It's a confidence thing. And when you start realizing, like, you got the opposing team on their heels,

and you as the opposing team, even with the lead, start feeling like you are backpedaling and you are on your heels, then it might already be too late. So this team needs to get some of that confidence back. Again, there are people that are missing from this team that gave them that, including Evan Longoria, and including Tommy Fam, who Tommy Fam is the kind of guy, who's going to say a bunch of four-letter words at you in the dugout to get you to realize that you are still the same player you were in the ninth inning that you were in the first inning.

That's something right now that the Diamondbacks really need to realize about themselves. They are incredible in the first inning, and there's no reason why they can't be just as incredible throughout the game. They just seemingly are taking their gas off or foot off the pedal, and it's not yielding the results we're seeing, right? And not only that, but the defense has been horrific to start the season. And we have had a, the debacks have had a good defense almost every year under Tori Lovolo and his entire managerial tenure, which has been a long time.

And it's pretty shocking to see. It's not just defense, but it's base running too. They've made a lot of big that Yankee series. We saw them lose possibly a couple of games because of defensive mistakes that they made. So yeah, it's been uncharacteristic mistakes, which they absolutely have to clean up. Personnel is part of it, not having her all to Prudomo, as we've certainly. felt the effects of that, not having Paul Seawald. You've certainly felt the effects of that as well, not having Erod and Jordan Montgomery

in the rotation. You felt the effects of that as well. But at the end of the day, the debacks have scored a whole lot of runs this year. I mean, they're pitching by and large has been actually pretty good. These last few days have been rough. But this doesn't look like a baseball team to me that is, you know, not living up to the, to the hype in the sense of like, you know, on the verge of really having a rough season or anything like that.

It's not, at least right now from what we've seen, I just don't really get that sense watching this team. I understand how it's doom and gloom for some people, but let's keep it positive and let's see how you feel after they play the Rockies, perhaps. So we have that coming up. Of course, we do thank all of you for being here right now in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Of course, if you're here, smash that like button. Gabby, I don't know if you want to smash the light button. No, smash it. Gabby's performance.

To make him better at baseball. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the applause thing that they did last season. You know, well, let's do that. Let's give him some likes here. And let's hope that this team could get things back on track specifically. The fact that they're so close without guys like Gabby and Corby and Corby and Carol not performing at what we

know that they could be, you know, how they could be performing. But of course, subscribe to the channel, sign up for notifications, do all that stuff, drop a like. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you're subscribe there. Leave us a review. We always appreciate those reviews. Those five-star reviews definitely help us out. a ton of course a great way to make baseball more fun and including the basketball tournament going on all all ends tonight get down on the bet mjim sports book app get down on those uh ukan or peru bets of

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this show is women's history month and of course every month is black women's history month every week every day earth day every day there is a total solar eclipse there is a total solar eclipse every single day on this show sometimes it's in my heart. But of course, on Mondays, Mondays are special. You know what we do. We go to the mailbag. Damon, shall we? My mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I'm trying to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while there's a letter that makes we go, wow, wow, my mailbox. I still can't believe that. I thought about what about. The rangers entrance. It would be monster.

Monster. You just, just, I should have been in Philadelphia. Anyway, what do we got, Damon? First side of questions we got is from Travis Moore. More for me on Twitter. Can I just say that Travis has like a Cal Ripkin Ironman streak of being the first mailbag question going right now? Like there's no doubt in my mind he's been like the last 10 mailbag question. Number one. MVP.

It sounds like it. Known good question asker, Travis Moore. He says, how long do we wait before we can legitimately be legitimately concerned about Corbyn's performance this season? Hopefully we don't. hopefully we don't i feel like we are to a point where we've seen at least some encouraging at bats um but it is frustrating it's frustrating to watch him struggle the way he has and i i i don't know really what the answer to that is right now i mean there's some some progress that's being made

but the results really aren't there right now so i have a i have a stat to present that i don't think is going to make you very happy but oh no what else is new we we do of this every day. So Corbyn Carroll since June 15th of last year, I believe this includes the playoffs. He is hitting 263, 340, 424. It's a 764 OPS. And that's not a very small sample size. That is nearly 500 plate appearances in which Corbyn Carroll has a 764 OPS.

And June 15th, of course, there's a reason that this timeline starts there. That is when, I believe, when the first Corbyn Carroll shoulder incident happened, or at least right around there, there's, I think, a reasonable question to be asked about whether that whole situation has impacted Corby and Carroll's power in any sense. He's still managed. He's still gotten on base pretty well in the playoffs. He still got on base a ton. He's still done some very good things in that span of time. But we haven't seen the power that we saw in the first half of last season. So I'm not necessarily inclined to think that there is, you know, a huge thing happening here with Corbyn Carroll. I still think it's so early in the season to be making any kind of big judgments. But I will say that this is a trend that has gone on for a while now, or Corbyn's power has just not really been there. And of course, with what we've seen so far this year, it's not just the power that hasn't been there. It's that he just hasn't really made good contact with much of any.

anything. I will jump this table right now, Jesse. How dare you come after sweet, sweet Corbyn. So, like, according to Jesse Friedman, Corby and Carroll is washed. That's what I do. The 764 OPS is not bad. If Corbyn Carol had a 764 OPS over a full season being as good a base runner as he is, he would still be a very valuable player. So this is not to say that Corbyn Carroll is like, oh, maybe he's not even a good baseball player. This is to say, you know, at least from what we've seen over these last six months, or I guess this would be, I mean, June was, what, 10 months ago now, but about six months of like actual games being played. And his last six months of actual games being played, he has not been the MVP caliber player that we saw at the beginning of last year. So let me ask you this, if it was an impact of Shoulder Gate.

Shouldergate, nice. Is this, in your opinion, due to perhaps a change of. mechanics due to that or is this due to a persistent injury or a way that he's feeling where he's not right and there might be something actually wrong with his shoulder? I don't think there's something wrong with his shoulder, but I wonder about the the mental impact of feeling what he felt and thinking that his season was over and then having another incident very similar shortly thereafter, right? And he's also been kind of alternating between a two-hand followed through and a one hand in a one handed follow through it's more natural but he also did

that before that incident before that injury he did have times where he had a two-handed follow through and a one-handed follow-through there was there was video that was broken down that showed that that wasn't necessarily something he exclusively did but maybe it's something that the frequency picked up more on the two-handed swing after that due to you know like you said due to the mental aspect of just thinking about potentially injuring yourself again so right i don't know that's i think that is a valid amount of time to pool. I think that we will see Corvin Carroll, based on the average there, be better than he's been early this season.

But of course, there is a lot to be said about, you know, everything that goes on with a baseball player in their second season and how much information is available on them, how people are playing it differently. You know, of course, Corvin's still going to be a huge asset to this team. We just hope that he can get back right here soon. I really don't have any questions. about Corbyn breaking out of this current slump that he's in. For me, it's just a question of like, how high is the ceiling for him this year?

I mean, can he go out and be a top five MVP caliber player yet again? I think he's going to be a good player no matter what. It's just a question of kind of how high that ceiling is this year. All right. What else we got? Next question comes from our guy, Coggs, aka Matthew. Cog says, do you think the D-Backs? Doxing him?

Yeah. Coggs' name is Matthew? You don't have the talk. This is, this was news to me, but of course I do have to dox them. Cog says, do you think the D-backs bring up fresh arms from Reno before our next homestand? If so, how many and who? I don't know. I don't think that that's really feasible right now with the kind of log jam that they have.

But I also think that the Diamondbacks have proven so far over the last 12 months that if you're not pulling weight, they will cut you. will move on from you. And so, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised to see a drastic move here, but the diamondbacks are limited on arms for the time being. So I, I'm leaning towards being doubtful that we see that before the next homestand. I mean, the last couple games, like you got five and two thirds from fought on Saturday. You got five from Ryan Nelson yesterday. You've got Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly pitching in these first two games in Colorado.

So I don't think that. from a workload standpoint, the diamond backs are in deep trouble or anything like that necessarily, given the fact that you have Gallin and Kelly, you know, starting off this series against the Rockies, I'm inclined to think the debacks you're going to be able to get by without having to dip into their pitching depth in Reno in order to pick up any additional arm. So it could happen if they did add an additional, if they did add an arm from Reno, I imagine that Andrews Salfranc or Justin Martinez is probably be the first the first man, first man called up,

given what they have down there right now. But yeah, I think they're probably going to be okay. They also have an off day on Thursday, which should help them out going into that Cardinal series. At some point, we're going to need to talk about how good Christian Mena has been for this team in Reno

because he has been pitching very, very good down there. So, of course, we'll get to that soon. But what else we got here, Demi? Next question comes from our guy. Sleep at the wheel. Jeff, bunch of numbers. And Jeff asks, if the bullpen was bad last year, why has nothing been done to change it? I mean, I guess you could blame a little bit the fact that once they traded for Seawald, everybody was pretty good.

You could blame the fact that they picked up Ryan Thompson, and that Ryan Thompson was excellent for this team down the stretch, as Jesse said earlier. Even Andrew Saul-Frank, also excellent for this team. They kind of got themselves in a position where the bullpen had righted the ship. And a lot of those pieces, like Seawald's not available right now due to injury. Obviously, we're missing, you know, Saul Frank. They sent him down. I think they thought they were in a better position and had other areas to address, to be quite frank. I think they also have a plan maybe here with, you know, some of these, with Ryan Nelson or Tommy Henry,

where they might see those guys as bullpen pieces potentially. But right now they need them in the starting rotation. So that might answer it, but it was also a question this guy had been asking the entire offseason, when are they going to address the bullpen? Because it didn't really feel like it was sustainable based on what we saw from them last year. Right, right. Yeah, I don't really think it's fair to say the Diamondbacks bullpen was bad last year. It was, it was bad in the first half. It was bad pre-Paul Seawald.

But then after Paul Seawald, it was very, very good. But to your point, I don't really think. that that was sustainable and you almost wonder if if in in the grand scheme of things it wasn't great that the bullpen was as good as it was down the stretch because maybe it did cause the diamond backs to rest on their laurels a little bit too much they didn't need to be like oh we've got and we got thompson ginkle and seawald i mean it's the best seven eight nine trio in in baseball over the last couple months right why would we add anything to that i as you said did feel over the offseason that adding something there would make sense uh but it looks a lot different once

Seawald comes back. So I still am not ready to say that this bullpen is terrible. We also talked about earlier how they have a 3-55-E-R-A as a unit this season, which is not bad at all. They've been at their worst, I think, in the biggest of moments, which is not a great, not a great thing. That's kind of what the problem is. That's kind of been what the problem is.

With the whole team, too, with the hitting as well and with the base running and like, I'm telling you, it's the dog and it's the margins. Well, they're missing that. They're missing the alpha dog. They're missing the big dog. Jerry. Jerry P. Of course.

We all know that. By the way, I want to give a shout out to Kidnap 82. I don't know if I should be saying that name, but Kidnap. Thank you for your nice comment. He said the mayor and Thunderstick are the real MVP's. We always appreciate you guys dropping stuff like that for us. But of course, we got another question. Then we got some ads to read.

Well, it's we got Damon. Last question for now comes from Brighton Bobbit. And Brighton asks, despite the sweep, do we feel decent about the debacks keeping the Braves honest and in a way should have probably won two of three. Yes. Yes. The way they performed, especially against starting pitching, was extremely encouraging and just goes to show what this team is capable of. I don't know what the hell happened late in these games.

I can't explain that. Yeah. I do think a lot of it, to be fair, honestly is the inexperience of someone like Blaze Alexander. It is, you know, some mistakes that got compounded by some bad pitching that, you know, the mistakes kept the inning from ending and then the bad pitching allowed things to really unravel. It was just a combination of things. But really, it did truly feel like it's the most loser talk at times ever to say they should have won two out of three, but they really should have won two out of three. And as far as the silver lining goes, it is very encouraging that not only should they have won, but that they were up so significantly in two of those three. games and then you know what happened happens it's still the braves you got to got to keep the

braves honest not just innings one and two but you got to keep them honest the entire game that's why they're such a good baseball team yeah i mean the fact that the fact that the diamond backs got as close as they did in these games i mean that's kind of why it's so hard to swallow right is that they did setting about it yeah they kick their ass it's like okay the braves are better doesn't feel like the braves are better it felt like the diamond backs gave up these games including Sunday's game. I mean, it really did. They were tied to two at one point, right? I mean, you put six runs on Max Fried in the first inning. You've got to feel. And then they eventually did get to him a little bit later in that start as well. So yeah, I mean, I think the diamondbacks

absolutely held their own in the series. And going back to what I said in our first segment, I'm not really all that concerned about what I've seen so far, given how well Catel Marte looks, given how good Lordus Guerriel looks, given Eugenio Suarez, Jacques Pee. Like there's enough players on this team that are doing exactly what you would want them to that it's it's way too early to be sounding any alarm bells right now Growing pains growing pains they still need to come together and figure some things out and of course Yeah again. I think it illustrates how good per domo really is and how much they've missed him because of The frequency of mistakes that have been made just a shortstop so far It's like it's like what we've said about Christian Walker you don't even know what Christian Walker does over there for

first base until he's not there. And then when he's not there, you're like, Christian would have gotten that. Like, wait, you couldn't get that grounder? You couldn't pick that one out of the dirt. You couldn't do this. You couldn't do that. Walker makes it look so effortless over there at times that it's just easy to forget how truly good he is and how hard it is to play.

Even first base in a professional. I just want to throw out there that Jerry is younger than Blaze. Like, we need to think about that for a second. I know we talk about, we talk about him like he's like this, this like, like, long-tenured veteran though and he's still 24 years old and that's just the type of player he is that's why i gravitate towards him because he's so good at that stuff at such a young age and i think it bears noted even going back to last year right he was splitting time with nick ahmed who has been incredibly good this year defensively himself defensively yeah um but again that the idea there i like that he did that uh the idea

there is that you know he was going to split time with nick last year because just last year he was seen as being too young to handle the position full-time and to be there every day regular starting shortstop. And he proved he could handle it. He really, he really did. Nicholas says, Pardomo to the debacks is like Charlie to the waitress and oh, he's sunny. You don't realize the little things he does until he goes away and now your life sucks. I love that episode. What a reference. And I don't know if anybody else got it, Nicholas, but you and me are right there. That's a great, great point. I'm going to make Jesse watch the episode that show just so he gets that reference.

But of course, we thank you guys. We thank those of you that are diehards like Nicholas. Of course, if you aren't a diehard, consider getting one because if you do, you can join us for our D-BACs takeover coming up here in just about one month on May 9th against the Padres is our first takeover at Chase Field.

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Illegal Pete's, your go-to spot for burritos, buddies, and beer. And, of course, we got some more Mailbag Monday questions. And we know what, like I said, we know what today is. It's mailbag Monday. But it's also a solar eclipse or what is it? What is they say totality? When is eclipse totality occurring? It happened, happened at a baseball field.

We have questions about the solar eclipse. Let's get to it. Damon, what we got? First question comes from a very big gunner, a D-back's UK Western, says if Corbyn Carroll hits a home run and a solar eclipse, is it called a sunshot or a moonshot?

Hmm. Yeah, well, I mean, scientifically, like, there's nothing about a solar eclipse that would cause a dinger that traveled to the moon to go to the sun. It's just not at least I mean I'm no I'm no astronomeric so I'm I don't have the credentials for this kind of thing But that's at least my understanding of the situation Maybe we call it a shadow a shadow shot given the the events of the

It could be new that's new I like it I'm not against that I don't know It's not an Apo Bapo Moonshot just seems very that seems very apropos like we have a thing already called the moonshot and you want to just come up with a new term. That's crazy to me. But I don't know. I guess, yeah,

I guess we'll go with your stupid idea. Okay. Yeah, what else we got? Well, yeah, let's take a look right now, by the way,

we got some great pictures of the, of the eclipse. Look at this. This is actually what Cleveland looks like right now. Or not, not right now. 2 p.m. Eastern time around what, like 11 a.m.

our time. This is, this is actually what it looked like. This was in the past. path of the eclipse totality. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's the right. That's crazy.

Lingo. Yeah, we tried to go outside and look. It was not this exciting. Yeah, it did not look like this, Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, this game was kind of unique. Guardian's White Sox, I believe it starts at 215 Eastern time, or 215 Arizona time, which is just a few hours after totality. So I believe this is the only game today where, like, gates were actually open

and fans had the opportunity to take in the eclipse from inside of a ballpark. What I'm really disappointed by Derek is that Major League Baseball didn't schedule a game during the eclipse because that would have been electric. Can you imagine like the lights being lights are on already? And you're playing like a day game and a night game like all in one. Yeah, that would have been electric. That would have absolutely been electric. Also the name, the path of totality, that's, that's electric.

That needs to be like a team. that dominated, you know, it's opposition for a season. It's its path of totality. Oh, there you go. Or like maybe a WWE pay-per-view. I don't know. PLE?

They're not called pay-prews anymore. All right. What else we got, Damon? We got more solar eclipse questions. Michael Rokicke asks which D-Bax players most likely to look at a solar eclipse? Oh, don't do this to us. I mean, this is,

I don't know how to take this question, but I feel like it's like whoever we say is a shot. And it's obviously Blaze Alexander, right? I think, I mean, I think just based on what we were hearing about his personality in his first few days in the majors, he could, yeah, I mean, a blaze moment, like a situation where like he just doesn't, something just kind of goes over his head. He just doesn't quite get it. And, and yeah, I mean, maybe that's something that he wouldn't quite get that you're not supposed to stare directly at the sun, even even in the event of a solar eclipse. I feel like Alec Thomas would do it just because you told him not to. I think Alex Thomas would, I think he would look at it, but he would have the glasses because he would think they looked cool. And they were like part of his fashion statement for that particular day. Yeah.

Right. Meanwhile, Corbin couldn't be bothered with it. He couldn't care if there's an eclipse or not. He'll just know if this does this impact my training. Yeah, right, right. Exactly. Yeah. Anybody else?

I don't know. Gino? No. I don't know. You think Gino would look. You think Gino would stare at the sun? I really don't. It's definitely Blaze.

It's Blaze. And Ryan's right. Defo Blaze, he has a golden retriever energy. That's a great way to put it. That's exactly what he does have. Big, big GR energy from Blaze.

All right, what else we got, Damon? Next question comes from bold as bronze. And Gabriel says, if you had to predict which current players are going to give a speech

in Cooperstown in 20 years, who would they be? Read the room, Gabriel. We just got swept by the Braves. What are we doing? All right? I'm not in the mood to talk about which of these players are going to be future

Hall of Famers, Jesse? I mean, in fairness, I think Gabriel's asking about, like, baseball, major leaguers at large, not just Diamondbacks players. In which case, it is a very interesting question. It's a question that's a whole episode. Pretty impossible to answer. I mean, like, I guess you're just thinking

of players who are very young now that you feel, I mean, as good as you can feel about getting to the Hall of Fame as you could imagine for someone who's, you know, in his early 20s or whatever. Bobby Witt, Jr., is someone who I think is going to be a very, very good baseball player for a long time. Is he going to make the Hall of Fame?

Like, yeah, that's sort of a crazy thing to be making claims about at this point. But I could see it. I could see Bobby Whit being a Hall of Famer. I could see Julio Rodriguez being a Hall of Famer. Don't do this. This is too wide open. He's going to go on for 30 minutes with this. Do you know how many players you could say are going to maybe be a hall of papers?

No, but there are really aren't that many. Can we at least condense it down to Diamondbacks? Are there any future Hall of Famers on the Diamondbacks? Is there any potential there? that almost feels too narrow. Like how many future Hall of Famers does any one team have at a given time? Sure. Like maybe one, right?

For the Diamondbacks, I guess Corby and Carroll would be the easiest answer at this point. Right. Zach Gallin seems like potentially could be, you could see that. I like Solario. He'd probably be making his speech sooner than 20 years. His 20 years would mean that his last season was 15 years from now. I don't know if Gallen has 15 more seasons in him. Okay.

He would be in he would be like 43 years old at that point. So they have to be a first ballot hall of famers. What you're saying? I guess right. I guess that that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah.

Obviously it's not always a first year thing. But yeah, Bobby Witt, Julio Rodriguez, Adley Ruchman's another guy. Like wouldn't surprise me in all of if Adley Ruchman was a Hall of Famer someday. What about actual legends right now?

What about like you're, you're going, you're going with the far off like young guys. Wait, Damon wants to tell. us why James Outman won't be a Hall of Fame. Wow. Okay. First off,

that guy didn't even cross my mind because that's the most, I didn't, are we're giving, we're giving Hall of Fame busts to like, nobody players. That's insane. To eight-taders in their lineup, Jesse.

That's nuts. I was just going to say that when, once we get Otani locked up in federal prison, we know he won't be making the Hall of Fame. Sure. Pete Rose and Otani, man. It's going to be a fun, fun little group we got there.

just crickets two guys who are too scared too scared to put their their faces on that not this guy not this guy I'm I'm ready to throw it all out on the table do we go for next question please yeah yeah can I get a next question please Damon hey it's Maria hey Maria

our favorite Dodgers fan she came just in time for that take yeah that was a good one all right well got. Last question comes from Ryan Hanley, and he said, what is your impression of WrestleMania? Yes, Jesse. Doesn't just have to have like a baseball spin on it?

Like, we can just have people submitting mailback questions. It's not anything about baseball whatsoever, right? You can actually leave the room if you want to. It's time to clock out. I'm not. I'm trying to do that. Someone actually specifically wanted to know what your impression of WrestleMania was. Now, I don't have anything to say because I didn't.

You don't have to say anything else. What is your impression of WrestleMania as a whole, as a thing that exists? What is your hot take on my favorite thing? Go. It sucks, Derek. It's a waste of your time. I mean, I like Philadelphia. Like, if it was, I mean, a lot of cool things happened in Philadelphia in my mind.

So if it was there, I mean, sounds like an okay time. It was a great time. But let me tell you. How would you know? You weren't there. You were watching the Diamond Dix just swept by the brakes. I was getting updates. States for Mega Rat all the time.

Cheese steaks were great. The weather, not so much. But of course, my impression of WrestleMania is that I think that they gave the fans just the experience that they were looking for. I thought it was a well done event. Like, it's this huge event.

They've moved it now to being two nights. They've really taken advantage of it. Everything went really well. All of their events went really well. Everybody had really positive things to say about it. And that's hard considering the size of those events. I mean, we're talking about Jesse. combined attendance of over 145,000 people over those two days at Lincoln, at the Lincoln

financial field or whatever. They really didn't have something better to do with their time. Oh, man. And see, here's the thing is I'll even agree to this, that there are some people that, like, we're sitting so far away that, like, even the screen to watch the matches off was tiny and small, right? What's the point? People love it.

You love it. It's a rare thing. Not everybody gets to go. It's like a Super Bowl in a way where you don't really care. about the teams because it's neither of your teams on the field, but you just went to go because it's an experience. It's a thing. For me, my birthday is March 24th. And so as a small child, I was under the impression that WWF was putting on this big event for me in honor of my birthday every year. Because I always got to watch it. I was like, that was like, we'll pay money to

get it this time because it's always around your birthday, right? So of course, I have very good memories tied to it. But I think this one, the thing that was different is the, the WWE ultimately has, you know, these, which blew your mind, I know, the outcomes are predetermined. Right. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy to Jesse when he found out the outcome was predetermined. But, like, they have an opportunity a lot of times to make fans happy. And instead, they try to, like, do things to, like, make the situation a little bit more complicated or do something.

Oh, maybe, like, pray on your emotions and maybe make you leave angry so that you're willing to watch the show the next night to see if your guy that you were, you know, rooting for can come back. and overcome what happened to them or whatever, right? And instead, it just leaves people angry is really what it does. It makes people turn it off and it makes people stop watching. They had an opportunity to make a lot of people happy. They did. It was fun. And right now, it's being ran by the same group that owns UFC.

And it just feels very different. It felt like they did a great job of, I mean, honoring everything that was going on, putting on a great show. And it was, they had some great moments. Sammy Zane, winning the Intercontinental Championship, personal favorite moment of mine. Cody Rhodes, obviously, finally finishing his story. These are just some long-term storytelling things that they've done, that it was really gratifying as a fan, much like when you watch, you know, a movie and it's long, but you get to the ending and you very much enjoy it.

This was a proper ending for a lot of these things that people have invested their time in watching, even though you think that's a waste of time. I do. Understandably so. I'll tell you right now, don't fucking watch Lost. Don't ever waste your time on that show. It was a complete waste of time As someone that loved that show

Save yourself the time It just seems so unnecessary I know it really does But like from that perspective Yes I understand how people think Some things like this are a waste of time And in fact some things like lost Are in fact a waste of your time

But wrestling, very fun I'm gonna take you to an event Espo wants to go to an event So I'm gonna put a GoPro on him Like I would on Blaze Alexander While he's playing baseball And see what we get back But of course

That's a great question and I had a great time honestly there was a main event delivered on all of my childhood like growing up watching wrestling moments with the undertaker and scene and all that stuff so it's a lot of fun had a great time and honestly wrestling is better when you do watch it with your friends so watch wrestling with your friends have have big events like that uh I ate a lot of good food I'm up like 10 pounds that's where I'm at that's a status update on me but of course I'm gonna try to go run some of this off in the meantime you can follow us on Twitter I'm at cap underscore Caveman with a K.

This maniac next to me is at Jesse and Friedman. Make sure to drop a like before you leave. We always appreciate it when you do that. Damon Dog, of course, the people's producer is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. Our show, of course, is at P-HNX underscore D-Backs,

but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time. We will see you guys tomorrow. We have a post-game show after their first game with the Rockies. hopefully the vibes or after their second game with the rocks second game that's right no post no post game no no post game no post game tonight

we got a post game tomorrow after that second I would do it but Derek refuses so see oh my god and you're mad at me that I'm outing cogs that's a crazy way to end the show just straight under the bus yeah just threw me right under the bus with no regard for my personal safety we thank you guys we'll see you guys tomorrow in the meantime have a great night go diamondbacks and of course we want you guys to remember Remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's also fun when you watch pro wrestling, Jesse. No, it's not.

Just watch it. No, it's not.