PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks Offense Stays RED HOT Against Giants, Extend Win Streak To Four

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

After a bleak week offensively, the Diamondbacks bats have stayed hot in the team’s fourth win in a row. We have more on the Snakes big night offensively, winning the series against the Giants, Blake Walston making his second start of the year, and Justin Martinez wowing us with his stuff. We also discuss D-backs pitcher Andrew Saalfrank being suspended for a year due to gambling on baseball and who Jeff Passan thinks Arizona may move at the trade deadline. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers 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/phnxdbacks50Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.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. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!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.

my mustache ski and welcome in to the rest of you. Hello and go Diamondbacks. What a big victory. Diamondbacks win their fourth game in a row. And I still don't understand how my mustache helped the baseball team win games instead of helping me like win the lottery or something. That seems like bullshit. But what doesn't seem like bullshit is the way this team is playing right now.

Again, welcome in to the PHNXD back show. My name is the mayor of PHNXDBAC show. My name is the mayor of PHNN. and ex-occasionally known as Derek Montia. Of course, I'm joined by the one and only Damon Dog on the ones and twos. And Jesse Friedman, of course, my vice mayor, your thunder stick, will be joining us from Chase Field here shortly. But the boys are buzzing. The boys are buzzing.

The Diamondbacks win their fourth game in a row, beating the Giants by a score of eight to five. And I don't know what this offense is. I sincerely don't know how this team can be so. streaky, but my God, the offense has absolutely woken up. And again, it was a team effort tonight. Cotel, of course, three for four with a walk. But

they got production from a lot of guys on this team tonight. Two for four from Gabby Moreno. Of course, Lordus Gouriel had that huge hit. He was one for four with two RBIs himself. Moreno had two RBI.B. Just production all across the board here. Wasn't Catell just doing it himself tonight?

Corbin had the night off. and of course the team really does produce well without Corbyn being in there. And I mean, you could say the same for Gino because Gino, of course, he went 0 for 3 tonight and he continues to struggle at the dish. But the rest of the team, Ann has been doing an incredible job. The 7, 8, and 9 hitters tonight were 5 for 11 with 3 RBI and 4 runs scored. That's Jake McCarthy, Blaze Alexander, and Kevin Newman, who has an absolute fire walk-up song, by the way. We still need to talk to Jake about his walk-up song. But one person who needs no talking to right now, that would be Bliggs Alexander.

This kid has been incredible for this team. He continues to be incredible. He continues to get better and better. And, man, it's just been a lot of fun to watch him play baseball. It's been a lot of fun to watch this team plays baseball, Damon. In fact, I made that comment at the exact same time that Bert made it on the broadcast tonight. We were in complete agreeance about that. Am I right?

Yeah, I believe specifically you said it's like way more fun when this team's good or something like that. And Steve was like, it's way more fun when we're winning. Yeah. Like directly after that. Yeah, it was pretty uncanny. It was something. But obviously the big story tonight is the offense. Also, Blake Walston getting his second start of the year.

Blake, or two starts, three appearances this year. Blake Walston has a 2.84 ERA. So he has somehow figured out a way to be effective. But it was one of those nights for Blake. I mean, he was all over the place when it came to his, I guess you could say this was more of control rather than command because, man, he would, the balls weren't anywhere close to the strike zone. However, he did a great job at limiting the damage.

He gave the Diamondbacks four and two thirds innings pitched. He allowed two hits, two runs, four walks, and two strikeouts through 88 pitches definitely had to work a lot out there but he was able to get himself out of jams and there's just a lot to like about walston especially considering he's coming into you know this situation right now for a team that truly needs him truly needs him and has delivered so far this season his other numbers not so great um he did have uh four he does have a four point two four phip and a five point nine zero x phip And Damon today was laughing quite a bit about the fact that this man was able to do what he did,

even though it seemed very lucky at times. I'm laughing at the chat right now, like Connor saying Blake pitched one of the games of all time. And Zach Sending, Blake threw the ball. Blake had an outing. I think that's fair. He pitched. He did. He did.

You can't take that away from them. You cannot take that away from it. Me threw 88 pitches to a major league baseball. all team and he only gave up two earn runs. So say what you will. It was definitely, yeah. It was it was it was something out there right. But I mean again, there's there are encouraging things. I'm not I'm not Jesse. So I'm going to silver line everything. You know that. That's how this works around here. But a silver lining here with Blake was that he had three ball he had three ball counts on 10 of 19 batters faced including eight of the first 10. And he was still able to limit the

damage and keep him only give up two runs to this particular Giants team. That isn't a very compelling lineup. We've talked about this Giants team not really scaring you when you look at the way that their lineup is currently constructed. They've had their share of injuries that they've lost some of their key pieces this year. But I mean, the Diamondbacks right now, today was all about, you know, the offense for this team. The Diamondbacks at one point scored nine runs in six games. Nine runs in six games. And of course, as you can see, uh, they scored eight tonight alone. So since then, the Diamondbacks have now scored 36 games and their 36 runs in their past five games. Uh, and, and then, and like I said earlier, the boys are buzzing. I don't, I don't,

I don't really understand how a team collectively falls asleep at the dish and then also all wakes up together. Uh, but, uh, this is, this is something. It's fun. It's fun baseball to watch again. I'm so hyped. I mean, we're back, Derek. Let's just say, we already got to this. We're this far into the show. How. Yeah. Why haven't we said it yet? Six minutes and 40 seconds in. We're fucking back. We're back. We're back. I'm pumped. We're back. I'm pumped. We're back. The boys are back. I said it a couple shows ago, right? We were talking about the offense on Millback Monday. I guess it was yesterday. And I said, the offense is going to need to step up with this pitching staff that we're about to watch. Blake Walson got a little lucky tonight. But the offense did

step up by all accounts. Offense stepped up yesterday and we just got to keep it rolling. We were asked on Monday what, you know, how many days in a row do you want to see, you know, will it take the offense producing for you to believe in this team again? And I think after tonight, you're starting to believe again. You're starting to believe they're not only being able to produce offensively, but the defense has, has been very, very good. That's a great point over the last week. So it's not just the offense. I think when you look at some of the games, and I've used the term letting the air out of the balloon quite a bit on this show probably far too many times, but when you look back at like those defensive mistakes and how some of those defensive

mistakes during that stretch where the Diamondbacks just couldn't get much done on either side of the ball, like really ended drives or, you know, caused especially the opposition to score more runs and, you know, go out there and what, what are we giggling at? I'm sorry, you're giggling, and I'm not, I'm easily distracted. Another Zach Zend, Blake Walston comment said Blake was painting like an artist. It was an abstract artist on cocaine, but he painted. All right. That's a good one.

That's worth it. But yeah, no, I mean, this, this team right now is just getting it done. I mean, they're, they're finding a way to win. And even, even in a game that look like a. blowout, of course, the bullpen wasn't perfect. But man, parts of this bullpen have been very, very good. And of course, the main part about that

was the man of the night, Justin Martinez. Like, this guy is just incredible. And obviously, Justin Martinez did not have a perfect outing out there tonight. I will be the first to say that. However, like his strikeouts, his stuff is just

so phenomenal. And right now he is really, I feel like ahead of schedule. We didn't get a chance to but I feel like where he's at right now and the progress that he made from last season to this season to where he's at today is is just incredible. I mean, you could probably say that Justin Martinez is the Diamondbacks best relief pitcher right now. Paul Seawald is a magician. He gets people to swing at pitches that they have no business even swinging at. But I mean, when you talk about like stuff, when you talk about going out there and just wowing you with,

absolute disgusting filth, it's J-Mart. And I mean, then I talked about it right after the game ended on the like teams post-game show where Brandon Webb was talking about J-Mart. And he like, he had an audible moan when they brought up J-Mart's name. He was like, oh, I love this guy. Like that, it moved him. Yeah. Like emotionally. And that's how I feel every single time that J-Mart comes out of the pen is a tear comes down in my

because I realize that this guy is 22 years old, Derek. What are we talking about right now? We're talking about one of the best relievers in the league being part of the Diamondbacks for a very long time. A very, very long time. He lowers his ERA down to 0.42. He allowed one hit tonight in his one inning of work, walked one, struck out two, and did it magnificently. I mean, the man drops in a 99 mile per hour sinker. He then goes at him with a triple digit fastball.

and then what like a cutter 90 down in the zone like there's just there was so much disgusting filth here splitter is just disgusting the splitter yeah the splitter is just something else man and i mean of course there's uh there's a lot to like about what justin martinez brings to this team i think the biggest thing though is especially when tori can plug him in like he did tonight after you've spent uh you know five innings looking at blake waltston you know pitching all over the place. You get Justin Martinez actually coming in here and throwing 101 miles per hour exactly where he wants to throw it.

He wasn't, like I said, he wasn't perfect. But the man generated 11 whiffs, 11 swings in his outing and three whiffs, excuse me. But it was just all beautiful, all beautiful. And I mean, again, there's just something very wholesome about the fact that over the last week, we've had a chance to see his parents, you know, see him pitch in the major leagues for the first time in New York. And now they were here today. We had a chance to talk to them and see his father throw out the first pitch prior to today's game. It has to be just a very special feeling, you know, for his family, for himself to not only, you know, be sharing in this moment, you know, but also for him to be pitching as well as he is right now.

So that's an incredible thing. His father had some amazing things to say before the game when we were talking about like, when did you know, you know, that he was such a special talent. And I mean, he basically brought up that, you know, like, you know, where, you know, where, you know, where they are from, this is like very common for you to kind of like raise, you know, your young baseball player with the expectation that this could be, you know, the, the, the, the, the end goal that this could be even even when you don't even live in the united states right but he wasn't even a pitcher so that was another interesting factor yeah he was i think they said he was an

outfielder so i mean and like he said like a lot of young pitchers uh don't start out as pitchers right we've seen that quite a bit but i mean it's just got to be an incredible feeling i just like i it's hard for me to believe that they just like this kid is probably three years old during 70 miles per hour right yeah that's what that's what it feels like like he was five six in the third grade, you know? For sure. And like he was six and a half, yeah, like six and a half feet tall. Yeah.

Just dominating. But apparently that didn't happen for a little bit for him. So we're glad it happened. And we're glad he's part of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. Another guy that we're very glad is here and is doing as well as he is, is our king snake tonight. And that's our boy, Blaze Alexander. Three for four, RBI, two runs scored.

He had a double tonight. And I mean, Blaze, Blaze has been really, really good so far this month. I mean, he has done a great job at basically earning time and being one of those guys that nobody really wants to see right now out of the starting lineup. And it's funny because the other day we had this exact conversation about who the Diamondbacks would potentially send down when Geraldo Perdomo comes back. Blaze is making that a very, very difficult decision. The man is eight for 15 so far in the month of June. So, you know, hey. We talked about it a little bit after what happened yesterday with Pave and Smith

hitting the walk off home run. And on our emergency podcast, obviously there was a lot of like telling Jesse to apologize because we had the conversation earlier on the show. like who possibly would go down in a scenario when we get Perdomo and Alec back. And we kind of highlighted Paveen and Blaze potentially. Yeah. I know that yesterday, like after the home run, everybody was like, you can't send Pavin down. I think Blaze is a much, much more difficult decision.

I'm sure there's a lot of people that agree with that. But like, Blaze is consistently performing at that level. Paveen's still an easy send down for me when Alex's back. But I don't know what I do at that. shortstop position. What do you, like, what do you even do at that point? Kevin Newman's still playing pretty good. Well, he's playing good. Like, what's, what's the move? The one thing here is, is that no matter what move you make, it's not a definitive move. We're not talking about a team that's going to DFA, Blaze Alexander, or Kevin Newman, right? So I think the point here is that

Geraldo Pardomo should absolutely get that opportunity. And Tori has not shied away one bit from saying Perdomo is our starting shortstop. When he comes back, he will resume that role. There's not a, there's not a battle for that position. There's not going to be splitting time. Tori made it very clear that Geraldo Perdomo will be back at shortstop. But for how long if he doesn't perform well is the question. And of course, if you have Blaze and you have Kevin Newman both continuing to play,

whether it's here as a backup or in, you know, Reno, how long do you, give Perdomo that opportunity, right? So I think it's a fluid, it's a fluid situation where it's depending right now on who's playing better, but it doesn't mean that they're still not going to give guys an opportunity even if they struggle, right? Tori historically has allowed guys to kind of hit their way out of struggles. And after a conversation I had with him today on the field, I very much understand his thinking on that much more. And Tori really does believe in these guys. really does think that when they're struggling the way some of their really good hitters like Corbin are at the dish are, you know, the way they're struggling, he really does think that

tomorrow is the day that they're going to break out of this and like that they really just need to go up there and have a different mindset at the plate, you know, kind of we talked about the winning mindset. One of the winning mindsets that clubhouses have is the difference between going into the clubhouse every single day and saying, we're going to win today. versus coming into the clubhouse and saying, boy, I hope we win today, right? It's like the I hope versus I wish, you know, like kind of thing, right? But what I'm, my point being here is that Tori does want to see even with

some of the lack of patience that we've seen from these players at the dish, Tori wants to see a more aggressive approach from everybody right now. And I think we are getting that from a couple of guys that are responding well. I think what we've seen out of Blaze is a more aggressive approach. what we've seen out of Catelle, even though Cotell has been hitting a lot of singles during, you know, not only his hitting streak, but the last couple of, you know, weeks, it's still some aggressive approaches at the dish. And I think that that's what we need more from. We just need this team to believe in themselves. And winning four in a game, four in a row like this is huge to make you believe in yourself.

Beating a division opponent like the giants who are above you, not only in the National West standings, but also in the wildcard standings, huge. You know, again, these are things that this team is slowly becoming itself again. Elise says Blaze has options, so that might be the deciding factor. I know there was something about Kevin Newman needing to accept going, being sent down. Yeah, because I think that was, wasn't that the problem after spring training as well. But yeah, I guess that's the nature of his minor league deal. Like he would have to accept going down and come back up. It's not really an options thing.

Right. It's just more. And that's how it is a lot of times, right? A lot of times they have to option guys that don't really make as much sense. Like you see them leave somebody on the roster and move somebody else. And that person might have been playing well. A lot of times it's just down to moves, right? We know that like when they send a guy down, for instance,

they have to stay down for 15 days. There's just some limited options there based on, you know, what options guys have. I like this moment. They could make based on options. Yeah, I like this comment here from Jay Lust where he says, still can't slam dunk Blaze's defense, but if Jerry is the everyday guy, I trust Blaze's bat off the bench more than Newman.

I think of that, like, Blaze absolutely has the characteristics of like a really good utility bench player, like a guy that you want up late in the game because he's pretty good with runners in scoring position. Yeah. And he's just pretty good in general hitting. Like he has a good average. He's a guy you trust with the bat in his hands. Kevin Newman is also clutched, though.

That's like, that's a factor as well. Kevin Newman, we talked about his walk-up walk-up song, right? Yeah. Yeah, his walk-up song is fire. So, Damon. We actually can't lose him after I heard that walk-up song tonight. That's a very important factor. The vibes have been very, very good.

Of course, the vibes are always good here in the PHN exports YouTube channel. We thank you guys, of course, for being here in the YouTube channel right now. I saw my guy Eric was here. Would you mind scrolling up? I'm sorry if you have to do this, but there's Eric with the Orange E. Yeah, I got to meet Eric today. We were both buying jerseys from the 50% off rack up at the, I don't know if I'm blowing up his spot by saying that.

I feel like I'm publicly calling him cheap on the show, but I'm also accusing myself of being cheap. So we're in this boat together. But Eric says it was super awesome meeting you today during the pregame outside the team shop. Absolutely, sir. Eric and I were both deciding on whether to buy a gonzo jersey or, uh, that retro throwback job that I put on Twitter today. The what was it?

Turn the clock back. Turn the clock ahead. No, it was a turn the clock ahead. It was supposed to be from the future. That's supposed to be a future diamond back. Yeah, that's why it's even dumber. You'll see it says turn the clock ahead jersey is what it's called. It's insane.

I don't even know what Madman came up with that promotion. But I was this close to buying that Randy Johnson jersey. And you guys on Twitter were absolutely no help. Every single one of you encouraged me to spend up. Turn ahead the clock. Turn ahead the clock. That is what it is. It's so bad.

It's such a bad name. That was a promotion that they did. But anyway, of course, we thank you guys for being here in the PHANXport's YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, do so right now. We thank you guys so much for being here and for subscribing if you haven't done so. That way you don't miss whenever our shows go live. You can hit that sign up for notifications. That way you'll get notified when our shows go live.

And of course, drop us a like. there's many players that love it when you drop us alike but who's going to stop by tonight David we got uh yeah Gabby Gabby sounds like he had a good night tonight he had a great night tonight and of course it's weird because I feel like we really applaud some of these guys that are struggling even even like Corby where we say like he's put together some better at bats even though the results aren't there Gabby really has put together some much better at bats than what we saw from him earlier in the season even one of his outs tonight was like like a really hard hit ball, the opposite field where the right fielder was having to go back

and make a pretty decent catch to on the play. Like, I feel like Gabby's finding it a little bit. Good, good job, Gabby. Good job. Of course, if you have not subscribed on the audio podcasting side, we love you guys too. We love our listeners. Our viewers are great. Listeners are great to. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Make sure you leave us a review. We always appreciate when you do that. We love that feedback. And those five-star reviews definitely help us out. quite a bit. Of course, check out BetMGM Sportsbook. If you haven't done so already, now is a great time to sign up. You can get down on the app. Sign up and deposit at least $10 and use our bonus code of PH&X when you do. When you do, you can place your first bet, first wager and receive up to

$1,500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses. If the bet does lose, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. But of course, right now, great time to get down on some action with the Grand Slam jackpot promotion every weekend. on the Bet MGM Sportsbook app, that's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You can wager $10 or more on any player to hit a home run. If that player does, in fact, hit a grand slam, you will win your share of a $50,000 daily prize, or you can win the whole damn thing if you're the only person

that bet on somebody to get a grand slam and hit. So make sure to do that. Of course, sign up for BetMGM and use that bonus code of PHNX. Place your first bet MGM sportsbook wager through the Sportsbook mobile app for at least $10. you will receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses. Check out the show notes for full details, and now listen to Shane, talk about the disclaimer. Bonus bets expire in seven days. One new customer only.

Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler available in the U.S. Call 8778-N.Y 4669-369-9-N-Rexhares. New York. Call 1-800-3-0-0-0-0-60-Masthus 26-0-0-0-1, Massachusetts, 21-1-8-Respet off Iowa. 1-8-8-1-8-1-FIT offer for new customers-on only. Subject to eligibility requirements, bonus bets are non-wethrovertible.

In partnership with Kansas-ccrow and hotel. See BenmGM.com for terms. U.S. promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. That was beautiful, JJ. That was pretty good, JJ. All right. Well, tonight is a great night to be drinking a four peaks beer celebrating this wonderful victory. Of course, the Chicken Tendie Squad. Let's talk about the Chicken Tendie Squad because there were a lot of, there was a lot of mythical factors all coming together to help the Diamondbacks break out of their funk and get into this four-game winning streak.

week. Some people have said me shaving off my mustache was the thing that made it happen. And maybe it was, but maybe it was our wonderful friends here from this show that went to Four Peaks and had chicken tendies and the wonderful beers that they had to offer. Maybe you guys

broke the curse. I don't know. I still don't believe it was Elizabeth and I still think she has something to do just overall with cursing this team. But these are side things that we'll get into in the Discord. For the time being, check out all the wonderful beers Four Peaks have to offer, including their bad birdie juicy gold dale,

which has quickly become one of my favorite beers in the whole wide world. It's not just, you don't have to just drink it on the golf course. You can literally drink it anywhere, and you can literally get it anywhere, because right now you can find it in stores all across the valley. Of course, visit 4Peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events.

Check out at 4Peaks brewer at 4Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink 4Peaks, and please drink responsibly. Well, of course, let's take a look at the numbers from this series presented by our friends from Desert Financial Credit Union. Let's work the count, Damon, shall we? What do we got here?

Diamondbacks win this game by a score of 8 to 5. They out hit the Giants 13 to 6. And this is that, that runner in scoring position, that's hot. That's sexy right there, Damon. Diamondbacks went 6 for 14 for a 429 batting average with runners in scoring position, something they have absolutely struggled at this year. year. It's been crazy how bad the Diamondbacks have been with runners in scoring position. So it is a great, it's a great sign to see them taking care of business when it comes to that.

And then extra base hits. That hard hit percentage? That looks pretty good. 16% for the Giants and 50% for the Diamondbacks. Three extra base hits for the debacks, two extra base hits for the bad guys. It also makes sense for the Giants, hard hit percentage. You know, they scored four. five runs, which is pretty decent outing. But like Patrick Bailey hit that little dribbler off the end of his bat against Kevin Ginkle. Like they weren't always hitting the ball hard.

They weren't really squaring it up, you know? Yeah. Justin Martinez when he gave up that single, like it was a dribbler down the third baseline. I don't know. They weren't hitting the ball very, very hard at all. No, they weren't. And honestly, the one home run, obviously off of Brite Jarvis wasn't great.

But that that's really the only thing that kept. this game close. Otherwise, you could have considered this one to be a fairly substantial blowout for the Diamondbacks. And again, I mean, I know they only scored four runs yesterday, but four wins in a row with the team being able to produce four runs or more in every single one of those wins is pretty big for this team. And it definitely is a step in the right direction, considering how much they were struggling not that long ago, right? Just when we came into that series with the Mets, those first two games, uh, is what caused me to literally shave off my mustache on this show. Why? I, I don't know, but again, playoff stash. It seemed very inappropriate

for me to have. And yet somehow now that it's gone, um, this is where we're at. Everything is good. The world is good. The world is right. It corrected itself. I don't know how long I'm going to have to do this for though. Like can once they start like if they start losing again, do I get to just grow my mustache back? How does this work? I don't know. You might be the one that needs to... Why are we talking about this right now? That's crazy to talk about. It's crazy to talk about. We're mid-win streak. Let's talk about. Let's talk about. That's what I want to talk about. We do have some videos from the clubhouse. Are those ready yet? No, but we do have Tori on Andrew Salfrink from earlier today. Yeah, obviously that's the big story that came out before the game today was that Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Andrew

Saul Frank has been found, I guess, betting on baseball. Tori actually said something that I was thinking. And here we're going to talk about Tori here in a minute. But Saul Frank, along with some other players that were minor leaguers at the time, have all been suspended for one year. One player from the Padres has been actually expelled from baseball. Like he is just removed. He's not allowed to come back to the game for betting on games of his.

own team. Saul Frank was not doing that. He was not betting on his team or teams within the Diamondbacks organization. But still, this is a rule that has been around in baseball as long as baseball pretty much has existed. There is a rulebook that our very own Danielle Cortez got to check out when she visited the Baseball Hall of Fame that in 1850s abolished betting on the game of baseball when you participate in it. I understand how the action. access to gambling now is easier than ever and how easy it is for players to make this mistake. But it's just it's it's the rule, right? It's the rule you cannot bet on the game that you participate in.

And the article detailed about all of these players not, aside from one, not betting on their own team, right? or betting on games that they were basically like somehow a part of. But the one thing that was clear was even the player that did bet on his own team was doing so in games that he was not participating in. It was during a stretch while he was injured. That doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, these players all have inside information and that's the way it's viewed.

And it's about the integrity of the game. Tori Lavala was asked about it today. He said that he did find out this information. about Saul Frank yesterday before it was made official. Obviously, internally, when they need to give that information to the player, he said he hadn't talked to him yet. He did say that Mike Hazen had spoke to him, and this is what Tori had to say about Andrew Saul-Frank being suspended

from the game of baseball for one year. I have not talked to him. I will at some point in time. I know that there's a lot that he's unpacking, and I know that Mike has talked to him. This is something that is clearly. running through our clubhouse and running through this organization and running through the baseball world today. And what I want to say about this is that, you know, Andrew made a bad decision.

Andrew, and I don't want to speak for the other players. I do know Andrew. He made a bad decision. You know, the rules are very clearly outlined. They're told to the players several times during spring training. There's something on the wall in spring training that prohibits betting. and the reason is simple we have to protect the integrity of this game Andrew knew that, he understood that and he made a really bad decision what I do know

is about the human being. I do know Andrew is remorseful. He knows he made a mistake. I haven't talked to him, but people might talk to him and he's explained to me what he said. He feels terrible, but he is going to pay

the correct consequences. He's going to be suspended for one entire year from a baseball from his baseball team and that's painful for him and painful for us so all we can do is continue to encourage him to do the right thing learn from this and we'll see him again we will definitely meet him that's got talked about it's great training but yeah yeah it's definitely amplified it in every part of that clubhouse right now you go in the food room you go come in my office you go in the training room it's all anybody's talking about um so I I love that there are rules in place to monitor this.

It needs to be monitored. So I don't even know how it was figured out. Will the draft kings or whatever? However, the system worked, and that's good to know that the players are being monitored as they should. But, yeah, I think it just postures you a little bit. It makes you think twice about some of the bad decisions you might be thinking about making. When did you guys find out what that was going to do? I'm not going to lie to you guys.

I found out yesterday. But it was made official today. I love when Tori doesn't lie to us. I mean, I feel like that's... I feel like Tori never lies to you guys. He really doesn't. Or at least when he is lying to us, he kind of tells us he's lying. He's like, I can't tell you guys that.

Or if he lies, it's because he thinks it's genuinely better for you that he does that. Sometimes it's sometimes parents have to look out for their kids. A hundred percent. Damon, what are your thoughts? on this overall. And I know, first of all, I want to say that, like, going back to what I was saying earlier,

I was kind of curious as to how these players get found out. But what Tori is suggesting is that the betting apps actually vet the players, right? But when you talk about how many baseball players there are in the minor league system, like, that's a lot of people to have to vet and figure out that they are, professional athletes, right? Like, and then report if they did, in fact, bet on the game of baseball back to MLB, I imagine, because that's what Tori made it sound like.

Yeah, I think, uh, you know, the, the stupidity of it is doing it from an account that is like with your name on it, right? Like, Ernesto says it here, but there's probably a lot of players who are putting in bets or telling their buddies to put in bets and stuff, but it's just not as easy to get traced back. Like it's it really I mean All There's there was a situation in the NFL Similarly where a lot of guys weren't even betting on football and they were but they were doing it in the NFL

Facility and that got them suspended for a year as well oh because they were gambling while They were like on fandual on team premises but they were betting on another sport that was and so like there's just like not a lot of leeway for this kind of stuff and I understand it they can't they got to take that side even if you know looking here at what Andrew Salfrey did. He made four bets while he was in the minors in 21 and 22, didn't appear in the games he bet on and didn't place bets on his minor league team. So it's like when you really map it out like that, it's not the worst sounding thing in the world,

but they have to come down very strict on it and it makes perfect sense why. And I think a really great point gets brought up here by Phamatic. He says, no more Otani jokes. You're wrong. You're wrong. That's just, I'm, I'm, shameless about it. And I'm going to find a way where mine can't yours is egregious and mine doesn't

count. Yeah. And I'll get there. I'm just going to need to get from A to Z somehow. He has to, he has to works on some new material and that's fine because now there's difficult waters to navigate. It's a good one by Connor too. Yeah. Now that we have somebody here in this, uh, in this chat, right? Or in this, in this organization, not in this chat. Well, maybe one of you have been suspended in this chat, but somebody in the organization now that's been suspended for this. of course we can't throw stones when living in glass houses but um i think that you shouldn't throw stones in general regardless of your housing situation i think it's shitty behavior to throw stones but uh what i will say is that this really sucks for the diamondbacks because there's a good chance that they were going to

need solfrink and so not only does this impact his career and him you know missing baseball for a year but the diamondbacks now miss him and uh i mean he was a very valuable piece of this bullpen when when coming down the stretch last year he had an incredible run along with Ryan Thompson when they were added to the roster and it sucks that this has now happened to the team and that's part of the consequences of Saul Frank's actions right so it's unfortunate but you know I think speaking of people that that had some interesting comments Ryan Thompson had some very interesting comments in regards to this and that is a guy that always has his teammates back so but I will say this

I have another guy that always has my back and another guy who might have some interesting thoughts on this situation as well as the Diamondbacks win tonight. It's my Thunderstick and your vice mayor, or maybe that's reversed. I don't know how that goes, but the one and only Jesse Friedman. Jesse, another big win, four wins in a row for this team.

Offense just came out of nowhere after looking like it was dead, you know, on arrival that we were getting ready to do a check on the time of death on the Diamondbacks. back season. And here we are four games later. And it really does feel like this team is a completely different baseball team. This offense has been cruising all year, Derek. I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, maybe there was a brief stretch last week, but this is a nine runs in six games, Jesse. Nine runs in six games. Yeah, well, it's now, what is that, 34 runs over over the last five something like that.

36 in their past five. Okay. Thank you. 36 in their past five. So, yeah, this offense, Derek has absolutely turned things around.

And on some level, I think we figured that that was inevitable, right? I mean, you weren't going to average a run and a half per game the rest of this season. This offense has not been great. Who knows?

Who knows? Who know? It was starting to look like they might have. It was really starting to look like that. Yeah, but I mean, that's just part of the ebbs and flows of the season, right? And that's what I've said so many times on this show, you know, over the last year or so, is that especially with this diamond vaccine, they just have a knack for doing this year after year where, you know, they might frustrate their fan base for a period of time. They might look like they're not really going anywhere. And then they'll find a way to turn it around.

And then everyone's like, they're back. Here we go. Let's do this thing. We back. And yeah, there's a lot of back and forth over the course of the season. And the Diamondback certainly in one of their best stretches of the year so far, obviously this Giants team is really going through it themselves right now. I believe this was their six consecutive loss.

But the debacks certainly caught him at a good time and are taking advantage of that. By the way, the chat is still asking for Jesse to apologize about Pavin and he will never apologize about Pavin. I'm going to take that stance for him right now because I know how Jesse feels but man there were a lot of contributions tonight from this offense and i mean it it a lot of it around around the lineup but those seven eight nine hitters they they continue to do great work for this team continues to be newman it continues to be McCarthy and blaze alexander was our king snake tonight because i mean the the the kid can't stay off base he just continues to be an offensive

threat for this team yeah blaze had three hits in this game and i i I think if you play out those innings where those hits came and imagine a world where he did not do what he did, if he recorded outs in those situations instead, the Diamondbacks four runs in the front half of this game that looked like it might be all they would get. Those four runs would be reduced down to one run if you just take away, you know, Blaze's three hits in this game. They were really impactful, especially that double in the third inning, which was some really good aggressive base run. by both Jake McCarthy and him getting to second and third on that play. Kevin Newman, of course, comes up with a hit right after that. So, yeah, just a complete effort for the D-BACs offense.

They didn't hit a home run today. There wasn't a ton of slug in this game, but they just consistently had guys on base and they were able to come through when they needed to. I may or may not have been present where Barry Bloom told Tori Lubello that he can't win a baseball game without hitting home runs. And Tori might have won that battle today. I'm just saying not to throw that business out there. That was very, I will say real quick,

Barry did address that with, with Torrey after the game. After the game? Yeah, I think it was, the debacks were four, four and twenty-one in games where they, where they didn't Homer and then they became five and 21. So, yeah, maybe, maybe the debacks get on a nice, nice little run there. Well, they were six for 14 tonight with runners in scoring position,

and that was the, that was the key here, is the fact that this team has really struggled. Like, we've, we've joked about it, that a great way to keep the Diamondbacks from scoring is the ghost runner for that is an instant runner in scoring position. And you know, they're not going to bring them in. And that has how it's, that is how it's felt at times when this team has struggled, especially when they have ducks on the pond. It doesn't feel like they don't have opportunities. It just feels like night after night, we take a look at the box score at the end of the night.

Diamondbacks were one for seven, one for nine, two for 13. And like, again, 13 guys in scoring position. that's crazy or at least 13 opportunities with runners in scoring position as Jesse would say but you know now we're actually seeing them able to convert and i mean i think the biggest key is is that this offense has continued to roll and and not just suddenly turned stagnant after after having some success absolutely yeah i mean the the debacks in this stretch where where they're starting pitching is is very fractured uh three-fifths of their rotation is is obviously on the injured list right now and a very good three-fifths of it, you know, both Zach Gallen and

Merrill Kelly along with, along with Eduardo Rodriguez, it's a really tough spot there in. Their offense is going to have to come through and win them some games, right? I know Blake Walson was, he wasn't fantastic tonight, but he certainly kept the diamondbacks in the game, four and a third and two runs. It wasn't pretty. There were four walks. There were a couple of hit by pitches. There were base runners seemingly all over the place.

I think he allowed the lead-off man on in all five innings that he started. But he was able to pitch around around that and still, you know, still give the diamondbacks a pretty good chance to win this game. But in the long run, you're still like, you know, you're not expecting Blake Walston to go out there and beat Merrill Kelly. You're not expecting Slate Ciconey to go out there and be Zach Gallen. The offense is going to have to step up more than they usually would in order for the diamond backs to stay hot. And I mean, that's, that's the reason why they're on this, this winning streak, right? It's been because they're, they're consistently.

I know it was just four runs yesterday, which wound up being enough, but they're consistently getting runs on the board, and that's going to have to continue. You bring up a great point because it really does feel like Gallin's injury was somehow like a catalyst for this team to get the offense going. Like they finally looked around and realized the dire situation that they were in. They've lost Merrill Kelly.

They've lost that gallon. Their offense stinks. They're going to have to rely on. a bunch of young pitchers that are inconsistent at best and can pitch, but still have no idea what you're going to get out of them from one night to the next. And all of a sudden, since that moment when Zach Gallen got injured, this offense woke up. It's almost like they flipped a switch only because they had to.

But I mean... Are you suggesting that Zach Gallen going on the IL was the key to the Diamondbacks turnaround? Is that what they just needed that to happen? I'm just saying they responded well, I guess you could say. Like sometimes that's the that's that's the sign of a good team that they can face some adversity. And instead of lying down and dying, like we kind of imagine that they were going to without, you know, their best starting pitchers. This team has turned it on. And I mean, not only has the starting pitching, the guys that they've called upon, Slade, Ryan, now today, Blake, they've all been, I mean, from great to pretty good.

they've all at least given this team an opportunity to win baseball games. But on top of that, the offense went out there as if those, you know, as if those guys were going to falter and produced in a way that we haven't really seen at least this offense produced consistently all year long. And of course, it leads to a four game hitting or a four game winning streak. I'm not suggesting like it's the Zach Gallen thing that turned around, but it is almost like that's the moment that this team realized that they have no choice but to get their show. shit together. Like, this is it. Like, we have to support the pitching because we're not going to get guys that go out there and give up two earned, one earned on a night. We're going to get guys that potentially are going to give up some runs and we're going to need to kind of back them up. It might not have even been like a meeting they had or whatever, but it's like it seems

like that was the moment that could just be a subconscious thing. Yeah, like you just know like there's, I don't know. I mean, it could have been a moment of absolute loss for them as well, that now that they've lost yet another part of their, you know, another key part of their starting lineup, their starting rotation. But I don't know. I mean, I applaud them for the way that they've responded to that, you know, the situation. Yeah. And even these young starters, like we mentioned Walson and not being super pretty today,

but they've at least given the debacks a chance. Like Ryan Nelson obviously did a whole lot more than that on Monday night. Granted the defense had a very big role in that. game. I discovered today, by the way, Derek, which is me like utterly nerding out as usual. I believe the Diamondbacks added three outs above average and six defensive run save to their team total in one game last night. Yeah, the OAA I know for sure was three OAA that they added. I'm not totally, I'm pretty sure the DRS went up by six. That's sort of going off my memory, which is not always the most reliable thing. But yeah, you know, Brandon Fought wasn't wasn't, wasn't,

great on Sunday. There was there was that that one beginning, but he was still good enough to get the Diamondbacks win and Slate Ciccone gave them a good chance to win on Saturday as well. This is actually if we go to some of the video that we have from the D-BACs Clubhouse and the interview room manager Tori Lavello was asked about a four-game winning streak that happened with Cicconi and Fott and Nelson and Walson, these four young D-back starters. And here's what Tori had to say about that. speaks volumes about our youngsters that are coming up here ready to go. That's player development.

Success story for me. It's a drafted player, targeted drafted players that come in and continue to get better. You're right. It's that next level of guy. But you've got to remember that I think Ryan Nelson, I know Ryan Nelson won eight or nine games last year. So he's got a good foundation that he's standing on. It's guys like Blake Walson and Slate Chaconi that for me that are doing a really, really good job, pushing it to the bullpen with the lead.

But yeah, we didn't budget for this. We did not, we did not budget for having three-fifths of our starting rotation on the IL. It happened, and we're making the adjustments next man up. We didn't budget for this? Who budgets for that, Jesse? I don't know who budgets for that much of an emergency situation. But yeah, no, man, I mean, these guys have been, they've been doing the thing. I mean, it's, again, it's, it might be shorter outings like what we saw as Slade and Blake today,

but they're still giving this team an opportunity to win. And they're giving them some innings instead of Tori exhausting his bullpen. Yeah, and I feel like that was another, another focus today. I actually was kind of surprised that Tori left Blake Walston in to face Helio Ramos, the Giants leadoff hitter, which was the first. third the third time through. It kind of felt to me with with ginkle warming up and ramos being a right-handed hitter. You were probably just going to go to to ginkle straight up there. And Tori stuck with waltston. It didn't really work. Wallston issue to walk. And that's how

his outing ended. Tori also said something about trying to get Walsston a win. So maybe, you know, trying to get him through five innings somehow was was also a point of emphasis there. But you get the sense through this, this elongated stretch without an off day, 13 straight straight days of game. that Tori is being a little bit less careful with his starters. He's trying to get as much out of them as he possibly can. And you can understand that because, yeah, you're not, you know, you're probably not going to average six innings from your starting pitching during this phase where you've got four pretty, pretty young starters in the mix.

Although I guess Brandon fought maybe shouldn't even be part of that group because he's averaging almost seven innings per start at this point. No. But with three-fifths of your rotation, being really young and not so experienced, yeah, you want to get as many innings, as many outs as you can out of those guys. And all as well that ends well for the Diamondbacks today. That's really what it comes down to. And I think one thing we haven't talked about, but we discussed earlier prior to you joining us was how filthy Justin Martinez is. And like tonight, nor any outing for him is perfect.

picked. But I feel like every single outing, we get consistency out of him. We get an ability to maybe allow a base runner or two, but not have any kind of panic that he's going to give up any runs because the man just doesn't seem to give up any runs. And I also feel like every single night he pitches, there's a moment that makes me go, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's about six moments that make that make me go, wow. Absolutely. Every splitter, every splitter that results in a whiff is just, is unbelievable. And also, I mean, honestly, what might have been his most impressive pitch in this game was the very last one that he threw to Matt Chapman, just a backdoor sinker that had an insane amount of horizontal movement.

We talked about it the other day. Like, that's a really big reason why Justin Martinez is so much better this year is that he's not throwing a straight four seamer. He's throwing a sinker that has an absurd amount of run and still is like 100, miles an hour. And yeah, Matt Chapman was, I mean, is a really, really tough pitch. So you think it's, it's going to sail off the plate, but it just winds up dropping right in on the outside corner for a call third strike. And yeah, Martinez wasn't perfect today. You needed 26 pitches to get through that one inning. But Tori did talk after the game about his willingness to use Martinez in higher leverage situations. I mean, that was a that was a four two game in the seventh inning at the time. Like,

that's a high leverage situation. Ginkle had been used earlier in the game. So it kind of feels like Tori did at least today what we suspected for a while. Or maybe you move Ginkle up a little bit, let him find his footing again, and then move Justin Martinez more toward the back end of the bullpen. Tori said today he's trying to get Martinez more of those opportunities. And it sounds like he's going to get more of those as the days go on. I don't know why I love the fact that he's performed so well in front of

his parents, but it was like the first game that he pitched in New York in front of his parents. I was nervous for him. I was like, you know, parents are there watching you in the majors for the first time. That feels like a lot of pressure. I'm interested to see how he responds here. His first couple of pitches weren't great. And it was like, oh, yeah, here we go. This is exactly what I thought would happen.

And instead, he just absolutely dominated after that and gave the Diamondbacks, I think, two strong innings. Tonight, another strong inning in front of his parents with his dad going out there and throwing out the first pitch prior to the game. And it was just, it's just been a wonderful week for Justin Martinez to not only, you know, celebrate this with his family and allow his parents to see, you know, him achieve his goals. But for him to just be nasty, nasty while moms watching. Jesse, can you believe that I went to the bathroom during the half inning before Jay Mark came

into pitch? And Derek didn't even call me. He was so mad at him. He wanted me to call him in the bathroom and tell him to come here right now. I was serious. I was like, he missed a little dinker down the line that Gino didn't really get to. That's unacceptable.

Yeah, he was mad. I don't want to miss any J. Mark Pitcher. It's must-see TV. It is Justin Martinez pitching is must-see TV. I've never seen anything like it in a Diamondbacks uniform at least. No. Well, we haven't.

Jesse's written articles on it. We literally have never seen a reliever like this as part of the Diamondbacks organization. I think I love them. guys that have had the potential, but never guys that put it together the way that J-Mart has so far this season. And I said it earlier, but it just feels like it's way ahead of schedule too. Yeah, I mean, I think we can pretty safely say that no Diamondbacksheliever has ever had the kind of stuff that Justin Martinez has. And I'm not sure it's even particularly close. You know, you think about some of the better back-end relievers in this team's history.

Yeah, Biongum Kim, Kim, I mean, he had really, he had really, he's, He did have really good stuff. He didn't throw 100 miles an hour, you know, as far as far as I recall, obviously he was throwing from, you know, he had the whole submarine thing going, which certainly was a different look. But yeah, like Brad Ziegler, you know, Archie Bradley, JJ puts, this team has had some good relievers at times, not very many. But none of them were, you know, throwing 100 miles an hour with crazy run and two plus

breaking pitches. And this is in my mind just kind of a completely different. category of reliever that we've seen. And Martinez still has development to do. You know, he's still, you'd still like to see him get in the zone more. You'd still like to see him have fewer lapses where he just kind of bounces on competitive pitches every now and then. But the ceiling here is, is in my mind, higher than it's been for any diamond-backed

reliever arguably ever in this team's history. His stuff is just that good. Yeah. Zach, we're apparently installing a J-Mart alarm in the office. and Zach was, I was thinking the exact same thing Zach was said. Like it's a J-Mart K-Mart thing. We could have a blue light special, right? It's when he comes in to pitch, we'll have a little blue light,

and it just goes around and goes crazy. But Tori going crazy for this team. He had more on this team's turnaround, which started on Friday night and explicably, inexplicably, like I said, that the whole situation with Zach Gallen. But this is what Tori had to say about this team turning things around. felt like Friday night when I guess had that big night thing, that kind of, feels like that turned a tie for you.

Yeah, we were down by five. I think we scored four, right? There was a couple of home runs. It happened really quick. And ever since that inning, and I started to have a very good feeling about what we were able to do offensively in some clip with the guys possibly. I'm not sure exactly what it was.

But I've been saying now for a few days, you never know where the rally's going to start. And you've got to be the guy doing your job. That one moment, go up there and sail on that bad. asking for it and do your job. I love it. I love it. I love Tori's attitude lately. And I mean, honestly, I think Tori's had to have a little bit more of an edge in managing because of the way things have gone this season. It's understandable. But he doesn't, I mean,

he did say that a lot of things keep him up at night. But he did definitely say that some things keep him up more than others. Right now, though, things are just like everything turned around for this team somehow in one night. And I still still. don't understand that. I'm just glad it happened. Yeah, going back to the bullpen real quick, like, I'm just imagining a world where this game stays four to two. The debacks don't add those four runs in the eighth inning. Right. You still feel pretty good about how this game would end, right? And we couldn't, we couldn't have said that, I don't think, about a month ago. It's not just that they have

three guys who are good at the back end of the bullpen like we saw really powering them last season. It's it kind of feels like it's more than that, right? With Ginkle, kind of finding his way again with Martinez, with Thompson, with Seawald. Joe Mantiply, his, his ERA isn't, isn't particularly great at this point. But he's been much better over his last probably 10 outings. Yeah, he's been pretty solid. Yeah, he's, he's been solid too. So I don't, I don't think if you're a fan of this team, you were probably too, too concerned. Like, even if the D-Backs hadn't, hadn't tacked on those runs, it just kind of felt like a tailor-made, like, all right, this is just what the D-Vox bullpen is now. And that's a testament to Martinez.

It's a testament to obviously Paul Seawald's impact now that he's back off the injured list. Yeah, we haven't had many, you know, doomsday conversations about this bullpen in a long time. So some real progress has been made on that front. Well, it's funny because even when the bullpen was the problem, I don't think we lost hope the way that we did this year. like it did feel like anyone that Tori put in there wasn't the solution no matter how well they were pitching it seemed like some sort of cursed inning for this team that at times if the game was close they couldn't put anyone in in the ninth inning and have things go their way but they were still finding ways to win games around that as much as it seemed like it was every single game it wasn't just like it seemed like every single night they were blowing a lead it really wasn't but this year the bullpen has been fine I mean the bullpen has been fine I mean the bulls Open really hasn't been the problem. There are some games where they let the game get out of control instead of, you know, keeping it close and giving the team an opportunity to win.

And a lot of those losses, though, the team didn't end up scoring any more offense. So it really didn't matter if it was 8 to 1 or 2 to 1 or whatever. The Diamondbacks just have been struggling all year long offensively. I think it really sucks that it's, you know, guys like Gino that have struggled that the diamondbacks really did put so much hope into, you know, taking this offense from where, it was at and just ramping it up, you know, just giving it that extra bit that we saw this year. Instead, Gino and a few other guys have been liabilities at the plate, including Lourdes. But I got to give Lourdes his flowers because that man has really turned things around.

He now has hit safely in 14 of his last 17 games. And even though it's not consistent, tonight's hit was huge. Like you said, that ended up making a huge difference in the outcome of this game. He had a couple of good swings early in yesterday's game. I think it was a base knock in his first at bat, and then he hit a hard line drive to the opposite field that was caught in the second in bat, but it was still like, yeah, that's what Lordus looks like at his best. And then I think he, like, grounded out and struck out to end the day,

and those at bats didn't look as good. And then I felt less confident about, you know, about Lordus, like, really coming into his own and turning this thing around. And today it was sort of the same story. was a, you know, there was a double play. His abats early in the game didn't, didn't look particularly great. But he did come through with that big double late in this one. And on the whole, he's looked better for sure.

It still feels like there's a little ways to go for him. We know how locked in he can get at times. He's maybe not quite there yet, but seems to be on the right path. People in the chat talking about Scott McGuff right now. I had the opportunity to see him pitch for the Reno Aces today, Jesse. That's what we let's, do we want to talk about Jacob? just being in his office, just watching ball all the time, including AAA ball. The guy, the guy just loves it.

He just lives and dies. Faj loves ball. He bleeds, he bleeds, you know, minor league farms. He does. He bleeds. He bleeds, reed no aces red. Hillsborough hops, bright green. But speaking of guys that love ball, we have Blaze Alexander here from the clubhouse talking

about the vibes, Jesse. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, you're going to, you're going to love this. We probably should have played this from the top, honestly. Hold on. Let me strap my... Let's do this. Let's give it to me. Let's go.

Oh, it's huge. Especially, I mean, coming back in the clubhouse after the wind, we got all these fancy lights now. The lights are off. Actually, I got to wear the jacket for the first time today. And I guess you could say I messed up the speech. Everyone's laughing at me. But, yeah, no, it's just, I don't know.

It's just, you feel something different. It's really good energy right now. We're just, we're going to keep rolling with it. What was your speech? I had, I, I, you know. I just had some cuss words, but we can't get into it, but I don't know if they liked it, but I'm sorry. Do you know who's responsible for the lights? I'm not sure who's responsible for the lights, but I know C. Walt gives out that jacket after and does his speech and stuff.

But the lights are new, but we love it. I know Los Angeles when we were there, they had it in the away locker room. So I don't know if we just, we were rolling there, too. So I don't know if we just caught that vibe and brought it here, but I love it. When did the best get back into the rotation? Has that been all season or is it just been? It's been all season. I guess the celebrations afterwards have been, you know, better now.

But I don't know, we were going through a little struggle. So it's good to see the best back out. To clarify on the lights, is it just these last two home games that they've been in here then? Yep, last two home games. And I love it. I think everyone loves it. Come in here, the lights are off. You know you won a ball game.

And everyone's pumped out. The fucking vest is back, Jesse. You're burying the lead here. Let's go. Yeah, so we walked into the clubhouse after this game. And normally, music is blaring after a win. That's the way it goes. But all of the normal clubhouse lights are on.

But today, that was not the case, Derek. The clubhouse was completely pitch black with the exception of, I believe it was like six different disco lights that were, you know, we have like multi-colored lights, like a light display on the ceiling in the clubhouse. And it was dark. So it was really a nice, it was really a nice effect. And as you could, yeah, as you could hear Blaze describing there, they had this whole thing going where Seawald starts it. It sounds like he gives out the vest, which is apparently now a thing. And then he passes off the vest. And then the vest wearer gives a speech, which is you heard there. Blaze did not seem so confident in his speech tonight.

But, you know, D-VAC still one, so I guess I guess it's okay. So, yeah, it appears the vibes are high in the clubhouse, right? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This is incredible. I don't know how to feel about this because, again, there was something that Tori talked about today with us, where he was talking about, like, not giving away everything he speaks to the guys about.

because it means more to them when you kind of keep that stuff private. It's okay when he goes out there and he kind of like, you know, tells us that he had a conversation with so-and-so. But keeping the kind of details of what they actually said to each other private is something Tori does quite a bit. And that's apparently part of the reason why he does that is because he feels like this stuff is more effective when it's an internal thing rather than Tori goes on, you know,

his pregame press conference and put someone on blast or whatever the case may be. right but like that that's kind of what this celebration feels like this is like a secret society kind of thing i imagine like i'm seeing paul seawald in a hooded robe with with candles being lit around while i give someone the best like i am seeing a secret society here a serpent society if you will uh that's something we've said before but that's very cool that they're you know they're they're celebrating still because we didn't want them to stop doing that but they're doing it in a more private fashion where they don't feel really like they're maybe stunting on the other team as much as they're just celebrating internally, you know, their accomplishments.

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, right, the vest last year was something that the person who was interviewed after a win on TV, they would wear that. It was, yeah, it was a very public thing. We always knew who was the vest wear on a given day. But yeah, the vest, I mean, you've seen it too. The vest has just been sitting on a chair. in the clubhouse for at least as long as I.

Yeah. Seemingly collecting dust as long as I could see. But apparently it's been in use basically this entire season. Blaze, of course, did say that, you know, the post game celebrations weren't quite as, uh, it weren't, or the vibes weren't quite as good when the debacks were going through a rough stretch, but. Understandable. Yeah.

They've dialed that stuff back when, when they're losing because it doesn't feel so good. But then at the same time, like we've said, like, being. loose and having a fun time while you're playing baseball does seem to be a key to success. And I think that the teams that do have a fun time with it end up finding a way to convert that into success on the field. It's just keeping things loose, right? Someone was talking, by the way, about like all of their celebrations and their hand gestures because now it seems like they've gone away from the zipping and throwing the key away

to like a hang loose kind of thing. They seem to be all over the place with their celebrations. More importantly, they don't really seem to care to explain to us what their celebrations are. It kind of goes along with this thing of it being more for them than anybody else. Paul C.Wall being in charge of the best ceremony, I still can't get over that, though. That's what, like how, why he just falls into this whole dad thing that we pegged him with? Like, of course the dad was like, hey, boys, let's do something fun. I'm going to give out the best to the best guy on the team every night.

That is such a dad move. I love it, though, also because, like, he'll never be in a situation to get it, but he'll always be in a situation where he just came off the mound when they won. But he's just doing his job, and he feels like he's just doing his job. But he doesn't want things out. He closed the door. He doesn't want the vest. He did his job, but he wants to give the vest to somebody who won them the game.

I love it. I think the vibes are great. The vibes are great. You know where else the vibes are great at, right? Is here in the Circle K studio. This is Studio K that I'm sitting in right now. This place is about to be turned into an actual Circle K. I can't wait until we have my polar pop machine in the corner.

That's me and Lindsay have put that into our contracts, right? By the way, and it's not just drink. We want the frozen frozen polar pop machines, by the way. We want the frozen polar pop machine. We want the cups in here the whole bit. We love Circle K. We had a blast going and getting some snacks today. Did a little commercial shoot that should be coming at some point.

I don't know. I'm probably not even supposed to be telling you that. But we love Circle K. The prize at the end of our commercial shoot, was polar pops. That's again, part of my contract and Lindsay's contract. We need, if you're going to get us to go shoot any kind of content in Circle K, you must give us a polar pop at the end of the day. And it's cheap. It's an easy, it's an easy treat at the end because it's only 79 cents. And of course, if you join the Inner Circle for free,

which is their membership program by downloading the Circle K app today, you can save even more. Terms and conditions do apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details. But when you do, you can save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five fillups, save three cents off per gallon every day after that. If you become a premium member, you can save five cents off per gallon every single day. And let me tell you, at least in downtown Phoenix, Circle K is already the cheapest gas. So you're stacking deals upon deals. It also stacks with the easy pay option if you do have easy pay. So make sure to check out everything Circlecast offer.

Get that Inner Circle membership for free and then get all sorts of free stuff in the apps. Buy one, get one free stuff. get two for $3, all sorts of great options to save some money. Speaking of saving some money, another place that you can do that is at Desert Financial Credit Union for more than 84 years. Desert Financial has been the largest, most trusted credit union here in the Valley. They got me started on my homeownership journey, and I am so glad they did, especially when I'm talking to some people who just recently rented an apartment and having to hear what they are paying in rent versus what I am paying in my mortgage. I'm not going

to get into details with that. but Desert Financial saved me a lot of money, and they definitely helped me secure my future, my family's future, and they've also helped me with other things, such as loans, credit cards, and investment options. So you can look to their financial experts, and they are committed to their members and the community. They're also committed to giving back to you,

making sure that your financial interests are taking care of. So right now, when you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 in bonuses, get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. Well, Jesse, before we get out of here, I know that I lied to Damon earlier. I lied to Damon all the time. I lie to you all the time. Big time lied to me.

Oh, what was the lie about? Do we remember what I lied to you about? Unbelievable, Jesse. Can you believe this guy? I don't even remember why I lie. I lie so much. I don't even remember my lies. It's hard to keep track of them.

They're not even sorry about it. No, I'm not. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to shake that at you. And what I am going to say is the numbers, they never lie. Jesse, what do you have for our number from tonight's game? Yeah, the number is 857, which represents the Diamondbacks OPS over their previous four games entering tonight. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do the math and figure out what it would be including tonight.

And now I'm falling down. It's got to be pretty good though. It's got to be pretty good with the way they performed tonight. Yeah, I mean, their team batting average tonight was 32. There wasn't a ton of slug. I think it was just the two doubles. So the slugging percentage wouldn't be super high. But yeah, if you're hitting 382 as a team, I wouldn't be surprised at that 857 OPS,

at least hung around the same, maybe even ticks up a little bit after this one. So, yeah, and this comes after the D-Backs at a 485 OPS, and there's six games before this. So it goes back to what we were saying when I first hopped on of just the ebbs and flows of the season, and, you know, the sky is falling and the D-backs are never going to score like four runs in a game again. And then suddenly it's like, yeah, they score four runs is a bad day now. Like usually we expect like seven or eight. Yeah, that's a slow day. That's a slow day at the office.

Yeah, the other thing I do have to bring up real quick about this game is that I think the diamond backs benefited heavily from the fact that the giants do not have a competent shortstop. I don't know if you guys discuss this already. We were going to give Kingsnake to Casey Schmidt. Yeah, okay. Yeah. We consider it. We're on the same way, the same wavelength there. Yeah, it kind of reminded me of Ezekiel Tovar of the Rockies in the first series of the season,

where Tovar actually has a really good defensive reputation as a shortstop. But I think Jack Peterson had like, you know, seven hits on balls that were basically just like tough hops to Ezekiel Tovar that he just, he just wasn't able to make the play. And based on how scoring is done now, like all of them were rolled hits, of course. There were some of that again today. But yeah, the Giants don't have Nick Ahmed, Derek. He is on the injured list. And that is a bigger deal than I think I realized. Well, you discussed it earlier.

You brought it up. But, I mean, this team was a team that we were starting to wonder, you know, what is the future going to look like of this season? I'm not trying to get dramatic and say the future of the franchise. But you had to start asking at one point with the way that this team was struggling and the way things were going. if they were going to in fact be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. And Jeff Passon has an article up at ESPN in regards to that

and in regards to the other, what other teams might do at the trade deadline, who they might be willing to part ways with. We have no idea what this Diamondbacks team is going to do at the trade deadline. We don't even know what any other baseball team is going to do. There are so many bad teams right now in the National League that it feels like everyone's just going to do. clustered together outside of the Phillies and the Dodgers and I mean maybe you know I guess

the Braves who is still are in a wildcard spot themselves but everybody else feels fairly close together so I think it's hard to gauge if the Diamondbacks would even consider being sellers at the trade deadline one thing that we do know is that they did kind of push all of their chips in on this season with the contracts that they that they extended or not extended by I guess the the one-year contracts that they gave to several players. It really does feel like this year was a year where they were trying to go for, trying to build on the success of last year, and make something very special happen this year.

I am still, I have a hard time believing that with the way this team has been impacted by injuries that are going to, a lot of those injured players are going to return right before the trade deadline. I have a hard time seeing the Diamondbacks being a seller. but who knows. But Passon does talk about, you know, that teams are keeping an eye on the Diamondbacks thinking owner Ken Kendrick could pursue some sort of payroll reduction. I mean, it makes sense for other teams to be wondering about that, right?

Like the D.S did, as you said, they really did kind of push the chips in on this season and given how things have gone, it's only natural to wonder if an owner would want to pull back on that investment, you know, that Ken Kendrick didn't spend that money for this team to be seven games under 500 as it was a few days ago or, you know, three games under 500 as it is now. But yeah, my guess is still that those other teams are going to be disappointed. As you said, the National League right now is just, it is, you know, three, I guess four good teams, if you include the Brewers and then just a whole lot of mediocrity. It is really his, both the second and third wildcard spots might be attractive.

to the sport, at least in the eyes of some people by the end of the year, because as things stand right now, you know, you're tracking to have like a like a 500 team in the second wildcard spot, like a 78 win team or something like that. Yeah. In the third wildcard spot, I don't think it's going to play out that way. I think, you know, a couple teams will probably get hot. But the debacks have a really good chance, or at least a decent chance to be one of those teams. If you look at that list of teams that are kind of vying for those spots right now, then no, no, no, team really stands out at least not not really more than this diamond backs team if you look at if you look at the list here i mean you've got the the the podres in the second wild card spot they're 500 right now the

cubs in the third spot they're a game under uh then it's debacks cardinals giants pirates reds nationals all within a game and a half of each other um just just outside of the the playoff picture looking in i don't know about you derrick but none none of those teams really stand out to me is like oh yes, this team is going to figure it out at this point at some point. Like it's just a matter of time. I don't really feel that way about any of these teams. I doubt it plays out this way, but just looking at this, every team below me, below us doesn't scare me at all.

No, no, not at all. It's the teams above us that actually worry me a little. There's an NLE's team that it's going to get a spot on one of these wildcard spots. No doubt about it in the world. The Braves or the Phillies are going to get one of those spots. So that leaves Padres, Cubs, and Diamondbacks for, I think, two spots. And that's the teams I would be looking at pretty much this entire time. I think the thing that bothers me is a couple of the names that are listed in Passon's article that the Diamondbacks could part ways with.

And they make sense. They all make sense for one reason or another. It's just a little hard to see a couple of these guys. Christian Walker, Jock Peterson, completely understand, especially Peterson, considering, you know, the way he's performing. this year, the numbers he's putting up. I feel like you could get an absolute haul for him in a trade. Randall Gritchick, he's been very good for this team. Doesn't have reverse splits, Jeff Passon, by the way.

But what he has been is very good when called upon in the roles that Tori LeBello has asked him for. I think he's a great hitter. I think he's been a much better defender than some of the Diamondbacks other options at times. But it's when you start getting into Tea Time, Ryan, Thompson and Kevin Ginkle. That hits a little too close to home for you.

I will fight you. I will fight you. I'm with you there. It's unacceptable. Damon, you're right. And I will, I'll take a bullet for Ryan Thompson is basically what I'm trying to say.

And that bullet would be also me jumping in front of any kind of moving truck that took him out of the valley. Because I'm not going to allow it. That's been the absolute steel of the century. Like, like Ryan Thompson might be one of the Diamondbacks biggest best acquisition. ever just based on the way that they got him and the way that he ended up performing for this team once he became a member of this organization.

He's just been outstanding. I don't like that. Passon does mention Gino, of course, if the Diamondbacks might be willing to help pay down what he is owed or if he steps up his production, but I think that that would have to be a considerable step up from what we've seen so far this year. Yeah, the D-backs would have to pay down the heck out of that salary.

as of right now for any i don't i mean i don't i don't think that gino is really at least as of right now like gino is pretty clearly not a player that a playoff team would be acquiring or looking to acquire at the deadline regardless of how little you have to pay down or to pay on a salary the rest of the year um yeah the controllable guys like ryan thompson and kevin ginkle even if the debacks were far enough out of this playoff picture by mid-july that they were willing to uh to sell off some pieces which again is something I'd be a little surprised by. I don't know if it would really make sense for them to look at dealing Thompson or Ginkle. Next season is a very important year for this team,

given that it is the last year of Merrill Kelly, the last year of Zach Gallen, at least under their current contracts. That's a season that this team is probably going to want to capitalize on. And maybe they don't wind up being as aggressive as they were going into this year, but I have a hard time seeing them wanting to punt on any of the pieces that would be impactful. on next year's team. So, yeah, all this to say, Derek, like, I mean, at least as of right now, it's almost a little outrageous to be talking about this,

this team selling at the deadline. I hate it. I don't like it. In the NL, they're right there in the playoff picture. So, you know, some things would really have to go, go sideways for them in the next month for us to be taking a close look at this. I like piece of Yoshi's idea, by the way. He's discussing maybe trading Gino back to the Mariners.

Not a terrible idea. Not a terrible idea just because they love. Can we have Josh Rojas back? I mean, I don't think they're doing the Gino Suarez for Josh Rojas swap at this point. I was actually thinking the same thing right now, Derek. Were you really? When you were talking about Gino, I was like, remember when we had Josh Rojas and how good he is right now? Longo's still hanging around.

Longo's in the clubhouse all the time. He was there today. So, yeah, like, let's kick the tires on that ride, maybe one. once more. I mean, we do have to consider that it is an inevitability that the Mariners and Diamondbacks will make a trade at the dozen. It is just a matter of which the players are involved. So everyone, you know, we just all have to figure out, like, you know, which who on the Mariners do the do the devax want? Rojas, I don't know if I see Depoto trading Rojas back to the Diamond Back, especially given how important Rojas has been to that team so far this season.

a row for myself. But yeah, it's going to happen, Derek. It's just a matter of a matter of when, when, and who's going to be involved? Right. Well, we've kept you guys entirely too long, but what can we say? We love talking about this team when things are going the way that they're going right now. Diamondbacks win their fourth. They go for their fifth win in a row tomorrow.

This mustache stays shaved and they could complete the sweep of the Giants in a day game tomorrow. So make sure to come back here. Join us for our post game or post-series. I should say wrap up after tomorrow's game. In the meanwhile, make sure you smash that like button before you get out of here. Make sure you follow us on Twitter. I am at K-N-K-M-W-A-K.

This maniac next to me that loves baseball more than anyone else is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, Damon, the people's producer, is at Damon Dogg, that's D-A-W-G. And why? Because we are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. Damn it, we missed it.

We'll try it again next time. On my end, we were in perfect sain. Yeah, I know. There's a delay. I get it. But anyway, we still, we still, even when we fail, we still win, right? But of course, our show is at PHNX 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 tonight.

Appreciate your comments. Appreciate you being here live. And just appreciate you for being a Diamondbacks fan. We will see you tomorrow after, hopefully, a series sweep. And until then, have a wonderful. night and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when Paul Seawald award you with the victory vest in a secret ceremony.