PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks Offense Struggles Again In World Series Rematch With Corey Seager & Rangers

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Damned if you do pitch to Corey Seager and damned if you don’t. Whatever game plan Brandon Pfaadt and the Arizona Diamondbacks had for Seager, it didn’t work in the game 1 loss to the Texas Rangers. And speaking of things not working, we have more on the D-backs offense continuing to struggle and MLB umpire Angel Hernandez announcing his retirement. We also discuss the impact of MLB announcing they will integrating Negro League statistics into the MLB database. 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.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.

Well, that sucked. Offense sucks. A lot of things suck. It's very depressing around here right now. Welcome in to the PHNXD Back show. Hopefully we can make your evening better. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. This man next to me, your vice mayor, my thunderstake, the one and only Jesse Friedman. Jesse, we already heard from Tori Lavallo sounding very frustrated with this offense after their series against Miami Marlins. But holy cow, I can only imagine how frustrating things. are after tonight's game. It's not great, Derek. No. They don't, they don't, they don't hit much. No. There's not, not a lot of offense to speak of yet again. The Diamondbacks had two extra base hits in this game.

Back-to-back extra base hits. This started a nice little run in the second inning. And then they did not have an extra base hit the rest of the game. Neat. Yeah, not fantastic. No. They score just the two runs. which of course also both happened in that second inning.

It's rough, Derek. This is a rough time. I thought Brandon fought pitched pretty well in this game. We'll get into him a little bit later. But the story, once again, is that the offense just didn't really show up. And they've now scored six runs in their past four games combined. Debacks lose this one four to two. They are now one and 25 when they are trailing by two runs or more at any point during the game.

They're not they haven't that doesn't exactly scream answerbacks. I know that we're pulling the shirt off the store. The answer back shirt. It's fucking gone. Okay. And I mean, honestly, if you keep performing like this,

we'll take away the fucking connected and dangerous shirt too. Because this is not a very dangerous team, not offensively right now. A lot of pieces aren't working. Christian Walker, you know, he did some good work tonight at the plate. Pavin Smith continues to be better than everybody continues to give him credit for.

But outside of that, the diamond back's just. really didn't have a lot going on, Jesse. And I think that this is starting to get very frustrating. When I said Tori Lovolo sounded frustrated the other day, it's not just Tori. You know who else sounded frustrated? Bert, Steve Berthume, during this game a couple of times sounded like he's finally at his wits end with this team.

And honestly, I'm not surprised by it because he has to watch every single game, as do we. And you know how frustrated I am. Damon has just abandoned this team altogether. You know all those beautiful vintage shirts? He's just selling them all on eBay at this point. because this man has had it with the offense. And so have we all.

This offense just lost its momentum today after an amazing play at the plate by Adoles Garcia to cut down Jock Peterson at home. And it felt like from that point on, things just went flat. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, let's run through sort of what happened to.

I don't want to. I don't want to recap it. No one wants to recap. Can I just say that. I don't want to hear it. Damon is so mad at this team that he's no longer producing the show. Yeah. That's Shane, by the way, behind on the ones and twos.

because Damon has abandoned our show, us completely. I don't think he's coming back in Las Vegas, to be honest. I think he's going to maybe just wait around for the baseball team to get there. Good luck with that one. But this was definitely a frustrating game because it did feel early on like the Diamondbacks were producing there. It did feel like they had a couple of opportunities early on. And I mean, again, once, especially once we saw Nathan Evaldi removed from the game, it's like nothing. Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, D-backs, they put up. two runs in the second inning, as we said before. Christian Walker double, Pavin Smith double, Jake McCarthy single. And then Aeohenio Suarez brings in a second run on a sack fly. They get out in front two nothing. And then in the bottom half of the third, Derek, you've got Travis Jankowski at second base with two outs.

Corey Seeger has been absolutely demolishing the baseball lately. I believe he had five homers in his last six games entering today. Or I'd at least had homered in five of his last six games. And Tori decided he was. wasn't going to let Corey Seeger beat him, at least in that inning. He intentionally walks Corey Seeger, makes it two on, two out. And the next hitter, Josh Smith comes through with a two-out RBI single, gets the Rangers on the board, makes it a two-one game at that point.

And then in the bottom half of the fifth inning, you've got back-to-back singles to start by Jonah Heim and Travis Jankowski. Then Marcus Semyon hits a no force out, first and third one out. Corey Seeger comes up again. And at that point, it's like, all right, do you want to watch? Corey Seeger to load the bases or are you just going to pitch to him and that time Tori Lavello decided to pitch to Corey Seeger and he gave up a, Brandon Fock gave up a three run home run on the very first pitch. So it did not. It seemed, I mean, both of those situations, I guess in hindsight,

in hindsight Tori sort of seemed to make the wrong choice. Although who knows what happens in the second inning if he pitches to him. Maybe that's a two run homer. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't when it comes to Corey Seeger, right? Right. I mean, you can do what you want. You can try to pitch around them and it's still going to bite you. And honestly, I don't know really because four runs doesn't seem like an insurmountable lead. It doesn't feel like the Diamondbacks can't come back from that. But like we said earlier, they are one in 25 when trailing by two plus runs at any point in the game.

That tells me that this team gives up. I mean, you can say that they fight back. You can say that they give an effort. You can say that they tried hard. but you can't convince me that they are not giving up once they go down by two plus runs. It almost feels like we as fans feel that way, that's typically fairly, you know, reactionary, right? But it's starting to feel like the team feels that way too. And I mean, I don't know.

I think it's the fact that we do see them struggle so much late in the game, especially after they've lost the lead or they're down. Yeah. And I mean, it just feels like their heart isn't. it anymore just because they're down by a couple of runs right so they so it's four two rangers at that point after the three run bomb by seager but the debacks they they did derrick at least appear to still be engaged in trying to fight their way back because in the sixth inning you've got a jock peterson walk uh i believe christian walker uh was retired but then lordis geryl single jake mccarthy

singled uh you find yourself in a bases loaded one out situation for one gino swarres and gino swaris flies out to right field and Adolus Garcia, who has an absolute cannon of an arm, throws a, makes a basically perfect throw to home. Jock Peterson is initially called safe, but upon review, it was pretty clear that he was out. Not the best slide that I've ever seen. I think if Jock, I think there's, you know, a world in which Jock is safe with a, with a better slide, but he was very clearly out upon replay. and the Diamond Vax, that ending ended on a double play,

which is not exactly ideal when you have the basis loaded in one out. Meanwhile, Brandon fought, even though the line doesn't really suggest it, was very good for this team tonight. Not only did he give them seven innings, but again, loser talk here, if you take out basically Corey Seeger's two at bat and the results of those, he was damn good, right?

So it's like outside of not being able to do anything against Corey Seeger, Brandon Fought was he was getting a lot of swings and misses tonight. He was doing the thing. He was good. Yeah, Brandon Fought was good in this game. He had 15 whiffs, which is a pretty darn good number. He was all over the strikes on with his four seamer and his sinker. Seamor seemed like he was having a little trouble spotting the sweeper for strikes early in the game.

But that wound up. He was able to get in the zone more later in the game. He got six whiffs on that pitch, which is we're kind of used to seeing that at this point where Fought sweeper is just. just one of the better out pitches in all the baseball. I thought he pitched pretty, pretty dang well. But if, you know, if you don't come through and make good pitches in the biggest moments, especially against a guy like Corey Seeger, that the sweeper location, the pitch that Corey Seeger hit for a three run home run, a down and in sweeper that's like in the zone

is just not, that's just not something that you want to throw Corey Seeger, especially on the first pitch. The Diamondbacks have some experience going back to the World Series of what Corey seeger can do on the first pitch if he has an idea of what's coming saw it with paul seawald um and uh yeah he did what what cori seger often does in those situations which is you know sort of put i guess he didn't really put the game out of reach at that point but as you said earlier with with how much the diamondbacks have struggled to come back in games it sort of felt like the game was out of reach at that point well we didn't have many options and i know very this is going to piss off a lot of

people in the score that we didn't give it to pavement smith but uh We are going to give tonight's king snake to Brandon Fott because, again, he was much better tonight. Those 15 whiffs were incredible. And I mean, this does feel like deja vu at times when they play this Rangers team. Brandon Fott does tend to give up a lot of runs against the Rangers. But, I mean, he continues to be a very solid piece of the starting rotation, if not the most consistent. Tonight was just a bit of an outlier because of how good Corey Seeger has been. And I mean, again, this is more of tipping the cap to Corey Seeger, I think, than admitting that Brandon Fott was bad tonight.

Because that home run, go back and watch it. The man was like almost down to one knee while he hit it. Like it was, it was an incredible swing. And Corey Seeger has just been absolutely on fire lately. So it's hard to completely blame Brandon Fought for that, considering how good Seeger has been. Yeah. What I will say about about Fotz outing, although he did. give up the four runs and that was definitely a mistake pitch to Seeger. The two singles that

set Seeger up for that moment, Jonah Heimes was 70.8 miles an hour off the bat and Travis Jankowski's was 60 miles an hour off the bat. Both of those were pretty cheap hits. I mean, they had expected batting averages of 140 and 360. I think Heim's was kind of like a half swing in the shift, which I guess you could give him some credit for. But yeah, I mean, those are two, those are two kind of fluky hits, right? And if those don't happen, then you're talking about a solo home run, which is still not great. Would have tied the game. Who knows what happens at that point. But, you know, maybe this game is still going. Maybe the Diamondbacks are able to find a way to come back. When I say Corey Seeger is on fire right now, the man has seven home runs in his last

seven games. Yeah, that's, that's ridiculous. I looked at his savant page, too, before the series started. And I just was not really at all fooled by the 796 OPS that Seeger had coming into the series because his savant page is basically as bright red as ever. I think his expected weighted on base average is coming into day about 60 points higher than his actual. So I think he's dealt with some bad luck. He also was injured for a good portion of spring training. And so I think he kind of got off to a slower start for that reason as well. But Corey Seeger's really, really good. And the Diamondbacks know that about as well as any franchise in the game at this point.

Going back there, Elise, known baseball GM, who we still, there's the verdict still out on whether she's a baseball GM or not. She says, why do we suck after off days? It's unbelievable how flat we come out. I'm so confused. It's not just off days, Jesse. You can literally count on one hand how many game ones they've won with fingers to spare, right? Yeah, they're three and 15. and three and 15 in season openers in series openers they are one and oh yeah they are one and oh

they're one and oh god they've been so bad and there's no i don't know that that's as confusing to me as the conversation about what is going on with their hitters right and their hitters right now are just really bad but we've lost kattel kattel has gone offline he's gone off line he's gone off the grid uh kattel marty is now 0 for 16 jesse oh 4 16 since his hit streak ended yeah he's just gone 0 for four four consecutive time since the dodger series jesse said quote he's dead to me today while we're watching the game i did i did not say that but but yeah kuttle's ops is down to 800 which uh which is still good but it's not i mean it's lower than last year right um you know kattel as of a week or so ago it felt like he was having just this unbelievable season and was one of the few guys in this lineup that

was really doing everything you wanted and more. But at this point, it kind of just feels like Ketel on the whole has had about the season you'd expect to have, maybe even, you'd expect him to have, maybe even a tick less than that with the OPS down at 800 at this point. So yeah, I mean, the reality for this offense, Derek, is Jock Peterson has had a great season. Ketel Marte has had a solid season. Christian Walker's had a solid season. Basically, everyone, else has fallen well below expectations. I guess Jake McCarthy, give a shout out there. He's certainly been pretty good this year, bounce back nicely.

But Eohenio Suarez hasn't really hit. Gabriel Mereno hasn't really hit. Lordus Gariel hasn't really hit. Corbyn Carroll hasn't really hit. I mean, that's four everyday position players in this lineup that you're getting next to nothing from, not just over, you know, these last four games, but really the season as a whole at this point. And it's really hard to score runs when you've got half your lineup.

just day in, day out, not giving you much of anything. Corby and Carroll has been tragically bad at the plate, and it's unfortunate in ways I can't even get into. But, man, I think that there was a time where we brought this topic up, and it seemed early. It seemed maybe reactionary. It also seemed like it was crazy to even be discussing. Now there might be a little bit more merit behind the idea

if Corby and Carol should be sent down to AAA reunion. You know, I saw some people out there floating the idea of a mystery IL stint just to give them some time off or whatever. I really don't know how to reset him. I really don't know what the answer is. I do know that guys seem to go down to AAA, especially Reno, and become gods, literal gods, like at hitting the ball. I go down there, they hit 417 with a 1.203 OPS and shit.

But, I mean, I think that at this point, that's, it's a really, hard decision. It's a really hard decision to send down the rookie of the year. It's a really hard decision to send down a guy that means as much as Corby and Carroll means to this franchise. I think we finally reached a point though where fans would be accepting of it and okay with it, not, not, you know, not like riot about it. Yeah, all I will say about the idea of sending Corbyn down is it's no longer an outrageous concept. I'm not saying that the Diamondback should definitely do that but it's not it's not a completely out of left field like oh you're you're just being crazy overreactionary it's not that i mean we're talking about a third of a season at this point

corbin carroll has played 52 games i mean that is that is a third of a full major league baseball season is he hitting leadoff just to try to give him confidence once again like is that a troy lovolo mistake because it does feel like he's just trying to set his lineup as he would regardless of current results and kind of give these guys back that belief in them, that faith in them, that he can put them back at the top of the lineup. But it's not working. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think we all can acknowledge that that certainly looks like a mistake by Tori Lavello. He did move, he did move Corby and Carroll down in the lineup. We saw Corbyn hit seventh. We saw him hit eighth for a while. But, you know, a couple of good games. I think it was in Cincinnati. And Tori was like, all right, that's the core. that we're used to sing. Let's move him back to the top. He's good now. And in retrospect,

granted hindsight is 20-20 with these kind of situations, but it's pretty obvious that that wasn't, that wasn't Corbyn Carroll getting back to himself. That was just Corbyn Carroll doing a couple good things, you know, a few good swings. Having a good week. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know if it was a good week. Yeah, having a good three or four days. A good few days. And then suddenly Corbyn's hit in first. Corbin's hit in second as, as he did throughout last season. And I don't. think, like, I'm not sure that I am ready to say the Diamondback should send Corbyn Carroll down. As I said earlier, I think that's reasonable. I'm not sure where I stand on that. But I do think that you probably have to, if you're Tori Lavelle, you probably have to move

him back down in the lineup. You just, you can't have a guy who has a mid-500s OPS hitting first or second every single day, right? It just doesn't seem like it's in the best interest of this offense right now. So yeah, I, it's a, it's a tough. I mean, again, it just goes to show how hard baseball is, how quickly you can go from being one of the best to, you know, one of the five or ten worst qualified hitters in the game. Corbin's going to figure it out. I still feel very confident saying that in a macro sense. But is he going to figure it out tomorrow?

Is he going to figure it out next week? Harder to say at this point. Well, I will say this is that I'm not reading anymore, Dr. Seuss quotes, about slums that's for sure we have gone way outside of that being anything they can fix anything of course we do appreciate all of you guys for being here in the phnxports youtube channel right now and watching us live on twitter once again welcome back twitter i'm never calling it x i will never call it x of course uh we thank you guys for being here if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet come on over do so now of course make sure uh you sign up for notifications

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You want to go out and run that disclaimer back? I can do it live. We're good. But I'll tell you, you could be better. If you sign up over at Desert Financial Credit Union for an account, let them help you and your financial investment goals and your financial, whatever you're trying to reach with your finances. For more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union. They are dedicated to creating exceptional experiences by giving back to the community and by providing financial solutions that make your life better.

and they have your best interest in mine, not the bank. So make sure you can look to Desert Financial for financial guidance for checking and savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more. When you open a free checking account online right now, you can get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting Desertfinancial.com slash 200 right now. Well, let's take a look at the count presented by Desert Financial Credit Union because, again, this is another one of those numbers, set of numbers that will make you sick as a Diamondback. fan diamondbacks lose this one four to two they out hit the texas rangers eight to six uh they were actually good with runners in scoring position three for seven though they didn't get those runs and neither did the texas rangers uh they were two for seven uh they have that one home run big deal there

twenty nine point two percent hard hit percentage for the rangers and 36 percent for the diamondbacks of course uh no home runs there for the diamond backs but yeah this one not great neither team was very good offensively it doesn't feel great I think, like, this is one of those weird scores when it's four to two, where you feel like the team should muster up more, you know, than two runs, right? I mean, at least put forth a better effort, right? They had their biggest scoring opportunity,

absolutely squashed there by double play by Dolis Garcia, throwing, you know, Jack Peterson out at home plate. And, I mean, it really did feel like that was the point where it just, the air was let out of their balloon for tonight. Yeah, this game kind of reminded me of, game three of the World Series. Not that people really feel like going back and reliving that necessarily. But this is bad day show.

It is an interesting parallel. Brandon Fott started that game for the debacks. Corey Seeger hit a home run against Brandon Faw in that game. I think it was a two-run shot, not a three-run shot. Adolos Garcia gunned down Christian Walker at home in that game, similar to what happened with Jock Peterson today. Although that was the play where Walker and Tony Peres-Chica had a bit of a bit of a misunderstanding situation at third base.

So there were some other factors at play there. I also believe that the Rangers, that was the game where Max Scherzer started. And then they brought in Jonathan Gray, if I'm not mistaken, is sort of like a long reliever situation. So we had that again today. Which is also similar to what happened today with Nathan Evaldi starting, bizarrely, at the last minute. The Rangers didn't announce their lineup or their. starting pitcher or anything until what felt like seven minutes before the game started. Shout out Bruce Bochi.

But yeah, a lot of kind of bizarre parallels between tonight and game three. And game three was very much when the World Series seemed to, obviously a game three in an even series is really important, right? That's going to give the winning team a whole lot of momentum. And it sure did. It sure did in the World Series. The Diamondbacks, of course, did not find a way to win a game. after that point.

People hate what you're doing right now. They really do. There's too many parallels, Derek. You can't also say they had this happen to them after they won a series against the Dodgers, which is also what just happened, but that kind of also had another series in between. But yeah, no, this has not been great, Jesse. This has been hard to watch mostly because last season when the Diamondbacks had their struggles, when they lost games, not only was it not this frequently early on, so you had a chance

to build up a more belief in this team, but a lot of it you could pinpoint on the bullpen. And sometimes in life, it's great to have a scapegoat, isn't it? Because it's so much better than saying the entire team's bad. And like, that's what it feels like right now, right? Like I would take Jack Peterson out of that. I would take Jake McCarthy with the way he's playing lately out of that, right? Like Jake McCarthy feels like he is the Jake McCarthy that was a big part of the chaos being created by this team. but right now it doesn't feel like any of the pieces that make this team successful are, you know,

able to produce on a consistent basis. We have those games. We get excited. We have those moments where, you know, Lordus Gareil goes two for four in a night. And we we start asking is he back? Corbin, is he back? All these guys, when are they back? When will they come back?

I need the guys back. This fucking offense has been so goddamn frustrating to watch. I hate it so much because I lose belief. And I don't want to lose belief because it feels crazy to be like, oh, they're down for two. They're going to fucking lose this game. That sucks. But then they back it up constantly. One for 25 when they're down by two runs or more.

Like that is not the team that excited us. That is not the team that lit Arizona on fire last year. Forget the World Series. I'm just talking about the period of time where we started calling them the answerbacks. And we had all of these comeback from, you know, comeback victories where you could believe that they were going to, you know, even when they went through a stretch where they couldn't, or even when they went through a stretch where the bullpen was really giving up a lot of games, you still had that belief that this team was able to produce runs at any point.

And it still feels like that this season, based on the fact that we always see these huge innings from them in some of their big wins, six runs here, you know, seven runs in this inning, right? So it's not like they're not capable of all of a sudden having an incredible inning where they just, you know, they all go crazy. It's just been so far between those performances. Like they can rarely put multiple nights like that together, let alone can they do it in any kind of consistent way

that makes me believe that this team can contend, can be above 500, can make the playoffs. Like I'm starting to lose that belief in this team. I think that's fair. I mean, I think that's fair. There are certain guys in the lineup that you feel, that you still have to feel somewhat good about turning it around. Like Lordus Geryl Jr., their artist's whole career,

has been such a streaky hitter. We saw the first couple weeks of the season where it looked like he was, you know, lighting the world on fire and about to have a career season and the whole thing. And then suddenly you realize that Lordus Grayal is just a very streaky hitter

and he starts struggling. And those struggles have lasted quite a while at this point. He hasn't really been able to turn things around. He didn't start this game. He came in after Andrew Heaney took over as a lefty. But you still, in my mind, you still have to feel good about Lordis turning. things around because this is who he's been his whole career he'll have he'll have high highs he'll

have low lows but at the end of the day he has always been an above average hitter he has not had one one season in the majors where he has not had an ops plus above 100 he is one of the more reliable hitters in the game i still view him that way at this point i also think that gabriel merino from what we saw last season it just seemed like he was really kind of figuring out how to hit and and really coming into his own. He's been off to a slow start, but I still would bet on Gabriel Moreno being better the rest of the way than what he's been up to this point. And granted, he hasn't, he hasn't been great up to this point. So that's not necessarily saying a lot. Eugenio Suarez is maybe where you don't feel quite as confident just because he is getting up there

in age a little bit. He did regress last year with Mariners. And we looked at some of the projections for him coming into the season. If you remember going through zips and all that stuff before the season started and it was like oh all these all these computers think that ae of nio swar is going to have like a 675 ops or something that seems a little low stupid computers he has a 600 opi s you idiot he's been he is really struggled so far this year than the projections which we thought were dramatic at the time yeah and you had reasonable explanation to back that up but he has been even worse than that and right Shane is familiar with Gino. He's a Mariners guy.

Yeah. Is, I mean, are you surprised by this? Like, are you surprised by him even being as bad as he's been the season? I'm not, I'm not crazy surprised because he, you know, he's getting up there in age. Yeah. But, yeah. I mean, this is pretty bad. And I think, I don't think this is what is going to be Gino for the rest of the year.

Like he's, what does he have three home runs? I think he has two home runs. That's what it is. No, he has three. He has three. He's going to. If he stays in the lineup, he's going to hit more. Like, he's going to hit more than three home runs in the first third of the season, I would think.

And that's where a lot of it comes from because, I mean, he wasn't just a mariner. He was a mariner. He loved striking out and hitting home runs. Like, that's what he does. True to his core. I'm sure. I'm sure he'll figure it out at some point. And figuring it out for him again isn't hitting 270.

It's hitting 220 and, you know, 20 bombs. Yeah. And piece of Yoshi's right. He says the defense is doing heavy lifting, and at times we have to ask a lot out of them. And that's where it brings me back to like a four to two score. Should we expect the offense to score five runs? Should we expect the defense to be better and not allow four runs?

I really don't know what the answer is there. But it's just there's too many games too often. What were you saying about the last four games? They've produced, what, six runs? Six runs total? The last four games. That's disgusting. The Marlins pitching staff, though, Derek.

have to respect. I mean, they've been among the league. I don't care of Shane. I will fight you in front of Shane. I will fight you in front of all 200 people on Twitter right now. Don't jump his ass. I mean, seriously, you're just going to say that to my face while I'm sitting here right now. I mean, even like, even in this game, honestly, like Andrew Keeney has not had a very good year for the Rangers. He came in in sort of a long relief role after Nathan Evaldi, bizarrely left the game after three innings. Well, you guys talked about that on the record today, right? That their middle relievers have been struggling and that honestly you and I thought that that was a great time it appeared especially in

the sixth ending like it was a great time for them to take advantage and like things were moving in that direction and then you know that that that double play just killed everything for this team I swear to god that moment was the end of the game they could have just wrapped it up right there said this game's over I mean it was it was to that point grant Anderson is the guy who came in with the bases loaded and won out like when the diamondbacks were in position to to over overcome that Seeger home run, get back on the board, try to make this a game again. They had a pitcher on the mound who had an ERA of 8-7-1, I think, coming into this game. Also, his numbers in AAA this year, not very good.

Grant Anderson has not been a good relief pitcher this year for the Rangers. And he comes in granted Adoles Garcia. It was a little bit of an assist there, getting two outs and just one at bat against Gino to finish off that frame. But Grant Anderson came back and also had a one, two, three inning the next time around. So David Robertson and Kirby Hates have been really good for the Rangers. Like their eighth inning and ninth inning options have been very good this season. It's those guys that come before them that have not been good. And the Diamondbacks were not able to really do any kind of damage there.

Well, we know, of course, Damon definitely lies. He's lying about his whereabouts right now because we have no idea where he is and he will tell us. And he won't even tell us if he's coming back. But we know the numbers. They don't lie. So let's take a look at tonight's number from tonight's game. Jesse, what do you got? Yeah, this goes back to Fott being, I think, pretty solid overall today.

197, this represents the expected batting average by Rangers hitters against Fought. He just gave up the six hits. As I said earlier, the two singles before the Corey Seeger three run Homer were both pretty cheap. He just continues to look really good. I mean, he still gave you seven. yet again, which it just feels like is just sort of the default expectation with Brandon Fought at this point. He now averages over six innings per start this season, which is something that not

that many pitchers around the lead. You cannot say that for very many pitchers in the sport at this point. So he continues to just prove that he's taking that next step and he's becoming the kind of pitcher that you really hoped he could be in year two. He continues to be the one sort of a young up-and-coming player on this team that has taken that next step when a lot of other guys have not been able to. Groundhog mama asks a really good question. She says who's going to lose their shit in the locker room for a players-only meeting? And see this once again goes back

to the point where I talk about Tommy fan. You know it Jesse. You know I didn't know I did know I did get there. I'll talk about me. I'm gonna you know what I'm shaving this mustache off this mustache is gone. A playoff stash gone. Gone. It's fucking gone. You don't deserve it. Derek as a as a as a as a as a as a A moustached man myself, I respect that. It's got to go. It has to. It's crazy.

It was built on trust. It was built on trust. It was built on taking that magic and doing a facsimile of it, doing more magic this year. The stash has been spat on. Yeah, it has. It's been, yeah. They disrespected the stash and the stash goes. So that's what happens when you do that.

And we do. We need someone to lose their shit in the clubhouse. Like, as much as Tori Lovolo can be a motivator, I need Tori Lovolo to go in there and lose a shit. Like, I don't know what else to do. don't know what the answer is and it doesn't look like Tori does either when he was ash the other day he looked like he was at his wits end as well and i mean yeah what what do you do when it's a when it's a pandemic across your team what do you do when everybody can't hit what do you know again this is where you start looking at those crazy uh answers and that's why i said a few weeks ago like i wouldn't

be surprised if this team collectively continues to you know not be able to produce offensively if someone loses their job over it. And as crazy as that sounds, it's just the kind of thing that franchises tend to do. I don't think it's the right answer, but at the same time, like, it just feels like there's a lot of frustrating, you know, things in regards to what's going on with this team. And it's just wild how it's across the board offensively right now. But I don't really know. I don't even know, like, again, like, what is the impact of a coach anyway when it's like

the hitting coach? and how much can you blame when guys are struggling on a hitting coach when they're not the one out there in the ball, right? It's just it feels like when a group is struggling, it's not just one guy or two guys. That's the point where you start to wonder is it something more, right? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to act like there is anything there or there's any talk about, you know, replacing the hitting coach or doing anything in regards to that.

Yeah. But it just comes to a point where you start to go crazy seeking an answer. And I can imagine, you know, Mike Hazen and other people within the front office within this organization kind of going a little nuts right now, wondering what is going on with this team in the same way. We are wondering what's going on with this team. I remember one time it was being blamed on the humidifier or the humidor, right? El humidor, right? It was being blamed on that. Like, oh, all of a sudden the offense is drying up and this team can't hit at home. And I remember Mike Hazen specifically saying to somebody, well, it doesn't seem to be impacting the other teams. And like he seemed crazy frustrated at that point. So again, there are there are things at times with this team, the way they kind of go cold as a whole that just makes you feel crazy. Makes you feel crazy. Isn't it, isn't it crazy that less than a week ago, six days ago,

the Diamondbacks took two out of three from the Dodgers. Oh, we run. How different the comments. conversations around this. Life was great. Life was so good. Life was so good. It was so good. And let's face it, like something like that is probably right around the corner, right? Yeah. That's just the way this season has been for the Diamondbacks. It's been, you know, a good amount of disappointment. And then maybe a week stretch where it looks like they're figuring things out. They're pushing things in the right direction. They're about to cross over the 500 mark. Yeah. And then it's another week of

two games back. Yeah, what we've seen the last few days where it's like, all right, you lost two out of three to the Marlins. You're, you know, you've had a complete game shutout thrown against you. And then today against, granted a Rangers team

that's better than their record, but a Rangers team that is, is beatable for sure. And the Diamondbacks just were, we're not able to deliver once again. Piece of Yoshi blames Damon for playing the losing song on a day where we had a win.

And there might be some, something to that. I'm not saying, I'm not saying he's right. What day was that? That was after I believe the Dodgers, one of the Dodger victories because you weren't there. I think it was the Friday.

The Dodgers victories would have been on Tuesday and Wednesday and Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was one of those two. So it's probably right. Anyway, I will tell you. It's to blame one way or another. It's just a matter of kind of high. Sure, well, he's not here.

You're talking about having a scapegoat. I mean, it's Damon. It's Damon. That's why this team isn't hitting. Yeah, that's right. Well, I would normally be drinking a delicious four peaks beer right now. And that's another thing the Diamondbacks had deprived me of, Jesse. I don't get to drink my victory beer.

I could drink it in sadness, though, because you can drink a delicious Four Peaks anytime. And you can check out all their wonderful beers that they have to offer. Their brand new beer with Bad Birdie, their Bad Birdie juicy golden nail, one of my favorites. Fantastic. Not only can you get it on the tap at the Four Peaks location and at bars all across the Valley. You can also get it in cans at your local grocery store. So make sure to check out all the wonderful things Four Peaks has to offer. You can visit 4Peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events.

Check out at 4Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink 4Peaks and please drink responsibly. Is that a bit that I'm missing with the grocery store? Did you just say that like a crazy person? I've said it like a crazy person for about 10 years now. Are you serious? It's on purpose. I know how to say grocery store.

Why do you say grocery store? It's just it's fun. It's fun. It's fun. I respect that. It's a weird word. It is a weird word. Semantic satiation.

It's one of the one things he's letting me get away with. Like there are so many things he corrects me. But yes. Nate Cleveland says, yes, sadness fear. Hey, I mean, again, sadness beer can still make me feel good. And we'll try to do that by talking about Angel Hernandez retiring from the game of baseball here shortly. But I did want to tell you, if you do want to come out, watch this baseball team, I mean, I can't. I can't recommend it.

But if you do want to come out and watch this baseball team, a great way to do so is buying your tickets. at game time. You can also get your tickets for all sorts of wonderful events, other sporting events, concerts, comedy shows, and all sorts of things that you do not want to miss out on. You can get those tickets last minute because we know how that that's how the human brain works. We see the event where like we have plenty of time. I don't need to buy tickets now. You get closer to the event. You're like, all right, well, maybe. And then you forget. And then it's the day of any four of your friends from Facebook are going and you want to go. So get your tickets last minute at game time. You can save more with their exclusive in-app deals on select seats ahead of the game or event. You can also

check out what your view is going to look like. So that's always a great option as well. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time. Download the app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms do apply. Again, create an account and redeem code PHNX for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets.

Lowest price guarantee. Well, Jesse, we get to finally bid adieu to MLB umpire Angel Hernandez. And while there are still... It's a sad day for me. Absolutely not a sad day for baseball. It might be the greatest day in baseball history. Baseball fans are divided and they always will be. It doesn't matter if you're talking about what's the better league,

AL or NL. You're talking about the designated hitter rule. Talk about the pitch clock and the new rules, right? You're going to get a lot of people divided on that. They're not going to like a lot of things in baseball. And people just don't agree on anything anymore. We don't. We don't agree on anything.

But what we can all agree on is that we're all glad Angel Hernandez is no longer an umpire in Major League Baseball. And you could call it retirement, but I mean, really when you're the worst umpire in the league, statistically, you're the worst umpire in the league. 161 missed calls in 10 games last year. Just bad. He's been bad. And we are not sad to see him go. So I don't ever want

to hear you say that. And I don't mean to bury this man while Jesse sits here and cringes at me based on the fact that he is a human being and we should remember that. I want to say that if you're this bad at your job, you should not get to have the that Angel Hernandez had. And even though there are umpires that are worse than him,

maybe those guys deserve to go to. I'm not just singling him out. Maybe all umpires that are bad at their jobs should go. And maybe that's when we get the robot umps in here and we can dress them up cool. Like the robot from Rocky 3 could be awesome, right? Like that guy behind the plate, that's incredible. But, uh, or wait, was it Rocky 4? I'm sorry.

I'm mixing my Rocky films up. Jesse will know. Jesse. I'll throw it to Jesse. Jesse. Jesse absolutely knows. But of course, that's something that's, I mean, honestly, across baseball, the one thing that I saw that people were excited about is this, like this unified baseball. We all can appreciate someone that has given all of our teams this much grief.

There's no longer calling the game. But there is another really interesting, I guess, announcement being made that. Can I say one quick thing about Angel? Oh, please do. I was hoping you would. I just have to point out that according to umpscorecards.com, there are 16 major league umpires who have a lower accuracy percentage on ball strike calls than Angel Hernandez this season. So Shane, get a one shot on me over here.

I want you to get a one shot. Look at me right in the eyes when I tell you this. Your days are number two. We're coming for you guys too, all 16 of you. If he was that bad, none of you should be worse than Angel Hernandez. That's a fact. That's a fact. All right.

But again, something that actually might. interest you to talk about a little bit is the announcement that MLB is going to be, they're going to be basically integrating Negro League statistics into the MLB database. So it was announced that Josh Gibson, for instance, who is a prolific hitter in the Negro leagues, will now hold a number of records in Major League Baseball. And honestly, like, this is probably a fairly controversial topic with the lot of sides taking weird directions on it. I just don't know if it's necessarily a good thing because I feel like this takes away from the fact that Major League Baseball, which wasn't alone at the time,

right? Segregation was a thing that existed in this country. So there was the separate but equal thing all over the place when it came to, you know, the race. But it is crazy to me that Major League Baseball now kind of gets to like pat themselves on the back and integrate these stats into their stats like as if they saw the Negro leagues on a similar level. It's not to say that the competition isn't as good. I'm like because of segregation and how racist people were in this country and how we literally saw skin color as a reason to separate players into two separate leagues. I think it takes away from the importance of the Negro leagues by integrating those stats.

I'm not worried about the fact that Gibson now has all sorts of like that's great. That's fucking awesome for me. I think that it's just MLB kind of pulling a fast one in a way that they like, you know, like Negro Leagues now is part of like them and like it always was and it really wasn't. And I think it just gives them a kind of an out on the fact that historically, you know, this, this segregation was something that existed and it kept the best players from playing together. Yeah, I thought I thought foolish baseball at Foolish BB on Twitter made a really interesting point in response to this. He said, hate to be a wet blanket, but this has never really done anything. for me. I don't need MLB to float down from the heavens and decree that the Negro leagues were good. And the fact that players like Josh Gibson explicitly didn't play an

MLB is why the Negro leagues were important. So yeah, it is sort of Major League Baseball kind of finally correcting. I mean, but you can't correct the mistake that was made at the time, right? Like that is done. That was what it was and it was obviously terrible for many, many reasons. And it just feels, I don't know. I mean, the reality of a situation is that the Negro leagues were forced to be their own thing back then. And it feels cheap in a way now to be like, oh, yes, we welcome all of this, like retroactively to bring all of that stuff into the Major League Baseball history books. Really what I, what I, you know, my biggest take on this situation, though, is that Josh Gibson was an outrageously good baseball. Incredible.

And Josh gives him 466 in 1943. That will now stand as the single season record for Major League Baseball for batting average in a season 466. And based on recent trends in Major League Baseball and the fact that batting averages have been dropping for a while now, I don't think we're going to see another 466. Hey, Josh Rojas. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. Luis Arise with the Padres. We'll see what happens.

Um, someone asked if I'm okay because I'm sweating a lot. Uh, don't, I've gone into this multiple times. We, we, we don't have air conditioning. Uh, and that's going to become more and more of a problem as the summer goes on. So, you know what? I'm going to take it. I specifically to ask for air conditioning tonight. We don't have it. I'm going to take the hell on this one. I should have turned a fan on. Yeah. Yeah. It's on me. It's all right. These. I will, um, I will, um, I will wear the burden of your sweat, not literally. I appreciate it. Um, well, I mean, again, I think that at the end of the day, the one thing about. The one thing about. this is that it's kind of like the Negro leagues being in the Hall of Fame and being honored in that way is fantastic. Yeah, like Josh Gibson being in the Hall of Fame. Like that feels like the correct decision for sure. And MLB, the show, doing things like they did. It's not only highlighted and give you a cool mode to play, but to also tell the history that so many people don't know because these

guys were not part of MLB is an amazing thing to do. Like sharing their history, sharing things like how great of a hitter Gibson was is a good thing. And I mean, maybe that's the great thing that comes from this is because these statistics will now be part of Major League Baseball, they do get there they get the praise, they get the flowers that they deserve long

overdue, but it's just kind of MLB getting to get their, you know, get their cake and eat it too there in a situation where you know they kind of get to be the good guys here in the situation when that definitely wasn't the case when this league was forced to be created, right?

I just don't know if it honors if like the best way to honor the need. Negro leagues is to is to kind of lump in their stats with the stats of Major League Baseball. Sure. I don't feel like to. I don't feel too strongly about it either way. But I very much understand foolish baseball's perspective on that. And it definitely makes you think.

I agree. Well, like at the end of the day, though, we want to know more about baseball. We want to know about all the great hitters no matter what league they played in, right? So I think sharing that information is always cool. But I definitely have my feelings about it. And it's not because Josh Gibson is going to get honored with, you know, all the records that he has held. It's more about MLB kind of getting to look like the good guy here in a situation where I don't really feel like they should get to. Gibson had a career 1176 OPS.

That's stupid. It's pretty wild. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, of course, we do appreciate you guys. stopping by. We thank you guys so much for being here, even after a loss like tonight. We will be back tomorrow with another postgame show. Diamondbacks have a quick two game set here with the Texas Rangers. So we will be back with, I guess, a series wrap up tomorrow. Make sure to join us then. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Shane is at Shane Deef. Just D-I-F-F-F, right? D-I-E-F. I forgot. I'm sorry. Diff.

Yeah, and Shane Diff. We are Shane's sons. I don't know. Shane's sons? I don't know if I'm coming. Dad. That's fun. We were Kyle's kids.

But that was in a goat way, so that was a little different. We'll figure something out. But we appreciate you guys for being here. Of course, make sure to follow our show at PHNX underscore Dbacks. And all roads do, of course, lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time tonight. We appreciate you for stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow.

Sheep. Shane sheep. There we go. That's good. Yeah, Shane sheep. We are Shane sheep. Bye. All right.

Well, we thank you guys again. We appreciate your time. We'll see you tomorrow. Remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when the offense actually does something.