PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks sweep Cubs on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, take 6 out 7 in September vs Chicago

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Win the day. The Arizona Diamondbacks mantra proves to be true against the Cubs as they complete the three-game sweep at Chase Field over Chicago. We discuss the Snakes leapfrogging the Cubbies in the Wild Card race, reports of the Boston Red Sox interest in D-backs GM Mike Hazen, and more!An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx WIN MONEY THROUGH SPLASH SPORTS: https://www.splashsports.com/phnx Head to https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50 and use code phnxdbacks50 to get 50% off.Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Pins & Aces: Check out https://pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Score 25% off a bag of your favorite OGeez! Fruits of Creams. Go to https://theflowershopusa.com, add a bag of OGeez! to your cart, enter promo code “PHNX” and pickup at a local The Flower Shop dispensary.Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome in to a special Sunday edition of the PHNX Devax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montaia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. This man next to me, he is your vice mayor. He is my thunderstick, despite what Don's bread says after Googling what a thunderstick is. It's the one and only Jesse Friedman. I feel like there's a story there that I. that I don't know. There absolutely is a story there that you don't know, but that's, I mean,

that's the case with so many things. You do know the story, though, of the Arizona Diamondbacks completing the three-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs at Chase Field. And man, what a victory this series was. What a hard-fought battle. The boys are back. And man, they deserve these wins because they fought hard. You got three outings from the starting pitching. I'll call them that. They were three starters. One did an excellent job. The other two were there. And they at least gave the Diamondbacks a chance to win. They ate up some innings. And man, this offense once again gave the Diamondbacks an early lead in this game. Obviously, we know about what happened yesterday. For those of you that don't know, their Diamondbacks were they competed in a 13 inning all-time

classic against the Chicago Cubs. I think people know about that game. Yeah. I think everybody needs to gotten around about the Diamondbacks Cubs game on Saturday night. But man, what a what a thrilling series this is for the Arizona Diamondbacks and for their fans, right? Like this was a daunting task ahead with the way the Chicago Cubs had been playing against other teams. The Diamondbacks had seven games in the month of September against the Cubs at a very crucial time where they kind of needed every win they could get. What the Diamondbacks got was six out of seven victories. Six victories out of seven. Like shout out to Cody from, from, from CHGO for being out of here.

Cody Delmendo for bringing us whatever. I don't know what he did, but we're happy he was here because the dive backs did good things. I mean, in the series, the diamond backs were able to get an early lead for all of their starting pitchers. So they were kind of pitching from a position of confidence. Once again, in this game they did, Marte, Carol, Fam. It was like everybody. Everybody contributed. Geryl, Walker, Rivera, they all contributed early in the game to kind of give this team a three-run lead early on in the first.

And Ryan Nelson wasn't great, but he went out there and he got himself out of a basis-loaded jam. He was able to keep the damage relatively low while he was any limited to two run runs. But it was another short outing for Nelson. He was only able to go three and a third innings pitch. But what are your thoughts overall on not only Ryan Nelson, but what the Diamondbacks were able to do? in this game and in the series over. Yeah, just, just an incredible outcome for the Diamondbacks.

And I've said this so many times this season that, you know, there's going to be times down the stretch when you think the Diamondbacks are done, right? And after the series they had against the Mets, I think some people were asking those questions. And, you know, I've been saying all along there are going to be those moments where it looks one way and something else is still going to happen, right?

And I suspect that that's still going to happen a number of times the rest of the season where there's going to be moments the rest of the way where the debacks look like a surefire, you know, lock to make the playoffs and maybe other moments where it looks like that might be the end of the season. And obviously it's all going to come to an end here here in about two weeks at this point. I think exactly two weeks is when the is when the season ends. But just incredible what the diamond backs have done against the, against the Cubs, not only this weekend, but last weekend. It was only a week and a half ago that we were talking about a Cubs team that it just trounce the Giants in a three-game series.

I believe they swept the Giants and scored a whole bunch of runs in that series. And yeah, I mean, entering last weekend at Wrigley Field, you kind of wondered what that would look like for the Diamondbacks, and they take three out of four in that series. They sweep a three-game series here. And, I mean, it looked, we were talking about the Cubs as being like a pretty safe playoff team about a week ago. And it's amazing how quickly this has changed,

where if the season ended today, I don't think the Cubs would even make the playoffs. I think they're, I guess they're in a tie. I don't know how that tie breaker would work. But at least moving forward at this point, the Cubs are not at all a lock to make the playoffs. I mean,

they're kind of in this thing with the Diamondbacks and the Marlins and the Reds. We brought them down into it with us. There you go. That's, I mean, that's exactly what's happened. Come on down. I think that at one point we were discussing this as a possibility.

But I felt like that was such a far off dream. And I mean, the other teams that are in this race played exceptionally well, including Miami Marlins. So they were able to keep things close. But I just, it almost snuck up on me that they were able to pass the Cubs because the Cubs did have what looked like a fairly substantial lead between the third spot and the second spot in the wild card race. But the Diamondbacks, like I said, took six out of seven and were able to close that gap fairly quickly. Lordeus Guriel Jr. was fantastic in this series. He made a pair of amazing defensive plays in right field tonight that really just showed his range. Like, I mean, I don't think we give Lordus Curiel credit for how good he is defensively.

And sometimes he doesn't make the greatest plays at times. Like sometimes he makes plays look a little bit more difficult. He's definitely not as smooth or as quick as some of the other guys that are in the outfield. But, man, he made some great plays tonight that Rob Cubs of extra bases and potentially some runs. Yeah, I think I checked earlier today. I'm pretty sure Lordus Guriel is like 10 defensive run saved or something to see you by himself, which is wild. Yeah, I think he had minus one outs above average coming into this game.

So outs above average doesn't take into account your throwing arm. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that his arm is where a lot of his defensive value comes from. But you're right. I mean, he made a couple nice plays in the outfield today. And it seems like we've said that kind of a lot this year. I mean, more than, more than I expected to be saying that about Lorda Scuriel, a guy who has won a gold glove, but, you know, doesn't necessarily have the best defensive reputation. And even in outs above average, I mean, I think he was at minus one coming into today. You know, he was at minus five, minus six, minus seven.

I think it's been over the last few years. So, you know, even if his range isn't truly that great, it's been significantly better this year with this Diamondbacks team. So yeah, I mean, his defense was good today and his bat was enormous in this series. I mean, Lordus Gurriel had, you know, the big three run home run in the first game. He had three separate RBI singles in yesterday's game. And then he had an RBI in this one as well. Six hits altogether, six for 13. It's hard to ask for anything more than what Lordus has given the diamondbacks lately.

Mo came in here with the conspiracy theory, hot tex. take. He said Cubs got swept on purpose to avoid Philly. Yeah, avoid Philly at all costs, I think. I mean, I know that's what we said. I still, I don't know. I still value pitching over a hot offensive team. So I'm still worried about those Milwaukee brewers. I say bring on the Phillies. But that's just because we have PHLY and I want to feud with our brand new cousins over there. The Diamondbacks, though, did get some very good play offensively from Lourdes and a couple of other guys. Jordan Loller had a hit today. The Diamondbacks were. actually held scoreless after that first inning until the sixth when Jordan got on base and then Cotel Marte hit a big two-run home run that basically gave the Diamondbacks the breathing room they needed to make this outing a bit comfortable after that for that exact reason for his contributions. Cattel Marte is our king snake in this one. Cotel has just continued to be excellent. I think Damon said it while we were, Damon was furious that Cotel Marte was not an all-star. He's still not about it. Yeah. And I

He's the best second basement in the league probably. How is he not an all star? We are not hyperbolic here at all. But anyway, I will say this. Cattel continues to be very good for this team. And I mean, right now the Diamondbacks need all of this offense. They need Lourdes to be as consistent as he's been. They need Cotell pitching.

It was weird series. I mean, we kind of joked about how, you know, the Diamondbacks after that series with the Mets, of course, we're going to come in here. and get a no hitter from Brandon Fott and get basically a sweep of the Cubs. And they didn't get a no hitter, but Fought was really damn good in his outing, though they did not get a lot of length from any of their starters. In fact, the trio of Fott, Davies, and Nelson went 12 and two-thirds innings pitched over the three games.

They gave up five runs total and they end up somehow miraculously with three wins. Yeah, I mean. Well, technically Davies doesn't get the win, but I mean, the Diamondbacks got three wins. Ryan Nelson didn't get the win either. But yeah, I mean, this is kind of how it's going to be the rest of the way with Diamondback starting pitchers not named Zach Allen or Merrill Kelly is the leash just isn't going to be very long at this point, right?

We saw that yesterday. Zach Davies looked pretty good through four scoreless innings. He loads the bases to start the fifth inning. And that's it, right? It doesn't necessarily even matter what your pitch count is. The leash is going to be really short. We even saw that with Brandon fought on Friday. He was pitching a.

pretty darn good game and I think he let one base runner in the sixth inning and he was done after five and a third even though I believe he had 73 pitches at the time but you can understand why the diamond backs are doing this right I mean these are you know in the case of fought and Nelson these are these are young pitchers these are inexperienced pitchers these are pitchers with eras that start with five or six I guess I guess they're both five at this point but yeah I mean they're pitchers that don't really have much of a track record of six in the majors and Zach Davies has obviously had his share of struggles this season as well. And it's worked pretty well for Tori Lavello.

I mean, this Diamondbacks bullpen has been outrageously good, Derek. I mean, they pitched nine. It wasn't scoreless innings technically, but they didn't give up an earned run. It was only ghost runners and errors, that kind of thing that caused Diamondbacks relievers to give up any runs yesterday. It was nine, nine innings without a single earned run. and then today five and two thirds without an earned run and and that's crazy i mean you know i was good the diamond backs were we're able to get some insurance later in this game but technically those three runs in the first inning uh i mean that's all they wound up meeting to actually

win this game when it was all set and done i just think about tory's speech before this series started and about how he said i just need you to give me everything for the next 14 days and when it came to that it is all of this kind of stuff right it is like i am going to pull you when i feel like you are potentially going to you know start running into trouble there's no more like leaving them out there to try to extend innings or to try to get the bullpen arrest he's not leaving ryan nelson in there so that he has a chance to to get the win like oh we've got to get him to five innings like that that logic is out the window at this point it's if you look at if you look like you're out of gas in the fourth inning, then you're out of gas in the fourth inning and we're

going to go elsewhere. To be fair, he masterfully got himself out of the basis of loaded jam, but he did get himself into a basis loaded jam in the second inning with no outs. And I mean, again, that was very, that that was terrifying. And I mean, after that, you know, he walked three in his three and one third innings pitch. I think most of those were in that second inning. And so, again, you just, you can't see that. happen you can't see because that that was like going to go you know south on them really fast right

things were going to turn um but i do have concerns about the bullpen just being asking too much of the bullpen you know what i mean like the debacks probably would have used kevin ginkl and paul seawald in this game too if they had to absolutely yeah and you know my boy ryan thompson let's give it up eight games still scoreless he gave up his second hit tonight since joining the team on August 27th. And of course, he got the double play to end the inning immediately after giving that hit. So like, I don't know.

There's something to be said about it. It's, it's just, like the bullpen somehow turned it around. I know, though, that this is a different, almost a completely different staff, you know, but Miguel Castro went scoreless tonight. There were a lot of contributors. Scott McGuff is now on the 15-day I-L. Yeah, Scott McGuff. I mean, that that rules him out for the rest of the regular season.

Right. So, yeah, he's shoulder inflammation. We'll see what kind of news there is there in the next few days. But Miguel Castro looked good in this game. I thought Miguel Castro, he did kind of dust one of the hitters off the plate. He did. I think it was Patrick Wisdom, which, yeah, wasn't necessarily the best look. But, yeah, I mean, he's throwing his change up a little bit more.

right through some sliders for called strikes, which is a big thing for him. He looked better. Luis Frius, you know, not always pretty, but he was good, able to get the last out,

last couple out to that fourth inning and then pitched a scoreless fifth inning as well. Bryce Jarvis. He deserves his flowers tonight. He was the replacement for Scott McGuff. Two innings, struck out one, nothing else,

nothing else. Just boring old relief pitching, just getting outs, just getting outs. And that's exactly what the diamondbacks needed was just a, a very uneventful ending to this game, especially with how much they had to utilize their pen

in last night's thrilling extra innings victory. And of course, like I said earlier, that game was an all-time classic. And seven to six, the Diamondbacks had an early lead to nothing. Cubs score three in the fifth to take the lead. Diamondbacks tie it in the sixth, then it stays tied till the extra innings.

Basically, they scored in every extra inning but one. And neither team scored in that inning. It was just a wild game. It was a wild game that seemed like it was never going to end. And again, the result is the Diamondbacks winning one of the most exciting games I've ever seen them, you know, win by a score of 7 to 6. And it just didn't really seem like that was possible. Cody Bellinger kind of held in check by the Diamondbacks this season. He's had a lot of success against a lot of teams, but not so much against the debacks.

Yeah, Cody, the Diamondbacks, I don't know what, I don't know what it is with Cody Bellinger. but Cody Bellinger did not look like Cody Belanger in really any of these games that the Diamondbacks and Cubs have played over the last week and a half. Are you laughing at Saul's comments? Yeah, Saul Bookman says Eddie Johnson is in shambles. You hate to see it.

Craig's in shambles too. We convinced Craig to believe in the Chicago Cubs just so that he could watch them lose six out of seven to the Arizona Democrats. I don't think Craig ever believed in the Chicago Cubs. He's too smart for that. We tried, though. We tried.

There were moments where it felt like he was on the he was coming back on to that side though. Cody Bellinger though, five for 27 all together in in the seven games between the Diamondbacks and the Cups. You did have a homer at one point. He almost had a homer in the game yesterday as well, which of course was was overturned. It was pretty clearly foul on instant replay. Instant replay played a very big role in that game yesterday as well.

It felt like every inning. There was a play going to instant replay. But yeah, I mean, stopping Cody Bellinger is a really big part of stopping this Cubs team. There's one hitter on this Cubs team who has been far better than all of the others. And it is Cody Bellinger. And the Diamondbacks just didn't really let Cody Bellinger beat them. And it wasn't because they were walking him a bunch. I mean, he only walked twice altogether between these two series.

So they were going after him. It seemed like they were kind of avoiding throwing breaking pitches, especially today. We saw that where Ryan Nelson was just sort of saying stubborn with his fastball, which doesn't always work for Ryan Nelson. he can be guilty of doing too many fastballs at times, but he was able to get a big strikeout of Cody Bellinger there in the first inning. And I mean, the Cubs just let a lot of opportunities slide in this game.

Yeah. They had lead off doubles a couple times. They had, of course, the basis loaded no outs inning that you talked about earlier where they only scored one run. So, yeah, I mean, Ryan Nelson was able to sort of walk the high wire. You know who I blame for this? Who do you blame? The C.HGO Cubs podcast.

Who are, I mean, what are you? Like what you're blaming? Oh, I'm blaming one very specific thing. And it's not Cody being in the building for two of these three games. Okay. I'm blaming the CHGO Cubs podcast for claiming that this was the summer of Mike Talkman. Ah. Because it is not the summer of Mike Talkman.

It is the summer of Corbyn Carroll. And we all know that. We've known that since the beginning. Rookie of the year, by the way. All right. Well, we thank you guys for being here in the Ph. And sports YouTube channel. If you have not subscribed to the channel yet,

make sure to do so sign up for notifications that way you don't mess when we go live or any of the wonderful shows go live speaking of saul make sure to not miss out uh on on on saul and eddie johnson doing their thing together because uh that is an incredible duo uh and piece of yoshi thank you so much for your super chat uh piece of yoshi says a player who chastised the fan base uh fan base scoring on a wild play. Where have I seen this before? Avi Baez. Yeah, well, it's, you know, whatever.

But anyway, sometimes we're hypocrites. But if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure to subscribe to us there, leave us a review. Leave us a thumbs up. If you're here on the YouTube channel live, we thank you guys, of course, for always being here in the chat. You guys absolutely make this show more fun. And Cog says it's the summer of Corbin and the autumn of Jordan Lawler.

I'm with it. I am with it. Brett Johnson had security called on him because of his cheering. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Brett, we have to have a talk, Brett, about your cheering because we hear you on TV. That's all I'm saying. But did you hear, did you actually hear Brett on TV? Oh, you can, you can hear Brett. If you're in.

Brett was on. There you go. Yeah. Let's take a look at the numbers, by the way, for this series, because we so want to take a look at the numbers for this series. What do we got here, Damon? No, yeah, it's not arrived yet. It's almost there. There it is.

All right. Well, we got 19 runs to 12 runs, 29 hits, 26 hits, two errors to two errors. Man, it always looks so even, doesn't it, Jesse? After a, even after a sweep, it doesn't necessarily look like a sweep. But man, that starting pitching ERA looks really good. And it's great to see the Diamondbacks come through with runners in scoring position. Well, the debacks didn't quite do to the Cubs with the Miami-Mobile. what the Miami Marlins did to the Atlanta Braves

over the past few days. Please don't remind me. We'll get to that here in a couple of minutes. You let us down Atlanta. But yeah, I mean, this really comes down to Brandon Fott being really good on Friday. Just, you know, letting the team just be able to settle down. I think, you know, they obviously the offense helped him settle down as well by getting three runs on the board. So quickly in that game, the Cubs did score four runs on Friday, but they were all,

sort of in garbage time. I mean, it is 6-0-0 game. It's pretty hard to get 7 on the board in order to, or 6 on the board to even tie that game in the ninth inning. So, yeah, I mean, you know, four of the runs that the Cubs scored in the series were, you know, didn't necessarily change much. But, yeah, I mean, the last couple days,

it's just been the Diamondbacks bullpen being outstanding and covering for a couple of starting pitchers who weren't really able to go deep and didn't really have their best stuff. And that's going to be a recipe for a lot of games the rest of the way is, you know, D-Backs bullpen taking over pretty early, a little bit earlier than you're probably used to seeing and trying to piece things together. And it absolutely worked here over the last few days. The Cubs scored all three of their home runs in the ninth inning of game one. So that's an impressive feat that the team backs.

That's crazy. The Cubs had three homers in the series. And I swear they happen within like three, like four. minutes it was like a four minutes span where the cubs hit those three home runs at all in the rest of the series pretty incredible though and I mean of course you can't say enough about what the bullpen was able to do in this game with that 1.96 ERA because this wasn't a case where the bullpen only had to work six innings yeah in a series this bullpen put in work work work work work work and now they get

tomorrow off so that's why I think Tori was willing to to push envelope in this game with with ginkle and seawald and whomever those guys have pitched the last two days but they didn't throw that many pitches paul seawalt had a one two three inning uh yesterday uh you know didn't didn't need to throw as many pitches as he usually has so that opened the door for a lot of those those guys at the back end to be available the diamond backs of course didn't wind up meeting them anyway by the way ryan thompson i think through six pitches in his inning of work today and that's also yeah that sounds right yeah sounds right yeah double play in like a couple two pitched bats that'll that'll do it all right well you know what you came here

to do we came here to talk about the wild card because this wild card continues to get wilder and we have first your out of town scores if you will we're going to get this looking a little bit more like the out of town scoreboard but i really still love that we're paying for the expensive light bulbs on this bad boy uh the mets finally beat the cincinnati reds thank you uh Atlanta what happened can we talk Braves, Braves fans, Braves personnel, Braves team members. What happened in this series? Miami absolutely trounced the Braves in three games. And I mean, Jake Berger is the greatest living American baseball player alive right now,

according to the stats I've seen recently. But everybody else that we needed to lose loss pretty much outside of San Francisco. And the Colorado Rockies took care of business in that series. I didn't know that. I didn't know they made that game so close. I think it was like 116. They were up by a lot. Yeah.

116, maybe it was 117, but the Rockies made that very interesting against Camilo Duval in the ninth inning. Not a great weekend for the Giants day. It was pretty rough for that. No, they lose what, three out of four, I believe? Because they have a double header with the Rockies that they also lost.

Damon, throw those scores up there one more time. I just wanted to go back over for the listeners. Cincinnati loses to the Mets, eight to four. Miami trounces the Atlanta Braves, 16 to 2. Washington beats the Milwaukee Brewers 2 to 1

You got the St. Louis Cardinals Beating Philly 6 to 5 And then again that San Francisco Colorado game of 11 to 10 With the Giants being The Giants and the Miami Marlins Being the only teams That came out on top today

So how does that impact our wild card? Well, I'm glad you asked that Because these wild card standings Look pretty good right now The Arizona Diamondbacks Take that second spot somehow With now the Cubs and the Marbleau Marlins and the Reds and the Giants all in their rearview mirror and a very important two-game

series coming up here with the Giants followed by, which should be some fairly winnable series against the White Soxxxxed the Houston Astros. So the Diamondbacks don't have the easiest road ahead, but they do have two series kind of sandwiched here in the middle that are teams that really have nothing to play for at this point really shouldn't be. Yeah, well, be careful what you say there. What am I saying? Why am I saying this? The Diamondbacks were very lifeless against the New York Mets in that four game series.

So at this point, and that's something that I've been very much reminded of in the last few days, don't get too carried away with what the schedule tells you, right? Sure. Like the Marlins just went in and absolutely destroyed the Atlanta Braves in a three-game series. The Diamondbacks just lost three out of four to a very bad New York Mets team. And then they came home and they swept the Chicago Cubs, who have like a run differential of plus 100, right? It's not, oh, and of course,

I don't even get me started with the giants and what the Rockies have done to the giants recently. So it's not as simple as, okay, well, you know, you're playing the White Sox. All right, you're going to get two out of three there. You know, you're playing the Astros. All right. D-Baks are going to lose two out of three there.

That's just not how this works. At this point, you're dealing in, in like such small sample sizes of everything that you, I mean, obviously playing more difficult teams does play in, at on some level but there's just so much volatility at this point where anything can happen right this is the epitome of you know the the the adage you can't predict baseball you you cannot predict what what is going to happen the rest of the way but we do know right now the diamond backs are are in a good spot

their uh their fan graphs playoff odds are now 56.5 percent uh for whatever that's worth that's the the first time we've seen it over 50 percent in in quite a while and uh yeah i mean they have sole possession of that second spot. They don't exactly have a nice cushion around it, but they have sole possession of not the third wild card spot, but the second wild card spot after the sweep over the Chicago Cubs. Someone in the chat brought up Gabby. We didn't do a good enough job of talking about Gabby Marino

returning from Patron. Yeah, he had a heck of a series too. He was breaking in the series. He went four for four in Friday's game. He went two for four in yesterday's game with two walks and an RBI. And that RBI was pretty significant. Pretty crucial, I believe, Jesse.

I think there's a video going around. Something about that. One for four today with a strikeout. But I mean, this guy is just, I mean, Damon, hit him with it. Hit him with it, Damon. Your proclamation about Gabby? Yeah, dropped the like. What, Mr.

Diamondback? Yeah, he missed a dime back. He's the best catcher in the league according to Damon. Yeah, I said he was a catcher in the league earlier today. There's no doubt about it. I don't know, I don't know if we're quite at that. I don't think it's debatable. He's,

he's maybe been the best catcher in the league since August 13th when he was activated off the injured list. I think that. I think there's an argument to be made there. But yeah, I mean, over in this series, when he was seven for 12 at the plate,

uh, just continues to be extremely, extremely good at the plate since coming back from, from that injury. And, uh, yeah, uh,

another thing is Tori said before the game today that Gabby will play just about every day. I think those were his exact words the rest of the season, which is kind of what you'd expect at this point. I mean, debacks have, especially this next week.

They've got those couple days off built in. So, you know, you feel pretty good about probably playing him in both of those games against the Giants. But I wouldn't be surprised if Gabby starts basically every game the rest of the season.

A lot of talk about Gabby's dad strength. Yeah, Papa Gabby is super strong. uh yes uh there's yeah i mean he's seven for 15 since returning from the paternity list so there is there is some some evidence there for sure that that sounds like 500 seven that's like a four 67 batting where did you say seven for what 16 seven for 15 15 okay yeah close close by one um i also someone brought up bob brindley's wonderful term of gabby lane oh i haven't heard this yeah it was like uh like an abbey lane reference oh yeah like that day day lane yeah like that day he has this lane that he hits into and I

Bravo to Bob. I love that. I know it's simple, but I appreciate that. If you guys haven't signed up for a PG&X diehard's membership yet, let me start off with saying first. If you have, God bless you. We thank you for being part of the family. We very much have enjoyed all of our takeover events and all of the things that we've had,

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and discounts with our partners, exclusive invites to events, and so much more. So join us over here and become part of the diehard family. We do have, of course, this upcoming San Francisco Giant series, Jesse. But before we get to that, Buster only brought up some interesting comments on the broadcast tonight on reports that he has made on ESPN, basically that the Red Sox have interest in bringing GM Mike Hazen back to Boston. course, after they parted ways with their current GM, it's understandable because Hazen is

considered to be one of the best GMs in baseball. And of course, he was part of their organization in the past. So from what we know, Hazen is under contract through next season. But what are the thoughts on Mike Hazen potentially no longer being a part of this franchise? To me, it sounds like, I mean, I don't think it's very likely that Mike Hazen would actually do this. I believe the Diamondbacks hold the cards here where they can. and they can tell the Red Sox take a hike and he's ours and he's under, you know,

we have him under contract through 2024. And Buster Only, I believe also reported that there's a team option for 2025, which is something that we were not aware of previously. So the debacks hold the cards here. The Red Sox can't just swoop in and just take them away. What could happen, though, is Mike Hazen could go to the Diamondbacks and say, hey, you know, there are people around the league who are willing to pay. a handsome sum of money, you know, or whatever it is, you know, the job that he would have there

would be technically a higher ranking job, I believe, is like the president of baseball operations rather than just being the, you know, the GM. So yeah, I mean, I think this is something that could be used as leverage for Mike Hazen in order to get a long-term extension in Arizona, which is, I mean, wouldn't have been out of the question anyway, right? I mean, he does not really like we said, it's just next year and then it sounds like a team option for 2025. So those conversations might have been had no matter

what. But yeah, it's not something I would be alarmed about if you'd be very disappointed to see my case and walk. I don't think that's a very likely outcome here. Only suggested a contract extension would be very expensive. And now we have a lease in the comment saying, I think this is

his team leaking out interest so he gets an extension. And I think Elise is also an MLBGM, who's just here under the guys of being somebody named Elise. Elise is just like Alex Anthopolis or something. That makes all the sense in the world, actually. That explains so much about Elise's comments. So much about Elise in general.

But yeah, I mean, of course, that's, like you said, it comes down to them just saying no. And I think that in this case, the Diamondbacks do value Mike Hazen. You just have to look at what Mike Hazen was able to do this year with the few moves he was able to make and how those moves have impacted this team including Tommy Fam and Paul C. These are guys that weren't really the big names that, you know, I mean, we covered them when we were going over potential trade prospects or trade targets. I don't think we ever covered Paul C.

We did call, yeah, we did cover Tommy Fam. was, yeah. And Jason wasn't exactly on the radar. No, he was not either, right? And so like that's the thing that's wild about it is even when we did cover Tommy fam, I know for a fact that I was like, why are we even talking about Bobby fam, this seems ridiculous. And that's who they make the trade for, right?

So like the pieces that he was able to bring over, though, have contributed greatly to this team getting out of that rut that they were kind of in, you know, getting back on track. And at times they've been responsible straight up for, you know, sealing victories. And you could say that about fam and Seawald. So Mike Hazen does have an ability to find talent. And I mean, especially with this team, kind of with a minimal amount of,

of, you know, I guess you could say like money in a free agent case. He has a minimal amount of assets that you could really move, you know, in the case of trades. Like, sure. He's just able to do a lot with very little, it seems like. And that's why it feels like he's such a valuable piece of an organization like this that needs a GM that can that can do that. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it hasn't all been perfect, right? I mean, I mean, there's, you know, there's the Scott McGuff deal.

doesn't look great, the Miguel Castro deal, right? That option is already vested for next season based on Miguel Castro's number of appearances. So, yeah, it definitely hasn't all been perfect. And like you said, he'd be the first person to tell you that he would like to have a few of these things back. But like Carlos says, Mike Hazen probably feels like a genius for the don't. Yeah, like that deal has been a massive win at this point. There's still a long way to go before we really know the outcome of that trade. But, yeah, I mean, Gabby Moreno has been incredible exactly what the diamondbacks needed behind home plates.

I mean, they haven't had in years. They've just been kind of piecing it together with, you know, Jeff Mathis and Chris Aoneta and, you know, all these guys who were kind of toward the end of their careers. Gabby Moreno is a young catcher, a guy that you can really build around. That's been a good point. Give Damien Miller's flowers. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was a little bit before Mike Hazen, but. But, yeah.

I think by and large, you know, he's done a pretty good job here in Arizona. And yeah, I think he's, you know, there's a reason that teams are interested in having Mike Hazen join their front office. Oh, yeah. He's deserving of that kind of recognition. Especially the Red Sox that have that tie to him. So it's no surprise. It's just a matter of sitting. No, kick rocks.

He's ours. Another guy that's ours is Jay Jameson. And reports per Nick Picoro are that he will undergo Tommy John. surgery. Actually, that's per Tori Lavello and Nick Procoro. And Nick had no part in that decision. He just reported it. But, Drake, Dr. Nick.

Nick was the one who decided that Dr. Jameson is going to have Tom and John surgery. And we all go to Nick for advice, but Tori came to Nick. No, per Tori, Dre Jamison will undergo Tommy John surgery, which we discussed in the past. And honestly, I feel like gives me peace of mind because it felt like, it was inevitable anyway.

We've discussed the likelihood that he would have to have that surgery and what the chances are to kind of rebound from it without the surgery would be. And especially after the setback he's had recently, it felt like this was what was going to happen. So on the plus side, like Jesse said, it doesn't really matter if they would have done the Tommy John surgery back when this decision was made or now because he still essentially is going to miss all of the 2024 season undergoing this Tommy John surgery most likely.

So his timetable for return of the 2025 spring training essentially is probably still a safe bet or sometime around then. Yeah. But it's still unfortunate because we love Dre. We absolutely love Dre. He's a tremendous competitor. And he was a valuable pitcher for this team. So this sucks. But we also very much want to see Dre get right.

So I hope that his everything goes well with the surgery. and we can see him get back on track very, very soon. And, I mean, it's going to be a long recovery, but I can't. It'll be a great day to see Dre back on the diamond. Yeah, and I've seen a lot of, you know, I told you so, comments running around on Twitter where, you know, people are making the case.

Like, yeah, we, you know, it's kind of seemed like Dre was going to eat this from the beginning. You might, you should have done it a couple months ago. And I see where those people are coming from for sure. Dre, this injury initially popped up on July 7th. That's when he was placed on the injured list with right elbow inflammation. So, you know, if Dre had had Tommy John surgery on, you know, July 15th or whatever it was, yeah, he would have had a decent chance to come out and actually pitch a little bit toward the very end of next season.

Now, that's still possible. It's not completely out of the question. If they brought him back as a reliever, he might have a shot to pitch toward the end of next season, but pretty unlikely. So, yeah, and in the grand scheme of things, this probably doesn't make a huge difference, you know, a couple months ago versus now. And, I mean, as of a week or two ago, Tori Lavella was talking about how he was more optimistic than he was at the beginning of the process that Jury Jameson was going to be able to

avoid Tommy John surgery. It seemed like things were trending in that direction. But unfortunately, as does happen sometimes in these situations, there was a setback. there was some, you know, some tenderness as it was initially described, uh, that, you know, after the imaging and everything has come through, Dre will in fact have Tommy John surgery. So yeah, you know, just hope that, hope that the process is, is smooth for him and, and he'll be, should be fine for 2025. I don't think, I don't think for 2025 there's not really a functional difference between having

the surgery in July versus having it right now. You still got plenty of time, uh, you know, you're 18 months out from, uh, um, like spring training of 2025 roughly. So that should still be fine. I hate this. I hate this, but it is what it is. Yeah.

What I don't hate is the Diamondbacks having the San Francisco Giants in their sights here for a two-game series. And I don't hate what their bullpen has been able to do without Drey Jameson lately because this bullpen, and I don't know if this same bullpen will show up for this giant series here at Chasefield. But hopefully they do because this bullpen has been. credible and I might I'm not going to delete the GIF but I might

just you know stow it away for a little while maybe we don't need that GIF anymore but let's take a look ahead at this series with the San Francisco Giants 76 and 74 record with a minus 14 run differential they are 6 and 4 in their last 10 and they're just kind of middle

of the pack when it comes to starting pitching and relief pitching their pitching is good it's fine it's not bad but offensively they haven't been very good this year defensively they haven't been great they've kind of been a team a little bit like the Diamondbacks especially when it came to

their pitching where they've they haven't they haven't had a complete starting rotation they haven't had a complete staff at times and they've managed to just kind of they've never had a complete staff they just has Logan Webb Alex Cobb and then a bunch of like three inning guys basically what the Giants

have done this year and I mean honestly it's impressive that they have been they have a record of 76 and 74. They're missing a lot of key personnel. And honestly, this team is kind of overachieving. So this is the time of the year when the Diamondbacks really need to, you know, continue this role that they're on. I mean, they just played extremely well against a very tough Cubs team. And they have the Giants coming in here with a day of rest. They really feels like this should be a series with the Diamondbacks have an advantage. Yeah, theoretically, right? I mean, as we said,

before like all right, Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly, two game series against the Giants. On paper, it's, it's in your favor, but who knows, right?

If anything, if we've learned anything in the last week, it's that you really can't predict how these things are going to go. But yeah, the Giants haven't had a good month. I know they're six and four in their last 10, but prior to this three out of four series loss with the Rockies,

they won five out of six. Three of those were against the Rockies at home. They also took two out of three at home. from the Guardians. So just not good teams there. Prior to that, they lost their first six games in the month of September to the San Diego Padres and the Chicago Cubs.

And the rest of the way for the Giants is pretty tough. It's these two games with the Diamondbacks here at Chase Field. And then they travel to L.A. for four games on the road against the Dodgers. They're at home against the Padres for three, a team that they struggled with earlier in the month. And then they finish at home against the Dodgers. again. So seven of their final, whatever this is, seven of their final 12 games are against the Dodgers.

And obviously the Dodgers don't have a ton to play for at this point. I don't think they're catching the Braves and they've already clinched the N.L. West, of course, that happened yesterday. But the Dodgers are still the Dodgers and, you know, I don't think they're, I think they're still going to try. They're still going to, you know, there's still a difficult team to play and not an easy finish here for the Giants. it's wild because when we had Mike Faron on and he was talking about the playoffs, I feel like what we saw the Marlins just do to the Braves is the exact kind of thing he's talking about. Like I know the Braves weren't at their playoff best or whatever, but that's kind of what happens when these playoffs roll around.

Like you never know when a team like the Miami Marlins can all of a sudden just figure out how to be putting up 10 plus runs on the board almost every. night and nobody nobody's going to stop them but it's only it's only a very small amount of time that they need to play that way for right you just kind of catch catch fire here around the mid part of september and then kind of like the like almost like what the phillies did last year right they snuck in they got that final wildcard spot yeah and then they caused a lot of noise in the playoffs once they were there so it just feels like what we're seeing across baseball right now is like that kind of randomness of it and that's what makes

the playoffs fun and that's what makes having these extra playoff spots exciting. It's also why you don't like it. Right. It is. Yes. It's just too goddamn random and it's just too unfair to those teams that played very well for 162 games to gain

some sort of advantage only for them to kind of sit around and wait like four days to start playing baseball again while these other teams stay hot and don't, you know, they don't get out of their groove. They don't get out of their routine. They stay in it. Baseball is a very routine thing. We've seen that in every way. A guy comes back from injury. It takes them a while to get hot at the plate. Pitcher comes back from injury. It takes them a while to get right. I mean,

even literally takes them a while like pitching in other games that aren't major league games to get back on track. So this is just a game of, I feel like, being in the groove at the right time. And at least for the Diamondbacks, that this series is a very good starting point between now and the of the season with the remaining what they have 12 games left now yeah yeah and and 11 games left is it 11 i think so they have three three and three so nine and then the two game series with the giant so yeah yeah yeah i think you're right it's 11 um yeah my my thing with the going back to the whole uh 12 team playoff conversation uh i just don't want to i i'm sorry i can't not talk you can't you can't like push my buttons and not give me a chance to talk about this we

just can't get to the point where a 162 game season doesn't mean anything, right? Correct. Correct. You just can't get to the point where you play 162, you win two more games than you lost, and then you're in there, and your chances of doing serious damage in the postseason are not that different from a team that was 30 games ahead of you in the standings. It just doesn't do justice to 162 games of, you know, some teams just being a significantly better than other teams. There needs to be some level of separation.

That's why we played 162 games. That's why we did that. And that's why we never played the other league. We only played the National League. We only played the American League. And we didn't even played those other teams that much. We just played 60 goddamn games against our own division, 80 games against our own division. Why? Because that defined who the winner of that division was and thus made making the postseason special. If you had a 20 game deficit, And back in the old days, you could make that shit up because you actually played that team 35 more times. Yeah, right. It's just, it was crazy.

It really did. I am very on board with the. That's how it felt. I much prefer the balance schedule for sure. No, but that's what I'm saying, though. The balance schedule even moves it farther away from the point of playing your own division so often. And even though that can be very boring, there was a, there was a means to it. There was a means to the end.

There was a reason why they did it. way and the reason why was the regular season was the playoffs the playoffs the playoffs weren't the playoffs the playoffs were like a championship series of the best teams in the league playing each other to decide who in turn was the best team in all of baseball but it wasn't like this hey let's see who can get in and then what can happen in the playoffs it really wasn't designed for that that's the reason why baseball has this godforsaken 162 game season that doesn't if we're gonna if we're gonna do you love every minute of it there it's almost over Jesse. I do love it though.

This is a pretty long game. Speaking of long seasons and baseball rules and things, the pitch clock couldn't clamp this one down too far Derek. I don't I didn't see the final game time but I know that three hours and nine minutes

Jesse. Okay, that's actually not that bad. After two innings we were pretty close to an hour which is like a four hour game pace and it's because it's because it's because as both pitchers, right?

Jordan Wicks and Ryan Nelson both had like 50 pitches after two innings. They did. We'd seen 100 pitches through two innings of this game. So it felt like it might go, you know, four hours and whatever yesterday's game went. Yeah. Nelson only went three and a third. He had 75 pitches.

Yeah. Efficiency was not, not much of a thing for Ryan Nelson or Zach Davies wasn't particularly efficient yesterday either. 75 pitches seems to be Tori Lavello's new like style. point for the younger guys right like he feels like he's cutting them all off around that point and he doesn't think a lot of it has to do with with like where you are in the batting order to you yeah yeah like if you're going third time through and you just and you're not looking great

then yeah it might not matter too much what your pitch count is at that point well credit where credit is due because lovolo managed the hell out of this series and he managed this team to a sweep over the chicago cubs so uh this is a lot of fun and of course we have a lot more fun ahead of us because like Jesse said two more weeks from today more two more in two weeks Derek we will know we will be back here doing a show on Sunday two weeks from the day talking about the Diamondbacks making in the playoffs oh man you you said it there threw that out there was I not supposed to damn it I mean that's not that's not for me to decide yeah oh man well let's hope let's hope I get out of this one but let's hope that age as well we thank you guys of course

for being here real quick before we go. Yes, sir. A couple of people were asking for it. So I'm going to toss this guy up there. Oh, oh, there we go. There we are.

We're fucking back, baby. We are back, baby. How did I forget this? Bless you, Damon. Bless you. We are back. The audio people's of no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, so what I'm screaming about is Damon just threw up on the screen,

the most important division in all of baseball. It's the All-City division. And now this division has grown by. one team and they are still on top. The Philadelphia Phillies are up there at 81 and 68, but the PHNX D-BACs boys are back in business, baby. We're back in second place. We are three games back from the Phillies.

The Cubs now are in third at three and a half games back. The Chicago White Sox, they are just trailing the Cubs just a little bit at 24 and a half games back. And then the Rockies round out the pack at 25 games back. Big week for the Rockies. Big week for the Rockies. Close it a little bit. They did.

This is the toilet bowl. They did. Well, like the Rockies are in danger of losing 100 games for the first time in franchise history. And I think that they are definitely in danger of that. There's seven losses away. However, the Rockies, I think, have more games against the Chicago Cubs left. So, to be honest, do work, Rockies. Yeah, I think they do.

Yeah, win those games against the Cubs. We're on your side. We did have some people talking the other day, which I think does make a lot of sense. about how the Phillies don't really belong in this like with their full season record we should probably just go from the day that the PHLI have launched yeah and I believe after since that day the Phillies have gone two and three so Damon so if we put it if we put it back up there where would like just if we just go by win percentage two in three that's a 40 percent yeah they're in third yeah they're in third so as far as we're concerned the phnx d backs boys are back in first place

you know what guys fuck that let's just win this thing let's just win the whole asterix talks let's just let's just have a better record than the Phillies let's get the first wild card juice me up god damn brick wall so that so the Phillies now I'm looking now I'm looking at the Phillies schedule the Phillies have three at Atlanta the next few days which which which seems like it which seems like it should be difficult but I don't know what happened over the weekend with the Marlins they ran into the bus saw that is the marlins there you go and then and then after that things get easier for them.

They have four at home against the Mets, three at home against the pirates, and they finish on the road against the Mets. So not a particularly difficult schedule for the Phillies to finish things out. Mets. I don't know. I'm still mad at them.

Anyway, that must be how the Cubs feel about us right now. The way we feel about the Mets is probably how the Cubs feel about us. The Cubs are probably, I think they're okay with not playing the Diamondbacks again tomorrow, We'll just put it. We'll just put it that way. I would suspect they're pretty ready to get out of town at this point.

Well, we are ready to get out of here, but we thank you guys so much for joining us here tonight on this special Sunday episode. You can follow us on Twitter. I am at Kapp underscore Caveman with a K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. The people's producer behind the Mac over there is none other than Damon Dog. Of course, we are Damon's dog. And you can follow him at Damon Dog. That's DAWG.

Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, and all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Oh, man, we, this was a fun one, you guys, and we thank you guys for watching. We thank you for being here. We always appreciate your time. But remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you are in the second wild card spot. Let's go!