PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks Take “MUST WIN” Game To Split Four-Game Series With Padres At Petco Park

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

After getting absolutely dominated in two games of their series with the Padres, the Diamondbacks managed to pull off a series split with a big win at Petco Park on Sunday. We discuss the D-backs starting pitching woes, the streakiness of the offense, and trade rumors about Eugenio Suarez. We also answer your Mailbag Monday questions, including which PHNX staff member best represents each of the seven dwarves.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/phnxdbacks50Mint Mobile: To get this new customer offer and your new 3-monthunlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacksDesert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, welcome in to a Monday edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is the mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This man next to me is obviously not Jesse Friedman, but he is our old glory. He does. He does. I mean, the stature is very Jesse. If we used you as a stunt double for the Jesse Friedman movie, I don't know if people would really notice like the driving scenes. No, I'd have to get the goatee going, though.

It's not really a goatee. It's just chin hair. It's just the chin hair. This is father overload Jacob. chin music. It's sweet chin music is what it is. Sweet chin music. This is the one and only father over Lord Jacob. And of course, that's the people's producer, Damon, on the ones and twos. Arizona Diamondbacks managed to salvage what looked like a disaster situation in San Diego over the weekend. Somehow splitting a four game series with the San Diego Padres. We'll take a look

at those numbers here shortly, but the Diamondbacks did win in the finale by a score of nine to three, which felt like a fairly significant offensive. The offensive. The offense looked offensive, right? And I mean, this is, I think, one of the reasons why it was a little frustrating. This offense has been offensive for a lot of this season. Period. But I think it was, it might have been you that tweeted this yesterday that just like out of nowhere, and it might have just been off the DUX account that like out of nowhere, they will pull like a rabbit out of a hat. It's amazing. And just explode for a couple games to like just level out the, they are the epitome of like everything regresses to the mean, but they usually regress from a very, very, very low average

to a relatively average average. They can lose two out of three, but the end numbers of the series, when we take a look at the counts. They outscored them. Yeah, it looks like they did a great job, right? Yeah. I mean, and that's kind of what's been happening here a little bit. That's not the case in games two and three of this series. The Diamondbacks absolutely got destroyed in those two games by a score of 13 to 1 and 10 to 3, but they do win in the finale by a count of 9 to 3. Currently four games below 500 at 31 and 35. What are your feelings after 66 games about the Diamondbacks being four games under 500 considering once again, not that you guys need to be reminded of this, but the pieces they're missing. Yeah, it's certainly, it's hard to say that it's not disappointing, right?

Like there are a lot of things about this start to the year that feel incredibly disappointing. They don't even feel like they've been as bad as this record indicates at times. at other times sure they feel like like the Rockies yeah don't have any no shade to the Rockies but like but those those bottom tiered like that type of a team sometimes I mean you watched them lose third whatever it was 13 to 1 13 to 1 10 to 3 paving Smith yeah the 10 to 3 is a little misleading there umberto castagnanos obviously don't even give me started on that you already yeah I know you guys talked about that on Friday so we don't need to go too far in depth on that yeah I still feel like and you

you agree with me on this like in the end the offense didn't do anything and And it ended up being the right call by Tori. Sure. But you're at the end of a 13th, like Sunday was 13 straight games. Yeah. They finally get a day off today. Today is their day. Like, like, I know it seems easy to just say like, you know what?

They climbed back into this. And maybe Tori made the wrong decision. Like, I am not one to say that like everything Tori does is correct. Because I do think that there is some level of questioning a manager that's probably the right thing to do. And even Tori would admit to that. Correct. However, he had to make a decision, right? he does.

Like, we're on game 11 in a row. 11 straight days of playing baseball where I don't know if you guys paid attention to this, but the starting pitching not really going deep into just about any of the games over the last. I've been in seven or eight games. Let's talk about it. Two thirds of an innings pitched in yesterday's game. 3.1 innings pitched on Saturday. 5 and a third on Friday, 4 and a third on Thursday.

What are you supposed to? What are you supposed to do? In a four-game series, they got a total of 13 and two-third innings pitched. The bullpen's gassed. Right. And that's the thing is, especially when you look at Sunday's game, they needed two-thirds of an, they did the starter thing again with McGuff. The funny thing is the one guy they pulled in McGuff to face is the one guy who homers.

It's a dinger, right? Like, yeah. I mean, if you're at this point, like, here's my take on this, if this team makes the playoffs, and I would, I think that they're going to, and you decide that you have to do a game where you start with an opener, If that opener isn't Justin Martinez going three innings in a playoff game, I don't want it. Did you guys forget Scott McGuff was on the team? Because I did.

No, he was in Reno. We just remembered because he was pitching in Reno the other day. And Jacob had the game on. So we definitely remembered Scott McGuff because we were having. We were sharing some memories. I screamed when I saw him on my TV. When he started on Sunday, I can understand. That must have been for a lot of you Diamondbacks fans, like an all is lost moment.

when you tuned in to Sunday's baseball game and saw Scott McGuff starting on the mound and giving up that first inning dinger to Fernando Tatis Jr. I thought we were in for it. I was like, let's just turn Chasefield into a parking lot now or sky rises high rises. You know, like we could get some good rent out of that space. It's prime reality, right? That's where I was at after the first inning. But the Diamondbacks definitely turned things around. But when you talk about using the bullpen and it being gas.

They used it. Two and a third's for Tommy Henry. one in a third for Ginkle, one in a third for Manteply, one and a third for Justin Martinez, one inning for Bryce Jarvis. Is Kevin Ginkle back? Kevin Ginkle might be back. The entire bullpen might be back, but not. Bullpen's pretty filthy.

David and I talk about this probably once a day. Yeah, there's a lot of components there that are very exciting and I think are becoming consistent weapons for Tori. And, I mean, I will say that there is a tantalizing, uh, possibility that maybe some of these guys that have been asked to step into a starting role like Slade or like Ryan Nelson might end up being dogs out of the bullpen for Tori. Yeah, that's the hope. That's the hope. That's the hope.

I mean. But I'm with, I'm with Elise. Elise said earlier, I'm tired of seeing Ryan Nelson start. And no, no discredit to Ryan Nelson. What's your option? We don't have one. We call it Christian Mana, give Mana an opportunity. He's gotten shelled his last two stars.

I know. That's my problem right now. I mean, he's finally kind of regressing back to, he's 21. Yeah. Pitching in AAA. He's the youngest player in AAA right now. Yeah. He's awesome.

I mean, it's. In all of AAA? I'm pretty sure. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, yeah. Because I don't think Ethan Salas, who's in the Padre system, I think he's a top 15 prospect, but, but I think he's in like high A. I don't think he's.

But anyways, I tweeted this out, and I think I also put this in the Discord. Good baseball teams, expect to split. a four-game road series. Sure. That is the expectation. Anything above that is icing on the cake. Yeah, I am 100% okay at the end of 13 straight days, taking two in San Diego, especially with the second one being Sunday.

Yeah, and to be honest, the way things were going in this series, I'm glad it was a four-game series. I'm glad they had a chance to get that one more victory before leaving a bit demoralized after those two. And like you said, Friday's loss, it's a little bit more blown out of proportion. In my mind, that's still kind of a five-to-three loss. than a 10 to 3 loss.

But what does my opinion matter? Sure. It doesn't show up in stat cast date. My opinion does not transfer it to baseball. I'm not to tell you whether your opinion matters or not. I get it. Jesse tells me it definitely does it. But Ernesto, by the way, is reminding you Jackson Holiday, AAA.

Okay. There we go. So that would be the youngest. But still, Christian Manna and a very exclusive group there with the youngest in baseball. So I has a lot of time to develop. And I'm sure that's the reason why the Diamondbacks are going to hesitate to even go to him. Right. But there might come a point.

I doubt we see him this year unless things go. catastrophically wrong. I was going to say there might be a point where they don't have a choice. He is back, by the way. And he pitched fairly well. I mean, it's a rehab start in, was it in the ACL or some rookie league nine strikeouts and four ends?

He's still amazing. He's confident. I guess taking a 110 mile an hour foul ball to the face in the dugout doesn't really scare you off the mound. That to me, when you talk about how bad the season has gone for the Diamondbacks, that's that final destination moment for me.

where it's just like the baseball gods are coming for us, and they're even going after our youthful, exciting players, even when they're not even in a game. So that's where some of that frustration comes in with the way this season is gone. But no frustration on the Diamondbacks part yesterday on Sunday. They had no problem with their offense. Diamondbacks went 8 for 16 with runners in scoring position in the series finale. Is that good?

That's pretty damn good. That's a 500 batting average, Jacob. I'm not sure if you're familiar with math. And it's also a lot of opportunities. I think that's the best, biggest thing there is the Diamondbacks not only created a lot of opportunities with runners in scoring position, but they were able to convert a lot of those. So, again, not what we're probably going to see going forward, but another one of those feast days for the offense versus the famine days. They need to see more of those, especially over the next nine games. It would be great because we have some easy opponents coming up.

So Tori did describe the game as a must win. This is what Tori had to say about winning on Sunday. Yeah, I felt like it was in that category. You know, you have those types of days and those types of games. And so we want to start playing consistent baseball. And, you know, we know what our overall record is. And you want to keep pushing towards 500 and then eventually get over 500. So, yeah, I felt like given what we had gone through day one to day four, it was an important one for us.

I think it was an important not only because of the fact that they're in the race with the Padres, their division rival, all of that stuff. But the Diamondbacks need some confidence right now. And all things considered, they just took, I guess, against seven games against the Giants and the Padres, what, four out of those seven? Like, that's a pretty good day at the office, or six out of five out of the seven, right? They won three out of two and then two. They were four and three against the Giants and the Padres.

So, I mean, they did a good job there of going in there and doing what they needed to do against these teams and, you know, building on the fact that these are division rivals that are so close to them right now in the wildcard standings. The wildcard standings right now are meaningless. I don't even want to talk about them. We keep posting them to Twitter and I don't know why, but it's also because there's still a hundred. You have more games left than you've played. And there are like 20 teams tied for the final wildcard spot right now. Like we're going to be completely honest with this right now. This wild card race is probably going to go down to the last game like it did last year. Tori said that last year about it. And he was.

absolutely correct you just got to keep playing what's wild sure what's wild was those comments were made at the end of july beginning of august they could forecast and i think mike hazen uh reiterated those same feelings was that this is going to come down to the last game of the season and holy shit it actually did and the debacks lost it and they needed someone else to lose in order for them to make the playoffs and the next thing you know we're in the world series so i am not excited for making the wild card race graphic every single day you're going to be so busy here's one you get there. Here's where I'm at with this, right? They're a game out of like, whatever it is, game, game and a half out of the third wildcard spot.

Right. Two games out of the second wild card spot because of how tight everything is. And the Braves, I don't know if anybody's noticed. They're in a tailspin right now. So you're probably only five and a half six, six and a half games out of that first wild card spot. Who's going to be the team that makes a run? Who's going to be the team that, and maybe it's the Braves, they take the first wildcard spot, whatever it is. but that second wild card spot is still up for grabs.

Go on a run. Be that team. Put yourself in the comfortable position of being in the second wildcard spot with a three, four game lead. I made the prediction that I think this team is going to be over 500 at the All-Star break. They'd have to go 18 and 13 from today to do that.

18 and 13. What do you guys think about that? Is he insane? I don't know. They wanted me to dye my hair. I said my co-workers make bad decisions. I'm not trying to. Yeah, I do.

I do, and I'm the coworker he's talking about. But, I mean, if they, you know, they do have not only some winnable series here coming up, right? But they're not, they're a competitive baseball team. And they can actually still win against some of these, like the Phillies that they have after this stretch of bad teams. They have the Angels, they have the White Dodgers, Nationals, and the Phillies and Dodgers, right? Dodgers. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot. There's a lot there ahead of them.

But it doesn't mean, you know, I don't know. We've seen this team step up. We've seen this team have big games this year. We've seen them beat the Dodgers. They were 44 and 27 in a 71 game stretch last year. They were 17 games over 500 in a 71 game stretch. I remember I had to die my hair purple. There was also that thing where they did a catastrophic historic drop from being that far

above 500 to be below 500. Yeah. We brought up a lot of teams that don't exist anymore when we talked about that. But let's talk about two teams that do exist with the count presented by our friends at Desert Financial. credit union. Padres really look like they smoked the Diamondbacks in this series despite it being a split. They

outscore the Diamondbacks 29 to 17 out hit the Diamondbacks 45 to 37. Runners in scoring position Diamondbacks did the Stone Cold Steve Austin thing there with a 316 batting average. Oh hell yeah. Diamondbacks went 12 for 38. Padres 10 for 42 with a 238 batting

average. Starting pitching those are I believe reversed. I might have oh no. Really right? I did it. They were, the relief pitching for the Padres was really good. It was at 2.94. Diamondbacks not even close. Theirs was the 6.52.

Starting pitching ERA for the Diamondbacks 9.22. 5.22 there for the Padres. Just atrocious, but the Diamondbacks also, like I said, they got a total of starting pitching of 13 and 2 thirds innings in a four-game series. That's what they got from starting pitching. Now, McGuff is not really a starting pitcher, but considering he started the game, you have to give him that, you know. Even if throw away McGuff is talking about.

Tommy Henry was bad. Yeah, I mean, you get three in a third, you get five in a third, you get four in a third. You talk about Tommy Henry yesterday. You got two and a third out of him. And yeah, like you said, he wasn't very good. So it's not like you got two and a third, three hits, two earn, two walks and a strikeout from him. He gave up the one home run. So did McGuff.

But the Diamondbacks offense was very good. Jake McCarthy, very good. He continues to be incredible for this team. He's absolutely back. It was hard to watch last year. Because it was just one of those things where it was like all of a sudden you felt like any of his first round pick. Jake McCarthy, they invested a lot in him. They did.

He's got a tall pedigree to live up to. And he had that breakout year where I think he came back from getting sent down to Reno, hit like 300 for the rest of the year, finished the season hitting, you know, 27, 280, whatever it was. And then watching it last year was probably one of the hardest things to watch because you felt like you had something in Jake McCarthy. Yeah. You felt like it was something you needed to try and almost find a way to get into the lineup every day. You have these stretches where he really shows the potential. that he could live up to and what he could be as a regular everyday player.

And then all of a sudden he just struggles. And I mean, again, that's a fact though. That's nothing new from any of these guys outside of Catelle Marte on this team. We have said, we've said Cattel's back or, excuse me, Carol's back. We've said Geryl's back. You know, we have those moments where we wish Gino was back, but he's not. We have Moreno. You know, you just have these days where you hope to see these guys be back to where they're at.

And that's kind of the streakiness right now. this team offensively. But Jake McCarthy, three for four yesterday, two RBI. He had that home run. Just a big day for him. And again, you just get it in spurts. Another guy that deserves credit, Kevin Newman, three for four, another day where he's just quietly, you know.

A little nervous for what's going to happen tomorrow. There are going to be some questions answered here very soon. A little nervous for what we're about to see tomorrow. I have a feeling I know where we're headed. What do you think? I think as of tomorrow I honestly think Blaise Alexander might be in Reno. Yeah. Yeah. I know that pained you to say it, but I think we've all kind of thought that was the direction it's going. The only other thing is I don't even know. I think it's Blaz or Paven.

Because I think Jake, I mean, having Jock Jake and Pavin on the bench, that is a plethora. But to me, one of those guys is going down when Alec comes back. It can't be Jake. And Jock is whatever. But like I, I mean, it can't be Jake. So it's, Jake sitting 280. you with a 769 OPS right now. I am not sending Jake McCart to anyway. I mean, and I know there are reports out there that Gino's Maras is not the one getting affected by this. Oh, yeah.

That doesn't surprise me at all. You know what I mean? Gino's a veteran. They know what they have in Gino. They know what they have them defensively. But we do have some interesting mailbag Monday questions in regards to that. That we'll get here shortly. Jake was the man yesterday.

So he would have gotten our single game, King Snake. But for the series, we're giving it to the one and only Corbyn Carroll. Because like you said, he's back. The kids back. This is actually, I mean, honestly, lately, this is more of what I would expect to see out of Corbyn Carroll. I mean, last year might have been an outlier with his power and some of his numbers and stuff. But when you tell me, you think so. Well, and I hope so.

I'm just saying, though, in general, like if Corby and Carroll was less of a power guy and more about getting on base the way he did in this series, again, we saw Corbyn Carroll do what Corby and Carol does. He walked. He stole bases. He found a way to get on base. He found a way to score runs, and he hit 375 in a four-game series. So I see what you're saying. I mean, like, he can be useful without the power numbers is what you're trying to say. And honestly, before last year, this is probably more of what we would thought we would get out of him as a good player.

You know, like a high batting average, a lot of stolen bases, a lot of runs scored, but maybe not so much power. Maybe not so many RBI because he's leading off and things like that, right? He's getting closer. It does feel like he's getting closer. I don't think that a guy. He's got a 204 batting average. Who hits 25 bonds. as a rookie at 170 pounds.

That's not a fluke. Like that's a, the guy has too much natural power. It's a little better this year. Yeah, but I, there's signs that the ball is a little more dead this year than last year. Yeah,

offensively across the board in baseball. I also think that again, there are certain expectations, right? And there weren't really that big of expectations. I felt like Corbyn last year had a goal. And his goal was to be the best rookie so that he could help his team. get that additional draft pick. I don't think it was for the personal achievement.

I don't think it was for the accolade. He's a team guy. He had a goal that he could get to, and that could quantifiably make the team better because it gives them an extra draft pick, and he had that. I think this year is more about living up to, you know, the year he had last year

and living up to his own kind of greatness that he has set. And that's hard to live up to sometimes, especially in your sophomore season, especially when you had such a good rookie campaign. So I think that there's- I believe has proved that you don't have to be a big individual to hit homers. That's true. Yeah.

To me. No, and I think that's the thing. It's about hitting the ball. Corbyn has such surprising power to all parts of the field. Right? Like, it's not like all of his homers were, you know, absolutely pulled, you know, like 30 rows deep. You know, like, you know, those guys that they're like, well, we've got power. And it's like all their power is when they just lean on one.

And, you know, it turns all the way. It just hooks within the foul pole or whatever. it is but it's like 30 rose deep and they have to hit it corbin can hit one 30 rows deep in the left field bleachers yeah i mean he is just a strong strong strong strong kid and he's got a fast bat well it would be great to see it would be nice to see you know and i think a lot of it is more about you know maybe those adjustments he made either not being fully fleshed out yet or maybe just flat out being the wrong adjustments but you know we'll see i think the adjustments were more about the

lack of success or the lack of success he had last year. I know it's easy to talk about how good he was last year, but he also had a very long stretch

where he wasn't very good between, you know, that shoulder injury and the playoffs. So there's a lot there that Corby and Carol is still doing to develop his swing and get himself

to be a better baseball player, honestly. And so he feels like he's getting back. He's at 204. I've said this before. He reminds me a lot of Paul Goldschmidt. He's not the most talkative individual

that you're going to find. True. He spends a lot of time thinking. He spent a lot, I mean. Which can be a detriment in this game. His interviews last year were still one of the most fascinating things ever to me because, to be honest, some people might have taken it as weird or some people might have taken his thoughtfulness as like, like off putting. I thought it was incredible because I have never in my entire lifetime. In my entire lifetime.

It's brilliant. I've never seen a human being be asked a question and then say. Hold on. Let me think about that and then sit there and think about that and then take like 30 seconds to gather your data in your mind and make sure you have your thoughts all together. I've seen Dan do that before. Well, Damon's different. Damon's built differently. David, I've seen you think about something. Like I've seen.

I've actively say come back to me on that. So that he has a great. I think that's a really good trait because I think people sometimes just like to spout something off and it's not necessarily like. I know that like I'm guilty. I'm like Mr. Emotional and I wear that on my. my sleeve. I love it. But like at the same time, I do feel like I do try to take in nuance and like actual other people's opinions into my takes. Like I try to be. You know it's a good question when someone when Damon, it's like it's the same thing. It was the same thing with Sean. You know it's a

great question when you get them to sit there for a second and be like, wait, what do I want to say to this? You see a little twinkle in their eye that they're excited and they're going to actually think about it. And that's what's fun, especially when you get to argue with Damon. That's a whole other thing. Oh, like Totry this morning saying that 4.8 rebounds is 4 rebounds for game instead of five? How about Bo Brock saying that Diana Tarazzi should step aside to let Caitlin Clark have her spot on the USA basketball? You just got the

dog sent on Bo Brock right now. Boe comes out of the other studio right now. It's most insane take I've ever heard. But anyway, we thank you guys for being here in the P. H&Xports YouTube channel. Of course, you guys are the best. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet do so now sign up for notifications that way you don't miss whenever our wonderful shows on this network go live of course drop us a like corbin loves when you leave a like uh if you're listening on the audio podcasting side we love our listeners as well please be sure you're subscribed on your

favorite audio podcasting app leave us a review we always appreciate that and those five-star reviews help us out a ton jacob i am so excited because i am being told that we now have partnered together with mint mobile which means i am one step close to becoming best friends with Ryan Reynolds. That's incredible news. It's incredible news. And I bet you're getting a great reception. You can say bye to whatever.

This is right. Is it? I'm friends with him before you. Tell him I love him. No. I can't wait to see Deadful three. You know what I'm excited about? What's that?

Rexum. Oh, yeah. How about that? You ever thought about that combo? This is a Rexum podcast now too, just like the Phoenix rising one is. Throw up the X. Let's go. Mobile times Rexum.

Oh, man. We're going to have a great talk. This is everything you know. Bob Damon, Jacob, the boys. Owen's coming. We're going. This is how we snagg. This is how we snag Hulu.

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Puerto Rico. Jesse, you don't have to come back. Corvin goes yard this week. Oh, yeah. Wow. Jacob's got a lot of hot things. A lot of hot predictions. I get one show every, yeah, three months.

Got to get me. Jacob underscore Franklin 4, by the way, if you want to go. On paper, I respect, like, a good hot take like that. Like, it's obviously less likely to happen than more. Sure. Let's not pretend like Jacob doesn't walk around the office, look us in the eyes constantly and go. And just lie to us. I have not said this one in a long time.

Just blatantly lies to us with no repercussions. You give me a home run a day. Yeah. No, I don't. Yeah, I have to come on this show and listen to this chat. I have not given you a home run in weeks, Damon. No, weeks. Yeah, because you were hitting at such an abysmal.

I'm not, the magic's not there this year. Yeah, I get it. This team doesn't hit homers though. They really don't. They really don't. Not, not. And it's what you thought Gina was. When they do hit home runs.

Gabby's not hitting homers. Corbin's not hitting homers. It's Lordus Cattell and Walker. Barry Bloom said to Tori, your team doesn't win when you don't hit home runs. And there's probably at least three wins maybe in there where they won without home runs, but the rest of them all had at least one home. I mean, I guess they had one yesterday. Jake had one yesterday. But they did lose on Friday and they hit back-to-back homers.

Oh, it's not if you, no, it's not a direct correlate. It's more like if you win, there was a home run hit in the game. game more than if you hit a home run it means you're going to win right it's it's a little different correlation but uh this is what we're here for we're here to figure everything out for you guys and explain it in this uh i guess understanding way we're also here to remind you that every year on this podcast is our year every month on this podcast black history month every month on this podcast is women's history month and of course every single month on this podcast is black women's history month every single week a shark week every single day Passover

even though Jesse's not here. And of course, every single Monday, we go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go! My mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while, there's a letter that makes me go out. Shout out to Megaram, by the way, on tour in Europe with Wheatis.

Where's your era? I think he's in the Netherlands right now. Actually, fun story about that. Espo sent me a funny video on TikTok that eventually, essentially, seriously, led to a woman getting booked for Aweida show. So Espos to thank for that. He doesn't understand that his actions have ripple effects across the entire planet. But Jacob, do you want to apologize to someone? Before you get to get the solo cam right here. Yeah, let's get it to, let's get a tight show. I just like to just a formal apology to my man Craig on Twitter. He asked a very legitimate question

about Corbyn Carroll's Bat Pat. However, I apologize to you. I made a joke about your tweet. because you had accidentally had a typo that said bath path. And I thought it was funny to say that I couldn't find bat path data. We could find bat path data. So even though the question isn't there anymore, I will answer your question right now. Corbyn Carroll has the flattest swing in Major League Baseball this year. Correct.

So per swing graphs, Carol's vertical bat angle was 20.6 degrees in March and April, and it has been 21 and a half degrees in May. It is a slight improvement. However, it has only moved his season bat path average to 21.1 degrees, which is still the flattest swing in Major League Baseball. That's where we're out. But it's better. Do you feel good about yourself, making fun of our listeners on their questions?

I always thought Corbyn was more of a shower guy. See, that's what's funny is you instinctually feel that way, right? Because obviously you know Corbin, you know he's a busy man, right? He's just going to get in, get out, right? Shower. He might not even take the time to do all of the moisturizing of the stuff some of us over do, right? He moves quick. But see, here's what I think.

I think he's a bath guy. He's got to spend more time in the cage. I think he's a bath guy, though. You know why? Because if you lay in a bath, then you can read scouting reports on opposing pictures while you sit there. Do you think he practices his swing in the bath?

Do you think that he laminates his folder data so that he can get it wet? Yeah, definitely. All right. All I know is Jacobson bully. That's all I know. Absolute bully. Yeah. This is nothing new.

I'm genuinely one of the meanest people you all ever. It's awful. It's awful. All right. What else do we got? We got some questions. We got questions. Damn it. We do have questions. Real questions. We'll start off with Travis Moore back in the leadoff spot here on Milbag Monday. And he's the goat of the leadoff spot. But he says, how close do you guys think the front office is to actually finding a solution to third base for this year beyond Suarez?

Are Newman or Alexander legitimate options? Is there someone possibly on the trade block they can get? What would they actually do with Suarez if they went that route? That's a great question. It's a great five questions, actually. But it's a lot of questions. There's a lot there. But it can be summarized as one question. Are they close to finding a third basement? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't think that the Diamondbacks are ready to give up on Gino yet. I think that it's understandable. I know that there is a rumor we're going to address here with the next question about Gino possibly being on the trade block.

And it's understandable. It's just a lack of value, right? Really, what it comes down to it is, is if they part ways with Gino in any way, it's going to cost them the money they owe him. So it's not like he's not like he's a detriment. to the team. It's not like, like, there was a point where Blaze Alexander's defense arguably cost the Diamondbacks a few games. They were close games. He made some plays that resulted in runs essentially being scored after that. And it happened. It's not like it was a lot of games. It's a handful. But still, there's some games where you could say that Blaze's defense. That Brave series was hard to watch.

It directly affected the outcome of that Brave series, right? However, it's like, Gino, yeah, at times his, you know, he's not contributing offensively, but defensively on the field, he's still just such a quality player that I have a hard time believing that they're necessarily looking for a replacement for him. Can you genuinely answer? And Blaze has been very, very good. I would love Blaise to stick is the starting third basement. Don't get me wrong on this. But at their peaks, at what you expect them to do, is this team go further with Gino playing his best ball? Or does this team go further with Blaze playing his best ball. Honestly, I think from the perspective of Blaze, I don't know if we've seen Blaze play his

best ball, right? We've seen Gino at least at one point in his career play his best ball. We don't know if he's going to get back to that level. But what you're saying is, is like when Gino's mashing, the pop and the defense. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, but yes, there's a big difference there. Not to mention the fact that this is still a very young team. He drives in runs. He's the guy that you honestly probably expected to hit fifth in your lineup.

Right. And it's not working out, right? But it doesn't mean that he still doesn't bring other intangibles. Not only does his defense, but like I said, this team right now has Jock Peterson for a veteran, you know, who honestly has a ton of experience. And it is incredible personality. But I just don't know how approachable Jock is. I don't know how much. Like when I look last year, you know, at Longo, right?

Longo looked to me, sounded to me. I saw it physically with my own two eyes like a coach. He was out there. He was sharing information with younger players. He was actively engaged with them. He was helping them out. I don't know if Jock's that guy, but I do think Jock is still a veteran presence. He's a vet. He's been around. It's just very helpful to have those guys, even if they're not hitting 250.

Even if they're not providing you with a ton of offense, it's still helpful to have those guys just from that capacity. Because players tend to listen to other players a little bit more than they're going to listen to coaches. So when they have that advice to offer, I feel like Gino has a ton of time playing, you know, professional baseball at a major league level. I think there's a lot for him to offer there. And I think that that's one thing that gives him an advantage, even if he's not playing as good as Blaze. But I do think that his defense at third base is going to be better than Blaze.

Or definitely be the answer. Or, I mean, long term. I mean, because part of this question is like long term, where are they going with third base position? Blaze could definitely be the answer. But for this season specifically, I believe that you could, you will only be at your best if Gino returns to,

I don't, you can hit 220, whatever. it is hit homers drive-in runs go one for four in games and hit a homers drive-and-double that's what we got you hit hit a hit homers you know extra base hits driving runs yeah i i agree jorne lawler might have something to say about this when they'll send done too he's going to start his rehab assignment in reno i like there's a couple like i i have two fighting ideas here is that i one i don't feel like the diamondbacks are desperate to replace gino and i don't think that they are desperate to deal with the future right now as much as they are just trying to get things right at a major league club with these guys that they brought on like they spent a lot of money on these guys you want to see them perform you want to see them help the team out however i just don't know if uh they're they are that quick as quick as these rumors and such are to move on from jean

yeah i mean they just keep guys for honestly like we saw it last year right but we're still basing it on last year we're still basing it on the fact that they did have a quick trigger with madison bumgarner we we saw them give nick omit some options and no that's despite the fact he was the longest 10-year diamond back, they parted ways with him. They parted ways with Carson Kelly, who arguably has been pretty goddamn good for the Tigers. So, I mean, like, there's been some things there that they've done that, of course,

you know, you're going to always think about the ones that, you know, that it improved the team like Bumgarner, but you just never know, you know, if you're taking that step too far just because a guy is in the middle of, you know,

a slump right now. I would say what, the Bumgarner and the Kelly ones are, different for me. I mean, Bum Garner, like, you have options, right? Like, Bum Garner goes, you still have Zach, Merrill, whatever, the rotation was there. And you had fought knocking on the door. The Carson Kelly one is interesting because you legitimately had a guy who was hitting 170 that was taking it bats away from quite possibly one of the best young catchers in the game. So it's, you're kind of pigeonholed there. Like Gabby's making, like Gabby forces you to make

that move last year. Yeah. Yeah. It's an unfortunate circumstance in baseball sometimes. All right. I don't know if we answered the question, but I think as far as the distant future goes, I think the Diamondbacks have options. Yeah. And Blaze and Jordan, I think that they aren't really concerned with that right now. It's just a matter of trying to figure out what they're going to do at third base. And honestly, it's a matter of, you know, again, when Perdomo and when Alec Thomas comes back,

it's a matter of making the right call on who they send down because they're going to need people, they're going to need guys. They're going to decisions. They got decisions. And it's going to feel like, The thing that sucks is no matter who you send down, they're going to go rake in fucking Reno and hit 400, and it's going to feel like,

but let me tell you, like the wrong decision. The first time, Geraldo Perdomo draws a walk after being down O2 in the nine hole, Damon better expect the text no matter the time of night. Fire, or I just say we are so back. Fire me up.

It's funny, you think I'll have my phone on me because I'm not going to have any clothes on running down the street. We're going streaking. Oh, man. That's going to feel like a. championship. I still can't believe his answer about that when he was like, what do you miss most about baseball being out of two and drawing a walk? Drawing a walk, drawing the count full. Oh, my God. He didn't hit very well in Reno, but man, did he draw his walks? He drew like five and three games.

Yeah. That's what he does. That's what he does. That's why I said, we can't count on these guys to be the savior of the offense, but who knows the impact that they can have on the team. So let's see what else we got? What other question we got there, Damon? Next question comes from Serpienti's magic on Twitter and says with McCarthy and Suarez's rumors are being hurt. Do you think they're going to sell players if things didn't go well by the trade deadline if they do isn't it feel like give up too early right after spent that amount of money to improve the team? I want all three of your opinions for the audio listeners I just want to say this is not my fault I read it word for work. That's not that's not that's not that's not that's not daemon's fault on that one but

Serpentus magic and I'm the jerk Damon I don't dude I sounded incoherent right yeah he was trying he was trying Sometimes we don't you know sometimes we tweet when we're drunk. It's fine. This team will not be sellers unless they lose like oh my God Like they have to go 18 and 13 to finish 49 and 48 at the all-star break they would have to be They'd have to go like so bad. Four and 20 something like it's gonna I mean you'd have to be 15 games out of the wild card and that's just not gonna happen and I just don't know if Jake McCarthy is still part of those rumors like it feels easier It felt easier to say that but the closer we get to the the trade deadline, the more McCarthy, I mean, you don't want to trade someone of that value, right?

I mean, right now, the biggest problem with Major League Baseball is, is that players aren't going to be able to, or teams aren't going to be able to trade for players that are on the major league roster because there are going to be so many teams that are still in it by the trade deadline, especially if the wild card race looks like it does right now. Yeah. And if, I hate to break this to people, if they were going to sell, it's not going to be Gino because you're paying to send him away right now. right you're gonna you're gonna pay that contract it's not gonna be Jake because he's 26 27 years old

and kind of fits into that like even if you were to sell you could probably keep Jake for a couple years would it be then if it wasn't gino I hate it's gonna be paul seewald it's gonna be Christian Walker yeah it's gonna be that's gonna be that guy who don't want to say that's crazy gonna be I mean those are the guys that you sell no they're wrong about that no no their contracts are all up after this year they're not trade that gallon has one more year yeah but Christian Walker's contracts are up after this year. Paul Seawald's contracts up after this year. Jordan Montgomery, actually, is someone I could

see me on the trading law. You would be a piece of the selling, for sure. I'm going to say somebody crazy. I'm going to say that probably value had never been higher on Blaze. But if you're trying to fetch a lot, Zach Allen's going to get you the most. Yeah. Because you still have one more year of Zach if you trade for him. I'm just saying. You truly want to be sellers.

It sickens me to even say this. I'm not even going to have. That's a great pull too. Jock? Yeah, jock is a great. You get a lot for Jock. Yeah. But the guys that you're not. going to get a lot for the guys right now that aren't playing well right you're not going to trade jordan mcgomery and get anything for him you're not going to trade you know sort like you're not you're not you're not going to trade gino right now they're not they're not going to be sellers but let me tell you if they were sellers they would probably get the biggest hall of any team they really

could they really absolutely could yeah because not only do they have uh the expiring contracts and if they were willing to just cash in on this year they could they could really make the future of this team And again, it's a positive way to look at it, right? We already know it's an uphill battle based on the historical results of teams getting back to the World Series, right? Three National League teams in 50 years have repeated in making it back to the World Series. So it's not easy. It's not easy. And I'm not writing it off, but I'm just saying if there's a point where they're down by over 10 games,

they're more than 10 games back at the trade deadline, it's a hard. It's a hard climb. It's a hard climb to get back in. No, if there's any team that's positioned to do it, they are one of them. Right, because they're going to get back. Basically an entire fucking starting rotation all at once. Yeah, and mix that with the bullpen that looks like it might be one of the best bullpens in baseball right now.

And who knows, you could rip off 10, 11 straight games. You know what I can't wait is I can't wait for them to do that, and then all of a sudden them become a national story and have the question asked, like, where's this Diamondbacks team been all year? Oh, the injured list is where they've been. I honestly, I don't see any world where Christian Walker gets traded. I don't see it either, but if you're going to sell, that's a piece. There's no world where Zach Gallen gets traded, none, none.

He's leaving as a free agent. He just doesn't want to listen to it. No, they're not trading him. They're not trading him. Trust me. I think, I think Gino and Jordan Montgomery make the most sense from a trade perspective. And then I think if things are really, really bad, I could see them getting rid of Seawald. But other than that, I don't really think that anybody else is a realistic trade campaign.

Change your mind if I told you Walker was 34? No, because he's like a... No, that would just mean that you're an ageist is all that means. I mean... In sports, you kind of got to be. He had a late start, though. And he doesn't look to really be slowing down. He started about 28 because, Paul.

He's fueled by Bourbon. The man is... And Chris Davis. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What else we got, damn? Next question comes from Kevin Lundberg.

And he says, with the sample size we've seen now, do we think there is still a shot that Nelson and Henry are big league caliber starters long term? or do you guys think that they should consider them as bullpen pieces once our main starters come back from injury? It's a great question. I don't know. I think that there is a point where even as a pitcher,

you have to start realizing your value might be more in coming out of the bullpen than starting, right? But the Diamondbacks can't completely make, they can't revert all of these guys to bullpen arms because they still need guys stretched out for depth, should another injury occur before the end of the season. Now, with the injuries, the Diamondbacks pitchers have gone through, that is a possibility.

Like, there is a strong likelihood that one of these guys might reagravate one of the injuries even after they come back. So the Diamondbacks are going to still need to keep guys like Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson stretched out and available should that time come. So I wouldn't be surprised to see them not necessarily do that. You know, just convert everybody. You have Slade, you have Tommy, you have Ryan. Right now, I think honestly, based on performance and results, Slade makes the most choice coming out of the bullback.

Those two are on the outside looking in right now. And that man shoves, really, but he's really, like, at least Ryan Nelson has gone out there at times and been a regular starter for this team. He just gave them before this last start. His moments. Right. He gave him seven and two-thirds innings last time, which was a career high, right? So there's things about Ryan Nelson, I find to be very encouraging, and I think he still is a good starting pitcher. He relies on his fastball entirely too much.

And to be honest, his fastball is good, not great, but not great enough for it to be his one pitch at a major league level. He just needs to have, you know, he needs to perfect his secondary pitches. I mean, look, it's possible Justin Martinez did that. He had a fastball. They started him. He tried to start when they first signed him. He was a starter. He was not good.

And then he came up last year. Everybody watched it. All he did was throw 102. And he couldn't locate it in the zone. and so they said, go work on some pitches. And so he comes back and now he's got a fastball, a sinker, a nasty, I mean, the split finger's always been there, but he could never get to the split finger. When you're trying to throw strikes and you're struggling to throw strikes, you're probably just throwing a boatload of fastballs. And that's what he was trying to do.

But big league hitters can catch up to 102. Now Justin Martinez is one of the best pitchers in the game because he's got four legitimate weapons. Ryan Nelson can do that. You've got to actually go like sliddle. identify those pitches. Make them work at the lower levels. Yeah, I don't really think Tommy Henry has anything in the bullpen. So I'm sending him down to Reno and keeping his arm stretched out. Yeah. The thing about, I feel like, you need a six starter. Ryan Nelson and Slade is is a combo for me because I think Slade's just been better than Ryan Nelson. So would you make the argument that like with the injury problems that

we've had in our rotation this year, wouldn't you want to keep Slade stretched out so that if there's another injury, he can come up and pitch? But what is it about Slade that makes him so good? One, time through. I feel like that he throws 98. And then by the fourth or fifth inning, he's throwing 93. He's not a perfect pitcher and he's not a finished product, but he's much better than Ryan Nelson. But he said it, though.

I mean, you yourself as a starting pitcher can't have your velocity drop off from the first inning to the fourth inning and then still be effective. And to be honest, I mean, maybe that's a stamina issue. Maybe that's something, right? Because a lot of pitchers can go out there. Like what we talked about Justin Martinez, still throwing 99 miles per hour on his last pitch of the day. Right. So it's like that guy is probably a sinker because he probably could have done a goddamn sinker.

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right about that. Right. So for me though, it's just like Slade, we have such a better chance if Slade starting that game of winning that game than if Ryan Nelson is starting the game, in my opinion. Just from watching this team. Like I feel like Slade keeps us in games even when he has like a rough one inning. Yeah. You know what I mean? And maybe maybe there's a chance that Slade's able to build that stamina and his stuff works for longer. But we don't need that right now. Like it just when, when, we. When everybody comes back, you're going to have Zach, Merrill, Erod, Montgomery is hopefully going to figure this out and fought. I just don't trust them to stay healthy, man. No, that's more than I'm not. That's fair. That's completely fair.

That's fair. That's why that's the point, though, is going back to the question, right? Like, I think Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry both need to stay stretched out, right? I just don't know really in the grand scheme of things if when you talk about Slade, for instance, if that's something that Slade's going to get at, add to his game essentially. Is Slade going to be able to become a pitcher that gives you six in a regularly? Let me ask you this question. If this team makes a playoff run, who would you rather have in the bullpen right or Slade?

Easily 100%. No doubt in my mind. I'm saying that like I would want to keep Slade stretched out in case something happened to Erod again down the stretch when he comes back or like we might need that arm. And I'm telling you I'd rather Slade was the starter than Ryan Nelson if that was to happen again by a long shot. Zach makes the best point. He said Slate has a cooler name case closed. Also, Elise agrees to me, which means I'm right.

No, don't, God damn it. Don't do that, Elise. Don't do that. Like he's in. Get out of the chat. Yeah, come on. Anyway, what else we got, Damon? We've been talking for a while, so I'm kind of forgetting. I think this is the question we're wrong.

But Cameron McCarthy saying, what are your expectations for the Los Angeles Angels in Chicago White Sox series this week? I feel like it's unreasonable to ever expect more than two one series win. But is that really enough when the opponents aren't great and we need all the wins we can get? That's a great point. Baselines four and two. It's as simple as that for me. That's what he's saying, right?

Yeah, is the idea there of going four and two enough. And it's like, yes. Yeah. Yes. You win every series your playoff team. Wow. Hot take. That's an excellent take.

I'm saying. If you score more runs than the other team, you're going to win ball games. But that's like that's what I'm saying. It's enough for me if they win those series. And if you're pitching doesn't give up any runs, you're going to win ball games. Did you know if you never lose you win? I've heard that. I've heard if you don't lose.

That's why we bring Jacob on it. Yeah, I mean, that's the quality analysis like that. Yeah, Gerald, do you believe? Good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah, Gerald's going to be on. They give me one show every two months and they're like, you're an idiot.

Here's some great analysis for the sons. If they can score more points in the fourth quarter than their opponents, they're going to win more ball games. All right. But no, yes. What was the question again? Because it's going forward to. It's like going forward to. Is it one enough?

That's enough. I mean, I don't know. Do you ever expect to sweep an opponent? Do you ever like expect to, yes? It's baseball. No, I don't go into the expectation of. There were times last year when this team was rolling where I was like, we're going to sweep.

We're going to sweep the Rockies ass. Right now I don't expect this team to sweep anybody. When they go up to nothing, it feels like a huge disappointment when they lose that final game of the series. Them sweeping against the Angels is going to really be predicated on tomorrow's performance because it's a bullpen game for the Angels. So if you can force them to burn a whole bunch of bullpen arms, you put them at a disadvantage for the next two.

games but it's baseball anybody can win on any given day right and what benjamin says here anything lower than four or two is unacceptable but this team tends to play down in their competition yes yes that's the truth that's why this stretch terrifies me and it's not just those games right they have the nationals after that and i know the nationals aren't down in that same category as the white socks and the angels but they still are a team that the diamondbacks at this point should be able to take a series again so uh yeah i mean right now the expectation is is what, a six and three stretch over the next nine games. Yeah, yeah, because that Nat series, even though it's on the road,

that's a series you should expect to win as well. And then we'll see it from there. All right, that's what we're going to see. And someone said it's a trap series, so we'll probably see the opposite. Let's see what happens. What else you got, Damon? Next question comes from Serpienti cat. Serpienti cat.

Yeah, we'll go with that. He says, why is Brandon fought particularly unlucky this year? Home run. Home runs. He's always been his kryptonite. Yeah. I mean, uh,

in his, he's gotten beat by a lot of soft contact at times too, it feels like. Like a lot of dinks and dunks kind of fall in and then yeah, a three run home run. Yeah. Yeah.

He'll give up a walk. Yeah. He'll give up a dig. And I don't know if there's a correlation between that. We talked about big game brand and we talked about the fact that this man had ice, you know, water in his veins last year in the playoffs,

right? I mean, it was incredible. But, uh, he was also, also protected by Tori Lavello, right? Tori wouldn't let him see the lineup a third time through.

And now this year he's giving him depth. He's giving him quality starts. But what he is allowing is a lot of home runs. And 19 of his starts this year, he has allowed six multi-home run games. And really that seems to be the big thing is that we see some of the other diamondbacks pitchers get themselves into trouble. We see them have a big inning. And it tends to just, you know, be like a Merrill Kelly performance, a big inning, I guess, like three runs. but then he tightens it down and is able to give the Diamondback six strong

innings, seven strong endings. Brandon Faud has shown that quality. He's shown that ability to bounce back from that seven or eight innings. He can do it. But what really is the problem is that that bad inning for Brandon is a bad, bad inning. I mean, this last start was definitely bad. But for the most part, he's allowed home runs with runners on base. And he's just unfortunately, like giving up a lot of runs in those bad innings.

Yeah, as they say, homers don't kill you necessarily. it's homers that like they're they follow you know a single here a double there like it's it's the big home runs like you give up a solo home run cool you're living whatever it is back to back home runs along they're both solo whatever but it's those innings where it's like oh crap I've given up one run there's two runners on base right now there's two outs and I gave up a home run that seems to kind of be where we're at right now with him yeah and it and it's something that he can figure out but it just you got to make the big pitch when it matters Yeah. All right. Well, I do thank you guys again for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Big shout out to our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union for sponsoring the count, of course. And of course, I have Desert Financial Credit Union to thank for starting me on my home ownership journey. Again, I've seen some of these rent prices out there. And my God, am I glad that I got a house? So hopefully Desert Financial can help you as well. For more than 84 years, they have been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union.

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I think it was my very first checking account when I was like 16 years old. you can do the math. How much money did you have when you were 16? How much did you keep in this tracking account? Usually it's about $200 if I'm not lying. So, I mean, it's more than I had. That was a good week. It was a good week when I had $200 in the...

$200 in the 1800s must have been quite a bit. Oh, oh, oh. There's his ageist remarks again coming out. Owned. Oh, no. That's a good one heard. I like that one. That one made me doing the shots at Derek.

The sick burns like that. Yeah. Well, I'm still going to outlaw. live all of you. Don't forget that. What you give from making me feel like an idiot. And a bully? And a bully. Still, he's still a bully. But I would still go to a sporting event with this man, regardless of how much he likes to bully me. You are fun. And another fun thing is saving money, of course, on last minute ticket deals. And of course, it's also fun to just make that decision. Like, is there nothing better than sometimes making impromptu plans? Like,

just plans out of nowhere where you go see an event that you had no plans to go see? I went to a concert last night that I had tickets for for like six months. It felt like forever until that concert came around. You were complaining about it being outside. Oh, don't even get me started on outdoor concerts in the summer. But game time prices made it worth it. Game time prices absolutely make it worth. And not to mention the fact that you'll get a seat like down by the air conditioning for way less, you know, of course, than what I paid at the normal price. But you can save up to 60% off buying tickets last minute for sporting events, concerts, and so much more. They'll even let you save even more on the app when you go in and get exclusive in-app deals on seats ahead of the game.

And especially if you don't care about where you sit, if you just pick a zone, you can save even more money on letting them choose the seats for you. Of course, they do have the lowest price guarantee. Game time will credit you 10010% of the difference if for some reason you didn't get the lowest price with game time. So take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time. Download the app. Create an account and use code P.HNX 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 guaranteed uh we got a little mercury takeover coming up here not too long right uh tickets are going fast they are going fast they're almost out well you know why because mercury is a wagon just like the copper

we are the chicken ball we are the copper state for sure so make sure not to miss out ongoing to uh p hnx mercury takeover if you are die hard you'll save on that event and all of our events, and you will save on partnerships, discounts with our partners. You'll also get yourself that free t-shirt from phnx locker.com. You'll get your welcome package. You get access to all of our premium content, our Discord lounge. I had meetings with the mayor this weekend with our pal Steve Zinsmeister, the pre-game and post-game show host for the DeBacks Radio. So do not miss out on all of that.

Join us over here and become part of our family here with our diehard membership. We do have some more mailbag Monday questions. Sometimes, by the way, we do mailbag just for diehards, by the way. Just throwing that out there. Just throwing that out there. But Damon, what else we got? Next question comes from Brettley Johnson, one of the friends of the program. And he says, with how terrible the new City Connect uniforms have been this year,

are you worried that the potential new DeBack City Connect uniform for next year will be just as bad slash even worse? Well, I know one thing it won't be as fucking blue and yellow like all of these are. What is the up with, like, MLB is just like, yeah, copy paste. Jesus Christ. Copy. Detroit, copy paste. Philly. Minnesota copy paste twin

Philly copy paste Like I'm sure someone would break down The color scheme just like I did with the Philadelphia Flag and find out that there's some sort of significant reasons that Minnesota decided to go with the same color scheme But my God Twin City jersey is so nice Yes the Twin Cities one

Yes so nice Simplistic the fog is beautiful I love that one This one's awful and I really don't have an answer for you as to why they did what they did I really don't understand honestly straying so far away from team colors that you stray into like enemy enemy territory. I'm not saying the Minnesota twins and the Milwaukee Brewers are rivals. But my God, their states are right next to each other, right? They don't like, this isn't something that we want going on.

I don't know. Seattle's are blue and yellow. Yeah, right. And theirs are awesome, but that's something. That makes a whole thing. That made so much sense. That made so much sense. They were just like, let's just blue, black, and yellow.

Derek, I think the disappointing thing is we were talking about how the twins were waiting on theirs. And we put them in the good category. We were both saying the twins are going to have a good uniform. And then they showed out with maybe the worst one. I think it's the worst one given that it looks exactly like Phillies. The giant fog transition one's pretty bad. But the worst part of- Nothing now compared to how bad some of these other jerseys are.

The tire tracks on the Detroit Tigers one, bleh. I think that this is the worst one because it looks just like the Philly one. which already wasn't a good one. Yes. Now look. That's the problem with it. There's no originality and it's bad. There's rumors of the devas

are getting a purple one next year. I think there will be. That's what Elise says in the chat right here. Yes, correct. Now, if my purple jersey is going to look anything like what these recent City Connect jerseys have looked like.

No, that's crazy. I will gladly never see a purple jersey again. That's crazy because there's no reason for that at all. Not only that, but like you have to take into account like the fan reaction. I'll tell you something not to do. don't do another black jersey.

Whatever you do, because I already saw it. I like the Mets one and people already started turning on the Mets. And I even saw a couple of people say about the best jersey in baseball, which is the Tampa Bay Rays City Connect jersey that like, oh, you're just falling on like the cool graphite black. Yeah, well, that's cool. So yes. But at the same time, too, like the Rays one made a lot of sense.

The Mets one, to me, made a lot of sense. But I guess to other people, not so much. They said it looked like a Yankees. I'd be honest about our new uniforms that we're going to get. They better not be introducing any new colors. We have so many damn colors. Old purple and old teal. We have purple.

We have black. Copper and copper. We have Sedona red. We have light blue basically, which is our new teal. Like we have so many colors. That's the one thing that bothered me about the new transition is now we have two different types of teal. Yeah.

The second one, the new one is not teal. It's light blue. It's baby blue. What about Zach's comment about giving us a purple vest jersey? What about a vest? Can be cool. I'll be down with that.

Because that's different. Nobody's done a City Connect shorts. What if we just do vest, no undershirt? Just pure vests. What are we going back to the reds? We used to have the barbells in the dugouts and they were just pumping iron. Yeah. But Damon is right, definitely about the too many damn colors.

If they put like yellow on it, I'm going to be pissed. Like we can't introduce any more colors to this to this team. And don't build off of this. Jerry wears a lot of yellow. That's like, but so like Katel wears the pink and like it's sick. I love it, but I'm talking about on the uniform. Like, do we don't need nine uniform colors. And if you're going to use purple and teal because you want to throw back, use the old purple and teal.

Don't change it. Yeah. I don't know. I think that purple and teal is a must. I wouldn't mind pinstripes. Wouldn't be terrible. Like, I guess I just want the old purple and pinstripe dress jersey. I guess that's all I want.

But, I mean, do something to honor some of that heritage and some of the, I mean, the idea is kind of cool. We don't have a lot of history. The Rocky Mountain, Rockies one, but instead it's the Grand Canyon and the sunset sky will have purple in it. That would be honestly like almost you like if you could do that but pull off like a tequila sunrise old A's New Jersey look. I was kind of thinking that would be nice. The Rockies, Rocky Mountain. Are you talking about their city connect with the Rocky Mountains on it?

It's their goddamn license plate. No, we're not doing that. I do not want our license plate on a jersey. No. I know I just said I didn't want to add more colors, but like a state flag themed one would. Oh, yeah. No, a state flag would be... That's my one exception. Yeah, because that has yellow in it.

I know. That's why I just said it's my one exception. You bring a different shade of blue? You really want to bring a royal blue into this name? Really? Really? I have a hat that looks like it and it looks sick. I don't know. I thought you were a fan, but I guess you're not. I said it's my one damn exception. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty big exception.

All right. You went off and said no yellow and then added yellow to it. Yeah, I did. That's crazy. That's crazy. All right. What else we got? I'm covering all my bases. We got Michael Rokicki with the next question. And he says, you have, you have a little. have one Senzu bean to give to an injured deba back to restore them to full health. Who are you giving it to? Merrill Kelly.

Merrill Kelly. Merrill Kelly. I need somebody. That was. I have never had anything on this show be a unanimous answer as much as it's Merrill Kelly. Oh God. We're moving on already.

Yeah. I mean, no explanation needed. Everybody's saying Merrill in the chat too. I mean, seriously, it's Merrill Kelly. That is the one person, right? Like, Merrill the mainstay. I need somebody who can go eight innings and give up two runs.

every time. Merrill. The dude goes to the eighth inning every time he pitches. When I have an upset tummy, watching Merrill pitch settles it. Do you know that? It's like ginger. It's like ginger.

We talked about this in the playoffs last year. He was the perfect compliment to Galen. Like Gallen was so like he was either going to give you seven innings, strike out 12 guys and give up no runs or he was going to go five innings, give up four runs, five runs. Merrill was the perfect compliment to that because like no matter what happened in Zach's start, you knew what you were getting with Sweet Baby Merrill. the day after.

Brett Johnson says Jesse would have asked, what is a sensuvi? Yeah, that's absolutely what Jesse would have asked. Is that time to ask that question? No, it's no, you're not allowed to. We're just moving on because then you'd be Jesse. Actually, you are Jesse, you know? No, we're not doing that. What else we got, Damon?

Next question. Next question comes from Pavin Smith fan club, aka piece of Yoshi. And he asks, this question is solely for Damon since he's the founder of the Garrett Stubbs' Hater Club. Did you see his dirty slide into Luis Terenz yesterday in London? in, I think the club is going to get a bunch of new members soon. Did you guys see this play?

Questions for you, David? You guys don't want to... It's solely for you. I know it is, but I'm leading the charge here. Did you see it, Jacob? What was it in? It was in the... It was yesterday's game, right?

I have it for us, would you like to watch it? Oh yeah, let's see it. Can we see it? Yeah. Is it a highlight? Yeah, it's fine, right? There's no sound. Okay. He said, no.

That's fine. All right. Jacob is the arbiter of all that. Well, anyways, Garrett Stubbs slides into the catcher at home plate yesterday. I'll watch it to end the game. It is one of the dirtiest slides I've ever seen. Garrett Stubbs is the biggest loser in baseball.

He continues to be the biggest loser in baseball. The guy is, might as well be the Philly fanatic. He hits 190. He's a team cheerleader. I've never seen anything like it in my life. And why do the Phillies, why is it always Philly's scumbags who do this kind of stuff? He's fully in the grass.

It's insane. Oh, I've seen it. Yeah, he's fully in the grass. Why is it Chase Utley? I mean, I know he was in a Dodgers uniform, but that doesn't really change it for me. But why is it always like a Philly scumbag like Chase Soutly trying to break Rubin to Hott's leg in a Mets uniform? Like it's always these Phillies guys and it's every time. It's disgusting.

I will say that to actually hear how much Mets and Phillies players hate each other is is it's actually unhinged, right? Like to literally hear that like a guy you liked wearing the opposing team's laundry makes you hate. that person now is kind of an incredible fascinating like sociological experiment. But it's the way Garrett Stubbs acts that pisses people off. I mean the Phillies tend to have yeah I mean I don't know there's something in general about the Phillies that I feel like they as a team oddly take on their cities.

I don't know if I should say this but I'm going to say this. My cousin last year said that his his now wife says that the Phillies look like a bunch of guys you wouldn't want around your drink if you were going to go to the bathroom. Yeah, that's probably something you should say, but you're probably right. No, I mean, I get it. They just don't look trustworthy is the point. And I mean, like from one perspective, I understand how much you would love those guys if they were on your team, right?

But from the rest of us, watching from the outside in, yeah, your players tend to act like scumbags every once in a while. And that was definitely an example of that. I got a good tweet for us here about Garrett Stubbs. And it's his 2024 highlights, 173 batting average. Sub 500 OPS, 50 Gatorade Cups filled for his teammates, and one dirty slide at home plate. The most useless player in baseball. What's Brandon Marsh dumping water on his hair before the game for? He's disgust.

Makes you look, you look untrustworthy. You look like you want to hurt somebody. You look like a grosser version of Jason Word. Has anybody watched Hitman on Netflix? And Jason Worth already looked like a gross version of Edge from WWE. Look up, look up. You've seen Gerald's nodding his head. Have you seen Hitman on Netflix yet?

Yeah, yeah. You just watched it. Yeah. What's the other cop? Brandon Marshall looks like that guy. He looks like the guy that he takes his job. Yeah. Yeah.

He's very wet. He's very gross. Yeah, no, I mean. Greasy. There's your answer. Jacob gave you everything along. Would you rather have Jace or Stubbs? Next question.

I would way rather have Jace. I hate him. He's a good dude. I heard everything I heard about Jays. Yeah. I don't hate Jace personally. I think he's a really, really bad. baseball player. I hate Garrett Stubbs. He's like my least favorite player in the sport and he's so

irrelevant. So that's how it's insane that he's made himself this unlikable. You're even that angry at him. Like how do you muster up that energy? He plays 20 games a season. It's because he talks like he's a superstar. I know. Well, it's because he's the Philly Fanatic. He is the Philly Fanatic. He's damn good at his job too. Yeah, he's really good. Bryce Harper out bat with Garrett Stubbs on it yesterday. All right. What else do we got? You get the Philly fanatic sliding in dirty at home plate. It's insane. All right. What are we got? comes from Ryan Hanley and he asks

When you look in the mirror are the Diamondbacks a wagon? The Diamondbacks will Forever be a wagon I don't know anymore Get your phone out Pretend to take a selfie and tell me what you say Yeah I mean yeah they're a wagon Yeah you can't you can't have that's so unconvincing

Derek you can't have a wagon They might be a wagon when they have all of their Settlers back what are they pilgrim? No, whether it's in a wagon What is it? Settlers, right? I don't know. When they have their whole team back, you know what I'm getting at. I don't think so.

But for right now, they're not. There's just a bunch of hay. Yeah, I mean, they have the horses. They have wheels on it, but I don't know if it's rolling anywhere yet. We'll just say that much. Let's just say that this is the Oregon Trail, and we're like, we're starting off. Like, we're in like Tennessee right now. Yeah.

We're not even damn close. We decided instead of traveling to the bridge to, like, go through the water. And right now things aren't looking so good. Zach said a wagon missing a wheel or two is still a wagon. There you go. We are a wagon. I'm going to go with Zach's answer there. That's a good answer.

I feel like Oregon Trail is like a good comparison to because you just look up and it's like E-Rodd has whooping cough. Another starting picture died of dysentery. Yeah, he has whooping cough. Whooping cough. Whooping cough. All right. Yeah, that's probably where we're at.

All right. What else we got? We got one more question. Yeah. That's probably the most important question of the. From Elizabeth, and she says, which P. HNX staff member best represents each of the seven dwarves. Lindsay, as sleepy is probably a given. Derek, I just want to say right off the bat, I think you're dopey.

Yeah, we agree on that, too. Derek and I basically have our list together on this. So, Damon, if you want to ask us about them, like, look up, look up the dwarves and ask that each dwarf will go through Derek and I will tell you what we have. Yeah. All right. So let's start it off with grumpy. Who's grumpy? Saul.

Saul. That was such a fast answer. It's insane. I mean, I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I think we can all agree on that and just move on before he hears us or sees it. What else we got? All right. Next one is how about, I mean, we already did dopey. That's Derek. That's me. Yeah, I've conceded. Sleepy is Lindsay. Sleepy is absolutely Lindsay. Yeah. Sneezy? Sneasy?

Lindsay? Yeah, I think Lindsay sleeps. I think Lindsay sleeps more than that. than you. Yeah, Mac is always on the couch under a blanket, though. But she, to be fair, she's always on social media. Mac is Linus, but that's just a different. It's peanuts. That's a whole other conversation. We've already had that question. I'm pretty sure. All right. Um, you know, Jacob is sneezing. I'm sneezing. You're sneezing. You're not stop. Yeah. What about Doc? We, we're, we're torn on this. Yeah, but we think that Doc is Espo. Yeah. My other thought was Craig. My other thought was Craig. Well, because, okay, so, Doc's kind of, you know, he's the leader of the dwarfs, right?

And, you know, he has lots of traits and Espo has lots of traits. He's funny. I mean, he's all the dwarves combined into one in a way. I sit across from Espo. Yeah. I'm just really with that. That's it. Yeah, what else we got?

They both got glasses. It works out perfectly. Yeah. And beards. Yeah. Happy. Happy. Max?

Max. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Because he's always happy. Yeah. Even when he's mad, it's just a joke. He's just pretending like he's mad. The other thing that could work is Lindsay could be grumpy and Matt could be sleepy.

Yes. Yes. But I dare you to say that to her. I'll tell Lindsay to her face that she's grumpy. Oh, man. Lindsay and I fight every day. We have one last one here. Bashful.

Jesse. Jesse. Yeah. Jesse. Just listen to the way he says, oh gosh, sometimes when I'm in the middle of one of my rants. Yeah.

Like it's like like like if I'm. like as if I'm making him say the things that I'm like blushing for you yeah he'll do a goodness too he'll throw in a goodness goodness yeah yeah that's uh that's pretty solid there we go those are actually really good those stick pretty pretty well yeah snow white would that be mac or is it or is it lea that's probably yeah we're going back to mac probably being uh who could sing to birds the best and why is Shane not that's Lee why is Shane not snow white is the real question oh Well, in this scenario, if Leah is no white, then Shane would be... Prince Charming.

Prince Charming. Yeah. He's a good, Prince Charming. He is definitely Prince Charming. You should just hear him talk about his cosmonauts baseball team. That alone will charm the pants off of you. But anyway, we appreciate... Max's the Evil Queen.

Mac is a little bit of Apple. Mac will definitely offer you an apple that's dripping in butter. That's in butter causing... you to slip on the kitchen floor and almost kill yourself. And that's a real thing that happened around here. But anyway, uh, yeah,

she's, uh, I mean, she does have like, she looks, she looks like the evil queen and the transformation. I don't know, like,

I don't know when the last time I saw Michaela worked at her desk was. Oh, that's true. Yeah. I mean, we're guys, like, this is a very,

like, we're going on probably three or four months at this point. Oh yeah, no. I don't. Sitting on this couch over here. Yeah. No,

she's just, She's every sharing watch in here. She's here. It's wild. She's always there, always listening, always ready to give her opinion. Well, we thank you guys for your wonderful questions. As always, Mailbag Monday wouldn't be what it is without you guys. So thank you again for sending those in.

Of course, we appreciate your time today. We're going to get out of here, but we will be back tomorrow with a postgame show. Jesse, hopefully we'll make it back. I'm going to worry this whole time until he does arrive back here in Phoenix. But, of course, you can follow all of us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore Kate Man with K. Jacob is at Jacob underscore Franklin because he is the fourth best

Jacob Franklin. Chris pointed out I'm the number one foge. You are the number one fage in my heart, that's for sure. Of course, the number one producer in all of your hearts is the people's producer. That's Damon Dogg. You can follow him on Twitter at Damon Dogg. That's DAWG. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. That's how it goes.

What the hell? You hit the Puerto Rico line. Jesse hurry back. My God. This guy doesn't even understand the cues. Anyway, again, we are all at PHNX underscore D-backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports. See in three months. On Twitter. It's you have a Facebook.

We're blocking this guy back in his office with all of his hot takes and his opinions. But we thank you guys for stopping by. We appreciate your time. We'll see you tomorrow. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Jacob stops by to tell you the Diamondbacks are going to have a plus 500 record by the All-Star Break.