PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - DREADFUL Diamondbacks Offense Gets Swept By Rangers In Two-Game Series

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

The Diamondbacks offense is still missing in action after getting swept in their two-game series against the Texas Rangers. We have more on how bad things have gotten at the dish for the Snakes, when they can expect some of their injured starters to return, and if this stretch is worse than their slump in July last season. We also have updates from the D-backs minor league system.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in to an appropriately sounding theme song here for the Diamondbacks losing here to the Texas Rangers. Of course, this is the PHNXD Backs podcast. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of this joint. This man next me is your vice mayor and my Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. Teambacks lose the series. They get swept by the Rangers in two games. They lose today's game by a count of six to one. And the Diamondbacks offense continues to look stagnant, continues to not be able.

to produce and this team just is not very much fun to watch right now let's be honest that's really where we're at yeah i mean the debacks had nine hits they drew five walks in this game derrick that's 14 base runners they must have scored like six or seven runs right like 14 base runners i'm not in the mood that's how that should work i am not in the mood for your attitude right now i'm going to tell you that right now they're the arizona diamond backs have only scored seven runs jessey in their last five baseball games? No, I'm not in the mood for your jokes today, pal. They are now one in 26 in games where they go down by two runs or more at any point during the game.

And it didn't feel like this one was even close, even when the Diamondbacks did seem to be able to muster up some offense, get some runners on base. It just, everything would fall apart for them. Cotel Marte continues to be as bad at baseball as you can. could imagine since his hitting streak ended. I mean, his defense is still great. Nothing taken away from him there.

But Marte, 0 for four today. And in the most hilarious moment of the entire game, he did have a walk. And when he walked, he praised the baseball gods for him finally getting on base. And that's where we're at. That's where we're at, not just with Catell over the last couple of games, but that's where we're at with this entire offense. I mean, even, even I will say Catell's defense for as good as it has been this season. there was a ball off the bat of Laudy Tavares in the fourth inning of this game

that deflected off his glove where he kind of broke the wrong direction, sort of an odd situation there. That probably shouldn't have been a hit, but it was led to the Rangers scoring a run in the fourth inning. But, yeah, I mean, Cattel has gone 0 for 20 since the hitting streak ended, which is not great. He did draw that walk, as you mentioned, was able to actually get on base once in this game.

But the reality is that the D-backs are just not getting any kind of slug right now. They haven't homered in any of their past five games. They had just one extra base hit in this game. And you can have all the singles and walks that you want, but it's going to be hard to push across runs if you have to get like three of those in the same inning in order to actually score. So, yeah, it just continues to be a brutal stretch for this Diamondbacks offense. And I think the frustrating part about it is that, you know,

again, you had Corbyn Carroll have a nice day. We're going to talk about that. But then you have Catele Marte, who, you know, now has gone as cold as we've seen other players on this team go. Like, at the very least, Catell was doing it by himself. And you thought once that maybe some of these other guys could get it together, you know, they join forces. They start making some things happen. And that's not the case right now. Jack Peterson, though, he continues to find a way to get on base.

And there are some bright spots, not many for this team offensively, but there are some bright spots. They were just bad. They were just bad in the series. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. They've been very bad lately. You go back to this Marlins series. The Diamondbacks came off of a series, went over the Dodgers and felt like everything was trending in the positive direction. We talked about their upcoming games.

We talked about the Rangers were struggling a bit. We talked about how easy that Marlins series should have been for them. They did not take care of business there, and they definitely didn't take care of business in Texas. I mean, all I see here, Derek, is you went to Vegas on on which day again?

Oh, God. Why do you do that? Why do you? No, I'm not, I'm leaving. We're not going to do this. I'm not taking the hell on this one. Damon also went to Las Vegas.

It wasn't just my fault. Yeah, but Damon didn't go to Vegas until Saturday, right? Day after, yeah. I think we won a baseball game. Didn't we? Yes, they did. They won.

They did win that Saturday game. See, I was gone then. Yeah, you were gone for, for one for one win that's fair yeah this just this doesn't this it's not great it's not great Ryan Nelson of course he was good but he definitely should pitch to Cory Seeger nobody should pitch to Corey Seeger right now the man has eight home runs in his last eight games and he only has 14 home runs on the season or 13 home runs on the season that's outrageous that eight of his 13 home runs this season have come

in the last eight games oh I hate this man but I mean you were certainly going to pitch to him in the first inning right base is empty one out like all right we're going to pitch to core seeker get him to ground out right uh and then in the third inning uh runner at thirst or runner at third i don't know where that came from runner at third with two outs uh and then that's a that's a prime situation to put cori seger on you've got first base open so torrey level opts to put him on there and it works out uh they get uh josh smith to fly out to end that inning and then in the bottom of the fifth you're in a bit of a bit of a i mean i guess you could argue that they should have pitched around him in that situation as well you've got a runner at first base with two outs in that bottom of the fifth

and ryan nelson i don't know if it was a you know try to pitch around him situation just get him to chase out of the zone and if you can't then you wind up walking him but whatever the plan was yeah the first pitch was it wasn't right down the middle but it was middle and it was a fastball middle in and Corey Seeger now Derek going back to the start of the world series has homered five times against the diamond backs four of them have come on the first pitch so you have to be very very careful what you throw Corey Seeger on the first pitch in particular and obviously Ryan Nelson did not do a good enough job of that it was gross it was gross but Ryan Nelson he did give him six innings he gave him five hits four earned three walks three strikeouts Corey Seeger involved in quite a bit of

that offense once again. And he just, he's been incredible. I mean, honestly, it's, it's a tip of the cap situation. I said that about yesterday. I think Brandon fought went back and watched the home run he allowed to Seeger and was like, yeah, that wasn't a bad pitch. He just, yeah,

wasn't a terrible pitch. He's got tip your cap sometimes, especially like I said, when a guy goes almost down to one knee to hit a ball and then he's able to power it for a home run. But, I mean, going back to the start of the world series, this man's just been on fire.

Yeah, I think Connor makes a fair point in the chat of do you just give Seeger the Barry Bonds treatment? Like, because Tori was doing, Tori was kind of playing it by the book in the series where if he had first base open, he was comfortable putting Seeger on base. But yesterday it was first and third one out, right? When he hit the three run homer, that's not really like a conventional situation where you would put on even a very, very good hitter. Most managers, I think, would choose to pitch to that very, very good hitter in that situation. But given how hot Corey Seeger has been lately and how he doesn't have as much protection in this lineup as it feels like he had last year, right? You've got Josh Smith hitting behind him.

Adolas Garcia hasn't really gotten going. A lot of the other hitters in this Rangers lineup haven't really gotten going at this point in the year. So, I mean, maybe you wouldn't give Seeger the Barry Bond's treatment at large in general. But given like the current state of the Rangers and how insanely hot Seeger is in this moment, You could make a case that that's what the Diamondback should have done. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty fair. But it's, yeah, I mean, you don't see, you don't see the very bonds treatment all that much at this point in baseball.

So hindsight is, you know, definitely 2020. Well, and like you said, I mean, if they were trying to pitch around him in that one instance, why not just intentionally walk him and just put him on base, right? I mean, there's no reason to pitch around Corey Seeger because as we've seen, he can still reach far outside. of the strike zone and hit the hell out of a baseball so i i don't i don't know it just uh it it really wasn't the big problem right now because the big problem for this team is offense and being able to put together you know put together a run put together a crooked number inning i mean the diamond backs right now yeah like we said earlier uh they have scored seven runs in their last five games

so um that kind of says it all right now yeah yeah games have gone we're kind of splitting hairs here with the whole corey seager situation i mean the reality is scoring, you know, this team just isn't scoring enough runs to actually win games. You scored two runs yesterday. You scored one run today. Even if Corey Seeger hadn't hit that two run, home run, the Diamondback still with the way this game played out to not have nearly enough offense to come back and win this game. So I don't really know where to where to go when it comes to talking about this offense.

I mean, I guess Corbyn Carroll, you feel good about the game that he had today. you know, maybe the beginning of a turnaround there. But Ehuhenio Suarez just feels like it's getting worse, not better. He just looked really lost in some of his at-bats today. A couple of strikeouts that were pretty quick. He had a pop-up on a 2-0 pitch, I believe, just pretty brutal stuff there. And Lordus Gariel continues to struggle, just, you know, not getting to his pitch, rolling over a lot of pitches. It's pretty bleak with a lot of these guys right now.

Fix it, Jesse. fix it. Someone said that earlier. We have Ruth in our chat, or not in our chat, but on Twitter yelling at us. We're not responsible for the offense right now as much as we'd like to be, nor do we really know how to fix it. We talked last night about how frustrated,

not only Tori sounded after one of those losses against the Marlins, but how frustrated even Steve Berthewm sounded on yesterday's call, like watching that game. It's how we all feel right now. It is frustrating to watch this team. It's frustrating because, even when they get something going. You know, today they had something cooking and Cattel Marte hits into a double play

that pretty much just took the air out of any kind of offensive role that they had going on in the moment. And I mean, it's one of those things that they just haven't been able to string together enough hits for them to put up runs on the board. This has been particularly brutal stretch. I want to say that I saw a lot of tweets talking about starting pitcher for the Rangers. Dane Dunning like he was going out there and doing something impressive. Let's not get twisted. I don't want to take anything away from the pitchers that are holding this team the way they are. But this is more of a Diamondbacks issue.

You can take something away from those pitchers. I'm just saying, this is more of a Diamondbacks issue of being bad rather than those pitchers being good. So don't come out and ask why Dave Dunning is all of a sudden having a miracle game after I think he had an illness or something of the sword. It really right now is about this team. as a whole, just being bad, being bad, especially offensively. They've just been very bad.

But one encouraging sign was the fact that one guy who was not bad at baseball today, who was quite good, was Corbyn Carroll. And we've learned our lesson. We're not going to declare that Corbyn Carroll is back yet. But we can't wait to. But today's game was very encouraging. And Corbyn Carroll is our King Snake for today. Corbyn went three for five with an RBI and a double.

He really, he was very, very fast on that double. And he kind of had to be because Adoles Garcia made an incredible play to almost get him at second base. You got to watch that guy at all times. But, I mean, Corbin is just starting to look like his old self, especially when you see him doing things like stretching that single into a double with his legs. It really is like he is once again trying to create that chaos that this team was known for. and trying just to do whatever he can to apply that pressure to the opposing defense. And his day didn't start off great, right?

He did get ahead in the count against Dane Dunning in the first inning, 2-0, but then Dunning came back and struck him out on the next three pitches, the last of which was a 90-mile-hour fastball that was pretty much right down the middle, and Corbin just couldn't get to it. But, yeah, he really did finish this game really well with that double, which was a good swing on a pitch kind of down and in. I believe his last hit of the game, that single late, came on a fastball that was up above the zone, which of course is a pitch that Carroll has very much struggled to get to this season.

So that seems like a really positive sign there. But I agree with you that we have to tap the brakes a little bit on declaring that Corbyn Carroll is really back to the player that he was last year. We have seen him have, we haven't seen him have a three hit game yet. This is the first of the season. but you'd like to see him string a few of these types of games together before you're really comfortable that Corbyn is back to the player he was a year ago. Marcus has wanted me for the last 24 hours to call the time of death on the Arizona Diamondback

season. And I'm just not ready to do that yet. Marcus, I'm not ready for it. They still have a pulse. It's weak pulse, but we can rebuild them. We can make them stronger. And we do have some injury updates in regards to rebuilding them here shortly that we'll discuss that hopefully is encouraging.

I know most of you heard the updates from the broadcast, but we'll discuss that as well. I did want to talk about one thing, though, even with all of this negativity, even with the lack of scoring, even with the fact they got swept by the Texas Rangers on the field, the Diamondbacks still came away with a very important W. The most important W in Texas.

The most important W. And that's T-Time. Ryan Thompson, our dog, we're Ryan's dogs. Bark, bark. Ryan Thompson is now the all-time leading scorer. in the Texas Rangers visiting Clubhouse Papa Shot League and we have the video to prove it Damon if you would let's go go come on the champion give me that you're gonna need a day oh this is awesome cross him off let's go enjoy this place Luis

Giorme they were the last thing we had oh yeah shortly I still think he got your picture next to the two, man. I still think he got higher in you, too. Yeah. Even the slas going. First of all, is it, is it fair considering that he's already 80% of the weight in the basketball hoop? Is that fair? You know what?

I'm not going to split hairs here. Give him the win. The man takes the win. We got something. We got something. And Ali has been incredible out of the bullpen, which how would we know? Because we feel like we haven't seen him in a month pitch. But he's also very good at pop a shot.

So we got something. We take away some W. Hey, hey, work smarter, not harder. All right, Derek? Hey, I've seen this man play ski ball. I didn't see any rules posted on the wall or anything. Ryan Thompson was fully, fully within the realm of the rules doing what he did. Yeah, I mean, I guess that that leaderboard only extends back a few years because the Rangers have not been playing at this particular facility very long.

That would at least do my guess, right? That would be a guess, yeah, absolutely. And you know what the worst part about it is that you get to see how beautiful Arlington is from that ballpark when you're there. You can see it. And then you're going to a giant shed. But anyway, I'm not going to look, I am not going to attack another team for having basically an airplane hanger as where they play baseball. All I was saying is, you know, it's not like Ryan Thompson broke like a, you know, a decades-old record here, right? I don't like that you're doing this.

I don't like that you're doing this. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I mean, maybe, maybe it will stand the test of time, Derek. This is why Ryan Thompson likes me more than he likes you. Yeah, it could be. It's probably fair. I'm just telling you. All right. Well, we thank you guys for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel.

Thank you, Alex. Yes, Ryan Thompson does have that dog in him. Elise, known baseball GM, who tries to refute. She signed a body double. There's a whole backstory there. But Elise still a suspected baseball jam says it's been a rough week. You are not wrong. You are not wrong at all.

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All of the baseball players on this team appreciate it. But who are we going to get today? Oh, Corby. Of course it's Corby. It's the Kingsnake. Listen to what he says. He's back to play a good baseball. So leave a like on this episode.

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We'll get this track laid down and we'll get it all figure-RICO. out. We got tickets figured out for you, though. If you want to go to any kind of sporting event, concert show, doesn't matter what you're looking to go to. Game time has you covered, especially if you're buying those tickets last minute. I've talked about it before, but I procrastinate with everything in life. And that definitely includes buying tickets to events. Usually, I expect to be given free tickets, and that rarely happens. So then I just have to go and, of course, buy tickets last minute and game time has been covered. I save up to 60% off by buying last minute and you can too. You can save even more with exclusive in-app deals and of course it's a very aesthetically pleasing

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if you ask jesse while he's watching the baseball game what color the jerseys the diamond and backs are wearing, he won't be able to tell you. But if you ask him, what is Christian Walker today? He'll be like he's 0 for three with a walk. You know, like, he'll know instantly. It's wild what he retains and doesn't retain. But obviously, he doesn't retain what my face look like prior to this mustache, which came around just in the postseason of last year.

It was Damon's suggestion that we do the mustaches for the playoffs. And Damon also kind of has a mustache. So I feel like... I definitely have a mustache right now. Right. Like, I feel like if I'm shaving mine off, you also have to shave yours. I went to Vegas with a beard with the plan of we are going to switch up the vibes if we lose a lot of money. Mm-hmm.

We switched up the vibes. And you lost more money. And we lost even more money. Oh, yeah. That's rough. Meanwhile, I wore a luchador mask in a suit with my friend David and then we only spoke Spanish most of the night on Friday. That's how you have a fun time in Las Vegas. But let's dig into the count from this series presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union because this is going to be another, another frustrating.

one to witness here. Diamondbacks get outscored by the Rangers in two games, 10 to 3. The Diamondbacks out hit the Rangers 17 to 14. They also went four for 15 with runners in scoring position for 267 batting average, which was better than the Rangers three for 13 for 231 batting average. But the real story here is the starting pitching and really pitching ERA because it's kind of absurd. It's kind of gross.

It's kind of disgusting. Yeah, I mean a pretty big storyline with the Rangers. so far this season is that their bullpen has been kind of a mess. Like you've had Kirby Yates and David Robertson be really solid at the back end. But as we discussed yesterday, there's a lot of middle relievers in that in that bullpen that have not really established themselves this season. And you figured once the devax got the starter out of the game, they'd have the opportunity to do some damage in those middle innings before you got to the back end of the Rangers pen.

And it didn't happen for them yesterday. And it didn't happen again for them today. You had Tonoco in there for an inning in two-thirds. Debacks were not able to score against him. Jose LeClerc through a scoreless inning. He's had a really rough season so far, despite how good he was for the Rangers in the playoffs. Debacks did get a run off Jacob Lats in the ninth inning.

But, yeah, again, just the moment that the starter was removed from the game, obviously the debacks didn't do much against Dane Dunning, but they really weren't able to get much of anything going against those middle relievers either. I mean, they didn't get much going against the Marlins. And this is another series where they absolutely made the pitching look incredible. You know, the whole thing is just a real bad time offensively for this team. And we've talked about how those good games don't carry over, right?

You would hope to see some of that go the opposite way, where when they are able to score 15 runs in a game, We maybe be able to see them have a big offensive output multiple games in a row, but we're we're getting the very much opposite out of that and somehow The Diamondbacks are are letting this carry over from one game to the next to the next It almost feels like the slumping is contagious with this team right now with what Kattel is going through after You know, he had that incredible hitting streak that he put together. Yeah At least said do we have a breakdown of what pitches Ryan was throwing today? I feel like he couldn't land any secondary pitches consistently which is on a surprise. That's fair. Yeah, I was expecting to see Ryan use some changeups at least. That's a pitch we've seen him get a little bit more comfortable with in the last few weeks. At least that's what it's

felt like. And he threw only five changeups in this game, despite the Rangers having a decent number of lefties in this lineup. It was 46% four seamers. It was 33% cutters. And yeah, he was all right. Like he got through six innings, you know, if he pitches around Corey Seeger. instead of facing him in that spot, maybe he's able to get away with a better final line. But he wasn't great. I mean, he only had nine whiffs, you know, just in only 11 called strikes.

I wouldn't say I was particularly impressed with this adding from Brian Nelson overall. No, and of course, we know that the Diamondbacks don't really have many other options. We know that they've turned to Blake Walston. We know that they are just to the point where, you know, are they willing to give Christian Mena a try? Like that seems like a bit of a stretch,

but he's been really good, so it wouldn't be a surprise. We're just, it feels like they're so close to the finish line of getting some of these starting pitchers that have been injured back, that they just need Ryan Nelson, much like today's game.

Just give us one more inning. Just give us a little bit more. Even though you haven't been perfect, we just need to kind of get there. I don't know what kind of lift these guys returning is truly going to give to this team. But right now, I mean, if the offense continues to perform

the way that they are, it really doesn't matter if Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez come back and allow two hits over seven innings or two runs over seven innings over a few starts. Like, the Diamondbacks aren't scoring and they're not able to come back in these games when they get down. One positive sign for the offense today

is that they did draw five walks, which is something that we just haven't seen from them lately. The debacks haven't had even four walks in a game since May 19th. That's 10 days ago that they reached the four walk mark, which is really not that many walks. I mean, on average, probably drawing about, you know, three and a half per game or something

like that for the season. Their last game with more than four walks was May 13th against Cincinnati Reds. That's crazy. This is the first time in more than two weeks that the Diamondbacks have had more than four walks in a game. And that's been a big part of this team's identity throughout, you know, the better parts of this season and last year as well. This is a team that doesn't strike out a lot that draws walks.

That's one of the things that they do better than a lot of other teams in the league. They don't chase pitches out of the zone quite as much as other teams do. And when they do swing, they tend to make more contact than other teams do. And we just haven't really seen that over these last couple weeks. It's been a lot of strikeouts, very few walks, obviously very few hits in general. But maybe today is a turning point where the debacks are, we saw, a few guys work some good at bats and maybe that trend will continue into this weekend against the Mets.

Well, Damon and I definitely are both going to lie about drinking enough water this past weekend. We know that for sure. But the numbers, they don't lie about how much water they've drank. They also don't lie about this game. Jesse, what do you have for the numbers don't lie today? Yeah, I don't think you're going to like it. Oh, damn it. I mean, that's usually been the case lately.

Today's number is 498. That is the Diamondbacks team OPS over their last five games. No, no, no, no. Get out of here. How many games? Because I was screaming. Just the last five, just the last five where they've scored just seven runs. They're slashing 203, 251, 247 in those past five games.

Just very few extra base hits, right? I mean, no homers, as we said, before they had two doubles yesterday they had one double today outside of that it was all singles and as we said from the top it's really hard to score runs when when it's just single after single you've got to find a way to string a whole bunch of those together to really get any this is gross we're on twitter now twitter's going to make us blur this because it's not safe for work this is not good content right now 498 team oPS just shut the franchise down just turn the lights off Let's just sim the rest of the season, shall we?

Oh, man, that's not good. That's not good. And hopefully a day off helps them out, right? But they don't have a day off because they're going directly to New York to take on the bets. And I was also going to say days off in recent. They don't have been helping at all. Devaks are one in seven after off days. So maybe it's a good thing they don't have an off day before the Mets series this weekend.

But yeah, yeah, right back at it tomorrow. bit of a lengthy, lengthy flight to get over to New York tonight and see what, see what they have in store this weekend. We're not doing a post game tomorrow. We're done. We'll go back to doing post games. We'll make it win a baseball game maybe, but join us here at 1 o'clock tomorrow because we're not, we're not doing that.

But, of course, we do thank you guys for being here. We also thank Circle K for being an absolute oasis in the middle of this desert. Of course, you know there's a Circle K near you anywhere here in this town. And you haven't already done so, which is maybe a little foolish on your part. you should probably join the Inner Circle for free right now by downloading the Circle K app today. Terms and conditions apply, participate in locations, visit CircleK.com for details. But why do I say that? Why am I so harsh about why you haven't joined the Inner Circle yet? Because do you not like free things? Do you not like saving money on gas? If you don't, then that's fine. Maybe you're wealthy. Maybe you're

independently wealthy and you don't need to save money. Those people, they're cool with me. We should be friends. But for everybody else, you should definitely save some money over at Circle K. You can get any drink for 79 cents no matter how big it is and again that doesn't make much fun i know the cups some of those cups the size of them they have to be worth more than 79 cents even unfilled so there you're saving some money you also save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five phillips as being a member of the inner circle and then you will save three cents per gallon every day after that you can save five cents per gallon by becoming a premium member you also get all sorts of coupons in the app so join the inner circle for free right now and go get yourself something to drink fill up your car also

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in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200 today. Well, things aren't great, but things hopefully will be getting better for this Arizona Diamondbacks team. According to some updates from the broadcast, as well as information Jesse got from Tori LeVolo last week, Geraldo Pordomo will get into some games with the Complex League this weekend and then head out on a rehab assignment early next week. So we could see Jerry P back on this team very soon. And of course, you know that means that the vibes return to this team.

Yeah, yeah. I think him returning for the Padres series next Thursday through Sunday. That's probably the best possible scenario. But I don't think it's out of the question. If things go well with the Complex League this weekend, you know, get him out into a couple of games in AAA early next week. And if all goes well, yeah, you could see him. back with the debacks in San Diego or if not then, you know, maybe it's the early the early the week following.

Well, and that's again, right now, we asked about a week and a half ago, maybe a little bit shorter about, you know, that Kevin Newman situation. And what do you do with Kevin Newman considering how hot he is? Well, Newman hasn't been that hot as of late. And Perdomo might be returning just in time to kind of give this team a nice little push and maybe give Newman some time off. and resume that role as this team's everyday starter. It's not to say Kevin Newman hasn't been great for this team.

He has been much better than many of the other guys that are making much more money than him. He's also been very good defensively. So he has definitely been one of the bright spots that we talked about for this team. But lately, he struggled just like everybody else has. So I guess the question of whether or not to re-inject Pardomo right back into the lineup is kind of becoming more clear now because Kevin Newman's kind of come back down to Earth a bit. Yeah, he's going to be the Perdomo is going to be the everyday shortstop.

That's what Tori said during the home stand. So I would think they'd still find room for Kevin Newman to play and sort of a utility type role. I guess Blaze Alexander or Kevin Newman. Those are the two guys that you'd think that one of them would be the odd man out when you bring Prudomo back. we'll kind of cross that bridge when we get there. But getting Prudoma back is more about the vibes than anything else, right? I know Damon can attest to that. I don't know what to say.

Like, the man is magic. And even if it doesn't show up in the stats, there's just something undeniable that he brings to this team. I know we joke about it a lot. I know Damon definitely doesn't joke about it. He's very serious whatever he references. Not joking at all. Yeah.

Do you hear our serious his voices? The man, he doesn't joke about Jerry P. but in all honesty there's there there seems to be like at least a mental like pickup that is needed for this team we know these are good baseball players we know they can hit the ball it's like they need something to kind of just change their mindset change their attitude i don't know what's happened with corbin lately but hopefully corbin you know can we can see a bit more of this corbin that we saw today who not only was successful but he he just looked very confident and intentful in his at-bats and what he was doing out there today.

Like, he really looked dialed in. He didn't look frustrated like we've seen him look at times during this slump that he's been in. Maybe we can get the other guys back and maybe Geraldo Perdomo's mere presence can do that. Alec Thomas also could be returning soon, barring any kind of setbacks for him. They said on the broadcast that he's 10 to 12 days behind Perdomo, which is very encouraging. And again, both of those guys. I don't know how much they're going to impact the offense themselves, considering that they weren't huge pieces of the offense when they were part of the starting lineup.

It's just how their presence and them being healthy and back in the starting lineup could just help the overall mental vibes for this team. I mean, baseball is just one of those games that you can never really quantify how much someone's presence can impact it. And I mean, we joke all the time about Tommy Pham, but there was just something different that happened to this team when Tommy Fam joined it last year. You're convinced that if the D-Backs had brought back Tommy Fam, that this team is like, this seems like 1,000%. That is the biggest problem. That is the fact that apparently they never let the Snakes Alive guy, Jeff Gazzardo, throw out a first pitch or anything like that. But then they use Snakes Alive for the name of their documentary. You need to honor that, man.

Let them throw out a first pitch or something. But we need to make things right. And I don't know how to make things right. I don't know what bad things we did to deserve this spot that we're in. But hopefully the pure wholesomeness of Raldo Perdomo and the absolute just sex appeal of Alec Thomas returning can combine for some sort of winning formula offensively. I don't know. But they're not the only one set to return.

We might get Merrill Kelly back here pretty soon. Yeah, pretty soon is a little. Sooner than expected. Should I say that? I don't know if I would even say sooner than expected necessarily. But yeah, Teo Mackey did report yesterday that Merrill Kelly, according to manager Tori LaBello, is set to start a throwing program next week.

And he has been down. I believe the injury happened on April 21st, I want to say. So he'll have been down for about six weeks. Tori has said in the past that however long a starter is down, that gives you kind of a rough estimate of how long it will take them to build a backup. So if he's down for six weeks, It's been taking about six more weeks. Yeah, maybe about six weeks starting next week.

So you're looking at mid-Julyish, which is kind of what we figured from the beginning. Yeah, like around the All-Star break, something in that range. Haven't really gotten much more info on Eduardo Rodriguez. It doesn't seem. I know Tori said he's out to 75 feet with his throwing program, which he'd already said in L.A. He said 60 feet after that. And now he's saying 75 feet again. It seems like the debacks are just being.

being very careful with Eduardo Rodriguez, which you can understand why they would want to do that. He did have a setback when it looked like he might not miss much time at all with this injury out of the gate. But yeah, you certainly want to be careful with that situation, and they very much have done that. I just,

I understand being cautious, and I understand right now that the starting pitching isn't really the biggest of our concerns considering what's been going on at the plate. but yeah at the same time too like man i can't help but but hold on to hope despite how bad things have gone despite the team now being what they're like five games below uh five five five below 500 yeah i mean even even even with how bad things are have persisted for and the fact that we are at what the one third point of the season like we still have uh we still get to see this team eventually, hopefully, be 100%.

And I feel like that's going to be a different team. I just, I don't know. The only thing that's just, that that isn't encouraging about it is the fact that it's it's not like the Diamondbacks have, you know, seven starting players from their, you know, lineup missing right now, right? It really is just two. And it's not like those two are Cattel Marte, Christian Walker, or Jack Peterson, you know, the guys that have been doing well, the guys that really can give you some slug and consistent

you know, offense. So hopefully they, hopefully those guys return to the lineup really can have an impact, but I'm just still a little concerned. You need, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you need Corbyn Carroll to kind of pick things up. You need Lord of Scurriel to pick things up.

You need Ketel to obviously find his way again. Gino Suarez to turn things around. Alec Thomas and Eraldo Perdomo. I mean, those guys can be a lift for this team for sure. but, you know, they're not middle of the lineup type producers. At least they haven't been in the past. So you're going to need some of these guys you are in the lineup every day right now to turn things around. Well, moving on to a bit of the future, we have some updates from the Arizona Diamondbacks minor league system.

And those have been a little bit more encouraging, especially when you see the way that Drew Jones is swinging the bat right now. there was, I think, a lot of concern about Drew Jones and his production and just, just in general, how his process was coming or how his progress was coming along in his development. But over the last month, he has been a much better baseball player. And right now, I mean, he has been putting up some good numbers. Yeah, Drew Jones yesterday went three for five with a single, a double, and a triple. It was just a home run away from the cycle.

A couple of RBI runs scored. He walked in that game as well. He is now slashing 371, 45600 going back to May 17th. His five multi-hit games in that span. And he got up to such a brutal start that, you know, it's taken a while for his season-long numbers to kind of tick back up. But as far as that's concerned, he's now hitting 280, 378, 424 on the season gets his OPS for the year. are just up over 800 at this point down in single A Vysalia. So, yeah, I released my monthly prospect report a couple of days ago.

If you haven't checked that out already, be sure to do so. Absolutely. And, yeah, I talk with DeBax Farm Director, Sean Larkin, not only about Drew Jones, but a bunch of other players. And he was clearly very excited about the progress that Jones has made. He talked to me about how Jones's direction looks better, which was something we touched on. you're starting to see him pull the ball a little bit more, which is something that he really struggled to do, has struggled to do early on in his pro career. Definitely some positive strides there for sure.

And of course, there are some very encouraging things from the minor league system when it comes to Adrian del Castillo, which as far as the season beginning, you know, we talked about him kind of being a backup and where what his role could be. And instead, what we're seeing with the Reno Aces is Del Castillo kind of develop into a real offensive threat. He went two for three in the series with a double one home run of RBI versus Brett Carey. He had the game winning hit yesterday for the Aces. And he has hit 344, 392, 623 versus right-handed pitching this season. Yeah, I mean, his season slash line isn't that far off from that.

326, 375, 592. He's someone who really came out of the gate hot and hasn't really stopped. Adrian Del Castillo just continues to maintain this OPS in the upper 900s. And granted, it's the PCL. It's a really hitter-friendly environment. You don't necessarily know how that translates to the majors. But he clearly has taken a big step forward this year from where he's been in the past. You know, last year he played 37 games in AAA at a 690 OPS to finish off his.

his minor league season. So, you know, does he, does he factor into this Diamondbacks team at some point this year? I'm not, I'm not so sure. But you have to believe it's possible as he just continues to do so much damage down there in AAA. Another guy I mentioned earlier was Christian Mena. And when we talk about Mena, he has been the Aces pitching leader. By far, he is tied for second in the Pacific Coast League in strikeouts with 59 strikeouts. third with opponent batting average is 243

and he's fourth in ERA at 3.70. So this is a guy that the Diamondbacks just acquired in a trade with the White Sox and he very much has become one of the best players in their minor league system. He really has. Yeah, I mean, putting up those numbers in the PCL is no joke. I know he wasn't quite as sharp in his start yesterday,

six innings, four runs, two walks, five strikeouts. but again in the PCL, that's still pretty, pretty respectable line. He's pitching pretty consistently, at least fairly deep into games, five or six innings pretty much every time out. So yeah, you have to feel, you have to feel good about what the debacks have in Christian Mena and it seems likely that he is going to pitch for this team at some point this year. Yeah. I don't know if that's in the next month.

You know, maybe it's more of a September call-up situation or I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. But as long as Mena is putting up these kind of numbers in AAA, he's already on the 40-man roster. It makes sense for him to find his way up here at some point. According to MLB pipeline, Christian Mena is 11th on the Arizona's top 30 prospects list. So, I mean, and his stock has been rising for sure. And Elise says, call him up, see what happens. I don't, I'm not against that one bit.

There was another question. Or wait, Jordan Lawler. Let's get to Jordan Lawler. update. You got Jordan Lawler update? Yeah, Jordan Lawler is, it appears. Let me check the, uh, the transaction log here again. This is something that popped up earlier today. Uh, this is yes, from today, Reno Aces sent shortstop Jordan Lawler on a rehab assignment to ACLD back. So that's the, that's the complex league. Um, and this is what, uh, what Sean Larkin had also told me when I spoke with him the other

day that Lawler was going to get into some rehab games this week, um, and that he should be, uh, a full go coming back from that thumb injury and what would now be around a week and a half, a week and a half, maybe up to two weeks from now. I think you'll see Lawler back out at AAA. And the Diamondbacks, the timing is maybe a little unfortunate here, and that Lawler is set to return pretty much right when Geraldo Perdomo is set to return. So there isn't, it doesn't really feel like there's a window for Lawler to be called up. Yeah, to kind of be called up as out of need for the Diamondbacks. I think they're going to get Perdomo back and they're going to, um, you know, be able to let Lawler kind of take his time in AAA, which is probably the best outcome

anyway. I don't think the debacks were planning on sending Lawler down to Reno and bringing him up right away in an ideal scenario. They wanted to see him get a little more comfortable down there, show over a long period of time what he could do, and then bring him up at some point during the year when the time is right. So still feels likely that Lawler will make an impact in the big leagues at some point still feels like you're probably going to see him in the majors this season, but probably going to let him just stick in Reno for a while before that, before that happens. With the way that Gino is playing lately, and I don't mean defensively, but the way as bat has been, I mean, I can see them very much giving someone else an opportunity at third base.

I don't know if they're ready to make that move yet, but I could see them, you know, going in that route because this team has not shied away from making those tough decisions at times. And in fact, one of the ways that they have gotten better over the last, you know, over the last year has been making those calls to pivot to younger guys that are performing well in Reno and giving them an opportunity. So again, I wouldn't be surprised to see that. I just still don't think it's very likely considering Gino is such a, I mean, it's such an investment that this team made in him this season for him to solve their problem at third base. and unfortunately he just hasn't been that for them, at least offensively. Right. Yeah, I mean, not a huge investment like trade asset wise, but no, yeah, I just mean an investment

financially. Yeah, financially he is making it. He is making a decent amount of money. And yeah, I mean, they have the club option, of course, for next season, which it kind of feels like we know how that's going to go at this point. But, yeah, I mean, you could also, the other question that we could ask here is should Diamondbacks give Blaze Alexander some more run at third base as Gino is struggling. That's a third question.

Blaze has struggled in his own right in May. His offensive numbers have slipped. I think he's looked a little bit better defensively, although we really haven't seen him much in the field over the last few weeks. Nor has he been getting very consistent at bats. So you don't really know until he gets consistent at bats. But we know that defense wasn't great at shortstop. And I mean, I don't know how it would be over there at third base.

But again, I'm willing to take the opportunity. If he was doing things at the plate, I would like to see this team try to shake things up. They need to figure out a way to get out of this slump that they're in. Damon Ryan had a comment a little bit earlier up in the chat. He said, would you Derek consider now worse or last year's dark times worse? And I think this is a great question because the dark times I were referring to, obviously, is last July and how bad things got for this team. Yeah, it was pretty rough. And not only was it historically bad.

Like we were talking, we were comparing the Arizona Diamondbacks during that slump to teams that didn't even exist in baseball any longer, right? Names some people have never even heard of as teams because they were from the 1800s. But they went from, if I'm remembering correctly, they went from 16 games over 500 to two games under 500 in the span of 32 games, I want to say. Correct. And that's what was like crazy historic. It was the fastest. Yeah, it was a fastest.

Something like that. Yeah. Now, what I will say in comparison to this versus then was I believed in the team then, right? I thought that what we had seen in April was extremely impressive. I thought the role that they went on, the way they took care of business was, was, you know, something to believe in. We didn't know where this team was going to go, right? We just wanted them to make the playoffs. We just wanted them to make the next step as an organization in the right direction.

we had no idea of what was to come with all the fun in the postseason. So I will say that the expectations weren't there last year like they are now. Again, you can call all the expectations, whatever you want to call them. They're fucking expectations. That's what they are. And they've been set by the fact that this team went as far as they did. And unfortunately, in sports, that's a reality, right? When you do well and you make a championship run or you make it to a championship like they did, right?

you're going to have people that expect you to do it again. They're going to expect you to be able to build on that and be more successful than you were, even in that magical year where you guys somehow put it all together, right? So, I mean, the dark times during July last year, they were frustrating. They were sad. And it did very much feel like this run has felt at times, which is it's not fun to watch this team play baseball. But the offensive slump that they're in right now is just sickening to me. And it makes me start to lose hope that this team can actually get it back together this season before it's too late.

Luckily, there is still plenty of time, but we don't have much time to still be saying there's plenty of time, right? Like when you start getting to the all-star break and beyond, now the front office is going to start looking at maybe being sellers at the trade deadline instead of buyers. That could vastly change things for this team. I doubt it because they just push their chips in at the season. So I feel like if they are at any way close to 500 around that time that they're not going to make that call, I'm just not confident that they are going to be close to 500 when that happens. There's a lot of bad teams in baseball right now. There's a lot of bad records out there. Yeah, especially in the National League.

Especially in the National League. So again, it's not concerning because the Diamondbacks are still somehow in it. They're still part of the pack. But if they're three and a half games out of the playoffs. cops right now there. It's not that far. If they keep losing games, if they keep losing, especially the series that they should win, which I think Nate earlier blamed it on me saying that they, that those teams were easy or that they should.

I just said that they were winnable series because they're against teams that have been playing worse baseball than the Diamondbacks, especially coming off of, I guess, the moral high, the moral victory of beating the Dodgers. I would have thought confidence might have been high and it might have been able to get some of these guys who are struggling. at the plate to get back on track a bit more. But that's not what we saw. In fact, we saw this team actually go in quite the opposite direction after that

series went over the Dodgers. So I just think that really this right now is more difficult because we had so much hope in this season and what this team could do. And the way that the front office went out made moves, the way that Ken Kendrick opened up the checkbook and spent more money than we thought this franchise was going to spend. it's hard not to be frustrated and disappointed with the way that this is gone, right? The one, I guess hope is that when they do get to 100% that this team is going to play better baseball. I'm confident in that when it comes to the pitching.

I'm very confident about that, but I'm not so confident right now about the offense. And I think that's something that hopefully we can see them get turned around before we even see those guys start coming back. Corbyn's day, very encouraging. But outside of that, there's not a lot to be encouraged about when it comes. comes to today. In fact, Cotel Marte's like pointing up to the heavens and sigh of relief of walking, of walking is so an example of where this offense is at right now.

They're just thanking the baseball gods for getting him on base. And I mean, so many of the guys right now in the lineup probably feel that way when they're able to finally break an ofer slump and get on base somehow anyway, even with a walk. I still go back to like, and granted, this isn't always the way injuries work. You can't just think ahead two months down the road and be like, oh, surely we will have all of these guys back and we will not have lost anyone in the process. That's not usually how these things work, unfortunately. But I still go back to a starting rotation of Zach Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Jordan Montgomery, Brandon Faw, Eduardo Rodriguez.

If we get that for any stretch of this season, we haven't had it at all. so far, right? We haven't even had Gallen, Montgomery, and Merrill Kelly make a full turn through the rotation because right when Montgomery was ready to go, Merrill Kelly went down with injury. We haven't even seen those three together. If the Diamondbacks

talking about fantasy trade situations when you even bring that starting rotation up. Like, maybe if the Diamondbacks made a trade, this is what their rotation could look like. Those are guys in the organization. Yeah, no, these are, this is the actual starting rotation that we expected this team to have going into

the year, if things go the way that you sort of hope they will over the next couple months, and Erod is able to get healthy, Merrill Kelly is able to get healthy, and you've got those five for all or at least most of the second half of the season, that team could rack up some wins, right? Yeah. Even if the offense, I mean, the offense is going to have to be better than it is right now, but the offense, I don't think even has to be elite for the diamond backs to go on a nice little run with those five guys in the rotation.

And again, as we said earlier, they're first. five games under 500, but they're also three and a half games out of the playoffs. They're not at all buried, right? I guess you'd rather have a slump like this happen in May than happen in July into August, as it did last year when things felt a whole lot more dire. There's still plenty of time for this team to turn things around. They've just got to, you know, they've got to make their move sooner than later for sure. That's a great point because I do have more hope in the future right now,

even though it might be misplaced, rather than when I watched the Diamondbacks lose a 16 game, or, you know, go from 16 games above 500 to being two games below. That was literally like watching them let the season that had started out so wonderfully slipped through their fingers, where it feels like this season still hasn't even started for them yet. It just feels like the, it's still early excuse, as Connor said there. Connor said something about it's getting early or it's getting late early. Yeah, it is getting late early.

It's feeling like that because you still feel like you're saying there's time. It's a long season. You know, there's over 100 games left. But there's not a lot of time to fix this. There's not a lot of time to get things back on track before you do start to find that you are in such a hole that it's hard to get out of that hole. And I can't help but go back to a conversation we have with Paul Seawall during spring training where he warned us of this exact thing happening, almost where. word for word. And I know he wasn't really projecting that that was going to happen to the Diamondbacks, but he had seen it happen to the Mariners. And he was just talking about, you know,

coming off of that year of doing well and trying to build on it and then having those expectations kind of be to a point where, you know, it kind of, you know, weighs down on you a bit. You find yourself behind early. The team keeps telling themselves that there's plenty of time, There's plenty of time until there is no longer plenty of time. So hopefully that doesn't happen for this team and they can figure something out here quickly. They do start a series with the New York Mets, which Edwin Diaz was placed on the IL today by the Mets. I don't think Edwin Diaz has even really been all that great this year. No, he has actually been quite bad this year.

But of course, that's a problem that they have to deal with. We have plenty of our own problems to deal with right now. We do thank you guys, of course, for being here in the PHA and Exports YouTube channel. Like I said, we will be back tomorrow at 1 p.m. previewing that series with the New York Mets as well as discussing our power rankings and so much more. But make sure to leave a like before you leave. And of course, make sure to follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore K-Mad-M-W-A-K.

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We appreciate you stopping by. We hope to see it again tomorrow. And until then, have a wonderful night. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun. when Ryan Thompson is your all-time leading score in the Texas Rangers visiting Clubhouse Pop-a-shot game.