PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Eugenio Suárez COMES THROUGH with elusive big hit as Diamondbacks win series over Rockies

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

It wasn’t pretty at times, but the Diamondbacks managed to win game three and the series against the Rockies in Colorado. We have more on Bryce Jarvis coming up big in relief, Blaze Alexander’s Jeykll and Hyde season, and how close the numbers were for this series. We also discuss the D-backs addition of Kolten Wong and how he could factor in for the Snakes. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE 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/phnxdbacks50Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.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. 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 another wonderful edition of the PHNX D-Back show. When I say wonderful, I mean, the ones that we get to hear that song. Of course, my name is Derek Monti, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This is always, this man, he's always known as my vice mayor. Also your Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. Big win for the Arizona Diamondbacks. I mean, I don't want to get too excited about the Diamondbacks winning a series against the Rockies, but with the way things look there for a minute, this is a big win for this team.

And at least they get the monkey off their back of that five-game losing streak. And they get things headed in the right direction before St. Louis comes into town with a big series win against the Rockies. I don't know what I was more impressed by when it came to this game is the fact that the bullpen once again kind of did their thing, especially Bryce Jarvis, who was incredible both on the mound and especially fielding. And you know that highlight, real play that he made. But I mean, they continue to confound be with their inability to score runs late. And right, when you think that they can't, they do. They do. And it's with the guy that's really been struggling.

Gino, who despite some early success, really has been pretty bad, both at the plate and in the field himself recently, especially in the series. Yeah, I never want to put too much on like the 13th game of the season. I mean, in the grand scheme of things today. Today wasn't that important. of a baseball game. Oh my God. But still, I mean, there's something to be said for how much different six and seven feels

than five and eight. It's huge. Like if the Diamondbacks were five and eight and they had just lost a series to the Rockies after getting swept by the Braves, I mean, it's a pretty dark time for the diamondbacks right now, I think. But just with, you know, that comeback that they were able to make at the end of this game, something that has been done to them a lot in recent days to actually be able to do that against an opposing team.

it was huge and I know it wasn't pretty necessarily for Kevin Ginkle there in the in the ninth but but he got the job done and I mean that's kind of the theme of this whole series for me like none of this was really pretty for the Diamondbacks they still made way too many defensive mistakes which we're going to get to later in the show but at the end of the day you had to go in and at least take two out of three from the Rockies and the Diamondbacks check that box there's a lot of people here saying stressful stressful would be a great way to describe this particular game That is. It was stressful in a lot of different ways.

It was stressful right out of the gate. Tommy Henry bent. And when I say bent, he bent, bent, bent quite a bit right away. You threw 32 pitches in the first inning. It was a rough go for Tommy Henry out of the gate. The command was really all over the place. And then credit to him. I mean, he managed to, he managed to settle in.

I mean, this is back-to-back starts for him where it's been two earned runs over five innings, which, I mean, it's not necessarily spectacular. But if you're, you know, if you're a number five starter. I guess Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry or I guess Tommy Henry is sort of in the five spot right now. If yeah, if I mean if he can give you that until you have Jordan Montgomery and E. Rod rejoined this rotation. I mean, that's that's good, right? Like that'll give you a chance to to win games and the Diamondbacks were able to win this game in large part because of that. Mark is right.

That was the first comeback win of the season. It was the first time I think the Diamondbacks were able to generate some key runs late. that allowed them to come back from losing the lead. But Tommy Henry, again, he bent so much, he has that little white line that plastic has on it when you bend it and half. But he did not break. Five innings pitch, four hits, three runs, allowed two of them earn three walks, six strikeouts, 95 pitches thrown. I think the thing here with even the wins, if you want to be, I guess, a naysayer about it, if you want to look on the bad side to them winning this series in these two games is, this was against the Rockies.

these games are games that they barely won. I mean, they did do a good job of holding the opposition, you know, limited on hits and runs in both of these games, but still, it's the Rockies. That first inning for Tommy Henry against a team with a more potent offense would have gone very, very sideways on him instead of him just allowing, you know, the one run there early. And, you know, to his credit, he did a great job of getting out of it, more so to the credit of Bryce Jarvis, who stepped in once Tommy Henry left and Bryce Jarvis was just huge for Tori LaBello and this team as a reliever today. Not only did he make that play that I was describing earlier, but he just ate up a lot of innings right now for a bullpen that Tori right now can't really trust a lot of pieces of.

And the pieces that he does trust, he's going to utilize a lot, which is going to cause them to get overworked early. Yeah, it was, it's hard to overstate how big Bryce Jarvis was in this game for the Diamondbacks. I mean, Tommy Henry, I mentioned you went five innings, but there's a long way to go from the fifth to the ninth, right? Basically half of the game. And those innings have been rough in recent days for the Diamondbacks. Scott McGuff, Miguel Castro, you know, Luis Friest.

There's been a lot of unsteady, shall we say, performance from those middle relief guys so far. And Tori just went to Bryce Jarvis and was like, hey, you know, our starter still gave us five innings. Maybe it's not the most normal thing to call on your long reliever to pitch several innings in a close game like this. But I think, I think, I mean, Jarvis was pitching well. And Tori just kind of stuck with him and credit to Bryce for doing what he was able to do, not just on the mound, but as you said, that was one of the best defensive plays by a pitcher that I've ever seen. Yeah. And Christian Walker, too. We don't talk about Christian Walker.

Yeah, but Christian Walker's side of this is just a given, right? Like that, like that, that's not even notable at this point. Christian Walker always does that. Bryce Jarvis, I mean, he had to, he had to, he had to dart off the mound. He covered a pretty good amount of ground all the way. Got pretty close to the third baseline when he made this throw. And he went like all Derek Jeter on him, Derek. Like this was a jump throw. Dude,

it was amazing. The accuracy was incredible. Yeah. The arm strength was incredible. Honestly, Jarvis, can we get him in the, you know,

depth chart at shortstop? That was amazing. I mean, like I said, Christian Walker did have to make an incredible stretch in order to complete that play. But like you said, we're used to seeing Christian Walker do that.

This was just an amazing throw from Bryce Jarvis that, again, was a big reason why the Diamondbacks were able to keep the Rockies off the board further and maintain the lead that they are not really the lead at that time. They were down. I still believe three to two. But again, they were able to generate some runs late. Of course, they did generate runs early, which they just do all the time. That's another.

That's like Christian Walker making scoops over first base. It's just inevitable that it's going to happen. Death taxes in first inning. First inning runs for the Diamondbacks. Corby Carroll doubled on a sharp fly ball to center. And then Lordus Guriel, who was big for this team today, drove him in. Lordus made also a pretty good catch out in left field that I don't know if he needed to quite make it look as difficult as it was. Lordis has a way of making like good plays, like genuinely good plays look maybe like great plays.

Incredible plays because of his positioning. Yes. but of course they get that first run and then Blaze Alexander with a solo home run in the second ending he continues to be great with the bat but he continues to be a liability out there at shortstop I will say that to Blaze's credit is something that we should all remember is that he really is a second baseman right like that's one of the things I don't I don't think he's it I mean where is why is he a second baseman I mean that's never real blaze Alexander's never been labeled a second base I mean, maybe there are scouts who believe that that would be a better fit for him,

but I don't know if that even really makes sense. Isn't his arm his best? Yeah, his arm is his best tool. So I think the, I think maybe third base. I mean, maybe people would make an argument there. I don't think shortstop is, uh, is the place for him. Obviously, uh, as to what we've seen so far because it's been pretty rough. Yeah.

Yeah, this is a bit rough. And, uh, it furthers piece of Yoshi's agenda as far as his Chase Peterson, uh, agenda. but Blaze, again, he did have that home run. And you're right, he was a net zero for this game. I think they said that on the broadcast, right? Yeah, as long as you, as long as you score as many or more runs than you allow defensively, I guess you can count that a win. But yeah, I mean, it continues to be a question for this diamond vaccine.

We talked about it a little bit yesterday. Like, what are the debacks going to do at shortstop between now and when Geraldo Prudoma returns? They did just sign Colton Wong to minor league. deal right before we went live. So I don't really think he's the solution either. Cold Wong has played all of one inning in the majors in his entire career at shortstop. So I don't really view him as a solution there either. D-backs are just in a in a tough spot without Heraldo Perdomo.

But yes, to Blaze's credit, if it- Get out of here, Elise. I, you know, I'm not doing the known baseball GM thing. She says Derek is trying to cope. And Jesse is not having it. No, Blaze Alexander's 345 with a 976 OPS and two home runs. Yeah. So I will have no slander as to as to his relevance in the major league baseball.

But I just think that obviously, I mean, and again, we've kind of talked about it. Is it the yips? Is it just him being his head too much about this? Yeah, it has to be mental at this point. No question of my mind about that really. I mean, these are plays that like we saw Blaze Alexander doing defensive drills and whatnot throughout spring training. In spring training, he was great.

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not saying he's Andrelton Simmons out there, but he never looked like a liability. I didn't really get that sense watching him, even in spring training games. And granted, he didn't play that much shortstop in spring training games, which I think is a valid, a valid point in his favor that like the Diamondbacks didn't necessarily set him up to be playing a whole lot of shortstop. But it's something he's been doing throughout his professional career. And yeah, I mean, at this point, I think it probably has gotten in his head maybe a little bit.

And I mean, yeah, it's understandable. I mean, as we said the other day, Blaz is a rookie and rookies sometimes look like rookies. And we've seen a lot of those moments. But as you were saying earlier to Blaze's credit, the fact that he's done as much offensively as he has definitely makes it easier to stomach. Like without his bat in the lineup, like you'd be losing something based on what we've seen so far, especially against some of these left-handed pitchers.

So yeah, in the bigger question, in the bigger picture, it's going to be, D-backs have some decisions to make on that front here over the next month or so. Definitely. There was a couple of hits. I think Tucker Barnhart had won in regards to the later part of the starting lineup. But it really looks bleak there in like the 7, 8, 9 spot sometimes for this team. And today was kind of an example of that, especially once Blaze was removed from the game. But I think that, you know, again, the Diamondbacks right now need to manage through these injuries as best.

as they can. And if that means getting blaze in there, you know, for some offense early on and then substituting him out so that you can have someone you can rely on defensively a little bit better right now, I don't think is the worst thing, you know, but, and it worked out today. It's not going to work out every time, but it worked out today. Again, though, there's some injuries that the Diamondbacks are trying to get through right now and get some guys back. Of course, one thing that, you know, is going to get better at.

I don't think Gino is going to struggle in the field like we saw him at time. in the series. It's been pretty rough the last couple days. He has been really good out there for most of this season, but lately it really feels like maybe the offensive thing is kind of impacting his defense as well. Potentially. Yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on there.

It's not necessarily like super easy plays that he's missed. You know, a couple of these plays where you're charging in having to bear hand the baseball and whatnot. It's not a super easy thing to do, but it's something that you want a Major League third baseman to be able to do more often than not. And something

that Ehio Hohenio Svars was very, very good at last season. We talked a lot over the offseason about how good he was defensively for the Mariners a year ago and people talking about how he should have been a finalist for the Gold Glove Award over at third base in the American League. So I will say with Gino, like there's not a ton of history of him being like a great defensive third baseman. Last season was I think more the exception than the rule. So anyone expecting him to come in and be like a gold glove caliber player at third base,

I'm not sure that his full body of workover's career necessarily would suggest that that's really his true talent over there. Well, I don't care about that because the man had to go ahead double that basically won this game for the Arizona Diamondbacks. And for that exact reason, a Heuania Suarez is our king snake. Give it to him, baby. I don't care if he's one for five. Yeah, they go ahead double two key RBI. And that man is our king snake. And that's mostly because he finally let me use that amazing razor remote.

own video that I made of razor wearing a Diamondback jersey, but this win does move the Arizona Diamondbacks one step closer to, I guess, all of your ultimate goal, which is me dying. We're down to 10. Oh, there it is. There it is. Yeah, there it is. Well, we'll see. For those, I still don't believe they can do that.

But yeah, for those listening, there's a little tracker that just popped up with stupid face on it and purple hair and it's it's probably going to happen the diamondbacks just have to go 10 and 8 or better the rest of the month in order to have an above 500 record at the end of april and if that happens Derek for those who missed it yesterday did once again commit to dye his hair purple if that happens so i mean this felt this feels like kind of inevitable after the diamondbacks brought back lordis garrille junior that you were going to have to do to die your hair purple at least at least one more time right offer it up but I had to put it on the table.

But again, I mean, it's up to that. Like, this is different than last year. They didn't struggle out of the gate. I don't think I was willing. They were kind of struggling a little bit, though. Like, there was a period of time where the season was in progress that I made this stupid bet last year. This is different. They still have.

Their schedule was so daunting. Yeah. When you look, even though they started well last year against the Dodgers and the Padres. I mean, the whole month of April for the debacks last year was so difficult. It's hard to look at and believe the debats could really come out of it above 500. But they did then. And, you know, for all of our sake, I hope they do again because we all want purple hair, Derek. I don't like that.

That you're on that side of things. It's once again, it feels like you're against me. But let's get that graphic off the screen. I don't want to look at that anymore. Of course, we thank you guys for being here and hoping that I once again ruin my hair. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the PHNX Sports YouTube channel yet, do so now. I don't want to encourage you to leave and go watch another show. The coyotes kind of have something devastatingly important going on over there.

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No, you're right. I'm either going to get the win for my team where I'm going to get money. That's usually the way it works out. You're unaware of his bets throughout the playoffs, but he basically would just fade the diamondbacks if they were to lose in every single game during the whole post season. Yeah, I think that's what was. When the Rangers, you must have lost a lot of money, Derek. No, he actually did pretty well because he'd make like eight Lake parlays.

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He was winning a lot of bets. He was winning a lot of bets. I'm sure people aren't going to like hearing that, but I will say, you can sign up. Yeah, I lost them too. But, yeah, I mean, see, again, you're either going to watch your team when the World Series are going to make some money.

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So just go here in town, have yourself a lovely time. This series between the Diamondbacks and the Rockies was incredibly close, and we know the scores were close. But when we take a look at some of these numbers from this series, you'll see that this was even closer than, you know, the three runs, the Diamondbacks won their two games by. Total runs scored here. Diamondbacks outscored the Rockies 13 to 12 in the series. Rockies out hit the D-backs 27 to 26. Runners in scoring position, Rockies were six for 27, Diamondbacks, five for 12. 23. That's a 222 batting average for the Rockies, 217

for the Diamondbacks. A 371 starting pitching ERA for the Rockies, 394 for the Diamondbacks. And both teams, that's not strikeouts, that's relief pitching ERA, but both teams have a 3.60 relief pitching ERA.

And holy cow, Jesse. The margins, the margins were very tight on this series. Yeah, they were. They were tighter than they probably should have been. I mean, they were not particularly tight when the Diamondbacks faced the Rockies at Chasefield to open the season, not tight at all. And this series is very much a different story. But with a similar outcome, right?

The Diamondbacks took three out of four to open the year and they take two out of three in this series. I tweeted this out. I mean, you look at the performances from the Rockies starting pitchers in this in this series. You get Kyle Freeland, Kyle Quantrell, and then Austin Gomber today. Diamondbacks didn't do much damage against any of those guys. Kyle Freeland. I know he gave up four runs, but only two of them were earned innings. Cal Quantrell yesterday, a quality start, six innings, three earned runs.

And then Austin Gomber today, two runs early. And then as has often been the case, Diamondbacks let him settle in. He winds up going six innings and allowing just those two runs. So not a very inspiring offensive performance in any capacity for the Diamondbacks. You view Coors Field as kind of a place where you go in and you get right as an offense and you leave clicking on all cylinders. That was not at all the story of this series, but you won the series,

and that's ultimately what matters closer than it should have been. But, yeah, D-BACs essentially got the job done. With the Diamondbacks having the teams that are coming up beyond this, I mean, obviously the Rockies were a team that they had to get, take care of business against, and they did. Yeah. It's just, again, it's, it's as encouraging as it is, there's also a bit of concern here for the way that they beat a rocky's team that isn't really

playing very good baseball right now and you know again is it going to be enough for them to basically withstand this this storm if you will until those players that are either injured or in jordan montgomery's case warming up and getting prepared for the season still until they can come and you know add some firepower to this team yeah it's it's it's just a matter of kind of saying afloat until then, right? At least on paper, you hope the diamondbacks don't have any other significant injuries come up in the next month and that there is a universe in just a few weeks where this roster starts to get healthy and starts to like very different from what the diamondbacks have

right now. But yeah, as people are saying in the chat, like an ugly series win. A win is a win. A win is a win. We've seen the diamondbacks win in dominant fashion. I think in some ways, like if you're a fan of this team, you maybe almost, you really wanted to see them win a close game. Like, like, could they actually do what was needed late in the game?

Could they come back late and not just withstand, again, withstand the rest of the game based on their performance in the first couple of innings like we've seen so far, right? And that was kind of the problem at times, you know, there's the infamous Jesse tweet where he's or text message to me that I'm sure he doesn't want me putting out there on social media that said eight runs weren't enough. And in what game, in what baseball game do you say eight runs aren't enough? but that's absolutely what it felt like with the way that this bullpen was pitching. And honestly, the fact that the Diamondbacks offense hasn't been able to get anything done late really did feel like they weren't going to score any more runs and they didn't in that case. Sometimes when the opposing team gets that run, you need to need to do some things to stop, you know, the momentum of their comeback.

And the Diamondbacks just haven't been able to do that in some of those losses where they had a lead and allowed it to slip away. This, again, just like the big, wins didn't carry over to them going on a role just because these are small wins against the team they should be doesn't mean that it won't at least propel them and and you know get their confidence going for this upcoming series against the cardinals i just uh yeah i mean i'm i i don't know this is just one of those series wins that like it leaves you feeling a little unsatisfied but again i think every time the diamondbacks get somebody back it's going to hopefully add a spark to this team you

know, Jordan Montgomery coming back, if he can come back and absolutely just shove in his first outing, you know, the confidence level in the clubhouse is just going to go through the roof. Yeah, I mean, and just looking at the standings in the National League, I mean, not that standings are all that important at this point in the season, but. They absolutely are. I mean, last year we were tweeting them out every single night, I think, at this point of this season or at least somewhere around here once the diving back got in the first place. It was a nightly occurrence for us to do a little breakfast.

the in the National League for a hot minute there. But yeah, I mean, you know, some of the central teams have started out hot. The Cardinals are six and seven coming into both teams. Are going to be six and seven going into that series this weekend at Chase Field. The Reds have gotten off to a decent start. They're six and five, Cubs seven and four, Brewer, seven and three. The Phillies are six and six right now. You mean, you just look at the landscape of the National League.

And, I mean, being six and seven is not a great start. But, I mean, the question that I was kind of asking is people, were really, really worried about how the debacks were starting is like, I mean, which non-division winning nationally teams were going to like bury the diamond backs in the wild card race? I have a lot of questions about a lot of the teams that are in that wildcard race in National League. Absolutely. The Phillies are a team I certainly like. But beyond them, there's not really any team that I think will be a wildcard team that I think

is way better than the diamond back. The Marlins imploded. So, I mean, they're a team. That is fair. And it doesn't, you know, based on what's going on with their manager and the contracts. situation. I don't know if things are going to get better for that team, but we'll see. Of course, everybody knows I lie. And Jesse Jr., of course, is a habitual liar, but the numbers don't lie. So let's take a look at Jesse's number for today's game or for this series. What do you

got, Friedman? I got the number 72.3, Derek, which of course is the exit velocity on A. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Horez is game winning. Go ahead to run double. 72.3, that was the third lowest exit Velo of any batted ball by the Diamondbacks in this game. But to be fair, A. Eugenio Suarez had some pretty rough luck battle ball-wise over the last couple days. And they were all going right to a defender or getting caught. He also had the second hardest hit ball of this game by a Diamondbacks hiter at 104.6. That one had an expected batting average of 7.50 that came in the third inning of this game. and Exevalo of 104.6, as I said.

So he, yeah, I mean, and there was also yesterday, and yesterday's game, there were a couple of batted balls, including the final out of the game that maybe got a little bit unlucky. So same with Monday's game with Gino. Yeah. Base is loaded. He hits it into right center and it gets caught. It just stays up too long, but it looked like he got pretty solid contact on it.

We might have won the game. Yeah, the Diamondbacks have actually been pretty unlucky. And we've talked about that in so many ways. They had the higher expected batting average than the Rockies in all three games of this series, including on Monday. On Monday, the Rockies had an XBA of like 200 or something. Devax wasn't all that high either, but yeah, the batted ball luck was not really in their favor in the series as a whole. But it was in their favor at a very pivotal moment late with Hedahani Asuars coming through with that head. And it's not just your nerd stats, Jesse.

It's not your imaginary expected batting average crap. It's also the fact that this team has been very unlucky with injuries and in every way. I mean, Damon's constantly saying it. It felt like today, especially with the way that the Rockies kept getting balls to fall in just right, right, fair, right on the chalk. How many like the chalk line extra base hits have we seen for opposing teams in these last two series? It's crazy. And it felt like in that Brave series, it felt like any time there's anything close to the first baseline or the third baseline that it just barely landed fair. So yeah, I mean, and this is just baseball, right?

Like these things just kind of have a way of you, you know, you hate it for a few days because nothing is going in your favor. And then suddenly you've got 11 hits in the fourth inning with like two hard hit balls. And you're like, yeah, this rocks. I love this game. So yeah, I mean, that's just that's the nature of the sport, right? And the Diamondbacks very much have seen both sides of that here in the last few days. I'll tell you this, though. I mean, the team is having to figure out a way to win games.

just like Tommy Henry today had to figure out a way after his first inning went the way it did to get things back on track. And I know that this is one of those situations where it might not mean a whole lot because it's early in the season. But they're going, they're facing this adversity early on. And hypothetically, things are going to get better for them once April 19th comes around. And then going forward, it's almost like they're going to get Alec Thomas back. They're going to get, you know, E.rod back. They're going to get Jerry P back, right? And like, I feel like once again, like what I was saying about Jordan Montgomery,

they're going to get these little injections of life, this little spark by getting these guys back. And they're going to get better each time these guys are back. Defensively, they're going to get better. And the starting line is going to get better. Obviously, starting rotation expects to get much better. And then you still don't know the impact that Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson are going to have on this team, what their roles are going to be going forward if they're going to get sent down to the minors to stay stretched out for depth, or if one of those guys can become a,

a key part of the bullpen and kind of change the dynamic of that struggling bullpen that we've seen so far. They're going to need some help because I feel like Tori's going to continue to lead on the arms that he can trust. And there's going to be a point where he's not going to be able maybe to trust McGuff or, you know, Castro and high leverage situations. And that could be what the Diamondbacks see right now. A lot of these close games like they had in these two wins against the Rocky.

So Jarvis showed out today, though, and the Diamondbacks absolutely needed him too. and he did that. So of course, Peace of Yoshi says, Derek, I did not go on baseball savants. Check out all this for you to diss Jesse's nerd stats. No,

I'm going to diss him hard. I'm going to go in on him. By the way, my favorite person that went in on Jesse's nerd stats, which was unexpected, was Danielle. She really just, yeah,

she really just. It was incredible. I've never seen somebody come as hard as she did at Jesse over his nerd stats. Because I think some people, have a false view of my baseball analysis, which is that I don't even watch these games, I don't. I don't even feel the need to watch these games.

Because baseball savant and baseball reference tell me everything that I need to know. And I want to declare to the universe that that is not true entirely. It's mostly true. I spent a lot of time around you. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. But of course.

No, there is something to be said for watching. There are things you learn by watching a baseball game that exit Velos and FIP and all this stuff absolutely will not tell you. So I want to make that clear. Sometimes he watches baseball games is what he's saying. Every once in a while I will watch the game instead of just staring at my computer the whole time. You know a great way to watch the game. A couple days a week. Great way to watch the game, Jesse.

Ice cold golden logger in your hand, right? Right? Damon, Four Peaks? The beer, the baseball beer? The official, unofficial beer of baseball, or is it the other way around? It's the unofficial official official beer of baseball. The unofficial official football. It's still an incredible beer.

It's the perfect beer to drink when you're out of the yard. Of course. Have you had the bad birdie? The bad birdie is really a number one contender. Brother. It's a number one contender for the championship. Brother, you've tried it? While we should be running scared right now, while we is like Roman

rains running away from Cody Rhodes and bad birdie juicy gold nail might finish the story. I went to our friends over at Circle K and I went to their beer cave and they had a nice 15 pack of cans. They weren't even bottles. They were cans and I had it and I was like, this is a damn good beer. It's an incredible beer. It's pretty good. It's incredible beer. Super drinkable and the perfect companion at the tea box in your fridge or in the batter's box. I don't know. Maybe not at a batter's box. Maybe in a beer league. I don't know, but be sure to follow Four Peaks on social. Of course, You can visit 4Peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events. Check out at 4Peaks brew or at 4Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery.

Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks. And please drink responsibly. Of course, another great adventure you can take, have some fun here in the Valley is with Arizona Lottery and their ticket promotion called Arizona Adventure Adventure Adventure. There are three ways to play and win big, some big money out there to win. Of course, you can play Arizona Adventure Lottery tickets featuring some iconic Arizona landscapes. You can also check in at geolocated adventures at 10 destinations across the state. Maybe Jesse will take you in his sick rev for, because that's what that car is for. It's for sick adventures.

From Flagstaff to Yuma, all across the state. He even goes like to other states and stuff with it. It's wild. But if you don't have a car just for adventures, Derek. No, I mean, you make it sound like that. You take adventures by yourself. You go on these geolocated. You don't even check in.

You just go to these places and just. View how beautiful they were. He was in my part of town at a lake and he didn't even call me. I don't know what's wrong with this guy. How many times have you been to Lake Pleasant? Even though you live like what 15 minutes away? I could probably count on my hand how many times I've been. That's unacceptable.

I mean, granted, I did grow up here and that was the first time I'd ever been to Lake Pleasant. And it's not all that far away. But it was spectacular. That's what Arizona Lottery says. This is all about. It's not just about playing games winning prize. It's about giving back to the state and its community. and getting you to go view some of these beautiful parts of the state.

Arizona Lottery says proceeds from ticket sales support environmental conservation, among other important initiatives across the state. Visit Azea Adventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure for a chance to win $1 million in cash in Arizona travel prizes. Also check out, of course, our diehard membership, if you haven't already. It's a great membership to have. It kind of pays for itself right away. Get yourself a free item from the PHNX Locker.com of your choosing

get access to all of our digital content, including all the writing from our writers. We get, that's usually who does it, right? The writing, the writers do the writing. You get access to all our premium written content. Them's the rules. Them's the rules. You get entrance to the Discord lounge where we do all sorts of fun stuff just for our diehards only. Get that diehard membership card discounts on all of our events, including our upcoming

takeover at Chase Field against the San Diego Padres. Of course, it's Gabriel Moreno Bottlehead Knight. So it's a great night to join us out at the ballpark. You can get your tickets for that now over at go p hnx.com. You can also get your dot card. We're kind of running out of tickets for that. We're running out tickets for everything, Jesse. I don't know if you know this.

That one I think is down to single digits as far as tickets available. The Cardinals draft party is sold out. I mean, we're going to need a bigger boat. Yeah. And I don't think you even know what that reference is from. No. See? I knew it.

That's something I can always count on. 100%. I can count on this man, not knowing my references. You did bring up earlier, Colton Wong. Yeah. Wee-woo, wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-being part of the American-News.

Arizona Diamondbacks absolutely have continued to try to solve the problems that they have with depth right now, at least in the short term, by adding Colton Wong on a minor league deal. Yeah, yeah. Colton Wong on a minor league deal, the Diamondbacks, I believe, reassigned Tim Tawa, who had been playing some shortstop in Reno. He goes down to Dundon. AA Amarillo and Colton Wong is now going to slide in and place some infield in Reno.

As I said earlier, Colton Wong has played one inning and shortstop in his major league career. So I don't really think the Diamondbacks are thinking of using him in that capacity, although I don't know for sure. Maybe they're reaching a level of desperation. He's still young, right? He can learn how to play shortstop. Get the tires on whoever we can. I mean, Colton Wong was one of the best second baseman in all of baseball. not in

23, but a few years ago back when he was with the Cardinals. In 2023, he had a fascinating season where he opened the year with the Seattle Mariners and hit 165. And then he signed

with the Los Angeles Dodgers and we all know what happens to seemingly washed players the moment that they doned Dodger Blue is they hit... They go to Cooperstown. They hit 300, 353, 500. Jason Bort had like a

850 OPS or something. Yeah, it's great. Everybody was like, get this guy out of baseball. And then he goes to the Dodgers and he's just not just the best player in the NOS. Yeah, I mean, it was for Colton Wong with the Dodgers, it was all of 34 plate appearances. So do with that, which you will. I believe he was with the Baltimore Orioles in spring training, but he wasn't going to make their roster. So he wound up departing his ties, leaving the Orioles back in toward the end of March and the Diamondbacks have brought him in.

So, yeah, I mean, he adds depth. The debacks don't have a ton of middle infield depth in general right now with Kevin Newman coming up to the majors. So I suspect it's more of a depth play than than anything else. But yeah, we'll see. I don't know if you guys know what's going on with the coyotes crew out there, but just kind of looking out and seeing them do their show right now. It makes me feel ill because this situation is spiraling out of control very quickly for our local hockey team, which might not be our local hockey team. much longer. This is just a reminder, once again, just like the A's situation of how quickly this can happen. And again, not to be like not to get all doomsday here, but you know,

the Diamondbacks need to figure out their stadium situation and sooner rather than later so that this does not turn into a situation like this. Maricopa County needs to do whatever they can to just get this figured out with the Diamondbacks. That's, that's what it's. down to right now. Yeah. There's too much leverage here on the Diamondback side. And honestly, with what this is, what is happening, it just increases the leverage that a sports team has as a reminder of how quickly they can leave and not be your sports team anymore.

And I hope that things go the opposite direction, especially for a coyote's team that I have come to love in the time that they've been here. But again, they've been here just around the same amount of time that the Diamondbacks have existed. And it's just something to keep in mind when it comes to, you know, supporting this team and coming out and seeing these games. I mean, we talked yesterday about the issues with them selling opposing teams peanuts that got me all heated. These are, these are all around the same idea here, which is, I mean, one way to rectify this situation and not to put the blame or or to turn it around on the fans, but one way to rectify the situation is if you love

this team, come out and support this team. Don't turn into a fire, guy just because they lose a couple of baseball games. Don't. You know what I mean? I mean, I think that goes that goes regardless. I'm talking about three of you in particular with that one, but still it doesn't matter. You get the point that I'm trying to make here. Like, just

be a good fan. Like, there's 162 games. I understand that there might be times where it's not easy to support this team. But again, it's one of those things that the continued supportive fans is going to be the thing that solidifies this team staying here. More than the, like,

the fans have a lot of leverage here and the fans supporting this team really can help this situation out. Yeah, I mean, the diamond back situation is very, very, very different from the coyote situation. So I don't really want to draw any kind of a false comparison there. Hopefully things work out for the coyotes. It doesn't seem like that move to Salt Lake City is official by any means at this point. So hopefully there's a way for us to still have hockey in the desert because even as someone who frankly has.

not watched more than a few minutes of hockey in my entire life pretty much. Most of it has happened in this office. But yeah, I mean, Phoenix is a market that absolutely should have all of the major sports. There's just no question with how much growth has been in this town, you know, over the last couple of decades. Hopefully things work out there. But it does. We thought it was at least worth revisiting the reality. The Diamondbacks owner went on the record a couple of months ago and mentioned the idea of relocating the team, right? And not in a way that was at all super worrisome, I wouldn't say. There's been some reporting.

But truthful. I mean, honest. And sometimes when you're honest, it does come off to be a little threatening because the fact of the matter is if the stadium situation doesn't work itself out, the Diamondbacks aren't opposed to suitors that might try to bring this team somewhere else that's willing to give them the ballpark that they're looking for. Right. And there, yeah, there's been some reporting in the last few days.

I know the Arizona Republic just had a fairly lengthy story about some of the negotiations happening and the Diamondbacks trying to get the stadium deal nailed down. It still looks like by far the most likely outcome is that eventually those sides will be able to come to an agreement and the Diamondbacks will stay put at Chase Field. For the long haul, it's very much what we expect. But yes, the Diamondbacks owner. Ken Kendrick said what he said a couple of months ago. And yeah, it's just a reminder to, you know, value,

value what's in front of you and, you know, enjoy it. And yeah, as you said, support this baseball team. Support it. Yeah. And the lights show alone that I love so much just shows me how much, you know, making changes to that building can make that building cool, right? And it can make it a fun, enjoyable place. Not to mention the Korean pork belly nachos, once again.

that they all they got to do is huge that's huge um ernesto says we need to start buying all the peanuts he's not wrong that's a big key elizabeth says come out and support the team unless you're cursed if you know you know um hello darkness my old friend uh but anyway let's take a look at the provables for the upcoming series with the st louis cardinals because uh you know the diamondbacks they they get they get things in their direction a little bit here with Brandon fought, who has been pretty outstanding in his last start for this team and Zach Gallen both on the mound in the series against the Cardinals. Yeah, these probabilities look quite a bit better than the Probables graphic we were looking at a

week ago when the D-Backs 3-3-5 starters were facing the top three in the Braves rotation. That wasn't even their fault. They didn't even blow it in that series. Yeah, true. But yeah, Brandon fought against Stephen Matt's, Ryan Nelson, and Kyle Gibson, Zach Gallen, Miles Michaelis on Sunday. the Cardinals did just get Sunny Gray on the mound for the first time. I believe he made his season debut with the Cardinals just yesterday.

The Diamondbacks will not have to face Sunny Gray in this series, which certainly bodes well for them. So yeah, I mean, on paper, you don't hate these matchups from the Diamondbacks perspective. Well, of course, we will be back like we said tomorrow with our 1 p.m. show. We're going to have Jordan Schusterman joining us from Cespitz family barbecue. And of course, then we will be back Friday with a postgame show for that. St. Louis Cardinal series. So keep it locked right here.

Make sure to subscribe once again to the channel and sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss all this stuff. And do what Gabby said. Drop a like. Otherwise, he'll throw you out at second. And you know he can do it. You know he can do it. It doesn't matter where you are.

Where you are. It doesn't matter where in the country or even where in the world you are, Aaron Hughes. He'll get you out in Germany. But of course, we thank you guys for joining us. Aaron Hughes isn't even in the chat. I know. I'm just randomly, randomly bringing him up. He'll love that.

He'll love that whenever he listens to this. I don't know what day it is for him over there, but of course. It's probably like Saturday, right? That's how it's how time zones work. I'm really bad at time zones, but anyway. What I'm not bad at, Jesse, as you know, is securing a very good interest rate from my home mortgage. And of course, you can do that, too, with our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. For more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union,

dedicated to creating exceptional experiences by giving back to the community and by providing financial solutions that make your lives better. Desert Financial team are financial experts and someone who you can trust, of course, with your financial interest. You can look to them for checking in savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, so much more. When you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 and bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200.

I actually, I heard there's some word that maybe we had a desert financial transaction of the day today. We did. We did. Colton Wong, minor league deal. Wow. That's a big, that's a big honor to be bestowed upon Colton Long's head. That's pretty massive. This is probably the most excited anybody's going to get about Colton Wong joining the team, aside from maybe Colton Wong. Yeah, I mean, family members, you know, there might be some other contenders. Maybe a friend that lives here in Arizona that might get to see.

about there. Or somebody in Reno. I don't know. When are we going to, are we going to sequel? Like I still don't understand the depth that he adds here to the team, really. Like, is this just because at times the Diamondbacks literally have Ctele-Marty out and they have

Newman and, you know, Jace Peterson and Blaze Alexander all still in the lineup together as that trio? They're trying to find maybe another option there when they're kind of swapping guys out in the infield. Yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah, it just kind of seems like a depth addition to me.

as I said earlier. Short-term. Short-stop doesn't really seem like a fit there. He's a left-handed hitter, so a bit of a different look from some of the other guys. Kevin Newman hits right-handed, Blaise Alexander hits right-handed. So I guess he's sort of like the backup for the Jace Peterson role.

You could maybe view it that way with Peterson being a left-handed hitter. But yeah, I don't think it's imminent that Colton Wong will be with Diamondbacks in the majors in a week or anything. But if he signed with the Diamondbacks, he was presumably led to believe that he had a shot of contributing in the majors at some point in the relatively near future. Like Elvis Andrews himself, right? Like he had a shot, I'm sure, at believing he was going to be here for major league. And I guess that Elvis Andrews is still out there as well. I mean, I don't know if the Diamondbacks are having any conversations in that regard.

But yeah, we'll see how it plays out. I'm just guessing that they saw Jace Peterson swing the bat the last couple days. And they were like, yeah, we're going to. we need to sign Colton Wong. Yeah. That's kind of just like literally it was after that strikeout on that pitch in the dirt yesterday. And Mike Hazen got in the phone with Colton Wong's agent like within five minutes of that happening. He's like, we need them.

I feel like it could be a situation where they do feel like, I mean, like there are options. They're not better options, but they're also how much worse can they be potentially, right? I will say though that as much of a diss as that was, right? Like it's like Blaze in the field, right? We thought Blaze was, this was great for Blaze. It was going to give him some playing time, all of this. And he quickly became a person that contributed to some of these losses, the Diamondbacks have experienced and someone that you feel like you cannot rely on out there defensively.

Now, that's not been his calling card in his time with this organization, nor does it feel like it really is who he is as a player. But it's what he's going through right now. And it sucks. And thus it makes, you know, even some of the other options look better because even though they're not, adding as much offensively, it's still not a situation where they're going to potentially give up a big, you know, a big error that that's going to cause this team to lose more games. Yeah. The other thing I'll say about Colton Wong real quick is that he actually was a pretty

good hitter prior to last season in 2022 with the Brewers. He had a 769 OPS at 15 homers. 2021. He had a 782 OPS at 14 homers. So he's 33 years old. He's certainly not in the prime of his career but it's not like you have to go back to 2018 to find the last good season from colton long so debaks are you know maybe hoping for something of a bounce back there well i can tell you something that helps you bounce back especially from any kind of ups or downs you have in your life is oh geez brands they do have their happy balance brand which is a balance of CBD and t hc they also have their sleep edition gumney which absolutely can help you get your sleep schedule back on track and give you a great night's rest. Of course, all of these options are available along with their

two brand new products. They're OG's natural and their big OGs, which I'm a big fan of myself. To learn more about OGs gummies and where you can find them, head on over to OGsbrands.com Must be 21 or over to enjoy it. And please enjoy responsibly. That's all we got for today. But of course, we thank you guys so much for stopping by. We will be back again, like we said, tomorrow at 1 p.m. So do not miss out on that. And then our final show of the week will be our postgame show on Friday. But that's not all. We still have our audio-only podcast that we'll be dropping on Saturday.

So make sure to stop by or join us for all this goodness. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I-N-Cap underscore K-Man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, the people's producer, Damon, he is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark.

Our show is at P-H-N-X underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at P-H-N-X underscore sports. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time. We appreciate you guys stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow at 1 p.m. In the meantime, have a great night. And remember, kids, baseball is fun,

but it's so much more fun when the blaze moments go your way.