PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Jordan Montgomery pitches well again, but bats go silent in Diamondbacks series loss

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Diamondbacks pitcher Jordan Montgomery gave Torey Lovullo seven strong innings in his second start of the season. But Arizona’s bats went cold once again one day removed from a big offensive output. We discuss Torey’s starting lineup today, the ridiculous numbers from this series loss, and more.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to 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/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.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.

Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. And you know what that's that music means coming off one of the rare losses that we do, especially when we have our post game show. That we do. That we do. We're not. Yeah. This one's not on us. This one is definitely not on us.

And it might not be on Jordan Montgomery either. But welcome in to another edition of the show. I am occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, Derek Montia. This man is occasionally known as your vice. mayor, Jesse Friedman. And I am ready to talk about what the hell this lineup was today, Jesse.

Explain yourself. Explain yourself. Explain Tori's actions. Why, when the Diamondbacks are on a roll like they had yesterday, like they went on yesterday, scoring 14 runs, would you sit the majority of your lineup, including your two hottest hitters on the road in

Cotel Marte and Lordeus Garillo? Why? Why? Yeah, I mean, that's a question for for tori levello not me right but uh i mean gabby moreno sitting in this game not not surprising that's been a trend generally tory has has given gabby a day off and in every series and uh generally that's been the last day of the series that's kind of been the the trend that we've we've seen so far but yeah i mean to combine that with also giving katea and lordis gareil junior days off particularly with an off day tomorrow it is a little bit puzzling to me i won't lie i mean i think we all

understand that off days for players are important. Absolutely. And Tori's going to stick to them no matter what. And, you know, people will talk about baseball being a sport where there's not necessarily like a ton of running involved on a day-to-day basis, right? Like, you feel like these guys should be able to play every day and never take a day off. And, you know, I don't really think that's how it works. I don't think that's fair.

And, you know, really does justice to, you know, what it does to the human body to be, you know, playing so many games over the course of a season. But yeah, having both of those guys out of the lineup on the same day, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I had no getting around that from my perspective. Another thing that might not make a lot of sense is Pavin hitting leadoff. Yeah, it wasn't just that you had a couple guys down. It was that Pavan was in the leadoff spot. You'd Blaze Alexander hitting second.

Corbin Carroll hitting seven. Corbin Carroll dropped down to the seven slot, which is something that Tori Lavelle. it sounds from what they were saying on the broadcast, like that's something that Tori's been kicking around for a while given the struggles that Corbyn has had. And, you know, if he was looking for Corbyn to turn things around today, that didn't exactly happen. He did draw a walk, but he was 0 for three with two strikeouts

and in his other, his other bats today. You looked at this lineup from top to bottom, obviously a few regular faces were in there. Blaze Alexander is back, so that's good news, considering the number of injuries the Diamondbacks have. Jock Peterson was in the lineup today. But you did have to wonder where the runs were going to come from when you looked at this particular lineup. And honestly, early on, it did look like they were able to get some things going.

The debacks had bases loaded with nobody out in the top of the first. Here we go again, where they are poised and ready to score in a big inning. And instead, you get Christian Walker hitting a sack fly that almost was a grand slam, but brings in one. It was really close. And then the XBA on that sack fly was 930. Good God. If he finds a way to hit that. Expected stats are meaningless, Friedman.

They're meaningless. If he finds a way to put it in the gap, I mean, you're talking about, you know, potentially clearing the bases at that point. But, yeah, that's not what happened. It was pretty much directly at the St. Louis center fielder. And, I mean, it wasn't terrible. Like, you'll take a deep sack. No, absolutely.

It was a changeup, I think, that he hit and he drove it for a sack fly, right? And like, at least he was productive. At least he didn't do what Gino did on the next play, which is grounded into a double play. That was the problem. Which seems like to, that's the case with it. this team a lot of times. Like, it's just amazing how quickly, uh, they will squander opportunities with runners in scoring position today was absolutely another one of those days, Jesse. Remember though, Derek, the debacks came in leading all of baseball. Don't do that. Don't do that.

And OPS with runners and scoring position. Oh my God, you hurt my heart when you do that. They were 0 for eight today with runners in scoring position. Yeah, they were. I think they were, I think I saw Teo Mackey tweeted out. They were 0 for 15 with runners on base, uh, after that first in. So, yeah, just a brutal day of offense. For the debacks on it, you know, scored 14 runs yesterday, Derek, and we talked about this yesterday. It's not like we haven't really come to expect this from this baseball team, right? I mean, this is sort of the norm where when you get, you know, 14 runs or 17 runs or whatever it is one day,

it doesn't mean a whole lot about what you're going to get the next day. It's the runners in scoring position with nobody out that really kills me. In the fifth inning, once again, they had first and second with nobody out, two strikeouts and a Walker ground out. And that was the middle of the lineup. Yeah, Blaze Peterson-Walking out, Jock Peterson striking out, and then Christian Walker hitting, you know, just a slow ground out. But yeah, I mean, they're also, granted, there wasn't quite as much thump in the middle of this Diamondbacks line up today. And as I said before, that seemed, I would understand if the Newbacks had sat one of those two guys, if Tori decided to give one of Lord of Sir Cotel an off day, even with the off day tomorrow.

Like I could maybe see that making sense in my head, but both of them was just just odd. And Christian Walker, again, might be some concerns about him. He's hitting 260 with a 785 OPS. And I mean, again, that's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. But today was a day that they really needed him. And that sack fly was the most most he was able to do. They had the lead off man on in four of the six innings today against starting pitcher, Kyle Gibson. and were able to do as minimal as you could do.

I mean, next to nothing. They got the one run. But it just really didn't feel like they had anything cooking. They did have a lead, of course, once again, an early lead, which they blew. So that is their 14th blown lead of the season. 14th blown lead of the season. Now some of those blown leads. 14th blown lead and their 10th, their 10th game that they lost in comeback fashion.

So the 10th time they've lost a game in which they had a lead at some point during the game. How many games into the season are we? 26. Yeah. So 10 times out of those 26 games is what you're trying to tell me right now. They had a lead that they blew, that the other team came back in one. Yeah, they have now led in 22 of the 26 games that they have played. And, uh, 40% of the games.

22 of their 26 games. They're 12 and 14. 22 of their 26 games. Pretty crazy. Uh, Like that's going to happen throughout the year. That's nothing new. It's not even like starting pitching or it's not like relief pitching is completely to blame,

but relief pitching does take a lot of that, of course. But it's just hard to watch. It's becoming one of those situations where you can't even really get excited about the 14-1 victory and what it means going forward other than you can almost guarantee the offense is going to shit the bed the next day and not be able to really put up any runs. That's what it feels like lately. I think this does show, though, that offensively this team is still potent. It's still strong.

You can't say that they're not going completely silent, even though today is one of those days that this is about as close as they come, putting up only one run on seven hits. But still, they had seven hits. They had opportunities with guys in scoring position, guys on base for them to generate runs and give Jordan Montgomery some run support. And they did not do that, even though he was very good today. Jordan Montgomery was very good today.

Should we just go ahead and call him the king snake? Of course. I mean, there's nobody else deserves the king snake today besides Jordan Montgomery. Seven innings pitch, six hits allowed, gave up three runs, two of them earned, walked one, four strikeouts, was once again efficient, only through 87 pitches in seven innings. Last start through 78 pitches and six innings.

So we know Jordan Montgomery is the exact kind of starting pitcher the Diamondbacks need right now considering the bullpen struggles. and they're they're basically they're how short they are on arms in the in the bullpen and arms that they can potentially call on if they have any more injuries but yeah jordan mcgomery uh i mean you can't ask i know he still gave up two earn runs i mean the two of the the the runs that gave up the lead were a wild pitch and a run that scored on an error so i mean you can't even really fault montgomery too much for you know the fact that this lead slipped away but uh it would be nice after seeing his team put up 14 runs yesterday for him to get a little bit more of that

run support besides one run today. Yeah, I mean, this game could look pretty different. If Jordan Montgomery doesn't throw that wild pitch, which is ultimately what led to the Cardinals taking the lead there as opposed to it being a tie game, if you play out the rest of that inning, Jordan Montgomery theoretically would have gotten out of it. And then you also had a Blaze Alexander Air in the next inning, which I know they were talking on the broadcast like he made a diving play. to just get to the ball. And then he bounced the throw to first. I think that's a play that Christian Walker usually makes.

I mean, how many times do we see Christian Walker pick pretty bad throws to first base? It seems like that's usually second nature for him and he didn't make that play. But I still think watching that play back, it looked like Blaze's reaction time was a little bit slow. And that's why he had to dive in the first place. I think that's a ball where ideally you don't even have to dive to get to. You can just kind of range over to your left and get there. and not have to throw from a more difficult position as Blaze did. So I do think that I wouldn't be shocked if they, after the fact, call that a hit

because that's just baseball today. Everything's a hit it feels like in those, you know, those kind of 50, 50 situations. But they counted that in error. And I do think it, I do think it really was an air. I think it's a play that Blaze should have made. I felt like he got to it with time to make the throw. I felt like the error was, if anything, a throwing error with the way, you know, that he threw it over to first.

It's just, it's hard to, it's hard to assess a throwing air, I guess, if you're, you know, if you're in a situation where you're having to dive and, you know, make the throw from a difficult position. Especially if that right air is a stupid. Yeah. But, I mean, that is the air that was given. Blaze was given a throwing air. That's how they, that's how they scored it.

But whatever the ruling is, it's a play that I think he should have made. And, yeah, Jordan Montgomery wound up giving up another run as a direct result of that in the seventh inning. So if Montgomery is able to avoid that wild pitch and Blaze is able to not misplay that baseball, then you're talking about a one-one game and then you're probably not looking at Bryce Jarvis coming in to pitch the eighth inning. You know, maybe Tori Lavello goes to Ryan Thompson and maybe this game looks a little bit different at that point. So it's another game where the debacks were right there and if they're able to come through. and some of those opportunities that they had with runners on base,

if they're able to play better defense. And granted, wild pitches are going to happen. Like, you can't really, like, call that a total fluke. I mean, that's just part of the game. Yeah, for sure. But it's another game where, like, even the five to one final score, I think the debacks were right there more than that score would lead you to believe. That's fair.

That's fair to say. And, I mean, again, there's some encouragement there in regards to Gumby and how good he has been for this team, right? Like it's especially with the news that we discussed yesterday that Merrill is going to be gone for what sounds like months instead of weeks. The Diamondbacks really need somebody that can come in and do what he did today. Now, what was he doing well, Jesse, that caused him to, or I mean now analyzing two starts, what has he done well, that causes him to kind of have those like, you know, these strikeout numbers of three strikeouts in his last start, four strikeouts here, not not. you know, nothing sexy there with his power, but he just seems incredibly effective. Yeah, he was, he was really good today. I mean, just, you know, dot in corners with pitches.

He had several strikeouts on called third strikes. He had 17 called strikes in this game, which is a big number. We talk about the whiffs number a lot generally with starting pitchers, but the Jordan Montgomery, the called strikes number is also important. He has such a such a deep arsenal. And when you have that, you know, you can really, You can really put guys in situations where they're just guessing what kind of pitch they're going to get and it can freeze them if they're, you know, if they're not expecting that breaking ball that just drops on the corner or whatever. So he was really good again in this game. It was a lot of soft contact. Once again, his Velo was still down two miles an hour. It's been down two miles an hour. And in every start he's made since joining the Diamondbacks organization, both in the minors and the majors. But it doesn't really feel like that matters all that much. I mean, Jordan Montgomery, you can just tell he knows how to pitch. and he was very efficient today. 78 pitches for six innings of work in his start on Friday,

87 pitches for seven innings of work today. It's hard to beat that. And that's what you have to feel good about moving forward is that the Diamondbacks have their, you know, I'm not going to say they're Merrill Kelly replacement. I mean, you'd rather have three very, very good starting pitchers in your rotation than two. But Jordan Montgomery has been very, very good since coming over to this team. It gives you some hope about what this,

time frame without Merrill Kelly could look like knowing that he is that he is here and he has been very good so far. At one point 13 of his 17 first pitch strikes were for first or strikes, first strikes were strikes. He got ahead a lot. Yeah, through the first five innings, he was 30, he had 13 of 17 first pitch strikes. I didn't track it for the six and seven. I think it maybe dropped off a little bit then.

But even then it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily a ton of hard contact. and now he made a mistake pitch to Wilson Contreras, which was really big. Conterners. Yes, yes, thank you. So, yeah, it wasn't perfect, but man, I mean, seven innings with two earned runs. Like, you'll take that every day of the week.

Seth Harper says Monty got the Randy Johnson treatment. Welcome to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Monty. He said, throw a great game with no run support. He was used to that in his Yankees days as well. So that's nothing due for Gumby. I mean, he did get 17 runs of support in his last out. That's true. And we said it was wasted.

Just Jesse said it was wasted. So you know who to blame this one on. I mean, Jordan Montgomery. Like he's gotten the full Diamondbacks experience here until you start. He gets 17 runs of support one day. And then he gets one run to support. All he averages out to nine. All he needs.

I know what you're talking about, Derek. His average run support this season is nine months. Nothing to complain about. Oh, you monsters. Nicholas Gruders, thank you for the super chat. He said, Corbyn is becoming a serious concern. Baseball is very much a mental game. after Shouldergate he should have he has not been the same not sure what to do with him

We're not to not sure what to do with him either Tori doesn't seem sure he put him there in the seventh hole He doesn't he doesn't look hurt he doesn't look injured You might be right it might be a mental thing for Corbin at this point I'm not sure Sometimes when you get in a hole and you just start trying to get desperate to get out of it Things just get worse for you and I think that we might be seeing that he hasn't he hasn't had At least he had some encouraging at bats there a few weeks ago but i think lately at least over this week uh not been so much encouraging it bats a few weeks ago like i mean you know he went from a rough start to like really

it seemed like things were getting on path they were trending uh in the right direction and then like lately it's gotten worse kind of in the yeah it feels like it's gotten really worse yeah i mean in the in the top of the second uh 1-0 count on corbin he took a breaking ball like down in the dirt from Kyle Gibson, he gets a change up, just like up in the zone, kind of pitch the last year for like Corbyn just hits that 430 feet of the seats or something. And it was just a lazy infield pop up at like 66 miles an hour off the bat. I mean, that's just kind of what it's been for Corbyn. I have a hard time figuring out exactly what it is.

We've talked about teams pitching him up and in and him having a hard time laying off those pitches at times. I mean, that pitch was up in the zone. It wasn't in. I mean, it was a hanging change-up. It was a bad pitch. It's the kind of pitch that a good hitter really should be able to do something with. And Corbin is, yeah, he's just not locked in right now.

Am I worried about him in the long term? Again, I have a hard time saying I am. I mean, it's for three weeks into the season. It's still April. As I said the other day, I've learned in my limited time doing this, that, you know, betting against these premier athletes, players have demonstrated themselves to be among the best. in the league doesn't tend to work out.

Generally that talent wins out and eventually guys like Corbyn Carroll who are exceptionally smart and exceptionally talented find their way out of these situations, I continue to think that will be the case. Jimmy Dean, thank you for your super chats. Jimmy says, Tori did not care about winning the game. Cardinals put out a winning lineup. He did not. And he followed it up with a second super chat that says, hashtag fire Tori.

And of course, we don't fire Tori in this. house around here. But I will say that questioning is, is managing of games lately and especially things like this where, you know, this is, there's a rough stretch ahead. The Diamondbacks kind of need to try to win games when they can. I also understand that Tori needs to rest these guys as much as possible due to how depleted their depth is at this point. So I really do feel like it's a balancing act of still trying to rest guys, still stick to a schedule somewhat, while still also trying to win games and put out the best lineup that you can. I don't think that putting out a lineup where Pavin Smith is your leadoff hitter,

and you've removed both Cattell and Lourdes, Lourdes, who, by the way, has hit safely in all 10 road games this season, and this was a road game. I don't think that was the smartest move. And I think that there's quite a few of those this season that fans can question when it comes to Tori and his lineup and who he's playing. I do think it's a matter of options, though. I really think it is for Tori.

And sometimes he has to play using the, you know, players he's been given. And sometimes it results in a lineup like we saw today. I just, I still think there was maybe a better way to construct it or maybe a better way to stagger the days off for these guys so that you didn't have both Cattell and Lordus out of the lineup today. I mean, to be fair, like, like Pavin Smith had a decent game, right? I mean, he's one for two with a walk and or unscored. Like, you know, who's to say if you have a Lordus in there? Like, is Lord is guaranteed to do better than one for two with a walk? Like, not necessarily.

I mean, no, it's kind of hard to think about this that way. And it's easy to question afterwards when they lost and they had a problem putting up. Yeah, totally. I mean, I will say, like, I mean, some of the debaq's problems offensively are because of guys who were in the lineup today and normally are in the lineup. Like Ehio Hennio Suarez went 0 for 4 in this game. I know he was, you know, better earlier in the series, but he's someone that they certainly need to get going. in, you know, more than just like one, one game every week or one game every few days. He's been pretty inconsistent.

His ups and downs are real. Yeah. And Corbyn Carroll, I mean, you know, we just talked about him. But, yeah, I mean, he's the guy you expect to be in there every day. He was, he was O for three today. It wasn't productive. So it's not as simple as, oh, if one of Cotell Martyr, or Lordus Gurriel is in the lineup. Or heck, even if both of those guys in the lineup, surely the Diamondbacks find a way, you know, to score four or five runs or, you know, more than

five runs, I guess, is what was really needed to win this game. It's not, doesn't necessarily work that way. Well, I'll tell you, this little dream of yours might be dead when it comes to me dying my hair purple. Damon, where are we at? Are we still at four? Let's just get rid of that. Let's throw that offset. We're at four still with not a lot of games left, Jesse. You got two more against the Dodgers in the month. And then we start a three game series here coming up against the Seattle Mariners. And as we discussed, the Mariners, I've been playing some pretty good baseball lately so I don't know I don't know if they're going to do it like I said I didn't believe in them when I put that bet out there when that offer was was put on the table I was openly trying to get them to prove me wrong

and instead they absolutely are proving me right Jesse we I mean we were so close we let this slip out of our fingertips here I mean it's not it's not over till it's over Damon you know in games that we blew the lead yeah you had a pretty good league yeah like that's this should Purple Hair Dream is over. Yeah. Yeah, D-BACs have to win. They have to win four to five. And those five games are going to be against the Mariners and the Dodgers, which is not an easy task.

Eric. Anyway, Red Mage says, I hope Gino goes nuts in Seattle. So do I. I think we all do. I'd love to see Gino go nuts because, man, so far, it's been, he's been as inconsistent as this team as a whole, I feel like, right? sometimes it's feast or famine for this lineup. Sometimes it's feast or famine for Gino for sure. I will say just about Gino real quick.

Like over the off season, it really seemed like a clear win that the Diamondbacks were able to acquire him for what they did, right? I mean, it was Carlos Vargas and Sebi Zavala. You're basically just taking on the money. And we kind of figured like, oh, Gino Suarez is a clear upgrade over what the Diamondbacks had at third base last year.

And so far, I mean, so early to really be making this assessment, but so far that hasn't really been the case, right? I mean, Gino Suarez has a 659 OPS right now. His defense at third base has not been particularly good. So good at times, but yeah, good at times. But I would say the full body of work is probably a little bit below average. And yeah, I mean, that's that's not exactly what we were kind of all thinking when the debacks brought Gino Suarez over.

It's part of the risk, you know, of bringing in a guy who's, 32 years old and pretty clearly on the downturn of his career and you're just hoping that you can you can get that in the last bit of productivity out here as as his career moves along so there's plenty of time for him to turn it around it's not like you know gino swaris's season is a failure or something after three weeks but that hasn't really been a strength for the debacks that that third base position here through through these first few weeks of the season seth harper's trying to give me a layup for an ad transition here uh no free ad Seth uh jac Cutty. He says, can we talk about the blown calls at the end of the game? We were safe at second base.

I've talked about this. Yeah, I think so. Jesse hates this. And I've said, like, unfortunately, this has just been a part of baseball forever. But now we get to see it in high death in 4K. And then we still get to see the umpires say that he was safe or out, even though you could clearly see that the second baseman got taken off the base. That's that goddamn neighborhood rule where at one point, They just kind of factored in that sometimes the second basement needs to kind of get out of the way and not touch the bag fully in order to, you know, prevent injury and collisions and whatnot. And it just kind of gets to a point where umpires call this, you know, an out, even though it was clearly safe as far as from the terms of his foot being on the bag when he had the ball in his hand.

It did not look like that was the case. I think we're with you on that. It's just there's not going to be a lot of outrage on that because it's part of baseball. They just, they do that all the time. And, you know, when we, when we go back and review it, yeah, when we go back and look at it in slow motion, there's going to be a lot of times where the foot isn't necessarily on the bag, but it's just close enough to qualify. Yeah, I mean, the other part of that was Ketel Marte at first base and he was clearly out, obviously. But he. But why was he out?

He slowed up. Why was he out? I mean, he very clearly slowed up. I think Ketel Marte probably should have beat that, beat that throw at first base. and yeah, you know, bang, bang, play at second base. Run it out like it's a walk, Cattel. Run it out like it's a walk. Yeah, I don't know.

It is like he was looking at what was happening at second. I don't really know why he wouldn't have run that out. Maybe he thought there was only one out left. I don't know. Maybe you thought because they got the out of the second. It was a wrap. Whatever it was, it wasn't a good reason. Catele Marte should be running hard up the first baseline.

Granted, even if he does, even if that inning continues with a runner at first and two outs or whatever it is. D-backs have not done a whole lot of damage this year against other teams, great relievers, right? It feels like any time that D-Backs in the tight game are up against, you know, opposing teams like top tier seven, eight, nine, you know, inning seven through nine relievers, this is kind of what it looks like

where it's just quick inning after quick inning. And that was the story again today with Jojo Romero and then Andrew Kittridge and Ryan Helsley. Cardinals have a really good back end to the bullpen and that certainly showed not only today but also in the Monday game as well. And we're going to go over the numbers for this series, by the way, and they're probably going to make you as sick as they made me to put together.

But, of course, we want to thank you guys for being here in the PHN Export's YouTube channel right now. Bless all of you for being here after today's loss. I know you got better things to do, but we thank you for being here to hang out with us. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. Of course, drop us a like. Gabby always loves when you drop.

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After we hold the line? Yeah, I mean, there's two ways that this goes at Hela River. Resorts and Casinos. Let's hear it. We hold the line. Of course we do. We are team hold the line. We party.

We celebrate. We drink a lot. We hang out. We do you. We do you. We do us. We do us at Healer River Resort and casinos. The other way this goes is we don't hold the line and it's hard to even think about really.

It gets me emotional. But we don't hold the line and we gamble. Yeah. And we drink a lot. Yeah. And we have a great time. And we do us. And we do us.

It sounds like we win. It's hard to have a bad time. No matter what, it sounds like we win. But you know who should have won, especially when it comes to the series, is the Arizona Diamondbacks, because we have the numbers. We're going to work the count here with the numbers from this series. And Jesse, you can go ahead and talk because this just makes me physically ill. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. You put these together and can't say I'm super surprised with what I see here. The Diamondbacks out scored the Cardinals 18211 in this series. Gross. As Damon pointed out the other day, it feels like the Diamondbacks have outscored the opponent. Every series. Just like a run scoring, a total run scoring basis in pretty much every series they've played this year. I have all of them.

I should just look at all of our graphics. Yeah, I'm trying to think like off the top of my head of a series where they wouldn't have outscored the opponent. I'll have to take a closer look at that in a second. It's because they always have that one game that they blow them out, right? I mean, maybe that series against the Braves might be the only one where they didn't because they got swept. But like even against the Yankees, they had that 7 to nothing win that then makes the series kind of look lopsided in the Diamondbacks favor when they still lose two out of three. This here, the Diamondbacks, 31 hits to the Redbirds 21. The Diamondbacks went 10 for 28 with runners in scoring position, but so much of that was yesterday.

And I mean, honestly, they even did a better job in game one. Today, 0 for 8 today. The Cardinals went three for 19 with runners in scoring position. A 158 batting average to the Diamondbacks is 3.50. That's pretty crazy. Cardinals took two out of three going three of 19 with runners and scoring position. That's not. And giving up six runs per game on average.

Oh, God. 6.46 starting pitching ERA to the Diamondbacks 2.45. And then relief pitching. Yes, of course, the Diamondbacks get beat there. 5.40 ERA for the Cardinals and a 6.75 for the Diamondbacks. The Vax didn't lose this game or this series because they're starting pitching there. I mean, I know Brandon Fott sort of unraveled there in that sixth inning on Monday. But he was still pretty darn good overall.

And then you had Tommy Henry giving you six innings of one run ball yesterday. You have Jordan Montgomery, seven innings of three runs, two of them earned today. You should be getting at least two out of, you know, winning at least two out of three with those kind of starting pitching performances. But yeah, just once again, it goes back to this offense, just being feast or famine. And, you know, I do think beyond just like the, oh, they score 15 runs one day and then they don't score any runs the next day. or whatever. I do think it's important to point out that the Diamondbacks did a lot of their run scoring

yesterday against subpar pitchers for the Cardinals. I mean, they got to Stephen Mats, which was impressive. Stephen Mats had a pretty good season up to that point. But then they bring in Zach Thompson, who's not exactly a great pitcher, and the D-Backs just slugged like crazy off Zach Thompson. It's much different scoring runs against Zach Thompson

than it is scoring against J.J. Romero and Andrew Kittredge and Ryan Helsley. and, you know, the A relievers in that Cardinals bullpen. That's really, that's really, like, the separator for me. It's like the D-backs are scoring runs off other. It was the same in that Giants game, right, where the D-BAC scored 17 runs. A lot of those runs were scored against guys

that were sent out to AAA the next day, right? Yeah. You got to be able to score runs against the best in the opposing team's bullpen, you know, not just these guys who are kind of coming in to fill innings. And that's been a big theme for this team throughout the year, is just not being able to score against, really the best pitchers that the opposing team has.

I think another part of it too is the fact here that the Diamondbacks, as much as you would like to see them save it for another game, right? When we have these big outings, they can't, right? We know that's not something they can really do. And it's almost like you would think that the big runs, the big outings, the big days they've had, the big games they've had offensively, would really carry over because that's why you want to keep your gas, your foot on the gas during a game like that, right?

There's no real reason to embarrass your opponents the way the Diamondbacks have if they could, in fact, save some runs for the next game. But the idea here is that you want to get in such a groove that it carries over and you go on a winning streak and you're able to maybe steamroll a couple of opponents in a role like that. You know, maybe have a series where you're able to sweep the opponent

and have every game kind of be a blowout. The Diamondbacks just seem incapable of that at this point. And that's what's a conundrum. That's the part that I'm sure that is even driving Tori Lavalot nuts at this point. Like how can we have a day like yesterday and then have a day like today? I mean, inconsistency could be a part of it. And I mean that when it comes to Tori's lineup, right? Someone else asked, why couldn't we put in the same lineup today that we had yesterday?

I don't have an answer for you on that. I know Tori has to do what he has to do when it comes to sitting guys. But Gabby, Gabby, like you want to get him a day off every series. That I totally get. It's really, yeah, it's Ketel and Lordis. like, you know, they both really need to sit when the team has an off date tomorrow. I do also understand the travel for the debacks on this road trip is pretty crazy. I mean, they went from Phoenix to San Francisco, which is intolerable, but then from San Francisco

to St. Louis. Now they're going from St. Louis to Seattle. And then they're going from Seattle to Phoenix. So the travel schedule there is pretty tough. But with the off date tomorrow, sitting both of those guys, I said it earlier, I'll say it again, It didn't really make any sense to me. And it could cost them. But who knows if it would have changed anything.

Exactly. Exactly. We don't live in that timeline. We live in this one, which could be a darker timeline. Or who knows? Maybe this is the good timeline. But I will tell you that even though we don't know space and time and reality, we do know the numbers don't lie. And of course, let's take a look at today's number.

Jesse, hit them with it about this game or series. What do you got for us today? Yeah, today's number, this is a sad one. Today's number is zero. No, no. And zero represents the number of extra base hits the Diamondbacks had in this game. Are you kidding me? And that's another big factor.

Like you look at seven hits in a game and you're like, oh, you should be able to score more than one run on seven hits. But if everything's a single, Derek, it's hard to score runs on just singles. Yeah. Like you've got to string a few of them together in the same inning in order for that to, to really go anywhere. So there just wasn't any slug whatsoever to speak up today with the Diamondbacks. Outside of that, very near grand slam by Christian Walker in the first inning. What could have been.

What could have been? But yeah, I mean, outside of that, the debacks just didn't really hit the ball all that hard at any point in this game. And credit to Kyle Gibson. I mean, Kyle Gibson, I know he's not the best starting pitcher in the world at this stage in his career, and nor has he really ever been. but he really held his own today. I don't think it was all that the Diamondbacks were floundering up there.

I think Kyle Gibson pitched himself a pretty good game, and especially in moments where the debacks had guys on base. He really bared down and made some really good pitches and seemed to be just nailing the glove every time. What did you just say? He did what? I don't. You said bear down.

Don't do that. Sorry, I did. This is the Sun Devils House. Remember that. Is it not? As someone who didn't go to, to ASU or you of A. It's hard for me to really like...

I'm sorry. Let's go over degrees here on this podcast. Oh, God. One of us has gone to either one of these schools. I think that qualifies us as an Arizona Wildcats podcast. You've gone to one of those schools. I think I'm okay being in Arizona Wildcats podcast, Derek. Like, do you really want to assist yourself with Arizona State right now?

No. No, thank you. Shane. Now on the producer, this is an ASU podcast. Also, through 16 games, the Seattle Mariners leader in batting average is Joshua Hosk. God damn it Shane. That doesn't make

me feel any better. I don't like any of this stuff. None of this information that's been presented here is Jesse and I declared this is a UV podcast. Gross. I'm going to get Shane to beat you up later. I'm not just like I'm not going to I'm not willing to take flack from you for saying bear down at one point because I

refuse to like strongly favor Arizona State. It's just. It's just bad. It's bad all around. It's bad all around. Of course. It's why I'm a Sons fan, Damon. That's why I'm a son's fan. It's a sad, sad, sad day.

Sad day to be a Sons fan. I can't even go on after you said that. That's just, that's the most laughable thing ever said on the show. Josh Ross is sitting 306. Yeah, it's incredible. I don't want to talk about it, but I do want to talk about needing gas right now, Jesse. And I hate that I do because gas is very expensive. But I did notice Circle K, very cheap gas already.

And I am part of the inner circle. So I do get more off. I'm also part of their easy pay program, which I get another 10 cents off. So you can just get, you can stack those deals over in Circle K and make sure you get as much as possible off of your cost of gas lately with how expensive it is. You can save 25 cents per gallon on your first five Phillips if you sign up for the Inner Circle program for free right now by downloading the CircleK app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details. You also save three cents off per gallon every day after that for just being a member.

If you sign up to be a premium member, you'll save five cents off per gallon. You also get all sorts of coupons in the app. So make sure to sign up for the Inner Circle membership program today. Also, of course, we are the chicken tendi gang, and the best place to get your chicken attendees is at four peaks. So you go to your local four peaks. I think we're having our meetup for the coyotes, which, again, if you want to stack sad things on top of sad things, we're saying goodbye to our hockey team. It's been a great, a great few days, great week in Arizona sports. Thanks to me still, but of course, be sure to follow Four Peaks on social media.

And of course, check out their brand new beer. It's a collaboration with our friends at Bad Birdie. It's their Bad Birdie, juicy gold nail. Incredible out of the top, tap, incredible out of the bottle. It is super drinkable on the perfect companion at the tea box or in your fridge. Visit 4Peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events. Check out Four Peaks brew or at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks and please drink responsibly.

That beer is so good. I can't get over it. Every time someone talks about the bad birdie, I'm like, it's amazing. Get it in my belly. Like I said, I had it out of the tap the other day, and it might have been one of the most refreshing beer experiences I've ever had. I was in one of those big cold, frosty mugs that they keep in the refrigerator and everything.

Where did you get this, may I ask? This was up in Anthem. I took my daughter to a escape room, and then we just found a bar across the street that we went over to. And lovely experience. Sometimes the best times you can have can be important. prompt to you know experiences like this where you have to make the best out of a situation next thing you know you're drinking you know a gigantic delicious juicy gold nail and having the time of your

life uh but you took your your 14 year old daughter there 13 year old daughter 13 year old daughter not to the bar to the escape room she uh oh okay yeah I left her at the escape room and then I went with my wife oh all right that makes long I thought you're saying that the bar was like the post escape room no no no that'd be a bad choice of parents and everything yeah it was her birthday so No, I wasn't taking her to a bar for a birthday yet, but hopefully in like eight more years, we can experience that joy together. Again, though, something that's something that the Diamondbacks

probably aren't looking forward to is this upcoming schedule because it is pretty brutal. And things, of course, in the next few weeks don't get any easier for this Diamondbacks team that doesn't have much relief in sight. Paul Seawald, though, getting closer. And when you talk about a team that isn't able to close out games,

that's somebody that could be a site for sore eyes here very soon. He made his first, I guess, what is it, is rehab. Rehab outing for the Reno Aces. Rehab outing for the Reno Aces. Yeah, I believe Teo is out in St. Louis reported today that, according to manager Tori Lavello, Sewell is actually back in Arizona. DeBacks are trying to figure out whether he should go back out and do another rehab outing or maybe multiple rehab outings or if he's, I guess, maybe ready to go and could maybe even join the team

in Seattle. So, yeah, we'll see. I mean, I imagine for Paul, it'd probably be cool to be able to pitch in Seattle, to be able to make his return there, given that he obviously spent three very, very good years of his major league career in Seattle.

And that organization is responsible, really, for making him the very, very good back-end reliever that he is today. But, yeah, 21 pitches yesterday. Did give up a couple of runs. Neither of those were earned, I believe. He had a couple of strikeouts in that game.

Vila was 91, which is pretty similar to where it was toward the end of spring training. Nothing, nothing alarming there. So yeah, I mean, D-BACs could really use Paul C-Wald right now. They could. They could. And this, especially for this stretch of the schedule, that, again, they're very shorthanded, and it's difficult. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, I wrote about this a little bit yesterday, the Diamondbacks bullpen. And, you know, whether they're going to maybe regret not adding. over the off season. That's something we talked a lot about. How, you know, for as great as Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkle and Paul Sewell were down the stretch last year, you maybe wanted to add some reinforcements there

just to really make sure the bullpen was in a good spot heading into this year. Obviously, the bullpen has struggled here in the early going of the season. You know, they're like team bullpen ERA is not bad, but the bullpen's been good in low-levered situations and very, very bad in high-levered situations when, you know, the game is really, those moments where these games are really decided.

But it's hard to really assess this debaqs bullpen without Paul Seawalt. He was such a big, stabilizing presence for this team last year. And you have to wonder, like, once he's back in there, does DeBax bullpen all of a sudden just to be flip a switch? And, you know, it's Thompson, Ginkle, Cewald, you know,

good night. That's the end of the game. Or are we going to do that thing again for the next four or five months? Or are there still some holes in this bullpen? I guess we'll hopefully, you know, see while it gets back and we'll find that out pretty soon. Diamondbacks have eight series in a row against teams that are playing some pretty good baseball. Yeah.

Even the weaker teams over their schedule right now, they play three against the Mariners, three against the Dodgers, follow that with the Padres, the Reds, the Reds again. Then the Tigers, who again, you might have at one point at least circled that as a team that wasn't playing,

good but the tigers are playing some good baseball. Then the Dodgers again. The schedule doesn't really have a weak team until the Marlins on May 24th and who the hell knows if the Marlins from today? Who knows if they're even going to be a weak team playing

good baseball or bad baseball at that time? Their schedule does not get easier. They get some relief in June when they play maybe the White Sox and the nationals, but I mean this is just going to be a very difficult stretch during a time where this roster is depleted and the diamondbacks are of course trying to do everything they can to call in some

reinforcements for the time being and by that i mean Sergio al-cantara is once again an Arizona diamond back yeah he is Derek let's do this one more time baby so this is the this is the fifth time that the diamond backs have acquired uh one sergio a conterra a brief a brief history, if I may, back in July 2012, that's when the Diamondbacks first brought Sergio Alcounter into the organization. He was signed to a minor league deal. Way back, way back when, 12 years ago now. And then in 2017, Diamondbacks trade Sergio Alcounter to the Detroit Tigers to acquire one J.D. Martinez. Big move there. Totally worth it. Five years later, March 22, the Diamondbacks acquire Sergio Alcanser

in a trade with the Chicago Cubs for cash. considerations. Five years between the first deal and then the second deal and then five more years between that deal and the next deal. But it gets better. Two months later in May of 2022, the Debex designate Alcantara for assignment. And then two months after that in July of 2022, they claim Alcantra off waivers from the San Diego Padres. And then what is that? Three months after that, or four months after that, they designate Alcantra for assignment. And then last season, this brings us to August of 2023, the D-BAC signed Sergio Al-Contera to a minor league contract. People were commenting on some tweets about this, talking about how Sergio Al-Contro was in some

of the, like, the NL champ photos, because I believe he was on the taxi squad for the Diamondbacks throughout at least a portion of the postseason run. So you might have seen him around there. And then in November of this past year, Al-Contera became a free agent. And then, of course, yes, Yesterday we got the news that the Diamondbacks have brought back Sergio Alcontera. They acquired him for the Pittsburgh Pirates for cash considerations. And we're back, Derek. Sergio O'Conora is back with the Diamondbacks. If this was a relationship, I would have to have a talk with Sergio.

I would have to let him know that this is toxic and that she doesn't love you like that. You know what I mean? Like I'm like, this doesn't, you got to think about you here. You know, you're a person, right? You're a person. You can't constantly have your emotions tossed around like this the way the organization has. But, yeah, again, right now the Diamondbacks are very much looking wherever they can get some depth here. And it's understandable that they're trying, especially with just some of the pieces that are available to see if they could work out, just at least to get them through this stretch.

Right. And like that not only is this stretch difficult as far as the competition, but it's just difficult as far as getting you, you know, or getting, you know, healthy bodies in the line. up and getting some guys some rest at some point. All right. I'm going to ask you a question, all right? How old do you think Sergio Alcantra is? Wow. Okay. Just I know you probably haven't like looked at his baseball reference page in the last

years right there, right? So 31. He is 27. How is that possible? How is that possible? He signed with the organization of 2012. Yeah. So you, I mean, I guess he.

What was he, 15 and 16? Yeah, I mean, he was an international amateur. So, yeah, probably right around there. Yeah, pretty wild. In my head, like, I was shocked pulling this up. My head, Alcantra was, yeah, like, at least like 31, 32, like in early 30s. Just due to the math. But, yeah, man, he's still on the upswing of his major league career potentially.

Let's go. His opportunities have been a little spotty. But the Diamondbacks are, they're obviously in a bit of a tough spot right now, with all these injuries. So who knows? Who knows if we see Sergio Al-Consor actually play in the majors at any point? But yes, a great, great storyline from the Diamondbacks perspective that he's back with the organization for now the fifth time.

That's pretty amazing. Well, we know, of course, the Diamondbacks, he's not the only guy that Diamondbacks are currently calling on. The Diamondbacks added Colton Wong, who right now is doing great in Reno. But like I said, he's kind of getting back on track a little bit, trying to get things going, but a 602 OPS currently did have a game winning hit the other day. But again, the Diamondbacks just need to try to find some bodies at this point.

And that part sucks for both the organization. And the way they have to juggle the roster. Like that's the thing right now that I think is the biggest, you know, the biggest problem right now for the Diamondbacks is trying to still keep so many of these guys on the 15 day IL while, you know, adding other pieces. It's not easy. But when we look to the minor leagues, the dimebacks did have something very fun happen with their single A pitching prospect, Hosmer Alvarez. What did he do? Is that you say it? Is it Hosmer?

I think it's Hosmer. Okay. All right. You'd be better at figuring that out than I don't know about that. Damon probably understand that's arguable that I know any names better than you. But what did he do? Yeah. So Hossmer Alvarez enters yesterday's Vysalia.

game. This is against the inland empire 66ers. So big single A baseball game happening yesterday. It was the seventh inning. He comes in, has a two nothing lead by Siliahad closing in on potentially their seventh victory of the season. And host Maravarez is called upon. He strikes out the first batter he faces. So good start. Next next guy, Adrian Palencia singles on a ground ball to center fielder, one Drew Jones, of course. Alvarez, there's a wild pitch. Plenty moves over to second base. And then he proceeds Derek to strikeout the next four batters in a row, which does make

five strikeouts in one inning. And if you thought that there were only three outs in an inning, you were wrong. No, I guess you were, I guess you were right. Was this a professional actual baseball game? Yes, there were only three outs in this inning. But yeah, host Moralvarez. He struck out five in the seventh inning. Eric because he uncorked two wild pitches on the third strikes of two of those strikeouts.

And so those batters reached, he did give up a run in the inning. But yes, when all of a sudden done, he threw, I guess he gave up two runs in the inning, actually, with all these wild pitches everywhere. So he gave up two runs, but he had five strikeouts in that seventh inning. It's pretty remarkable. That's pretty wild. That's the most minor league thing I think I've heard all today. So thank you for that because that can only happen in a single A. game but actually it could happen at times with this diamond bags team because that's next right let's

let's not hope for that but of course uh let let let's actually hope for them to get some relief from someone at some point jordan montgomery again he has been such a godsend for this team considering what he's been able to give them so far we had some concerns that he would be able to give them length out of the gate and instead in his first two outings he's given them 13 innings of 10 hit baseball with allowing three earned runs total. So worth every penny. The Diamondbacks paid for him. 100%.

I was just thinking the other day of the Boris 4, right? Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell, and Jordan Montgomery. It's way too early to make any real determinations on any of those guys. But so far, I would say Jordan Montgomery has looked by far the best out of all of them. Blake Snell obviously very much struggled in. the early going with the Giants. He hit the injured list today. Not totally sure what that injury was,

but not a great sign for San Francisco, certainly. Cody Bellinger also hit the injured list today with a fractured rib, I think I saw. And then Matt Chapman has been all right for the Giants. I think he's already up to one war on baseball reference. It's just pretty good. The defense is certainly always going to be there. But offensively, he hasn't given the Giants a whole lot at this point in the season.

So, yeah, I mean, Jordan Montgomery is exactly what, what the Diamondbacks needed, right? Especially with all the injuries that have happened. I think he's the reason that you can still look at these next couple of months without Eduardo Rodriguez and without potentially Merrill Kelly as well. You can still imagine the Diamondbacks kind of hanging around and being all right because Jordan Montgomery is here and he's pitching as well as he has so far. Well, we do have some more minor league news coming tomorrow because we're going to be joined

by Sod Poodle's broadcaster, Stefan Carey, friend of the show. Friend of the show, one of our favorites around here. Do I have to get sad that Chris is it going to be with? I'm already sad Chris. Yeah, but we won't go down that road. Chris is too big time for us now. They're their own individuals. They're their own individuals.

I'll just keep saying that to myself. Don't feel sorry for Hollywood Carrie. Yeah, Hollywood Carrie. That's right. He's the Hollywood kid. But of course, we are excited to be joined by Stefan tomorrow. So make sure to join us at 1 p.m. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Kapp underscore Keman with a K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Of course, the people's producer, Damon, 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 of course, all roads lead to at P-H-N-X underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys so much for stopping by. We appreciate your time. We'll see you tomorrow, and we hope you have a wonderful night. And in the meantime, remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun. When you can put up a lot of runs more than one day in a row, do it consecutively, for Christ's sake.