PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ketel Marte, Diamondbacks Take SIXTH STRAIGHT SERIES With Win Over Paul Skenes, Pirates

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

The Diamondbacks continue to stay hot after taking a pair of narrow victories over the Pirates in Pittsburgh. We have more on the D-backs winning their sixth series in a row, Eduardo Rodriguez being back in the starting rotation, and the upcoming series with the team with the best record in MLB, the Cleveland Guardians. We also have answers to your Mailbag Monday questions 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 PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose between either:Bet and Get offer and place a bet of $5 or more and get $150 in Bonus Bets OR First Bet Safety Net offer by placing a bet up to $1000 and if your qualifying bet loses you receive a matched refund in Bonus betsDisclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Sanderson Ford: The Sanderson Ford Summer Sales Event is here and they are teaming up with the boys of summer for a final Playoff Payoff Sale! They are pushing for the playoffs and you get the payoffs like deals on 24 Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend. Lease one today for as low as $299 a month for 36 Months with only 10 percent cash down.Indeed: listeners of this show will get a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/allcity. Terms and conditions apply.  Need to hire? You need Indeed.Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks.  $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details.Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to https://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/allcity and use code PHNX for 10% off!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.

Shib with me timbers. The Diamondbacks win the series gets the Pirates. Let's go. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX T-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, occasionally, as your mayor of PHNX, this man next to me is my vice mayor and your thunderstake. Jesse Friedman. Jesse, I don't even know how the Diamondbacks did it, but they managed to once again win another series.

Their sixth series win in a row, this time edging out the pirates who looked very good at times and absolutely looked like they had. a chance to win possibly all three of these games over the diamond backs yet the debacks found a way to take two out of three they did yeah they did i think find a way is like that's a that's a good way to put it uh really the friday game and yesterday's game like felt both felt like games the diamond backs were were quite possibly going to lose at various points uh especially yesterday right i mean you're down four to nothing after two innings with paul schemes on the mound like felt very much like the day before you know like we were seeing a repeat and it was kind of of easy to wrap that one up early.

Yeah, yeah. And Skeens has obviously been so outstanding, but the Diamondbacks were, you know, they only scored two runs against him, but they were able to force him out after five and a third innings, which is kind of an accomplishment in of itself. Yeah, they made him work. To get Skeens to throw 100 pitches that early in a game. I think that was just the third start this season out of 14 for Paul Skeens in which he has not completed six innings.

So, yeah, the debacks were able to get him out of the game. They went to work against the Pirates bullpen as they have done quite a bit here in the last nine or 10 days and then Cotel Marte hit a ninth inning home run that proved to be very valuable because that's just what Cotel Marte does at this point. He adds that that last home run that the Diamondbacks absolutely need in order to edge out their opponent. This isn't the first time we've seen him do that. I wonder if Tori Lavello got any information on Paul Skeens. Not to say the Diamondbacks were especially effective against him, but like you said, they did make him work. They were able to drive up his pitch count and limit, you know, how long he could

stay in there keeping the diamond backs essentially quiet in this game yeah totally i mean he had three walks before strikeouts like this was again by paul skein standards which the the bar there is set extremely high this is like a terrible start right five and a third two innings only four strikeouts uh but i mean that's what this diamond backs offense is is kind of able to do right they're able to make opposing pitchers really have to work and you know they draw their walks they generally have good at bats and yeah they wound up just just you know tagging or at least charging paul skeins with two runs they they did the majority of the work against the bullpen but his team's ability right now direct to just find ways to win games games that it feels like they they shouldn't

be winning i mean friday is another example of a game that they very much very much felt like they absolutely should win early on yes with the way that that game started but then the pirates yeah that first inning which was utterly bonkers and then the pirates find a way to take a seven to six lead and it's like wow this could go from being one like a historically great start to a game and and yet end in a loss for the diamond backs and of course they were able to find a way to win that one as well and kattel marty also hit a very meaningful ninth inning home run in that game as well the the thing about it lately with the offense has been their ability to find a way to win especially against the bullpen late which again that was something that they weren't able to do

earlier on in the season when they were struggling. Even when they would get through the starting pitching, they were able to do very little against bullpeds, even mediocre bullpins. Forget, you know, the pirates here, they don't have a great bullpen. So, of course,

that was the- It's not terrible. It's not as bad as the D-backs made it look. It's, it's middle of the pack as far as their ERA and such, right? But still, just as far as compared to their starting pitching is concerned, not nearly as good as the starting pitching has been for the pirates.

But, yeah, the Diamondbacks found away. They found a way. Saturday was a weird game. The one that they did lose. There was a rain delay that caused a significant delay there. Jordan Montgomery looked fairly good. I mean, it didn't pitch very long due to that rain delay.

But again, Jordan Montgomery, three innings pitch. He gave up one hit, one and run, two walks, and three strikeouts. And his comments after the game were pretty interesting. They were. Yeah, Jordan Montgomery really sounded like he felt like he turned a corner in that Saturday game, even though, as you said, it was only three innings. It'd be through something like 50 pitches. But, yeah, I talked about how he felt in control of the game.

And this is a quote from Nick Bacoro's story over at the Arizona Republic. Montgomery said, I just stopped aiming and kind of let my arm work. I was executing pitches. Even the homer, which he gave up to Joey Bart, was a good front hip sinker. It's nice when you're at least throwing the ball where you want to. And I will say, Derek, like I think there were several pitches that Montgomery threw in that game where it was like, that's it. Like, that's Jordan Montgomery right there.

He made, I want to say it was Andrew McCutcheon. He made look very silly on a changeup at one point. He had eight whiffs over three innings, which is a pretty decent number. He has not been getting. Yeah, he's not been getting that many. But at the same time, like, D-BAC's defense did some work for him behind the plate. I think there was a call that went in his favor that could have resulted in another walk in that third inning and kind of extended that inning out, that wound up ending in a fly-out, I think.

negative justice or it's negative jess i i i guess so but there's some there's some numbers behind this the pirates expected slugging percentage in those three innings against jordan montgomery was 608 and they average 93.6 miles an hour off the bat from an exit velo standpoint so i mean i'm not going to read into i'm not going to read into those numbers too much over over three innings but i'd be lying if i said i watched jordan montgomery start back and was like oh wow this is a totally different guy He executed a few pitches very, very well, and he did dot some corners a little more than we've seen, but it still didn't look to me like the full Jordan Montgomery.

To those of us that aren't pitchers, well, and obviously it's not going to because it was just three innings pitch. So you really don't have enough of a sample size over the course of that particular game to know whether the comments he made post game were actually related to success, right? He only gave up one run and run in three innings, but that's not a long day at the office. With Jordan Montgomery, though, making those comments, it feels like at least something for him mentally clicked. Like, it's odd for us that aren't pitchers in baseball to hear him say, I stopped aiming and just started letting my arm go. Yeah, yeah, I'll never fully understand. Right.

We won't because we're like, what do you mean? Now, like, you have to get it in a very small box. How are you? What do you mean you're not aiming anymore? But my MLV, the show analogy just completely breaks down. It doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't work in this situation. I think, though, what it means, though, is more of a mental thing.

It's more of an overthinking. It's more of, you know, trying his best to dot the corners and maybe overthrowing on those and not actually hitting his spots, whereas this is more of just trusting his stuff and, you know, kind of tossing it up there in the zone. I mean, like, I don't know. I don't really know what the difference is there between just throwing your stuff or, you know, letting your arm go and work versus aiming. But I can't understand it from like just an over. overthinking aspect. And I think that we've seen that with Diamondbacks, you know, batters at the plate. We've definitely seen it at times with Jordan Montgomery, potentially more than anybody. When he made his comments about Geraldo Perdomo, you know, kind of calming him down so much, right?

Like, that's a mental thing. That's not like you're physically exhausted. That's not like you're injured. That's not like your stuff isn't working or whatever. It's like a confidence booster. And like, yeah, it's kind of, it kind of shows that his, you know, struggles on. aren't related to his ability as a major league pitcher. It's up here. It's mental. And I would know that so many parts of this game are mental on both sides of the ball. But let's take a look at the count from this series because this is interesting.

This is very interesting. Just the reminder, before we look at this, the Diamondbacks won two out of these three games. I just needed to remind you of that. It was a push on the score. They both scored 17 runs in the three games. Pirates actually outhit the Diamondbacks 29 to 22. Runners in scoring position, the Pirates hit 387 to the Diamondbacks 2.31. Starting pitching ERA for the Pirates was lower at 4.91 to the Diamondbacks 5.54.

And the Diamondbacks only category here that would show or indicate, you know, a win in any way is the relief pitching ERA, which the Pirates had 6.57, ERA to the Diamondbacks 4.15. The big difference maker here for the Diamondbacks was the long ball. The Diamondbacks hit substantially more home runs in the series. than the Pirates. Pirates only had two home runs, Diamondbacks. I lost count after the first inning of the first game is what happened with this series. That was so, that was so wild. I did, and people probably know I was, I took a couple of days off.

I wasn't on the show on Friday, but I did watch a good portion of the Friday game before I wound up leaving town. And that was one of the wildest things I've ever, I've ever observed. It really was. And for Josh Bell to be a part of it on the very first pitch that he'd ever seen as a member of the Diamondbacks. It was just a reminder in that moment that like the Diamondbacks have all the good vibes right now, right?

Like it's just that that's just kind of how things have gone for the team in the last month, really. I mean, this has been the best team in all of baseball in the last month. And with how things are going, are we really surprised that they pick up Josh Bell, you know, for cash considerations from the Marlins. He sees one pitch and hits it over the fence. Two home runs in his debut game. Yeah.

It wasn't just the first homer. It was that his game time. Homer in the seventh inning, which was huge, was against a 102.9 mile per hour fastball by Eraldus Chapman. The fastest pitch to ever be hit for a home run in the stack cast era. I mean, you want to talk about a team having good vibes. Like this guy was potentially going to be out of his job or not playing any kind of a, you know, a significant role with a bad Marlins team.

And he comes over to the debacks and does that in his first game. It's just it's debacks right now that the snakes got hot, Derek. The snakes very much. Don't let the snakes get hot. We try to warn you not to do that. Another thing, obviously, that we need to talk about here in this series is the fact that the Diamondbacks have, they shook up their bullpen and they made the decision to remove Paul Seawald from the close of roll.

I know you weren't here to discuss that, but we now had a chance over the course of this series to see what Tori Lavello's game plan would be, not only with Paul Seawald, but with close the role. Paul Seawald moves into a middle relief role has been pretty good. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he's gotten out there. He's been able to give the Diamondbacks some relief. He's he's had value still. It's not like they had to just bench him or, you know, DFAM or anything like that. And of course, we're going to have some questions on our mailbag, Monday section about Paul Seawald. But the big question here is, is that is this going to work? You know, we've seen the Diamondbacks turn to Ryan Thompson.

He was successful in a situation where we were in the pool, watching him come in and bail out Paul Seawald in a situation where the Diamondbacks almost blew that save. Now Ryan Thompson got himself into a situation here, and A.J. Puck comes in and saves the day for the Diamondbacks, and he had his own bad outing already as a deback that makes you, you know, just hate life in question if we'll ever have nice things, you know, for us. But A.J. Puck, very effective in that role. It just feels like on one hand, we're right back to the closer by committee thing.

On the other hand, Jesse, I have to admit, I don't hate the idea of Tori Lovolo being able to pivot in the middle of an inning where things aren't going well for the guy that he has in there and turning someone else to come in and clean up the mess. I know that's not the greatest strategy, but I feel like it's a better strategy than sticking. with your closer no matter what and letting that person go until they blow the game. And I mean, at least Tori was able to do that with Ryan Thompson in the finale of this one. I don't, I don't hate it. I really don't hate it. I mean, I do think that they should have somebody in that role, but I also don't hate that he did this. Yeah, I guess there's something to be said for that. Like, if you're not so committed to any one player, then you're, you're maybe not going to let that player hurt you as much if things don't work out. It's a very valid point.

Ryan Thompson didn't, yeah, I wouldn't say he inspired a ton of confidence. You know, he did, he did very much help Seawald in that Wednesday game against the Nationals. But, you know, the Friday game, like he did allow a run before, before that one was over. Fortunately, the DeVox had a two-run lead in that spot. And then he allowed another run on Sunday. And as you said, AJ Puck came in and, you know, in a tight spot and it was able to get him out of that. So the Diamondbacks bullpen is in a very interesting place right now where, There isn't really any one reliever that is going super great.

Ryan Thompson is kind of struggled a little bit here. Justin Martinez has looked better in his last couple of outings, but we've also had some rough ones there in the last, in the last month. Justin Martinez needs things to go perfect in order for it to be a great outing for him. Like it's, it's like it's it if one thing. It's a little all or nothing. It's not even all or nothing.

It's like it's just you see how quickly he gets flustered and thrown off by. I mean, it could be justifiable, right? It could be a case where, you know, a pitch should have been a strike and it ends up being called the ball and he's kind of like in his head about that or whatever. Yeah. And also I can very much relate to it getting flustered when things don't go right for me. That's when the PlayStation gets turned off and I put my controller away and I don't care about finishing that game anymore. But, you know, of course, these guys all had some pretty outstanding ERAs at one point this season. ERAs we knew that weren't going to be sustainable like sub-war.

still do out pretty like justin martinez is a 205 right now jesse yeah sub one that was you know he had a 0.45 er a at one point this season however yeah it is a bit frustrating that feels like things are so chaotic for this bullpen without paul seewald in that role you know and unfortunately all the guys that we've trusted we've trusted lately have kind of faltered out of the bullpen we saw ginkl have a rough outing where he had to be picked up you know yeah he's had a couple rough ones. Yeah. So it's,

it's just, it's a frustrating thing. It's also a very long season. I mean, luckily the Diamondbacks bring in some arms and they're getting guys some rest. Dylan Floro seems to be an absolute godsend in the bullpen. So if you want to get somebody credit where credits do,

what are you laughing about? Well, do you make Dylan Floro the closer? No, like Dylan Flora does have a 1.99 ERA, Derek. But yeah, you're right. It feels like the decision of who pitches the ninth inning.

is it feels like it's the decision of like, all right, who, which relief are we going to mess up by putting in that role, right? Who has the lowest ERA? Good. We're going to fuck up your ear and go out there. Let's see what happens. Yeah. No, it sucks because, right. Like Justin Martinez, obviously is someone, you know, that the fans definitely want to see.

I don't think you can put Justin Martinez in that role. Dylan Floreau does have saves this season. He has, he has pitched in the ninth inning. Right? For Washington? He doesn't have saves this season. He did have seven last year. 10 the year before that, 15

the year before that. I might have just been seeing his career stats on that. Yeah, he's pitched in the ninth inning for sure but you know the Nationals had Kyle Finnegan obviously so they were pretty well set in that in that role. We saw what happened to Kyle Finnegan. Well, of course we do want to take a look at our King Snake for this series.

It was a hard decision because a lot of guys played well but Cattel continues to be the man for this team. Four for 15 with three home runs, five RBI, uh, Kattel's just stays hot. He goes out there and plays a game of anything you can do. I can do better, uh, including hitting dingers. What is he up to now?

27. 27 homers, 77 RBI. Uh, the, uh, the Ketel Marte for MVP, uh, discourse is certainly heating up. Derek, of course, we're doing the Ketel versus Otani comparison. Otani still has a 1,0.18 Ops compared to, uh, Ketel's 919. So I'm still going to kind of. kind of tap the brakes on that and say that I don't think that Kattel is realistically or MVP frontrunner at this point. If that gap were to narrow to say 50 points between the two guys, then I think you could make the case.

Like, all right, Kattel's playing defense. Otani isn't. But right now, Otani leads Ketel in war, both on baseball reference and on fan graphs. He's on, I mean, Otani's on pace for 48 homers and 45 stolen bases, which is a pretty remarkable season. And Kattel's on pace for 39 homers, but just nine stolen bases. Obviously, he's not, you know, doing a whole lot of, it's not a whole lot going on in the base paths for him. So, yeah, it's a viable conversation. And we've been saying it for a while.

I can tell very much belongs in the conversation. But I'm not quite to the point of putting him over Otani. One variable I want to ask you about would, would the Diamondbacks winning the National League West change your opinion, even if they stayed separated by that margin? Uh, that's it. That's a good question. I mean, does the success of the team impact your feelings about the guy that was the most valuable player on that team? It, I mean, it probably should, right? Um, I think, I think again, it would just depend on kind of how big the gap is.

Uh, if Otani is, is leading Ketel and, you know, in all the categories, I think that, you know, realistically, the writers are just going to look at, they're just going to look at the numbers and they're going to probably vote for Oton. I mean, the other thing is that the Dodgers are in a spot right now where Otani is not, he's not all they have offensively, but he's a lot more close to that than people might realize, given that Mookie Betts has obviously been out for a while. Freddie Freeman has missed some time due to the health of his son, really, really terrible situation. But luckily, his son is on the mend and it sounds like there's a positive prognosis when it comes to that. But just a really hard situation for Freddie Freeman to be dealing with with his three. year old son, I believe.

And man, I just, I can't imagine going through that. That's tough for that to be going on and then somehow to keep your focus on anything other than that, you know, but prayers to, prayers to their family, of course, for everything they're going through. But, I mean, again, how does the Diamondbacks potentially winning the National League West impact things? Let's take a look at the Major League standings right now because I'll tell you, things are getting a little bit closer here.

And not only that, but things are getting. a little bit, a little more distant in the hunt for the wild card as well, which is a definite benefit for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Here we see the fraud. How can I make Phillies into frauds? Just the Philly Frauds, the Philly Fraudnatics. The Phillies have to be frauds with a pH. Yeah, with the fraud at the pH, right?

The Phillies who have lost that one simple. Lost six series in a row while the Diamondbacks have won six series. They're the anti-Diamenbacks right now. They're at 66, 45, and they're. division. Dodgers, 65 and 47. Fraudgers. Yeah, yeah. The fruers. I'm not even going to mess with them. Who cares? Sevent. 62 and 49. Those are your division leaders, the Phillies, the Dodgers, the Brewers. Then here's the wildcard teams. The Braves lead, I guess, the wildcard teams by one half of a game total. You got a half a game splitting the Braves,

the Padres, and the debacks for those three wildcard spots. Then you have the Mets on the outside looking in one and a half game back and then you get some distance you got the cardinals now at three games back you got the pirates at three and a half games back start getting to start quickly getting into teams with a sub 500 record right after that and of course with the way the diamond backs have been playing they've really put themselves in a good position to be in this you know in this playoff race as we get down to the final two months of the season the braves might be in some trouble they might be in some trouble they just lost two out of three to a a very heavily depleted Miami Marlins team.

Who just waived the white flag 100% at the trade deadline? Pretty much. Max Free just got totally destroyed and his outing on Sunday. I think the Braves lost that game 7 to nothing. And yeah, as you said, the Braves are just up half a game on the debacks right now. They're effectively tied with the San Diego Padres. It's not all that hard to imagine a scenario, frankly, where the Atlanta Braves fall out of this, which is, I can't even believe I'm saying that.

It's crazy. At the beginning of the year, we viewed the Braves like this. He might win 105, 110 games. And it's been a combination of injuries. I mean, that's played a huge role in this. Ozzy Albies is out now. Obviously, Spencer Strider's out for the season. Ronald O'Kunia out for the season.

Just enormous, enormous blows. It's amazing that they're winning ball games with how depleted they are. But they're not winning that many ball games. I know. At the same time. You know, Matt Olson is not nearly having the season he was last year. Ross and Riley. Same story there.

So, yeah, it's still pretty interesting for the Braves. I did not really think we'd be seriously questioning their ability to make the playoffs. But I'm totally in that place with what we've seen. And Rinaldo Lopez also just went on the injured list with a, I think it was some sort of forearm injury. So that continues to be a pretty scary situation if you're a Braves fan. And that could be very bad for them. If it worsens, I mean, I don't really know what they're going to do.

I think that what we're seeing there is absolutely what the Diamondbacks went through, right? Like your offensive numbers drop substantially even from the guys there that are good baseball players because not only are they not, they don't have the other great players around them to kind of be on base and, you know, all that other stuff. But it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure because there are a lot of expectations for that Braves team, not just this year, but every single year with the way that they're constructed. And even with the way they're built, they're expected to. be they expected to be able to withstand injuries like this and they go out they add Jorge Saler at the trade deadline like they definitely tried to push through that looked good because he comes in and hits a home run in his very first game as an Atlanta brave so of course

he also has to play defense though that's already have they already have Marcel azuna in the dh spot so it's like you know if you really want horace salar man in right field for the rest of the season but that's a spot they're in so when you look at the braves from the outside i know they have a lot of injuries but they still have enough weapons to be a good baseball team. Yeah. But like you said, those guys aren't having the best season right now. And of course, yeah, seeing the number of injuries happening to your team makes it hard sometimes

to still go out there and have a lot of confidence in your team and in your your lineup. But good is what I say. Good. I hope they lose all their confidence in all their baseball games and the Diamondbacks have an easier road to the playoffs. I don't even know where I would want the Diamondbacks to fall in here potentially. Like, I almost want them. It's a really interesting question.

them to stay kind of in the third spot if I'm not being honest, if I'm being honest, but, you know, what happens happens, right? They would, yeah, I mean, they stay in the third spot where they are right now. They would play the Milwaukee Brewers and the wild card around and we saw how that happened last year. And I think it might even be a, I would think it's a more favorable matchup this year because there's no Corbyn Burns there. It's, you know, it's Freddie Peralta.

Yeah. This is what I was telling you guys last season. It's like almost beneficial to be the third wildcard team over the second wildcard team. over the second wild card team. It's actually not really even close. I would much rather play the Brewers right now in a playoff series than the San Diego Padres. Yes, God, yes. No, no question.

Not to mention the Padres are going to get some guys back before the end of the season. Probably. And they might be much like the Diamondbacks, they might be an even better team than they are now when they get those pitchers back for sure. Yeah. Of course, we thank all of you for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel right now. In the chat, you guys are, you guys give us life. You guys are our lifeblood. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, do so now.

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$45 up front payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on a first three-month plan only. Speed slower about 40 gigabytes on limited plan. Additional taxes fees and restrictions apply. Seamint mobile for details. Well, Jesse, I know we haven't done a lot of these lately. No. Especially, you know, here in the studio, but it is Monday.

And even though, of course, it's looking more and more like our year. We know that every year is our year. We know that every month on this podcast is a celebration of nations. We don't just wait for the Olympics. We do it every month around here. All right. Every week on this show, Shark Week, even after Shark Week is over. We don't stop celebrating Shark Week.

Every day on this, the podcast right here, Passover, according to Jesse. But, of course, on Mondays, you know what we do. Every Monday, we go to the mailbag. Damon, let's go to the mailbag. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while there's a letter that makes me go, wow, wow, my mail box. Shout out to Megarham, by the way.

He was at the Cleveland Guardians Stadium yesterday, and of course, I hate him. He's going to, he's now, like, doing this thing where he's going all the baseball parks. I think he's doing it just to troll me. 100%. It's just to troll me, right? It's just in your face me, but he likes texting pictures of all the beautiful parks. So, of course, thank you to him. Thank you to you guys for your mailbag Monday questions.

Damon, what do we got? First question comes from lead off battered Travis Moore, and he says, serious question outside of the final Dodgers and Padre series. What are your biggest prove it series left for Arizona? In my opinion, at Boston, at Milwaukee, and at Houston are big statement wins if they can take two of three or three of four in the in case of the Brewers games. Fun one below that was missed last time, Melbag Monday. Yes, Travis Moore sent us a note pad.

Travis Moore is, he's figured out how to hack the system. Yeah, he really has. Yeah, he's just taken over the show, of course. but great question because honestly we've talked about it being the gauntlet coming up the diamondbacks have a lot of series against very tough opponents a lot of opponents who are in a playoff push themselves and it's not going to be easy for them to kind of push through I think that there is like he said there's some series against national league west opponents that I think are very important I also think that you know obviously the diamondbacks can't take

the Rockies for granted I believe they have two series left against the Rockies I'm not expecting them to go out there. I think it's just one. Is it just one? Yeah. Nope, you're right. It's two.

Yeah. And I'm expecting them not to sweep the Rockies necessarily in those two series, but, you know, the Rockies have been shocking some teams that are pretty good lately, honestly. Like so. Yeah,

because Damon was in San Diego on Friday and willed Austin Gomber and Company to victory. Jason. Just putting on for this, you know, the Valley, this company. Let's go Rockies.

Yeah. No, I know. I appreciate it. That was a huge W. He bleeds purple. It's more than one shade of purple, but he bleeds purple. But yeah, no, I mean, honestly, I think, like, yeah, there's a lot of tough opponents ahead.

I think that this Guardian series, the Guardians have the best record in baseball. This right here, this series that starts today is a tough test for the Diamondbacks. I think if they can keep this role of winning series, this win against the Pirates was their sixth series of win in a row. If they get seven in a row here against the best team in baseball, I think that, There should start to be some talk. I think we should see some MLB network talk about this team. And I'm getting ignored like they're getting ignored right now. Let's fit ring sizes if we win this series, boys.

Let's calm down. All right. You are out of control. You get some rest in a weekend on the beach drunk and you come back. This full of yourself. But what do you think? What series are you worried about here? I mean, I wouldn't say worried necessarily.

But prove it series. Yeah. I mean, I think Travis mentioned it already. but you've got a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a division that actually looks pretty interesting at this point. DeBacks served five games behind the Dodgers as we record this right now. And that Dodgers team is still, you know, they're still looking to get some guys back from injury. So, yeah, that one definitely pops out to me. This Guardian series, as you said, you've got a chance to show what you can do against the team with the best record in baseball.

That feels like a pretty big prove-it moment. I also think it'll be really interesting. like what does D-BACs Padres look like September 27th to 29 to finish out the season? Like that could be huge. I could imagine a universe where all three of those games are very, very important. I could also imagine a universe where like both teams want to play the Brewers in the first round. And so they're both like guaranteed playoff spots, but they really just want the third wildcard spot. And so it's a competition of like who can throw the games more effectively.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, who can put out their worst lineup out there and their worst starting pitcher and see what. they can do for three games yeah no that's very interesting how that could stack up by that point so uh yeah i mean i didn't even think about that but we could see some of that they could there could be some of that all right once we got damon next question comes from kyle avery and he says with josh bell in the position player mix now who do you think is on the chopping block when seawok comes back do they release bell send down thomas i'm sure it's too early to tell and will depend on performances over the next month but i'm curious to hear your thoughts Sending Paving down.

Oh, wait, they already did that. Yeah, they already did that. That seems to always be the answer, right? I don't know. I mean, I think a big part of it is how does Josh Bell play? Yeah. What would his role be if Christian Walker returned and is healthy at 100%? Right.

Especially a well-rested Christian Walker. It's not like you're going to need a lot of time off for him between that point at the end of the season. Maybe you rest him some more in preparation for the playoffs. Maybe that's a bad idea. You know, I don't know. But I really don't know how Josh Bell could be utilized. outside of a D.H. role for this team. Yeah, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be tough, I think, for Josh Bell to stick on the team.

Michaela almost exploded while sneezing, by the way. You guys you heard that. But we're still like 15 different syllables to it. Usually a sneeze is one syllable. Michaela's was. Literally. All right. So, Josh.

Bell. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard for me to envision a scenario where he could stay on the team, frankly, because you need Kevin Newman, right? You need someone who can play shortstop who can play around the infield, serves as a backup and all those spots. You need a backup catcher. So Jose Herrera, got to have him, right? Randall Grischick is too big a part of this team right now to think about moving on from him. So I guess the decision would come down to Josh Bell or, Alec Thomas, I suppose. That was a nice question. Yeah. But even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me at all, frankly, because number one, Alec Thomas is your best defensive centerfielder, which has a lot of value, especially in the playoffs. I feel very confident saying the debacks will want Alec Thomas on their postseason roster, even if the offense isn't looking so great.

And speaking of the offense, you know which debaax outfielder this season, Derek, has the best, the highest OPS against right-handed pitching? Jake McCarthy? It is not Jake McCarthy. It is Alec Thomas. Alec Thomas has a 748 OPS against Ritees this year. Randall Grishick is at 692. Jake McCarthy is 735.

Corbyn Carroll 7.23. Lordus Correel is way down at 6.50. This is your best defensive outfielder and also the outfielder who has hit the best against Ritees and most pitchers are righties. So to me it just doesn't, it just doesn't really make any sense to move on from out Thomas to send him down. We were also talking before we hopped on the show about Thomas's Savant page.

And I know it's not like a ton of plate appearances, but Alec Thomas's expected stats are very good right now. He has a 284 expected batting average and a 487 expected slugging percentage. And you start to think about like, all right, what does Josh Bell's role look like if he were to stick around? I mean, against righties, Christian Walker's playing first most of the time, jocks in the dh slot and against lefties i guess you could put josh bell in the dh slot and then put randall grishick in the outfield but is it worth keeping josh bill on the roster just to be a short side platoon

guy as a dh right that that's a very limited role um so not saying it's impossible like if josh bill has a 950 ops over the next three weeks the debacks might just feel like they they have to find a way to keep him on the team but right now it's it's pretty hard for me to see how he could stay on the roster beyond when Walker gets back. Is he a better option than Scott McGuff? I mean, yes, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure that like this is a Josh Bell versus Scott McGuff conversation, seeing as how McGuff is currently in AAA. Connor made a great point.

If you scroll back up there, Damon, a little bit. What about waiting until September 1st when the rosters expand? That is a great point. Yes, the D-backs will get a couple of extra roster spots in September. And I am very glad that Connor brought that up because. that is probably what this is ultimately leading toward if Christian Walker doesn't wind up, you know, getting back until September, even if he's back a little bit earlier than that, you could make a move where maybe you send down an Alec Thomas for a few days just to bring him

back up so that you can keep Josh Bell on the team. So that's a great point. That would allow Josh Bell to stay on the team through the end of the season if the debacks want that. Again, how much is he realistically playing? I'm not totally sure. That's the bigger question is, Is it worth to do all of that instead of more relief help or something like that? Yeah, you'd have to balance that with other needs that you'd have at that point. But yeah, theoretically, it could give them the option to at least have him on the roster. I mean, of course, once you get to the playoffs, if the debacks make it, then you're back down to 26. And it's a different conversation.

But it's a matter of still getting through that month of September. Like nothing's guaranteed that Ivanbacks right now only have a game and a half lead. And of course, you know, they honestly have been playing really good baseball without certain components that are returning, including Eduardo Rodriguez, allegedly being back in the starting rotation this week. Allegedly, yes. I don't, I'll believe it when I see the man throw a pitch,

Jesse. I will believe it when I see him throw pitch. All right, what else we got there, Damon, for mailbag Monday? Next question comes from Adam Fox, and he says Sunday is Jewish Community Day at the ballpark and yes, I made sure to be back in Arizona to go. Arizona debacks Hebrew hats for the win.

Two questions at Jesse Friedman, planning on being there and at Young jock going to hit a walk off home run not really a question but a fact yeah adam doesn't he doesn't give opinions he spits facts uh jesse sunday is typically our day we usually reserve this is true sunday for jesse and derrick time not together it's not together we would never spend it yet it's definitely separate derrick and jesse time but still nonetheless we reserve sunda typically just do bonding activities the two of them they'll go to like the aquarium together and stuff we go to I would love to go to the aquarium.

Derek has lifetime passes to the aquarium, if I'm not mistaken. That is correct. Yes, it was quite the good deal. Quite the good deal. Will you be there on Sunday for this amazing event? Yeah, I mean, I'm at almost every single D-Backs home game, but Sundays are usually the day that I wouldn't be there. So we'll see.

Haven't totally made that call yet. It'd be a sad one to miss, though. Yeah. Because, yes, as someone who is half Jewish, I feel like this is an event that I have to attend. At least half of you have to do it. At least half of me will be there. Half of me will show up. The other half will be taking a very delightful day off.

I'm going to predict that Jock hits two home runs. That's what I'm going to predict. One of walk off. Yeah, I want to walk off. One, just an early solo shot. All right. What else we got, Damon? Next question comes from Brian Abdallah.

And he says, what's the chance of ninth inning without any drama this week? I'm asking to see if I need a blood pressure drug refill this week or not. Oh, Brian, go get extra blood pressure medicine, my guy, because no, there's no way that there's no drama this week. The Diamondbacks have some tough opponents and unfortunately still no confirmation on what they're going to do for the closer. I think this bullpen is going to continue to give us all sorts of heart attacks and whatnot. But hopefully they can continue to hold these games because they've at least been able to do that. And I feel like attacking the bullpen as a whole is wrong because this bullpen has been very, very good. It just seems to be whoever comes in in the ninth inning just struggles.

Yeah, it's the the bullpen situation continues to be tough. And I think this just this just is yet another reason why Paul Seawald's like the stability that he can bring this team when he's in that role and excelling in that role. Yeah. It's such an enormous thing. And even though the debacks do have a pretty good variety of weapons. you can still see just how kind of messy it makes everything when you don't have someone nailed down in that spot. Dr. Tony, thank you so much for the super chat.

He says teams need to probably go with a bullpen by committee. Back then, some teams had a lefty and a right. He has a closer. No one is taking advantage of the opportunity. Maybe Tori should consider it. I think the only reason why we're hesitant on that is because Tori convinced us last year in a way. Like we have these, you know, ongoing, you know,

know, press, you know, meetings with Tori and, you know, he consistently got questions that they weren't straight up like, you think this is a good idea? Are you sure this is a good idea? Unless it was coming from Barry Bloom, of course. But it would be phrased in a, in a delicate manner, but it would kind of be like, is going with a bullpen or a closer by committee the best idea? And Tori would give all of his reasons why. So far, what we've seen is the reasons why, at least that versatility. However, you know, we don't know what it's doing. to the rest of the bullpen. The one piece of feedback that we got so often from this bullpen last year when Paul Seawald was added to it was that how thankful everybody in the

bullpen was to know what their role was when they were going to be called upon and what their job was going to essentially be, you know, and Joe Mantiply had basically told us how okay he was with being like an early middle reliever, you know, and kind of called upon whenever Tori maybe had a big lefty situation, right? But I mean, for the most part, it's not. you know, it's kind of back in disarray a bit because guys don't know what their role is or where they're going to be called upon again. I don't know. Maybe if Tori can do a better job at communicating that, maybe that could be something that

changes that. Like, yes, your role is going to change, but at least when you come in today, you know what your role is going to be. Maybe Tori doesn't even know what that is going to be until you get down to, you know, what the matchups are late in the game. But I don't know. Yeah. I mean, we've seen Ryan Thompson in that spot both times, right?

But that I don't know that that was necessarily Tori anointing Ryan Thompson as his closer, right? Like he did, he has talked about playing the matchups a little bit. And it sort of does sound to me, like if he had a run of several lefties due up in the ninth inning, like AJ puck very well might might be the option from the beginning. So, yeah, we'll continue to see how that evolves. I don't hate the idea of doing a committee setup. I guess it's Thompson against Rites and puck against lefties. You could go ginkle against Ritey's, I suppose, as well. There's also the option, Derek, that Paul Seawald might not be out of the closer role for very long.

Very true. He's looked pretty good in these two innings outside of that role. If he were to rattle off two or three more of those, I have to think that that would be a real conversation that the devax would have. Well, and maybe he just becomes an option for Tori late, but maybe he's not the guy. Maybe when Tori C. Seawald struggling, maybe he pulls that trigger a little bit faster than he has. as in the past because I think that's the one thing I like about this, you know, is not being so committed to that guy closing out the games that you're going to let him lose the game for you, especially

when you can tell he doesn't have his best stuff. That can happen to any pitcher on any given night. Lately, though, it does feel like once again, when you start to look at how Paul Seewald was throwing prior to those bloated saves versus how he's been since then, it's almost like that Jordan Montgomery thing where like he's so rattled and he's, he's, he's so rattled and he's, lack so much confidence and now he's trying to aim and the aiming is making it worse and you know whatever there's something wrong though and i mean troy said it was part of his delivery so if he could get that corrected i very much see him being back in that role his villa was was pretty i think on friday he averaged or maybe was saturday he averaged 92.7 i believe it was on his four seamer which is

actually a little higher than what it was last year and the villa was a little bit up yes a little bit up yesterday as well. So, yeah, I mean, maybe he's already fixed the delivery issue. We'll have to kind of see what the next few days look like. Maybe the issue is the ninth inning. Maybe the issue isn't Paul Seawald at all. Maybe whatever Indian burial ground that Diamondbacks built the ninth inning on at one point at Chase Field.

I don't know, but I can't stand what's going on to whoever's in this in this spot. Because like you said, like Paul Seawald has looked great. He's looked great since going back to that non-high leverage situation. And that's odd because Paul Seawald actually wasn't very good when he was put into games when there wasn't a safe situation. He actually, it felt like those were some of his worst outings when he was just thrown in without it being a saved situation. But hopefully, you know, we can, you know, see him ultimately get back to that role. I think that's what we just. That's the best outcome from the VACs.

We all want that. We all as fans, nobody wants to give up on anybody. You know what I mean? But at the same time, too, I understand how frustrated people have been with watching him blow the saves that he did, considering how many of those games were just right there in the palm of the Diamondbacks hand. Yeah. All right. What else we got?

Next question. Oh, we got Giortha in the chat. There's a win already. Welcome, Jigurtha. We missed you. What else we got? Next question comes from Michael Rokickey. I might have skipped one.

We might go back to it. But he says, Lord. My apologies to Damon for how offensive he might find this question, but is Hraldo Perdomo the Cam Scadaboo of the D-Backs? Jesse asked me if Cam Scataboo was a professional wrestler, I believe. Well, that's just my baseline assumption when there's a question asked with the name that I don't know, especially Michael Rokey 100%. Damon, you want to take this one?

Yeah, I mean, I actually, I saw this morning and I was kind of feeling like I was going to shock the nation with this, with this answer here. I think Cam Scadaboo is like the best player on ASU. And Pardomo is like not even close to the best player on the Diamondbacks. Perdomo is a glue guy. Wow. And Cam Scadabu is the premier offensive weapon on the team. I don't know what's blowing my mind more right now. What did San Diego do to you, Dan?

Is it the, what's more shocking? The admitting Geraldo Perdom isn't the best player on the team or the fact that he's giving so much props to any ASU player like this? Or is this a dig at the rest of the A. Hsu football team. I'm not sure. He's like the best player on the team. That's fair.

Partially it is because he's like the only player like worth a crap at all. But there it is. Okay. There is. He's back. But more sense. But more so what I'm trying to say is that I think Perdomo is a winning role player on a good baseball team. And that's always been my opinion is like you need role players who contribute to winning like he does.

And I have a good weekend. Yeah, he's he's good. He has a 101 OPS Plus back over, back over league average. There we go. Like this video. Like the video. Do it now. All right.

What else we got, Damon? Going back to the one that I skipped, it's from Geek Martinez. And he says, if we were to pull out the pop. fly machine that Chase Field does every now and then who is catching all three five fly balls my money's on Jesse and that's the worst money you've ever seen your entire life did you not

see this man try to do a cannonball hey my ability to do a cannonball is not at all indicative of my ability to catch a pop fly Derek these are two trains a lot in Chicago pal I don't know if you're shagging down too many wow wow

okay meanwhile there is my best baseball player after you know we already agreeing. Yeah, it's fine. Yes. I'm so disrespectful. Damon would catch all three. Right now.

In my Birkenstocks. I have no doubt that Damon would catch all three. I'm very good at catching fly balls. I don't believe that for a second. You're going to lose one in the lights and one's going to hit you in your forehead. Yeah. Turn me into a goddamn cartoon character like you always does. You would catch one out of three, but one of them would hit you on the forehead.

The other one, you'd just completely lose. I would catch one behind my back. That's what I would do. That's how confident I am that I would catch all. three, five balls. It would be the final one just for excitement purposes. I don't know. The ground. I don't know. Damon, what do you think? If we had Derek, because unfortunately,

I don't think they actually do this game anymore. We were talking about that. They have, like, the kid like steal the base, second base, and then run it back to right field. We need to cut that time and entirely too much time. Let's cut that time and half, folks. My question along those lines is, do you, would Derek succeed at the children's game

if he were to have to go steal second base and run back? I don't know. That'd be a close call. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Well, I'm fairly confident that I would do better than you is all I'm saying. And Damon, yeah, whatever. I'm not going to pretend like that.

I will say that third pop-up is pretty high. Yeah. It's pretty high. Yeah, that's true. They put that one pretty high in the air. Yeah. I don't understand again why they took that away. Like that was such a superior thing to watch.

Was it because, because like sometimes the kids were bad. And then the people would boo. Like, I've never heard anybody boo. kid running and stealing second base everybody just kind of cheers them all because the kid is successful every single time that's right it's just a completely unnecessary amount of time the first two fly balls that crowd turns on him quick there's nothing like booing other adult men in particular at games that fail in competitions yeah oh it's so good yeah yeah yeah i think we need to i mean it's gonna be tough to replicate like we don't have the machine that we'll fire the ball up in the air but we'll

have to do a little pop fly we got daniel could get us some some fungos for sure yeah Yeah, there we go. There we go. Yeah. I also, we went and hit at the batting cages in Chicago. I had a very sharp line drive right back up, right back up the middle. We had some fun. I still want to be back in that cage.

I got hit in my thumb and then got angry and still hit more balls. Like that just goes to show you. I was there to play that day. Tape it up. Let's go. Am I injured? No, I'm hurt, but I'm going to go play anyway.

And I hit, I think I hit better after that. After I got my thumb hit, I was on fire. Anyway, I don't think any of us were on fire because, it was shooting it like two feet above the ground or one foot two feet would actually be decent anyway moving on well else we got damon next question comes from brian bobbit and he asks how

many appearances do they think do they give seawald before considering moving him back to closer or is it just going to be a play it by ear and see how he's performing brighton is very much on the same page there as jesse and i don't think it's going to be a lot i don't think he needs to perform well a lot for them to give him that opportunity i think it was just kind of rebuilding him back up and of course you know unless somebody suddenly blows tory away in that role like say he moves dylan florro to that role and we finally can put away you know the heartburn medication then you know i i foresee it being seawald here probably soon yeah yeah i'm i'm with you there uh it's hard to put a number of a number of outings on it necessarily but i think the debacks understand

like we talked about earlier that seawald getting back in that closed the role and being effective in that role is the best case scenario in this situation. And yeah, if you can do that, if you feel good about doing that after a few more outings, you know, I think that would probably be the right move for the debacks. The way that Tori initially described it is giving Seawald a break from the closer role. And Ryan Thompson has spoken with the media a couple of times since then. And I believe he described it as we're all team Paul Seawald. Like we all, we all want him to have this roll back.

We're just kind of holding it down for him while he feel. hear some things out. So would not surprise me at all if he wound up back in that role before too long. Well, thank you guys for all of your wonderful Mailbag Monday questions. Of course, continue to send those in. We will be doing this, you know, every Monday like we talk about here. But of course, we also thank our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union for more than 84 years. Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union. They make sure our numbers are correct with the count. they can make sure your numbers are correct with your finances. They can also help you achieve your financial goals and dreams,

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create an account and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code pHNX for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Well, we talked about what series coming up the Diamondbacks have that is going to be a tough test. It's this one that starts today against the Cleveland Guardians. Let's take a look at their season so far. They do have the best record in Major League Baseball, 67 and 44. They have a plus 85 run differential.

They are six and four in their last 10. Starting pitching ERA, not great. 4.55 24th in Major League Baseball. of course their relief pitching outstanding they have the best bullpen in all baseball uh starting pitching eras 4.55 relief pitching era 2.60 their team OPS is 714 and they have three outs above average the guardians are one of those teams that especially with that starting pitching era you would not suspect them to have the best uh best record in baseball but those that top of the lineup is very very good for the guardians.

Yeah, the guardians have a strong lineup for sure, good offense. And as you said, the bullpen is just insane. The guardians are very strong evidence that you can win without good starting pitching. Like if you give up a few runs in the first few innings of the game,

you're fine as long as the back four or five innings are just like all zeros every single time. And that's basically what the guardians do. I mean, you look at their bullpen. They have a manual class A, of course, is well known as one of the best closers in baseball.

He has a 0.70 ERA this season. Cade Smith in his first season in the big leagues has a 186 ERA because that is just what the Guardians do. Hunter Gattis has a 138 ERA. It's also been a big part of the back end of that bullpen, another righty. And then they have a lefty Tim Heron, who is the only member of the Guardians bullpen who is above the age of 30. It's a pretty young group.

Wow. He has a 183 ERA as their go-to lefty. So you got four back-end relievers with a sub two ERAs. That's going to put you in a pretty good spot. Also, I think it's funny if you go to the Guardian's 2024 page on baseball reference, you know, it shows like pictures of all the top war contributors for the season. And three of the top seven Guardians players by war are relievers. It is not a normal thing.

You don't usually see relievers contributing as much as guys who are playing. single game or starting pitchers who are who are throwing way more innings. So this is one of the best bullpins that it's not just one. It's not just the best bullpen this year. It's one of the best bullpins that we've seen in baseball and in probably quite a while. Putting these graphics together was wild. It's wild. Like I was I was like, okay, so they must be really good at hitting.

And it's like, yeah, they're pretty good at hitting. Yeah. They're not that good. Well, yeah. What it is. Yeah. What it is the top of their lineup is very, very good. And then the bottom of their lineup isn't.

So like their overall team numbers aren't that great. When you look at, you got Josh Naylor who has a 126 OPS plus 816 OPS. Jose Ramirez a 140 OPS plus 870 OPS. The man almost has 100 RBI already this season. He's at 93 RBI with 29 home runs. You got Stephen Kwan at a 145 OPS plus 874 OPS and David Frye at a 133 OPS plus with an 828 OPS. That is four players at the top of your lineup that all have an above 800 OPS. And that that is it.

I mean, those guys are going to continue to hurt you throughout the game. And then if they can get into their bullpen, their bullpen will shut you down. You will not score against their bullpen. And I am really interested to see what the Diamondbacks, how they match up against this Guardians team. They are a very good early scoring team. The Diamondbacks are the best early scoring team in all of baseball. Yeah.

And of course, if they can put up some runs, you know, early and kind of get some key pitching, I think that they have a chance here against the guardians with kind of the way that their weaknesses are starting pitching. And, you know, of course, the Diamondbacks weakness at times has been good bullpen. So it's like they better score early and try to maintain a lead because they won't be the answer backs in this series, most likely. Yeah, you also, I mean, Jose Ramirez, like he's a superstar. But especially right now, it feels like a time where you just really don't want to let Ramirez beat you. He is nine for 23 with five homers and 11 RBI in his last. six games.

So he has been on an absolute tear lately lately. Josh Nehler has pretty good numbers lately as well. Stephen Kwan's taken a bit of a step back. He was hitting nearly 400. It felt like not that long ago. Those numbers have cooled a bit still having an outstanding season. David Frye was really, really good for the first couple months. It's kind of fallen off a little since then.

The Guardian's also out of Lane Thomas at the trade deadline. They got him from the Nationals. Thomas hasn't hit a whole lot for the Guardian so far. a 511 OPS, but that's just over over five games. So yeah, it's an interesting team. Like, it's not exactly what you're picturing when you're, when you're thinking of the best team in baseball. Like, it is also just crazy in and of itself that the guardians are the best team in

baseball right now, even though like I didn't have them making the playoffs, if I'm remembering correctly. They obviously didn't last year. Last year was a pretty disappointing season for them. But yeah, again, if you just have an insanely good bullpen, that, maintains leads anytime you have them and your offense is good enough to give you some leads early in games even if the starting pitching isn't great you can win a lot of baseball games that way and that's that's what the guardians have done there's one thing that perplexes me about their

defense jesse is how do they have 11 outs above average or i'm sorry three outs above average for 11th in all major league baseball but then they have 68 defensive run save which that's most in major league baseball like what's going on there yeah i i'd have to look at look into that a little deeper. Yeah, they're, they like far and away lead the league in defensive front. Right. It's not even close. It's not even close.

Yeah, I don't, I don't really know what to do with that, honestly. I have to look a little closer. There are some differences in the stats like DRS will include throwing arms. That would be one, one difference, whereas OA does not take that into consideration. They have some different ways of calculating things as well. But they agree with each other more or less. Yeah, DRS would be like spectacular plays, right? and the I mean plays that you shouldn't essentially be making right or hard plays to make defensive runs say I get like I get this statistic is like actually literally saving runs but like overall it's you know it's it's a weird category it's a weird stat just like outs above average and most teams aren't don't have nearly that many just like outs above average I think that the Milwaukee Brewer's have a fairly substantial lead above everybody else in that category right so it's like.

I don't know. Ernesto makes a great point. Sounds like a team the Yankees would just destroy in the playoffs 100%. Yeah, absolutely. An AL Central team. That's supposed that has the best record in baseball. Oh, yeah. Twins fans get it.

There were a couple of questions in there about Dan and Harran to Tim Harron. No, Tim Herron's name is spelled quite different. It's H-E-R-R-I-N. So no relation there to Dan Herron. But speaking of pitchers, let's take a look at the probable pitchers for this series and how the Diamondbacks match up. Yes, folks. That's Eduardo Rodriguez there,

lined up for the second game of this series, allegedly. We'll see. I want to see him on the mound and actually pitching before I believe any of this. But Zach Allen kicks things off in game one versus Logan Allen. Not that Logan Allen. The other Logan Allen,

who also spent time with the Cleveland Guardians early in his career. Correct. Not confusing at all. They're both lefties. It's very confusing. Eduardo Rodriguez matches up with Ben, lively and then you had Brandon fought versus Carlos Carrasco in the finale.

This looks beautiful to me. I could stare at this for hours, Jesse. Just the idea of seeing Zach Gallin, Erod and Brandon fought together as one, two, three in a series. It's hot. That's hot. E. Rod, like the pose that EROD is making in this.

Look at that face. Look at that face. That man is dialed in. Zach Gallag is just happy to be here, right? But Erod, Erod is going to beat that entire rotation by, himself. Brandon Fott looks like he's posing for his first day of studio. Yeah, for sure.

And then Erod, Erod looks like me walking into the studio today after my San Diego trip. Connor's claiming that game two is blank. We know, you know what you see there, Connor. It's real. Technically, it is blank.

Technically, the Dback still have it as TBD, but we all know that Erod is a scheduled starter that day. People have already reported. If you're Carlos Carrasco, you got to be pissed at Logan Allen, right? Why?

Why? I mean, look at the record difference with the ERAs. Yeah. I would be maybe not Logan Allen, but piss at the Guardian's offense. Like, what's up, guys? Yeah,

Logan Allen goes eight and four. I have a better season than him, and I'm three and nine. The fact that the best team in baseball are the team with the best record in baseball is still throwing Carlos Carrasco at 37 years old out there every fifth day. It's pretty wild to me.

He has a, yeah, he's a minus 1.1 B-war for this season. I will say on Erod, like, we're going to do a, post game show tomorrow after that game which I'm excited for I'm excited that we're we're going to be live after his first start of the season it's going to be so interesting Derek I do I do not really have a great sense of what to expect in this game he is going straight from the Arizona Complex League a sim game environment which we think went well

we don't really have any numbers of any kind from that outing so I mean going straight from that to the big leagues with no rehab assignment like he is not pitched in a normal game environment in months. I mean, even spring training doesn't really count as that. And he didn't look super sharp in spring training at times. So it's going to be fascinating to see what happens tomorrow with Erod. And I don't understand that. Like, I don't know if that's a team decision, if that's a personal decision for the pitcher.

It sounds like Erod very much pushed to do it this way. Okay. Yeah. Which he just talked about how he he liked pitching in the heat. He thought that would be a good, like, physical chance. challenge for him, which I seems odd to me. I haven't enjoyed like walking from the parking lot into the grocery store, but you're picturing in the Arizona Complex League.

How much more can you take out there in Salt River Fields in July? I don't know, but I am I am here for it. I am here for him making that face on the graphic and I'm hopefully here for him being a big part of this starting rotation because, man, you know, this team is already hot. I mean, can you imagine them being hotter, more dangerous than they are? Getting some more serious sweeps just than the two that they got this year? I don't know. But of course, now would be a great time for them to get a starting pitcher of his caliber,

at least his past back because, man, I mean, they could really use it considering how unstable some of their spots in their rotation have been. Yeah, this is, I mean, we've got another decision potentially looming, right? It's not just Erod pitching in the majors tomorrow. It is also Mara Kelly pitching down in Hillsborough. He is scheduled to go, I think it's four innings 65 pitches. From a pitch count standpoint, like he would be ready to pitch in the majors his next time out if the devax wanted to go that way. Maybe they'll maybe they'll want him to go to Reno or, you know, maybe make another rehab.

No, Hillsborough is a hilariously appropriate choice. You don't want someone to go to Reno or Amarillo and deal with that situation. with the offense. I want you to go to Hillsborough and I want you to put up zero runs in seven innings and feel great about yourself. That's what I want. Not only is it a lower level of hitter, but we're talking about a completely different, like, you know, obviously.

His pitches will actually move in Hillsborough. That's true. They won't move much in Amarillo or AAA. But yeah, you could be, I mean, theoretically, like if Merrill Kelly's pitch in Tuesday, he could come and pitch in the majors for the B-backs as early as, Monday against the Phillies. Maybe they go another rehab start and push that back until the Tampa series on the road. But that's going to be interesting for the debacks to figure out who spot he's taken, right?

You've got Jordan Montgomery and Ryan Nelson kind of theoretically in the mix there. So we'll see. Josh Hunt says, why is all of our pitching debuts against the best teams in the Major League Baseball? I don't know. It's a team he's pretty familiar with. I mean, I guess you could view that as a good thing or a bad thing. Al Central team, right? But there's also what you said about Merrill Kelly potentially making his debut against the Phillies.

That's true. That seems like a lot. That seems like a tall order. But the Phillies are not playing very good baseball right now. So hopefully now is a great time to catch them, especially with them coming here to Chase Field for our petty ring night, which I am very much going to be at. Like, I will be there no matter what. That's Saturday? That's Saturday.

Yeah, that's Saturday. So, of course, keep it locked here. We will have post game shows, I think the rest of the week, right? Yeah, Tuesday through Friday. Tuesday through Friday. We got that big series with the Phillies, which is a four-game series. So we will be here on Thursday with the post-game show as well as Friday. And we'll be back tomorrow for E-Rod's debut.

So until then, we hope you guys have a wonderful evening. Of course, you can follow all of us on Twitter. I am at Cap underscore Caveman with K. This Maniac next to me is at Jesse Ann Friedman. Make sure to hit the like. Before you get out of here, of course, the controller of the H-T-L movement is the people's producer himself. Damon Dog, you can follow him at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G.

We are Damon's dogs. Park Park. Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, we appreciate you guys stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow night to discuss not only to tonight's game, but of course, E-Rod's big debut tomorrow. What are your, wait, before we go, Derek, giving your Erod prediction. I mean you were going to do this to me. Five and two thirds innings pitch, three runs allowed.

Okay. Five and two thirds is pretty bold. He might be on like maybe an 80 pitch limit, something like that. So it'd be pretty efficient to get through five and two thirds. I don't, I know. For some reason, I don't see it out of the question because I say, I think that he's going to go out there and try to go as long as possible. So hopefully he tries to be a little bit more efficient, but we'll see.

Maybe, you know, I said Gabby was going to lead the team in home run. So I obviously know nothing about the game of baseball. Hey, Derek, technically that could still happen. It absolutely can't. You have a little more faith in yourself. The dream's not over. The dream is not dead yet. Well, of course, we thank you guys for stopping by.

We'll see you tomorrow night. Again, I hope you have a wonderful evening. And until then, be good to other people. Let's try to be better people, right? And have yourselves want to find. Remember kids, baseball is fun. It's so much more fun when Eduardo Rodriguez proves he's a real person.