PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Merrill Kelly exits with injury again after pitching a gem in Diamondbacks win over the Reds

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

The Arizona Diamondbacks got another outstanding pitching performance from Merrill Kelly in a game where he needed to exit due to injury. But despite the Diamondbacks bullpen giving up the lead once he left, the Corbin Carroll answered back with his first homer in 30 days to give the Snakes the win over the Cincinnati Reds. We discuss the D-backs winning their fifth straight game, Gabriel Moreno’s impact on this team, 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 D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Head to https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50 and use code phnxdbacks50 to get 50% off.Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Pins & Aces: Check out https://pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Follow them 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.

The Divenbacks are a wagon confirmed. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX DVax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, soon to be your mayor of VHNX once again. This man next to me will not stop. He's going to do this the whole show. It's Mr. Electric himself. How can you not when those drums come in, dog? I know.

It's just incredible. but welcome in you guys. Of course, we will be joined by Jesse Friedman from Chase Field here shortly. But the Arizona Diamondbacks, believe it or not, have won their fifth straight game. And before the game, Tori Lavallo had some interesting comments. The team was working on some fundamentals like bunting. They had some bunting drills they were doing. And when asked about it, Tori had this to say in regards to what he feels the season is going to come down to.

We got to be better at it. It's plain simple. We've got to be better bunners. We've had some opportunities early in the year. We were very successful at it. We felt like we came out of spring training hot and we trained ourselves right. And then it slipped away from us

and maybe the technique got away from us. So we're going back to our spring training philosophy, get after the work and have more success in getting the butt down. This is going to come down to one game. This season's coming down to one game, 100%. Book it. Book it.

And I want to know when I put the bun sign on that that guy's got it. I don't want to worry if he has it. I want to put that bun sign on. I want him to think I got it. I want every face in the dugout to know he's got it because I've seen him work on it. That's how critical this is going to come down due for this team. Tori Lavallo says it will come down to one game. Yeah. We don't like that. But he could be right. This is an absolute dog fight in the wildcard standings. And victories like tonight's win could ultimately proved to be very, very important for the Arizona Diamondbacks. They win tonight against the Cincinnati Reds, a game that they almost let slip through their fingers after Merrill

Kelly pitched an absolute gem for this team. Hopefully we will have some updates on Merrill Kelly. We haven't had a chance yet to hear anything from the press conference. So if you guys post anything in the chat, we'd love to hear if there was any updates on Merrill Kelly. But Jesse will be joining us, like I said here, in a little bit. with some updates on that. But Merrill Kelly was absolutely at his best tonight. Seven innings pitched. One hit.

One hit that as Mr. Friedman would point out when he texted to us, could have easily been avoided. But he would have been perfect leaving the game when he did. He just gave up that one hit, no runs, no walks, 12 strikeouts. Merrill Kelly, absolutely phenomenal. High for the strikeouts, right? What's that? Yeah, tied a career high.

And hopefully this is just another situation where it was. was a cramp. That's what Cocoa Floho says it was just a cramp. It looked like that. It appeared to be a cramp. He didn't really seem to be in too much pain, but he looked to be disappointed. And based on his pitch count, like many of you are saying, like we are potentially suggesting, this, this looked like it was going to be potentially a complete game for Merrill Kelly. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, he had his stuff, right? We were talking about it during the thing. It's just another one of those Merrill starts where you look up and it's the six inning and he only has 65 pitches. You're like, what? Yeah. Like, how did we get here?

How did we get here? How does he do this? It's like when you're driving somewhere and then all of a sudden you look up and you're like, I don't remember driving for the last three minutes. How did I not get in an accident? Yeah, or like when I had to drive all the way

to Saul Bookman's house and I just at one point black out. You wake up and all of a sudden you're there. I was like, oh wow, it wasn't as bad as I thought. How did we even get here? We got here at one piece, so I'm not complaining about it, but I don't really know how we got here.

But he's going to be calling the mainstay for a reason. He is the mainstay, but any concerns to you that he keeps having cramps? I mean, like I said to you guys earlier, he's always talking lately about how hot it is at Chase Field, which it is very muggy. It has been very muggy the last couple of times that he started out there. So I'm like not surprised that he's complaining about it. But yeah, I mean, just considering once again that he had the blood clot in his leg and now he's had a couple of cramps. And since then, that's required him to leave the game.

It's just kind of sucks. Yeah, it definitely feels. Oh, it was the right hamstring. That's a little bit better than it. It feels weird because, I mean, it's. keeps it keeps kind of being somewhat like the same stuff it keeps being like the same stuff it keeps being leg things and i mean corbman's presser or they're just interview after the game he gave he he was they asked him like how just how good was merrill tonight and he gave what to me seemed like

kind of a weird response he was just like he said he was great whatever then he kind of paused and he was just like he's just really been battling for us and then he was like he's obviously been dealing with some and he kind of like pause and it's like some weird injury things and it made it seemed like, you know, Merrill's really been kind of dealing with something that might be more than it just being hot and him not being hydrated enough. Like it kind of seems like there's something going on there. That's just me maybe reading too much into that one corporate interview. But still, regardless, whether even if it is just cramps, like he's clearly, it clearly is

a thing that keeps popping up for him to keep coming out and giving such consistent performances, even though he does keep having this problem, it just makes, what would he accomplish if he, if he wasn't cramping? Yeah, no kidding. We're experiencing those late cramps. He's had 11 strikeouts on August 14th against Colorado Rockies, nine strikeouts against the Minnesota Twins, and then peppered in between some smaller strikeout performances

against the Dodgers and the Padres. But still, this one, very, very good, his best start of the season, and it's very good to hear that he is doing okay. Is that bringing up a good point? It's not hot in October. Oh, yeah. Especially if in October in Philadelphia.

Right. Or, I mean, like October in Los Angeles. That's right. He's just training his body. October in Milwaukee. Yeah. The Diamondbacks did almost blow this. Oh, man.

Yeah, they tried. They really did. They almost tried to blow this wonderful outing for Merrill Kelly. Let's talk about the bases loaded blunder there in the seventh inning because it was fairly inexcusable, right? The Arizona Diamondbacks had bases loaded. Was it no outs? I believe.

I believe so. Yeah, we'll believe it was no outs. They somehow get a Jace Peterson double, and yet I'll tell you, if you didn't watch the game, they only scored one run. How that happened, I still can't answer to this day. But basically, from what we could see, it seemed like there was just a backup in traffic here. If you can see here. I feel like kind of everyone is to blame. Everyone except Tel Marte, I'm going to say, is at fault here.

Okay, first. So we have here on the base path. We have Gabriel Moreno over there at third base. We have Tony Parish Jika here on the left side of the screen. He is putting up the stop sign. Then we have Catelle Marte on second, kind of off second, more likely. And then Jase Peterson almost two second over there in between first and second. So basically what had happened was it looked like Perishika put up the stop sign for Gabby Moreno. But at that point, Catell and Jase were both overly committed to a second. advancing on the base path. I think, yeah, like I said, I think there's a hand, like, there's a few different people to blame here. I think the natural reaction was to blame Tony P. Yeah. Which I understand. And I do think he is at, in part to blame here.

Just for you just have to send him at this point, right? Like, you can make the argument that he should be more aggressive here and should send him. I think what's important to put into context here is that the, the, the hit, I don't think it was as obvious to the players. as it was to the viewers that it was going to be a hit and not an out. And so I think the base runners were staying relatively close to their bags. They weren't running on contact necessarily. So I think what happens here is they're holding up,

but Jace Peterson, who got a hit for the first time in eight years, it feels like, and just excited to see the ball hit the brass, was just running full speed around the bag. Did not fully realize that his base runners were where they were at. where they were at, right? So now they're in a situation where you basically have two guys on second base. At this point, I think Tony needs to notice that stopping somebody here is going to be chaos. Yeah.

Because you basically have two people at one base. In his defense, I think he's throwing up that stop sign a long time ago. And Gabby's coming so hard in the third that he doesn't notice it. Like at this point, Tony's got the hand up. Gabby's got his head down rounding third. So I don't think he notices it there. So, but I do think at a certain point, Tony, needs to send him. But if Jace Peterson does his job, pays attention, stops at first.

Jason forgot how to ask. Yeah. If Jase Peterson stops at first and Tony stops Gabby at third, none of this happens. Because the only reason Gabby gets out at home later on is because Jase Peterson is at second and is basically jogging back to first and Gabby thinks he can catch the defense sleeping, which he almost did do. If Jace hadn't gone so aggressively into second and paid attention and Gabby stopped at third like he originally did. It's basis loaded, run, run scored, no outs. Yeah. Yeah. A completely fine situation. I get that you want Tony to be more aggressive and it looks worse there later, but it happened the other night where everyone was screaming that Tony should have been more aggressive. And then

they ended up scoring the winning run. They ended up winning that game because he kept Ketel at third and they were able to knock him in later. So I, and everybody else was able to get back in it. It would appear like Moreno only went because he thought that Kutel was kind of hung out to dry in between second and third. It was a risky base running decision, but I don't think it was necessarily a bad one. I feel, I can't know. I'm saying Jay's devil.

He said, even Jason's success. Yeah, man. It's so accurate. The guy didn't know what to do after he got a hit in a clutch situation. Well, it's just like there needs to be more awareness of where your base runners are at. Well, this goes back to what I was,

what Tori was saying. I know he was talking about bunting, but these are the kind of egregious mistakes you can't make. This was one of the worst base running situations. I feel like they've had. They've definitely had some bad ones, especially lately.

In the second half of this season, they've had some big mistakes that they've made on the base path. But this one, I think why it was so frustrating was bases loaded, no outs, and Jace Peterson got what appeared to be a base clearing double. Right, out of someone that you didn't expect anything from. Yeah, and instead you get, like, I understand, I understand the Reds playing the ball well and getting it in,

and I understand Jace may be needing to stay at first, but it really feels like that should have been at least a first and third, with Catell on third, Jason first, and Moreno is scoring as well. So it was just luckily a situation that Corbyn Carroll saved us all from because yeah, oh my God. The minute Merrill Kelly leaves the game, the Reds are able to go up by one run. Corbyn Carroll then picks the best possible time to hit his first home run in the last 30 days. In the last 30 days, July 23rd was the last time Corbyn Carroll hit a home run.

As they were saying, going into great detail on it on the broadcast. The timing on it was like scripted. I couldn't believe it. And me and Sean were also talking about this as well. Like, dude needs to figure it out. We were. We were because I was joking earlier about Nick McLean hitting a home run in this game and spitting in Corbyn's faces.

He runs the bases and steals the rookie of the year from him. But, no, yeah. I mean, everyone knew. Like, we were talking about that. Yeah. He's been playing well, but you want to see him put one over the fucking wall. Yeah. You want to get him back to being.

Yeah. He's been Corbyn Carroll. You want him to be Corbyn't fucking Carol again. We want him to be him. Yeah, exactly. He hasn't been that for a while. So it was good to see him, especially in such a massive moment. Finally.

It was just beautiful. Get a home. Yeah, it was. And with a man on base, too, which is something the Diamondbacks I haven't done a great job of doing lately. But Paul Seawalt comes in, closes the door in the ninth inning. Of course, he does have to make the. things a little interesting, but he does it without giving up a run. This man continues to be great for this team.

Even when he's not good, he's still somehow great. Eight games now in a row without giving up a run. Seventh save as a member of the D-backs, two away from tying McGuff for the team lead in saves. I mean, that's not counting the ones that he brought over with him from the Mariners. So again, he's been very good. But it's one of those rare occasions where we really couldn't decide on just one King's. snake. So we're just going to give it to two. Let's give it to Merrill Kelly.

Merrill Kelly, seven innings pitch, one hit, zero runs, given up, 12 strikeouts, probably would have gone nine. And you know what, that's fine. We'll just give it to Merrill Kelly. I'm just going to get it to Merrill. I mean, Corby and Carroll, that's home run is good too, but Merrill Kelly just absolutely outstanding

for this team. And luckily, nobody in the chat today is coming for us for doing this. So we don't have to make any last minute adjustments. I wanted to give it to Jays Peterson. But I was told No, no, I didn't. I mean, yeah, Merrill, like, it doesn't feel like they win this game with any other pitcher on the mound. Yeah.

Let's go back to the super chat. There was a super chat up there with a question actually about Merrill. Chris C. said, what did you believe Merrill Kelly's ceiling was when he started playing with the debacks? I don't believe it was this. Chris, it absolutely was not. He wouldn't be on this contract. If this was, if this was what it was supposed to be. Yeah.

I mean, maybe we could have prayed for. high, you know, three ERA. Maybe we could have prayed for him to come out and, you know, give this team six, six innings. How different do you think his ceiling was from Zach Davies? I think the expectations might have been fairly similar, but a little bit higher for Merrill Kelly. But Merrill Kelly also had the caveat like Scott McGuff did of he hasn't pitched in

the major league baseball in a long time. So like that, that idea or the fact that he was a career. a pitcher and he comes over here. I feel like that would have been like, all right, well, since he didn't do that well. Like, Zach Davies is a little different because I feel like as a major league pitcher, we expected a little bit more out of him.

Yeah, that's fair. But Merrill Kelly, again, I think it felt fairly like high, low reward or low risk high reward with Merrill Kelly. And it ended up being a much higher reward than I'm sure the Diamondbacks even could have imagined. Also, B.com C clearly. for your super chat says, I'll take it for what it is right now. And that's the Diamondbacks winning some baseball games.

And that's all we need. Some dubs. You know, this is a team right now that has once again figured out how to win baseball games. I don't understand how they turned it around. I don't have any answers for that. But what I do know is I'm glad they did because this team is once again playing like the team that we all kind of became infatuated with earlier this season. That just was so fun to watch, you know.

even this game Miguel Castro, I know a lot of people are going to question Tori bringing him in instead of Kevin Ginkle or another option. I also question that too. I don't really know, especially in a game that was this tight, why you wouldn't have gone with what you consider to be

your best, you know, your best reliever outside of Paul Seawald right now, but I'm sure matchups and other things had to do with it. Also, I don't know, it still continues to feel like no matter what Tori does at time. You can't use Ginkleton, Cewald, in every outing. Yeah,

exactly. You got to pitch the guys that you have in your roster. Exactly. That's, that's, that's,

well said. Well said. And with that, we're just going to say, the diamond backs are a goddamn wagon. They are. They are. They are.

So, put your money on them. Go to the Ben, MGM Sportsbook, throw some money on them over there. Maybe get down a swing for the fences promotion. Definitely get down on the swing for the fence.

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1-81-0-0-3 Puerto Rico in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Visit betmGM.com for terms and conditions. U.S. Promotional offers not available in D.C., Kansas, Nevada, New York, or Ontario. Well, we thank you guys for being here in the PHNXport to YouTube channel right now. We always love it when you comment. Like Aaron Hughes's comment right here that says, guys, I'm sorry to break it to you, but this means Castro's option has vested. And what Aaron is talking about is,

the number of appearances that Miguel Castro had in his contract this year that immediately causes it to be picked up for next season. So Miguel Castro, unless he's traded, will be a part of the Arizona Diamondbacks next year. Someone else had Castro's back piece of Yoshi said, Castro pitched well in the Rangers series. He absolutely did, but he pitches a third time in four days and struggles. Overusage is definitely a big problem with Castro.

That's one thing. I feel like people a lot of times struggle to keep in context when they talk about relievers is like it's not these aren't starting pitchers where like their workload is relatively consistent throughout a year like they can relatively say they're pitching once every five days like whenever you're talking about a the recent performance of a reliever you have to talk about how much he's been used recently yeah because that definitely matters yeah um and so yeah it's important important context yeah he's he's he's him and chafin were overused early on in the season and that's still happening for Miguel a bit now.

But again, if you're here on the YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe to the channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. Leave us a thumbs up. We always appreciate that. That's our attaboy. Like we just need attaboy stacked up tall so we feel good about ourselves. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side, you can't give us a thumbs up, but you can leave us a review.

And most importantly, you can subscribe to us. That's what we would love you to do. If you haven't purchased a diehard membership yet, signed up for a diehard membership yet, do it now. Go over to go phtonx.com and you can get our brand new t-shirt as your free shirt from the phtonx locker.com. This little snake wrapped around a bat. I love it so much. And of course, you can get yours today. You also get 20% off all future purchases with your membership.

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This shirt is awesome. Oh, my God. I love this shirt so much. I've already ordered it myself. Sefer is, I think I'm misprouncing your name. Sefer says, how about the Ahmed performance? Laugh my ass off. Lawler, please.

Yes, we all want Lawler, please. We want Lawler soon enough. And thank you for this. super chat but let's let's look at that shirt that is absolute fire I love it I love that too Alon is oh man yeah yeah it is it really is the icing on the cake there

yes and AZ Sports Girl you do have to get it especially if you're going to continue to use me as your avatar image there but it's our nicest D-back shirt it really is I will be getting it I like all the snakes wrapped around bats our other our other snakes wrapped our Rattler's shirt that's what we call him

that one's good too but might get it be confusing considering we have a team called the Rattlers around here. True. One person we haven't talked enough about tonight is probably a person that could have gotten a king snake himself. And that is one and only Mr. Diamondback. Mr. Diamondback.

Gabriel. Gabriel Morano. Yeah, Gabriel Moreno has been incredible for this team. In fact, he was three for four tonight. I believe that's what he finished out. I could be wrong about that because I haven't looked. But he is, yeah, three for four. tonight. Of course, yeah, he did have that

base running blunder, but he also leads the Arizona Diamondbacks in a very important category, and that is defensive runs saved. Let's take a look at where he stacks up in regards to everybody else for defensive run saved on the team. It's high. 13.

Alec Thomas is the next closest with eight, and then, shockingly, Lordus Guriel. Yeah. With seven? Seawak with six, and Dominic Fletcher with four. Dominic Fletcher being Are you surprised by this

List of five Yeah Yeah You look a little You look a little I mean mainly Lordus I mean Alec spent a lot of time I mean Alec is a terrific defensively obviously

But he spent a decent amount of time in Reno So I'm a little surprised to see that he's up there But And then Lordus I mean it's the big surprise for me Because Every time a ball gets hit to left field I

Hold my breath because he never takes a good route and he never makes it look easy. Yeah. But I guess he's getting the outs. Like it's been a while, I guess, that I've seen him actually fuck up in left field.

And defensive runs saved is such a weird thing too because of the way that they determine it. There's a lot of factors that go into this. But like outfielders tend to have like some things in regards to positioning and where they're, you know, the route that they took and things like that. that like for instance that Alec Thomas catch the other night where they said that he it was 65% catch probability and it was based on the fact that like he took a bad route to the ball that made it you know as hard to get to or whatever right so like that's kind of the stuff that they take into account but with Gabby I think it's just been more about his ability to gun out runners on the base path he's been incredibly effective there at putting out you know runners attempting to steal and I mean he's just honestly so much better than

the other catchers the diamondbacks have i mean that you know they they dfate carson kelly and when you take a look at jose herrera jose herrera is minus seven for defensive runs saved that's minus seven i do believe he is the worst he has the worst defensive run saved metrics for the team uh the diamond backs are now 46 and 37 with gabby moreno in the lineup i think gabby is the wagon he is like i think he might be the entire horse that is pulling the wagon that's for damn sure yeah he's mr diamond back i don't know what you want me to tell you he's mr diamond back he is the heart and soul of this team i say it every day look at the poverty franchise it is the st louis cardinals they don't have a catcher and look at they haven't or they don't have a catcher

yadda or malina left and now they suck look at the new yorky's they haven't been fucking relevant since horrid pasada left you need a good catcher and the diamond backs have a good catcher and now they're winning baseball games i hate to break jacob franklin's heart and he might be right because the biggest thing about Gabriel Moreno is that it allowed the diamondbacks to move on from Carson Kelly. It allowed the diamondbacks to have a catcher now behind the plate that they believe in, both offensively and defensively, and that can do all of the things. Like,

it almost felt like at times that they were trying to have two catchers that were able to do all of the thing that one catcher could do. But Moreno has just been outstanding back there. And even though that this trade looks very good for the Arizona Diamondbacks in regards to their trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, I do have to let you guys know that Dalton Varsho has 20 defensive runs saved. 20. Who? Yes, it's more than Gabby. But if you combine Lourdes and Gabby, they have 20 defensive runs saved together.

So it's a push. And also, Dalton can't hit. Yeah, all right. That's fine. He's not wrong about that. But what I will say is that this team continues to be surprising. yet it's not surprising when Gabriel Moreno is behind the plate. Like he seems to be a big part of the reason why when you look at when they struggled,

he was not in the lineup. And since he's been back in the lineup, the Diamondbacks were able to get things back on track and have now returned to their winning ways. So it's official. We're declaring Gabriel Moreno, Mr. Diamondback. He is Mr. Diamondback. I'll have to contact my sash guy. His statue will be built.

like Tony Gwins. Yeah. And we'll say Mr. Diamondback under it. Yeah, yeah, I'm down for it. The Wildcard standings continue to get wilder. Do we have the Wild Card standings, Damon? Let's take a look at those. This is good.

This is good. We're back in it, you guys. I like it. We're a little bit closer to the Phillies, two and a half games back from them, half a game back from the Cubs still. And this is starting to look like the Diamondbacks are edging out.

The Marlins now two games back in the Huns, and it feels like things are rolling in the DeVax direction. Again, they have a lot of games left against the Cubs, the Giants, and three more against the Reds. So it's going to be interesting to see how the rest of this series plays out. Today, Tori Lavello talked about the reason why he swapped Merrill Kelly and Brandon fought in the starting rotation, and he basically said that it lines up much better for Zach Gavall.

Allen and Merrill Kelly to be one and two for their big marquee matchups that they have coming up for the big important, you know, uh, games series that they have, you know. And so it feels like the Diamondbacks are now kind of adapting to playoff mode and getting themselves ready for that. Do you want to read off the standings for the audio people? Yeah, I would love to do that. So right now the, you know, you still have the Braves, Dodgers, and Brewers leading their divisions. And then in the wildcard teams, you have right now in, in the first spot, the Phillies, uh, at 69 and 50s. with a two and a half game lead over the final spot.

Cubs at 67 and 60 with a half a game above the final spot and the D-backs in that final spot at 67 and 61. Just behind them, you got the Giants and the Reds, both a half game back, and then the Marlins, like I said, now have dropped two back. And we're climbing, we're not only over the top of Mount 500, but we're trucking up that bitch. Let's get that little, let's get that little Marte going up the mountain.

It's Yodelin season, baby. It's Yodeling season. I thought we were never going to see that again. Yeah, I really, because we made one where he's going down the mountain. It's very sad. It's dark. We don't want to see that one anymore. There were some really dark days there.

We're asking of a set. But yeah, I mean, looking at the while there were standings, the Diamondbacks by no means have this under control, but it does seem like it is tightening up a little bit. The party of teams that have a chance is tightening up. You mentioned that that game and that two games back that the Marlins are means a lot. more than it did when the diamondbacks were that a few weeks. Absolutely. Fuck the Marlins.

They might as well be out of it as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, like we were talking a few weeks ago about the Padre is still potentially having a chance. I don't really think that's in the cards. I mean, I guess it still is. But obviously day by day it becomes less and less likely. These teams are all winning a lot right now, which at a point when the diamondbacks were losing, they were all losing a lot, like except the Cubs because that's how the

Cubs crept up from out of nowhere and got into this race. Right. But like right now, that could easily happen where these teams kind of all struggle there for a little bit and those Padres could just go on a shriek and find their way back in it. Everything's close enough right now that anything can happen and that's why

Tori is saying that he is 100% sure that this is going to come down to one game and I'm starting to believe that myself but I think more than anything how much fun is this next month of baseball going to be like oh man yeah I mean this is everything's going to matter we everything is going to matter and even even if the

Diamondback struggle there there's still a chance with the teams that they have ahead of them in the wild card that they're still playing for them to make up ground. I love the three, you know, wild cards spot. Like we wouldn't even be discussed. Like, yes, the Diamondbacks would be right there behind the Cubs for the final spot if they were only two.

But man, this just makes it so much more fun. Those, those dark days would have been a lot darker with two wild card spots. I'll say that. It would have been a lot. I would have seemed a lot less or a lot more bleak. But yeah, I mean, it is going to be awesome. As like a pure baseball fan, like this is what you want to see.

You want to see team competing. You don't want to see the season be decided. before it's over right which I mean really happens but like it is going to be awesome to see I mean if the playoffs were if the playoffs were we were heading into the last series of the season there's five different teams that could take up I mean technically there's there's six different teams that take up those wild cards box it's great I mean we're gonna be we're gonna be in one and I mean we're also like the stakes get higher you see teams collapse I mean obviously

I mentioned it all the time up a Red Sox fan. Like Terry Francona lost his job as a Red Sox manager because of a massive collapse they had. So like teams collapsed. You don't know. You watch the Diamondbacks collapse. I'm not saying that we're coming for the Dodgers, but just in the general baseball sense. Like, you know, the brewers have always kind of been hanging on to that top spot.

They have a few bad series and all of a sudden they're out of the playoffs. Yeah. No, yeah. So same thing with the Reds right now. Like the Diamondbacks have all the reason in the world, all the motivation in the world to sweep this series. with the Reds. Not only do they need to win every game, but the tiebreaker is so crucial, considering the only other time they played the Reds, they swept them in a three-game series. So you're absolutely right. If the Diamondbacks achieved that, the Reds could just be out

of it like that completely if Miami creeps up or, you know, if the Padres have a good series or a couple of good wins. Right. But if this series had gone the way the last Reds series had gone, all of a sudden the Reds could be leading the Central. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like it's wild. Playoffs are all. Baseball is awesome. This is so good. It's so much fun. But of course, if you're talking about fun, you got to stop by Circle K just to see us on the gas pumps. Can't have fun without snacks. You don't even, yeah, I mean, go get some snacks and then watch us on the gas pumps, and that's a fun afternoon right there in itself. But Circle K does have the best coffee, beer and snack selection, and premium gas.

You can stock up at Circle K. It's America's thirst stop. But again, if we're on the gas pumps, we understand the thirst. Ayo. Also, right now you can get deals such as buying power raids $4 for $5 and be entered to win, potentially win, a 2003 for Big Ben Bronco SUV that you do have to fight Sean for. And Damon is also involved in that as well. It's very confusing situation.

They also have buy two, get one free, monster energy drinks, and buy two get one free, beatbox, hard tea. So do not miss out on all of this great stuff. Right now, text PHNX to 3131 to join their SMS subscriber club and get a buy one, get one free offer on 32 ounce polar pops. Head to circlek.com slash store dash locator to find circle Ks near you. But you don't need to do that. You know where circle Ks are. They're all around you.

You see them all the time. You know where your closest one is. You might even be like my friend Rock and like know the cashier by their first name and stuff. So also while you're there, say hello to your favorite cashier and pick up some Four Peaks beer or pick it up wherever you get your beer. It is the official craft beer of the Arizona Diamondbacks. And I'm drinking a delicious hop-not IPA right now myself, one of my favorite beers that they make. But of course, they have a wide variety of beers. You can try out all of their beers at the Four Peaks draft room.

They have all of their beers there available on draft. It's located on the sweet level at Chase Field down the first baseline. and it is a great place to watch a Diamondbacks game from. You can also join us for our takeover events. We will be meeting for our takeover on September 5th at the Four Peaks draft room. So make sure to stop by there. You can check out the events page in our show notes to find dates and tickets for that. You can also check out Four Peaks.com slash events to stay up to date on everything, Four Peaks.

And stay up to date with them at Four Peaks brew or at Four Peaks Pub. You can keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. It must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks and please drink response. responsibly. Well, we are very excited, of course, to get some updates from Chase Field, and we are joined now by the one and only Jesse Friedman, Thunderstick. Jesse Friedman. How you doing, sir? How is Merrill Kelly doing, most importantly? Yeah, Merrill is good. Merrill seems to be totally fine. I don't know what updates you guys might have heard up to this point, but it is a right hamstring cramp. The exact same issue that Merrill had in his start about two weeks ago, I believe it was on August 9th,

pretty much the exact same thing happened. Not at all connected to the issue that he had with his calf. Yeah, not connected to the blood clot once again. So, yeah, it's good news and bad news in a sense, right? I mean, it's very good news in that there's no long-term sort of concern in terms of like Merrill not making his next start or anything. That's not even really a question. It doesn't sound like.

But there is maybe some long-term concern in terms of like you can't have Merrill in like, you know, game two of the wild card round, like having to leave a start in the fifth inning because of cramping, right? Like, that's just not something that you can really have happen. And he was very frustrated with that after the game. You know, he hates being removed from games as it is. Obviously, Merrill is the kind of guy who really prides himself with the number of innings that he throws. And, you know, especially in a game like this that was pivotal. And, you know, it kind of looked for a second there, like Merrill being removed from this game an inning earlier than he might have otherwise could have proved to be the difference in this one, right?

The Debacks bullpen came out in the eighth inning. It was a bit of a tough spot. Kyle Nelson, you know, entered early a little bit unexpectedly. The Reds countered put a pinch hitter to face him and Nick Senzel. But yeah, I mean, the Reds instantly scored two runs the moment the bullpen enters the game when Merrill Kelly was on an incredible run. I don't know if I've ever seen Merrill Kelly pitch like he did tonight. It was incredible, incredible stuff.

And he was so efficient. Yeah, he was incredible. But yeah, in the long term, the debacks seemed to figure this out. And they sounded very intent on figuring out whether it's a hydration issue. And Merrill said he's going to meet with the nutritionist and try to come up with a plan. This is an issue he's had in years past. He said he's had this issue in Korea. I think it popped up a little bit back in 2019.

So it's something he's had some experience with in the past. But the debacks are hopeful they can get this figured out so it doesn't have. happen again. Jesse, this is why I'm always telling you to drink water. This is why I'm always worried that you're not drinking enough water. I'm so worried you're going to cramp up. It's insane. It's like, it's my worst fear and see now it's happening to Merrill. But yeah, I mean, the load that I put on my body, you know, every day is pretty similar to the load that Merrill put on his today. It absolutely is. I've seen you. You're a beast. But yeah, I mean, I imagine things are still pretty high there, though even though Merrill had this cramp, I'm sure he's pretty proud of his performance.

And I mean, this team considering they kind of blew it after he pitched such a gem and then we're able to come back and win it. I imagine the motions are fairly high tonight. Yeah, I think that's true. That's like mostly true. But you could tell Tori was not happy with what happened in the same inning. Yeah. That was the kind of thing.

that it frankly it reminded me of when i play melb the show and i'm really bad at like that's exactly what i said exactly i turned to damon and i said it's exactly what i was doing last night yeah i was just like i was jace peterson i was running no matter what sending all the runners with the r2 button no i'm going i'm not looking i'm going yeah for sure i think we have i don't know if we have that clip maybe we have that clip of tori levello yeah we do we do yeah here we go what happened on the base run you know who messed up or what caused that in snap? I don't know, Doc.

Do we even win this game? I've been blacked out since it happened. I don't know if you know what happened. I was so mad. So, man, you can dissect it a thousand different ways. Everybody has responsibilities on that play. You know, the easy target is to say the third base coach made a mistake. The coach of your third base, the big leagues is.

extremely difficult. T.P.'s body clock, his game clock, his clock is on, and he's usually spot on. He does a really nice job over there. So, you know, he's easy target. But I think there was some just fundamental miscues by where we were standing in proximity to the bases, tagging up, not tagging up. We got to figure that out. I don't know exactly. I haven't had a chance to look at it, but only one time. And I just became too frustrated at it, so I'll have to look at it a little bit more in depth, but I think everybody had a little bit of responsibility, including the hit or runner. You know, it's like you think everybody's exempt, but nobody is. We just got to be a little bit more situationally aware than that situation. It went from potentially a game where it would

have been two, three, maybe four nothing coming off of that field, and it was one-nothing. Once again, I want to bridge over to how focused our guys got when they needed to win a game despite some really frustrating times. This team was extremely frustrated. Every, every, every country. coach, every player, the trainers, everybody was frustrated after that play. We regrouped and won the game. Blacked out and still doesn't know if they won the game. I understand. I can't relate.

Having blinding anger myself, I could absolutely relate to that, Jesse. That was kind of a refrain that Tori used multiple times in this post-game interview, honestly. Like, I don't know. Like, if we asked him anything after the seventh inning, he was like, I don't know what happened after the seventh inning. I was just pissed off about this base running of Lunders. But it was, I mean, frankly, it was that level of egregious. Like, this is the kind of thing.

You just cannot have happened. Jace Peterson, you know, a guy who has struggled, obviously since coming over to the debacks, he gets an enormous hit. The bases are loaded with nobody out, a one hopper off the right field fence. And I just like up in the press box, you know, I see Tony Parrishika like motioning to the guy rounding third. And my natural assumption is the debacks have already scored two runs. And he's like deciding whether to send the third run or not.

That's what's supposed to happen when the bases are loaded and you hit a one hopper off the fence. But no, right? That was Gabby Moreno. That's the guy who was on second base who did not score on a pitch that won hop the fence. It was a really unfortunate play for the debacks. And as Tori described there, there's a lot of responsibility that goes around. Gabby got a bad read, Jace Peterson. as much as he should have had a double on that play.

He didn't. And so he shouldn't have rounded first and gotten all the way basically to second base. And Tony Parishika also should probably have just sent Gabby. I didn't get a great look at that live in the moment. But I have to believe that Gabby, with his speed, even though he didn't get a great read, he should be able to score from second base on a one hopper off the fence. So just an all-around blunder for the Diamondbacks, you can tell that people were very disheartened over this. But as Tori talked about, you know, he went back over and over in that interview

to the Diamondbacks being able to hold it together and find a way to win this game, something that you get the sense they would not have done as of a few weeks ago. Cateau was the only one that didn't seem like he did anything wrong there. He kind of just got caught between. He did a good job getting back to second. Yeah. You know. And Jesse, you even, like, that's a wild thing was you're there. You have the press box view. And the first thing you did after that play was over was text us what the hell just happened and that's because none of us knew none of us

knew the answer to that like literally we watched it I think you know we don't often like rewind the broadcast and stuff but we did our best to try to get CSI on it I was really framed by frame it just because we had no idea who really wasn't for yeah because I mean like Tori said the obvious the obvious target

there is a third base coach and also I think Tony has been under a little bit of fire from DeBax fans and a a couple of occasions somewhat recently. So I think naturally people are already kind of ready to come at him. And he very well might have done something wrong, but I think he was kind of put in a weird situation there with everybody else not really doing their job.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, it was a mess. It was a mess. Corbyn Carroll hit his first home run in 30 days. Jesse, what was his mood like after hitting that game winner? Yeah, I mean, it feels like the first time that we've talked with Corbin after a game in a decent while, frankly. He just hasn't been, you know, he's really kind of bounced back over the last couple weeks.

He's had a few multi-hit games here and there. But this was the big hit. I mean, this was the hit. This was the home run that took one of, I mean, the debacks have had their share of frustrating losses this year, no doubt. I don't know if they could have possibly ever had a loss that would have been, that was more frustrating than this one would happen. No kidding.

I mean, this was a game that the devax, like, they should have scored three runs. Just like on paper, if you play out the rest of the inning, they should have easily scored three runs in that seventh inning. They come away with one. And then you come into the eighth inning and your pitcher who's been absolutely mowing the Reds hiters down had allowed one hit up to that point in the game. He suddenly exits with cramping. Tori has to kind of scramble in the bullpen. You give two runs back. I mean, it would have just been a brutal loss.

And Corvin came through. Yeah, Corbyn came through in the biggest spot of the game. And, you know, I mean, yeah, he hasn't. I think it was maybe July 23rd, something like that was his last home run. It's obviously been, it's obviously been a grind for him over the last month or so. But you can see it kind of looks like he's turning a corner right now. I think he was eight for his last 16 or something like that, entering that at bat. You know, he had a good swing and opposite field single earlier in the game as well.

So I think Corbin has made. maybe turning things around, and that's obviously a huge development for the diamond backs. Important series to win, not, again, we don't want to, you know, have 30 plus games left and say that any of these games are a must win. But a pretty important series for this team, obviously. I know that there's the whole sweeping the reds and trying to get that tiebreaker, but that seems like a lot to ask. At this point, it's just a matter of trying to take at least three or four from this team. And build on that. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, make it so right. Like that the reds, you know, you can put the reds away a little bit here by beating them. So things aren't so close. But what do you think as far as the probabilities go that this series is, you know, in the Diamondbacks favor still? Or what do you think? Noz that gallon still. And we're at Brandon Fott going tomorrow. Here's the rest of the, here's the rest of the probabilities that we had for this series.

now updated with Zach Davies, fought Davies Sacconi for the Diamondbacks, Green Kennedy Ashcraft for the Reds. Oh, did the Reds update that? Oh, yeah. Okay, so the Reds, yeah, the Reds moved green. According to ESO, yeah, Green was slated to start on Saturday against Davies. So they moved up Green to Friday, it looks like.

So, yeah, so Green against Fought tomorrow. Saturday, at least according to the MLB app, I don't have a starter for Saturday. Brett Kennedy, I guess. It would probably be a reasonable guess there, him facing off against Zach Davies and then and then Ashcraft against Cicone. That's how that one lined up initially. So, yeah, it's not, I mean, it's not terrible.

You know, Brandon Fought's been pitching really well. Yeah. You know, we talked with Tori earlier today. You guys might have already covered this, but the debacks made an interesting decision to swap Brandon Fott and Merrill Kelly in the rotation. And, yeah, Tori basically described how, you know, down the stretch you want Zach Allen, Merrill Kelly's your 1-2, which makes sense.

So the deep backs kind of swap those guys around. And Brandon Fott has been pitching really well. So, you know, Hunter Green throws extremely hard, but he doesn't necessarily get the results that you'd expect him to. He's in his second year in the league and still kind of figuring things out. So I think that matchup tomorrow is, you know, reasonably balanced. Saturday, Zach Davies, you know, he don't necessarily feel great on the deback side.

But Brett Kennedy is a pretty inexperienced pitcher. if that's who it winds up being for the Reds. And then Sunday, Ashcraft against Cicone, that one probably fairly balanced as well. So at the end of the day, I mean, the D-backs have a bunch of young position players. The Reds have a ton of young position players. I think seven of their 10 starters in this game were rookies,

including their starting pitcher, which was insane. The D-backs don't have quite that many, but they have some young position players with their own. And at the end of the day, it's going to be like, which of those position player groups wins out? That's kind of what it feels like is this series is going to come down to. And 15,000 people get a Corbyn Carroll bobblehead as an apology for having to watch Zach Davies potentially pitch.

And 30,000 people don't, which is the sad reality of those bobblehead nights, right? Yeah, Jesse, it's like if I, you know, you can hold any contest and say like, hey, I'm going to pay one person a million dollars to pick up all this dog poop. That means if you got 20 people doing it, 19 are going to do it for free. But here's the biggest thing is that Zach Davies really is a wild card right now for this team. When you speak about the wild card and everything the Diamondbacks are going through, we have no idea what they're going to get out of Zach Davies. We know he hasn't been good at times for this team yet he's shown glimpses,

glimpses at times this very season of being a good pitcher, just not consistently. more importantly, we know he struggled in AAA Reno. So we really have no idea what we're going to get out of Zach Davies up here on Saturday. I'm going to bet on the red so hard on that game. Home runs for every single reds batter. I'm taking me over on runs given up under on outs got recorded, under on strikeouts. I am in on fading Zach Davies on Sunday. You're supposed to be a Diamondbacks fan.

I'm a Diamondbacks fan that likes money. He's a fan of money, Jesse. And I'm also a realistic Diamondbacks fan. I'm not going to have the, you want me to say here to pretend that Zadavis is good? He's using his Diamondbacks information to win himself money. Yeah, that's what this is. Zach, I will say, you guys remember that start again, I think it was against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Zach Davies lined up against the raise after like a string of just terrible starts. And everyone was like, all right, I don't even want to turn this game on. And Zach Davies went out that day. I think it was seven innings of one run ball, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he was very good that day. I would be more inclined to have a shred of belief if this wasn't coming off of an injury that is, well, coming off of him being dog shit in Reno

coming off of an injury. That concerns me a little bit. However, I will say this. The one weird thing about like rehab starts and things is that they tend to like not, as ridiculous as it sounds, they tend to not go to their best stuff. Like they're not trying to go on their best stuff.

It's kind of like spring training when they're like working on stuff. So they're working on maybe something specific, but they might change their approach when they're actually playing in competitive Major League Baseball teams. It's not to say he's not trying as a pitcher. You just don't know what the Reno A approaches.

Yeah, you don't know what exactly it is. Typically when they're doing that, that's more of a, you know, backlot game or like an Arizona Complex League game or something like that. Typically, if they're going out and pitching for the AAA team, they're still trying to have success. But I guess I'm just,

I guess I'm just hoping. that that might be the case that he was just kind of working on stuff that maybe that maybe he's better when he's up here Davies was also the Atlanta pitcher though wasn't he yeah yeah and then somebody said that the the radio said that he's a junk ball uh con dog said the radio crew seemed to think a junk baller like davies might fare well against the reds uh and and who knows maybe that's the case especially i would call davies like a junk baller he's not throwing like knucklers or like eat you know a bunch of curve balls or something it's that's true that's that's It's a change up, right? They just mean his pitches are junk, Jesse. That's what they mean. I think that's what they mean by John Baller, but I don't know. Anyway, very, again, very, very, very pivotal.

Yeah, they are trash. Very, very pivotal series for this team, Jesse. But of course, we know you will be out there all weekend long. So we will, you and I will be back here tomorrow doing our postgame show for game two of the series. I feel like we have to shout out Paul Seawall and the fact that like it's ugly every single time. unfortunately. But the man, the man gets the job done. And he did that once again today with his back against the wall, right, a one run lead. A game that it would have been really tough to swallow, I think, if the Reds had come back and taken this one. It took almost 30 pitches. Again,

it wasn't pretty. I know that he's not personally satisfied with the way that these innings have gone. But seven for eight and save opportunities is seven for eight and save opportunity. Eight games straight. Eight games without a run given up. Eight games in a row without a run given up. I don't think we've seen that out of any Diamondbacks reliever all year. Like, maybe there was a stretch when Scott McGuff was pretty good for like 10 games. Didn't he have like a 14 game? Something like that without. Squirrelish or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. He at least had nine. I remember he got up to nine for sure. I know Justin Martinez also got up to, no, not Justin Martinez. Was it just Martinez? I think it was just Martinez. But yeah, like these guys have had good, good stretches.

It's just, you know, there's a difference about coming out in the ninth inning and getting the save and I don't think we've seen anybody do it this way where like you said jesse even when it's not pretty he's still able to get the job done yeah and that that's the other difference now versus a few weeks ago like you know not only are the debacks maybe not able to fight back and and get that big hit to come back but in the ninth who the heck are they going to right that was that was the question that we dealt with over and over and over again there are still some significant questions in the middle innings of the bullpen which we saw those issues again tonight um but But yeah, the ninth inning, you know who's getting the ball.

And so far, again, it hasn't been pretty, but he really, he really has handled things nicely. The other thing I feel like I have to mention is Tori talked about a pivotal mound visit. I think it was when Miguel Castro first entered the game, where Evan Longoria came into the huddle on the pitching mound and basically just said, we're going to win this game. Like, book it. We're going to win this game.

And Tori described that moment as being kind of a turnaround when, You know, even he who was all messed up after that base running blunder, he was like, all right, we're going to be, we're going to be okay. And Tori talked about Paul Seawald and his ability to do the same thing. Just kind of take a deep breath in those big moments, you know, calm the moment down and be able to execute. And the debacks were able to do that. Paul Seawald has such a like dad energy. Oh my God. Like a dad, a dad who got the family lost on vacation.

Like it was his fault, but now that they're all kind of in the shit. He's going to calm down and get the end figure it out. Not only is he going to calm down, but like he is going to find an awesome diner off the road where we are going to eat the best cheeseburgers ever. And this is just going to be the best family memory. You're going to have no idea that your dad had no idea it was going on the whole time. He made it look like this was all. Remember that one trip to California where we never made it there, but we saw giant dinosaurs and went to that weird diner in the desert? What happened?

I took a wrong turn. I didn't know how to get that. We never knew. That was awesome. That was like one of my favorite days. Yeah, Paul Seawald. Big Dad. energy for sure but Jesse

E-D-E Big Dad Energy Paul Seawall we appreciate you joining us sir and of course make sure to follow Thunderstick at Jesse N. Friedman on Twitter for all of your updates on the Arizona Diamondbacks and of course like I said we'll be back here tomorrow with more on the next post-game

show for game two. Jesse thank you. Yeah thank you guys see ya. All right see you buddy someone finally noticed in the chat that we switched laptop. I did yeah I saw that I was wondering if anybody was going to pick up on it and that's because who was it I think you'd go up a little bit more there was uh there was talk about I think it was Brandon said it Brandon Steven said why y'all switch laptops we did that

because my laptop died Brandon but very that's very astute I only have my laptop up here to make me look smart and like I'm doing things he's just he's searching on Twitter the whole show he's just not the whole show but I'll I decent amount of the show I'm scrolling through Twitter but see like I needed his laptop so I could read these final ad reads so that's pulling the curtain back too much but Jesse, drink some water. That's from Kevin in the chat. But of course, one thing that you'll also need to do is drink plenty of water when you are enjoying the edibles from our friends at OG's brands

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Absolutely. Posh. Super posh. Super posh. But of course, one more thing to deal with, and that's the red eyes, right? And of course, if you want to hide your red eyes, you've got to have yourself a good pair of shady rays sunglasses, premium polarized sunglasses that not only will hide your eyes. Look how reflective those are.

Of others, but they will protect your eyes from the sun. And shady rays is not only an independent sunglasses company that offers a world-class product, but they also offer the most insane lost and broken replacement plan in all of eyewear. Of course, if you lose or break your pair, even on day one, Shady Raids has told us they will send you a new pair. No questions asked. They have their brand new shop here in town at Kierland Commons if you want to go check them out in person. And whether you buy them in person or online at their website, if you don't love your Shady Raise, you can exchange them for a new pair or return them for free within 30 days.

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Listen to Jesse and smash that mother frigging like button. Yeah, Jesse's here. Look at that pure emoji smile. It's such a pure little emoji. Does he even have a mustache like that? And also buy the gosh darn shirt now. Yeah, get that shirt. Smash the like button, smash the buy button on the shirt. Yeah. Go to the Go PHS

Locker right now. It's funny you bring up Jesse's facial hair because both him and my cartoons have the same facial hair. But he shaved his mustache. how I shaved the beard part. Yeah. So now we kind of like... Together we are.

We're like a Power Ranger. I love it. Facial hair. I love it. Like you guys come together like Boltron for your own pictures. But we appreciate you guys joining us tonight.

Of course, and we appreciate you loving this Arizona Diamondbacks team, which is in fact, once again, a wagon. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. This man next to me is at Sean underscore DePaz.

That's P.A.Z at the end. Of course, we are all Damon's dogs. And you can follow Damon. The Mac, the maniac behind the Mac at Damon Dog, that's DAWG at the end. Of course. Pause and pause. Pause and what? Pause, like a dog.

Like, pause. I'm gonna, I need to throw both of you here now. Jesse, I need you back. This has to go. Yeah, also, that is crazy. The man doesn't have a mustache in a grit. Like, it's been a very long time since he's had that mustache. True.

I think we might need a playoff stash. Yeah. Oh, I'll go. I think we go. playoff stashes. Yeah. Oh, are you kidding? I'm down.

I am absolutely down. We're making this a thing. Playoff stashes, just stashes? Yeah, you got it. But I, that's not as fun for me. Oh,

sorry. It's not our fault that you pick the cool facial hair that we all want to do to celebrate this team. Yeah, I'm a truck center. Yeah, exactly.

I'm a little bit of course. The reason I, if I could have more facial hair, I would, guys. I know. That's how I felt when Lord has told me that my hair should be fuller in order.

like more like more volume that was that was that was that was cold-blooded but of course uh all roads lead to at p hnx underscore sports on twitter instagram and facebook we thank you guys for being here tonight of course again we thank you for loving this team as much as we do uh and remember kids baseball is fun but it is so much more fun when you send the goddamn runners at third base