PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Mistakes stack up as the Diamondbacks let the As comeback late and lose in extra innings

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Something went very wrong late in the Arizona Diamondbacks extra innings loss to the Oakland As in game two of their three-game series. We take a look at the impact home plate umpire Brock Ballou played in both games of this series and how Evan Longoria’s terrible night paved the way to a tough loss in 12 innings. WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to the Keepin’ it 100 Golf Scramble, D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Manscaped: Save 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code “PHNX” at Manscaped.com. BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Pins & Aces: Check out 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. DISCLAIMER: We are not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site of any kind. The content of this website is intended to be used for entertainment purposes only and does not involve real money betting. Sports betting and gambling laws vary by jurisdiction. Please be aware of and respect the laws of sports gambling for your jurisdiction. We do not promote or endorse any form of wagering or gambling to users under the age of 21. We support responsible gambling. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-777-7207 (for Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling) or 1-800-NEXT-STEP (Arizona Office of Problem Gambling) or text NEXTSTEP to 53342.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.

Are you going to say something? Do I need to start the show today, there? I don't want to say anything. I don't even want to talk about sports. I want to talk about hockey. I want to talk about baseball. Sports make me sad. And I'm sure they make you sad.

So hopefully we can come together and comfort each other. Welcome in. to the PHNX D-BACs podcast, or should I say, hello and welcome to disappointment. I am your mayor of disappointment, occasionally known as Derek Montaia, this is your vice mayor of disappointment,

occasionally known as Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Get the series win tomorrow, Derek. You can get the series win tomorrow. Everyone can forget about this absolutely disgusting 12-inning four-plus-hour baseball game in front of 3,000 fans at the Oakland Coliseum. And the dog. turned in, yes, and dogs.

There were dogs there too. This game ultimately turns into a nine to eight loss against the worst team in baseball. That did win their, they are now in double digits, Derek. They have now won double digit games in 2023. So this is a big day for the Oakland days, but not a great day for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Jesse, I'm not mad that the Diamondbacks necessarily blew this game, right? I mean, things happen. I'm not mad that they lost. I'm not, well, like, I'm not mad that they lost one of the games to the Oakland Aids. I didn't necessarily expect them to go on the road and sweep even the weakest of teams, because that's not always the easiest thing to do. Yeah.

I'm mad about Brock Ballou, the home plate umpire tonight and the first base umpire in last night's game, whose name now I know, because I will never forget it after the last two games. and what I saw this man do out there on a baseball diamond. I mean, I often hear people talk about it becoming the Ump show and making it about them. But there were just so many weird things that happened in this game. Him being terrible at his job as a home plate umpire aside, there were still so many weird things that happened in this game and in game one

that I just can't be satisfied with the fact that the Diamondbacks lost this game. I mean, we're going to talk about the loss. And we're going to talk about Evan Longoria's role, especially in this. But Brock Ballou, you're on my list, pal, because holy crap. First we had, I mean, obviously the big thing with him was in game one, tossing Tori, who Tori admitted, I guess, after the game. He didn't even know if he was tossing him. He was just tossing someone in the dugout,

and Tori felt like it was his responsibility to step up and be the one that got tossed. So it wasn't one of the players. But he also tossed Merrill Kelly as Merrill Kelly was being taken out of the game, which was just especially delight. That was hilarious. I think it's absolutely hilarious to eject the, you almost feel like Merrill Kelly kind of won that moment in a sense. He did win that moment. Like the fact that he didn't blow up in the moment, right? There was a, as I'm sure everyone knows in the game yesterday, it was the eighth inning.

Merrill Kelly was pushing toward finishing eight innings. he talked after the game about potentially even throwing a complete game, which is something he thought he might be able to do. He was not able to. And it wasn't all because of Brock Ballou, but Merrill Kelly should have gotten a relatively quick first out of that eighth inning. But he didn't because there was a check swing that was wrongfully called not a swing when it absolutely was on replay. And Merrill Kelly did not mince words after the game talking about that incident. But yeah, in the moment, he sort of kept his cool. Tori Lavello did not keep his cool.

Merrill Kelly did keep his cool until he was walking off the mound later in the inning. And then he let Brock Ballou know his thoughts. And that's when Brock Ballou ejected him from a game that he was already departing from. So just kind of an odd situation there. Kelly told reporters, I thought that was a terrible call. I thought it was a very, very obvious swing. I've seen the video of it. In my mind, it was a very obvious swing.

at that time that guy's got one job to do he hit the umpire window you had one job but it is i mean it is literally true like you can't really pull that card on a home plate umpires much because home plate umpires especially in this new pitch clock era that we live in the home plate umpire has many jobs um but the first base umpire in a situation like that pretty much literally has one job. It is their job to figure out on a check swing whether the batter swung or not. And it was a blunder. And I mean, umpires are certainly going to make mistakes.

But we saw, we saw Brock Blue showcase his personality a little bit in this game as well getting into it. He puts it so politely, doesn't it? We saw, we saw a jackass is what we saw. He made a number of terrible calls. He made so many bad calls.

He made a number of terrible calls. But in game one, he tosses Tori out of the game, right? Which is fine. We're deep at manager. That's okay to lose Tori. We are DeFit manager. We are deep and manager. You could lose Tori and Manister, and I bet Brett Strom would step right up and lead this team to a victory. But the big thing, the big impact there was Merrill really couldn't get back on track after that entire situation.

And eventually comes out of the game relatively soon after that. But he did say that he was definitely, in his words, definitely sniffing his first career complete game, which that's the thing that we really miss out on by that whole dog and pony show taking place with Brock Ballou over there at first base. Then you forward to tonight, the saga continues. Wu Tang, Wu Tang, you have Brock Ballou behind home plate. First he calls Nick Ahmed for the pitch clock violation thing, which was just weird.

Because Nick got overly aggressive there. And I think the reason why is because that's how you would react when you ask somebody if they were okay to not stand there considering how late it was or how long it was taking the pitcher to get on the mound and be ready himself and how the pitch clock was running down. He seemed to nod, you know, he was fine, did, you know, didn't need to be in there or something like that. Maybe it was a miscommunication between him and Nick.

I'm not sure, but it was definitely very strange. And Nick gets that pitch clock violation and ultimately ends up by his belief striking out and that at back. Yeah, you could tell that Nick just kind of lost his composure in that moment. I think the next pitch. I want to say it was out of the strike zone. I know it was a strike of some sort. And then he chased a pitch that was well out of the zone to strike out.

So it was not, that was a strange sound. We're not entirely sure what's happening here, ladies and gentlemen. There are some very strange noises in our office building right now. We're not going to lie. I guess we just keep doing the show down. Nah, I'm out of here. Do you think they're cleaning the window? I think they are cleaning the windows right outside of our office right now.

But it definitely sounds like somebody's about to break it and kill us all right now. Do you think there's some sort of heist that's going on right now? It felt like glass. They're suction cupping up the glass. Oh my God. They sucked. That's what it was. They just suction cup glass the glass.

That's what we heard. We're done for, guys. We're done. It's a bigger heist than the Oakland A stealing this game from the Diamondbacks tonight. back to Brock Blue. Is Brock Ballou coming after us too, Derek? Is that what's happening right now? He's the mastermind. Yeah, the whole thing. But just, I mean, a bunch of questionable calls. Like, there's so many. He rung up Josh Rojas in the top of the eighth with two on, two out on a pitch that was well below the zone. And honestly, lower than a pitch that he had called a ball, just like two pitches previously. We have a screenshot of that, I believe. Do we? Okay. We have a couple. We have many. We have many Brock Blue screenshots in here.

This is the Josh Rojas screenshot, which, yes, this pitch. That 92 mile an hour pitch right there. It's clearly right in the middle of right, the plate. So it's obvious that this was not called. I mean, it was very clearly a strike in that direction. It was just a matter of whether this pitch was too low or not. And it obviously is too low. I mean, it's at the umpire sheds, right?

like it's looking at the umpire right there by comparison it's at his shins but it really was the pitch prior to this was even higher and that was that was really what was egregious and then this one right here was the cattel martay pitch that was well below the zone to start the top of the tenth i mean these the we could we could take a whole bunch of these uh and i think somebody said it in the chat i mean it still falls on the diamond backs it falls on the diamond backs because uh they weren't able to generate any runs in three innings uh essentially with a man on second base starting, you know, the inning. They could not do anything with the ghost runner. They couldn't get quality at bats where they advanced them. And they didn't seem to have any game plan. There was no attempts at buntz. There just wasn't anything going on.

There was just kind of free swinging and not doing anything to generate the run. But yeah, let's take a step back because the Diamondbacks obviously had a substantial lead. A big part of that was Christian Walker, putting them up early with a two-run home. run. Then something magical happened. Lordus Gurriel came to the plate. I turned to this guy. I say, my purple hair is tingling. You did say that. I think we're communicating through the television set because that's what our hair does now, me and Lordus. And I like a home run's coming. And the next thing, you know, a home run did in fact come. Lordus extended his hit streak to 10 games with the home run, with his fifth inning home run.

And yeah, I called it. My hair called it, actually. You did, you did. He's kind of sick about it because he has to sit here in front of you and admit that this is not a story. No, I'm happy to- This is in fact something that it did happen in our office. I'm happy to admit that Derek did say that his hair was tingling because Lourdes was about to Homer and Lourdes did, in fact, Homer. He did.

But the reality, Derek, is that I don't think anyone really cares that Lardis Correel hit a big homerun at that point. the game. I was going to say more stuff about it, but no, because you know why the Diamondbacks blew it. And it wasn't necessarily too many people's faults. We'll talk about the bullpen, but we'll also talk about, like I said, Evan Lange's role in that. Tommy Henry was fine. He wasn't good, I guess. You mean, you want to see more out of him, especially in a night where the bullpen ended up getting so overutilized in an extra innings game. Yeah. Tommy Henry goes four and two-thirds inning, giving up six hits. four earn runs, three walks, four strikeouts, and he threw 83 pitches.

So, yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not great. It's not great, but he did give the Arizona Diamondbacks a chance to win the game, because when he came out, they were up to eight to four still and had a fairly substantial lead. But Evan Lungoria was not very good for this team tonight, and there's multiple reasons why he wasn't. He was 0 for 4 at the plate. He gets the golden sombrero tonight with the four strikeouts there.

Wow. We have an actual golden somberro. I did arrange for that. Yeah. He deserves that tonight. I don't usually go in this mean or this hard on people. But man, when you're 0 for 4 at the plate, the last thing you want to do is botch your job, your assignment defensively in the field. And Longoria ultimately made one of the biggest errors of the game, one of the biggest mistakes of the game.

It did allow the bases to get loaded When the Diamondbacks could have gotten out of the inning With a fairly easy I'm not gonna act like it was a fairly easy It was a shot his direction that he was able to get But he just wasn't able to recover and get back to third base To get the out and the inning continues And a grand slam is the results of the very next batter

So that feels like it was so long ago at this point Oh man yeah because it was it was like two hours This was a four hour nine minute baseball game I hate it This was the Diamondback's first extra inning game of the season somehow, and we were fully immersed into the extra innings experience today with 12 innings in total for this one. But, yeah, going back to that play that Longo made or didn't make, I guess I should say.

Yeah, I mean, that was an unacceptable play. I'm sure that Longo would say the same thing. I think it maybe took a little bit of a strange hop, but it's a play that a Major League third baseman has to make. as I've said in the past, it continues to puzzle me a little bit that in these games against lefties where the debacks start both Emmanuel Rivera and Evan Longoria, it feels like you should go with Rivera at third base rather than Longoria. Just because Rivera was really good for the debacks at third base last season. And not to say Longoria has been bad. Longoria has had pretty decent metrics there overall this season.

I don't want to make it sound like Longoria has been atrocious at third base this year. But I think it's pretty clear at this stage that Emmanuel Rivera is, if you're going to pick between one of the two of them, Rivera is going to be the guy. And Rivera is not playing every day. So it's not like, you know, you need to give him a day off his feet or anything like that. You really have a choice of those two defenders, which one you want at third base. It feels like the debacks have made the wrong choice potentially in that situation. But yeah, I mean, as we were talking about earlier, if Kyle Nelson comes in and gives up anything, other than a grand slam, then the Diamondbacks theoretically win this game in nine innings, right? A basis clearing double. A base is clearing double. If he comes in and strikes out the next batter as he did, the Diamondbacks would win this game eight to seven.

So just, I mean, just, you know, I mean, there are bullpen blowups and there are situations like this that somehow are even more gut-wrenching than, you know, a bullpen blow-up. Because it was an error. It was an error that happened at the worst, conceivable time. And that's what led to the A's being able to tie this game. It was exasperated by the error and two errors, two critical errors at third base, both by

Longoria and by Josh Rojas, that ended up leading to this loss. And yeah, there's a lot of other things you could point to, especially their lack of, the Diamondbacks lack of offense there once the game started to get on the line. That was a big thing. I mean, you could just tell once the game was tied at eight, I think the Diamondbacks were just a little bit starstruck. Like, this was a game that 100% felt like they just had it in the back, right? They let it 6 to 2, the A's come back, make it 6 to 4, the D-backs get two runs back,

they make it 8 to 4. They were cruising, and against it seemed like the Oakland A's, you just kind of expect that when you have a four-run lead in the middle innings, that you're not going to have any issues carrying that through, especially with how good the Diamondbacks offense looked. Yeah. But then that grand slam happens, and suddenly the D.E. Debacks just couldn't buy a hit anymore.

I think they had a couple hits in the next inning in the eighth. They weren't able to score anyone there. The hair did not tingle anymore. Right. There was no hair tingling at that point. That's when, I believe that's when one of the very, very poor calls happened. I believe the one against Josh Rojas happened in that eighth inning. And then, yeah, the debacks offense the rest of the way, Derek did not have a single base hit.

They were over three in the ninth, the 10th, the 11th, and the 12th. I think there was maybe a walk or two mixed in there. But even in those extra innings, you don't even necessarily need a base hit in order to score a run. But every single time, as we talked about earlier, the lead-off man would come in and either strike out or ground out on the first pitch or something. Veebacks weren't able to move that runner over to third base at all,

and they ultimately went 0 for three trying to score in those extra innings. And the Diamondbacks lack of depth in the bullpen showed tonight, they did not have a lot of options. That's why we saw Scott McGuff ultimately throw 60 pitches, or however many he ended up throwing. It was absurd. But yeah, the Diamondbacks were down to one more relief pitcher, I believe, or two more relief pitchers. And I don't even know if Miguel Castro was available. They had Anthony Misovic and Miguel Castro.

Miguel Castro had already worked in two straight games. So he probably wasn't even available. Yeah, the debacks wanted to stay away from him. You probably could have gotten something out of Anthony Masevich. But instead, Scott McGuff went out and threw like three. 50 pitches, which is a whole other thing, Derek, as far as where the diamondbacks go from here with their bullpen, they have the off day on Thursday,

so maybe they feel like they can get through this. But tomorrow will be a little bit interesting with Ryan Nelson on the mound. The debacks won't have quite as much length back there as they probably would like to. Kyle Nelson should be available. He only threw seven pitches. Chafin through 11 pitches. So out of the guys that they use tonight, Dave Vin, I think, was used yesterday.

Sure. So he would be in a back-to-back. You'd probably want to stay away from him. You would probably want to do that, yep, for sure. The problem is, is you have Ryan Nelson on the mound, and you don't really know what you're going to get out of him at all, right? So interesting to see how this develops. And, of course, it's the Oakland A's, right?

So it's going to be salt in the wound to lose one game, even in the series to the worst team in baseball. But they really need to get things together tomorrow. so that they don't lose two in the series. Yeah. Tomorrow it's like, you know at this point in the season, there's no such thing as a must-win game. But it would be like pretty demoralizing for the deba-backs to go into Oakland,

win game one, you know, have a four-run lead halfway through game two, and then lose the series. So tomorrow is not a must-win game. If the debacks lose, the sky is not falling, they will be okay. I'm going to fucking panic. Don't listen to this guy. It will be a bad look. I imagine that it will take another hit to that clubhouse,

just like the series lost last week against the Miami Marlins did. You expect to go in against the Oakland A's, regardless of the pitching matchups. I know Zach Gallen isn't throwing in this series, but you expect to go in and take two out of three at least from that team. Hopefully the D-BACs were able to do that tomorrow. Cog says, hey, the A's have beat almost exclusively good teams. So there's that?

I don't know. I mean, how many times? They only have 10 wins the entire season, right? I don't know. I still want to look on the bright side with him. But I'm not going to look on the bright side when it comes to Evan Longoria's performance tonight, whether it is the four strikeouts at the dish, or whether it was the critical error that essentially you could say cost the diamond backs the game. Evan Longoria, you get our OG's performance to forget.

What does that mean? I don't remember because I don't even know how this game went anymore. 12 innings? That's why it's the performance to forget. Yes, oh, man. Derek's already trying to block it out of his mind over. I tried, and let me tell you, I don't know if I will be able to, but I will try to do it with my friends from OGs.

They have a wide variety of doses and strains to get me through this. I'm especially going to hit up that Aqua Berry sleep edition when I get home and knock myself out. So hopefully I can. You wanted to do that like two hours ago. I really did. I told him. I'm like, I just wanted, can I just do it here? But of course, there's a wide variety of doses to,

try. So make sure if you're a first time or you try their microdose, they have all sorts of awesome strains available as well as their happy balanced strawberries and cream, which is a CBD to THC ratio that gives you a lot of the good feelings without maybe some of the loopy feelings you might associate with taking edibles. They also have mixed bags now, which are their fruits and their creams together in one bag. And that just sounds incredibly delicious, which again, oh, geez, is all about making their edibles delicious. So make sure to check them out. Find them at your local dispensary at OGsbrands.com must be 21 or over to enjoy responsibly. Also, check out our friends from Four Peaks. I drank a couple of those tonight, and then I moved on to vodka

selters because things got progressively worse around here. But I do enjoy all of the beers that Four Peaks has. My favorite is the Wow Wheat, which is available a lot of places. Also, the Hot Knot. I love the hop-knot. And those are available at Arizona Diamondbacks games. Something weird is going on at Chase Field by the way, because I've tried to go get like a draft beer when we were there for like our takeover event and like the other taps were on but they had plenty of, they still have plenty of Four Peaks

in tall cans. So make sure when you're there enjoying a Diamondbacks game, you check out our friends at Four Peaks. And speaking of that, Four Peaks wants you to come to the Diamondbacks with their four seats promotion. One lucky winner will get four seats to an upcoming Diamondbacks game. Tickets come with Debuts so you can grab

some of that beer I'm talking about and some food. Enjoy yourself a nice afternoon of baseball. Hopefully it doesn't go to 12 innings on you like today's game is because I am not a fan of those. But you can enter by going to Four Peaks Brew on Instagram. The link is in our bio. You can also check out Four Peaks brew or at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks and please drink responsibly. I don't know if we really want to give out a Kingsnake for this game because I feel like nobody really should be

plotted, but Christian Walker continues to do good things for this team. Two for five today with a home run and two RBI. He also had a walk, and he remains a very positive source of offense for this team. It's just, again, it's very surprising when you see this team kind of go cold together as they did. And you could tell that that grand slam home run to tie the game by the A's really just kind of shook them because everybody collectively kind of tightened up at that point. You didn't really see much from the offense after that. Yeah, I mean, on the bright side, Christian Walker,

I mean, that was his 10th home run of the season. It's only May 16th, right? Almost May 17th. So it's still May 16th right now. And yeah, I mean, Christian Walker is on pace to have basically a 40 homer season at this point. So he continues to be outstanding for this debaq's offense, as you talked about before. Lordus Curiel continues to have just a ridiculous month of May.

You could make a case right now that he's the frontrunner for the Player of the Month Award for May in the National League right now. It certainly has no connection whatsoever to Derek dying his hair purple at the very instant that Lordis Curiel suddenly was knocking the cover off the baseball. The hair tingling right now, Derek? I'm just going to go in the other direction. I'm going to go in the other direction. There we go on.

There we go. I'm just going to go purple hair. I do have one other thing I want to say about Evan Longoria. Oh. Yeah. One more thing on the negative side real quick. Evan Longoria, we've talked right about the Diamondbacks' upcoming decision that they're going to have to make once they do bring in an eighth bullpen arm, which it seems after

today might be coming sooner than later. We'll see how, you know, what Tori says after the game about how he's feeling about his bullpen going into tomorrow. But the debacks at some point are going to have to make. make a decision about which position player they're willing to part with. And it doesn't feel like it's going to be Dominic Fletcher because of how well he has he has played. I know he's had a couple games where he hasn't done a whole lot, but that's going to happen. The man still has a 1000 OPS. He's the greatest Italian baseball player. And he is the greatest Italian baseball player of all time.

And Emmanuel Rivera is one of the best Puerto Rican players of all time. You could make a case. Yes, right. I don't. know if you can send down Emmanuel Rivera at this point. I mean, he, he continues to be a force in this lineup when he's in there against lefties. He's playing a really valuable role for the debacks right now. If he, if they were to send him down, their lineup against lefties would look pretty different. They wouldn't have another right-handed bat like him to plug into the lineup. And he's hitting 370 with a 905 OPS currently. Yeah, you're not, you can't send down a guy with those numbers, right? I mean, that would that would just be crazy. Pave and Smith,

is kind of cooled off recently. He still has pretty good numbers. You could make a case, Derek, that Evan Longoria should be the odd man out with the Diamondbacks position player group as it is right now, right? I mean, Evan Longoria has, you know, a strikeout rate way higher than anyone else on the team, except for Jose Herrera. It's well into the 30, well into the 30s as far as his strikeout rate goes. You looked at me after his first strikeout and you're like, Evan Longoria really does strike out a lot. And that was before he struck out three more times and cost them the game with an error. He's hit five homers.

He has showcased some power this season. It's not like it's all been bad for Evan Longoria this year. But he has struck out a lot. And you saw, I mean, his strikeout rate was high coming into this game. He went 0 for four with four strikeouts. He made a pivotal mistake defensively at third base. The reality from my perspective, Derek, is that the debacks don't need two right-handed hitting third baseman. right? Evan Longoria and Emmanuel Rivera, it's a little bit redundant. You could make a case.

And I don't know. I mean, will the Diamondbacks actually, you know, send down Evan Longoria? I mean, I guess you would be DFAing him at this point. I don't think the debacks would do that, honestly. But you could make a case right now based on how well Rivera is played, how well Fletcher is played, how well Pavin Smith has played, that Longoria is sort of the guy that you should make. a move on even if the debacks are not likely to go down that route. It feels like it's leaning in that direction or possibly sending down Alec Thomas, who's currently hitting 195 with a 579 OPS. That is another case you can make. And as great as his defense is, it's not going to be necessarily enough to continue to give him opportunities when other guys are playing well and they might want to move some things around. I don't really know what the answer is as far as the roster goes.

I do feel like there are some guys that are really locked in, and it's hard to not look at what Lordis is doing and what Gabriel Moreno is doing right now and not consider that trade with the Toronto Blue Jays for Dalton Varshow to be an absolute win for this team. And even if you can't quantify it and just how well they're doing with their numbers and their statistics right now, you've got to look at the way that Moreno is playing catcher for this team.

Some of the things he did in this game, some of the stops he made, just some of his defense forget how good he is at the plate. This guy has been great behind it and just an absolute godsend for a team that lost their starting catcher due to an injury for the majority of the season. So I can't say enough about how valuable that trade was. But the Diamondbacks do have one more game in Oakland. And you could say that not many people in Oakland are looking forward to it. The attendance in game one was 2064.

2064. You sure you didn't miss a zero in there? I did not miss any 20,000. I didn't miss a 12. It's not 12,000. No, it is 2,000, 2,000 human beings, Jesse. And then 64 other human beings paid to go to the Oakland A's versus the Arizona Diamondbacks game in game one.

It was the lowest home attendance since 1979, which really makes a lot of sense. It was either going to be us or the Marlins, right? I mean, one of us was going to have to bring the lowest attendance in franchise history to the Oakland A's. But attendance was trending up tonight, Jesse. 3,261 in attendance tonight. That's more than a 50% improvement. That's pretty significant. And that paid attendance does include dogs.

It did include dogs. There were dogs in attendance at over. Oakland Coliseum. And apparently every Tuesday, every Tuesday, this is a remarkable day. That's next level. Every Tuesday is bring your dog to work night at the old Oakland Coliseum, because why not? Why not? Why not?

I mean, there's plenty of space for them to roam around, Jesse. There's probably entire sections and rows that are designated to just taking them on walks. Yeah, I mean, my argument is why stop at dogs? Yeah. Like, why, why isn't it meow in the park? Yeah. Not just bark in the park. Jesse wants somebody to bring a monkey.

He wants things to get crazy. Bring not only your dogs, bring your cats, bring your monkeys. How do you know? Perets that maybe you could teach to, like, heckle opposing teams? How do you know your cat? If you don't bring your cat to a baseball game. Why not? I mean.

They got to get those attendance numbers up somehow, Derek. And nobody, apparently, they don't necessarily just have to count human beings. That was a weird thing. It was a weird thing for them. say that the 3200 in attendance did include dog numbers. How many dogs are there? I want them counted separately. I don't know.

I don't know what's going on. Brady says wasn't there a season at Chasefield where every Sunday was Bark at the Park? You would know this more than I would. I'm pretty sure there was. I'm pretty sure there was. I don't know if it was the entire season, though. I think it just might have been for an extended period of time. Cog says they have a possum.

That is true. They have evacuated an entire press box. apparently at Oakland Coliseum because a possum lives in there now, which my favorite part about this was having this discussion with Jeff Bannister and having Jeff Bannister look at us incredulously. Like, it's a possum. Just go in there and grab it. Like Jeff, I want Jeff Bannister to solve the Oakland A's fucking possum problem

while he's there before the team moves on. Can we get video of that happening tomorrow, please? I mean, the possum was like in the ceiling, right? Like, yeah. So Jeff Bannister was going to like go up there and go hunting for it. Yeah, he's going to find it. All right. It's going to use sonar and some hunting tools.

I don't know. Was the possum counted in the attendance figure today? I just can't wait for this team to move to Las Vegas, Jesse. You're going to get more than 3,000 people that simply pass through it because they think it's the Bellagio. You know what I mean? Like, there is going to be so much, so many people going to check out games if they really do have this smaller baseball stadium that they've dreamt up that they're going to have like right on

the strips somehow or very strip adjacent. I'm still, I'm still very sad for my, my Oakland A's fan friends who are some of the best fans in baseball. I will, I will argue there's some hardcore, diehard Oakland A's fans out there. There you go. Yeah, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I do think this is pretty sad the way that this whole situation is unfolded. But yeah, there's no getting around the fact that the current situation in Oakland is anything but ideal. It looks ridiculous on TV, right? From my understanding, they even tried to have some sort of reverse like where they showed up to the ballpark to show their team support. And so like almost like a reverse boycott where they were like, we need to go to the ballpark.

But like. Well, you do see you do see fans like hold up. signs and whatnot. I've seen like Las Vegas beware signs or whatnot floating around the last couple days. But yeah, it is not a happy situation in Oakland right now.

Tonight was a devastating night for Arizona sports for more than just this 12-inning loss. The vote in Tempe for the coyotes and their arena. Speaking of new stadiums. Yeah. And speaking all of that did not go their way. I don't know if you did check out the

coyote show, but if you haven't, please check out their show tonight. It's comprehensive and it has all of the reasons why. I think everybody here at PHNX believes that's a mistake. We're going to get to that and maybe how that vote impacts the Diamondbacks decisions and where they're going to go next. But it is sad to think about losing the coyotes. And that is something that apparently could happen as soon as this summer.

So that is a terrifying thought. I've been a fan of this team since they arrived here. And I can only imagine what it's like to be. be an Oakland sports fan and to go what they're going to go through what they're going through. I'm selfish and I just want more reasons to go to Las Vegas. So I have to take, I have to put the cards on the table when it comes to that. And I use that phrase cards on the table specifically in reference to something Las Vegas related. But I do, my heart rate does break a bit for Oakland fans and they're lost, everything that they've lost, you know. And it's not just, it's not,

it's not just this team, you know, you, you lose the Raiders. You've lost. now. The A's are probably going away. It's just not great for them. So it's major franchises that these people have loved. And hopefully Las Vegas does pay them the respect that they deserve. I definitely, we talked about this bit, definitely want them keeping the Oakland A's colors if they do move to Las Vegas. Like they have to legitimately, I mean, this is a team that has a lot of a lot of heritage with it, a lot of tradition, a lot of history. So got to honor that if you do move them to Vegas. Yeah, we'll see. That'll be interesting to see how that unfolds. I don't know if that's necessarily like an assumption. I mean, would they necessarily be called the athletics anymore?

I mean, I'm sure that those those conversations are being had right now. But yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see what this baseball team looks like in Vegas. I'm with you on the uniform front at the very least. I've always, the A's have a very unique look. There are no other baseball teams that are green and yellow. So I hope that they keep those colors. Maybe I said this, maybe a green and gold for just over the top nature of Las Vegas, money and power and all that stuff. But speaking of Las Vegas, make sure to download the BetMGM app.

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1-800-1-1-7-1-7 for confidential health, Michigan. Well, we already talked a bit about the coyotes and the vote in Tempe, but there is kind of an impact here when it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks. It would appear Tempe has voted no on that proposed Coyotes Arena Entertainment District. and we have to wonder when we will hear about the future of the Arizona Diamondbacks and where they are going to play baseball. Could be soon. According to Derek Hall, before the season started, a decision was going to be made in the next two months.

It was a bit vague because he didn't give a specific time frame. Said like a couple of months. Yeah, right. Who knows what exactly that means. But theoretically, it could be within, you know, a couple of weeks. We might not be far away from that point. Right. And you can't help but wonder if this vote tonight was going to play a,

a role in their decision on what they do with the Arizona Diamondbacks team moving forward, right? Obviously, if people are opposed to this plan for the coyotes, they most likely are going to be also equally opposed to a plan that it would involve giving the Arizona Diamondbacks a new facility, even if they could drop away, much like the coyotes, that the facility was going to pay for itself. Yes, it would require some tax breaks, right, where the coyotes, the taxes from the facility would have have gone towards paying for it instead of going towards paying the city of Timpe. Yeah. City of Tempe right. But it's also a toxic waste dump right now. It's a landfill right now or whatever the hell it is. But we do know that a decision should be made soon. And it feels

almost a little bit more like as we get closer to that decision being made, like the Diamondback staying at Chase Field is more and more of a reality. Right. Yeah, I think that's what, that's kind of like the baseline expectation. That's sort of like where you start. And unless something significant happens, unless they get some new investor who's willing to step in and fund a, you know, multi-billion dollar facility, which is really what it would take, then, yeah, the debacks are probably staying downtown at Chase Field. I would imagine that they're kind of thinking through what kind of renovations they could

make happen at Chase Field in order to make it more of the state of the state of the art facility that they want it to be. We've talked about this in the past. I personally just feel like it just doesn't feel right, Derek. It still has this airplane hanger vibe that I still feel like no matter what renovations you do, it's going to be hard to shake that just given the nature of the building and how it's constructed. It just is kind of this, this giant pile of concrete. When I hear you say that, there's two things I think of. One, how jaw dropping it still is to walk into that building with the roof open, right? And the panels open. Like there's still something spectacularly gorgeous about that building opened up. Yeah. So part of the renovations could

involve the ability to have that roof and those panels open more if you can update, you know, let's say just the building itself, have a better cooling system or whatever where, you know, you didn't have to have it closed on so many super hot days you found some way. I'm not saying that that's a possibility. But I am saying, just repairing the roof as it is. right now is going to cost millions of dollars i'm sure right but i mean that would go a long way because what the debacks have done in the past is is they've had the ability to like open the roof mid game right whereas now you can only open the roof if you know for sure there's no chance of rain it's going to be cool enough the entire like afternoon and evening before the game starts uh now they

you know it just it made things a lot more complicated and like for a 640 start you know they let fans in I believe doors open at what like 4.30 or 5 o'clock. Yeah. So the problem is is that the roof has to be open that entire time. And that's also like the hottest period of time during the day. Normally they would wait until like maybe right before the game started and then and then open the roof. So yeah, I made it made things a lot more complicated. At the end of the day though, it's very hot here in the summer.

And so you're going to need a roof. You're going to need something. Yeah. It's going to need to be something like that. So like you're not going to get away from that. But what I will say. taking a step backwards is what you said about not believing that that stadium could be renovated to be anything other than an airplane hanger feels to me a bit like my feelings on the footprint center. I hated what the footprint center had become. I don't remember what concert it was. It was a concert. I didn't really care to go too much. Like I went with my wife to be a good husband. I think it was like Sia or something like that.

You were just angry. The reason why I say that is because when you go to a concert, that you're really not into the music that much or the artist that much, you tend to do things like start looking around at stuff or like paying attention to how shitty the sound system is and things like that, like I felt like for a period of time that that building that I had once coveted

as a palace of sports and concerts and all where I went for everything had just become run down and terrible. And like I literally thought like, there's going to have to demolish this whole building and start over, right? And now the footprint center is kind of gorgeous inside. Like I really do enjoy the improvements that they've made.

There's still some areas that aren't perfect. It's still not great to sit up in the upper section or whatever, but that's why they made. It's always going to be that way, right? Like they made it so that there are plenty of areas for you to go stand and enjoy watching a basketball game from places for you to congregate with your friends. And that's what we all want to do. If we have shitty seats, we want to be able to get out of them and go somewhere else. And that's something that they were very, very smart about doing with that building and the improvements that they made. I feel like Chase Field could have something equally done.

When I talk to those fans about those seats that they sit in with the roller seats, the amount of joy that came from their voice about it, like, I wasn't expecting for them to be that, like, that excited to talk to me about these seats. But man, like,

they couldn't say enough. They were like, this is the best anything. And they're like, they're like, the view's fine, but it's not the view that makes it great. It's the fact that I can like watch it on this little TV and hear it.

Like, there's like, they could turn it up. up or whatever. And they could watch it on a TV. Derek, the game's right in front of them. Well,

you want to, you know when you watch something live, you want to be able to, because it's delayed, so you can go back and you can watch it, you know, the 30 second delay or whatever, right? I feel like there's, really enjoyed the fact that this is a different viewing experience and that,

sure, it was much more comfortable than your average, you know, viewing of a sporting event. There are definitely things like that that you could, you could continue to do at Chase Field. And, and yes,

I agree, people would absolutely enjoy those things. But the, the, The comp with like the footprint center, they're very different in my mind because an NBA arena is made to be an enclosed facility, right? Like at the end of the day, every NBA arena is sort of the same in terms of how it's built. It's just a matter of like the amenities that you build inside it, right? And that's something that you can renovate and you can take from a very bad place as you were describing before those renovations happen there to what now.

I love going to the footprint center. I think it's an outstanding place. to see a basketball game now. Baseball is just different. You can't, you can't renovate Chase Field to the point where, like, the overall feel of that building

is going to be different. You can make it modern. You can make it updated. You can put all sorts of fancy technology and stuff in there. You can have trendy seating areas and standing areas, but at the end of the day,

it's still going to feel like an airplane hanger, Derek. And that's, that's sort of where, that's sort of where I get hung up with the whole thing. But the reality is, there's no design.

I think that you can really do in Arizona that's not going to be essentially an airplane hanger. And it's never going to feel like a true baseball. We're going to have to go back to this whole Orlando conversation. No, no, no. I'm not going to go back to the goddamn Orlando conversation. I refuse to even entertain that.

The only building that's ever going to exist, Jesse. No one will ever go watch baseball in Orlando, ever. It probably, baseball will probably not expand to Orlando. I grant you that. But do you remember what the mockups of that stadium looked like? It was a stadium with a roof, but it also had a lot of natural light. And this is something that you're seeing a lot of the newer facilities that have a roof on them do is they find ways to build in more transparent surfaces so you can actually see

outside when the roof is closed. And it's not like Chase Field where it just feels really kind of dark and dreary. And to be fair, I mean, I know that there's a lot of people out there who still really enjoy going to Chase Field. in no way am I saying it's like a, you know, a terrible, terrible place to go see a baseball game. Oakland A's fans, I know, have it much, much worse than what it is at Chase Field. The average temperature in Orlando in July is 91 degrees Fahrenheit as a high, Jesse, as a high. It's humid. It's humid.

It's why you just need the stupid windows to keep everything. No, I'm not doing this. That's fair. It is different. It is different. I'm just saying if you found like... That building is never going to exist. That building is like one of those 60s sci-fi novels where they had fucking flying cars and shit. It's never going to happen. Derek wants enemies in Orlando so bad. I'm fucking declaring war on the entire town of Orlando. Someone came in our comments defending Orlando. I refuse to even reply to him. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it with you. Orlando's a terrible city. Nobody should live there. I'm just saying I think if you had like if you had an architect come in and in and charge. out what what a new baseball stadium in Arizona would look like.

I don't think it would look like Chase Field, right? They have come up with better ways of doing this. It's funny you say that because there were some people at Chase Field and I have no idea who these people were. They were not baseball fans. I know that for sure. They had like clipboards and stuff and they think they were like maybe they were some sort of architects or maybe some sort of, but they were talking like the one thing I heard

them saying they were like on field and they were like. writing stuff down on a clipboard, and they were just, like, commenting on how big this place was. They were like, God, this place is so big. How many seats does it have again? Like, they just kept talking about, like, how big the place was. And, I mean, I think there is something to be said in today's modern day and age of sports, especially with a team that, you know, Derek Hall's right.

You know, when you have Elton John performing at Chase Field, when you have a playoff game, you know, you have a wild card game. Yeah, you want that. Your value the 48,000. You want that 48,000, right? But it's like the problem is, is that you have all of these other times where you're just sitting inside of an empty building. Like 98% of the time that the facility is used.

It's not a great feeling. But at the end of the day, going back to like what we were really discussing here, the debacks probably are not going to get a new facility when it's all sudden done. So all of my musings about, you know, what a new ballpark could look like. He's dreaming just like the people in Orlando. Yeah, the Orlando. They're literally called the Orlando Dreamers, right? Diamondbacks can't even fix the out-of-town scoreboard, right?

It's never getting fixed, folks. I've had people ask me this. It's not getting fixed. From what I've been told, it's covered up now. It's got like advertisements, I think, on it or something. That's staying there until the Diamondbacks do something to renovate the park. And then at that point, those scoreboards, as much as they might delight you or bring back an old-school feeling of baseball will probably be replaced with brand-new LED board.

that will still show the out-of-town scores, but also we'll be able to, like, do cool shit, like show a giant snake, you know, going across it when there's a home run or something. I don't know. I want a giant, like, I'm not a big fan of the wave, but I am a big fan of a giant snake graphic going around the building.

And I still want to know what happened to that home run snake. I'm not going to, I'm not letting that go. You have some investigating to do. I do. I can't wait until they get back. I have so many questions to ask. But when they do come back, you can join Jesse and I at Chase Field,

because that is where they're standing. now then and forever. And we'll watch some baseball and you can get tickets for those baseball games through our friends at game time. Of course, we buy our tickets through game time. That's a, that's not an advertising thing. These are facts. Jesse and I both use game time quite often for last minute ticket purchases because we're both procrastinators. And we both don't know what we're going to do tomorrow with our time.

But we do also have the FOMO and we want to go to things. So like Megarand's show that he got me to go to at the last minute yesterday. It was a whole lot of fun. So you can get your tickets last minute for concert, shows, events, and so much more. At GameTime, it's the place for last minute tickets for last minute ticket deals. It's also the fastest growing ticketing app in the country for a reason. It's because you can snag the tickets without the stress with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, 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. price guaranteed. Jesse still hasn't looked into purchasing a Chase lounge from more furniture. We've settled on him getting the ones from his parents' house. But now we need to replace. I mean, I might eventually cave and just have to buy one in case I've got to get something new for the parents' house. Yeah, right, right. That's a good gift, though. I'm going to tell you sometimes,

you know, I mean, I know it's not, it's not the sexiest gift, but sometimes when someone wants a chair, you get him a chair, you're the hero. But mostly buy furniture for yourself. That's the best person to buy furniture for because you know you. And of course, we have a long summer of baseball. So you want to prepare yourself for it. Make sure you have comfy furniture to sit in, including a recliner that every baseball fan should have to watch baseball and fall asleep in watching baseball. So you can get that delivered with their white glove delivery service over at morefurniture.com.

And you can say big on the best furniture in the valley when you had. to more furniture.com. We thank you guys for stopping by and staying up late with us. This is entirely too late. It's now, I believe it's Wednesday now. It is Wednesday. It's a whole other day.

This baseball game that we were talking about started more than five hours ago, Derek. I said stupid stuff about Harvey, not heartbreaking you or breaking your heart. Here we are. Breaking your heart. But we thank you guys for being here, of course. You can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Kapp underscore K-man with the K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Damon is at Damon Dog with a DAWG and a little at the end, but of course, our shows at PHNX underscore D-BACs and all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for joining us.

We appreciate your time and staying up late, and we just wanted to let you know. Baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you don't blow the goddamn game, Evan Longoria.