PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - MLB playoffs already in full swing for Diamondbacks with less than two weeks left

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

We have said it before and we will continue to say it: every single game is a playoff game from this point on for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Wild Card Race continues to be a congested field with less than two weeks left in the MLB season. We discuss updates on the D-backs playoff chances as well as your Mailbag Monday questions on Lourdes Gurriel’s defense, the Red Sox interest in Mike Hazen, and which baseball team we would want to see a Winning Time-style biopic series made about.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 WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx WIN MONEY THROUGH SPLASH SPORTS: https://www.splashsports.com/phnx 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!: Score 25% off a bag of your favorite OGeez! Fruits of Creams. Go to https://theflowershopusa.com, add a bag of OGeez! to your cart, enter promo code “PHNX” and pickup at a local The Flower Shop dispensary.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.

Welcome in and happy Monday. This is the PHNX D-Dbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Monti. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. This man next to me, just beaming with electricity after this series sweep. It's Mr. Electric himself, Sean DePause, and Jesse Friedman, the thunder stick, the polite kind. Get your mind out of the gutter there, Don's Bread. Also, my vice mayor, Jesse Friedman.

So, guys. What did Brett do? What did Brett do? I think Brett is locked out of his diehard account. Oh no. And we need to free Brett. And we will get on that. Oh, we are absolutely freeing Brett.

We'll make sure. We'll make sure that Brett is free today. We will. Well, I mean, I don't know that's, it might lock him up at Chase Field, but we have nothing to do with that. That is.

Welcome back. I'm going to have a million minutes. Yes. First day back, already starting the hashtag free Brett movement. Yes. There you hashtag free Brett movement. Gsell too.

Welcome back. Everybody. Great to see you guys. The Arizona. of Diamondbacks are potentially the best team in baseball. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. Absolutely. It feels like that

after the series sweep over the Chicago Cubs. It's interesting because this series win puts them over the top in a couple of categories. The debacks are now 21 and 19 and one run games and they are now five and four in extra inning games. So they're just winning

all over the place. But this Cubs series win continues to be a good one. And the MLB season now ends in less than weeks. So thoughts now on this last couple of weeks and how things are shaping up. Yeah. I mean, I think the debacks started 0 and 3 in extra inning games. So to be 5 and 4 now is pretty impressive. I remember we talked early in the season about how the Diamondbacks like couldn't advance the runner to save their lives. And they did pretty well in extra innings, obviously on Saturday getting an enormous win in one of the craziest games that I think we've ever

witness. But yeah, 21 and 19 in one run games is good, but it's honestly not that good. I mean, you know, for a team like the Diamondbacks that has, you know, a fairly heavy negative run differential, but is also seven games over 500. You might expect, oh, that D-backs must be just murdering in one-run games. That really hasn't been the case. 21 and 19 is solid, but, you know, they've lost a number of tough games this season as well. When we did that bizarro breakdown from talking baseball and they flip the rankings based on the one game. Diamondbacks didn't change much. At the time, I think maybe they were just 20 and 19 or maybe even 19 and 19 at that time.

But the diamondbacks do need to win some games and not settle for tying the other teams here in the wildcard race because they do not hold very many tiebreakers when it comes to their fellow wild card teams. Right now, the diamondbacks obviously hold the tiebreaker over the Chicago Cubs after taking six out of seven games against the Cubs in the month of September. But outside of that, things don't look great. They have no more games against the Reds. Their season record with them is three and four. The Marlin's season record is two and four. The Phillies are three and four. And the Giants are the only ones that the Diamondbacks can still impact

because they currently have a five and six record against the Giants. And they have this upcoming two game series that starts tomorrow. That is crucial for more than one reason because obviously, you know, you want to hold that tiebreaker. So, I mean, it feels more important than ever for them to sweep this, this, two game series. It's funny because I might be mistaken, but I feel like I saw over the weekend that like the Cubs are in a pretty similar situation where they only have the tiebreaker over the Reds, I believe. It's just, it's just funny how like it works out how all of these teams like I was like we were talking about it briefly with Jesse before like it's just it's a suck

fest like everyone it's a matter who's going to suck the least. It's really hard to sit here and say that any of these teams are like better than the other and I think that is pretty clear in these in these like the record. you just read like it's not like they're getting sweet by these teams yeah they're all like right around it's it's a game difference between them being uh them having the tie breaker and them not which means the wild card is going to be very interesting like the actual wild card games obviously the race is already very interesting but um yeah i mean it's obviously it's a pretty unfortunate situation to be in especially seeing how like no one's been able to create any separation it does

feel like it's going to come down to some kind of tiebreaker or last day type of thing which the diamondbacks have foreseen for a while now. We've heard Tori Lovolo and Brent Strom both talk about this coming down to that final series. And that's not a great scenario for the Diamondbacks considering that final series against the Houston Astros, who might also be fighting for a playoff spot themselves at that point. So it could be a very competitive series and you don't want that. So I know I got one of the worst alerts ever this morning. Which was? Are the Red Hot Yankees still alive? Gross. They're not. They're not. They're not. But I was just like, what I mean? And also, Red hot they're like six and four in their last 10 into the fucking I mean just started his day off at the worst possible way they're alive in the sense that their playoff odds are yeah like they are not mathematically eliminated correct there are a number of teams that could say that right now that are not legitimately in this playoff race so I wouldn't be too stressed out yeah I'm not that stressed I'm just I was upset but yeah another funny thing you said is that we can't really rank these teams. It's funny because when they lose, they all lose together. Yeah. The Diamondbacks win and you would think that that would have allowed them to

create not only the distance that they created by leapfrogging the Cubs, but you would have thought that that would have been able to put some distance between them and some of those other teams. But no, no. The Marlins want to go. The Reds beat the Braves. Yeah, the Reds beat the Mets in their series. The Marlins kick the damn Braves' ass. But you know what? Just because you said it, let's go ahead and try to rank those teams anyway. Let's just do it. do this. Let's try to figure out who of these teams are, I guess, the biggest danger, including the Arizona Diamondbacks. We don't want to include the Phillies here because I feel

like the Phillies are kind of. If the Phillies were included in the ranking, they would just be number one across the board. That would be, yeah. We're just going to skip over the Phillies. So this is a ranking of in whatever order we have, Reds, Giants, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Cubs. Okay. It's those five. Do we want to do this backwards? Do we want to start with team five? Do we want to start with team one what do we want to do here you want to start at the top Sean has tons of experience with this kind of thing our ASU show is basically just that shows how you guys do right we don't know we're usually are drafting we're not just out your ranking so this is a little new to me too I let's say you know let's let's let's go work from the bottom up what's okay

keep the people okay all right all right yeah the best for last so uh I guess I will start off here with my worst team in the five team wildcard race I'm going to go with the San Francisco Giants. Shocker. Shocker. Right there with you. Yeah, I mean, the Giants and their pitching staff, it's just hard to imagine that the Giants

should rank very high here. And I'm also, yes, I'm very willing to put them down right now, considering that the Diamondbacks have to play them here coming up tomorrow. Yeah, I don't think it is much of a question. I'm putting the Giants last two. They just, I mean, it's kind of what we've been talking about with them a lot. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

to why they are in this race with everybody else. I don't. There's weird magic in San Francisco that causes them to outperform. They're hanging around. But I don't, yeah, I don't think they're really that much of a real threat. And that means we're going to get swept by them. I don't have many notes written for the Giants. I just have they're screwed.

That's all I wrote. That is just straight from my notes out. They're screwed. Which admittedly is a very bold thing to say because there's still only two games out. And I mean, anything can really happen as we talked about yesterday. Like the schedule that you have the rest of the season, like over such a small sample, anything can really happen. And the two pitchers that we have going against them are like the two worst pitchers on the roster

apparently all of a sudden. Yeah, Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly or, you know, the bullpen's great. You know, the three, four, five starters are great. But Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly just can't pull their weight. I mean, the Giants have seven of their final 12 games, as we talked about yesterday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. And I know the Dodgers don't have a ton to play for at this point. The Dodgers are going to lose just to screw over the years on Diamondbacks.

I just, I know that, you know, when I was in L.A. covering the Diamondbacks Dodgers series a couple weeks ago, I was part of a scrum with Dave Roberts at one point, and he was talking about, you know, how the team is going to approach the postseason this year and try to make sure that they don't, that they don't lose focus. That was kind of the main thing that he talked about.

So knowing, knowing that the Dodgers are, of course, as other teams, like really trying to keep their foot on the gas pedal, the rest of the way and, you know, they're going to have a little bit of a layoff going into the postseason, but they're going to try to stay focused. As Dave Roberts said, I don't think they're the kind of team

that's going to sit all their players and, you know, just kind of roll over for the next two weeks. So I think the Giants have a very difficult road ahead. And, yeah, they're my number five team as well. That was a very long-winded way to get around to that, but I appreciate that. I wish you would have stuck with the, they're screwed.

Yeah, we should have just stuck with their screwed. I thought it was, I thought it was a foregone conclusion that the Giants from my number five. It was very eloquently put, though. Team four for me, I'm going to do it. I'm going to say the Chicago Cubs. Wow. I know.

I'm terrible. I'm a bad human being. But after watching the Diamondbacks sweep them, I'm going to say the Chicago Cubs. I'm going to say they had a good run. But I just don't know if the Cubs have it in them. I don't know if the Cubs have it in them to over. overcome this traumatic loss, this series sweep to the Arizona Diamondback. So I'm going to put the Cubs there for.

I am inclined to put the Cincinnati Reds here. I just there, they're another team that I just don't really believe in. I don't believe in their pitching. I think they're a little too young to really be that big of a threat in the postseason. It's a great point. Obviously the debacks are very young too, but they have, I think, a few more, obviously a few more like veteran pieces. I just, yeah,

maybe it's just because of the Cincinnati Reds, too, but I just don't, I just really don't believe in that team all that much. I mean, they're similar to the Diamondbacks on that, like this season is an overachievement. I don't think anyone realistically expected. And they obviously came down to Earth

a little bit more after the L.A. La Cruz, kind of run, they went on there. But I just, yeah, I'm not really bought in on the Cincinnati Reds. Yeah, this was really tough for me, too. I think the number five with the Giants,

that was pretty, pretty clear, I think. But yeah, this one was tough. I also have the Cincinnati Reds here. But, I mean, I almost had the Cincinnati Reds at number one. Like that, like, this is how close. Well, yeah, I think after the Giants and say you can, it's, you can make the argument for anybody being in any of the other four spots.

You absolutely could. But yeah, for me, this comes down to, you know, I mean, the Reds have, they have the easiest schedule the rest of the way. But that just doesn't necessarily mean all that much, you know, given all the crazy that we've seen in the last few days with, you know, great teams, getting crushed by bad teams and just all this stuff. So it just seems to me that the Reds are, they're just,

they're not quite the team that they were a few weeks ago when it really seemed like they were coming on strong. Losing Matt McLean, I think was a huge loss for them. They brought in Harrison Bader. They brought in Hunter Renfro. They DFAed Hunter Renfro today. Harrison Bader hasn't been great for them offensively.

So I think they're going to, I think they're going to fall just a little bit. short. Did we walk out at the waiver wire? Yeah, I mean, I guess you could, I guess you could make that case. I don't, I mean, the debacks were never going to take Hunter Renfro, but there, there are a couple of guys that you might be willing to say, I mean, it's not good that they missed out on. You never know how, how those pitchers and other players.

Maybe it's good. They missed out on Gialito. Yeah. That's what I was alluding to. All right. Well, then for all the reasons you listed, uh, the Reds are my number three team. So I'll just say ditto on. that the reds uh i i i still think like you said the reds have the easy schedule and that's the one

thing that could benefit them and uh i mean these teams all just keep just being a brand new team it feels like from series to series so it's really hard to determine how any of these teams really fall like you said after the giants the reds do have the tiebreaker over the cubs so there that is that is valid uh putting the reds over the cubs does make sense honestly like just for that reason with how close things are right now. I don't know why. I want to put the Marlins here. Maybe for the similar season reason of the Reds that they're just the Miami Marlins.

But to me, this is a conversation of this is more about like, I think the D-backs and Cubs are one and two. And I just, so the Marlins are kind of three by default. Sure. They're good. Obviously, like them being. doing what they did against the Braves deserves respect, but like the Diamondbacks also have competed against the Braves this year.

The Braves are kind of weird. They've clinched the division at this point. So like kind of what are they playing for type thing? I just, yeah, I don't know how much I believe in the Marlins. I don't know how much I believe in any of these teams. I guess I should just stop saying how much I believe in them. Yeah, I don't. I just am not in there.

I'm just not there with the Marlins yet. Yeah, that's fair. Definitely see where you're coming from. I have the Chicago Cubs at number three. I think, you know, a lot of this comes down to how well are you playing when it matters most? And given recent events, the Cubs are just a really hard team to bet on right now. And I say that knowing that on paper, I probably like the Cubs roster more than I like the roster of any of these other teams. But, you know, I mean, they've got the big run differential. Like there's a lot of evidence that the Cubs are the best team on this list, but they're not hot right now.

I mean, they are as far from that as you could possibly be, I think, at this stage in the season when it really matters. And that's not to say they couldn't figure things out and they couldn't come around. But after what we saw over the weekend, after, you know, their series with the Rockies, I just, I can't put the Cubs any higher than number three at this point. And I knew I knew that if I put the Cubs over the Diamondbacks, I would just get absolutely crucified for that decision. And I think that's valid too. I mean, the Diamondbacks have the tiebreaker over the Cubs at this point. And, you know, when you go six and one against the team head to head, I think that's, there's some good evidence there that you might be the better team at least in a sense. That's the tough thing about this is like I think you, you know, like you said, you look at the roster.

You can easily make the argument that the Cubs are better than the Diamondbacks, but what the Diamondbacks did against the Cubs. And I think you could do the same thing with the Diamondbacks over the Reds, but like Diamondbacks haven't had a good time with the Reds this year. So it's like all of these teams have a weird number over the another team on it. And they're probably not actually better than. But they just have that team's number. Baseball's weird, man. It's just kind of. I think Elise has a point here.

They clinch the division and they had an off night in Miami. Yeah. I like, oh, I mean, I didn't realize that. Like I said, I don't know how much they had to play for. She's right. Ronald Cooney was probably getting getting it in down South Beach. Yeah. Did we were we not literally.

We were we hypothesizing yesterday that Elise is, uh, was actually Alex Anthopoulos. Yes. So this is just Elise making excuses for her own players. She's a major league baseball GM. I mean, right through your facade. She gets better information than anybody.

She really does. She really does. She should be on the show. My number two team is the Arizona Diamondbacks. Yeah, I know. I'm doing it. There's a good reason, though, why. And I think that honestly, the Arizona Diamondbacks right now,

nope, small B, small B, there we go. I got to make sure we keep this. What is it? AP correct or whatever. The Diamondbacks are just playing really good baseball right now. And I mean, they were able to overcome what probably would have been some pretty bad starts from, you know, the three pitchers.

We were worried about pitching in this Cub series. Tori Lavello managed his way around that. The bullpen has looked excellent. And I mean, they were just able to find ways to win games, especially that that 13 inning, extra inning game really changed my opinion about this team and their ability to fight right now. I don't really know if we would have seen this same fight from them

at certain points of the season. But man, it really feels like this team is adhering to Tori Lavallo's request of giving him everything for the next 14 days. And the result was that, you know, was that win. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of our. talked about it for all the like I think on paper the clubs have a better roster they have a better team the idea of Marcus stroman coming out of the bullpen is bullshit terrifying me it's ridiculous I can't put I can't realistically put the cubs above the debacks when the dbacks on the cubs

so I have to put the cubs at two I I know that this making me look like a homer but like I said I think it's a complete toss up with all the teams one through four and this ultimately just comes down to like Jesse was saying, who's playing better right now. And obviously, specifically, the Cubs just play the D-backs and the D-backs had their number. So I'm putting the Cubs too. I mean, I think also like the Diamondbacks at this point have a better record than all of these other teams. That's also true. They also are.

It factors into that. So, I mean, if you just sort of put the Diamondbacks number one for that reason alone, that that's honestly pretty valid. Did I just go standings on mine? I think I might have. Yeah, I think you did. I guess the numbers don't lie They mean The numbers don't lie

Very creative Sean I did yeah Yeah Arizona Chicago Miami Cincinnati San Francisco I honestly We told Sean to rank The five wildcard contenders

Out of the Phillies He looked up the standings It was like All right That's right No it's nice Sean We see how much you care about this show Hey

what Chris said Sean is right Hashtag shit It's trending hashtag Sean is right All right I've got I've got the Diamondbacks Is my number two team

as well, which I guess, yeah, obviously I've got the Marlins then at number one. The Marlins are just, I mean, what they did this weekend against the Atlanta Braves was inexplicable. 36 runs. And that's the thing is if the Marlins had beat the Braves, if the Brons had swept the Braves clenched and, you know, they did it, you know, scoring four or five runs a game every day. Five to one. Fine, whatever.

but the reason that the Marlins haven't been that great this year for the most part is because their offense is just not very good. And that has very much changed in the last couple of weeks. The Marlins are all of a sudden scoring crazy amounts of runs. And if you look at the roster, I mean, you can you can kind of understand why. There's some decent hitters on this team, right? Jazz Chisholm is back now. He's been injured for a good portion of the season. I believe he had, yeah, I believe he had two grand slams over the week.

Ken in that series against the Braves. Louisa Rise, you know, his batting average had dipped all the way to like 340, which was shameful, but now it's back up to 350. So things are looking better for him. Dipped all the way to 340s. What a bum. What a bum.

I mean, it is crazy. Like in the first half of the season, like Louisa Rise rode to 400. That was a pretty big thing for a while there. But Nick Fortez, a catcher for them has been hitting really well as also Jake burger who we've talked about a lot coming over from the white sox he's been he's been is today national burger day today is national cheese burger day there's all kinds of special deals on apps and everything yeah oh my good yeah i'm like bese day jesse might be one of those days by the way yeah uh but yes

jesse and i both have the marlins at number one uh the other important thing about the marlins is they do hold the tiebreaker over the chicago cubs and the arizona diamondbacks and they actually do not have, they did not lose a tiebreaker to any of the other teams. The other teams in the race, they have split the season series with the Giants there three and three. The Marr, or excuse me, the Reds there are three and three and yeah. And yeah, and everybody. Everybody else. Similar to the Diamondbacks, the Marlins definitely feel like a massive benefactor of the new schedule this year, not having to play that division as often as they normally would have had to, I think definitely. Although that being said, they obviously just

handled divisional opponent the Braves, but I mean, by and large. The East isn't that crazy. Well, I mean, they've got two teams above them. I mean, he's not wrong, Jesse. They are 11 and two against the Washington Nationals. I mean, that's

ridiculous. So, but like, well, that that's kind of the answer. It goes against my Yeah, that would mean you'd want to play more games against the end. Oh, I'm sorry. But I mean, yeah, obviously, every team has that. We have the, the Rockies, but we also have the Dodgers. They have the Braves. I'm, I'm, I'm, I

the Phillies are a decent amount better than the the Giants. The gnats were hot. And the gnats were in the, they were playing better than the Yankees for a lot of the year. Unnecessary shot at the Yankees. It's fine. Well, we figured that was going to go.

But yeah, I mean, I have the Diamondbacks as my top team. Yeah. I just think between the bullpen pitching well, the fact that as of right now, it seems the biggest question mark are their two best pitchers, which seems like the most likely thing for them to kind of be able to bounce back from

is if you're at, asking me to bet on Zat Yallin and Merrill Kelly figuring it out versus them sucking for the rest of this the season. I'm going to bet on them figuring it out. And I mean, when you have, I really think like the addition of a guy like Tommy Fam, like he, I know this was a joke for me for a while, but I feel like if teams want to be good, you do need that guy who feels like he can just show up and win a, a World Series MVP or a playoff MVP type thing. And like it just seems like they have those extra guys who can if they like if Lordis has a good day or if Tommy has a good day, then like they become a very hard team to beat on top of if their normal suspects are performing. And like this is on top of, you know, Christian Walker, not necessarily being Christian Walker as of late. Things like that. I, I mean, I just love this.

Ivanbeck's team. I love I love Gabbyn Moreno. Mr. Diamondback. I just, this team just seems. kind of like they want it more than anybody else right now. I think, I mean, what you said about Gallin and Merrill is big because the Diamondbacks have 11 things have 11 things left, right? Yeah, 11 games left.

And I believe six of those are going to be started by Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen. So you have the majority of your games the rest of the way, you know, in the hands of one of your top two starting pitchers. That's a pretty good place for the Diamondbacks to be. I obviously, as we said earlier, I have the Marlins is my. number one team and that honestly is primarily because the marlins have the tiebreaker over the diamondbacks and those teams are half a game apart in the standings right now but yeah i mean they're 10 and five this month there are yeah there are there are valid reasons i i think to to go with

with either team um but i mean it is it is a little crazy that with this new playoff format where we don't have a game 163 to determine tiebreakers i mean those diamond backs marlins games were played in april and may yeah like that wasn't even remotely on the radar back then that the outcome of those games could determine whether the diamond backs make the playoffs or not but that's the reality of the situation there is it is not all that unlikely that the diamond backs and marlins finish tied in the standings if that happens that's that's what it's going to come down to i i miss 163 i like that more i get that breakers it's just tough when you have like when you add this additional layer to the first round because the

We only have so much time for all these games. I mean, I don't understand why I don't, but I would rather the game decide it. Padres and the Rockies play like a game 163 that ended in a walkoff like in like 2008 or something like that. And it was just absolutely electric. I mean, that's, you imagine that Gabby walkoff in game 163? Yeah, it's the coolest thing ever. There is something special about about a one game playoff. And I know they decided they didn't want that in the wild card round, which I think was valid.

but, you know, if it's being used as a tiebreaker for the 162 game season, I think that was the one acceptable. We can stomach a one game playoff for that. And you're right. We no longer have that as a result of the news. Although it's easy for me to say that now. But if we, you know, if we're playing game 163 against the Marlins and we throws that gal on out there and then he gets rocked, I'm going to be like, this is bullshit.

Why is it coming down to it? It's stupid. It's stupid. It's a bad day at any point. It's bullshit. We have to, you know, Gallant has one bad day and now we're out of the playoffs. Yep. But.

Yeah, that's not at all. Unhinged at all. But I'm with you on that. Should we summarize our top five list real quick? Just if people weren't, if people are listening, I feel like it's probably hard to keep track. So mine was I have Giants five, Reds four, Cubs three, Diamondbacks two, and Marlins one. Yeah, I had D-backs, Cubs, Marlins, Reds, Giants may or may not be the exact order of the standings. And then I had Marlins, D-Backs, Reds,

Cubs, Giants. Jesse and I had everything that's same except the Reds and the Cubs there flipped. So stop copying off of me, Jesse. It's fine. Anyway, we thank you guys for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel, even those of you threatening to come down to the studio

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Got Rick Jena Red as a profile picture. I'm conflicted though because I have Burrito Express here at the office. And that's all I need. It's the only meal I need. Britoes really are the perfect meal in my mind. I haven't had mine yet today. Oh, man, there's some good choices in there.

They have a chicken breakfast supreme burrito, which I love chicken burritos. Hey, bean and cheese. Nice and simple, can't go wrong. Never. You can never go wrong with a bean and cheese. Make sure to check out Brito Express. They have multiple Valley. locations, but of course their Tempe location is the OG.

Big thanks to them for not only the food they provide to us, but for everything they do for the community. They support ASU athletics. And of course, they even sponsor some ASU athletes. So make sure to grab a burrito and follow Burrito Express on Twitter at Burrito EXP. Twitter. Twitter. I'm just calling it Twitter for now at Burrito EXP.

Of course, you guys know what day it is. Uh, every month on this show, wait, first of all, every year on this show is our year, right? Every month on this show is neck health awareness month. Didn't know if you knew that or not. Every, every show. I could use every month. Uh, yeah, it's absolutely neck health awareness month. Uh, shout out to Roderick Strong and, and Mike Bennett. And not that melvin, Matt Taven, but, uh, also, it's a wrestling thing, guys. I just going to push through it. Uh, also every week on the show, of course, is Shark week, every day on this show, Earth Day. But on Mondays, you know what we do around here.

We go to the mailbag. Damon, shall we? My mailbox. Always something interesting in my mailbox. I try to get to everything in my mailbox. And then once in a while there's a letter that makes me go, wow, wow. My mailbox. Yes, the Twitter, like Jesse said, what our friends from PHLY would call.

I don't know. They say water, right? That's a thing. They say gas. But I don't know. Twitter is probably a little over the top. We probably don't know. It's more of Boston.

Yeah, that's more of Boston thing. It's a difference from BSTN coming soon. I don't know. I'm just making that up. What are we got, Damon? It's generally one of my favorite pastimes, by the way.

It's just coming up with acronyms for random six. Yeah, yeah, get the vowels out. I'm not sure any of them work as well as BSTN either. I think that's the cleanest one. But the problem you run into with certain cities is that like, yeah,

the acronyms are stat like they use it. Like in Buffalo, for example, BFLO is a company already. Yeah. So you have to get more creative. We're not going to Buffalo. No, probably not.

You don't want to talk about Buffalo Bandits Lacrosse? Excuse me. National champion Buffalo Bandit's cross. Here we go. First question comes from Dancin Rick at Giff Kingsbury which is a great Twitter name.

And Dancin Rick asks, are we a goddamn wagon? Yes, Rick, we are a goddamn wagon. You knew the answer to that when you asked it. You just wanted us to confirm. Yeah. That's it. We're wagon.

Jesse can't confirm that, but we'll confirm that for him. Can confirm. and we are wagon. Next question comes from Bill, who's here in the chat. Bill reiterated his question in the chat. Bill says, what are the chances?

Hayzen leaves D-backs for Red Sox. We need to have a talk, Bill. I'm, I don't feel like you were here last night because we covered that. And I don't mean to call you out here publicly, but that's exactly what you're doing. Is it?

All right. Well, I am. I guess I am. No, I mean, of course, it's all in the Diamondbacks kind of camp. I mean, The Red Sox can want Mike Hazen all they want. It doesn't mean that they that they can have.

There are a lot of things that I want. There's a lot of things. You know, this guy wants that Bronco Big Ben SUV. He's never getting that. Ever, never. But it's nice to want. It's okay to want. You're just not.

I'd be like I should recuse myself from this conversation. Probably. You should probably do that. I was talking about it with Damon earlier. Like, because Damon likes to give me shit like I'm still a Red Sox fan. Because you are. As if I am a Red Sox fan, but I'm a bigger Diamondbackson. Because genuinely, my initial reaction was like, man, stay your ass over there.

Stay on the East Coast. We got, we're trying to. You had him and you didn't want him. We're trying to accomplish something over here. Don't get your ass in the way of this. Yeah. It's finally looking good and you're going to come over and fuck this up because you're the Boston Red Sox.

Wait out of here. Waving your money and your payroll in his face. You're going to send Moogie to this division and then come take my case and from us. Go fuck yourself, Boston Red Sox. Yeah, that's a great point. You're not sending Mookie here to the NOS and taking Mike Hazen back. It doesn't work that way. We're trying to accomplish something.

I don't want you getting in the way. I owe you an apology, Sean. I wasn't familiar with your game. Yeah, thank you. I don't want. Stay here, us over there. I will say it's,

it is funny that the diamond backs were allowed to pluck Mike Hayes in from the Red Sox organization. And now the Red Sox are knocking on the Diamondbacks. Can we have him back? Not fair. We're having a little bit of remorse over our organization. Click chain on the door. Close the curtain.

As we said yesterday, the Diamondbacks hold the cards here as far as we know. You know, Mike Kazen is under contract through 2024 and has a team option for 2025, according to Buster only. So if anything, it seems like this could be used as leverage for Mike Hazen to negotiate a long-term deal in Arizona. It seems pretty unlikely he would depart for Boston. I think that was Elise's idea, too. and of course, Elise once again.

Yeah. Just outing herself as an MLB GM once again. But what else we got? Aaron Hughes on Twitter, Aaron R. Hughes, he says, would you rather trade for a reliever, someone like Foley or a third base bat? The bat costs more, but feels a bit need. Reliever adds depth and can get high leverage outs. I guess, I mean, trade, pick up at free agency, whatever you would say here.

I feel like at this point the third base has been a sore point. I mean, I think they've proven that the diamondbacks can find relievers. And so far the scraps that they've kind of picked up have worked out so far, not to mention even members of this bullpen that were struggling at one time have kind of turned things around. So I don't know if the reliever thing is as big of a need as third base and especially a big bat for this lineup that goes fairly quiet at times as a whole. Yeah, I mean, third base for me, like, I'm playing the show with the Diamondbacks, like my first move is signing a third baseman in free agency. Yeah. Or acquiring a third basement in some way.

Sure. It just, it seems like it's the most glaring hole. I think when you're trying to attack a bullpen, like, it's kind of a crapshoot, especially when this bullpen is already kind of producing right now. So like, I feel like the third basement is the biggest, like, if you can go out and get, I mean, I'm just saying Matt Chapman because I know he's a free agent. Um, like if you could do that, then this team becomes like significantly better in a way that like basically no bullpen arm is possibly going to be able to improve your team by. Like if you give a real everyday third baseman, then this team becomes way better in my opinion. Yeah. I would, I mean, Aaron's question is, would you rather trade for reliever or a third base spout?

If we're, if we're talking specifically trades, the debacks just aren't going to get a third baseman they need in the free agent market. That's fair. Yeah. It's just, I mean, they're, they're just not. likely to sign Matt Chapman. And after that, it's, it's pretty slim pickings. I think they're going to have, if they address that third base need, which they should, right? I'm sure they're going to try. That's going to have to come via trade. There just isn't another option. Whereas, you know, I mean, Jason Foley would would be a solid addition for them. But on the reliever market,

you can address that via free agency. You know, Matt Moore is is a free agent, right? Josh Hader is a free agent. There are guys out there that could be had for the diamond backs, whereas I, I just don't see a third baseman out there for them. I think they're going to have to trade for that. Next question, Damon. Next question comes from the Fox at the Adam 027, and he says the debacks are undefeated since the start of the new year 5784.3-0.

That's not a question. That's the tweet. This is all we needed for the debacks to find their rhythm again. Okay, so first, Shenatova. Is that right, to you? Adam and yeah I don't know the D-backs maybe maybe this is their year we said every year that that it is our year right that's how we said the mailbag I feel like we should clarify it's it's Jewish New Year it's a Jewish New Year Russia Shawna yes

because like I don't know if you're not familiar with Jewish culture you have no idea with anything part of that which we were expecting Jesse to fill us in on a Jesse I'm happy I'm happy my dad is going to be utterly ashamed but But yeah, for people who were who were confused about like, wait, when did the calendar flip to the year of the 5,784? Yeah, it's a little different. It's a little different. Yeah. All right.

What else we got, Damon? AZ Sports Girl 224 says, will Paul Seawald ever pitch a smooth ninth inning for once and not give DeBax fans a heart attack? Where's the fun in that? I, yeah. I mean, this is this is a great television. Is it not? Is this not thrilling? No, to answer the question.

No, I don't think he ever is. Every save opportunity is going to be. We already said that he's like big dad energy. Like he took a wrong turn on the freeway and he's going to figure it out. But he's not asking for directions. Yeah. And don't you dare say shit to your dad? Because he's going to figure it out.

Yeah, no, he's just going to even, he's not even going to ignore you the first couple of times. And then he might get angry that he actually dare question him even though you know he's lost. No. In Paul Sewald's defense, he threw a one, two, three, ninth inning two days ago. two days ago. So it wasn't, it wasn't a safe situation. We still have yet to see a one, two, three,

save conversion. That has not happened. I was going to say the story of the relievers this year is them performing in not and in low leverage situations. Do it do it when there's when you're only up two runs in the night. There are forces working against the Arizona Diamondbacks and no man has been strong enough to withstand them until Paul Seawald came around. Yeah, sure.

The door's breaking. He's doing everything he can to hold him back, right? It's like zombies busting in. But he keeps that goddamn doors shut most of the time. On occasion, we all get eaten alive by zombies. But most of the time, he keeps that door shut. So I don't know what to say other than, what do you want? Do you not want drama?

Do you not like heart palpitations and all this other stuff that this team gives you in the ninth inning? No. But anyway, no, the answer is no. What else we got, Damon? Jacob asks a very good question at Jacob Schultt too Jacob Fodge is also walking through here so things just got very confusing here for a moment but Jacob asks and not that Jacob not the one that works here different Jacob he asked if Damon dog has a dog and P.HNXD backs are Damon's dogs

does this mean the dog is your sibling the question is absolutely yes the dog is our the dog's our brother the real questions I thought these are the real questions I thought it was going like we'd be Damon's dogs dogs dogs yeah yeah which we also are

also will a sweep of the giants kill them off finally yes the answer is yes the giants right now are on that bubble of being around those other teams out of it not not eliminate them he doesn't mean like actually eliminate but will it be the nail in the coffin

I mean it ultimately depends on what the other teams do it'll be as far as we're concerned it like you know it seems like beating them will you know give them enough cushion where we won't have to worry about the giants but I mean if the other all the other teams lose and the giants are very much still in the the playoff mix but I yeah I mean honestly I don't give a shit who makes the playoffs that's how the damn diamond backs like whatever other teams want to make it go off as long as the down back do their stuff that that's the

big thing is the diamond backs really do control their own destiny so it's like you can't control yeah the rest of the things that happen that is outside of their control but yeah I think I'm back have the ability here out i mean this is a competitive two game series obviously with the giants it's not going to be easy to beat any of the three teams they have left after the giants but it doesn't mean that they can't do that and thus at this point control their destiny into the playoffs i don't think they don't have to wait for someone else to lose a whole bunch in order for them to be i don't think it necessarily kills the giants off it more gives you like a propelled

the giants would be in a pretty tough spot yeah but again the other teams also lose two that it doesn't matter and that's that's basically how it's wild car no yeah you're right that that is how it seems to be like everybody loses together everybody wins together and also again for that same note zero reason to believe that the diamond backs are going to manage to win both of these games like that's not how this isn't there there's too much in their favor it's exactly yeah you got there's also too much on the line there's no way that you win both of these games absolutely i let's go win both these games yeah let's prove us wrong prove us wrong prove us wrong that's all we ask By the way, if you guys haven't had a chance to stop by Circle K, we've been talking about their brand new membership program.

But I'm going to tell you right now, you can wait in long lines for those few gas stations that are very cheap. But Circle K already has cheap gas. You become a member of the inner circle and you will get 25 cents off your first five Phillips per gallon. And that is quite the savings. And like this man said, it's incredibly gratifying to see that 25 cents come off. So make sure to check that out. The membership program is free, and you can get it right now by downloading the Circle K app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations.

Visit CircleK.com for details. They also have an entire section filled with deals. They also give you five free polar pops, just free. No, buy one, get one free. You just get five free polar pops just as becoming part of the inner circle. I don't understand how they're making money. And I feel like at some point they're going to realize, damn, We're just giving away free shit to need to stop.

So take advantage while you can. Yeah. Stuff like this isn't around forever. You know what I mean? Before they realize. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Get into the circle K interclub. We are. We definitely suggest checking out the inner circle. But I wish I do wish the inner circle applied to like everything. Like you could just go at a Walmart and you just like.

I don't worry. I'm part of the inner circle. Sorry, sir. The price on the Walmart tag just like goes down. By 25 cents. You get one by five, you get one free. I would,

I would exclusively use other gas stations for gas. I'd be like, yeah, I'm taking your gas, but I'm using their discount. I'm going to screw you over. Also, speaking of sponsors we ride for, check out our friends at Pins and Aces,

who is the official golf apparel partner, a PHNX in all city. Or like, drive for. Get it. I do. And I know, I know Max is going to love it. Yeah, that was some weird. That was max level humor.

Enough. And I hate it. Anyway, we do love our pins and aces gear. They made some incredible shirts, not just for us. CHGO also got their little foam finger guy. Do we even know what? CHGO's foam finger guy is called, by the way? Like ours is Phoenix.

Do we know what there's this is called? Oh, how about Phillies? How about Philly? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I don't know, but wasn't the original, wasn't the original DNVR was just Nucks, right? Yeah. So I think, I think Phoenix was only made possible by the fact that it works so well with the name of the city.

It's incredible. It really is. They just, they just can't do that in Chicago. But they're not as cool as our guy. And our guy appears on one of those Pinsanasi shirts. They make amazing polos. Again, I said this before. They're not just for the golf course. They are for everywhere.

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What do we got? Next question comes from Yoshi, piece of Yoshi on Twitter. And he asks, would you forgive the mats if they took one of the remaining series from the Marlins? Who do you see as the biggest two threats to take the two and three spots other than us? Well, we rank those for you. So we took care of that. But I would absolutely forgive the Mets. if they could take because they have six games against the Marlins.

And if they could, they could sweep one of those series, that would just be, that would just be fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not mad at the Mets. The Diamond Bats didn't do their job. Like, it's their job to win baseball games. I'm very, they won one game against the Mets.

I am very bad against about the Mets. I'm mad about the Mets, but not at them at the Mets. The Mets did to the Diamondbacks, what the Diamondbacks did to the Cubs. Yeah, six out of seven. Yeah, they want to come help us out. By all means, I'm not going to complain about it. We will take it.

What else we got, Damon? Ryan Hanley asks, what is the top three burger spots? Could be fast food or restaurant. Tootree knows what I'm about to say. Top three burger spots in Arizona. I know what's up. He said top three burger spots. In Arcadia.

The stand is incredible. I actually went there not that long ago. So fucking good. The stand is incredible. So good. so good yeah I'm not gonna lie

I thought it was like pretty good but I wasn't I wasn't I think it was the fries though I don't think the fries fries are so they're not good yeah but the burger

the burger was very good for what I remember yeah shake there goes crazy yeah no the stand in Arcadian Indian school it goes stupid otherwise listen

I haven't had chuck box before so I don't I have not had Chuck box box either I don't know anything about you haven't had Chuck, are you fucking shuddy? I haven't lived in Tempe.

Oh, my God. I only came and was here for grad school. I've never lived in Tempe. So I don't know much about what going on Tempe. I was going to say, I don't know if there's a hot take. Give me five guys and shake shack. Those two burgers are goaded. No, five guys is very, very good.

Both those burgers go. The complaint with five guys is you go up there. The sign says $5 in some odd sense for a burger. You add some toppings. You get a drink. And next thing you know, your bill is $42 and $70. It is expensive as hell. And you're like, how to pinky.

How did you get here? You also have to. chop that where is the path to get us here i get you filled the bag up with fries while you while the fries are gas yeah the occasion fries they have go stupid but like yeah the stand is amazing but i'm gonna are you i'm gonna get my three no i'm gonna get my three fucking now coming in number three lenny burger lennie burger is incredible uh it used to be right down the street from our old office lenny burger is a local legend i think Ryan Ryan is on board in the chat we have Leth Burger followed by

Doghouse I know dog house I know dog house It's a hot dog place I haven't had the burgers are Incredible they come on Hawaiian They could have made a dog meat

Yeah I mean he's not wrong I love Hawaii rolls That's the right temperature I mean I have no interest in it I'm just saying you put something on a Hawaiian well I'm gonna eat it And then I don't know if it has to do with the drinking It probably does but Chuck Box

comes in number one for me just I've had too many wonderful absolutely fantastic we were breaking burgers in town this whole segment was free ads go get us a burger sponsor then Max go talk to this day on an Indiana in school and then we won't have

bring me letting burger Max Isaiah's also wrong shakeshack burgers are so good I also too expensive but the burgers are amazing especially if you get the one with the fried mushroom that's filled with cheese in it I haven't done all that fucking incredible

I just, they're good burgers. Yeah. I just like them. I second what a lot. I understand what I did think was good. Chuck Box site is on the list of places to try. Dog house, me and Derek hit up, like, before a Diamondbacks game, I think at one point. And it was, it was very, very good.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think we, I think we covered all the one of five guys. I'm a huge fan. I've told this story. But when I was in San Diego for Comic-Con, my friend Megaran was on. kind of like an all liquid diet he was doing so I was on my own to eat and I had to go find something to eat and everything around the area was very full and packed and expensive so I just wound up in the lobby of my hotel at their bar and I asked if there was anything good and the guy looked at me without a shout like without hesitating goes get the cheeseburger and I was like

a word and it was seriously one of the best and then it came completely plain no sauces on it know anything and he was like I know what you're thinking he goes before you put anything out he's like I'll bring you ketchup wherever else you need but before try it just try it like and it was so juicy and incredible and imperfectly made it made me realize that the perfect cheeseburger can be made with nothing on it and it can be incredible but it's I have to give that's that's difficult props so one of the best culinary experiences of my life an Irish pub in Montreal that I went to a few years ago I have this burger called the Titanic It was like $20 Canadian

But it had like pastrami and like fried onions and shit on it Probably the single best burger I've had in my entire life Was that some random Irish pub I stumbled upon in the streets of Montreal Honorable mention Honorable mention But it's got like a burger with like literally a whole other helping of like Pistrami on it and extremely prize it It was it was worth it

Jesse sometimes good burgers are expensive I don't know it's And it's also the Canadian dollars a little weak or at least it was back then, so it wasn't 20 Americans. Cold beers and cheese burgers has a juicy Lucy. I believe it's called the Randy Johnson or the big unit. I got to give them props. It was better than the juicy Lucy I actually had in Minnesota, which is where the juicy Lucy originated.

So just throwing it out there. They have a pretty good one over there. I just want to shout out my favorite bar, which is McKenzie's Midtown Tavern. And they have everything on the menu is good. How much did they pay you for this, Damon? They didn't pay me at all. I'm telling Max, he's going to be furious about.

I had a residency at that place when I used to live in my old apartment. They were like, oh, Damon's here. That's his table. Get him sat over there. What do you want? It was actually a demons registered home at. Yeah. How much just for his billbox?

I have like all of his bills and tax documents there. How about just like like fast food burgers though? Like Wendy's is my number one fast food burger. I love Wendy's. I love Wendy's so much. Just because I can get Wendy's everywhere and whenever I like need. Yeah, I just need it. I don't care. It's I'm not saying it's good. It's just my favorite. Yeah. Honestly, that's how I feel about McDonald's. I just love a McDonald's

Cheasburger. I don't care if it's McDonald's. Like, I just love a McDonald's cheese. Yeah, just the little the little guy. Yeah. I mean, I like in and out. I get that people think it's overrated. Oh, I love it. But I think that's just because it and out's got such like a cultural thing to it that people forget that it at the end of the day. It's just a fast food burger. It's just a really affordable. It's just yeah. When you put in it in a lot of it. the price yeah make it animal style like it's solid i love mcdolls animal style fries are so incredible animal style fries are incredible all right well we've got damon i'm hungry now now i'm hungry uh gabriel asks i'm conducting a study have you

seen this rat if you are watching on youtube you do the youtube yeah if you're on the audio side there is an image of rat leon and it says ever dream this man and has a whole thing about if you've had dreams about this man to contact uh this man dot org which that's that's What's terrifying? What's the story behind the rock? Because Jesse and I were... Yeah, I'm just really confused. Okay.

So the Diamondbacks were in the midst of one of, like, they're historically bad losing streaks that they had. I think they lost nine out of ten. And during that season, their official hashtag was Rattle on. And in an attempt to kind of make a joke out of it, they gave birth to Rat Leon. Yeah. The Diamondbacks did this? The Diamondbacks did this.

Wow. So there was an actual... I knew I had seen that before. Dressed up just walking around the concourse at Chase Field. And if I'm not mistaken, this was during the pandemic year. So there weren't any fans in the stand. There was just a giant rat out kind of in left field. That's crazy.

And then, yes, like Chris says, that rat later jumped in Gerald's bag during a live show of the pH. That was the same rat. It was crazy. Also, if you actually follow the URL, that was on that, you get to a very creepy. It's terrifying. I don't even want to, I only want to address that. That unsettles me.

Just about all these people having the same dream about some creepy man. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. And that's horrifying. And that man is Rat Leon. Isn't that terrible? David's face. Oh yeah.

Uh, Elise says it best. Rat Leon was truly one of the most bizarre moments in DeBax history. There was a time though when we really could have used a ratly. Oh, absolutely. We really needed like a rally. This guy. He loves calling people a rat bastard.

So much so I calling people rat bastards. So much so that when I say rat bastard, Max is like you called? It's like a catchphrase. Put it on his shirt over at the pH. Because Max is a rat bastard. It's also still weird to be that we have a bobcat as a mascot. Like I know his origins. I know Jay Bell's son named him back or created the idea of a bobcat.

But still, I don't know. I saw the, speaking of PHLY, there, I think the soccer team has a mascot that is a snake, and he's kind of adorable. I kind of love him, and it's just a snake. It's with arms and legs, you know, but still a snake. That is. So it's a lizard.

A lizard, yeah. You're going to have to take that up with that. I think the Philly Union or whatever they're called, but anyway, what else we got, Damon? Brian Bobbitt asked, how has Lourdes-Guriel been good defensively? Is it more his routes to the ball or the jumps he's getting? I don't know.

Honestly, I think is I think one thing has been the jumps that he's getting. I really feel like And they brought this up on the broadcast at one point that his defensive plays to the right always seem to be much better than when he's going towards I think essentially center field you know like the other way like to his life. Yeah. So like but like at times with like alec Thomas being able to cover so much ground out there and such like I feel like he's able to kind of focus more on his strengths out there and less on his you know on that but uh, I I don't know. I mean, I think, too, he is playing with some really good defensive outfielders. I think sometimes not that it's infectious, but you kind of have to play harder to keep up with your teammates. Outside of Alec, I guess. He like statistically is the best defense.

Right. That's what I'm saying. And I mean, obviously that's kind of what he's asking is like how, how is he? I mean, Jesse and I were talking about this before, right? Like, it's like, he's not like a gold glover. Yeah. And I'm mistakenly said yesterday that he had won a gold glove. And I realized afterwards he was a gold glove finalist.

He has not actually won a gold glove. But yeah, like he's like he's good. But it's not like he's out here. You know, he's not out like Thomas. I don't think that. No, like no. You wouldn't want to see Lordus play center field. Yeah.

It wouldn't. And I still get a little, I'll get a little nervy when balls get hit out to him. But he does have a great arm. Yeah. I mean, that's the one of the best arms. He's the best arm on the team on the outfield. right? Yeah, yeah.

He absolutely has the best arm in the outfield. He might as well be the only one with an arm in the off. Looking at some of the stat cast numbers, his reaction this year is the best that it's ever been. He has 0.7 above average. I believe that would be measured in, in, it might be feet, I think, is how they measure that, digging into some of the stack cast numbers.

But yeah, that's above average, the best it's ever been. His routes this year actually grade out slightly, worse. But yeah, that reaction appears to be the thing that has that has jolted him to be a better defender. We're looking at some of his, some of his catches this year. And by catch probability, the best one of the season was actually the diving play to his right yesterday. We talked in yesterday's show about the two plays, the two nice plays that Lordis made in that game. And the first one of the two, I believe it was going to do his right. He made a diving play that had a 55% catch probability. So not, you know, not outrageous, not like a 10% catch probability. It wasn't a five-star

catch or anything, but a nice play. And Lordus has made his share of those plays this season. It's funny that you mentioned like his routes because it does seem a lot of times that like he makes things a little more difficult than they need to be. And then they end up looking like really good catches because like like the one that we watched before where he ended up like jumping at the wall and it was like he probably didn't really need to do all that. Yeah. And it looks like crazier than it was. but it's not really related, but also like, it was funny last night at Sunday at baseball. You had that one when Corbyn was miced up and the ball got hit out to left center

and Lourdes ended up making the play. But yeah, Corbyn didn't say like anything the whole time. Like they were both a run into left center and Corbyn didn't say a word. And then all of a sudden you hear is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was funny.

Oh, that didn't see. Like that was a little alarming. But yeah, I don't really know what the deal is Lordus. It's a very interesting outfield, but he's pretty good, man. Side note to that story. Stop micing up our outfielders and important, you know, pivotal games here down the stretch. I love Corbyn.

I love Corbyn. But Corbyn is not the kind of guy to be micing up. He's way too focused. He actually gave much better answers than I thought he was going to. But still. Because you could tell he's like completely focused on the game and you're sitting here. And also that's a lot to ask. I get why they do they choose outfielders.

But like like, like, At one point I was watching Sunday at baseball with the socks and they had Tristan Kossis miced up. And like it's much cooler when they're at like first base because at one point like I think they were playing the I think it I think it was the Cardinals and I think are no. No, I think it was the Padres and Machado wasn't playing very well and Machado gets to first base and they they like ask him for his jersey and so Kossis asked Machado for his jersey and he's like you can have it.

I haven't been hitting well on this. And it's like moments like that where they're interacting with each other. Corby's sitting out in Center Field just alone. When Corbyn by himself is not necessarily the most like exuberant guy. Look, just send a, send a camera crew to go follow Joey Botto around and you'll get gold all the time. I don't know that Christian Walker would have necessarily been the best. Yeah, exactly. It's just hard.

I mean, in a very important game like that, I was kind of surprised they did. I mean, maybe talk to the managers, talk to, talk to Zach Gallen when he's not pitching. You know that that sort of thing is fine But to go to the center fielder and be like hey we want to mic you up like in the It is also tough though because if you're gonna make someone up you look at this team you go to the center infielders And it's like or just I'm have to speak the best English and you want to left field And Mike him up in the dugout when when they're on offense Ultimately I'm yeah I'm surprised that the players really willing to do it like that seems like the kind of thing corbyn would be like I've got a game to play

I feel like I brought up my own mailbag Monday question with this one but uh anyway what's the next question we got here. Chris at Sir Gorilla asked in the news of winning times being canceled, what MLBD team and era would you want to see a dramatic biopic series based off of? Why not the Arizona Diamondbacks 2001 World Series

team? We already casted that movie. We could just move this cat. Look at, there's our cast. The keeper Southern is shilling is money. Oh yeah. That's the best cast. And you know he's super method and super into it so he'd go on and gain like just enough weight in his face to really fill that out and really

look like him. I'm proud of all of these, but Bob Brenley, Tom Selleck, I mean, come on. Come on. That's dash. Chris Tucker is a good one for Tony Wolleman. Yeah. And Chris Diamantopoulos as Luis Gonzalez, there literally is no better. There is no better

casting there. I know Sam Elliott is old, but find me a better Randy Johnson. I don't know. I mean, Sam Elliott, it may be get in his way back machine and get Sam Elliott from 1985. I don't know. But I definitely would love to see a Jerry Colangelo just running in there angry

you know like stomping on the dreams of the rest of the ownership staff like just to tell them like that they need to actually build a winner like yeah it would could be completely over dramatized and like not actually what really happened but just Jerry Colangelo like slamming his fist down on a boardroom table and be like put your hopes and dreams aside you need to build a goddamn winner for Phoenix like that kind of thing I don't know I don't know if any of these things happen but what other teams any other major league baseball teams you'd want to see uh I mean there's a handful of like somewhat recent ones that I think are kind of like I think that the 16 Cubs is how you say the Cubs is is is obvious one yeah I think

I know how people are going to respond to this but I think bias aside I think the the socks after the Boston bombing would be a fascinating uh just a fascinating team to follow between David Ortiz is like this is my fucking city and then they they went out to win the world series 4. What's that? Or 04 as well. Well, yeah, the 04 one would be crazy. I think, and this is not specifically a team, but just the steroid era home run race, like following those guys would be, it would be fascinating.

But as far as that, I'm concerned. I think the 0-1 is pretty obvious there. Yeah. Just from their, from their inception, you know, from their birth to 98 through that 01 season, I think that would be a lot of fun to watch. I just don't know if there'd be that big of interest in it. There's not that big of interest in the Lakers and their season. actually is a really good show.

Everybody should watch. Other thing you got to consider it. You need teams with like characters on it. Yeah. Like I don't, I don't know. The Big Red Machine. Cincinnati Reds back that.

Like there's plenty of individuals that would make very fascinating like characters in this. Like I don't know why, but like Ozzy Guillen would be just in a something like this would be amazing. What about the steroid era of baseball? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like the home run race is like if you get, if you're getting like Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and stuff like this. And you can actually get the facts.

correct and actually reveal all of the stuff that kind of happened, right? Or you get to be a little Hollywood with it. And you get to, you get to see Sammy Sosa fucking jabbing up and stuff like that. Like, my God. I mean, from like a Hollywood kind of entertainment perspective. Like that I think is the most, like you're getting, you're like, because when you think about the steroid era, like it is like these guys were,

it's a pretty big. I mean, I get everyone was doing it. But like it's a pretty big choice to start fucking. Cheating. Yeah. Like it would be very fascinating to kind of follow these guys through that watch basically the entire league get taken over by steroids Well, I mean the entire like performance enhancing drugs thing throughout baseball has always been you know odd reading books about players describing you know greenies and like a candy dish in the you know emphetamines in a candy dish in the in the in the clubhouse and and things like that like I think the older the the the farther you go back to a time where baseball almost seemed like completely lawless and such during like the 60s and 70s.

There's just there's so many interesting things and baseball had such a pivotal role in in a lot of things historically. You know, obviously, you know, you have great, you know, Jackie Robinson and and all that. But the the 70s in baseball just seems like a weird era. You have a guy that threw a no hitter while on LSD, right? Like, you know, I mean, there's some weird shit that happened in baseball. I think I think we are looking at. this from a little bit too positive of perspective like stuff like Pete Rose betting on

fucking baseball games or that's what the black socks scamming. Like shit like that what I think would be would be super interesting and again Red Sox Till Terry Franconi getting fired in one of the worst like September collapses of all time Like I think stuff like that would be really interesting There has to be some drama. Yeah there has to be

Fall in part we'll just make up drama It's like he said winning time was not factual That's fair you know you could just do what you want because it's a show The 80s Mets doing crack cocaine. Well, yes. You get stuff like that when you get stories of like not even just the Met, but like in general, you got guys going out like to have sex under the bleachers and shit like that.

Like you got guys, eating hot dogs and smoking cigars and the dugout. Yeah. Baseball was like you said, the wild out. There's so many stories you hear about the way baseball was that by today's standards is completely unacceptable for any sport to have. For fucking society to be operating in society.

Like there's no situation in which you. Yeah. In the 80s, you didn't get to have an office job and be having sex in the bathroom and doing coke and I guess I wasn't. Maybe I'm the office. There's a lot of places that that was acceptable. Yeah. Yeah. Because David knows.

David was Robb. David definitely knows. Brent, yes, it was Doc Ellis that threw that no hitter on LSD. Wild times, wild times. All right. Last question in the mailbag comes from Don's bread because we haven't had a ridiculous Don's bread question in a while. And Don's bread asked, The Rock recently came back to Smackdown. Let me do that better.

The Rock came back to Smackdown. And he wants to know what D-back player would have the same effect coming back for this wagon run into the playoffs. Whoof. Mark Malanson. No, that's absolutely not the answer. And you can get the fuck out now. You get up, take your computer with you, take the snake and leave. The answer is J.D. Martinez.

That's the answer. Is J.D. Martinez coming back? His name did. I mean, there's just something about what he accomplished in the second half of that 27th. season that no one's I mean there's no player that has ever given the Diamondbacks the kind of second half jolt a late season

jolt the JD I think it was around this time of year in 2017 the JD Martinez at four home runs in the game at Dodger Stadium yeah I mean wild if we're like yeah I think Randy is is the most obvious answer especially if we're talking about wrestling where like

a champion returning a legend for example like the rock can't still can't still compete at that level. But what the WW being with the WW is, like he can, he could still. Have you not seen the rock lately? That man is just eight feet wide of muscle.

Well, yeah, but I'm saying you can do that in the WWE. You can't be, it doesn't matter how physical chief you are. You can't be 45 years old. I am getting HR. But if we're getting Randy and Randy still can contribute because we're not talking about real baseball necessarily,

then like, ring me. Yeah. I don't want my ring right now. I want Randy Johnson. Yeah, absolutely. I think Paul Goldschmidt's also a good answer there. I like that answer from Gabriel. Yeah.

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