PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Motivated Merrill

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing Merrill Kelly's impressive spring debut, if Jordan Luplow is the answer in the outfield, and Shohei Ohtani being so good they had to make a rule just for him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX Debax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montaia. Of course, I am your mayor of this very fine podcast network known as the PHNX. And I am joined by the vice mayor of this network. He is the vice mayor of PHNX and also the Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. Hello, Derek. That was a fun spring training game today. Merrill Kelly was.

He was something else in the Cactus League today. So we've got some fun stuff to talk about here. I mean, I know results don't matter. But when you talk about a guy looking sharp, Merrill Kelly looks sharp today in his three innings of work. But like you said, we will get to that shortly. Of course, we got to let you know that this show is brought to you by our friends over at the Drafking Sportsbook app. Right now, college basketball is taking over the world.

It's March Madness and everybody's got it. it's it's it's it's better than it's better than COVID much better than COVID but just as contagious but you can get down on the biggest tournament of the year of drafting sportsbook turn your team's victory into a big win by betting $5 on any team to win using our code of pHNX and you will get $200 in free bets if they do that's for new customers over at the draft king's sports book and yes Jesse again we were out at beautiful Scottsdale stadium playing the San Francisco Giants today I got a chance to chat with Bannister once again.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy Jeff Bannister. He's a warm, calming presence in my life, Jesse. And if I could, I, you know, I've said I would let Mike Hazen general manage my life. I'd let Bannister cook.

What? He's like, he's like basically your life coach at this point. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I think we're bordering on like, we're definitely bordering on life coach status where he's, he's you know you're going to you're going to go to jeff banister with all of the biggest problems

that you have in life oh yeah no that's no that's without a doubt that's for sure and also his stories that he tells me that i can't repeat are uh both enjoyable and killing me inside uh why do you have to do that why do you have to do that to us derrick i don't know i don't know but that's how it's about me and jeff banister being friends it's not about the the fact he's going to like be a a very big influence in my life. It's about Merrill Kelly dominating the San Francisco Giants today. It was abusive.

Jesse, it was abusive. Eight strikeouts in three innings of work. At times, he was just delivering in a way that seemed not only efficient, but very easygoing, right? Like, he wasn't laboring. It was easy for him seemingly to get through those eight strikeouts in three innings.

And everybody seemed pretty impressed with his outing today, obviously, near perfect. I mean, he literally was perfect. I mean, nine up, nine down, eight strikeouts, as you said, it's hard to ask for more than that in a Cactus League debut. Merrill Kelly is going to be big for the Diamondbacks. I mean, we talked about last year who he was arguably their most valuable pitcher. just by virtue of the fact that he was reasonably consistent. He stayed healthy for the most part.

That's something we can't say for anyone else in this rotation from last year. And currently he's lined up. As far as we can tell right now, of course, Tori Lavello is not to say this, but he's lined up to pitch in game two of the season as of right now. So I think that's probably the most likely scenario. Yeah, it seems like it's going to go mad bum Merrill Kelly, especially with Zach Gowan, not making his first. appearance in the rotation, but getting in there at some point. I don't think that they're going to go

to Zach Gallen on like a short pitch count leash for something like the opening series. I just don't see that happening. No, no, I don't either. And not to mention, he still hasn't pitched in a spring training game. He has one more live BP to throw before they're going to get him into a game. So his his timing isn't looking great as far as getting into the into the rotation. But like we said yesterday, it's just for one, just for one portion of the rotation. Yeah, it'll be good to see what, you know, what Zach Gallen is able to do. We saw the team do this last year like we talked about yesterday where he wasn't necessarily fully stretched out when the season started, but the Diamondbacks just said, hey, you know,

we'd rather have you throw 70, 75 pitches in the majors than throw 70 or 75 pitches in the minors in a rehab game like we talked about on the show yesterday. So, yeah, Merrill Kelly's going to be a pretty big part of this rotation in 2022. And yeah, I mean, we talked about how valuable he's been. We've talked about how he might be a pretty marketable trade piece come to trade deadline. not that we want to talk about those things just yet, but this is the last year of Merrill Kelly's deal. So, you know, keep things in perspective here, folks. Just like we said with Zach Allen the other day,

enjoy Merrill Kelly while he's here. You're a bad person. I just want you to know that. Something interesting that I took away from Tori Lavello's pregame press, I guess, scrum, you could say, in the dugout, was Barry Bloom, who's a wonderful man. He's another advisor in my life. There's like a council of wise baseball men that I'm going to appoint to go to for all my life choices.

And Barry's one of them. Barry was asking Tori Lavolo about preparation and preparing for the different teams and lineups. And one interesting thing that I found that Tori said was that they basically prepare the same for every team. and Barry even seemed a bit taken back by that and kind of clarified and and Tori clarified that he meant kind of what he said that they prepared the same way for for every team and I'm not trying to question Tori Lavallo as a manager but is that the wisest path to preparation is preparing the exact same way for every team I mean is that truly the idea of like we're going to play play our game, our way, and we're going to beat them kind of mentality? I mean, isn't that such like textbook baseball talk? Like, yeah, you know, we're going to put our heads down. We're going to treat them like there are any other team.

Right. We're going to do the same thing every day. Baseball players and coaches are creatures of habit, right? So, like, these are the kinds of things that they say. And that's not to say that, like, you know, behind the scenes, I think we all know, preparing for every team the same way. They know who's pitching. They have tons of scouting reports and tons of information about who they're facing

on a day-to-day basis. So I think that's more Tori Lavello just doing that, you know, baseball. Yeah, standard baseball answer. I think that's what we got. I was like with the analytics that you have, you're preparing for every team the same way. Yeah, that's just false. You don't have Mike Fitzgerald as, you know, a statistical analyst working in your front office if you're preparing for every team the exact same way. Correct.

Now, what I will say, though, is that I thought it was funny when he was asked, I think, by Nick Picoro about the, like, lineups and whether he was going to still give guys days off or if they were going to get like a half day off, deaching, you know, the way that, and you brought it up. Baseball is a game where, these guys are creatures of habit. And to be honest, at times, one thing I've questioned quite a bit as far as Tori Lavello's managing, which, and I think a lot of people have, is his constant pivoting, right, is his constant changing of where guys bat in the batting lineup, his constant changing

of guys who's playing when they're playing. And most importantly, pulling guys out and having them sit, have an off day when they're like on the middle of a hot streak, they're hitting like 500 over their last like six games. and it's time for David Peralta to take us, you know, a seat. And no, it's not, you know, it's not. It's definitely not time. Wait until this whole fizzles out. Just let's get the most out of his hotness right now as possible.

LaVallo sees things in a much different way. And he constantly sees this as like a, you know, a marathon, right, trying to get through the 162 game season. And no matter how good you are during portions of it, you still have to get this team to the finish line and have them be as healthy as possible when you get there. So, I mean, I don't know if he sees things in the hot, you know, guys are hot kind of way and not sitting them. But it seemed to hurt his soul to have to admit that, yes, he'll keep them in the lineup if they're doing super well and have a VH, even if it's their day off. that's the that's the big advantage of the dh right is that troy levello can can still give guys a day off

their feet you know even uh even uh with the ability to still have their lineup in or to have their bat in the lineup still right and that's something that he hasn't been able to do in the past if he wanted to give a guy you know a restful day the only day to really the only way to do that was to just take the person out of the lineup altogether and the dh gives him off And we know that Tori Lavello loves options. So we'll see what that looks like this year. He really does. But hopefully things can be in a more cohesive fashion now.

And I think that's that's really what the DH can bring to his particular style of managing. Right. And like you said, I don't know. I don't know how they consider a DH because we might have a different opinion about, you know, having a day off versus their opinion of having a day off that's still having the DH. But it's like, I don't know, it's like when you have to go into work and you don't really have to do a lot of work, but you have to be there for the eight hours. And I think all of us can remember at least one experience in our time of working where we did that.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what this team can do. Merrill Kelly seems to be in another stratosphere. We'll see if that still carries over to his next start. And we'll see how this plays out. Like you said, it looks like the rotation is set. I'm guessing Madbom, Kelly, Luke Weaver, and then whoever we got in the battery. It'll be interesting to see of Zach Davies. I imagine he would have to start in a couple of these spring games in order to be ready

and to be part of this lineup going into the regular season. That's a good point. Yeah, and I don't think the team has officially announced the signing yet, at least as of as of right now, as far as I'm aware. So obviously that's going to have to happen first. They're going to have to get his physical done and all that before they can get him out there on the field. But yeah, I'm sure we'll see him at some point in the Cactus League as the Diamondbacks are stretching out a lot of guys. I mean, it sounds like Taylor Widener is being stretched out, Caleb Smith is being stretched out, guys that we don't really think will stay in the rotation just for this weird,

first part of the year, you know, where you're going to need more pitchers than you normally would at the beginning of a season just because you guys haven't had as long to prepare for the beginning of the season. And I know the rosters are going to be expanded. We'll get a little bit more into that later on in the show. But you're going to, you might need Taylor Widener to, you know, give you a few innings. And you might need Caleb Smith to give you a few innings from time to time. And Zach Davies, I'm sure, is going to slot right in there as another guy who's going to get stretched out and hopefully we'll be able to go, you know, 70, 80 pitches by the time the season starts. Well, Corbyn Martin's another guy that had kind of a mini start in today's game.

He basically went in for nearly three innings. Gave up a couple of runs, but had three strikeouts and, you know, still looked pretty strong. So had some inherited runs that scored. so he only had one earn run in the game. But I mean, again, he's one of those guys that they seem to be stretching out. And we'll definitely be a name that stays as part of the rotation conversation, I think, for the season, even if he's not there initially here when opening day comes around. We know that Mike Hazen loves Corbyn Martin.

When the Diamondbacks acquired him a few years ago in the Zach Granke deal, It sounded like he was someone that they'd been trying to get for years, that they were interested in well before that deal even happened. So I think we can be pretty confident. If Corbyn Martin is showing, you know, any kind of promise for being part of this starting rotation, the Diamondbacks are going to give him whatever opportunity he sets himself up for. And obviously, you're going to get more about that all season long over at go phnx.com. If you're not a member, go sign up to become a member. now you can get down become an annual member annual membership will get you not only a free t-shirt at the p hnx locker dot com which i've told you about these t-shirts i'm wearing one right now it it

makes me more confident uh i think i lost five pounds wearing it i i don't know if there's any correlation between these good things that have happened in my life and this t-shirt but i'm saying they weren't happening when i wasn't wearing the t-shirt is what i'm saying so go over get yourself an annual membership, get yourself a free t-shirt over at PHNX locker.com. If you want to try the month-to-month option, we still got you covered. We'll give you your first month for just 50 cents. Not only do you get the access to all of our content out of our GoPHNX.com, and it's just an avalanche.

It's a mountain of content. Both of those are Denver terms, and I probably, I mean, as much as there are cousins, I probably shouldn't be using them. By the way, Patrick Lyons was a big fan of me calling them our cousins. he liked that a lot. So that's officially what our friends in Chicago and Denver are going to be. Now they are our cousins. And those are cousins terms.

So I should say what, like at, uh, at, uh, the, uh, avalan,

right, I don't know what's a desert term of a lot of stuff like, oh, it's a snake. Uh, it's a bunch of snakes. I don't know. Anyway,

we got a shit ton of content. There you go. I got a shit ton content over at PHNX, uh, go phnx. And I hope you enjoy all of it, not only from us, but from all of the other beats, the suns, the Cardinals, Coyotes.

We have some tremendous people working here, and I am honored to be amongst them, not only amongst Jesse Friedman, but amongst the great writers and content creators we have here at PHNX. And also, you can get in on our Discord, where we'll talk about baseball, we'll talk about all sorts of stuff, members only, of course, all over at gophnx.com. But Jesse, we have been, there's some people we've been,

talking about and kind of not mentioning when it comes to the rotation, right? Like Tyler Gilbert, Humberto Castiano, there's quite a few guys that have, you know, kind of earned the right to be stretched out and kind of be fighting for this role right now and have done a good job. But I also feel like we've done that when it comes to right field. Because we have talked quite often about right field being a positional need for this team as if they have no right field or at all. And to be honest, Jordan Looplo has been playing some pretty good baseball in the outfield and in right field for the Arizona Dinembacks. Yeah, Looplo is one of those guys that know where he's going to play exactly. No, he was in right field today. We'll see exactly. Technically,

MLB.com has him listed as a center fielder, which I don't know necessarily how much time he'll see in center field this year. We all. also saw him play first base in past season. So he can kind of bounce around. But yeah, the point is, Derek, I mean, he was two for three today with a couple of double. I mean, working at a sample of eight at bats. So, you know, certainly take this with a grain of salt.

But two doubles and a home run and eight at bats is pretty hard to, pretty hard to argue with. And the other thing that I want to point out is that Jordan Looplo historically has been a a serious platoon hitter. The kind of guy that you don't really want him to ever stand a candid pitcher, but he's going to smoke lefties. That's pretty much been the scouting report

on Jordan Looplo for a number of years. And so far, Derek, those two doubles and that home run all came against right-handed pitching. He's three for six against righties with those three extra base hits. Also happens to be both for two against left, but of course, such a small sample. You can sit there.

So this actually could be a development for Jordan Looplo. Obviously, still such a small number of games. We have to see him continue this for a longer period of time before we can really make any real claims. But if he's able to, you know, kind of get around that hump that he's been dealing with for a number of years as being kind of exclusively a platoon guy, that would make him a much more valuable asset for the Diamondbacks. he's still only 28 years old a few years ago in Cleveland.

He had a really, really good season. So this is a good, a really good start for Loep Lo, and hopefully he's able to continue this. Another guy that's been having a pretty good showing out at spring training has been Dominic Canzone. He's been doing a great job. He had a, came in at DH, had a hit in this game, and drove in a couple of RBI.

But nobody is out hitting. right now, David Peralta, who's currently averaging 500 with a 2.056 OPS. That's pretty compelling. Four for eight with two home runs and five RBIs is not a bad start. We'll take it. See, why did you have to minimize it? You had to go there and minimalize it with the actual numbers when I was just giving out averages and OPSs, Jesse.

You've got to get out that you're bearing, you're bearing the, the, the, the, the, the, exciting stuff here. Oh, but yeah, no, I think that their outfield situation is not terrible. I think McCarthy has been doing pretty well this spring is, you know, and again, I think he played center field

today. Yeah, he's hitting 429, so I imagine that's only in two or three games, but still looking pretty good, you know, and so if this team can kind of keep up this pace, they got some guys that are already dialed in. And even if the wins aren't coming,

it's a great sign that some of these guys are already ready to go offensively. Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to tell based on as few games as we've played. So I definitely want to, yeah, I think it's hard to really jump to any conclusion.

You want to pump the brakes. Are you kidding? I know. I'm a sample size guy, Derek. If a guy, if a guy goes wild, all the predictions and accusations and and we give too much credit and not enough credit all based on these results. But I am excited that Cotel Marte will be in tomorrow's game or today's game,

excuse me, on Thursday. And he will be playing at second base. So he won't just be in a D.H role. He'll actually be fielding. His eyes better. I think he has contacts in again. And he's back to $100. That's great news.

I mean, we've talked about how important he is for this team. That's obviously no, no secret. I do think it's interesting that they're being so cautious with him in terms of like where he plays defensively, like kind of easing him in as a DH when it seems like the issue he had was, um, was an eye issue. Um, that, I know there were some sort of incident where, um, he was wearing these fancy glasses and, um, his eyesight was off a little bit. You wouldn't necessarily think that.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe he'll stick with him just as a fashion statement. I guess we'll see. But yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily think that, you know, like if his eyesight is good enough to hit, then you'd think he would be able to play second base. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not a hamstring injury where you don't want him moving around out there.

So that's a good point. But I think it might be more, it just might be more about, I get what you're saying. hitting is just as dangerous because a ball is coming at you. So if you're having vision problems, then you probably shouldn't be hitting. Yeah, it just seems like either you can see and you can play baseball or you can't see and you just should not play.

You shouldn't hit. You shouldn't field. You shouldn't do anything, right? I mean, I think fielding, you might pick up the ball differently. And it might just be more about that, like vision wise because we don't know what he was experiencing,

blurred vision or some sort of walk. There's a bigger margin for error. Like if he's hitting worst case scenario, he strikes out three times. Whereas if he's playing defense, you know, playing second base, he could really struggle out there. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. At least he's still getting in the game and getting some at bats, which for him right now is probably the more important thing, is getting dialed in against major league pitching instead of, you know, even live.

Live BP is major league pitching, but it's just different. You know what I mean? It's not a game. It's not the same kind of atmosphere. It's very loose. You know, it's even though you're hitting against a teammate that's throwing and trying to get you out like any other pitcher would, it's still not playing against an actual opposing pitcher. Right.

So trying to get them those at bats as soon as possible kind of makes sense. But I also understand that they just don't have a lot of time. Jesse, they don't, they're really just trying to get guys as much time as they can whenever they can without there being any kind of, you know, delay to their progress. And honestly, like with the lineups, for instance, you know, getting, getting guys playing time, but also not looking at it the same way that they have in past spring trainings when they have more time. Sometimes with the past spring trainings, it wasn't really as much about getting the major league guys. guys ready at times as it was about kind of seeing some of the other middle guys and where they might kind of fit in to the to the roster and fit into the plan for the season. Now, I mean, there's this kind of weird, very variance from one guy to the next about how prepared they were

because some guys are very prepared. Some guys are the Josh Rojas of the world that felt like they had the best, you know, offseason ever as far as working out and being prepared. And then others, not so much, right? So there's, there's a lot of guys that I don't think were, came into camp, you know, going to these like player, you know, put together mini camps and getting the workouts that, that other guys were. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a, this is a, a kind of different situation as far as spring training is concerned. I mean, I guess different, but also the same when it comes to what they all went through last season, right? Madison Bumgarner said this does not compare it all to the pandemic situation, which he's really handled personally horribly.

He said like just his, you know, the stop and go and stop and go kind of thing. How did he, did he get into specifics about that about how he handled it? Yeah, he's talked about it several times. but I personally have never heard him get into specifics. He might have in occasions where I wasn't present. But for the most part, I think he just probably didn't kind of maintain a level of readiness. You know, like, I think he might have just shut down altogether. And then that is weird when you already ramped up and got stretched out through spring training, essentially,

and then shut down for what? how long it was it was a few months because i mean like five months right i don't think it was it that long i think so spring training shut down in in march obviously yeah and then they played a 60 game season that was sort of like the season didn't bleed far past when it normally would have ended so i think they got i think they got going around the beginning of um of august I want to say something like that. So yeah, I guess that is five. Yeah, you're right.

That's five months. That's crazy. My math is good, Jesse. I know you're a teacher, but come on, double check my work and give me a star. All right. I don't even give my students stars, Derek. I know.

I know. You're a tough but fair teacher. And you know what? They say that about a lot of things, but you're not going to find any toughness over at draft King Sportsbook. What you're going to find is them giving new customers, especially during this college basketball season, just free bets, free bets. New customers right now can bet $5 in any team to win, any team. So, you know, the favorites and get $200 in free bets if they do. It's that simple.

If they win, you win over at the Draft King Sportsbook. Existing customers can get down on college hoops, same game parlays, as well as multiple game parlays with this tournament wrapping up. Combine multiple bets from the same game or multiple games for a bigger payout. The more legs you add, the more money you win. Draft Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit with draw your cash whenever you want. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use promo code PHNX, bet $5 on any college hoops team to win

and get $200 in free bets if they do. If they win, you win with promo code PHNX this week at DraftKing Sportsbook. 21 and over only, Arizona only gambling problem down $100 next step. New customers only, minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And Jesse, big news before we talk about our last thing here. We're having Bert on the show tomorrow.

I'm going to have Steve Berthewm. Yeah, we're going to have Steve Berthium on the show tomorrow to talk with us a little bit. Actually, I say later today, again, we record this on Wednesday, pulling back the curtain too far. But tonight on Thursday, we're going to have Steve Berthium on the live show. So make sure to join us. one of our regular listeners, get in on the comments, ask some questions. We're going to chat about debacks. We're going to get down to the nitty gritty of him making calls and entertaining us during

baseball games. See, you and I only have to ramble on for 30 minutes at a time, but this man has to talk for three hours during these baseball games and keep us informed, engaged, and entertained. And I find that especially now with what we do to be an impressive feat every single game. So I'm going to love to chat with Bert about that stuff and so much more. So make sure to join us for that. One thing that we might have to ask them about are these new rules that look like they're going to be implemented in 2022. It looks like according to Alden Gonzalez's or Joel Sherman's original reporting,

the MLB and MLBPA are expected to be ratified by owners next week. 28 man rosters in the month of April. Automatic runner on second base, that ghost runners back alive again. Yep. And the Shohei Otani rule, he has his own rule. He has his own rule.

You know how much I love Shoahe Otani. So like, this is a big deal. Showing Otani gets his own rule. No, it's not the show Hey, Otani rule, but it's basically the show hey,

Otani rule, which is that the pitcher can remain as the DH if they were hitting as the DH after he's done pitching through life of the CBA, which makes me kind of curious, like, could he like go into the DH spot, even if he didn't start in the DH spot? But see, this doesn't matter because nobody's going to use this. And that's why it's the showy Otani rule, because the angels are the only team that are going to use this rule. So it doesn't matter. Don't you love how much.

like, like, Shohay Otani's awesomeness has broken so many systems. Like we don't, like I feel so bad for, you know, like the programmers over at ESPN fantasy baseball

or like all the different fantasy sports out there. They're like, oh, shoot, man, we gotta figure out, we gotta figure out how to have a player in the system is both a pitcher and a hitter.

And like, you got to be able to either start in one or the other, but not both. Shohei Otani has ruined everything in the, best way possible. He is not. You take it back. You take it back. I said in the best way possible. He's ruined a lot of things, Derek. He's made us rethink this game that is not really built to accommodate guys who both pitch and hit at the same time and do both of them at an extremely high level. So I am an enormous Shohei Otani fan, but I think it's, this is pretty cool. I think

it's sad if, you know, these kind of arbitrary rules that baseball has would would keep Shohei Otani out of a game. When we all know, we really just want to see him stay in the game. I mean, maybe if you're one of the, one of the Angels AOS foes, you're not so happy about one of your rivals having a player, have a rule named after him. Yeah, probably not the best day for those people.

But for the rest of us, this is pretty fun. It could be the Madison Bumgarner's Silver Slugger rule, you know? I don't know. Hey, guys. You know, I've never seen anybody. care less about hitting than when Madison Bumgarner was asked about it. Like really? Really?

You know, I don't know for being as good as he was at it. I felt like Granky cared a lot about hitting. Madison Bumgarner's just good at it, but he doesn't seem sad to see it go. Yeah. But like I said before earlier this week, after that media scrum that we had with him, he's very crotchety about all of these rule changes and doesn't care much for anything he doesn't

like change jesse none of us like change nobody likes change but change is happening that's what's happening um and i'm excited for the rule changes i'm just losing track of when which ones are going to be in play right the dh is this season or not this season um oh it's this season yeah d h is here immediately but you're right not all of the rule like banning the shift and whatnot that's the bigger bases are not until next year right right right but the um ghost runners are back immediately ghost runners are immediate yep that's a you know i i i've seen an odd number of people in favor of the ghost runners and i'm i'm honestly surprised by that i'm i'm a little i'm a little thunderstruck thunder stick because i

I can't believe that that many people like it. I just, I don't know. I've never, I felt like it was just such a weird artificial rule and, and a thing to have happened in this game that never has somebody automatically start on base unless, you know, some sort of something was violated or a walk or something.

Yeah. Like, it's just such a weird rule. And I'm, I'm still not in favor of it. Yeah. For all the like baseball scorekeeping purists out there. You know, there isn't a marking in your in your scorebook for, you know,

runner on second base who just appeared there when the inning started. We don't really have a little boo. It's a little boo for Mario is what it is. It's a little ghost. It's a little drawing of a ghost. And that's what you're going to. Okay. You'll have to invent an official scorecard.

No. No. Evan Thompson from last word on sports, by the way, shout out to him. It is his birthday today. It is. Birthday, buddy. And by the time you're listening to this, it will be my birthday. So happy birthday to me.

I'm just saying. You can Venmo me drinks. You just like wish yourself a happy birthday on your own show. I did. And it's not my birthday yet. But Jesse, it's going to be. I feel bad because I feel like that was my job. Yes, do you wish me happy birthday.

This is my birthday. I win this airs. Come on. Yeah, it's not your birthday right now. I can't do it. Maybe Steve Berthium will tell you. happy birthday, Derek. We'll see.

Maybe. That's what, that's all I wanted from the debacks. They were like, what do you want for your birthday? I was like, Steve Berthew, of course. You got your wish. I don't know if we can make that happen. Maybe as long as it's a Zoom meeting and not in person. But I will say going back to what Evan was, was talking about the, he was showing me like the different ways to score on a scorecard.

And it was just one nightmareish. scoring method after the next that I'll never remember and I will look back on and I will never know what I wrote. I won't know what all these lines meant, Jesse. I don't do all of this. I write what you might call a simple man's scorecard with pretty much just what happened and little notes, uh, six three to be. It's, um, you're not going to get a whole lot more than that out of me. But anyway, uh, again, shout out to Evan for his birthday. And shout out to me for my birthday, Jesse. Happy birthday, Evan.

Happy birthday. Oh, we did the thing. Well, I'm wrapping up so we can get to my birthday faster, but we thank you guys so much for checking out the show. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore K-man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show, the premier spring training coverage for the Arizona Diamondbacks is at PhNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads lead to at

pHNX underscore sports. And that is on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We are excited to be joined by Michaela Perkins very soon. She's going to be joining us and be with us on opening day. We are excited to be here. Jesse is flying out. We're all going to be together. It's going to be a grand time.

Our countdown to opening day is on. We're going to be coming to you from the Ainsworth across the street. I think some of you are familiar with that from the PHNX Sun Show. So exciting times, guys. Can't wait for opening day to come. Two weeks. Two weeks, Derek. Two weeks. Two weeks. Make your plans. Come join us at the Ainsworth. We're going to be doing a pregame show, postgame show. Shots on Jesse. He doesn't drink, but he's going to buy him.

But, yeah, join us for all that festivities. Of course, you can download us wherever you download podcast at. Subscribe and leave us a five-star review if you feel like we deserve it. Also go over to a YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications for the P.HNX sports YouTube channel. Follow them, do all of that good stuff. That way you don't miss any of the good content coming out from our PHNX team. So those wonderful writers and wonderful content creators I was talking about earlier. Again, use our code of PHNX over at the Drafking Sportsbook for new customers and sign up to become a member over at go phnx.com.

We thank you guys so much for checking out the show on behalf of Jesse and myself. We always appreciate you for listening. And remember, kids, it's my birthday. It's, what's me happy birthday, Jesse? Do the thing. No? Happy birthday, Evan. Happy birthday.