PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - PHNX D-backs Post Series: Got mom a winning record

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the D-backs series win over the Rockies, Zac Gallen's impressive outing in game three, the big league debut of Alek Thomas, and more! 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 Debaks podcast right here on on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as Mom's Favorite Son, and I'm joined, of course, by one of Mom's Others' Kids. It's the one and only Thunderstick Jesse Friedman.

Whose mom are we talking about? I don't know. I don't know. Well, we're talking about all the moms, all the mom's favorite kids. All the moms. Okay.

But we thank you guys so much for being here. We thank the Diamondbacks. so much for being the Valley's best sports team right now. And we will get around to that shortly. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Now get down on the NBA action. New customers, of course, can bet $5 on any NBA team to win their game.

And you will get $150 in free bets. If they do, new customers, get down, turn that small bet into a big payday during the NBA playoffs with the Draft King's sports book. Jesse, I don't know what is going on with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but they are once again one game over 500. This is a bit crazy to me. Zach Gallen, dominant again over seven shutout scoreless innings. Alec Thomas debuted today, collected his first major league hit, a double smoked off of his bat. And the Diamondbacks have won their second consecutive series in a row. They are 15 and 14. And more importantly, they have won nine out of 12 in their last 12 games. Nine out of 12. It's craziness.

I don't understand where it's coming from other than, of course, the Joe Mather effect. That's what we knew this was happening the whole time. It was the Joe Mather effect. Just took a while for the Joe Mather effect to get inside of everybody and have everybody feel all of that wonderful. full hitting prowess. But yes, of course, the Diamondbacks once again win a series this time against the Colorado Rockies who were arguably pretty hot coming in to this series against the Diamondbacks. I mean, I feel like the Brent Strom effect, if you're going to talk about the effect of a coach, maybe Brent Strom is.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I mean, he's been, I mean, we don't necessarily know exactly how much Brent Strom has directly affected the on-field results to this point. But we can say that this Diamondback's rotation, Derek, has been unbelievable over the last couple of weeks. If you go back to April 29, so this is nine games altogether that this covers. The Diamondback starting rotation is thrown 52 innings, allowed 33 hits, seven runs, only five of them earned, just six walks, 38 strikeouts, a 0.87 ERA over the last nine games for the starting rotation. You're going to win some games doing that. And it makes a lot of sense why the Diamondbacks have suddenly had so much success.

These pitchers are pitching deep into games. It feels like the Diamondbacks having not even allowed to run come the fifth or sixth inning is pretty normal. Like that's happened several times over the last couple weeks where it's the sixth or seventh inning. And the other team hasn't even scored yet. It's wild. It's absolutely wild. I mean, I don't know. Like you said, it has come to a point where we almost expect it.

And this was a team where you talk about length. It was kind of a joke, right? We, we, we, we kind of joked that no diamondbacks pitcher makes it out of the fifth inning, essentially at this point between last year and the starting of, the start of this season. The efficiency we're seeing out of guys like Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen is amazing. I think that's the most impressive thing. It's allowed the diamondbacks to not have to go to their bullpen as often and not have to

have like what we saw in game two of this series, which was an unfortunate meltdown that came down really to Mark Malanson and a save opportunity that he couldn't convert, right? I still have some questions there. I still think there's some questions about Ian Kennedy, but some of the other pieces that the Diamondbacks have had in the bullpen like Joe Mantipli today and Noe Ramirez were both very good. And this series was very good.

I think that's the biggest thing is like, I got to tip my cap to the Colorado Rockies. They are a very good baseball team. and this series was a lot of fun to watch because it was very competitive. It was very close. And these teams matched up very well against each other. And if you take a look at the numbers, the numbers absolutely prove that in our by the numbers breakdown,

Arizona Diamondbacks with two wins to one. Starting pitching ERA really being the big key here, I think, between the Diamondbacks, starting pitchers being able to keep that ERA at a ridiculous 0.41 versus a still a really good ERA at two for the Colorado Rockies in the series. But the Diamondbacks actually were able to just hit with runners in scoring position. That's something that we know was nearly non-existent earlier in the season. That was huge. That was huge for them. And yeah, you mentioned the starting pitching ERA 0.41. The Diamondbacks in this series allowed one run in 22 innings for their starters. And their

starters went deep. In all three games of the series, the Diamondback starting pitcher pitched into the seventh inning, if not further. Merrill Kelly, we saw eight and two thirds on Friday night. Zach Davies, six and a third yesterday on Saturday. And then Zach Gallen caps it off with seven innings today. I mean, it's, it's crazy. It's gotten to the point with the starting rotation where even if the bullpen isn't the sharpest, the diamondbacks aren't relying on the bullpen very much. And of course, we did see what happened yesterday when they did have to rely on the

bullpen a little bit. Mark Malanson wasn't quite at his best in that game. And I think that, you know, some of those. Brown balls kind of found holes. I wasn't necessarily alarmed with what I saw from, from Mark Malanson there. But yeah, I mean,

if this feedback starting rotation continues to be this good, Derek, this team could really turn a lot of heads here in, 2022. Michael, my, I've known Michael for a long time on Twitter, and I know I'm going to butcher his name when I say this right now,

his last name, but Rokiki, I don't know. That's, rock, He says this pitching even remotely keeps up, which pitchers make the All-Star team conversation will be interesting. And it's absolutely right.

It's, I think he's right there just in general about this team. Like right now, I don't think anybody offensively is really a huge standout to start that conversation yet. But I do think that this starting pitching is already on the verge of who here is going to be our candidate to go to the All-Star team because they've just all been outstanding. And, you know, of course, Merrill Kelly really was leading the way. He almost had the complete game the other night. Zach Gowan, again, he wasn't quite as close, but just another long outing.

And, you know, I think here Rock Knowledge says going deep is the key is key. I'm sure he means that in more ways than one. There's probably a euphemism snuck in there. But going deep is definitely the key for the Diamondbacks. And this unreliable bullpen at this point, I really think that that is, the thing that's helping them kind of stand out. I just also think that this team has a different mentality than they did last season. Again, I really am, I think above anything else,

I am amazed by their ability to kind of withstand these close games, which they never, you know, they had a really hard time weathering last season, whether it was a comeback, whether it was just a close game, you know, whether it was a game where they did well and took it a zero-zero tie deep or a one-one tie deep, and then you would see things just kind of fall apart at the end. That seems to be the difference for this team, their ability to not only close out games, but to maintain their leads and keep them because this was another nice job offensively

of having a nice little run. But really, the pitching is what did it for the Diamondbacks in the series from start to end. And even in the loss, like the pitching falling, apart in the ninth inning. Yeah. Was was really the thing that that defined the series for the Diamondbacks. Yeah. And I mean, even in that loss,

we haven't really had a chance to talk about Zach Davies, who was very, very good in that game, six in a third inning, he only allowed three hits, no runs, two walks, six strikeouts. He's been known to have like one of the better changeups in the game

for a while. And that's really what's kept his career afloat. He broke into the majors, I think at around 22 years old. He was pretty young. And he's had him. himself a nice career up until last season with the Cubs where things just weren't right. And it's really looked a lot better for him this season.

When he gets that change up going, he's a pretty effective pitcher. And you look at this starting rotation at that point, Derek, you have Merrill Kelly, Zach Gallen, who have both been arguably two of the best starting pitchers in baseball. I mean, I don't even know if that's an argument at this point. They have up until this point. No, just an argument about whether or not they can maintain it, right? which is right right i think more maybe for us you know they are getting the recognition a bit nationally we saw it on the melb network we've seen it other places because you can't deny the fact

that merrill kelly right now has the best era of any starting pitcher in baseball so you've got to tip your cap you know but i think a lot of people whether it's here locally or or even nationally are kind of still suspect they they're still they're still suspicious that this can can be something that this team, you know, can maintain. Zach Allen has had this kind of pedigree for a while, right? People have kind of figured that he could be this kind of a guy. Merrill Kelly is maybe more of the surprise here, right? Like Merrill has been seen as a nice three, four, five starter over the last few years.

But it appears that he might have, you know, really taken a real step forward here in this season and might be even more than that. So after those two guys, you've got Zach Dave. who's now throwing the ball really well. He has like a low three ERA in his own right. You've got Madison Bumgarner, who obviously there's questions there about whether he can maintain his performance as well,

but he still has his sub two ERA. And then you've got Humberto Castiano's, who threw almost six scoreless innings in his last outing. So this starting rotation is giving this team a chance to win every single game. And even though the offense is kind of come and gone and the bullpen has been pretty rough at times,

the rotation has just been so good that at times it hasn't even mattered. Well, Jesse, I think since right now is the end of our first series with any of our sister stations from our all city network, that includes DNBR and our two teams from Chicago, the CHGO, White Sox and the Cubs podcast. So we came up with a little idea around here, which was we know we know it's going to be an uphill battle for the Arizona of Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies a bit in the NL West. So we decided to create our own division, which we are lovingly calling the All-City Division. And let's take a look at our first update from the All-City Division scoreboard. Right now, we still have the DNVR Rockies on top with a 16 and 12 overall record, but they have a losing record now after the series against the rest of all city at 3 and 4.

Diamondbacks coming on strong with a 15 and 14 record. That's us. That's us. We're the PHNXD backs guys. Two and one now against All City. Just a game and a half behind those Rockies. Tied up with the CHGO White Sox podcast, who was also now one game over 500,

despite how terribly they have played at times. The White Sox are still one game over 500. They are two and oh against All City. And last, but certainly least, is the Chicago Cubs, the CHGO Cubs, coming in 9 and 17 with a 2 and 4 record against All-City, currently six games back in this division and way more back in their own division.

But, hey, this is going to be fun to keep track of all season long, if nothing more. We have one pennant that we can win, and that's the All-City Network pennant. Right now, we've got to set small goals, got to set small winnable goals, and winning the All-City pennant is really the key right now for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But I look forward to keeping an eye on that all season long, just so that, hey, you know, we have something for us to kind of have some fun with here when it comes to this season. I don't know if the Diamondbacks are going to have a shot in the NL West, and I want to still maintain reasonable expectations for this team, right? They're already exceeding all of our expectations, and they are doing things we didn't expect them to. but who knows what the future for this team still holds. It's still going to be a very tough division. Again, the only division where every team in it is, once again,

has a plus 500 record, which is wild, considering how few of teams in baseball actually have a plus 500 record. It really is. It really is insane how good the NL West has been. And I mean, the Dodgers have just, the Dodgers are playing out of their minds. The Diamondback starting rotation has been great. The Dodgers starting rotation as a unit has like a 1.8 ERA so far this season. And the Padres have been great.

The Cubs have been, or sorry, the Giants have been great as well. So, yeah, the NOS might be a bit of an uphill battle this year. But, Jesse, I know we've talked about this a bit. You've talked about Merrill Kelly and how good he's been. And I just once again want to urge people to check out your piece on Merrill Kelly's thoracic outlet surgery and see exactly how losing a rib can somehow make you a better pitcher. It's quite the piece. It's very interesting.

I honestly, I think the thing that I like the most about it, Jesse, is the fact that we, I haven't really seen too much information about this. I haven't seen, you know, Merrill Kelly's surgery really covered and you did an excellent job at doing that.

So please check out Jesse's piece over at go phtnx.com. you can get a membership to access that piece and all the wonderful writing over at go p hnx.com by getting an annual membership for just $60. It'll get you a free t-shirt over at the p hnx locker.com. And there's a wonderful selection of shirts to choose from, including a couple of shirts of ours, as well as some amazing sun shirts. If you want to get down during this playoff run,

there's no referee shirts. So there's no, there's no Dallas shirts is what I'm saying. But you will get plenty of PHNX. options. I'm bitter. It's just, you can't expect me to be rational right now. But of course, sign-ups become a member. If you're not interested in that annual membership and getting a free t-shirt, you can get yourself a month-to-month membership and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. Regardless of the membership you choose, you'll become part of our PHNX family over here.

You'll get your members-only discounts for the PHNX locker as well as members-only access to our Discord, where we'll chat about this team all season long. And so far, the way that they have pleasantly surprised us. But speaking of pleasant surprises today at Chase Field, more than half of the fans in the stands were members of Alec Thomas's family. And that's because Alex Thomas made his major league debut today. It was incredible to see. It felt big. The post-game interview on Bally's was beautiful with Alec Thomas and his mom being out there on Mother's Day. It was just it was it was just a great day at chase field a great sunday a great day to be out there with your mom and more importantly we got to see the debut of a guy that we're very excited about a guy that we

hope to see big things of and to be honest i i can't speak for jesse but a guy i wasn't expecting to see this soon in the season i know we got to the point where you know the the service time manipulation issue thing were past that or whatever so they get their extra year of service time but I'm really excited to see him up here and I'm excited to see the future of this team start being major league players and getting that time in. It was a bit of a shock, I think, for a lot of people. It kind of came down very suddenly. I don't know if there was a whole lot of indicators that this was going to happen.

I did suspect this as of like a day or two ago. when the Diamondbacks DFAed Sergio Alcantara, they actually opened up a 40-man roster spot, which is the first time really this whole season that they've had an open 40-man roster spot. And so at that point, you know, you kind of wonder, okay, they need a 40-man roster spot to bring up Alec Thomas. Now they have it. And at that point, it was just a question of where is he going to play? You know, what opening is there for him to actually get into games? the diamond backs have a pretty full outfield. It's not like they have a whole lot of open space out there.

But with Carson Kelly straining his left oblique, that gives Dalton Varsho an opportunity to catch more, and that opens up some opportunity in center field. So, you know, the chips kind of move around, and suddenly Alec Thomas has a spot to play. And we'll have to see exactly what that looks like. If it's him being in there every single day, I assume he'll probably get, you know, days off from time to time.

I do expect that it'll probably be in there. You know, more often than not as a somewhat everyday player for the Diamondbacks, you know, when you're calling up a player of his caliber, you're not going to do it unless you have playing time for him. And the Diamondbacks seem to believe that they do. Well, it's like you said, really with Varshot's production, that's really the key that's been missing from the catcher is, you know, when it comes to Jose Herrera and Carson Kelly,

neither one of the guys have been producing much, though. Jose did have a big double today that scored two runs. It was his first extra base hit as a major leaguer. And again, he seems to be kind of growing in popularity with the pitching staff. I know a lot of guys seem to like to work with him. But if Carson, you know, if there's a necessity there for a catcher and we could get Dalton Varsho in there, working effectively both as a catcher and having his production at the plate, it could be the recipe for him taking over a lot of reps,

especially if they consider keeping Alec Thomas up on this team and not sending them back down. There aren't that many catchers that provide like genuine offensive value at this point. It's there are few and far between in this game. And so, yeah, I mean, if Dalton Varsho can catch every day, it's going to be harder on him for sure. So, you know, there's always a question of maybe the offense drops back a little bit.

Maybe he won't be able to really play every day if he's doing a lot of catching. But yeah, we'll see. Jose Herrera will probably get some more playing time. And, you know, Dalton Varsho's going to find a spot somewhere more often than not. And Alec Thomas might get moved around a little bit depending on matchups. We might seem a little bit less against left-handed pitchers and then maybe in there more frequently against righties. So there's really a lot of ways the Diamondbacks can go with this.

when you have Josh Rojas back, when you have a guy like Varshot, those are some pretty versatile players that allow for a lot of different ways to maneuver this. So we'll have to see what the team decides to do. And not to take anything away from the hundreds of family members that Alec Thomas seemed to ring to Chase Field, but he's not the only guy that we are waiting on that is doing some impressive things that's, you know, exciting us, right? we have Corbyn Carroll, who also has just been outstanding. Yesterday, Corbyn Carroll had two home runs in yesterday's game for the, for the Amarillo Sod Poodles, and just has been killing it all season long.

Jesse took it a step further than just taking a look at his current numbers and decided to extrapolate out the data and see what it would look like for a full MLB season. And it looks a little bit like, well, I'm sorry, I thought you did. I thought that was the tweet. That was a different tweet. That tweet is out there, though. Twice in back-to-back games and is now slashing 326, 458, 695, with nine homers, six doubles, and a triple in 24 games with sod poodles.

Just, I mean, you can say what you want. We often get excited about guys' numbers in Reno. Amarillo is completely different. And again, Amarillo is still, it is a pretty hitter-friendly environment. It is. And you're still talking about the level, you're still talking about the level of pitching that he's facing as well. Right. Right. But if you are a major league ready player, that is kind of the numbers that you're going to put up against minor league pitching. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to, I don't know what more you ask for than a 695 slugging percentage. I mean, it's, that's, that's pretty crazy. And you, and you mentioned the, you mentioned the tweet of me extrapolating out. his performance over 162 games. And yeah, I think he was at like 61 homers and 54 stolen bases.

It's absurd. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's fun. It's fun to play with those numbers. But what's more fun is that this team is able to be good. Not great.

We're not putting anything out there besides just being one game over 500, but good, right? they're figuring out between the bullpen, the starting rotation, and even the, even their lineup, who the guy, who they can count on,

who their guys are, who their core is, right? I don't know if the diamond backs are going to necessarily need to add a bunch of pieces to this team. Once some of these young guys start coming up, if they can perform the same way that they're performing at a minor league level, at a major league level. Alex Thomas comes up.

up and he has a pretty great day in his first day up here, right? It takes a lot of the pressure off, right? Now you don't have to wait for when your first hit is going to come or when you're going to have success at the plate. He damn near homered, you know, in his first game. So again, like Seth Beer had last season, I feel like that takes a bit of that pressure off of you. But unfortunately, it can also leave some pressure on you to maintain it a high, you know,

to perform at a high level because people are now expecting you to be this superstar right out of the gate. I fear that's what happened a bit with Seth Beer after opening day and the walk off and everything that happened. But again, he really just kind of started hitting more like he was hitting as a minor leaguer rather than, you know, the crazy start he had this season. Sometimes those guys come back down to earth a bit. And I think, I think Seth Beer will be just fine. As a matter of fact, I'm still excited to see him kind of get some more at bats and be in the lineup a bit more. but for right now, this team seems to have some things rolling in the right direction, unlike the Sons when you watch that series,

because it seemed like everything in the world was going against them. I actually saw the tweet. I'm not going to not acknowledge it. There are people saying, what are the, I feel like the Diamondback's success is somehow maybe costing the Sons, like the Diamondback should be sacrificing themselves for the Sons. Look, on this podcast, there's only one team we care about. And that, you know, that's the team that we're here to come. cover. So no, we're not losing for the success of another franchise in this valley.

You're going to have to get your sports juju and your, uh, you know, your fairy tales and your good luck and all of that from somewhere else. So unfortunately, it ain't coming from the Diamondback sacrificing themselves. This team now seems to be a team that maybe is out of that gutter now, right, where they can just start thinking of themselves as being a competent baseball team that can win games and not have to worry so. much about being the terrible team that they were last season. It really has been a crazy turn of events.

And I say that knowing that last year pretty much on this exact same date in May, the Diamondbacks were also 15 and 14. And this year they have the exact same record. So in some ways, from one standpoint, they're doing the exact same. They're exactly the same. It's kind of eerie. but this team just appears to have more staying power. Last year's team, the offense was hitting out of its mind,

and I think everyone expected that to take a step back, and unfortunately for the team last year it did. This year, the starting pitching has gone crazy, and I think we have to be realistic and acknowledge it's probably going to take a step back. I mean, Merrill Kelly's not going to have a 1-2-ER for the entire season, and Mad Bum's not going to have a 1-5 ERA, right? These numbers aren't sustainable over an entire season. But at the same time, you know, even if it's not a 1.5 ERA, you know, could they have a few

pitchers with an ERA and the threes or the low fours? That seems to be very possible at this point based on what we've seen. The adjustments that these pitchers have made are real. And there's reason to believe that this isn't just a fluke. It's not just that they're, you know, had a few good games in a row and things are about to turn around. there's some real staying power with how the team has played so far, I think. I agree.

I agree. And there's still, like, there still is that feeling. There's still that question mark about when, you know, when everything is going to happen, right? When, when is the starting pitching going to be bad again? Or when are they going to come back down to Earth? When is the, when is the hitting going to be good? It's like, for right now, they kind of have a team chemistry where nobody really stands. out too much aside from the starting

pitching and that's really all they need for success right now. They need the bullpen to be able to do its job. Go out there and not give up more than a run or two. Which has been a challenge even over the last couple weeks when they've been good. The bullpen at times has like bent

but not broken and as we saw on Saturday it did break right and that's going to happen from time to time for this team. I think we can say with a certain degree of confidence that the bullpen isn't going to be the strength, right? It's going to be the offense coming around, hopefully at some point, and it's going to be the starting rotation continuing to do what it's been doing over the last few weeks.

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If you're interested in trying either variety of the delicious flavors that OG's brands has to offer, go to OGsbrands.com. That's OGEEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. And I assure you there are some right near you. There's a dispensary around the corner from your house that you didn't even know was there. That's the way they work. They just pop up overnight. But we got to take a look going forward. The Diamondbacks again, speaking of the All-City Division, have some. winnable games coming up, and some of those are actually against the Chicago Cubs. So let's take a look at the schedule. Now we have this three set with the Miami Marlins, followed up by a three, I think it's a four game series with Chicago Cubs, right? I don't know. I don't remember on top of my head, but yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. I mean, with the role that the Diamondbacks are on, it's very easy after the next two

series to see this team potentially. dare I say it, four, five games over 500? I mean, at what point do we start screaming and running with our arms in the air and maybe scissors in our hands, Jesse, because we don't know what's going on anymore and we've just lost all control of everything. I mean, is the team capable really of doing this? I mean, are they capable of maybe going on this run that we didn't foresee happening? I mean, the Diamondbacks have still allowed more runs this year than they've scored.

So I do think there's a reason to tap the brakes. I think they're like minus 10 or something. And that's not to take away from, you know, the fact that they're one game over 500. They've won a lot of these closer games like we talked about earlier. And that's the reason that they've been as successful as they have. But their strength of schedule, Derek, has been arguably the best in baseball. Hardest. Definitely. Yeah.

558 winning, opponent winning percentage of 558 is the toughest opponent winning percentage of any team in baseball up to this point. So yes, they have in fact had the hardest schedule up to these series coming up against the Marlins and the Cubs. Yeah. So, you know, you've got six games coming against, you know, two pretty not great teams, right? Teams that you feel you have a pretty good chance to beat. it is a three-game set with the Cubs, not a four-game. And then they're going to play four games in three days against the Dodgers. There's a double header there on May 17th.

And then it's four against the Cubs and two against the Royals after that. So some more winnable games to come right after those four with the Dodgers. So, yeah, I mean, things are going to get easier from a schedule standpoint. They're not going to get harder. What the Diamondbacks have gone through so far is pretty much the worst of it. And at this point, I mean, they're clicking on. all cylinders. And a big part of this, Derek, we should mention Cotel Marte, who had a really incredible series against the Colorado Rockies. I believe he was five for 10, had three doubles in

this series, a couple of walks. No need to guess, Jesse Friedman, because Cotel Marte is our draft king's king of the series. Oh, there we go. There is right there. Five for 10, two doubles, two walks, really just turned it on as of late. And he's just been once again, the Catele-Marté that we know and love, the Cotel-Marté that we expected to see this season that had, you know, the slow start. He's really, his bats are just looking so much better. And Bert and Bob Brenley have done a really good job pointing this out on the

broadcast. You can just see with his body language, you can see even when he does swing and miss, he just looks more confident. He's nodding his head. He's saying like, yes, I at least saw that pitch, even though I didn't hit that pitch. I know what you're talking about.

The body language is argumentative either. He felt like he, and you could probably say this about a couple of guys at the plate, but they were, they look lost. And like, what you're saying is totally accurate. The, the, the, the, the body language is much different as of late. Because you'll see him kind of do that, okay, okay, kind of throw it like head nod a bit, like throw it again kind of thing. And you've seen him make pitchers pay.

So far in the month of May, Catel Marte is nine for 20 with four doubles and five walks. So that record that we showed just for this series has kind of been what he's done all month long so far. He's started to look like himself again. And there's really no bigger development for the Diamondbacks than Catel Marte, you know, starting to look like himself. He's the best player on the team. I think everyone knows that, at least from a position player side.

and they need him to be hitting 315, 320, you know, hitting home runs, hitting doubles. They need that. And we've started to see the defense maybe look a little bit better over the last week or so. He did have a double play today that he arguably could have turned and wasn't able to. Right. But there have been fewer, fewer significant mistakes at least over the last few days. So maybe he's starting to get a little more comfortable on the defensive side as well. He's had some hard hit balls that he's been able to get to.

And that was something early on that his reaction time didn't seem as quick. And now what we're seeing is a better reaction out of them, an ability to get to those hard hit balls. But yeah, like you said today, pretty standard looking double play. I mean, coming from a guy that could never turn a double play in my time, I'm calling it standard. But that's, that's again the problem with errors, right? Jesse is the fact like errors I've.

come to realize and be convinced by the book you purchased me about how bullshit errors can be, right? Because someone who's physically gifted and talented that has more range than somebody else could perhaps get closer to a ball but actually not be able to make a play and yet somehow be charged with an error when another person that was much slower and didn't quite have the range, didn't even get close to the ball, and that ball just be called a hit. That's why errors shouldn't be a thing and everything that everything should just be a hit. Everything should be a hit. But that's only because baseball has changed dramatically over the last 100 years and we're still living by archaic rules and statistics.

Jesse, though, it's exciting to see who the Diamondbacks have coming up in the upcoming series against the Marlins because once again it looks like looking at the probable starters. The Diamondbacks do have the advantage here. I like the fact that going up against Elysia Hernandez is Huberto Castiano's. And then Madison Buff Gardner once again gets to take on the fish, hopefully for a longer outing this time. We'll see if you think Dan Bolino is going to be the first game. I hope I'm afraid of God, Dan Bolino is the home plate on fire for that game. By the way, somebody pointed out, which I think we discussed about that whole incident,

it was that Dan Bolino was totally sticking up for a younger umpire who was behind home plate. And they felt like the entire retaliation against Madison, bum gardener was because he was jawing and kind of yelling at the home plate umpire so much. And it was Dan Bolino kind of trying to, trying to, you know, tough guy it up for his. Yeah, size him up for his home plate umpire or something. I mean, I respect getting your boys back. But at the same time, too, that wasn't your fight, son. and now you're the one that looks like a damn fool who has a crush on Madison,

bumgarner. So good luck. Good luck with that as part of your reputation for the rest of your career. But also in final game of the series, we got Merrill Kelly going up against Sandy Alcantra. A great matchup here for the Diamondbacks. And I mean, again, a very another winnable series as far as, as far as I'm concerned, and I think you'd probably agree with that. Yeah, the debacks are going to see a couple of different starters in the series.

They didn't see Alcantra last time, and they also did not see Jesus Luzardo, who are really two of the best, probably the two best starters on the Marlins. So things may be a little bit more challenging on that side of things. But, yeah, the Marlins are, the Marlins are not that good of a team. Tyler heard in our comments, is Miami just lost while winning two to nothing in the ninth. How does that feel, Miami? Doesn't feel so great.

That's a little bit of a, I don't know, payback for what the Diamondbacks had to go through every time. every game in that series against the Marlins. But looking forward to that, looking forward to seeing this team continue to roll. I mean, honestly, you got to be thankful and you got to give credit where credit is due. I still think that the coaching staff is largely responsible for the turnaround in this team. But of course, the guys have to go out there and apply those philosophies and make it work on the field.

When baseball games, they're doing that right now. And do you think, it seems a lot of fun to watch. Do you think, well, I mean, I know your answer to this question, but I want to know how serious you think it is. Do you think Zach Gallen is a Cy Young candidate? And to what degree is Zach Gallen a Cy Young candidate? Obviously, it's too early to say for sure. But, I mean, he has a .95 ERA and a .71 whip,

and he's hardly walked a batter the whole year. I mean, he's looked incredible. Here's what I think about Zach Gallen. Zach Gallen is incredibly coachable, right? He had he credited that the record setting streak that he had for starts with giving up three earned runs or less to a change, a coach told them to make as far as which side of the rubber to pitch from. And that was it for him. Right. So like there's this thing about Zach Gallen that I feel is extremely talented.

But beyond that, I feel like his ability to take an information, process it and have it become part of his game is not something that's automatic for other guys. Yeah, he's very analytical. They were talking on the broadcast about he's, he's the guy who pulls out the, you know, the little reference sheet that they have while you're out there on the mound. He pulls that out constantly.

Exactly, right. So here's my thought with that. Now you're pairing him with arguably the best pitching coach in baseball. Yeah. So if you ask me, if he's capable of being a cyan candidate, The answer is yes, but I don't think it's me just being excited about today's win or what he's

done so far. I think part of it is him being healthy. I think he doesn't have to bat anymore, so we don't have to worry about those kind of things. And I think all of the other things I said as far as the kind of person he is mixed with who he now has as a mentor is a recipe for success. It's tracking in that direction, right? but what's weird is Merrill Kelly could also be another candidate. What if it comes down to it comes down to Merrill Kelly in that gallon?

That would be incredible. I will take it. I will take it. Since today is Mother's Day. I just wanted to give a shout out to all of our wonderful mothers that are fans, moms of ours, my mother, Jesse's mother. We thank you guys so much for everything you do. but I also want to give a shout out to our mom of this show, Marlene.

We love you, we miss you, and deep down inside, we are not completely fooled by the fact that this success of Diamondbacks is having is maybe a little bit in part to you. So again, shout out to Marlene and shout out to all the moms on Mother's Day. We love you guys. We thank you guys so much for your support. And let's keep coming out and supporting this team. Today was a beautiful day at the ballpark, not just for Alex Thomas and his debut, not just for Zach Gallen's outing, but there were a lot of Diamondbacks fans in the crowd today. And they were making noise, they were excited.

It was, it was special. So, you know, I think that's something that we need to see more of at the ballpark. This team is good, and it deserves your support. These guys, they didn't go out and buy a team, right? It's the same guys that were on this team that lost 110 games. last season. So I don't know. I think that that they deserve the support and I think people need to come out and watch this team. We need more days like today at the ballpark. And that's that's even where the sun's, you know, playing and a lot of people having their eyes on that series.

So I think today was awesome. And again, what a what a strange concept, right? Yeah. Just the concept of Suns fans like turning off the Suns game and turning on the Diamondbacks game as like a way of finding some relief. It's pretty new for Valley Sports to see that happening. There's a there's a much different amount of pressure on these two teams right now. And I think the Diamondbacks are really okay with the lack of attention that they're getting, the lack of, you know, credit that they received at the beginning of the season, the amount of people that thought they were going to lose 100 plus games again this season. And, you know, it's so far, so good. I think things would have to turn pretty disastrous for

some of the record predictions that people threw out there at the end of the season to happen. Yeah, Max, Max record prediction is really not looking great right now. Sixty one and a hundred and one. That would be quite a nosedive. Yeah, it's not looking great. But we thank you guys. Hope you guys all at least call your mom. If you don't get a chance to go, I think the pirates could win it all this year. Bam, I'm going to, I'm going to have to figure out. how to ban you from the comments because this,

I don't know what this is doing in here, but we thank you guys again. Call your mom, tell her you love her. We thank you guys for watching the show. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter,

Instagram, and Facebook. If you're watching us right now on the PHNX sports YouTube channel, please subscribe to us there and sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of these shows that we do when we go live or any of the other content coming out from the PHNX team. If you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, be sure to subscribe to us there. Leave us a five-star review and just do it for the love of our moms.

That's all. I know. Do it for, do it not on another day. But of course, we thank you guys so much for watching the show, for listening to the show, and for supporting this team. I don't know why you do it, but we're glad you do. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we thank you guys again so much for tuning in. And remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you watch it with your mom.