PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - PHNX D-backs Post Series: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the D-backs avoiding being swept by the Phillies in the finale of their 10-game road trip, how good Christian Walker has been for this team, and how time is running out on the easier portion of their schedule.SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeWebsite: https://gophnx.com PHNX Locker: https://phnxlocker.com/Head on over to The PHNX Locker to pick up one of our new PHNX hats!SOCIAL: Twitter: https://twitter.com/PHNX_DbacksInstagram: https://instagram.com/PHNX_Sports Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX. New customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS on any team to win one of their games and get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS IN FREE BETS INSTANTLY. You clinch a win no matter what. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisiscounseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.OGeez! is dedicated to creating innovative and memorable cannabis infused products that flavor life’s journey. If you’re interested in trying the amazingly delicious variety of flavors that OGeez! Brands has to offer, go to https://ogeezbrands.com.Join over 4 million men worldwide who trust MANSCAPED with this exclusive offer for you…. 20% off and free worldwide shipping with the code DBACKS at https://manscaped.com.Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. Just visit https://athleticgreens.com/Diamondbacks 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 D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Monti. Of course, I am known as your mayor of PHNX. And I'm joined by my vice mayor of PHNX, who in no way, shape, or form, am I trying to replace with every single person that I interview? It's the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. It's been a while, Derek. You just keep replacing me with Mac. You replaced me with Chris Gargiola.

I know what I got to do to get my spot back. But here we are. These things aren't my fault. They're not my fault. When you're not here, people come for your spot and you're not here to defend it. So I don't know what else to do besides give them an opportunity. I'm like Toro Lovolo. Look, I'm just not saying no is what I'm saying.

But welcome in to the PHNXD back show. Of course, we are brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sports Book. app America's number one rated sports book app. And we have at least a fun game three to talk about here. The Arizona Diamondbacks avoid the sweep against the Philadelphia Phillies.

And honestly, there was times where this series started to look bleak. This entire road trip has looked bleak. But the Diamondbacks have managed to salvage it for the most part, Jesse. And even though it doesn't look great, even though that's not a great record, I'm not

thrilled, somehow, going four and six seems like a win the way that this road trip has gone for this team at times. I mean, four and six against the teams that the Diamondbacks have played is, I think it's a little hard for me to categorize that as a win. But you're right that you're right that they had some rough moments along the way. Here's why I say that is somehow the results just seem better than watching it in real time because the Diamondbacks struggled so much offensively on this road trip. And again, just kind of like the record will show that it wasn't a great road trip for them,

but it definitely wasn't a disaster. The runs, you know, overall, especially with today's 13 to 1 win over the Phillies, will look better in hindsight. But overall at times, this team looked very bad on this road trip. And it really fell apart for them at times all over the place. Like there were so many occasions where everything was going wrong for this team. but today everything went right in every possible way during a bold pen start of all of all things Jesse which again just baffles me but the Arizona Diamondbacks are now two and nine on Sundays

in 2022 they managed to get their second win on a Sunday which is just incredible this again the team is not that bad two and nine see motion said that was the worst four and six I've ever seen that's how I feel about it I think that's that's my feeling is watching this entire road trip, four and six seems surprising to me now. But yeah, I mean, you're right what you were saying earlier with these teams that they were playing. They should have come out with a better record on this road trip than they did. Yeah, they probably should have.

But I mean, this was a good game to, you know, build some momentum and hopefully have better things ahead coming up against the Cincinnati Reds. Diamondbacks have a three game set with them coming up here. But yeah, this was, I mean, this was a fun one to, watch, Derek. I mean, the Diamondbacks just sort of beat up on the Phillies pretty much from the get-go. Kyle Nelson started off well, and the Diamondbacks bullpen was excellent in this game. And that was really a theme throughout the series is that the Diamondbacks Bullpen was actually very, very good. And it was probably more the starters who have been struggling lately than the

bullpen. This game took three hours and 50 minutes, Derek. I don't know how he feel about that. I hated it. I hated it. I hated every minute of the plus three hours because again, on one hand, it's not aggregate scoring, and I have things to do, right? So like the Diamondback scoring a bunch of runs after a while, even for a Diamondback span, is like, yeah, okay, come on. Save them for tomorrow. Yeah. Save it up for tomorrow.

But you want them to be on a roll, right? You don't want them to stop. You just, if, especially with how bad this offense has been during this road trip, specifically, if it's coming now, you just want to let the floodgates open and hope that this can, carries over to the next series and beyond. They've really struggled offensively. They struggled even today. Later on, again, the numbers, you know, rectified themselves a little bit,

but they carried a three-run lead with going 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position for the majority of the first half of this game, right? It was nice to see things open up for them. It was nice to see Christian Walker come one hit shy of a cycle in this one. There were a lot of good, you know, there was a lot of good things happening in this game all over the place. But going back to the bullpen, this was the Arizona Diamondbacks most reliable members of their bullpen coming together to pitch a game and Mark Malanson. He was there too. But the most reliable ones coming together and they did the damn thing,

man, they were excellent. And I really think it makes sense to try to get them all a little bit of time, but I still was not very optimistic about how this was going to work out for them today. I thought Luke Weaver looked pretty good too. He was a guy that didn't necessarily know a whole lot about what to expect. He was just reinstated from the 60-day injured list. But yeah, he looked really good in this game. 94, 95. I know the velocity tailed a little bit towards the end of his outing.

But it sounds like the Diamondbacks are going to use him in the bullpen. I don't think he's going to return as a starter, at least not anytime soon. But he could be a weapon as a guy who goes two or three innings, especially given some of the struggles the debacks have had in the bullpen this season, they really could use a guy like that in that role. And that's the thing I really want. After seeing him, you know,

much like some of his starts this season, Leaver things started to fall apart a little bit for him after about two and two thirds, right? And I mean, with Luke Weaver as a starter, there were times where you would get three innings of brilliant pitching out of him. And then that second time through the rotation that the opposing team figures him out. And I think somebody, I think it was Goldschmidt happens on Twitter, said it,

but the idea here is that Luke Weaver seems to just always be either outstanding or awful. Like there's no in between. And even in this outing, he very quickly went from being like what seemed like lights out. I mean, when you talk about whiffrey and getting guys to swing and miss at pitches, he was, He was doing it. He was working it. His change up looked awesome. He had guys completely baffled.

But then, you know, after about five batters, you know, or actually, I take that back, about six or seven batters, guys started to be able to put it together against him, right? So right. Maybe maybe that's the key. Maybe we found what Luke Weaver's role is on this team. And maybe that's very valuable because this team has been looking for more guys like Noe Ramirez, like Joe Mantiply, who continue to just be absolutely outstanding for this team. Kyle Nelson, who got the start, his first major league start ever.

Of course, it was just one-inning pitch, but still another very reliable piece for this bullpen. So the diamondbacks put it together today. And I mean, the bullpen definitely deserves a tip of the cap for what they did and how they held this scoreless. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise when you have to, you know, literally bat against a new guy every single time you come up to bat. It definitely seems much harder than, you know,

batting against the same pitcher, you know, two or three times. So, but, you know, here we are. And the Diamondbacks really got what they needed today out of the bullpen for sure. Yeah, they really did. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to ask for anything more than what the bullpen did in this one. And I don't have any numbers to back this up right now. But I get the sense that going the other direction, when the diamondbacks have faced openers

rather than like a regular starting pitcher, it feels like they've struggled quite a bit in that situation where like you're saying, every single time you go up to hit, you know, there's another pitcher on the mound, another scouting report that you have to figure out. I get the sense that diamondbacks have not fared particularly well in that situation.

There are some challenges that come with that. And it was nice to see them flip the script in this one. I want to ask you, Derek, three hours, 50 minutes for a game that was 13 to 1 and over, you know, much earlier than the actual end of this game, which took almost four hours. Do you feel that it's time for Major League Baseball to institute some sort of a mercy rule late in games to prevent these guys from going out there and playing a nearly four-hour baseball game in a game that was decided probably quite a bit earlier than that? I mean, yeah, but I feel that way about every sport, I guess, you know. I think the only difference is baseball tends to be a sport.

I guess you could make, I don't know, may put soccer and hockey up there, but they, like, leads just tend to be harder to come back from. Like, if you're watching an NBA game and a team goes up by 20, it's not that uncommon to see the team down by 20 make a comeback and make the game close or even win the game, right? With baseball, it's so much harder to see a team be down by five plus runs and expect them to come back, you know, but then you start talking about 10 plus runs. And that seems like just impossible, right? Mentally as a hitter and as opposing team, I feel like once you're down by 10 runs, you're giving up, right? And, you know, if that happens before the seventh inning,

then I could see calling it at like the seventh, you know, like they would with the double header games last year. I just think that it becomes difficult because baseball is one of those games where like some teams have really shitty bullpens, right? So a starting pitcher could have a tremendous day, but the whole thing is you need to get through him to the bullpen. And then once you do, you could put up, God knows how many runs on the bullpen. And that's kind of what makes baseball so much fun is

you never know what a team with a horrible bullpen could have done to them late in the game, right? I almost feel like in some occasions, teams could maybe even score more runs than they did in a route, but they just kind of feel bad and they chose not to go up there and give their all at the plate anymore or whatever, right? And then if they do, it's like Gabe Kapler fights. You have this whole unwritten rules thing where like, oh, you're an asshole now because you went up and hit a home run when your team was already up by 12. Well, what do you want me to do?

Not hit a home run. Like, that's the best thing to do in baseball. It's one of the most exciting, fun things to do. and now I'm villainized for that just because we're up by a lot. So I don't know. I think that it's sports. So there's going to be these situations where one team kicks the hell out of another team. And it doesn't even make sense to continue the game, right?

Like, and waste all of our time. I'm sure there's a lot of people to turn this game off once we got up like 10 to 1 or 11 to 1, you know, around that time. But maybe some people just, especially with this team and the way, that they have struggled offensively and struggled against some of these teams that they should be beating up on. Maybe it was cathartic for some Diamondbacks fans to sit there and watch them just pummel the Phillies on a Sunday that they didn't have much else to do. You know, I get where you're coming from because our time, you know, it's, I want to barbecue. I want to watch other things. I have other things to do, right?

But at the same time, I mean, I don't know. I just, I can't feel like you can cap it when a major league baseball team is. completely capable of putting up six, seven, eight runs in one inning. And if they have two more innings to do that, who knows what they can do, no matter how much they're down by. Well, people in the comments reacted very quickly. I saw a couple of people say like no and hard no. Yeah.

Yeah, Crits, no, Charles Hardno. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. And I think especially if you're a baseball purist, I mean, you want the full, you know, you want the full nine inning game for sure. There are situations where, you know, teams are, literally bringing out a position player to pitch. And it kind of feels like it.

I mean, that is fun granted. I mean, those are, I feel like people suddenly turn the TV back on when, when those kinds of things happen because it's like, oh, I have to see this. Or something historic,

like, you know, Christian Walker coming back up to bat today, which we're, you know, we're going to talk about how great his day was here in a second. Yeah. You know,

right, him coming up with the ability to hit for the cycle, especially when they don't really seem to give a shit. And like, I think it Brenley was saying like, who cares? You don't have anything to play for at this point. Just swing as hard as you can and try to knock the crap out of the ball and get that home run for, you know, Christian Walker, right? So it makes sense to go out there and try and to watch other things.

Like, again, I've talked about it with this team. There are small moments that we need to enjoy during the season because this season isn't going to necessarily be like what, you know, other teams have where they're going to work towards the playoffs and earn themselves a championship. We've seen, especially during this road series, exactly what this Diamondbacks team is sometimes against some of the worst teams in baseball. So I'm not going to, I'm not ready to crown them losers just yet, but I'm just going to say there's times where they reveal who they are.

And I don't think that, you know, coming away from a road trip against some of the worst teams in baseball with a four and six record is anything to be, considering, you know, like I was saying earlier, like, hey, I'm happy about that. It's just weird because, again, after watching how bad this series went, somehow, four and six seems like they salvaged, like it seemed like one and nine. This seemed like a one and nine road trip with the way they played, with the way these games went. And they just managed to split that series with the Reds, get the one from the pirates and get this finale from the Phillies and not really have any of these end up being losses, right?

or sweeps, I should say, sweeps. But looking ahead, you know, they have a chance again at the Reds, who aren't a very good baseball team, play them here at Chase Field, get some of that home cooking like Christian Walker got from his mom, and then they welcome the Minnesota Twins this weekend. So hope to see you guys out at Chase Field for that, by the way. If you haven't done so already, we're going to, we got to get together for a PHNX, meet and greet.

Yes, by the way, Mikhail Bridge is a. appreciation night is coming to Chase Field in late August. Everybody has to wear their McAil Bridges T-shirts and jerseys. You know, it's going to be a fun night. So that was a fun bet that the Diamondbacks made with McHale Bridges, by the way. And we're hoping to get a meet and greet planned up here soon with us. Jesse is going to be here soon. We have less than two weeks until Jesse's arrival.

So that's going to be exciting. And once he's here, we have some fun stuff planned. Jesse and I are going to the All-Star game. so that's also something that's very exciting for us as well. But of course, if you're a member of our family already, we thank you for being so. Some of our meet and greet events for not only for opening day for us, but for all the other beats have been so much fun and exciting.

So looking forward to doing more than those, especially with our partner at Four Peaks, by the way. Little Four Peaks hazy going on here right now. And Four Peaks, by the way, is the official beer of, P-HNX. So make sure to check out our friends at Four Peaks, which we will be having a little watch party action for the Coyote's draft coming up. So if you're interested in that, definitely check that out. But otherwise, go to Four Peaks, drink all of their beers. Find them. We're local. There are craft beer company, and I guarantee you no matter what type of beer you like,

there is one for you. They even make a hard seltzer, which my wife is dying to try. So make sure four peaks is in your life and their food is excellent we got to try and sample some of their food this is stuff i'm all kind of shoving in jesse's face right now because he didn't get to try the food but make sure make sure to go down to four peaks and try out there i've been to four peaks though the food at four peaks is it is top notch i can attest to that it's top notch yeah not to mention uh we got our rattle on red ale and honor of the arizona diamondbacks uh for four peaks so uh so much so much beer goodness. And we are so excited to be partnered with them. Of course, we're all valley all the time, even with our beers, even with our gummies, with our OGs. We're just,

we're all valley. That's what we do. So, of course, go find Four Peaks near you and make sure that you enjoy Four Peaks responsibly. Must be 21 or older. And also, again, members of our PHNX family, thank you guys so much for already being members. If you're not already, go to go phtnx.com. I have an article that I finally put out that I've been talking about for a while. It was spring training piece that kind of was a bit fascinating for me because not only did I learn a lot about how much spring training impacts the economy of Arizona, but I also learned how many people still came out for spring training in the short period of time that we had. I mean, people were ready for it. And the minute we got the green light, people came out.

So for more on that, go to go phtnx.com. Sign up to become a member. if you are not one already. If you are interested in the annual membership, you can get a free t-shirt. Like this beautiful bad boy I'm wearing right here, we call this guy Rattler, and you can get him over at PHNXLocker.com or any other shirt of your choosing

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but you will get your first month. for just 50 cents. So no matter what membership you choose, join us over here. We're having fun. Join the PHNX family because we're just growing. We're just getting bigger. We're going to have a bar soon.

So if you want to know where you're going to find me, that's it. Like, it's going to be like, where's Derek? No, you know, you know where I am. I'm going to be at the PHNX bar, drinking four peaks beer and living my best life because that's what we do around here. So, of course, join us here and become a member of our family.

family. David Ray in the comments asked, did Peralta not play today? No, he did not. Jordan Lupo started today. And I don't think David Peralta even got in the game. But that's, Sundays tend to be Tori Lavallo's day off for some of these guys. So even when guys are hitting hot, you'll see some guys get sat on Sundays inexplicably. Could be maybe why they have a two and nine record now on Sunday. I don't know. But we're not going to talk about that. We're not going to focus on the bad, Jesse. That's not what we do around here. We're going to talk. about Christian Walker having himself a game. Three for five today with a single double, a triple, three RBI, he had a walk. He was a hit short, a home run short of the cycle. And he's just,

again, continued to be an incredible first baseman for this team. I understand. He's never going to be Paul Goldschman. Like legally, he's not ever going to be Paul Goldschmidt, like, unless he does like a He's quite literally. Quite literally. He's never going to be Paul Goldman. But let's put some respect on his name, right? Because despite the batting average not looking great, even his first out today,

Brenley and Steve couldn't stop talking about how hard he hit it, right? Yeah. Mr. Walker is hitting the ball extremely hard. He's had a tremendous amount of bad luck, I guess you could say, or maybe if you don't even want to call it luck, let's just say a lack of being able to aim properly because he's hitting the shit out of the ball. He's just hitting it, right?

guys to make great plays. But the one thing, Jesse, that I kind of uncovered and I found a bit fascinating was this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks have 15 defensive runs saved as a team. And 10 of them belong to Christian Walker. That's how good he has been at first base as, you know, for this team. He's far and away the best first base in baseball. I mean, there's really, if you look at some of the defensive stats, there's, it's not even close. And what's crazy is that he's not just one of the best, or I guess I'm saying the best first baseman in baseball.

But he's actually like one of the best most valuable defenders in baseball regardless of position. Yeah, which is not something that you see from a first basement. It's pretty hard to provide as much value at first base as some of the best shortstops do or some of the best center fielder's do. But that's Christian Walker is very, very close to that point. And you mentioned some of the batted ball luck hasn't really been there for him this year. I wrote about that about a week and a half ago. And yeah, especially on line drives based on how hard Christian Walker's been hitting the ball and the launch angles on each of those different batted balls, his expected batting average

on line drives is like $6.50 or something. And his actual batting average is about $350. So it's about half. On line drives, it's about half of what it theoretically should be according to some of the statcast metric. So yeah, he's continuing to have a much better season than his numbers show so far. And I mean, those numbers pushed up quite a bit today. And we'll see if he's able to, you know, maybe as a chance of being an all star if he, if he's able to get hot here in the next month or so. Elizabeth in our comments just made the best point. She said, I was really hoping Walker would

hit for the cycle, if not for his family, than the makeup for the black eye. That was wild that Christian Walker got hit in the side plate of his helmet and it still gave him a black eye. Like I understand how physics work. I've been hitting a helmet. It's why the fuck I got out of football my freshman year, right? Like some people like putting on a helmet and like football and hitting each other. I hated it, Jesse. Two weeks in the drills, I was like, this is for the birds.

I don't want to play this stupid sport anymore, right? To get hit by a ball the way he did in the helmet. And honestly, to like I, I was. I was kind of surprised because he looked, he looked okay, but then he left the game and then that worried me a bit that that might be more serious. And, you know, he was back in the lineup. And, and I mean, he did have that black eye, but I mean, he's just been outstanding for this team. And he rebounds from that incident so nicely with today's game in front of his family, in front of the state of Pennsylvania that he seems to be the king of.

Also, Jake McCarthy with a home pitch hit home run going back. there was just so much good in this game besides the fact that it was almost four hours long that's the only bad part about it but everything else was good kind of like a good movie it can it can only be so long i don't care like i enjoyed the batman but shit it didn't need to be nearly three hours that's the point i'm making but uh this was definitely a fun game and i'm sure very cathartic for this team to have this happen in the final game of this road trip with how this road trip has gone. It's been very frustrating for everybody. But Christian Walker more than I think everybody because he has been so good. He experienced the get, you know, getting hit in the side

helmet, just everything. I mean, and so for, I guess for that and for the day he had, we're talking about Christian Walker being our draft king of the series. He's deserving. Very deserving, right? I mean, I was going to throw Noeer Ramirez up there for that, uh, the two strikeouts he had against the heart of the lineup with, you know, bases loaded. But Christian Walker for sure with a 307 batting average, three RBI, one run, one walk. Most of this was in today's game, despite this being for the series. But Christian Walker was definitely outstanding today. I mean, I think it's normally we give King of the Series to someone who, you know, played well

in every single game of the series. But in Christian Walker's case, he was just so good today. with a single, a double, and a triple, and a walk in this game, uh, that he basically won king of the series just because of just because of outperform it. I think it was like one for eight in the first two games of the series, but nobody's thinking about, nobody's thinking about that now after a game in which he almost hit for the cycle. So it's a bad series.

So when you're doing research on it, there's not much to go back in the first two games of the series against the Phillies and we're really excited about, right? I mean, honorable mention that Josh Rojas for continuing his hit streak. he's up to a five-game hit streak now. Noi Ramirez, again, one hit and I think an inning in two-thirds pitched. More importantly, I mean, the game was on the line.

I know the game ended up being ridiculously, you know, outmatched or the, you know, the Diamondbacks score 12 more runs than the Phillies. But there was a point that seemed pretty critical for this game when the Diamondbacks weren't up by that much and Noe Ramirez was able to hold a bases loaded one-out situation and not, you know, scoreless. So he's been just out again, that was what was on display today. The besides Christian Walker's hitting prowess, what was on display today was the Diamondbacks bullpen and their most qualified guys, the guys like Joe Mantiply who continues to throw scoreless

outings, uh, and just be quietly outstanding for this team. One of the best pitchers in all of baseball. And I'm sure most people wouldn't even bring his name up as far as top relievers. I think they were saying on the radio that he set the club record for most consecutive outings without a walk, which is also very, very impressive. I think he has, I think he has won on the entire season at this point. And yeah, Joe Manciply was, I mean, he was carving him up in this game. I think he had three strikeouts, struck out the side. So, yeah, I mean, this Diamondbacks bullpen has not been, not really been the problem over the last week or two.

The starters have had some good outings here and there. I think someone pointed that out in the comments earlier. But the offense, Derek, has not been consistent. There have been games like this one where, you know, you get 13 runs, which is great. But there were also a lot of goose eggs over the course of not only this series, but really this entire road trip that the Diamondbacks have been on. The offense has just been very up and down. And so hopefully moving forward, they're able to spread things out a little bit

more and, you know, get some more consistent production from some of these guys. Well, we've talked about, Jesse, that's the difference between good teams, mediocre teams and great teams, right? The mediocre teams, much like you could consider the Diamondbacks to be, they're just inconsistent, right? So it's not that they don't display at times their ability to go out there and hang one on the opposition. It's the lack of consistency in doing so, right?

It's the not having that ability to have a guy step up and provide offense day in and day out. And honestly, that's been part of this whole team. It's the reason why the Arizona Diverbacks, if they can play perfect baseball, if they can do the thing that Tori Lavello wants them to do, which is win the inches, then they do. They do win these games. That's why at one stretch, they were so good in one-run games. But this road trip definitely displayed their inability to, you know,

produce runs consistently. And, you know, it wasn't just the run production. It was all over the place with this road trip, but definitely displayed how they, you know, weren't in the same class as, you know, the elite teams in baseball or even the very good teams in baseball. But, of course, shout out to Christian Walker for being our draft king of the series.

And don't forget to go to the draft king sportsbook app. Download the draft king sportsbook app. now if you're a new customer can get down on the NBA finals action. We are tied, ladies and gentlemen. Of course, the Warriors fight back and win game four. So we once again have a two two series, but it really doesn't matter because if you bet on either team as a new customer to win, it doesn't matter if they do.

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And I just made, you know, a little same game parlay action where I kind of peppered in points and assists and things like that. And boom, again, you don't even have to worry about it. who's winning because if you go in on the same game parlay, the options are, there's just a plethora of options that you can choose from. The more legs you add, the more money you win. And that's what I get down on. If I can't, if I got and decide who's going to win, I just, I just bet on the number of three-pointers made by, you know, Steph Curry. So, download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use our promo code of PHNX, make any $5 bet during the NBA

finals and you will get $150 in free bets instantly. That's promo code PHNX only at the Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See our show notes for details. And Jesse today during the game, obviously Christian Walker had a big game in front of his family. Jody Jackson actually interviewed Christian Walker's mom and got her

meatball recipe, which she couldn't stop talking about. and it made me, of course, reach out to her on social media and ask for it. She told me she couldn't give it to me. I don't like that. So now I'm making it a priority to figure out what this meatball recipe is, and I'm not going to rest until I do. But it just got me thinking because, you know,

she was saying how she kind of cooked for Christian Walker and some of the players and stuff and just that home cooking kind of vibe. So I was going to ask you, what is your favorite dish that your mom made for you? as comfort food. What is like what it was the Friedman family specialty that like if you were having a tough day made you feel better. Yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one. I think I would lean towards, I think I would I think I would say matzabal soup, which is probably something that most people are

maybe not. Have you had this before, Derek? Do you know what this is? Oh my God. I love matzabal soup. yes, but I'm a big chompy affixionado, so I've eaten everything. Ah, there you go. But definitely matzabal soup, especially a homemade matzabal soup. I mean, I haven't got one of those. I haven't gotten one made by a mom, but, you know, I think chompies is probably the closest that I've gotten. Well, you'll have to, you'll have to come over, Derek, and my mom will make you all of the

matzabal soup that you like. So, there you go. I can't wait. So I think mine, um, I, I, I think mine, um, that I think about it is we used to laugh because we used to call it like Puerto Rican mac and cheese, but it's a rose compoio, a rose compo. It's rice and chicken, right? And it's just kind of like a saffron rice with chicken.

And it's all made in one pot. And it's just kind of like especially, I mean, especially for kids that don't like a lot of stuff on their food. Like my parents made a lot of Puerto Rican food that had like sauces and things like that. that as a kid when flavors were new to me and stuff, I was like, yeah, can I just have the plain white rice and stuff like that, right? So like when my mom made this, it was just,

it was just, I think the thing was I didn't like a lot of flavors, you know, I was a typical kid like, you know, plain cheeseburgers and chicken tenders and stuff or chicken nuggets, stuff like that, right? But this was like, you know, saffron yellow rice and chicken and it kind of cooked together in a pot for a while.

And it was just, it was incredible. It was, and not only that, but like when my mom made it she made a like a ridiculous amount of it it was enough to feed an army so there would just be this giant pot that you could go take as much from as you wanted how often as you wanted because it wasn't going to run out and that was always great rice and chicken you can it's easy to make that stuff in bulk I feel like if you're making it right and chicken you just make large and large amounts right exactly and again it's just all mixed together in one pot you know eventually my mom did discover that she could add the same kind of chicken to mac and cheese. And she started doing that.

And that was also a big thing for me. But I, you know, I just, oh, no, it's a, I'm a simple flavor kind of guy. Like, I've gotten a little bit more evolved in my taste as I've grown up. But I'm a bit of a baby mouth. I tend to like ketchup on my hot dogs and other things that people find to be kind of too juvenile to eat as a 41 year old man. And I don't care. I don't care.

I have no, I will eat what I like. damn it at this point of my life. But I still need to know Christian Walker's mom's meatball recipe. So if someone can get us that, that would be amazing. The debacks are coming home to Chase Field. Speaking of home cooking, a lot of them will get some home cooking. But looking ahead at the

probabilities for their upcoming schedule or their upcoming series with the Cincinnati Reds. Again, things look very favorable for the Arizona Diamondbacks. When you look at the probable pitchers, Cincinnati Reds have not been very good this year. But we already, I think we already learned to not take them lightly on this,

on this road trip. Yeah, the diamondbacks have definitely been humbled a little bit, I think, over these, 10 games. But yeah, I mean, Mike Miner and Merrill Kelly on Monday, Tyler Molly and Zach Davies in game two, Elise Castillo, and then Zach Gallen should be a fun one to watch in game three. Yeah, you feel like the diamondbacks have a pretty good shot in all three of these, in all three of these games. Tyler Mali stands out to me. He dominated the Diamondbacks.

He really did. And I think if you look at Tyler Mollies like his strikeout numbers, his walk numbers, the number of hits he's allowed. He's a much better pitcher than his 5.07 ERA shows. So I don't think the Diamondbacks were, you know, struggling against some no-name pitcher in that one. He's actually a pretty good pitcher. But the Diamondbacks, nonetheless, I mean, they have a really good chance. in all three of these games, they're certainly not outmatched or overmatched in any of them from a pitching standpoint. So, yeah, I mean, the Reds are the Reds are the Reds, Derek,

and the DeBack split a series with them the other day, and hopefully they're able to make things right at home and start a little winning streak here. Zach Davies is no slouch as well, and he was very good in his last outing. He was. So it's going to be, yep, and David Ray says, Davies is better than his ERA shows.

Interesting to see what he has against the Reds. So really not a very favorable series after that against the twins who have been very, very good this season. So, you know, we talked about on this road trip. They didn't get it done, you know, but again, here's a chance before them with the Cincinnati Reds coming to town after having just played them for a little bit more redemption, you know, and maybe to pad that lead get a little bit closer to 500 before the twins come into town. The Diamondbacks continue to have a difficult schedule. and the thing that really sucks about leaving this road trip four and six is this this stretch this was supposed to be where they you know got back on top got you know had a positive win loss

record so when these you know tough stretches come up coming forward when the NLS comes to town right before the all-star break they're they're going to have one tough series after the next and I really think they're going to regret not playing these series harder. But baseball is such a long season that I don't think there is much regret. I think all you can really do is just flush the wins and the losses and move on and try to just build on whatever momentum you can build on, right, which is what the Diamondbacks luckily have going for them right now coming off of this 13 to one victory. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if they're going to have regret in terms of, I mean, it's not like

the Diamondbacks went out and didn't play hard over the last 10 days. That's just sort of something that happens in this sport, right? I mean, sometimes you put forth all the effort that you possibly can and you still go four and six against, you know, a not great group of opponents. I mean, the Phillies were really hot. So maybe we really shouldn't be lumping them in with everyone else. All these teams were hot. Let's be honest.

Like every single team had like a winning record coming into the series, depending on what stretch you looked at. It's just that none of them were very good record wise for the season. Neither were the Diamondbacks, though, right? So these are teams that were just coming off of hot wins. But in looking at the numbers in this game, the one thing, you know, we see here is that the Diamondbacks, you know, obviously dropped the series two to one. Starting pitching ERA was just atrocious for this team. And that's really why relief pitching ends up coming out on top here so significantly.

Today's outing also helps these numbers drastically, right? But neither team was very good with batters and with runners in scoring position. They just, the Diamondbacks really just didn't have the starting pitching in this series to back them up. And honestly, run production looks much better now in hindsight because of this game. But the offense absolutely disappeared in the first two games of the series. I say that, but they actually did show up significantly after, you know, in the first game there a little bit after a while. But they've just been, you know, it's just been missing an action for significant stretches during these series, especially on this road trip.

The 587 starting pitching ERA for the series is probably a little bit misleading. I mean, that's pretty much all Zach Gallen really struggling in his outing. Other than that, Madison Bumgarner was fine. I think he only gave up one earned run over five innings. Yeah, yeah, his other runs were earned. Yeah, his other couple runs were unearned. And then today, you know, Kyle Nelson threw one scoreless innings. That doesn't really factor in there a whole lot.

So it's really just Zach Gallen really struggled to. that game, which is fine. It doesn't help does it. It would be because that ERA looks worse because Kyle Nelson technically is the starter and he only lasted one inning. So that doesn't help the ERA either, right? But again, starting pitching really was

especially Zach Gallon. That it's concerning, but it was just one bad outing. What I really need is that Gallen to get a fifth win in a fucking season. That's what I need, Jesse. I need him to set a career high for wins with five and let's get past this because he's

such a better pitcher than that. But we do have some good news. Of course, no, I know we can't, I know we can't be excited about the division that we are in, but we can be excited about the all city division because with today's win and a White Sox loss that hasn't happened yet, but we've predicted and factored in, the Arizona and Diamondbacks are on top of the All City Division once again, with a 467 winning percentage. Wait, so we've just, we've just predicted that the white socks are going to lose. White Sox six right now to the Rangers in 12. Okay. So I feel like it's not it's not just completely making it up. Okay. I'm not completely making it up. I feel like this is a pretty slam dunk, but the Rangers were also up much more or earlier they were up. So I mean, who knows what's happening here. These numbers could be wrong. They're ever changing and they mean nothing. They really just.

are bragging rights this season. I think Jesse, we need to have like a championship belt made. Oh, yeah. A wrestling style. You know, I got this bad boy right here, you know, that we could maybe like something like this guy right here. We can just kind of like once we win the all city division, then we can rock this guy. Something like this, you know, pretty.

A lot of, a lot of fancy like work to do it? Who gets it? Like, do we award this to ourselves or who do we get this to? Of course we awarded it. If we win the All-City Division, we absolutely wore it to ourselves. I'm not trying to jinx things. I'm just saying that if I had a championship belt for the All-City Division like this one, I'd wear it to the office and to events every single time I went out.

I might even, I don't know. I mean, I might even wear it into the press box next season. That's all I'm saying. But that's the only reason why this is a very good idea. And I don't care if Jesse disagrees with it. But I'm not jinxing anything. All right. There's nothing to jing.

The White Sox and the Rangers are in the, they're in the 12th inning currently as we speak. And the Rangers are, the Rangers are currently winning. So we'll, we'll see. We'll see what happens there. That's the close one. I'm going to continue to wear this belt, though.

Every time we're on top, I'm bringing this thing down and putting it on my shoulder. But we thank you guys so much. No, Emma, yes, yes. No, the answer is yes. That is the answer we're looking for. We thank you guys so much for joining us. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at cap underscore caveman with a cave. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads lead to, you thought I was going to say at PHNX underscore sports, but what I was going to say is OG's Gummies right now. I mean, again, what way to get over a four and six losing streak? OGs Gummies. What way to celebrate a win like this?

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when I say that, I mean, they have not only a wonderful variety of doses where you can get a three milligram microdose if you're not interested in something heavier or 10 milligram regular dose which some people find to be fine to me it's a drop in a bucket it's like it does like trust me i am a seasoned user when i do when i talk about oge's gummies but i just eat them a handful at a time but that's me that's what i do you do because remember once you take them you can't untake them and you have to use them responsibly so find an o gs near you they have a wonderful variety of flavors including my favorite which is pinie claude They also have orange cream scull, which is another outstanding flavor and a wide variety of flavors that you could find.

And, like, again, the variety of doses. So go to OG's brands.com. That's OGEEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. And again, try their amazingly delicious variety of flavors that they have to offer. But I was going to say, before I go, of course, all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you're watching us right now on YouTube, make sure. to subscribe to the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Make sure to grab yourself of four peaks.

Sign up for notifications. Do those in that order. Like go over, sign up for subscribe, grab yourself for four peaks, hit notifications. If you're listening to us on the audio podcast, drop us a five-star review, subscribe to us there, do all of that stuff. We thank you guys so much for checking us out, for tuning in and subscribing. Being members of the PHNX family, you guys rock on behalf of Jesse and myself. We thank you guys for your time.

And remember, kids, baseball is fun. but it's so much more fun when you win by 12 runs.