PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - PHNX D-backs Post Series: Offense disappears in Pittsburgh

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the D-backs' offense disappearing in their series loss to the Pirates, the D-backs claiming infielder Cole Tucker off waivers, and a look ahead at their upcoming series with the Reds. 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 Dback show right here on PHNX. We are brought to you by the Drafking Sportsbook app, America's number one sportsbook app. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. Apparently, that is up for debate for some reason, which is just bad shit crazy. But I am joined, at least for the time being, by my vice-n-based. mayor for now uh the one and only thunder stick jesse friedman is my is my title in question i don't know i don't know everything everything is up in the air jessie we got saul over here having secret meetings that he's not inviting me to they're talking about uh bar stuff which i totally should be

involved in i mean there's no decisions about the bar that should be made without me and then he's somehow the interim mayor what does that even mean no one's even i've not i've not been voted out there's no scandal. There's no nothing. You can't just come in and call yourself an interim mayor, whatever. But of course, I'm glad you guys are here because I know you guys have my back. And of course, I am your mayor. I'm going to still call myself that. And this is the PHNXD Backs podcast. Tough series lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, a series that let's be honest, we knew was going to be tough. But now looking back on it, it seemed like it was a lot closer than it should have been, the Diamondbacks. Maybe should have taken this series.

Mark Melanson blew a save. The Diamondbacks couldn't score any runs, really, in the final two games. And it leads to a series loss to the Pirates. Any surprises there, Jesse, on the way this team performed? I mean, I think it's a bit of a surprise to score one run in your last 20 innings of offense, right? The Diamondbacks offense was completely MIA for most of the series, really. It really came out well on Friday. The team looked great.

but yeah obviously the series didn't end the way that people were hoping it would the Diamondbacks pitchers showed up right but the bat stayed in the hotel room after game one you know definitely again I we don't know what we're going to get sometimes out of this team after the game one win Diamondbacks walk away eight to six it seemed like offense was really on a role Alec Thomas had two home runs which was a lot of of fun. But then everything just went ice cold after that. And I don't really can't understand how they collectively as a team struggled so much against Pittsburgh's pitching from that point on. The pirates have been a bit of a troublemaking team, Derek, for obviously we've talked about the

Dodgers and how the pirates have actually fared quite well against the Dodgers. They just swept them in the three game series. So the debacks somehow aren't the only. team from the NOS that has struggled with the Pittsburgh Pirates and give the Pirates credit. I mean, they were scrappy in this series. I think their pitching staff is probably a little bit underrated, a little bit underappreciated. Seeing what David Bednar did there in the ninth inning was impressive. I think Diamondbacks fans are, you know, maybe a little bit envious of seeing a closer like that go out and do his job as well as Benard did in this one.

But yeah, I mean, the Diamondbacks were favored in this series. A lot of people looked at this as a very, very winnable series. It certainly was. And, you know, if Melanson's able to do his job yesterday, then in many ways the Diamondbacks would come away with a successful series, right? I mean, two out of three would be a success. But ultimately, you know, you could make a case that that was the difference here. But you could also make the case that, you know,

you got to score more than one run in the last two games in order to really put yourself in position to succeed. The offense takes its share of the blame here as well. Mark Malanson actually it's his is it his third blown save because he's 11 for 13 he was 11 for 13 coming into this game so I think it's his third blown save I think yesterday would have been yesterday would have been a second blown save I think he I want to say he only had one blown save prior to yesterday yeah yeah yeah no you're right you're right I apologize I was thinking of that prior to yesterday's game yeah two blown saves 11 for 13 and save chances tied for fourth in saves so again it's not it's really not about his performance, his production, it's his reliability, right? It's his ability to go out there and put up zeros on the board in the ninth inning, regardless of what the situation is, regardless of if it's a save, regardless of if it's a tie. It just doesn't seem like Melanson can go out there and really shut the game down the way that

we see other closers and relievers do the same thing. I mean, he's sitting at like a strikeout rate of around 12% or something like that. And for those who are unaware, the league average is usually around 22%. You strike out about 22% of hitters. And Malanson, there just hasn't been much swing and miss for him this season. The cutter has been less effective and the curveball. I think he's had trouble locating it at times. So, yeah, I mean, the Diamondbacks are going to need Malanson to turn things around.

11 for 13, to be fair, is not bad. I mean, 11 for 13 and saves is not, is really not bad. But I think, you know, you point to what he's done in non-save situations this year. On the whole, I mean, it's an ERA of almost seven. It's really been a pretty rough season. 6.8. Say it out loud with your chest, Jesse. 6.87.

That is not a reliable closer. It's just not. And again, ERA is such a. shitty stat that it really means nothing at times, right? I mean, you have one bad game and your ERA could be ruined. And then going forward, it's hard to recover and get that ERA down below three when you've given up, you know, a six spot in a game or five runs in a game, right? When you're when you're only pitching one inning a game, that's, it's hard to recover from a couple of bad outings. But I think the problem here is that Melanson, just like Ian Kennedy,

is kind of a hold your breath situation when they come out, right? And that's the part that sucks because those are the guys that the Diamondbacks brought in to elicit the exact opposite reaction from you. The reaction shouldn't be that you hold your breath. You should be, hell, yeah, we got to this point in the game. We have a lead and now our guys are going to lock it down. That's definitely not the feeling that the bullpen gives you at least when you talk about Kennedy and Melanson. What's interesting is that I think there are some pitchers in this. bullpen that people do feel that way about, right? I mean, Joe Manciply. We've talked about him a lot.

And I know Kyle Nelson gave up a run in this one, but he's been really, really good over the course of the season. So yeah, it's kind of a weird situation where the Diamondbacks middle relievers have been in many ways everything you could possibly have wanted them to be. I mean, Noah Ramirez has been steady Joe Man to apply, Kyle Nelson, like I just mentioned. They're getting some good production from some of the guys in that bullpen. It's just the fact that the guys at the back end, Ian Kennedy and Mark Malanson, really haven't held up their end of the bargain so far.

So I don't know, we don't really have any indications that the Diamondbacks are close to changing roles around yet. I don't think we're at that point as far as I'm aware, but it may, it may not be too long. I mean, we'll have to see what Tori says about this if it continues moving forward.

Tori seems a bit calmer and less reactionary this year, even though we have seen them make a couple of decisions that were very reactionary to one outing. So I don't think that it's going to be that. I think he believes in Melanson. I think he believes that Malanson's still kind of getting back up to 100% from where he was. And when he was out with COVID, when he was just behind as far as, you know, his progression to start the year. But now we're just too far in to be saying any longer that this is due to rust or not having, you know, not having his full ramp up to being ready or anything like that. Mlanson is a great, I still think he's a great arm to have in the bullpen. And I'm, I guess controversially, I don't want to see them all of a sudden, you know, lose confidence in him and go elsewhere, right?

I think that pitching is kind of a mental thing. And at times, you've got to have to keep that guy in that role for him to believe in himself and have that confidence. It's just weird because we steep, I keep hearing comparisons to Fernando Rodney. And I get it. But these are two different human beings playing on two different teams. Yeah. And unfortunately, I don't, I don't know if Melanson's going to all of a sudden lock in

the way that Rodney did that season after his early struggles. And we're going to see him put up like, you know, the most saves in the league. who knows i mean this team is is is is still outperforming and we can't really i mean i guess you could blame him for the blown saves but realistically one run in 20 innings dating back to game one when they had an explosion of offense in game one is really the reason why they lost the series you know they you can say what you want about milanson blowing the save but the diamondbacks were lucky to have a lead up one nothing in the ninth inning in game two to be honest and They had a couple of situations.

Things got close. Things went their way to keep the game that way, but it wasn't a dominant performance, and it's definitely not one of those games, and I'm ashamed that they lost. I'm not ashamed that Mark Melanson gave up the save, but it's frustrating because those one-run games this season have been very important for this team.

Hizu says, I don't know how this organization can win anymore. I say, tear this apart and get a Tampa Ray's organization, top guy. They seem to figure it out, being small market, get rid of Lovolo and GM. This is the exact type of reactionary thing I'm talking about. This team wasn't supposed to be anywhere near 500 this season, and we're talking about firing everybody and tearing it all apart.

Tearing what apart? What are we going to tear apart? I just say it. They didn't go out and get a bunch of fucking pieces or something. We're tearing apart a team that they didn't really add much to in free agency and didn't do much with. And yet somehow this team is outperforming last year's team by what, like 10 games easily at this point, if not more than that.

It took them until July. like July 15th to win the number of games that they're up to right now. So they're about a month ahead of schedule. Also, they're playing better baseball. You know, I mean, honestly, in this series, they kept these games close. Nothing got out of hand. And even in the losses, they were still right in it. That's a big, I think that to me is a big difference from what we saw from them last year, right?

It's the fact that we have had this team be able to win these close games and not completely lose leads all the time or not be able to come back in games. It's been a much more exciting team to watch. But with that being said, they get shut out in the finale. And unfortunately, it ends a bunch of a bunch of positive streaks the Diamondbacks had going on as well. Ketel Marte had a career high 16 game hit streak as well as one run in 18, excuse me, they had 37 games with an extra base hit streak snapped on Sunday. So no extra base hits in this one. I think all five five hits were singles. Jesse, most importantly, the scariest stat here, D-backs are now one and eight on Sundays.

Wow. I don't know what that means, but they are one and eight on Sundays. The only common denominator I can see, Derek, is that Sunday is the one day that we do a live show every single week. So maybe it's us, Derek. I don't know. I don't want to take that kind of responsibility. I don't want to take that responsibility either.

But just in case we are at fault, I think you guys should. should go get a membership now. I don't know how that helps, counterbalances it or not, but you should read our wonderful writing. And maybe, maybe that's it. Maybe you need to read more from go phnx.com.

You haven't signed up to become a member already. I don't know what you're waiting for. Go sign up. Not only do we have wonderful stuff from us over here at the DBAX team covering this overperforming team, right? But we also have the wonderful writings from all of our other staffs, as well as,

you know, Espo. He's there too, right? He said he is responsible for, somehow taking away my mayoral title. And I'm not, I'm not saying I'm upset, but I'm saying I'm petty and I will hold it against him for very long time. But again, it doesn't matter what title I hold.

I will still be writing articles over at go ph.9x.com along with Jesse. If you haven't signed up to become a member already, you can get a free t-shirt being a new, new subscriber, new member from the phnx locker.com. We have a wonderful variety of t-shirts over there for you to choose from. And actually, we're going to give one. one of those shirts away on this very episode of this show before we wrap up. So make sure to stick around. Make sure, if you haven't done so already, run over to our social media over at

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comment the diamondbacks have absolutely outperformed so let's let's remember that people said this was a team that was going to win 65 games this season and they're already up to 20 what 26 games this season so yeah they're absolutely outperforming it's just again if you expected them to come out and be a World Series contender. I have no idea what information you were basing that on. So the Diamondbacks, though, have added to their team because they continue to try to build this infield. They try to find a solution at third base. And they claimed infield cold Tucker off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates of all teams. And he was optioned to AAA Reno. He joins Josh Rojas and Merrill Kelly as some local Arizona guys, by the way, that are not now on

this team. So I think the Diamondbacks lead the league in guys from Arizona, Jesse. So I'm really digging that stat. And the former first rounder for the Pirates, who has been considered, you know, one of their, one of their not great picks could actually be the answer for the debacks, potentially at third base. I mean, yeah, the Diamondbacks are just, you know, just looking for opportunities to snatch quality players from other teams, diamonds in the rough that maybe haven't performed elsewhere, but might be able to come over here and find a role that they, that they just can't find, you know, with the team that they're coming from. So, yeah, it's been a rough go for Cole Tucker. He's hitting 175 this season. He does have 63 of bats on the year.

On the whole, it's been a rough, it's been a rough career for, for Cole Tucker. You mentioned, you know, being a first round pick back in 2014, safe to say things haven't quite panned out to the level that he or the pirates have been hoping for. But, A lot of times, Derek, you know, a change of scenery can really work wonder. So we'll have to see what what Cole looks like in Reno. And then, you know, maybe it's only a matter of time before he's up in the big leagues. Brandon Buckingham said he thought Josh Rojas has looked great at third base. And I can't disagree with that.

Josh Rojas has absolutely stepped in and done a better job than any of the other candidates. I think at not only being consistently good defensively, a third base, but also, you know, providing, producing offensively at the plate. I think that's the one thing that they were missing from a couple of their guys. I think Yanni Hernandez did a good job defensively down there. And he had some, he had good at bats. I remember Hernandez having some long good at bats, but just not the production, really, that you're looking to see.

So Josh Rojas at least gets them on the board offensively a bit. That was the big issue in the series, though. Offensively, they disappeared altogether. And let's take a look now at the numbers that they put up in this series. Obviously, two wins to one, losing the series of the Pirates. Starting pitching ERA, not terrible. That's pretty good. Not terrible for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Really, just this, I think this exemplifies how bad the offense was for this team, especially that hitting with batters and runners in scoring position at zero. point five nine like that's just a clip that you're not going to win much you many now hitting that right but relief pitching you're a there obviously the biggest uh the the the biggest one-sided thing when the diamondbacks relief pitching has given up eight point five two uh runs but again that's honestly a big part of that is uh the starting pitching was so good in the series that the relief pitching really was responsible for the majority of the runs yeah the bullpen struggled in this one. But yeah, I mean, there are certainly guys who deserve their credit.

I thought even Zach Gallen, we haven't touched on him yet. I mean, six innings, two runs on a day that he really didn't have his best stuff, which I think has kind of been a trend for him. I'm not sure Zach has really had his best stuff. He has lost few times out, really. But he continues to back. He continues to be productive even on these inevitable days that happen to every starting pitcher in baseball where you just don't really have your, you just don't really have your stuff. Like you do most of the time. So hopefully Zach Gallen at some point can, you know, get back to to really being the dominant pitcher that we know he can be, rather than being the, you know, the damage limiter. He went through some rough spots in this one. Bases loaded nobody out at one point in this game.

So. But he got out of it. He did. That was impressive. You're right, though. But to get himself in that situation isn't great. He also really isn't mixing it up well. I mean, between his knuckle curve and his four-seem fastball. That was 80% of the pitches that he threw today. He's not throwing, he's just not throwing the change up like we thought we were going to see. And that's what's, that's what's amazing about Zach Allen, though, is that he can have day. I mean, he's one of not many pitchers who has, you know, for arguably five like genuine majorly quality pitches that are pretty much all above average. And he's the kind of guy where even if he only has like one of his breaking pitches working on a particular day.

Even if the curveball is the only out pitch that he has, he can still go out there and give you six innings and two runs in a way that very few other starters are able to. So I think that's a credit to, I mean, just who Zach Gallin is as a pitcher and the variety of ways that he can get outs. But to your point, he didn't have many of those weapons working today. Zach Gallen wasn't the only Zach starting pitcher. name Zach, I should say, that did well in the series.

And actually, the other Zach is our king of the series because of how good he did in his game. Zach Davies went out there almost through eight innings of scoreless baseball, three hits, six strikeouts. He just looked good doing it. I think they said it on the broadcast, but it looked a bit effortless for him. Up until that eighth inning, he didn't even look like he was really breaking a sweat against the pirate. it. So it was very encouraging to see his return after that line drive he took off the shin, and he continues to get better, which is what, you know, this, he's done all season long, to be

honest, he's, he's been a nice surprise for the Diamondbacks who picked him up as a free agent prior to the season. And again, he wasn't really expected to do much for this team. I mean, a 4.1-1-ERA and 11 starts. I mean, you'll take that. We've, we've said it before. that would be the Diamondbacks best starting pitcher a year ago by almost a significant margin, depending on the part of the season you're talking about. So, yeah, I mean, he's been really good for the Diamondbacks in the role that they've had him in. And yeah, I mean, seven and two thirds innings.

I thought it was big for the bullpen to, you know, take a little bit of a breather in that one. Unfortunately, the results for the bullpen still weren't great in the series even over, I think it was like six and a third innings altogether that we got from the bullpen. obviously those innings could have gone a little bit better. Chris asked, what did you think about Kelly coming out in the first game? Even though he struggled,

I wanted him to start the sixth. And she says, I have that little faith in the bullpen. And I don't know if there's that little faith in the pen, but in that game, they definitely made it closer than it needed to be for sure. Yeah. And, you know,

again, the bullpen, the one thing I will say that's unfortunate is, outside of really jo-mantiply, you don't know what you're going to get some days out of anybody in the bullpen. I mean, Kyle Nelson and Noi Ramirez have definitely proved themselves to be reliable, but still, you know, you still don't know if they're going to come in and be a lockdown reliever. That's what pitching is, man, right?

I mean, the bullpen so far, at the very least, has been better over the last month, and that's one thing that we want to see. and I don't know. I mean, I've started, I guess on the opposite of what Chris is saying, I've started to lose faith just a little bit in starting pitching. So at times I'd like to see them kind of take these guys out prior to them giving up that big run. That's kind of been the secret to their success early on this season is protecting starting pitching a little bit, making sure that they maintain that confidence as, you know, they go out there for one start after the next.

I think the bullpen is, I mean, it's funny because if you look at just like bullpen ERA across baseball, the Diamondbacks are in the bottom five of the league. And they're in the bottom five in most categories when it comes to the bullpen. However, Jesse, you're wrong. They're in the bottom six. The bottom six. All right. I apologize.

The bottom six. But if I mean, if you look across the board at. at statistics for relievers. The Diamondbacks as a team do rank near the bottom. I think in strikeout rate, I think they are dead last in baseball and strikeout rate. So there's some concerning signs there. But I think that somehow there's been,

I don't know, I think the bullpen in some ways has been misperceived over the last few weeks as being a little bit lesser than it's been. I mean, there aren't that many teams that have, you know, a Kyle Nelson and a Joe Mantipli, who both have thrown pretty substantial innings

and have sub two ERAs at this point. I mean, Noah Ramirez is like a mid-3 ERA at this point in the season. Caleb Smith has an ERA of around three since his return from the minor league since getting called up again. So I know there's certainly reasons to be frustrated and obviously the bullpen wasn't great in this series. But I do think it's a better bullpen than those numbers probably indicate at this point.

And lately, especially, right? Because again, they were very bad early on. Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. Over the last month, they've been much better. Interesting, you're right. The bullpen actually ranks dead last in strikeouts. Yeah.

And one thing I find really interesting about that is that the tied for second for last, I guess you should say, or for the least amount of strikeouts in all of baseball, is Colorado, whose bullpen has the worst ERA in all of baseball. Yeah. And Houston Astros, they both have 168 strikeouts as a unit, right? The Houston Astros are number one. They have the best bullpen in all of baseball. Well, my guess is have the Astro, the Astro's bullpen is probably thrown a lot fewer

innings because the starters work deeper in games, maybe. When you talk, I don't have, unfortunately, I don't have that. you probably doesn't fully that probably doesn't fully explain it though that's no not at all not at all and i mean again though i think the thing here is is that uh strikeouts from a bullpen isn't the biggest factor well actually yeah cleveland actually has less than the diamondbacks or yeah less than those two teams so but like cleat like it doesn't doesn't factor in as much because it's not necessarily the strikeouts i think that are important when it comes to relief pitching that's what we've seen kind of out of mantipl right mantiply isn't like the same

sexiest relief pitcher, and I don't mean that based on his incredible body. I mean that based on the, you know, watching him. It's going to tend to be a little boring at times. There's not going to be a lot of strikeouts, but it's going to be effective. You might even allow a hit here or there, but he just doesn't allow runs. Yeah. What he's been very good at this year. I mean, I think you have to, you have to recognize that even at their best,

very few of the Diamondbacks bullpen arms are strikeout pitchers. That's just not really their identity. and not being a strikeout pitcher doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad reliever, right? In some cases, it does. Some guys need the strikeout in order to succeed. It's not a good thing. But I mean, there's also like the Brad Ziegler's of the world, right? One of the best Diamondbacks relievers of all time, who really was never a big strikeout guy.

The ground ball, of course, was the way that he would get a lot of his out. So the debacks, even at their best, the bullpen is not going to get that many strikeouts, probably. But I mean, there comes a point when it's just so few that you just really can't be effective by relying on, you know, soft contact. It's going to be really hard to pull that off. Yeah, you're right. You're right. But there's two ways to go at it. There's ways to be aggressive, right? And then there's ways to be effective. And aggressiveness doesn't always lead to effectiveness, right? But the same can't be said when, purchasing edibles, Jesse.

Just because you're very aggressive in your edible purchasing doesn't mean that that doesn't lead to more effectiveness. Because edibles can be very aggressive. They can be very aggressive. They can also be extremely effective, almost too effective, Jesse. And that's why you got to watch your dosages. Remember what Uncle Derek says. You buy the tick, you take the ride. You can't untake it.

But what you can do is go over to our friends at OG's brands, wherever you can find at your local dispensary near you and purchase some of their wonderful edibles. They have a variety of flavors, a variety of doses. You can get a 10 milligram dose, which will get you where you need to go a little faster and a little more aggressive, or you can go with the 3 milligram microdose, which might just be the perfect way to spend a nice afternoon that you doing something you don't want to do. Edibles are the perfect way. And Jesse, you know, earmuffs.

You can earmuff this whole segment, Jesse. But edibles are the perfect way. to make a bad thing you don't want to do more fun, right? And that includes watching the Diamondbacks get one run in 20 innings of baseball. So make sure to stop by OGs, your local dispensary and get some OGs brand, gummies. They have a wonderful variety of flavors, too, the Pinia colada, orange cream, skull, Blackberry, all sorts of wonderful flavors. You can get them anywhere. You can get your local marijuana edible goods. If you're, if you're, if you're, you're interested in trying the amazingly delicious variety of brands that OG,

flavors that OGs brands has to offer, go to OGsbrands.com, that's OGEEZBrands.com to find OGs near you and to find maybe what flavor you want to go pick up. I'm going to suggest a Pena Collada to get over this loss. That's the OGs brands flavor of the week is Pena Collada. So make sure to do that. Go try our friends at OGsbrands.com. By the way, speaking of OGsbrands.com, I, thought I was on edibles a little bit, Jesse.

I thought I'm, I've taken too many when I was plugging in the numbers for this upcoming road trip the Diamondbacks had. And I was just, I was writing Ws all over the place. I was right Ws all over the place. They are now one and two right now currently on, uh, this entire road trip. And they venture out to Cincinnati next, which is again, another very winnable series against a beatable team.

They have four games against the Reds, three games against the Philadelphia Phillies, and a chance, Jesse, to extend their lead in the Keystone State. I'm not sure if you knew this, but the Diamondbacks are the kings of the Keystone State. Since 2017, the debacks are now 20 and 10 in the state of Pennsylvania. Wow. Wow, that is. 20 and 10. Suck it, Dodgers. We know how to win in Pennsylvania.

like you guys. Well, the diamondbacks didn't exactly show it over the last three days there. I know. Yeah. Yeah, those pirates, they're tough. But the diamondbacks do have some favorable matchups in that series coming up. And more importantly, it's, we talked about the pirate series kind of turning a little bit on us, Jesse, when we thought it was going to be a more winnable series than it was after we saw the way the Dodgers struggled with them. But hopefully that's not the case. These Reds seem like this is a four-game series. The Diamondback should come in, hopefully find their bats somewhere along the way between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and have the offense return for this four game series.

Yeah, they're going to need the bats to wake up. And Cincinnati is a wonderful place to go to get that to happen. That's been a hitter's ballpark for quite a while. Although I guess I'm not sure if a humidor was just added there, if that's something they already had. I want to say they had there already. You know, maybe the ball is not flying. out of a great American ballpark like it used to be.

But yeah, and there's a lot of guys who really enjoy hitting in Cincinnati, so hopefully the Diamondbacks can get things to turn around offensively. Probable pitchers, Jesse. I think that so far, I mean, I would have liked to see Zach Gallen maybe start the series for them, but the Diamondbacks still kind of have a hold of. Throw back-to-back games, just have Zach Gallen. start again. Yes.

Yes, that's exactly what I want. I want Zach Gowan throwing back to back games. No, I mean, we got Tyler Gilbert filling in for Humberto Castiano's in game two and don't know when we'll see Castiano's back or necessarily if we will. I think that the door is open right now for Tyler Gilbert to come in here and pitch well and potentially secure that position for himself. it'll be interesting i mean game one the matchup is is madison bumgarner against hunter green and hunter green is a i mean he's a fascinating pitcher he's 22 years old um he is not pitched

particularly well overall this season um he's two and seven with a six point one nina r a but the man throws like 102 miles an hour at time so um it'll be interesting to see how the diamond backs fare against him in game one but uh yes to what you're saying about humberto castianos the door does appear to be open. I mean, I think Castiano's pitched pretty well overall. I don't think people are too disappointed with the job that he did overall. I know his last couple starts weren't great. But as a number five starter in your rotation, you know,

I mean, you're not necessarily expecting the guy to be an ace every day. Right. So I think he was respectable. But Tyler Gilbert in the sample, which is pretty limited that we've seen of him as a big leaguer, he's also looked, you know, kind of in a similar spot, not dominant, but certainly capable of keeping you in a baseball game, maybe arguably more so than what we've seen from Humberto Castiano's this year. So Gilbert's another lefty.

I guess that kind of changes the look of the rotation as well. So we'll staff to see how he does. It'll be interesting to see. The Diamondbacks might not be doing great in the NL West, but I have some updates for the All-City Division. And that is the only division that matters. It's the only division that matters. For the time being, we're on top.

26 and 29. What a horrible division, by the way. I just needed to point that out. We all suck, but if we're going to suck, we're going to suck together, damn it. And we're all going to be like toiling in mediocrity, right? But at least the Diamondbacks are the least mediocre team for the time being. I'd like to point out they also have the best all city record as well.

So just saying it's crazy how close like. They're all of the, all of the all city teams are within two and a half games of each other. Like that's, that's wild. It's wild. Hey, it is what it is. We're like I said, we're all going to, we're all going to suck. We're all going to suck together. But I'm excited now because I want to thank you guys.

We have been building this show, this website, everything we do here at PHNX for, what has it been now? Jesse, seven, eight months now. And we're really excited that things are rolling in the direction. we are rolling. We are so excited to have reached 3,000 Twitter followers, and we couldn't have done it without all of you guys. We thank you guys for participating in our fun, not only chats, but sharing our stuff and getting more people to kind of know that we exist. So for that, in honor of that, I'm going to go ahead and pull a winner right now for our T-shirt contest, which I had on Twitter. And I am going to do my best here, the share of my screen here, hold on one second. Oh, wow.

We get to watch this happen. Yeah, we're going to watch this happen live, Jesse. This is going to happen. Oh, I got to go do something to make it do it. Okay, I'm going to just pull it because it doesn't want to let me do it without some sort of permission. So I'm spinning it. I got, let's see, we got quite a few names on here. I got everybody who retweeted and participated in our, in our,

our contest. So here we go. I'm spinning. The spinning's happening. I don't know if you hear that. We're coming down. It is landing on. Oh, David Haney 11 is our winner. David Haney at David underscore Haney 11. So if that's you, congratulations on winning. And we will be in contact with you to get you out all the details to get you your free shirt from PHNX Locker.com. If you didn't win, my apologies, but you can still go over to PHNX Locker.com. If you're a member, by the way, at go PHNX.com, you can not only members only access to our discord, but members only discounts over at the PHNX Locker.com. So keep an eye out for that. If you are a member, and if you are, we thank you so much for being a member of this whole

thing that we're trying to do here. So congratulations to David Haney on the shirt. Congratulations to all of you guys for being Arizona Diamondbacks fans. I don't know why I'm congratulating you on that. I just, I think that you made a good choice. I think that you made a good choice. you made good decisions and you're here with us now. We're happy to have you be part of the family. Diamondbacks, like I said, have the Reds coming up, and we will be all over that. By the way, we brought it up earlier in the show, but if you haven't done so already, go over to 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 Draft King's Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Jesse, last week I told you guys, go bet, go get down on that promotion that they had. And not only did the Golden State Warriors go up by 10, but the Boston Celtics won the game. So no matter which way you bet on that game, you won. And it might be because of me. So you're welcome if you did. I don't want to talk about what happened with my bet, but that's a whole other thing. We thank you guys so much for checking out the show and going to the draft king's

sportsbook. If you or you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800 gambler in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wyoming. 1-800 next step here in Arizona, 1-800-2-2-4-7-00 in Colorado, New Hampshire, 1-88-98-9-77-77-7-7-7.7 or visit ccppg.org backslash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-off in Iowa, 1-8777-0 stop in Louisiana. 8778, Hope, N.Y, text, Hope, NY, 467, 369 in New York. Visit op,GR.org in Oregon. Call text Tennessee Redline in Tennessee.

That's 1,800-889, 9789, or 1-800-3-2-3-350 in Virginia. It's 21 and over only, physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming only. Minimum $5 deposit required, 18 years up and over in Wyoming. Eligibility restrictions apply. Cedrathkings.com slash sportsbook for details. Get down on the draft king's sports book. It's the official sports betting partner of the NBA. We don't have a lot of time left for that, by the way.

The NBA action is about to be over. And then, of course, it's hot MLB boys summer all season long. We'll get down on the MLB action over at the draft king sports book, which you can right now, by the way. I'm getting down on it. I don't know which way I'm going to bet on the Arizona Diamondbacks because right now they're a very confusing team to me still. Um, we knew what we were getting into though with this Pirates team, right, Jesse.

Like this really isn't a surprise yet it somehow is. I feel like because the Diamondbacks hung around in these games so closely. They did. I mean, these were competitive games. I don't know if they were that fun to watch, uh, relatively speaking. I mean, the Diamondbacks had one hit. The first one was Alec Thomas with two fucking home runs is fun to watch. That's never not fun to watch.

That's true. That's true. I mean, they had one hit with runners in scoring position the whole series. They were one for 17. So it was a little tough on the eyeballs in Pittsburgh, unlike the ballpark, which is one of the most beautiful ballparks. We're going to have to wind up there at some point. For sure. Shout out to Spencer O'Garra, by the way, one of our listeners who was there. Yeah.

Not only in our shirt, but in a Diamondbacks shirt, yeah, Jersey on, he had everything. So it's good to see representation in that in that Pittsburgh. You know, we don't get a lot of that. The hostile, hostile Pittsburgh. The hostile. Yeah, the unfriendly confines, P&C Park. But, yeah, again, the Diamondbacks have bounced back nicely so far from adversity this season. And hopefully they can do the same thing on this road trip,

considering that they do have some very winnable games ahead of them. We thank you guys so much for joining us. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Keman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and 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 listening to us right now in your favorite audio podcasting at, please subscribe and leave us a five-star review.

If you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you're subscribed to the PHNX sports YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the wonderful content coming out. Whenever we go live here on PHNX from us or any of the other teams at all, you don't want to miss any of it. It's great stuff. We thank you guys again. Make sure you go sign up at go phnx.com and use our code of PHNX over at the Draft King's Sportsbook. On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate your time on this Sunday.

And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's way more fun when the Diamondbacks can actually win on Sunday.