PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - PHNX D-backs Post Series: Sweeping Miami

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Makayla are discussing the D-backs three-game series sweep of the Miami Marlins, the bizarre interaction between Madison Bumgarner and 1B umpire Dan Bellino that caused MadBum to get tossed, and how exciting it's been to watch this team. 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.

What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm sweeping. No, that's not how sweeping works. Suck in Miami. You just got swept by the Dyobax. I have no idea how this happened, but thank you guys so much for joining us. This is the PHNX DBAX podcast right here at PHNX.

My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as an adorable EWalk. This lady over here is the mayor of PHNX now, I guess. The one and only Michaela Perkins. I don't know how any of this happened, but since she's become the, mayor, the Diamondbacks have been very good, so I am not going to interrupt this current streak that we are on. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King's Sportsbook. New customers can get down right now in the Draft King's Sportsbook offer. Bet $5 on any team to win, and you will get $150 in free bets if they do.

It's that simple over at the Draft King's Sportsbook. And you can win as easily as the Diamondbacks did against the Miami Marlins in Florida this week. Because, holy shit. Miami Marlins came into the series Pretty hot. They were on a seven game win streak before they lost to Marlins. Pretty hot.

They were the hottest team in MLB. They had the best pitcher in baseball. Until they won the pitcher of the month award. And the Diamondbacks went in there and he said, you know what? I don't give a shit. I'm going to sweep you. Bain, bra, bra, bra, bam, bhaer, and they slept them.

She's making air horn. There's been a lot of air horn noises being made in the office today. But just another outstanding performance by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the face of what, was one of the most awkward things we've ever seen an umpire due to a player in, I don't know, ever? Like what the fuck was that? Dan Bellino decided to give our friend Madison Bumgarner, you might know him as Mason

Saunders, a little hand massage here during, uh, in between the first and the second innings to which Madison Bumgarner wasn't taking too kindly after a while. It was weird. There was this eye contact, this lingering eye contact. Look at this. This is absurd. It may be physically uncomfortable. Like, watching that makes me so uncomforty.

I made a TikTok out of it, though, and you have to go watch it on a TikTok channel at PHNX underscore Sports. I am the TikTok queen. So go like it. Go comment on it. And tell your friends that Mason Saunders got his hands awkwardly rubbed by an empire. That's right. And you know why? The Marlins lost because, of course, today is May the 4th.

And there was no Star Wars celebration on field that I saw. I don't know if I missed it. That's because they had two people in the stands. Yeah, well, and those two people were the, you know, Pavin Smith's family, mostly. So it's, why would you ever put on a show when there's two people in your stands? Because it's a, it's a religious holiday and you've got to celebrate it. I've never seen Star Wars. All right.

Well, you, and this is your mayor? This is who your mayor is. Come on. Anyway, I just don't know what to think about that entire situation with Bolino and Bumgarner. Like, Dan Blino should be fired. Right? Fire him now. Like I don't know.

There's times where I'm like, I'm like, okay, this guy's bad at his job. Let's take a look at his scorecard, things like that. Sometimes things get heated. This was a weird instigating. This was like an authority. It did it on purpose. It was like a weird power chip thing.

Like I'm going to awkwardly rub your hand and stare into your soul. I'm going to try to set you off. And then the second you say something, I'm going to eject you. So you know what? Calm. Rob, man, Fred. I need you to fire Dan Bolino's ass right now. He didn't answer you during the lockout.

He's not going to answer you now. now, but I will say that, I think that, you know, again, this was the, the comparison that they showed on the broadcast to Hernandez's treatment by the third base umpire versus what Bumgardner experience was, it just showed how ridiculous it was, right? You know, we've seen, last season, we saw Caleb Smith go through something with his glove, where they actually did find something on him. There was a, not, not as awkward of an interaction, but like a situation that kind of escalated what was seemingly harmless until the umpire eventually determined that there was some sticky substance on his on his glove there was no determination that madison bumgarner had anything

on his hand or his glove this was purely based on bum gardener's reaction to this weird interaction this weird altercation that he has with an umpire an umpire making a game about himself and altering the outcome like this is ridiculous that's all they're good for that's literally all they do they just waddle on down when they're entering the game they take their sweet time and then they make the game and all about themselves

after making the most egregious calls I've ever seen in my life I could go out there behind home plate where a blindfold and still umpire a better game than the jokes that Major League Baseball has in charge of the game right now they are the worst

Damblino if I ever see you it is on site I swear she'll catch you in the streets If you're not fired by tomorrow, I'm going to have some choice words for the commissioner of baseball. I'm going to write a strongly worded letter. Do that. That's what I'm going to do. A strongly worded letter.

And it's funny because Bumgarner most likely will be fined for this incident, right? Which he didn't even start. Literally, Bolino did it on purpose. It was instigating him. I feel like there needs to be similar consequences. This is when in life we get mad at these authority figures, not necessarily because they do something to withhold. the rules of the game or the law, it's when they go above and beyond

to instigate a situation and then make the person that they're instigating into kind of the bad guy here, right? Like, you know that that was wrong. I think Madison Bumgarner had the right to tell you to fuck off after he held your hand for as long as you did.

I would have said something way, way worse than whatever Madison Bumgarner said. I think the first thing he said was, like, you're not even going to look at it or something like that because he never looked at his hand. He just stared into Madison Bumgarner's beautiful eyes the whole time. And I get it.

he's a handsome dude. He smells like leather all the time. His beard is majestic. His beard is majestic. I think he has birds that live inside of it, but I can't confirm that. He's like snow white of baseball. Right. He has a home built entirely of mahogany.

This man is a cowboy. I get it. He knows how to cook a brisket. Low and slow, 225, 12 hours. Here, you are not going to get Madison, Bungarner, be very friendly with you after you stroked his hand for a couple of minutes and looked into his eyes. He's not, like, this isn't. even about that. He's literally not that kind of person that likes human contact in that way.

He doesn't like talking to us as media. He doesn't even, you know, really seem like the friendliest of teammates, but he does seem very supportive. You know, he had some very nice things to say about his catcher Jose Herrera, who he didn't even get to play very long with because he got tossed after one inning. But luckily, the Diamondbacks have some good long relief guys in their bullpen. Corbyn Martin, you know, had a roughout in there in the beginning. Wait, wait, wait, pause. Did you say the Diamondbacks have a good, reliable bullpen? No, I said I had some good long relief in their bullpen. They do have some

guys that are capable of being starters in their bullpen that they can turn to. And no, they don't have a reliable bullpen, but mostly that's been Noe Ramirez in this situation or in this series, right? Like he hasn't unfortunately, he hasn't been very good where he has been reliable in the past. The Diamondbacks

needed him today and he wasn't who they could count on. But luckily they had enough offense, Dalton Varsho with a home run. And Pavin Smith, My guy, which Palm Gardens, Palm Beach Garden.

I don't even know what the name of it. He had some Bryce Hartford treatment going on, though, because he was up at the plate before he hit that to run, home run, and people were shouting, overrated. They were chanting overrated,

and then he freaking smacks the go ahead to run home run. Suck it, Miami. You know who's overrated, you are. They're chanting overrated because his family was there in the stands applauding. That's monsters.

They're monsters. You're not horrible. monsters. Horrible people. But let's take a look really quick at the numbers from today's game because the Diamondbacks and Marlins once again finished a very close game end score 8 to 7 hits Marlins beat out

the Diamondbacks 10 to 9 strikeouts Diamondbacks struck out more but that XBA that expected batting average 277 to 268 and that ended up being the edge for the Diamondbacks. They had some really good they just had some really good

plate appearances today and and the offense has continued to produce. That's one thing that was absolutely missing from this team prior to their recent run of success. They haven't lost a series now going back, a few series, that Dodger series, splitting the series with St. Louis, and now the sweep over Marlin. So it's just been an incredible run of offense by this team, right? Yeah, I think the offense is, like, slowly, like, building its way up. It's taking way longer than I would have preferred, but I think now we're seeing, like, the

offense like wake up and each game it gets like better and better and better, which I mean, hey, like if that's what it takes, fine. I'm a patient gal. I can wait for that to happen. But I do want to point out just how incredible the feat that the Diamondbacks just pulled off was because right around this time last year, remember they started the year really hot and then May came and they went to Miami and it was this time last year, their series with Miami when the train went all the way off the tracks.

they came into Miami with a 15 and 13 record. This is last year. Then they were swept in that three game series. They were outscored 20 to 4 by the Marlins. And then right after that is when it all went off the rails. And they went what, like three and 18 for like the next couple of series. So historically, the Diamondbacks collapsed in Miami. And they actually have never really played Miami that well in Miami.

So the fact that they went in there, they were facing the best pitcher in the the National League, who just won the National League pitcher of the month award, was the best, he had the best ERA. Not only did they win that game, but then they swept the freaking Miami Marlin to a just won three consecutive series, and now they're sitting at 500, and

I'm freaking amped about it, because good God Almighty, it looks like things are looking up finally for the first time in a really long time for Diamondbacks fans, and I am so happy about it because this time last year is when it went all off the rails. Mark Lang said it. He said,

it. He said, fuck it. I'll say it. We're going to the playoffs this year. That's the first time we've had that on this show. That is the first sentence like that we've had on the show. Congratulations, Mark. I'm excited. I'm not that excited, but what I am willing to say is that this team looks like they can put some runs together. Last year, we talked about this on last night show. Last year, it took them until the end of August to win their sixth one run game. This is their seventh one run game already here at the beginning of May. So they are just off to a much better start. when you talk about these close competitive games. They seem to have a, like, I don't, last year, I almost saw the fear in their eyes at times, right?

Even if they were up by four runs, once that comeback started, it's kind of like they just put their arms up and let it happen. They didn't have the manpower. They didn't have the depth. Everyone in their mom on their roster was hurt. Like, if you looked at the IL, it was all the, it was all the time of back starters. Yeah, it really was. Right. So, like, they obviously felt very outgunned and outperformed in every single way because they were so understaffed. and that's why they were probably scared.

This year, they, thank God, have avoided tragedy so far. And I feel like they're getting their confidence back. And it might be taking a little bit, it might be taking a little while for the bats to warm up. It might be taking a little bit for the bullpen to get into a groove if they ever do. I don't know. I can't guarantee that because we're Diamondbacks fans and we're used to a shitty bullpen. But you know what? It's looking a lot better.

Here's what I'll say, though. We did have injuries, right? We still haven't gotten Josh Rojas back. We were missing Looplo and Ahmed. And both of those guys when they were reinjected back. into the lineup immediately added, you know, to this entire team's offense. And Looplo's been great in the outfield as well. I think we saw Pave and Smith make an outstanding play today to save a run. There was just a lot of, it was a good all-around team performance. That's what

right now we're getting. We're getting solid starting pitching and an all-around great performance from the team where not, it doesn't feel like anybody particularly stands out. It's actually quite difficult at times for us to pick the king of the series because all these guys have very similar stats. They all contribute in a similar way. But sometimes you just have those guys that contributed a bit more and we'll get to that in a bit. But before we do, I want to remind everybody to go check out our website at go phnx.com. If you haven't done so already, this guy writes articles not about Star Wars. I promise you. And you can get those over at go phnx.com as well as Jesse's amazing piece and all of the work from our friends here at

P HNX. They do an amazing job. Craig Morgan is a god amongst writers and he's the best. So he alone is worth signing up for a membership at go PHNX.com, even during the NHL offseason for the coyotes. But he's still covering the rest of the NHL. Of course, you can get that over at go phnx.com. You can become an annual member. Sign up to get that membership. You get your free t-shirt over at the PHNX Locker.com. If you're not interested in the annual membership, you can get a month-to-month membership and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. So definitely check it out. Tell us if you, If you like it, hopefully stick around if you do become the month-to-month member and go for the annual membership. Because phnx locker.com has some incredible shirts, these shirts, this shirt, all this shirt.

We got the PHNX Rattler shirt and a new design coming very soon that we're so excited to spring on you guys soon. But yeah, sign up at go phnx.com. Now, we talk about the starting pitching. And the starting pitching has been good. But when we talk about good, they've been incredibly good. Madison, and that's what's so infuriating about Madison Bumgarner getting thrown out of today's game after one inning. Fucked with his amazing, sorry, I'm really fired up. I'm super excited.

I don't usually drop F-F-I. I don't hear it out of forever. I'm literally kind of caught off guard. Your mom's watching this. Oh my God. I'm really upset with Dan Bellino. But speaking of starting pitching, look at this graphic. Thank you Major League Baseball MLB tonight for actually recognizing the fact that the Diamondbacks have the best pitching staff in baseball.

And you all, you all just messed it up. for Madison Bumgarner by ejecting him. But look at this. This is the 2022 ERA leaders with a minimum before game started. Not one, not two, but three Diamondbacks starting pitchers are up there on this leader board. And oh

my God, this is insane. Madison Bumgarten had a 117, Zach Allen had a 127 and so did in Muriel Kelly. And oh my God, can we just take a second to be happy that for once in our lives something is going right for the Diamondbacks. Well, we've talked about Madison

Bumgardner returning to form. Yeah. That's his best ERA of his career after four starts. Yeah. So, I mean, that says so much about what not only this entire pitching staff is doing, but let's give credit where credit is due. Brent Strom is a genius. He is making the Diamondbacks into one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

We just really need to address what's going on with the bullpen. Today, let's be honest. Today, there's a cascading effect. The Diamondbacks have an off day tomorrow. So that's, they're lucky for that. But it does. I mean, the fact that they had to turn to their bullpen so early over that egregious and ridiculous decision by Dan Bolino, his name again is Dan Bolino.

I don't, I want you never to forget Dan Bolino. On site. On site. Yeah, that's why she has the little bet. But we want you to know Dan Bolino, we hate you. And we'll never forgive you for this. But, you know, again, that does have an effect on the team. And the fact that they were able to bounce back the way they were, stay in this game,

sustain an offensive rush from the Marlins that gave them the lead and then still win the game. Have Pavin Smith come up so big there and basically hit that game winning home run? It gives me, and I should give everybody, and I know it gives Mack an incredible amount of hope, and just feeling that this team isn't that same team that you're talking about from last year. Those injuries, the things that happen, I mean, the roster itself is different, right? But what we're seeing right now is a completely different team. and the coaching staff really should be credited for that. This is a team that did not hit home runs last year.

They just didn't. And now this year, they are the second most in Major League baseball behind the Yankees over the last eight days. That's incredible when it comes to, especially what you're talking about with the New York Yankees and their slugging percentage that they got going on over there. But that's some great company for the Diamondbacks to be in when this team wasn't expected to do much.

Everybody was riding them off. Everybody was granting them 65 wins max. And again, we're still at a young point in the season. So it's too early for me to be patting myself on the back and giving myself Barry Horowitz about 82 and 80. But I don't know where, you know, I don't know what this team is capable of anymore. I didn't feel like they were capable of very much. Yeah. But now I feel like even 82 and 80 seems a little, you know, kind of half half empty.

Like maybe they could do the playoffs like Mark said. Who knows? Baseball is a crazy game, right? But also it's a marathon and not a sprint, which is why I don't want to get too high right now. Because Jesse on our last post series wrap did make a good point. Like at some point, the pitching staff is going to kind of like go down. And then the bats like they're going to have to go up at some point. So you'll see more offense, maybe less production from the starting pitching. So you kind of have to like damper your expectations a little bit and not go all in.

Because I really don't think it's necessarily possible for the all like all the pitching, the starting pitching staff to sustain this for the. entire season. It doesn't seem like it, but somehow they already, I think they've already surpassed a point where I was like, all right, they're going to have to come down. I feel like we've been saying that since the first couple of outings guys. Not me. Right? You know, like it just feels like, yes, because we talked about a lot of their, like their, their ERA is a bit deceptive. They've had a lot of unearned runs being scored behind them and they're technically, you know, that's why errors are such a weird thing in this game. The, the, the,

way that errors are determined and if a guy gets a glove on it or doesn't get a glove on it or whatever. But runs scored, they just weren't charged to the pitchers. And that attributes a bit to why their ERA is so good. But these pitchers have also been outstanding. You got to give credit where credits do to Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly. Realistically, the Diamondbacks have a couple of solid relievers that they know they can count on now. But even today, the Joe Mantiply, who was incredibly reliable, was called on probably one day too many in a row to come out. right and we didn't see that normal uh sharp performance that we've seen out of him so far they're they're not infallible it's not the playstation five right it's not the show they're not always

going to come out and be able to do everything but no mark no no no you don't need to chill out don't don't let anybody don't let her damper your expectations playoffs about i like it i'm just a guarded baseball fan because i've had my heartbroken so many times and i go down this path where i get super excited and i let myself be optimistic and believe she's a fan of the rockies so So you understand where she's coming. And so I just want to be careful. I want to be cautiously optimistic because I'm trying to guard my heart, you know? I know. I know.

I know. It's like the Rockies said on their scoreboard yesterday in that weird post. That was hilarious. That's Susie Hunter took a picture of about protecting your heart, but not against like people that don't break your heart in songs. Those are okay songs. But people that actually break your hearts. Yeah.

Tell them to scramp. But hey, if you guys want to be excited about the Diamondbacks, who will might have? stop you. If you think they're making the playoffs more power to you because you know what, we need some good things happening. We need some good vibes. We need some happiness. We need to have a little kumbaya moment after last season. And so you know what, Mark, you say that the dynamics are going to the playoffs. Good for you. I commend you for that optimism. I don't share it, but I'm not going to stop you. You know what? It doesn't matter because we can all just enjoy some

OGs, gummies, and then we can feel however we want. You can, you can say, whatever you want. Big fan of the orange cream skull over here. I like the Pena Colado. But no matter what, you guys should check out OG's gummies. Stop by your local dispensary and grab some amazing scratch-made THC gummies from our friends at OGs. They have just released their new mini-OGs 3 milligram microdose. So again, if you're curious but not really wanting to, you know, clean your bathroom all night long like this one over here did, you might just want to dip your toes into three milligram mini dose.

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That's the 3 milligram microdose. If you're interested in trying the amazingly delicious variety of flavors that OG's brands has to offer, go to OGsbrands.com. That's OGEEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. Woo. And I think someone said it today, and I just have this question because not only are we here with the Diamondbacks having success, but some controversy, we're in the middle of the Sun's playoff run, and I just have to ask, why does officiating hate the state of

Arizona's sports? Why is the officiating always against us? today's altercation like we talked about almost seem premeditated. It was almost like, it was almost like. If he was on trial for murder, it would be first degree murder because that shit was premeditated. It was planned.

He got up this morning. He had himself some breakfast, Dan Bolino. He was like, you know what? I'm going to piss off Madison, Buck Gardner. I'm going to fucking ruin Madison Buffgartner's day to day.

Today it seems like a good day to make Madison bumgarner mad. I don't know how premeditated it was. Maybe he had like a bad day, you know, like a car drove by and like splashed a puddle on him. And then he missed like the, the train to the park and like everything was behind is you know jersey didn't fit or whatever you call the thing that umpires wear you're an awful person though was my point and you took it out on madison bum gardener it feels like i mean it gets to that point right we got the scott

foster situation with chris paul and uh yeah i'm with gilbert he does need some ogies he does need some ogys he needs to chill out how much baseball would be better if the umpires were high the entire time oh man that would be so much better you know what though those meetings where they are confused like a lot more things would happen like in yesterday's game where he pointed the wrong way the wrong way no i'm not fair wait wasn't damblino the same um part of that pointed the wrong way is he i'm pretty sure it was dambalino the point of the wrong god damn bollino you guys the comments might have to fact check me but i'm like no i'm like 80% sure it's the same officiating crew for sure i just know that they tend to they tend to rotate around so

he probably wouldn't use that first base today so he wouldn't have been at first base technically yesterday right like because they move them around but I don't know it doesn't matter this entire officiating crew needs to be talked to the head of the crew couldn't operate the earpiece there's a lot of bad going on there these guys don't know how to do their jobs like how do you not call a baseball accurately when it's so obviously like a foul or a fair ball right the jazz jazz talking to nick Ahmed they were both laughing about it because both of them were like yeah it was in there was like this far and you know it's so ridiculous that he called it the wrong way but then he admitted that he literally pointed the wrong direction and see we we talked about talked about that on yesterday. That's something that I would do because I don't know my right from my left. So like I kind of sympathize with him because I would also do something like that. That's, to me, that checks out. I don't know. But I will say this.

We talked about going into these series that the Diamondbacks, we were hoping that they would get right against these teams. And then as the series approached, we were kind of like, what a huge mistake we made in saying that. Because the St. Louis Cardinals were looking very good at that time. the Marlins were on a winning streak that continued while we played the Cardinals. And somehow the Diamondbacks come out of this road series right now with five wins, which is just incredible. Freak of nuts, man. It feels incredible. It should have been six the way the bullpen blew one of those games in St. Louis.

But we'll take what we can get. And now looking at the upcoming calendar, the Diamondbacks do have, again, some very winnable games on their schedule. The Colorado Rockies, it started out very hot, have kind of come back down to Earth a bit. I knew that was going to happen. Then we get the, of course you did. And then we get these same Marlins coming to town for a three-game set. And then we play the Cubs.

And the Cubs have not been very good. No. And we get to beat up on CHGO's teams as well. So I don't know. Right now, the schedule, after getting through that very tough first month, schedule looks a bit lighter. The Diamondbacks are playing better. Everything's kind of getting better, starting pitching.

The only thing right now seems to be relief pitching. And I still feel like Lovolo and his staff have figured out who they can rely on. Today's game is just kind of a bit of an outlier because of how much they had to use that bullpen. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was going to ask you what your sore spot from the series was, but I have a feeling you were to say the bullpen because that would be my answer too. Yeah, I mean, that's because there was, these games shouldn't have been as close as they were, right? These were three one run victories that at one point the Diamondbacks were up by four plus runs or more.

So it just kind of seems a bit nuts that they had to fight as hard as they did. But I think that's the difference between this year and last year. Last year they would have lost all three of these games. Right. There would have been no closing. This is the first sweep against Miami since, what, 2015? Like, that's crazy because Miami isn't that good of a team, but it just shows that in that time, the Diamondbacks haven't been very dominant themselves. Yeah.

So my point with that was, is like, I think things are starting to come together and I'm trying to be costagely optimistic, but the vibes are immaculate right now, and I think... She was going to get it in, at least the time. I think this is all, I think it's all, like, going in the Diamond X fever. Like, I think the starting pitching has still been phenomenal. Like, we really haven't seen that change much

outside of a few wacky things from, like, Umberto Castellanos and, like, a massive bump guard at the beginning of the year. Aside from those, like, little outliers, and Umberto was better this, this yesterday. Like, I thought he did pretty good. He did outstanding. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he just, he's not, he's not impressive.

But then you look and he's also fun. No runs. He didn't put up any runs and that's the key, right? So I think the starting pitching has been amazing. I think the bats are starting to slowly wake up. It took them a little bit. They were still asleep through the first month of the season. I think they were a little weirded out. I think the bats were like concerned about like what was going on because of short spring training.

So they were a little shy. But I think the bats are not shy anymore. I think they're being like, ooh, we're here. We can hit the ball. So I think the bats are starting to wake up. The starting pitching has been phenomenal. The defensive errors have started to slow and become less and less. I don't think we really saw many of this.

series. Yeah, they tighten things up defensively. And again, the outfielders have done a great job. Dalton Varsho continues to just do outstanding in center field. I also love Jordan Leplow. Jordan Leplow keep doing you, kid. So now I think the only thing that they really need to tighten up and lock down is their bullpen because their bullpen is garbage.

And it's so inconsistent. Like you'll get really good pitching performances from certain pitchers and then really bad ones from others. And it's just kind of like all over the place. Sometimes you can trust Ian Kennedy. Sometimes you can't. So I think if they can just tweak their bullpen, tighten it up a little bit, I think this is a pretty good, freaking good baseball team. I don't know if Ian Kennedy is a good setup man simply because I think he should be situational based on the matchups a bit more.

Right. But I do think that once Mark Malanson comes back and they have that stability at closer, then I mean, hopefully we can see things fall in the place. I wouldn't be surprised to see Joe Mantiply move into that setup role because he has been a bit more, you know, a bit more reliable. with Caleb Smith being a long-inning reliever guy. I think he can stay in that spot in that role. I'm not too sure about how I feel about Keenan Middleton yet. He's kind of scaring me. But maybe that's just, you know, early jitters.

This is only what his second game. I'm interesting to see what Brent Strom can do with Friest because Friest, like, he lights up the, lights up the. I love Luis Friest. I really, really genuinely believe he's going to be something special. His velocity is insane. They don't have anybody hit him 100. 100 miles an hour.

No, he can toss chatter like nobody's business. Like, I really think that he's going to be good. I know that his stats don't necessarily reflect that right now and he struggled a little bit out there in the series. He gives up a lot of walks. And that's the main thing is he struggles with his command for sure. But if he can just locate his pitches better, I really feel like he's going to be something special.

And I just, I don't know, like, I have this like weird instinctual thing. Like whenever I see Luis Friess's name, I'm like, that's going to be a star. And I hope I'm not wrong, but I'm really still encouraging. about him and I don't want D-BAC's fans to like harp on him too fast too soon because I think like he's still young. This is his first like going to be his first full season in the majors as long as he doesn't get sent back to AAA. So I really feel like he has potential to be so, so good for this team. So I'm not panicking on him yet, but I understand why fans would be a little bit worried based on his stats. But I really think that if they can just figure out this bullpen and they can tune it up,

I'm feeling pretty good about this team. I agree. Well, I want to give some flowers to, uh, Kyle Nelson in the bullpen. I think he's done outstanding. And more importantly, the guy who won the game for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and that's Paven Smith, Palm Beach Garden Zone, Paven Smith, and he is our Draft Kings, king of the series. He had two key home runs, not just the one in this game, but the one in the previous one as well. You know, they won that game by one run, and Paven Smith's home run ended up being a huge factor in that game. He went three for nine in the series with three RBIs and two runs scored. Just an outstanding performance from a who has been at times talked about as one of, you know, I don't know, like as a bit of a

disappointment because he was a prospect that was highly touted. Yeah. But I really think that Pavan has received a lot of praise from his teammates at time for his ability to know the strike zone and his ability to take good approaches. So again, I think with the coaching that they brought in, I think we're seeing a reflection of the coaching making the guys that had this potential. Yeah. Let's go!

Yeah, that's all. He's really enjoying my outfit, I think, too. He was excited about the win and then the laughing, I think, was me. But of course, it's really exciting around here because the Diamondbacks... But wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, I wanted to make a point. No, please. I'm sorry. Make your point. I forgot now.

What was I going to say? It was so important. Oh, I remember. Paven, pay and pavement. Okay, listen, I think I'm terming this year as a figure-it-out year, right? Like we know that this isn't going to be a World Series team unless a miracle happens. I really think that this is the perfect year for guys like Pavin Smith and some of like the younger guys who have come up through the system to figure it out. And when they finally do figure it out and everything clicks, it's going to be the perfect time because that's when we're going to have the guys that are in the system now in the majors with them.

We're going to be firing on all cylinders and they'll have this opportunity this season to work out the kinks and figure it out. So I'm calling this year the figure it out year. And I'm not going to get too mad at them or too upset because I really feel like this is their opportunity to figure it out. Let's do it. Let's do it. And that's the thing is we've kind of, we've kind of already given this season like we've written this season off. I feel like no matter what, no matter what, even my prediction of being positive still is kind of writing off their chance. It's like barely above 500.

Right. It's not really playoff contention, right? But yeah, I think that's the general feeling is there's no. pressure on this year's team and that could be why we're seeing a team now at 500 that we didn't expect to see at 500 at this point of the season. I mean, I don't think at any point of the season unless we're talking about the first couple of games that we expected to see them at 500. So this is just overachieving for them at this point. Now, I mean, like you said, they do have that future to look forward to, but that doesn't mean that they can't still stick with Lavalos or

T-Love, as I like to call him, his one-and-o mentality, right? When the day day. And you can't worry about the future. You can't worry about anything beyond the game that you have to play today. And that's what the Diamondbacks currently are doing. And somehow it's working for them. And also like, can we just take a fact to like, let's take a second to point out the fact that they're fun to watch. Like I don't dread turning on Diamondbacks games. And that's a huge improvement from last year. You couldn't pay me to watch a Diamondbacks game last year. You want to talk about fun to watch? I was dancing in the hallway. I know. You were all jumping and shouting out there. Can we get that video up there.

Me dad. Look at this. Oh, God. Look at that. This is such cringe dad energy. Look at that. Oh, no. I mean, that's Yub Nub.

That's Max Yub Nub energy is what that is. So let's calm down. All right. And I don't know. Why are, like, again, let's keep the cargo shorts out of the videos, folks. Nobody wants to see that. But I'm also.

I will die in these cargo shorts. I swear to God. Cargo shorts have been out of style for the past like 10 years. I don't care. Look, does that a man that looks like he cares about style to you? Oh, boy.

Come on now. But I just want to say, it is so great being excited to turn on a baseball game this year. It makes my heart so happy that I'm not

depressed watching Diamondbacks games. Very true. And I will take that because that's a win in my book. They've been exciting to watch and that's what it's all about, right?

I talked about that in one of my articles, but it really is about the moments. Yeah. It's about enjoying moments. It's about enjoying wind streaks. It's about enjoying watching them again. And even if it doesn't culminate in them going on to the World Series,

hopefully it should culminate in a fun season to watch, right? Not what last season was. I understand. When people tell me about how hard last season was, I have to remind them that I was there covering those games. You were forcing. Oh my God, I was there from work.

It was awful. But anyway, we thank you guys so much for being here, screaming with us, yelling with us. Yeah, dancing like a bear. That's accurate. That's accurate. That's how I dance. But we thank you guys for being here, of course.

This is Michaela, the mayor of PHNX. You can follow us on Twitter. I am at CAP underscore Caveman with a K. She is at Michaela E. Perkins. 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 YouTube, please make sure you're subscribe to the PHNX Sports Facebook or YouTube channel and sign for notifications there. As well as if you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcast app, subscribe to us there if you haven't done so already, and leave us a five-star review.

This outfit is five stars. Michaela is five stars. The vibes are five stars, five star vibes. So again, we thank you guys so much for checking out the show. We appreciate you guys. Don't forget, go over to Draf King's Sportsbook if you haven't done so already and sign up. They have the incredible offer. And of course, we know that the Phoenix Suns dominate everything right now, as they should. They're the best team in their league. But let's just say the Diamondbacks are the hottest team in Major League Baseball. Can we say that? Yeah. All right. We're saying that. Don't let me, don't forget to let me do the outro. Okay, you're doing the outro, but let me just do this. Let me tell everybody that Draf King's Sportsbook right now, you go bet on the Phoenix Suns. New customers that bet on the Phoenix Suns, you're going to win. If you bet on $5 or more on any team to win, it says any team, but we know which team you're going to bet on. You'll get $150 in free bets if they do.

And existing customers like myself, we get down on the same game parlay. Right now they have a tremendous offer. Of course, same game parlay, combine as many legs as you can from a same game, get a bigger payout. And right now all customers can place the same game parlay with, three or more legs and you will get a free bet back up to $25 if one leg goes down and we know that's that we know that's how it happens so make sure you download the draft king sportsbook app now use promo code phnx bet $5 on any NBA team to win their game and get $150 in free bets if they do that's promo code PHNX only at draft king's sports book and like she said bet on the sons and as

ESPO would say that's because the Phoenix Suns the best team in the NBA 21 and over only Arizona only gambling problem down 100 next step new customers only minimum $5 deposit required eligibility restrictions apply see draftkings.com Slat sports book for details That was for you that was in honor of you See everybody a bunch of ingrates around here

We can't even praise their thing so It's because we're fighting or refuting with them It's us against the suns we partnered up with bets and Sun Devils which really was those aren't good allies But you know we'll do we'll take what we can get But again we thank you guys so much for being here. We thank the Diamondbacks for being a much better baseball team than they

were last season. Much better. We thank Madison Bumgartner for having the restraint of a little baby angel for not punching Dan Bolino in the face. And most importantly, we thank you guys for joining us. On behalf of Michaela and myself, we always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun. But it's even more fun when you

fire Dan Bolino. Oh my God.