PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - PHNX D-backs Post Series: Swept out of Los Angeles

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the D-backs getting swept in L.A. by the Dodgers, getting back on track over the next two series before facing Los Angeles again, and the closers Arizona has utilized during the Mike Hazen era. 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 debacks podcast right here at PHNX. I, of course, am a very sad mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. I'm joined by my vice mayor, the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Derek, it's hard to take you seriously saying you're sad when you're wearing like the most colorful shirt on the planet. Look, I tried to cheer myself up by dressing more colorful and it didn't work. It didn't work. I couldn't get away from the knowledge that the Diamondbacks got swept handily by the Los Angeles Dodgers in Los Angeles. And we will get to that, of course, even though I don't really want to.

This show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Get down on the NBA action in the third round of the NBA playoffs. You can bet on any team except the Sons. See, I'm doing it again. I'm making myself sad. You can bet on any team to win. you'll get $5 and you will get $150 in free bets if they do.

Jesse, I don't know why I'm sad about this. Again, this wasn't something that we should have been surprised about. And we are going to accentuate the positive when it came to some of these games, with the exception of that second game and the double header. But the Diamondbacks lose their sixth game in a row. More importantly, they drop four in a row, get swept by the Dodgers in L.A. Should we be surprised by this? I mean, or is this just?

really again what this season was going to be for this team yeah well our our friend jack summers from a z snake bid just tweeted that since the beginning of 2019 the diamond backs are now three and twenty two uh at dodger stadium which is uh pretty rough not good not good not good and from that from that perspective i guess to answer your question we probably shouldn't be very surprised i mean the Diamondbacks have really struggled to win games at Dodgers Stadium, and they're not necessarily alone in that. The Dodgers in their home field are one of the best, if not the best teams in baseball. So, yeah, not necessarily too shocked by this, especially after the Diamondbacks took two

out of three at Chase Field. The last time around, you knew the Dodgers weren't going to let that happen again or anything like that, and things certainly flipped the other direction in this series. They did not stand for that, Jesse. did not stand for losing that first series of the year against the Diamondbacks. The D-backs kind of did it to themselves in this series a bit. They left a lot of ducks on the pond, especially in this game. The Diamondbacks at one point had bases loaded with no outs and didn't produce a run.

And I don't know really who to blame in that situation for not producing a run. My thought here is the Diamondbacks needs. to do everything they can to produce runs, especially right now when they were, you know, they're definitely in a slump. It's, and I'm sorry to Joshua Lefferman for being a D-Backs fan in L.A. I can only imagine how horrible it is, but I imagine it's something like going to the games here at Chase Field against the Dodgers. So not too much difference there, but the Diamondbacks just aren't able to produce runs with

runners in scoring position. And sometimes, again, I don't question Tori often, not nearly as much as Twitter, but it makes me question tory when the offense isn't really running right now at a at a high rate they're not producing a lot of runs outside of guys named christian walker and it felt like a great opportunity to do whatever you can to produce a run in that in that instance rather than trying to go for you know a base clearing double yeah i mean it's hard to i don't know if you can really pin something like that on the manager um this diamond backs lineup especially without could tell in there is pretty lean.

You know, there's a, there's a decent gap between Catelle Marte, who was starting to pick things up. And, you know, a guy like Jake Hager or Yanni Hernandez, we saw him come in the game late as well in that spot. So, yeah, this lineup is, uh, is pretty lean. I mean, the offense has struggled throughout most of the season. We've seen glimpses of the offense breaking out of that. Um, but at Dodger Stadium, I mean, you know, you're going to have, you're going to have your

struggles. And the debacks didn't get embarrassed. from an offensive standpoint in this series. But like you said, hitting with runners and scoring position was a really big issue for them. Debacks as a whole in this series were five for 24. That's a 208 batting average. And it's going to be hard to score runs when, you know, you're hitting around 200 with runners in scoring position. And the Dodgers were hitting about 100 points higher than that.

Yeah. And the Dodgers lineup is just stacked. Everybody knows that. You take out that second game of the double header that the Diamondbacks, you know, really got beat up and they lose the other three games by a combined four runs. Right. So they, if you want to look on the bright side of things,

the Diamondbacks were able to hang with this Dodgers team. Yeah. You could tell them that second game that they ran low on gas. They ran low on personnel prior to today's game, both Cooper Hummel and Kyle Nelson were both placed on the 10-day IL. So they lose another couple of pieces. Cooper Hummel has been very effective at getting on base. And we've talked in the past about Kyle Nelson being one of Tori Lavello's more reliable pieces in the bullpen.

My understanding of the situation is that I believe those are both COVID-I-L situations. So I, so I, yeah, it's not, you know, Kyle Nelson doesn't have some sort of elbow inflammation or something as far as we know. I believe it's a COVID situation. So, yeah, I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to come back tomorrow, but it shouldn't be too, too long, hopefully, before, before those guys get back. It shouldn't be too long for Cotel Marte, but we don't know how long that hand issue is going to linger for. And again, he's just a vital part of their offense. So to miss him in a critical series like this was big. The diving backs really are seeing the injuries start to stack up, even if they are based on COVID-related injuries or whatever.

They're just finding themselves in a position where they are pretty low on staff once again like they were at points last season. But getting back to the runners in scoring position, Arizona. today two for 11 with runners in scoring position and they were five for 24 five for 24 in the series so yeah the diamond backs had guys on base they just once again weren't able to convert much like we saw earlier in the season when they were able to get on base and that was a little bit more through the patience of walking and getting on base through you know walks a little bit more often but uh the diamond backs just again that was a that was a really detrimental situation where they had, you know, bases loaded and couldn't convert a single run,

couldn't get a single run in in that situation. Yeah, they really struggled with runners in scoring position. And that's often going to be the difference in some of these closer games, right? I mean, the Diamondbacks go two for 11 today with runners in scoring position. The Dodgers go four for eight. And in a game where both teams had nine hits, I mean, that's pretty much the difference right there. And I guess you might as well look at our buy the numbers,

graphic here and just see a full breakdown of all the numbers. You can see the runners in scoring position there at the bottom, 316 in the series for the Dodgers, just 208 for the debacks. Derek, that starting rotation that we've been raving about, it was rough. As you can see on the screen, if you're joining us live, an 11.88 ERA for D-back starting pitchers in this series, not a single quality start. Really, every start in this game wasn't great. Madison Bumgarner really wound up having the best start out of everyone,

and he wasn't particularly good in the series opener. So, yeah, the starting rotation, you know, we suspected there was some regression to come, and it came fast in Los Angeles over the last few days. They'll make you pay, and they absolutely did, as you can see here. The Diamondback starting pitching will no longer be in the top of Major League Baseball after this entire scenario, but not up there. with the Dodgers. No, they were about neck and neck. And this series, this series certainly

decided which of those two rotations is better, at least for the moment. Jesse, this weekend, I went to the water park. And at the water park by my house, there is a basketball court in one of the pools for you to play full court pool basketball. And for some reason, a group of about 12 to 13 year old kids decided to challenge me and my buddy to a full court basketball game. How many, wait, how many of them and how many of you were there?

There were four of them and then there were two of us, but we got his son involved. So there was two basically we'll say mid-30s guys just to be nice to me. And a, you know, and like a fourth grader,

a fifth grader along with like these kind of you know, junior high kids. And Jesse, we had fun for a little while, but after a certain point, we had to remind them who they were playing against, right? And, you know, that's when the dunking and the blocking and a lot of the aggressive behavior started to come out of me and my friend because these kids started to get a little too cocky with their three-point shooting and everything that was going on in this game. And it just reminded me a little bit of what we saw the Dodgers do to the Diamondbacks, right? It was like the, it was cute. You guys won a series two to one. But we really need to remind you who is the top dog in the National League West.

And they definitely sent the message, even if these games weren't, even if the Diamondbacks didn't completely get dominated, because again, that's something I think positive that we can all take away is that they showed up and had a good series. They just got beat. And the Dodgers are just that good. to stay ahead of you no matter how good you're doing. And in several of these games, the Diamondbacks had a lead in the first inning and came out looking pretty good, right?

All things considered, they would give their starting pitching an early lead to get behind, and we just didn't see any of their starting pitching really hold up in regards to the Dodgers. Even Tyler Gilbert had a great outing, but again, we talked about that yesterday, about Tori just leaving him in, just one inning too long,

and having everything fall apart there. Yeah, you're right. The Diamondbacks did jump out to some early leads in the series, and it just felt like the Dodgers would instantly respond once the Diamondbacks got an advantage. Yeah, that was a trend sort of throughout the entire series here, and the Dodgers will do that. I mean, their lineup is absolutely ruthless. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Trey Turner and Justin Turner.

And, I mean, it is probably the deepest lineup in baseball, at least the deepest lineup in the national league. Even guys that were struggling got right against the debacks. Max Muncie had a solid series. Justin Turner had a tremendous series. And these guys were not doing well coming into this four game set. You almost feel doomed when you play the Dodgers. And those guys have 600 OPSs or whatever they were.

It's like, okay, well, that's certainly bound to come up at some point. And a lot of them found it against the Diamondbacks, like you said. Well, and the debacks got beat by a lot of different guys on the Dodgers. as much as you would love to see them only, you know, really get beaten by the likes of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers all up and down their lineup were, we're hurting the Diamondbacks offensively. So. And again, the offense still produced runs in this series.

The bullpen, especially today, was solid. You know, you can't be upset about the bullpen coming in and throwing three and two-thirds innings scoreless. It just really came down to, you know, start. starting pitching in the series, as we saw in that graphic, really shit the bed. And mostly because the Dodgers jumped out to an early lead, and I don't think really had to do the things other teams have had to do against the bullpen in order to come back. But if you want more good news, Mark Malanson went out there in a non-save situation, didn't give up a single run. So there you go.

There's a, there's a bit of positivity, a little bit of sunshine for you. And actually, Jesse has some great information on that over at go phnx.com. you can check out the history of Mike Hazen, the Diamondbacks, and their closer situation in Jesse's new piece. If you're not a member already, sign up to become a member. You can get an annual membership where you'll get a free t-shirt like this guy on the wall behind me. Pick out whatever t-shirt you want over at phtonxlokker.com. I think you can get the hats as well. If you're not interested in the annual membership, sign up for the month-to-month option,

and you'll get your first month for just 50 cents. Regardless of the membership option you choose, you'll be able to read Jesse's wonderful articles, all the wonderful lamenting pieces about the Phoenix Suns losing and everything else we have to offer. Phoenix Sports, Arizona Sports is not in a great place right now. Let me tell you, I watched the Mercury game yesterday, and they were fighting in that game amongst each other. The Diamondbacks, six straight, sons are out of the playoffs. It's just bad news everywhere. But you know what?

It can't last forever, right? We got a rebound. We got to come back. And we are going to be here covering the good times and the bad. times here at PHNX. So make sure to join us. Sign up for a membership. That way you can get not only our members only discounts over at the PHNX locker, but our access to our members only Discord where you can chat with us and ask me questions about where to find all the good ballpark food at Chase Field. So make sure to do that. Jesse's piece is very good. And again, we had a fun

conversation on Twitter. If you follow us, a PHNX underscore DBACs about who would you choose as your closer of all of these closers the Diamondbacks have had. Yeah. It's a very, it's weird because it's a lot of personality and a lot of erratic, inconsistent performance from all of the guys. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. I think the majority answer last I checked was probably Fernando Rodney, which I think, I mean,

if there is a correct answer to the question, I mean, it's really framed as a more subjective thing. but statistically Fernando Rodney has probably been the Diamondbacks best close. Yeah, there you go. You got the tilted hat and everything. He's probably been the Diamondbacks best closer in the Mike Hazen era, which goes back to 2017. There's a reason that the Diamondbacks won 93 games that year. It's because Fernando Rodney, after a horrendous April that made a lot of fans not super happy,

a lot of people wanted him ousted as the closer, but the Diamondback stuck with him. and he went on to not allow a run for two full months. He was one of the best closers in baseball through the rest of the season. And so, I mean, his finally RA was still 4.23. It wasn't like he had this tremendous dominant season over the course of the whole year. But he was steady. And that's something that Diamondbacks really haven't had almost at all since Mike Hazen took over in the closer spot. Brad Boxberger technically kept his role for the whole year, but he wasn't good.

he was horrible in September, which is one of the worst, most disappointing months in recent Diamondbacks history, September of 2018. And then Greg Holland didn't keep the role. Archie Bradley had it for a while. Then the Diamondbacks traded him. Stefan Crichton had it for a little bit. Last year was a total mess with all the injuries. There really was no identifiable closer for most of the season. So it's been a mess, Derek, really since Mike Hazen took over.

And I don't want to say it's a Mike Hazen problem, because the Diamondbacks have almost always had an issue in finding closers. It's a Diamondbacks problem. It really is. And unfortunately, Mark Melanson is just kind of the next chapter in that story right now. You know, my favorite closer of all time was Jesse,

it was Matt Manta, the Ice Man. And after I actually started covering baseball, I went back and looked at some of his numbers. And, you know, he didn't have great numbers. he had one and that was pretty much

around that time when the Diamondbacks won the World Series. So it's funny how you can kind of look back on players through Rose Colored glasses and remember them more fondly. But then when you look at their stats, especially when it's a player on your favorite team that tends to be more of a favorite that you just like them for quirky reasons.

I know I've liked a lot of guys on the Diamondbacks. for quirky reasons and just because they were fun and had something about him. But like Fernando Rodney, one of my friends used to retweet every single time he came into a game in a closed situation. He would retweet every

tweet he could find on Twitter about people complaining about Fernando Rodney's hat being sideways. Shout out to Ron, by the way. And like, you know, again, it was stuff like that that used to just kind of be fun and quirky about this team. And I mean, they've had a lot of that

personality over the years just not a lot of luck not only at closer but in relief pitching in general their relief pitching has always i mean do you think like so when i think of personality i think i feel like fernando rodney is almost the only one maybe i guess archie had a lot of personality he was more so the eighth and guy but he was in there as a closer but like i don't think of i don't think of greg holland as being like oh no emotion when he went out there but see and i mean there were there were a of guys that kind of did it quietly, right? Brad Ziegler kind of did it with a quiet approach. Yeah, it's one of the best. Yeah. For a period of time. So I don't know. I don't know what the answer is for this team because at times, again, it seems like they really just have bad luck when it

comes to this position. You can't say when you look back at Mike Hazen's time of acquiring closers that he hasn't tried to do something to solidify that role, right? If they were just constantly converting existing relief pitchers that they had or starting pitchers that didn't work out as starters into closers, that would be a different situation. They did that with Archie Bradley, but I feel like Archie Bradley actually worked out in that closer role. He liked it.

He embraced it. He and earned it, right? So it's, it's not like they were just giving it to guys just because, but Mike Hazen definitely has made an effort to bring in guys that have a track record of being consistent. the biggest problem probably if you want to if you want to knock what he's been doing has been he gets these guys after their prime right so it's like unfortunately it's two seasons after their best year but for some reason when they come here they're kind of putting up numbers that pale in comparison to what they've done in the past Fernando Rodney once he got onto that streak he was and it was weird he wasn't like unstoppable he just he'd give up a hit here a hit here he just he again it wasn't a

super dominant stuff. He wasn't striking guys out all the time. He just had this ability to close the door and and he runs off the board. And he did it in a lot of games that season for this team. So again, he's a, he's a pretty, pretty memorable guy, I would say. But I don't know. The Diamondbacks have tried and failed when it came to that. They didn't have to worry about closers in this series at all because they never really had a lead late in the game. But Christian Walker did. everything he could in this series. He was dominant. Homered in four straight games at Dodger Stadium going back to 2021. So no player has ever hit homers in five straight games at Dodger Stadium.

But even a few Diamondbacks have hit in four straight, including Paul Goldschmidt and Chad Tracy. Well, J.D. Martinez did four in one game at Dodgers Stadium. That's right. That is right. That guy. Jordan Looplo was also very good in this series, but the rest of the offense didn't really show up, like we said, two for 11 with runners in scoring position in this game,

five for 24 in the series. So I mean, do you have any concerns or do you think, do you chalk this up to the Dodgers? Do you chalk this up to the Diamondbacks, kind of being a little bit of a slump offensively? What are you, what are your thoughts on, you know,

their inability to kind of get on top in this, in any of the games in the series? Yeah, I think it's definitely a combination, of both of those things. I mean, the Dodgers pitching staff is certainly one of the best. And, you know, there's a lot of teams that would struggle offensively in a series, especially at Dodger Stadium. But this DeBACs offense, I mean, it really does have to get going.

It's one thing to, you know, get off to a rough start. That sort of thing can happen. But we're almost 40 games into the season at this point. I mean, you're talking about a quarter of the season is now behind us. And some of these DeBax hitters are just, really, really struggling. And I do think a big part of that is still just that a lot of these guys are not that experienced. You know, Cooper Hummel, Geraldo Perdomo, there's a lot of guys they're relying on in a pretty everyday sort of basis that haven't been in the big leagues for very long.

And you're going to be prone to, yeah, Alec Thomas, too. And I mean, he's been one of their, one of their more steady hitters after being in the big leagues for the last week or two. but but yeah i mean they they got to get things going derrick this this lineup is um is very lethargic and um i think the pitching has been due to regress for a while and and the only way the diamond backs are ever going to keep up the success that they have had this season um which of course doesn't look quite as good now with it with an 18 and 21 record but they've still been pretty good this year relative to their expectations and in order to keep it up they're going to have to start hitting the ball better.

The pitching was only going to last for so long, at least being as good as it was, and the offense is going to have to come out and make up for that. Correct. Well, Christian Walker still was the guy doing it. He was doing the heavy lifting in this series, and he is our draft king of the series, four for 14 with three home runs. And I think that was four RBI,

but it says three, I think it was four RBI. He does. He hits a lot of solo shots. I mean, the debacks as a whole, I think, have hit a lot of solo shots this year. And I think also he loves playing against the Dodgers. We've talked about his numbers. We talked about his numbers in today's podcast that we did about how good he's been against the Dodgers.

But he's just incredibly good against the Dodgers in his career. He's tied for first in the national league right now with nine home runs, while also leading all first baseman with seven defense. of run saved. And he is substantially higher. The next closest player is C.J. Cron, Carlos Santana, and Thai France, all tied with three defensive runs saved. So Christian Walker.

Seven is a huge. That's a huge number after a quarter of the season for a first baseman. That's honestly ridiculous that he is seven defensive runs saved by himself as a first baseman. He has some great range. Like I think that sometimes we underestimate how good his range is. But there's been a couple of balls that. probably would have snuck through if he wouldn't have been able to make it over to the middle of the infield as quickly as he could. And I've just been impressed that he, again, he quietly does it. He

does it without much fanfare, without much recognition, but especially some of the plays that he has made just stretching to get someone out at first base and getting a throw from someone else. We've seen some pretty erratic throws come his way and him be able to turn the play and salvage it without without it going haywire on him. So he's just been tremendous. His 12 home runs versus the Dodgers since 2019. We talked about this earlier. Second most in baseball,

trailing only Fernando Tatis Jr. And his 13. So wasn't able to get another one today. He went 04, I believe, today. But still our king of the series and the debaq's most productive offensive member in this series.

I'd buy him bag of OG's gummies if he was here right now. Well, I don't know. Maybe not midseason, but after the season, I'll get some OGs gummies. OGs are the best, Jesse. And of course, you can get them at your local dispensary if you're interested in trying some amazing scratch made THC gummies from our friends at OGs. They have amazing flavors like blackberries and cream, orange cream, school watermelon. I just had recently the fruit punch. It was fantastic. So they're perfect if you're in the mood for an uplifting sativa or a chill indica. 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 OGEZBrands.com to find OGs near you. Jesse, if we were doing the OG's performance to forget, it would be the Diamondbacks throughout pretty much this entire series, but mostly the starting pitching would get the OG's performance to forget in this situation, because as much as we have praised their starting pitching, it has been really, really bad in this. series. Yeah, I mean, the D-backs gave up, I think, 29 runs as a team in this series, which is a lot. I mean, you're talking about seven runs per game on average. It's going to be hard to win games like that.

And the vast majority of those came from the starting rotation. D-backs only got 16 and two-thirds innings out of their starting pitchers in this series. So they weren't getting as deep into games. It was about four innings per starter on average. So not getting as deep into the game. And the reason for that is, is of course, just that the Dodgers hitters were, we're getting on these D-BACs pitchers early in games. I guess there were a couple situations where it happened a little bit later,

like Tyler Gilbert, you know, maybe Tori left him in a little bit too long there. But, but yeah, the starting rotation is still, I think, going to be a strength for the D-backs moving forward.

I don't want to, you know, say the sky is falling and, and this has all been a total mirage. But, but, yeah, I mean,

it's not the second best starting rotation, in baseball. And I think we, I think we all know that and have understood that eventually the numbers are going to kind of balance out over time. We witnessed it in this series for sure. The Diamondbacks dropped down to 18 and 21. They are now dead last in the National League West. But we're not worried about the National League West. What we are worried about is the All-City Division. So, unfortunately, they swap spots with the Chicago White Sox who are now in first place, but still within striking distance. And that's not a snake pun.

That's just something we say in sports. The Diamondbacks do have a chance to increase that all city divisional record this weekend. Because coming up, they have a four game set with the Chicago Cubs. And let's take a look at that calendar. Got the Cubs coming up, four games set. Then we got two games with the Kansas City Royals. And then another four game set. with the Dodgers, it seems just like a nightmare.

Like, that's on the horizon. Yeah, you don't need that. We don't need to see them again right now, right? The Diamondbacks could really use a little bit more distance between seeing the Dodgers again, but they will get the Dodgers here at Chase Field, plenty of opportunity to go out there. One thing I really like is that 415 start time on Saturday. I don't know if that's right, but that is appealing to me as someone that likes to go to baseball games and have them end at a reasonable hour.

So again, there are some interesting matchups here, Jesse. And I don't want to suggest after losing that series to the Cubs last weekend, that they can necessarily, you know, pounce on the Cubs and really get some wins. Because the Cubs are playing pretty good baseball right now. But this would be a great time for the Diamondbacks to kind of get right before they see the Dodgers again in a week. Yeah, I mean, Zach Allen. is the starter for the first game of the series.

And I think that's going to be very helpful for the debacks. He's their guy, right? I mean, I think we've known that all along. I don't know if he's going to maintain a 0.6 ERA for too long. But, I mean, he's going to be the stopper for this team this season. And so getting him in game one against the Cubs, you know, hopefully the DVACs can get back on track there. And the Cubs have, you know, some decent starters.

they've gotten healthy a little bit in their starting rotation lately. So Marcus Stroman will be on tomorrow in game one. I think Kyle Hendrix is game two, Justin Steele, game three. And then an old friend, Wade Miley, I believe, will get the start on Sunday against the Diamond Vax. And Wade Miley, Wade Miley doesn't get talked about enough because he was pretty good for the D-Backs

when he first came up. But I think a lot of people were sort of surprised by it. He wasn't necessarily a top flight prospect. and he's had a heck of a career that's lasted, I believe, around a decade at this point. He's really stuck around and had some really nice seasons in the big leagues. His first season with Arizona was 2011, so you're absolutely right. He has been around for longer than a decade at this point. Wow. Yeah.

Just putting up some good numbers. He spent part of this season in AAA. And yeah, he has a 2.7 ERA for the Cubs this season. It's probably a rehab thing, I believe. Probably. Yeah, because I don't see, but he did spend some time. I mean, he's, he's bounced around. There's been some single A and double A stops in his time.

I don't know how many of these are rehab related, but. Probably rehab, yeah, I would think. He's quite a bit of that in there, right? Peppered in. But, yeah, doing good. And, I mean, again, he's been consistent. His ERA has stayed somewhere between two and a half to five for the majority of his career. and, you know, he's been an effective pitcher.

So a guy that the Diamondbacks at times could have used. I know he had a really good season with the Reds one year. So, but Diamondbacks really need to get out on top of these guys, I think. Again, it's a confidence boost before they see the Dodgers again. And more importantly, I think that the Diamondbacks are a better team than the way they're playing right now. I thought that they should have won games against the Cubs. really just kind of came out flat at times and didn't have the energy we've seen out of them at times. You know, it's a long season. I get it. I think mostly at right now,

Nick Ahmed is missed. A lot of the guys that are injured are are missed right now. And I mean, when they were kind of a complete whole team, you saw them playing at a higher level than we're seeing them play at right now. Yeah, it's it's looked not great over the last week roughly for the D-backs. And I do think that was sort of inevitable. I mean, the D-backs had won a lot of one-run games. Now we've seen them lose some close games, all kind of strung together in a row. So it doesn't feel great for the moment. But yeah, you've got four games against the Cubs. You've got two games against the Royals after that, which, speaking of old friends, Derek, Zach Granky, I believe, lines up to start the first game of that series. So Zach Granky,

theoretically should be back at Chase Field, assuming that the alignment doesn't get messed up there. So he's had a remarkable season. Zach Rankie for the Kansas City Royals and seven starts has a 3.52 ERA. So he's been effective. And he's done that with 14 strikeouts in 38 in the third innings. So he's getting roughly one strikeout every three innings. But that man is such a such an artist with the way that he managed to get out,

even though his stuff isn't overpowering. He's not getting much swing and miss at this stage in his career. But at the ripe old age of 38 years old, Zach Grangey continues to be effective. The man throws a 54 mile per hour, Ephes pitch, Jesse. What does that say about you? He has zero concerns with what you think about his strikeout rate

or what he can do other than make you not be able to hit the baseball. And that's why he remains effective. Let's be honest, that's where Madison, Bumgarner and Mark Malanson and Ian Kennedy, some of these guys are at right now. I mean, Ian Kennedy, for the most part, has actually done a pretty good job at having some whiffs lately, but still relies mostly on getting guys to make contact and make outs. Mark Malanson relies heavily on that pinpoint accuracy.

He doesn't have that, and MadBum doesn't have that. These guys aren't going to be effective, but they are still finding ways at this point in their career to do the damn thing. And that's one thing that's fun to watch. I look forward to seeing Zach Granky because he was, he was quietly one of my favorite people to interview, Jesse, because a lot of times when I'm in the clubhouse scrum, I don't really feel the need to ask a question, but especially to somebody who might overanalyze it

or dissect it the way that Zach Granky, I was especially careful with the way I approached him, right? But it was really fun to see him just roast, not only members of the media when they would ask a bad question, but, you know, his own teammates. My favorite, my favorite moment with Zach Granky in the clubhouse was when someone asked him his opinion on Archie Bradley. And without hesitation, without more than a second passing, he literally just said, he's a loser. And I loved it so much.

Was he, was he trying to be funny? He was trying to be hilarious because Archie Bradley was sitting right next to him when he said it. So they were saying it to be fun because they knew that Archie would hear him. And I and obviously Zach knew that too. Maybe he didn't. Yeah. That was just his honest. I mean, Zach could be, he could be a pretty blunt fellow.

So I would have totally put a fast to speak his mind. Yeah. But just a reminder before we go, go to draft King's sportsbook. Use our code of PHNX. if you're a new customer, which I don't even know how that's possible at this point. How have you not signed up yet? But if you are a new guy member,

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Next step. new customers only minimum $5 deposit required eligibility restrictions apply see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. That's all I got, Jesse. We got to see the Diamondbacks do better. Again, that bar is raising, that expectations bar is all over the place this season because, again, I don't think we would have been surprised by a Dodgers sweep preseason, but now it feels very gut-wrenching.

It feels very disheartening because this team was on a role. And I think once again, we said it was going to be a test. We said it was going to be a litmus test for this team. They failed. And we know exactly. We know exactly they are who we thought they were. I'm not supposed to be. That's not.

I do want to mention real quick before we go. So I think Bam alluded to this in the chat earlier. The Diamondbacks did make a trade today. It was not a super significant trade as far as like the active rosters, concerned, but the debacks did acquire Paul Fry, who is a left-handed reliever from the Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, there's the comment from Bam, who mentioned that earlier. They traded Luis Osorio, who's a righty in the Diamondbacks minor league system. I think he's down in rookie ball. So he's like an 18-year-old kid at this point. But yeah, this is presumably to give the Diamondbacks a little

bit more depth as far as their left-handed relievers are concerned. I assume this may have something to do with the fact that Kyle Nelson is now on the COVID IL, as we talked about earlier. So, yeah, Paul Fry has pitched with the Orioles this season as an ERA of around six. He was promising a couple years ago for Baltimore. He looked like a possible trade deadline ship for them after getting off to a pretty good start in the season.

So he's been around for a few years, but he was also designated for assignment by the Orioles earlier this year. you know, if the Orioles designate a player for assignment, you know, that certainly tells you something about how his season is gone so far. Doesn't bother me. You know why? The Brent Strom effect, which by the way. The Brent Strom effect.

There you go. Everybody's talking about the bridge drum effect now. Again, Brent Strom, he'll be the first to tell you, pump the brakes, which is what he did. He did this motion. It did the pump the brakes motion on talking about how good this pitching is going. Just like the hitting, it takes a while, right? and no matter how much we want to get excited about what they're doing, these changes, these coaching, these philosophies,

they take a while to resonate with these guys. So hopefully what we'll see there with Paul Frye is the same thing that we saw with guys like Noe Ramirez and Zach Davies and some of the other guys, the Arizona Diamondbacks have been able to pick up from other teams that kind of discarded them because they had a bad season or a bad stretch and maybe make them into a next reliable reliever. I know Noe Ramirez was DFA'd from the Angels, I believe, last season. And again, he has been one of the debacks most effective relievers in their bullpen

in the time frames that he's been here. And I mean, even Joe Mantipli did not look very good last season. And this season, he's been tremendous. So coaching is everything. And I truly, truly believe that. And I think that's what Mike Hayes and the Arizona Diamondbacks believe. So hopefully this coaching continues. And I made a comment to Sean while we were watching the game here at the studio that I think I've seen Tori coach guys more than I've seen him coach in the past.

It might just maybe be seeing it on the television broadcast more or whatever. But I have seen Tori over talking to relievers in between innings or after innings and stuff like that more than ever before. And I feel like he is doing a much better job at communicating with guys. guys and coming over and spending that time with them, especially the pitchers after they've, you know, either done a great job like we saw with him praising Caleb Smith the other night or, you know, even when they're not having such a great, a night out on the mound like we saw with Merrill Kelly. I have seen Tori Lavala over talking the guys more, I think, than I've ever seen him. So hopefully all of this starts to click for them and they can get back on that same track

that they were for about two weeks. We got to see what this team could be. And I think that they could still get back there. So we thank you guys, of course, for joining us being here in the chat and the comments. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you're watching us right now, YouTube live, wherever you're watching us, make sure to subscribe, sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our shows go live. And if you want to drop in, talk with us. chat with us. We'd love you to do so. If you're listening to us right now in your favorite audio

podcasting app, please subscribe to us there. If you haven't done so already, leave us a five-star review only if you feel like we deserve it. But if you feel like we deserve something less, leave us nothing, do nothing. But then, of course, follow us on Twitter, join us, chat with us. We'll be back. Jesse and I will have an audio podcast out for Friday. But of course, if you guys are watching us right now on Wednesday, this show will be available as an audio podcast on Thursday. We thank you guys again so much for joining us. Jesse and I, as always on behalf of Jesse and I, we appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but thank God we don't have to play the Dodgers anymore, at least for a week.