PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - POSTGAME: Diamondbacks Bullpen COLLAPSES, Surrenders 7 Runs in 8th-Inning Meltdown to Pirates
Episode Date: May 28, 2025Corbin Burnes delivered for the Diamondbacks once again, tossing his seventh quality start of the season. But despite having a four-run lead provided by Gabriel Moreno and the D-backs offense, Kevin G...inkel and Jordan Beeks allowed seven runs in an 8th-inning meltdown for the ages. We have more on Corbin Carroll hitting his 16th home of the season, home plate umpire Chris Conroy not having a great night, and what went wrong in this loss to Pittsburgh. Jesse Friedman from Snakes Territory joins the show to discuss the loss as he continues to curse the team with his presence on this show. Join Derek, Jesse, and Kevin for the PHNX Diamondbacks Postgame Show LIVE!! An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/ bet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets! Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/ Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you! Monarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/phnx Carol Royse Team: To buy/sell your home, call Carol Royse at 480-776-5231 or visit carolroyseteam.com All Pro Shade Concepts: Call 623-204-1476 or visit https://allproshadeconcepts.com/ now to schedule your free estimate! When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. #dbacks #diamondbacks #arizonadiamondbacks #mlb #zacgallen #corbincarroll #ketelmarte #mlbtheshow #mlbtraderumors #tradedeadline #traderumors #allstargame Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Was that the worst loss of the season?
We're going to talk about it.
The Arizona Diamondbacks dropped this one by a score of 9 to 6 to the Pirates
after being up 6 to nothing at one point in this game.
Tori Lavello has plenty to say.
We're going to hear from him as well as Kevin Ginkle from the clubhouse.
Jesse Friedman from Snake's territory joins us.
And once again, might be a curse for this team when he appears on this program.
Don't you go anywhere.
We're starting in 30 seconds.
It's never a good time when you hear that music.
but hopefully we can help make your night better.
Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Diamondbacks podcast right here on PHNX.
My name is Derek Montia,
occasionally a man who is called the mayor of something.
I don't want to be mayor of anything associated with what we saw tonight.
And of course, we got our guy, large intimate Kevin Thomas,
who also sadly does not want to be associated with anything that was happening in this game tonight.
He just wants his Circle K lunch that I still owe to him.
But welcome in, you guys.
This show is brought to you by our friends at,
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you'll get yourself $150 in bonus bets all you got to do is bet $5 of course this one absolutely suck
the a Arizona Diamondbacks lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight by a score of 9 to 6 and there's
not a lot of good things to say about this game nor this team right now diamondbacks dropped to
27 and 28 once again below 500 that means kutel going up the mountain for now is dead you'll
you'll never see him again until this team can get their act together but uh we're going to talk
about if this was the worst loss of the year because it's certainly up there and we got our guy
thunder stick jesse friedman here from snakes territory to do so jesse thank you so much for
stopping by to curse this team once again it's great to see you as always and uh this was an
abysmal loss. This one hurts in ways I can't even begin to describe mostly because it's
against a bad team. And this is no offense to the, you know, pirates, but some of these other
painful losses that the Diamondbacks have experienced so far this year, they were at least the
teams that you could feel a little better about losing to. This one, absolutely not.
Yeah, well, Derek, you say it's good to see me, but I don't know if you really believe that because you're
talking about, you're talking about me. It's just a thing. It's just a thing.
people say.
Yeah, it's strictly a formality.
I also see who in the chat said,
okay, we might need to ban Jesse every time he appears
he suffer from a bad loss.
And it's hard for me to argue with that, Derek.
I believe this is the sixth appearance that I have now made this season
on the PH and XD Back show.
And the Diamondbacks are one in five in those games.
And many of those losses have been in very dramatic,
frustrating fashion, certainly this one among them.
So I take forward to...
That made me change my rundown and change all of the things and change the title and headline and
thumbnail and everything because this one was cruising in the direction of the Diamondbacks
dominating the pirates early on and instead here we sit discussing a loss.
Corbyn Burns though was not the reason why they lost tonight.
He had another great outing for this team and honestly continues to be outstanding.
this one falls squarely on the shoulders of the bullpen
and maybe a little bit on the Diamondback's offense
that went completely silent after that fourth inning.
The offense did go silent.
I mean, it was 17 in a row set down to end the game,
which is not great.
I was not particularly impressed with the quality of it bats
in those final few innings.
But at the same time, you score six runs
against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
That should be enough, Derek.
I mean, the Pittsburgh Pirates, I believe they said on the broadcast that this was just the second time this season that the pirates have scored five or more runs on the road.
They entered today with a road record of six and 20.
And they scored, not only did they score more than five runs in this game, Derek, but they scored seven runs in a single inning.
And that just sort of encapsulates the state of this Diamondbacks bullpen.
even with Justin Martinez back in the mix, obviously he didn't pitch tonight,
but I think this game just kind of goes to show you that getting one guy back,
even if that guy is pitching well,
is not going to single-handedly fix the problems that this bullpen has.
We saw what that look like tonight.
That's a discussion that Jack and I had entirely too much.
And again, you know, we both get thrown into the Tory Apologist category, right?
But when it came to the bullpen tonight, it kind of felt like, yes, we saw what Tori's plan was.
Yes, it didn't work out with Kevin Ginkle.
You could definitely criticize that, you know, you could have had other relievers up in the bullpen,
especially once you saw Kevin Gingle struggling there and not being able to really get guys out.
But the plan was the plan, it seemed like.
And Tori did not defer from the plan.
He did not make adjustments based on the fact that things weren't really going this team's way.
He was going to get to Jalen Beaks and it was going to be against O'Neill Cruz.
and that seemed like it was set in stone for Tori regardless of how things were going.
And I think that's probably his biggest managerial mistake of this night.
I will say that guys like Kevin Ginkle and Jalen Beaks are guys that should be able to get the job done that quite frankly tonight did not.
And again, this is not solely on a manager when the players themselves didn't perform, don't perform, right?
But this one was pretty bad.
And it felt like what you were saying there, Jesse, with the offense, like the offense kind of,
just went into kind of cruise control to that lead.
And it felt like even some of the decision makings and things later on
went into cruise control despite what was happening.
This Pirates team prior to tonight was 0 and 29 in games when they were down
in the seventh inning and later.
This is their first comeback victory of the year.
They are now 1 in 29 in games where they were down in the seventh inning or later.
But on the flip side, Jesse, they are 17 and 0 when leading after eight innings.
And I don't know what that's like.
So I don't, I don't know how to relate to that.
But they did snap a four game road losing streak.
They are just not a good baseball team this year.
Tommy Fam did it to us tonight.
There were a lot of guys tonight that honestly had some great nights.
But Brian Reynolds really stands out.
He was the one that killed the Diamondbacks tonight.
He was four for four.
He had that huge home run off of Jalen Beaks.
And again, he is, he has just been very good against the Diamondbacks in general.
Well, not a lot of Pirates players have been, but Reynolds has been very good against this team.
It's been a weird year for Reynolds.
I mean, he's been really a staple in this Pirates lineup for a number of years now.
I think it's 24 more home runs in the past four seasons.
And this year, he just hasn't just has gotten off to a really poor start.
Obviously, he's made up quite a bit of ground here recently against the Diamondbacks.
But, yeah, going back to what you were talking about earlier with Tori Lavello's,
decision making. I know that people are going to want to talk about this. So yeah, I mean,
Kevin Ginkle enters the game in the ninth inning. The Diamondbacks have at that point a six two
lead. So he gives up a Henry Davis double, Alexander Canario single. So first and third,
nobody out. Not a great start, but even if Tori Lavella wanted to, he can't take Kevin Ginkle out at
that point. You got to face at least three batters. Then he gets Adam Frazier to strike out.
So first and third one out.
I don't think there's any case to take Ginkl out of the game at that point with Tommy
Fam coming up.
And then Tommy Fam singles, but it was a ground ball at 87 miles an hour off the bat.
It was not hit particularly hard.
So that does score run.
It makes it 6.3.
Now you've got first and second with one out at that point.
I think the really killer moment of the outing for Kevin Ginkle was walking to Brian Hayes,
a guy who was really, really struggled.
this season, you know, putting a guy like that on to load the bases. That's not exactly what
you're trying to do in a game that's getting tighter. You could maybe make a case that
Tori should have, should have pivoted at that point. But even then, like, O'Neill Cruz would then
be on deck. So if you go get a righte to face Kyner Philepha, then that righte is going to be
stuck facing O'Neill Cruz immediately after that.
So, you know, I'm not here saying that Tori Lavello can do no wrong and all the decisions
he's made this year are right.
But to me, this one falls much more on Kevin Ginkle than it does how Tori used him
tonight.
You and I have done this show together for a long time.
And I don't remember a time.
And mind you, I'm understanding people's frustrations.
And I'm understanding watching this team, especially this season.
and being angry about everything, right?
Like the starting pitching lately has been the only thing that's been fairly consistent,
and even that hasn't been consistent with Zach Gallen being as, you know,
off as he has been this year.
But it just feels like, again, this is one of those,
it's trending in that direction where all the blame is going towards Tori,
which a lot of it is deserved and not as much towards the players.
And I mean, again, this is one of those situations tonight where I don't feel a guy is performed.
and I also think that going
0-N-17 to end the game
is not great either, right?
Like the Diamondbacks, not to say that they should have had to
put up more runs against this Pirates team,
but it feels like that they were capable of that,
and you really saw some poor at bats there to end the game.
And I mean, you just saw a dejected team
look like what was happening to them was going to happen.
It looked like they saw the game slipping away
and really couldn't do anything about it.
And then they just let that happen to them, right?
So I feel like,
there is other things that that could happen.
But I'll also say you have a six to nothing lead at any point in any baseball game,
and you should win it.
And if you don't, then there are problems.
There were problems with that game.
I don't even care if you come back and win it later.
I don't care if you find a way to go down and then get back in it.
Things went wrong.
And, of course, we did get a chance to talk to Kevin Ginkle after the game.
He discussed some of the location issues that he was having.
This is what Ginkle had to say.
Yeah, I feel like on the slider.
couple times tonight. Maybe it could have been a few inches down, maybe a little bit more away.
I felt like, you know, in that situation, I felt like I was trying to get a ground ball.
And, you know, it is what it is. I mean, those guys miss pitches sometimes too. It's just
it's been that kind of role for me lately where I'm trying to get a pitch in the zone and
trying to get a ground ball or trying to get a pop-up, something. And it's just, it hasn't been
going that way. So I just got to be smart without a pitch. You know, I feel like, you know,
with my stuff, I'm trying to attack guys as best as I can. I don't want to try and walk guys and fall
behind. So, you know, I'll take a look at the video tomorrow. I'll kind of break it down and
we'll go from there. I give Ginkle a lot of credit for coming out and being very honest and open with us
after the game. I don't feel like necessarily we always get that out of players that blew the game
and the way that Ginkle did. So, I mean, at least I
tip tip my cat to a cap to him for that jesse but uh he has not been very good this year for the diamond
backs i feel like even in outings where we see him go out there and get out of a you know out of an
inning without letting up any runs it wasn't a clean inning it wasn't something you felt extremely
confident in he usually allows some base runners and it's just not what we've we're used to seeing out
to kevin ginkle in fact we've talked about it in the past he was one of the best relievers the diamondbacks
had uh coming into a game with inherited runners and preventing the
runners from scoring. And now this year, it doesn't even seem like he can start an inning with
zero base runners and get out of it without being in danger. It just hasn't looked right to me for
Ginkle ever since he returned from the injured list. The fastball velocity is down a little bit,
not not alarmingly so. The slider velocity is down several ticks, which I think maybe
falls under the radar a little bit. Last year, he was averaging up over 87 with that pitch.
and this year it's been in the 84 range,
which I don't, I mean,
he's still snapped off some really lovely sliders every now and then.
The whiff rate on that pitch is still really good.
But, you know,
you wonder if maybe that makes it a little bit more susceptible to contact or,
you know,
a number of the batted balls against him tonight were,
we're on that pitch.
But yeah,
it just,
it hasn't really ever felt like the version of Kevin Ginkle that we've seen
the past couple of seasons this year.
but also in his defense,
like those sliders,
you know,
to Kinerfalefa and Tommy Pham
were at the bottom of the zone.
By no means,
were they terrible pitches.
They were just,
you know,
ground balls that were hit in good spots.
Well,
meanwhile,
Corbin Burns,
he,
it felt like he needed to do
what he did tonight
with the way that this bullpen
has been pitching.
And,
you know,
again,
he even kind of extended things
a little bit longer.
He gives up those two runs there
late in his final inning of work,
but Corbin Burns was still
outstanding tonight.
he threw his cutter a lot jesse uh he threw it 61 times out of 103 total pitches we have his
pitch chart here this is kind of bonkers because i mean i know he throws a cutter a lot but he
threw it a lot i mean he also still threw four other pitches in this outing and he's through the
cutter 61 times out of 103 pitches yeah corbin corbin burns loves his cutter man he does he loves it
It's been really like all the more so this year.
I mean, I guess this year his cutter usage coming into this game was 53.6%.
Last year was 45%.
So he has used, he's leaned on that pitch more this season than he needed last year for
sure.
If you look at the years before that, though, is all pretty similar to where he's been this
year.
Like it's not unusual for Corbyn Burns to really rely on that pitch way more than anything
else.
But yeah, he was good, Derek.
I mean, he's been good too.
like he's looked a whole lot like Corbyn Burns his last few times out.
Unfortunately for the Diamondbacks and really for him, it hasn't always translated to wins.
His last start, of course, coming at Dodger Stadium where he basically made the one bad
pitch to Teoska Hernandez.
That wound up leading to a loss there.
So he still has a 272 ERA, though.
The Diamondbacks did not lose this game at all because of Corbyn Burns.
Kill a Rex earlier in the chat brought up something from the broadcast and Kevin you brought it up to me his question or his comment it was in regards to last night apparently and Tori talked about this in the in the pregame presser he said that apparently both Perdomo and who was it Gino wanted to wanted him to leave yeah it was here it is a talk on a telecast but yesterday
about how Swars and Perdomo were questioning Tori about taking Nelson out.
I don't know if what he said was really questioning.
They wanted him to leave Ryan Nelson in because Ryan Nelson was shoving.
And of course, that it allows this bullpen to, you know, have more options, more weapons
available for games later in the week.
But Ryan Nelson was already like, I believe, passed his max pitch count.
And Tori said that the reason why he had to pull him out of the game was due to the
limitation and making sure that Ryan Nelson doesn't get injured.
He also went on to say that if Brian Nelson would have stayed in that game and got hurt and then missed time,
Tori Lovolo wouldn't have a job anymore.
And he said that those were his words.
The fact that I think that Tori brought that up just goes to show that Tori realizes his job is kind of on a little bit of a hot seat.
This is one of those things where, you know, maybe some of these decisions that he is making are under scrutiny.
I know he's probably being a little bit, you know, a little dramatic about saying he wouldn't have a job there.
but, you know, again, his, he sees his position at times as being a guy that needs to take care of these players, these athletes, and ensure that they're available to play all season long.
And he doesn't necessarily feel like, you know, I guess in that case, having Ryan Nelson go out there along.
And Ryan Nelson's situation is definitely unique, right? That is a player who the Diamondbacks, quite frankly, are taking a bit of a liberty with, with, you know, having him go back from being stretched out as a lot of.
a starter to going to the bullpen to being stretched out for a starter again.
Now we don't know what's going to happen.
Eduardo Rodriguez is making his next start at the,
in the AZ or in the Arizona Complex League.
So that's his official start.
The Diamondbacks will kind of reexamine things after that.
But that's his rehab start,
which means that Eduardo Rodriguez should be available to pitch for this team soon.
That's going to be a problem because are you really going to replace him if he's not
performing?
Are you going to place Ryan Nelson with Eduardo Rodriguez?
I don't know.
That's a whole other thing they have to get to.
But tonight, Corbyn Burns was very good for this team.
Again, his seventh quality start of the year, Jesse.
In fact, every single start, we tweeted this out earlier.
Every start in the month of May by Corbyn Burns now was a quality start.
He had four starts this month.
He allowed five run runs in 27 innings pitched.
And he's just been that guy that the Diamondbacks thought they were going to get when they went out and added him to the starting rotation.
The problem is is that other people.
pieces of this team are not what they thought that they would be.
And of course,
like you said,
it hasn't translated,
unfortunately for Corbyn Burns over to the Diamondbacks winning games.
However,
he is still our King Snake for tonight because nobody else deserves it.
Nobody deserves it.
I don't even know if Corbyn deserves it,
but he deserves it because at least he gave this team a chance to win.
Seven innings pitch,
six strikeouts,
two earn runs,
two walks.
And yeah,
six strikeouts.
Light up the old Circle K strikeout meter while we're at it,
Kevin,
We got to kick the, yeah, there we go, kick that bad boy on.
Bullpen, though, not great.
Defense kind of went, Jesse, a little bit like the offense and this whole game went.
We had some amazing defense early on, an amazing throw by Gino and a scoop by Josh Naylor early on,
to get Canario to lead off the fourth inning.
There was also an incredible play by Jordan Lawler that everybody was retweeting the video of
where he robbed Cabrion Hayes of and saved at least one run from scoring there in the sixth inning.
was an instant where things could have kind of turned sideways on them a little bit with
Corbyn still in the game had that ball dropped through and had had Lawler not made that play
kind of off the pitching mound there. So that was a great. Those were some great plays. However,
the bad defense reared its ugly head there in the eighth inning when Perdomo makes that
throwing error. And that's after the Pirates had already scored four innings, four runs in the
inning. That just kind of kept things going. Josh Naylor wasn't able to pick it out then. And then, of course,
with runners on the corners,
Reynolds homers,
and gives the pirates that 9 to 6 lead.
So it just felt like that was the minute
everything unraveled for this team.
But again,
it's like they played so good
through the first half of the game.
In fact,
Tori was asked after the game
about, I believe,
how much of a percentage
he feels they are,
or how close they are
to playing Diamondbacks baseball.
This is what Tori had to say.
Yeah.
It looks like we play probably 70%
of the game,
the right way. And the other 30% we play confused baseball. That's what happens. And it's not just
one, it's not just one area or one aspect. You know, I can't be very critical to starting
pitching. I think it's been pretty darn good. Now there's certain areas. Tonight the defense
broke down a little bit. The relief pitching broke down a little bit. Our situational hitting
broke down a little bit. We let that guy off the hook a couple of times or starting
pitcher a couple times early in the game. You know, we might not be sitting here.
talking about the same things, and I wouldn't be as frustrated as I am if we did some of those
things really in the game. Everything's targeting Kevin Ginkle right now, you know, understandably so,
but there was five or six things that happened in this game that we got to tighten up.
And when we do that, that's going to be D-Back baseball, and I want us to play nine any time.
I'm looking for 100% of the baseball game to be played the right way.
And again, he's kind of right there just on the aspect.
I know Kevin Ginkle blew the game, and I know Tori's trying to protect his player there.
but there are other things in this game that you could place blame on and especially, yeah.
And I think 70% is generous in this game.
I'm not sure if they played a 70% of this one.
Well, I mean, they were up 6 to 2 going to the eighth inning.
So that was more than 70% the way through the game.
I'll soften my position on that.
I will say that, you know, as you pointed out,
It is sort of Tori's job in these situations to try to divert the blame away from, you know, the one player who had a really rough night, which of course was Kevin Ginkle in this game.
That's not just a Tory thing.
You know, I think a lot of managers around the league will do that.
Very true.
But at the same time, you know, even if the Diamondbacks did tighten things up defensively and do some of those little things that he's talking about, do they win?
this game, I don't, I don't think that any of those things really made the difference. The difference
was that Corbyn Burns got, you know, 21 outs and gave up two runs. And then the bullpen came in
and had given up seven runs by the time they got three outs, right? And they're just, you know,
I totally understand Tori trying to make like, you know, talk to his whole team in the,
in this situation, because he's right that other guys do need to.
to clean some things up as well, but this Diamondbacks team can't get where they want to go
without this bullpen figuring some things out. I mean, that's just the reality. They can play
as clean a defense as you can imagine. This team isn't going anywhere with the bullpen in the state
that it's currently in. And unfortunately, there just isn't really a very clear path forward in that
regard. It's a personnel issue, and it's really finding guys that can step up and get the job done.
It's not to say that we haven't seen all of the guys in the bullpen at one point actually be pretty good for this team.
It's just a matter of them doing it consistently and being as good as we know that they could be.
In fact, someone in the chat brings up, you know, Tori's favorite, I don't know, bays in the bullpen that he likes to go to too often or whatever.
But I will say this. There he goes, his side pieces.
McGuff, Mantiply, Castro.
Let me tell you, Scott McGuff is not the problem.
him in the bullpen right now. In fact, Scott McGuff might need to see some more time out there on the
bound. He's not the guy that we need to be blaming for this right now. But Tori Lovolo did discuss
Ginkle and his performance tonight. This is what he had to say. Count lingering, not finishing,
not throwing his fastball where he wants, falling behind, falling behind. So I think he's got to use
his fastball a little bit more to right-hand of batters and go out there and throw that dynamic slider
that he has and gets some swing and miss.
Yeah, there's a, that's, that's definitely what Kevin Ginkle is doing wrong.
And, and, you know, I, I don't know if the problem here is not reacting to seeing what he was doing wrong.
Faster, we've also seen relievers come in and struggle with the first batter that they face and then
suddenly get things locked in.
And I mean, because you're coming into a game cold, you're, you're in a critical situation,
you're trying to hold a lead.
In this case, it wasn't even that critical.
They were up six to two, so I don't think you needed to really feel the pressure of the pirates breathing down your neck,
a team that has not come back from being down in the seventh inning or later one time this season prior to tonight.
But just one more time before we go on.
Let's hear from Kevin Ginkle.
And just here's what he had to say about the bad result tonight.
Yeah, it's just incredibly frustrating.
I feel better on myself.
You know, it's comfortable.
lead and to blow it in a situation like that is frustrating and you know I feel like I'm a better
pitcher in that team so I'm pitching down to that level so yeah it's just frustrating I really don't
have any answers with how it win you know round ball here and there I was trying to get and it was just
out of reach so you know it is what it is I know we'll be fine we'll keep going it's a long season
and just trying to fight each day.
I mean, I appreciate his confidence there, Jesse,
but I don't know if at this point you should be smirching the good name of the pirates
at any way after what happened to this team tonight.
But we're going to talk more about the offense and other things that went wrong in this game.
Maybe some that went right and how we were joyful for a little while until we weren't.
On the other side of this break, don't you go anywhere?
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All right.
Well, Jesse, of course, we had some good things from this team.
Corby and Carroll hits a lead-off home run right away, right?
We start things off with that.
And things are joyous.
That was his 16th home run of the year.
His fourth lead-off home run of the season as well.
and that was also our Sanderson Ford deep drive of the game
because Corbyn Carroll hit that 393 foot home run
and like I said, as a leadoff.
And he is currently tied with four other players
for second in Major League Baseball in leadoff home runs.
He is also second in the National League in total home runs
and fifth in Major League Baseball.
So Corbyn Carroll killing it with the long ball, Jesse.
Just unfortunately not getting a good batting average,
It's not getting on base as often as we're used to seeing.
And it feels like the home runs are good.
Don't get me wrong.
But, I mean, it feels like Corbyn Carroll is so much more dangerous just out there on the base
path as a distraction as a guy that puts that pressure on the defense.
And unfortunately, we're not seeing him have that consistency at the plate right now.
No, we're not.
And honestly, Corbyn Carroll is kind of swinging at everything right now.
I'm not going to lie.
His chase rate for the season entering tonight was 34%, which is in the 16th percentile.
So it's actually, that's a really high chase rate, much higher than we've ever seen from Corbyn Carroll in years past.
Even though he has had obviously a great season overall, he really has swung at a lot of pitches out of the zone this year.
And it's worked for him because he's connecting so regularly and obviously showcasing so much power that the numbers are still good.
But you kind of figure that in the larger picture, it would be good for Corby to maybe be a little bit less aggressive, you know, work the count a little bit, particularly early in counts.
It feels like he's swinging a lot.
Maybe backing off that would lead to some longer bats and a little bit more consistency at the plate right now.
Well, he snapped a 0 for 14 hitless streak with his lead off home run, which just goes to show how he's been struggling there at the plate.
But he is the first time I'm back with 16 or more home runs in the team's first 55 games since Paul Goldschmidt did it back in 2015.
We really haven't had that deep, you know, that power presence on this team, at least early on in the season.
So it's wild that Corbyn, who played in his 400th career Major League Baseball game tonight, went out there and did that so far this season.
Josh Naylor, he's just the fastest man alive.
He gets his ninth stolen base of the year, Jesse.
I just had so much joy from this offense tonight.
What's that?
I feel like it's important to note that that was a double steel and Josh Naylor was on.
I don't care.
No, that was not.
That did not need to be clarified.
It doesn't matter.
Josh Naylor's now.
Nine stolen bases, Jesse.
Yeah, the offense exploded there in the fourth inning.
They had a great fourth inning, you know,
despite the fact that early on Corbyn Carroll's, you know,
single home run was the only thing offensively that they had going on.
Then they do the thing.
They put up the crooked number.
You know, the offense really actually looked solid and it looked like, you know,
yes, you wanted to temper your expectations a bit because it's against this Pirates team,
but it was just good to see them flowing and it was good to see them especially, you know,
stringing together hits.
That's what we haven't been able to see them do, hit with runners in scoring position.
You also have Gabby Moreno turning that double, that to the right field there into triple with his legs.
That was great to see then scores on an Alec Thomas RBI single.
And like you just start seeing the thing that we've seen out of this team, right?
Them extending and getting an extra base, getting more, you know, just closer to scoring a run.
And then being able to score run once someone gets that big hit.
Jordan Lawler walks.
He still doesn't have a hit this season.
That's still concerning.
Corby Carroll reaches on a fielding error to load the bases.
And then Jerry P does the thing.
He gives the RBI two RBI single.
that then puts the Diamondbacks up, I believe, four to nothing.
At that point, everything just looked good, right?
We're sitting here in this fourth inning, just one hit after the next.
Lourdes has an RBI single.
Josh Naylor has an RBI single.
They go up six to nothing.
And again, because it's the pirates, because the pirates haven't won a game when they are down by in the seventh inning or later,
you just kind of started to feel good about this one.
And I don't know how you couldn't, considering that, you know,
Corbin Burns was throwing the way he was and everything was going the Diamondbacks way.
to that point, right? And then after that, the Diamondbacks one, two, three hitter,
or hitters go one, two, three in every inning after the fourth inning. And the offense
just completely stalls out. I mean, credit, got to give credit where credits do, because Joey
Wentz from the Pirates came in and the Diamondbacks had absolutely no answer for him,
absolutely no answer for him, right? So again, you just, just like I blame the performance of our
relievers, sometimes you got to give credit to the opposition relievers for coming into a game.
Diamondbacks were swinging freely and they were putting up a lot of runs and completely brought everything they were doing to a halt.
Oh, you mean the Brent Strom lead bullpen of the Pittsburgh Pirates?
Get out, Kevin.
No, I'm just saying.
No, get out.
I miss the man.
No, I'll produce the rest of the show.
I'm saying I miss the damn man, Derek.
I miss his contributions to this franchise, Derek.
One of the security guards tonight told me, hey, did you see Brett?
He just came in from the dugout.
And my reaction was to say, oh, yeah, because I do miss Brent.
I miss Brent a lot.
I'm starting to, you know how they said Magneto was right?
I'm starting to think Brent was right, Kevin.
That's all I'm saying.
We talked about it on the last show.
It's kind of scary though, right?
Like everything he said is starting to pop up now.
It's kind of scary.
Jesse, I don't know.
This overall wasn't, wasn't so, again,
I don't blame the offense, really.
I don't.
But it is kind of odd to see this offense be on such a role and then go completely
silent.
Of course, we know that that can happen definitely at times
with this team though like this team
is impressive where
with how cold the bats
can get and how cold they can get collectively
as a team you know who really
should take the blame for this debacks lost
Derek Chris Conroy
the home play umpire
with Gabby Moreno up
and the base is loaded with two outs
in the bottom of the first inning
that was not strike three
it should have been three two
We got it.
Show the screenshots, Kevin.
Put them on the screen.
Which player was it?
This was the Gabriel Moreno one.
This is the strikeout to end the first inning.
Yeah.
Wait, no, that's not that one.
That one is.
No, I think it is.
Yeah, that's Marino.
Yeah, that's Marino.
All right.
Go to the next one.
I think we have Jordan Lawler.
Oh, no, this is the Corbyn Carroll strikeout.
This is the Corbyn Carroll strikeout to end the second inning.
And there was that pitch up there, up there way outside, that number five pitch.
that's just a called strike that was just egregious.
Oh man.
Yeah, no, I mean, Jesse, Jack was,
Jack was losing his mind on these calls.
Look at that number one pitch called strike.
At least he's consistent with how bad and far out these balls are
with calling them strikes.
I give him that,
but I won't give him credit for anything else.
I won't give him credit for doing his job correctly tonight.
That's for sure.
Yeah, that was, I mean,
I'm not like actually serious in blaming Chris Connery,
We can, though, it's fine. Let's do it anyway.
It was a, I mean, it was a pivotal moment, right?
I mean, I think Burroughs threw 30 pitches in that first inning.
And if that goes to 3-2 on Moreno, you know, maybe he walks or and Burroughs has to face another hitter that inning.
Or, you know, maybe Moreno finds his way on base with a base knock or, you know, an extra base hit of some kind.
Obviously, Moreno has been really hot lately for this team.
So you never know what this game could have looked like if that call.
all had been made correctly.
But at the same time, the diamond back should not have been reliance on Chris Conroy
making that call correctly.
They should have won this game anyway because they were beating the Pirates six to
nothing in the middle innings.
And that should be that.
Jesse, there's some talk in the chat from Elizabeth, aka Zabe.
Zabe wants to know how long is it until I have to die my beard teal.
Now, the bet was made in regards to Gino Swarie.
as hitting 40 home runs this season now.
For the record, it was 50 and then you got cocky and it was 50.
Because everyone was like, oh, he's going to hit 50.
And then when he went on his cold streak, I was like, I'm going to knock it down to 40.
I don't think he's going to hit 40.
Jesse, do you think Geno Suarez is going to hit 40 home runs?
I mean, he's on paste it 40 home runs.
I know he's on pace.
I love numbers and math.
I'm asking how does it feel in your heart?
How does your soul say?
Am I going to have to die my beard deal or not?
not and when is that going to happen that's what zabe wants to know i think you're going to be okay i think
he's going to settle in in like the like the mid upper 30s i think he'll get to like 37 or 38 would be my
would be that's what my heart tells me there you you must know i appreciate you well we have some
more from tory on the offense before we don't hear from tory anymore but uh he does talk here
about going oh for 17 and the game uh and they're at bats this is what he had to say um yeah i think
you know, once in a while
I think this team is a little bit reactive.
I want to be more proactive
and keep their foot on the
throttle.
And, you know,
all the credit is given to their left hand
pitcher that came in the game
for once.
But I believe our hitters
can beat anybody at any time.
So we got to keep after it.
And I want us to be proactive
and play deback baseball.
I saw Tori today, Jesse,
probably more frustrated
than I've seen him
in a while. And I think I can relate to that. I think every fan can relate to that. I know some people
put him as the centerpiece of the blame and that's fine if you do. But I mean, at the same time,
he himself seems to be at, at Wits' end, a little bit with this team. And I think he's
frustrated because, you know, he not only truly believes this team is better than they're playing,
but like he almost kind of is in a terrible position as a manager to second guess his actions constantly.
He brought up tonight about not walking, you know, not walking.
I think it was Brian Reynolds with with a base open just because so far walking batters recently has not gone well for him.
He talked about, you know, a couple of other decisions that he's made in regards to, you know,
leaving relievers in or pulling relievers.
and it really just feels like right now,
what's like the frustrating part for him
is he is trying different things.
And it seems like no matter what path he goes down
in some of these games,
the result is this.
You know what I mean?
A result is a heartbreaking,
gut-wrenching loss that definitely makes you rethink
why you ever got involved with a game
involving a stick and a ball being hit.
I think people are making a good point in the chat,
which is, you know, when Tori references Dback baseball, you know, it's almost like he's shooting
himself in the foot a little bit by making those references because, you know, what is Dback's
baseball? Like it certainly, if DBAX baseball is what we've seen in 2025 for the majority of the
season, that's not something that you want to replicate. This team oftentimes has not, you know,
made those little plays has not been as stellar defensively as we've seen in the past.
So I guess he's maybe referring to, you know, the larger past three or four years of
debaq baseball where they've generally been very competent on on both sides of the ball with
defense-based running those kinds of things. But that's just not been the reality of this team.
And yeah, I mean, you know, I guess it's really just the, you know, post-game terminology.
I'm not going to get too caught up in any of this.
But I think it's a fair point that that phrase just doesn't really mean that much right now.
You're absolutely right.
And I will get caught up in this.
And I will get in the weeds of this because what I will say in regards to,
you're totally right.
Like this has started to bother me as well because D-BACs,
it's kind of like when he was talking last year about setting a standard.
I know that they want to set a standard.
And I get what he means by that.
But you haven't achieved that standard yet.
Just like you haven't really achieved enough years of this team being flawed.
lawless defensively for you to talk about DBAX baseball being that, right?
A lot of people will bring up that this team has been as equally bad in Tori LaBalo's tenure as they've
been good. So it's like, yeah, I understand that the idea of playing DeBak's baseball is playing
really solid fundamentals and ensuring that this team doesn't make mistakes, you know,
and doesn't do, does all the small things the right way. They might not have the power. They might not
have the lineup that the Dodgers have, but they're going to, they're going to get on base. They're
going to, you know, they're going to base, they're going to be fast on the bases. They're going to
get you confused with their base runners. They're going to steal bases. They're going to, you know,
do all the things that, like, you consider to be fundamentals of baseball the right way, right?
And they're just not doing that. And they haven't really done it all year. You have the fact
you have different personnel, you have different coaches. There's a lot of things that right now are
different about this team. So, like, D-BAC's baseball might have been a thing that was established by past
rosters and past coaches and past teams. But so far this season, I would agree with Tori that
they've probably played baseball as 70% rate in all these games, even the wins, right? And they
have a couple of thorough, you know, wins where they just did everything right and beat their
opponent pretty handedly from, from, you know, beginning to end. But those victories are few and far
between this season. And in fact, it's hard to really think about too many games where you didn't
worry about going to the bullpen or what was going to happen.
a starting pitcher left or, you know, even in some cases, if one or two runs was going to be
enough for them to secure the win, even though they had a lead, right? But we are going to talk
about the numbers from this game, and I know people probably don't want to, but we're going to do
it anyway. On the other side of this break, Jesse, you stick around, the rest of you stick around,
don't you go anywhere. You're watching the Diamondbacks podcast. I don't even feel like talking
about it. I don't even feel like saying the thing right. I'd like, that's how disgusted I am with
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conditions do apply. All right, Jesse. Well, let's take a look at the numbers from tonight's game.
Presented by Desert Financial, of course, Diamondbacks lose this one by a score of nine to six.
They get out hit by the Pirates, 12 to 8. Diamondbacks were four for 11. So of course, in a loss,
they finally had a better, you know,
batting average with runners in scoring position than their,
than their opponent.
But unfortunately,
it's in a loss.
Pirates had five extra base hits to the Diamondbacks three.
And expected batting average,
basically a wash for these two teams.
249 for the Diamondbacks,
254 for the pirates.
Not a lot here from,
you know, the numbers,
because again,
it's baseball and the numbers don't really show you exactly what happened in this one.
But what happened was,
the bullpen imploded.
And again, we give a lot of blame towards Kevin Ginkle,
but Jalen Beeks really is the one that gave up that home run as well.
Yeah.
Of course, the idea there is, like you said earlier, you start rethinking that inning
and aside from literally saying you should have put in a different reliever than Kevin
Ginkle, I don't know if there's a lot of splitting hairs that you can do there about,
you know, what was mismanaged in that inning.
it just comes down to the performance
and that performance includes both Kevin Ginkle
and Jalen Beaks.
This Diamondbacks team has made
kind of a lot of history, Derek,
for being a very mediocre baseball team so far.
Sure the hell have.
It's not often that you see like a 500 baseball team
just seemingly like setting new records
like every week or two.
But that's kind of been the case for this team.
They mentioned it on the broadcast
that only once in franchise history have the Diamondbacks had a six-run lead and then lost the game by three or more runs.
It last happened.
The only other time it happened was way back in 2009.
And it feels like we've had those types of conversations kind of a lot in 2025.
Again, for a team that's not terrible, but a team that is right in the middle that, you know, very well could be in a much better position had they not.
had so many of these late game meltdowns.
Well, I said I saw Tori more frustrated than I've seen him.
And what was weird was we did the normal press conference thing, Jesse.
We came in.
I think one question was asked because Cotel Marte wasn't in the lineup today.
So everybody was concerned and very worried about Cotel Marte not being in the lineup.
Cotel was out of the lineup due to having a case of the flu.
Tori said he was there at Chase Field and would be available off the bench if needed,
which made me have more questions.
you want to talk about doubting Tori Lavolo or questioning Tori Levalo.
I questioned him when he said Cotel Marte was there with the flu.
I was like, get him the hell out of here.
I don't want the flu.
You don't want the flu.
I don't want the players to get the flu.
Why is he here?
Where?
What are we doing?
Get him out of here.
So that's maybe my only question here.
But again, we, we were all disarmed by Tori telling us that Cotel out the flu.
And then he kind of was like, hi, I got you.
You guys don't even have any more questions for,
me because all you wanted to ask me about was
Cotel Marte, not being in the lineup.
And eventually, like, it was just like,
you know, a pregame thing. Things were loose.
Tori was in a good mood. And then he was
asked about his frustrations with
this team. And he was asked about
just everything that's gone on. And I,
like, it was a mood
switch. And we have video. Here's what Tori
had to say about his frustration with the team this
season. Yeah.
I'm tired of that. I'm tired of that type of baseball.
I'm tired of the inconsistencies. They
know how I feel about it. I get in front of the players,
coaches are coaching their butts off.
Where we're at 500 is not acceptable to me.
So I understand that.
It's putting all parts of our game together and being consistent for nine full
innings.
That's really what it is.
When the D-backs go out there and play D-back baseball, we're going to win 8 of 11.
And that's what I'm looking for.
But we can't do that until you win game one.
We did that yesterday.
And we've got to win another game today.
And I want to get too far ahead of ourselves.
And this team is so good at focusing on the space.
they're in right now. They're all present. They know they got to attack a young starting pitcher.
Doesn't have a lot of data, a lot of information, but they're going to be ready to go.
But what does that mean? It means controlling the zone offensively. It means putting the ball on the
plate with our starting pitching, following a game plan. It means playing elite defense as fast
as we practice, timely hitting, situational hitting. It's all of it together. When we do that,
it's clean, it's easy, and it's fun to watch.
I want to go back in time and warn him.
I want to warn him about what was about to happen to him in his team, Jesse.
I can't, but I want to, you know, oh, my God.
But, yeah, I mean, when he says that, like, you do get the sense that this team is far too talented.
That's at least what they feel.
That's truly what they feel that this team, even this goddamn bullpen is too talented for them to be as bad as they are, as mediocre.
The whole team is mediocre.
But the bullpen right now has to be its biggest weakness.
And that's crazy considering that we at least spent a few weeks at the beginning of the season
talking about the bullpen being one of their biggest strengths.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you had told me going into the year that Shelby Miller was going to have an ERA in the twos
and Jalen Beeks was going to have an ERA, I think it's still in the low mid-3s,
even after giving up the Homer today, I probably would have said, okay, like this D-BACs
bullpen might really be something with with justin martinez and a j puck at the very back end with
shelby and jaylin pitching that way and ryan thompson and kevin ginkle and joe mantiply you know you probably
in your head would have thought this this bullpen was having a lot of success but it's really just been
shelby miller and jaylin beeks as the only guys in this bullpen who are pitching even remotely well right
I mean, every, it feels like pretty much everyone else in this bullpen right now.
You just don't really know what you're going to get.
You said Joe Mantipline and it caused Kevin to literally break down.
Bros and Joe Mantiply.
I mean, going into this season, Joe Mantiply was not not left, right?
I can't believe his legitimate reaction.
He has been dying this rest of the time you were talking just based on the mention of Joe Mantipa.
Because the rest of it made so much sense.
Like Jesse was cooking.
He was like, yeah, no, Shelby Miller.
E.R.
in the twos and you have gink club and he was like and the cherry on top joe man to apply oh god he's
and i lost my mind and i lost my mind i do love you though jesse i do no he's jessie's 100% right
because like there were there were just so many quality pieces and based on the experience and
what we've seen out of these guys you know these weren't guys that you don't trust right you don't
trust to scott mcuff you don't trust certain guys that have proven in the past that they were unreliable
but now oddly enough those are the guys that are reliable the shelby miller
the Scott McGuffs, those are the guys that are pitching well.
And the guys that you want to rely on
and the guys that you have in the past are just inconsistent.
But we got one more ad break to get through.
Let's do that real fast.
And then we'll get around to a little bit more
from the N Hell West.
And of course, also Ildemar Vargas opting out of his contract
with the Diamondbacks.
All this on the other side of this break.
Don't you go anywhere?
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Derek is it Celsius or is it celsius me and me and damon have had this discussion about
every ad read we do so okay do you mean like the multh like the yeah like was it Celsius is yeah
Celsius is or it's a Celsius I don't know I'm I might have to go with Celsius what you got
I mean apparently the plural mammoths is mammoth as one I don't I don't
anything anymore. Yeah, that one still doesn't make sense to me. I would, I would probably lean
towards Celsius as a native Arizona in, you know, cacti, Celsius. It just feels right. Good point.
Well said. Well said. Well, let's take a look really fast at the N hell west before we get out of
here. This is where we sit. Diamondbacks now. It's what I've feared, Jesse. It's what I've been
talking about. At least it's not as dramatic as I want to get. I still know there's a lot of baseball to be
played that was reiterated several times tonight in fact troy was asked you know obviously you don't
want to be making these mistakes but at least making these mistakes early on in the season uh it gives
you a little less anxiety than than having these games go this way later in the season the team has
time to learn from these mistakes remember them and hopefully make sure that this type of month that's
happened in the month of may does not happen again but as you can see we are dropping back there in
the standings and I've said this before like you just want to keep part of the group you don't
necessarily need to lead you don't need to be in second you just need to stay part of the NL West
pack until you have more games against your division which right now like they don't play the
Dodgers again until you know the end of the season right so there's a big there's there's a big
gap in between those series but you know this is just getting well to a point of of concern I
I tried to tell people that it was early,
just, I think just yesterday, or just on Saturday.
I was like, it's early.
Let's calm down.
Now, one game later, and I'm at least two games later,
I'm ready to start panicking already,
because this loss was that kind of special and that kind of bad.
We're getting to the point where you can't say it's early anymore.
I think you still can say that while we're in May,
but once the calendar flips to June, it's like, all right,
I mean, we're in the first half of the season,
but, you know, you're coming up on four.
40% of the games played before too long.
I will say that just to add some perspective a year ago at this time, the diamondbacks
were a mess.
They were 25 and 32 as of, I believe, the end of May.
So they were in the middle of a rough losing streak at this point a year ago.
And they dropped all the way down to seven games under 500.
And then, of course, they dramatically turned things around from that point and finish the
year 16 games over 500 right so there is a lot of baseball to be played even though it's not really
early anymore there's still a lot of baseball to be played there's a lot of time left for this team
to write some of the wrongs from this first six weeks or so but you know we also can learn from
last year that every game does matter and the and the national league postseason picture is
brutal in a in a year-in year-out basis and this year doesn't look like it's going to
be any different. Yeah, well, you're right about that. And that's good perspective in regards to
where they were at last year. And again, they did win more games last year than they did the previous
season when they made it all the way to the World Series. It's just a matter of circumstances, right? It's
a matter of how do the rest of the teams play? Where do they end up at the end of the year? Right now,
again, the Diamondbacks are not, they're not out of it. But it feels like it. It actually feels
worse this year. I think maybe because of the, once again, the high expectation.
I don't know. I don't know. At least
I feel like last year we blamed a lot of it on the World Series run and the fact that this team was kind of had a very short off season and wasn't really fully rested.
And then they added Jordan Montgomery and we were like, well, he's not been bad, but he can maybe get things back on track.
He's a really good pitcher.
Eduardo Rodriguez will come back eventually. Everything will be good.
And it wasn't those guys that got things back on track.
It was Merrill Kelly. It was Ryan Nelson.
It was guys that were on this team doing it.
Corby and Carol and Gino became superhero.
in the second half of the year and this team somehow managed, like you said,
to be up 16 games over 500,
yet still miss the playoffs, right?
So that's not the result we want.
Ultimately, at the end of the year,
I don't give a damn about what their win-loss record is,
as long as they can get in the postseason and, you know,
give themselves an opportunity to go on that same kind of run that they made in 2023.
If you guys are watching right now on TV, on one of the apps,
we love you guys, we appreciate you.
Come on over to go phtonx.com.
we're going into extra innings.
They call it overtime around here,
but I refuse to do that because it's baseball
and we go into extra innings in baseball.
And Jesse, this is what I need you here for
because you would bully these people
into making us an extra innings graphic
instead of an overtime one
because you would be like, this is foolish.
We don't go into overtime in baseball.
We go into extra innings.
But yeah, Diamondbacks did lose.
I don't want to act like this is a big piece,
but I just brought this up the other day, Jesse.
So that's why I find this kind of coincidental.
I was saying the Diamondbacks have some veterans
in their organization in the minor league system that are there for depth.
And primarily that's what they're there for.
They're not guys that you're developing any further.
They're not guys that you are expecting to be the future of your team.
They are guys like Vargas.
They are guys like Trey Mancini who are playing well at a minor league level,
a AAA level, and could be useful to the Diamondbacks
if maybe they decided to go with Vargas in that same role as Lawler.
I know he's not as versatile as Lawler.
I know he can't provide the same amount of defense.
but Vargas also has many more years of major league experience under his belt
and just for what the Diamondbacks are kind of asking out of guys like Tim Tawa,
Garrett Hampson earlier in the season and now Lawler.
I was just thinking like Vargas might be a good guy to give a shot to.
I also brought up the fact that you might not have a lot of time left with a guy like this
because based on how he's playing,
he just had a walkoff RBI single for the Reno Aces before he left the team.
that snapped the Reno Aces seven game losing streak.
And again, he's been very good at times for that Aces team.
He opts out of his contract to go play for a major league club, I'm assuming.
And right now at this point with injuries and the way the season has gone,
I'm sure there's plenty of teams looking to add someone like Vargas,
just either as that utility backup or maybe even as a guy that could potentially even start for them.
But it just feels like the Diamondbacks have things like this going on.
like Jordan Lawler's kind of a metaphor in a way for this team just a little bit right like you want him to be there things look good but not everything's 100 percent his defense was outstanding tonight but I mean again Jesse he still is is hitless this season and you got to get to a point where I know his defense is incredibly solid and I know they're giving him plenty of playing time but you feel like he needs to go back down to Reno to try to get his bat right so that he can offer you all parts of the game and not just not just his
glove. It was an interesting decision to let Ealdemar Vargas go. My understanding is that the
Diamondbacks could have kept him in the organization just by putting him on the 40-man roster,
and they decided not to do that, even though they did have a 40-man roster spot available.
But you look a little closer at his numbers down in Reno, and I start to understand a little bit
more. You know, he had a 261, 3337 slash line, which isn't terrible, but this is,
AAA we're talking about. And it's Reno. It's a, it's a 78 WRC plus. So by that metric,
22% below the league average in AAA, that's not really, doesn't really sound like a player that
you're about to call up, even given the struggles that Jordan Lawler is, is going through right now.
Blaze Alexander has started to, to heat up a little bit offensively. I think their decision to
move on from Vargas maybe speaks to their willingness to go to Blaze as maybe their next.
next infield option.
If Jordan Lawler doesn't
continues to kind of not work out and they
decide to send him down at some point.
But, you know, it was nice
to have the depth and now they don't have
Vargas and of course they also don't have Garrett
Hampson in the organization
either. Well, a couple
other guys have been pretty good. Tristan English, Jesse,
has been pretty good. He was extremely good for the aces
tonight. He went four for five
with two doubles and two RBI.
He's kind of a first base,
d h situation i know i think he was injured um or or missed some playing time but it's been pretty good
since um since returning to the aces lineup and playing regularly and i think that honestly
uh there's there's there's just a lot of guys there's guys that i see in reno that suddenly go on a
pretty good streak offensively and i just immediately start doing like how many how many days
until we see him because it feels like the diamondbacks not to say they're desperate but you know
understandably so they're just trying to find that spark that can help this team you know be consistent
offensively like we were talking about corbin burn or corbin carroll struggles corbin carroll was was one of
the guys like we we were saying there guys that they need somebody not named carroll or perdomo
to produce or josh nailer you know if you get that fourth guy or even in some cases just that
third guy hitting and and being able to get on base or being able to drive runs in with runners in
scoring position you feel like this team is immediately successful unfortunately it just feels like
too often there's only two guys having a great night you know i think uh steve zinsmeister tweeted out
the other day but uh it was it was something about corbin carol and kattel marty still don't have
multi-hit games in the same game and neither guy and they they both haven't homered in the same game either
right so it's like you're all you're getting corbin hitting or you're getting kattel hitting but
you almost never get both of them raking at the same time
And it's just that's, that's part of the frustration with what's going on with this team right now.
For sure. Yeah, with with Tristan English, you're right. I mean, his, his numbers in in AAA do look pretty good.
I think he's in a tough spot because the diamondbacks don't really, don't really need to someone who plays first base or corner outfields in, in the immediate future.
Or Josh Naylor is obviously your, your everyday first baseman, like Pavin Smith. I don't think he's on the verge of
losing playing time. I know he struggled lately, but on the whole, he still had a good year.
Randall Gritchick has really started to pick things up. So Tristan English is a right-handed hitter.
You know, the first opportunity in the majors for him would probably be where he's facing a lot of
lefties. Debex don't really need that right now. So Tray Mancini is another name I would bring up as
someone who's in AAA right now, you know, plays first base as well and is hitting well.
So kind of an uphill battle, unfortunately, for Tristan English to get up to the
majors, but maybe it's something we see at some point here.
Well, the Diamondbacks have a, I don't know,
now a very big game tomorrow against a very good starting pitcher.
Not sure if you heard of the guy, Jesse.
His name's Paul Skeens.
He has an impressive mustache.
And the pirates are still not a very good team when he's pitching.
But again, not exactly the highest confidence in the,
Diamondbacks are going to be able to offensively go up against Pirates tomorrow and, and do much
damage against Skeens.
And, and I mean, on the other side of it, it's Zach Allen pitching for the debacks, right?
And he has not really shoved much recently.
Especially at home.
Especially at home.
Yeah, especially at home.
So on paper, it's not a great matchup, Derek.
Losing a series to the pirates would be a pretty, pretty demoralizing development,
especially given where things stood in the top of the eighth inning tonight just a few hours ago.
Gross.
So hopefully we don't get to that point.
But at the same time, I mean, Zach Gallen, I know he struggled against the Rockies,
a team that also had a really poor offense.
But this is an opportunity again with a subpar offense in the Pittsburgh Pirates,
what they did tonight, notwithstanding, this is an opportunity for him to get right.
And, you know, even people who are very skeptical of Zach Gowan or say they're tired of watching
him pitch or, you know, whatever, Zach Gowan is better than what he's been so far this year.
I think we can all agree his true talent level, whatever it is, is better than a mid-5 ERA.
I think Gowen is going to be better the rest of the way.
And maybe tomorrow is an opportunity for him to kind of turn his season around.
There was a direct correlation that Jack and I were discussing tonight about his walking.
and when he's bad in his career.
And right now is one of those times where he's walking a lot of guys.
He's not,
he's throwing a lot of balls.
He's not able to hit the strike zone.
You know,
we talk about like trying to nibble at the edges a little bit too much or whatever
instead of attacking the strike zone.
And yeah,
I mean,
I feel like that's a big difference.
And I don't know if that's necessarily on the pitching coach,
on the game planning,
on gallon.
I don't know who to blame it on,
but I can,
I feel like for the most part,
some of those same tactics are working with guys like Merrill Kelly and Brandon fought.
Yes, they're attacking the strike zone, but we're also seeing them hit the edges.
And, you know, obviously as a pitcher, you're trying your best to stay away from the middle of the zone.
Like there's no doubt about that.
But, I mean, it's just more about having confidence level and having confidence in your stuff,
confidence in his fastball and trying to get ahead in batters because we're just seeing Zach have too much of a difference when he's not getting ahead versus when he is.
and he's just having a hard time battling back
once he gets behind in the account,
or in the count,
but I don't know.
I'm not,
I'm cautiously optimistic because it's the pirate to Jesse,
but I'm demoralized after what I saw this evening.
So I don't know what to think,
but hopefully we'll be talking about the Diamondbacks winning tomorrow.
We will be back tomorrow,
at least I will,
with a post game show.
Jesse has so much,
so many other obligations in life.
But make sure to check him and Jack Summers out on Snake's territory.
they do an incredible job you can find it everywhere you find our show can find their account at snake's
territory and of course jesse is at jesse and friedman on twitter jesse thank you so much again for stopping by
thank you for cursing this team i feel like i'm just going to make sure when we schedule you on the show
we pencil it in as a as a loss and hopefully uh we can somehow battle back in we'll do what jack
does because jack tries to say like something bad's going to happen in order to reverse jinx the team
so maybe we'll we'll try to figure something like that out but of course you can
Follow me on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Kevin is at KevO posts.
Our show is at pH and X underscore Dbacks. But as always, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore
sports on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time.
Sean says to go back to Friedman Friday. Tuesday ain't it. Maybe that's what we need to do.
We'll figure something out. Jesse, thank you again for stopping by. We thank all of you for stopping by.
We appreciate your time. And this goes to Jesse. I know your time is your most.
most valuable commodity. So we thank you again so much for spending it with us. We will see you
tomorrow on another post game show. Until then, try to have a decent night, try to get some sleep,
enjoy yourselves, behave yourselves, and remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun
when I don't have to have a panic attack every time we go to the goddamn bullpen.
