PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - POSTGAME: Gallen DAZZLES While Gurriel’s Three Hit LEADS THE WAY to Diamondbacks Beating Mets

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Zac Gallen once again showed out against a team from the state of New York, logging his longest outing of the year when the Diamondbacks needed it the most. We have more on Gallen giving the bullpen a rest, Lourdes Gurriel’s big night at the dish, and a preview of the series finale with Merrill Kelly on the mound. Plus John Oliver and Last Week Tonight wants to take control of a minor league baseball team and we have all the reasons why it needs to be the Reno Aces. 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/ 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 PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! The D-backs are hosting Golf Night on Monday, May 5th vs. the Mets. Purchase a Special Event ticket package through the special link and receive a game ticket and a limited-edition D-backs rope hat courtesy of Branded Bills! https://www.gofevo.com/event/Dbacks6165 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 Waymo: Download the Waymo One App and Ride Today! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/waymo-one/id1343524838; https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.waymo.carapp 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.

You know what time it is. The Arizona Diamondbacks win tonight, beating the Mets by a score of 5 to 1. Jesse Friedman is going to stop by to talk here a little bit about this game and preview the finale. And most importantly, we are going to talk about Zach Gallen giving the Diamondbacks their first seven inning outing from a starting pitcher this season. Turn on the Cactus Light. Diamondbacks win. Let's go, baby. Welcome in to another edition of the PHMX DBAX podcast right here on PHMX.

My name is Derek Montaia. Casually know, as your mayor of P-HNX. This is Jesse Jr. That's LG3. I got Kevin Thomas, a.k.a. large intimate on the ones in tooth tonight. Kevin, how are you doing? Doing great. Cactus light is lit.

Cactus light is lit. Diamondbacks offense is lit. They win tonight by a score of 5 to 1 over the New York Mets. Zach Gallin still seems unstoppable against any team from New York. We're going to talk about all of that with our guy, Jesse Friedman here. Shortly, of course, this show is brought to you by our friends at Bet365. and game time. Go download that P-8, excuse me, download that Bet365 app and use our code of

PHMX-365. When you sign up, get yourself some bonus bets. Go over to game time, get yourself $20 off your first order using code PHNX. And of course, like I said, thrilled to talk about this game with the one, the only thunder stick, Jesse Friedman, our guy from Snake's territory. Jesse, great to have you here, especially after a win. I feel like we've been talking a lot about losses, but we finally get to celebrate a late night win here with this wonderful chat of ours who is known to be especially crazy after a win, Jesse. But how are you feeling about seeing Zach Gallen go out there and give the Diamondbacks their first seven inning outing of the season?

Even he seems surprised by it. It is pretty wild that that is actually true, right? I in my head was like, I'm pretty sure that's the first outing by any of, one of seven innings or more. But I was also like kind of convinced that I was just missing someone because certainly at this point into the season about five weeks in, like somebody must have thrown seven innings at this point. But sure enough, Derek, nope, Zach Allen was was the first one to do it.

He went six and two thirds in a previous outing that of course against the Yankees when he was very, very good, but was not able to complete seven innings. And then Eduardo Rodriguez also had a game against the Tampa Bay raise. where he was able to get two outs in the seventh. So, yeah, pretty wild that it took this long, but Zach Gallen has now been really good each of his last two times out. And maybe this is the beginning of one of those Zach Gallen runs where he could just be one of the best pitchers in the sport for, you know,

a month, month and a half, whatever it winds up being. Yeah, it's incredible. And of course, you know, there was a lot of questions about Zach early on in the season. And there still has been in regards to consistency. understandably so because that gallon has been the model of consistency for this team in his time here right so like it makes all the sense for people to be i guess panicked too early by the fact that he wasn't able to put together you know some some good consecutive starts but now we're starting to see that not just out of him but out of the entire starting rotation uh however jesse the offense really got things going tonight we'll talk about zach talk about the bullpen here we got a lot to talk about here but it was a big night

Gouriel Jr. Big night from Jose Herrera, Jesse, both of these guys. We've been saying it. Like the offense has been producing and they've still been doing well. However, you know, if you kind of feel like if this team could get anybody not named Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Perdomer, Josh Naylor going, that this team would truly be dangerous. No, no disrespect to Pavin Smith at all there. But it really feels like, you know, once you see guys like Lordus and Jose Herrera contributing in the ways that they did tonight offensively that you know that that this team can put up some numbers and and can be anybody you just got to love lordis curiel junior don't you derrick i mean i know i know you jess i know i know you do you of all people loving lordis courriel junior that's never been a problem for you

but uh yeah like he can just sort of look lost at the plate for a full on month and then suddenly he he turns it on and he can carry an offense for a little while. And obviously this hasn't been going on too long for him, just kind of the last couple weeks where things have really turned around. But they set a pretty wild stat on the broadcast where Lourdes had four, just four of his first 26 games of the season where multi-hit games, but now he has four multi-hit games in his last seven. So it really feels like things are starting to turn for Lourdes.

And as I think we've talked about before, hitting against lefties has been a problem for this team and you finally saw them really get to a left-handed pitcher today and David Peterson, Lordus Gueriel has been a really big part of the Diamondbacks attack against lefties for a few years and he of course was a key contributor tonight. Key contributor, absolutely. And that six-ending, Nailor with the lead-off walk,

Lordis gets his second extra base hit of the game, which happens to be a home run. This one went very far, at least much farther than his double that he hit earlier. And that home run is our Sanderson Ford, deep drive of the game. Lordus Jurya, Lourdeskiriel Jr's 383 foot home run with an exit velo of 108.8.5 miles per hour. It was really important because obviously the bullpen and Zach Gallen did a great job of holding this Mets team to just one run. So that really increased the lead there from a tight game at two to one to having some breathing room and feeling a bit more confident about this one. at you know, four to one lead after that home run.

But Lordus goes three for four tonight, just a triple away from the cycle. And it's got to be the purple, Jesse. Everybody's saying it in the chat. It's got to be the Serpientis purple being the main reason. I mean, Lordus had to see the jersey hanging. He had to know that it was coming soon. And it's like between that and his hair coming together,

it definitely feels like that's why Lordus has unlocked his superpowers once again. People want me to dye my hair again, purple, Jesse, just to get Lordus going. And I think that's, it feels unnecessary. Today, is it today that's the two-year anniversary of Lordis first admiring your hair? Yeah, when he told me that I did not have enough volume or that that was the thing that was lacking. And trust me, I've been saying that for at least 10 years that I've been lacking volume in my hair specifically. But yeah, two-year anniversary of that night, Jesse. That was a special fun night in the clubhouse for us.

And that's, of course, you know, purple pinia power. We got Lordus doing the thing. Jose Herrera also very good. But, you know, again, like you said there, Lordish can just look lost at the plate for a significant period of time. And then suddenly dial it in. We also know that there's a guy over there named Gino, who really still has been contributing as well,

but still doesn't feel like he's fully back yet. And once he can get locked in, he can also be very dangerous. But again, Jose Herrera, also a nice addition tonight. A late scratch from Gabby. Of course, that was what was, or of Gabby Moreno, that was what was on people's mind. We have video here from Tori explaining the scratch of Gabby Moreno. He's locked in.

He is a student of the game. He is studying game plans. And by the time he squats down behind home plate, he is as ready as any catcher we have. And that is our standard. And he's doing a fantastic job. And he had a great offensive day the other day. He had another good offensive day today.

So he puts that aside for his starting pitcher. And he's been standing out to us. We just got done talking about how successful he's been. And most likely we're going to be catching tomorrow to give Gabby another day off. So heads up on that. It is. It's a little bit of a challenging time. So as soon as that decision has made it, it was a little bit late.

In fact, it was happening about the time I was. walked in here. I knew that there was a conversation that was being had and I walked in here to talk to you guys pregame by the time I got out of here it was half it was on it was happening. So I made the line-up change and it's amazing to see it's like we're a bunch of ants in the ant farm just running around like mad and I always say make sure we let Gallen know he's a first person that we tell and we walk out of this out of this meeting so they get together and I think their history has allowed them to kind of cut right through any concerns and like I said even though wasn't starting today, I'm sure he was as well prepared in anticipation that if he was needed at some point today, he was going to be ready to go. That was actually Tori on Jose Herrera and what he's given this team. The Diamondbacks are 10 and 3, Jesse, when Jose Herrera starts for this team. And he was a late addition. And obviously, Tori, they're talking about that kind of rush preparation there when around 3.30, 4 o'clock, right? when we were talking to Tori pregame,

that decision was made that they were going to scratch Gabby from the lineup based on soreness that he had. Actually, we also have that clip. Let's get to that one. We have Tori talking first about, nope, not yet. We'll get to that. That one,

that was what we were trying to get to. But again, Jose Herrera, just kind of surprising, Jesse. I mean, we asked Gallen and we asked Tori there about Herrera and his ability to kind of help this team win.

And it felt like the, the one thing that both of those guys said was that he he just really is, is dedicated to the game plan of, of what he's going to do behind the plate and, and what he's going to call in the game and how, you know, what the other team is, is doing offensively and what he can do. It feels like he's just really good at making sure that he's starting pitchers are getting, getting the right calls as far as the pitches are concerned. Yeah, and especially in a game like this where the, call was made so late to have to have gabby and herrera swap it's not like you know it's not like

scratching your left fielder uh catching is is a is a pretty important part of of the whole game planning process so yeah you know Jose Herrera like i've i've seen quite quite a bit of negative sorry to sorry to interrupt you jesse uh there was the the chat wasn't going to move on until i assured them that that little LG3 was safe so he's here He was just being blocked by Jesse Jr. Please continue. I apologize for interrupting. Oh, you're good.

Priorities. Yeah, I mean, they were not listening to me or you. They were just the whole time. They just couldn't. They were just so concerned that LG3 was missing or something terrible had happened to him. So I just needed them to be able to concentrate on baseball and not the stuffed animals behind me. Yeah, I think what my point with Herrera is just that that relationship that he's built, with these starters clearly means a lot to this team and means a lot to those pitchers.

And for people who have been wondering, you know, why is Jose Herrera the backup catcher for this team year after year, you know, frankly, I can kind of see where people are coming from. He's never hit much. And defensively, the metrics don't tend to look all that great there. But, you know, it's a really big part of the game, like the rapport that you build with pitchers, how comfortable they are working with you. And for my, time covering the team the past few years it's been abundantly clear the whole way that these guys really like working with him yeah and i mean i i think that it's also a testament to him for the fact that he was able to get himself prepared for this game so quickly when he wasn't going to be the one starting it

and again gallon we're going to get to galen talking about it here but you know gallon commended him on just his ability to call the game and and again they they have a good relationship he says he's kind of used to both of those guys. So it's not like it was that big of a of a change for him. But you know, again, Jose Herrera just seems to come with a game plan. And tonight he did an excellent job, you know, at the dish as well to two two for three with a double and an RBI. And it's just it it, again, it's that extra that additional contribution that this team seems to need from somebody else in the lineup to help those guys that are getting the job done. And in fact, you know, you could even say that Jose Herrera is. and Lordus Gurriel led the way for this team. We have Tori Lavallo here talking about the offensive performance tonight. Here's what he had to say. You know, offensively, it was a big night for Gurriel, the two-at-home run. I feel like gave us a little bit of a cushion at 4-1, and then we scratched one more,

run across. But it's just good approaches, all-field approach in different situations. I think we did a good job of getting on base, seeing the baseball. Hosey had a great night. So it was just it was a good night all the way around. It's quick turnaround. Got to be ready to go tomorrow. And that's the other thing here, Jesse, is that, you know, the performance tonight,

Gallons performance, everything allows this team to be set up well for that finale tomorrow. And, you know, again, they didn't really get contributions from guys like Cotell Marte tonight. So we'll see how those guys get going in the lineup. But Tori did confirm Jose Herrera would be starting tomorrow again for Gabby. Here briefly, we have Tori. on Gabby's injury and the reason why he was scratched from the lineup. Gabby's okay. So we knew that he was a little bit sore from the tag plate, home plate.

There was a little bit of an extension. He landed, fell down, landed on his left side. So he was just a little sore. His entire left side of his body was a little sore. We were trying to work through that with him today. But I made the decision that it was the best thing to keep him off of his feet. Just give him a day to recuperate. He'll be day today.

We'll see how he feels tomorrow. he was available if we needed him then i just felt like i need to play a little bit of catch up with his health so that's where we're at with gabby again another another injury of some kind jesse i know it's small i know it's not major uh we got word yes or before the game that corbin burns sounds like he will pitch on saturday uh and he got a cortisone shot that allows him to kind of have some of that inflammation go down so that none of these injuries are you know devastating to this team just yet, not in the way that some of the early ones are or like the AJ puck, you know, injured stint. But it just seems like right now this team can't stay healthy.

There's just somebody always kind of getting, in Tori's words, nicked up. Yeah, we've played this game with Gabby before, right? The DBAX Twitter account posts the lineup card and then like a couple hours before the game, there's a change that's made. And then Everyone's wondering, oh my gosh, what's going on with Gabby Moreno? If I'm not mistaken, Derek, maybe you remember the specifics. I want to say there was a time where Gabby was scratched because he was having like dental work performed. Yes, yes. I think that happened.

It was like needed though. Like he had chipped a tooth or like broken a tooth or something. There was something that happened. I don't know if it was like, but it wasn't just like, hey, this is the day that his appointment fell on. I think it was some sort of kind of like emergency situation. or something. But yeah, you're right. And we freak out every time. Jesse, I don't even, I can't even tell you right now some of the conspiracy theories that were going on in the press box during this period of time, especially considering that the Diamondbacks just signed a

veteran catcher to add to their catcher depth and they needed that. But it came at the same, you know, came around the same time that the Diamondbacks scratched Gabby and a lot of people had a lot of concerns and a lot of theories on what was really going on. Obviously, this is a little bit better of an outcome, just feeling some aches and pains. But still, it, like, on one hand, it makes you, you sad because you want to see that lineup that includes Moreno in it. And you feel like that is the best lineup that the Diamondbacks have to put out there. But Jose Herrera, once again, is 10 and 3 in his starts for this team. The team is 10 and 3 in his 13 starts. That doesn't scream to me like we need to panic that Jose Herrera is in there right now. And again,

And he might not be putting up great offensive numbers, but neither really is Gabby Moreno, quite frankly. He's also not been great at catching runners stealing either. So I don't know. I mean, I don't feel like it's that big of a loss, at least right now. But we just know what Gabby is capable of. And that's the version that we miss right now. Absolutely. I mean, the reality is that Gabby Moreno hasn't had a very good start to the season.

And there have been times in the past, I'm thinking specifically. specifically of that 2023 season where there was this narrative that like the diamond backs were you know a 50% better baseball team when gabby merino was behind plate than when hosea herrera was and you could kind of understand that at the time because moreno in addition to being a premier defensive catcher he won the gold glove that year he also was you know around league average a little above league average offensively and obviously jose herrera has has never done that consistently at the big league level. So there was a really significant difference in performance between those two guys.

This year, Jose Herrera, after today, Derek has an OPS that I think is 11 points higher than Gabby Moreno. And I'm certainly not saying that's going to continue. I think by the end of the season, you know, Moreno, I believe in what I've seen over the years enough to think that he's going to figure some things out. But, but yeah, so far to this season, Herrera has. has hung in there and specifically the past few days, he's had a few nice games offense.

He really has, excuse me, but the bigger thing there feels to me to be the game planning and what he's able to do for the pitchers, right? And again, you have Zach Gallen go in his longest outing of the season, any starting pitcher's longest outing of the season, right when the diamond backs needed it the most. And it feels like Jose Herrera has an impact on that. It feels like he has a good, you know, game plan working together with Zach.

Zach was trying to be efficient tonight. He wasn't trying to pitch around guys. And he did that. He achieved the goal that he needed to for this team. And he gave the bullpen a great, great night off, great night off. I'm not even going to be able to get my throat and my voice back on track here, Jesse. But the Diamondbacks do improve to 19 and 17 with the win. They're still just hovering there.

Keep keeping above water. but I mean it's not it's not it hasn't been easy. It's it's been a little difficult for this team obviously, but somebody had a difficult night tonight and that was Josh Naylor. He kind of got beat up a bit tonight, Jesse. He got hit on the hand there in the second inning. It seemed to be in a lot of pain. But the guy is a bona fide stud and he stayed in the game and still did well.

But it felt like he was just, it was like attack Josh Naylor night. Then again, he got hit, he almost got hit the fifth inning in the same exact spot in the same exact hand. And he gave, he gave a Mets starter David Peterson what could be described as a look, Jesse. What could be described as a look because he was not happy. And again, he also fouled one kind of off his foot. And he had a lot of, he had a lot of things not going his way, but it felt like Naylor was just kind of in the middle of everything. There's a big play there in the ninth inning where defy. defensively, you could question whether or not he should have maybe picked up that ball that was

kind of going down the line, fair or not. There was a lot of discussion again in the press box about that one. Jesse, what did you think? Do you think he should have picked it up and just taken the out, which would have allowed the Mets to score a run at home, or did you think he made the right call by letting the ball go foul? Yeah, I was having those same questions running through my mind as I was sitting here, just watching the game by myself.

And yeah, I wasn't totally sure. I thought it was an interesting decision that he made. I think, like, mathematically, it wouldn't surprise me if it actually is better to just take the out there because at that point, you just have one more out to go. And it's not like you're allowing someone to reach base, right? Like, you're getting an out. The Mets still would have needed another hit in order to get the tying run to the plate. Correct.

Yeah. And that in that situation, you're really just trying to prevent like the big disaster inning. And taking the out probably makes more sense like statistically. But, but, you know, maybe Josh Naylor is just out there trying to protect his boy Shelby Miller's ERA. You know, he doesn't want, he doesn't want Shelby getting tagged with that run if he doesn't have to. And obviously it worked out. So I guess he made the right choice. Well, Tori didn't get a chance to see it.

But here's what he had to say about nail. letting that ball go foul. It was hard for me to tell I haven't looked at it. Was it fair at some point? It was most of the way. It was fair most of the way. Yeah, I want to get out. So that's what you've got to do.

We've got to get outs. And I think that would have been the second out of the inning. So, yeah, I want to recover that ball and pick it up and get the out for sure. Well, that's what Tori had to say. But Jesse says they get out of it without damaging Shelby Miller's ERA. So I like that much better. Of course, we're going to talk about Shelby Miller at the bullpen. And most importantly, Zach Gallen, kind of given them a night off on the other side of this break.

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So give them a call at 6232041476 or visit all proshadeconcepts.com right now to schedule your free estimate. And let me tell you, uh, Espo got him and he won't shut up about it. And he loves it, Jesse. He has, uh, he's, his house is cooler now. He's cooler. He has a remote control that can make the, you know, things. I know you don't need to worry about things staying cool in San Diego. I don't even know why you guys need like a weather man out there. Oh, you do you really need a guy to go, here's the seven day forecast. It's going to be nice. Back to you. Right. Like, that doesn't seem like something that's needed in San Diego. But I will say, Zach Gallen, very cool, possibly cool enough to live in San Diego,

chill enough to live there, though. That's probably a bad idea. And I shouldn't be saying these things considering it's his walkier. Didn't allow a hit, Jesse, in this one until the third inning. Got him a little bit of trouble there with loading the bases on a single on a pair of walks. And then really just the only walk or runny allowed is walking in Pete Alonzo there. but then he strikes out Starling Martate and the inning. And from that point on, he was just Zach Gallen.

He was incredible. He didn't strike a lot of guys out, but he did get himself six strikeouts. We can throw the Circle K strikeout tracker up there for that. Let's light that bad boy up. And of course, he did it with using that knuckle curve a little bit. He'd use the fastball. Fastball command still seems to be the key for Zach Gallen and his success. Yeah, well, first of all, I don't think Zach Gown.

wants any part of living in San Diego, Derek. He clearly wants to live in New York. Yes, he does. He loves facing New York teams. What happens when he's on a New York team, if that's the case, Jesse? Because that's, that's an anomaly. I mean, is he going to pitch well? Or is every game going to be outstanding?

Is he going to become the best pitcher in baseball? Feels like it with the way that he pitches, at least against them. My friend, Tim is here. He's a Mets fan. And he said that he doesn't understand why Zach Gallen turns into Greg Maddox every time they play the Mets. But that definitely seems to be the case. Gallen just, I mean, again, just a great night.

And especially after like a couple of moments there, getting himself into a little trouble there in the third inning, just gave the Diamondbacks exactly what they needed, which was a long outing from a starter. It was that third inning was weird. I mean, it felt like Gallin was just kind of cruising along. You've got a runner at first. He had an opportunity.

to believe it was a double play that was turned to end the inning, but then not because upon review, they decided that the runner at first was actually safe. And then the inning continued. And Zach Allen had to throw 20 more pitches as a result of that. I mean, I kind of wonder, like, if instant replay did not exist and that any, if the double play actually had stood, are we talking about Zach Allen throwing eight innings or Zach Allen, throwing nine innings. I mean, that was 20 extra pitches that he had to throw just because of that. Granted, he would have had to face, you know, the middle of the line up the next inning. So who knows what happens there. But yeah, you know, those few batters where he just kind of lost the zone.

I thought Juan Soto laid off some tough pitches. But other than that, he just wasn't really in the zone enough to either Lindor or Alonzo. And then he just kind of suddenly locked it back in and was just sort of smooth sailing the rest of the way. He was asked about that after the game and it's funny because like he doesn't know. He like he's like yeah, maybe that maybe that 30, 40 seconds was enough to kind of get me, you know, just not, you know, out of sync, you know, but like, yeah, it's it wasn't it wasn't a lot of time. It was just, uh, you know, reviewing that play and taking that time just to seem to be enough to kind of let him lose his rhythm and, and he found it again. And that's one thing that that Zach has always been tremendously good about is getting, you know, finding his rhythm again,

even, you know, when he has that inning. Honestly, a lot of the Diamondbacks pitchers kind of have that, right, where they can have a bad inning. Usually Merrill's is the first. Usually Brandon Fotz is disastrous in the middle or has been. And then he'll pitch brilliantly all around it. But it's their ability at times to get, you know, to not let it just completely fall apart and bring it back for a decent outing that really makes.

makes especially Zach Gallin impressive. His consistency that he's been lacking this year, that's been the thing that's made him such a good pitcher in his time with the Diamondbacks organization. And tonight, again, he didn't get a lot of swing and miss on his stuff tonight. It wasn't like he was dazzling and it wasn't the performance in New York where he struck out 13. But he got four whiffs on the curb ball.

He got three on the four seam. And most importantly, he held, once again, this Mets offense that when they're playing teams that aren't the diamond backs seem to be incredible, seemed to be able to generate plenty of offense. He held this team to two hits tonight, and the one run that scored was Pete Alonzo getting walked in on the loaded bases. Or not walked in, but walking Pete Alonzo and walking in a run is what I meant. It was really impressive across the board for Gallen. And what stood out to me the most, despite what happened in that third inning, is just how much he lit up the zone in in this start as a whole i mean his uh in zone rate the percentage of

pitches that were in the strike zone tonight was up over 56 percent pretty comfortably the highest uh in zone rate that he's had in any start this season do we have his pitch chart yeah we can throw that up as a visual for the people watching jessie yeah yeah and and you can see like fastball command has been the thing we keep talking about and you know there are some big here, there, like some of those pitches to Pete Alonzo, I remember in particular, like, he missed pretty big with some of those four seamers. But by and large, there were a lot more four seamers near the edges than we've seen in recent outings from him. And you mentioned there were, you know, there were only three whiffs on the four seamer. So he wasn't, he wasn't getting a ton of swing and

miss on that pitch. But he did generate 12 of his 16 balls in play on that four seam fastball. And as you said, there were only two hits in this game. Only one out of those 12 batted balls on the fastball turned into a hit. So he did a really nice job just avoiding barrels. It wasn't like, you know, Metz hitters were just hitting the ball hard right at guys. Like he genuinely was inducing a lot of soft contact. And it led to one of the best performances he's had this year. Well, let's hear from Zach himself on what went right tonight in this game.

Here's what he had to say. I mean, I feel like I had everything. Change it necessarily wasn't there for a couple of innings. I think once the fatigue kind of set in, the change of kind of showed its head. But yeah, I felt like I was in a really good spot. Delivery-wise was able to kind of repeat pretty well. I was just kind of be able to stay in the zone. I mean, Jose called a great game.

So just kind of following his lead and try to make pitches. Yeah, for sure, obviously. you know with burns kind of skipping to start and you know having to have a alley and call some guys up and you know kind of use the bullpen a good bit the last few games just tried to come in give him as much length as possible hopefully be able to reset just kind of let Torrey do his thing with reset in the bullpen but that's my job's kind of to go out there and give him give as many things as possible anyway so for me I'm not really trying to change course you know I don't know what happens at the

game prior it's impressive to me that Zach is able to understand the assignment and know exactly what the diamondbacks need and obviously this this went his way tonight but like and it might not have you know might might not have but the fact that he was able to know he needed to give this team length and went out there and achieved that like I said earlier it's impressive and it's it's makes you feel good about gallon because when he's able to kind of will himself to to do exactly what the team needs him to do, that just goes to show how great of a starting pitcher he actually is. And he still has an ERA of 4.37,

even after these last couple of really good outings, right? And I think that's just to show that, like, there's still a ways to go here for Gowland to really be the pitcher that the Diamondbacks need him to be this season. and we still haven't seen him go on that kind of run that we are pretty used to seeing Gowan go on at least once or twice every single year. So if he's able to do that, then, you know, maybe the narrative of his 2025 season changes dramatically.

And by the end of the year, we're looking back and being like, oh, yeah, Gallen, you know, some of the trouble he had in the back half of 2024, like he looked like that again at the beginning of 25 and then he figured it out and you know wound up having one of his best seasons like we're still so early in the year that i think that outcome is is totally possible and uh yeah as long as he is showing the ability to command his fastball which i thought looked pretty good today and certainly look better in his last start against the met's as well uh you know once he gets that like there's there's no reason zach gallon can't be one of the best pitchers in the sport uh and the other thing I'll add is that his fastball velo was up today he averaged 94 miles an hour yes that was also

pretty comfortably his highest fastball velo in any start this year so when he has all the pieces working like despite the inconsistencies of the last year and a half this guy can still be really really really good well and you feel like he's starting to put it get together more consistently lately he's been able to go longer lately, especially longer than some of his teammates. He's now tossed 100 plus pitches in three of his last four outings. And Jesse, this one was a wild fact that we learned in the press box. This was just the third game of the year in all of Major League Baseball where both starting pitchers went over 100 pitches. And that just goes to show that like especially early in the season, Tori Lovallo is not the only manager that's taking it easy.

on his starters and his relievers, right? Like this is something that every good manager in baseball does is they understand that you can't really, you can't really go turn it up to 10 in April, considering that your guys still have not really fully stretched themselves out. We talk about stretching them out with starters, but the same could be said for position players, relievers, and everybody else. Like, they're not ready to be overutilized yet.

There will be a time for that. And it's soon, it's, you know, end of May, beginning of June, that starts to get into the dog days of summer for the baseball season. And guys can be used a lot. But, you know, we've seen the pile of injuries, the Diamondbacks have already experienced. And it doesn't really feel like, despite the fact that the criticism of Tori Lavallo a lot of times is that he doesn't play guys every day, doesn't go to the best relievers all the time in those big game situations. It just goes to show that he's not really supposed to yet, right? Like, you got to. kind of hold yourself back a little bit. He talked to us about that, but you got to, you got to like pull back a little bit here early on because of the nature of baseball. Yeah, and, and I think it's also going back to the, the earlier stat of the fact that Zach Gallen was the first member of the

Diamondbacks to actually toss seven innings. Like, on one hand, that is sort of disappointing, right? I mean, you definitely would have hoped to have something like that happened by the time you're in the first week of may however i looked up the full list of pitchers who have thrown seven innings or more in a start this season and it's only happened 98 times across baseball entering today which might sound like a big number but you know there's 30 teams 98 divided by 30 by 30 is about three games going every day yeah right there's a whole lot of baseball games that happened last i checked so 98 is actually a pretty low number. You know, we're about 30, D-backs have played 36 games. And on average, yeah, a typical major league team right now has only had about three or four starts where their

starter has gone seven innings. So, you know, is it indicative of a problem that the diamondbacks have had? Yes. But is it also indicative just of a larger trend across the league? Absolutely. Like I, I'd be curious to see what this would look like, you know, two decades ago. I would imagine that by May 6th, you're expecting to see, you know, every team with like 15 or 20 seven innings starts at this point in the year. But to your point with the pitch count metric as well, like, yeah, it's just a very different game than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It really is. And again, it's also like the way guys train is different. Everything is different. And honestly, 20, 25 years ago, you had three guys in the league throwing 100 miles an hour.

now everybody wants to throw 100 miles an hour. Now 95 is slow. 95 used to be gas. Used to be an A plus elite pitcher of you through 95. Now that's like junk. So it's the game evolving and guys getting better. But unfortunately, we discussed this with Tori yesterday. This is kind of part of the evolution is that the human body can only do so much, right?

Tori talked about the fact that we're really meant to throw underhanded like softball pitchers. That's the reason why they can throw 125 miles an hour and then can come back and do it again tomorrow's because that's the natural pitching motion, not this overhand or Ryan Thompson's sidearm stuff or any of this stuff that these pitchers are doing. But Gallen, of course, great tonight. He did talk briefly. We have his comments, actually, the ones I was describing earlier, about him losing and regaining focus in this game after that brief hiatus due to the review. Here's what Gallen had to say about that. Yeah, I mean I felt like my plan was to go up to indoor. Just I don't know what necessarily happened.

All kind of got away from me in the sense. I tried to pitch Soto tough and then same thing with Alonzo. Just tried to challenge him there, you know, three, two. Festival just got away. But yeah, I wasn't necessarily trying to pitch around those guys. I was really trying to limit the pitch count. Just I don't know what it was. Just out-of-body experience for re-gators.

Not necessarily. I kind of knew I had hung out there by the mountain, no, and it was, it was, it was, look like, to my eyes, it looked like it was safe, so I was prepared to go out there and keep throwing. Yeah, I don't know, subconsciously, just that 30 to 45 second break just kind of threw me off my rhythm or what, but, you know, going forward is just something I got to stay on top of him. Not really well to happen again. Jesse, he also had the audacity to answer a question that was asked of him. Jack asked him if he had, like, tweaked his ankle, during a play or whatever. It was during what when he was covering over at first base. And, and he had the audacity to tell us that, you know, hey, the pitch clock moves pretty fast. Sometimes the game moves fast. So when you're covering over at that at first and you're walking back, sometimes you need to milk it is what he said. He said milk it. And then he knew he made a mistake because we all stood around and we're like, ah, you said the thing. You said the line from the thing in your thing. But we have a couple of things here more from Gallen in regards to Jose Herrera specifically.

Again, 10 and 3 with Jose Herrera behind the plate for this team, Jesse. You can't necessarily feel like that's a bad thing. And again, if Gabby's going to miss time, it's not terrible that this team seems to be successful with Jose Herrera behind the plate. This is what Gallen had to say about the 10 and 3 record that Herrera has and why this team just seems to find success with him there in that spot. Yeah, I think to think for Hosey, his big thing, which I think a pitcher loves it here. He wants to hit 350 behind the plate. That's his thing. So for him, he's an all-in, you know, with the game calling, with sequencing, things like that. So I know he takes a lot of pride in it. And that's something he's out there, you know, me and him are a team in a sense.

You know, whoever he's out there with, he's trying to be, you know, one of the same. So for him to kind of just put the effort in, what he's doing, it's showing up. Again, I think that Herrera gets a lot of flack and especially his offensive numbers have never been great. They're probably never going to be great. It's just sometimes, especially with a catcher, more about what they can do to help the pitching staff succeed rather than what they are doing offensively at the plate. It's one of those things that you just can't measure, right? Which, as you know, Derek, it drives me nuts. Like, I need, I need, you know, we need some sort of little percent.

file bar. Yeah, we need we need stats. But there's just no there's just no way to quantify the relationship that guys are able to build. And as as Gallen described there, just being all in with the sequencing and the pitch calling. And especially for someone like Zach Gallen, who himself is very much all in on all of those things and really trying to dive in and be as granular as you possibly can be for someone like him having a guy like Herrera who is similarly dedicated to that is really important. So, yeah, I think backup catchers are, you know, you really can only read so much into the hitting numbers, even the defense numbers to an extent, because, you know, Jose Herrera is not called upon to play 125 games, but that he still has an unimportant role on this team.

And it doesn't, it doesn't show up in the numbers necessarily. Yeah, well, I will say that Gallin's numbers showed up tonight. And for that exact reason, I'm going to drop it on Kevin once again while he's in the middle of doing something. But Zach Gallen is our Kingsnake for tonight, Jesse. Of course he is. It was, I mean, honestly, it could have been Lordus Curiel. He deserves it for a three for four night with a home run. But Gallin, again, seven innings pitch, two hits, one run, six K, three walks, just a great night for

Gallin and Tori Lavello talked here a little bit about Gallin doing what was asked of him tonight and here's what Tori had to say. Okay, you know, on a night we talked about a pregame, right? You know, a night where you're asking your starter to go out there and do the type of stuff that Zach's capable of doing and, you know, we watch it from the first pitch until his 1001st pitch where he was in total control. I think, you know, there's one inning, a little extended inning, but he got right back into it and gave a seven remarkable innings. And you're looking for 21 outs from your starters all the time. They've been pitching into the sixth inning, but I think this is the first outing where

we pitched this deep into a ballgame with our starters, and it's set up really nice for the two back-end guys. So it's back-to-back starts against the same team, which could be a challenge. You're always curious about workloads. Zach's been throwing over 100 pitches a couple times now, but he was unfazed by it, and he just went out there and did a great job of just zoning in, making pitches, and getting big outs. Meanwhile, Jesse, the bullpen gets the job done. Shelby Miller goes out there in the ninth.

You had Kevin Ginkle in the eighth. Both guys gave up a hit, gave up a minimal amount of, you know, base runners. Nothing crazy. Of course, with Shelby Miller out there, it still made you a little nervous. It was the ninth inning. Both guys get some pretty good defense behind them and some double plays that ended up ending, ending the night there for the Mets. Of course, you got a double play here by the Diamondbacks in the seventh inning that helps Gowan cross the finish line and get through that seventh inning.

Then you have that double play by Cattell in the eighth inning to help Kevin Ginkle get out of that. And then, of course, Miller wraps the game up. So this felt like a good win and a good, it sets Diamondbacks up for a very good day tomorrow, especially with the bullpen. There was talk about Ginkle maybe coming out for the ninth, but Tori said if he did do that, that up down. he wouldn't be available, which Tori very much wants all hands on deck for the finale here against the Mets. And I mean, there's no, there's no rest for the weary anytime soon. The Diamondbacks continue to just play series after series. Their course is not an off day after this series going into the Dodgers series this weekend.

And then next week, the Diamondbacks are playing the Giants on the road. And they don't have an off day until after that. So, yeah, this is a tough situation for, for Tori to manage. Debacks have played a lot of very close and chaotic baseball games, which has made it hard for Tori to really ever feel comfortable resting all of the back end relievers. And even in this game,

I mean, you could argue, Derek, like I think Tori would have been justified in not going to Shelby Miller in the ninth inning, given that the Diamondbacks had a four-run lead. Like maybe you're realizing that you don't have an off day for another week still and you're just trying to preserve all the arms you can.

But at the same time, you know, that ending started with the middle of the Mets lineup. And we know how good this lineup can be. And, you know, I don't think there's any, well, we'll see. In a few days, maybe they're second guessing this decision. But it certainly worked out, worked out well in this one. But that's it, Jesse. You hit the nail on the head. That's where when the diamondbacks find themselves in a position where they

could win a game, but they have no offense to those guys, but some of their weaker relievers as the only relievers available to Tori, that's where I agree with people that Tori mismanaged a game, but not that game, the earlier one, the one where he unnecessarily put some of, you know, put all of his studs in. And I'm not talking about a close game and an important game. I'm talking about, like you said, like tonight, where maybe you don't go to Ginkle again, but maybe you go to Jaylen Beeks there in the bottom or in the top of the ninth. Maybe you, go to somebody else. I don't know. Jalen Beaks again, you're only good lefty. I don't know if you want to necessarily use him. Yeah. Just somebody else may. There's just not a lot of options.

Yeah. It's like it wasn't going to be Shelby, then who is it going to be against like the middle of and then you start running through stuff. And you don't feel good like you said. You don't feel great about going up against the heart of the Mets lineup considering you know that any point this team can break out and score a bunch of runs. And we've already seen the Diamondbacks put Jose Castillo out there in a close game and have him blow one. We've just seen this before, right? So it's like, yeah, you're right, though. Like, that's where it is.

It's like, who would you have put in? And how does this impact later when we could potentially need Shelby Miller? So it's really just, it's really about the roster construction right now and the injuries. And that's not really anything to blame to worry about. But what we will do is take a look at the numbers, which Jesse will love to do on the other side of this break. And let's do that.

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today create an account and use code phnx for $20 off your first purchase terms do a apply again create an account redeem code p h and x for $20 off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed kev what time is it oh game time time that's a lot of energy i like that that was a those jesse kev kev has way more energy than i do here at like what what time is it 11 10 at night i thank him for that i thank you guys in the chat for being here and having the energy and being ready to go. Let's take a look here at buy the numbers presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. Of course, they always keep our numbers straight. Diamondbacks win this one by score of five to one. They out hit the Mets eight to four. The diamondbacks were a pathetic

one for 10 with runners in scoring position. Once again, plenty of opportunities for the snakes that they did not cash in on. Mets were just 0 for three. Diamondbacks had four extra base hits to the Mets zero. And then again, the extra, the expected batting average there, 271. for the Diamondbacks, $194 for the Mets. Just a thorough victory here, and you've got to give credit where credit is due, and that is to the Diamondbacks pitching staff tonight. They did an incredible job of holding this Mets team to just the one run. They did, and they need to keep doing it, Derek.

This pitching staff has not delivered this year, frankly. I think even after this game, the debacks are sitting at a team ERA of 4.40, which ranks 25th in baseball. Last year they ranked 27th in Team ERA. I was like that's right where they were last year. It was like it's crazy. And it feels like the pitching is better, but the results aren't better.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you look at some of the underlying stats. Like last year, the Diamondbacks opponent batting average was 262. This year it's 240. Last year,

the team whip was 1-35 at the end of the year. This year so far, it's 129. So I think you're, totally right that the eye test some of the underlying stats that i do think that this year's staff has performed better so far but the other part of the equation here is the diamond backs have allowed 18 unearned runs this year which is tied for the third most in baseball so you combine you combine all those unearned runs with a pitching staff that is you know very much underperforming what

some of the underlying metrics say and you wind up with a team that has allowed a whole lot of runs. And that that obviously makes it challenging to be any more than like a couple games over 500, which is where the diamond back stand right now despite having one of the best offenses in the league. Well, and you absolutely said it. It's been the terrible defense. There's been so many things that the diamond, I mean, they've been terrible at times in every facet of the game. this season there's been times where their offense completely abandoned them there's been times where the bullpen you know went from being an asset being one of their strong you know strong points to absolutely failing them and starting pitching quite frankly has been a disappointment all year

despite the fact that there was this stretch of like what was it four or five quality starts in a row by the starting rotation and you could just you could see the vision you could see the potential of this of this team, but you just can't quite figure out how to get there. And then we have this, Jesse, then at the, the, the, what we affectionately call the N-Hell West. And again, like you said, the starting pitching has to pitch because look at this. This is insane. You got three teams in this division with 23 wins already.

The Giants went into the game tonight with the Cubs in the extra innings, Jesse. Extra innings in tonight's game against the Cubs between the Giants and the Cubs. somehow, somehow the final score of that game is 14 to 5. In 11 innings, the final score is 14 to 5. The Giants are just unstoppable, it seems like, at times. And they're not even the best team in this division. You got the Padres who are just running purely on spite and hatred. I've never seen anything like yesterday's win by the Padres,

where Fernando Tatis Jr. strikes out, has some words for the umpire. gets tossed from the game, manager gets tossed from the game. And again, that just made the Padres angry and gave them somebody to, we got it, we got to, we got to put this in the umpire's face. We have to do this. We're not just trying to beat the opposing team. Now we have to like punk the umpire. And they did that by winning the game. And I like, I, I said this before the season even started because at one point we were discussing, you know, the, what the Padres were going through with their ownership situation and how chaotic that is and how much of a fight that is becoming. And I said it then.

I was like, all this is going to do is galvanize that group of guys because that's like those guys seem to run on hatred. That's their main fuel. That's like hatred and proving people wrong seems to be something that most of the players on that Padres team, you know, thrive on. And, you know, again, this is just a situation where the Diamondbacks, still look like a good team. And yet you're already trying to like maybe be like maybe the third wild card.

Maybe that's how they get it. I don't really know. Maybe they'll be one of three teams, four teams from the National League West to get into the playoffs. I don't know if that's going to happen or not. But it doesn't really feel like it doesn't feel like this is a fluke for any of these teams in this division. It feels like they're all very good.

And again, the Giants are probably the most surprising one. But when you look at that roster, they've put together a good team. The Padres have gotten much better contributions from some of those, some of those guys who are just kind of there filling big roles because the depth of that team is, is not nearly what it was a year ago. You know, like guys like Tyler Wade have stepped in and actually performed really well. Elias Diaz, I think, has an OPS over 700.

Like, that's a really big part of why the Padres are. where they are. That giant score, though, is wild. I'm over here trying to figure out how the giants persuaded Rob Manfred to give them like seven ghost runners in the 11th inning. Because how else, how else could that score possibly have not sure? It's crazy. Well, Jesse, I did want to real briefly say that if the Diamondbacks do need some help offensively, maybe they can look to Jake McCarthy and Reno. I don't know if you've heard of the guy. But he's currently hitting like 434 in Reno. And like, again, I talk about the Padres doing things out of spite.

Tori told us that whenever he has to send Jake down, that Jake doesn't exactly take it well. But he does what Tori wants to see out of him, which is basically like tell Tori, I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to go down to Reno. I'm going to hit 400. And I'm going to be right back. and Tori will say something very fatherly, like I want to see you right back

or I would love to have that happen. And then it happens. It's like clockwork. Jake McCarthy goes down to Reno. He hits 400 and then he becomes unstoppable offensively and then comes back up. Right. Like so it's,

it's just kind of wild that somebody that again is hitting. It's just such a great example for me of why all Diamondbacks fans need to temper their expectations about any offensive numbers that they see from guys in Reno. not to say that Jake hasn't gotten back into a groove or gotten his bat back, Jesse, but it's also the fact that this man was hitting, you know, I think 068 slugging percentage this year. And, you know, again, now in Reno is hitting like, has like a 700 slugging percentage. He still doesn't even have a home run.

He's just getting a ton of bases. Yeah, you're right. It is, it is troubling when a guy has a 268 OPS in the majors. and then, yeah, literally is hitting 400 right now in AAA. And his numbers, while very, very good, I mean, credit to Jake for going down there and clearly not, you know, sitting around and sulking, like he is playing really, really well.

But just objectively, it's hard to know how to interpret those numbers, whether it actually means anything. I mean, his 1074 OPS in Reno is not all that. It's a little bit higher. but it's not all that much higher than his numbers in Reno back in 2023 when he spent some time there or in 2022. It's roughly similar to that. So this is just kind of always been the reality of having your AAA affiliate in Reno and, you know, the gap between AAA pitchers and major league pitchers also seems to only be widening by the year. So, yeah, credit to Jake. And, you know,

I hope for him that he gets another opportunity soon. Well, if you guys are watching on TV, make sure to come over to go PHNX.com. I'm going to say some mean things about Jordan Lawler right now. So you might want to hop over if you want to catch that or maybe just not and don't come over here and see it. But again, Jesse, not to say mean things about Jordan Lawler. I think he's doing an incredible job.

And I think he is going to be an incredible talent for this team when he comes up and he's on the major league roster. But that, that's kind of what I'm saying is I'm not trying to dismiss that Jordan might not be able to come up and hit at a major league level. It's just you can't watch, you can't see what a guy like Jorge Barrosa is doing and then expect him to still do that in the majors. You can't expect Jake to return to the major league roster and still hit 400. That's not going to happen. But it's it just, I guess it's a good example of why those numbers are so heavily skewed.

And it's also pitching numbers, right? Like sometimes we saw this with Ryan Nelson and Dre Jameson when they got called up. These guys had like a 6ERA, 70RA, and then they come up and shove at a major league level. Well, in the same in the same aspect, it's not the PCL. You don't have the elevation in some of these cities that these teams are into deal with. You don't have like these oddly high powered games where you see Reno Aces beat, you know, somebody today by a score of 27 to 23. You're like, what the hell?

Is that a baseball game? How did that happen? Yeah, it's really tough. And I think it's an important thing for fans to be aware of that even Jordan Lawler, as you mentioned, I mean, his numbers in Reno are outstanding too. He's hitting 354 with a 1074 OPS, pretty much identical to Jake McCarthy's OPS. And, you know, does it mean nothing? No.

it means something like the diamondbacks wanted to see loller get some more reps in a triple a and really prove himself on that level and i think he's doing that but you know i think sometimes we play this game where you take the ops in triple a and you subtract you know a hundred points or 200 points or whatever it is and you're like well that's what they do in the majors like a uh a 1050 op s in AAA is an 850 OPS in the majors or whatever. That just isn't the reality. Like sometimes a 1050 OPS in Reno is like a 400 OPS in the majors, you know, especially now it seems like you kind of expect even top prospects who have put up big

numbers across, you know, all of the minor league levels. You still kind of expect these guys to come up to the big leagues and struggle for a while until they figure it out. like Corbyn Carroll just kind of coming up and sort of dominating right away was was not normal. And even he obviously hit a pretty significant roadblock toward the beginning of last season. So for people who are, you know, continue to be really dissatisfied with Jordan Lawler continuing to be in AAA, I hear where you're coming from. And maybe Lawler does come up and prove that he belongs very quickly later this season. But it isn't, it is not that simple.

It's really not. It's really not. And Ryoma says it's hysterical that we're calling up starting pitcher after starting pitcher from Reno to be long relievers and then sending them right down. Honestly, it's not that hysterical. It's more of a depth issue. And it's not great because you are using guys options and you're not necessarily taking full advantage of, I guess. You are putting some sort of speed bump, I guess you could say in their development by doing so, right? But also, when you do call guys up, I mean, not every starting pitcher at a minor league level is going to be a starting pitcher at a major league level. There's just not that many opportunities. And not everybody comes up and can, you know, have length and be successful as going five, six, seven innings in MLB. But it doesn't mean that they still don't have worth that they still can't go out there and give you something. And in this case for the Diamondbacks, it is a good opportunity considering the need for them to give guys an opportunity to see if they're.

there's anybody that grabs that brass ring and gives the diamond backs, you know, exactly what they've received out of certain guys that have been given a similar opportunity. Justin Martinez is one of those guys. There was a point when he was pitching for the Reno Aces that it felt like, yeah, he could throw 105 miles an hour, but he wasn't getting it anywhere close to the strike zone.

He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. So it was like, cool, that guy does that, but what good is that? And then he continued to develop and became the pitcher that so many people now want to see as the closer of this team, right? And that happened very fast. His development was quick.

He's still a very young man, as is a lot of these guys that the Diamondbacks are calling up. Christiane Manah was added to the roster today. And he's a guy that we know has had some pretty good stuff in the past, but also didn't really find a ton of success at a major league level. Doesn't mean the Diamondbacks are going to quit on him. They let him go back down to Reno, let him work on some stuff. They need him now.

They get a chance to maybe. see him if they need him and if not they might option him back down as as well right like they're the game they're playing right now with the bullpen is really just about trying to make sure that they can give themselves arms and not leave tory in the position that he's already been left in in a handful of games you know this season right so uh but i will say this reno is is a fun place jesse reno is a great place to watch baseball and speaking of reno yes sir what do you got keb Jesse Friedman, Reno, Nevada, better or worse than Tucson, Arizona? You know, I've never, I have to confess that I've never been to Reno, Nevada.

Oh, we need to change that. But that feels irrelevant to the question because I still feel very confident my answer either way. That, yeah, Reno is worlds better than Tucson. I would like to reiterate my initial question after we brought Jesse back of, why did we bring Jesse back? Yeah, no, see, here's the thing. There's two things Jesse will never do. He will never say anything nice about Tucson,

and he'll never apologize to Pavan Smith. He'll never do either of those things, no matter how good either of those things become or are. It's just not in his makeup. It's not in his DNA. But I know, Jesse, I know you're a huge TV guy. No, for those of you that might not know, Jesse, Jesse never watches anything that isn't baseball,

for the most part. And it's fine. We allow that. But I am, as you know, a huge, huge fan of John Oliver and his show on HBO last week tonight. And on Sunday's episode, I was so pleased to see them do a segment, Jesse, on minor league baseball promotions. They talked about how great minor league promotions are. They specifically brought up certain teams that have had a tremendous amount of success by changing their identities, like the trash pandas, for instance, who sold I think it was something like a million dollars worth of merchandise once they changed over to the trash pandas before they even played a baseball game, which is awesome.

And of course, they went through all of the alternate identities that teams have and certain things that they've done. They brought up the our very own Amarillo sod poodles and the, of course, the change over to the calf fries based on them being bull balls, fried bull balls that they sell there in the stadium. You can actually get the calf fries there at the stadium. that was something that I did not know and makes me once again need to take another trip out to Amarillo. But the important reason why I bring this up, Jesse, is that this show, hosted by this notorious troublemaker John Oliver, has offered to take over creating a new alternate identity for a minor league team that would like to take them up on this offer. This is going to include a new logo that the last week tonight people will make. this is going to include a new identity, Jersey, and a themed night that all goes along with it. The only catch is that the organization cannot ask any questions at all about their new identity.

They can't be involved in the process. It's all in secrecy. They cannot know what is happening beforehand. And they have to go with whatever John Oliver and his team create for this team. And quite frankly, I can't think of a better team that needs this more than the Reno Aces. The Reno Aces identity as the Reno Aces is one of the most boring in minor league baseball. And this is no discredit to them. I know they watch this show. I am not trying to drag your team through the mud.

I'm trying to help you out, in fact, because I know you guys want it as much as I do. I saw your tweet about it. Everybody saw the Reno Aesis tweet about it. They are totally in on this last week tonight deal, Jesse. They want to be the team that John Oliver changes over into whatever crazy thing. And I know you haven't watched the show, but they've gone. and done some wacky things in their time as a show, including, I believe, changing a water filtration facility or something to the John Oliver Memorial Water filtration facility or something.

There's all sorts of fun things they've done. But as one, I'm one, Jesse, I'm one of the 327 people that last week tonight follows on Twitter. I need to be involved in this. I need to do everything I can to help the Reno Aces. look, the sod poodles, that already is an incredible name. The folks over at Hodgetown, they got stuff figured out. They got the calf rise.

They have the sod poodles. Arguably, the Hillsborough Hopps is one of the greatest names in minor league baseball. One of the best logos. Barley is one of the best mascots. That is a team that is perfection and does not need to be tampered with in any way, shape, or form. But we've seen the Reno Aces have alternate identities. What were they, the Silver Lake, something, socks or something? it's always been boring it's always been terrible and i need them to have something more interesting

and i don't know what they're going to do but what i need is for it to happen to a team in the diamond back organization jessie simply so that i could take a trip to reno and hang out with john oliver whenever this all happens but um yes for those of you that want to actively get involved you can actually email john oliver at john oliver at bunt stuff dot com so go ahead and do that at bunt stuff, Bunn's looking at me like I'm going to get us thrown off YouTube. It's Bunstuff, B-U-N-T, get your mind out of the gutter.

John Oliver at Bunnstuff.com, so send that email over. Maybe we can make this. We need this to happen for me, Jesse. I know you haven't had to deal with my shenanigans or my hijinks in a while, but I kind of need this more than you guys needed the purple hair to happen.

Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering if one of the new, uh, quickly emerging characters on show might be able to assist in this. Maybe the cactus light. The beard bed up there. I don't like that. I don't like that. There's a lot of things I don't like going on this show. But you're right. We like mascots around here.

We have plenty of mascots. We have Jesse Jr. We have LG3. We got the cactus light. The cactus light is definitely a mascot. I don't know if this is more of an object or a mascot, but it's definitely one of those two things. But yeah, no, I remember at one point, the Reno Aces did something with Marvel. And I was really excited to see what it was. Like, and some of the other teams got really quick. alternate superhero identities.

And theirs was Mr. Baseball. That was what theirs was. It was Mr. Baseball or Captain Baseball or something. It was a baseball. I remember you being kind of disappointed with it. And I was so disappointed. I can't even tell you how disappointed I was. I just need fun stuff to happen.

I need the Diamondbacks, quite frankly, to win this series against New York Mets. That's something else that I need. I think we have our probable pitchers for the finale here. It is one, Merrill Kelly, going up against Kodi Senga, who again was very good against the Diamondbacks in his previous outing. However, Diamondbacks did an excellent job at making him work, Jesse, and limiting how long he was able to stay in the game. Hopefully, that's something that they can do again today. They also

had a pretty good game plan about attacking him kind of early in the count and trying not to get to that ghost fork pitch. You guys were talking about a counter on words to say on this show. You're going to need to throw up a counter for how many time Bert says ghost fork tomorrow. That's for sure. Yes, they do, they get their mileage out of that, out of that phrase every time Kodi sang of pitches. But you're right, they did. The Diamondbacks did a really good job running up his pitch count in his outing against them last week through 87 pitches, was only able to get 12 outs in that game. And it's something the debacks are often able to do, like even against really good starting pitchers. They have a lot of guys who are able to work counts and

and really make these guys work. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think this Mets bullpen is, is untouchable by any means. So if you're able to get into that unit, um, a little bit, except for Brazabon,

who I'm not sure the time or not, I'm not sure they'll ever manage to score a runoff him and however long as major league career goes, they tend to look extremely lost anytime Brazabon is on the map. But, uh, everyone else, everybody else is major league baseball.

I think they said like, in one of his, outings against the Diamondbacks like he'd only given up one hit at that point or something like that I was like that can't be right that that yeah he's not a really but I wouldn't be surprised if it was right because he's been incredibly good and again this is a great opportunity for the diamondbacks to just kind of take a series from the Mets who they honestly they've been good against everybody else but for some reason the Diamondbacks have given them problems and the diamondbacks have been really good this year and series finale games so they have a great chance here to close things out

tomorrow. Yeah. And the other thing I'll add on this is that I think tomorrow, like, I don't want to say any game happening on May 7th is all that important. But this is an opportunity for the Diamondbacks to take the tiebreaker with the Mets, which is something they were not able to do last year. And it didn't end very well for them that they were not able to take the tiebreaker from the Mets. So, yeah, as we learned toward the end of last season, these games in May can actually kind of make or break you, especially if they're against teams that you really might be fighting with toward the very end of the season, which I think is very possible with this Mets team. So if you're able to win tomorrow, then that would swing the season series in the Diamondbacks

favor. And who knows, who knows how significant that might be someday. Jesse, today's win was the first win for the Diamondbacks against a left-handed starter since they beat Eli Morgan for the Cubs on March 30th. They went the entire month of April without a win against left-handed starting pitching. That's wild. That backs up your point, though. You were making that point, especially without some of these pieces they're missing without Cotell Marte. But hey, Diamondbacks, again, they managed to pull off their 11th comeback victory of the season.

And they take this one. And like you said, tomorrow's important. They could go four and two against the Mets. in the season series with a win tomorrow. And I mean, the Mets do look like they're on pace to, you know, be in the hunt for their own division, but you never know what's going to happen come September. So you just would love to have that secured at least against one of the teams you know

is going to be there. You feel like watching this Mets team that they're going to be there at the end. But again, we appreciate you guys sticking around until the end. We appreciate you guys, of course, for your wonderful chat. We got some super chats before we get out here, Kevin. Derek Foster, a fellow Derek who spells it correctly. He says video game controller poses triumphantly in between the words, critical hit.

I think that's what he's looking for, like some sort of fighting game pose. Candice says, because there isn't a super chat. Don't know what that was about, but there was a super chat. So you're wrong. You're wrong, Candice. But I appreciate you being here, even in your wrongness. We will see you guys tomorrow. Of course, we got another post game show.

tomorrow jesse thank you so much for your time make sure to go follow jesse on twitter at jesse and friedman you can also check out snakes territory great show he does with jack speaking of jack uh rioma brought it up in the chat but jack has an amazing article on i think the diamondbacks medical staff and some other things in regards to who actually makes the decision here in regards to these players missing time and going on the i l i think it's uh incredibly good article so make sure to check out what he has over at s i.com jack always does a great job uh johnny walker thank you for your super chat he said go dbacks my friend johnny walker jesse remember my guy from my guy from elementary school here again good to have you buddy uh well jesse i appreciate you for being here it's good to have

you as always always always great to hear from you uh of course you can follow jesse again at jesse and i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k keb is at kev post 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 love you guys we appreciate you for stopping by we'll see you tomorrow on another post game show until then enjoy your evening have a wonderful night behave yourselves and remember kids baseball is fun but it is so much more fun apparently when jose herrera starts baseball games for the diamondbacks