PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - POSTGAME: James McCann’s HUGE 8th-Inning BLAST Saves D-backs From Phillies Sweep

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

The Arizona Diamondbacks had their backs against the wall in the series finale against the Philadelphia Phillies, but the bullpen delivered a massive performance and James McCann came through with a game-winning home run in the 8th inning to help the D-backs avoid a sweep. We have more on Arizona’s relievers stepping up to deliver a shutout in a bullpen game, McCann pulling double duty by catching the entire game and providing the biggest hit of the night, and why this win could once again prove to be one of the most important victories of the season. Plus, we discuss Ketel Marte’s absence from the lineup on Wednesday and how his bad week somehow got worse after an incident during batting practice on Tuesday. 0:00 - Intro 1:30 - Another Dub 4:00 - Torey Lovullo Opening Statement 34:00 - King Snake 52:00 - Ketel Marte Update 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/coll... 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/ Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX15 at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order! Husband & Wife Law Team: If you’ve had a serious injury, Call The Husband & Wife Law Team first at 602-783-8841 or visit https://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?ut... Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 40% 2+ pairs of off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. 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! 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 pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Arizona Diamondbacks end up salvaging the series just a little bit by avoiding the sweep. Bullpen game pays off and James McCann delivers the game winner in a one-nothing win. We are going live now. Turn on those cactus lights. Let's go! Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Diamondbacks Post Game Show. Leo K, presented by our friends at Circle K. It is your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia.

thrilled to have you guys here and thrilled to be talking about a Diamondbacks win. We did it. We didn't get swept. And we want a 1-0 victory once again, this time beating the Phillies in a bullpen game and a very, very important game that, yes, I know we've said it before, but a game that might have saved their season. I'm not alone. I have you wonderful people here in the chat. Chat, you are awesome.

I'm also joined by the one, the only Shane Deefam on the ones in Tuesday. and Shane might have to produce every episode now after this. I don't know because Damon wasn't getting the job done. We bring in, you know, a reliever, much like the Diamondbacks did today for their bullpen game. And look, look, look, what happens. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Let's let the facts speak for themselves.

I just push all of the right buttons. All right. I want David back. Never mind. Forget it. I take it all back. Yes, there it goes. Well, welcome in.

This show is brought to you by our friends over at GameTime. Go download the GameTime app right now. Create an account and use code PHNX for $20. off your first purchase to go to games just like this one. Call out a work, play hooky, and come watch the Diamondbacks play down the stretch because this is going to be fun. We're going to have a good time.

And it might not end the way we want it, but hey, get out and watch some baseball games. Diamondbacks win this baseball game today by a score of one to nothing. And again, don't even know how they got it done. I also don't quite understand how on a day where the Diamondbacks had a bullpen game and they were playing the Phillies that somehow this was the shortest game of the season

for the Arizona Diamondbacks at a lean two hours in three minutes. Do you like that, chat? You like compact baseball games that are wins? If you do, you like me. Yeah. Because this seems to happen a lot when I produce. It does. Shane was even testing the boundaries

of baseball this morning because Shane texted me and asked me, oh, are we going to do like a 4-15 start? And I was beside myself. I was like, how dare you? How dare you condemn me to a five-hour extra innings game with your words? Because that's what happens in baseball. Whenever you talk about a game needing to go short, you know, like the times where I've been like, hey, I have a concert.

Let's wrap this one up pretty soon. That's when we get a 12-inning extra, you know, 12-10-inch extra innings affair, right? luckily we didn't get that today even though it did look like at one point we were careening towards that in a zero zero tie and let's be honest I'm sure much like many

much like us many of you out there had no idea what this team was going to do if they did have to go into extra innings because they used a lot of relievers today and they really did need every single one of them in order to secure this victory they do improve to

74 and 67 and Shane, typically on that show, that means that we have to send little tiny perdomo up Mount 500, if you wouldn't mind. The most important part of this victory, now that they are 74 and 67, is that they have split the season series with the Phillies, and that could end up being very, very important when all is said and done. When we get down to the wildcard race, who knows? Maybe this is the loss that sends the Phillies into a little bit of a tailspin.

Maybe they can start losing some games, because as it stands at the wildcard race, we're before the game started today, they were actually in the top spot in the wildcard race. They had surpassed the Chicago Cubs for the number one spot in the wildcard race with the Cubs falling down in number two. And the Padres briefly being in there over the Diamondbacks. But that's not the case any longer. The Padres did lose today and the Diamondbacks won. So that's happened. We'll get to that here shortly.

But the story of this game is obviously the debacks turning to their relievers for a bullpen start. and those relievers absolutely delivering for this team today. Just for Killer Rex, let's hear from Tori Lovalo on his thoughts on this win. This game had a typical feel. Midweek, day game, both teams getting away. And I kept thinking it was just going to take one special moment that was going to help us win this game, whether it be a two-out knock, a misplay on defense,

whatever it was. It was going to be somebody that was going to stand up and offensively get the job done. And that was James McCand. He looked like he sat on a downbreaking ball. And the timing of it couldn't have been any better. We sold out to a plan. We followed that plan from a pitching standpoint.

We knew how many things we had left. We weren't totally desperate, but it was every matchup that we wanted, went the way we wanted. And what can you say about the relievers? They were unbelievable. I watched one guy after another to make a sacrifice for this team, for their teammates.

Taylor Clark going one plus. Derek Law going one plus. Kevin Ginkle thrown in the fourth inning of the baseball game. Little things like that mean so much to me in this team. What we're trying to do and it's part of this culture. And they didn't care. They did it because they wanted to go out there and get the job done. I thought a very key play in this game was the double play ball

that ended the sixth. It helps set up some things. the way we wanted it to, we were going to sell it to Garcia. He was unable to go one plus. He could only give us one inning. So when we got that double play ball, it stacked up perfectly. So great win. It was a great win.

It was a team win. Everybody contributed. They feel good about it. They're celebrating right now. And we're going to head on to Houston and continue to play good baseball. We need to obviously get going offensively. And when you score three runs and three games and you win one of them, them you got to be satisfied with the win but we got to be better offensively and these boys are

going to grind it out and get it done i mean it was one of those days where if this goes differently we are going to blast the offense for the lack of production today and we'll get into that here but we're going to give our flowers to the bullpen because this worked out perfectly as far as the game plan was concerned and i mean some of these guys they even you know were used just last night. Taylor Clark shoved last night. He looked outstanding and he was the opener in today's game. He got Schwabber to ground out and then he gets Turner to strike out swinging. He walked Harper with two outs on what looked like kind of a, I'm staying away from you at bat, but then he ended the inning with an arise flyout. Taylor Clark goes out there for the second

inning. He gets one and two-thirds innings pitched, one walk, one strikeout and continues to look solid. I know he's had a few bad outings here there. especially a few bad outings lately, you know, like we said, he was fairly consistent all season. And if he did have a bad outing, it was kind of few and far between. But again, today looks solid, looked great last night as well. Then he gets relieved by Derek Law. Once again, great name. That's like, that's what I mean.

I feel like when I was eight years old, that's the name I would have called myself playing pretend with my friends. He also spells it right, by the way, once again, just need to throw that out there. But he came on in the second with two outs. He struck out Justin Crawford to end the inning. They then gave out a one-out double to Brian Dela Cruz, who would be stranded at second base. And that was kind of the case all day to day. I don't believe any single reliever gave up more than one hit in an inning.

Derek Law gives them one in the third innings pitched, one hit, two strikeouts. Then Kevin Ginkle comes in. He starts the fourth inning off with a huge strikeout of Bryce Harper. He goes one inning getting that one strikeout of Harper. he turns it over to Jose Cabrera. Our thoughts here overall was that Jose Cabrera was not only going to be the opener for this game or the bulk of the work. But, you know, again, based on his status and everything, we thought that he would at least get more work than he did today. And that's when I started being a little concerned because obviously when he exited the game, it was still zero-zero, and he'd only pitched two innings.

I started doing basic math because, as you know, I'm not the smartest guy. However, my basic math said that if they did go to extra innings, they were going to be running out of pitchers really fast. Maybe James Buchan was going to come out from behind the plate and go out to the mound because we know he's seen some time before. But he decided I'm not going to do that and, you know, prevented that with his home run. But Jose Cabrera did get a leadoff single from De La Cruz in the 6th,

who was really the only thorn in the Diamondback side today. It's a guy like De La Cruz. It's not Trey Turner. It's not Kyle Schwaber. It's not Bryce. It wasn't even Luis Araze, who struck out for the first time in forever in this game. Forever!

But he got Turner to hit into a 4-3 double play to end the inning in the sixth. And that was just huge. Huge defensive play there. And Cabrera gives him two innings, getting the one hit, but getting two strikeouts. Then Brandon Garcia comes into the game specifically to take on that portion of the lineup. He did give up a leadoff single to Harper to start the seventh inning. But then he got the first strikeout of Louisa Rise since August 18th.

That's also the last time Luis Arise walked, I believe, as well. But yeah, gave up the first, got the first strikeout of Luis Arise since August 18th. Hey, remember when I wanted Luis Arise and a bunch of people were telling me how he wouldn't have fit with this team? team and he was bad at first base defense. Would you like to have a guy that hasn't struck out in like two weeks? That seems cool. He also struck out Marsh to end the inning. And Brendan Garcia is a bona fide G in a certified stud, and you can't teach that.

Or certified G in a bona fide stud. It works both ways. But he got an inning pitch there. He gave up one hit, 2K. Probably the guy that just looked the most solid in this game, Johnny Lazzania. Lots of heat, lots of cheese, one inning pitch, zero's across the board. And then Juan Modeo comes in, closes things out with his one inning save, came in, got the walk, got two strikeouts. And it was just a huge performance here from this staff overall, just a huge day and cannot say enough about how important it was that they avoided going into extra innings.

Even an extra innings win feels like that might have been the straw, you know, for this particular situation. It feels like if they needed to go any further past the ninth inning, that they were going to be in a bad position. More importantly, you can see now why, you know, having Corbin Burns potentially start in game one of the Astros series wouldn't be great with how taxed this bullpen now is. And, you know, you would go into that game with Corbyn Burns needing to basically be kept under, you know, three innings, three innings max, right?

So with that being said overall, I will say that it's still cool that Corbyn Burns is going to be pitching in a bridge camp game tomorrow. And then we're going to have Corbyn Burns back by either the final game of the Royals or the first game of the series with the Rangers. And Tori confirmed that today without really confirming it. But he confirmed it. So that's exciting because the Diamondbacks need some help. And they really can't afford to have another one of these type bullpen games, right? This is great. Get John Curtis out of here.

Look, I told, look, not every reliever got into this game, okay? He's always there, though. He's always waiting. And he was mad. His name wasn't called today. Sorry, John. But, again, it's the fact that the Diamondbacks really cannot. They have a lot of guys that are approaching 70 appearances this season.

And it was discussed today that 70 appearances is something you don't want to pass just historically. It's bad for guys that are relievers. It's bad for their careers. especially consecutive seasons where they have, you know, 70 appearances. Luckily, they do have, you know, some fresh arms here. They also, Derek Law is providing them with some great relief. And once again, great name spelled correctly. And then you have J. Mart who was not used today, but still is another fresh arm

that is going to give you a lot of innings. And, you know, again, they're trying to use him sparingly. But I feel like once they feel comfortable, then J. Mark's going to be a very, very important part of this. you know, bullpen down the stretch. They just got dogs, man. They just got dogs. And I think that one thing that is cool about this bullpen is you could see them using a number of these guys there in the ninth inning. That whole, you know, bullpen by committee situation is not historically a very good idea.

It's not something that's worked out for Tori and his staff. But right now with guys like Juan Murillo who can go out there and throw 100 miles an hour, Brandon Garcia that can throw 100 miles an hour. J-Mart, who can throw 103 miles an hour, like, get out of here, pick your poison. Who do you want to see there? You know? So I just feel like it still is a very good situation to have this versatility, especially now at this point of the year, rather than having to rely on one particular guy like we did

with Paul Seawald as a closer for a stretch. You know, Paul Seawall, that barely touched 92, by the way. I'll just throw that out there. Let's hear from Tori. Here's his thoughts on the excellent job that this bullpen staff did today for this team. You know, for the first time in quite a while, I feel like there's a lot of guys that can step up, and there's a version of guys that are young and, like, Walt Stippant.

I'm not going to put him in that category because he just got out here, but there's five, six relievers we can go to each time on any given night to go out and execute. It's a great luxury for us, and they've earned that. And we're trying to not have guys at 70 appearances when the season ends. We want them to be scored in the 60s. You know, and that's why we don't go to them all the time. And sometimes the group right in back of the dugout doesn't understand every once in a while. They're like, they want a guy every night.

They want Garcia every single night when things are going wrong. It's just you're unable to do that because you got to spread out that workload. And they step up. It doesn't matter, you know. be anywhere from what Taylor Clark did today. He might throw the night that he on Friday. It's just, it's a beautiful thing. And it's like sweet music every time.

I mean, Tori was asked if this was the deepest bullpen. He danced around it there, and then Nick Piccaro summed it up by calling it the deepest bullpen. And we all had a good laugh about that because, yeah, Tori acknowledged that his dumb words don't always are always the best sometimes. But realistically here, when it comes to this bullpen, we might be looking at the best bullpen the Diamondbacks have ever had. Tori acknowledged that this is probably the best bullpen he's had in his tenure here. And, I mean, it's the reason why, once again, as we've covered, they have the most comeback victories in baseball because their bullpen can hold games close and that gives their offense a chance to come back. It's also why I believe they participated in close to, if not the most, one-run games, this being another one of those.

and game one also being another one of those. Yesterday, Herardo Carrillo didn't have a good day, and he kind of let this thing slip away, and he wasn't the only one Blake Walston gave up a run. They were kind of sporadically bad, but today they were the opposite. This bullpen was outstanding. And again, when it comes to that closer role,

we do know that it's going to continue to be a question. You're going to have, right, you're going to have like the question of, is J. Mark going to be the closer? Is this guy going to be the closer? right now, you know, obviously Juan Murillo and Brandon Garcia are both very, very qualified candidates for that role. Here's Tori discussing why he doesn't want to name any one particular guy. I had a lot of faith on, you know, I think he's a little bit of a reverse split guy for us.

I think his splits are great no matter what, but he's able to let's out comfortably as well as right. Once we got up Brandon, he was going to protect us in the sixth inning. I didn't want to have Brandon sit and go back into the game. So we had a 50-50 ball when we were talking about it in the dugout. We don't have the seventh, Garcia, the ninth. We will see how it shakes down. We probably had that conversation in the fourth inning.

But once we got Garcia, we had to sell out to it. I feel very comfortable with either of those guys. A lot of versatility there. A lot of versatility. And again, for Tori, it's about the matchups. And when he wants to deploy those arms and those weapons there in the bullpen. But again, nine strikeouts today total for the staff. And I don't believe, like I said, any one pitcher gave up multiple hits.

I believe there was, you know, I don't even think anyone pitcher gave up multiple base runners today. I think that Taylor Clark gave up the one walk. Derek Law gave up a hit, Ginkled no hits, no walks. Cabrera gave up one hit, Garcia one hit, one walk for Juan Murillo. It's a pretty clean day for. for this particular pen. And again, it's a pen that has even some new pieces being added to it. And those pieces are also working out as well in Derek Law as kind of like a righty specialist

right now for this team. So things are going the Diamondbacks way, at least pitching wise. Offensively, I almost still want to play the blame game. I'm not going to. I'm not going to, but I almost want to, all right, because this offense continues to confound me and I still don't feel. comfortable. This is just like the Cubs series, right? Where they won that series somehow, some way, but you don't really feel comfortable exactly with how the offense is doing right now.

Plus side here is that pitching tends to win you baseball games. So let's not forget that. But we are going to talk about this offense on the other side of this break. So don't you guys go anywhere. You're watching the PHA next time and back show. Of course, you guys already know that Draft Kings, the weight is over, football is here, Draft Kings is on. And this September, Draft Kings is giving all customers, all customers, the opportunity to get boosted every game day. That's right.

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And Jason, look, Jason's trying to tempt me with Carissa Codell videos, and I'm trying to work here, Jason. All right. But yeah, I'll check that out right after this show. One thing I don't like, one thing that I don't want to check out is the offensive numbers from today's game because it was another atrocious offensive performance. There's no other way to cut it. We won the game. That's great. It's one of those times where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We got out of there with the win. We still have a lot to talk about and a lot to fix. And when I say that, I mean, this offense was spectacularly bad against Andrew Painter today, who has not been very good for the Phillies, but he was outstanding for the Phillies today. At least the Diamondbacks made him look outstanding. They were not patient. They were not making him work.

This man was barely breaking a sweat today. Two hours and three minutes, by the way. And that's with a bullpen game. Do you realize that means extra time every inning for the Diamondbacks pitcher to go out there and get warmed up? And this still was the shortest game of the season? How? Because Andrew Painter made the Diamondbacks offense look like a bunch of nerds today.

He just dominated this. And it started with a Lars Neupbar leadoff single in the first inning that gave me the false hope that this was a good sign for the offense. I was like, hey, yeah, let's get going early, boys. What would follow after that would be an absolute embarrassment. Andrew Painter would sit down the next 10 Diamondbacks hitters in a row. It was briefly interrupted by an error made by one of his defenders behind him. and then after that he would sit down the next 70 backsetters in a row. That's cool, right?

Great stuff. It would only be broken up there by Gabby Moreno who reached on a fielding error by Bryson Stott, third baseman there for the Phillies. Moreno would reach second. And he reached second with one out. And Perdomo laid down a bad bunt that did not advance him. So it went right to the pitcher and he had to stay put. And then Arnato flew out, who had himself a pretty bad offensive day to day.

The next seven D-Bax hitters would go down in a row with their second hit in the game and their third base runner of the game, not coming until the seventh inning when Pardomo hit a one-out single. Aronado once again would ground out and then Tawa would strike out to end the inning. Like, we're going to talk about James McCann's heroic. Don't get me wrong. We're going to talk about the McCannibal, aka sexy man James McCann, aka Big Body James McCann. But we got to talk about this offense. This was bad.

And I mean, I don't know how to fix this. Tori said after the game that the biggest problem is that there was a lot of fastballs that they missed, that they should have hit. And he said that that's what Andrew Painter gave them was a diet of fastballs today. And he was not, he's not wrong about that at all when it came to Andrew Painter's day here. But I don't know. That's, that seems kind of inexcusable to me considering the, the talent on this team, that we just got beat, you know, today by fastballs. I don't know how to fix it. I'm not a baseball manager or a coach,

but I just feel like that is something that's, you know, fairly disgusting to me. He threw 41% forcing fastballs. He got three whiffs on them, so they weren't swinging and missing a lot. But his fastball did max out at 98.7 miles per hour today. So, you know, again, hats off to Andrew Painter for holding the Diamondbacks the way he did.

But we are talking about after his 22-pitch first inning, he had an 11-pitched second inning, a 12-pitch third-in. a nine pitch fourth inning. A nine pitch fourth inning. I'll throw this chair at the camera. I don't care. I didn't buy it.

An 11 pitch fifth inning, a 15 pitch sixth inning, and then he was eventually removed in the seventh after throwing 13 pitches. Like you got to make them work. And again, that's just the pitch count, right? Like the performance, the numbers are what they are, right? But if you're not going out there and making him on a day like this, throw you, fouling off some pitches, looking for a good pitch to hit. You know, I don't know what to tell you.

I mean, it almost feels like once again, this is a case where the Diamondbacks offense collectively as a whole is getting so desperate to fix the problem that that desperation is just causing them to be worse. And it's causing this entire situation to get worse for them overall. You know, I feel like that's definitely the case with Corby and Carroll, who struggled once again today. I mean, and I'm not going to single out Carol, even though we already discussed how badly he's been struggling, but he was 0 for 3 today. And at the very least, I found myself at one point just being satisfied that he made good contact and didn't strike out three times.

And that's sad. Like, I should never be satisfied with a 0 for 3 game from Corby and Carroll. But again, Moreno also 0 for 3. Perdomo had that one hit, you know, the one single and pretty much the rest of the offense looked. same. Lars Newbar's single in the first inning was one of three hits that they had today. But luckily for the Diamondbacks, that third hit went very, very far and was very important. With the game still scoreless in the eighth and Painter finally exiting the game, James McCann hit a lead-off home run off reliever with Jonathan Bolin

to give the snakes a 1-0 lead in the eighth inning. And then that was his fifth home run of the season, 409 feet to left field, 104.5 miles per hour off the bat. And that one was on a one pitch, very first pitch he saw. It was an 82 mile per hour sweeper down in the zone. Not a bad pitch. Honestly, James McCann was just waiting for something off speed.

He got it, and the McAnnamal delivered with what became the game-winning hit, the only run scored in this game. So here, let's hear from James McCann himself. Do we got James McCann? Let's hear from James McCann. Yeah, you know, it was really hard to come by hits today for both teams. So lean off the Bound, you know, I know we're just trying to scratch the cross one run. I was looking for a pitch to put in play and hopefully get on base to pass the baton. knowing guys behind me

or qualified hitters to to bump to hit and run to do something just to try to make anything else. I got to pitch up in the zone and thank you guys why to where it handled. He gets the number one pick in the Debacks fantasy football draft yesterday and then he gets the game winner today.

Pretty good two days for James McCann. I actually asked him that question and it got a good response from him. But overall here, just the lack of office. Offense, not great. McCann delivering late and keeping this game from going into extra innings. Critical. Critical. Not just critical for the purposes of, you know, not losing this game. But who knows how long it goes if they do go into extra innings and the Diamondbacks had a flight to

catch today to get to Houston. So all of this ends up working out, especially with the short game. They did get some decent defense overall. There was a nice jumping grab by Vargy, who was perfectly positioned to Rob Kyle Schwabber of what would have probably been an RBI single there in the third inning after Brian Dela Cruz doubled. And it felt like a very important grab. If he missed that, that was going to be probably at least the only run scored for quite a while in this game by either team. And then once again, we had that huge double play there in the sixth inning that really seemed to solidify some things and turn some things around apparently for this team.

brought that up. It was when Jose Cabrera was pitching and Trey Turner hitting that 4-3 double play there in the ending. So, but hey, I'll tell you this is one of those days where you just have to be thankful for the win, I feel like overall, and

thankful that, you know, we're able to make up some ground there in the wild card standings. Here's Tori talking about James McCann's big hit and obviously how important this was for the team. Yeah, I couldn't think of a better person to get rewarded for that.

It was, you know, one guy after another, he knows her stuff, but he just, that's not easy. You got to engage in a new game plan with every new reliever that's coming in there. And I think what he does really good is he sticks to strengths, he reads swings, and there's a setup going on there. The game of Cat and Mouse is very natural to him, and it really showed up. And couldn't have thought of a better guy to get. Couldn't have thought of a better moment for a guy that deserved it as much as James. I mean, James McCann not only handled a very busy day behind the plate with having a different pitcher practically every inning, but he also delivered the home run.

McCann, I asked McCann about, you know, the difficulties of balancing a staff like this, if this was a harder day for him. And he brought up a really good point. He basically said that, you know, you just don't know how each guy is feeling that day. At this point of the season, he knows each guy's stuff. He knows their strengths. He knows their weaknesses. But he doesn't know if they're not feeling a pitch. He doesn't know if there's something going on with them

because of the inability to check in with everybody and know who is all going to get into this particular game. So that's very understandable. And again, great day from James McCann. He, of course, I mean, don't get me wrong. The entire bullpen deserves it too. But we're giving the king snake to James McCann. mostly because, you know, he's sexy man James McCann, aka the McAnnamal, the big body, James McCann.

He's got a great smile in that picture. I mean, this picture goes, like, this is such a precocious, adorable James McCann right there. It's a hinge profile picture right there. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Interests, hitting nukes, walking teams off, fantasy football. Putting together drafts, you know, one for three, one home run, one, basically. walk off. That's what we're calling it. It's a walkoff. Uh, well, that's... It's basically a walkoff. It's basically a walk off. It's good enough for us for a walk off, but, uh, we're going to take a quick

break on the other side of this break. We are going to discuss the numbers from this entire series, uh, and take a look at those exciting updated wildcard standings. Don't you guys go anywhere? You're watching the pH NX Diamondback show. Speaking of exciting, I'm a NASCAR guy now. And if you are a NASCAR person as well, or even if you aren't, you can come experience the excitement of the chance. October 16th through the 18th when the chase returns to Phoenix Raceway. What is the chase? It's the NASCAR playoffs.

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I'm just going to tell you that now. It's not going to be good. Phillies did outscore the Diamondbacks in this one, 9 to 3. And with the way these numbers went, you'd probably think that this is just for one baseball game, perhaps. One baseball game with a lot of hits and not a lot of scoring. But no, no, no, this is a three-game series here between the Phillies and the Diamondbacks.

Diamondbacks scored one run in each game of this series. Astonishing. They had 18 hits told. to the Phillies 22 hits. And honestly, if you watch this series and you look at these numbers, these numbers probably don't make a ton of sense to you. The runners in scoring position, though,

again, I told you earlier, I'll throw my chair at the camera, and I really feel like the Diamondbacks want me to do that. 0 for 17 with runners in scoring position. Are you kidding me? 0 for 4 today, 0 for 4 yesterday, 0 for 9 in the opener. Oh, God.

And then three home runs hit. This might have been the most boring three-game series between the D-backs and the Phillies ever. Three home runs? Good God. And two of them were hit by the Diamondbacks. That's flipped. You're wrong.

Shane. The Phillies are the ones that only had one. See, that's how unbelievable this is. It wasn't believable. It wasn't believable. You didn't see it. You saw nothing. Again, awful, awful with runners in scoring position.

Starting ERA, outstanding for the Phillies. 0.96. They gave up two earned runs. I mean, they only scored, the Diamondbacks only scored three runs in the series, so you shouldn't be surprised about that. Their bullpen ERA also outstanding, 1.23. But to be fair, the Diamondbacks had a 2.51 bullpen ERA and a 3.55 starting ERA.

So not bad. Not bad overall here. And at least, you know, they salvage. this situation by winning today. And luckily, the Padres also lost their series, right? So that keeps the Diamondbacks not only step by step here with the Padres, which truly is the only team that we need to beat at this point. But maybe not, because the Marlins are kind of creeping up a little bit.

Let's take a look at the NL Wild Card standings here, if we could. Because, again, you'll see things have, things are good. things aren't terrible overall here we got the wild card spot the diamondbacks now sit in the third wild card spot the Padres sit a half game back and we have the Marlins three games back the St. Louis Cardinals four games back

and then the Pirates five. Pirates are out, Cardinals, I'm not going to count them out, but I'm just going to say they're distant enough back that I'm not that concerned. The Marlins meanwhile, they play both the Padres and the Diamondbacks

a lot between now in the end of the year. So I'm not riding off the Marlins because that is still a dangerous team that can get hot at any time and I'm not comfortable with how close they are to a wildcard spot. If all of these teams were five games back or more

then I would say it's just between us and the Padres at this point. Overall, the Diamondbacks still have an easier strength of schedule down the stretch than the Padres do, but both teams play a lot of the same teams. We both play the Yankees still. We both play each other. We

We play the Marlins. So, I mean, there's a lot of similarities down this stretch between the Diamondbacks and the Padres. But no matter what, unless one team is able to grab a four-game lead by the time that final series comes around, that final series very well could be deciding who makes it into the playoffs. Historically, the last few seasons, that hasn't really gone our way. But let's change that. Let's make that different this year. Let's figure out a way to break through.

Again, as you see, the Phillies, five and a half games. up on the final wild card spot there. You got the Chicago Cubs now five games up, so they are in the second spot. They're going to continue to battle, and I know that the Cubs are playing the Brewers. They have two series left with the Brewers somehow. So that's going to be a dog fight,

and so far it feels like the Brewers somehow have the Cubs number all year long. But, you know, hey, here we sit right now on Wednesday, September 2nd, in a playoff spot. And we got word that Corbyn Burns is coming back. We got word that as much as you might not like it, Zach Gallen is coming back. We also got word today that Ryan Nelson is going to be making a rehab start in Vassalia.

And he is starting, but that does not mean that the Diamondbacks are going to have him as a starter. Tori specifically said that he does not have the time to both stretch out and make it back during the regular season to help this team win. Nellie seemed fairly dead set on doing that exact thing, helping this team win, coming back this season, and trying to give this team, you know, some sort of boost in some way. Maybe not just a boost. He wants to give this team, you know, a further chance to win and make the playoffs. And he wants to do it in any way that he can.

So as far as the way the schedule is set up, like I said, right now it would appear. And this is just me speculating along with Tori, adding a little fuel to my speculation. it would appear that Wednesday, September 9th would be the return of Corbyn Burns, or it could get pushed back one game to Friday, September 11th, against the Texas Rangers. Now, beyond that, you would have Corbyn Burns. Someone asks, the Diamondbacks do not play the Brewers the rest of the year. So there would be no Corbyn Burns' Brewers matchup, Dan, but it would most likely set him up to pitch against the Marlins.

and then that would also set him up to pitch against the Rockies, I believe would be his final appearance of the year. It all depends on when he makes his first start. If it's against the Royals on September 9th, then his next start would be in game one against, or game two, I'm sorry, against the Marlins, and then his next start after that would be, let's see, one, two, three, four, the opener against the Rockies. and then one, two, three, four,

and perhaps, just perhaps, Corbyn Burns might be in a position to actually pitch in the final game of the year on September 27th against the Padres. If there was one guy that I would want in there besides maybe Eduardo Rodriguez, it's probably Corbyn Burns, but we still have to see how he looks when he returns, right?

So, you know, there's no guarantee. So far, so good. We've heard that he looked very good, it felt very good. he got six outs, soft contact, no whiffs, no strikeouts, no nothing like that. But again, the results are exactly what you wanted to see from Burns. So overall, the Diamondbacks aren't, you know, I know Tori made that comment that a lot of people were responding to yesterday about him saying that the best is yet to come from this team. With the easiest hanging fruit answer to that being, well, we're waiting and you don't have much time left with, what, 23 games now left in the team?

the season. But in reality, what Tori meant by that is that this team has not been 100% all year long, and they're still not going to be 100%. Let's be honest. A.J. Puck isn't coming back this season. They lost Ryan Thompson for the year. They've lost a few guys that won't be back. You're not getting Ryan Nelson in your starting rotation. So again, this isn't a team that's still at 100%. but next week they are going to be as damn close to 100% as they've been all year long. That's where we're at. And when this team is at 100%, there's a good chance that that could be the best version of this team. And it might be able to come together at the right time for them to have just a little bit of a runway to truly, you know,

tighten it up and make it the best version of that team before the playoffs come around. and then who knows what can happen. We've been there before. We've had some fun. So we'll see if we can make that happen again. We're going to take a quick break. And on the other side of this break, we are going to talk a little bit about Mike Hazen's comments

about being confident that they are going to get into the playoffs. We're also going to talk about Cotel Marte, not being in the lineup today, and simply not being able to catch a break at all in a very brutal week for Cotel Marte. We're going to do all of that on the other side of this break. Don't you go anywhere. You're watching the PHNX Diamond Back Show.

Well, if you are an inner circle member over at Circle K, I'm here to tell you that we've leveled up. And it's all about the levels, right? There are levels to levels to Circle K. Welcome to Level 2.0 of the Inner Circle membership, where every visit counts at Circle K. You can earn visits on qualifying purchases, which is a minimum $3 in-store purchase or a five-gallon gas fill up at the pump. and then you can trade in visits for rewards, such as getting up to a dollar off per gallon? Would you like a dollar off per gallon, please? I mean, I'll drive five extra miles just to get 10 cents off per gallon, let alone a dollar off a gallon.

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OAC all offers expire September 7th, 2026. And we told you guys about you doing your drafts at Heel River Resorts and Casinos. Well, we're doing our draft at Heel River Resorts and Casinos. Join us for our annual PHNX fantasy football draft live at the upper deck bar and grill at Heeliver Resorts and Casinos Wild Horse Pass on Thursday, September 3rd. That is tomorrow. We're going to be having some fun. I'm going to be wearing something ridiculous

and I am going to draft. Once again, another championship team, I'm going to be the first two-time winner in the PHNX fantasy football draft or draft. Not the draft in the league, but come see how it all starts at the football draft.

Shane doesn't like that. No, I don't think it's going to happen. No? What I do know is going to happen is Johnny Venerable is going to go to Waffle House at the end of the year. That's for damn sure. That's a fact.

That is a fact. You can catch a live broadcast hosted by the one the only incomparable Leah Merrill, and of course, the one and only Stephen Peters, aka PD, who will be the commentators slash analyst slash hosts for your night. You can watch us make our picks live, and then you can also get in on the Cardinals action at 430. The PHNX Cardinals show will be live from Healer River as well.

With? With quarterback Will Johnson. Oh, for real. For real. Let's go. All right. Well, his first drink's on me, and your guys diehard's first drink is on us here too as well. Plus, you diehards get 10% off of those Hila fantasy football draft packages.

And if you want to stay the night, you once again can use cards, FF for 25% off rooms. So RSVP for free at our link in our show notes or head on over to go phtnx.com slash events to do so. Well, Mike Hazen appeared today on Arizona's sports, and he made some very interesting comments about the next 22 days, especially going into the playoffs. And Mike Hayzen, who usually, I feel like is very, like, tempered. He's not exactly me and Damon on this show. He doesn't have the excitement level of, it's over, we're back every single day. But Mike Hazen said today that, quote, I'm very confident we're going to get into the playoffs. And then Tori echoed that sentiment and said, I too think we're going to get in the playoffs.

And guess what? I'm not nearly as confident, but I will say they made me want to run through a brick wall. So guess what? We're back. We've never been more back. And we're going to make the offs. And that's where we're at. I don't know.

I'd love to hear from you chat and what you think because I know some of you guys are not necessarily on the same page, especially after this particular series loss to the Phillies, which is completely understandable, right? But I will say that the little story from today was that

Mike Hazen did also confirm that Cotel Marte was out of the lineup today because it was specifically a day off that was listed for Cotel. Now, the reason why is due to his knee injury and it's due to the fact that they want to get Katel back on the field as a second baseman, not just de-aging. I will say from my own visual observations today that I saw Katel Marte

working very hard and in fact was literally the only guy out there. He was, because they don't take batting practice usually on day games at home and they do a limited amount of fielding that kind of gets done wrapped up like long before we arrived there as press. But what I did see was Katel Marte out there. there working at second base. Also, there was some confusion about his presence today, and I will say that Marte was in the dugout. I saw Marte in the dugout. Someone had asked me if he was there at the game. I saw him before the game, getting the work in, and then I saw him in the dugout. He was,

very interestingly enough, wearing a back brace in the dugout or some sort of like brace around his waist, which obviously is different from the injury that occurred with his knee. So I don't know. I just, when I saw him, I see a man that looks very, very, like, not injured, but hurt. You know, like a guy that's just had a long season, a grinding season, and he appears to be in some pain. And I think that despite what some people want to believe, I do think that those injuries that he's going through and everything that's happened to make this entire

situation into the mountain that it's become, you know, that I think. at the core of it is not only a lack of communication, obviously, and miscommunication, but I do think that there is some, you know, pain there overall here from Cattel. And, you know, again, he's fighting his way through it. It looks like he's trying to fight his way to get back onto the field for this Houston Astros series. I will say this, though. Cattel has had a very rough week. And I think he's taken plenty of lumps.

I think he's had plenty of bad things happen to him. And my hope is that many, like many of you, like Sean says, Breakthrough Series in Houston for Kattel, especially if we draw a lefty. You're not wrong about that. But I will say that this week probably couldn't have ended any worse for Ketel because this man can't seem to catch a break. He was taking batting practice in yesterday's game. Many of you may have seen this story, but we didn't have a chance to talk about it. But Kattel hit a member of the grounds crew in the head with a home run ball that he hit into the bullpen on the third base side.

like I mean that's not Catelle's fault Catell's just out there taking batting practice it's not anybody's fault it's just a freak accident that happened the crew member appeared to be fine I think Greg Esposito no that's our guy

the other Esposito went out there and checked on and Max everything like I was looking at the situation with my binoculars after you know after some discussion it appeared that the grounds crew member was in good spirit everything seemed to be fine

but he was basically working on the home bullpen mound in the dugout or in the bullpen when Cotell Marte hit a scorching home run, 113 miles per hour off his bat into the bullpen and it hit the grounds crew member in the head. And like, don't get me wrong, the bigger unlucky person here is definitely the grounds crew member that was struck in the head. I'm not going to make this out to be that. But it's like on a week where Cattel already had so much. bad stuff happening.

Like, it feels like literally nothing can go right for this man because even if he's trying to innocently just take batting practice, he's accidentally hurting one of the grounds crew members over there in the bullpen. I mean, it's, it's, it's,

it's like this not working. This, this bad omen. That's a bad omen. This is a very bad omen. So we don't love that stuff, but hopefully things can get better for Ketel. Hopefully, things can get better.

better for this team. Like I said earlier, they're sitting in a really good spot, a spot that many people, including many people in this chat, didn't expect them to be in on Wednesday, September 2nd with a record of 74 and 67 and a playoff spot right now that they are sitting in. It's meaningless until the end of the season, of course, right? But the Diamondbacks, again, had seven pitchers today used, and that was the most pitchers used in a nine-inning shutout in franchise history. So as much as we give the Kingsnake to our guy,

James McCann, for the game-winning hit, I think all seven guys, all seven pitchers, Clark, Law, Ginkle, Cabrera, Garcia, La Wizaga, and Morillo all deserve to be King Snake today. Shane, get on making all of those graphics. On it. On it. All right.

Last thing. Here's a graphic. I did want to hear from Juan Morillo. who actually, I don't know if we've, I don't know if I've ever spoken to Juan Murillo. And he talked to media after the game and did a fantastic job. Here's Murillo talking about today's win. You know, for me it's amazing. We have an amazing group in the bullpen.

I think we're doing the great job holding the game. And we were a really good group. He was very, very confident overall here in being a part of this good. bullpen and confident that you know the that he and his teammates can come in at any point and get you know that that inning of work done as he said he went in he got he got his inning you know and again that's kind of the way that this bullpen right now is is performing they go out there they get the job done it it takes me back to when you know the paul seawald trade happened and we discussed how when Paul Seawald got traded to this team,

we heard from several relievers, Kevin Ginkled, Jomantyply, a couple of guys that all said, like, they know what their role is now, which made it sound more disorganized prior to Seawald being there than anything else. And I'm sure that wasn't their intent. They were just saying that they could be used at any time and like knowing whether you are a middle guy,

a negative guy, meaning you come in in games where they're down, or a positive guy, meaning you come in, to hold leads, right? Like, there wasn't really any of that. And again, it's those, those guys didn't seem to love that. These guys, the guys that we've lovingly referred to as the Latin Kings, and that includes Derek Law. I'm not, not including him in there. These guys, these guys are, hired guns. You, you want them to go get the job done. They'll take care of business for you. And we got some, we got some dogs in there. We got some dogs. Many of you are By the way, speaking of dogs, where Damon Dog is, he has the day off, by the way.

College football season is here, and it's going to ruin my life by taking Damon away from me more. But I've been more than thrilled to have the one, the only Diefenbach on the ones and twos today. I'm not throwing shade at you. Thanks to you, we got a two hour and three base, two hour and three minute baseball game, Shane. I've just been told that you're the king of short games. I ruin Derek's life when I have to produce. You're a short king. Does that, is that work?

Yeah. I mean, the baseball short king is what Shane is becoming. How tall do you think I am? Oh, so tall. I'm so jealous of how tall he is. But by the way, the Diamondbacks used the seven pitchers used, bleh. Timebacks did use seven pitchers one other time, by the way. It does show that on April 30th, 2017 against the Rockies, they won a two-0 game.

So that one, that one, they used a lot of guys in that one, too. so. But overall, excellent job here by this pitching staff, an excellent job by this team. Jay says 6 foot 4 while just toes says 4 foot 6. One of you is 100% right. And you wouldn't believe which one it actually is. But that's for Shane, not me. I'm a tall guy. You guys know that. I'm a big tall guy. Well, thank you guys again for your time. We appreciate you. We love you. We'll be back tomorrow with another 12 p.m. show. And then we're doing our thing tomorrow night out at Heel River. Join us for both of those things. But of course, make sure to come back here. We're going to preview that upcoming series this weekend with the Houston Astros as well as talk more about some issues

with the lease situation going on Chase Field. Got more Chase Field drama to talk about. So come back here tomorrow for that. Until then, you can follow us on social. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. Shane is at Shane Deef. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks. But as always, all roads lead to at pHNX underscore sports on Twitter. Instagram and Facebook. Thank you guys so much for your time, as we've told you so many times. It's your most valuable commodity. We can't thank you enough for sharing some of it with us. We'll be back here tomorrow. Until then, love you. Have a good rest of your night. Enjoy this win. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when big body James Buchan is hitting dingers.