PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - POSTGAME: Yamamoto OUTDUELS Darvish, Dodgers Take NLDS & Eliminate Padres

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

We just miss doing postgame shows so much that we are here covering the finale of the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. We are recapping the pitching duel between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Yu Darvish, the fire provided by Kike Hernandez during and after the game, and if Fernando Tatis Jr and the Padres poked the bear too soon in this series. We also discuss the outlook of the NL West for the Arizona Diamondbacks and if they can compete with these teams next season. Join Derek, Jesse, and Kevin for the PHNX Diamondbacks 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/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose your offer! 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/ Bluechew: Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code ALLCITY at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com promo code ALLCITY to receive your first month FREE. Visit for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.. Zbiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/phnxdbacks to get 15% off your first order when you use PHNXDBACKS at checkout. Pre-Alcohol is backed with 100% money back guarantee so if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, they’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details. Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks. $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details. 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! Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off! 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't know why angry you Darvish's face. Delighted be so much there. But ski to you all. Good evening to all of you friends. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Diamondbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Monti, occasionally known as your mayor of this joint. This guy next to me is my partner in crime and the Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. And of course, this show is brought to you by our friends at Bet365.

Go download the Bet365 app right now. I don't know why you don't already have it on your. phone. But do it right now. Use that code of PH and X365 when you sign up. Choose your offer and find out why it is never ordinary at that 365. And Jesse, we saw probably the most ordinary game of this entire series tonight when it came to these two teams.

It was a real pitchers duel out there between the Dodgers and the Padres. And the Dodgers end up taking this one by a score of two to nothing. And they will advance to the NLCS to take on the New York Mets. The Padres just like couldn't hit all of a sudden. And I don't really know how to explain that. I mean, granted, give credit to the Dodgers. They, they really threw the heck out of the ball today and in their, in their last game as well. But 23 consecutive scoreless innings for this Padres offense to finish the series.

That is not something I had on my bingo card. Jesse. And it almost. They poke the bear. They poke the bear. They stirred the pot too soon. They got themselves. They were, they were celebrating the finale.

of this series in game two. And I know that this is the identity of the San Diego Padres team. I can't take anything away from it. And at the end of that game, the Dodgers looked like they were absolutely on their heels, not only based on the way that the Padres played, but just in general, like emotionally, it seemed like the Padres really had the Dodgers shook. And instead of being shook, the Dodgers came out and played some of their best baseball of the season against the Padres in the remaining games of the series.

I mean, I guess game three, they did. lose that one, but it felt like there was a tipping point in the middle of that game where the Dodgers kind of came back online. They didn't do enough to obviously tie the game or win that game, but they came close. And then since then the Dodgers have just been the better team in the series, frankly. Yeah, I, I'm in my head, this is an upset question mark. Like I'm genuinely trying to, it felt like there was a point in this series. where the Dodgers became the underdogs, maybe even before the series began,

because the reality was the Dodgers pitching staff was so decimated by injuries. You were looking at Yamamoto, who wasn't necessarily going to pitch super deep in games. We saw that again today, even when he was fantastic. He was out after five innings and intensity three pitches. You knew Jack Flaherty was going to be a weapon for them as well,

but there were a lot of question marks after those two guys in their rotation. And sure enough, the Dodgers rotation was not especially good in this series. They really didn't get a great start from anyone outside of Yamamoto delivering a very, very good game today. But they found a way to win this series anyway. And again, it almost feels like an upset to me, Derek. It felt like the Padres and the vibes in San Diego going back to game three, where it just felt like the Padres where we're going to come back in game four.

and probably finish the job. That is not the way that this series ended. The Dodgers came out and just absolutely dominated the rest of the way. I got to give a shout out to Maria G. Jesse. Maria G. is in the chat tonight. Our favorite Dodger fan, congrats to you and your squad. This was an incredible game, an incredible matchup. Like, again, you can't take anything away from you, Darvish tonight.

He was outstanding as well. It felt like he might have blinked first, but it didn't really feel like, you know, that was, it didn't feel like that was going to be the end of it. It didn't feel like Yamamoto was going to be as good as he was tonight for the Dodgers. But, you know, we know that they've had their struggles. We know that the Dodgers have had a lot of injuries, including to Yamamoto. And obviously, they couldn't have gotten him back at a better time because he was absolutely brilliant on the mound tonight for the Dodgers. Five innings pitch, two hits allowed, zero runs, one walk, two strikeouts.

They only allowed him to go to 63 pitches. and I know that they were, you know, Dave Roberts was making sure that Fernando Tatis and company saw as many different pictures as possible. I think they were talking about it on the broadcast, something like essentially like eight different pictures that Tatis saw in his final like eight at bats or something like that. So it's like they were keeping him on his toes and they were definitely utilizing their pen and everything they had to kind of not let the Padres see any of these pictures more than once. Yeah, and home runs play such a big role in how these series go. And I believe if I double-checked my notes here real quick, I believe the Padres hit basically all of their home runs in the second game of the series. It was, yeah, so it was eight home runs that the Padres hit in this five-game series as a whole,

which is a pretty decent number. You're averaging more than one homer per game. But six of those eight home runs came in game two, a game that the Padres obviously won one-handling. at Dodgers Stadium. So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of what, what this came down to. I mean, today, it's not like the Dodgers had a whole lot of offense, but the Dodgers hit a couple of home runs in this game, and that was enough.

And the Padres did come close a couple of times. Mani Machado hit a couple of deep fly balls to the warning track. I think one of them would have been a home run in five out of 30 parks, the other one, 12 out of 30. But Teosker and Kike, I mean, those were not cheap, shots. Those were 30 out of 30, no doubt home runs all the way. And that winds up being the difference in this game. Kiki Hernandez makes me feel old, Jesse. I've been watching this man do this for a very long time in Major League Baseball. And I look, I know, I already know the

accusations against me in the chat about being a secret Dodger fan. So there's nothing I can really say here that's going to disprove that theory because this man got me fired up with his curse words that I can no longer say on this show either, but maybe me and Damon could talk about what we do an after dark episode, but Kike Hernandez asking if they were live after the game and saying the reason that the Dodgers are doing this is because right now they just don't give a F and he dropped that on live TV. That was fun. It's like you was trying to make sure that it was being broadcast online. Oh yeah. He wanted he wanted to curse on live television. I get it. I love doing it. It was one of my favorite things to do, Jesse. But I mean,

you have to feel good because that Padre's team, that Padre's team was dancing on your field. They were, they were laughing in the faces of your fans. They were putting it to you in game two. Like there was a point where I like things probably looked fairly bleak. I'm sure in that clubhouse for the Dodgers. And since that moment, things turned around. Like I said, they did lose game three. But man, the Padres finish on a 23 inning scoreless streak. Jesse, they did not put up anything after that six run inning in the second

inning of game three. And then this, this was great per Sarah Lang. She said the Dodgers retired their last 19 batters faced. end this series, the third most to end a postseason series behind only the 2015 Royals and the 1992 World Series Reds. Both of those did, or sat down 22 in a series. But man, that was an incredible performance. And I mean, we know the Dodgers choke. We know the Dodgers don't choke out, you know, show up for the big moments, but that, that really wasn't this Dodgers team. And see, there it is. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I knew it was

coming. It's fine. I was expecting it. I'm surprised you guys didn't kick things off with it, to be honest, but I appreciate it. I am curious for people in the chat. I'm sure some people have already said this and I probably missed it. But like my assumption is that if you're a D-Backs fan, you're probably not too happy with this outcome. Like it wasn't, it was a lose-lose in a sense. But yeah, I imagine most Diamondbacks fans wanted the Padres to win, wanted to see the Dodgers lose in the first round by at the hands of a division rival for the third consecutive year. So, yeah, I'm definitely curious how all of you feel about that. But the way that the Dodgers won this series is kind of baffling to me.

Like going in, we talked about the pitching and how that was going to be a weak point. And as I mentioned earlier, it kind of was. It wasn't like the Dodgers starting pitching carried them in this series. but what did carry them was their bullpen. Michael Kopeck did not give up a run in this series. Anthony Banda did not give up a run in this series. Blake Trinan didn't give up a run. You go through the list, Alex Vessia didn't give up a run, Daniel Hudson,

like all of the Dodgers back end relievers, every single one of them was fantastic. And what's also odd about this is that the Dodgers, like their big three hitters didn't actually. do very much in this series. Like I would have thought that if the Dodgers were going to win the NLDS, that it was going to be, you know, maybe not all three of them, but like two out of three of Mookie, Shohei and Freddie probably just went off

and did all sorts of damage. And yes, the Padres pitching is fantastic, but these hitters are just better. That's not what happened. Shohei Otani, a 623 OPS in this series. Fred Freeman, a 572 OPS in. this series. Mookie bets, I don't have the number in front of me.

I think his was a little higher, but his batting average was not very high. It was just sort of the two home runs that he hit, which were meaningful, but it's not like he went crazy or anything. So the Dodgers got some contributions elsewhere. Teja Hernandez had a great series. Kike, obviously coming through with that big dinger today.

Gavin Lux got on base a decent amount. So it was a more balanced attack than I expected it to be. I was present as Ina says Teosker was home run champion. What else did they expect? I was present. You were present to see him win that home run title, Jesse. A lot of people in that building, including myself, weren't happy about that at the time. We were big Bobbywood Jr. fans in that moment.

But, hey, sometimes it's not the outcome we want. I guess my question, I've been poking at it. I've been talking about it. I mean, but seriously, did the Padres wake up a sleeping giant? their actions. And I mean, this isn't to excuse the actions of the Dodgers fans that were provoking the Padres either. So I'm not trying to put this all in the Padres. But there was one point where, you know, Fernando Tatis Jr. was dancing salsa over there in the outfield. And, you know, there's like there's, there's, there is such a thing as like, you know, billboard material or

bulletin board material, excuse me, billboard material is different. That's, uh, that's after you win. But bulletin board material to, you know, kind of like fire the guys up. And it really did feel like the Dodgers kind of shifted things into a different gear after that. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. It would be interesting to see what Padres players have to say about all of this. I mean, I think if if it had if it had gone from that game, that game two, where all of those shenanigans happened and the Padres had come back and lost game three,

you know, gotten embarrassed in. game three on their on their home field. I think that would have sort of pushed that narrative for me. But the reality is the Padres came back home and they played a pretty darn good baseball game. I mean, their pitching showed up. I know the offense was again, all in that second inning with the six run, the six run frame that they obviously got a little bit of help from Dodgers defense in that inning.

But, you know, the Padres were able to come back and win another game and put themselves in position to win the series. They just like couldn't score a run when they needed. to in games four and five. I don't know if this is an exact quote or something you are saying, Damon would say, but I'm pretty sure he did say this. So I think this is an exact quote.

Damon's saying Padre fans are being arrogant for their little success. And that kind of, I guess is something you could say about the Padre's team during the series at times. I know they play with a chip on their shoulder. And I know that some of the stuff they were doing was intentional to kind of get to the Dodgers, right? Like it's not like they, it's not like they didn't know what they were doing was going to bother them. I just think it had an adverse reaction.

Sometimes when you, you poke someone too much, you know, the bully all of a sudden gets bullied, you know, and that kind of looks like what happened in this series. The Dodgers are just still a very good team. And Yoshinovo Yamamoto was the man today. He was, he made them look very smart for their acquisition of him during the offseason. And for his performance today, he is our king snake. This feels gross. This is wrong.

No, I don't want that. Kevin, take that down. I don't like that. No, no, no, no, we can't give a king snake to a Dodger. Jesse, I think my appendix just burst when we did that. That made me feel sick. Oh, but yeah, no, I mean, we just miss doing post-game shows so much, you guys. That's why we had to do this.

This is why we're here. Yeah, people are happy about that. They're not. It really did. It really did hurt my stomach. I don't know what's happening to me. I might have to get an ambulance before the end of this show, but we'll figure things out. I'll be fine. No more. Yeah. See, all the people are losing their minds. And see, there's a Jay Cuddy comment. Derek Dodger fam confirmed. I knew it. I knew I wasn't going to beat the accusation. You're not really helping your case in that regard right now. Yeah, Ryan, I am sorry, Ryan. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's Kevin's fault. David would have never let us do that, right? No, David would have straight up. He would have straight up rejected the graphics request. Kevin, Kevin is new enough at this point.

Yeah. Yeah, this is on us. This is not Kevin's fault. Kevin just does as he's told. And he's a good guy. He's a good guy. But he doesn't give us the pushback, Damon did. On the other side of this break,

we're going to talk about the numbers from this series. and of course a little bit more about the entire playoffs where we're at in the bracket. But of course, we do appreciate you guys being here as PHNX Sports YouTube channel watchers. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, do so now. If you're here as a Dodger or Padres fan, welcome in. I know you probably don't want to stick around, but just consider it. Consider subscribing.

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Well, speaking of Desert Financial Credit Union, let's take a look at the count for this series between the Dodgers and the Padres presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. The Dodgers outscore the Padres here by a score of 24 to 21. They out hit the Padres 37 to 36. You got to love baseball. The batters or the runners in scoring position, the batting average was much different here. The Dodgers definitely took advantage going 11 for 34 versus the Padres six for 33. starting pitching ERA, not very good for either team, 6.08 for the Padres, Dodgers 6.86, and then relief pitching ERA. Very similar as well. 2.33, 2.10 for the Dodgers.

Kind of incredible, Jesse, that these two teams were so evenly matched. And when you take a look at these numbers from this, you know, five game series, this is what, where we're at. I mean, I think that that Dodgers bullpen ERA is almost misleading because all six earned runs that that that unit allowed in the series came in game two. Outside of that, the Dodgers bullpen literally didn't allow a run in the entire series. So and yeah, a lot of, you know, those innings were mostly low leverage at that point. The Dodgers or the Padres took a pretty big lead in game two fairly early on. And so the Dodgers were using some of their some of their low leverage. or leverage guys toward the end of that game.

So, yeah, the Dodgers bullpen wound up being the better of the two, not by much. I mean, this Padres bullpen was really outstanding in this series as well. I can't really fault them for how this series ended. They pretty much did their job. I do think the Padres starting pitching, that is something on paper that I expected to be a bigger advantage for them than it ultimately was. Michael King pitched so well in that game in the Wild Card series. it to see him come out, you know, in the division series and just not really, not really look the same,

giving up five runs in those five innings of work. And then Dylan Cease, I think, is it was also kind of a major disappointment for the Padres in this series. I mean, they had a three nothing lead right off the bat in the first game of this series, and they lost that game because Dylan Cease just wasn't able to find any kind of rhythm. the Dodgers came back and tied it very quickly and ultimately went on to win that game. I guess the other factor here is that Joe Musgrove got hurt in the wild card around, of course. And I have to believe that this series could have looked different if Joe Musgrove was available for the Padres. They wouldn't have had to go to cease on short rest in game four.

Musgrove probably would have gotten that game. So maybe it looks different if that's the case. you know, maybe it's unfair to judge Dylan Cease, given that one of these starts was on short rest. But on the whole, I mean, Seas was supposed to be the ace of the staff coming into the season, and he really had two duds in the series. That was a really big, it really hard for the Padres to overcome that.

Ipe in the chat, eBay, maybe coming to us from federal prison, I'm not sure. It says in Japan. It was broadcast on NHK from 9-8. probably over 30 million people saw it. Everyone's talking about the Dodgers. Yeah, I mean, this was the first matchup of Japanese-born starting pitchers in MLB postseason history. And, I mean, what an incredible matchup it turned out to be, Jesse.

I mean, this definitely delivered as far as being a marquee matchup, being a finale, between these two teams that have been, you know, such rivals. And, yeah, home runs in this series, nine for the Dodgers, eight for the Padres. but like you said, the six, six of them came in game two. And then one in game one and one in game three. And outside of that, Padres really kind of petered out. So surprised. I mean, I think a lot of people pick the Padres.

I think a lot of people, like you said, that's probably the reason why it had this underdog feel to the Padres or to the Dodgers winning, because especially after the way things went in game two and even game three, to be honest, the way they hung on to win a game that they, win up huge and then Dodgers came back and then they held on. This one, I mean, this one has to hurt for the Padres.

And I mean, I don't know. I think there's a lot of chaos going on in Philadelphia. I'm interested to see what the fallout is here for San Diego and to see if, you know, they feel like anything drastic needs to be done. But playoffs have been interesting. Let's take a look at our updated MLB postseason playoff bracket, Jesse.

We got the. Mets moving on, and now the Mets will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League championship series. We have a chance. We have a chance to have an all New York World Series. That is on the table right now, as the Yankees did advance to the ALCS, and they currently await the winner of the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Guardians there. And I mean, I don't know.

I don't want to automatically give it to the Yankees, but it does kind of feel like the Yankees are just going to roll over whoever shows up there in the in the ALCS. Yes, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to pick the Yankees no matter, no matter who they wind up playing. It wouldn't totally shock me if, you know, the guardians or even the Tigers found a way to beat the Yankees. We do see some, some pretty crazy upsets in the championship series from time to time. The Diamondbacks over the Phillies last year, of course, a very recent example of that.

but yeah somehow it hadn't occurred to me how likely the the new york versus new york world series is i think that's my pick honestly i think that's my pick as of right now like it wouldn't shock me if the yankees lost a championship series but i'm going to pick them no matter who they wind up facing and look in the national league right now the dodgers found a way to beat a very very good Padres team in this series. You know, I think it's going to be an entertaining championship series in the National League that probably goes six or seven games. But it's real hard not to pick the New York Mets right now, just given the way that they

went in and just, I mean, three out of four games against a Philadelphia, Philly's team that I had picked to win the World Series back at the beginning of the year, thought the Phillies had one of the most, if not the most well-rounded roster, especially when it comes to to the postseason and elements of a team that you need then to win. Yeah, I'm probably going to wind up picking the Mets in the National League and the Yankees in the American League. It's hard. It's hard to go against the Mets.

Jesse Iglesias just dropped a remix for, oh my God, with pit bull in it. I mean, that's a remix? I mean, if you get, if you get grimace coming out to throw out a first pitch at any point during this series and then going and sitting in his purple seat. It's over. It's a wrap. Give him the World Series trophy right now. But I don't know. Doing this show feels gross. Talking about this stuff feels gross.

But still, we do have to talk about the National League West a little bit and how all of this is going to impact the future for the Arizona Diamondbacks, which that's who we're really here to talk about. But I did want to implore you guys to check out our PHNX plays, baseball videos that are going to be dropping on YouTube here. I think we got them going up this weekend. So we are not ready to live in this world yet. Jesse and I,

we're not ready to move on. Call it copium. Call it whatever you want. We are still in a world where the Diamondbacks made the playoffs. So that's a fictitious world that we live in on MLB, the show. We have some simulated games that we talk through and had some fun with that we will be posting on YouTube here shortly.

So hope you guys check that out. Hope you guys enjoyed that content. And hope you guys are buckled in for a long ride for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the digital world to do much better than the other ones. But anyway, you got anything else from this series, Jesse? You excited? I mean, what are your overall thoughts here?

I mean, I was ready for the Padres and the Mets. Like, that felt like the, you know, the immovable object versus the undeniable force thing or whatever, you know, but wrestling people are going to roast me for that. But yeah, it definitely felt like two very hot teams that were on a collision course and now the Dodgers ended the Padres. And I just, I don't know. Like, it's like we had all these exciting teams.

We had all this fun. But if the Dodgers end up being the team in the World Series, it feels just like it, like, it was all for nothing and it was all a giant letdown because we all saw what the Dodgers did this offseason. And we're like, yep, they're going to win. win the world series. Yeah, this, I mean, every year that the Dodgers have found themselves, I mean, well, the Dodgers find themselves in the postseason every year.

But just looking back at like the narrative surrounding the Dodgers over the past several seasons, I think this year out of all of them is, is arguably the one where there was the most doubt. It was like, okay, this Dodgers team, yes, they're in the playoffs. Yes, they have the first round by. But this Dodgers team might go in the first round. because pitching is so decimated. They just don't have it this year.

It's going to be tough for them, for them to overcome all of these obstacles. And yet, you're absolutely right. Like, as much as I think I'm going to pick the Mets to go to the World Series, which is just an outrageous thing for me to say, given how I was viewing the Mets as of like a month and a half ago.

But, yeah, like it would be shocking to see the Dodgers win that series by any means. You know, maybe they do get better performances from, from Mookie Betts and from Shoe Otani and maybe Freddie Freeman gets a little bit healthier. I don't think Freddie was really ever right in this division series when he was out there on the field. So yeah, maybe the Dodgers do wind up finding their way to the World Series in a year that a lot of us kind of had questions about whether that would actually be possible.

I wanted to thank to BMC for his super chat. and he says Dodgers win validates the D-BAC's victory last year. We flat out-out outplayed them when it mattered most. The by is officially no excuse. And yeah, no, I mean, I'm, trust me, I was never, I hated the excuse of the buy, but I also found it kind of fascinating. And I thought that there was starting to be some proven science behind it, right? But I did feel like in this series, maybe the Dodgers were on their heels a little bit

in those first two games. but then, I mean, they really weren't at a disadvantage, and then they really did get back into a groove. Maybe it impacted the Phillies in their series against the Mets, or maybe no team was going to stop the juggernaut, the buzzsaw that is grimace in the Mets, right? So, like, I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter, you know,

but I don't want there to be controversy. I really do like this format quite a bit. I think this is much better than just the one game wild card playoff. I think that this overall, all is is pretty fun for baseball. And I think, you know, on paper, much like you have said time and time again, Jesse, that the layoff should not be after 162 game season should not be a negative. It should not be a bad thing. It should not be something that leads you to not be able to win in the next round. But I am curious. Like, what are your thoughts about potentially extending the

division series to seven games after what we saw here? Is that something you think? that would improve this overall? Like, I mean, at the very least, if a team does have a slow start due to the layoff, it allows them to make up for it versus the shorter runway of the five-game series. I think it's a, I think it's a great question. Maybe it's something that Major League Baseball takes a look at. I mean, if ever a series made a case that the division series was worth seven games, it was probably this one.

Like, I would have loved to see, you know, this series continue on from this point. Who knows? Maybe the Padres are able to come back and, you know, win in San Diego, find a way to win the finale as well. So, yeah, I think this, this is an example of just how, how fun and crazy and chaotic, a division series matchup can be. And it is sad sometimes that the division series games, we only get five, even though sometimes these series are the most entertaining series that we face.

all postseason long. They're good. And I don't like this comment, but it's not because he's doing the Dodger fan thing. It's the amount of ours in my name, Jesse. It's D-E-R-E-K. It's simple. I have the simplest spelling. It's the spelling of my name that bothers me more than the implications of that tweet.

We do have some Diamondbacks talk, believe it or not. I know you guys have stuck around this long, and most of you are Diamondbacks fans. We thank so many of you for being here tonight. you guys are awesome. That doesn't mean you Dodgers and Padres fans can go anywhere because we are going to talk about the National League West and how this series, I guess, impacts the future for the Diamondbacks for the entire division.

So we are going to talk about that after this brief break. So don't go anywhere. Jesse, I love me some branded Bills hats. Branded Bills is an amazing company, local company, from right here in Mesa, Arizona. And you know me with all of my silly outlets, And it's Halloween time. It's spooky season.

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And oh, that kind of hurt me to say, not because of game time's cheap prices or that anybody can save 60% off. But I just, I don't want to help Dodgers fans go to baseball game, Jesse. But game time does have a new feature called GameTime Picks. We've been talking about it a bunch. Helps make getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier and finding the best deals on game times even easier. Filters out the fluff to show you only the best deals on great seats.

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So you need to match. my energy. I need you to match my energy. But yeah, maybe I need to bring it down because we need to talk about the Diamondbacks future in the National League West. And after seeing these two teams play each other, Jesse, I don't feel very confident. I still don't feel great about, you know, the Diamondbacks being in the mix here if they had made the postseason or what their chances would have been like despite how things are going in the video game world that we are participating in. But what do you feel like this series kind of tells about the future of the NL West and how this is how the Diamondbacks stand in regards to these two teams.

I mean, obviously we don't know yet what the Diamondbacks off season is going to look like or what the offseason for either the Dodgers or Padres is going to look like. But I can pretty much say with a fair amount of confidence that going into 2025, the Diamondbacks are going to be expected to finish no higher than third in the NOS. The Dodgers, the Padres, those teams are going to be viewed as the better as the better teams in the NL, almost, almost no matter what the Diamondbacks do. And that's not to say the Diamondbacks couldn't be a good team next year. I mean, they just won 89 games, which again is, is enough to make the postseason the vast

majority of the time, especially now that we have three wild cards in each league. So, you know, it's not to say that they couldn't find their, find their way into the postseason again next year, but the path gets more difficult. I mean, with both the Dodgers and the Padres as teams that could feasibly, win a hundred games like i mean the podres the way they played in the second half they were that caliber of team it's yeah i mean it's it's made a division that already felt almost unwinnable uh to being just that much more difficult now that the podres are in the mix there as well is there any benefit now though to the expectations being lowered or limited after

not making the playoffs right like you came off of a season where you did the unthinkable and you went on a magical run during the postseason, you make it all away to the World Series. Expectations couldn't have been higher, not only to return there, but with the additions that they made in the off season and the money they spent that the obvious next step is that they would not only return to the World Series, Jesse, but they would obviously win it, you idiot, right? How could you think anything otherwise?

And I mean, again, they tried their best to relabel those expectations. Tori knew, and that's one thing I, again, Tory apologists, sorry Thunderbolt, I know you're in here and you're going to hate this, but Tori knew that the expectations were going away heavily on this team, and I think that's why we saw those efforts early on for him to shape and mold the term expectations and the thought of expectations into being a new standard

that they were going to set here with the Diamondbacks. Did that work, though? No. Like, I think the answer is. Jesse are expectations. They are real and they are there. You can call them whatever you want. You can call them the uge-boogies. You can call them whatever you want. It doesn't matter. Like there's still the expectations. It's a feeling. It's a feeling of weight that hangs on you. It's something that you feel inside. You don't even need people to talk to you about it. You don't even need to have people come up to you and say like, hey, you guys are going to make it back to the World Series. Like you don't need that level of. pressure, you automatically feel it. You apply that pressure to yourself as an athlete, as someone in that clubhouse that knows you guys came so close to achieving the ultimate goal the year prior that with the

additions of Jack Peterson and Randall Gritchick and Eduardo Rodriguez, oh, we got Jordan Montgomery right before the season started. Like the expectations just get heavier and heavier. And I think when things didn't go great early on, it just weighed on them and it caused all of those early struggles. Same thing with Corby and Carroll. You come off a year where you win rookie of the year. How do you follow that up?

How do you come back and do that again and be better? Because that's Corbyn's expectation of himself is that he is going to be better each and every year as he progresses in his career. And he has been, right? So that's something that's new for him to have those struggles early on. Thank God he overcame them because if he didn't and if Gino didn't overcome his struggles, this team wouldn't have even been one game at the end of the season. They wouldn't have been close to the playoffs. So those guys were huge as far as they're rebounding.

But those expectations are there. And it's just you can't do much about it. What you can do is you can have those expectations be there year after year and get used to it and kind of embrace it and have it shape you. It's like what they said about Kiki Hernandez, right? He just loves and thrives in those situations where other guys don't. And it's a different, it's a different trait. And it's not teachable. You can't create it.

And it's like something that someone needs to have inside of themselves. I think for Hernandez, it's about experience and the number of times he's been there doing that. Yeah, I, Cade makes an interesting point in the chat about like whether, whether this is sustainable for the Padres, which I think is a fair question. Did the Padres just kind of catch lightning in a bottle in the second half of the season? And they're really, you know, somewhere between the team we saw in the second half and the team we saw in the first half. I think, I mean, it's, anything can happen, right? But when I look at this Padre's roster moving forward, I see a team that looks like a contender.

Fernando Tatis, if anything, I thought underperform this year. Like you look at his regular season numbers, they weren't that good. The guy we saw in the postseason was, he looked like the best player in the game. And it wouldn't shock me if Fernando Tatis came back next season and was even better. Jackson Merrill,

his emergence this season, I don't think that's going anywhere. I mean, I guess to your point about Corby and Carroll, maybe Jackson Merrill has himself a bit of a sophomore slump next year. Those things do happen. That's certainly possible. But he looks like a star level player for years to come. I just don't know, like looking at this Padre's roster,

I don't really know where the regression is. Like, do you think Dylan Sees is going to be way worse next year? I know Michael King was awesome this season, but Michael King, there have been a lot of people that kind of thought he'd be awesome. Like there's a reason the Padres traded Juan Soto and got Michael King as like the centerpiece of the return in that deal. So I don't see the Padres right now as a one hit wonder. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. Maybe next season this looks a lot.

I know where they'll regress. Luis Arise will finally not win a batting title. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, Luis de Rise, though, like, and I know this is a controversial point. of itself but I don't like I view Luis Arise as absolutely a valuable player like probably more valuable than his wind above replacement total would would tell you um but I but I don't think that

you know Luis arrives regressing a little bit is the undoing of the Padres like I don't think that they're all that reliant on him to begin with it's a it's a joke pal but yeah no I mean it's the fact that this man was incredible and continues to be incredible uh and somehow still stays underrated even though he's done it now for multiple teams and multiple seasons, right? But no, I mean, the reason why I think of Luis arises is because tonight the broadcast brought it up several times, but the undoing of the Padres seemed to be the fact that they couldn't get any leadoff runners on in any single inning, right?

So you never really had a chance to apply the pressure that they've been used to applying offensively to any of the pitchers in this game. And I mean, that's kind of what we saw. as they struggled throughout this series, right? So this is, I don't know. I mean, what I think about is the Diamondbacks, right? And how the Diamondbacks became a team that became so reliant on their power and home runs and hitting extra base hits when that really wasn't their identity the season before

and doesn't really seem to be the team that they were built to be. Yet that's the team that they became the season, right? So then the cliff was drastic when those. home runs weren't there when that run production wasn't there. They weren't, you know, transitioning. And I brought this up the other day. It's my main criticism of Tori of just not realizing in the moment that, hey, this starting pitcher has it.

So we're going to need to like grind a little bit and get those runs in a different way. Right. And I mean, it's, it's almost like they forgot how to play that, that chaos ball, that chaos ball. I was saying it a weird chaos ball. But, you know, I think that's something that's still a part of this team's DNA. I think that's something that they can incorporate in the future. And it's going to be interesting to see if they find a way to replace that power

with a lot of those power bats most likely leaving the roster this offseason. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what the Diamondbacks do this off season is a really big, really big variable in all of this. And these other teams, too. I guess like Jerks and ProFar is another name I should mention with the Padres. He's theoretically a free agent at the end of the year. it feels like he's the type of guy the Padres wouldn't let go anywhere after the season that he just had. But yeah, I mean, maybe Jorixen Pro Far regresses a bit.

This was, you know, far and away the best season he's ever had. But the Diamondbacks had some players like that too, right? Like guys you were just sort of referencing like Jock Peterson and Randall Gritchick, you know, the debacks had some players offensively that did, you know, not necessarily way more than they've ever done in the past. but had career years or close to career years. So it's going to be, I mean, I guess the big picture takeaway is the NLS is, it was already a difficult division, and it's going to stay that way. It's not going anywhere. I think the Giants have a chance to be better next year as well.

You know, they're a pretty, for being a fourth place team, they're a pretty darn good one. And then, you know, the Rockies or the Rockies, we sort of cast them aside. But yeah, this is going to stay a difficult division. you only need to get in the playoffs in order to make some noise. But having a more difficult division means you have a more difficult league and more teams vying for those postseason spots. It feels like the Padres are going to be in that mix for the foreseeable future.

Well, we appreciate you guys joining us for tonight. We will be back on Monday on our normal schedule. We're also going to do some Arizona Fall League next week. So hopefully we can do some late night episodes. and not only bring you some information from the postseason, but also from Arizona Fall League. So make sure to stay tuned for that. But we will be back on Monday with our normal Mailbag Monday episode.

So make sure to shoot us your questions. Of course, you know every Monday is what Monday is. You know what it is. So shoot us those questions. Join us on Monday. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman.

Of course, our guy Kev is at Kev. Tom writes. Thank you again to him. Make sure to hit that like button before we get out of here. We appreciate you guys so much for stopping by. Of course, if you are still not following us, make sure to follow our show at PHNX underscore D-Bex, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you for your time.

Yes, Sean, no more King Snakes for any post series show you do for the rest of the way, please. Yeah, I mean, maybe Jesse will have to come up with a new graphic. and name. We can't call them King Snakes because they're not part of this team, but we'll figure something out. But we do appreciate you guys so much for stopping by. We will see you on Monday. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. In the meantime, thank you again. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you're talking about your team being in the playoffs and not these other gibronies.