PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ryne Nelson SHOVES AGAIN And Jake RAKES In Diamondbacks Series Win Over Nationals

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

The Diamondbacks win their third series in a row, taking two out of three against the Washington Nationals in D.C. We have more on Ryne Nelson having another successful outing, Jake McCarthy continuing to be one of the best hitters in the lineup, and how impressive the bullpen was for the D-backs in this series. We also take a look ahead at their upcoming series against the Phillies at the Bank. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Mint 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.Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: 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!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Deepax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of this joint. This man next to me helps me run things. He is the vice mayor. And he's also in charge of all the other baseball-y stuff. But he's the one and only thunder stick, Jesse Friedman. And we welcome you in to another winning edition of this podcast. Diamondbacks win by a score of five to two over the Washington Nationals.

They have secured their third series victory in a row. And they have not won or they have not lost the series in the month of June dating back to May 30th. Diamondbacks have either won or split their last six series. Are we back? Are we back, Jesse? What's going on? This reminds me of last season when after every single Diamondbacks win, you would ask me, are the Diamondbacks a wagon?

Are we are a wagon? We are a wagon right now. We're on a goddamn role is what we are, sir. We are butter. We are butter because we are on a roll. I would more-catchy as wagon. I would more so describe this as the Diamondbacks kind of like taking care of business against teams that they probably should be eating. And granted, I mean, we said it before this series started, the Nationals did come in with technically a better record than the Diamondbacks did. You know, there's certainly a step above the Angels and the White Sox.

And I think any time you go on the road and you win a series, you feel pretty good about that. But yeah, the Diamondbacks have a much more formidable opponent coming this weekend. That's the true test, right? Yeah, this weekend will be the true test against the Phillies. But a big game today all the way around, Ryan Nelson was outstanding. The offense looked a little stagnant early, but was eventually able to break things open, huge day for Jake McCarthy, just a nice win all the way around for the Diamondbacks.

Diamondbacks took care of business today on a day where the Nationals did not really put out their, I guess, most formidable lineup. But again, we don't want to take away from the fact that the Diamondbacks have at times lost to teams that they had no business losing to. So I don't want to do that because those tend to be the games that the Diamondbacks do end up having a trouble with their opposition. But I mean, this was just one of those days where the Diamondbacks were able to put up some runs. And of course, kind of hand things over here to Ryan Nelson, who was once again incredible. That's the big story of the day is that Ryan Nelson went out there. absolutely shoved and was as efficient as you could imagine as you could hope for as you could

wish for unless unless maybe let's just per se you were a person that was needing Ryan Nelson to get three strikeouts in order to hit your same game parley I'm just using that as like a hypothetical because maybe in that instance you might be like me and not be so great with how economical he was with his pitches Jesse but any specific reason you're no not about that None at all. None. Okay. I just want to talk about this on bets later?

Because we can. I just want to make sure. We'll air it out there. But yeah, Ryan Nelson, incredible. He got the nationals to definitely have some problems with him today. And I mean, he only gave up three hits, two of which did go for home runs. But again, I guess efficient. If he's going to give up a run, he's not going to let a guy get on and take all that time of getting around the bases.

He's just going to let them hit it over the fence. Yeah. It reminded me very much of Brandon Fott's outing yesterday. Fott was through five innings scoreless yesterday. Nelson hadn't given up a run at that point, but I think it was 53 pitches for him through five innings. He finishes the outing on 70 pitches, which is outrageous. Outrageous.

Seventy pitches. And seven innings pitched. That is the lowest pitch count ever by a diamond back starting pitcher who went seven innings or more. That is a pretty remarkable stuff there for Ryan Nelson. That's just how efficient he was in this game. But yeah, it was similar to fought yesterday and that it wasn't it wasn't a lot of swing and miss. I mean, Nelson had six whiffs in this game, all of them forcing fastballs.

The big story in his last start against the White Sox was all the swing and miss he was getting on a secondary pitches on the change up on the curveball, even the slider. He didn't have a single whiff on any of those pitches today. It was very fastball heavy. But it worked. It worked. And, you know, certainly a step in the right direction for Ryan. We've talked before about how good his fastball is. And you can have some days where even if the other pitches aren't necessarily getting a ton of swing and miss, he can still be pretty effective out there.

Kate Richards says nationals have been rolling lately. Give the deback some credit. And that's absolutely a case. Like I said, when they started the series, the Nationals came in playing really good baseball. Eight out of ten games. And then Elise, of course, says the Nationals really hate to see more than three pitches at net bat. It does feel that way, doesn't it, after watching the last couple of games. Yeah, they don't wait around for pitches.

But Nelson today continued not to walk any guy, anybody. And I mean, this is something we're going to get into the bullpen later. But I mean, the pitching staff, you have to give them credit. And again, yes, they are against opponents that you probably should be beating, given the caliber of this Dinembex team, or at least the caliber we think they should be playing up to. Sure. Right. So, but it's really nice considering, you know, of course, what they're going through with these injuries to get Ryan Nelson now to go out there and give them two quality starts in a row and really just give them some length when they've kind of needed it. They've needed some of their bullpen arms to recover and they needed to kind of limit how many innings these guys were going out there.

And the Diamondback starting pitching has done that across the board, especially in this particular series. Like they have not needed to call on the bullpen. And Diamondbacks got six innings in the first game, six in a third in the second game and seven innings in the third game of this series. So, you know, you're talking about 19 and a third innings pitched by the starters in the series. And that's exactly what the Diamondbacks needed right now, considering, you know, how much they've had to rely on the bullpen. Yeah, talk about a 180 for the starting rotation. I mean, it was not that long ago that we were talking about, you know, three and a third innings one day, three and two thirds, the next, four in a third the next. You know, there was a pretty brutal stretch of time where no one in this rotation could really pitch all that deep into a game.

And suddenly, you've got Diamondback stars just rattling off six, seven innings like it's nothing. Yeah, part of that, again, is the level of competition that they faced the last couple of weeks, certainly. But part of it is, I think, some of these guys making some quality adjustments. And I think Ryan Nelson has certainly done that as well. Christian Walker adds a late dinger in this one. And again, Christian Walker has just kind of been on fire lately. His bat has been solid. This was his 16th home run of the year.

His OPS is up to 808. And I mean, again, it's Christian. It very much feels like Christian is like teetering right there on being back to his old self or being like at least the version of him that we know that he can be. But it's been kind of an inconsistent season for him. Yeah, yeah. there have been stints for sure where where he just has not looked like himself at the plate I mean that's going to happen throughout the course of 162 game season you're not going to

you're not going to be at your best throughout the entire year but yeah it was it was an important run for the devax I mean anytime you can you can tack on an insurance run in the ninth inning you know give a guy like paul seewald three runs instead of a two run lead to work with that's big and granton seawald didn't need that uh he's been extremely good for the Diamondbacks this year. No, but he did need Christian. He did need Christian to make an incredible play there for the very last out. And that's again what Christian Walker does. That doesn't show up on the All-Star ballot. That doesn't show up is how often he makes plays like that, that literally closed today's game. I mean, you have no idea. Again, it's not a huge lead,

the Diamondbacks. This was another game where the outcome was not determined five, five runs or more. So we're back to playing more realistic baseball. But again, if that's, somehow squeaks by with a runner on. You don't know in what direction that inning goes. So Christian Walker just continues to be valuable to this team. Maybe his defense might even be at times more valuable than his offense, but he just continues to be a player that goes unnoticed. Which is crazy for a first baseman who hits 30 home runs a year to say that his defense might be worth more than his offense.

How insane is that? You know how good you have to be? It's because of the gap. The gap between him and the next first baseman defensively is so. huge at times you know so i think it's that's the thing when you look at outs above average and defensive runs saved christian walker consistently leads all first baseman and he's yeah it's it's it's just something that you know again you just don't get credit for because first base isn't really thought of as a position that needs to do much defensively over there right yeah yeah i actually

have a pretty crazy stout i just found it to sort of back up what you're saying if you go on on christian walker savon page this is entering today uh they have batting run values base running run value and fielding run value. So kind of a way of measuring a player's contributions and all of those different facets. And entering today, his batting run value was five. So five runs above average. And his fielding run value was also five. So literally exactly the same.

His hitting contributions as well as his defense. So yeah, I guess I don't know. Is this mean we need, we need like OAA on the all-star ballot? Do we need defensive run saved? If we're adding stuff to stack cast, we can add it to the. all-star ballot right let's let's all become smarter about the game together and let's all give credit where credit is due when guys are uh i guess you know extra uh extra extra extraordinary there on on the on the defensive side of things but yeah uh i mean we do have of course lots of good to talk

about but some bad uh corbin carroll did come in and get in that bat today so his on base streak is dead because he did not get on base i don't i didn't like that i didn't i wasn't huge on that but yeah they just a managerial blunder by tory level yeah absolutely your guy has a street going you don't you know just i mean they had a lead we didn't need him getting in there it's fine let him sit on the bench um also speaking of bad things that continue to get worse uh heu anio sweres went a 0 for five today with three strikeouts and uh things don't appear to be getting too much better for him you did say that uh according to of course some stats he was actually at a similar position like OPS-wise at this time last year, but the outside metrics kind of made it

more to be about how unlucky he kind of was versus this year we know it's not really been luck. Yes, yes, that is a good point. Yeah, I think there's been some people talking about how E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Henni O'Swara, last year at this time, if you look at his numbers with the Mariners, a very similar position. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it was a low 600s OPS for the first couple months of the season. But yeah, I did a, you know, I did a, you baseball savant search last night entirely too late in the evening. This is this is how I, this is just what I do.

And, and I found. Ask him how many hours of sleep he got or how many glasses of water he drank during I did not. I didn't sleep nearly enough hours. And I don't really want to talk about that right now. But yeah, AUNI as far as during that stretch last season, I think it was through June 6th in particular where we had an OPS that was almost identical to the OPS that he had entering this game. And you look at the underlying numbers and his underlying numbers in that

stretch last year with Seattle were way better than his actual numbers. There was pretty clear indicators there that Suarez was just getting unlucky. And then in the second half of last season, you just sort of saw that come into balance. I think his expected stats in the second half of the year were actually worse than his expected stats in the first half, but his actual numbers just sort of caught up and kind of met in the middle by the end of the season. So I view that as a pretty different situation. What you're seeing with Eugenio Suarez right now, granted, he did hit one, one hard line drive in this game. It was sort of a sort of tough on his part that that was caught. But yeah, the batts aren't looking great.

He was punched out three times in this game, continues to look a little bit overmatched on, on hard stuff in particular, you know, McKenzie Gore out there throwing 96, 97 miles an hour. It's tough for anyone, but it's especially, it's especially tough for Gino, given what he's going through. right now. So the third base situation continues to be pretty tough for the diamond backs. I mean, especially the Blaze, you know, playing a little bit better and defensively too. He made a really good play in yesterday's game. Yeah. Yeah. And but the other thing with Blaze is that I think I've mentioned this before. If you look at Blaze's Savant Page right now and compare it to Geno's Savant Page, Blaze's Savant Page is worse. Believe it or not. It's fairly close to two Spider-Men pointing at each other. It is. Yeah, I think that's a good.

Pretty good analogy for the situation. So, yeah, that continues to just be a tough thing for the debacks. I mean, last year they were juggling a few different guys at third base. This year they're kind of doing the same thing. Just don't really have any clear answers there right now. Peace of Yoshi in the chat says every true baseball fan understands the savant rabbit hole. It's okay. So they're letting you off the hook for not getting your sleep last night.

Is this normal? Do other people do like very obscure baseball savvant searches in two in the morning? His drug of choice, as he says, is catch a lot. pop time and blocking but I think we all have our own things I mean what's what's yours Derek that's all I mean I'm very big into the hitting statistics but I usually fall like the rabbit hole portion is usually pitching related because of all of the different like uh there's a lot of charts 3D like visuals that they have for like pitchers release point and for you know where it landed in the zone there's it's incredible I'm a speed guy I'm a speed guy and also I like to see

just Perdomo's chase rate. That one makes me happy. Yeah, yeah. I do obsess over checking over people's like, I almost want to do screenshots and see how it changed, but that's, I feel like that's too obsessive. But one guy who I would completely obsess over right now is Jake McCarthy because Jake is in fact the rake. We might even want to upgrade him to Jake the snake McCarthy with the way that he has

been contributing to the snakes. But our guy is our king's snake for today. he went three for four in today's game he scored two runs he had two stolen bases and you just really felt like jake was jake is the spirit of chaos for this team jake is that guy that gets on base he seems to be completely uh like unafraid uh completely un uh like will not be like no matter if you know he's going to run he's going to run that's the way it's going to work i mean it it's definitely reminiscent of Corbyn Carroll last year, and even Corbyn Carroll still at times, right? When he gets on, you can tell that the distraction of him as a base runner is a problem for the pitcher on the mound, right?

And we saw that today. It very much felt like Jake was a distraction, a problem. He was always out there. He was always running. He was always stealing bases, whatever he was on base. And it just felt like this guy really much is, he above everybody else is the guy that I feel like stepped up from last year. Yeah. Also is that guy that is performing in a way that this team was kind of this team's DNA last year.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, Jake McCarthy is having the best season of his career. And I don't think it's particularly close at this point. I mean, his on base percentage after this game is 378. That is really good. I mean, that that's not like, oh, this guy should play three times a week. Yeah. That's like, oh, this guy maybe should hit near the top of the lineup at times.

I don't know if the Diamondbacks will ever actually do that, but you could certainly make a case for that at this point. His WRC plus after this game, Derek, was up to 1.30, which is also a very big number. I went through and just for the fun of it, found some players whose WRC pluses are lower than that this season. Hit me with him. And yeah, Jose Altuve is one.

Pete Alonzo, Latimer Guerrero Jr., Corey Seeger, Will Smith, Although I think Will Smith might actually have him by a point, given that Jake was retired in his last at bat. The Corey Seeger one, that makes me ill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, Jake for the All-Star game.

Jake for the All-Star game. I mean, I guess the question here is, do the Diamondbacks need to find a way to give Jake a bigger role? And I obviously, this is fine for right now. But we did get word that Alec Thomas will be playing in Arizona Complex. league games. So it sounds like even though they did kind of pull back on him a little bit, he will still be fully participating in a baseball

game of some kind, right? So we don't, we know it's a matter of time until Alec Thomas comes back and then kind of further complicates this situation with Jake receiving playing time when, like you said, he absolutely deserves to receive more playing time with the

numbers he's putting up right now. I mean, there was a time when you know, he figured Alec Thomas was coming back. and the decision was who did the diamond back send down. We even had this conversation when Geraldo Perdomo came back from injury. And Jake McCarthy at that point was very much on the table, at least someone you would consider. But now you can't even remotely consider moving on from Jake McCarthy,

sending him down. He's been way too big a part of what this team has been doing lately. So yeah, and as far as the at-bats thing, like that's the whole other deal. How do you get Jake McCarthy? the regular bats once Alec Thomas returns. You know, does it, I guess the most obvious answer there would maybe be giving him some starts over Lordus Gurriel, specifically against Ritey's. That would be one way to go about that.

But he's also, I mean, Lourdes is someone that you signed to a three-year deal over the offseason. Like, you don't really want to make him a short side platoon player. So it's a bit of a dilemma. I don't really know how the Diamondbacks are going to attack that. This is what I said yesterday about Corbyn, maybe platoon. a bit more and again it might not be maybe take so much from one guy as to take a little bit from you know from all around the outfield right and and allow these guys to uh have days off i think

the bigger problem too there is randall gritchick and jock peterson the way that they're hitting and the fact that there's your dh so it's not like you can say oh well we'll get jake some dh bad at bad so that's yeah that's going to be hard this season as well but his season numbers again incredible. In 188 plate appearances, he has slashed 298, 378, 422. He is 12 for 14 on stolen bases. Yeah, it's really good.

I mean, that's a valuable player. Yeah, I'm still a little hesitant with the, with the, you know, platooning Corvin Carroll thing. I just don't know if I see the devax doing that. But, yeah, I mean, you could sort of on, on paper, you could make a case for that. Jake has really destroyed lefties. You had three hits against McKenzie Gore today.

We'll talk about that a little bit more later. So whatever it is, the debacks at this point kind of have to find a way for him to get pretty regular opportunities. And we'll see how they do it. I'll be curious to Z because, I mean, it doesn't really work out in my head. Good luck with that is basically what Jesse's saying. All right. Well, we thank you guys for being here in the PHN Export YouTube channel. Make sure to smash that like button.

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So join the gang over here at the Inner Circle. Grab that app. Let's take a look at the count presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. This series was a pretty thorough series victory for the Diamondbacks, but not a ton of offense being scored in this one. Definitely on the National side. Diamondbacks outscore the Nationals 11 to 5 in the series win. Diamondbacks out hit the Nats 31 to 14. Runners in scoring position

Nat's only had six opportunities in the entire series with runners in scoring position. They were 0 for 1 in game 2, 1 for 5 in 0 for 1 in game 1, 1 for 5 in game 2, and did not have a runner in scoring position at all in today's game. Shout out to Ryan Nelson.

That's crazy. Diamondbacks went 8 for 27 for a 296 batting average, so they took care of business when they had ducks on the pond there. Of course, starting ERA for the Diamondbacks was 2.3.3. The Washington Nationals had a 5.40 ERA. Diamondbacks relievers did not allow a run in the series. Nat's relievers were very good as well.

They have some good bullpen arms there. They do. They are a was 1.50. But again, you can't say enough about this bullpen. I know that these games, like these weren't the most one-sided victories. I know they won 5-0 in the opener, but still a 5-0 game, isn't really safe sometimes even in the hands of this

Diamondbacked bullpen at times and I know that it was very erratic to begin the season it's just nice to kind of look up here a cut this is not just been this series there's been a few series where we've posted this graphic and that relief pitching ERA has been

0.00 it's just incredible the way that once again Paul Seawald kind of brought that stability back to the bullpen and honestly Justin Martinez is really added like just an absolute power arm that allowed this team to have somebody else to rely on besides what felt like was just Ryan Thompson over an extended period of time. Kevin Ginkle is pitching better. I mean, overall, this this bullpen has been just fairly outstanding.

And the biggest, I guess the biggest thing about this series is the Diamondbacks didn't have to rely on them much. I mean, they pitched three innings in the first game, one and two thirds in the second and two innings today. So again, they've been able to kind of keep those arms fresh, and that's important because it's, they don't have a ton of arms that are very good. But the ones, you know, the four or five that Tori is relying on right now, they have been as solid as you could ask for. 100%. I think it's funny on the, on the starting pitching side that the Diamondbacks face two of the two of the better starters in baseball and Jake Irvin and McKenzie Gore and also possibly the worst starter in baseball and Patrick Corbyn. and they scored four runs against Irvin and Gore, and they scored one run against Corvin.

You can't predict baseball there as the saying goes. Nor can you predict this Diamondbacks offense. It feels like it's been a little sporadic from time to time this year. And maybe some, I don't know, maybe some people in the chatter are so kind of upset about that game yesterday. I mean, if the debacks had been able to take care of business against Patrick Corvin, And then you're looking at a series sweep, which would have really felt like a huge momentum boost going into that, going into that Philly series. Yeah. And I think, of course, you can get caught up on that in times, at times.

I think you can say, like, again, why does this team have such a issue going for essentially, you know, kind of the jugular? Like we said yesterday, like you won a fairly convincing game one where everything worked for you, starting pitching, relief pitching, offense. everything was rolling on all cylinders in game one. And then it almost feels like once again that they kind of take take their foot off the gas a little bit there in game two because they were able to secure a game one victory. Most of this season, they've kind of been used to playing with their back against the wall after losing game one. So like I don't know if there's just a sense of satisfaction after winning that game or whatever. It's very hard to sweep any team in baseball. And you've said that multiple times.

It's also very hard to sweep any team in baseball on the road at their home stadium. him right so the diamond back still aren't there at that point yet but it was it was within reach it's not like they got you know absolutely outclassed in game two it was you know a game that that if their offense kind of gave them a little more run sport right brandon fought was was good he was he was it wasn't his best day but he was still able to be competitive and give this team a chance to win yeah i'm looking at the game notes uh from from before this game and the diamond backs only have one sweep all season uh and i had to go back through the schedule just now and remind myself, yes, apparently you remember it. I didn't. Yeah, they swept the Reds in Cincinnati. This was back in the early part of May, May 7th through 9th. So yeah, they have been winning quite a bit, quite a few series lately. But that sweep is just something that they have, I mean, yeah, it's only happened once this season. And they've only been swept two times also. So they've, you know, there have been a lot of situations it feels like where they were down 2 in a series going into the Sunday game.

And then they found a way to win the Sunday game and salvage a game in a series. We've seen that a whole lot this year. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that would be sort of the next step for the Diamondbacks is can they, you know, can they not just sort of take care of business against some of these lesser teams? And again, I put the Nats in kind of a different category. But can, you know, can the debacks next week when they play the Oakland A's? Can they sweep the Oakland A's? Right. Can they really start to build something, you know, going into the second half of the season?

We haven't really seen that from them so far this year. More importantly, what can they do this weekend against the Phillies, which we will talk about here shortly, because that is going to be the true test of where this team is at right now. The Phillies are one of, if not arguably, the best team in baseball. At least record-wise, they're the best team in the National League. So can the Diamondbacks compete with this Phillies team? Can they go in there and steal two out of three?

I think that would be a very impressive feat. I don't think it's not that questionable. I mean, they will have Jordan Montgomery going in that series, and Jordan Montgomery has been pitching fairly well for this team in his last few outings, much like Ryan Nelson has pitched well in his last two. But of course, we have no idea what to expect. And if I were to say I did, I'd be a liar. And you know that I never lie.

You know Jesse never lies. And Damon, notorious liar. But the numbers, they never lie. So let's take a look at Jesse's number for today. Jesse, what do you got for us? Going back to Jake McCarthy, the number for today is four. 41. This is pretty mind-blowing for me. Jake McCarthy is 15 for 34 against the left-handed pitchers this season, which is a 4-41 batting average. So going back to what you were saying earlier, Derek, about like a platoon situation and debacks like don't have enough right-handed hitters to make it work. Jake McCarthy is sort of hitting like a right-handed hitter, hitting like a very good one against lefties right now. So yeah, I don't necessarily think 4-41 is quite sustainable. But,

It's pretty impressive. And this has kind of been a trend throughout McCarthy's career is he's been the one D-BAC's left-handed hitter. And of all the left-handed hitting outfielders and whatnot that they've had, who hasn't really had significant platoon splits. He's generally, whatever he's done against righties, he's generally been able to replicate that against lefties. And this year it's been even more so where he's put up good numbers against righties. But as I'm describing here, just sort of absurd numbers against lefties. Well, and of course, you know, sometimes things in baseball don't make sense at all, right? Of course.

It's true. And I think Jake is a great example of why, the way he's playing right now, why franchises have such a hard time trading away young players that they have seen a lot of potential in but just haven't put it together consistently, whether that's starting pitching or, you know, like an outfielder like Jake, right? Like it really does feel like you never know when these guys are going to all of a sudden pivot. and turn a corner. Slade, we just heard about him changing, you know, how he, his land is landing, right? And how, you know, how much, how that has improved, you know, his outings. And Ryan Nelson, obviously, has made some changes that have impacted his ability, not only to go out there and be effective, but give this team length. I mean, Ryan now has three outings, I think, this year of six innings or more recently. And I mean, that's something that, again, when you talk about this team

losing as much starting pitching as they have, they really needed out of Nelson. They really needed him to be able to go out there and just give them more than just four innings at times because it felt like that's what every single starter in the lineup was giving them was three to four innings. It felt like they were careening towards a very dangerous cliff. Luckily, the starting pitching overall has turned it around

and they did it in this series against the nationals. And Ryan Nelson, one thing I'll say about him real quick, is that entering his start today, He had a 549 ERA, but a 430 FIP. And that just feels like a grave injustice, Derek. We don't. That's very, that's a huge difference. That's a big difference.

It is. And so today was, I guess, sort of fitting in that sense. And his fit for this game, I think, was like 6.29 because he gave up two home runs. And FIP factors in, I mean, it's just strikeouts, walks, and home runs. So, yeah. So this game kind of brought those. the balance a little bit where his, his fit actually went up, but his ERA of course went down.

But yeah, all that to say, I think Nelson, not, you know, he hasn't been great this season up to this point. I'm not saying he's been unlucky to the point of like, oh, he actually has been an above average starter. But I do think he's been a little bit unlucky. I mean, this is a guy who doesn't really walk anyone. After his start today, he has walked just 18 out of 284 batters this season.

That's a 6.3% walk rate, which is really good. But if you know that, you can jump all over him, right? I mean, you know he's going to throw in the strike zone. So that's something that necessarily, it's a good thing, but it's not necessarily a great thing for a guy that doesn't have like a secondary stuff, the way that Ryan doesn't. And his secondary stuff was good. Like today, again, you brought that up earlier.

But I think that's the most impressive thing was at least last time you saw the mix. So you felt like, oh, man, yeah. Like this is a pitcher maturing that is, you know, learning how to use his secondary stuff at times effectively and is figuring it out. And then we kind of have a day like today where he didn't like completely back off his secondary stuff. But he once again was throwing a lot of fastballs. Yeah, I think it was like 52, 53% fastball, something like that today. So quite a bit higher than his last start where it was 41%.

We talked then about how that was the lowest percentage of fastballs that he'd ever thrown in a major league start. So today, it was more heaters today for sure. But yeah, a step in the right direction for Ryan Nelson. He, you know, once the Diamondbacks get some of their starters back, you know, you figure that he would be a candidate to move to the bullpen or maybe become a depth guy in Reno. But for the time being, the Diamondbacks need these guys to step up. And Nelson has done that lately. Well, we need you guys to step up and join us over here, become part of our PHNX family.

Join us. Get yourself a diehard membership. Pace for itself, basically, especially if you're going to go out there and get one of our brand new t-shirts from the Valley Collection. If you wanted one of those or maybe a specific baseball one or a podcast that you love and are here watching right now. Regardless of which shirt you choose, you'll get a free one from the PHNX Locker. You'll also get access to all of our content, Jesse's premium written pieces, as well as access to our Discord lounge, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan. So much exclusive content for you diehards in there. all the time, as well as discounts on our events, like our upcoming takeovers of Chase Field, and so much more. So make sure to join us today, become part of the family over at go phtonx.com. Get it? It's a great gift for a loved one, by the way. I know Father's Day passed, but people have birthdays all the time, I am just saying. Also, shout out again to Desert Financial Credit Union for sponsoring the Count

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mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more. When you open a free checking account online, get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. Well, it is a great day for four peaks. It's always a great day for four peaks. Always.

It's always a great time to try out the bad birdie juicing gold nail. If you haven't done so already, I have been singing its praises. Damon has been singing its praises. We don't normally just do this for any beer. It's a beer we love. It's a beer that we've invited into our households and have made part of our family, much like the diehard situation. I'm stocked up right now. I'm stocked up at all times.

My mini fridge has like legitimately like 12 bad birdies in it. What I kind of hate is how like I don't need to be out of bad birdie juicy gold nail in order for me to justify going out and buying more bad birdie juicy golden nail right uh that's that's what i do this job it's just a means of transportation for me to get more bad birdie juicy gold nail but i also had it on draft oh my god i mean yeah especially like it's any any beer is better on draft period it's it's no knock to any particular beer in a can that it's going to be better on draft but uh yeah it's god tier it's got here it's amazing to make sure to check out four peaks and this is not to this is not a slight at any of their other beers because we were wow wheat boys for a very long time. All right. And we still ride or die

with wow wheat. But now we just have this other beer in our life that we also love very, very much. So make sure to check out the full variety of beers. Make sure find one you love over at Four Peaks. You can check out their location. But of course, I'm not going to do the same thing for the food because the chicken tenders is far superior to everything else they have to offer and is superior to every other chicken tender on the planet Earth. So there you go. Check out four people. Peeks visit four peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events. Check out at Four Peaks Brewer at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks and please enjoy responsibly.

Jesse tonight is the Rick Woodfield game. Yes. Very excited for that. I somehow want both teams to lose. That is also fair. It's the Cardinals and the Giants. As Diamondbacks fan, you would like for that to happen. Yeah.

I mean, I'm okay with either team really losing. But Rick Woodfield is so cool. It's such a cool like, I know they did the field of dreams game and all that, but this is just such a cool nod to history. It's such a cool nod to the Negro leagues. Rick Woodfield is one of two Negro League stadiums that is still in existence being used. It is in fact the oldest professional baseball field in the U.S. built in 1910. That's crazy.

That was a long time ago, Derek. That is a long time ago. That was a very long time. 14 years ago. If my math is correct, you're going to have to check me on that. But it's an amazing night to honor obviously the New York leagues and their importance to baseball, especially this season where they've, you know, they've integrated the stats into their, you know, and given credit where credits do. Willie Mays, who sadly passed away, is among the legends that played there and they are honoring him.

I believe his plaque from the Hall of Fame ceremony was brought down to Rick Woodfields for the game tonight and that's the first time it's ever been removed from Cooperstown. So that's something cool they did. But again, fun, fun game, except for I guess the pitching matchup. Yeah, the pitching matchup is awful, Derek. We probably should have seen this coming with the Giants and the Cardinals. Maybe that's a little disrespectful to that. Absolutely.

Yeah, this is not Logan Webb against Sunny Gray. That happens on Sunday. This is Keaton win against Andre Palante in what I believe is a bullpen game for the St. Louis Cardinals. Oh, neat. So that, yeah, people are going to love watching that on national TV. You brought a bullpen game. I'm sure there won't be any discourse about how bullpen games are ruining baseball on Twitter while this game is happening. I'm going to have to root the hashtag probably.

That's sad. Yeah. I will say another note about Willie Mays real quick. Willie Mays played for the Birmingham Black Barrens in the Negro leagues, which is that is where they played. Yeah, it was Rickwood Field. And yeah,

that was when he was 17 years old. This was a few years before he wound up playing in the major. So that's where Willie Mays' professional baseball career began. So kind of poetic the way that things worked out. But yeah, it's such a huge loss for the whole baseball community. I mean, Willie Mays,

what he meant to the game, what he meant to so many people watching the game for so long. Sadly, I didn't get to experience any of that, but heard a lot of stories in the last few days of just how much fun it always looked like he was having, you know, playing a great center field, just absolutely raking. He had 156.2 career war, which is a pretty decent number, certainly in the conversation for the best baseball player ever. So an enormous, an enormous loss for the baseball world this week. And I'm glad, glad that he'll be, I think, rightfully honored in that game tonight. It's sad, but it also is a great chance to honor him, especially so soon after his death. Yeah.

I think my favorite memory of Willie Mays is that in a 19, I think it was 1981, which is the year I was born, he played in like an old timers game. And in this old timers game, there was a ball hit to center field that he absolutely laid out for to catch. In 81? Yeah. You watched Willie Mays play ball, Derek? I said I was born that year, so no, I was not watching him. I can't believe Derek watched Willie Mays play ball. So, how was Pona Wagner?

Was he like the best player you've ever seen? Derek, do you think Willie Mays dessert? Did, did? I bet Babe Ruth was a real special player to watch. Don't you think so, Jesse? I just really wanted to, I just really wanted to ask Derek if he thought that Willie Mays deserved to win the MVP in 1958 because going back going back and looking at it I mean I don't know if Ernie Banks really deserved it that year Derek uh willie mays had had a beaten war by

0.9 jesse if you go back and look at some all the MVPs you're going to get sick to your stomach dude yeah no like Hank Aaron was robbed of like five six MVP awards they were given it to like pirate short stops you hit like 3 10 with two bombs I mean Ernie banks did have have a genuinely pretty amazing season in 58 so that's probably not the best example but uh yeah willie maize and and hank erran yeah they probably should have rattled off like a whole bunch of them uh somehow maize only won two mbps i think which feels kind of insane it is insane um but i i digress welcome back there i wasn't bad i wasn't around for any of it i wasn't around for any of it well of course uh you have some injury updates that'll probably ruin our day in some way like i

said, so do you want to take care of that? Do you want to tell us how many setbacks there were? Yeah, no, these are positive in big updates, believe it or not. I guess we mentioned one of them earlier. Alec Thomas is set to play in a complex league game on Friday. Then I believe on Sunday as well.

That comes via Teo Mackey's out there in D.C. So it appears that everything is fine with Alec Thomas. Sort of sounded like a setback of some sort yesterday to we're using the dreaded phrase general soreness which you never really know what to do with that when that gets thrown around so it looks like thomas is going to be fine i imagine he'll still they'll still want to send him to rino for a rehab

assignment so i don't think you're going to see alec thomas play in the majors next week uh or at least not at the beginning of the week you're probably going to see him go out to rino and then and then we'll figure things out from there uh the other update that came out today is that zach gallon through a sim game. I believe that was on Tuesday, three innings, 45 pitches somewhere in that range, and he is set to throw another sim game early next week. And Teo said that he could,

from what Lavello was saying, it sounds like he could return to the Diamondbacks after that outing early next week. So maybe next weekend, Zach Allen is pitching again for the Diamondbacks. I think that would be against the Oakland days. So we'll see how that turns out. Some folks in the chat have some comments

on general soreness Alice said so the general soreness was just what it sounded like general soreness yeah I guess I mean it's sure general sourness sure wasn't just general soreness when that was the initial Paul C-wall diagnosis and he wound up you know missing

a month and a half with an oblique strain but it can mean a lot of different things Derek I guess I'm glad Grandhog Mama is here to back me up she said everyone over 30 has general soaredness on the daily Alex Alex is 23 suck it up kid yeah I mean if general sororness was an actual diagnosis I would never play

baseball game if I was on this roster I'd have to lie about it they'd be like were you generally sore today and I'd be like no skip and then he'd see I'd do that thing Tori does where he gets really close to you and looks to your eyes and he'd be like have a seat have a seat yeah you would just be on the

I'd just be day to day I'd take up a roster spot people would want me DFA'd so bad yeah absolutely absolutely well sounds good Zach Gallin of course could return to the debacks after early next week. So we could see Zach Gowan presumably before the All-Star break, maybe, especially.

Yeah, I mean, that's like a little over a week from right now. Right. Not that long. And they could use them because they have some tough opponents ahead, including the Padres and the Dodgers before the All-Star break. So that could be a big lift for the starting lineup that or for the starting rotation, which honestly has been doing a decent job. But they still have, of course, they would still very much welcome,

I should say, Zach Gallen back. Speaking of that starting rotation, let's take a look at the probabilities for this upcoming series with the Phillies, because the Diamondbacks, of course, get the marquee matchup of Tommy Henry versus Zach Wheeler there in game two. We have Jordan Montgomery versus Taiwan Walker. You just skipped right ahead to this Saturday one. I had to go to the marquee matchup, right?

Tommy Henry versus Zach Wheeler. Jordan Montgomery versus Taiwan Walker, I think, is a good matchup for the Diamondbacks, obviously not a great one there in game two. And then Slade going up again, It's Christopher Sanchez in the finale who has been very, very good for the Phillies this year. Feel good about this one, boys. I feel. I feel real good about this.

Yeah. Do you? Yeah, that's, I mean, look at our horses against theirs. I don't like, no, I don't believe. The 6-ERA and the 623 and then the 590. I'll go to. I'll go to war with my boys over there boys any day of the week. Look at these guys.

Are you being coy, Damon? Are you being coy over there? I would never do that. Oh, man. Sarcasm? No. So, so. So a couple of weird things here. This is actually a little out of order.

If you remember, Tommy Henry pitched on Saturday for the Diamondbacks and Jordan Montgomery pitched on Sunday. So they flip-flopped that. Is that to just sacrifice that game to Zach Wheeler? Like they didn't want to. Yeah. That's a valid question. But no, I mean, my guess is that Tommy Henry will not. I don't think the debacks are looking for Tommy Henry to go six innings on Saturday.

Will he actually start that game? I mean, that's the true question. Yeah, that is, that is, we've seen. Or will Scott McGuff start the game? Yeah, I don't, I don't think Scott McGuff would make any sense against the Phillies because you know that you're going to have Harper and you're going to have Schwerber at the top of the line. Absolutely. So with two big left-handed bats, that would be, that would be absolute insanity to start Scott McGuff against them in my mind.

So I think you'll see Tommy Henry start the game, but he might sort of be functioning as an opener in some ways. I don't know if debats would be comfortable with Tommy Henry pitching all that deep, given. the way that they've used him the last couple of times out. Three innings, maybe, maybe four? Yeah, maybe something like that. I'd be pretty shocked if it was, you know, if he faced anyone a third time through, maybe even the second time through, they start being careful there. So the Saturday game will be interesting.

And then, yeah, Montgomery gets moved up. So he's on normal rest, even though the debacks had had an off day earlier this week. Well, let's take a look at these Phillies at a glance because, like I said earlier, they're very, very good. 49, 25 record. They have a 101 plus 101 run differential. But they are four and six in their last 10. So they're human, apparently, especially to teams that maybe are over 500, which could happen to us during the series if all goes according to plan.

Starting pitching ERA, incredible. 2.97 starting team pitching ERA. That's crazy. That's just bonkers. It's good enough for second Major League Baseball. Relief pitching, also very good. 3.47 ERA, which is good for eighth in Major League Baseball. The team OPS is 746, which is fourth in Major League,

and their outs above average is six for 10th. They are just good pretty much at everything that they do this season. Yeah, yeah, I think you summed it up pretty well. The Phillies don't really have any weaknesses. I mean, going back to the pitching matchups, the debacks do kind of dodge a bullet in that they're not facing Ranger Suarez, who very well might start the All-Star game for the National League.

They're also not facing Aaron Nola, who's been pretty good for. for them this year as well. So I told you, man. I like our horses. You're right, Jesse. That's a good point. I respect that perspective, Damon.

I respect that you feel that way. I do too. I kind of like it. I like it. I feel like he's a little bit more honorary than he normally is. And I, for one, I'm here for it. But that's only because they're playing the Phillies. And Damon, Damon gets, he gets up for the big games.

We own them. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about having. Is that the vibe going into this? going into this series, like pressures on the Phillies, like Phillies better not blow it. D-Backs come into town. In Philly? Yeah.

Absolutely, Jesse. If we go in there and win the series in Philly after what we did to them last year, yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, Saul asked us to pick out framed pictures that we could hang on the wall here in the office. And the first one that I said is Alec with the flag at the bank. Here's a promise. Yeah, it's iconic.

Here's a Christmas promise to you guys and all those in the chat. A Christmas problem. Yeah. David's making me a Christmas promise. Yeah, you don't break Christmas promises. If we win this series, I'm hopping in Philly's Twitter account for their score graphic that they make on the last game. And I'm starting war underneath the replies there. I mean, I'm putting a video of Alec Thomas planting the flag on their field and saying we own Philly.

And that promise isn't all that meaningful to me. Yeah, because I fully would have expected Damon to do that anyway. Like, that's not really. I would have been surprised if you didn't do it honestly. That's fair. Yeah. All right. Well, it's just like you better go to war with people in our comments when that inevitably

happens. But we do have two nationally televised games this weekend, which is kind of a kind of a fun deal going on. Apple TV Plus tomorrow and then the Roku game on Sunday. I think both of those, I believe, are exclusive broadcast. So figure it out now. Don't send us your angry tweets. Get your shit together now. I don't want to hear.

I don't want to be directing people on how to sign up for an Apple TV Plus account. I don't want, I look, we, we did not make the decision to put these games on either of these devices or channels or streaming services. So do not come to us with your complaints because we voted against it. And when they asked for our opinion, we were against it, very much against it. Good luck finding both of those games. I don't know. The Roku, the Roku one, I genuinely, I genuinely would have no idea how to tell someone to find the Roku team. I'm going to be fighting that battle on Sunday.

Like he said, go figure it out now. Like, figure out a way to do it now. So you're not waiting until that game to do it. The Sunday, and you better figure you better get up early that day to figure it out because that game is at 835 in the morning, Arizona time. Skip it. It's skip it. It's fine. You watch the highlights afterward.

We just join us on Monday. We'll talk about it on our show that we do, you know, this one that you're watching right now. And we will be back, of course, with a post-game show after game one against Phillies tomorrow night. So make sure to stop by and join us for that. Speaking of stopping by, if you are free tonight, make sure to stop by a chicken and pickle. It's where we will be tonight doing our trivia night. So I guess I'm being told I have to emce that still. I tried my best to worm my way out of it and that didn't happen.

So I look very much. I'm looking forward to being there tonight, obviously. No, I actually am excited for that. I do love a good trivia. And considering I don't have to be put on the spot and I get to like be the one, you know, basically shaming other people for their bad answers. I'm very much looking forward to that. I think they'll probably do pretty well on the D-BACs questions.

I think we might have gone a little too easy. I don't know. It depends. It depends. I don't know. I saw some of Tocchi's questions and he just wants people to not be happy. Yeah, 100%. Don't pick the Sun Devils category is.

I'm just telling you that. What kind of stuff are we talking here? I don't know. You beat my interest. It was like, I don't know. It seemed very, granted, I didn't go to Arizona State. I don't really know very much at all about anything relating to their sports program. Who's their second string?

Who's their second string linebacker in 1984? When was the last time Arizona State University won a major sport national championship? The answer? Oh. 1980 something, Tootree? All right. All right. We're not doing this.

That's what we're doing tonight at the trivia. So join us for that. This was just a preview of what that's going to be like. But, of course, in the meantime, you can join us. follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore K-man with a K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course,

the people's producer, Damon is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are once again, Damon's dogs. Bark, bark, reluctantly. Of course, our show is at P-H-N-X. Luckily, I brought the heat today, boys. What are you talking about? Yeah, well, you ditched us for the Cardinal show

midway through. Yeah, yeah. Midway through. There was five minutes left in the show. When we went to talk about Damon dog and do our, you know, little barks that we do, confirming that we are signing on the dotted line that we are once again, Damon's dogs.

Damon, nowhere to be found. No, nowhere to be found. I know, I produce 95% of the show. I don't know, but we had to do the thing with Jacob. You weren't there when it was talking about it being in the fourth. Yeah, it's not good. It's like, you know, it's like hitters that always come through when it's unnecessary.

Yeah. You know, just like up nine runs in the ninth inning. He's Christian Walker adding a home run in a game that the Diamondbacks. lost 9 to 2. Damon just doesn't come through when it counts sometimes. All right. Well, we appreciate you guys so much, of course. And believe it or not, we do appreciate Damon. Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore

sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time. We appreciate you stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow for the post game show. In the meantime, have a wonderful night. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you stick around for the whole show and don't leave half of it. way through like Damon Day.