PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Shohei Ohtani leads Team Japan to a 3-2 victory over Mike Trout and Team USA in the WBC Championship

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Shohei Ohtani and Team Japan wins an exciting matchup against Team USA in the World Baseball Classic Championship, but in the end everyone who watched this tournament won. We discuss the success of the WBC and the future of superstars participating after this finale. We also have your injury updates on Carson Kelly and more from D-backs spring camp.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Our next PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch is LIVE! Join us on Friday, March 24th for a night of golf, food, drinks, contests, prizes, and more. Come hang with the PHNX crew, fellow Suns’ fans and Diehards as we watch KD, Booker, and the Suns battle in the final stretch of the season as they take on De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the Sacramento Kings.Checkout the PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch Eventbrite to reserve your spot today. And Diehards, check Discord for your exclusive discount link!Circle K: Text code “PHNX” to 31310 to win a $500 gas card! Limit one entry per person—limit of one entry per phone number. The offer is valid for Arizona residents only. Must be able to verify the place of residence. This contest is administered at the discretion of the Grand Canyon Division of Circle K Stores. Circle K Store Inc. is a part of Alimentation Couche-Tard. You must be 18 years of age or older to win. For questions about this contest or our stores, text ”CARE” to 31310.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxOGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXSPORTS_15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save big on the best furniture in the Valley when you head to https://morfurniture.com!Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. 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.

Let's fucking go. All right. I don't know why I'm that excited. I shouldn't have that much energy. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am still your mayor of PHNX, despite what ESPO has to say. And this guy next to me, he's backing me up.

He's my vice mayor and your thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. Well, we were only live for three and a half hours, so we figured you guys wanted more. Are you sick of us yet? Are you done with us yet? If you're not sick. Yeah, if you're here and you watch the entire watch along, I'm not quite sure what you're doing. You are a crazy person and we fucking love you. Let's go.

Ryan says D-Backs after dart. You know what time it is. Let's go. Let's go. Max cut me off from the beers, but that doesn't mean that I'm still not here to have a fun time. And just because Team USA lost to Team Japan by a score of three to two tonight in the WBC Championship game does not mean that I did not have a great time watching it. I had a great time with you chatting. I don't think you and I have ever talked that much during a baseball game to each other.

We're both very quiet most of the time. We do our little score sheets and we kind of keep to ourselves in the press box. But this was an absolute blast to watch. I mean, this game, you couldn't have asked for anything more. I think you said it, and I think the one thing, maybe some more lead changes, maybe a little bit more scoring. But this was it, man. This was beautiful. And, yeah, I can't, I can't say much more other than tipping my cap to Team Japan on the win.

Yeah, I mean, Team USA grabs the one-nothing lead, Trey Turner with the home run. Oh, I mean, we were excited. Fifth of the WBC. Just insane what he was able to do during his third home run in seven at bats. Yeah, he was just momentary. bonkers stuff from from tray turner in in this entire tournament really uh but yeah team japan comes back in the bottom of the second inning gets our guy merrill kelly for a couple of runs there and uh yeah i mean the rest of the way team japan uh had the lead so uh yeah there wasn't you know there

wasn't as much back and forth as we saw last night with team mexico i mean that was that was truly an insane baseball game but it was still i mean you kind of felt at the edge of your seat a little bit all the way through this one it was a a very fun game and the way that it ended man i mean just just i know we were talking on our on our watch along about like all these crazy hypotheticals of you know uh mike trout hitting a home run to tie the game and then showy o'tani coming back in the bottom of the ninth and hitting a home run of his own and walking it off or something like that but uh still i mean you you know you started this game with mike trout uh holding you know the team usa flag and and show hey otani uh with the with the

Japan flag and the game ended fittingly with Shohei Otani on the mound, striking out his teammate, a matchup that we all were excited to see, hope to maybe see at some point in the game, and it came with two outs in the ninth inning. It was incredible. It was bonk. It was incredible that it lined up that way. We saw a different side of Shohei Otani and at a couple of different moments in this game. You guys all know, just like I do, that Shohei Otani is the most wholesome, adorable baseball player that currently exists in Major League Baseball. And of course, I think the thing that makes that relevant is the fact that he is as good as he is, right? Like there's, I'm sure, plenty of adorable guys in baseball,

but there's something about Shohei Otani being so good and having this odd childlike wonderment to his, to just everything he does, just his persona the way he carries himself. But we saw, we saw a fired up Shohei in the bottom of the ninth facing off against Mike Trout. And we saw it again, if you're watching any of the pregame. stuff when he was delivering his pregame speech to his team. Yeah. Because he was fired up and he was getting them fired up. And I mean, we talk about this guy being this really wholesome, you know, fun baseball player

to watch. But yeah, that competitive edge is there, man. And I think he shows it at the right time. Yeah, Otani. Otani did in fact give a pregame speech to his teammates before this game. This is what Shohei Otani said. I believe this is according to Dylan Hernandez. He said, let's stop admiring them.

If you admire them, you can't surpass them. We came here to surpass them to reach the top. For one day, let's throw away our admiration for them and just think about winning. And they did that. They absolutely did. Derek has been doing live shows for nearly four hours at this point. I was fucking broke on a wall for show hey right now. Let's go.

Are you kidding me? Stop admiring them? My God. It's poetic. It is poetic. It's amazing. It is poetic. How can you not get fired up hearing that?

It translates to English extraordinarily well too. But yeah, I mean, just incredible what Shohei Otani was able to accomplish. Not just in this game, but the tournament as a whole. You could tell, as you were alluding to you, he kind of turned it up an extra notch with chad at the plate. I've never seen Otani throw the ball as like visibly hard with as much visible effort as I saw him throw the ball in that. ninth inning. He bounced to 102 mile an hour foresee basketball at one point in that at bat. But that slider

to get the swing and the miss at the end at the swing and miss at the end of that at bat. That was a nasty pitch. I think it was the first breaking pitch that Otani threw that entire bat. And yeah, I mean, what a fun, what a fun crazy way for this game to end. And I mean, we talked about

basically what was going to happen when these guys matched up. Yeah. We prophesized a bit. We kind of laughed because we thought we might see a little bit more of a jovial attitude between the two of them. It was nothing but business. Maybe, I don't know, you think it would have been a different, it would have been different if it was maybe like the third inning or the fourth inning or like maybe earlier in the game.

It's a big moment to be all smiles and stuff. And the ninth inning with two outs, I just think you can't. Like if you crack a smile or something, it just doesn't feel like it's the right time. But I felt like that's what we were going to see. I felt like it was going to be like one of those all-star moments where like, hey, maybe this guy got traded, but he used to be on his team for a long time. In the All-Star game, you see that kind of stuff. Yeah, right, you know, but let's get, let's get down to it because honestly, the Team USA,

they got plenty of hits, they got key hits, there were some amazing moments. Kyle Schwabber's home run at bat was one of the best at-bats I've ever seen in a high leverage situation. So according to Codify, Kyle Schwerber has homered in the World Series, the ALC The NLCS, the ALDS, the NLDS, the NLDS, the AL Wildcard game, the NL Wildcard game, and now the WVC championship game. We talked about it during our watch-along. That man has hit some high leverage home runs over the course of a number of years. I mean, I remember when he came up with the Chicago Cubs during their World Series run, he was,

you know, obviously a big deal back then. That was just a textbook at bat from Kyle Schultz. Swarber, just trying to figure out how to time up U. Darvish eventually gets a middle, middle four seamer. And that is the exact pitch that he was ready and looking for. We set it on the, you know, obviously on the watch along, but you know, you never see an at bat end that way. You never see some guy literally launching balls,

fouling them off into the upper deck. Yeah, no, the moment you hit a, the home run. The moment you hit a foul home run, it's like, yeah, you're grounding out to the shortstop or you're striking out. Like, you're at bat is doomed. But no, Kyle Schwerver showed us, apparently that's not the case. That was a shot.

And I guess it's just like the Phillies, right? Like Turner hits his bomb and Kyle Schwerber hits his bomb. And that's the only offense to speak of for a very stacked Team USA lineup. Three Phillies hitting in a row. But the team USA could not do much. Nine hits. They out hit Team Japan, nine to five. They had base runners.

They have plenty of opportunities. But let's be honest, Team Japan did a much better job of managing this game. when it came to pulling out all the stops and the kind of things that you see in a world series where a team is willing to do anything, play any pitcher, as long as they're just trying to put their best out there in a big situation, that's what Team Japan did tonight. And there was more to it than that. I mean, even the hits that they got, they were able to steal and convert singles into doubles, do little things that you didn't really see from Team USA or Team USA really attempting.

Yeah. It felt like Team USA was just constantly looking for the big explosive inning that never came. It felt like they were constantly looking for the power, for the home run to be there, but not necessarily managing the game in a way where you're trying to score runs in every opportunity. Because again, nine hits. They weren't great with runners in scoring position today. They were not. I mean, neither team was.

Team USA was 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Team Japan was 0 for 5. Neither team had a hit with runners in scoring position when this was all said and done. But yeah, there were some costly double plays, I guess on both sides, but especially for Team USA, Mookie Betts, of course, in the ninth inning with a man at first, nobody out. You figure you got a shot to put something together there with the big dogs coming up. But Shohay Otani had other plans, and that man is pretty good at baseball, Derek. And it was fun to watch Team Japan try to manage Shoehoyotani because he had to go down to the bullpen.

warmed up but then his spot came up to hit and he had to come running back and are we sure that Otani has to warm up? I don't know like like are we sure he's human? Yeah we sure he's human like isn't it kind of just him going through the motions going down there to the bullpen and you know throwing throwing a few pitches I don't know maybe maybe next time you just skip that keep him in the dugout keep it simple but no the the logistics of getting show a Otani in this game was was pretty wild to watch unfold. Gabriel says it was like

watching the debacks with runners in scoring position too soon. Too soon, Gabriel. It's a new season. Come on now. Come on. Let's get a clean slate here. Ryan says, biggest baseball would have if Roman made his appearance in the ninth. For those of you that weren't watching the watch party, I was wearing at some points a dinosaur costume, which we lovingly named Roman. But Roman couldn't get up for the end of the game there.

We couldn't get the rally Dino going. There was trouble with his fan falling out. But, you know, this happens. This happens sometimes. Sometimes you just, you can't perform when the pressure is on. Oh, gosh. I'm not going to go into the average just yet, but you guys table that one and keep it for later. Team Japan did have an incredible journey, though.

Looking at the World Baseball Classic bracket here, you'll see that Team Japan just, I mean, it's not like they had a very difficult journey as much as they had. Do we have that graphic, Damon? Team Japan just honestly, they kind of had a route to this point. Like the game, though, against Mexico was probably their toughest effort. And I feel like they were riding high on the momentum from that situation. It's hard not to, when your team comes back in the fashion that they did, to steal that one late. Yeah, I mean, just looking at kind of their path to get here,

was beating team Italy 9 to 3 that sent a few Diamondbacks home packing. Oh yeah, they sent Diamondbacks

packing along the whole way. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they knocked out the two Dominics and Mitchell Stumpo and they knocked out

Alec Thomas and then knocked out Merrill Kelly in this one today. But yeah, Team Japan has won three out of the five World Baseball classics,

which is pretty crazy. Yeah. Only been five. Team Japan's come on top three times. I think we, we kind of underestimated them, didn't we?

We did. We brought them up, but we brought them up. We mostly focused on the Dominican Republic and Team USA. Which is, I mean, understandable. Yeah, I mean,

looking at those rosters, it was hard not to pick one of Team USA or the Dominican Republic. But yeah, I think a lot of us just don't know the names of a lot of these guys. Like, looking at the Japan,

lineup today. It's like, all right, there's Lars New Bar, there's Shohei Otani, there's Masataka Yoshida. I know that name. He just signed with the Red Sox. And it's a bunch of nobody's. Well, nobody's to us. Exactly. But like you said, they are an accomplished team of all stars

from their league in Japan. And honestly, Japan has a very competitive baseball league. Like, you're never going to get anybody to say any league in the world is better than Major League Baseball. But Japan, Korea, they have leagues that are very close as far as the competition level to major league baseball.

Jesse said like 4A versus like, you know, AAA. It's like 4A, right? So it's like right there in between the top of the minors and the major league level. It's not that far off. These guys come to play. They come to win. They have pride. I think that there is something to be said about a team of all stars like Team USA,

not coming with that same fire and not wanting to, like they were kind of like a favorite. away and they didn't they didn't have the same to prove that a team like team japan did and honestly it's like us not really picking them or talking about them the fucking audacity when they've won two out of the last four and now they've won three out of the last five team japan should have always been in the conversation the thing that i am the most excited about is that japan was watching and they were excited yeah right we talked about how in the we'll get the numbers for this you know championship game, but over 93% of Japanese households were watching the matchup against Mexico.

Like, that's incredible when you think about that level of interest, that level of participation by their country and their fans wanting to watch them in this tournament. And I mean, honestly, right now, we can't really relate to that. We're not, the level of interest here in the United States is not nearly as high as that level in Japan. I do think that it's grown a lot. though. I think this world baseball classic is just felt different than the ones in years past. I don't know exactly what to

attribute that to necessarily. I guess the star power. The star power, a little more star power and some of these rosters and they promoted this one better. I mean like part of it is this happened here at Chase Field so there was a little bit more attention on Arizona specifically

considering it was just two cities out of the United States that were involved in this tournament. But I think there's something to be said about the star power and how exciting these rosters made watching this tournament. They also did a much better job of promoting it. In the past, the one thing I heard

from people is that they didn't even know this thing was happening. They had no clue it was even going on. Ryan H. in the comments is growing the game. That's it, man. I mean, not only is it growing the game, especially in countries where this game isn't very popular right now or really well known,

Great Britain, you know, the Czech Republic. There are areas in this world. that this game is growing and this world baseball classic is imperative in that growth. But you also have the fact that guys like Mike Trout are going to go back to their teams and they're going to tell their teammates, they're going to tell their coaches, they're going to tell staff that this was one of the greatest experiences of their lives. Yeah. And it's just going to increase the excitement level and participation of big stars

and high caliber, you know, names that make this tournament even more exciting in the future, right? Yeah. I mean, we've seen one of the fun things about social media is it's kind of easy to track, like, how many views things are getting. And something I've seen time and time again is that some of the highlights of the World Baseball Classic have more views on social media. I think it's specifically Twitter that I'm referring to than any of the World Series highlights from last year, which the World Series. That's supposed to be the big baseball thing, right? It has a world in it, right? just like world baseball classic. But I think it's pretty obvious that this just has more of an international appeal. It just brings more people in, not just in the U.S., but around the world.

And, yeah, I mean, I think the WBC, I mean, this was just awesome. Like, just as a baseball fan in general, like, you can't come away from that game, no matter who you're rooting for, frankly, and not be smiling at like what you just saw and what you've seen over these last two weeks. been a lot like it's crazy to me that the w vc's only been going on for two weeks like we've seen so many incredible things in that span of time mostly it's been david proletta fucking with edwardo eskabar about his fear of cats right even that that was probably the biggest thing that happened yeah the reunion of those two guys get out of here but there's so much more like that not to mention the

fact that you're just going to have this continue right guys that are on this year's team in four years will be on the team again potentially right yeah i mean it's not so something that's going to slow down. And I don't know. The one big topic, obviously, that came up is the injuries, right? And of course, there were injuries to big names and major injuries, right? Altuvei won, especially. Jose Al-Tuve, Edwin Diaz is really, really devastating.

Look at what the Arizona Diamondbacks have gone through in the last week. Yeah. Just the last week. Just in spring training. None of those guys were in the world baseball classing. They were just playing stupid ass. spring training games that don't really matter. Both of our catchers got plunked and injured.

We have two relief pitchers that were pretty much guaranteed to be a part of this bullpen that now will miss a lot of time, including one guy missing the entire season and one guy not being back until the All-Star break. Yeah. These injuries are going to happen. They're going to happen for no reason at all. You're never going to make sense of them. And it's really going to be hard if you start, you know, pinpointing that they happened because

the guy was participating in this tournament. Who knows? Maybe Edwin Diaz injures himself in a spring training game and then what? Are you going to say you want to cancel spring training and not do that anymore or not have big names canceling that? Some people would say that. DeBax would say, yeah, let's get the heck out of here.

Spring training. Let's start playing some games that actually count. Yeah. Well, not to be too much of a downer, but we do have one elephant in the room to address. And that would be Merrill Kelly's performance to night as the starting pitcher for Team USA. Not thrilled about the night

Merrill had. I know for sure he's not thrilled about it. He went one in a third innings pitch, gave up three hits, two and runs, walked two, struck out one. It's wild because the line isn't terrible aside

from that 1.1 innings, right? It's pretty bad. The 1.1 innings part makes the rest of it bad. Right? Yeah. Right. But but it felt like he gave up, it might as well been nine runs. Like that's just what it felt like because he after looking really good in the first,

he just couldn't get things back on track in the second. Yeah, he did look good in the first. You kind of pitched around Shohei Otani. He was certainly careful with him. But other than that, we were impressed. He was dot in the corners. His Velo was up a little bit. Things looked really good for Merrill Kelly early on in this game.

And then, yeah, the second inning. It just, the command just wasn't. wasn't there for him. I thought the stuff looked pretty good throughout, but he just couldn't get his four seamer in the spots that he wanted. And eventually, he was just kind of throwing all fastballs and got knocked around a little bit. So yeah, you really feel for Merrill. I know that that game against Columbia didn't go the way that he wanted, even though Team USA was able to pick him up and win that game. But this one also didn't go the way that he wanted. And nobody's blaming this loss on him solely, right? I mean, Team USA only scored two runs. It's going to be.

hard to win any game when you're only scoring two runs. But yeah, it wasn't the outing that I know Merrill really wanted to have. And that sucks because Merrill is a good starting pitcher. Like I, like I think if you put Merrill in the NPB for a full season, he's probably one of the best pitchers in that league. He just unfortunately didn't have it in this one tonight. Well, this brings me no joy to do this at all. But you're going to do it? We got to do what we got to do around here. And we are going to give Merrill Kelly our OG. performance to forget. And when you have a tough night,

you have a night you want to just shake off, you want to not, you know, we were asked about how do we get out of a slump, right? Yeah. You do it by forgetting what happened. You just move past it, right? You want to learn your lessons. Yes, of course, you want to learn your lessons.

But if you want to not feel pain or sadness or, I guess, thoughts, you should try our friends at OGs. They have a wide variety of dose of, and strains, depending on the size of your problem and how much you want to forget, that you can check out. Of course, they also have a wide variety of flavors. They have their aqua berry sleep edition gummy, which is absolutely outstanding if you need to get yourself a good night's sleep.

So make sure to check out our friends at OGs. They have their new strawberries and cream edition, of course, that we've been talking about for a while that's hitting the streets now. So make sure to check out your local dispensary. And of course, tell our friends at OGs. We said hi. We love them so much. And of course, here's the thing.

The OG's new strawberries and cream, happy balance gummies are live on the shelves. And always, like I said, you can find them at your dispensary by checking out OGsbrands.com. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Also, shout out to our friends, Four Peaks that basically sponsored me throughout our three-hour plus watch party. They were big contributors to this. They were big contributors. Yeah, we need a beer counter next time to be up there at the top. But of course, you can go to their 8th Street pub and check out all their wonderful food and offerings that they have.

They have a wide variety of beers for you to check out. They also have their spring training tours all throughout the month of March. Not a lot of time to check that out, but make sure to do so. Check out how they make the beer. Check out the ghosts. Check out how the ghosts make the beer over at the 8th Street Pub. And more importantly, they are excited about Arizona Cardinals football. All new coach, new GM, and the Cardinals have the third pick in the draft.

It's a big opportunity for our team and the best place to take in this pivotal moment. And the rest of the NFL draft is on April 27th at the Four Peaks 8th Street Pub. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy their beer and enjoy responsibly. Look, we've been on air for a long time. So we know, we know you guys are probably done looking at us. But we have some quick updates for you before we move on. And of course, the biggest one when it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks is that Carson Kelly is going to be gone for a little bit of time. And when I say a little bit of time, I actually mean a lot of time.

Per Tori Lovelo, Kelly has a fractured ulna in his right forearm and no timetable is currently set for his return. It's tough, man. We talked about it yesterday when I interviewed Carson after the incident in the clubhouse yesterday at Camelback Ranch. he was concerned about it. You could just, you could tell. He said his level of concern was not minimal. And sure enough today, you get the bad news, the X-ray results. He does have a fracture in his right forearm.

We don't know exactly. There's no exact timetable at this point. But yeah, Carson Kelly is definitely not going to be ready by opening day. And you're probably looking at May. I would be kind of surprised if Carson Kelly came back in April at all. So this changes things for the Diamondbacks, Derek. This is a pretty big deal for them. The guy that was going to get the majority of the reps at Catcher is not going to be available for probably a month or two.

And I think Gabby Moreno is the name on everyone's minds. He's going to be the guy who's going to have to step up. Per the Reno Orthopedic Center, a fractured ulna takes an average of three to six months to completely heal. But by the six-week point, patients are extremely comfortable and usually able to resume full activities, such as manual labor, sports, and other things. But it's still going to take a long time for Carson Kelly to get fully healed. And especially with the Diamondbacks, I don't know how quick they're going to, like, they're usually pretty precocious about this kind of thing.

There's not going to be any rush to get Carson Kelly back. So they could potentially lose him for a while. but Tori did comment about when Carson could return and how tough this injury is for him. There is no time frame. We're still gathering information. What it does mean is there, you know, there's an opportunity for somebody

for the next several days to go out and do their job to the best of their ability and show us what they can do. We've got to evaluate the next level of player to get in that situation to go out and help us win baseball games. But as far as Carson, he's battled a ton of injury.

you get to a certain point with your athletes and they're like your kids, that when you have to continue to watch them work through these moments and get frustrated and they get healthy, and then they have to do it all over again, it's tough. It's very tough. But he'll absorb it. He's got some time to sit back and heal. And when he does, he's going to help us win baseball games.

I think the biggest question this brings up is, obviously we know that the Diamondbacks traded this offseason for Gabriel-Morraine. know. And obviously we know he's a very good young catcher that can step into this role. But do you think that this is actually going to lead to more reps for Gabby? Or do you think this is just going to essentially lead to like Jose Herrera coming in and taking over potentially as the full-time catcher in more of Carson Kelly's role rather than Gabby seeing any kind of increased or increased time behind the plate? I think it was probably, I mean, you were probably looking at like a 60-40 split between Carson Kelly and Gabby Moreno. Okay. So, you know, even if Jose Herrera just comes in and fills Carson Kelly's role, I don't think he's, you know, Jose Herrera is playing 90% of the games or anything like that. He does have the relationship with the catchers. Like we talked about the past, the Madison Bumgarner likes working with Jose Herrera quite a bit.

So he does have that experience with this staff already. Technically, yeah, I mean, and we'll play a clip on this in a second. the diamondbacks haven't officially made Jose Herrera a member of the team like i think he's still technically competing for a spot he's had a really rough spring training offensively that's not what Jose Herrera is therefore at the end of the day he's there because of what he brings defensively and what you just talked about the relationships that he established last year with some of the starting pitchers i do think that has a lot of value uh the other thing with moreno is that he has actually never started more than, I believe, it's 67 games at catcher in a season.

He's had a couple of injury issues in the miners that have popped up over the last few years that have kept Moreno from playing like that full-on season and being ready for a full workload as a primary catcher in the big league. So with that said, I don't think the Diamondbacks are going to come out, you know, even if they, even if they love Moreno and want to use him to the very fullest that they can, I don't think that they're going to come out and use him to catch 120 games. He's never caught more than 67 in a season before that happened last year. So they're probably going to have to go with, you know,

I would think that Moreno would still get the majority of the reps back there over Jose Herrera. But it's not going to be Moreno 80% and Herrera 20%. It's probably a little bit more balanced than that, just given Moreno's limitations and his workload that he's had in the past. Well, like you said, Tori did talk about Gabriel Moreno's workload and how it could be impacted by this injury to Carson Kelly. He's a very talented player, no doubt about it. We liked the combination.

If it was going to fall on Carson and Gabby, we liked that combination for a sort of reason. But so we were trying to make that decision as to who's going to be the backup of Carson. You know, eliminating that, eliminating Carson throws us into a totally different genre. We're trying to figure out that exact answer. And those are discussions that we're having. You said that we're easing them into it. That might not be a possibility.

So we haven't yet come up with any secondary plans, but we're talking about several things. We just need to survive spring training at this point because, holy shit. We were talking about how deep this team was, Jesse, and I feel like that that was, like a curse because holy, you know, that depth is being tested and it seems like it's going to be tested early and often this season when it comes to injuries with this team. The other thing I want to say about Carson

is just this poor guy man, like Carson Kelly feels like every year. Carson Kelly winds up out for two months. Usually happens in the middle of the year. This year it's happening at the beginning of the year. But it's just like he has to do his 60 days on the injured list every year

in order to get by. He had a, I don't know if you would call it super similar. He had a wrist injury fractured his wrist back in 2021. It was because he got hit by a pitch. Yeah, I think it was because he got hit by a pitch. So not the same bone, but fairly similar circumstances back then. And then

2022, the oblique. Yeah, the toe also in 2021. 2020 was the season that he was doing really well. And every time he started getting on a tear, a fucking injury would end it. And it was, it was so frustrating to watch for him. You know, Carson's such a great guy too. He handled this with all such with such grace you know like he yeah he like I would not have sat there and

talk to you gibronies about my arm with a fractured ulna like he was sitting there demonstrating to you with his with with his one arm wrapped up with his like on the other good arm like my god man the amount of you know of patience that this guy has at times considering the injuries he's gone through he's he's a saint but he's also a very good baseball player that it really just sucks to see limited by injuries this often. And as you heard there from Tori, it sounds like that it might not be possible for the Diamondbacks to slow play Gabby Moreno as they were, as they were planning to. Tori is kind of acknowledging like, yeah, we were planning to kind of ease him in a little bit.

Now we can't really do that. Like Moreno is definitely going to make the opening day roster. I think we can pretty much say that at this point. And he's going to get, I think the Lions should. share of the opportunity at catcher when the diamondbacks weren't really planning to do this. It will be interesting how this affects pitchers. I mean, you know, you're going to have a lot of pitchers with the diamondbacks who have not had much opportunity to work with Gabby Moreno yet.

So, you know, there might be some early kinks there to work through and try to figure out as the season progresses. But yeah, I mean, Moreno is, you know, was great last year in Toronto and the 70 plate appearances or whatever it was. And there's nothing good about this situation, but I think there are people who are excited about what can Moreno do given that opportunity. Nobody was wanting Gabriel Moreno to win the majority of the starts this way, right? Like nobody wanted to see Carson Kelly lost. But at the same time, too, it's kind of like what we've talked about with the young pitching staff and other situations. And that's happening around this team as well. We've talked about

the bullpen, those opportunities now are up for grabs when it comes to somebody potentially not on the roster earning that spot. Same thing now when it comes to catching. Really, it's Gabriel Moreno's job to lose, right? If we see Jose Herrera maybe as the opening day catcher and then get the lion's share of the work, maybe that just shows Moreno still isn't ready or at least not ready in the assessment of Toy Lobolo and his staff. But I don't think that they have much of a, not, I don't think they have much of a choice, right? And luckily, they traded for an incredible young catcher that is absolutely part of the timeline and the core with the rest of this team. So even if it's a trial by fire, even if he makes mistakes and has some growing pains,

at least Moreno is going to get that opportunity to play baseball. Yeah. And could you imagine if the diamondbacks didn't trade for Gabby's No, I could because Dalton Varsho would be back behind the plate most likely, even if they didn't want it. Like just because of necessity. That's a good point. I mean, unless you were going to go Jose Herrera and Ollie Sanchez or Jose Herrera and PJ Higgins, I mean, maybe they would have played the opposite. He has.

He has. I don't know. Yeah. And I think he's more of an offensive-minded catcher. I don't know if the Diamondbacks view him as, you know, like the ideal backstop to be, to be, you know, receiving and working with their pitchers. And you're not going to bring somebody like that. in when Gabby, that's not your concern with Moreno. Your concern with Moreno is

his relationship with the pitching staff, right? Like you said, the experience there and Patrick Lion, that's Patrick Lyon's floating head entered our chat. And it's, I can't even think, right? Like I've been doing,

we've been on for four hours, Patrick. I don't even know how to deal with this. But he asked, will Team USA ever let another Dbacker Rocky play with them? Probably not. But I don't know. We'll see. It's all on,

it's all on Merrill Kelly and Kyle Freeland tonight. It's, it's, we'll Team USA let us back on. I get what you're saying there. It's not the other way around. Will the D-Max let someone come on to the team? You also,

like, you also hate it because I know that Merrill Kelly took a little bit of flack. I didn't see a ton of this necessarily, but I'm sure there were people who are like, who on earth is this guy? Like, why is he starting in the,

yeah, it was, we already won the silver medal is what the answer. was to Merrill Kelly being the starting And to that I say like it's not like the starting rotation of Team USA was especially stacked right? Like it's not like you had

You didn't have Jacob deGrom waiting in the wings or something. You didn't have your Shohei Otani ready to go. I think I think honestly Merrill Kelly might have been the best starting pitcher of the group or at least one of them I guess Adam Wainwright still had a really good year last year. I don't hang a three two loss

on the pitching staff. I really don't. Yeah, I don't. It's a good way of I mean, I know that baseball games are close and I know that they can be close, but with a lineup that consisted of Mike Trout, Buckey Betts, J.T. Real Muto, Kyle Schwarver, like those guys,

Trey Turner. Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt. James Anderson, Jeff McNeil. Yeah. Crazy. Anyway, again, congratulations to Team Japan. Not great for Diamondbacks,

but you guys are going to get to see plenty of Gabby Moreno this year. So if you want to, I am stoked. I mean, I am. Silver lining, right? Yeah. That we were going to see lots of Moreno. Man can hit spring training.

Take it with a grain of salt. But the man has been knocking the cover off the ball in spring training. So there's a lot to be excited about, even though it comes in a really unfortunate situation. We thank Patrick for being here. And we thank all of you for being here on the PHN Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe. We've never been here this late when the cleaning person came through. to clean up after us while we're still doing the show.

But prepare for plenty of those nights this season because we're going to be doing more post series shows this year as well as our game of the week, which we might be doing some more watchalongs just like this. So we hope you guys liked it. We thank you so much for being here for joining us for the watchalong, for sticking around for this post game show. We appreciate you guys.

Make sure to subscribe to the PHAX Sports YouTube channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever we go live. Leave us a thumbs up because we are both exhaust. and it's the only thing that's going to power us through this final segment. Hour five is going to be awesome. Our five is going to be. We're going to lose our minds at hour five.

I'm ready for one more. Yeah. Are you ready there? I'm fucking, I was born ready, Jesse. I don't get ready. I fucking stay ready. Should we just be going all nighter?

Yeah. Let's just keep going until tomorrow morning. 24 hour stream. Knock it out. I got ad reads for days, son. But speaking of ad reads, make sure if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting at

You subscribe to us there if you haven't done so already. Leave us a review. We thank you for it. And grab yourself a PHNX diehards membership over at go phnx.com. It is the best way to spend your money. Let's be honest. Not only do you get a free piece of merch from the PHNX Locker.com and all future purchases are 20% off, but you get members only merch.

You get members only invites to events, members only discounts with our partners, so much more. You get access to all of the newsletters from people like Jesse Friedman and all the other wonderful writers around this place. you also get access to our members-only Discord, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan. So sign up today for a membership over at go phtnx.com and become part of our family. Speaking of our family, one of our family members here from the minor league system

for the Arizona Diamondbacks has tossed their hat, if you would, in the ring for discussion of best minor league logo. Now, we have already given a shout out to our friends from the Amarillo Sod Poodles, aka, the calf rise for their very naughty new alternative identity, which I like very much so. But this next identity is part of the Reno Ace's new identity for the Copa de la de Vision, aka the Fun Cup, Jesse, in Spanish.

Every year, the AAA level does these kind of Latin-inspired or Hispanic-inspired themes that go along with their communities, and the Reno Aces will be taking on the identity of the Reno-Michael. Lottas. Nice. Big fan, big fan of the Michelada on a Sunday afternoon. I like the, I like the color scheme we got going on.

This is a nice color scheme. The baby blue with the baby blue is just a fucking S-tier. It's a cheap. Baseball color, right? I'm very opinionated on this. Baby blue, total cheat code and the lime. The lime green with the baby blue.

Oh, that is beautiful. Well, I think everyone just fell in love with the team Mexico jerseys. Yeah. No, you're right about that. They didn't have the powder blue, right. the red and green thing, they did have that going on.

I like this logo a lot. I like the idea of a drink in a glass with a baseball bat, just ready to bash another fucking drink's face in. Like, I love that. I don't know it's probably baseball. It's your kind of logo, Derek. It's definitely my kind of logo. But do you know what a Mitchelot is, Jesse?

I don't. Okay, so are you familiar with a Bloody Mary? I am familiar with a Blueberry. So it's basically a Bloody Mary with a beer instead of vodka. Okay. So it's a little bit less, it's not going to get you where you're going as fast, but It's more of a Sunday afternoon kind of a drink, you know, pull side, something like that. So the aces are inviting us out for to try out these beverages?

That is right. Yes. Yeah, I want to be invited to Reno just to drink Micheladas all day long. So let's make that happen. We'll watch some baseball. You know what? What this means, though, is the Diamondbacks are starting to fall behind their minor league teams when it comes to fire logos. I don't want to put any pressures on the main club, but they're, they can't do this stuff.

They can't do this stuff. Look at this fire-ass fucking Hillsborough Ops hat I'm wearing right now for America. I don't think the calf fries would fly at the Major League level. I think they might have some. Give it a shot. Give it a shot is all I'm saying. Just give it a shot. I don't know about that one.

Whatever. That's fine. Maybe I'm not the best person to ask when it comes to this stuff. But I'm also not the best person to ask for fantasy baseball advice, by the way. Jesse could definitely attest to that. But baseball season is here. You need your family. advice, go to rotawire.com.

That's where you need to go. Our man, Jeff was incredible. Jeff Erickson is the man. This guy, I've never really, like, sometimes Jesse amazes me with his wealth of baseball knowledge. Sometimes. Evan Thompson, a friend of ours who wrote a book about baseball in the playoffs, incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to baseball.

But I think Jeff might take the cake when it comes to this. So make sure to check out Jeff and all of his analysts over at rotowire.com. They are a pioneer fantasy sports now for over 25 plus years. They have all the cheat codes, the cheat sheets, the customer custom player rankings, everything you need. Let their experts analyze all the wild baseball stats for you and break it down on who is valuable. They also keep you updated on their Twitter account, if you follow them on their Twitter account, on who is playing every sport all the time. So because they have your access to not just great fantasy baseball information, but fantasy advice on everything, including golf, soccer, NASCAR. Fantasy NASCAR?

Don't let my wife know that that exists because she will get down on that. Even Fantasy XFL. So for a limited time, RotaWire is offering a free two-day trial to all PHNX listeners. Just go to rotawire.com slash PHNX to register. Absolutely no commitments. They're so confident that you'll like their product and want to invest in a subscription plan that they don't even ask you for a credit card information up front.

You can just put Derek Montia in there if you just want to use a fake name. I don't even think they ask you for that. They just give it to you. So take a peek behind the paywall, and when the trial is done, you can decide if a roto wire package is right for you. And of course. Been close. If you want to do that fantasy baseball drafts pretty quick here. Yeah, they got mock drafts over there.

So you need to get down on the mock drafts and get yourself ready. But another great, great way to get ready for the baseball season is with GameTime.com. Game time has you covered for all of your last minute ticket needs. Now, we talked people well in the WBC. It absolutely served people well in the WBC And it'll serve you well all baseball season long Even right now, we don't have a lot of spring training games I know some of you haven't been out to spring training games

Don't fucking lie to me I know you haven't been out there Get out there, you have a lot of time left You got a week It's just going to be like the WBC Like I told you beforehand That is going to be gone at a blink of an eye and it's gone Same thing with spring training

It'll be gone before you know it And you will have missed out on it And you will wish you have got tickets And more importantly you will wish you bought tickets At 60% off over at game time But it's not just that. Of course, all of your concert needs, all of your show needs, everything you need. Get your tickets and save up to 60% on tickets when you buy them last minute.

It's for us procrastinators and we can finally rejoice that a company is catering to us. The best way to support us is by buying your tickets through the link in the description. And not just now, all season long. Baseball is here. We want to watch a baseball. You want to go out and get those Diamondbacks tickets. The Cleveland Guardians, they had a $49 a month, like subscription. thing where you can go to every game

and stand in like a standing room only section. And you commented that their stadium is very nice for the game. I was at the all-star, I guess I wasn't at the All-Star game. I was at the Home Run Derby at Progressive Field back in 2019. Pretty cool place. Epic Home Run Derby. 2019 Home Run Derby, one of the best of all time.

I feel very lucky to have been there. But the stadium was genuinely fantastic. So again, for all that stuff, make sure grab your tickets over at GameTime.com. and don't miss out on anything, anything you want to go see. We appreciate you guys so much for being here. For those warriors that we're here from the start of the World Baseball Classic game to right now, you guys are the real.

You're the real MVP, that's for sure. But you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Damon, I'm getting Damon in on this one. He's a Damon dog because Damon did an excellent job. Thank you for all of your work tonight. Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore.

backs but all roads lead to at phnx underscore sports on twitter instagram and facebook got some love being shown from japan in the channel absolutely and some love back to japan it was an incredible series or incredible tournament yeah an incredible championship game that completely capped off this tournament we're sorry that america underestimates you every single we will never we will never underestimate you again and i appreciate we have all learned our lesson at this point maybe we'll have to relearn it in three We'll see. We'll figure it out. On behalf of Jesse Damon and myself, we appreciate you guys so much for joining us tonight. We thank you, as always, and remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you play against the best in the world.