PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Slade Cecconi Achieves Feat Unseen In 50 years In Diamondbacks' Loss To Reds

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

One night removed from a walk-off victory at Chase Field, the Diamondbacks offense was flat in a loss to Hunter Greene and the Reds in game 2 of this series. We have more on Slade Cecconi being incredible once again in his first two innings of work and doing something a starting pitcher hasn’t done in MLB in 50 years. We also discuss if the Diamondbacks should really be giving their hottest hitter a night off and MLB announcing exclusive games will be coming to Roku.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/phnxdbacks50Desert 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.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.

Well, welcome it to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. We will be joined shortly by our vice mayor, Jesse Friedman from Chase Field. And of course, I'm here with the people's producer, the one and only Damon Dogg himself. And we are still just kind of, I guess, unimpressed with what we saw here tonight from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

they lose to the Cincinnati Reds by a score of six to two. Damon's going to let that music play just as the whole show, and I am in favor. I listen to the whole song, but while we were getting ready for the show, just really put me in the mood. And man, this is, I mean, it's kind of a bang. It's kind of a banger, but see, that's what we don't want a banger. Damon, we don't want to get to the part where the beat really kicks in. And I want to dance a little bit to it because there wasn't much to dance about tonight

when it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks. we will talk about Slade Zoconi doing something that has not been done in Major League Baseball in 50 years. And does that thing matter? No, not really. But we'll still talk about it. But what I want to talk about first is Katel Marte, of course, was not in the lineup tonight. Neither was Gabrielle Moreno. We did talk to Tori Lavallo before the game, and he did confirm that neither player were injured and that they were both getting a day off.

And I have to ask why. I have to stop before we get into the details of the game or go over the count or talk about Slate Sacconi and his first two innings. I have to ask why. Why once again is one of the hottest hitters in the lineup

getting a night off while he is in the middle of a 14-game hitting streak? Now I understand as a manager for Tori Lovolo, it's a difficult situation when your players start to go off. It does make it hard. harder on you to find time to give them a day off. And you do need to give these guys a day off. If you overwork any of your players, not just pitchers, but any of your position players,

you are in risk of them, you know, injuring themselves or not being able to, I guess, continue to achieve that level of success that they're achieving. But I cannot say that the Diamondbacks right now are in a position to be giving their hottest hitter the night off. I don't know. Again, I'm no baseball manager unless you talk about MLB, the show, 24. But I will say, Damon, I don't understand this. I don't understand this. It's kind of become a running gag when it comes to Tori Lavallo, but I feel like tonight

we have a case where it might have actually cost the Diamondbacks the game with the lack of offense. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't go to sit as far to say as like it costs us the game, but it is pretty unbelievable. And it's it's not just get tell. It's Gabby. Jake hits a home run two games ago. Yeah. He gets the last game off. Gabby Moreno gets a home run yesterday.

It happens all the time. His first of the season. So of course, day off, right? If you want a day off, hit a home run. That's the way to do it in the toy level lineup. I understand you need to rest your guys and this is a long play, but we need to win games too. And it's just, especially with Catelle, like it feels like with Catell, I know Jock is hitting really well and he can't really play the field. But it feels like Catell's off days should be D.H days, doesn't it?

Like Catell's off days, like you're still in the lineup hitting second, third because you're the best player on this team. And see, is that a true day off, right? Like does still hitting, you know, does still hitting put that strain on you? And that's not something you want to continue to do. I agree with you. I mean, but then you look at like what, you know, for instance, E. Heueno Svoneos-Wores did last year, Gino with the Seattle Mariners. He played all 162 games.

I laughed at that. I said, not in Tori LeBullo's lineup. You won't, right? But like you said, the way that they got Gino there was by Gino playing essentially in games where he didn't start and also D-Hing quite a bit for the Mariners, I believe, as well. So there's a way to still get guys off their feet without having them have the night off. Elise, of course, she, I don't know if we still, do we still call her a known baseball GM? After we met her, you're saying?

I mean, I still. I mean, I still. I think she's shadow decision making for the diamond backs. I don't know that. That's fine. Yeah. It's like an Illaminaity type puppet strings type thing. If I wanted to save.

face and keep up the idea that I was a regular woman named Elise and not a baseball GM named Michael Hazen or Alex Anthropolis or whoever it might be. I would pay someone to go to our takeover and claim to be a lease, right? And if I'm a GM, I have, like, I have replicant money, right? Like, I have the ability to pay a body double to go meet people and say that I, and we've never met Elise. That had never crossed my mind before, but now that you're putting it out there, it's really starting to make a lot of sense.

It's connecting a lot of dots. Just a sidebar for those of you that may have come to our takeover or may claim to know Elise, at least this version of Elise that she sent to the baseball game. But she said Gabby was off tonight or else Tucker was going to be starting against left-handed pitching tomorrow. Thank you for the explanation. Thank you for being rational what Jesse isn't here. I know there's reasons.

I don't care about the reasons. What I care about is the Diamondbacks are playing a Cincinnati Reds team that they just need to pick the carcass clean. They really need to get every single win. The Diamondbacks are already four and five now out of the six games that they're playing here against the Reds. So no matter what, they're going to walk away winning, you know, at least this, you know, this six games that they're playing against them in nine days.

However, it just felt once again Hunter Green, you know, he he did what he did the last time the diamondbacks faced him seven innings pitch five hit he gave up two earn one walk five strikeouts the offense just looked flat frankly against him i mean the diamondbacks did have kevin newman super kevin newman we just just don't think you understand uh but kevin newman continues to rake here uh he is now recorded multi hit efforts in his last four games for the arizona diamondbacks and he is hitting two 72 this season that's right folks Kevin Newman is hitting 272 it almost looked like an unintentional intentional walk in his first at bat tonight which of course you would do that because you don't want the smoke you don't want Kevin Newman you don't want none of that Kevin Newman action oh man of course not much else going on with this offense tonight blaze Alexander had a two RBI single which was the debacks only runs in this game and again it just very much uh was a night where it felt like they couldn't really muster up much

offensively. But they almost hit like a couple bombs, right? So like- They did have a couple of warning track. So, you know, hits his 17th foul ball home run of the season. That was, that was pretty incredible. He might break the record this year, I feel like. And then C-Walk hits one of the track and then hits one like 10 feet, 15 feet from

the track. So we were getting, we got a hold of ball a couple times. Yeah. Blaze hit that one into right center field that just stayed up a little bit too much. Like, it felt like a little bit. little bit the ones that were hit pretty well were just short of being like yeah massive game-changing type of hits yeah meanwhile on the mound for the diamond back slade caconi excellent through his first two endings of work he absolutely shoved just like he has in his other starts for this team

and actually did something as we alluded to in the title of this episode uh that has not been done by a major league pitcher in 50 years. And this tweet comes, and it did come first from our very own Jesse Friedman. Jesse Friedman tweeted out, Slade Cicone is the only MLB pitcher in the last 50 years to be perfect through two innings in five consecutive starts. What do I do with this information, Damon? What do I do with this? What you do with this is you say, welcome to the bullpen Slade Cicone. You were about to become Marlonarabye.

Right. You're goddamn right. That's how I spin it in my head. That's how I sleep at night. Slade, Ryan Thompson, Justin Martinez. Could it get any better than that?

I don't think it can. I don't think it can. That's the future of the pen. Yeah. Well, everything fell apart for Slade after that. So things didn't stay that good. Of course,

Slade ends up giving up two earned in the fourth, two earned in the fifth, and two earned in the, sixth to the Reds and Slade of course of course ends up having a fairly rough night but he did go out and give five and two-thirds innings he gives up seven hits six earned runs he walked one struck out three but like Damon said I mean when it really comes down to it right now the diamondbacks are in need of arms they're in need of guys that can go out there and give them something I just don't really honestly know like what makes Slade

so different after the first time through the lineup essentially, right? I do notice that some of the things were, you know, his pitches seem to be kind of all over the place after a while, like his velocity seemed to be all over the place. So I don't really know it might be one of those cases that Slate Soconi might just be one of the best relief pitchers we've ever seen. And, you know, we're just trying to start him, right? And I don't mean that as a knock to him.

I just mean, right, obviously there's something very good about what he's able to do going out there in five consecutive starts and being perfect in the first two innings. That's not even something Zach Gallen or Merrill Kelly is like literally capable of. As a matter of fact, Merrill Kelly usually gives up his runs early and then settles in and then it is like a solo bomb in the second. Right. And then it's just stronger than ever throughout the rest of the game. Like Elise says here, Slade really turns into the pumpkin that. second time through. Yeah, the wish is over. The fairy godmother comes and takes away.

I don't know. Maybe it's fastball? I don't know. But again, Slade, not very good tonight, despite the fact that he was extremely good early on. And Ernesto, two-inning closer? Sheesh. Sure, why not? I'm down with it. I'm down with it.

He also has a very descriptive way of talking about his last ball. Yeah, I thought you were about to see his other comment. I was like, wow, Darren. No, I'm not going to, but I appreciate it. I salute you, sir. So I don't know. I mean, again, it's almost like I'm starting to feel very guilty or guilty, greedy. I'm never, I never, I never lie and I'm never guilty.

You guys know that. But of course, I'm starting to feel very greedy against this Reds team, right? Like, this Reds team is not the Colorado Rockies who have now won six games in a row, by the way, and swept the Texas Rangers, right? Don't let the Rockies get hot. Don't let the Rockies get hot. Jesus Christ, right? But yeah, I mean, this is a Reds team right now that that was the discussion in kind of the press box today a little bit was like how bad can things get for this Reds team and how thankful should the Diamondbacks be that the Reds right now are struggling the way they

are. Last night's game did not go their way. And I'm going to scream about the umpires here in a moment, but they somehow found a way to win and walk it off there in the ninth inning. It was very exciting and obviously Kevin Newman, huge part of all of this. And for tonight, he's our king snake. And he kind of gets Kingsnake a little bit for last night too. Two for two, Kevin Newman, he had one walk, scored a run. I'm not sure did this. Did he end?

No, I checked it. That's what he finished with. All right, he ended up finishing with that. And again, was four for five last night? Derek didn't let me, but I wanted to put lifeblood of the organization. He did. He did. He did it.

Damon stands all current short stops that are part of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. I'm not a place in my life where I think the three favorite players I have on this team are all of our short stops. And it's pretty conflicting mentally. I get it. I get it because you're almost rooting against your other favorite player. Who I saw today, by the way, he was Geraldo Perdomo, Jerry Pee, our very own Jerry P.

was out there with Steve Zinsmeister on the pregame show out at Guy Fietti's. And he drew quite the crap. by the way. People love Jerry. He's a star. He's an absolute star. And he stayed and signed a lot of autographs and took a lot of pictures. But of course, those fans might have won, but the Diamondbacks definitely didn't win tonight. Let's take a look at the count presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. Diamondbacks lose this one, six to two. They get out hit 13 to six.

Runners in scoring position, Diamondbacks were one for six. Meanwhile, the Reds were four for 11. Much many more opportunities there for the Reds. Diamondbacks hitters struck out seven times to the Reds striking out five times and very similar hard hit percentages here from these two teams. 32.1% from the Reds, 31.4% for the Diamondbacks. So not very good for either team there as far as hard hit percentage tonight. And again, Slate's Coney did a good job in regards to that. That was below average, didn't he?

That's quite below average. Isn't like 40 something percent average? Yeah, about 42%. I believe is average there. 13 hits on a below average hard hit percentage night is pretty wild. Well, I mean, again, they weren't smashing the ball, definitely, but they just started figuring Slade out. And I think that seems to be the case so far this season

when it comes to Slade getting through the starting lineup, going through the lineup a second time. And I mean, sometimes it's kind of baffling to us, but it's not baffling when it comes to baseball. because again, you know, guys like Slade, there's not a lot of information on them yet. You know, we've seen teams adjust, for instance, to like Corbyn Carroll and what they've been able to do to him at the plate this season, right? The more information there is about you at a major league level, the more the teams can,

you know, figure you out earlier and earlier. And in Slate's case, it seems to be that they are completely, completely baffled by him. He is a conundrum to the team his first time. through the starting lineup and then is the easiest puzzle ever after that. So hopefully we can see Slade continue to progress, right? I think that's the big thing here. I think that's what the organization probably sees. It's hard not to see a guy do what Slade's been able to do in the first two endings of these five consecutive starts and not think that you can get more out of him. Like you're not expecting him to be perfect through an entire outing, right? But what you are

expecting is for some of that perfection that he's experiencing early on to at least carry over and allow him to go four or five innings right now with the way the diamondbacks are put together they really can't afford to have a guy only going three innings you know and and needing the bullpen to bail him out constantly early on in games uh in this one maybe maybe tory could be a little bit to blame maybe sending uh you know slayed out there after uh the fifth was probably not the best idea You know, that's, he struggled definitely in the fourth and the fifth inning. So I don't know if after he gave up the lead and the Diamondbacks were down four to two of letting him go out there was was the best idea. So, I mean, hindsight's 20, 20.

I do think that it does bear well for Slate's future here, though, in Arizona when you think about it. Because on paper, right, he's not one of the five starters on this team. So like before the season, you know, we're thinking about our starting rotation. Sure. And it looks like an all star starting rotation in our eyes. at least. Yeah. And,

you know, Slate isn't even, he wasn't even the Ryan Nelson or the Tommy Henry of, of the next group, you know, he was kind of that third guy. So I think the fact that we can kind of point to him

doing so well through the first two times through, a lineup or whatever, I feel pretty confident that he could be a pretty reliable bullpen arm for this team. And like, I, I definitely like Slade as a piece. I just, I do too.

I don't, I don't love him as a, in our rotation. But they don't need him in the rotation, right? all they really need out of him is they need some time. They need him to give them some starts. Yeah.

Some solid starts. Not starts where he needs to carry that perfection, like I said, over past the second inning, but just some starts where you can keep, limit the damage, keep it to three runs or less in five innings, you know, and that can be enough for this team to kind of limp across that finish line of Eduardo Rodriguez returning. Who is returning back to baseball activity? I think that they said they have them out to throwing to 45,

feet is what Tori said yesterday. So Erod is coming along. There's definitely some progress with Perdomo and Erod and some of the other missing players. However, Alec Thomas, it sounds like Tori gave us a clarification before today's game. It sounds like he definitely misspoke yesterday when he said that Alec Thomas was just going to miss a few extra days. He said that was him being hopeful and it was him being a little bit optimistic. But it sounds like Alec Thomas is in fact going to be set back a little bit longer. I'd say there's probably a couple of weeks before we see Alec Thomas return. But some of the things that were being thrown around were, you know, the talk of all of these

guys returning by June. And last time I checked, it's May 14th, right? So hopefully those reinforcements are on the way. Bigger, bigger picture here is that those reinforcements impact the team positively, right? They're going to get healthy. But guys like Pardomo, it's probably. probably going to be a slow, you know, I guess, you know, road back to him being the offensive threat he was.

However, in regards to Geraldo Pardomo, I want to say something right now that I know is going to get Damon, like, bricked up, as the kids say. All right. Yeah. Well, that's the only, that's the best way I could say it. I'm sorry. It's the best way I could say it. But it is good because Jerry P.

was asked by my friend Steve Zinsmeister on the pregame show today about what he misses the most about being out there playing baseball. This is going to be good. You know it's going to be good because. Let me wait. Let me get my popcorn. You get your popcorn out. You get you ready because this is a film you're going to love.

When asked what he misses the most about being out there, Geraldo Pardomo did not say high five in his teammates or the thrill of victory. You know, he did not say being in the dugout with the boys and just buzzing like some bees. No, you know what he said? Geraldo Prudomo said being down 02 in the count and working it full. Being, that's what he misses the most. Being down 02 in the count and working it back to full, David. He's the best.

What I want you to do is take that and inject it straight into my veins. Because that's Jerry Pee ball. That is Jerry Pee ball. That's what we live for. Oh, man. We miss that. You gotta love that man. Love that man.

Well, of course, I'm probably way too happy about tonight's loss. I should be a little angrier. Jesse texted me and told me I'm not being angry enough. But, of course, instead of getting angry about tonight's loss, I want to get angry about last night's win. And in order to do that, I think I need to throw some shade. Damon, can you give me appropriate throwing shade, music,

and maybe some fire effects to go along with it? Home plate umpire from game one, Mark Carlson. And don't think that I forgot about you, Third Face umpire Dan Merzel, because I have plenty of rage for you too. Oh, these two clowns want to make it into the um show. Neat, because people paid their fucking money to come see the fucking umpire toss out one of the best

hitters on the team and the manager for for what for what do you say why was jock peterson and tori lovolo ejected from the game well you couldn't say jock peterson reacted in a negative way uh when he was told that he struck out on a bullshit call maybe that's what you should say but maybe it's just an umpire covering up for how bad he is at his job. Damon, if you wouldn't mind, I would love to see an illustration of how bad that call, in fact, was. Look at these calls. Egregious, that call three.

That is a called strike. That is a called strike. And honestly, Jock Peterson had fucking had enough. And we all had had enough. We had all had enough with what we had seen from Dan Mark Carlson and Dan Merzel. Because Dan Merzel is over here. Give it everybody a goddamn strike for every single check swing. Does he not know what a check swing is?

Is it just if the guy moves the bat a little bit? That's a check swing. It's an actual swing. It's not a check swing. These ums were amazing last night. I cannot believe. you know what it reminded me of? It reminds me of a police officer

that fucking instigates a fight with you and then arrests you, right? Like, what is that shit? That was unbelievable last night, the way that Mark Carlson couldn't wait to throw Jock Peterson out. I guess a further explanation of this was that... One motion.

Whoa. Jock had apparently received a warning that he didn't hear from Carlson because he threw down the bat earlier when Dan Mersel made his horseshit call about the check swing, right? And that wasn't even, that wasn't even at you, Mark. He wasn't throwing the back down at you. He was throwing it down at Dan,

who deserved for it to be thrown down at him. Like, this was the most egregious. And, like, honestly, even Tori went out there, I don't know if Tori whispered, like, you're a dumb motherfucker to him or something like that. But, like, it didn't even see, like, Tori was that heated. We've seen Tori way angrier before in the past.

And this whole situation was just absurd. Not to mention the fact that we have umpires literally tossing managers out of games because somebody in the goddamn crowd behind them yelled something at the umpire. Get thicker skin. Your job sucks. I get it. You get a lot of flack and very, very little appreciation for the hard work you do. Right?

But the fact is, is that when you guys are so egregious, wrong and bad at your job that you're going to turn it around and like impact the team by then tossing out one of their best hitters and their manager. That's just horseshit. And it's something that they should absolutely

be fined for or like there needs to be some sort of ramifications for the actions of umpires that impact the baseball game this much. I'm not talking about the ones that the umpire scorecards torch with their you know with their rating and their percentage of accuracy.

I'm literally talking about ones that do this because this was absurd. What the hell did Tori even say? Right? You went out there like you went out there and it looked like it was calmly asking for an explanation of what the hell it happened.

He was just talking. Mark is just no, I'm not, no, no, I'm not. I'm not giving you an explanation. You're gone to like that's, I don't know. I need a John Boy breakdown of this maybe. Listening to Tori all the time, there's no way he said something that was like so disrespectful. Yeah, I don't know.

You think so? Well, Tori, Tori uses some colorful language. He probably said like you, you fucking suck tonight. Yeah. Yes. But I don't know that that's, I don't know that that's a deceptible. I don't know that that's an ejectable statement. It's not, it's not an objectable statement.

That's the point. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I mean, it's really soft. You're going to have people say things to you. Like, I understand crossing a line, right? And we've seen that. with umpires, you know, several times this season.

Uh, but this, this whole thing was just completely ridiculous. And again, uh, I just want to remind umpires that nobody comes here to see you. And I know that hurts your feelings probably too. I get it. Uh, a lot of times people don't come to this show to see me. They're here to see Jesse, right? I've learned to live with that. It's fine.

They also hurl insults at me and I don't throw them out of it. Sometimes I mute them, uh, but I never block them. So I'm just saying there's, ways to handle it and be an adult about it. Of course, throwing shade is brought to you by our friends at Shady Rays because they have you ready for the summer, which if you don't have a solid pair of sunglasses this summer and you live in Arizona, what the hell are you doing? Go out there and get yourself some amazing sunglasses, polarized sunglasses and honestly get yourself a pair of sunglasses that has a crazy and insane protection plan when it comes to if you lose or break

your sunglasses. They have a lost or broken replacement plan where even if you do that on day one, they will send you out a brand new pair. If you also don't love your shade, you can exchange them for a new pair or return worry-free within 30 days. There's no risk at all when you shop. Their team always has your back with personal and fast support. So

exclusively for our listeners, ShadyRays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to ShadyRays.com and use code PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people. And again, if you don't love your shady rays you can return them within 30 days get your money back or exchange them for a brand new pair such an insane deal it still makes no sense to me especially the 35% off right

the 35% off is but like but like their glasses are all like you lose everybody affordable sunglasses everyone loses glasses oh it's one of the reasons why i don't want to buy expensive nice sunglasses like what shady rays offer i'd argue it's the easiest thing to lose oh yeah by far i think it's not even close. Like the only reason I still have this particular pair is because there's at least three people when I went to counter service restaurants that were kind enough to yell to me, hey idiot, you forgot your sunglasses, right? But if you did forget him, you know what you would have done? I would have contacted ShadyRays. You would have gone to ShadyRace.com. New ones back out. Immediately. Immediately. What a deal. Of course, we thank you guys for being here as PHNX listeners.

So that deal, of course, is for you. And of course, we thank you guys for subscribing to the channel. if you have done so. If you haven't, we implore you to do so. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever our emergency podcasts go live or whenever our shows go live, especially some of these postgame shows we got going on here. Of course, also leave us a like. Gabby loves it when you do that.

Gabby will stop by to drop us a like. He's not in the lineup tonight, but at least he's here to support us and we appreciate him for that. Gabby asks for more likes than he does like have played appearances this year. That's because he's doing it for the boys. You know what I mean? like he's doing it for the lads and that I appreciate. He's a thoughtless person and a selfless person. I appreciate that.

Of course, if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you subscribe over there. Leave us a review. We always appreciate those reviews. We love that feedback. Five-star reviews definitely help us out a ton. So we appreciate when you do that as well. Also check out BetMGM Sportsbook.

Of course, if you haven't signed up for that yet, do so right now. You can sign up using our bonus code of PHNX. And when you do, you can get up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if you lose your first bet. All you got to do is sign up and deposit at least $10 into your brand new bet MGM Sportsbook account and place your first wager and receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses.

The bet does lose your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Of course, right now we've been talking about the Grand Slam jackpot promotion where you can get down on a weekend bet, betting on any player to hit a home run. And if that player hits a grand slam, you can get your share of $50,000 or a share of that price. You can win the whole thing yourself if you're the only one that hits it, or you can win your share of the prize with every other winning better. So make sure to sign up for bet MGM and use that bonus code of PHNX. Place your first bet MGM sportsbook, bett mjom sportsbook wager through the sportsbook mobile app for at least $10. You will receive $1,500 up to $1,500 back in bonus

bets if bet loses. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer. bonus bets expire in seven days one new customer offer only gambling problem call one 800 gambler available in the u.s call 8778 hope and y 467369 new york call 1 800 327 550-massachusetts 21 plus only please gamble responsible call 100 next step arizona one 800 800 800 8000002 3 porto rico first offer for new customers only subject to eligibility requirements bonus bets are non-women and hotel see betmgmgm.com for terms u.s promotional offers not available in new york

north carolina ontario or porto we're not doing it until you bring him in bring him in Rico. Poor Rico. Yeah, there he is. Well, there's my vice mayor, and you're a thunderstick, the one and only Jesse Friedman coming to us live from Chase Field. Jesse, weird night when it came to the Diamondbacks. Not a lot there offensively.

And then Slade once again was incredible doing something, as you described on Twitter that no pitcher has done in 50 years in his first five, or not first five, but the last five consecutive outings. but yeah and then just kind of fell off after that third inning look i i've seen pitchers that come out and are really sharp and then tend to fall off a bit the second third time through the lineup i've never seen anything like this derrick uh slates caconi i mean up to this point in the season which granted is only five starts sikoni is held opposing hitters to an oh 90 o p s the first time through the lineup literally one for 43

with a single and two walks. And then after that, as I, as I tweeted out, the slash line goes up considerably for opposing hitters, 339, 406, 679. That's the opposing slash line against Slate Sacconi, just after the first time through the order. Things tend to unravel a bit, obviously, after that point.

And that's certainly what we saw today. So, yeah, it's a weird situation. Like we know it's well documented in baseball once a hitter has seen a pitcher second time around. You're going to sort of know what to expect. You're going to know what some of the pitch shapes look like. You're going to feel more comfortable in the box. Maybe you have a better attack plan than you did the first time. But the difference, Derek, is so stark that it's hard to explain.

Like I said from the top, I've really never seen anything like this before. Well, and I'm just kind of confused. Like when I take a look at that achievement of being the first pitcher in 50 years to be perfect in his first two innings of his five consecutive outings, like much like everyone, much like Damon, much like I'm sure a lot of people watching, my knee jerk reaction is to the bullpen with you immediately, right? But like the Diamondbacks don't really have that luxury right now to make that decision. nor, you know, I mean, it's got to feel kind of hard for the organization to not feel like Slade's getting closer and closer to putting together longer outings instead of wanting to essentially just reduce them to a bullpen role. I mean, again, the Diamondbacks are just in a spot right now with both E. Rod and Merrill Kelly on the injured list where they can't really afford to have Slade Sikoni transition to the bullpen at this point. So, yeah, I agree. I mean, I think we're all thinking the same thing. Like, wow. what would this look like in the bullpen?

That's a pretty intriguing idea. We've had the same conversation multiple times this season after some of these starts from Slate Cicone. But yeah, it's just it's not something that they can afford to do right now. And we did get some interesting stuff after the game from, from Tori, from Tucker Barnhart, from Slate Cicone himself, on what exactly caused all of this. And yeah, I don't know if there's necessarily a clear solution,

but some pretty interesting ideas were presented. Well, this is what Slade had to say about his outing. There's good and bad in that one. I'm not going to talk about the good. The thing that I've noticed in myself that needs to change and that will change moving forward is when I find myself getting hit is when I find myself looking to place the ball. And I'll usually maybe take a mile an hour or two off a pitch to try to execute it.

And, you know, I'm learning that that can't happen. That's not going to play at this level. The better thing to do is always to throw my best stuff and trust that me throwing my best stuff is always going to be better than me trying to place the baseball. What does he mean by that? By just that he's trying to throw his best stuff versus trying to place the baseball. I think the idea is that when Slade starts get knocked around a little bit,

as some of these games continue, he has a tendency to get a little bit too fine and to try to over-locate the ball in a sense, like just rather, you kind of get out of his usual pitching mechanics and try to be a little bit too fine with where he's putting the baseball. baseball. And when he does that, as you hear him alluding to there, it, it knocks some of the

Velo down, which is something that we've seen in Slade's outings. We certainly saw it today. I think there was a sub-90 mile-hour fastball toward the end of his outing today, which certainly is not characteristic. And the explanation here is that that's not a matter of fatigue. That's just a matter of Slade Sikoni kind of changing his mindset and pitching with less and 10 and trying to put these pitches in the exact in the exact right spot when he really should just be like, you know, here's my 95, 96. Like, you couldn't hit it the first time. Let's, let's stick by that and see if you can hit it this time.

And that's not to say that he's going to continue to dominate throughout, you know, the rest of his outings the way that he does the first time through. No pitcher really does that. Right. But you still could theoretically come out with better results, just kind of trusting his stuff. He's so articulate too, isn't he? Yeah, like explaining. I've like never, almost never heard an athlete talk about himself and his performances like that.

There's a couple of guys in the Diamondbacks clubhouse that that speak like that. And they're very candid. They speak very open and honestly about the mistakes they made. Like I do like that he like obviously don't want to. There's nothing there to focus on as far as the good. Like the first two innings thing. Yeah, that's great. I mean, but there there is some.

sort of change, right? The minute that he walked his first batter in the third inning, everything fell apart for him, right? And so like what, what changed just because you walked a guy? You know, I hate to continue to bring it back to sometimes the way that I play baseball video games, right? But like it's always a perfect comp, Derek. It's always a perfect comp. No, well, I mean, it's, it is almost like you're trying to play the game where every time you're out there playing the video game, you're trying to like throw a perfect game, right? Like in a way. And it's like when things are going well for you, it's awesome until they don't.

And then all of a sudden it's frustrating. But part of it is because it's a baseball simulation. They're trying to show you that this is how baseball actually works. Like people start to figure out what you're throwing. And when you're throwing the same stuff over and over and over because you're just a guy with a controller throwing it in the same spot, they're going to figure you out. And it feels like with Slade, obviously there is some figuring him out. But it does, it very much when you started looking at his numbers at his Velo, like his fastball Velo seemed to be all over the place there.

And I think it was the fourth inning. And like that was weird because you don't typically see a fastball like if it's a different pitch and it's changing speeds that's different. But you don't typically see a pitcher throwing a fastball at different speeds. Yeah, not not so wildly different speeds. Yeah, not so drastic. inning for sure yeah usually i mean it's totally normal for pitchers to see their velo dip a little bit as their starter as their outings uh continue sure but it's it's weird for slade to be like oh that was 90 oh but then it was 96 and then it was you know just

more fluctuation yeah yeah more more fluctuation than then you're used to seeing i also thought it was we did talk to tucker barnhart i don't have any clips of him to share uh tory kind of summarize what he had to say at one point in one of these other clips. But here is what Tori Lavello himself had to say about Slade's struggles the second and third time through. I don't know. I don't know that answer, right? I'm asked myself that same question.

Maybe it's a focus, the focus thing. It looked like his fastball is fluctuating anywhere from 91 to 96. I want to see him stand on that. I want to see him get after and be aggressive with his fastball and just really attack hitters and then go to work with some. quality secondary stuff. So I don't know. I feel very good about Slag two times through the order. That third time, I start to really lock in. But he just gave some big base hits that third time around. He mentioned he's trying to locate and take it a little bit off instead of just pitching.

Have you noticed that? Yeah, that's a conversation that Tucker and I had probably around the fourth or fifth thing. Tucker said, you know, hey, I'm, so you know, I got this, I'm taking care of it. I'm asking Slate to give me his best fastball, so I know what I'm working with. Don't place the baseball, because when you place the baseball, there's lack of finish to it, and that's when hitters really square it up. So 96, with, you know, a fearless attacking mentality is going to get you better results in trying to place the baseball with no finish.

And I think that's what Tucker was saying to me. He was a little bit frustrated by it, too. So I know there's a there's a placement. I respect pitchers of place in baseball, but Slade doesn't have that mentality. He should not be placed in the ball. He should let that thing be. And I guess, you know, part of that is that maybe with what's happened so far to Slade,

like he starts overthinking it, right? Because this isn't the first time that he struggles after the first two innings. So like once it starts becoming a pattern, you almost have to start wondering if it's something, you're doing maybe not to tip pitches or whatever, but, you know, like, you know, again, just overthinking where you're placing, you know, the ball, where you're, where you're throwing it, where instead of just trying to literally throw your pitch the best. Like, I understand what they're saying, but it's got to be, you know, frustrating for Slade considering he doesn't really know exactly why, you know, the opposing hitters are figuring him out so quickly.

Yeah, Tucker Barnhart. talked a little bit about Slade just trying to do too much, that maybe he's just, he's just out there kind of trying too hard in some ways. And that makes sense, right? Like, that would lead you to, aim the ball a little bit more than you really need to do. So, yeah, I mean, everyone's thinking, what really stood out to me is talking with Tucker Barnhart, talking with Tori Lavello, talking with Slate Sacconi. They very much were unified in their assessment of what's going on with Slate Sacconi. I mean, it all lines up. They're all saying that Slate Sikoni is trying to do a little bit too much. He's getting not fatigued physically, but fatigued maybe mentally in some ways.

And he's over adjusting his approach as a result of that. We do have one more clip from Tori, which I think is interesting, which specifically addresses the question of fatigue and whether that would be a factor in this. Tori also makes some interesting comments about just how he views Slade as a hitcher, which I found pretty interesting. So here's what Tori had to say. It linked to fatigue at some point, you know, when you start to lose pocket. A little bit, a little bit, yeah. I think you start to get a little gassed out and your mind starts to play tricks on and starts to wander. We all, we all, we all, happens to me every day. So, yeah, I think fatigue could be a factor. But I, I,

I don't want our starting pitchers to get tired after 65 pitches. Right. That's why I want them taking off and really getting after it, especially when they have the type of stuff that Slate does. Look, I know I've been very critical Slade, but I know he's capable of doing more, and that's what we are supposed to do as coaches and teachers, as challenge our guys to be the best version of himself.

So he's going to hear it here, and then we're going to continue to talk about it with him tomorrow, that we've got to get better. We got to get better. It's got to be 21 ounce, 100 pitches, every one of them, full effort. I didn't think it was fatigue. Fatigue really didn't strike me as what I thought was wrong with Slade here. But what I do like about what Tori said was his assessment of Slade and what he talks about, you know, as a coach needing to get more out of these guys, trying to get more out of these guys. The untapped potential is sometimes all that these coaches and, and, front offices can see out of a guy despite struggling or despite, you know, maybe us as fans being a

little bit more impatient with them than the organization. But when Slade is doing what he's doing, right, being perfect for two innings through five consecutive starts, there is something there. And it's not just, it's not just throw them in the bullpen. There is something there to build on and to perhaps make Slade the starting pitcher in this starting rotation of the future. Right. And that is part of what Tori Lavolo is processing and thinking about when he's letting these guys have opportunities where, you know, we don't want to see those guys get opportunities any longer or we think that those guys are better fit for a different role. They don't. They think that there's still a lot of potential in someone like Slade to be a very successful starting pitcher. And I agree. I just think there's something weird with what's going on here with him. I mean, as much as like we touched on earlier, I mean, a lot of these, what we've seen so far from him just indicates throw him in the bullpen, problem solved, there you go.

Yeah. But, yeah, like, Slade in a lot of ways is not your prototypical, like, oh, clearly this guy should be a reliever situation. His delivery, I wouldn't say it's necessarily, like, extremely low effort, but I wouldn't say it's super high effort either. I think his delivery is relatively repeatable. You know, that's generally a red flag you look for with like, okay, this guy's going to have to be a reliever down the road. And the other thing I look at is that Slay is throwing four pitches. Like, we've mostly viewed him as a fastball slider guy coming up through the minors.

He threw eight sliders today. I think it might have been seven, actually, which I believe is the lowest. He's never thrown that few sliders in a game ever. And we've always viewed the sliders being like, That's the can't miss pitch. That's what's going to make Slate Saccone's such a good pitcher. He was pretty good tonight at times without even really relying on that pitch at all. He has the fastball, which we've really seen come to life here in these few outings at times.

The curveball has been an effective weapon at times. And the change-up, a newer pitch for him, which he learned from Merrill Kelly. We've talked about that in the past. There's a four-pitch mix here that I think has a chance to play as a starter in the big leagues. And as much as the D-backs could use a good bullpen arm, and we very well may see Slade make that transition later in the season when the D-backs are able to do that, a good starting pitcher is always more valuable than a good relief pitcher. Like if you have the ability to get a E-VAT, always want to go down that road, almost even if you don't have room for him, like you want to find a way to at least explore that pitcher being a starter. So, yeah, this isn't the end of the road for Slade is a starting pitcher. You can hear it in Tori's voice.

Like he really believes in the stuff that Slate has and he really, part of his frustration, it feels is that he really believes that Slade can be a whole lot better than how he's been so far this year. And I trust Tori, right? And I'm going to pull the curtain back probably too far. I know Jesse's not going to like this. I'm not going to go into too much detail. That's a really scary statement. I know.

I know. That's a good setup for Jeff. I'm sorry. No, I'm going to leave the true, the true meat potatoes out of this story. But what I will say is there was kind of a hilarious argument going on in the press room before Tori came in. And of course, Jesse was at the core of it with his statcast data upsetting everybody with everything, right?

But what was hilarious about it was that Tori walked into the room about, about three minutes after our discussion had ended. And we were all kind of laughing and had looks on our faces. And Tori, of course, was like, what's going on? Tell me, where's what's, like, fill me in. And when we just started to, we just gave him a little bit of what the discussion was about. Tori then proceeded to nail everything that was happening in the room. He was like, oh, it was between these two guys, wasn't it?

It was Barry. Barry said this, didn't he? And I know Barry doesn't like it with you. And like, my God, Tori is, he is so observation. It's fascinating to me how observant he is and how much information you don't think Tori is taking in, but he's actually taking in. He knows us as like a press corps, I think more than we could ever give him credit for. It's amazing.

But, you know, that's just, that's just us. He barely spends any time with us. He spends way more time with those players. and that's the reason why when he's talking about things like today he was asked about Jordan Lawler he he did in fact do us a favor and followed up to get an update on Jordan Lawler and was basically told in return why do you want to know about that this is it like what you don't you worry about that right now and basically Tori had to be like well I told the press guys I'd find out for them you know so like not only is it a solid dude that follows through on his

actions, but he knows a tremendous amount. And I think, again, when you talk about what he observes out of someone like Slade, like you said, not just the pitch mix, but everything that makes Slade who he is. I mean, even what you said with how articulate he is, there's so many positive qualities about Slade that you see a future starting pitcher here, right? And that's the reason why, like, the Diamondbacks don't really have another choice. Maybe they could turn to Blake Walston, who had a great night tonight for the Reno Aces. but like Slade has really proven himself at a major league level to be capable of helping this team win games.

It's just figuring out that next step so that they can, you know, have them extend those outings a little bit longer. And again, not be perfect for five innings, but give the team a chance to win. Yeah. Another, another factor in this game for Slade is that the Reds just stacked the lineup with lefties. I know there were like L.A.D. the Cruz switch hitter. So is Jamie Candelario. but, I mean, Slade effectively had seven out of the nine hitters against him. I mean, he did have seven of the nine hitters against him, batting left-handed.

And he has pretty big splits in that regard. Like so far this season coming into today, lefties had a 777 OPS against him compared to a 434 mark for righties. He's pretty much completely shut down right-handed hitters this season. And there just weren't really any in this Reds lineup. It was just Tyler Stevenson, the catcher in the cleanup. spot and then Jonathan India as well. Those are the only right-handed hitters that the Reds had. So I think that was another challenge for sure. And it's going to be a challenge for Brandon

fought tomorrow. Fott is another guy who tends to be quite a bit better against righties than lefties. So I imagine David Bell is going to do the same thing and stack the lineup with the lefties tomorrow against Fought. But that's another challenge for Slate to overcome here in the early going of his career. I mentioned the arsenal that he has. And I think he has. the weapons to be able to get lefties out. But he hasn't been nearly as good against them as he has righties so far. Well, of course, I said earlier before you were here, I never lie. And Damon sometimes occasionally lies.

And of course, Jesse's a known liar. But the numbers, they do not lie, Jesse. What do you have for tonight's number from this game? Yeah, I mean, I feel like we're kind of beating a dead horse here. But the number is $10.85. which is I sort of alluded to it earlier, 1085 is opposing hitters OPS against Slate Sacconi after the first time,

the first time through. So yeah, it's 090 the first time through, literally an 090 OPS and then a 1085 OPS thereafter. It's unreal, Derek. I mean, it's nearly a thousand point difference between the first time through and the rest of the way. like if a pitcher at a 200 point difference I mean that would be notable that would be a pretty big difference

but we're talking about a thousand points here I'm sure this will balance out over time and also I will say real quick like I don't think Slade in the first three innings of this game was quite as good as we've seen him in the first three innings of some of these games like that game against the Padres when he's throwing 98 miles an hour

and just like I mean there it was a different type of dominant in some of the other games than it was today. Today there were some line drives that were right at guys. I don't think he was really mowing them down out of the gate like we've seen some of the other games. And I feel like this kind of undermines the Reds lineup, but the Reds aren't playing

very well. So it's a little different against this Reds lineup versus the Padres and some of the other teams that Slade has done it against. But speaking of Cincinnati Reds manager, David Bell, and his game plan against the diving backs tonight. In the middle of the game, we got an announcement in the press box that Tori Lovolo has invited David Bell to be part of his All-Star game coaching staff. So it sounds like David Bell will in fact take Lovolo up on that offer as part of managing the National League in the All-Star game. And the D-BACs, of course, this is, David Bell's a great guy. So it totally

is understandable why Tori Lvolo would choose someone like him to help him manage this NL team. I mean, can you imagine if he turned him down? Tori was like, hey, I want you on my team at the All-Star game. David Bell is like, David Bell emerges out of the dugout just to flip Tori off across the field. Like, no. The answer is no. It is funny that the, I mean, I guess it makes sense that they announced that while

the teams were playing each other. This is the Diamondbacks last series against the Reds this season because there's only There's only two for your non-divisional NL opponents. And thank goodness we caught it when they were struggling like this, man. That's a good thing to play all six games against the Reds now while they are like just not playing good baseball. But they played good baseball today. Yeah, yeah. The Reds are not.

I refuse to believe there is bad of a team as they've played so far. Agreed. They're really banged up. I mean, without T.J. Friedel had just come back, made his return in that season. series against the debacks last week. Now he's back on the injured list. Matt McLean, I believe is expected back relatively soon. That could be a big lift for them.

So, yeah, this Reds team is not, they're not the Rockies. They're not the Marlins. They're better than that, but they are really scuffling right now for sure. Be careful. The Rockies won six in a row, Jesse. So we don't, we don't know what that's true. Let the Rockies get hot. Yeah, do not let the Rockies.

I got to, I got to respect the Rockies, man. They just, they just beat the defending world champ, Texas Rangers. they just swept swept the defending champ Texas Rangers which I believe makes the Colorado Rockies now the defending champions

which somehow is worse for the Diamondbacks because that means the Diamondbacks lost to the Rockies in the World Series which doesn't actually make any sense because that's too national teams. No, you went too far. You went too far. But I liked your Highlander rules

where there can only be one champion and by sweeping the Rangers they've thus cut off their head and have learned all of their knowledge. about being champions. So that's definitely where we're at. Of course, a big shout out to Circle K. It's where I'm going to stop and get some gas on the way home.

I always wait until this time of the day. Because just like going grocery shopping, getting gas at 1030 at night is pretty elite. You know what I mean? I go out there. There's no line. Do it all the time. Yeah, it's kind of nice.

It's kind of nice. So it's a great time to get your gas. Of course, if you join their Inner Circle program for free right now, by downloading the CircleK app, you can save even more money on gas. Of course, terms do apply and conditions. Terms and conditions, not just terms. Conditions also apply at participating locations.

Visit circlek.com for details. But join that Inner Circle program for free and save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five Phillips. And then you'll save three cents off per gallon every day after that unless you become a premium member. And then you'll save five cents off per gallon every day after that. Stacks with the easy pay option. So you'll save yourself even more money on gas. and comes with a variety of coupons in the app. So make sure to join the Inner Circle for free today.

Also, check out Desert Financial Credit Union because for more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union dedicated to creating exceptional experiences. They give back to the community and they provide financial solutions that make your life better. They made my life better by getting me started on owning a home and hopefully they can do the same for you.

You can look to Desert Financial for checking and savings accounts. accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more. Right now, when you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 and bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. Well, of course, we talked about Slade Cicone, plenty, but Jesse, a couple of other things we touched on, Cotell Marte, Gabby Moreno, having the day off, known baseball GM, Elise, who we concluded sent a body double or, you know, basically, somebody taking her place to our takeover, paid actor, crisis actor, to our takeover event

in place of who she really is. And that since none of us had met her, it was the perfect, it was the perfect plan. We figured her out. But of course, she said that Gabby obviously getting the night off so that he can hit tomorrow and you have Tucker Barnhart going up against the left-handed pitcher tomorrow. But not a lot of offense from this team without Kutel in there. I know Gabby and Tucker have kind of been similar, so it's almost a push there offensively from their production.

But 0 for 4 tonight for Corbyn Carroll. And despite us wanting to proclaim he's back all the time, he might not be back. Yeah, I mean, Corbyn Carroll is 3 for 29 since that, since hitting that Homer a week ago today, actually, against the Cincinnati Reds. Yeah, I mean, he's hit basically 100 since then his OPS is back down to 539.

So it's felt like one step forward, two steps back almost, like where it, yeah, he just hasn't consistently found a way to become Corbyn Carroll again. He hasn't really looked like that guy for more than one or two days at a time. So he's going through it. There's no doubt and still think he's going to figure it out. He's Corbyn Carroll. He's still an easy guy to bet on for all of the reasons that we've described up to this point. but we might have been a little hasty in declaring that Corbyn-Carrho was fully back to his self from last year.

Yeah. Tonight's lineup only featured one player with an OPS over 776. Not great. And that one person would be Jock Peterson, of course, who still seemed a little frustrated after the umpire situation. Don't worry, Jesse. I threw shade at the umpires, so we got them good. But, of course, the Diamondbacks do have. let's take a look at the matchup for tomorrow in game three.

They have Abbott going up against Fought in the finale here. Fought, of course, continues to be pretty good for this team, despite that 4.60 ERA and that 1 in 3 record. And what do we know about Abbott, Jesse? He's good, man. He's good. He's a lefty, so be a bit of a different look from the first couple of days of this series. One picture of the debacks have not seen, they did not see Andrew Abbott last week against the Reds.

So whereas they did see both Graham Ashcraft and Hunter Greens. It would be a bit of a bit of a new look there. And as I said earlier, it's going to be a challenge for Brandon Fought. Not this Reds lineup is necessarily going crazy, although they've had a pretty decent couple of days to start this series. But yeah, having quite a few lefties in the lineup is going to challenge Brandon to not only rely on the sweeper, but also mix in, you know, the sinker and mixing the change up, potentially even the curveball as well. We certainly saw him try to do that against the Baltimore Orioles. And as we've said about Brandon fought, like he just, he's keeping the debacks in games. You expect them to have a chance

to win tomorrow. It feels like the offense is going to have to come out and really, really show that they can, they can score runs on a consistent basis, like just something that they haven't really done a whole lot of this season. So they have been really good against lefties. DeVax team OPS against lefties, I believe is among the league leaders if it's not at the very top of the list. So on paper, a decent matchup for them. Well, we have one piece of news that isn't related to the offense that's going to upset some people out there. It's most likely going to upset your parents, mostly your dad.

He's going to be very upset about this news because he has to download another streaming app. and we know how much dads hate that. But according to a press release for Major League Baseball, Roku has landed an exclusive deal, a multi-year deal with Major League Baseball for a new Sunday leadoff show where they will feature a big game every Sunday on Roku. And Roku is saying that they are offering

the Sunday MLB games for free, but despite that, Jesse, I know people are going to hate it. Yeah, I probably will. I'm already anticipating. We're going to get a lot of Twitter DMs about how to watch the D-Vax game and what channel it's on and why people can't find it. Do your research, people. Yeah, do your research. Download it.

Get ahead of it. Do it now. The Diamondbacks are playing the Dodgers on September 1st on Sunday lead off. So you have plenty of time to prepare yourself both mentally and physically. You have time to sign up for Roeke. They say it's free. So let's test that. Let's see how many of us we can get to sign up.

They also say paying subscribers of MLB.tv can watch all 18 matchouts blackout free from anywhere in the world. Oh, I didn't see that. That's actually pretty significant. That's a pretty decent chunk of people who will actually be able to watch this without having to. Because Apple TV is not like that. The Apple TV Plus games, you got to have Apple. Apple TV Plus, that's the only way to watch. Right.

And they were running those games for free when they were doing it initially, but that's changed, right? Now you have to have a subscription to Apple TV Plus in order to see those games. Yeah. Yeah, they have like the, I think there's still a two-month free trial that you could take advantage of.

That's fine. That's fine. Which you can make it two-month. You can make a two-month free trial last a while, Derek. It's just how many Gmail accounts are willing to create. Right. Right. Whenever we talk about the numbers, I always say I'm the wholesome boy and you're the liar.

And this, I think, might kind of confirm that for me. But Jesse, I do want to say that really the main reason why you should have an Apple TV plus account is Heidi Watney. Because you never know when Arizona Diamondbacks games are on there when she's going to bring up the mayor of Phoenix being me again. So that right there is worth, I guess, the price of admission. But yeah, any thoughts with this? I mean, again, it's just going to upset people because my thing is here. I watch it here. Channel 686, Channel 34 on Cox.

That's where I watch it. It's not there and I don't like it. I don't like change. Pretty soon, Derek, there's not going to be such a thing. It's just like, all right, this is the such and such team's TV partner. You just got to get their channel or their streaming service and you're good for the vast majority. James. No, you're going to have to go to Amazon on Monday. You're going to go to ESPN Plus on Tuesday. You're going to go, I guess the road cruise on Sunday, Apple TV's on Friday.

Get all of these streaming services together as one. Give me a package and call it cable plus max. And then let me just buy it. And then we'll be back to where it was. It's going to cost you like two grand for the year or something. But sure, yeah, we can we can make that. happen. I do think, I don't think the D-BAC's first Roku game is on September 1st, right? Don't they have a couple of, no, they have some before then, yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing June 23rd against the Phillies. I believe that game time was changed. That's now an 1135 a.m. start Eastern time, which means we're going to have Diamondbacks baseball at 835 in the morning on Sunday, June 23rd. I don't like that.

deal okay none of us wake up well you wake up that early um on a sunday i i maybe normally wouldn't but uh and then we also have uh just a couple weeks after that july 7th debaques podres uh that's another 110 arizona time start so yeah uh get get ahead of it is as you said earlier there's going to be there's going to be a few of these if you have mlb. tv though uh it sounds like sounds like you're okay as is well uh chip carry father of friends of the show uh stepan carey and chris carey and Chris Carey is going to be the play-by-play for, I don't know if all of those games, but they're listing Chip Carey and Will Middlebrooks as the play-by-play and analyst for those. And Roku Channel is available to stream for free. And according to this, there is no subscription or sign-up required.

Viewers can watch it on Roku devices or TVs, the Roku channel.com, or through the Roku app on iOS or Android devices. They also include Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TVs, Google TVs, and other Android TV OS devices. So go get the Roku app. Just get it now. Just have it on your TV. Watch one thing on it. Just break the seal of you not knowing what that little app is that you downloaded. Get over it.

And then they'll make watching baseball games so much easier. Isn't that what life is about sometimes, Jesse? Just experiences making you realize that it's not as hard to do the thing as you might have thought before, right? That's what life is about, Derek, signing up for a new account, putting in the email address, creating the 47th password that you've invented in your life because you've seen. I told you people were going to hate it. I knew people were going to hate it. What I hate most, Derek, real quick.

What I hate most is those websites to make you change your password, like with unnecessary frequency. And it's not even something you have your like payment information on. you're like, why? Why? Just so I can have access to this, like, stupid information. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's like how, how is it that my bank password, like, hasn't changed in, in, you know,

multiple years. No shit. But, like, this password for some, like, random obscure subscription service is like, no, there are people hacking you right now. Oh, man. You're going to need to reset this or else. Don't even get me started on those websites. just kick me out for no reason. That's a whole other thing. But all right, Jesse, we're going to let

you go. We're going to let these people go. Of course, we appreciate you guys stopping by here tonight. We will not be back tomorrow. I don't, Jesse, do you want to tell them why or do you want me to tell them why? Because I feel like neither one of us are going to give really like a happy explanation here. So do you want to tell them? Yeah, we're both begrudgingly participating in a, in a, staff, rest and relaxation, something like that was lying? I don't know either of those words mean. I don't need rest. We cover baseball for a living.

I don't need rest and relaxation. Derek, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard you say. I feel like you'd be all about going to chicken and pickle and playing some pickle ball instead going to work. David, I don't get an actual day off. The work just gets moved to another day and you know it. You know it. Yeah, but we don't have to say that.

everybody. I know. I'm fine. You're right. But what we do have to tell you is, even though we won't be here tomorrow, because we'll be playing pickleball against Saul, who you know is going to take it way too seriously. He's going to be. It's not going to be relaxing at all. It's just nothing relaxing about playing competitive games. It would have been in Saul's foursome on Friday and golf. It would have just been a nightmare of him yelling at me for not doing good enough. I want to see a Flex versus Saul game. Oh, yeah. Injected into my veins, Jesse.

Yeah, I need it. Jesse, love that. Just flex celebrating after every single point that he gets. Like, it's, like, it's the NBA finals. I want Saw versus Espo, right? But, like, where we all stop playing to watch it and we all, like, you know, like maybe beat our rackets on the ground to, like, the same beat. You know, get very tribal with it and just, like, two managers enter, one manager leaves kind of thing. I don't know.

We'll figure out a way to make, have a good time with it, I'm sure. But we will be back on Thursday with a 1 p.m. show. And then on Friday, we will be bringing you not one, but two episodes of this show. Two live episodes will be bringing you a 1 p.m. show on Friday, as well as a postgame show after game one against the Detroit Tigers. So make sure to keep it locked right here. Come on back. Join us. We won't be here tomorrow.

We're going to be resting and relaxing while getting our asses handed to us and pickleball. but again we'll be back on Thursday are we going to team up this time Derek we're going to join forces and I don't remember like I think I was last last time we we kind of rotated through I think I remember being on the same team as you very very briefly and we did not do well yeah we didn't do well but there's safety in numbers and I mean maybe if we get eliminated early that means just more food and drink time for us instead of having to go compete this fruitless endeavor but no I am excited to go get entirely too competitive

against my coworkers. I can't wait for that. I love when Saul pits us against each other. It really is the best. But of course, in the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore K-Man with the K. Jesse, of course, is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at

P-H-N-X underscore D-Backs, but none of that matters because the Twitter account you should be following is the people's producer Damon. You can follow him at Damon Dogg, that's D-A-W-G, and we are in fact Damon's dogs bark bark we are number one and number two as far as damon's dogs are concerned all right just to make sure bow and fucking johnny understand their place but of course uh like i said are they are they barking are they barking at the end of the

are they're barking no they've never they've never barked i don't think max barks whenever i do the rising show i don't know if that upsets you or not son of a bitch well i love max so we might want to let that slide max is a fellow rexom fan That's true. Max is a huge rexum guy. We are all huge rexom fans. We are Rexham. We are Rexham. We are We are Rexum. Yes. Mighty Mighty Rex. I think there's it's about like 40% of our audience. There probably has no idea what you're talking about. No, I think people know the mighty Rexum, the biggest club in Wales. And they know Owen Evans is the biggest fan to ever exist of Rexum. He roots for that weak-ass Cardiff team. But that's a whole other story. Watch the Rising podcast

to get the full story on that. H&X Rexon podcast. The PHNX Rexon podcast. And leave a review, by the way, for the PHNX Rexum podcast. We love those. Of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys, of course, for stopping by. I thank Jesse for his tireless work there in the clubhouse.

Jesse is stopping by to do media availability on the way to our R&R day. So this man never stops. You cannot stop him. You only can negotiate with him to do a little bit less. So, of course, we thank you guys for stopping by tonight. We appreciate you for being fans of the snakes and for being fans of the show. We will see you on Thursday at 1 p.m. We hope you guys have a wonderful day tomorrow.

We'll see you back here on Thursday. Remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when Slade Sacconi can shove in endings 3, 4, and 5.