PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Solid starts from Brandon Pfaadt and Zac Gallen lead the D-backs to a series win over the Giants

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Brandon Pfaadt had his first great outing of the year and Zac Gallen did what Zac Gallen does, leading the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 3-1 series victory over the San Francisco Giants. We dive into the numbers to see what is and isn’t sustainable for the D-backs. We are also ready to name Dominic Fletcher as the greatest Italian baseball player to ever live.WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to the Keepin’ it 100 Golf Scramble, D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Manscaped: Save 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code “PHNX” at Manscaped.com. BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. DISCLAIMER: We are not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site of any kind. The content of this website is intended to be used for entertainment purposes only and does not involve real money betting. Sports betting and gambling laws vary by jurisdiction. Please be aware of and respect the laws of sports gambling for your jurisdiction. We do not promote or endorse any form of wagering or gambling to users under the age of 21. We support responsible gambling. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-777-7207 (for Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling) or 1-800-NEXT-STEP (Arizona Office of Problem Gambling) or text NEXTSTEP to 53342.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.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are a goddamn wagon. Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. This is your vice mayor, PHNX, occasionally known as Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Jesse, what happened with the Diamondbacks in this giant series? Because it didn't look this good when we last left these folks. And now things are very good.

I think, I mean, we did our takeover game one in the series. right we did sort of a sort of a letdown yeah uh which i i think we blame cogs for right uh cogs just a very bad track record i know the diamondbacks did win a game that cogs was in attendance for this weekend yeah but uh they should have banned him from the field before that they probably probably um but yeah i mean somehow the diamond backs came back after that that tough loss in the first game of the series and won three in a row and we're talking about a team that just took three out of four from the san francisco giants which i think was huge for this baseball team.

Absolutely. The debacks had just lost two out of three to the Marlins, which was a big letdown. We heard some stories from the clubhouse of guys feeling pretty down after that loss. They said, in fact, it was the most down the clubhouse had been since the beginning of the season, right? Because they just expected to win that series against the Marlins. And I think they wanted that bit of retribution. Obviously, the Marlins are one of only two teams that have actually won a series against

the debacks. And they felt like this one was kind of in the bag and they let it slip, you know, slip a way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Marlins are, you know, they're fine. They're not a, they're not a bad team. But, you know, when you have a three-game series and you have Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly on the mound, you feel like you're, you're probably going to take two out of three. Yeah, for sure. They weren't able to do that, but they responded in a big way over the weekend. There's a lot to get into Dominic Fletcher, just off to an insane historic start to his big league career. The greatest Italian baseball player of all time. We apologize for that. We were live. We were live. We were

We're live. We're still live and we didn't know. It wasn't on us and it wasn't on you. It's all right. Things happen. Technical glitches around here. But I mean, Jesse was giving an excellent explanation. I'm not sure if we got that in of why this was a big series win. But obviously, the biggest part of this series victory for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Hello back again. Bye. There were people here. There were people here. It said that there were zero people and we're like, this doesn't feel right. It's all right. Yeah. For us it said zero people. We know there would at least be five of you. At least five of you here.

So things weren't right. But yeah, we don't know either. We're confused as well. But definitely great to see all of you guys actually here in the chat. So welcome in, guys. Okay. So biggest thing for this series, obviously Brandon Fott was outstanding on Sunday. And that's the one thing that even I feel like is more important than the series when here was

Brandon Fott having a very, very good outing. It was against a Giants team that isn't great offensively, but still Brandon Fott goes five innings, gives up one hit, a solo home run, one run, one earned, and three walks, five strikeouts. So Brandon Fought, very, very good. People really had a lot of fun. Yeah, oh yeah.

I think that was more entertaining than the normal show. Probably. Let's just do that from now on. We'll just be all over the place. I'm glad it worked out. Yeah, Brandon Fought was a lot better. yesterday, especially in that first inning. I think it was just so big for him to come out and have really his first display of dominance in the big leagues. Just three up, three down, all strikeouts.

I think he threw 11, 12 pitches in that inning. You know, that's the kind of Brandon fought that people got so excited about in the minor leagues. And, you know, one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball, you kind of saw a glimpse of that there in that first inning. He still had his bumps along the way the fourth inning it kind of felt like the you know the the sky was falling and things were falling apart for him but uh you know he gave up a home run to michael conforto a really good at bat walked the next two hitters he kind of felt like the wheels were were coming off and then you know he gets he gets the next two guys out so uh you know it was good to see that bounce back and in the future you'd hope to maybe get him through more than more than five inings in a start

but this was an enormous step in the right direction for brandon fought can we stop worrying about Brandon Fott. I guess that's the big question. We wanted to see an out of this. I know this doesn't mean this is who he is, nor does the first two starts really mean that is who he is. But I feel like we were on the verge of discussing sending him back down or if that decision was going to come about. And now it feels like we can maybe relax just a little bit. I think so. Yeah. The full body of work is still very poor. I mean, that's just the nature of giving up 13 runs in your first two starts. Also, that's a hilarious comment from Jack.

Zero watching was just foreshadowing the attendance of the upcoming series. A plus Jench. Very well done. Yeah, Fought was sort of a disaster in those first two starts. So from a number standpoint, it's going to take him a while to kind of dig his way out of this hole. Even after five innings, one hit, one run yesterday. I don't care about the stats. I don't care about digging the hole out of the stats.

I care about, like, getting a whole out of the stats. Him looking like the pitcher that we're expecting. Even if the Diamondbacks only get five innings out of them, even if the next five starts are only five innings. If we're talking about three earned or less than those five or five innings, I don't, or five, five starts, five innings, whatever, I don't care. I just need him to not blow it completely. Now, like you said, there was that inning where he kind of walked the line and it felt a little

bit like maybe the wheels were falling off from a bit. So it's not like it was, it's not even like the number. numbers for his line for this outing truly reflect how things kind of wavered there. But what we wanted to see was him be able to go out against big league hitting and be the pitcher that we know he is. And that's what we saw against the Giants, much less fastballs right down the middle. He did a better job of using his breaking stuff and hitting the edges. He was just a better pitcher. He really was. He absolutely was.

And that was the thing that totally stuck out to me early in the start especially. He was just painting corners. He was just painting corner after corner after corner. And, you know, there's still maybe an occasional mistake pitch in the middle of the zone. But it was completely different from what we saw for Brandon Fought in those first couple of outings. The other thing that we expected him to adjust that he did adjust is he kind of backed off the fastball a little bit. His fastball usage has crept down in each of his starts so far. He threw a few more curve balls yesterday.

He threw some more sweepers as well. the change-up usage kind of hung steady. That pitch he didn't increase the usage of. As far as, you know, whiffs and, you know, getting guys to chase out of the zone, I still think it wasn't an outstanding outing for him in that regard. Sure. You'd still like to see him get a little bit more chase on the change-up, on the sweeper. He did not get a swing and miss on his change-up all game yesterday.

That's going to be a really important pitch for him, especially against lefties. His sweeper, I think, does work to lefties, but the change. change up is a really important weapon. He pretty much exclusively uses that against lefties. So that's something to watch moving forward. But yeah, I mean, like, if this is how Brandon Fott's career had started, like, if we didn't have those last two starts and this is how it started, it wouldn't have been like the absolutely perfect debut, but it would have been a pretty darn good one.

And I think you've just kind of seen him settle in and just get more comfortable pitching at this level. And yeah, I'm optimistic that we're going to continue to see more of him. improving and making adjustments and becoming more like the pitcher we expected him to be. We absolutely need that from him because, again, if he can be that guy and you have that one, two, three punch at the beginning of the rotation, it just allows a little bit more flexibility there in the back end when it comes to Zach Davies potentially coming back. Tommy Henry has been pitching well, so he would make for a good four or five starter. You also have Brian Nelson

and Dre Jamison still in the mix as well. So the, uh, the, The starting rotation that kind of looked a little bit desperate there for a minute is leveling out. And a big part of that is Brandon Fott being the pitcher that we hope he can be, that the organization hopes that he can be. Tommy Henry was also pretty good in that start that we were all at together, six and two thirds, two runs. Like we talked about on Friday, it wasn't, you know, he didn't have seven strikeouts or anything. There's still some swing and miss that you need to see from Tommy Henry in order for him to be successful in the long term. But he took a step forward. Brandon Fott took a step forward.

As of this moment, Derek, when Zach Davies comes back, it sort of feels like Ryan Nelson is the primary candidate to be the odd man out. We're still probably a week or more away from that, depending on how many more rehab starts. The debacks want to give to Zach Davies. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how that decision unfolds. All right. Well, the Diamondbacks in this series put up some. good numbers. Let's take a look at those numbers in this series. They actually did pretty good job overall here when it came to relief pitching ERA, which was something that obviously was a big

concern. Their bullpen really stepped up in this series. Things were a little exciting at times, but they still managed to get the job done and take three out of four against the Giants, which is the first time they've done that in six years, Jesse, over six years since the last time they beat the Giants in a four-game series. That's pretty crazy. Oh, no. Chris is here, you guys. Uh-oh, Chris is here.

This can't be good. Yeah, we're in trouble. She came to the studio while we're doing the show. I'm worried. I'm terrified, in fact. The D-Backs bullpen gave up four runs in the series and or four earned runs in the series. Three of those earned runs were from Jose Ruiz in the ninth inning of the Thursday game. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the D-Backs bullpen only gave up one earned run total.

So, yeah, that was a big, a big. big reason the debacks won this series. The Giants bullpen on the other hand, as you see here, a 9.24 ERA, Derek. The San Francisco Giants came into Arizona. Their starting pitchers allowed four runs in 20 and a third innings. But it didn't matter because the Giants bullpen was so, so bad in this series that, you know, they wound up coughing up three of these four games. This is exactly what we thought might happen. I don't know if we prophesies that it would go this well for them as far as the wins and the losses, but we knew starting pitching was going to be

difficult. And we knew that if the Diamondbacks had any hope to win this series, they needed to get to the Giants bullpen. And that is essentially what made them victorious here. They also had a pretty decent batting average with runners in scoring position, obviously much

different there than the Giants. And they had lots of opportunity. 2.35 feels like a big victory in the runners and scoring position department. It has been a rough go the last couple of weeks. Although I must say that I'm pretty sure Dominic Fletcher had like half of the Vemax hits was what is his core position in this hour.

Yeah, we're going to get to Dominic Fletcher, aka the greatest Italian baseball player to ever live. It might not be, we might need to get rid of the Italian captain. Yeah, just the greatest baseball player to ever live. Yeah,

it's some wild shit. But before we talk about him, again, another big contribution here, like you said earlier, was Zach Gallen. Zach Gallen was very good for this team and he does what Zach Gallin does, It's not the insane streak or anything.

You know, gave up some walks, gave up some runs. So I don't know what the hell is wrong with Zach Gallen, but he still won the game. And Zach Gallen is very good. Seven and two-thirds innings pitched. So he gave that bullpen a nice break. Five hits, two earn runs, two walks, six-K. So not a godly, not godlike performance by Zach Allen.

I'm sure he would be disappointed with that. Oh, he was. But Gallon is six and one this season now with a 2.35 ERA and a 0.855 whip, Jesse. Pretty damn good numbers. Yeah, pretty non-good numbers, but I'm going to be honest, I did not think Zach Gallen was good on Saturday at all. I did not think his stuff was good, especially early on in that outing. He was really getting rocked. I think eight of the first 11 giants batted balls against Zach Allen were 99 miles an hour or higher off the bat.

There was a lot of hard contact in there. He didn't have a great feel for his curveball or his change. change up for the second straight start. And yet, because he's at Gallen, he goes out there and pitches deeper than he has in any game this season with seven and two thirds innings, you know, only allowing two runs. He gave a lot of credit to the DeBax defense after that game. Rightfully so. Yeah, for sure.

Made a couple of very nice diving plays at second base in order to prevent a couple of key hits in some important situations. And then there was a really nice catch from Dominic Fletcher, who is really the ultimate hero of that game. Fletcher made a really, really nice play in the outfield at a key moment in the game. So a lot of credit to the D-BAC's defense, but Zach Gallen just keeps rolling along, and it feels like when he has his C stuff, you know, he's still going out there and giving you a pretty darn good start. So that's the kind of role he's on right now. This Bible has says it's Cotele, but it might as well be Dominic Fletcher under there because this is very superhero

like he's got the mask and got the cape. Dominic Fletcher is a real-life superhero. He's also a King Snake. Look at these numbers that are just absurd for this series. Dominic Fletcher hit 533. Eight for 15, Jesse. Wow. Eight for 15 with 11 RBI and his first two career home runs. He went off. It is easy to say that the Diamondbacks do not win this series without Dominic Fletcher's contribution. And that's not something that you can usually say from this Diamondbacks team about one specific player. Usually in a four-game series like this,

it's almost difficult for us to potentially figure out who the king's snake is because there were contributions all over the place. Lordus Guriel, my hair twin, had the big game winner in Sunday's game, but still, nothing in this series compares to what Dominic Fletcher did. 533. We're not talking about 4 for 8. We are talking about 8 for 15 in a 4-game series where he played in every game. The only stinker was Sunday when he went 0 for 3.

Aside from that, Dominic Fletcher was a huge part of every win in the series and has just instantly made an impact on the Major League roster since arriving here. Yeah, I asked Dom on Saturday after Saturday's game, is this about as good as you could drop what was in his first 12 big league games? And he just kind of chuckled and was like, yeah, probably. Yeah, he's sort of, you know, a man of a few words, at least in interview settings. But yeah, you can you can tell. I mean, this is just an absurd way for someone to start off their big league career. We put out a fun trivia question on our Twitter account the other day about how Dominic Fletcher has been off to an extraordinary start in his big league career.

Not the best start, though, Derek. In his first 12 games, Dominic Fletcher had an OPS of just over 1,200. There was a D-BACs position player by the name of Mark Reynolds, who had a slightly higher OPS in his first 12 games back in 2007. But just incredible what Dominic Fletcher has managed to do. It's still so early in his big league career, it's hard to know what to make of this. But it also is kind of funny that I think in terms of baseball reference war,

Dominic Fletcher, at least when I looked the other day, Dominic Fletcher was third among nationally rookies in war behind James Outman and Corbyn Carroll. But he was a pretty close third, and that's in like a, quarter as many games as, well, not a quarter, maybe a third as many games as Carol and Outman have played. So we don't know if Fletcher is going to ultimately turn into like an actual rookie of the year candidate, but, but every, spoiler, everything he's done so far has been incredible, not just with the bat, but as we talked about earlier, his defense in the outfield has really been great as well. DVACs had a great video on their social media about him putting

up video games, video game numbers, and that's in fact what he's been doing. But everything comes with a cost, right? And I don't know if the Diamondbacks foresaw Dominic Fletcher being this good on the Major League roster. There's a good chance that there might have been a plan drawn up for him to be sent back down when they needed to make some of these difficult roster moves that they're going to have to make. But I don't know how you do that now at this point. Yeah, you can't. I mean, literally insane to do that, right? So, Dominic Fletcher, he didn't single-handedly win Friday's game, but he almost single-handedly won Friday's game. I mean, come on. He hit five RBI in the game. And he was Very important.

Get out of this game as well. How did he not single-handle? I mean, yeah, he didn't pitch, but he single-handedly won the game. You really, yeah, you really, you can't, you can't send down Dominic Fletcher now or, or any time soon. So if the debacks want to get an eighth bullpen arm in here, which we thought what happened by now, somehow they still haven't done it. They've gotten. They've swapped some arms around, so at least they brought up Anthony Masevich.

Thank you. I'm never, I'm never going to say his name. Never, ever, ever. But it's not that hard to pronounce But the way that it's spelled Does not look anything like it's pronounced. Yeah, it's difficult. But yeah, I mean, they have been able to add an arm here and there to the to the bullpen, which is important.

The bullpen is fairly taxed. And, you know, I mean, they've gotten some good contributions now from guys that aren't Chafin and Miguel Castro primarily. They've gotten some good contributions from the rest of the bullpen. Kyle Nelson still is very good for this team. Scott McGuff has not been terrible. he's been able to come into games and get outs. And that's important. They need to find other guys that can get outs besides the two guys that they've been leaning on so much that those guys are now projected to lead the league in relief innings pitched.

And that's not something that you ever want any of your players doing. But we do have the probabilities coming forward or going forward for the upcoming series with the Oakland A's, which things look pretty good. Things don't look so bad, Jesse. I like this lineup. I like, can we, can we, can we play the A's a little bit more often, please? Yeah, this is, this is really something. I mean, you hear stories about the struggles that the A's have had so far this season and how bad they've been.

And then you play them and you see the pitching probabilities for three-game series. Derek, there is not an ERA in these starters for the A's lower than 7.34 in this three-game series. So this is a huge opportunity for the D-backs. Not only do they have all this momentum from winning through. three games in a row, now sitting at a 23 and 18 record. They're five games over 500, which is they're a season high for them. I think they were five games over 500 a week or two ago as well. But you really have a chance to build on that here.

I know everyone is thinking sweep, and I will say it is, it is hard to go on the road and sweep any team in this league. They're still a major league teams, although you could make a case. There's some AAA teams out there. You might be able to hold their own against his. Oakland A's team, but yeah, a huge opportunity up coming here. And even if not a sweep, this is a series you absolutely have to win. Are we talking Oakland versus Reno in Reno or in Oakland?

Because I think Reno could take them in Reno. I'm just saying that. Yes, Ryan Nelson, according to Connor said, Yikes, Ryan Nelson would be the A's best pitcher. Yes, that is the case for at least this series. Not overall. I think they do have one guy that's got a lower ERA than Nelson, but I could be wrong about that.

I don't know. I think that we were talking about this, before. It was Sean Faj and I. Faj was proposing what do you want to see out of these next six games between these next two teams? And he kind of said anything less than five wins seems like a little bit of a letdown. A little bit of a disappointment. That's pretty bold there for Vaj. I mean, the DVACs play six games this week. And he's saying it'll be a disappointment if they don't win five of them. Yes.

That's a that's a tall order. The pirates, you know, they still have a pretty good record. but they've really, really struggled in the last couple of weeks. So it is a fair assessment that not only are the A's really stuck, you know, at the bottom of every major league team right now, but the pirates have really, really struggled in these last two weeks. So it's a golden opportunity for the debacks to gain some separation from some of the other teams of the national league. I think the pirates have been losing a lot, but I think that's a team to be careful about playing, right? Because they could easily be just as good as they've been at times.

They're a much better team. in the Oakland A's. Yeah, for sure. Ben said when the A's moved to Vegas, that stadium is our house. Interestingly enough, there's some news that comes out about Bally's, Bally's, not Bally Sports, which remember, as we've talked about many times, they're two different companies. Bally's is relinquishing some of the property for the Tropicana for a new 32,000,

30,000 seat stadium, which is the smallest, right? It would make it the smallest stadium in baseball or close to it. And it would be on the strip, essentially. So it would not be on the other side of the highway, like Allegiance Stadium. It would be right in the heart of everything going on in Las Vegas. So interesting to see how that develops and how things continue to develop with the Oakland A's moving to Las Vegas. That will be, unlike the Orlando thing, that will be a trip that this guy right here is going to take quite often. So very excited to have baseball in Las Vegas.

that puts Piff the Magic Dragon, buffets, gambling, and baseball all in the same city. Yeah, please, I will be there right away. But anyway, speaking of that, make sure that you guys sign up for the BetMGM app, which does carry your reward benefits over to the BET or to the MGM Grand and all of the MGM properties in Las Vegas for when Oakland moves there. And of course, you can get down on every Saturday and Wednesday. You can claim your bonus bet on the house. Fans will automatically receive a bonus bet upon logging into their account.

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Maryland, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming. Call 8778-Hope-N-Y or text Hope and York. Call 1-800 Next Step, Arizona. 1-8100 Next Step, Arizona, 1-8-500-5-0-1-1-1-7 for confidential help, Michigan. Well, if you haven't had a chance to go to go PHNX.com and check out Jesse's article. He forecasted how good Dominic Fletcher was going to be by writing an article right in the midst of this amazing series that he had. Check that out over at go phtonx.com. Grab yourself a diehard membership. That way you don't miss any of Jesse's exclusive diehard pieces,

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Leave us a thumbs up. That way you know you're still here and you're still watching. If you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there if you haven't done so already. Leave us a review. We always appreciate your feedback. And before we get on to the mailbag questions, Jesse has a fun fact about the Oakland A's.

I do. Yeah, the Oakland A's, for those who don't know, the OPS leader in all of Major League Baseball, Derek, plays for the Oakland A's. Really? It is true. Who is that? It is Brent Rooker.

Brent Rooker. Rooker. Major League Baseball legend is hitting 308 with a 420 on base percentage and a 650 slugging percentage. He leads baseball with a 1069 OPS. So there you go. We're watching out for Brent Rooker this week. The Oakland A's have some not great baseball players, but they also have a player who has been extraordinarily good so far to start this season. All right. Well, there you go.

That's what we got going on now. The Oakland A's. So hopefully the Diamondbacks. Remember, like, come on. You temper your expectation. here. It's the Oakland A's. I know we want them to sweep them effortlessly, but remember, they're still a major league baseball team. So, but that's not, that doesn't matter now. We're done with that stuff. We're Oakland A's and Diamondbacks. They play baseball later. We do in this show now,

and on this show, every week is Shark Week. Every day is Earth Day and every Monday. Me, Jesse, and we go to the mailbag. Let's go. We go out. All right. First question in the mailbag. Let's go. I forgot Damon. Damon is our facilitator of the mailbag, and I just left him out of that whole intro.

Wow. Let's go, Damon dog. First question comes from Gabriel. He says, Zach Gallen is on pace to have a similar, if not better season than Justin Verlander and Kershaw's MVP season. Is he a legitimate candidate for MVP or just Cy Young? Wow. I like, I like, I was like, is he going to get the Cy Young and the MVP or just the Cy Young?

Which one? I don't know. Why not both? He can have both. My money's on the Cy Young. And when I say that, I literally mean that my money is on the Cy Young for Zach Allen. But Jesse, your thoughts on him potentially being an MVP candidate. I'm looking at, so Justin Verlander, he won his MVP award back in 2011. He was 24 and 5 with a 2.40 ERA. So from an ERA perspective, they're in a pretty similar range. Is that gallon wins six, goes six and one, essentially in his first month of pitching. Is 20 wins for a guy that couldn't get five wins just a short time ago? Is that a reasonable expectation here? Yeah, I'd have to go back and look a little bit closer at what happened in 2011. I think it's pretty rare for a pitcher with a 240 ERA to come out and win the MVP award. sure. I don't think that is all that likely to happen this year. I think Zach Gallen has a very viable shot at winning the Cy Young Awards for sure. But there's a lot of voters who just are

pretty averse to voting for a pitcher for the MVP award. And even if Zach Gallen is the best pitcher in the National League, he would have to be that by like a considerable margin. I mean, he would have to be like far and away the best pitcher in the National League. I don't know if, you know, with guys like Kershaw and Spencer Strider doing what they're doing, I'm not sure that's a reasonable expectation. Or keep winning, keep winning, because right now those 20 wins seasons for pitchers are very rare. And he's actually on pace for that, to be honest.

I mean, we could see Zach Gowan make it out of the month of May with 10 wins. That's kind of wild, considering you still have June, July, August, September, and a little bit in October to play baseball, right? So right now the team is very good when Zach Gowan is out. out there. And like Jesse said, even the other day when he wasn't very good, the team picked him up defensively and offensively, they made it, they won the game for him. So if Zach Allen continue to be valuable to a team like this that then surprises people

and makes it, makes a playoff run, I don't think MVP is that out of, out of the question. But I do agree that he would have to have some extraordinary numbers as far as leading the league in certain categories. And I don't think wins is going to be enough. Yeah. Just looking back at, you know, some of the starting pitchers in the American League that year, there just wasn't anyone all that close. I guess Jared Weaver was probably the closest one, which is weird to think about Jared Weaver being an incredible pitcher,

which he was, even though he was absolutely terrible at the end of his career. But, yeah, Jared Weaver was 18 and 8 with a 241 ERA, so pretty comparable numbers there. It was kind of a weird year, honestly, when Justin Verlander won that award. I guess it's just kind of a matter of some of the other MVP candidates, just not being quite as strong as maybe they usually would have been. It looks like Jacoby Ellsbury finished second in MVP voting that year. And then after that it was Jose Batista, Curtis Granderson. Maybe just not a good year for standout candidates.

I mean, Miguel Cabrera hit 344 that year and had a seven and a half war season from baseball reference. And he was fifth in MVP voting. Yeah, he was fifth. It's just kind of a weird year. year. Maybe they were drunk. I don't know. People love Justin Verlander and they love Clayton Kershaw.

So I don't know if Zach Allen quite has that that poll with voters that maybe those two would have had. All right. What else we got, Damon? Next question comes from Michael Rokickey. Michael asked, what do you find more concerning Josh Rojas' lack of home runs or Nick Ahmed's throwing arm? I don't find Josh Rojas's lack of home runs to be all that concerning.

I don't think that that's what Josh Rojas is being asked to do, especially considering how often he's been hitting leadoff. Nick Ahmed's arm is concerning. I say that because Nick Ahmed's defense is one of the only things that I think cements Nick Ahmed playing time. So if his defense isn't there and Geraldo Perdomo is out playing him defensively,

we already know he's doing more at the plate. So I think it's more concerning for Nick as far as playing time is concerned. But I mean, I know that there's a lot of people that want to see Perdomo get more playing time anyway. So, I mean, that's, That's more of a Nick Ahmed concern than, I think, a fan or a team concern. I think he definitely needs to continue to play good defense in order for him to continue to earn that playing time.

I'm going to take the other side on this one. I think I'm a little more concerned about Josh Rojas and his lack of power in general. He has a 664 OPS at this point in the season. He's slugging 353. Josh Rojas is a third baseman, right? And he's a really darn good third baseman defensively. I mean, he's had an outstanding season defensively. But there aren't that many third baseman in this league that slug 353, right?

At a certain point, you need some pop from whoever it is that plays that position for you. Debacks haven't really gotten that from Josh Rojas. I think you make a good point. He's been hitting lead off a lot. So you could make a case that, you know, maybe he's kind of up there with something else in mind. He's more focusing on trying to get on base and whatnot than maybe Blas. homers but either way I mean we've seen Josh Rojas in the leadoff role in the past still have some amount of pop so I think that's something the debacks really do need to change

Nick Ahmed is throwing arm at this point for me it just kind of is what it is we noticed this in spring training as well where it looked noticeably like his his throwing strength was just not what it's been in the past after the shoulder surgery and and now we have the numbers to back it up and sure enough it is not good Nick Ahmed no longer has a plus arm he has a below average arm at shortstop. But he's still good enough. He's still ranging enough in order to make some good plays out there. Whether he deserves playing time over Geraldo Prado, though, is, you know, that's another

question. He's our risk king for a reason. There you go. What else we got, Damon? Brandon Buckingham asks, what do you think, excuse me, who do you think on roster is tradable to obtain an actual legit closer? Sorry, closer committee ain't working. I will agree with that.

That's that second part. I don't think the closer by committee is working. I think, you know, we talked about Tori Lovello slipping up and saying that Chafin was his closer. And then also kind of backtracking that and saying that he's allowed to still do what he wants. We saw Miguel Castro kind of come in and yesterday's victory there in the ninth. Yeah, that was sort of a closerish role. It was kind of, yeah. Tie tie game, top of the ninth home game.

It's normally a spot for a closer. But yeah, I mean, I think for the most part, he's, doing, you know, what he can. He's playing it situationally, but it still relies on him leaning a bit too much on those two guys, which I feel like, even though he's not calling both of them as closers, those guys are the ones that are coming in in that closer role most often. Maybe that allows him to, maybe that situation where he has used him too much, allows him maybe to turn to a Scott McGuff here in a little while if he feels like he can rely out him. But back to your question, I don't know. I think that the diamondbacks really do need

to kind of focus at the trade deadline on adding to this bullpen in some way. And I just don't know if they're going to have the pieces or want to part ways with the pieces to get like a big name closer. It would most likely have to be somebody that maybe is just pitching well in a relief role that maybe they move them into that closer role when they get here. I don't really know the answer. But I do know that Major League baseball teams do not like to part ways with Major League Relievers with guys that are proven and guys that are pitching well, even if they are sellers at the trade deadline. So it's going to be difficult for them to find somebody and it's going to be difficult

for them to have the capital to move in order to get the piece back that they're wanting if they want a big big name closer. I don't know if it would be a piece off the Major League roster. Who on this debacks Major League roster? Are you going to move in a trade like that? There are pieces that, you know, there's Lordus Gurriel who certainly has some value with the season he's had. How dare you're not, yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm going to, we're not going to, you're not going to, you're not going to, we're not going to, you're not going. Derek needs a moment of silence.

I got to get a guy going, you go ahead. Keep talking. I'll just get the hair going to. Yeah, you're not, you're, you're probably not going. Wow, you've, you got some volume going. I'm trying. I look, take his advice seriously. Just like they take the coaching staff seriously.

I try to take Lourdes' advice about getting more volume, seriously. Well, yes, not only because of how good Lourdes has been on the field, but primarily because of the fact that Derek dyed his hair purple because of Lourdes. It's clear that Lourdes-Gareil is not going to be on the trade block. There's just no way. So, yeah, I think the D-BACs would have to dip into their farm system a little bit. They do have a number of pitching prospects and the upper levels of the miners that I think would be interesting for other teams.

The question you might have to answer at some point is, are you willing to trade, you know, a Blake Walson? Are you willing to trade one of those pitching prospects that's getting pretty close to the majors? And, you know, I don't think anyone's saying Blake Walson's going to be an ace. He might be a number five starter, you know? Sure. He might struggle when he gets to this level. But, you know, I mean, the debacks, he was a high level draft pick for them. And I think they believe in his future.

but that's probably what it's going to take. If you want to go out there and get yourself a bona fide closer, you're probably not trading someone off the Big League roster. You're probably dipping into AA or AAA and having to part with a player who's a pretty good prospect. And unfortunately, that's just kind of the price that you pay at the trade deadline for back end relievers. Cog says Canzone. Dominic Canzone. He was a Rule 5 draft eligible player.

Nobody took him. So I don't know if the interest is there. but also I think that you know. Dominic, can I say Dominic Fletcher? Am I allowed to say Dominic Fletcher? Get out. No, you're not. That was insane.

Those words come out of his mouth? No, you're not allowed to say Dominic Fletcher. I'm just saying, Derek. Oh, man. It sort of makes sense to sell high, right? DeBacks did that over the off season, selling Dalton Vars show and a big trade with the Toronto Blue Jays. I am not. I don't think the devax will wind up trading Dominic Fletcher, but we have to, we have to, we

have to come to terms with the fact that left-handed hitting outfielder is a place of strength for this organization. They have too many of them. And if you were going to make a trade at the trade deadline, yeah, let's get rid of the best hitting one that we have right now, the best player at all of baseball. That's fair. You'd probably want to see before you would go down that road, you'd probably want to see Jake McCarthy and or Alec Thomas, you know, kind of get rolling a little bit before you felt comfortable moving. Granted, yeah, well, one of the few guys that you have in the outfield right now that really is hitting well.

Everybody says you're a buzzkilling and I have to agree with them. Jesse is a habitual line stepper and he's proving it here today. Speaking of purple hair, we got one more question here for the first mailbag Monday segment. It comes from Daniel Kastner who says with the new pitch clock. Oh wait, no, this isn't the purple hair question. I apologize. No, that's fine. Put that one up because this one's Sean related.

with the new pitch clock Daniel wants to know speeding up the game Is it possible for Sean to pause To still eat nine glissies and nine innings Boy I don't know Jesse Because Brandon Fott Had a 12 pitch

Three strikeout first inning Right Probably only took a few minutes Yeah how many how many are you eating How many are getting More importantly it's not the first three innings Right The first three innings you're going to just

Those hot dogs are done for It's when you start backing up right And Sean's here to actually give his expertise on this. And Sean, would you mind coming in here real fast? Because we have a question related to you. And people want to know, can you still eat nine hot dogs in a nine inning baseball game with the pitch clock implemented? I could eat nine hot dogs in seven innings if this was like back in. Wow.

If we were back in like COVID, we were doing a seven inning double header. I could knock out 18 that day. This seems like an unnecessary escalation. And this seems like when we're playing, you know, like, like, guess the phrase and you unnecessarily say, I can do it in two words or two guesses, right? No, nine and seven. All right. Well, we're going to make that happen. We're going to make that happen.

We're definitely going to hold shot to you. I want to see if I can hang with that. Well, you do have to consider that the concessions close before the ninth inning anyways. So I generally have, when I did the nine innings, I had the hot dogs by the seventh inning anyways. Just say it. Now they close, now concessions close in the eighth inning. That's right. So you've got a little extra time here.

Remember, don't forget that. Well, thank you. Thank you for your expertise. And we're going to get video of that coming to you soon. So we'll figure this out. Well, we want, we want to like a pitching, like a one nothing pitching duel to really test how, you know, three hits to two hits. Give me one of those like hour and 45 minute pitch clock. Pitchcock special.

I don't want to put this to the test. Let's test them. I know I know he can eat burritos very fast. because I've seen them do it. I just saw them do it today. And of course, big shout out to our friends Burrito Express for facilitating that. We love the homies over at Burrito Express.

You should check out their multiple valley locations. They're all about supporting their community. They support ASU athletics and their athletes. They have some sponsored athletes over there and they have the best burritos that you can find. So, of course, we thank them for the food. Grab a burrito and follow Burrito Express on Twitter today at Burrito EXP at the end.

and check out their locations. They're all over the valley. And before we get on to more mailbag Monday questions presented by more furniture, we got to remind you to check out more furniture because they made our office beautiful. I still, every time I'm tired, Jesse, every single time I'm tired, I think I've fallen asleep in these recliners. That's the big dream.

Even my recliners at home aren't as good as the ones here. But of course, that's only because we didn't have to move them up five flights of stairs. So big shout out to more furniture. They become noticeably. less comfortable when you when every time you sit in them you have to like you had to think about the time you move them yeah the time you move them you don't have to

because you hate it after a while you have like this animosity towards your own couch because you scraped your wall and you ruined it and you just painted and now look at what your wall looks like I moved a bunch of furniture yesterday for my mom for Mother's Day and I think I'm going to be sore for weeks Oh my God so yeah it's gonna it's gonna take me a while Do you think that you could get them to come back out after you bought and had the

furniture delivered and have them move around for you too? Maybe just pay them extra money. Can I get the white glove delivery service to come just move my shit around, please? But you can save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture.com. And of course, Elizabeth, she wants to Chase Lounge Update, Jesse. Any Chase Lounge? No, Chase Loungeers.

I was in my parents' house yesterday, though, and they have a lovely Chase Lounge. I'm really hoping to pry away. He's eyeing it. Look at him. He's eyeing it. Hey, you guys, do anything with that one? It's just sitting in the foray over here. Jesse sets up a tent on the

chase lounge at his parents' house. No one is allowed to sit in the wall, Jesse's there. This is mine. This is mine. All right, we got some more mailbag Monday questions. What do we got, Damon? Frank the Tank on Twitter at Diamondback 1-325 asks, could we move Nelson out of the rotation?

Fott made the case to stick around a few more starts. Jamison has the tools but needs the time to be a starter again and get his flow back. I like Dre, hoping to see him back with the club too. We like Dre too, of course. Dre is personally my favorite, just based on our relationship with him. But also. How dare you turn your back on Lordis like that, Derek?

We're talking specifically about the young pitchers. I'm not talking about me and Lordis are like this, son. We're like peanut butter and jelly. Actually, more like jelly and jelly and jelly. It's like grape jelly and grape jelly. But when it comes to the young pitchers, obviously I'll say we've had Dre on the show. We've talked to Dre a bit more, you know, personally. I like Dre.

I like Dre as a person, but beyond that, I like Dre as a competitor. He has this fiery nature that both amuses me and, like, excites me as a fan of baseball because he really does want the ball in every big scenario. It feels like, even if he's going to fail, it feels like he still wanted the ball. And that's something that's different sometimes from some of these guys. I think some players are too worried about how they'll be perceived if they say certain things a certain way, whereas Dre doesn't really care. He will openly say that he wants the ball in big situations

and he doesn't really care what that big situation is. I could see Ryan Nelson not be part of the starting rotation. We spoke about that earlier and there is a case to be made that when Zach Davies comes back, if Tommy Henry continues to pitch the way he's been pitching, that Ryan Nelson might find himself being the odd man out. Tommy Henry also has the advantage of being a lefty, which I don't know how much stock the devax necessarily putting that.

They're probably just kind of trying to pick the five best pitchers. but with Madison Bumgarner out of this rotation, Tommy Henry's the only lefty that they have. So, you know, maybe that gives him something of an upper hand. But yeah, as we were talking about earlier, I think if you're picking, you know, the odd man out right now between Fott Nelson and Tommy Henry, Brian Nelson is probably that guy,

but he's going to get another start in Oakland. And, you know, if he goes out against a very poor Oakland-Ais lineup and, you know, gives you six innings of one run ball or something, then it becomes pretty tough. tough, you know, to just send him down after an outing like that. So this is going to be a tough decision for the debacks, no matter what. I think Brandon fought. There's still some chance. You know, if he goes out and struggles in his next outing, maybe the debacks would go that direction. Maybe they go to a six-man rotation. I don't know, Mike Hazen at one point over the off-season

left that as being a possibility. I don't think the debacks would do that because you don't want, the last thing you want is Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly pitching less. But, I mean, it's going to be a hard decision for them no matter what. All right. What else we got, Damon? Jacob asked, do you think Alec Thomas has a bit of Christian Walker 2022 syndrome? Or is it just what we should expect from here on out? Props to our young king for getting over the Mendoza line.

And yeah, he's just talking about Alec Thomas kind of struggling there at the plate. Christian Walker in 2022 was hitting the ball hard. He was just hitting it right at defenders. I think there's a little difference there. Alec Thomas, I mean, it's kind of a, I guess, kind of an inside joke that we have, but we honestly say, the minute that Alec Thomas makes contact, we're seeing there saying soft contact to the right side. And that's literally Alec Thomas's Achilles heel right now.

It's like if he's not making good contact, the rest of the time he's constantly hitting it to the exact same spot softly to the right side of the infield. And I'm sure there's a lot of players that do that regularly when they're not having success. but Alec Thomas lately, it's kind of feast or famine with him. You'll either see him constantly ground out or you'll see him, you know, kind of have a big day where he kind of spreads it around a bit. I would say at least from, you know, a positive perspective,

Alec Thomas is still making contact and he's making contact consistently. He's just not having success. His defense, though, much like Christian Walker in 2022, makes it makes it a bit harder to send him down or bench him when he's just such a vital part of this team in the outfield. I will say that Alec Thomas's defense, I don't think has been, I would not at all say it's been bad. But if you try to think back to like an Alec Thomas highlight moment in center field this year,

it's pretty tough. I'm not sure if I can really think of like a really, really good play that Alex Thomas made. I disagree. I disagree. I wouldn't have made or Dominic Fletcher wouldn't have. I don't know though because like the one difference there is that we've seen Corbin Carroll kind of have some spectacular. plays lined up where he didn't make it. And yes, if he would have caught it, it would have been a highlight real play.

But it is something that we have kind of gotten accustomed to seeing Alec Thomas do out there. Alec Thomas sometimes plays that center field at Chase Field so well that he makes it look easy. You know? That's fair. Corby and Carroll had some botched catches where I don't think Alex Thomas would have done the same thing, obviously. But athletically, yes, you're right. Corbyn Carroll can get to the ball the same way that Alec Thomas can. he's even faster than Alex.

So once he kind of, I think, gets used to playing center field and specifically in Chase Field, I'm not talking about anywhere else. Chase Field just so damn odd that you kind of see some weird quirks when he's out there playing that Alec Thomas has quickly adapted to out there. Yeah, I mean, according to the numbers, Alec Thomas has zero outs above average. So from the Stapcast perspective, Alec Thomas has basically been a league average centerfielder. defensive runs saved, more sides with what you're talking about, he has three defensive run save, which is pretty good at this point in the year.

So probably too early to be, you know, reading too much into defensive metrics at this point. Sure. But, yeah, all I'm saying is I don't think that Alec Thomas's centerfield defense is so good that you need to have him in the big leagues just because of that. Correct. I agree. If Alex Thomas, you know, if Alec Thomas wasn't on the Major League team, you know, Corbyn Carroll could play center field.

Dominic Fletcher has looked decent out there in center field, although they would probably prefer Corbyn Carroll to get those innings. So, yeah, I just think it's, I think it's at least a possibility that they could do without his defense if they needed to. There was this narrative early in the season with Alec Thomas, very similar to Christian Walker of last year, whereas baseball savant page was lovely, right? There was all this red on Alec Thomas's baseball savant page, which we talked about at length. That red is sort of dissipated a little bit over the last few weeks. his baseball savant page is a little more averageish at this point.

His strikeout rate is crept back up over 22%. So his strikeout rate is basically league average. His walk rate's a little bit below league average. His ground ball rate has come down a little bit from last year, although it's still quite high. So yeah, the reality is Alec Thomas is not really getting robbed anymore. I don't think he's had this great season and the number. It's just not showing up in the box score.

I think there are some real adjustments that need to be made there offensively. And we've seen some glimpses of it. He has over the last couple of weeks. I think he started to hang in there a little bit better. But against lefties, it continues to be a major struggle. The reality is Alec Thomas probably shouldn't be playing against lefties if the devax can avoid it. All right. What else we got, Damon?

Next question comes from Larry Jones. And he says, according to Stuff Plus, Ryan Nelson's stuff has ticked up dramatically in the last two starts. His fastball velo averaged over 95 mile per hour as well. Do you know of any adjustments he's made to make this happen? That's something I'm going to completely toss to Jesse. Because I have one small theory, and I think that is that we already knew Ryan Nelson's numbers from the minor leagues, and those numbers that you described are a bit more of what we saw out of him in the minors. Ryan Nelson was actually kind of trending to be a much better starting pitcher than Drey Jameson and better option than maybe even Zach Davies. But we haven't seen

Ryan Nelson have that kind of stuff at a major league level. So I would just say as far as throwing my opinion out there about it, I feel like it's because he's relaxing. He's settling in. It's not this, you know, kind of anxiety over performing well or basically losing your job. Maybe he's just able to go out there and pitch and not have a lot of that stuff that can that can cause it, you know, stress to you to be floating around in your head. Yeah, we actually didn't talk with Ryan Nelson after his most recent start. We were doing a postgame show that day, so I wasn't out at the ballpark. So I haven't had a chance to talk with Ryan Nelson in the last few days about, you know,

what adjustments he might have been making. But it is a good point. Ryan Nelson back on April 15th, that was his third start of the season. His four-scene fastball averaged 93.1 miles an hour, which is okay, but it's not, not where Ryan Nelson needs it to be, ideally, in order for him to be successful. And his last two starts, that Velo has sat at 95.6 and the 95.5 in his most recent one. So that's a really significant uptick. I think early in the season, it was kind of just that his stuff had dropped off a little bit,

and we weren't totally sure why. I think what you've seen is him just kind of get it back a little bit more to where it was last year. Maybe you'll tick above that. But yeah, hopefully we'll get a chance to catch up with Ryan sometime soon and see if there are any key adjustments that have played into that. You know, my guess is he's just been kind of working with Stromy and, you know, making some tweaks here and there to try to get his stuff back to where it was. Unfortunately for him, that hasn't been enough, right? He's still really struggling even with the velocity ticked up as we've seen in these last couple starts. Brent Strom's an incredible pitching coach, but believe it or not, he doesn't make as big of adjustments as you think.

He just kind of tries to remind them of what's working well for them. But these are all young guys that the information passed along, the tutelage from someone like Strommi can really help them. And I mean, again, we've just, we've talked in general about how weird he can be when he comes out to the mound for a mountain visit as far as the content, as far as where he's there to speak about. And I feel like this is a man that very much knows what pitchers need to hear at times. A lot of times, it's just that they need to roll.

relax and it probably goes across baseball. Pitchers, hitters, everybody, when they're just, when they're, when they're, when they're too anxiety riddled, when they're too out of their own, like when they're not just playing their game and they're not feeling it, that can really impact them. And I think that someone like Strom knows that something as small as telling someone a silly dad joke on the mound is going to get them to relax a little bit and maybe be able to help. I think Tori is more the one who's going out there telling dad jokes.

He talked about that the other day when I think Corbyn Carroll had fouled a ball, like, bounced on the dirt and then hit him in the face or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a really weird. Yeah. Happened a few days ago. And, yeah, after the game, Tori was like, usually when I go out there in those moments, I just try to tell jokes and get guys minds off, minds off of those things.

I'm not so sure that Brent Strom has the same approach. I guarantee. I'm not making this up, Jesse. This is what players have said to us about Strom and what Trump's business are. You think like somebody you just can't throw? So you can't throw a strike. It's strong. He goes out there.

It's like telling, telling dad jokes. Yes. All right. Yes. Yes. I feel like you don't even remember the conversations we have with players. You're 24. I'm 42.

I'm the one that shouldn't be remembering this shit. What else we got, Damon? Oh, Chris. Chris was just in here. And I don't know how fast she got out of here to be emailing us. She's in the chat now. She's calling you mean Jesse today. And she asks,

Top five favorite baseball slang words or phrases must include at least one home run reference. I didn't see this one earlier. That home run reference would be plataca. I love the word plataca. I wanted to name the snake plataka, but the snake is dead. So no more home run. Didn't you say it was Plaka? Like La Placa?

No, it's Plotaka. It's Plotaka, yeah, which is the sound Hispanic player saying that the bat makes when you hit it well, when you hit the ball well. Plataka. Which is just objectively false. Everybody knows that it does not make that sound, Derek. It's a good, it's a good sound. Dinger, Dinger's a good one. Dinger comes to mind for sure.

Other just like, so just baseball slang in general. I like, I like. Apotaco, I hate. Oh, you hate Apot taco. You use Apot taco quite a bit. I do not use apo taco. Okay, well, like, okay, to be fair, I am very adamant.

He said it on the Twitter because he thinks I'm going to use it on the Twitter. I might have used Apoto. I might have used it on the Twitter. No Apo Taco. Okay. No. I think I think Apo Taco is just a sad like we didn't know any other word that rhymed with Apo except for tacos.

We're just going to like put those two words together even though I have absolutely nothing in common. Do we do not get tacos at five runs every in every ballpark in the America? Yeah. I'm all right if you drop an opo taco, you know, if it actually at that point means that fans get tacos but just people don't always use it that way Derek piss missile piss missile that's something that uh I've come to love a lot and don't use nearly as much as I should that's a good one I also like Ben says skip for manager I call Tori skip

quite a bit sure uh yeah I call Tori all the names for manager uh but yeah what else what else you got anything else I like I like the high cheese there's a player specific one that I like shoreber for shorebom I think of that's pretty cool Shwar bomb's good Yeah well we can't We can't You're banned from the show now

Because we can't be honoring other teams players On this show about the diamond I said it was a player specific one You got anything else That's I think that's just about all I got I'm like blanking on all my baseball Slaying right now

Yeah I don't know What do you guys got? Any any Cog says I love the term Bump day Bump day Swamp Don

Swamp donkey is pretty good. Yep, swamp donkey. Thanks, guys. What else we got? Got any more quick? Oh, Jack J says, nuke. And then Gabriel comes with the Golden Sambrero. So, yes, I like those.

Golden Sambrero, that's a good one. Golden Sambraero is fantastic. All right, what else we got, Damon? Solar Flame 0601 asked, should Captain K. Van Dye's hair purple again to help Geryl Jr. play even better. I mean, it's already purple. It's so purple.

Purple hasn't faded much yet. It's crazy. Like, Jesse, I woke up, I wake up in the morning. I wait for it to go away or fall out. And it does neither of those things. It just gets more purple. And I really, I really am still kind of not understanding what's happening here. I want to give you guys a little piece of information.

Lourdes Gourriol since the day that I dyed my hair purple has started in eight games, played in nine. He has two games. winning hits in that time frame, Jesse. He is slashing 452, 541, 968 with a 1.508 OPS, four home runs, four doubles, and 8 RBI. Should I dye my hair purple again? I think I should dye my beard purple. I think I should die my eyebrows purple. I think I should go full out.

I mean, come on, man. Yes, Gabriel says chest hair purple, everything. Let's go. I'm doing it. I'm in for it. Whatever it takes for the team to win. That's what's important here. But no, I won't be dyeing my hair any more purple. And you're lucky if it makes it out of the month of May. That's all I'm saying. But I am going to be going on a road trip to Las Vegas. And this hair is going to be very fun in the city of Las Vegas. I'll check out the new site of the Oakland A's and report back to you guys. But I will definitely be fueling up at Circle K for my road trip on the way out there. And you should too, whether you're going on a road trip or whether you're just. just driving across town. Check out our local Circle K for not only me on the little video screen, but for the best coffee, beer, and snack selection you can find. And of course, don't forget that premium gas so that you can visit with Little Derek and the screen.

Remember, Polar Pop stay cold longer. Enjoy. Also, you get their ice coffee for $1.89 and the Monster and Red Bull energy drinks that fuel me. Monsters, three for $6. Red Bulls, three for $8. Make sure you're not missing out on all this great stuff right now. You can text P HNX to 31310 to make sure you join their SMS subscriber club, and you will get a buy one, get one free offer for a 32 ounce polar pop.

So there you go. Head to circlek.com slash store-dash locator to find CircleK is near you. And one thing you can find at Circle K, of course, is our friends at Four Peaks. Four Peaks is all about, of course, making sure you enjoy the beer that they have. They offer a wonderful variety of beers. No matter what type of beer you like, Four Peaks has you covered. They also have you covered with Four Peaks, four seats for an Arizona Diamondbacks game. One lucky winner will get four seats to an upcoming Diamondbacks game.

Tickets come with D-Buck so you can grab some food, ice cold, wow wheat, or hop-knot. And you can enter by going to Four Peaks Brew on Instagram. The link is in our bio. Check out at Four Peaks Brew or at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 years or older to drink Four Peaks. Please drink responsibly, but anyone of any age can enjoy their wonderful chicken tendingies at the Fort Peaks A Street Pub. So make sure to check out that location as well. Well, we got that series with the Oakland A's. We will be back tomorrow. Here's our schedule for this week. We got that

postgame show tomorrow night. And then we have a post series show after Wednesday's finale. We'll be back here on the off day on Thursday at 1 p.m. An off day. Imagine that. Man, it's been a while. I don't know what to do with myself on these off days. And then we will have our post game show for the first game of the Pittsburgh Pirates series. Of course, we will be back here after that one week later on Monday. So I have some slang. You have some slang? Some baseball slang.

Oh, Jesse looked up. He got it. What do you got? Yeah. So I twin killing for a double play. Twin killing is a good one. That's a pretty good one. I haven't heard that one.

Web gem. I like that one. I named my first ever baseball podcast after it. So there you go. That's right. Rip, rip the web gem podcast from 2015. Rip the knuckle curve. What else we got here?

here a can of corn. I kind of like that. What is a can of corn? A can of corn is like a really easy play for a defender to make. I have never heard someone. Specifically a pop-up, right? Specifically. Yeah, yeah, usually, yeah, like a high pop-up.

Never. Never. That's new to me. You've never heard can of corn? I've never heard a can of corn. Really? Never. That's new to me.

We knew. Interesting. I want to take a moment, by the way, while Jesse's going through more, maybe more baseball slang. He's got some more. Yeah, there's way more baseball slang terms. Today, obviously, we're past the day. but we wanted to give a quick shout out to all the mothers out there.

Happy Mother's Day to you all. And if you aren't a mother, but have a mother, happy Mother's Day to your mother. We love your mother. And we love you guys. And we thank you guys, of course, for joining us and loving baseball. You can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Kapp underscore Keman with a K. This maniac is at Jesse N. Friedman, and he's still going to be looking up slang terms for the rest of the day. I am. So you can continue to ask. I'm looking at a list of 150 with them right now, Derek. He's going to be very busy. He's going to take all afternoon.

Damon is at Damon Dog. That's DAWG with a little at the end. Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-BACs, but all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for joining us today. We appreciate you and your time on behalf of Damon, Jesse, myself. We thank you guys for joining us. And remember, kids, baseball is fun,

but it's so much more fun when your team has the greatest living Italian baseball player to ever play the game on it.