PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Starting pitching woes continue to plague the D-backs as they drop their home opener at Chase Field

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

In a bizarre twist early this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks are unable to get reliable starting pitching while their bullpen continues to be solid. We are discussing the D-backs losing their home opener, if they’ve been more lucky that good this season, and what the young guys got cooking down on the farm. WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: www.fubotv.com/phnxSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (https://mediaserver.betmgmpartners.com/renderBanner.do?zoneId=1693757). 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.PHNX: Become a Diehard today! Check out https://phnxlocker.com/ to grab your membership to receive exclusive content, discounts on all events and merch, and access to our Discord chats. Manscaped: Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with our code PHNX Bets at Manscaped.com.Circle K: Make sure you’re not missing out on all this great stuff, and be stocked all March Madness long! 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.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxFour Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Mor Furniture: Save big on the best furniture in the Valley when you head to https://morfurniture.com!Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. It's our home opener. It's the DBAX home opener. And we are thrilled. Well, I shouldn't say thrilled. We are here. How do you feel, Derek? We are here.

I'm sad. I'm sad, Jesse. Of course, I am your mayor, PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. That guy way over there is my vice mayor. He's also known as Thunderstick Jesse Friedman, and he has returned to us from the state of California. And of course, this set is looking a lot more beautiful tonight because we are joined by the Queen herself,

the one and only Michaela Perkins. Michaela, thank you for being here. You flatter me. Thank you for letting me join you. I kind of called an audible, and I was like, well, I was at the game, so I might as well just, you know, hop on the show. Yeah, you had to suffer through that with us, so you might as well be here with us. But Gabe says last time I spent $40 on a ticket.

Oh, man. Oh, pal. I'm sorry, buddy. To your $40. Yeah, no, I mean, trust me, I feel that same way every time I bet on Christian Walker hitting a home run. But thank you guys for being here. And we are very sad. We were very excited to be out there.

Chase Field was a vibe. It was very exciting to go out there for opening day. All of the pregame festivities were on point. Yeah. The stadium looked beautiful. By the way, again, just to clarify, the roof can be open. Yes. Yeah, so many people are really confused.

They're so confused about that. So let's let's get that. Let's clarify this. The roof can be opened. It just can't be opened with people in the stadium in any capacity. And that doesn't count like people that work there or the players for some reason. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, or the media.

Or the media. They're fine. If the cables fall on the media, then that's not a problem. But if the cables fall on the fans, then we've got ourselves a big legal problem on our hands. I don't know how many people have seen the first five minutes of the movie, ghost ship. But for some reason, that is what I envision happening going wrong with the roof, because it sounds like something terribly tragic and awful can go wrong. It's like a final destination. Yes, exactly, exactly. Do we believe this parking was $130

downtown tonight? No. No. There's no way. I will say I wouldn't be surprised if there were some places perhaps charging that, but not getting it. If you paid $130 for parking, my friend, And let me tell you, you just got swindled. Taylor Swift, there was $75 for the premium parking close to State Farm Stadium. Simon Backs legally can't charge more than Taylor Swift. Yeah, that's true. In the state of Arizona, there's no reason to ever pay $100 for parking. Right.

Arizona is too like, like the thing is in San Francisco, right? Yeah, exactly. You're absolutely right. L.A. is really bad about that too, by the way, as Jesse probably experienced himself. Oh, it's terrible. It's awful. I mean, as a member of the media, you don't really. notice because you're there so long that basically everyone, at least I'm there so long,

that basically everyone is gone at the time I'm actually leaving the stadium. You're there before everybody and you're there long after everybody basically. It's beautiful. But when I've been to Dodger Stadium and just sat in the stands, yes, you just sit in your car. And it's great. You call a friend, you know, you do your taxes. You've got hours in your car before you're possibly going to make any progress. Whoever built Dodger Stadium is an idiot.

There's no reason there should only be one way in and one way out. What are we doing? I mean, there might be multiple exits. No, I think there's only one. Yeah. I don't. I don't know. I mean,

I only use one. I can't say. It reminds me the Hollywood Bowl. The Hollywood Bowl has this weird parking where like everybody parks like in a line. But if the people in front of you don't move and the people the side of you don't move, you ain't even even. You ain't even even though. Everything the Dodgers do is awful.

Yeah, everything in L. Yeah. Except for what they did today. They still. Yeah, today was not. But back to the roof, by the way. They can't open it.

They just have to do it without people in the building. So the problem is as it gets hotter, they have to open it hours and hours before people come into the stadium. And then it just gets very hot. Even on like an 85 degree day, we have been standing down, Jesse and I and like touch the railing there right by, you know,

like to go in and out of the field and stuff. And it's hot. Like the longer that they keep that roof open that. And I think that's the real problem is they just can't leave. it opened so many hours before people get there and then not have it be terribly uncomfortable in the stadium once they're in. But the stadium looked beautiful tonight. The flyover was on point. All of the pregame festivities were fun. I think Gabriel asked, why did the game have to be so late? This is like one of like five, seven, ten starts the entire year, I believe.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's pretty much just for the extra pregame festivities. I believe they have that extra half an hour on there. Christian Walker says, or I'm sorry, Sorry, sports. Christopher is not here. He's accepting his gold glove, but sporting my bad habits, Arthur Shaw, so it's Kushier Walker, Homer is coming tomorrow. Derek, it's Kirschaw pitching. Yes, I will, I'll gladly waste my money again tomorrow.

I have no problem doing that. But even though things were very good for Chase Field, things weren't so good for the Arizona Diamondbacks, specifically Merrill Kelly was not very good today, and he has not been good so far this season ever since. I mean, you could even chalk up the appearance of our dozen. You like the WBC was a precursor to what we were about to get, like a little preview. I mean, and it did.

We talked to Tori Lavala before the game today, and Tori did comment about how that, that entire thing and mixed with, you know, a rain out and some other just. Yeah, I kind of messed with, mess with some guys throwing schedules. Guys maybe aren't quite as stretched out as maybe they would be. But I don't think that was really a problem for, for Merrill today. No, he went, he went, he threw 99 pitches. He threw longer than. Then he should have. We're going to get into that.

We're going to get into that. But, yeah, Merrill, I mean, Dodger's stating, he didn't allow a run technically, right? Three and two thirds innings, no runs. But, you know, four walks. I think it was three or four hits as well. In this game, he gave up six hits, four walks again. That's not the way that Merrill Kelly normally operates, right? He's normally kind of a control artist.

And the way that he gets by is not by blowing guys away, but because he's able to locate it where he wants to. and that's just not the guy that we've seen so far in 2023. And unfortunately for Merrill, both of his starts have come against the one team that he just cannot figure out. He's just so bad against the Dodgers. He's just flat out not good against the Dodgers.

What was the slash line for Dodgers hitters against Merrill Kelly, Derek? Wrap your mind around this. In 14 games, Merrill Kelly is 0 and 10 with a 5.64 ERA, and that's not factoring in tonight's start yet. So it's probably going to be even higher, giving up four earned runs and five and two third games. The Dodgers have a 303 team batting average against him with an 888 OPS.

Oh, no. Like it's just all-star numbers as an entire team on average in 14 starts. It's a huge, you can't say it's a small sample size. It's lighting them up. It's getting to the point that you have to question if maybe you should skip Merrill Kelly's turn in the rotation when playing the Dodgers. Is that too? I mean, I feel like that's, that's embarrassing. I feel like that's like demoralizing to them, right?

But at the same time, when do you make a managerial move to try to ensure that you're giving your team the best opportunity? I mean, Merrill Kelly can be very good. And we've seen it be very good against anybody, including, you know, teams in the NOS that are tough teams. But for some reason, the Dodgers just seem to have his number. Yeah. Yeah, it's really crazy. I mean, the only way that the Diamondbacks could have gotten Merrill to avoid throwing against the Dodgers would be to make him, their fifth starter, I guess.

Like they would have had to start him fifth. And then, I mean, he's pitching against the Padres. I don't have his career numbers against San Diego in front of me, but that lineup is still, you know, is very, very good at this point, better than it's been in years past. Yeah, I don't think that was realistic. You're not going to take a guy who had a 3, 370 R.A. last year over 200 innings. You ready? And be like, yeah, we don't believe that you're good enough to, you know, pitch against the Dodgers.

We're going to try to, you know, hijack the schedule so that you're throwing elsewhere. Hold on to your butts, though, Jesse, because is that bad managing when Merrill Kelly is 8 and 2 and 13 starts against the San Diego Padres with a 2.61 ERA? I don't know. I don't know. It's better, but it's better. But, I mean, the Padres also didn't have Zander Bogart's. Fair enough. And, I mean, a lot of those starts probably came before, you know, Padres offense has gotten significantly better over the last couple of years.

There you go, trying to be a realist again. But I will say this, that Tori Lavello did make some moves tonight that you could question, including Kyle Lewis coming in at one point. I think for Alec Thomas, that didn't seem like it was the best call considering the pitching matchup. I know, I believe Dave Roberts made a switch to kind of counter Kyle Lewis maybe coming in the game. But there was also some questionable managerial moves when it came to Merrill Kelly. Yeah, it was a sixth. It was the sixth inning.

You've got Will Smith. He doubles to lead off. I think Merrill had 79 pitches, 78, 79 pitches, something like that going into the inning. So you feel like, all right, he's got it, you know. This is going to be his last inning, but he'll be able to go out. Short leash. But, yeah, I mean, you know, you're going to throw him out there.

So Will Smith doubles, Max Muncie strikes out, which apparently is all Max Muncie does anymore. I don't really know what happened there. And then J.D. Martinez walked. So you've got first and second with one out. You had Kyle Nelson, a lefty warming up. in the bullpen and you've got two lefties and David Peralta and James Outman coming to the plate for the Dodgers.

If Dave Roberts is in that situation, he's yanking Merrill Kelly, he's going to get his lefty and he's going to try to get out of the inning. It wasn't, you know, a runner at first two outs, like, all right, see if you can get this last out. It was first and second, one out. I mean, Merrill is genuinely in trouble at this point. David Peralta,

you know, not necessarily an elite hitter or something. This wasn't Freddie Freeman, but you still want to have a favorable matchup in that situation. Yeah. Peralta winds up grounding into a forceout. You feel okay. And then James Outman, you know, hits the RBI single.

And then you're like, all right, probably should have gone to that lefty. And then Tori Lavello does go to the lefty, but he does so against Chris Taylor, a right-handed hitter. Which is very, Chris Taylor did wind up flying out. So I guess that worked out okay. But a really bizarre, bizarre decision there from Tori. And I mean, obviously there's other analytics thing that go into this besides just the lefty versus righty-righty versus lefty match. but still. But it's not that complicated.

It's really not. Like baseball sometimes is not that complicated. And when you see these moves made by other teams that are winning, it's not complicated. It's just believing in a guy knowing who you're going to go to and how it's going to work out. Tori, speaking of which talked about how he's kind of structured these games before the game. He talked about especially, you know, the bullpen and the closer situation. And again, like we discussed how many options it gives them and how fluid it makes situation. It sounds like Tori does know who he's going to go to as a closer,

or at least has an idea prior to the game. So he does have that kind of set up. But of course, even that feels like you're still looking at a closer, right? Because if you're managing the game and you're going to someone based on the best situation, you really have no idea what situation you're going to be it late in the game and the nine-day, what guy you're going to go to if you're going to need to go to a lefty or a righty, maybe you have an idea of which two guys maybe you have in mind that you might go to. but we kind of talked about it still doesn't seem like an ideal situation

because Tori doesn't really know yet who he can count on in these roles and it feels like eventually he's just going to find one guy that he can and go there right yeah i mean we even talked to jameson before the game started and he even kind of was expressing the same type of concerns like he just wants to know where he's going like he wants to know his role like he jay said it to us he was like i want to know where i'm going in this rotation like uh hello i saw i saw I saw. I'm going to do the gritty.

Yeah. He's willing to do. So I understand that. We don't know what that feels like. Yeah, the son's won tonight. We're in a bad mood. Yeah, I mean, even Dre said it too. Jay was like, I just want to know where I'm going to pitch.

So I think there's like a shared consensus of like wanting to have defined roles for this bullpen. And, you know, despite coming into season, we were all scared about the bullpen. Like, I don't think there's one person out here. But it's not the problem. The bullpen's doing great. The bullpen has been the best thing. The best thing. about the 2023 Arizona Diamondback statistically has been the ballpark.

Because the offense has been trash. Garbage. And the starting pitching has been very bad. It's literally, I mean, Zach Davies, five innings one run. Yeah. You felt pretty good about that. All of the other starters have sort of been in disaster. Like, if you would have told me right now coming into the season at this point,

that the bullpen would be the thing that's operating well, I would have told you were insane. Yeah. And I mean, I mean, it's not, I wouldn't say it's great. I mean, it has a four point five ERA. Like, you know, it's not. to the other elements of the game. Like it's best than what else is happening out there.

Very true. But yeah, I mean, I do think having a more defined objective for the bullpen and more defined roles is something that everyone's looking for at this point. Motion says James Outman looks like an actor in disguise. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't trust that guy one bit. I don't understand where he came from and he's been entirely too good. Also, Will Smith.

Will Smith? We're getting beat by Will Smith constantly. It's kind of work. I don't know how the Will Smith on this show, the Will Smith sland, started on this show. I blame Jacob. Is it Jacob? Is it happened while it was gone?

Jacob is really good. He's a really good baseball player. I don't know where Jacob got. Like, oh, Will Smith is their number three hitters. Because he kind of did the thing that players do when they come to a good team, right? He disappeared for a little bit. But it didn't mean that he wasn't a great player. And that's the reason why the Dodgers went after him, right?

But sometimes that happens on a team like the Dodgers. I mean, honestly, we have- Smith is sitting 391. We're not even getting... He has 10 RBI in six games. We're not even getting beat by Moogie and Freddie Freeman. Like, let's be honest about it, right? Like, Freddie did Homer in this game.

I mean, and the Diamondbacks lack of offense, really, we could question the starting pitching, but you're just not going to do much when you can only score, you know, one or two runs in a game, which is all we've really seen out of it this season. The Padre's game, that was the most encouraging one. And even that was a Zach Gallen start that kind of fell apart that the Diamondbacks found a way to kind of, you know, be a little gritty, throwing it back to that work. Nice. And getting one of those wins out, right?

but not all was bad. Not all was bad. And Jake McCarthy was very good tonight for the Arizona Diamondbacks. And he ends up being our king snake of the game. Jake McCarthy ended up going two for four, scored a run, had that triple. Look at him. He just looks fast there. He's like a graceful gazelle.

Yeah. That's so perfect. That's exactly how I want to think of him. And it's good because Jake obviously has had a rough start to the season, but he's getting things back on track now. And I mean, even if it's one guy at a time, I'll tell you what we've seen out of this team, we've seen this team be able to be pretty good, be pretty competitive on the field. It just feels like they're not even close to running on all cylinders yet.

So if you want to take one encouraging thing away, it's that. It's the fact that they haven't been playing good baseball really at all. And they still are three and four now, right? But I don't want to take away from opening day at Chasefield because we had some, great, great fun out there. The vibes were still pretty great at the ballpark, even though they lost. What percent Dodger fans would you guys say?

I don't, I don't know. 2020, I didn't like, it wasn't an overwhelming cheer. It wasn't crazy. No, there wasn't. And actually, I had a, I talked to Tori about it in the moment, like, because they were announcing the starting lineup for the Dodgers,

and you weren't getting this huge cheer from the crowd. There was actually an audible boo for most guys. David Peralta got a nice. I don't understand booing for Alta either. It was a nice reception. No, it was a mixed reaction. It was the, it was the most cheer out of everybody. I don't think they played the little freight trains down for him.

Yeah, it was really cute. Someone in the comments actually said, I bet D-Bax fans are missing their freight train. They did give him like a special shout out when he was in the outfield and they played, like, played the train noise, which was really cool. He did like the chew-choo. But there were still a lot of booze for him, right? I don't know if it was booze or if it was just like groans and moans and like just being disappointed that he's in a dodgingy. Maybe he got a bigger. a bigger reception, I think, when they announced his name.

Yes. Before the game started. Then when he went out to left field and they and they had that little moment form. Then fans just like kind of didn't make it. They were like, look, we've already, we, we, we, we got his accolades. David Peralta is just still a delightful person. He was still playing catch in the outfit with the stands like, or with the people in the sand like he did when he was in Diamondbacks uniform.

And we saw him at spring training and a Dodgers uniform. I went up and talked to him and he was just so funny about it, you know. And like, yeah. He really does love Arizona still, but it's not like he left here on his own, right? He was traded away and then picked up, bye, let's know how the playoffs are like. We don't know what that's like. But he definitely, it was, I just, I don't understand booing a guy that didn't like. He did to set the record.

He did get traded. Then he signed with the Dodgers as a free agent, Derek. Right. But the Diamondbacks weren't knocking down his door to bring him back. No, no. Jesse, you know. It was. It was really, really weird seeing him out there.

It was. Where he normally plays baseball in a Dodgers uniform. It was like out of body experience. I was gross. I was like, I hate this. It's been a bizarre night all the way around with starting pitching being bad, but three leaf pitching being good and everything else. But you know who was there for us? Our guy, Baxter.

Let's get bad. Baxter looked great out there. Baxter was a electric factory. Look at him. Look at this guy with the HVK stretch. He was feeling it. He was feeling his oath. You don't, you don't see it in that video, but the fireworks went off right when he did that.

And that's pretty cool. Also, speaking of fireworks, here's a shit, Miguel got an incredible shot of the flyover from tonight. This is probably my favorite video I've ever taken in my life. This is during the National Academy. Wow. Favorite bit? Wow. Yeah, that is high praise. The Aitem trumpet player was there.

Yeah, this is electric. Yeah, it was beautiful. I had just finished just like sobbing over how excited it was about baseball. The way you followed those. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. It's pretty dope. The runouts, though, I did get some fireworks. I got our Young King. I think this is our Young King. Our Young King.

Alex Thomas taking the field. Boom. Fireworks. We love to see it. So, I mean, it was really cool. Opening day is just always the best. It's just, it's so good to be out there.

And honestly, like, I talk about that I've covered this team for a long time, but to see all the people that work at Chase Field and yeah, all the coaches. It's so much fun.

Everyone's really happy on opening. Yeah, everybody was, everybody is tremendously up. It all kind of goes downhill from here. People are just progressively more and more exhausted with how long the baseball season is. But everyone's happy.

It was great. There's so many people there, too. What did they say attendance was? Like over 48,000. 48,000 plus. It was awesome. It didn't look like it there for a minute. Jesse and I were talking about how like pregame when we were looking from the field.

Apparently the traffic was very bad. Oh, God. Yeah. It's understandable. First Friday and there was a sun's game happening at the same time. So between first Friday and the street. Wait, wait. Doesn't first Friday happen on Friday?

Oh, my God. You guys. Tomorrow was Friday. Tomorrow was Friday. I'm losing my mind. I mean, it's almost midnight. There was a sun's a sun's game happening. Oh, yeah, there is almost midnight. There was a sunscreen happening, so maybe that was why.

No, that's absolutely. I mean, it's a nightmare down there. Directly adjacent. Yeah, but I will say this. Like Jesse said, it's, it's, it was happiness. It was a guy like, golly good vibes. Yeah. Going back to what I was saying, I did talk to Tori about the reaction to the Dodgers players.

It felt like the first time in a very long time that there was booze that could be heard over cheers for the Dodgers, especially when announcing the starting line up, right? Let me just tell you, uh, Tori. Tori dug it. Tori was with it and Tori was smiling and he was loving every minute of the fact that he has been here for a long time and he has been to a lot of Dodgers Diamondbacks games at Chase Field. And there's nothing that that man wants more than to make that stadium roar for the Diamondbacks the way that it once roared for the Dodgers. Yeah. I asked Tori that question, of course, the day that the Dodgers clinched last year, right? That happened at Chase Field.

And I remember asking Tori after that game, like, is it tough for you with how much blues in the stands? And he gave much more of a pointed answer than I was expecting. He was like, heck yeah, like this is messed up. This is not the way that it's supposed to be when we're playing in our own ballpark, right? And even today, honestly, like, I was in L.A. for Dodgers opening day, right, for their home opener. And just even though Chase Field was packed, right, it was filled of the brim. There were 48,000 people there. the difference in the environment

from Dodgers Stadium to Chase Field on opening day is enormous. Yeah. I mean, just the amount, just how engaged the fans are, how loud they cheer for different events during the game. Yeah.

It's not, I mean, it's not close. And I don't want to say that's like, oh, D-BACs fans are terrible or anything. It's just Dodgers fans are like, man,

they're into it. The worst. Right there. I mean, they, I mean, yeah, you can make case to the worst in a lot of ways,

but they're loud. They are, they're absolutely loud. They're the best for their fan, for that team. right like the team loves them and that's one thing that we want to create here but it's not easy man because not only are we a big time transplant city where people's families or the people themselves that live here have come from a different state or a different city right but you just have this

long time allegiance in baseball it's uh it's just a sport that goes back with so much history and goes back so far that people's like family bloodlines fall like or fans of the team you know we're cubs fans that's what we are we identify we're the johnsons and we are cubs fans and we are cubs fans That's what we are, right? And like, there are some, you know, parents that will get mad at their kids if they try to, like, root for another team or whatever, right? So it's just the Diamondbacks have not been around long enough to build that, you know? I'm finally starting to see that for the Arizona Cardinals after all these years, right?

1988, long time ago, the Cardinals came here. And just now I'm starting to see that generation of fans that were born into being Cardinal, where they have been Cardinal fans since they were, like, little kids. And, like, that's kind of what the Diamondbacks are getting around. to now that we're 25 years, but yeah, 25 years is still a drop in in the hat compared to how long the Boston Red Sox have been around and the Yankees and even the pirates and stuff so I was born into being Cardinals fan and I've regretted it ever since yeah, no, me too me too. It's a rough line. No, I'm talking about the Arizona. Yeah, Arizona. Yeah, you could be a born in a no, if I've been yeah, born into a same, I mean, I feel like that's one of the better fan bases to be.

Yeah. Oh, St. Louis Cardinals. The St.lers, that's a pretty good fan base to be born in the Arizona Cardinals not. You know, we should be doing right now, Jesse. We should have some sunglasses on because I feel like we're throwing some shade. We are kind of throwing shade. And we may have secured a sponsorship deal with someone that can provide us with those sunglasses because we are very excited to be partnering with our friends from Shady Rays. You could take on the sun here in Arizona.

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purchasing them, you can exchange them for a new pair or return them for free within 30 days. There's no risk when you shop. Their team always has your back, which, of course, like buying stuff on the internet is like that, right? Like, you hesitate because you have no idea. Not me. No? Well, no.

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Oh, yeah. Evil Derek has a go Tee, though. That's the only difference there. But try for yourself. And of course, Shades rated five stars by over 250,000 people. Jesse going skiing. That's pretty accurate. I think that's a skiing version of Jesse.

It's a skiing version of Jesse. Just blocking out the haters. Well, we thank you guys, of course, for being here right now on the PHNX sports YouTube channel. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to our channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when we go live or any of our wonderful shows on the network go live. Also, if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there. Leave us a review.

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So there's no reason to not sign up the hat and the gift card right there pays for the entire membership in itself. So join us over at go phtnx.com. You also get access to Jesse's newsletter, full count, which Jesse just dropped a new one recently, right? I did. What was that one on? That one was about Tori Lavello's usage of the leadoff spot and how obviously a leadoff hitter in 2023 looks pretty different than a leadoff hitter like back in the 1980s. Especially when you're talking about Kyle Lewis.

Yeah. Yeah, Kyle Lewis would have been, you know, more of a cleanup hitter type back in the day. And I mean, for a lot of teams, he still would be that today. Yeah, I don't think Kyle Lewis stealing 100 bases anytime soon. No, some of those guys back in 80s would. But the Diamondbacks have not been very good this year. We want to say that they've been maybe a little bit more lucky than good, but they've had a very, very bad start to this season.

And Jesse, actually, we were talking about literally how bad things actually are right now. D-backs are currently 27th in Major League Baseball and Team OPS. Yeah, I mean, it's all bad. bad. It's all horrible. I'm going to be honest. The debaings, offense, defense all sucks. Every single bit of our three and four. And it's kind of it's kind of a miracle in some ways that that they're three and four just given how bad some of these numbers look. It's like, wow, you play the Dodgers and the Padres and put up these numbers and somehow you won three games. Is that not a good thing? Yeah, it is. I'm not like mildly encouraged by this.

Yeah. No, you absolutely have to be. Right. Because if you are playing this poorly, Jesse gave us their slash. line, their team slash line. Jesse, do you want to hit us with it? Uh, the team slash line is 217, 267, 339. And they've won three games. That's pretty bad. Like, I mean, that's like, how? I don't know.

Like, somehow they've managed to do this against probably two of the best teams in baseball. And like, they're not getting shit stomped every night. Like, and then that's the thing is, like you said, it's encouraging because they're so bad right now. Right. Like, if you're finding a way to win, which is something that we have. desperately wanted to see this team do at times when things weren't working for them, then imagine when these guys do start clicking. Yeah.

Which I can't imagine that this continues for this team. It just feels like everybody is pressing. Yeah. I think that would be the worst slash line in like major league history, basically. Yeah. I don't think it's going to, I think it's probably going to come up. The best bad team. Yeah.

The best bad team. We really are. I mean, like good, good teams find a way to win games. They have no business winning. And the debacks have absolutely done that. I got some footspah. Yeah, I don't want to take that away from them. But what I also want to make clear is, like, these seven games have been pretty bad.

Like across the board, they've been pretty dang bad. The offense is not is not playing well. The pitching, we mentioned the bullpen being the least of their problems with a 4.50 ERA. The starting pitching has an ERA of 5.82 as a team right now. The debacks have given up 14 home runs altogether this season, which is a lot. 60 innings. Yeah. And looking at the offensive side, like on a more granular level,

Harolo-Perdomo, got to give that guy a shout-out. He is three for seven. Not a lot of it bats, but he has more walks than strikeouts. He has no PS over 1,300. He's been really good. But if you look through some of the other guys on this list, I mean, Lordus Guriel Jr. is 5 for 28 to start the year. All of his hits have been singles.

Alec Thomas is 0 for 13. He has yet to get on the board with a hit this year. Gabby Gabby Moreno had a double in this game. He's still three for 17. Cattel is five for 28. Kyle Lewis is two for 15. I could go on. Like,

everyone, it's been pretty bad. Can I make it even worse just for fun? If you feel the need to go ahead. Dalton Varshot is hitting 333 by the way. I don't think anyone wanted to be a lot there. I didn't know what needed to hear it. I just needed to say it.

I'm sorry, but it's what is going on. Yeah, I mean, Moreno and Gurriel are a combined eight for 45 to start the year. So that's a sub 200 batting average. That is, that is. Okay, yes, it's bad.

But, but, but, but, but they're only one game away from being 500. And they've only played two teams so far in Major League Baseball, which happened to be two of the best. Is it all major league baseball? I'm not trying to make excuses. Yes, it's bad. And the gears, they're grinding against each other right now.

But all I got to do is figure out how to get a little bit of oil on these gears, and then the gears are going to start turning and everything might just be okay. I really do. I mean, I like your metaphor, but I mean, you're not wrong, right? Like some of the problems sometimes is like, again, I don't understand how we've seen this the last two seasons and now the start of this season from this team. But yeah, it's amazing how when they are in an offensive slump, it's the entire team is an offensive slump. Like that's just so unheard of. Like McCarthy had a nice game.

He's still at a 698 OPS on the year. I wouldn't necessarily call that good. Corbyn Carroll, right, six for his first 18 to start the year. You know, people felt really good about that. He's gone 0 for his last nine. His numbers don't look great now. Christian Walker had a good first few games. He now has a 656 OPS.

So, yeah, the debacks have played an absurdly high level of competition, right? The Dodgers and Padres, like you just said, very, very, very good baseball teams. They've found a way to win some games that they had no business winning, which is a good thing. But, yeah, I mean, the numbers are awful. I mean, it's really, it's really, really bad. But I think it can only go up from here, right? Even against these teams. It can only go up from here.

I mean, technically, I can also go down. Yeah. But. From their team stats, I mean, you're not going to maintain these numbers for very long. These guys, their Lordus Guriel is too good of a hitter to keep hitting, you know, a buck 79. Like, that's just not going to continue no matter how good the opposing pitchers are. And yeah, within a couple of weeks, this hellish beginning to the season for the debacks from a scheduling standpoint will change.

And it is honestly, it is crazy how much it changes to. If we never put in Dodgers again, it'll be too soon. Oh, and we, we, we don't for quite a while. For quite a while. It reminds me, Jesse, of when we started doing the show. Because Jesse and I started doing the show on the heels of one of the worst seasons in Diamond Back Sister. Yeah, we launched it a great time.

And then we went right into a lockout, right? And so everything was so hard for us back then. And things aren't so hard for us now, right? So maybe the Diamondbacks are just going through their hard phase here early on. And maybe based on the fact of how difficult this stretch has been and the level of difficulty of their opponents, maybe they come out of this once they get through and get the Milwaukee Brewers next week. Yeah, it's like the Brewers are a really good team. Yeah.

But even they are like, oh my gosh, we're only playing the Brewers. Thank God. I'm so glad. Like they're terrible. I mean, they're awful compared to the Dodgers. It feels like that's the other takeaway that I have from not only the. this game but last series and what will probably continue to unfold over these next few games is I think this Dodgers team is still really good. A lot of people came into this season with the

off season that they had and we're like, you know what? Looks like the Dodgers are kind of taking their feet off the gas a little bit. Maybe this team is going to be, you know, 85 wins, 90 wins, something like that. I don't know if I see that. James Outman is too good. Miguel Vargas is too good. Yeah, Dustin May did his thing again today. Yeah. Dustin May makes me. sick. I can't wait to see him pitch against a team that isn't the Diamondback. Justin May is going to own us for eight more years. That was really. That was something else to watch. Gross. But I will say this, that I was talking about the vibes being immaculate. They're immaculate right now here in the chat because of the buck stops here. Thank you for your super chat, sir. And his super chat just says ban the wave, ban the wave, ban the wave. I cannot agree more. We are so on board with that. We are a pro ban the wave podcast. We are absolutely a ban the way podcast.

And just in case anybody forgot, surgeons have determined that doing the wave will, yes, will cause tears to the, uh, Jesse, can you help me out with this one? Is it surprepannatus? Surprepnatus muscle and the, bless you. I don't know what you're, I don't know what you're reading. It's the throwing of the individual's arms rapidly into the air could cause a rotator cuff injuries. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also any children doing the way will be sold to the circus. That's a rule of chase field. That's where they belong. I have no authority to cancel that rule out.

It's part of the rule changes, actually. Some people might not be familiar. Last year, we didn't have the pitch clock this year. We do. Last year, the kids were not sold to the circus. Now they're sold to the circus. Now they are in the outfielders, infielders can't stand the grass. Yeah.

Can't stand in the grass now. Yeah. A lot of, there's a lot of fine print in the in the rule changes. But again, the vibes are immaculate, at least here at PHNX and the PHNX HQ. And they are always immaculate here in the ballot. And that's why we were excited to tell you guys about our brand new shirt. Check it out. Look at that bad boy.

It's always sunny in the valley. And the vibes are immaculate. Fives are immaculate. Go grab the shirt right now. You need this shirt in your life. A lot of teal. There's a lot of teal. There's a lot of teal.

We are working as much teal into everything. Inject the teal. Yep. Inject it. I don't know if you guys saw that new logo on Twitter, but you might have, might check that out. Also, tell you guys what,

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Monsters 3 for 6. Check out our friends at Circle K. All over the valley. They have the best price on gas is very expensive. Yeah. So let me tell you. I'm about to start walking everywhere and I don't exercise. Yeah, she's, no, she hates it.

She hates it. She's now trying to figure out ways to get me to drive the places. And then she wanted to sit in the back seat and like work on our computer. That shit wasn't happening. Did you know? What's that? So I just went on this little road trip. You did.

Yeah, yeah, you do know that. Gas was very expensive. Yes, but not right at the border. Oh, yeah. In Yuma, gas was like 365. Yes, correct. That's how much it's in Tucson. And then the closer you get to Phoenix, it just keeps going up.

Same thing with up north. If you go up north, like Sedona or. Yeah, like that way up there. Yeah, like all those gas stations that are usually too expensive to stop by on stop that on your way up, you're like, uh, we'll make it a couple more miles. No, they're like 354 right now. I don't know what's up with that. Environmental thing.

It is. Yeah. It has to meet an environmental standard that it has to meet outside of the city limits. Yeah, it's certain additives. And it also comes from like there's like something about there's only like two lines that come from California, so it's like not, it's not, not easy. I've seen gas stations running out of gas, actually, but not at Circle K. We just talk about gasoline.

That's going to be a gasoline. Yeah, we're now at least one segment. I mean, I feel like it's very important. This is a very important service to society that we're offering. But make sure you're not missing out on all this great stuff. Head to CircleK.com slash store locator to find CircleKs near you. That's CircleK.com slash store dash locator to find CircleKs near you. And why are you there?

grab our friends from Four Peaks beer. It is the best local beer that you can find. And of course, they have a wide variety of beers. Great beers. I love their IPAs. Hazie IPA. Alit. Also, the Wow, Wheat.

So make sure to grab some beers at CircleK. And keep yourself stocked up. Also, stop by their A Street pub. They have spring training tours. Still going on. You can go over, ask them. Tell them, Derek sent you. Tell them the baseball guys sent you.

They'll show you the secret process where the beers are made by ghosts. And, yeah, it's very exciting. So check out 4Peaks.com slash events for all your beer week entertainment. And we're having another fun party out there. So make sure to join us on April 27th. Cardinals got a new coach, new GM. It's a new team. Cardinals also have the third pick in the draft.

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27th is with your favorite degenerate from PHNX at the Fort Peaks 8th Street Pub. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Now, Jesse and I very much wanted to bring you good news in some way, shape, or form on this episode. Michaela wanted good news. They both demanded it, but we could not find anywhere, any, any, anywhere. We looked in the farm system, and I hate to say this, but... More bad news. The entire Diamondbacks organization today is a mess.

It was just a bad day all around for every team associated with the Diamondbacks. I mean, the Reno Aces didn't play because they got rained out. Does that count as bad? I mean, I feel like that's bad. I think that was the best news that came out of today. Yeah, it's the best news we have to offer you. Yeah, so the Rahai just finished their game. They were the last ones to finish.

17 to zero. No. Yeah. No. Isn't there, isn't there a mercy rule? Is there a mercy rules or no? Apparently there's not a mercy rule because it would have been activated. at some point.

This game did not end early. That was Drew Jones' first official game as a member of the Diamondbacks Organization. Oh, his first professional baseball game? His first professional. I guess unless you count those exhibition games, which we did see Drew Jones nearly in a home run in one of those exhibitions. True.

I don't think you can count that. First Chase Field A.B. Yeah, I don't think that counts. This is his first official professional at bat as a member of the, of the DBAX organization, or at bats. He went over three with a walk, so nothing super notable there. I'm told he made a pretty nice. In the center field however. Can we take a look at that? Oh. Wow. Where did you guys get this footage of can't quarter from 1942?

Jeez. I'm not sure if that's footage of Drew Jones or footage of his dad. Yeah, it might have been. It might be Drew Jones senior. No way to prove it one way or another. It was a great catch. It was a great guy. Whoever it was. He talked about the rawhide getting crushed 17 to nothing. They're not the only ones that got smashed sod poodles or calf fries. whatever, whichever one you want to call. They lost their season opener 12 to 4. And the Hillsborough Hopps lost 9 to 2. Oh, yeah. So they had the best, they had the best night, arguably, of all of the D-Backs minor

league teams losing 9 to 2. It was pretty rough. Dylan Ray pitched in that game, Diamondback's fourth round draft pick from last year. Jesse, they got outscored in total 38 to 6. Oh, that was really good math. Yeah, I'm impressed. I'm not going to take me like a calculator a couple years to figure out. 38 to 6.

Ray pitched decently well in that game. Three and a third innings, two hits, two runs, two walks, six strikeouts. That was good to see. But yeah,

not great. Not great on the whole for any of the D-BACs, minor league teams today. The Reno Aces have been playing for, for a while now, but today was the opener for all of the other teams of the Rahide, the hops, the sod poodles,

they all had their openers. None of them went well. Didn't the aases get smashed? yesterday too. Yeah, I believe the ACE has lost 12 and nothing yesterday. Um, yeah,

things, things aren't great. We can go through, uh, I mean, it's the darkest possible timeline now. What happened? The aces are too important.

You guys, you guys, it's going to be fine. Everyone, I feel like everyone's like getting a little too sad, a little too quickly. Like, we need to preserve our sadness for later on in the season when things

inevitably are going to take a turn downwards. Oh my God. Like, can we just like, can we just chalk this up to like, but I'm not really, What's the hell just out of this up? Can we just chalk this up to like,

it's the beginning of the season. Yes. They're dusting off their gloves and their bats and they're going to get into the swing of things. They just need to like get their mojo going. Hopefully. And it's going to be okay. Like it's too early to hit the panic button. And I'm not saying anyone's hitting it yet.

But I feel like we're like trying to like, we're like flinching towards it. You know, we're like, maybe maybe hit it. No, no. But I feel like it's going to be okay. Like I know this sucks to watch them lose, especially on opening day.

twice on the road and at home. And it's easy to get down on this team, but I'm just not ready to give up yet. I think it's going to be okay. I think this, they just got to, I feel like we got the jitters, you know?

Yeah. This team is so young. Like they've just got to work through it and then it's going to be fine. There's, there is something to be said about staring across the field at that Dodgers uniform and being intimidated about, by it. And honestly,

even though the, even though the Padres don't have that history with the lineup that they have and the, and the kind of the mystique that's developing in San Diego around them, they also kind of have that same thing, you know? And I mean, at the very least, we can still take away that the Diamondbacks did work in these two series. And we still have to, I mean, this series could, they could split this series and we could be like talking about how we overreacted,

like you said, at the end of it, right? Because honestly, once again, if they have a 500 record after eight games with the Dodgers and two games with the Padres, I'll take it. I feel pretty good about that. Yeah. So there's still plenty of. time for them to salvage not only this series, but I mean, even just kind of get things moving in the right direction for them as a whole. I will say I hate the fact that I'm starting

to question the coaching of this team and I'm talking about the major league coaching and I'm talking about every aspect. It's not just, it's not just one coach. I'm starting to wonder about Mather. I'm starting to worry about Strom and it's not their fault. But like I said, when the team, when you're having all the starting pitching with the exception of one guy look pretty subpar. the offense not working in any way and it's almost every single guy on the team what point do you start trying to wonder if it's the if it's the coaching i mean i we've said it too early there it's absolutely too well you and i have said it extent like to so often we've said it so much where we have said that this coaching staff is incredible and it's probably a big reason why the

parts of it right like i think brent strom is pretty clearly one of the best in the in the world of what he does i don't think you can really argue that regardless so much most of what the results on the field tell you. Sure. I don't know if Joe Mather necessarily is earned that level of respect. I don't know if Jeff Bannister. I mean, it doesn't have,

you know, quite as much of an impact as a bench coach. That's a little bit of a different role. But it was interesting to hear about Jeff Bannister's role as far as like the run game and stuff. Yeah, he's very instrumental in. Yeah,

Tori was talking today about how Bannister basically controls the run game or is very instrumental in helping DBAX pitchers control the run game and instruct pitchers when to throw over to first. I was not aware. that that's something that he had his hands on. So, yeah, I mean, he's certainly, certainly involved as well. And he said, he said it's not really that much different. Like, we asked him, like, how, how is it to try to incorporate these new rules into what

you're already doing? And basically he said, like, with the throwing over to the base, he's like, we just got two bullets in the gun now. That's the only difference, right? Yeah. So you just got to pick your spots a little bit more and you got to be a little bit more thoughtful about it, but it's still a chess game. You're still trying to, you know, outthink each other and kind of come up with a plan that

works and so far i mean at least on the base path the diamond backs that hasn't been a problem for the diamond backs it doesn't really feel like yeah stealing against them or running on them has been a problem it definitely feels like it's other aspects have we maybe considered that like a lot of their struggles at the plate has come from maybe like the pitch clock and trying to get used to the pitch clock because baseball is a game of like patterns like i was talking to um andrew chafin before the game and we were asking him about a shirt that he wears before every single game um wait the same shirt Every time. That's, okay, that's, it's, it's the failed starter shirt that I'm sure he might have seen

shape and wear, which is just an outstanding shirt. But Jesse brought back some, my, I think you did too. Like, this was mind-blowing to me that they come and tell me, he only has one of them. Yeah, it's just one shirt. He just wears the same shirt every single game. But he was telling me it's a game of patterns. It's a game of, you know, being comfortable in like what you do day in a day out. And so once you get into a routine when you're in the batting box of, you know,

and it's all this stupid. shit that we hate, like taking off your gloves, readjusting the straps, like, yeah, messing with your downstairs, like gripping your bat, like, messing with your downstairs. Have we considered that maybe, I don't know, this is a PG show. Have we considered that maybe some of the struggles in that have just been, they're trying to adjust to the shift being banned. They're trying to adjust to the pitch clock and not being able to step out and do their

routines. And like, they've gotten to a pattern of like always adjusting this glove and this glove. And they're like, you know, I don't know, maybe there's something to account for there. We don't know what the actual opinion. You know, we only know how they answer the questions, right? Yeah. But we don't know how, like, the overall opinion towards the new rules are. The only thing we know is that Merrill Kelly and Zach Allen have made it abundantly clear that they are not a fan of any of this new stuff, right?

Totally. And that's fine. But at the same time, like what you said, it makes me wonder how much it's bothering them considering how they're struggling early this season. Right. And I do wonder how much it's bothering the battery. as well. But, you know, I think the thing is is that we will wait to see. We will see, obviously, if they can hit their way out of this. And I kind of agree with you guys. I don't think this is something that's going to stick around for too long. Hopefully they can get back on

track. The rule changes or the... No, the Dibembacks. The rules changes are the rules on, okay. The struggles, those that people go, the rules changes are going on. Listen, if we're looking for someone to blame, I blame Rob Manfred, because he was the one who probably hired the schedule maker and the schedule maker screwed us by making us play the freaking gosh darn Dodgers and the Padres to open the season. So if we're looking for someone to blame, I just put the blame on Rob Manfred. That is my fail save. It never lets me down.

It works every single time. Just blame Rob Manfred. Wow. And the schedule maker. So as far as the schedule making goes, I do want to say on a point I was kind of making earlier, the DeBack's first few weeks are insane, right? You've got the Dodgers. Dodgers for four, Padres for two, Dodgers for four, Brewers for three.

You get the Marlins for three over, I guess this is next weekend. That's a little bit of a break. But then you get three on the road against the Cardinals and then four at home against the Padres. So those first three weeks are just crazy for the debacks. After that, though, from April 24th until the end of May, so literally we're talking almost a month and a half. depending on how you feel about the Philadelphia Phillies, you could make a case the debacks might not see a playoff team for well over a month. Thank God.

That is how drastic of a change it is. And yeah, to kind of bring this full circle, like there's no getting around how bad the numbers are pretty much across the board. The debacks have managed to go three and four, which I think is a testament to their fight in some of these really tough games. I'm saying. But the level of competition they're playing right now is extremely high. And once we see the other side of that, once we see a month straight of, you know, playing the Marlins and the A's and the Pirates and all these other teams, you wouldn't be shocked if this D-BAC team starts to look pretty good all of a sudden once they're no longer playing the Padres and the Dodgers and facing Dustin May and you Darvish every night, right?

DeBacks haven't faced one bad starter up to this point. Like maybe Ryan Weathers is the worst starter they face. I mean, you Darvish? Yeah, you Darvish is the worst. Like, none of these guys are bad at all. The debacks to face pretty much all, like, number one and number two starter types at this point. And that is going to change here in a couple of weeks. So I think it's important to kind of reserve your judgments about this team for a little while.

I definitely agree. Before we see them start to face some more balanced competition. Schedule maker was just like, we're going to demoralize the diamondbacks for the first month. Yeah, we're going to embarrass them. Have fun figuring that out. And then we're going to have this great comeback story for like a month after that. It's really weird. Brady Martin saying two opening days against Los Angeles dollars was just cruel.

Cruel. Like, cruel and unusual punishment. Yeah, it's pretty tough. Someone at Debex must have pissed off scheduled department at MLB. I'm saying, I'm saying, you guys, that's who we're blaming, okay? We're not blaming anyone else. We're blaming the scheduling department at mutually baseball. That's that.

I'm with it. I don't even know. Is that like a robot? Like, is there a natural? I have no idea how they do this schedule. I don't know. I don't know. Just rob me and for it's a fall.

I don't know. The Mariners played a very, very short baseball game, by the way. And it's just once again, a sub two hour game. A sub two hour. Wow. Even today's game was past. Yeah. What's crazy, though, is I did find out that like, even last year, there was a sub two hour game.

So it's not that uncommon to have this. Preciously short games. The shortest game in Major League Baseball history, Jesse, was like 30 minutes long. Yeah, yeah, I think we talked about this like a couple months ago. Yeah, I need to go back and look up the story of that game again. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, this game was two hours and 43 minutes, which might be the longest Diamondbacks game that we've seen so far. I'm not mistaken.

241 was the previous longest. Yeah, I think it was two 41 was one of those games that they played in San Diego. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, they're moving. They're moving. But we have your probabilities for the rest of the series right here. Arizona Diamondbacks. Again, we get that classic matchup again tomorrow of Clayton Kershaw versus Madison and Bum Gardner. The matchup nobody wanted. Also, Noah Cindergarde versus Zach Davies. That's going to be an interesting matchup, especially of two guys with very, very, very small ERAs. And then the youngsters, Michael Grove and Ryan Nelson go at it in the finale of this game. And I actually, I'm not as discouraged about the probabilities for the rest of the series as we were the first time, I think that. We played the Dodgers, right? Looking at those pitchers compared to our pitchers just makes me so sad.

It's not. Yeah. Walker Bueller is not there. Walker Bueller is not there. Yeah, because Michael Groves just there for Walker Bueller. And they're not getting Julio Urius. Oh my God. Noah Cindergarde is there five if Walker Bueller is healthy.

I'm not totally, I'm still not convinced that Noah Cindergarde is all that great. I mean, it wasn't really that great last year. So I think we need to reserve judgment on that a little bit. But yeah, Madison Bumgarner, it sounds like is going to start tomorrow. I know we were still waiting for an official word on that after, you know, he had some arm fatigue and his first start of the season was sent back to Arizona for some tests.

Those all came back clean. So Mad Bum, it sounds like is a full go for tomorrow night. And yeah, the Kershaw Mad Bum thing didn't go so well last time. Sure didn't. No, it did not. And yeah, I mean, at this point, at this point, if you win that game, you feel like you stole one. You know, like you won another one of those games that you probably had no business winning. That pitching matchup at this point is pretty lopsided.

Gabriel says, we really going to split the series with the Dodgers again? Hell yes, we are. That would be huge. That would be enormous. Brady Martin says, hey, totally random, but did they introduce Mark Malanson during pregame intros tonight? I swear I didn't see him. We did not see him. I did not see it.

But we didn't see Carson Kelly and we saw Corbyn Martin. They were both in slings and it brought a tear to our eyes. Yeah. That's kind of weird. I didn't notice that. I did not notice that. That's a great catch. It's possible that all of us just missed it, I guess.

No, I don't think. I was paying attention to the whole lineup and I didn't hear him. Because maybe they just would have been some booze, I'm sure. Corbyn Martin is out and get the best reception. Maybe they'll just announce that they de-fate them tomorrow and make everyone stay awesome. Corbyn Martin is out for the season and he was out there. Yeah, he was out there. Yeah.

But Mark Malanson is not necessarily out for the season and he wasn't. Corbin Martin and Corbin Martin and Carson and Kelly were paling around way too much about their arms being in slings. Yeah. Like I saw him at one point like, like, nudge him with his. I was like, no, I don't, no, that makes me sad. You guys were both too good to be on the shelf for as long as we're going to

live. The bullpen could use Corbyn Martin. The Corbyn Martin that we saw in spring training. 97 mile an hour down the corners, Corby Martin. It was the Corbyn Martin that you kind of hoped you'd see eventually. And, you know, you had no guarantees of what it was going to look like once the games counted. Corbin Martin hasn't really proven much in the regular

their season just yet. But what we saw looked pretty, looked pretty good. Speaking of a Corbyn, different one, Chris asked us, how do we feel about Corbyn getting dropped off by his parents? It got brought up a lot on TV.

Oh, fantastic. That was fantastic. It was great. My parents dropped me off at the ballpark every single day to do my job. I don't know about you guys. They give them a lunch. I get really jealous because like,

I'm very progressive over Jesse. So when I see his actual parents taking care of them, it makes me sad. It makes me feel inadequate. Like, I'm not doing a good enough job. as his work dad, uh,

that his real parents need to step in, right? That's like, that's, that's undercutting me, but, uh, Corbymore,

or Corby, Cormon, lots of Corbin. Lots of Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corby. Corby.

Corby. Corby. Corby. He really is. And that's just, that's just. That's it. Right.

We did you learn the story behind it, though, right? Yeah. It was it's a parent. He picked them up from the airport. He went to go get parents before the game and he just decided it was going to be easier to let them keep the car, uh, and drop him off.

I'll drop him off at Chase Field because he, there are out, they have to be here so early. There are like seven, eight hours in between when he gets dropped off and the actual game start. So I'm sure he told his parents to go, maybe drop their bags off,

maybe go get a drink or something to eat or something. But definitely was not him actually getting dropped off by the parents. Like the pictures are so cute though. It was like first day of school. It's adorable. Like have fun at your first day school. This is Corbyn Carol's first home opener. Yeah.

You know? She's been around in the big leagues for a while now, but he's never had this experience of having his name announced in front of the home crowd and everything like that. And they were, they were amped for him. But I did want to see his mom do that thing where she like goes like this. And then he has to put his foot up on her on her leg and then tie his shoe. I wanted to see that.

I almost had to do that for Mac. Yeah. It's like I have two kids over here. You are my work dad. You drove me to work today. I did drive me to a ballpark. And then I took her purse back to the office. because it was too heavy for her to carry.

Yeah. And it's very heavy. It is a luggage. It's in fact something that she needed help. He gave me a pen and a computer charger and a phone charger. You had my work, dad. This is why I love that much. And I'm going to take both of these kids to Octane Raceway at Mavericks.

That's where I'm taking my kids. We're going to have a fun time over there because we already had fun going out there and checking it out. I beat Jesse in bowling, even though he doesn't want to acknowledge it. We weren't. We weren't in direct competition. I will do it again. We were not in the same lane. Okay, but I kicked both y'all's ass on the go cards.

I didn't do the go cards I wasn't here for that I was so bad I should have been better at the go cards But I was trying to Mario card it Where I was like trying to hit the edges And I was trying to it didn't work out Green shell or Red Shell Oh it's I'm an expert with the green shells

I'm really good Really I'm really impressive more technically difficult But still I'm I'm fire with those But I'll tell you what is fire Octane Race Wade Mavericks Huge selection of beers All the variety of video games All the stuff you can do there

Bowling race go cards It's a block last. They have $15 domestic beer buckets. And more importantly, they got daily specials every day. Tomorrow's Friday, they got trivia night and rotating drink specials from 8 to 10. Trivia. Trivia. Everybody loves the trivia. So make sure to do that. Also, 50% off signature bowling before noon this weekend. Book some fun this spring at Octane Raceway and Mavericks. Cart racing, virtual reality, laser tag, axe throwing. See, Jesse won't go ax throwing with me. I don't think I'd go axed throwing with me. I don't think I'd go axed with Mikelowe, but that's a whole thing. You would probably come back severely injured or dead.

That's why I'm hesitant. Bowling arcade, food, drinks, so much more. You can watch all sorts of sports at Mavericks in the trophy room grill and patio, and you'll get a free $10 game card when you purchase an entree in the trophy room. Check out Octane Raceway.com and Mavericks.com to learn more. And if you want to not pay $40 for a baseball game, but you want to come out and watch these Arizona Diamondbacks, take on not only the Dodgers but the Brewers next week.

Make sure to do so using GameTime.com. time is the best place to procrastinate and get your tickets last minute, but also save some money. You can save up to 60% on tickets when you buy them last minute. And the best way to support us is by buying your tickets through the link in the description. It's an aesthetically pleasing app. It's got everything you need. And of course, the longer you wait, the cheaper tickets could get. So just procrastinate until the final moment and then get yourself some tickets. Get out and have some fun. At least more fun than we had tonight. I had a great time. I don't know what y'all are talking about.

Like I know the Diamondbacks lost, but I was vibed. I was having a great time. My entire mood is contingent on whether my sports team wins or loses. I mean that. You guys, we messed up, though. What would we mess up on? Something really awesome did happen in the minor leagues tonight. What?

Ronnie managed her first. Yay. She did a baseball team for the Hillsboro hops. So cool. So cool. Yes. Thank you, Tyler, for pointing that out in the comments. It really was a big moment.

Yeah. And she's just a tremendous, she's a tremendous coach that these players absolutely love. Love. Yeah. Absolutely love her. Every person you talked to who played for the hops when Ronnie was there as a coach, not the manager, but as a coach, nothing but amazing things to say about her. To see her work in the spring training camp and to be up here.

Yeah, she was out at DeBex camp one day. We got to talk to her for a while. Yeah, she was great. Great human. So congrats Ronnie. Yeah, there's some positives. What else you got, Justin? Yeah.

I just want to go through a couple stats from, from, from the Reno Aces real quick. Oh, sure. Please. I kind of screws through that because it was all sad news. There, yeah. You have more sad news? No, there's some positive.

I'll start with the positive stuff. All right. How about that? Diego Castillo offseason acquisition for the Diamondbacks 10 for 18 so far, hitting a 556. Not a bad start for him. Outside of that, offensively, buddy Kennedy played in three games. He's six for nine with two home runs.

Whoa, that's our buddy. Let's go, buddy. Buddy Kennedy continues to be very, very good. Pavin Smith, not off to a hot start. He's three for 16 at this point. So not a great start for him. Seth B. or two for 11.

But you can't really say like, oh, well, you know, look at how great Kyle Lewis is doing right now. Yeah. Kyle Lewis hit that home run and there was so much hype. And now you look up in his OPS is like 500. So it's pretty bad. On the starting pitching front,

Tommy Henry was the opening day starter for the Reno Aces. five innings four runs, one walk, four strikeouts, which is pretty decent for the, for the PCL in Reno. You got to do the Reno conversion map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's actually 1.35 B.R.A. Yeah, you're going to, yeah, guaranteed Cy Young winner. You're doing that.

Blake Walston started game two, only three and two thirds innings there, 72 pitches. He wasn't all that efficient. Only one hit, though, allowed in those three and two thirds innings, no runs. So it was a pretty good performance from him. Brandon Fott started game three for the Reno Aces. Fottman.

Seven strikeouts, no walks, but he gave up four home runs. Oh, no. Three and two, thirds inning, six hits, five runs, four dingers. Two of those were JJ Bladay, who's a really, really good prospect. So, you know, the level of competition at least was good there. I also looked at some of the data. Brandon fought through like 75% fastballs in that game, which was a little odd. Yeah, that's so unlike him.

Yeah, I'm not. And he wasn't having like control issues. from what we can tell. So it's a little weird why you threw so many four seamers. We'll continue to monitor that. Peter Solomon started game four, nothing particularly notable there. Slage Cicone started their most recent game three and two-thirds,

six runs. I tried to stop them. I really tried not to go down. I said I would start with the good news, which I did. It's terrible. Yeah. I mean, offensively,

there are other guys who have been good to. Blaze Alexander 364 with a 952 OPS. look pretty good so far. I would say the offense as a whole is just holding up fairly well. It's just the pitching side has kind of struggled early on. If you want to send him Twitter messages about him doing this to us again, he's a Jesse in Friedman. There you know.

That's where to find me. I've been on the positive pipe train all night. You have. And I appreciate that because even I feel like my happiness has been brought down a little bit by Jesse. But she's at Michaela E. Perkins, at Michaela E. Perkins on Twitter. If you want to send her. Follow me.

Messages. I'm so close to 10,000 followers. Oh, wow. So close. Let's get her there. I'm at Kappa underscore K, man with a K, of course. Damon Dog is at Damon. D-H-W-G.

Of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Bax, but all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We hope you guys all have a much better night than the Arizona Diamond Beck. We're shutting down the office guys. Yeah, they're shutting down. We're turning this lights off. But we thank you guys, again, so much for joining us. on behalf of everybody around here, we appreciate you guys, as always, and remember kids,

baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when your starting pitchers are actually good.