PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The Diamondbacks bullpen continues to give up runs in loss to the Giants

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

After improving the team with some low key trade deadline moves, the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to be exposed by their same weaknesses. In this case, it was Zac Gallen being less than great on the road and the bullpen once again giving up runs late in a loss to the Giants at Oracle Park. Jesse will join us once again from San Francisco with updates from the clubhouse and more!SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Go to https://birddogs.com/PHNX or enter promo code PHNX for a free Yeti style tumbler with your order.Go to https://saturdayneon.com and use code PHNX for 10% off your order today. Free shipping for orders over $200!Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Pins & Aces: Check out https://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. 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.

No, no, we're not dancing. We're not head flooding. We're not doing any of that. We're sad. It's been a long day, and we needed more of an effort than that. Welcome in to the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I'm trying to do whatever I can to help to team out with this purple monstrosity on my head.

I'm joined by Mr. Electric, Sean. Paz and Jesse Friedman, the one and only vice mayor of P.HNX, Dunderstick. He will be here later to join us with some updates from the clubhouse in San Francisco. Of course, as you saw, the Arizona Diamondbacks lose game two by a score of four to three. A frustrating loss, considering that the Diamondbacks were up three to nothing. There were quite a few things that you could say were frustrating in this game. We definitely thought everybody was back. We thought the boys were back.

We thought the defense was back. Things were looking good in this game. We thought Gallon on the road was back. And Gallon was solid until the final out of the sixth inning. And I think scrolling back up in the chat, Elise might have said it best where Zach Gallen did appear that he was going a little bit more for the strikeouts. Instead of pitching the soft contact,

felt like so many three and two counts. And I kind of agree with her on that. Zach Gallin's line isn't terrible. He didn't have a terrible outing on the road. This isn't one of those days where you would go back and say that this is entirely on Gowan. But he was one out from getting the Diamondbacks out of that jam. He got one out away from the game being scoreless and the Diamondbacks maintaining that three-run lead. Instead, he does give up the double and then the home run.

Zach Gowan goes six innings, gives up seven hits, three earned, one walk, six strikeouts. and it really did feel like this one was a game where everything for a while there was going the Diamondbacks way until it wasn't and then it felt like nothing was going their way right I mean this game felt like a microcosm of the entire season especially with the way it ended I mean shout out Col Wong his name came up today if you Cole Wong got picked off to end the World Series game

back when he played for the Cardinals that is right that's what that's I mean that's how the end of this game reminded But I mean, yeah, it felt like I said. It felt like a microcosm of the whole season. The first half was like everything was going pretty well. Galen was, he was pitching well on the road. It was a good sign. Then obviously you get Lordus Guriel to get a home run, which is, I mean, you get home runs

from two very unlikely suspects in Lorda Scuriel and Alec Thomas. Yeah. And you think everything is going your way. And then it felt like it. All of a sudden, the All-Star break comes slash the final third. of the six inning comes and all of a sudden it just every shit hits a fan and it gets bad real fast now you look at you where everything was good and all of a sudden you quite literally you kind of look up you're like oh oh no the game is tied now everything oh oh oh we're not we're not leading

the hell plus anymore yeah oh and oh oh there it goes um and shot's not being overreactionary at all, but he did say that they were back and that it was over at least six times. He declared the season dead. He declared them World Series champions. Things bounced around quite a bit around our office during this game. I can read my series of tweets because it is, let's go to your Twitter account. Lordus Curiel is back. You cannot stop what is coming. Then the boys are back. And then the boys are so effing back. And then I quote tweeted a graphic of the Cubs 20 to 9 win over the Reds, eat her heart out Cincinnati and said Cubs, D-BACs, NLCS incoming. And then I said the season is over.

And then I said, it's so over. And then I said, I can't believe that just happened, L-O-L. And then I said, it's Jover. Yeah, not at all overreacting here. We're not all at all, all over the place when it comes to this team right now. Are you also being toothpick guy right now? He is being fucking tooth pick. I guess I am.

I had, I had, we were, I was, he had his fucking music in while he was sitting here. Like he was listening to music Too cool for school, dude. He is ready to wrap this shit up five minutes after we introed the show. I was heating some illegal peach chips right before the show, which they're delicious, but not a good idea if you got to talk and you don't want stuff in your mouth. So I got the toothpick and I kind of just, I was,

I was, like others. I'm not naming names was locked in when I was when the show was getting started. So I kind of zoned out, kind of forgot that I had a toothpick. And now not naming names. There's only me and fucking Damon here. I didn't say either of those names. First off, they don't know who else is behind the camera.

There could be a host of people behind the camera. But then I'm out here by myself. I need someone else to blame. I may or may now take it a nap during that game. I don't know what's going on anymore. Look, I want you guys to sound off. Now I have to take it the toothpick for the record. Yeah, the toothpick is your full Scott Hall.

I mean, you're a toothpick guy. Unless you throw it in my face or Sean's face. That's the only acceptable answer. You better have one at all times. Yeah. Okay. It's a persona you have to live up to. So remind me for the next one.

Oh, this is not great. I don't like toothpick guys showing up. But here's what I will say is that you guys are free to sound off. We want to hear who you blame for this loss. But I've seen a lot of, I've seen this. I've seen this a lot. Oh, Hazen didn't want to trade for a starting pitcher. Was this starting pitcher going to take Zach Gowland's role in the rotation?

Can we fucking pump our brakes about what we're mad about right now? I mean, assuming that we're taking Gambo's word is gospel, which we have no reason not to, we know damn well that they were in on they wanted starting pitchers it's not like so to say that if you're going to say here in Blame Hazen you can't say you didn't try if you want to argue that he maybe should have

given up the farm for insert pitcher here then that's a different argument but you can't say it and try there's a lot of talk about blaming it on Christian Walker who's been very cold Corby Carroll has also been very cold you're not wrong about that

guys go through slumps it's no surprise at Corvin Carroll is having some sort of slump because this guy has just been incredible and it's an inevitability sometimes in baseball it's the reason why it's so hard at times to pick who's going to be the rookie of the year because these guys that are very good

tend to get up to the major league level and struggle until they can adapt. The diamond backs have too many guys kind of struggling still to adapt to their roles. They still have some questions about their bullpen, to be honest. I'm not going to say Zach Gallen wasn't responsible because, yeah, he was, again, one out. one pitch essentially away from getting out of it.

Scorless. That's one of the things where it, I feel like it hurts a lot more because of the way it happened. If Zach Gowan had given up three runs over six innings on the road, you'd be like, okay, that's, I mean, not good. You want better from him, but. But it's not a disaster. It's not a disaster.

The way it happened was disastrous for damn short. Mikel Gale Castro did give up the go-ahead run in the fall. Jack Strauss. McEl Castro. Miguel Castro, who has not. We want to talk about guys that have not been good lately. Miguel Castro has not been good lately. Miguel Castro has started the season through June 2nd. This is courtesy of our friend Jack Summers.

He, through June 2nd, he in 25 and a third innings pitch, had a 2.13 ERA, 22 strikeouts, and one home run allowed. Since June 2nd, in 19 innings pitch, he has a 6.63 ERA, 14 strikeouts, and 5 home. runs allowed. So it feels like Miguel Castro is not really effective out of the bullpen. And of course, that's kind of the key this year. The Diamondbacks bullpen continues to struggle to be able to hold game to scoreless. We were talking about it, right? We come in here. These guys are all blaming Zach Gallen and I lost my shit. At what point does a major league bullpen not get blamed, not get not be the focal point when they can't hold a single game.

scoreless like i know they did once i know yesterday they were pretty good but 22 out of the last 24 games they've at least given up one earned run or more and in most cases it's more uh tonight it was a critical one that allowed the san francisco giants to win i mean at a certain point this is just like you got this is you got to live with reality like you can get mad at the the bullion all you want but if they're giving up a run every game you got it you can fuck they're giving up a run every game Do more, do more offense, right? More offense, hit the ball more. Yeah, like, like, you can't make the base running mistakes that you made.

You can't, and I mean, sure, the bullpen going, what do you say, 20 for 21? It was like 22 out of their last 24. They'd give it up at least one run or run. Like, that's unacceptable, obviously. I'm not trying to sit here and necessarily excuse the bullpen for being dog shit. But, like, I think the reality is that you, like, that's what the team is at this point. You got to deal with that, I guess.

I mean, yeah, I'm just saying, though, it's one of the things that when you start to look at what's costing the team and where things are, where, you know, it's hard for them to, you know, it's a trickle down effect, right? It's hard for them to constantly think about coming back when the deficit continues to get bigger. It's hard for them to come back when they feel the game was tied

and they had a chance to win it. and the bullpen blows it and gives up the run so that they go ahead. There's just a lot of things there. And again, when we talk about the way that some of the guys are struggling, right? Like Christian Walker, Corbyn Carroll, a lot of that is just pressing, right? Just feeling too much pressure,

putting too much pressure on yourself and each at bat to go out there and get the job done and not just trying to get a hit, not trying to get the ball and play. It's almost like what, again, what we said earlier about Zach Galen, going out there and worrying so much about the strikeout or trying to, you know, finesse the guys in a way

instead of just trying to pitch to contact a bit and get out of the inning. But the offense did make some big mistakes today. Yeah, they had a nice little run there with some solo homers. But as far as, you know, adding to the lead or getting that lead back, they made the two biggest mistakes late in the game. Jason gets his first hit for the Diamondbacks, gets on base with a lead off single,

and then immediately gets caught stealing in the eighth. Like in that situation with no outs, why are we? What are we doing? We need the base runner, man. Yeah, we need the run. We just needed to get the run in. And then obviously the biggest mistake is Raldo Podomo getting picked off at first there to end the game. That, I mean, yeah, that's just, that simply just cannot happen.

You can't, and I mean, he got backpicked. Like, you get out that, that cannot happen. Rookie catcher, I believe, too. Yeah. Rookie catcher. Bailey. Yeah. And I mean, not like Rolfo Pardromo is a season of that, but still, that, that cannot happen at a major league level.

That never happened to me in Little League. I never, that didn't happen to me growing up. Well, and they pointed out on the broadcast. I mean, it's just his reaction, essentially. It's not like he was far off the base. They just, they got him. They just got him. And, I mean, in this case, you just can't not be paying attention like that.

You can't, you can't not expect a, you know, catcher to try to get that out, you know, we saw tonight a game where we had a walk off Bach and the Mets lose due to a walk off Bach due to a weird situation where they tried to call time without a timeout left and they had a problem with the pitchcom system. There's, you know, again, not a lot of people are sad that the Mets lost. And I don't even think the Mets are sad that the Mets lost. But at this point, yeah, we don't, we don't want to see games lose like this. The quotes from Scherzor about his conversations with the front office about how they were like,

yeah, we're not even, we don't even plan on winning next year. They're like, it's, this is a couple years down the road, probably 2026 that we're looking to be contenders. And I was like, oh, you know, that makes sense why you want it out. That's just absolutely wild to me because that is the type of perspective or outlook I would expect from this franchise. There's on a diamond bag. It's also not a team like the Mets that went out and spent as much as they did this past

opsies. But I mean, it's also like, yeah, I mean, it's also what happens when you spend a shit ton of money without really going through that you skip a bunch of steps he's right to shit money and it blows up in your face you're like ah not going to make that mistake again i guess i got to do this the right way if you say um if you say skip the steps three times uh dnvr nuggets fans will pop up in our podcast feed so i mean that's always a fun thing to say but skip the steps don't do it stop it no anyway um yeah shirzer did go scorched earth on the met's of course um nicholas gruders wants to talk about how bad carson kelly is oh my i don't

I don't want to, but you're not. So somebody had a tweet that said basically Carson Kelly's bad at everything right now, and that couldn't be more accurate. Carson Kelly hitting 167 with a 406 OPS. How is he still getting at bats on a major league team? Well, right now, it's due to a lack of catchers. It's due to a lack of bodies. Right now, it's because, you know, our Gabby, Gabby Moreno is injured, right?

if we can get this guy back hopefully things look better because Moreno for a guy that wasn't going to be our full-time catcher was going to share time with Carson Kelly that has pretty much won that job fairly decisively so I don't know what the diving backs do with Carson Kelly when all of this is said

and done because he just he's got such a long body dude he's so tall and lanky every time he stands up from behind the home plate it makes me uncomfortable he's just made a lot of mistakes later like long torso people should not be allowed to be catchers because then the chest protector, when they stand up,

it's just like at like the, they're like third rib, and it looks like it's meant for a toddler. Yeah. Goot. Yeah. All right. Well, he's definitely not our king's snake of the game, but our king snake of the game is that purple-haired menace himself,

Lordus Guriel Jr. For hitting his first home run in almost a month, July 7th was the last time, Lordus Gurriel. I was a different age. I was a whole different age. I was a whole different age. How old were you one? 24 back then.

24 back when he hit his last one? So long ago. I'm well in the year 25 now. You're so much wiser now since that last home run. I got a toothpick now. Yeah, your toothpick guy. You got a gimmick, basically. Yeah, I got a thing at 25.

It looks in this picture like he's praying to the king snake. Like he is like, all hail, all hail the king snake. Maybe if we pray to the king snake a little more, we'd have a better offense. This is the prey. You got to cost arms like that. I don't know. I don't know. But I will say thank you guys.

for being here right now in the PHNX YouTube channel. If you are a Diverback's fan, you suffer through that and you somehow want more baseball. God bless you. Thank you for being here. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already. Sign up for notifications. That way, don't miss when any of our shows go live. Leave us a thumbs up just to let us know you're an actual

human being here watching and not a bot. Also, if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, please subscribe to us there as well. Leave us review. We always appreciate, you know, the feedback. But least is absolutely right. Catell Homer number 100 was a close runner

up for sure. Catell continues to be honestly the spark plug in this team that really doesn't have much else going on offensively. Not to say that he's as good as Devin Booker was at basketball, but for us I feel like he's damn near at Devin Booker's status where he has to do something special to

earn it. Yeah. Yeah. Which I mean I guess Home run 100. Home run 100. Yeah, we probably fall asleep at the wheel with that one. We were just so happy that Lord is his back. It was back. Yeah, I mean, none of us have our hair styled after that of Cadellmarty so um lord is lord is showing up finally is i probably could you definitely could um but i don't think so i don't have that much i don't have this like you got to have a certain amount of money to pull off hair like that's fair because you got to have

everything that goes with it and i don't got everything that goes yeah there's a lot of chains involved and stuff a pretty nice car um that does have expired you know like an mowly contract like being a professional athlete helps yeah that's true i am not that that Diamondbacks did win a baseball game yesterday, which we have not really talked about. No, they didn't. No, they really did. I know it's hard to believe, but they did win a baseball game yesterday. And part of that is Ryan Nelson was pretty damn good in that baseball game.

He went six and two-thirds innings, gave up five hits, two and runs, three walks, and one strikeout. One strikeout part doesn't instill a lot of confidence in Ryan Nelson. But I will say Ryan Nelson is part of the starting rotation. And considering that we didn't see the Diamondbacks make a move for his starting pitch, sure he will be a part of the starting rotation. Kind of has to be. Him, Tommy Henry, Zach Davies, Brandon Fought. Some combination of these guys needs to make up the back end of the starting

rotation for the Arizona Diamondbacks. But I guess with an outing like he had in game one, does it give you confidence about his place in the starting rotation? And considering we know that, yes, he has his bad outings every now and again, but it feels like Ryan Nelson has been able to be at least somewhat stable for this team. I mean, it's the home road splits, man. I don't, it's, it's wild, right? It's too much for me.

He's so good on the road. To say that, like, am I confident in him? It's, it is genuinely a different answer depending on where the game is being played at this point. The sample size is too large. He's bad at home, really good on the road. I don't understand it. So if we're on the road, like, they were yesterday, obviously, then I'm all in. I, yeah.

And I think in general, like, you're asking a guy in the back of your lineup to, to give you very like I think throughout like I think you've seen performances from Ryan Nelson at the back of the lineup that were better than what you would expect from a back in the lineup pitcher yeah at times and if you can get that basically every time he's not pitching at home I think you I think you would take that like in general if you're just asking like hey every other game basically he's pitching above average I think you can live with that so I mean again I'm not trying to flip-flot because, like I said before, the trade deadline, I do think, I don't think they're necessarily, like, in a position to, I don't think this rotation is good enough for them to, like, do damage in the postseason.

But in general, like, I think Ryan Nelson can be pretty effective. He's getting better than Zach Davies. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. There's discussion in the chat about Austin Adams getting hurt. Austin Adams did take a line drive off of, I believe, his right leg is, like, calf, right above his ankle, right above his ankle.

Um, we hope he's all right too because, man, that, like, the, the way, the way that he just stopped, like, just signified to me how much pain he was in. Yeah, that was like a certain, like, you didn't even swear nothing. Yeah. Like, and, and I, I would argue that he is the single toughest man in the face of the planet. Um, I think he's probably tougher than literally anybody else. Broke, broke something and then just stood there. Like he did.

just kind of hunched over the way you would. He, you saw that man put his arms over other people and hobble off of the field. Yeah. That was, I mean, jokes aside, like, yeah, it, he does seem like a pretty tough fucking dude. No, he absolutely goes. Like that and have to come out of the game. It's definitely pretty concerning. I mean, yeah, I mean, from a baseball perspective, it's not like he was, you know, our closer or anything like that.

No, no, I get you. on that but i mean definitely the bullpen is not jameson Tommy yeah it's not it is it's tough to be to see a body go down uh in with this pitching staff regardless of who it is so

uh well the dime the diamondbacks did send down uh peter straslecky their new uh relief pitcher that they just got so if he does spend time uh on on the i l they could recall peter stras leckey you also have Carlos Vargas and justin Martinez which are all on the current 40 man

roster. So those most likely would be the options to go to. And now we know that the trade deadline has come and gone. So we know that honestly, there's nobody else really coming to save the Arizona Diamondbacks. They could look to the miners. They could look to call someone up. But at this point, it feels like they will not be doing that. Also, Tommy Fam right now is currently technically in the minors as well for the Arizona Diamondbacks. So just an interesting thing. in regards to that. As far as roster moves go, Paul Seawald and Jase Peterson were both activated

and available tonight. Jase Peterson played. Joe Mantiply was recalled from AAA Reno. Paul C-Wald famously did not play, despite, we wanted it so bad. We wanted to see it so bad. We were,

I mean, we might be even at fault for that. We were just hoping for our first appearance. Everybody, Jesse sent us a text about how nice it would be to see it. I said that gallon was shoving. We all, we were all, we all bought in. We all messed up and we have to all take responsibility for that together. Blaming this guy.

Okay. Anyway, that's crazy. Yeah, no, that is crazy. But it's crazy you want to share responsibility with the rest of the- Ladies and gentlemen, your mayor. Yeah, that's right. That's what I do. That's what politicians do.

They just throw people under the bus for their own careers. I mean, I could talk about how good the bullpen was last night. We want to talk about that? No, do we not care anymore? Hitless in four and one-third. innings of work. Hitless. Pretty good. I don't know who that bullpen was and this bullpen was, but the only run that scored was the ghost runner after two walks and a wild pitch happened. Kevin Ginkle absolutely got

robbed on a fucking strike three call. This umpire deserves to be arrested and thrown in jail. And I know he's usually the king of hyperbole on these things. But if you take a look at this call, I think you all agree that this umpire deserves to be found, arrested and charged with some sort of fraud for this. Yeah, I didn't see this pitch live. So I looked at my phone and I was like, oh, no, oh, okay, the app messed up. I thought the app most certainly messed up. Well, no, no, no, not at all. Ended up costing the diving backs run in nearly the game,

but the diving backs do win that game in extra innings and 11. Offense was fairly non-existent last night as well. Offense continues to be fairly non-existent in this game. They had the dingers and, of course, they were nice, but yeah, the Diamondbacks just couldn't muster up much, which is becoming a problem, and which is also why Tommy Pham is coming to save the day. And again, very excited to finally be joined by the one and only Jesse Freeman

to talk about Tommy Fam joining this team and maybe giving some sort of jolt to the offense. Did Jesse go away? Where's Jesse? Jesse! Welcome, sir. There I am. This one was a bit.

heartbreaking tonight, my friend. Yeah, tough, tough to see it end the way that it did, right? Geraldo Prudomo getting picked off the first base. That's not, that's no way for a playoff team to be ending a game. And Patrick Bailey, the San Francisco Giants catcher, I don't know if he's the second coming of Buster Posey, but the man has an arm. And the Diamondbacks tested it probably way too much in this game. He threw out two attempted base Steelers. And then of course he got Herald of Pardomo there. I'm sure you guys have already talked about it. But Tori coming out and saying, you know, can't happen times infinity talking about that

play. You know, that's a, that's a fairly strong statement. And obviously, he's right. I mean, that's something that you just can't have happen at this level. And, you know, even if Pardomo doesn't get picked off first, who's to say what happens from there? But the optics were very poor on that play. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's the fun. It's the classic. you can't let a game end on that, right? On the base path. That's the base path thing just can't happen. And of course, the other thing that the broadcast pointed out

was it wasn't even like Perdomo was really caught trying to take a few extra feet or had a big lead or something. It just felt like it was his reaction. It was a great play by Patrick Bailey. And it was a really shitty way to lose a baseball game when it felt like they at least had a chance.

Now, Christian Walker, we all know, has not been very good as of late. But I think we all would have loved to see Christian Walker at least make that final out instead of Pardomo, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, this has kind of been a running trend for the Diamondbacks for a while where they're just making these uncharacteristic mistakes or mistakes, at least that we thought were uncharacteristic. Now they've become so commonplace in the last few weeks that I don't know if you can really even still say that this is uncharacteristic. Like this is kind of the team the Diamondbacks have been for a while where they just have made a lot of mistakes on the base paths. And, you know, we saw that again today. Ultimately, again, I don't know if the game necessarily came down to that.

But the Diamondbacks are, I don't think they're quite at the point of, you know, being able to be so much better than opposing teams where, you know, they can afford to make those little mistakes. They've been a team when they were good where they had to do all of those little things right in order to, you know, stay in the position that they were in. And we just haven't seen that version of this team in a while. One thing we can say isn't to blame tonight is the Diamondbacks not hitting with runners in scoring position because they didn't have any runners in scoring position in this game, Jesse. And again, we talked about the offense and, you know, needing some sort of injection of life. Tommy Fam has been added to this roster and gives the Diamondbacks an option for a right-handed bat

as well as just some versatility for Tori Lavolo to go to. So what are your thoughts about what Tommy Fam brings to this team? And could they maybe have needed him and used him a little bit tonight? Yeah. I mean, I guess you never know what happens in this game. If Tommy Fam is in the lineup, I guess. I think it's a pretty big acquisition for the Diamondbacks. This offense has really needed a jolt for a while.

And I know we tweeted out his baseball savant page. We got it right here. Yeah, there's a lot of red. There's a lot of red on this thing for Tommy FAMM. So his average exit VILO, I believe, is up over 93 miles an hour, which I think is far and away the highest of any Diamondbacks player now with him in the fold. That's not Tommy Fams. That's Lurtuses.

Oh, that's Lurtys. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's a huge difference. Yeah, that's why I wanted Lourdes is in here because when you compare it to Lordus Curiel's. One of them looks a lot prettier than the other. Let's do a little back and forth there, Damon. Can we go a little back and forth between those two?

I mean, my goodness. Yeah, things are great for Lourdes, but things are pretty good for Tommy Fam. And yeah, I mean, as far as a step up, that definitely seems like a step up for them as far as a right-handed corner outfielder. Yeah, I mean, and even when Lourdes was at his best, earlier in the year. I don't know if you ever saw this much red on his baseball spot page.

So it's really impressive. I mean, Tommy Fam is 35 years old. And from everything I've heard, an outstanding clubhouse presence, a really hard worker, you know, the kind of guy that I think others will gravitate towards. So yeah, you know, a huge addition for the Diamondbacks theoretically. And I don't think he's necessarily just a platoon guy. I think there's a good chance you see him in there pretty regularly against Ritey's as well. He's putting up some of his best offensive number since 2019, and that was on a Mets team that wasn't really doing very much. And honestly, a Mets team that wasn't relying on Tommy FAM to be a big offensive presence,

at least in theory, based on the roster that they had. But he was honestly one of their better offensive players. So I feel like even though a lot of Diamondbacks fans are kind of discounting this move, that Tommy Fam really could be a difference maker for this team. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when it's all set and done, you know, Paul Seawald is great, but as you saw tonight,

a closer is only great if you can get to him. If you actually have a lead for him to protect in the ninth inning, and, you know, hopefully the Diamondbacks are still able to find those situations down the stretch. But for a guy like Tommy Fam, you know, he has an opportunity to have an impact on this team day in and day out. You know, I expect him to play pretty. regularly, as I said before.

So who knows? Maybe Tommy Fam is actually the biggest, the biggest move that the Diamondbacks, you know, made at this trade deadline when it's all said and done. I mean, you said that, like, you don't really know if Tommy Fam would have made a difference.

But let's be honest. Jack Peterson might not even opted to show up to the baseball stadium if Tommy Fam was in the lineup tonight, Jesse. Fantasy football. season is right around the corner. He doesn't want any of that smoke. So I'm just saying you never know how these trades can ultimately impact baseball games. But we got a fantasy league coming. I'm a I'll go Tommy fam on somebody if I have to. Yeah, I'm one of we're playing Jesse this year. Jesse's in the league. And I can't wait. I can't wait to slap the shit out of Jesse once something goes

wrong in this fantasy league. But I know I know nothing about football. So I'm going to be heavily. I'm going to be I don't know much. I have not the cardinals have been so miserably terrible in the last couple of years that I have like hardcore disengaged. So I'm going to be heavily relying on the PH and X DBAX Discord in order to help me out. Hey, no, no, no, no, no, no, not. Not, not, not. Not without a fight, you're not. Yeah, because I, they, they'll see who.

We'll see who's loyal to who because I'm in this league as well. I'm not letting you use our discord to your advantage. Oh, anyway. I'm sure the clubhouse mood wasn't great tonight, but you got a chance to talk. to Paul Seawald and Jase Peterson and things before the game. What was the mood with those guys? How did they feel about joining this team? And what were your thoughts on meeting the newest members of the team?

Paul Seawald is a great interview. The kind of guy that I think fans will really, really, really like. We posted a clip of him on social media where I asked him during that interview, you know, what is it about your fastball that allows it to play so well up in the strike zone? It only averages 92 miles an hour. And so he talked about, you know, how he's made some adjustments in the last few years that have led to that. And yeah, he basically talked about how one of his favorite things is to blow a 90 or 91

mile an hour fastball by guys and just have them look up at the scoreboard and be wondering what the heck just happened. And that's kind of what he's done. It's not rocket science with Seawald. He's throwing this fastball up in the zone over and over and over again. And he's throwing his slider sweepers pitch down in the zone. Guys know what's coming and they just can't hit it anyway. And that's kind of exactly what you're looking for in a closer is pitches that are just so good

that hitters just have no answer for them, even if they know exactly what's coming. And I think Paul Seawald is going to be that guy. And yeah, I mean, just getting to meet him for the first time. just very, very friendly and like I said earlier, a guy I think fans are really going to enjoy. Are we being overly critical about the importance of this series? I know we sent you out there to San Francisco, so that kind of immediately shows our hand a bit.

But this feels like this series, especially after tonight's loss, really can be kind of the final tipping point. We've talked about other kind of measurements and things along the way, but this one feels very, very critical for this team. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be like overly dramatic. I mean, you still have two months of baseball left to play, but it is really important. I mean, the Diamondbacks have been, as we've been talking about, kind of in a free fall here for for about a month, just not at all playing nearly as well

as we saw in the first couple months of the season. And I mean, if they continue to play like they have over the last. month for another week or two. Like, yeah, you're talking about a team that's sort of well outside of the wild card picture at that point. So I don't want to make it sound like, you know, the debacks have to win the series or have to split the series or the season is over or anything like that. But the way this team is trending, I think it's really important that they get some

momentum back and got a little bit of it yesterday, but then gave some of that back today. In those two months, I feel like I can count on one hand the series that I feel more confident about outside of the upcoming series with the twins two series with the rockies a series against the Mets and a series against the White Sox you say that but it's got swept by the Mets I am saying I mean that like if I'm if I'm being honest outside of those series everybody else is a contender everybody else is a good team you got the Cubs playing absolutely out of their minds coming in the final, you know, month. You got the Astros where the Diamondbacks wrap up their season against. You got the Orioles coming to town. You have two more series with the Dodgers.

You have to play the Reds. You have to play the Rangers. You have to play the top Padres twice. Like, there are a lot of tough series coming up. And I don't want to, you know, start panicking about, you know, any of this. But like, again, this, this series feels like the beginning of just kind of, you know, a gauntlet that they have to run here of playing very, very good teams. What we've seen so far this season is that they have not been very good against very good teams. So that's the thing that should, I mean, that doesn't give me a lot of confidence going forward. That was the narrative early in the season, right? The devacts were just kind of running over the Rockies and the tigers and the royals and, you know,

feeling pretty good about themselves. And rightfully so. I mean, they were taking care of business against some of the not as good teams around the league. That's what you're supposed to do. But they didn't really prove themselves against the better teams in the league early in the season. I know they started off pretty well against the Dodgers and the Padres in that first couple weeks of the year. But outside of that, they didn't really demonstrate much against some of the better teams in the league while they were so hot over the first few months of the year. And you're right.

Like, looking forward, this schedule, it feels kind of ridiculous. It's not that all of these teams are, you know, in the World Series, you know, they're not World Series favorites necessarily. They're not top two or three teams in the league. But a lot of these teams, pretty much all of them are in the mix for the playoffs. They're significantly better teams than the kinds of teams that the Diamondbacks are beating early in the season. And I think that's a big takeaway from this year. Like there is a huge gap between playing the Tigers or the Royals and playing even teams just like the Giants who aren't that great. They are flawed in their own ways, but the Giants are just a way better team than who the D-Backs are beating up on earlier in the year.

Yeah, that's a great point. Well, Jesse, we will be back tomorrow with another post-game show. So, Jesse will be joining us. In the meantime, make sure to follow Jesse on Twitter at Jesse N. Friedman. That's F-R-I-E-D-M-A-N. And you can keep up to date on everything going on with the Diamondbacks. Of course, more from the clubhouse and everything else, Jesse. Good luck with the Seagulls.

out there. Make sure to eat plenty of good food. Like at least one lobster roll. Don't miss your flight tomorrow. Don't miss your flight. No, it's Thursday. Thursday. I'll remind you not to miss your flight. Remember, flying home over baseball. I know you, I know you'd rather choose the other way, but we want you home over staying until the end of the baseball game. I mean, honestly, you guys sort of control that because the last thing I'm going to do on Thursday before catching my flight is hopping on our post game show. So, well, if I miss my flight, you better not miss your fall. You better not miss your damn flight.

for our show. Yeah, that's crazy. We can take care of it. Then Dick Mountain has been traded. There's no jokes to be made. I mean, we can make plenty of Dick Mountain jokes without you here. So that would be fine as well. But Jesse, take care.

We'll see you tomorrow. All right. See you guys. Well, that's all we got for today. We're all baseballed out for this day. And we will go forward. Of course, hopefully we get to see Paul Seawalt tomorrow's game. Make his first close for the Arizona Diamondbacks because we need.

need to see him throw baseball. In the meantime, you can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore K-Man with the K. This absolute maniac next to me is at Sean underscore to pause. The maniac behind the Mac, he is Damon, and he is at Damon Dog with the DAWG. Of course, we are Damon's dogs. Make sure to follow us at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys so much for being Arizona Diamondbacks fans and being with us here. tonight except that one Giants fan in the comments. No, but okay, real quick, I respect it though, saying Patrick Bailey is better than anyone on the Devex, not named Corbyn Carroll. Like, at least you recognize that Corbyn Carroll is different. At least you recognize that. I mean, you're still wrong, but at least you recognize Corbyn's different. Yeah, whatever, but it's only because our other Dodger troll isn't here tonight, so we

appreciate you being here, I guess. But we appreciate you guys always being here. On behalf of this crew, we thank you for your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you don't end game getting picked off at first fucking base.