PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - The weirdest thing happened to Zac Gallen in his spring training debut for the Arizona DIamondbacks

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

 Zac Gallen made his spring debut for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and you will never believe the new twist to the pitch clock from today. We are also discussing if the shorter games are going to impact concession sales and who we got in the World Baseball Classic.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Our next PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch is LIVE! Join us on Friday, March 24th for a night of golf, food, drinks, contests, prizes, and more. Come hang with the PHNX crew, fellow Suns’ fans and Diehards as we watch KD, Booker, and the Suns battle in the final stretch of the season as they take on De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the Sacramento Kings.Checkout the PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch Eventbrite to reserve your spot today. And Diehards, check Discord for your exclusive discount link!Circle K: Text code “PHNX” to 31310 to win a $500 gas card! Limit one entry per person—limit of one entry per phone number. The offer is valid for Arizona residents only. Must be able to verify the place of residence. This contest is administered at the discretion of the Grand Canyon Division of Circle K Stores. Circle K Store Inc. is a part of Alimentation Couche-Tard. You must be 18 years of age or older to win. For questions about this contest or our stores, text ”CARE” to 31310.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxOGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXBB15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save big on the best furniture in the Valley when you head to https://morfurniture.com!Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. 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.

Happy Galentine's Day to you all. And welcome into another edition of the PHNX feedbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name, of course, is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This guy is my vice mayor. He is also always known as the Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. It's a good thing that Cactus League games don't count. Diamondbacks last couple days. Not great.

Not great. to the A's today. I think it was 144 the last time the Diamondbacks played the A's. I don't know why you're bringing a bullshed. None of these games matter though, Derek. That's the beauty of the whole thing. You're right. But what does matter is that Zach Gallen was on the mound today for the Arizona

Diamondbacks making his Arizona Spring Cactus League debut. But of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. America's top rated sportsbook app. Yeah, Zach Gallen wasn't great today. But of course, his outing was really weird. Oh, so weird. What would we expect from a spring training game with Zach Gallen pitch clocks, weirdness being taken out and brought back in, what, three times?

Three times, yeah. So Zach Gallin plugging away in the first inning, kind of struggling through a lot of pitches. I think he got into the mid-20s. The Diamondbacks got the bullpen up at that point. But he finishes the first inning at 27 pitches, comes back out for the second inning, gets the first inning, gets the first two outs of the inning,

and then the diamondbacks remove him, put in the reliever. And then you think maybe the start is done, maybe it's an inning in two-thirds. He was at 40 pitches, I want to say, at that point. He comes back in for the third inning. He gets one out, gets taken out from the game, another reliever comes into replace him. And you figure at that point, okay, now, now the start is done.

But the start was not done, Derek. He comes back out for the fourth inning. And then Tori Lavello, after he walks the first, batter the fourth inning comes out and remove Zach Gallen from the game for the third time, which is, I don't know, like the optics of that are honestly kind of hilarious. Like, I think everybody knows that there's like maybe a slight, I don't want to say embarrassment factor necessarily, but like when you're on the mound and you're struggling and your manager comes out to remove you, it's not exactly like your brightest moment, right?

No, no. It's kind of a spring game, especially like we were talking about the extra royals lineup, no knock to the guys on the lineup. But, you know, of course, there are several guys on all of these lineups, all these starting lineups that aren't even going to make the major league roster. So for these pitchers to struggle at times against, you know, these particular guys, again, they're all quality hitters. They wouldn't be here if they weren't. But it does add, like Jesse said, just a little bit to the embarrassment fact. You want to go out there and have a good showing. You kind of want to go out there and just deal, considering you know, that they're not

taking it too seriously either. But, Yeah, the Diamondbacks haven't been doing so great lately. Zach Gallen pitched parts of four innings, and he only actually threw two innings in the box score. He wound up ultimately getting six outs. It wasn't a great outing in the box score for Gallin, three hits, four runs, four walks. There really wasn't anything about it that was all that great. I'm going to be honest.

What was the main problem? It seems like control was his main problem. Yeah, he was, and he told us afterwards that he talked with the home plate umpire about some calls. He felt there were a few pitches that maybe should have been in the zone that were not called that way. But yeah, his command was just a little all over the place. His velocity did dip noticeably throughout the game. First inning, it was mostly 92-93, comes out for the second inning, 91-92. And I think by the time he came out for the fourth inning, he threw an 88-mile-hour fastball in the fourth inning.

But, yeah, it wasn't a huge, crazy drop-off. I asked him about it after the game. He wasn't too concerned about that. He thought that, you know, that'll just come with time maintaining the VLO deeper into the game. But, yeah, he didn't seem too concerned about anything. So I guess that's the positive here. We have some words from Zach on how he felt after the game. Yeah, no, I mean, it felt good to be out there with another uniform out there.

Kind of get a real thing. But, yeah, I mean, everything felt pretty good. I felt pretty good, I felt pretty good, probably was coming out of my hand good. Just, you know, obviously some early season just fine-tuning and whatnot, whether or not. feel pretty good. Brett Johnson in the comments asked why did they wait so long to get him some spring games? They actually didn't. He was pitching on the back lot.

They just didn't have him pitching against opponents in spring training games. I think the idea there is twofold. One, they know Zach Allen is going to make this team. There's no concern over him not making this team. So it really is probably more about him not being seen by the opposition too much during spring. You know, kind of hiding him a little bit just so that, you know, They don't get that much information on him. But there could also be other reasons.

Like it could be just the way they want to control the conditions, which they could do in a backlock game much more. Obviously, like Jesse just described, they can do whatever the hell they want in a spring training game. Bring guys in, bring them out. I was wondering. Can they even add extra outs and stuff like they used to do some of those games? Extra outs. Yeah, like we want to go another out. Like, you know, some of those.

That I haven't seen. They do weird shit. But no, yeah. I think that's more of like, you know, the exhibition games that they play out there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They'll go crazy on like backlock games where they'll, you know, send hitters back up for the second time in a row. The B game with Ryan Nelson, I'm sure was something weird like that.

Yeah, they did. Actually, yeah, Ryan Nelson did pitch in a B game against the Texas Rangers today. And Tori explained to us, the thing happened this morning, Tori explained to us that the Rangers had some of their big league hitters in that game. and they cycled the big league hitters to the top for every inning, I believe. So Ryan Nelson saw like a very odd. It wasn't really a real baseball lineup. He just kind of kept seeing the same hitters over and over again. But yeah, Tori kind of described it in a positive light.

Teo Mackie from the Arizona Republic tweeted out the exact pitching line for Ryan Nelson in that game. Two and two-thirds innings, three hits, four runs, six strikeouts, one walk, E through 38 pitches. So not a great. Not a great line. I mean, the six strikeouts, I guess, is pretty nice. But yeah, still not an outstanding outing for Ryan Nelson from the box score perspective. In all transparency, Jesse was out at Salt River Fields.

Teo was out at a surprise, which I will not go to. No, Teo was out at Salt River Field. Oh, was he? Yeah, Tori, during the pregame press conference, Tori didn't remember off the top of his head what Ryan Nelson's pitching line was. See, nobody wanted to go to a surprise. Nobody wanted to go to surprise. I mean, I don't know if media are even allowed to watch B games. Oh, yeah, we are.

Absolutely. All right. See, Derek's teaching me about my job right here on the show. Nobody wants to. And another thing is that Jesse was out Silverfields while I was engaged in a battle between my coworkers playing game show games at a wonderful facility here. It was actually a really cool team-building event. And even though my team lost, I'm proud to say I was the end.

MVP of that team. The MVP of the losing team, Derek. I did my part is all I'm saying. I played my part. Damon can attest to this. He doesn't want to, but he can attest to this.

I think both Derek and Owen were both very good for our team. Owen was pretty good. I was particularly bad. Yeah, Damon was not good. Yeah, Damon was not good. Max was also pretty terrible. They fucking,

okay, they asked us, okay, surveyed, uh, which, Muppet would you want on your fantasy basketball team. This guy over here is like, Gonzo, Gonzo, Gonzo.

He comes with Fossey Bear. Because everyone else says. Fosy Bear doesn't even have a perimeter game, let alone can he defend in a post? What the fuck are you talking about? Gonzo is a goddamn, he's a stuntman. He would be ejected out of a cannon to dunk the ball constantly throughout the game and you know it.

The chickens would be cheerleaders. It writes itself. Why do I even have to explain this to people? It drives me notes. I know Gonzo was the right answer. I knew it was. But also, isn't Gonzo a bad stunt man? Isn't that like the whole point of Gonzo?

Yeah, like, fine. So like, he's going to get shot out of that canon. He blows himself a lot, yes. And he's going to miss it. Ah, man. Anyway, Mark says it's Gonzo. See, that's me and Mark, we're ooses. And that's the reason.

That's why we see everything. Are we going to talk about baseball again? No, I also had my tire explode on the freeway. Oh, you want to tell that story to you. I'm not happy. You guys are lucky. I'm even here right now. It could be dead.

With the way that people drive on the I-10, back to baseball, I guess. Did you have a worse day than Zach Gallen on the mat? A push. It's a push. But Zach Gallen did have a really interesting, kind of incredible play. As Jesse put, a rad play. Where during the game, Zach Gallen quick-pitched after a timeout, batter-called timeout, right?

Batter-call called timeout, right? Batter-call's a timeout. It gets back in the box. Zach Gallen was ready the whole time. We've seen a lot of the shenanigans around baseball. And, of course, starting pitchers are very much. trying to push the envelope and see what they can get away with. And in this case, Gowen was prepped.

He was ready, much like we've seen the minute he gets into the box. I think Scherzer did this, right? Yeah. But Gowland wasn't trying to pull a Scherzer. That wasn't his goal. He just thought the batter was genuinely ready. And he gave him a couple seconds. Gallen was ready.

And it worked. Got the strike out. You got a swing and a miss. He got a strike out. And the umpire told him afterwards, you act, no, you can't do that. You actually can't do that. you got to give a little bit more time for the hitter to get set. And so Gallen was confused.

I'm confused. We're all confused. Why didn't he call it? Like, I thought that was what spring training was for. Is this like a grace period? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean,

maybe, I mean, umpires make mistakes, right? Maybe the umpire realized afterwards that that's something that should have been called right away. So you're just trying to give Gallen that information. Trying to get Gallen to feed back. Yeah, okay. Well, Gallen actually has a bit of an explanation. or maybe not. Maybe he's just as confused as we are. He called time. And I didn't realize, like, did he call time?

I was, like, not paying attention and then stepped out, got back in the box, and, like, I'm not changing the pitch. So I just came set. I thought he looked at me for, like, a good second and a half, two seconds, which, I mean, I guess three seconds is, like, the time when you're, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, seems ready to go pitch. And then it says something to Bruce about it. And he was like, you know how to do that. So my question was, like, what is the actual, it seems to be a gray air? There's no, like, you got to wait until five seconds in or ten seconds in or whatever.

So I feel like a lot of guys on both sides are going to, you know, that's going to be interesting to see how that goes. Sorry, you weren't trying to, like, pull one over on him. No, I mean, I just, I was just ready to go. So, I mean, I figured, like, he's going to get in the box. And, of course, it's an advantage of me to be ready to have the pitch. you seem like you're set. All right, let's go. But like, I don't know.

I guess not. Like, I may if you want to, was I trying to do like Scher and like do it like that, but I'm thinking I have the ball. Like I'm ready to go. The clock's going. So like the longer I let it go, the more comfortable he gets,

like my job out there is to make you uncomfortable. And I get what he's saying about trying to make them uncomfortable. I also get that he wasn't intentionally trying to pull a Scherzer. But I found it interesting. I'm glad that question was. was asked because, you know, of course, there is gamesmanship. There are guys trying to, again, gain some sort of advantage or learn what they can and can't do. But there's also just the fact that they, like he said, he didn't change the pitch. He knew what pitch he was going to throw. He didn't

need to take a lot of time. And as far as he was concerned, it was, uh, the batter is in the box. He was ready to go. The pitch clock creates a lot of weird scenarios. And like, this is kind of one of them because a pitcher would never really go this fast. But at the same time, with the pitch clock running down, the longer it runs down, the more it kind of, it moves into the advantage of the batter, the closer it gets to one. And that's kind of what happens with the pitch clock unless the fucking pitcher decides to like dick around and we'll talk about that about like just letting the pitch clock run down. And then the batter also gets a strike somehow, which is just ridiculous. But this is, this is not that. Yeah, it's a really confusing play.

We'll continue to ask and see if Gallin's able to get some clarification, see what Tori had to say after the game about this play. That's a good point. Brett Johnson says, God, I want to be on a fly on the wall when Zach and Strom just talk about pitching. Or like this, like this scenario, right? Like what to do with this? Strom and Zach don't talk pitching anymore. They only talk pitch clock. Yeah.

That's the only topic of discussion in Devak Spring Camp right now. I wouldn't be surprised if it really was because, holy shit, these guys. still don't understand. And that's the thing. It's not the players just don't understand. I feel like a lot of people involved in this process still don't really understand it. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough.

I mean, part of adding the pitch clock is that, you know, hitters in the past, generally you kind of put your hand up at the umpire, and the umpire will indicate to the pitcher that the hitters is asking for time. Right. And then once the hitter lowers their hand and the umpire points at the pitcher and is like, all right, now, now you're good to throw a picture. pitch, right? But with the pitch clock, they don't do that anymore. If a hitter, you know, puts their hand up of the umpire, that doesn't mean anything anymore. They get their one timeout.

That's all they get. Once that timeout is over and the pitch clock starts again, they're back in the box. Then, you know, the hitter has to be in there as of the eight second mark. But if the hitter's in there earlier than that, it's not like the pitcher has to wait until eight seconds or something. The pitcher can start earlier. But as Zach is talking about here, there's this gray area. Like, how do I know as the pitcher when the hitter is quote on quote ready for the pitch? Zach joked with us in another part of this interview after the game. Like, do I have to wait for the hitter to give me a thumbs up? Like, does the hitter have to like come up to the mound and tell me like, all right, I'm ready?

Let's go. Let's go. I'm ready. I'm ready. Yeah. It's kind of there's, there's gray area. As Zach Allen said, and I'm sure that, you know, there does exist some concrete rule on this, I hope.

We just don't really know what that is right now, and it doesn't sound like Zach Gallen really knows what that is either. Yeah. And again, this is kind of the point of doing it during spring training, like we talked about earlier with the score, the shit don't matter, right? So it's like now is a good time to get it out of the way. Now is a good time to see what stunts Max Scher and his compadres are going to pull. It's a great time to have the umpires have these discussions and conversations.

Like all of these little quirky things that are happening should happen during these non these these inconsequential games, right? If they do, it kind of helps them to understand it without like needing to have it all be in a practice scenario, right? These umpires, they're new to this and they have a lot going on. Like that's one of, that was one of my concerns is how much a home plate umpire truly asked to watch. Now the pitchcom system does connect them with the other ums and everybody can see whatever. But for the most part, the home plate umpire is tasked with keeping track of a lot of things. Yeah. And still at the end of the day, they're also tasked with watching the strike zone, which once again makes a big case for them to not do that portion of their job.

If they have all these other things to do now because of the pitch clock, let them do that and watch home plate when there's a play at the plate. And let the fucking computer do the rest. That's not even computer. You guys know I want real robots. I want actual robots out there. numbers, robot masks, you know, all the whole thing. But I will say, like, can you imagine, can you imagine what a dumpster fire this play would have been if it happened in the regular season?

Yes. Like, you can't have a situation where the umpire allows something to happen that apparently shouldn't have happened. And then in between innings tells the picture. Oh, yeah. By the way, that was a bit of Bach. Yeah, yeah. You can't actually do that.

In this case, it wound up benefiting the Diamondbacks because Gallen actually got the strikeout. But I mean, I can't even imagine. Like, how would the A's have felt about that if, you know, if the clock was not enforced the way that it's supposed to be enforced. So this is very much a time for the umpires to figure this out as much as everyone else. That's a great comment from Brett about it's funny. Have you noticed that after the first week of spring training, there's a lot less complaining about the pitch clock.

And absolutely. Yeah. It was just, it was that dang game between the Braves and the Red Sox. It gave people too much fire. That just, it was like, of course, of course, this, like the pitch clock is going to be fine. And the chances of, you know, a game deciding violation happening is so low. And of course, we got that on, what was that day two of the pitch clock. And so everyone's just yelling and screaming when in reality, I don't think you're having any playoff games in that way.

In fractions per game. Averaging less than two infractions. Yeah. And I, and it seems to be decreasing as well. And remember what we were told by our. man Morgan Sword. That's a real human being's name. That the minor leagues just took a month for the majority of the players to acclimate to these rules.

There were a couple of outliers that kind of stretch beyond that. But I don't believe their time frame went past 60 days. And that's two months. So if you factor in spring training being the first month of this, before we get to the end of April, everybody is going to be fine with these rules. And baseball life will go on. Yeah. Some injury updates from the Arizona. Diamondbacks. Our man Seth Beer,

aka Cesser Vesa, was scratched from the lineup. Can I say that? Am I allowed to say that? I don't think I am. What? I can I call him Cessarvesa? No, I don't know. We're out of the shirt. The shirt sold out. So Cessarvesa was scratched from the lineup after taking a ground ball off his thumb and some drills at Salt River Field. So that's unfortunate

because I know he's still very much trying to compete for some sort of role with this, you know, Major League lineup. Pave and Smith, another guy also competing for kind of a backup role. I was feeling much better and he was swinging some today. And Andrew Chafin has groin tightness and will be no longer pitching every other day,

but he shouldn't miss much time, which is encouraging because I know Andrew Chafin is going to be a bit of scrutiny, right? Like Andrew Chafin in a way was kind of their big free agent acquisition. I guess so. I mean, that's the way that they're going to do that. He said, damn so you're saying the beer was flat. Damn it.

Damn it, Brett. Damn you. Any thoughts on Chafin, though? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound like a, doesn't sound like a big deal. Lavello afterwards, when describing all these injuries, just like, yeah, nobody's expected to miss much time. So you're always going to operate with an abundance of caution at this point in spring training. No reason to rush guys into anything at this point. Again, Andrew Chafin, another guy not competing for a spot.

So it's not like he needs to have that, you know, that competition with, whereas there's some minor league arms that might get some more looks. if Chafin is pitching less. So hopefully somebody takes advantage of that opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Kyle Lewis hit a dinner. He did. That's awesome.

He did. That's awesome to see in here. 110 miles per hour off the bat, a 390 foot home run. So again, we foresee Lewis playing a lot of time at DH. Also, maybe some corner outfield. In the majors? Is that what you're implying? Am I?

Do you think he'll be a DHing a lot in the majors? I think so. What do you think? I am still. kind of skeptical. I'm still a little skeptical. I still think Pavin Smith might have a little bit of an inside track to that spot just because of his ability to back up at first base, as well as help out in the outfield. Kyle Lewis is just not going to bring much defensively. Tori was actually asked today pregame, you know, do you see Kyle Lewis getting in the outfield actually playing some defense

for you at some point in spring? And he gave a pretty non-specific answer. He basically said, yeah, at some point we'd like to see him in the field. But it doesn't sound like that's a huge focus for the debacks, like getting Kyle Lewis out there, you know, to log a whole bunch of winnings in left field or something before the season starts. I don't think that's where his role is going to be. And that definitely limits him, right? The fact that not only is he not backing up first base, but he also might be a guy that you just kind of feel like you have to use a DH because of how good some of these other Diamondbacks outfielder's are defensively. Yep, I agree with you there. He was trying to hit a home run all game, by the way.

The man took some very large, very large cuts. Yeah, and eventually he eventually got into one. It was good to see. Yeah, that's good to see. And hopefully he continues to fight for that spot. We know Drey Jameson is still fighting for that rotation spot as well in the starting rotation. And we talked about his lack of confidence a bit in his change-up, not utilizing it.

I think he threw one change-up. One game yesterday. The whole game. And you kind of had an idea that maybe this wasn't so much. much on him, maybe on his catcher Jose Herrera a bit? Yeah, I mean, it's got to be somewhat mutual, right? I mean, if a pitcher doesn't throw a pitch, maybe the catcher just didn't call for that pitch, right?

Sure. Or it could also be that, you know, they talked pregame and Dre Jameson was like, yeah, no, I don't want to throw that, or it could be that it was called and Drey Jamison didn't want to throw that pitch. So we did get a little bit of clarification on kind of who was maybe, I don't want to say to blame, but who was kind of the main. person in charge of that situation and the reason why maybe Drey Jamison didn't throw as many changeups in that game. We have a clip on that. And we do have a clip for that. We do not have a clip

for that. We don't have a clip. No, that's all right. No worries. But anyway, they'll see that's, it's segments like this that are obviously brought to you guys by OGs. And so, of course, make sure to go out and grab your favorite flavor of OGs wherever you get your local wonderful edibles. They are local. They're an Arizona company. We're proud to be partnering with them. And of course, they are Arizona's top selling edible. So make sure to check out their variety. They have sleep edition gummies. They have Indicas. They have sativas and they have their brand new CBD to THC one to one ratio that they call their happy balance. It's strawberries and cream flavored and it's delicious. OG's new strawberries and cream happy balance gummies are live on the shelves now. As always, you can find them at your

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And of course, we always have new partners being added on. So, of course, those discounts can always cross over to all sorts of new wonderful parts of the valley. But of course, we talked about it a little bit ago about the pitch clock, about its impact on the game, just some of the weird quirky stuff that's happening. It's still going to continue to happen. There's still going to be unblazed trails of weirdness and stupidity that we will only find out about once we hit the regular season, once those events occur. But one thing that's really weird and we've talked about it a bit is if hitters should be called for violations if the pitcher isn't even on the goddamn bound yet. Like what are we? we even doing here, right? Of course, the clip... I think it's kind of hilarious. It is hilarious because it like brings almost like a chess like strategy into the play of baseball. Like I'm going to sacrifice a ball, but this guy's got two strikes. So if he gets a violation, that's a strike and then he strikes out. Why should I get on the mound? And that's exactly what Yankees pitcher Lewis Suravino did basically delayed being ready on the mound long enough that it would be assessed a

penalty to him, but also, or a violation to him, also a violation to the hitter from the Tampa Bay Rays, who was on a two-strike count. So thus, without a strike being thrown, the violation to both the pitcher and the hitter caused a strike out. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I just think it's kind of a funny strategy. Like, because, I mean, it is kind of weird, right? Like, the hitter has to be in the box, alert to the pitcher at eight seconds. Sure. Even if the pitcher, is not ready to throw the pitch. And that's the thing. So if I'm a pitcher,

I just don't get on the mound until five seconds every time and just hope that the hitter doesn't get in the box. Again, it's not the pitcher's job to be ready for the hitter necessarily, right? It's more the other way around. Yeah. And the hitter should be in the box at eight seconds ready to go, regardless of what the pitcher is doing.

Because the pitcher still has eight seconds. But don't they have to be in the ready position by the eight. second mark or something like that. The hitter? The pitcher. Don't the pitcher have to be. I don't think so. No.

Okay. So they can literally just do little laps around the mat waiting like running the clock out. That's exactly what I'm saying. Oh, man. I want it. I want it. I mean,

it would be a little, it's a little bit gutsy because if you get down to like five or six seconds on the clock and I mean, you at least want to be probably communicating with your catcher so you know what you're going to throw. But you got the pitchcom. You can just. Yeah,

you got the pitchcom. You just like, sending it signals. Boles on to the mound. All of a sudden. and deliver a pitch in half a second or something just as the clock expires. I don't know if that's an actual strategy. I don't know if it is either, but I kind of love it.

Like that's the thing that we haven't discussed is like, yes, Jesse and I love this shit. Like the shenanigans, the weird stuff happening, it makes baseball more fun. It makes viral clips. It makes stuff that we actually find to be hilarious. And honestly, it comes at a time where there's no consequence based on these games. We all know that the Royals are going to win the Cactus League championship. that's obvious. But, you know, I mean, it really does become one of those things that it kind of is just hilarious for a game that for so many years was just had such a stick up its butt about rules and changing stuff and everything.

Like, this is also just brand new and it really does make baseball more enjoyable to watch. Not only is it fucking weird like that, but it also like is there's, it's faster. We're getting shorter games. And that's not a bad thing so far. Today's game was pretty dang long, though. I'm not going to lie. Well, the Diamondbacks have had quite a few long. They've had a lot.

They've probably had more three-hour spring training games than most teams in the Cactus League, to be honest. Like, the Diamondbacks have given up a lot of runs. They've had a lot of long games. And it's not something to necessarily be proud of it. Every inning that Zach Gallen pitches, Tori Lavello goes in and takes them out only to bring it back the next inning. So that's going to, you know, that's going to drag out your game time just a little bit. too. All right.

Well, that's not the only weird thing. The other weird thing is that these shorter games could potentially lead to lower concession sales,

or do they? Because a lot of people have been worried about that. And baseball America writer J.J. Cooper wrote in an article about this exact topic. And first,

JJ and I agree, Jesse, about one thing. And that is, since when do you fucking care about concession sales? Why is this all of a sudden a topic

that there's like thousands of tweets on. All of a sudden, fans are worried about the poor concession stands at baseball stadiums. Some fans, Derek, they're concerned, they're concerned with anything that makes a case against the pitch clock.

Yeah. Because they don't want, and some people don't want the pitch clock. They're a little skeptical. He figured you out. And so any, any little hole that they can poke at the pitch clock they're going to do.

And concessions. What about the concession sales? You know what? Fucking, we couldn't get, a single line around Salt River Fields to buy any concessions because the lines were wrapped around the building. Like those concession stands were booming. People were not shying away based on the length of the lines or how quickly the game was. And that was at a two hour and four minute game

that went by in what seemed like a blink of an eye. That island noodle stand at the bottom of the stairs from the press box was popping. It never didn't have people on it at it. So I mean, I don't think it's a concern. And honestly, there is a time during baseball game where you you can walk around the concourse at Chase Field and nobody's buying anything anymore because it's late enough or whatever. Like, yeah, not to mention the stands do close at like the seventh inning or whatever,

but like there, there is a dead period after people kind of come in and we get through the first couple of innings, trust me, I know that's when I go get my food. I outweigh you people and then I go down and I get my food because I'm not standing in a long line. I refuse to.

But with these shorter games, I might not have a choice. We might need to go and get my food very quickly. The thing is, though, it almost feels like you said, Kevin says, bro, it's less time to drink beer. Bro, Kevin, it's more time for you to drink free beers at your house that you have. It'll cost $16. But it does. It's like you said.

It almost feels like we solve one issue. We do create a new problem. But the article does talk to several concession stands, several stadium workers, owners of stadiums and all minor league baseball, all that have gone through this. And honestly, people go to Major League Baseball games to watch the outcomes, I feel like, much more than people go to minor league stadiums for that. I feel like they go to enjoy baseball, go to get a hot dog, go to visit the concession stands, get something to eat, kind of hang out. It's a little bit looser of an atmosphere and people aren't just, there's not as diehard of a, you know, hanging on the wins and losses as there is with the major league teams, right? So for minor league clubs to attest to the fact that they did not see a drop in concession stales over these, these, these. years that they've been attempting or basically, you know, testing out these rules in

minor league baseball. And we do know, in fact, that the games have dropped by a significant margin, nearly 30 minutes. So it's fine. It doesn't seem to be impacting concession sales or what stadiums are doing, right? I mean, it really is on us as the fans in the stands to know that we don't have that much time sometimes to get going over there and get our food. And I mean, again, it's the two hour and six minute games that might be more of the problem. But those are very rare. And those are really the ones that help bring down the average. To be honest, I'm sure we're going to see a lot of baseball games during the regular season that timeout around three hours still.

Maybe a little bit short of it. Maybe we'll see that. But it'll be the outliers of these two hour and 15 minute games and two hour and four minute games that really bring down that average. So overall, it's just not really too big of a factor. Yeah, it sounds like it, I mean, it does make a difference in some sense, right? I mean, you make the game shorter. Something's going to, things are going to change, right? Sure.

But what it sounds like happened, according to this article from baseball America, this is a quote from a minor league team GM on the topic of concession sales. And this GM said, we didn't see concession sales suffer due to shorter games as fans were staying the same amount of time as they normally would, but we're now just saying until the end of the game instead of the end of the seventh inning. So you make the game shorter that people are going to stay however long they're going to stay. And so if you make the game shorter, then you're just allowing them to be there for the entire game rather than maybe leaving in the seventh inning. And of course, concessions wouldn't be available after the seventh inning anyway. So for people leaving at the seventh inning, they're not, you know, they wouldn't be buying anything after that point anyway.

I wonder if it's going to impact beer sales with games being faster. Like, if they might have to change. Yeah, I mean, like on paper, it feels like it would. Well, and I don't mean the beer sales just like what Kevin is talking about. I mean, I wonder if teams are going to start having to give maybe an extra inning and cut off beer sales earlier, potentially, due to the fact that the back end of the games are so short. Oh, that is interesting. They cut off selling beer because they want people, I think, the idea there is that you'd sober up before you drove home.

Yeah. Probably shouldn't be driving if you got a buzz on anyway regardless of what inning it was. But again, due to liability and other reasons, I'm sure that that might be something that they take into consideration if the seventh, eighth and ninth end up becoming shorter on average around Major League Baseball. But the difference would just be so small. I mean, you're talking about maybe like a 15% decrease in length of those last couple of innings.

So, I mean, you're kind of talking about not more than a few minutes, you know, I don't know if that makes a big of a big enough difference. But it is interesting. I mean, in theory, maybe you would want to, you know, do that like a half inning earlier or something to give more time. I'm not in favor of it. I'm not behind that reason. I can't even say champion champion.

Championing is that what you're trying to say. Words are hard. You guys know I'd say that. I need a shirt that says words are hard. But yeah, the Diamondbacks definitely need to do everything. Maybe there's a compromise. So like maybe leave food stands open a little bit later. If it's maybe up to a certain time instead of when the innings are.

Because that's frustrating to me when I come down and like the middle of the eighth and want a hot dog and everything's closed. Yeah, everything's closed. But anyway, I will, you know, of course, if this does impact concession stales around Major League Baseball, we're going to hear about it. So don't think we won't. That's the biggest thing when it comes to this. But I think for now, I think we're safe. I think we're safe to drink our delicious four peaks beers at Chase Field. Make sure to grab the biggest one you can. And also, if you're here for spring training or just enjoying the spring training atmosphere, make sure to check out their tours that they have at the 8th Street Pub all through March over at the Four Peaks Brewing

Company. They have all sorts of wonderful events. It's a pop in place to be. And the A. Street pub is an incredible facility to check out, especially if you're a craft beer fan. They will take you on a tour and show you all of their inner workings and it's pretty incredible. They'll also tell you a ghost story. So I think that's worth the price of admission as well. Check out their calendar over at 4Peaks.com slash events for all your beer week entertainment and grab your tickets for Four Peaks amazing spring beer dinner. Jesse, they sent me the menu. I got the menu. Ooh. Oh, man. Man, it was way too early for me to be getting this kind of information from them. But holy cow, the spring bloom beer dinner already has chicken tendies on. No chicken tendies.

But what you do get is some crispy Unagi, Nigeria. You get some spicy tuna pokey tartar. You get some crispy shrimp spring roll. And that's just to start things off. you guys. I mean, they got all sorts of wonderful courses. It's a six-course meal. Check it out over at four piece. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe me and this guy show up and get our grub on. But regardless, you must be 21 years or older to enjoy their beer and enjoy responsibly. The sixth-course meal, that's for anybody. Anybody can enjoy that. But I wouldn't take my daughter to that. My daughter didn't even want to eat meatloaf and mashed potatoes last night. So if it's not fucking chicken tendinges or cheeseburgers, she doesn't want it and I mean she has to like one of the six courses oh my god I bet she wouldn't

like any of them she complained the whole time I can already see her face but um big shout out to our friends from rhodo wire we are so thrilled to be partnering with the guys from rhodo wire it's baseball season yet your latest fantasy baseball news from rhodo wire which has been a pioneer fantasy sports for over 25 years so make sure to check them out they have cheat sheets they have analytics they have everything that you need mock drafts galore you know how I feel about fantasy baseball. It is a long season. And of course, you need someone to hold your hand. Yeah, if you're going to do it, do it with some expertise. Have somebody help you out. But they have not just baseball. Fantasy advice on everything else and categories I didn't even know fantasy could be

played on. Golf, soccer, soccer makes a lot of sense. NASCAR, soccer makes a lot of sense. NASCAR, my wife would definitely play fantasy NASCAR. She loves NASCAR. XFL, you didn't get enough fantasy football season during the football season? Fantasy XFL. They got every year. thing. So the best part is for a limited time, RhodoWire is offering a free two-day trial to our listeners. Just go to rotowire.com slash P-HNX to register absolutely no commitments. They're so confident that you'll like their product and want to invest in a subscription plan that they don't even ask you for a credit card up front.

So take a peek behind the Baywall. And when the trial is done, you can decide if a rota-wire package is right for you. God bless them for doing it that way. Oh, I know. That is such a good way to do, right? That's how you know that they're, you know, They're behind their product. They're solid company.

They're like, yeah, we know you're going to like this. We don't even need your credit card info to try to like trick you and paying for something you didn't want to pay for. Oh, you didn't cancel. That's not our fault. That's on you. You know, that kind of stuff that companies do. They ain't doing none of that.

So, man, make sure to take a look. Maybe if you want to absorb as much information from them as you can, but they're always putting out great stuff. So make sure to check out our friends at Roto Wire. And I need their advice on the world baseball classic, Jesse, because these are damn all-star teams. Pretty darn good teams. It starts today. We're so excited for this.

And of course, our biggest question is, who do you guys have this year? Who is your favorite for the World Baseball Classic? I think Jesse and I should give ours. Yeah? You want to go first? I'm all about the Dominican Republic team. Like, obviously, I'm about my heritage, my family, my bloodline requires that I. Puerto Rico?

I root for team Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is not so bad, right? No, the pitching's not great. And Carlos Correides and play. Alexis Diaz, right? Younger brother of Edwin Diaz is there. Emilio Pungan. Marcus Stroman.

Marcus Stroman's very, very good. And I'm very excited that he's part of team Puerto Rico. But the Dominican Republic team is incredible. And offense for Puerto Rico is a little thing. They look. Javier Baez, Francisco, Indore. Emmanuel Rivera is not. I am nowhere who is on Team Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico. I do not need a reminder. It's why I'm not picking them. I am picking team Dominican Republic. And it's as close as I can get to Puerto Rico as possible. They look very similar when you go to the two countries as well. But Jesse, I think their Dominican Republic lineup is just insane. It is. It's not as good as the Czech Republic's lineup. But it is pretty good. It's not as good about story. Yeah. They got a guy named Sandy Alcantra down there, don't they leading the way? They do. Yeah, that guy might be pretty damn. I'm good this year in the world baseball classic.

I'm like trying to be like, I don't know, it seems like the DR is kind of the choice here. Brett Johnson says team Japan, which I think is also not a bad choice. They, you know, they certainly have had their share of success in the WBC. But yeah, I mean, this DR lineup, man, is pretty insane. Even after, this is after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. decided to drop out. That news came out recently, but you've still got Raphael Devers. Fonter Franco, Mani Machado, Jeremy Pena, Catelle Marte, and the outfield, Julio Rodriguez, Juan Soto, Teoscar Hernandez.

Their pitching staff is not as good, but having Sandy Alcantra in there along with Christian Javier, that's a pretty decent one, two. I mean, at this point, those pitchers aren't fully stretched out, right? Like, there's going to be some limitations there. You're not going to have Sandy Alcantra throwing eight in it. in 115 pitches or anything, I don't think, but there probably still is enough pitching there. I'm torn between the Dominican Republic and the U.S., and I think those two teams are very, very close, Derek.

It is really hard for me to pick between those two teams, but I think I'm with you. I think I lean Dominican Republic. I feel like the Dominican Republic team has the edge when it comes to pitching. I feel like Team USA also doesn't have great pitching. And when I say that, I am not trying to talk about Merrill Kelly because we know how good Merrill Kelly is. I'm trying to talk about their poor decision to not even currently have Merrill Kelly as part of the starting lineup or starting rotation for their next three or four games.

I saw no Merrill Kelly. Is he their fifth rotation spot? Is he going to come out of the bullpen? What's going to happen there? Is he just a backup to be used? Should somebody else get hurt? What's going on? They might, yeah.

I mean, they probably have a few too many starters to like cycle through normal starting rotation style. So yeah, I'm sure they'll bring some of those guys. out as relievers. But yeah, the U.S. has lost some guys as well. Clayton Kershaw backed out. So I think they lost some pitching depth there. I like the bullpen maybe a little bit more than I like some of the starters on the U.S. side. Daniel Bard, David Bednar, those are two pretty darn good back-end relievers. Ryan Presley is there as well from the Houston Astros. The starters are kind of okay-ish, right, Merrill Kelly, Lance Flynn, Miles, Michaelis, Adam Wainwright.

There's some guys that are solid, but there's no, I don't know if there's a Sandy Alcantor, a Christian Javier combo like there is over with the Dominican Republic, although the U.S. is similarly stacked on the position player side of things. They're not going to have any issues. No, not at all. Scoring runs. Not at all. So make sure to not miss out on the World Baseball Classic.

It's like it's going to happen and it's going to happen fast. It's going to be like spring training. It's going to be here and then it's going to be over before you know it. And we've already gone over the weird-ass tiebreaker rules where they're going to have to have to have this guy come in with a chalkboard to explain the equation that they figured out who won the game. That part might suck if it comes down to a tiebreaker because I do not like the system that they have set up. But regardless, fun times to be had, fun times to watch baseball. More baseball is always better. except when it comes to a game of time of game right like we don't want three and a half hour games we

nobody wants that but what people want jesse you know what people want they want more time in the bedroom with their significant other yeah we go you weren't here the last time uh my no no mercifully i was not yeah my performance fell a little short uh my i didn't i didn't bring my a game that day but of course you guys know that you all want a better sex life and you can do that with our friends from roman uh 50% of men have symptoms that get in the way of wanting or enjoying sex. Do you want a better sex life? If so, you're not alone. And here's the thing.

I got a flat tire on the way over here. Did I want to deal with a flat tire? No. Sometimes, you know, you're excited. You're excited. You're ready to go. You got a lot to do. You want to impress that significant other in this case.

Weirdly, it's Jesse. But it's just a metaphor. My tire blew out. I didn't have a say it mattered, right? People were raising their fist at me. You know, sometimes things can fall short. Sometimes your vehicle, if you will, doesn't live up to the standards that you were expecting and doesn't work the way you need it to. And that's what Roman is here to help with.

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That's what I'm, I guess, whatever. Anyway, you guys go out and watch some baseball. It's so much fun. And I'm telling you this. I'm trying to be, I'm trying to give as many people as I know the cheat code. But if you want to go to spring training, games and you don't want to pay some of these ridiculous prices that you might be seeing from the box office. Game time has you covered. $4 tickets, Jesse. $4 tickets? I mean, that's practically

free. Let's be honest. $4 is more of what you would pay for tax on a cheap ticket rather than what you would pay for a whole ticket. And you can find that over at gamedime.com. Make sure to check them out, especially the game of a day of the game, because that is when you are going to save the most. 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. And of course, make sure to get out there. We want to see you guys out there. Hit us up.

You know, this guy doesn't, he doesn't take weekends off. This is Mr. No Days Off over here during spring training. But of course, make sure to hit us up because we love to hang out with you guys. And we're putting together a little fun event for a little meetup here before spring training wraps up. So keep your eyes peeled for that. You can follow us on Twitter in the meantime. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. This absolute maniac is at Jesse Ed Friedman.

Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Do you know the WBC starts tonight, Derek? I think I said that a little while. Did I say that earlier, David? Apparently I don't listen to what Derek said. We've covered that on this show. But I'll add some specificity to it and say that at 11 p.m. Eastern time.

Oh, 8 o'clock, our time? Nine, nine, nine o'clock, our time. Oh, yeah. At the Netherlands, you can watch that on FS1. Oh, yeah, nice. There you go. We got it tonight. Let's go.

We got it starting tonight. Are you staying up and watching that? Eh, eh. I mean, I'll probably be, I'll probably be awake, but I don't know if I'm going to be a, because I don't know if this guy can stay up that late after. There's no, there's no pitch clock. So, you know, if it starts at nine, it's probably not going to be. over until three in the morning or something.

So make sure to check that out and make sure you guys enjoy the baseball. On behalf of Damon, Jesse, and myself, we always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you don't get a flat tire on the way to the game.