PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Zac Gallen And The Diamondbacks SINK The Pirates In Yet Another Comeback Win

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

The Arizona Diamondbacks registered their 18th comeback win of the season, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 in game one of their three game series at Chase Field. Zac Gallen had an in-game comeback of his own after a rough start in this one. We discuss his bounce-back night on the mound, the D-backs offense getting things going against the Pirates’ pen, and this team getting to four games above .500 for the first time this season. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose between either:Bet and Get offer and place a bet of $5 or more and get $150 in Bonus Bets OR First Bet Safety Net offer by placing a bet up to $1000 and if your qualifying bet loses you receive a matched refund in Bonus betsDisclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Indeed: listeners of this show will get a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/allcity. Terms and conditions apply.  Need to hire? You need Indeed.Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks.  $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details.Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!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.

Skiyed, welcome in to another edition of the PHNXDBACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of this joint. Of course, this man next to me is the people's producer, the one you guys come to see. It's the one and only Damon Dog himself. And Damon, we had ourselves quite the game tonight. another semi listless night from the offense, but the Diamondbacks find a way to win this one against the Pittsburgh Pirates team by a score of four to three.

This is their 18th, 18th comeback win of the season. Dare I say the answer backs are back? Yeah. I mean, it feels like it at least. Recently, in recent memory, they've been having a lot of comeback wins here. And the problem here is that, essentially every other wildcard team can't stop winning either.

That's the biggest issue. That's the problem. Yeah. The debats are in fact back, though. We are in fact a wagon. We're so back, Derek. We've never been more back. We've never been more back.

And it's crazy to think that anybody didn't think we would be back. So I guess I have to put the shirt back up in the shop because we took the answer back and the answer backs are back. This team is back. This team is now 54. and 50, which makes the first time this season that the Diamondbacks are four games or more over 500. I mean, and again, like the Diamondbacks now not only went out at the trade deadline, not even

waiting until the trade deadline, they got their shopping done early. Mike Hazen isn't out on Christmas Eve like Jesse Friedman searching frantically for a gift. He got that shit taking care of in November on Black Friday. He's chilling and he's got his feet up and he's done shopping. But he might not be. He might not be. He might not be. But what he did get was the thing that the diamondbacks needed the most, which was a left-handed reliever.

And AJ Puck is outstanding. So not only do you have that addition coming to this team, but we still know that the diamondbacks have Merrill Kelly and allegedly Eduardo Rodriguez waiting in the wings right now to return to this team. And I mean, that's like that's a complete team. It's a really complete team. The Diamondbacks are having trouble finding places for guys like Jake McCarthy, who's been excellent this season, to even play. And again, there was a great comment on our video about, you know, why Cody Bellinger is being, you know, tied to Arizona that like Jake McCarthy is right now

is playing better than Cody Bellinger and the Diamondbacks can't find place for him to play. Where would, I still have a hard time understanding where certain position players would play mostly maybe an infielder. And I could see that maybe being a move they make. But right now, things are looking good for this team. And it's another close victory. That's another thing about this win. It is a four to three victory that the bullpen was able to do an excellent job tonight,

close things out. Of course, we'll talk about them here momentarily. But it was, I mean, it was a night where Zach Gallen didn't look sharp out of the gate. And yet despite how things looked in maybe the second or the third inning, pretty bleak. at that point, they turned it around and they did the thing tonight. Yeah, I mean, happy to see that out of gallon because, like you said, I mean, he started off not so good. I mean, that's not exactly a secret.

He was getting ripped pretty hard there for a second. And it looked like another bad Zach Allen performance coming off of injury. Like after, you know, me, Johnny and Bo did the 999 challenge and Zach Allen said, I'm going to go and shove a one hit game right in your stupid face. He essentially has been pretty. bad after that. And it was just to spite you guys. Yeah, it feels personal, but that's okay.

But yeah, I mean, it looked like another one of those lackluster performances that we're not used to seeing at a Zach Allen. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, he just starts retiring batters left and right. That's exactly what happened. I mean, when we talk about it not starting great for him, he walks Andrew McCutcheon. He does strike out O'Neill Cruz, which he did twice. But then he gives up a single to Nick Gonzalez. as he hits Rowdy Tell us with a pitch, which is understandable because there's a lot of space there.

I'm just saying he's a big guy and gave up a two. I'm just trying to excuse Gallin's behavior there. But then he gives up a two-run single, which he deserves, and I deserve, I guess, for saying that. But to Joshua Palacios. And that was more of the second inning. I think that was the thing is, is we didn't really see him rebound there in the second inning. He gives up a single to Joey Bart and then an RBI double again to McCutcheon, who just, I mean, how is that guy still beating us?

That's disgusting to see, right? But Zach absolutely bounced back after that. He got 17 whiffs today, nine of which were on his knuckle curve. And he just mowed him down after that. And again, we've talked about this with Merrill. We've talked about this with Gowan. One of the things that makes them the elite pitchers that they are is even with things falling apart the way they did with even, like you said, how hard he was being hit early in this game, he still managed to turn things around and give the team six innings five hits three earned three walks and six ks and like that's a solid day for any starting pitcher out there on the mound that's a quality start and you know again they'll that's something that you can you know you give you a chance to win and it did today yeah and like you mentioned earlier like if we can get gallon pitching like this with maryl coming back soon uh i mean

And that's really where the debacks go to the moon. Like we have most of the position players healthy. Looks like we have the horses in the pen now. And I just need my sweet baby prince, Merrill Kelly, back in my life. That's all that I know. I know. That security blanket, you know, that just makes you feel so safe. Brett Johnson, by the way, says, oh, Neil made me $60.

So this is from Mr. Cruz. Set us a super chat. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. your breath. And Patrick Wayne Kolek says only took half a season. Feels like they have found their stride. Ceilings still high. Need a consistent Corbin and Kelly back healthy.

Snakes alive. Let's go. I need my snakes alive sign. It's in the office. But I have an autographed snakes alive sign that I very much would hold up right now. How's, you know, I miss I miss JJ. Tonight is a night that I need JJ. But tonight was a night that we needed some more offense for sure. They were mostly harmless at times in this. one, Luis L. Ortiz was dealing on the mound for the pirates tonight. But I do want to point out that

Loris Gueriel, even at times, even though we don't give him Kingsnake often enough, and he probably deserves it on a night where he went three for four, he's been excellent for this team. This is his fifth three-hit game this season. And lately, again, he's just been quietly very good, getting multi-hit games left and right. Which is crazy. That doesn't happen with Lourdes very often. Like he's he's typically a guy where it's very loud whether he is playing well. Right. Or he's playing poorly. Like when he's playing poorly, it feels like he's striking out three times a game.

He can't touch the baseball, you know, weak ground balls, weak pop-ups. And when he's hitting well, it typically is like, oh my God, Lourdes has nine RBI in his last five games. But you're right. Like he has been pretty consistently good for this team recently. And it hasn't been the loudest of, of, you know, know, of stretches, but yeah, yeah, it's encouraging. And it's what more of this team needs to do. Like, don't get me wrong, it's great to see Gino and Jock hitting bombs, like Jock hits that

solo home run in the sixth inning once Ortiz leaves the game. That was his 15th of the year. And like, we still need our power guys, but we need more of what we're getting out of Lourdes and Gabby right now, which is not them trying to hit home runs every time they're up there. these nights are how this team wins games. They won the margins tonight. They won the margins tonight.

They played good defense. And honestly, even though things didn't look great early, they didn't really let them, you know, let it get them down. You get Corby and Carroll, he gets the triple in that third inning and scores on a Cotei Sac fly. Corbyn almost had two triples in this game.

He was robbed there of one of them. But again, another one-for-four night from Corbyn. then you have that again that big sixth inning once they were able to get or tease out of the game who again was just kind of kind of kept the diamond backs from doing very much tonight you get the walker walks you get a guerriel single you get mara gabby getting an rbi single that scores Walker and then the winning run damon scores on a wild pitch that a pitcher whose name i'm not even going to try to pronounce i'm not even going to pretend that I can pronounce this man's name. I'm sure they said it on the broadcast and I heard it, but looking at it confuses and angers me, so I'm not even going to try to say it. But that's how the Diamondbacks win this game,

basically. That turns out to be the winning run, that wild pitch. Crazy. Crazy baseball. But the best part about this, I think, is what the Diamondbacks were able to do, their bullpen, right?

The bullpen tonight, bona fide, G, certified studs. Kevin Ginkle. Kevin Ginkle. I'm going to, spoiler alert. He's not the King Snake, but he probably should have been.

In retrospect, now that I'm looking back upon it. Honestly, yeah. Ginkle's performance tonight was probably the most important performance out of the pen, right? Gowan walks to there in the seventh inning, and Kevin Ginkle comes in

and he strikes out two, does not allow any hits, any runs to score, gets one ending of work in. Even with a guy that he starts off the night by throwing three balls. And it was literally like, oh shit, this is not great. Like this felt like this was once again, the Diamondbacks, you know, what happened time and time again to this team early on. It felt like that. And instead, Ginkl turns it around literally from that moment of being down 3-0. and somehow completely gets out of it, saves Gowan from those, you know, runners,

saves himself from those inherited runs and saves the game, basically. I mean, don't get me wrong. Paul Seawald came out, did his job. Ryan Thompson did his job. He struggled a little bit. He hit a batter. He allowed a single to Hayes.

But then he locked in and he gets out of his inning without any run scoring. Paul Seawalt made things a little interesting with a hit, but he did a great job tonight, only allowing the, the one hit and two strikeouts from him. So again, it wasn't clean from the bullpen necessarily. It was like, it was like Zach in a way, right?

Like every guy had their moment where it was like they walked the high wire. And somehow they got out of it. And it was a great night from everybody because that's, that's what good teams do. They don't look perfect. Things don't go perfect for you. But it's how you, you know, react in those moments and and rebound from those. moments not going well for you that that kind of make the difference between winners and losers sometimes and it made the difference in this game nothing in baseball basically gets me as

juiced as watching kevin ginkle screaming after he ends in it like it's just the most electric feeling in the world as a sports fan that guy is awesome it looks like they mentioned it on the broadcast too and it feels that way for sure like he didn't have his best stuff to start last season, but he ramped it up right when the team needed him most, and then he was just unhittable. And it feels like that's kind of the direction that we're going in right now. But another thing that was mentioned on the broadcast in PCO, she brings it up here, and I have to say something about it. He says, Cruz versus Seawald with like a little cringe emoji.

Steve was literally like setting the scene, like, like for O'Neill Cruz game tying bomb. this guy hit the truck in batting practice today. Why do you keep rooting for this to happen? Why do you do this to us? Please stop doing this to us. It's so infit. It's like he just, I know it's he's trying to pack it with drama.

And I get that. Yeah. As a fan, that's exactly what it is. It just feels like we're begging it to happen. Begging it to happen. And I can't take it anymore. Well, and especially when,

to be fair, I honestly, I'm a huge fan of Steve. I love Steve. I think he's a funny guy. I think he does a great job. But his home run calls tend to, right, leave a little bit of something lacking at times. And he would build up all that drama just for if O'Neill Cruz did hood a home run in that moment, just for him to go, there it goes.

There's something like that. You know how he does when the opposing team is overrun? It's out of here. And it's out of here. and he does exactly what we thought he was going to or something like, you know, like, why are you setting us all up for that disappointing sound you're going to make when that happens? But it didn't happen, didn't happen. Diamondbacks held on onto this one.

What were you most impressed by here? I mean, it was the bullpen the thing that really just blew you away the way these guys. I mean, at times every one of them was in a little bit of trouble. Ginkles wasn't his fault, but they were all in peril, you know? Dingle got down 3-0 to start and he almost loaded the bases. Yes. And he was able to work out of a 3-0 count and strike the guy out and then strike the next guy out and then get the final out on a ground ground out. But like, yeah, I mean, I don't think I wouldn't even call it like a necessarily super clean inning from him either because we were this close to having bases loaded no outs in that inning.

But yeah, I think the bull, just the way the bullpen kind of buckled down. And I mean, you post that meme on our Twitter account all the time. like they just they just strapped in and they got ready to go and and and that's what you love to see out of the bullpen and now we're adding just a gigantic left to it and uh this might be the best bullpen in baseball things considered it's hot oh and the thing is is with the way that the starting rotation could be yeah they they might not even need to be the best bullpen in baseball right but like that seems like the ingredients are there very much, you know. And again, the Diamondbacks have done a good job this year of giving guys opportunity. There is not going to be a single pitcher on this roster that can't say that Tori didn't give them a chance to perform. And when they did perform, get higher leverage situations, maybe other than Bryce Jarvis.

And you could argue that Bryce Jarvis maybe hasn't been as good as the other guys like Justin Martinez is a great example of one of those guys that got moved from being kind of used in that middle role to being considered one of the high leverage guys as well with the rest of this group, right? But that's the thing about it is like the Diamondbacks have been developing pitchers. And as this season goes on, they've determined more and more that they know who they can trust, who they can't trust, who is very close, you know, and, you know, again, you have a trio right now of pitchers that are getting the job done night in, night out. And you also have, you know, a couple of other guys that are right around those two that are those

three guys that that are also performing very well. Like they have their, you know, bad outings like Paul Cwall is a guy that's still been performing well despite that stretch of blown saves that he had that kind of made everybody lose faith in him. But yeah, he he has battled back since then and he has been, you know, again, he's he's gotten the job done and he continues to be the solid in a role that at times no matter who Tori puts into that role seems to struggle and seems to not be able to handle that that moment, right? The lights are too bright. Shut them off. You know, that kind of thing.

I think a lot of us are like now scared about Paul Seawald after that stretch because that's natural with any baseball fan. Like you're going to start, it's going to get your blood pumping a little bit extra. The doubt is there. Yeah, for sure. But at the same time, if you were to like ask, you know, 29 other fan bases in baseball, like, like, hey, this is player A and these are his stats and you read them off Paul Seawald's stats

everybody would be like we'll find a spot for that guy we will absolutely find a spot for that guy like every team in baseball would want that so yeah well while it is a little bit nerve wracking you know it's it's not like he it's not the end of the world and he still had a really

good season all things considered but I mean Ryan Thompson hasn't looked as dominant as he was to start this season. And that's something that I'm monitoring a little bit more. Like he was able to work out of it today. But for sure, he's getting hit a little bit more than he was and just allowing more base runners in general. So hopefully he can kind of hone that in a little bit. But with the way that some of our other relievers are pitching, we should be okay. Here's the thing is I feel like Tori is going to get to a point where he has enough weapons that he's confident in that it can be situational versus.

is Ryan Thompson necessarily being the setup man. You have Paul Seawald that you know is going to close the game out. But I mean, you have more than one club in the bag that you can go to. They're late depending on matchups and what stats and data tells you and things like that. So I don't think that it's the worst thing that maybe, you know, they maybe go to AJ Puck at times there in the eighth inning. should they need that left-handed reliever in there. And I think somebody in the chat said it. But yes, I very much, very, very much trust Puck late in games more than Jomantiply.

Oh, yeah. I think that that's one of the things that it solidifies is the late-inning, high-leveraged, left-handed reliever that the Diamondbacks know that they can count on. It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. And, of course, you know, it's going to take some time. for Tori to figure out how he's going to use, you know, all of these weapons. It's also going to take some time for, you know, them to know for sure what this starting rotation is going to be once, you know, Merrill Kelly and allegedly Eduardo Rodriguez come back. I still don't know if he's a real person. I don't believe it. But yeah, I'm not,

honestly, and I said this like, I've seen him with my own eyes. So it's weird. I say it. I said it two months ago. Like, I'm just not going to assume that he's like, I know jokes. ha ha, like, yeah, does he even exist? But like genuinely, I'm just not going to assume that he's going to play until I see it with my eyes. Well, you can't assume he's going to play. You also can't assume that he's going to be good when he returns, right? Like, I mean, obviously the diamondbacks aren't going to put somebody out there at this point.

That's a liability in the starting rotation, right? We're too close to the end of the season for that. But that's not what we're hearing. Mike Hazen was talking to Jesse about. being out at Salt River Fields. And he sounded very confident, very confident. And I think maybe I can stress that by speaking it more based on the conversation Jesse and I had than Jesse's article that these guys look good out there.

They are excited about getting Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez into this starting rotation. And they wouldn't be saying that if they weren't looking at their pitches and seeing what they're able to do out there, right? Like, yes, pitching against major league pitchers is much different than pitching on the back lots at Salt River Fields. But still, it's encouraging to hear how excited they are to get these guys back, considering that they are watching them pitch.

And they're seeing the numbers and they're seeing what their stuff is doing. That's something that's very exciting for this team. But Brett Johnson, he's amped. He's still amped about that $60 he won. He says, here's another $5 because I'm so fucking pumped that Jay Love is my quarterback. He's just translating over into other sports, big Green Bay Packers. I'm excited for you, I guess. I'm excited that you're excited.

That's what I'll say. I'm excited that you guys are here. I'm pumped that you guys are here. All 147 of you plus whoever's watching on the Twitter. But we thank you guys so much for being here. If you are on Twitter, what are you doing? Come on over to the live chat. Chat with us in here.

We got all sorts of great people in here. Shout out to Ina Jackson. I hope I'm saying your name right. She always has some great comments. She says, look, Erod and Kelly and Monty have been helping each other in BP the past several weeks. Can't wait for Monday. We can't either. Make sure you like this video if you're here.

Make sure you subscribe to the PHNXports YouTube channel if you're here. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever our shows go live, like our breaking podcast that we did last night. We did an emergency podcast about that trade with AJ Puck or not with AJ Puck. Words are hard sometimes, but it's what we do. Yeah. You know, we do. We go to movies and then we get notifications at the time of the fact made a trade.

And then we have to, what, decide if I'm going to leave before I see the end credit for Deadpool and Wolverine. Are you mad? There is not a transaction in the world that could have pulled me out of that theater before those lights came on. But still, it's not bothering. I'm not saying we're heroes. I'm not saying we're heroes. But much like firefighters and cops, we are always on call. But again, I'm not saying that we're heroes.

we're keeping the pagers business still active right like we have a little emergency pager uh when people see that red light flashing they know it's time to emergency podcast but if you are listening on the audio podcasting side we thank you guys as well make sure you subscribe on your favorite audio podcasting app and leave us a review we appreciate that feedback and of course those five-star reviews uh they make me feel good about myself and like i'm doing a good job look people tell me i do a good job, but you know they could be lying straight to my face. So, uh, you know, people don't lie when they leave reviews. They feel very morally obligated to actually tell the truth there. So we, of course, would love for you to do so. Uh, Damon, I don't know what to say more about bet 365. Their live

in game betting is incredible. Uh, they actually were a big pioneer of live in game betting. I don't know if you knew that, but they do offer the widest range of games and markets available for live in game betting across 78 sports, including e-sports. And I think when I stress e-sports, people think, like, is he, is he mocking esports? Does he love e-sports? Which way is he going with this? Esports are incredible.

Watching people play not only sports games on video games competitively is amped and amazing, but watching them play fighting games and like call of duty and stuff on esports, incredible, next level. And you can get all of that on bet three, six, five. You can also get a Bet365 early payout offer when comes to baseball, where you're a winner if your team goes up by five runs in the game with an instant payout. Same game parlay and parley selections will be marked as winners. So, of course, get down on the Bet365 app right now.

You can choose between two new customer offers when you use our code of PHNX 365 to sign up. Deposit, $10, and choose between either a bet-and-get offer where you place up $5 bet or more, and you get $150 in bonus bets or a first bet safety net offer where you can place up to $1,000. And if you're qualifying bet loses, you'll receive a matched refund in bonus bets. Download the Bet365 app and use code, PHNX365. When you sign up, choose your offer and find out why it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 21 and over and physically located in Arizona. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1,800 next step.

Text next step to 533442 or visit Problem. gambling.az.gov. Well, Indeed.com is here to help you hire better to take care of a lot of that work for you. I think that's how we found AJ Puck. I think Mike Hazen. That's what I was saying on yesterday's show. Yes. I was like unfortunately left-handed relievers are not readily available at times, even on Indeed.com, right?

Like that's a hard market to tap into. But so are a lot of jobs, right? There's a lot of positions that employers need to fill. And it's difficult to find people that can qualify for those positions, right? And that's part of the problem is putting out an application allows just anybody to apply. And you have no idea if those applicants are even qualified for the position that you're looking for. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster.

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Just go to Indeed.com slash all city right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on the PH and XDVax podcast. Indeed.com slash all city. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. You need indeed. Well, Damon, let's take a look at the count of this game presented by Desert Financial Credit Union. Diamondbacks outscore the pirates four to three. They out hit the pirates nine to seven. They did better with runners in scoring position, one for six,

the pirates one for 11. Don't say we did not give you chances. Uh, the extra base hits. Diamondbacks had more of those as well, including the solo home run from Jack Peterson. They out hit, uh, the pirates with extra base hits three to two. And then hard hit percentage, 46.2 percent, hard hit percentage to the pirates 40 percent. This is a clean sweep here across the board. And again, we talk about the diamond backs winning the margins. We talk about the diamond backs being one of the best defensive teams. teams in baseball. That comes into play in a game like this. And it also comes into play that the Diamondbacks were able to at least get the job done here in the sixth inning when they finally got

through, you know, the, you know, they finally got through Ortiz and what he was doing to them. And we're able to get some runs against the bullpen. That runners in scoring position combination was disgusting. Oh, yeah, one for 11 and one for six. Try harder, guys. two for 17. Like you have a combined 16 hits and then you get two hits with guys on second or third base. Like that's pretty, that's pretty brutal. But yeah, I guess good pitching matchup tonight. Yeah, you got to give it up.

I mean, again, Gallen did not look good. Ortiz looked very good. You know, and the Diamondbacks tried to do what they could do against him, but it wasn't much. You know, again, Gallin gets that triple and he's able to score on a sack fly by Cattel Marte, but it was very minimal. You know, it was another bare bones night there against the starting pitcher. But we knew that about this Pirates team. If you watched our preview, we talked about this Pirates team having the third best ERA in all of baseball.

They're quietly incredible. And that's, I mean, Paul Skeens is part of that, but that's not just Paul Skeens. They have quite a few young studs over there for Pittsburgh. And that team, I'm telling you, that team is going to be a problem. I hope, I probably shouldn't say this, but as a baseball fan, like I hope that they don't give up because the Pirates organization seems to be one that always kind of seems to get close to putting it together. But like I legitimately think this team could be a playoff contender by next year,

if not even this season. I mean, they're right here in the mix with the debacks. Yeah, I mean, I was looking at the wild card standings before the game. And they were on a eight game win streak, I think, right? they're playing some pretty good baseball recently and they're above 500 even after the loss. They're the team that's directly after the Diamondbacks in the Wild Card race. Like that's that's that's a that's a squad that you know, we need to win these games against. Like this is this is a important matchup for the Diamondbacks based off of playoff standings and

and you know, what teams were competing with for a wild card. So yeah, I mean, every game against a team like that is going to be huge. And this puts us in the driver's seat to win the series. That's exactly right. I mean, we said it again in our preview, but these are two of the hottest teams in baseball facing off against each other here. And at least the Diamondbacks were able to take this first game. And of course, a big part of that is our King Snake for tonight.

And our King Snake is Jock Peterson because this man absolutely crushed a 453-foot home. run in that sixth inning. It was the second longest homer by a Dback at Chasefield this season, one for three tonight with a walk. He had that home run in the RBI. And even though the wild pitch technically was the winning run in this game, Damon, it still ended up being very important that Jock Peterson hit this home run. Zach Zent is already claiming ginkle erasure.

Look, we tried to set it up. We knew we already acknowledge the mistake. we had made, I think, early on because Kevin Ginkle definitely is as worthy, if not more so here in Jock Peterson, you know? I think Jock, that home run that Jock hit really changed the momentum of the offense. Like it gave the offense some juice and he just crushed it so hard that it made it where it kind of just felt like the vibes switched up a little bit, which kind of is like feels like Jock's like calling card, doesn't it?

He's just the vibes guy. But yeah, I mean, I think looking back on it, we both would agree that we probably should have given it to Kevin Ginkle. Because we don't win that game without him tonight. We do not win this game without Kevin Ginkle tonight. We absolutely do not. Of course, we thank you guys for being here before we get Jesse in here. I just want to let you guys know that Desert Financial Credit Union is the best. And if you are looking for a place to put your money,

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investment options, so much more. When you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. And of course, I'm drinking yet another delicious Four Peaks beer in celebration of this Diamondbacks when you probably should be too. Of course, that bad birdie juicy golden ale. I'm all out of that because I drink those first. But yes, bellissimo. It's the official beer of summer.

It's the official beer. It should be the official beer of this podcast. but Jesse won't let me make a claim like that, of course. But you should check out all the beers that Four Peaks has to offer. And maybe that's the reason why he won't let me do that, because Four Peaks has entirely too many beers to make just one beer, the official beer of this podcast. So check out the Kilt Lifter.

Check out the Wow Wheat. Check out everything that Four Peaks has to offer. Also, check out the chicken tendies. Do not, you can come back here and you can thank us later when you finally have the chicken tendees. You're like, these idiots won't shut up about chicken tenders. I don't get it. And then you'll have them and you'll come back here and be like,

I'm sorry, I was wrong. You guys were right. I should have had them sooner. But go visit 4Peaks.com slash locator to find all your favorite beers and events. Check out at 4Peaks brew and at 4Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink 4 Peaks. Cogs. And please enjoy responsibly.

All right. Well, let's get our boy in here. My guy, my thunder stick, your vice mayor, the one and only, Jesse Friedman, coming to us live from Chase Feast. yield. What a win, Jesse. Honestly, 18th comeback win of the season for the Diamondbacks. I talked about taking the shirt down from the store. I guess the shirt stays up because this team is, in fact, the answer backs.

And it's another close victory, too. That's another thing that was impressive about this one. Absolutely. I mean, a month or two ago, D-backs down three-nothing in the second inning, right? You're asking yourself, like, what's the point of watch of this game, right? Like we've seen this movie before when the D-backs get down by two runs or more, things don't usually end in their favor. And today was a change of course and a continuation of something we've seen a lot here over the last month as the Diamondbacks have played some really good baseball. They still have fallen behind in a good number of these games.

It's not like they've just dominated every single game that they've played here over the last month. It's that when they do get down, when those situations inevitably present themselves, they're finding a way to clawback. And I think Zach Gallen really set the tone for that in this game. I know you guys were talking about Jack Peterson. It certainly changed kind of the course of the night for the offense for sure. But Gallin himself, just being able to lock things back in in the third inning, you know, it was a seven-pitch third inning for him after allowing three runs.

First two innings, you know, a 12-pitch fourth, a 14-pitch fifth. He allowed, he retired 13 of 14. teen hitters after that big double to Andrew McCutcheon and the second inning, obviously, is, is night ended on kind of a sour note with the two walks and the seventh, Kevin Ginkle, able to step in and clean up that mess. So, yeah, it was a really impressive comeback win for the Diamondbacks and against a key opponent in this in this Pittsburgh Pirates team. I think that, again, there were a lot of guys that we could probably give this to.

I think Zach Gallen kind of deserved it for the way that he bounced back and had kind of a comeback within this game itself. But Kevin Ginkled, like his ability to go out there and just not allow those two runs to score. I mean, not only was it the two runs, but we talked about Jesse the fact that he was down those, you know, 3-0 in the count. Yeah. His back couldn't have been more against the wall unless maybe if the bases were already

loaded at that point was maybe the only way that it could have been more against the ball, but he just absolutely was incredible there to get out of that inning. And the bullpen as a whole did their job very well tonight. They all got themselves into a little bit of a pickle, but they all found a way out of it. And they all looked very solid in doing so. Like it all, it felt like they all got stronger, much like Zach Gallen did after they allowed a base runner. Yeah, I mean, how deflating would it have been, right?

If the debacks come out, they score three runs to tie the game in the sixth inning. and then, you know, in the, or I guess at that point, they had taken the lead. But then if in the top half of the seventh, you know, Zach Allen walks the first two batters he faces, Kevin Ginkle is three and O, you know, on Andrew McCutcheon, as you said. And DeBacks seemingly were in position to maybe just give back everything they had just gained, maybe give the lead back to the Pittsburgh Pirates. But, yeah, Ginkle has been just so, so good for the Diamondbacks here over the last month. Plus, we said it the other day.

He has been kind of the stabilizing presence for this bullpen. I know on the whole, the back end of the bullpen has been pretty good for a while now, but you've seen Ryan Thompson look a little more human. You know, you've seen Justin Martinez go through a rough stretch. You've seen Paul Seawald obviously had that stretch of three straight blown saves. He came through and was able to convert this blown save tonight. But yeah, Kevin Ginkle has been just really that stabilizing presence here over the last month. And he was the man for the job.

I mean, there's no other debacks or least. that you'd rather have in a spot like that. So huge moment for him. I'd like to thank Sean in the comments for his kind comment. And he said, I wish I knew about this pod last season. It might have helped me cope with that free fall, L.O.L. But it's funny he brings that up, Jesse, because here we sit now Friday, July 26th. And July in 2024 couldn't be more different than July in 2023 for this team.

This was a red hot team coming into this month a year ago, and July was historically bad for them. And instead for this team, I mean, June was a good month for the Diamondbacks. It's not like they hobbled in from June, but they did hobble in and were unsure about their future as the trade deadline approached. And here we have Mike Hazen already making that move for AJ Puck,

and we have this team pulling out their 18th comeback win of the season. It just feels very good, especially considering what they've done so far here in the month of July. I mean, they still have two more games in this series with the Pirates, but they have been very good and, in fact, have not lost the series so far here in the month of July. And oh, man, right as it came out of my mouth, knock on wood. Be careful there, Derek.

I knew people were going to get on me if they don't do the thing. But, yeah, I mean, it's just been impressive. And it couldn't be more night and day versus what this month was for this team last year. Yeah, 100%. I can't echo all of that enough. I mean, it's almost an exact reversal. I mean, I think it was kind of late June of last year where we first saw the wheels kind of coming off for this team. And I believe it was 8 and 16 was their final record in July a season ago. And right now, we're talking about a debacks team that is 1 15 of its last 22 games. I believe that goes back to one of the one of the last couple of days of June. So yeah, almost an exact, you know, 180.

rather than being in clear position to buy at the deadline and then falling back so much that there were questions about whether they should buy. This year's team was very much the opposite, right? It was the debacks might buy. They might sell. We don't really know what's going to happen. And then you go on a run like this. And, you know, sure enough, we're talking about the debacks, kind of getting the party

started in the trade deadline by acquiring AJ Puck. So the momentum is good. The vibes are good right now. are good. But maybe it doesn't matter, Derek, because the Padres and the Mets may never lose a baseball game ever again. So those teams are red hot now as well. It's ridiculous. But Jesse, I gave myself the title, by the way, a vibes curator, by the way. So I will be the vibes curator going forward. It comes with a hefty pay raise. So I hope they're ready to make that adjustment to my salary. But yeah, there was a lot of talk here in the chat. I think some of it's

blaming me. So one guy's Damon Pog, we now have a Damon dog copycat. That's cool. He says Jesse looks like, he says Jesse looks like a chiro dog type of fella. And the what's funny is that is I know that couldn't be further

from the truth because Jesse's never had a churro dog in his life. I've never had a churot dog, Derek. I'm a very financially conscious individual and I've never, I mean, I'm not going to eat the thing by myself, right? and it's not like a super normal thing in the press box to go up to one of the other reporters like,

hey, you want to split a churro dog with me? Like, that's not really a normal thing that happens. I guess if you were here, Derek, I could maybe see a scenario where I split a churro dog with you. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, are you even all that high? Are you even all that high on the churro dog yourself? Okay.

When you talk about eating a churot dog with another person, you talk about splitting one with, with like another person. I raced Bo Brock to see who could eat three churot dogs fastest. So we ate six chiro dogs in a matter of 10 minutes. Both of us should be institutionalized. And I'm still not okay from that moment. But yeah, no, I dig the churot dog just again. Remember, heed my warning.

Ask them for the churro dog on the side. It does not belong on the ice cream. or the frozen yogurt. It's frozen yogurt, I believe. It does not belong on the frozen yogurt while you are transporting it to your seat. The yogurt's going to melt. Your hot dog, your cura dog's going to get cold. It's all bad. So you keep it separate. And then you apply the two together upon eating and then go at it fast because it's a time bomb. It's a ticking time bomb. You don't have a lot of time to eat it. And I mean that in more than one way, not just the eating form. But we'll move on. Jesse, I know you have some stuff from Chase Field. What do you got from the clubhouse tonight? Uh, yeah. Do we have, we have all the stuff? Okay. So I'm, I'm going to start with, uh, I'm going to start actually with, uh, no like actual sound from any of the players. We'll get into that in a second. I'm going to start with a still shot of Diamondbacks manager, Tori Lavello, Derek. Oh, no. Because we had, uh, we had a lot of, we had a lot of fun tonight because there's a little mix up on whether us media members were supposed to go to the interview room or to the clubhouse first. We originally went to the interview room. We went over to the clubhouse. Then we wound up going back to the interview room. And when we came back, there was Diamondbacks manager, Tori LeBellis, sitting in the second row. I believe he stole one of the reporter's notepads and has a pen. You can see him taking notes.

I will not unveil what he wrote on that piece of paper, but it was very, very funny. So, yes, we all came to the press interview room. And Tori was there. He was prepared. He was ready to ask the first question. It was a pretty funny moment. did he end up asking any questions did he or did he just give the notepad back to the reporter yeah well we had a little bit of a hang up on like who is supposed to sit at the podium

because if he's there then like Steve Gilbert obviously should be up there Steve gore felt like he felt like the right choice but Steve gore as some of you might know was actually on the radio broadcast for a portion of today's game Nick Bacora was also over there as well they were little short handed on the on the broadcast side so they were kind of shuffling a few different color commentators alongside Chris Carriziola throughout the game. But yeah. Even the bottom of the bear. Did they ask you, Jesse?

Did they didn't come over and ask you? No. No request. They did not ask me. They obviously do not know about your qualifications, sir. Yeah, I was a little offended by it. But I would be too. I'll bounce back.

But yes, eventually the press conference did start. And we did hear from Diamondbacks manager, Tori Lubello, about tonight's game. And here's what Tori had to say. Just a hard-fought win against good baseball team. And, you know, those are the types of things we've been doing a lot of lately. We hang in there. We duke it out. We find a little crack, and we just start string together good at bats.

You know, you're down, whatever it was, 3 to nothing, 3 to 1 with the chip, a little scratch run, and then the big inning took over. It was just, it was a really good recovery type of win. every day for Gowan and then offensively I thought we got on our feet at the right time to get the win. Gallin looked like he was having trouble getting into a rhythm. And then in the third inning in the secondary stuff started taking over. He's landing some pitches and looked like he was in a really good spot and things stabilized. I sent him back out there for the seventh inning with 87 pitches.

I just felt like he's our guy. He got through the six, no problem. And, you know, this is my thinking. It's not right or not wrong. But, you know, the first batter gets on. He's probably one of our better feelers. I thought it was a true bun situation. So I left him in the game to pick up a bun.

They didn't bun. It turns into a 9-7-9 pitch-out bat, and I got to take him off the mount after walking two batterers. It wasn't the way we wanted it to happen. So that's the reason why I sent him back out there. I just believed he was going to get it done. It didn't happen. And that's why we had great teammates that come in the game like Kevin Ginkle,

and he executed an unbelievable game plan and got us out of that mess. And then it was Ginkled to Thompson, who made pitches, and then Seawald, and just this is the way you want to win a baseball game. So I'm proud of these guys. We fought hard, won a big game. Tonight is the most exactly how you drew it up kind of night for Tori, right? Like every guy on this team that the Diamondbacks that rely on for, you know, what their strength is kind of came through, right? We had Zach Gallen doing the things Zach Gallen does where even when he struggles early, he bounces back and gives you an incredible

outing. You have Jock Peterson being the power bat that they went out and got as a D.H. You have Corbyn Carroll getting a triple and scoring on a sack fly with his speed and Cotell Marte finding a way to drive him in. You just you had the bullpen go out there and do what the bullpen does. And it's those three guys that Tori has relied on all season long in order getting a job done. Like this was this was a very, you know, blueprint Diamondbacks win for Tori LaVolo. Yeah, yeah, in many ways it was, right? I mean, Gowan for six and then and then you hand it off to Ginkle Thompson and Seawall. That's a recipe that we've seen, you know, quite a bit here over the last calendar year.

I did think with Gowan, you know, he talked after the game about how he actually felt pretty good. He said he felt pretty good even in those first couple of innings. You know, there were some unfortunate things that happened there, you know, Palacios' two-run single. Was a change-up that was down below the zone? It really wasn't all that bad about. a pitch, you know, the Rowdy Telles hit by pitch. That was, that was tough. That was on an 02 in an 02 count. So, you know, some things didn't go his way there. I did think he was a little all over the place. You know, I was maybe a little surprised to, to hear him make that comment,

you know, starting the game with a five pitch walk is, is very uncharacteristic of a, of a guy like Zach Gallen who has such stellar man. Andrew McCutcheon, Andrew McCutcheon still doing it to this team, Jesse. Yeah, this isn't, you know, this isn't 2000. You know, 2013, Andrew McCutcheon. This is, you know, he's still getting it done. I mean, you know, you got to have respect for the guy. You know, he did have a big double in this game for sure. But, yeah, not a great outing by and large for Gowan, but he was able to settle in.

He was still able to, you know, pitch into the seventh inning for the first time since, I think it's been about two months since we've seen Gowan throw a pitch in the seventh inning. Part of that, of course, is just due to the fact that he missed about a month with injury. But, yeah, a big, you know, a big outing for him to be. able to kind of bounce back and put the debacks in in decent position to win this game, which they ultimately did. 17 whiffs tonight, nine of which were on his knuckle curve. So he did a good job of dropping that curveball in there.

But yeah, I think the thing that he did a great job of is shaking off that first and that second inning and just being dominant after that. I mean, dominant is subjective. But he was very good. And the fact that he went out there and kind of just turned it up to 11 after that point is classic Zach Gallin stuff. Like even when you think Zach Gallin is down and out, he's not. And that's the reason why he's such a valuable pitcher for this starting rotation. Same thing with Merrill Kelly.

You know, Merrill Kelly always showed that same ability to just, no matter how bad things got at times, still find a way to keep the team in it. And, you know, again, they gave him just enough run support. and things are bouncing the Diamondbacks way too, Jesse. Like the wild pitch being the essentially the winning run here is a little wild of a scenario for this team. Yeah, it is. You know, there were some spots where they didn't really take full advantage. You know, that wild pitch was very, very helpful for them, given that, you know,

his first and third, nobody out, Gino Suarez, it's a line shot to the third baseman. Gabby Moreno makes a bit of a base running mistake, winds up getting doubled off first. that was a pretty rough moment. You felt like you were in really good position to take the lead there. And sure enough, the debacks still do take the lead because of a wild pitch that looked honestly pretty blockable by Joey Bart behind the plate. So they caught a bit of a bit of a break there. They're expected batting average in this game over on statcast, I think was 367. So, you know, it wasn't all just kind of like good luck the ball bouncing their way.

I think the offense actually was pretty good by and large in this game. there were some line drives, some hard hit balls that found gloves. Lourdes, Lourdes three for four tonight. Yeah, yeah, Lourdes had a big bounceback day, kind of been, you know, looking for that from him for a while. On Jock Peterson, of course, we discussed earlier how he had probably the biggest blow in this game, that that solo home run that felt like it just jumped start at the offense. Here's Jock talking about that swing as well as the Diamondbacks, notching another comeback victory here tonight.

Yeah, consider that I didn't put any of the offense. the other balls forward. It felt pretty good. But, yeah, he had good stuff. I think that was my first time to face him, but it's a really good pitcher. 453 feet, I think he said, do you know your longest home line inspection? I can get a chance to look it up. No, I don't know. I don't know. But I hit that one hard. Jog six comeback wins this month. Just what, how do you describe the resiliency of this team? It's special, you know, it's gritty. And it's what it's what it takes to be a, to be a good team sometimes you get knocked down and you got to get up find a way to fight back and uh finish the game

strong so that's our team's do a great job i think zach showed it today when he uh struggled the first two innings and then came out and really uh limited to limit the team to normal runs and kept his pitch count low so it was very impressive jesse did he say gritty there you're always prepared he's always around just any time someone says gritty. But it was a gritty win for this team, Jesse. It absolutely was. And I think, again, these, these are the type of games that good teams win.

It's, and it makes a big difference because we know not only does this matter for the Diamondbacks, but this matters with how close the pirates are to also being in this race for one of these wild card spots. So every game right now, they have, they have what? They have five more games against the pirates. in a very short amount of time that every game in these five games matters against teams like this. Like the Diamondbacks have played a type of baseball. Tori Lobello has managed in a way that pisses a lot of people off. Let's be honest.

And it drives people crazy because of the fact that Tori tries to prepare his team in the first half of the season for the second half. But now we're to a point where we are in the second half. We are fully in the playoff race with how close things are. national league. So every win matters. And of course, this is, this is huge. This is big that the Diamondbacks were able to come back tonight on a night where it felt like, like you said, it felt like once they fell behind three to nothing, just kind of felt like that was it. You know, Corbyn scores on that, on that sack fly and that felt like very much all we were going to see. Maybe the pirates put up a couple of more runs or something like that.

And, and, you know, much to our surprise, much to their credit. They did not give up in the one. Yeah, it was just a well a well played game for them all all the way around. I guess, yeah, there were some mistakes. The Gabby-Rano based running blunder, as I mentioned earlier. That wasn't, that wasn't too happy about that. We do have one more, one more video quickly from the clubhouse. Of course, we had to get Zach Gallen's reaction to the trade that the diamondbacks made last night. They acquired AJ Puck for those who don't know and trade with the Miami Marlins. And, uh, he's. Here's what Gallen had to say about the front office investing in this team.

I mean, it's huge. I think it just reaffirms the product that we've been putting on the field. I know obviously the first probably two months didn't go exactly how we had planned, but obviously battling injuries and things like that and just maybe some bad luck and whatnot. But yeah, I think it just energizes really. What it really does is like, okay, the front office is in on this year as are we? so it's just kind of going to motivate us to keep doing what we're doing it feels good to hear him say that right like there's definitely something about Zach gallon being happy with the front office and the way things are going here just makes you it makes you feel good inside right but you think that the the front office you know should be a priority priority what kind of does he like croissants does he what kind of fruit does he like like let's just make sure That whatever Zach Gallen likes and wants, we keep it stocked and readily available.

His favorite type of a big league Jew, I don't care, get it for the man. But yes, I mean, AJ Puck, absolutely huge addition for this team. And it's like, again, it's big for the players, right? Like they get to see the front office making these moves. And we talk about like Tori doing stuff in a game like he did for the Royals, where he comes out and he protects his players and he gets tossed out of the game. and what that means to the team. This is kind of like the front offices version of doing that.

Like, hey, we're making moves. We're not even wait until the trade deadline. We're not even going to say like, oh, let's see what happens against the series, you know, with the pirates. We're doing it now. We're not waiting. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the debacks are there one and O in the AJ Puck era, Derek, you know. Undefeated.

Never mind the fact that I pretty sure AJ Puck was not in this building at all today. wasn't in the clubhouse pregame or, you know, available to the devax to pitch in this game. But we did hear. Was you watching the Miami Marlins game? Like Randy or Zerina was watching the Tampa Vegas. Yeah, you was in the stands at the Marlins game. Yeah. You can understand it.

You know, just one last time, you know, just wanted to get the fans perspective. No, we are. We do expect for AJ Puck to be with the Diamondbacks tomorrow and available out of the bullpen. Tori mentioned there were some kind of a flight issue or something. thing, but, you know, I know a Rosarena, as you just alluded to, was not available for the Mariners tonight either. Sometimes it takes a couple of days. But, yeah, I guess the more official A.J. Puck era should begin tomorrow for the devax.

Well, we have some audio here from Mike Kzan on A.J. Puck. Here's what Mike Kazan had to say about acquiring the left-ander. We have been looking to supplement the back end of our bullpen late in games. and this was a target of ours for a while. You know, the power left-handed is something that we don't have a ton of right now. And so trying to round out what the back end of that bullpen looks like to maximize the weapons that Tori has at his disposal. This was a fit for us. Obviously, the control having him for multiple seasons is something that was very,

valuable, intriguing for us. We feel like once he shifted back from starting to relieving, that the relief performance was what we expect and have seen out of him in the past. And we just feel like he's a good fit. Obviously, losing Nelly and Saul Frank earlier this year, it left us in a little bit of a tight spot, leaving kind of Joe to handle the entirety of the left-handed attack plan. And we can't expect to run Joe into the ground every single night.

And so we felt like this was a good compliment. I feel like when our bullpen was at our best last year with Joe and Nellie, we had those two lefties out there, giving Tori a lefty probably every night. And I know we have some guys that can attack lefties, but this was a good fit for us. It's easy to forget how good Ryan, or not Ryan Nelson, Kyle Nelson. He's saying Nellie, so it's just my brain feeling that. in but it's Kyle yeah they're both Nelly it's kind of it's kind of yeah we need two different nicknames there yeah yeah someone needs to be Nell now or something you know like

we'll figure it out but uh you know again yes that's a great point it's not like the diamondbacks purposefully you know left themselves short-handed at left-handed pitching out of the bullpen I mean one guy got injured one guy made a huge mistake gambling on baseball so you know now the Diamondbacks are left where you know yes, Mantyply was left with the majority of the workload, and that sucks. This guy, though, I mean, Jesse, just yesterday or just not yet, I don't know, what day is it? Again, I'm still not caught up on my days from our trip, but we were just talking about Carlos Estevez as an option for the diamondbacks in the bullpen from the Los Angeles Angels. And it's wild because he's a right-hander, but his numbers were so good that we were like, this guy would be an asset for this team.

It would be huge if they could bring him over. Puck's numbers as a reliever are better than his, and he's a lot. lefty. So he's just a solid weapon for this team and in more ways than one. And Mike Hazen sounds like he's not entirely done potentially, right? Like he has more, but I do know that a lot of fans are mad about, you know, Davis and Delos Santos. You know, what did Mike have to say about that, the pieces they gave up? Yeah, we-line to it. He has huge power. he has become a better hitter. We believe that he was going to be a very good baseball player.

There's no way around when you're operating as a buyer at the deadline that you're going to just be able to give up kids that aren't performing or nobody's heard of or aren't good players to get good players. And that's just something you have to make peace with. And it's hard and it's not something that you run into casually. It's not that we're blind to what the upside could be in the future. It's not like we're teaming with guys that have the potential to do what he can do. And we understand all that.

But our commitment that we made this off season and into this year, and the team has shown at this point that we need to push our chips, some of our chips in here to make this team a better team. And we're committed to doing that. We're going to continue to look at ways of doing that. We're not, this isn't hopefully the only thing we do if it is okay, because you never know what else is going to come around the corner, but we're still going to work pretty hard for,

the next four days to figure out if there's other ways to make the team better. When the Diamondbacks didn't protect Davis and De Los Santos from the Rule 5 draft, they knew that they were risking losing him and they were okay with it. And they did. And the Guardians, of course, weren't able to keep him on the Major League roster and he came back. Part of that is the Diamondbacks feeling like Davis and DeLos Santos probably isn't going to make it as a Major League player. part of it also could be them being smart enough to know that any team that did take them and take him in the Rule 5 draft wasn't going to be able to keep him on the Major League roster because he simply wasn't ready for that yet. And it's not to say he won't be because I very much feel like this kid is going to be a power hitter in Major League Baseball that is going to one day make us regret parting ways with him.

The easiest part about this, though, is that the Diamondbacks already lost him, you know, and it just makes. makes it so much easier that if that's a player people are interested in, teams are interested in, to trade him considering that he already was lost to another team. And by the luck of that team, not keeping him on the roster, he came back to the Diamondbacks. But it's house money you're playing with at that point. It really is. Yeah, I mean, you heard Mike there talk about how, you know, he's aware that Davidson, de Los Santos can do things kind of unlike anyone else in the organization.

right i mean the raw power is is probably i mean it might be more than anyone on the major league team like his raw power is is off the charts insane and if you narrow in just on the debaques farm system i don't think there's anyone particularly close to davis and delos Santos in terms of raw power i guess iven melendez would maybe come up there but his hit tool is is you know has been pretty shaky at this point in the miners delos santo's there are questions there as well but he's certainly made it a lot further um but yeah i'm just reminded of of of the Diamondbacks emphasis on defense and how much they value that as an organization and how, you know, in a sense, like you feel bad for DeLos, like the DeBex left him off the 40 band.

They allowed him to be snatched up in the Rule of Five draft. They got him back. He had a lot of success, represented them at the futures game, you know, just a little over a week ago. And now, you know, they ship him off in a trade. But from an organizational philosophy standpoint, it kind of makes sense. like the diamond backs really value defense. And there were some indications that maybe, you know,

De Los Santos wasn't putting in, you know, quite the, quite the work that the diamond backs were hoping that he would on that side of the ball. And, you know, he was playing third base. They moved him over to first base. I think there were still some questions about how he would fare there in the long term. So in terms of what the diamond backs value, it kind of makes sense why it ended this way.

Our guy Mike Dreckman is here, Jesse. allegedly. Oh, there we go. Might be a fake Mike Dreckman, but Mike says, I think we have the pieces we need. The defining series for this season is going to be the Phillies series at home in August. Absolutely. And the Diamondbacks are poking the bear there by having the, you know,

NLCS or the NL ring night, right? Like that's definitely a little spiteful and I like it, you know. And Mike, Mike also, he's like like Mike does own the Philly. Like that is The Phillies are going to I mean Kyle Schorber is going to see Mike in the stands and he's just going to I mean he's not going to be able to hit the broad side of the bond.

He's just going to hold his jersey up at him like this and be like what? All right. Well, we still don't know what the Diamondbacks are going to do here. Mike Hazen is being a bit cryptic and not only is he being cryptic, but he makes it sound very much like the Diamondbacks are still going to add a bat and maybe another bullpen arm here, Jesse. Let's first hear what Mike had to say. Here's what Mike had to say about potentially adding some more pieces.

I think that's definitely something on our radar. From a priority standpoint, I still think, you know, pitching probably outweighs position players for us. I look around the diamond on our team, and I'm not saying that, you know, everybody can't upgrade where they need to upgrade, but we have a pretty strong position player group that's pretty diversified in its talents. and its handedness, et cetera.

I don't know that we're overly exposed in either direction from right-de-lefty. I think we have some versatility defensively. I think some of the guys that we've had have played very well for us. You know, I, Gino's been smoking hot in July. And I think, you know, Kevin Newman's been great. Obviously, Pardomo does what Pardomo does for us every single day. I think from an outfield standpoint, like Jake's having his best season. Alex, obviously, probably one of the best, if not the best defensive center field or in baseball.

Like, there's just a lot of talent out there in a lot of different ways that I really, really like. Not saying, again, that we're, you know, that we aren't looking to upgrade certain things or there's skill sets that we need to get better at. We will look at all that stuff. But I still think pitching, A, being adding talent to pitching. and be depth for the rest of the season. This is our last bite at the Apple. So that's probably the larger priority, but we're working all those things at the same time.

Getting a deal done and in the books helps us to continue to focus even further on the specific needs we have. Jesse, you and I could spend six hours going through potential trade candidates that are infielders, outfielders, D.H. candidates, potential, you know, players that this team could add. And I feel like every single one of them, we would poke holes in why it didn't make sense for this team or it doesn't make sense. The reason why is what Mike's saying there, like, this is a fairly complete team.

And even when guys aren't playing well, they still all have their mutant abilities, right? They all have their strengths. It's like, Alec Thomas, you're willing at times to have him out there and go O for four, considering what he's able to do for you in center field. Zach Gallen, again, or not Zach Gallen, excuse me, Alick, Corbyn Carroll. Corbyn Carroll's a guy. Again, going one for four most nights,

got robbed tonight of probably a second triple, but still, like a guy that based on what he's able to do, not just at the plate in the field, he's able to do on the base path. Like, he's just a valuable commodity at any time to help you win a baseball game. It's the pieces of this team. It's the fact that they have so many different guys that do so many different things well

that feels like this really is a complete team when it comes to their position players. Everyone has a role, right? There's no one. And I think like down the stretch last season, there were, you know, I won't go into different names, but there were guys on the team that was like, yeah, I don't really know like that player's not really performing in the role that they have. It's a little unclear exactly, you know, what they're bringing to the table right now. this roster feels different where, you know, maybe there are players out there that could be upgrades over guys on this roster.

There certainly are. But everyone on this roster has a role. They fit into the puzzle of this baseball team somehow some way. I do think that there was something that stuck out to me there that Mike said, which is that this is their last bite at the Apple. It's not just a question of trying to improve your top end talent as much as you can, you know, for, a postseason run. It's also a matter of trying to make sure that you have insurance in case, you know, various guys get hurt.

Like you have to kind of go down the road of, all right, what if so-and-so gets hurt? What if we, what do we do? What if this player gets hurt? What do we do? You want to make sure that in all of those different scenarios, I mean, some of them are, you know, you're not going to be able to replace certain guys on this team. There's no way around that. But you want to make sure that you have a reasonable solution in place for all of those

different scenarios. So, you know, it does. I guess the big idea here is that the diamondbacks are still looking to add. Mike Hazen made that clear today that he hopes that the AJ puck trade is not the only move that the diamondbacks make here before the trade deadline. However, you know, kind of going through all of the different scenarios, he talks about a starting pitcher. And he said that, you know, they're more so looking at controllable starters versus rentals. Controllable starter. That's always going to be a stretch.

He did mention, you know, still looking at the bullpen. We talked about how that might be getting a little greedy. But, you know, I guess from a depth standpoint, you can certainly understand that. So maybe, you know, maybe there is another move or two to be had here in the next few days for this Diamondbacks team. I want to shout out Johnny Walker for his comment and his super chat. We thank you so much for the $10 super chat. You are the man. And he says, it's the 93 mile per hour, Ryan Thompson's sinker, the best pitch in baseball.

And now after reading that, I'm starting to think Johnny Walker might be Ryan Thompson. Is that you, Ryan? Like, it's fine. You could admit it if it's you. It's a burner account. Like, it's hilarious. We get it. No, but Ryan Thompson's sinker, very good sinker.

Not the best pitch in baseball, unfortunately, but a very good pitch. And again, that might be kind of something you could say about this team. Like, the Diamondbacks might not be the best at a lot of things. you know, it feels like there might always be somebody that's better. We talk about, you know, Catele Marte and his MVP bid. There's always going to be like a couple of guys like Otani and stuff that are going to just have those higher numbers and such. Like, but that's fine because this team, like you said, Jesse, is built like a puzzle. It's built to come together and it's built to take that next step.

Hopefully that they couldn't get done last year. And that's win a championship, which is the ultimate goal for any baseball team. So right now it does feel like things have really turned around. And again, we don't know what the future holds, considering the pieces that the Diamondback still are going to get back. But right now, you got to give credit to this entire team for what they've been able to do while they're missing, you know, one of their best pitchers in Merrill Kelly and one of their biggest offseason acquisitions in Eduardo Rodriguez. is like they basically are missing components that would probably keep other teams from being four games above 500 where the diamondbacks are right now but instead the diamondbacks have kind of thrived lately and again the more that they get back the better that this team gets

yeah i think that's what separates the diamondbacks for me from some of the other teams that they're looking up at in the standings right now some of those teams have had injuries i I think the Padres maybe stand out most there. You know, U. Darvish and Joe Musgrove have both missed a lot of time this year. On some level, you kind of expect that because, you know, Udarvish, Joe Musgrove, they've both had quite a few injuries over the years. But, yeah, I mean, you know, the New Yorker Mets, not to say they haven't had any injuries this season, but that's a team that's been pretty whole over the course of the year.

And they're pretty much neck and neck with a Diamondbacks team that's lacked, you know, two of its best starting pitchers for basically. the entire season. The same, I think, could be said for the St. Louis Cardinals, who have had some injuries, more so on the hitting side, but I still don't, it doesn't feel like the impact there is as big as what the Diamondbacks have gone through this season. So, you know, it definitely speaks to not only how impressive it is that the debacks are where they are.

I think it, you know, being four games over 500 at this point is pretty impressive. It also speaks to, you know, maybe where things could go for them in the second half. well we will have one more show for you tomorrow it was supposed to be paul skein's day but it's not but instead it's randy johnson and louis gonzalez hall of fame day so we will be back here tomorrow night with another postgame show make sure to come back here in the meantime you can follow us on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k jesse is at jesse n friedman of course the people's producer damon is at damon dog that's da wg we are damon's dog we are damon's dogs, bark, bark.

Our show is at PHNX underscore D-BACs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much again for stopping by. We appreciate your time, but we also appreciate comeback wins. You got to appreciate those, 18 of them this season. We will see you guys back here tomorrow night on Saturday for one more post-game show this week. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, by the way, make sure to check out Jesse's on the record covering this series with the Pirates.

That's available right now on YouTube as well as your audio podcasts. You can also check out our vlog from Chicago. We had a lot of fun. I made Jesse go walk around Chicago with me. He did it begrudgingly, but we still had ourselves a blast on our road trip. We went and hit some balls and some batting cages. That was fun. So make sure to check that video out.

All the wonderful content we have for you guys on our YouTube channel. don't miss out on that again we thank you guys so much for stopping by of course we appreciate your time we'll see you on saturday and until then have a wonderful evening and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun when you never give up