PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Zac Gallen has the worst start of his major league career in loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen got uncharacteristically shelled in Arizona’s 11-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Should we be worried about the trending direction of Gallen’s latest performances? And should we be REALLY worried about Brandon Pfaadt’s start in game two?WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to the Keepin’ it 100 Golf Scramble, D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Manscaped: Save 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code “PHNX” at Manscaped.com. BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. DISCLAIMER: We are not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site of any kind. The content of this website is intended to be used for entertainment purposes only and does not involve real money betting. Sports betting and gambling laws vary by jurisdiction. Please be aware of and respect the laws of sports gambling for your jurisdiction. We do not promote or endorse any form of wagering or gambling to users under the age of 21. We support responsible gambling. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-777-7207 (for Arizona Council on Compulsive Gambling) or 1-800-NEXT-STEP (Arizona Office of Problem Gambling) or text NEXTSTEP to 53342.When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, that sucked. Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNXDVax podcast. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as a person that does not want to be associated with this baseball team on certain nights ever. But this guy, he sticks with him a little bit more. He is the Thunderstick, occasionally known in Jesse. Jesse Friedman. What baseball team?

Do we cover? We cover Major League Baseball, and I think that qualifies us to talk about anything else other than this game, Jesse. That's what I would like to do is talk about anything else other than this game. But unfortunately, we can't do that. We do have to dive into the Arizona Diamondbacks 13 to 3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. And Zach Gallen has probably never looked worse. To say he didn't have his best stuff tonight would be a, quite the understatement.

Yeah, that would be a very big understatement. Yeah, we talked about it during our watchalong in those first few innings. Zach Gallen got through the first three innings of this game and only allowed one run. It was a one-one game at that point. Things were mosing along. You know, you felt like with your ace on the mound, you had a good chance to win this game going to the fourth inning. And then I believe with what you were talking about during the watch-along, I don't think

Zach Gallen has ever given up more than seven earned runs in a game. Correct. He did not technically end up getting earned, but he did give up seven runs in an inning in this start today. The debacks had to get him out of the game in the fourth. And we talked about it in those first three innings. Zaggallan did not have his best stuff from the get-go tonight. And it sort of felt like it was only a matter of time before that caught up to him.

And it's also been a trend in his last couple of starts. We've talked a lot about how Zach Allen start after start keep saying, you know, he didn't feel like he had his best stuff. And tonight you're like, oh, yeah, he really didn't have his best stuff. And I think it's sort of finally catching up to him now. Three and two thirds innings pitched, eight hits, eight runs, five earned because Josh Rojas got charged with an error that took some of those earned runs off of his line. Four walks, two strikeouts. By far, you would probably look back. back at his career and say this is his worst start.

There's been a couple of starts where he's given up seven earned runs, but those were longer outings. Those were different games. This one, it felt like even in the first three innings that he pitched, that Gallen just kind of got out of those situations. Like he had some good defense behind him. He was able to get some guys to pop up.

Yeah, Geraldo Perdomen made a great play in the third inning to get him out of that mess. First inning, it was a five-pitch first inning. So they seemed like they were really rolling. despite giving up a lead-off single to the ageless Andrew McCutcheon. But entering into this game in his last seven starts, Gallen is 6-0 with a 1.16 ERA, a 172 opponent batting average, a 0.86 whip, 4 walks, and 60 strikeouts. That was entering this game in his last 7 starts. He gives up 4 walks just in tonight's game alone. And oddly enough, Zach Gallen was rolling.

rolling along where we weren't just really joking about him being a Cy Young candidate, but he led Major League Baseball and WIP. He had something going. He was the odds-on favorite to win the Cy Young Award entering this game. And this one game may have been enough to completely throw him off track. What Jesse said, though, I think holds a lot of weight. And coming into this game, Zach Allen, even though he did get wins, even though he was able to get through a couple of his last outings,

he really hasn't had his best stuff in his last few outings. And that really, like, ultimately culminated in tonight's outing where you were bringing up his loss of RPMs on his fastball and other things. And none of his pitches seem to be very effective tonight. And he didn't seem to have any control. You know how many runs, Zach Allen had given up in his last seven starts coming into this one, Derek? I do not. Six.

Six. Six. six runs in his last seven starts combined. Of course, there was a 28-inning, Squirrel Street baked in there. But, yeah, he gave up eight runs in this game alone. And yeah, early in this one, the spin rate on a couple of his pitches was down pretty significantly over the course of the game.

Those numbers ticked back up a little bit towards more, looked a little bit more normal by the end of it. But you could tell he just did not have a feel for his curved ball, for his change-up, which has been a trend of light. he's sort of been able to get outs without those two pitches. But that's not going to be sustainable. You know, for as good as Zach Allen's fastball can be, and as good as his cutter can be at times, you know,

he just can't get by with only having two of his pitches working. And frankly, today, I don't think even at two of his pitches working. It was all just an all-out disaster. How do you, how do you continue to let some, I mean, I guess he's had the success, but like when you see someone go, knuckle curve, knuckle curve, knuckle curve, knuckle curve on their pitches to a batter. You got to start questioning, you know, what's the game playing here?

Where's the variety? How are we mixing it up? How are we changing the batter's eye? And especially if he's not being effective, how are you doing what you can to try to get them to swing and miss or at least, I mean, you know, we could talk about the strike zone like we did on the watch alone all night, but it felt like Zach Gound. and even with the lack of... There were some missed calls,

and as someone on Twitter just said, like, oh, it's a totally different game. If Zach Gallen gets the call on that curveball against Mercano at one point, I mean, I don't know if I buy that. I don't know if it's a completely different game, but there are moments in this game where... Because he wasn't... It wasn't just the last out in the fourth inning.

He struggled in that entire fourth inning. Right. I mean... It's like even... I mean, even... if somehow that it helped him get out of the fourth inning and survive only giving up a couple of runs or something, when you don't have your best stuff, especially to the degree that Zach Allen did not have his stuff today, it's going to catch up with you eventually. Like if it wasn't the

fourth inning, it was probably going to be the fifth inning. You just can't throw that many center cut pitches. You can't hang that many curve balls. You know, it felt like the depth on some of his pitches just wasn't quite what it normally is. It just didn't have that same sharpness that we're used to seeing walking batters on four straight pictures like i don't know if i've ever seen that for yeah unless it was intentional walking in a run which is something you felt like that gallon like couldn't do even if he tried uh based on on how he's pitched the last couple of months so um yeah i mean zack gallon has been so good this season in the grand scheme of things i wouldn't really be all that concerned uh but yeah you know maybe maybe this is a lesson that talking about sly young

awards in in the middle of may is a little bit premature no matter how how good, how good you look, because these kind of starts can happen. And suddenly after they do, you look back at the numbers and you're like, oh, at me, Jesse, at me next time. I was right here. I was like what is happening here? I just straight up. I'm just straight up. I'm just talking directly to Damon on this.

Seriously. No, I mean, I, like, I've had a lot of conversations with, with, with D-BACs fans. I did a radio spot with our, with our friend Justin Spears, with Spears and Ali the other day. And Spears has asked me, I think the last two times I've been on the show, you know, is Zach Gallen in the driver's seat for the Siong Award? I have to know. It's like, yeah, I mean, I guess, like in as much as you can be in the driver's seat for an award when the season is only a quarter of the way done. Right. But yeah, I mean, to be fair, like, he has pitched so well this season.

And I don't think this at all closes the book on Zach Gallen not winning the Scy Young Award or anything. The point is it's just too early in the season to really be having serious. conversations about that. But should we be worried about the direction that Zach Allen is trending at all? That's a fair. That's a fair question. And yeah, honestly, maybe a little bit. He's a feel guy. He's talked a lot about that recently, how, you know, he can get good results, but he really heavily relies on just the feel of his pitches. And, you know, if he doesn't have that in the long term, it's going to be hard for him to be successful. And he's going to have to get that back at some point. And It's been, frankly, quite a while, at least from what he's been telling us since he's actually felt that.

To be fair, the Pittsburgh Pirates did come off, fresh off of a pummeling of the Detroit Tigers that they won 8 to nothing on Wednesday. And even though this team has been bad, we've kind of circled them as being one of the better teams because of their hot start and what we saw to them offensively. And that's kind of what we saw tonight. I mean, again, the Diamondbacks make another starting pitcher look like a like a Cy Young candidate himself. there a bit and the Diamondback's offense really struggles to do anything. But again, like I said, the pirates were fairly hot coming off of that series with the Tigers. Speaking of hot, Catelle Martez extends his on-base streak to 19 games, which goes back to April 26. It's tied for the fifth longest active streak in the majors coming into tonight's game. Heraldo

Perdomo had a 448 average with runners and scoring position, which is also fifth in the majors. So Pardomo continues to be our wrist king. But the biggest thing tonight is Lordus Gouriel and his purple hair and my purple hair together work together. And he extended his hitting streak to 12 games, which matches a career high. Jesse has an article right now about the magic that is Lordis Gouriel and the way he's hitting right now and how my hair ties into that. And that's actually a fact. It's about 1,500 words long, 1,200 of the words are about the connection between the purple hair. And then there's a few hundred words in there.

Look at how vibrant it still is. It's still vibrant as hell. Let's go. I do have to say it was sort of like just as we sat down to do this show. Derek said that he like he had a hair fall out and it was purple hair. And I feel like it's just very fitting that just before. Yeah. Of course it was going to happen on this day as the Diamond Bexley's 13 to 3 that Derek's

purple hair is starting to fall out. We knew it was going to happen eventually. We just thought it was going to happen sooner than this. But speaking of Lourdes-Guriel and the offense and good things, not trying to just accentuate the negative. We accentuate the positive around here. We have to give our Kingsnake tonight to absolutely no one. None of you get it.

None of you deserve it. And I want you all to remember this because we will take Kingsnake away whenever the fuck we want when we feel like you're not trying hard enough. And in a 13 to 3 loss, do you really think anybody deserves King Snake? Do you? Because we don't. Yeah, well, don't you think, though, like Jose Herrera coming out of the bullpen, man? Like, that was a value of performance, Gary.

He needs his flowers. Yes, he gave up two. What do you give up? Two earn runs, but still. Two earn runs, four hits. Changing speed, like a mug coming from 56 miles an hour all the way up to 82. He was throwing some fast balls. Let's go, son.

Jose Herrera does deserve. his flowers tonight, but nobody else does. He does, because his ERA in this game was actually lower than Anthony Masevich's ERA in this game. Was Anthony Masevich the only relief pitcher that they brought in? No, no, Anthony Mosevich was not. Luis Frias also

Oh, yeah, that's right, Luis Friot. That's right. I know you tried to block most of the seven minds. There was a very forgettable portion of this game where I was on the phone with my wife and my insurance company dealing with the fact that my neighbor's air conditioning unit had a piece of it fly off and smash into my window that's very close to my TV, Jesse. I don't like how close it came to the TV, but all is right at all.

That's a pretty incredible story. It's amazing, and it really happened, and I was really dealing with that in the middle of our watch-along. But we thank you guys for being here right now on the PHN Sports YouTube channel. We thank you for joining us earlier on the watch-along. If you haven't subscribed already, I don't know what you're waiting for. This is obviously the night to do it after a game like this. Make sure to subscribe, sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any time we go live.

We will revel in this misery together. We promise you. If you're listening right now in your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there. Leave us a review. Most importantly, anybody that's here has to leave us a thumbs up. That's the way it works.

I mean, I know it's probably going to generate some of you to just want to naturally give me a thumbs down. And I understand that thought process. That's very much my thought process as well. But we just want to know you guys are here on a Friday night. That was a tough loss. And if you are here watching this show,

we truly, truly love you and appreciate you for your time because I wouldn't be. watching this show right now if I didn't have to work. But anyway, Derek's just saying you're crazy. I'm just saying you're insane for being here, but we love you for you. You're crazy and I love crazy like that.

People in the comments, Derek, they do feel like it's a little bit harsh for us not to give the King Snake Award to them, right? Yeah. Wouldn't that be fitting the people who sat through three hours of a watch along, of the worst game, the Diamondbacks have played this season? The 11 people that stuck around until we end of the broadcast.

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Check out pins and aces.com and use code PhNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping. That's pins and aces.com. Let's take a look as much as we might not want to at the probabilities for the rest of the series because after we saw what we saw today, I don't know how to judge anything anymore, but I do want to say with Brandon Fott on the mound tomorrow against Keller, should we be concerned about Brandon Fott going up against this very same Pittsburgh Pirates team we saw absolutely slack our Zach Gallin, buddy. Yeah, I mean, in my mind, Derek, it sort of feels like, you know, if one team gets the other

team's ace one day, then that means that the script is going to flip a little bit the next day, right? Yeah, okay. I like that. So now Mitch Keller is destined to like, you know, get bounced in the third inning or something tomorrow. Yeah. After giving up 12 runs.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. Brandon fought the big start for him, very, very big start for him, honestly. Just because Zach Davies should be back in relatively short order at this point. Wouldn't be surprised if he was back within a week or. or so. So at this point, the debacks are getting close to decision time where they're going to have

to decide, you know, which spot does Zach Davies take? I would be pretty surprised if the debacks went to a six-man rotation or anything weird like that. So you're probably looking at Tommy Henry, Brandon Fott, or Ryan Nelson, one of those three guys not being in this starting rotation, you know, in the relatively near future. And, you know, even though Brandon Fott bounced back in his last start and was good against the Giants, I don't think he's out of that conversation yet. The first two were really rough. And if he has a rough one tomorrow in Pittsburgh, he really might be that guy. So a big, big game, you know, for the debacks in general, trying to bounce back.

And in particular for Brandon Fott trying to make sure he's not the one who departs this rotation here in the next few days. Because we've seen the Diamondbacks haven't really held back for making these decisions. And they really are trying to stay competitive. They have a good record still. They're, you know, this isn't aggregate scoring so it doesn't carry over the rest of the games of the series. luckily, but it's still quite the blow, right? And it's still hard to bounce back sometimes when you get beat this bad. Hopefully the Diamondbacks have that in them.

They have been the answerbacks all year. And like I said earlier, we talked about the pirates being on their schedule at the time when we kind of looked forward at May when we were back in April and wondering if they could get out of April with a winning record. We thought May was going to be much easier. The pirates were one of the teams that we kind of circled as perhaps being a bit tougher of an opponent. they still have after this series the Phillies who right now aren't great they're 20 and 24 they have the red socks who are flipped on that they're 24 and 20 and then they wrap up the month with a series against the Colorado Rockies for four games so still a lot of winnable games there but these opponents they're not easy just like the pirates they're not you can't just overlook any of these opponents for the rest of the month and that includes the Rockies so the Diamondbacks definitely have some business to take care of and

You know, again, we kind of, we kind of joked about how easy May could be. But, you know, again, there's... The fun's kind of over at this point, honestly. It really feels like it is. I mean, it's kind of like, yeah, pirates are pretty darn good baseball team as we saw today. And then, you know, even the Phillies, I think it's started to play at least a little bit better now that they have Bryce Harper back. Did losing the Marlin series let the air out of our balloon for the month of May a little bit? Was that really the point that kind of made it feel?

Maybe a little bit. Because they won every other series, right? They won three out of four against the Giants. They take two out of three against the athletics. It's not just that, too. It's like you probably should have swept the A's, right? I mean, that one game they lost was a pretty catastrophic meltdown. You probably should have swept the Nats.

The last game of that series, pretty catastrophic meltdown. And then you probably should have taken two out of three from the Marlins. So, yeah, I mean, you know, you're going to have your stinkers over the course of a 162 game season. But it does feel like the debacks have left quite a bit on the table through the month of May. And unfortunately, the really easy part of the schedule for them, we're pretty much on the other side of that now. These are all winnable games for the debacks, but you know, you're not, you know, you don't have any more games against the A's or the Royals or, you know, any teams like that the rest of the month. We've been kind of spying a bit on Alec Thomas down in AAA. We're wondering about when we might see him back.

We still are kind of pondering about Jake McCarthy, some of the. the other position players, some of the guys on DL or IL, excuse me, like Kyle Lewis, and how that's all going to factor in. We've seen some guys struggle, right, that are currently on the Major League roster. We talked about Evan Lungoria. Pavin Smith hasn't really been hitting the ball well. Pavan Smith, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if whenever Alec Thomas or Jake McCarthy is ready to come back up, Kevin Smith might be, he might be the guy to be sent down.

He's just, he's walked a bunch in his time. in the big leagues, but what we saw from him early on is pretty much faded. He's just not really driving the ball, really doing any kind of damage to the baseball at this point. And they'll continue to exercise options on guys as long as they have them and as long as guys aren't playing that well before they make that difficult decision on DFA, Evan Longoria, if that's the route that they decided to go, right? It would take a lot for them to get there, but of course it would also take guys playing well. And that's really what they need to see. Alec Thomas continues to work on his mechanics. We talk.

about his leg kick a bit. We did get confirmation that his leg kick was based on who he was hitting against, whether it was left or righty. And then tonight, that kind of apparently seemed to go away, which. Or yeah, last night, at least, I don't know what's happened tonight. Maybe some other change happened today. Maybe it's all bad again. But yeah, in his first game in Reno, I put out some tweets about this. We also talked about it on our show the other day as well. but the debacks basically asked Alec Thomas to experiment with ditching his very prominent leg kick against lefties so it was basically like a little toe turn there was very little action with his lower half in that first game in Reno whereas he still had the full on leg kick against

righties who's really kind of weird in its own right you know having such a significantly different batting stance against one you know one type of pitcher versus another but last night alec Thomas faced mostly righties in his second game with the aaces. He didn't see a lefty in the game until the seventh inning. And the leg kick was back. Not fully back, not quite to the degree that we generally have seen him do it against Ritees, but it looked very much like the Alec Thomas swing that we're used to seeing. So we'll have to continue to monitor this.

It sounds like it's all kind of experimental right now, just getting him to try different things and see what works. I did think it was funny, though, in the game yesterday. He went four for five, Derek, and he went four for four against. Righties and he went 0 for one against the one lefty that he faced. Although it was a fly ball that he hit fairly well. So, you know, we'll have to continue to see what he does in the minors. And of course, all eyes are going to be specifically on how he faces or how he does against lefties in particular.

Mastasio, Mike asked since Gallen got knocked around today, that should mean fought will dominate tomorrow. Right. And yes, we've covered that. Yeah. Yes, for sure. And Mitch Keller is just going to be awful. Like Mitch Keller, he might not throw a strike the whole game. Yeah.

If you go on the bed MGM app, take the over on runs allowed by Mitch Keller, that's what I would do. But Brian Campbell also asked a good question. He says, do we think Nelson it's going to be a solid third option? And if so, how are we looking at the rest of the rotation going forward? We still don't know. I don't know if he's going to be a third option or a fourth option or a fifth option for this team at this point. The numbers don't mean much. Yeah, they really don't.

Right now, it's Zach Gallon, Merrill Kelly, and then the other three guys. I don't think there's really a number three and number four. slotted there in between them. Doesn't mean he's the number two starter. It means that they want to make sure that they can, I think, give their bullpen a break knowing that they have Gowan and Merrill Kelly on the two sides of fought and they'll have their other rookie pitchers, whether it's Henry, whether it is, you know, Ryan Nelson.

We also have talked a bit about Zach Davies coming back in. The one thing about all of these guys, including Davies, is we have no idea how they're going to pitch. We don't. There's a real lack of consistency right now from every single one of them. And it feels like every start, especially for the younger guys, is like critical, right? That's why we're talking about Brandon fought tomorrow, really feeling like he needs to have a good showing if, you know, if the Diamondbacks intend on keeping him in the rotation. And I guess I should say he needs to do it for his own sake in order for the Diamondbacks to keep him there. But the Diamondbacks also need him to be a solid, you know, part of their rotation because outside of him, they don't really have, I mean, maybe, maybe.

Fott is the one that gets replaced by Zach Davies? Who knows at this point? Really, it's kind of up in the air for all of these guys. And it's no, I don't even know if there's certainty that Zach Davies gets a spot if he doesn't perform well. So it's all over the place. What's really interesting from my perspective is that it's not just these guys. The debacks have other pitchers in AAA who, I mean, you could make a case that Bryce Jarvis, if you put him in a big league game tomorrow, might be all right.

Like he's really, Blake Walson has had a good year. Slate Chaconi a little more off and on. Yeah, but it's almost like, and I'm sorry to cut you off, but like Dominic, Fletcher, right? Like we weren't even considering Dominic Fletcher because of how talented the outfield was and how heavy left-handed they were. I'm sure a couple of times on this show we've mentioned that he definitely has an opportunity if the other guys don't do well to get a shot at a major league level. But now look at how he's performing where you wouldn't even really think about replacing Fletcher at this point with McClech. Carthy or Alec Thomas unless you started to see some consistency out of them. Fletcher's played good defense and he's really kind of cemented himself in the outfield,

at least for the time being right now. Yeah, yeah, it's a great point. So I mean, and Dre Jameson is the other name, right? He's still down there in AAA and has also pitched really well. He was six innings, two runs allowed in his last start for Reno. So there's some other guys sort of knocking on the door in this situation. And, you know, even though Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson and Brandon fought, are getting their opportunity right now.

If they continue to struggle, you know, it's not just Zach Davies. It's there are other guys in AAA who might be ready not all that far from now and could step in and take that spot. Thunderbolt 47 says they're jinxed until they get a legit home run hat or prop. What happened to the snake? Yeah. The snake was a jinx too? Was that, did the snake bring bad juju? And now that's still just hanging around?

I don't know. That might be it. That might be it. I'll tell you, if there's something. thing you want to do besides watch this team get pummeled the way that you did tonight. There's some options for you. Well, actually, I should say if you want to watch this team get pummeling like they did tonight. You can join us in person.

We'll not only be having our takeovers this season, but of course you can also grab some tickets from game time for any game. Game time is the place for last minute ticket deals. Don't miss out because obviously we know that game time is the place for procrastinators. And the longer you wait, the lower you can get for a ticket price. You can snag the tickets without the stress with GameTime, especially if you forgot about an event coming up and you just remember and you don't want to miss out. Download the GameTime app, create an account,

and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code PHNX for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. See you guys out at Chase Field with those tickets. And if you can't make it out, make sure to grab Fubo TV, which will allow you to watch your Arizona Diamondbacks wherever you're at.

You can stream live TV from any device, and you can watch the most Arizona sports for the lowest price. Start watching immediately with a seven-day free trial that requires no cables, no installation, and no hassle at all. You just sign up and start watching with 1,000 hours of cloud DVR included at no extra charge. Watch your local teams while traveling. You can watch the NHL draft on ESPN, PGA Championship, French Open, and so much more. You can watch your Arizona Diamondbacks, most importantly, with Fubo TV. use the link in the description to sign up for 15% off your first month of Fubo Pro. Before we get out of here, Jesse, we know we've had our fair share of run-ins with umpires

when it comes to doing hand checks. But tonight- There's kind of a suspicious one in the first inning today, right? Was Zach Gallen? Yeah, right, it did. It did. Unclear what was going on there. I did not like it. Like, Zach Allen didn't seem like too perturbed about it, but it seemed like an excessive

hand-checking going on. But when you talk about this, you have to talk about what happened tonight in the New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds game. Reds manager David Bell was ejected from the game because he argued with umpires after the umpires checked New York Yankees pitcher

Clark Schmidt's hand. Apparently it was inspected by the umpires. Schmidt was then sent into the dugout to presumably wash off his hands and then he was allowed to stay in the game. At which point, uh, Reds manager David Bell had seen enough.

And he was going to make sure that his point was well known that this was absolute horseshit. And he did. And he was right because it is horseshit. What are we even doing here? If players are going to be found with a foreign substance on their hand, we need to figure this shit out, okay? Because so far what we've seen, especially out of Max Scherzer, was him trying to

explain how rosin, sweat, and dirt can make for this mystery kind of substance that's on your hand that that's exactly what it is. however, however, I don't know. I'm not a pitcher. I don't know if he's lying or not. It's the exact kind of thing I'd fucking say if I was lying and using stupid substance on my hand. But the point being here is that how are we handing out 10 game suspensions to a guy

on the exact same team just what, a day earlier or a few days earlier? And now we're allowing a pitcher to go wash off his hands. What are we even doing here? Well, what's really interesting, I mean, the pitcher you're talking about being suspended is Domingo Harmon, right? Another, another picture on the Yankees who was suspended. Similar situation, except the umpires determined that it wasn't Rosen somehow and decided it was a foreign substance and that's why he got ejected. But I believe it was just the start before that, or at least not long before that for Domingo Hermann where the almost

the exact same thing happened as what happened today with Clark Schmidt. Domingo Hermann was asked to go into the dugout and wash his hands. And he came back out and he was allowed to keep pitching in that game. That was against the twins. And twins manager Rocco Baldelli was also ejected out of that game. The problem is that this is an incredibly subjective process, right? How on earth are you supposed to feel another person's hands, which is weird in and of itself? And decide objectively whether I'm not doing.

I'm not doing this with you right now, Derek. I want to check your hand. I want to Dan Bolino you right now. I want to look at your eyes while you're talking and check your hand. There's no way for an umpire to objectively determine how sticky is too sticky, right? You know, some pictures have talked about, like you said, that rosin can kind of mix with other substances. There have been talks about certain types of hand sanitizers. They do it on purpose.

It's not a mistake. It's not a fucking mistake. It's that, again, baseball. players, baseball teams, baseball managers, they find out what the rules are and they walk just on that edge of the right side of the rule, right? And like we talked about when they were openly asking them about like banning the shift early on before the season started. And they wanted to know, hey, can we do this? Can we send a man in motion? Can we like, because they want to figure out where is the line and how close can I tiptoe up to it without crossing it and getting an actual violation or doing

something that's going to cause me to get a 10-game suspension, right? So it's known that they're trying to mix rosin and sweat and a little bit of dirt off the ground, whatever else they can fucking find and make it into some sort of stickiness. Stickiness helps them throw their pitches better. It increases the RPMs on their rotation and all sorts of other shit, right? Movement. There's all sorts of fucking stuff that having stickiness on your hand is going to help you with as a pitcher, right?

But the point is, it needs to be cut and dry. It needs to be clear, right? If you have something on your hand and it's deemed to be sticky, I mean, are we giving out warnings? Because we haven't heard about that. We haven't seen guys get warning. We know that when Caleb Smith almost murdered an empire, he didn't get any kind of warning. It was the first time he'd ever been addressed. And he got thrown out of a game for sticky substances.

The non-and-backs haven't had to deal with this much, but don't make me go on the whole thing about Mad Bum and Dan Bolino and the whole weird handholding thing. The several weird altercations that Mad Bum ended up having with umpires over the hand checks and how those just became completely intrusive. But this doesn't seem like that. Like, yeah, those hand checks, those were crazy. Like, they actively tried to instigate a pitcher into saying something that then they could throw them out of the game for. That's how you could perceive those situations going. This, like, how is this subjective when you're telling him to go wash it off?

Washing it off should not seem an option. You either have something sticking on there and you can't stay in the game. game or you fucking don't and you're allowed to stay in the game right like that's it that's the only two options yeah it's like why it's like why would you if it was legal why would you make him go wash his hands right right that's my point i'm trying to make right and and if you are doing that and he's going to wash his hands uh you know he comes back and all of a sudden everything's hunky dory right and you're just allowing him to continue to pitch at the game which you can understand the opposing manager being not so happy with that like you found something on this man's hands

that you deemed to be not okay for him to continue pitching in this game. So something wasn't right. And you're just allowing him to go and fix it, right? And it's like, it's sort of like you caught the man cheating and you're just allowing him to sort of backtrack and fix the problem and just continue pitching. It's not a good look for Major League Baseball at all. When I was 13, there was this rampant problem in Major League Baseball, and that was corked bats. Alper Bell had a corked bat. There were players with cork bats.

That was kind of like, in a way, that was the cheating scandal of the day back in the early 90s. There's always, there's always some something, right? Every baseball generation has its great cheating scandal. And of course, when it happened, a lot of times the reason why they would find it is because they'd hit, you know, they'd hit the ball and the fucking bat would explode and they would see that the entire, the barrel of the bat had been, you know. That's my question. If you cork a bat, you have to know eventually that you're going to get caught after. Because eventually it's going to explode. By a 100 mile power fastball on your hands.

So, like, in a way, this would be like, hey, we found you with a corked bat. Go put that bat down and get a different bat. Like, that's kind of what this would be like, right? Like, it's crazy. Yeah, Major League Baseball at the end of the day, they just need to come up with something objective. Because the reason that you're seeing things like this is that umpires, like, they think that what they're feeling is too sticky, but they're not so convinced. that it's a foreign substance that they're just going to eject the player.

And so you wind up with these weird compromises where it's like, yeah, go wash your hands and then come back into the game. What they need is they need an objective system that the pitcher either passes and is allowed to continue in the game and does not have to go watch their hands or the pitcher fails. And they are suspended accordingly and ejected from that game, right? There has to be, I'm no scientist, but there has to be somebody in the world who can come up with a test. that determines how sticky your hand is, right? And, you know, I'm sure they'd have to work with Major League Baseball in order to develop that.

But it seems like whatever it is, it has to be more objective than umpires just feeling people's hands and deciding for themselves, whether it's too sticky or or not. And whether it's, it's rosin, which is totally legal, as long as it's the rosin that is on the mound, uh, or whether it's, it's something else. It's a mess. It is a mess. It is a mess. Baseball always finds a way to make a mess of stuff. But I will tell you that you don't have to live in a world where you are unsure about anything when it comes. Wow.

I want to be part of that world. I didn't say unsure about anything. But you don't have to worry about having sticky stuff on your car, on yourself. Anything. Stop bicycle, K. Clean yourself up. Grab a polar pop while you're there. Don't forget what little Derek in the screen says.

He says, enjoy. it. And Polar or Circle K, of course, is the best place for you to check out the best beer, best snack selection. Don't sleep on the Circle K branded snacks because they're absolutely delicious. And of course, premium gas. Gas is expensive around town. Make sure check out Circle K. It's one of the cheapest places you can fill up at. Stockup at Circle K, America's third stop. And of course, don't forget those iced coffees for just $1.89. Stop spending $5 on your coffee. Go get it for $1.89 Circle K. And also, Red Bulls and Monsters. They got them on sale there. So don't miss out on all of this great stuff. Right now you can text PHNX to 31310 to join

their SMS subscriber club and you will get a buy one, get one free offer on 32 ounce polar pop. So there you go. Head to circlek.com slash door dash locator to find circle k's near you. And of course, as you know, they are all over the valley. So you can't miss them. And also grab some four peaks while you're there. Shout out to our friends of Four Peaks. I really like this impale ale. I haven't had it very much. but I'm trying to do my best to drink all the beers in the office before they go bad, because apparently I'm like one of the only people that drinks these beers around here. You know, they have to work, whatever. I'm just hosting this show.

But grab yourself some Four Peaks. Wherever you get Four Peaks, make sure you find one you like. Also, grab yourself some tickets for an Arizona Diamondbacks game through our friends at Four Peaks. Four Peaks, Four Seats, Promotion was going to give one lucky winner four seats to an upcoming Diamondbacks game. Tickets come with D-Bucks so you can get food. some beer and enjoy yourself. Enter by going to Four Peaks Brew on Instagram. The link for the giveaway is in their bio.

And of course, check out at Four Peaks Brew or at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or older to drink Four Peaks and please drink responsibly. Well, we hope you guys have a wonderful Friday. I know that this isn't the best way to kick it off. But remember, the Arizona Diamondbacks haven't lost a lot of the series and hopefully they can bounce back in game two with the baby boy Brandon Fought. On the mound, who once again looks like it's his first day at school picture. But we thank you guys, of course, for stopping by and joining us. You can follow me on Twitter at cap underscore capeman with a k.

Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Damon Dogg, as Elizabeth will tell you, it's correctly spelled, Damon, D-A-W-G. And then you got to give a little woof, woof, waff at the end. I don't know where else. Woof, woof, waf. Oh, what's wrong with you, Elizabeth? Anyway, of course, our shows at PHNX underscore D-Bax and all roads leads you at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Back on Monday. We will be back on Monday. We don't do the Sunday thing anymore. We'll be back on Monday. Send us your mailbag Monday questions. We're going to go over this series on Monday where I'm so much stuff to talk about then. But in the meantime, you guys take care of yourself.

We appreciate you stopping by on behalf of all these guys. We thank you for your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun. When your ace doesn't give up eight runs in an inning, basically.