PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Zac Gallen LABORS But Still Throws Five Scoreless In Diamondbacks Win Over Cubs

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

Even when Zac Gallen doesn’t have his best stuff, he’s still very good. The Diamondbacks win game two in Chicago over the Cubs on night where neither team could muster up much offense. We have more on Corbin Carroll and Alek Thomas going yard, the bullpen being full of bonafide studs, and Christian Walker getting some respect from Bryce Harper. Jesse Friedman joins the show from Wrigley Field while Derek Montilla is coming to you live from Almost Home in Chicago.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.

Ski-E fly-bat W. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast from right here at Almost Home in Chicago. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of Wrigley Field and possibly the Diamondbacks' biggest good luck charm in the history of this team's existence. Welcome in.

Of course, we are joined by my man, Jacob Franklin, aka Fage on the ones and twos. Jesse Friedman will be joining us here from that beautiful building across the street. But the Diamondbacks win in a game where there is not a lot of offense. The Diamondbacks win this one over the Chicago Cubs by a score of 3 to 0, securing the series win. Not a lot of offense, like I said, by either team in this one.

We're talking 10 hits total by both teams combined. The Diamondbacks squeak by with a couple of home runs, including a very big one from Corbyn. They have a chance to now sweep this series tomorrow here on Sunday. We could be here to cover their second sweep of the year. bring out the brooms. Bring out the brooms. Well, I might have a little tiny broom.

I don't know, but I'm not going to wave it in these people's face because we are. We are a little outnumbered here in a Chicago Cubs bar. We've got a hobby by a jersey right here in my face, and I love that. But, of course, Diamondbacks do take this game, and they've won a lot lately. The Diamondbacks are now 10 and 4 in the month of July, 25 and 16 since June 1st. Hey, Derek, is that good? We tried to warn you. We tried to warn you.

I say that I told people to R.E. L.A.X. Yeah, we said relax. We also said, don't let this team get hot. We said absolutely what a mistake this would be. And you let this team get hot without Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez, or the mainstay, Merrill Kelly. So it's going to be interesting to see what this team is and how this team can possibly get better

with the way that they're playing baseball right now. But we also tried to warn you that they were going to be fine. I guess the question on a lot of people's minds is Zach Gallen fine. Is Zach Gallen fine? And I guess it's a valid question because it was another short outing for the Arizona Diamondbacks Ace. And of course, we actually have video from Tori before the game. He was asked by our very own Jesse Friedman about starting Zach Gallen and about giving him that extra day of rest and not starting him in yesterday's game.

This is what Tori had to say. We got after him full throttle. He was every fifth day didn't have the extra day. and I know we could create extra days in different ways and different times and we just thought it would be a good landing spot for him today you know Zach likes to throw more on the road he likes to throw night games that was part of it but just giving him an extra day we thought because of how hard he worked to get back and he was the one guy that went every fifth day

for four consecutive starts we thought the extra day would do him good and I mean that Tori knows what he's doing there a little bit with Zach Galen but obviously, I mean, the extra day off didn't really give Zach Gallen the ability to be as sharp as we've seen him. I mean, today was by far one of, at least as far as his command and his control, one of the outings we've seen Zach Gallen struggle the most. Maybe this season, maybe all year. Actually, Jesse pulled up the numbers, and the game that he had the least amount of pitches thrown in the strike zone at like 33% was opening day. against the Colorado Rockies. But today was another day where he was not landing a lot of his pitches in the zone.

I know Jesse is going to want to talk about that a little bit more when he joins us. But he tied, Zach Gallen tied a career high with six walks today. You can't even count that on one hand. Try. One, two, three, four, five. You're right. I can't count it on one hand. Too many.

It's too many. And in fact, he hasn't had more than four since 2020 in a game. Zach Gallen has not had more than four walks. in a single game since 2020. This tied a career high from his rookie season, I believe, with six walks. But he still Zach Allen. He still Zed Gowellon. How many rounds did he give up?

Go ahead and count that on one hand, Terrick. Zero. He gave up zero runs. And he was still able to bend but not break, right? Zach Gallin's line today, five innings pitched, three hits, zero earned runs, six walks, four strikeouts. And again, it's not great. it's not his best outing

but it's just amazing that Zach Gallen is so good that even on a day where like people I think we had somebody tweet us that Zach Gallin is not worth you know paying for essentially extending or bringing him back

and that's insane to me because Zach Gallin Zach Gallin is a great pitcher based on the fact that even when he doesn't have his best stuff he still goes out there today and gives you five innings scoreless and not a lot of guys are able to do that on a night where they're not really able to have their best command and really not hit the strike zone, especially with his fastball.

But since 22, Zach Gallen has recorded the most games in Major League baseball with 22, with zero run, zero earn runs loud while tossing five innings or more. He has recorded five games just this season about that. So, I mean, again, do we panic on a night where Zach Gallen goes five scoreless and the team wins because that seems kind of silly? I mean, he's been, he's been off and on, he's been a little rough. Yeah.

I don't think it's time to panic just yet. Like I think I mentioned this. I'm not sure if I mentioned it on the show or just in passing, but Zach is one of those guys that, like, you don't expect your ace to go out there 30 starts a year and be cash. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. That's hard to do in the big leagues. It is hard to do. And there's a reason these hitters get paid money. Right. Right. Especially, I mean, like, the Cubs offensively are not all that great of a team. He killed himself with walks today.

I mean, he only gave up three hits. He did. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like he got just, like, hit hard. I mean, he wasn't able to land his strikes. He just wasn't there. He wasn't able to land his fastball in the strike zone.

Yeah, he'll be fine. But see, that's the thing is, is the Diamondbacks have a bullpen full of certified G's and bona fide studs, and you can't teach that. Well, Papa Paul sometimes gives us a little bit of a heart attack. in the ninth inning. But all the rest of these guys do is put up zeros. J. Mart is back. Gink is gink and

T-time is tea time, right? I love that they put J-Mart in tonight. Yeah, just showing that confidence for him to get back out. Three-nothing game. Go get him, kid. Go get him, kid. And he showed out. He seems to be back after a rocky appearance on Friday. One innings pitch, two strikeouts

for J-Mart. You got Ginkle going out there. One inning pitch, zeros across the board, no hits, no runs, no walks, no strikeouts. T-time, also putting up zeros, one- inning pitch, zero hits, zero and runs allowed. I mean, this bullpen, this bullpen is good. And I don't even, I don't, I can't believe that those words came out of my mouth, but it's the truth. This bullpen is good. And honestly, right now, they're running on all cylinders. Like you said, you're not going to get every pitcher, including guys in the bullpen to continue to go out there every single night. Correct. And do this.

But they'll do this the majority of the nights lately. They're being, they're able. to hold a close game, and that is not something that this bullpener, this team was able to do early on. So that is something that's different because this was a night where the offense did not do much. The Diamondbacks is putting up three runs. You could easily say that's a night where they lose, right? The majority of their offense all came in the fifth inning, right? You had Alec Thomas hit a home run? Do we call it a home run?

I mean, it counts in the scorebook. It does count in the scorebook as a home run. It did count as a run. A 363 foot home run to left field that just barely cleared the little left field bleacher like thing that makes it a home run. So it was a home run. In fact, it only would have been a home run in two stadiums in all of baseball. Jacob, I'm going to let you guess the second one. Obviously, the first one is Wrigley Field.

What is the only other ballpark that this would be a home run in? Yankee Stadium. Minute Maid Park. Interesting. Interesting. Right. You got that little kind of left field thing over there that's kind of short, right? Yeah, that's really interesting. At least brought up a point that I want to make sure we get to before it's buried in the chat.

By the way, wait, hold on. Let me address that. I love you, chat. And as much as I miss Jesse, I think I miss when he's not here. And you know, I miss Jesse all the time. I'm always worried about him. I miss you guys more. And I can't see your comments necessarily live. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of Cubs fans that can't wait to boo me in here. So I apologize if I'm not getting to your comments, especially while we've been here in Chicago as often as I would like to.

But, of course, we love you guys. We thank you so much for being here tonight. And of course, we also love the fact that Corbyn Carroll hit a two-run, home run. What was the comment about Lee? Let me get to my point. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Lees says getting out of the fifth with no runs was a pivotal point in the game. Shout out to the Ivy for the ground rule double. Yeah, that's a great point. And not only shout out to the Ivy. Shout out to Lourdes so quickly three. throwing his hands out. Yeah, yeah.

Right? You know what's so interesting? Because you let that runner get around third while you're trying to fiddle around in the ivy and you're... It's so wild. This is so wild. You know how sometimes things happen and you're almost like, wow, that was like fate, right?

Not for Lordness, not for this game, for me. Sure. I was walking past a tour that they were giving at Wrigley Field today before the ballpark was open. Sure. And as I was passing by, the tour guide was explaining to them that outfielders have to raise their hands. whenever it goes, he was explaining the whole thing as they walk by.

Otherwise, the play continues. And you're absolutely right. Lordis knew exactly what to do, obviously, has played in this ballpark before. You know, it was the right call. He did it. No, I mean, he did it almost immediately. The ball jumped in. He wasn't even close.

It's so funny. I watched him for a good, like, minute, maybe 90 seconds, search for the ball. Because, yeah, it's out of play, but he was still trying to find the ball. He couldn't find it. Yeah, it was just, it was buried. I never saw them pull it out. I never saw them pull it out. I would love to know how many baseballs were lost in that ivy.

I bet there's a crew at the end of the night that goes through and finds it out. Yeah, because there's only one ball that entered. So, like, you send five people out there to just kind of like reach into the ivy and grab it. You probably could find it. Yeah, no, I mean, it's just a really heads-up play. And it's little stuff like that that this team has always done well. Yeah, it was, it was impressive. And, of course, it was a pivotal play.

Like there was a lot of, like, Zach Allen almost had things fall apart on him. But luckily, he was able to hold it together. And luckily, the offense gave him just enough. Corby and Carroll hits a two-run home run in the fifth after Heraldo Ferdomo walked. Of course, it starts with some sort of Geraldo Perdomo action. But at 418 feet, it was his longest home run this season. So as much as people on Twitter don't want me to say it, I don't care. Corbyn's back.

He's back, folks. He's back. Okay. He's back, Jacob. Yeah, he's back. I'm declaring it. The chat can't see my face right now, but I'm kind of just like... He's like holding his nose.

I'm a little buried in shame over here. Yeah, that's fine. I did watch him stare at three curveballs down the middle yesterday. That was not great. That was not great. Also, Jock Peterson getting hit by a pitch, not great. Jack Peterson seemed to be fine with it. But Tori Lovolo, he was very much not fine with it.

He did not like it. And I think he didn't like it because he thought it was retaliation for the two home runs hit by Alec Thomas and Corbyn Carroll and the fleece are of course resting someone because those two guys didn't Pimp anything no like Alec Thomas had no chance to Pimp his I don't I don't know

like do you in a game that's still that close do you intentionally hit people I mean I think that's the thing is and as Elise says we've been here too many times before in regards to Corbyn yeah I know but it's also one of those things where with this team

they've been hit a lot They have been hit a lot, and Tori needs to protect his guys, and I get absolutely why he went out there, because even though it didn't feel intentional, I don't, like, I missed what happened. I don't know if you saw a better view of it, because, of course, we were in the press box. To jog? Yeah, like, did he, he threw behind him the pitch before, right? And then he hit him on the next pitch, and then it kind of rolled over his foot. Yeah. So.

But like, like I said, Alec had no chance to showboat his. it was a wall scraper. Like, he was running hard out of the box. Yeah, no. And Corbin, I don't know. I mean, other than maybe one or two times, I don't know if I've ever seen him bat flip do anything other than put his head down and run. Yeah.

I mean, there's like maybe one. The Corbin Burns Homer in the playoffs last year, he like, he kind of stood there for a second, watched it. But he doesn't, he doesn't pimp his homers. Yeah, no, you're right. Our guy, CWP in the chat said CHGO got tired of y'all and decided to call the cops to send you back to Phoenix early. They tried. That would be the second.

second time. Greg Braggs, not only did he call the police on me when we were at Murphy's, but he tried to get the security guard in the bleachers section to arrest me, and that's definitely not his jurisdiction. That security guard can't arrest me, Jacob, I don't believe, so I don't know what he was trying to do. Braggs just really wanted us arrested because we were invading all of his favorite places and riddling them with the success of the snakes. Go, snakes. Hey, Derek, what year is it on the Chinese calendar this year? It's the year of the snake, Jacob.

It's the year of the snake. Oh, man. Well, of course, that's pretty much all they got from the offense tonight. And going back to Jock Peterson getting hit. Tori is Tori is Tori. Tori is a dad. Tori is a dad through and through. In fact, Tori told us a wonderful story.

You should all check out right now on YouTube that we have a clip of about going to see his son Nick manage the South Bend Cubs. His son is the High A affiliate manager of the South Bend Cubs, which is part of the... It's a great story. Oh, it's a great story. It's a great story because it just goes to show, like, one, how busy a man like Tori Lovolo is, where it's been a significantly long time since the last time he just watched a baseball game as a fan. And also the amount of love he has for his kid.

And, I mean, I think that transcends over to the way he runs this team. It's why people play so hard for him. and it's why up to this point he's done such a good job, you know, especially with young guys entering major league baseball and turning into, you know, guys that give you what you got today, you know, and it was the young guys doing it today. We talk about, again, Corby Carroll, Alec Thomas, neither one of those guys have great numbers this year,

but that's the guys that got it done this year. Today, today. And this is a team today that had Alec Thomas and Corby and Carol do it, but tomorrow could have somebody else to do it. This team has built exactly this one. way. It doesn't matter who it is. It can be any given night. And somebody's going to contribute something big.

It's Jerry. It's Corbyn. It's Alec. It's Christian Walker. I haven't even named Cotell Marte. Jock's done it numerous times. Lardis has done it. Gabby's done it. Like, you go down that list of lineup names. Where's the weakness? Jake McCarthy hasn't played in the first two games. He really hasn't.

He's a all-star game. Yeah, Jake McCarthy. He's in 280. And people wanted him in there yesterday. And that was honestly a debate we had amongst each today lunch we were talking about you and jesse agreed right well i mean you know j you got a corbin is your star in a way right corbin is the guy that you need to get right jake has actually done a great job contributing in a limited capacity when he's called upon and honestly that's something that i don't know if you know if you if you want to mess that up right now but i also say that like my first thought

was against the lefty we should see jake mccarthy in the lineup right so and that's because the numbers don't lie and jesse will tell you the numbers don't lie later when we do that bit but we got another bit to do and that bit is naming our king snake uh and i mean a lot of the chat one of the ivy it's not the ivy we aren't creative enough to think about that but that was you know what that is great i know it is great oh the ivy probably should have gotten it the ivy probably if there is a second choice yeah it makes a lot of sense go ahead derrick it's our guy it's our guy jr excuse me would i say Jake. It's Alex.

Jake did you play in the game. Field Jail according to Lee's. Yeah, I saw that. I'm looking at the comments. It's Alec Thomas. Alec Thomas is our King Snake. Our guy went two for four today. He had that home run.

And he also is engaged, which I don't know if we congratulated him enough. But congratulations to Alec Thomas. I'm coming out here to Chicago. And basically moving on to that next phase of your life. And it's very cool to see. I know Chicago is a big part of his life. so it was cool for him to have that happen here. And it was also an absolutely stunning engagement video, by the way.

You guys better step up your game if you want to have an engagement video. He raised the bar. He really did. We're going to talk to him about that tomorrow. And obviously, we're going to also talk to him about this home run. We also have to talk to Bryce Jarvis and Brandon Fott about being sent on a coffee run today. Oh, I don't know how we missed that. In full uniform, they were sent on a coffee run out in the streets of Chicago.

which these streets, they're never empty. No, there's always Cubs fans. The streets are always talking, and there are those Cubs fans out there. They're always lurking. But we're going to talk to those guys about going to get coffee in their uniforms. But we thank you guys so much for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, do so now. Sign up for notifications.

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Well, Jacob, there wasn't a lot to look at. There's not a lot of numbers to look at here. Not a lot. We are going to take a look at the count presented by our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. Let's take a look at these numbers tonight. The Diamondbacks outscore the Chicago Cubs by a score of 3 to 0. 0. They out hit the Cubs, 6 to 4. But that's it.

10 hole hits in this game. Both teams, 0.4 when it comes to runners in scoring position, the Diamondbacks were 0 for 4. The Chicago Cubs, 0 for 7. Diamondbacks had those two key home runs that obviously gave them. them to win today to the Chicago Cubs, zero home runs. But the Cubs did out hit the Diamondbacks when it came to a hard hit percentage, 50% hard hit percentage, 39.3% for the Diamondbacks. But nobody cares about that because the only hard hit balls that matter are really the ones that go over the fence and the Diamondbacks had those.

So, of course, this is an incredible night, incredible win for the Diamondbacks. And they have a great chance here to go to Sunday and get just their second. of the season, which still does not seem right. That doesn't compute that the Diamondbacks have only had one other sweeps this year. But it's kind of the way they play baseball, right? I mean, there are only three games over 500, right? Yeah. Like, as hot as they've been, they're only three games over 500.

So, like, the underlying numbers don't necessarily look the way you would think that they would look. But if they'd seal the deal tomorrow, like, we're talking about maybe the hottest team in baseball at this point. Here's the thing. Let's not remember. Let's not remember. Well, we probably shouldn't remember it.

Let's not remember it. But let's not forget last July and how bad it was for this team, right? If the Diamondback struggles. Straight out of the All-Star break, it was not good. If the Diamondback struggles can be behind them. And at this part of the season, they can start getting better and getting better and adding pieces back. They've been missing key crucial pieces, like their three-fifths of their starting rotation. This team really could be a dangerous team when the playoffs.

come around. And again, like I've said, despite the fact that we have very much been frustrated by this, very much not wanted, you know, to have to watch this team go through what they've gone through. At least they went through it early, right? Other teams are struggling now. Other teams are starting to lose players to injury now. And who knows? I mean, the Diamondbacks might still need some of the depth they have coming down, you know, as the season gets closer and closer to the end of the year. The one thing that's good, though, of course, and I know Jesse talked to, my Kay's and a little bit about it today is that, you know, the Diamondbacks are moving further and further away from any consideration of being sellers when the trade deadline comes here at the end of

the month. And it is important, right? Because there's a big cluster here in the National League. Yeah, they know. They know that they might be on the chopping block if it came down to it if they don't perform, right? But what a good way to perform. Like, that's extra pressure. One of the things I blamed the season on has been too much pressure. Too high of expectations, right? So it's like This is extra additional pressure, and they're reacting well to it. They're playing well to it. I mean, they have kind of been under pressure all season long, and that's what happens when you come off of a World Series.

Whether you won it, whether you were just in it and you lost, you feel that pressure. You feel those expectations. And again, call them what you want. The expectations are there. So we'll see if the Diamondbacks can continue to win, and we'll see if they can get this sweep tomorrow. one really great conversation I had here in Chicago was with Christian Walker about Bryce Harper's comments. Today I got a chance to chat with all of this.

And man, it was really cool because I was just curious myself if he had heard Bryce Harper's comments. If you haven't, we actually tweeted the video out earlier today and it was during the Red Carpet event in Arlington during All-Star weekend. And basically Bryce Harper was asked in regards to you know, him as a player and him as a first baseman. And he was trying to say that he's trying to evolve his game and get better to be one of the more athletic first baseman in baseball.

And he wants to be able to play better defense. And he actually brought Christian Walker's name up as one of the people that he feels like he's kind of emulating. And Christian Walker very, very much appreciated that. He hadn't actually heard the exact comment, but he kind of heard Bryce Harper said something nice about him. So I kind of told him about it. And, you know, he just, he respects Bryce a lot. And he really likes the way that Bryce plays the game. He likes Bryce as a person.

And, I mean, it just really meant the world to him to hear someone like Bryce Harper kind of say that. He also said that we talked about Bryce Harper being like the perfect guy for Philadelphia, right? I mean, as much as we as Diamondbacks fans might see him as a villain, that city is absolutely embrace. He lives up the pressure. And yeah, and CWalk's a Pennsylvania guy. He's a Philly guy, so like he knew, he knew the minute that it signed that that was going to be a guy that embraced the community and that the community embraced for his work ethic and his attitude in the way he is.

And it was really cool to see how much mutual respect Krish Walker has for Bryce Harper. And of course, like I said, if you go watch that video, you'll see the respect that Bryce Harper has for Krista Walker. I mean, he basically just kind of labels Christian Walker as the blueprint for what a first baseman should be defensively. And it's been something we've been saying about him for a very long time. Yeah, I mean, that's just the way that things roll in Arizona here, right? A lot of our guys seem to fly under the radar. Even when he was here, Paul Goldschmidt, I understand that he finished top three, top two,

and MVP voting twice while he was here. Right. People knew who Paul Goldschmidt was. He was a household name. However, did people really? really know how good Paul Goldschmidt was. And it's the same with Christian Walker, right? Like Christian Walker has flown as maybe a top five first baseman over the last two or three seasons.

And you very rarely hear national media speaking about it. Media, other teams fans, like, I'm sure the Dodgers fans talk about them. Oh, you Dodgers fans absolutely talk about them. However, I really think that there are still people who truly don't know how good he is. Yeah. I mean, maybe I'm okay with it, but at the same time, like, these guys, there are 0.1% of athletes that make it to this level.

And it's truly kind of disheartening sometimes to see a guy like Christian Walker not get the recognition that he deserves on the national show. Sure. Sure. Well, I did ask him how his break was, and he said not long enough, so he really enjoyed himself. He enjoyed the break. He enjoyed the break. Because you would have asked him if you went on an all-star game, and he would have been like,

Yeah, I didn't get a break. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And I mean, honestly, 162 games season, I think these guys really do appreciate the time that they get whenever they do get time. Tori talked about that, again, with the ability for him to have a night like he had on Friday and go out and see his son manage a baseball game, sit in the stands, eat dipping dots. Tori ate dipping dots? Yeah, he did eat dipping dots.

And he watched some baseball, and he just got to take in the game. And I think, like, you know, again, we asked him, how long has it been since the last time? you've done this. It's a very long time, he said. And he basically described the last time he went out. It was when he was with the Boston Red Sox and his son was still playing. And, you know, again, it's, it's this life. And I'm going to say this in a weird way, like as if I know what this life is like. But I will say that on this trip, we've now been away from Phoenix for seven days. I miss my wife a tremendous amount. I was going to say, Derek, I don't know how much longer. I don't even know what, day it is anymore. I didn't know it was a Saturday. I don't even know any like this this this just keeps moving and it's so fast and I mean this is just us gone for the all-star break and one series.

The life that these baseball players live kind of moving around and such it just never stops and they never have a chance. I don't think to just sit around and appreciate this game that they play. And I hope that Tori had that chance, you know, and I hope again that the break for the guys gave them that a little bit of rest that they needed, but maybe a little bit of, you know, just that time to reflect, you know. I mean, everybody needs a rest. I need a rest. Yeah.

I need to sleep more than four hours in a night. I mean, our job, while at times is demanding, it's funny, we complain, we're so tired. We've been walking around the city all day. These guys for probably some almost 200 straight days, all. are working out every single day, swinging a bat, every single day, throwing thousands of pitches, running all over a baseball. I mean, you're talking about high-intensity workouts, and it doesn't stop during their off-season either. I mean, they're still working out, maybe not as much.

Maybe they're trying to give their body some time to recover. But I can't imagine how tiring it is. Obviously, you're not sleeping in your bed half the year. You're not with your family half the year. I mean, it is a grueling profession. Yeah, it really is. sometimes I sit there and I think, I'm like, man, I complained about the fact that I had to walk five minutes off the train today to go get a beef sandwich and I got really tired.

My ankles hurt. But man, like. But that beef sandwich was really good at least the beef. Sure. But it's like, man, I like, hats off to them. That's hard to do. It's not easy. They deserve every break that they can get.

And like, we know that we criticize them from time to time for how they're performing in their job. Right. But it is. It is one of the. the hardest jobs in the world. It is. It is. And I mean, again, you talk about another, like going back to Christian Walker. That's just an underappreciated position. Defensively, you do not get the love when you're a great defensive first baseman like Christian Walker is that he deserves, right? And so that's one of the reasons why it's cool

to see Bryce Harper making these comments. It also worries me, you know, again, because Christian Walker is a free agent after the end of this year. And as far as flying under the radar, like that's the time where you would like to see him fly under the radar. That's the time you would like to see teams not notice him. But I guarantee you, teams know what Christian Walker is. Even if he's not getting that recognition by going to the All-Star game, teams know what Christian Walker is. And he's going to be a valuable commodity at the end of the season.

And the Diamondbacks need to do everything they can to bring him back. They really do. Yeah, I mean, you need him to spend the rest of his career in Arizona. That's, I mean, it feels like that about a couple of guys, right? I mean, start to feel that way about Cattel. You know you want Corbyn here for the rest of the year. I know every single one of you wants, Eugenio Suarez to retire as a Diamondback.

Don't lie. You know it's true. But most of you, it's like right now is when you want them to retire and not like at a later time. But, I mean, of course, the Diamondbacks have some priorities and they're not going to be able to bring everybody back. They're not going to be able to bring everybody, you know, on a long-term deal.

And that's just a way of life in this industry. Like, you love guys. but at the end of the day, it's all about what gets written down on a newspaper. And I hate to say it, but I will say that Christian Walker is going to be a name that a lot of teams are going to be pursuing. However, we still have them. And the Diamondbacks still have a chance this year to make this year very special. And at the very least, if anything, is going to happen where Christian Walker goes on to another franchise.

Hopefully we can make this a very special run in the playoffs and, you know, end his tenure. in the Diamondbacks with a championship. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. We're a long way from that. Tomorrow is game what number, Derek? Tomorrow is game number 100. That means there's still 62 games left after that.

He's right. And not only that, but hopefully a playoff run to come beyond that. But this is going to be, you know, a big test. And honestly, a hot start for this team. They can really, you know, get things rolling in the right way. They have Kansas City after this. And I mean, Pittsburgh, we have to deal with all the things that, you know, Shramey taught Paul Skeens.

I got very, I'm horrified. I told him. I was like, why are you telling Paul Schoen's all this stuff? You know, Shramey, I don't know. He's just a good guy. He's just a good guy. This team's full of good guys. But, of course, we thank you guys again for so much for being here.

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I didn't put my shirt. That's why I'm so red. I'm so red and I'm sweaty. Where's your makeup team? We didn't bring them on the trip? Oh my God, but I need my sunglasses because I always cover up a lot of what I got going on here. Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company that offers a world-class process. rated five stars by over 300,000 people.

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Every pair is backed by a lost or broken replacement plan, or if you lose or break your shady rays, even on day one, They will send you out a brand new pair. No questions asked. No shame heaped upon you. Jacob shamed me in Texas for not finishing my sides at a barbecue place. Jesse shames me for the shirts I wear when I have a press pass to a baseball game.

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he's not here he's not knocking yet either all right well uh we do have some videos from the clubhouse of course so before jesse gets here we can take a look at those uh we have zack Gallin here on his outing, which of course we know was not ideal, but again, still five-inning scoreless. Pretty damn good. Here's what Gallen had to say about his day. Yeah, I mean, it was kind of odd. I mean, considering the six walks, I felt pretty sharp. I mean, I felt probably the most under control, in control of like my body and how I was moving and feel for, I feel like I have a feel for all five pitches today, which is good, which is probably kind of odd to say even with six walks.

But, yeah, I mean, it was a grind, but, you know, I had to go out there and try and throw up a zero. And, you know, I couldn't let them, you know, get back in the game after we scored three. So, yeah, I mean, obviously the six walks are annoying, especially with two outs. But, you know, the one to Morel in that inning was. You know, we're picking my spot on guys that, you know, I felt like I matched up a little bit better against. Well, he was throwing all of his pitches, but that's interesting to hear him say, because I honestly thought that he would probably have said something about not being able to throw something, not having control of something. That didn't seem to be the case tonight.

He threw his forcing fastball, his change up, his knuckle curve. The only pitchers he really abandoned was his slider and his cutter, which he doesn't really throw, you know, nearly as often. I don't know. What are your thoughts? I mean, he threw his knuckle curve 21% of the time, change up 31%. Fastball, 41%. Yeah, I mean, it's a little interesting. Like he said, he feels like he had a feel for all five pitches.

He just wasn't handing them, I guess. And Gallant at times, I've always said this. He can get a little nitpicky here and there. That's his biggest thing, right? He feels like he can hit every corner. And so sometimes he doesn't just go directly at somebody, right? Yeah. which can get him in some trouble.

And tonight it ran him into some trouble, but he's able to maneuver around it because of how talented he is. I mean, I don't know why the crowd was up in arms. I get it. You're at a, you know, at an opposing ballpark. The fans are all drinking. Everybody wants Seya Suzuki to have not gone around

on that three-two pitch. You've got bases loaded, nobody out. And Seah... He totally went around on that big. He definitely went around if you watched it. He was in a lot of trouble. We do have a guest in the back room now. He is officially in the back room.

He's here waiting to be let in. Oh, my God, I guess. Let him in. He's getting himself ready. He's putting on his makeup. And I'm now adding him to the screen. We have Jesse Friedman joining us. Well, it's the one and only thunder stick.

Well, well, well, it's my vice mayor, Mr. Jesse Friedman. Jesse, what a weird night. On a night where it really didn't seem like Zach Gallen had his best stuff, We just watched the video from the clubhouse where he said he felt like he had good command over or like good pitches all night long, but just wasn't really landing them. What are your thoughts on what we saw as that Gallen tonight? Yeah, I mean, I guess having good stuff and having big commander kind of two different things, right? So yeah, Gallen did say that he had good feel for all five of his pitches and seemed to be pretty happy with how those pitches were. we're going today, especially the change up.

The change up was, I think he had eight whiffs on the change up today. That's, I don't have it in front of me. I'm sure that's a season high form. That was a really effective pitch today. But, yeah, the command was not great, Derek. I don't know if I've ever seen Zach Gallen's command quite this off. He wasn't, he wasn't spreading the ball around, like, to a super concerning degree. You know, it's not like he was listening by three feet or anything like that,

but he was consistent missing his spots on the edge of. of his own. And yeah, it was a weird outing for him. I mean, to go through that to match his career high and walks with six and still come away with five scoreless innings. It was a brutal outing and yet also it was pretty impressive for him to go out and find a way to do that anyway. I think that's the thing is like there were some Diamondbacks fans that were very concerned and

understandably so after his last outing. But at the end of the day, Zach Gown went out there and three, and through five scoreless innings and I know that it's not as, you know, it's not as long. It's not as deep as we would like to see him go, but you still got to chalk it up as a pretty good day on the mound. Yeah, I mean, five scoreless innings is five scoreless innings, right? That's, I mean, that's ultimately all the matters, no matter what the optics were, no matter how many pitches he actually threw in the zone for a strike today, which was not very many.

Right. He was still able to go out there and be really effective in this game. Yeah, I mean, it was it was 54 of his 102 pitches for strikes in this game. That's about 53%. That is the second lowest strike rate in a start for Zach Gallen in his career. I think it was a start in July of 2020 where it was actually lower than that. So it's been about four years since Zach Gallen, you know, was all over the place to this extent in the game. and at the same time he was able to go out and give the diamond backs exactly what they needed.

So yeah, it continues to be kind of a bizarre stretch for him, right? I mean, his last three starts going into the break were not good. This start was good results-wise. You'd certainly like to get more than five innings out of your ace. Getting deep into games has been a challenge lately and he expressed some frustration with that. But, you know, the B-backs bullpen there continues to be very, very good at the back end. And they were able to come in today. Paul Seawald is the only guy who allowed a base runner out of the D-Backs bullpen to deny it.

It was really impressive stuff. Just certified G's and bona fide studs, Jesse, putting up zeros on the board all around for the Diamondbacks bullpen. But when it came to Gallen, I know that his fastball location was off and he wasn't really able. There's a lot of fastballs that landed outside of the zone. Yeah, there were a lot of fastballs outside of the zone. I think his zone rate for the fastball, so like the percentage of fasts, 38%.

And yeah, Jacob's putting up a handy graphic that we have here. This is, if you're joining us here on YouTube, this is the locations of every fastball, the gallon through tonight. And you can see there's just a lot of pitches that are clearly balls. They're not, you know, like I said earlier, they're not several feet off of the plate

or anything like that. But he was really having a hard time hitting that outside corner to right-handed hitters. And I don't know if there's anything that Gallen does better in general than fastball command. There's a reason that he is so effective

with a fastball in the low mid-90s. It's because he throws the pitch pretty much exactly where he wants to a lot of the time. And even though he wasn't able to do that in this game, he was still able to show just kind of the variety of weapons that he has. It was enough to keep Cubs hitters off balance, you know, good on Cubs hitters for not swinging

and kind of getting themselves out in some of those situations. They really made Gallen work for it. But he showed today why he is regarded the way that he is in this game. He's an ace. And, you know, aces are going to take starts like this, you know, games where they don't, maybe they have good stuff, but they don't have good command of that stuff. And they're still able to go out and put up good results. Well, Gowan, obviously, you spoke to him in the clubhouse.

We showed his video there. a little while ago of him talking about having command of all of his pitches or excuse me being able throw all of his pitches but any chance that the all-star break here impacted him at all yeah it's it's interesting you asked that that was kind of a topic of discussion after the game it's on paper it happened at an unfortunate time for the debacks right because they were really cruising and then the all-star break comes and you wonder if you might actually lose a little bit of your momentum because of the All-Star break being when it was, Gowan was asked about that after tonight's game,

and here's what he had to say. I don't know. I think mentally, we were in need of break. I think everyone, just everyone is. Yeah, obviously you get hot. It kind of comes at not the greatest time, but I think so far we've showed some maturity. I think last year we kind of fell into that trap of we were playing

really well and then you get to the break and it's like oh are we you know we're how many games over 500 at the break and I think this year we kind of saw what that did to us last year and um it seemed like guys you know made a point to you know come out and and you know keep pushing forward the season is not over yet so yeah I mean obviously you would have just been to continue to keep playing but I think it's just good to kind of get a mental and physical reset you know and prepare for the second have well and I think the diamond backs have come out okay so far I mean obviously we know that the all-star break wasn't great for them but it also wasn't really great for the Cubs the Cubs were also very hot kind of coming into the All-Star break and I've had I've had a chance to speak to a lot of

frustrated Cubs fans watching this offense go out there against the dimebacks in the last two games and put up two runs total are speaking of Cubs fans are they are they drinking their sorrows away right now. Oh, yeah. Where you're... We've been stared at. We are here almost home, and yeah, there... It's like we're in a fishbow.

There was at one point a gentleman who was just staring at me over Jacob's shoulder because he knew when I looked at Jacob that I would look over at him. And I don't know why he was doing that, but I'm still terrified that he might be somewhere in this bar. No, I think he left. Okay, good. That's a good thing, but of course, another good thing is that the time of back continue to beat the Cubs here while we were here.

while we are here in Chicago. Jesse, my biggest question for you, are we the good luck charts? Is Tori going to take me to Kansas City with him now? Do I need to adjust my schedule? Do you want to go to Kansas City? Look, I will do whatever I need to do to help this team win. And we've already had Texas barbecue, so why not some Kansas City barbecue? I am not opposed to that, Jesse. Yeah, you know, I think both of us is a package deal, Derek. You know, we don't get a chance to travel quite everywhere for this diamond backs team. But yeah, us being here, obviously, they've won a couple of games.

They had some success against the Blue Jays while we were in Dallas for the All-Star break. And even earlier this season, like I haven't been on the road all that much this season, but the Diamondbacks, they split a series with the Padres. They beat the Padres two out of three. I went to both of the Dodgers series on the road. The D-Backs won both of those series.

It just feels right. The debacks when P.H and X is represented on the road, appear to be a bit of a wagon baseball team there. I don't know. I don't know how else to stay. He said the thing. He said it. He said it.

25 and 16 since June 1st, 10 and 4 in the month of July. Diamondbacks are getting the job done. Jesse, of course, we have more from the clubhouse. What did Tori have to say on today's win? Yeah, well, let's find out. Let's find out. Here's Tori's opening stadium. It was a great win.

You win a series after the second game, and it sets you up for a good day three. So I think the guys will enjoy this win. We've got to come out tomorrow and do what we can do to win that final game. We've talked about what does it look like after game two of a series, whether you're down 2-0 or you're even, or if you're ahead, 2-0, you want to go out and play your best game on that final day. and leave town the right way. So we'll be ready to go.

It was a great one today. Zach, I think, didn't have his absolute best fastball command. I think there were balls that were just off the edge of the zone, and he couldn't get the call, and he couldn't get the hitters to offer at it. But he did enough to make pitches, and he gave up zero runs in five innings. So I think it's a huge, huge outing for him. He turned over the bullpen, and they did a really nice job. I see J-Mart get back in there and, you know,

cruise through his inning after yesterday's struggle. So those were some learning moments, and I was nice to see him go back out there as comfortably as he did. Two solo home runs. One by AT. It's nice to come home. It's nice to come home run in front of his home crowd, and his family.

And then Corby put a really good swing on a pitcher that's typically been very tough on. It was just a down ball. I don't know if it was a change-up or fastball. Got some extension and gave us up three-knit-old. Great win. Enjoy it. Quick turnaround. Got to be ready to mark. It really was a great win. And of course, the one thing we confirm based on this win is that Cody Delmendo's dog does not know ball. Right, Jacob? He had me scared this morning. Right? I'm not going to lie. He had me a little scared. He was like, my dog, when we play catch, they're 3 and 0. Yeah, not anymore. Not anymore, buddy.

It was Galentine's Day. Sorry, yeah, it was Galentine's Day. Your dog said Kyle Hendricks was going to shove and your dog just. lied is what i'm saying but jesse i missed my dog very much very much there what to be to be to be fair hendricks was pretty good for the first three games of this game he really was and then alec thomas right right it didn't it didn't ultimately last uh he did put up several zero in the fifth inning givacs got him with a couple of homers his command seemed kind of fall apart but i still don't so like i still don't know if that alec thomas runs from sorry go ahead sorry go Go ahead. We're delayed, but I was going to say, I still don't know if that, Alex. Yeah, the delay's terrible.

Delays, fantastic. Five innings, three runs for Kyle Andropes, what I was going to say, is actually a pretty decent outcome. Like, ultimately, you know, the Cubs only gave up three runs in this game. So the fact that the Diamondbacks were able to limit the Cubs to no runs, I mean, that's really the big narrative in this one. Jesse, I have a question for you, and you don't have to answer this right now, but somebody in the chat wants to know when the last time Zach Gallen gave up a run at Wrigley was. I'm going to send you on a while on Goose Chase

tonight to find that number because he threw a complete game shutout the last time he was here. So we're now 14 straight scoreless innings for Zach Gallin and Wrigley Field. That's pretty good. That sounds pretty good. Jesse, of course, we also know the fact that this team has a chance to do something

very rare tomorrow. That's get the sweep. They only have one sweep this season. I know it really doesn't matter because now the Diamondbacks sit, you know, at a pretty decent record. It's not great, but their record is, you know, there are two games above 500 now. Like the three games, excuse me, three games above 500. But, I mean, you know, again, how important is it that the Diamondbacks can kind of take care of business here tomorrow? Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that you said, the word sweep, Derek, I think they're kind of doomed, frankly.

God damn. I said it a lot earlier, Jesse. I said it many times. Everybody booed this man. Boomy. I did just look up Gowan's last few starts against the Cubs, specifically here at Riggly Field. He gave up one run over five innings at Riggly Field when he started here in May of 2022. So that would have been the last time to be allowed a run in this ballpark.

But that was a very good outing still. I mean, you know, five scoreless today, nine. obviously a complete game shut out his last time out here and then five innings of one run ball here in May of 2022. So Gallin has really pitched well in this ballpark and the Diamondbacks have played really well in this ballpark as well. I think I saw in the Cubs game notes. There's seven and two, I believe, in their last nine games here at Wrigley, which goes back.

I want to say to the start of the 2022 season, something around there. So this would make it, this would make it eight and two that the debacks are. at Riggley Fields here in their last 10 games. So I don't know what is, but D-BACs have really played here at Riggly and have very much played well against the Cubs here over these last couple of seasons. Well, with their 3-0 win tonight, the Diamondbacks are three games above 500 for the first time this season, and they have now won 12 of their last 17 games. The D-backs have now won or split.

Their last six series, they are 5-0 and 1, including that split with the Atlanta Braves. and additionally to that, tonight marks the D-BAC's second shutout at Cubs since last season on September 8, 2023, where they won 1 to 0. One thing that these Cubs fans absolutely do not forget, Jesse, is the way that the Diamondbacks absolutely rolled over them late in the season when they had two series against the Cubs. I still think back to that time, and I still remember thinking, wow, we really have, you know, six games coming up against the Cubs

that does not look good because they were playing very, good baseball at that point. And I did not know this until this trip, until being out here talking to them, that a lot of Cubs fans blame, like, that series with the Diamond Bags for being where things, like, completely unraveled for them and fell apart. Well, there were a lot of chaotic games in that series. I mean, it wasn't like the Daback just came in and, you know, beat the Cubs. I guess, yeah, if you include both that series, you won at Chase Field a couple of weeks later,

Veebacks took six out of seven. A lot of those games really could have gone either way. You know, I think about the Evan Longoria slide and the 13th inning or whatever that was. Yes, yes. So, yeah. There were a lot of very close games that the Diamondbacks just found a way to win, you know, pretty much every single one of them. So this Cubs team's in a tough spot right now. I mean, they came in 47 and 52, so now they dropped to six games under 500 with the loss.

The trade deadline, obviously, just 10 days away there. I'm not so sure that the Cubs are really in position to hold on to pieces. I guess they don't have a whole lot of guys that are expiring right now, so selling for them might not be all that drastic of a move anyway. Cody Bellinger would probably be the most interesting piece there if they decided to try to move him. I have an idea. It'd be interesting to see what that would look like.

Give us Shoda Imanaga. Who says no? Does anyone say no? Do you say no? This guy says yes over here. He's down to trade him. I don't know. I want Mike.

I'm still not over the fact that we talked about Shoda Imanaga as much as we did during the off season. And then he ended up being as good of a pitcher as he is. But that's all behind us now, Jesse. All we have now left is one more game here in Chicago. But of course, we will be back here with post-game coverage on Sunday after this series wraps up. So make sure to come back here.

But before we do that, we know that I lie. We know Jacob lies. We know Jesse even lies, even though he pretends not to lie. But we know the numbers, they never lie. So let's take a look at tonight's number that don't lie. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight? Tonight's number, Derek, is 418. That represents the distance of Corbyn Carroll's two-run home run in the fifth inning

that really broke this game open. Debacks, of course, already had a 1-0 lead at that point. But Corbyn made it a little bit more comfortable with that swing And 418 feet, Derek, that is the longest batted ball. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Has Corbin reached the 400-foot threshold on a ball this year? It was actually a fly-out against the Los Angeles Dodgers, I think, to like straightaway

center field or something like that. All of his homers up to this point, this was a sixth homer of the season. But the homers that he had entering today, a lot of them were kind of in the wallstraper category. He hadn't really, you know, just like destroyed a base. ball well into the seats. And granted, Corbin's a smaller guy. You know, he's not going to be hitting 470 foot homers all the time or anything like that. He doesn't have the power that a Christian Walker, you know, even a right-handed Patel Marte might have. But he does have really, really good bat speed and the ability to really put a charge into a ball when he gets to one. And we saw that tonight.

We saw Corbyn really, really get into a baseball and hit it 418 feet. And what especially stands out for me is that he hit it to the pole side. This is something we haven't seen Corbyn do all that much this season. A lot of his homers have been to the opposite field. He had one also recently that was a that was a cold home run as well. And I think it's a sign. It's a good sign for him just to see him pulling the ball with authority once again. He has only nine batted balls this season that have been fly balls to the whole side. And four of those have come here in the last two weeks. So a good sign for Corbyn. that maybe he's kind of figuring things out. I know he was just one for five in this game,

but that home run was really important. And, you know, if he can start tapping into that power a little bit more and really putting a charge into the ball, especially to the full side, it could make a big difference. Well, something they were talking about on the broadcast was, you know, the fact that you don't have to necessarily have pool power in this stadium in order to hit a home run. And we definitely saw that today.

We saw Corbyn kind of do his thing. and of course, Alec Thomas's home run, if you want to call it, that also went out. But we're going to talk to Alec tomorrow more about that home run and his entire week that he's had here in Chicago. So looking forward to bringing you guys that and so much more here before we come home on Monday, which I'm still not ready to do despite the fact that I'm totally sharing a bed with Jacob for the next two nights. But we do thank you guys and love you guys so much for joining us and being here tonight. Of course, if you have not subscribed to us to the YouTube channel yet, do so now. If you haven't followed us yet on Twitter, make sure to do that as well.

I'm at Kappa underscore K-man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Of course, Fage, he is at Jacob underscore Franklin 4 because he is the fourth base, fourth best Jacob Franklin in known existence. And of course, we still don't know what those other three did to get ranked above him. It has to be something pretty spectacular. This man works tirelessly. he's a wonderful father and he's a wonderful person sometimes.

Other times he's a bad guy. He's a very bad guy at other times. But of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-BACs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for joining us. We appreciate your time. We'll see you back here tomorrow for one more post-game show from Almost Home right here in Chicago. We thank you again for being here for being Diamondbacks fans.

We love you guys so much. We'll see you tomorrow. Have a wonderful night. And in the meantime, remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you keep winning series.