PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Zac Gallen Tosses SIX NO-HIT INNINGS In Diamondbacks Series Win Over Giants

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen was phenomenal in San Francisco on Wednesday night, throwing six no-hit innings in a series-clinching win over the Giants. We have more on Gallen walking plenty but being stingy with the hits, another productive night for the D-backs offense, and A.J. Puk continuing to be one of the best relief pitchers in all of baseball. We also have updates on if the Snakes are keeping pace in a what is becoming a wild Wild Card Race. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX 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 your offer!Disclaimer: 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/Sanderson Ford: The Sanderson Ford Summer Sales Event is here and they are teaming up with the boys of summer for a final Playoff Payoff Sale. You get the payoffs like deals on 24 Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend. Lease one today for as low as $299 a month for 36 Months with only 10 percent cash down.Zbiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/phnxdbacks to get 15% off your first order when you use PHNXDBACKS at checkout. Pre-Alcohol is backed with 100% money back guarantee so if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, they’ll refund your money, no questions asked. Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order!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.Gametime: 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!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.Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items.Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off!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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ski and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast brought to you by Bet365. Of course, go download the Bet365 app right now. Use our code of Bet-NX-365 when you sign up, choose your offer, and find out why it is never ordinary at Bet-365. And of course, no ending to a Diamondbacks game could be ordinary, nor can really a start for an Arizona Diamondbacks game be ordinary any longer. Diamondbacks win tonight by a score of six to four. Of course, my name is Derek Monti, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This man in the box next to me is being air conditioned properly now in his own home that he owns.

It's the one and only vice mayor, aka the thunder stick Jesse Friedman. Never a dull moment around here, Derek. Never a dull moment. Can't just be an easy win, can't be one of those games, because that's the direction this one was started in. Once again, the Diamondbacks looked like they were just going to kind of roll over the Giants. And this one, they had an early lead and they kind of maintained that. Zach Gallen, despite walking a whole bunch of guys cruised in this one.

Again, no hits allowed in six innings of work. He was absolutely outstanding. Of course, we'll get into that. Corbyn Carroll extended his hitting streak in this one to 14 games. And now his on-base record, Jesse, is up to 43 games. That's, it's just crazy. Like when we say July 9th, we mean July 9th. It would feel a little bit shocking at this point if Corbyn Carroll started a baseball game and did not come away with a hit.

Yeah. It feels like it's two is sort of the baseline. Like two is the expectation at this point. One maybe feels like a bit of a disappointment. Yeah. And if there isn't at least one extra base hit, that also seems a little a little bit sort of like a disappointment for Corbett at this point. Yeah. he continues to hit really well.

And the Diamondbacks as a whole, their offense continues to do big things. We talked yesterday about how they are the highest scoring offense and all the baseball by a wide margin. And sure enough, once again today, I mean, it wasn't eight runs today.

It was only six, but if you score six runs every day, you're going to win a lot of baseball games that way. And that's a very big reason why the Diamondbacks are in the position they're in right now. You're absolutely right. And this game ended up being way closer than it should have been. So they needed all of those runs once again in order to walk away with the victory. But let's just start with Zach Gallen because he was amazing today. It's the Zach

gallon that we know the Zach Gallen we love and maybe even a slightly better version of himself, despite the fact that there in the second inning, he did need to be unplugged, wait 15 seconds and then plugged back in because after getting two outs to start the inning, he suddenly couldn't find the strike zone. Well, no, I take that back. He couldn't find the strike zone when he needed to put the batter away. He was up like one, two. I think he was two, two in the count. Like, he was always, he was in all. It wasn't like he just couldn't find the strike zone at all. He just couldn't put guys away there in the second inning, almost walks four straight batterers, walks three straight batters, and then luckily gets Kirk Casale to strike out. And that was a blessing because that pitch was

nowhere near the strike, though. Yeah, that second inning was very bizarre for Zach Gallen. I mean, I think it sort of just embodied what the last couple of months had been like for him, where things look pretty normal, right? He faced Tyler Fitzgerald to start the inning. Fitzgerald flew out in foul territory. Then you get a shallow pop-up from Lamont Wade Jr., things that we're used to seeing for Zach Allen.

And then suddenly, as you said, it wasn't like he was just spraying the ball over the place and couldn't throw any strikes at all. he was up i believe one two in the count to louis matos marco lecoyano and brett wisely but as you said he just couldn't put those guys away i think it was a combination of some pitches just being uncompetitive just missing the zone by too much to really garner a swing from any majorly kidder and there were also some pitches that i think gallon executed fairly well out of those three at bats that you know giant hitters to their credit were able to lay off but yeah it was a it was weird uh it was was bizarre and yet you look up a few, you know, an hour or two later and Zach Allen is

six no hit innings. And, you know, maybe it's not exactly what you would have drawn up for him today, but it was pretty close. I mean, anytime you're going six innings and not allowing a hit, you're doing a lot of things right. One thing I noticed, Jesse, was he wasn't able to land his fastball in a lot of those situations. Like when you go back and you look at the counts, a lot of the balls were the four seamer. But then, After that, he was able to put a four-seem fastball almost wherever he wanted to. And I felt like that was the big key to getting back on track without that four-seem fastball. It doesn't set up that amazing knuckle curve he was throwing today.

It doesn't set up the change up. But once that was dialed in, he was getting ahead in the count to every batter, sat down 10 in a row after that little weird, you know, stretch that he had there in the second inning. and was incredible. Struck out the side in the fourth inning just looked like himself. And I mean, much like the last outing that he had, which was kind of a disaster,

but as he described it, it was like two different games that he pitched. This was another one of those situations where as the outing went on, he seemed to get stronger. His pitches seemed to like confuse batters even more. I believe they brought it up, Candy brought it up on the broadcast

that like he was able to land all four of his pitches for strikes. And at that point, he was just dangerous because you kind of had to swing at everything he was thrown. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with the fastball commands. I mean, we've been saying it for weeks now. That's been not the only difference, not the only issue for Zach Gallen here over the last month or two, but one of the main ones, if he is able to put his fastball where he wants to, which usually there aren't that many guys in the league that have better fastball command than

Zach Gallen. I mean, it's been something that has really carried him for a number of years. years. Not only the fact that his four seamers a good pitch, it has a lot of life to it, but the fact that he's been able to put it wherever he really wanted to. And we just haven't seen that version of his fastball for a lot of this season. I thought he also did a pretty good job just getting ahead in counts in general. We mentioned those three hitters that he got ahead, one, two, and wasn't able to put him away. But by and large, he was getting ahead in the count pretty much all night. That's another thing the gallon has struggled to do in recent outings.

So I think that's a good sign for him as well. So yeah, I mean, this was, you know, maybe not, maybe not vintage Zach Gallen, if you want to use that phrase. But it was it was a step in the right direction, a really big step in the right direction for him. There were moments where the change up looked like a dominant pitch and the curveball. That's sort of been a steadying presence for him for a while. We've seen that look like a dominant pitch. Even some of the sliders he threw were really nasty in this game. So maybe this is the start of Zach Gallen kind of getting things back on the right page.

He's been leaning on that curveball a lot because of how effective it's been. But it's just it's not the pitch that it can be without being set up. Right. And if you know that he's kind of avoiding his fastball or you can see that that's happening, you can see he's not landing it, makes it easy to kind of have the outing that, that, you know, his last outing the way the direction that went. But tonight he was nailed six innings pitch, zero hits allowed. zero earn runs, four walks, eight strikeouts.

And impressive there at the end to finish the game with a strikeout, finishes outing, at least with a strikeout. There was a weird discourse, once again, trying to get the fire Tory conversation going for some reason where people thought somehow that Zach Gallen would be able to finish this game when he was at 100 pitches after six innings. Yeah, no. Wasn't going to happen.

Zach wouldn't have done it. Nobody would have wanted to see him do it. Like, I'm sorry. I know the game ended up going the way it went, and that's unfortunate. But this one, this is one of those situations where I'm definitely not blaming the manager. I'm blaming the performance of the pitchers because Tori goes to his bullpen. He goes to Kevin Ginkle. And Ginkle immediately gives up a hit, immediately ends the no hitter.

And then the very next hit allowed is a home run that, you know, makes it a four two ballgame at that point. And I mean, again, this is one of those situations where you kind of went to your guys in this one to lock it down. You went to the guys that you thought you could rely on. And Kevin Ginkle, who has been extremely reliable, just isn't out of the gate. Like he needed to get mad first before he could start pitching. Well, I mean, I don't know. Maybe someone needs to slap Kevin one time. Just one strong slap before he goes out there for performance to get him fired up.

up. But I mean, this wasn't great. And again, it's another one of those situations where you're kind of riding on a high with the Diamondbacks being up four to nothing, Gallen, not giving up any hits. And then immediately the game, the lead is in jeopardy because they cut it in half. Yeah, I mean, just a couple of days ago, we were talking about, do the Diamondbacks have a starting rotation problem? It sort of looked like they did. And now the question is, do the Diamondbacks have a a bullpen problem. It sure looks like they do. I know this isn't just a question of the last couple of days.

Some of these guys have been shaky for a while now. But yeah, I mean, you look at the numbers from yesterday, Derek, DeBax relievers yesterday, two and a third inning, seven hits, five runs. Obviously, Ryan Thompson's struggles were a big part of that. And then today, three innings out of that group, four runs allowed on four hits. So you put these two games together and you've got nine runs on 11 hits allowed by DeBaxter levers. in just five and a third innings of work.

It has been a rough go over these couple of days against a Giants offense that isn't terrible by any means, but also is not among the league leaders either. So it goes back to sort of what we were saying yesterday with there's A.J. Puck and then there's everyone else. And I think if any game could have really embodied that, this was it, right? A.J. Puck comes in, strikes out the side, looks utterly dominant. and then Justin Martinez and Kevin Ginkle, both of those guys did not look sharp at all.

Jesse, AJ Puck was filthy. Seven whiffs, seven whiffs in one inning against three batters? On seven swings, too. Every single time a Giants hitter attempted a swing, they missed. It was a, he seemed unhittable. He seemed unhittable. I don't care what, what, you know, how you, if you bat righty, if you bat lefty, it doesn't matter. This man has been incredible.

I mean, we've already talked about him being one of the best pitchers on the Arizona Diamondbacks, but he might quite possibly be one of the best relievers in all of Major League Baseball. Yeah, that's not hyperbolic at all. I mean, you look at AJ Puck's numbers since he was converted from a starter to a reliever. That's something we emphasized a lot early on when the debacks first acquired him because his numbers were very heavily skewed by four starts that he made at the beginning. of the year, the Marlins trying to convert him to a starter. Since being moved back to a reliever, he has gone 45 and a third innings, 25 hits allowed, eight earned runs, eight walks, 56 strikeouts.

That's a 1.59 ERA. Just incredible numbers. I mean, he has clearly been for the Diamondbacks and in that stint with the Marlins before he was traded. He has been one of the best relievers in all of baseball this season. I mean, these are like Josh Hater-esque numbers. Maybe the strikeout rate is a touch lower, but you look at like Josh Hater at his peak.

I mean, these are similar numbers that we're seeing this season from AJ Puck. So he has been outstanding. He has been everything the Diamondbacks could have possibly hoped for. If you're the debacks, though, you're hoping that a couple of other guys, you know, prove themselves down the stretch and start to look a little bit better. Especially Justin Martinez, because he is a guy who once again, Tori today refused to name,

closer. It's like Tori does not even want to address that situation. Apparently that was addressed again today. Yeah. He just wants to manage the team. He just wants to manage the goddamn team. Leave the man alone. He doesn't need to name, name names, give people titles. He'll go to who he wants to go to when he wants to go to them. And that person is always Justin Martinez, who is in fact the closer, whether you want to call him that or not. But things got dicey for him tonight, Jesse. And I mean, we have not really seen him go out and have those same dominant innings that we saw him have when he wasn't in this role. It doesn't mean he hasn't been effective, right? He's been able to get the job done,

but it's never, it's, lately it's not clean. He gave up, you know, two earn runs tonight in the inning. If the Diamondbacks offense didn't keep things rolling, which we'll talk about a bit more here shortly, uh, this probably would have been his first blown save with the way that this one went with how close this game was. Yeah, Justin Martinez continues to look pretty shaky. And again, he hasn't blown a save since the Diamondbacks moved him into the closer role in August, although I guess maybe I'm not supposed to say that because Tori's not using the word closer, but I guess I am.

But yeah, I mean, I think for the Diamondbacks as well as Justin Martinez was pitching and in some ways has continued to pitch, although certainly not these last few outings, there was always a risk, right? with taking a guy who's 23 years old and plugging him into the most important role in your bullpen. And yes, he has nasty stuff and he's gotten a lot better commanding it. But you still see, you still see it from time to time. You still see the Justin Martinez from last year from time to time. There was a splitter that he threw tonight that went to the backstop because he threw it so high. Every once in a while, he just throws a pitch that's completely uncompetitive. And we've seen more of that

here in these last few outings. As you look ahead to October, Derek, like I have to imagine that you and pretty much every fan of this team, like I don't know how good you feel about Justin Martinez being the guy in the ninth inning in October in the most important moments of your season. Still better than Paul Seawald, Jesse.

I still feel better than Paul Seawald being in there. And I can't lie about that. And you know how much I love to jump around. It was my favorite thing to do. That song's ruined for me. I can't even listen to it when I work out anymore. But what does get me pumped up is this offense that continues to score, Jesse. You can't stop them.

They did it early. Again, they get that one run in the first inning. They give Zach Gowan the lead. They give their starting pitcher the ability to have that lead. Gino adds to it there in the second inning. But again, Corbyn reaches base safely right away. Like you said, he doesn't even waste time. and I mean, 43 straight games of reaching base.

I know that's not that big of a deal because of the caveat that it's just reaching base safely. But still, it just shows that lately Corbyn is so dialed in that he is helping this team win by being a base runner every single night at least at least once. But like you said, that's usually a bad night for him. Usually you expect him to be out there a couple of times, get a couple of hits. And this one, he did get a hit extending that hitting streak as well to 14 games. Yeah, and you're seeing him use his legs a lot more as well. Yeah. He had two more stolen bases in this game after having two stolen bases yesterday.

That's a really big part of his game. Obviously, he stole 54 bases just a season ago. We haven't seen it a ton even as he's heated up because he's hit so many extra base hits that, you know, when you hit a home run, there's no base to steal. When you hit a triple, you're probably not stealing home. So he hasn't had as many opportunities to really flex that muscle, but you're starting to see. more now that he's, you know, adding a little variety. It's not just Homer or a bus. You're starting to see him get on base via the walk, which I guess he's been doing sort of all along, but, you know, with singles as well from time to time. So he continues to look just outstanding for this

Diamondbacks team. And as I think about Catea potentially joining this team soon, which we got some reporting in San Francisco today, that it sounds like he will join the team during the road trip. I imagine that would be in Houston. We didn't get any firm confirmation on that, but it at least seems like a possibility. I mean, the thought of having this version of Corbyn Carroll with this year's version of Gatel Marte at the top of the lineup every day,

that's something we really haven't had the entire season with Corbyn going through the struggles that he did. I mean, it was a great one-two punch for the debaX last year, but it could be a whole other level here in 2024. Yeah, you're not wrong. Corbin has been incredible for this team. Oh, sorry. I just saw the Padres one.

Shocking. They did. They were down five to nothing in the fifth inning to the Detroit Tigers. And in my head, it was about a 50-50 game at that point, Derek. Yeah. And then Jack and Merrill. You get up five runs midway through against the Padres. Like, you're in a good spot, but you're not anywhere close to winning that game.

And sure enough, Jackson Merrill, three-run Homer in the middle of the game, I think Danny Machado drove into with a two-run single or something. And then I don't know how to- Just give that man the NL Roy already. He deserves it. He earned it. And that's gross for me to say. And I know there's eight coming my way right now,

simply for praising any baseball player that's not a diamond back. So let me get back to praising diamond bags. What if I would have told you on July 1st that Gino Sforres was going to have 24 home runs by September 4th? You wouldn't have believed me. You would have told me I was a fool. And you probably would have. asked me to get drug tested again. But no, not the case. Gino has been mashing the ball. It's a solo

home run tonight. I think the only disappointing part about that is he hits a lead off home run. Diamondback slowed the bases, Jesse, and then they're unable to produce another run. And at this point, it's weird to on a night where they scored six runs, like you said, it wasn't eight, it was just six runs. But on a night where they scored six runs to still kind of be disappointed that they missed on so many other opportunities. I mean, after three innings, they were one for ten with runners in scoring position. One for ten after three innings, that's wild. Yeah, I mean, on the giant side of things, I wouldn't say that their pitching was

necessarily fantastic the entire way through either. Hayden Birdsong could not find the strike zone. I think he had five walks and obviously a pretty short outing tonight. But the debacks struggled to really make and pay for those. I think only one of those walks actually came around to score. And as you said, one for 10 with runners in scoring position through three innings. That's a pretty tough place to be. So, yeah, they wound up pushing across enough.

But they had opportunities to definitely score more runs than they did. They left a lot of meat on the bone. But you know who mashed one, Jesse, Pavin Smith. Shout out to the Paveen Smith fan club, exclusively part of the Phavenx Diamondback. podcast. He hits a solo home run to add to the lead there in the fifth. And of course, for all of you redheads out there, that home run is our Sanderson Ford deep drive of the game. That was a 420 foot blast to center field. And again, at the time, I think this put the Diamondbacks up four to nothing. And Jesse, it felt it's like when Cattell hits a home run there

in the ninth inning. It just felt unnecessary. And the most. moment, but it was like, hey, good, more runs. This one seems like it's already in the bag, but who knows? And sure enough, they needed, they needed them. They needed those runs. Yeah, I mean, Pavin had both of the Diamondbacks hardest hit balls in this game. And their hardest hit ball of the night was not Pavin Smith's Homer. It was actually a lineout that I believe Lamont Wade Jr. made a really nice play on early on in this game. So, yeah, Paveen Smith, like, you know, I mean, we can say all we want about how the past numbers for him obviously haven't looked great at the big league level. He's tended to hit in AAA and then you bring him up and he sort of struggled.

This hasn't been a fluke. Like his his production in the big leagues this season, which, you know, I'm not going to say he's been outrageously insanely good or anything. But he has a 784 OPS, which is solid. And you look at his peripherals and they absolutely back it up. If anything, I think Pavin has maybe gotten a little bit unlucky this. this season and maybe maybe deserves to have even better numbers than he does. So it just goes back to what we were saying yesterday about how so many guys on this team are contributing offensively.

Like Kevin Newman has been pretty darn good for being a utility player. And then guys like Haven Smith who have sort of been up and down guys for this team this season, they've been well above average hitters, you know, for this team as well. So this offense continues to just have so much depth compared to some of the other teams. in the league. And yet you can still feel unsatisfied with the way that they perform tonight. Because when you look around, you look at what they left out there. Josh Bell adds a run there, but he hit into a double play. But he still got a run. He's going to do a few of those. Yeah, he gets the run in, right? Like they get the run in. But in the eighth, like if they would

have lost this game, the eighth inning where Gino hit what looked like a home run, but wasn't a home run, might have well just been the baseball gods literally saying, no, you know, you can't have this one because it literally looked like that ball got swatted from going for a home run back into the, you know, back in the play, bounced off the top of the wall. Diamondbacks don't get much, but they do get an RBI ground out from Jose Herrera to make it 5-2,

and then a Corbyn Carroll infield single that made it very important that made it 6 to 2. And of course, those are the runs that kept this game from going into extra innings with what happened there earlier, as we described with the bullpen, two runs allowed by Kevin Ginkle, two runs allowed by Justin Martinez late. Luckily, the Diamondbacks did score enough to hold on and preserve this win. The thought definitely went through my head in that inning. So you had Pavin Smith, who drew a walk, I believe, and then he stole second base.

You had a runner at second with nobody out. Gino Suarez comes up. And as you said, he hits what appeared to be a home run, but then it somehow bounces like on the top of the fence and then bounces back into the field of play. And Pavin didn't score. Pavin was on second base, but on a near home run, Pavan only advanced a third. And Gino was able to get into second. And as the inning was progressing from there, Luis Giorme came up and had a rough at bat and struck out. Jose Herrera was due up next. It very much looked like the Diamondbacks might not score at all on that inning.

And it occurred to me, like, how many times in Major League Baseball has a team had a runner at second with nobody out, hit a double, and not scored at all in that thing? Yeah, yeah. Like, that has to be an astronomically, like, maybe it's happened before, but I don't know. That would have been really crazy. Obviously, it didn't work out that way that the debacks, as you said, they were still able to push across both of those runs. Well, of course, the guy that gave them this great opportunity to win is the guy we needed to. get right today. And thanks to his efforts, he did get right. And he gave this Diamondbacks team an incredible performance. Our King Snake is Zach Gallen, six innings pitched, no hits, no runs,

8K. I mean, what more can you say? I mean, especially after bouncing back, uh, considering he had that, you know, that weird inning. He couldn't really get the job done. It looked like at times he, he looked a bit frustrated. He looked a bit lost out there. You get, you know, a mountain visit from Brentstrom and then everything is right with Zach Gallen sits down 10 in a row incredible. Yeah, he really he really got on a nice run and it it kind of felt to me like this wasn't a battle of Zach Gallen versus the Giants. It was a battle of Zach Gallen versus himself. Like if he was executing the pitches, then the Giants weren't doing anything, right? But if if he was kind of struggling to miss his spots, then that's what sort of opened the door for Giants hitters,

not even to get a base hit, but to at least get on base via the walk. I guess I should mention Mike Yostremski, who did put a heck of an abat on Gallon. That was that was not Gallin missing his spots. I mean, that was Gallen throwing like 12 really good pitches and Mike Yostremski finding away on base anyway. And that also fired Gallen up. Like he was pissed after that. And like you could tell he didn't want to go back out there.

He didn't like or he didn't want to be taken out of the game. He wanted to finish that inning. And his pitch count was obviously in the territory where that was like, 93 or something after that at bat. I think he gets the double play with one pitch to the next batter. And luckily that allows them to get through the inning. But just a great day. Rattlebacks, thank you so much for your super chat.

Rattleback says first half, he was Gno. Second half, he's been G. Hell, yes. I like that way better than you know Gino. That's a good one. But yeah, Gino, Gino's been the guy for this. this team lately. And I mean, you talked about Corbyn Carroll, but that's like the duo right now. I mean, in the absence of the other guys, in the absence of Catelle Marte and Christian Walker, it's been Gino and it's been Corbyn getting the job done.

Do you, this is a question. I'm curious what you, what you think. Do you find it strange that the diamondbacks are still hitting Gino Suarez seventh, like despite the fact that he's been the most productive third baseman in all of baseball for the last two months and his leading baseball on RBI by, I believe, a pretty wide margin since July 1st. Like, they haven't budged in his lineup position really at all. Even with Christian Walker getting hurt, Gino Suarez continued to be near the bottom of this lineup and was hitting seventh again today. I guess I am considering the shifts in the lineup that we've seen.

We've seen Perdomo moved up. Like, if there was anybody I didn't want move just based on, I guess, karma, just based on, like, you know, like a weird sense of the success he's had there. It would have been Perdomo in the ninth hole doing what he's done for this team. Sure. I do think that it is a bit strange considering that they did have the losses that they had. And they could have moved, you know, into, you know, cleanup roll hitting their fourth or third, especially considering the way he was hitting.

I don't, I don't really know the reason for him to be hitting in the lower in the lineup. But, I mean, maybe once again, it's just. just about how Tori likes to construct his, his lineup. Like, we see it differently, and it's a fact, right? Like, if you're hitting higher in the lineup, you're getting more at bats, period. Like, you're getting crucial at bats late in the game.

You're getting more at bats than guys lower in the lineup. If you guys are, you know, having one of those days, we're not, you're not getting a lot of the bats. So I understand it from that perspective, but I do think that Tori views it differently. I've heard him talk about kind of viewing his starting lineup as two starting lineups instead of it being like a top half and a lower half. Like he's literally trying to kind of do, you know, a lead off hitter with a second,

you know, a number two hole hitter with a cleanup hitter, all that kind of as the, you know, the first half and through the second half of the lineup. I don't know if it's the best idea. There are some unconventional things about the way that Tori Lobello manages teams that we do not see eye to eye on. And basically that's because certain things have been proven to work. and Tori refuses to at times, you know, like he will walk his own path as a manager. He will do things based on what he feels is going to be success,

not necessarily what's the conventional, you know, route for a manager to take. I just, I don't know. I don't know. At this point, I just want to see Kattel back, and I hope Ketel can get back and be Ketel. I think that's going to be important. How long is it going to take for him to get back online? How long is it going to take for Christian Walker? you know, to start, you know, contributing the way that we're used to him contributing.

He was, he struggled in his first game back early on, but man, I mean, by the end of the game, you could see him getting better and better, his swings lining up better and things, you know, looking more Christian Walker like. Yeah, I mean, it was a little odd not having him start in this game that he came in late as a, as a defensive replacement. and Tori was pretty clear with us while he was back in Arizona, the team was back here, that there was going to be a return play sort of program for Christian Walker.

The Diamondbacks want to be careful with him, which I can understand. I mean, Tori really put it on himself that Walker got hurt in the first place. Walker had played in every single game that the Diamondbacks had had up to that point. So they want to make sure that they, you know, set him up well for the playoffs to be able to stick with this. team the rest of the way and not have any hiccups. And to Josh Bell's credit, I mean, it hasn't, hasn't always been pretty.

There have been maybe a few more ground balls lately than you would care to see. But he still is finding ways to be a run producer for the debacks in the middle of this lineup. So he's done a really nice job stepping in. Well, of course, we thank you guys for being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, I implore you to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever our shows go live. of course, hit that like button.

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of this show. This show is about the Diamondbacks, but never forget, it's just an extension of my mayor-old campaign. I mean, my ongoing efforts to keep PH&X, I guess this ship afloat around here. But we'll be right back with some more information on this game, some more numbers from tonight's win. But first, we got to thank Sanderson Ford for not only sponsoring the deep drive of the game, but for their incredible customer service. And of course, they're amazing offers right now that you can get down on over at their 65-acre facility.

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purchase, release any new Ford and get four tickets for your family to see the debacks, push for the playoffs, get 0% for 36 months for OAC from Ford Credit, C dealer for details. And of course, check out our guy, Lauren, over there. He'll make sure that you get a test drive in whatever vehicle you want to check out. That's important. I really learned a lot, and I love that Ford Broncos Sport Big Ben more than ever after driving it. But also check out our friends at Bet365. like we said, it's never ordinary for an Arizona Diamondbacks game.

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Damon, I believe we have some paid sponsorship advertisement now that we have to run. Sometimes you think you know a person, but do you really know Steve Peters? The positive campaigner, the man who will bring us all together. But those who know PD best, they know what's behind the mask. I am very leery every time PD says anything for me to watch. Because the darkness is, there is a darkness. If he's hiding the darkness behind his facade, what else could he be hiding? Petey, who is he really for?

There is a darkness. Ethical standards in PHNX officials is responsible for the content of this advertising. It really makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Stephen Peters might not be the man that he says he is. He hides me on a mask, I heard. I don't mean to be pulling back the curtain too much,

but that's just what I've been told. Jesse, let's take a look at the count presented by Desert Financial Credit Union because this is another one of those games where not a lot makes sense. Diamondbacks win six to four. They outhit the Giants seven to four. Giants were just one for three with runners in scoring. position diamond backs uh only at least that's a stone cold steve austin thing there three for 16 a 188 batting average not great lots of opportunities that's great not great that they only got

three runners uh scored three runners in scoring position uh they did have three extra base hits uh the giants still had two though uh for the limited amount of offense the giants had they almost matched diamond backs output and then the walks diamond backs had eight walks to the five walks the giants we're able to generate. So of course, this kind of tells the tale. The Diamondbacks got a lot of those runners in scoring position through the walks, through getting those guys on base, but weren't able to convert. And again, not trying to, you know, I guess make a win into a loss.

I feel like we've done that now maybe two nights in a row. But there's just still some things that the Diamondbacks need to clean up. And in this case, their offense was good, but it could have been much better. Yeah, I mean, this does feel like six runs does feel like an. underwhelming performance for this offense at this point. And yet the Diamondbacks had, you know, with the eight walks and the seven hits, they had 15 base runners in this game. Like, that's, that's pretty good.

That's going to win you a lot of games. But I think the, I think the Diamondbacks pitching struggles are just, it's, it's not that people don't want to talk about the offense because it has been so unbelievably good. We are going to continue to talk about how good this offense has been. but the lack of stability in both the rotation and in the bullpen right now, I think is, I get it. I mean, it's this team going into October, you know,

having a offense that scores a bunch of runs is a huge thing in a postseason situation, but you also have to be able to really rely on your top end talent in your pitching staff, right? It's your top four starters, and then it's your top four, maybe five relievers that are really getting the majority of the reps and the big moments in the postseason. And the Diamondbacks, it's a little bit unclear exactly what that's going to look like at this point. But again, yeah, the offense just continues to do outrageously incredible things. And again, Cotel Marte is still out. And Christian Walker did not play in this game.

And Gabriel Moreno is obviously still out as well. So the fact that they're still able to do this is just very incredible. Well, and the offense needs to do it. with the way things have gone with pitching lately outside of Ryan Nelson performances, which you still can't trust the bullpen. And tomorrow is going to be interesting considering the amount of guys that are going to be down out of the bullpen. No Justin Martinez tomorrow.

Probably no AJ Puck. Probably no Kevin Ginkle. So it'll be interesting to see who Tori turns to and what kind of outing Merrill has for this team tomorrow in the finale. But El Gaiio 4978 brings up a great point. It says it's crazy that both the Mets and the Braves have the tiebreaker. It's so crazy. Yes, crazy you could say.

Terrifying is another thing you could say because, again, these teams are all winning. Everybody keeps winning. The Dodgers were the only ones that lost tonight that have any relevance here when it comes to the Arizona Diamondbacks in their position in the race for the playoffs, essentially. And that's still kind of to a point of being out of reach

that that shouldn't be what their focus is or I think our focus as a fan base, our focus needs to be on, you know, wishing all the bad things in the world on the Mets, on the Braves, on the Cubs, sorry Cubs guys. I love you guys over there. We had a great time out in left field, but I have to wish all the bad things upon your team that I can't because the Diamondbacks need, you know, they need to continue to win here. The things are getting very close and they need to keep pace.

Did you see that the Cubs through a combined no hitter tonight? Yeah, yeah. I think went seven and then I started having that little thought for us I wanted I was like please Jesus I've seen what you've done for others can you do that for me and he didn't but he still gave us the wind tonight and that's all right I will also say that despite what I say about like not caring about the Dodgers I lie I totally want to catch the Dodgers but of course I'm a liar we know that not when it comes to being mayor I'm a very truthful mayor but I'm a liar as a pro wrestling guy I'm also sometimes a liar as a fan. But we know the numbers, Jesse. They never lie. Tonight's number that doesn't lie. What do you have for us?

Tonight's number is 1,0005. That's 1.005. And this, Derek, is Aeohenio Suarez's Ops going back to July the 1st. Let's go, Gino. We have 91 OPS at the end of June going into July. And since then, he has. as I said earlier, he's been the most productive third basement in all of baseball with an OPS just over a thousand. His slash line in that span is 306, 359, 646.

He has 18 home runs in a league leading 55 RBI. That's in a 56 game span. So basically driving in a run per game on average, he's been outrageously good. And, you know, I could have envisioned, like, if you had asked me in late June, early July, I wasn't exactly thinking that aohenio Suarez was going to turn things around, if I'm being totally honest. I don't think anyone was really thinking that at that point when his OPS still started with a five. But I probably could have envisioned you're a liar, Derek.

We've already. I think I could have envisioned Gino bouncing back and being good enough for the diamond backs the rest of the way, like good enough to justify holding on to him and looking back at the end of the season and being glad that you didn't let him go. but I did not see this coming. I mean, for him to go out and just be an elite offensive producer for more than two months now. I mean, this is, I think, well over 200 played appearances. This is a pretty long time of Gino Suarez being basically as good as he's ever been.

Like, Gino has had some good seasons in the past. He's been one of the better hitters in the league in the past. I'd have to, now I'm kind of curious. Maybe I'll do this after the show. Like, I don't know if Gino's ever had two months this good in his career. I mean, this has to be up there with as good as he has ever been. Yeah, well, I mean, the end result is going to make the deal look very, very good. And of course, the Diamondbacks might not be in the position they're in without Gino.

They definitely wouldn't be in the position they're in without Corbyn. We wouldn't be in the position we are in without you guys as our viewers. So we thank you, of course, for being here for watching. And of course, I do have to read BeComC clearly super chat here. So they want you to read this one, Jesse, but I know that's not going to happen. So I'll go ahead and take this one. I will say I'm a little disappointed in your spelling of thick.

I feel like in this situation it would be with two Cs and not a K, but I'm going to read it anyway. He said, oh, BT, Dub, Kyler Murray is thick, yams. And I also mean we win. That's all we do and need to do. We are fine. We'll get healthier and win. And that's exactly true.

We will get healthier and win. And I think that's what's coming. You know, I watch. Jesse, by the way, thank you, B.com, see clearly for your super chat. We appreciate you and all of your inappropriateness. Jesse, I watched catcher footage for about four hours today. I don't even want to explain to you what I ended up doing, but I learned a lot about catching today,

and I learned a lot about what makes Gabrielle Moreno successful, including like stuff that oddly happens during the course of a baseball game that makes us, as people viewing it, think that the umpire is maybe calling the game in favor of one team or another and one thing we definitely don't think about is that there's one catcher catching for one team and one catcher catching for another team and how that catcher sits and how far back they sit and where they what their style is of picking the ball up and catching the ball all impacts the game and i want to i want to say that my main conclusion that i took away from this unnecessary rabbit hole film

session that I went down on YouTube is that I miss Gabby Moreno very much. And I think that this team does. And I think it goes beyond the offense. We instantly think about missing his offense as a catcher and what he did for this team with the bat in his hand. But I think that it's more of what he did behind the plate to make this pitching staff look better and have better results, like not just look better, like literally frame better and literally do things that cause, you know, balls that right now are being called balls to be called strikes and differently when he's behind the dish we miss gabby a lot and i think you know this team might be be be much better when he's when he's back and and that goes for both sides of the ball i mean imagining this lineup right now with katell and gabby in it is pretty

crazy right i mean the diamond backs obviously put out a pretty good lineup today they scored six runs they had 15 base runners but there are two spots in the lineup tonight that were pretty clearly weaker than the rest, right? Luis Guillermo in the eight spot. Not to say Guillermo has been terrible since he came over. No. He's done a really nice job overall. That's a pretty big hits.

Yeah, his defense has been great. His defense has been great. He's drawn a lot of walks. He's found ways to get on base. But yeah, the two weakest spots are clearly Guillermo in the eight spot. And then Jose Herrera in the nine spot. I mean, if you think about replacing Guillory with an MVP candidate in Gatel-Marté, obviously the MVP.

thing probably isn't going to happen for him this year, given all the games that he's missed, but he's still probably going to get some down ballot votes. You're replacing Guillermo with that guy, and then you're also replacing, you know, Jose Herrera with a guy in Gabriel Moreno, who, in addition to everything you're saying about the defense, which the diamond backs have so clearly missed, especially in this last week or two, you're talking about a hitter who was on an absolute tear when he got hurt in the first place. So, yeah, for as great as this lineup has been imagining what it could look like, in a couple weeks or however long it takes to get both of those guys back.

It's pretty crazy. Piece of Yoshi says Luis Guillermo Tucker Barnhart, but at second base. And I don't know why that made me laugh a lot, but it really did. And that's great. Both guys like, I remember Barnhart for a while running an on base percentage that was pretty high because he was drawing, he was drawing a lot of walks. And Guillermo has kind of done the same thing so far with the diamond backs. I guess he did.

Yeah, he had a walk in this game as well. So yeah, I maybe see some similarities. there offensively. I think Guillermo is probably a lot better at fielding his position than yeah, that's true. It was though. All right. Well, we got to pay some more bills. But when we come back, we will talk about this wild card race and how close it is. But first, I'm thirsty. You're thirsty. Look, Jesse's drinking water right now. He could have himself a thirst buster. That's what they used to be called. I'm sorry. That's, it's America's thirst stop, but they're called polar pops now.

I just revealed my age once again. I hate when I do. Of course, make sure to grab yourself a polar. I think I remember that. Circle K, they used to call them, they used to call them Thirst Busters.

Yeah, yeah, back in the day. Yeah. But we have polar pops now. We have Frosters, which is my personal favorite. Of course, you also can save on some gas. You can save on those drinks. You can save on some snacks all by joining the inner circle.

Do so right now for absolutely for free by downloading the Circle K up today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK. com for details. When you do, you'll save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five Phillips. You'll save three cents off per gallon every day after that. And then every time you come in the app, there'll be some deals, there'll be some free snacks, there'll be some stuff for you to stop by Circle K. Make sure you keep your tummy full, keep your car full of gas. Most importantly, keep yourself hydrated because it is hot out there. Tomorrow is going to be one of the hottest days of the year,

and we are in September. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't seem fair. And I hate it. I hope meteorologists are wrong. I hope they're wrong all the time. And tomorrow is definitely one of those days. I hope they're wrong. But of course, we can't wait for the Diamondbacks to come back into town. They have some very important series coming up. And of course, if you want to be there for those games,

make sure to check out GameTime. It is the place for last minute ticket deals. You can save up to 60% off by buying tickets last minute with our friends over at GameTime. Of course, right now they have a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easy. Game time picks filters out the stuff filters out excuse me the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. So take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time right now. Download the GameTime app create an account and use code pH and X for $20 off. Terms apply again create an account and reede code pH and X for $20 off download game time today. What time is it? It's game time. All right Jesse. Well, of course we have to take a look at the these Major League Baseball standings because no matter what, no matter how much we win, the other teams win.

And that kind of makes me sick. It kind of makes this fun. But my God, we are taking a look now at the last wildcard team already having 76 wins, Jesse. I have no idea how many wins it's going to take to end up in the playoffs, but it's going to be a lot more than 80. That's for sure. It's going to be a lot more than 84 like it was last year.

So right now the Dodgers sit at the top of the National League with a record of 84 and 56. The Phillies are right behind them at 83 and 56. And then the Brewers are the final division leader in the National League Central at 81 and 59. Then you have your wildcard teams of the Padres at 80 and 61 who won tonight. The Diamondbacks who won tonight, 79 and 61. The Braves who won tonight, 76 and 63. Those are your three wildcard teams. Then outside of that, you have the Mets who won 76.

and 64. The Cubs who won 72 and 68 and I don't even care about the Cardinals, but we have to because even though we tried to distance ourselves from all these National League teams, the Cardinals are still within shouting distance at 71 and 69. They are five and a half games back from the final

wildcard spot. And I will add that the Cardinals did also win today. They also won today. They beat the Brewers. They beat the Burroughs and extra ratings. Yeah, this is bonkers. I mean, trying to pinpoint how many wins it's going to take to get in is really difficult because of just how well all of these teams are playing simultaneously. It doesn't feel like you can just take these teams current record and just use the win percentage and, you know, extrapolate out to 162 games and there you go.

Because these teams are all playing basically at their best at the same time. I think if you take the Braves current record, they're on pace for 89 wins. and they're in that third wild card spot right now. So if you're trying to make a guess based on that, I guess you'd say 89. But yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if 89 actually will get you in the playoffs with the way that things are trending right now.

So, yeah, it's been outrageous, Derek. I mean, every single game that the Diamondbacks play continues to be so important. Even though they built up a pretty nice cushion for themselves, the Mets still have not lost a game since they were here last week. Corbyn Carroll's Grand Slam, that game is still the last time the New York Mets actually lost.

So this is going to be a dog fight here for the next three weeks. Luckily, the Diamondbacks have four more games here against this Giants team that they just beat up on, even though they were able to mount comebacks in both of these games. This is still a good team to have a lot of games on your schedule

considering just how they're playing, how this lineup right now is constructed. They don't really seem like they are, they like they wave the white flag already on this season. And they're not really even playing for pride in the same way a team like the Rockies might be playing for. But the Diamondbacks still have a series against the Rockies as well. Then they have, I think, six games or maybe even seven games against the Brewers here on the schedule before the end of the season. That concerns me a bit.

And of course, the biggest concern is that they finish up their season against the San Diego Padres. But Damon would be the first one to tell me not to overlook these Houston Asher. that the diamond backs have coming up next luckily uh kattel marty like you said should be back for that series and he will be a psych or sore eyes maybe hopefully fingers crossed uh i mean i also would add that i wouldn't take the giants for granted tomorrow because they've got some guy named blake snell on the mound and i know the debacks when they faced blake snow early in the season that was a fascinating game if people remember that was that was an apple tv plus game that was Jordan Montgomery making his Diamondbacks debut against Blake Snell.

And Montgomery was great. And Blake Snell was terrible. But oh, how things have changed, Derek. Oh, how the turntables have turned. Oh,

how the turntables have turned. Blake Snell in his last 10 starts, this goes back to July 9th when he's had a couple of different stints where he's pitched and then gone on the injured list and then pitched again. But this goes back to July 9th, his last 10 starts. He has a one. 0.30 ERA in 62 in a third inning.

So he's averaged more than six innings per start in that span. His opponent OPS in that span is 372. His opponent batting average is 170. Did you say, did you say the opponent OPS is 372? That's what I said. And the opponent batting average is 117. He's allowed all of 24 hits in 62 in a third innings pit. Just that good.

He's been sensational. He has pitched a quality start every single timeout, except for, I guess, the first start there, which was only five innings, but it was still five, one-hit innings, scoreless innings against the Toronto Blue Jays. And then a couple starts ago, he had sort of a fascinating Blake Snell outing against the Mariners

where he only lasted three innings and threw a whole bunch of pitches and didn't allow a run, had five strikeouts, but also walked six guys. So that was a bit of a clunker for him. but by and large, he has been so good for the Giants here over these last couple months. And obviously, Merrill Kelly, who is going for the Diamondbacks, has struggled as much as really anyone in their starting rotation recently. So it'll be a big day coming tomorrow for sure.

I just did the math, Jesse, based on what you said about his outings and that last time that he was bad, it's time for him to be bad again. Lake Snowe gives up 600 runs tomorrow. Okay. All right. Old prediction. Yeah, I'm an idiot. Don't listen to me.

But I'm glad you do listen to me. I'm glad you guys are here. Of course, I know it's mostly for Jesse. And sometimes it's for when I take my shirt off. But, of course, we will definitely be back tomorrow with one more series, or I guess one more post-game show for this series before we head to that series for the Houston Astros on Friday. So make sure to come back here tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow's a 1245 start.

So we will be live. 20 minutes after the final out. Make sure to join us right here. Same bad place. Same bad time. Same bad channel. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at K-Ur-N-K-M-A-K.

This maniac in the box next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, our producer, the people's producer, Damon is at Damon dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark. Our show is at P-H-N-X underscore D-Backs, but of course, all roads lead to at P-H-N-X-U-Sports on Twitter. and Facebook. We thank you guys again so much for your time. We will see you tomorrow.

Hopefully you have a wonderful evening, much like the Diamondbacks did and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you just don't allow any runs.