UFC Seattle Post Show: Is Joe Pyfer a serious contender after stoppin…

Joe Pyfer has arrived.

On Saturday, Pyfer scored the biggest win of his MMA career, stopping former two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC Seattle. The win not only launches Pyfer into the UFC’s Top 10, but it also raises serious questions about the fighting future for one of this generation’s greatest champions.

Following UFC Seattle, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee react to Pyfer’s big win over Adesanya, and what the future holds for “The Last Stylebender.” Additionally, Meshew and Lee discuss whether UFC Seattle was the event of the year thus far, Alexa Grasso’s sensational finish, what the future holds for Maycee Barber, Michael Chiesa’s retirement, a plethora of other finishes and wild outcomes from the undercard, and more.

Watch the UFC Seattle post-fight show above, or an audio-only version of the show can also be streamed below and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your pods.

Well, that was disappointing. Not only did we lose another game to the Doyers at Uniqlo Park at Dodger Stadium at Chavez Latrine at the City of Smog and Angels, we also managed to be on the business end of our first sweep of the year. And we’re only three games in. So that sucks.

Honestly, though, it’s not all that much of a shock, at least to me. And, somewhat to my surprise, I’m not even all that upset. The Diamondbacks are a team that enters 2026 with a bit more than $133M of player contracts on the books. We’re going up against a team that, if you factor in all the deferred money and so forth that MLB has let them get away with, has more financial obligations than at least several small nation states. It was always going to be an uphill battle, especially for the first series of the regular season, when everyone’s still kind of shaking off the rust from the long off-season.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the pitching hero of the Venezuelan national team in the World Baseball Classic, took the mound for us, facing off against Tyler Glasnow, who has pitched more than 100 innings only three times in his major league career and who is earning $32.5M to pitch for Los Angeles this year. And while Glasnow did all right for the Doyers today, holding the Diamondbacks to two runs over six full innings of work, E-Rod pitched better, pitching five shutout innings, striking out five while allowing only three singles and two walks. He faced one batter to start the sixth—Kyle Tucker, who is earning $56M this year—and was pulled after Tucker reached on an infield squib shot to Carlos Santana that he bobbled a bit. E-Rod was maybe a bit late covering the bag at first, and Tucker reached, and he eventually came around to score, but the run was unearned as Santana was charged with an error.

Anyway. Let’s start from the beginning. Our Snakes got on the board in the top of the first, thanks to a one-out infield single by Corbin Carroll that was initially ruled a force-out at first, but which was overturned when video review showed that Corbin, who was busting it right out of the batter’s box, clearly beat the throw. Geraldo Perdomo then grounded to first, moving Carroll along, and then Pavin Smith singled to left to drive him in from second:

Nolan Arenado then continued his fruitless run with the bat, though at least he didn’t strike out. 1-0 D-BACKS

We did some more damage against Glasnow in the third, thanks to a leadoff Jorge Barrosa double down the left field line, followed by another productive groundout, this one by Ketel Marte, that allowed Barrosa to reach third with less than two outs. Corbin Carroll lifted a fly ball to center that turned out to be deep enough for Barrosa to tag and score. 2-0 D-BACKS

And that was your score until the Dodgers got one run back in the bottom of the sixth, thanks to the aforementioned Santana error (which is a scoring decision I’m not sure he deserved) and a subsequent Freddy Freeman double off reliever Jonathan Loaisiga that brought him home. 2-1 D-BACKS

But we still had the lead, and we held it through the bottom of the seventh, as new Diamondback and indicator of the state of our bullpen Joe Ross pitched a kind of ugly but ultimately successful 1-2-3 inning. Meanwhile, we were doing basically nothing further on offense, as Glasnow gave way to Alex Vesia, who in turn gave way to some dude named Will Klein.

Juan Morillo took the ball for us to start the bottom of the eighth, I guess because he’s the closest thing we have in terms of splits to a left-handed reliever, and sure enough he made short(ish) work of Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker to record the first two outs. Then he drilled the home plate umpire right in the middle of his forehead with a high fastball on his first pitch to Mookie Betts, after which there was a brief interruption of play that seemed to leave Juan rather discombobulated. He proceeded to walk Betts on four pitches, which brought 2025 World Series hero Will Smith (earning nearly $13M to catch for the Dodgers in 2026) to the plate. Smith hung a decent at bat on Morillo, and finally drilled the seventh pitch he saw out and over the fence just left of the batter’s eye in center field. Morillo was pulled for Paul Sewald, who recorded the last out, but it was too late. The damage was done. 3-2 Los Angeles

We still has a chance, I suppose, with Pavin Smith, Nolan Arenado, and Alek Thomas coming to the plate in the top of the ninth. Of course, they were going up against new FTD closer Edwin Diaz, who is earning $18.5M this year at the back end of the Los Angeles bullpen. Ten pitches and three flyouts later, this one was in the books.

Some Reasons for Optimism

This was a disappointing result, and a disappointing series, to be sure. That said, the Diamondbacks led each game, and in the latter two we carried that lead into the late innings. We all knew our bullpen was going to be a weakness this year, like it is just about every year, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are as complete a team from top to bottom as one can imagine. And we hung tough with them, and we made them work, and despite Ryne Nelson coughing up four in that unfortunate third inning last night, we were still in line to win the last two games. Kevin Ginkel was last night’s disappointment, and tonight that “honor” fell to Juan Morillo. But we played pretty well for the most part, all the way through. Facing a less stupidly funded team, we would likely have won at least two of these games, even with the flaws the Diamondbacks have. And, as someone pointed out early in tonight’s Gameday Thread, we won’t face the Dodgers again until the beginning of June, so we will by definition be facing less stupidly funded teams for the next two months. It’s rough to start the season getting swept and going down 0-3, but this certainly isn’t a sign that the sky is falling. It’s more a confirmation that, as we might have suspected, water is wet.

• All Doyers player salary information courtesy of Spotrac.

Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Robin Hood: Eduardo Rodriguez (5 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 79 pitches, +23.0% WPA)
Little John: Joe Ross (1 IP 0 H, 0 ER, +10.8% WPA)
Hapless Country Bumpkin: Juan Morillo (2/3 IP, 1 H, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 ER, -54.1% WPA)

The Gameday Thread saw some more inevitable falloff from the first two games, in part I suspect because the University of Arizona was punching their ticket to the NCAA March Madness Final Four (BEAR DOWN!), and also because, well, it’s really not a lot of fun to watch the Billionaire Boys Club play baseball on television if you’re not particularly a fan of billionaires. That said, we racked up 182 comments at time of writing. Comment of the game goes by popular acclaim to this one from gzimmerm, who saw the meatball that Snake_Bitten left in the middle of the plate, and didn’t miss it:

Anyway, because opening weekend is often weird in terms of scheduling, we have our only scheduled Sunday off day tomorrow, so I hope you can join us for the Diamondbacks home opener at Chase Field on Monday, when we take on the Detroit Tigers. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10pm AZ time, with Justin Verlander going for the striped cats and Michael Soroka going for us. I don’t feel great about Soroka occupying a spot in our rotation, but despite that I think could be a winnable game. If nothing else, it’s always nice to see the entire team get introduced during the extended pregame festivities.

As always, thanks for reading. And as always, go Diamondbacks!

They’re going to see Chase DeLauter in their nightmares.

The Mariners aren’t even throwing him strikes. But DeLauter can’t stop, won’t stop crushing.

Andres Munoz’s 2-2 fastball was high and off the plate in Saturday’s 10th inning. He could only turn and watch when the Guardians designated hitter somehow slapped it the other way, sailing over Randy Arozarena and into Edgar’s Cantina in left field.

In the first three regular-season games of his career, DeLauter has four home runs. The last was the most consequential — and easily the most impressive.

DeLauter’s two-run homer provided a three-run lead, and the Guardians hung on to beat the Mariners, 6-5, in extra innings at T-Mobile Park.

This story will be updated.

CRAWFORD NEARING REHAB ASSIGNMENT

Shortstop J.P. Crawford, who began the season on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation, will begin a rehab assignment as early as next week — presumably with Triple-A Tacoma during their opening homestand at Cheney Stadium. The Rainiers host Triple-A El Paso in their home opener on Tuesday night.

The longest-tenured Mariners player rejoined his Seattle teammates at T-Mobile Park and participated in batting practice before Saturday’s game. The team will evaluate him this weekend before a rehab date is set, manager Dan Wilson said.

“We talk a lot about what a leader J.P. is for us, especially when he’s in that lineup and he’s going on a daily basis, just what he means up there,” Wilson said. “Getting him back as quickly as possible is huge. He’s put in the work. He’s getting there, he’s getting ready. It’s really good to see.”

SHORT HOPS

– Outfielder Luke Raley homered in Seattle’s first two games of the regular season, his first time recording home runs in consecutive games since Aug. 6-8, 2024, per Mariners PR.

– The Mariners will retire Randy Johnson’s No. 51 on May 2, less than nine months after the franchise retired Ichiro’s 51 in a pregame ceremony at T-Mobile Park last Aug. 9.

Johnson attended, seated directly behind his number-mate.

“I am also grateful for the actions of another person who is here — Randy Johnson,” Ichiro said, addressing a sellout crowd. “He was No. 51 long before I ever arrived in Seattle. Without his generosity, I could not have worn that number here.

“When you saw 51 in Seattle, you knew it meant Randy Johnson for his many great achievements from 1989-1998 in that uniform. When I came here in 2001, I couldn’t have worn that number without his consent. He gave it, and he gave it graciously.

“When the Mariners decided to retire No. 51, they chose to have two separate ceremonies, one for each of us. I’m grateful to Randy for attending my ceremony today. It will be my great honor to attend his next season.”

ON DECK

Mariners right-hander Emerson Hancock duels Cleveland’s Slade Cecconi in Sunday’s series finale with the Guardians at T-Mobile Park. It’s a special 4:20 p.m. start, televised nationally on Peacock.

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati — FS1, SN Pittsburgh +, Reds.TV

Washington at Philadelphia — NBCS Philadelphia +, Nationals.TV

Philadelphia at Miami — NBCS Network, NBCS Philadelphia, Peacock

Pittsburgh at New York — MSGSN, MSGSN 2, NHLN, SportsNet Pittsburgh

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive TV listings provided by LiveSportsOnTV.

️ Live updates from the race at Suzuka | Email Joey

Alas, today’s race will be the last time that we’ll be racing for a month; the Championship next scheduled to meet for the Miami GP on the opening weekend of May.

This is because of the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia GPs due to the ongoing stability caused by the war between Israel and the United States and Iran, which, unfortunately, continues.