Welcome on into a solo edition of the High Hopes Podcast. That's right. You got Jack Fritz here.

Going solo as James Selzer and John Marks are getting soft on me and they're going to bed. They didn't want to stay up and talk

some Phillies baseball. But as you well know, as you've listened to this podcast, I can talk

Phillies baseball all the time. And I tell you what, it has been a pretty frustrating week, to say the least,

to be a Phil's fan, to be a fan of the start of the season. Listen, it's still been a positive start

to the season, but it is disheartening

losing two of three to the Miami- Marlins.

I mean, there's no other way to sugarcoat it.

They're the worst team in baseball and I know it's April but when you have an Arietta

NOLA in any series you expect to go out and win it and not being able to do that against the Marlins again

the worst team in baseball a team that is clearly rebuilding it's just it's just not it's not what you want for a young team early in the season.

Now, obviously not all hope is lost, but there are some cracks forming in the armor of this early part of the Phillies season.

And really we've got to start with the 75 million dollar man, that is Jake Arietta.

Now before I go into the Jake Arietta start against the Marlins, I will say that

you Darvish got lit up this week against the Colorado Rockies and if you search Cubs

Twitter I mean they are not too happy with the returns they're

getting on the you-Dharvish investment and a story came out this week that I found

a super interesting supposedly late in the off season I don't I don't remember when

but Theo Epstein called Jake Arietta and was like hey six years the same exact

deal as Darver six years 120 take it or leave it,

and in my eyes, in how I envision this,

Jake Arietta gave him the middle finger,

...