Dodgers Territory - Cat Man BACK, Big Surprises and Letdowns from April, Jeff Spiegel Joins!

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

The first month-plus of the season has come and gone, and the Dodgers are the best team in baseball! With Alanna Rizzo on vacation, Dodger Blue's Jeff Spiegel joins Clint Pasillas to dive into all the latest Dodger talk! The Dodgers get the vibes right against bad teams (1:52). Tony Gonsolin made his first MLB start in 20 months and was great (3:44). Max Muncy FINALLY hit his first homer of the season and everyone was relieved. (7:11)The guys share their thoughts on the first 31 games of the season (11:53). We get Jeff's biggest surprise (14:43) and letdown from April (21:19).Plus grades for the first 31 games of the season (27:33)!Go to https://harrys.com/FOUL for a $6 Trial Set. Get an edge on your shave with Harry’s. Get 20% off your first Slab Pack or card purchase by going to https://ArenaClub.com/FOUL and use code FOUL. Subscribe to Dodgers Territory on YouTube!Rate and review the podcast on Apple and Spotify!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I took a lot of flack for one of my bold predictions in the preseason. And it was Tommy Edmund related with my bold prediction. And here we go. I'm just going to keep stepping in it. What is going on, party people? Hi, hello.

My name is Clint Poceneas. Find me as real FRG on the show. social media machines. I'm in Alana spot, and that is not me in my spot. That is the man the myth of legend, my buddy Jeff Spiegel. Of course, you know him as the host of Dodgerheads on Dodger Blue,

the YouTube channel here. And you do a lot of things. You cover the Lakers. Sorry about that. You cover the Raiders. You do a lot of stuff. But Jeff, man, how you doing, bud? Yeah, sorry about the Raiders piece, too, I think is acceptable. You know, it's most of the teams that I follow in my life are disappointing, not the Dodgers. Great to be

with you. Thank you. As always, for the invite honored every time. And I'm glad that I'm getting to catch this show after the Dodgers have won five in a row. These are more fun after five game winning streaks than they are after two game losing streaks. So I appreciate it. Yeah, it's not the end of times or whatever. I'm sure people will complain in the chat.

Guys do sound off in the chat. Let us know how you're feeling about the team with Jeff and I here. We're pros that hit in the chat. Not to say Alana's not, but we live on people talking to us through a little box on the internet. But we'll read some comments and all that. And I'm sure we're going to find some that be like, oh, they only beat bad teams. But before we get into it, guys, rate the show five stars, leave a review if you can on the podcast platforms.

Like and subscribe here on the YouTube platform really helps myself and Alana out. But let's get into the big ticket and talk about the good things that happened with the Dodgers on this homestand. Jeff, we had a series sweep. It's a good homestand for your Los Angeles Dodgers. It's fun playing the Pirates. and the Marlins, A, 51 runs scored during the homestand. And in my opinion, you know, we're talking just before going live. Like, listen, coming out of that Chicago series, things were feeling a little ugly.

It just had the season kept feeling like a fall start over and over. But the bad teams came for the Dodgers at the right time. And now I feel like the vibes are high. What's your feeling of where the team is at right now? I think you're right on the vibes are high. I'm sure we're going to talk about the guys who are disappointing, but the number of people in that bucket seems to be dwindling by the day. I saw this stat.

I mean, it wasn't all that long ago, and I'm sure you were experiencing the same thing, that the Dodgers offense was a concern for people. And Jack Harris had this tweet. The Dodgers didn't have 10 hits in any of their first 17 games since then. They've done it in nine of their past 13 and each of their past four. So the offense is figuring it out. the bullpen has continued to be very good. Pitching is obviously all over the place, but

vibes are good, which I appreciate. Optimistic Jeff loves where the vibes are at. Yeah, vibes are what this team needed. We got vibes as well for Max Muncie hitting the bomba yesterday. We'll talk about that in the second. I'd like to see the Dodgers playing some good teams again, you know, but we'll take the good feeling for now. On the right, you know, got the right mental wavelength heading on a very long road trip. I think they're going of three cities. They start in Atlanta, play Miami for three. And then finally, we get to see another National League West team with the Arizona

Diamondbacks for some reason in the first full week of May. Weird, weird, weird schedule. But the big news besides Max Muncie hitting a home run, which is something he could still apparently do, we saw the return of the Catman. Tony Gonsolin on the bump. We got some meows. And I like to say, y'all forgot about the Catman. I was a believer.

I'd never quit on Tony smokes and made his first start, MLB start at least in 20 months, and really was two moments away, a pitch and a play, two moments away from being outright dominant against Miami. Marlins, six innings, three earned run, nine strikeouts, only 77 pitches, super economical, even with the strikeouts in there. Another thing, I mean, getting this dude back at this time, obviously the state of the starting rotation is not ideal for the boys in blue things things will be getting better but getting this dude back i mean it just felt to me like uh kind of a depth savior especially on the heels or not on the

heels but heading into playing uh what is it 19 times in a 20 day stretch what'd you like about gonsolin what do you think he can build on and any sort of concern points when you're looking at tony no i'm with you. I mean, you and I might have been some of the last people on Tony Gonselan Island. He's just a guy when I look at his numbers. I know it's not like as sexy as Dustin May and the movement left to right and the velocity and all that. But this guy just produces. I know 2023 was a down year, but you go back to 2019, 2.9 ERA, 2020, 2.3 ERA, 2021, or 3.2 ERA and 2022, a 2.1 ERA. Even 2023, if you go back and actually look at what happened that year, he gave up 10 earned runs in the final start before he officially went on the injured list.

So even if you take off the last handful of starts where he was almost assuredly pitching injured because they needed bodies to close out 2023, he was good in the first half of that one. So I know he's not going to necessarily wow everybody with his stuff, but the performance has just always been very good. in that's what we saw. I mean, 17 whiffs on 42 swings against the Marlins. Yes, it's the Marlins, but the whiff rate was there. It was diversified. He got whiffs on all four pitches that he threw. So, A, they need bodies and B, contrary to popular belief, I think Tony Gonslin is more than just a warm body. Yeah, he's a good body. And I'm not being weird and creepy about him. I like the dude. He's a

nice fella and all that. I'm not necessarily into him that way. But he's somebody, he was an all star in 2022 and it was an earned all-star birth once like i think you mentioned there's 16 and won that season he's good he is very very good at his job he's got a a pretty wide array of pitches he can go through of course a splitter can be nasty when it's on the fastball can touch uh you know as high we've seen it as high as 97 that's not necessarily where he's going to sit but knowing that there's a highly uh it would things we would have to have so many things go wrong for Tony to be, you know, getting starts for this team in the postseason. Right now, it's about depth. That's about surviving while we get Kershaw back in a couple of weeks. Show Hey, Otani, eventually,

joining, rejoining or sliding into the rotation. And of course, Blake's now, the big offseason acquisition as well as Tyler Glass now joining that, that rotation as well. So to have Tony, to have Dustin May still in that mix, yeah, hey, it feels like 2019 all over again for the boys in blue. I love seeing what we saw out of Tony there. And I loved seeing what we saw at Max Muncie finally connects on a homer. I said on the last post game show, Alana and I did on Tuesday, or maybe I wrote it in my notes and I didn't say it. I don't remember exactly where it was. But I had said, I like the swings.

I like where we were starting. The swings we were starting to see him get off. It felt like he was close to putting it all together. Then we see a homer and a sun triple on Wednesday. Listen, we'll take what we can get. The reactions. I love the reactions. from this, by the way, Freddie, you know, oh, thank the sweet Lord.

You got to imagine. I mean, you know, Max, you've talked to him in the clubhouse before. You've been around him. He carries an aura about him, but he can be a grumpy boy when things aren't going well. And he mentioned after finally connecting on that homer, you know, kind of bring it at home with him, feeling the pressure of everybody watching him not hit homers. You had mentioned, by the way, you know, like he, despite. the numbers not being sexy, like he wasn't that far off, not as bad as he seemed. You care to

elaborate on that for the folks here on the internet, which of course are a different brand from the folks on the Twitter. Explain to people here on this show, on this YouTube show about what you saw with Max and what the numbers were kind of explaining that maybe we weren't seeing in traditional stats. Yeah. So the big picture, as I would say, and again, the people watching is probably understand. So apologies if this is old news. But the beauty of underlying metrics and some of the nerd stats is that they can help be predictive. They can help you see through some of the surface level stuff to say, is this actually sustainable in a good way? Is it sustainable in a bad way? Or is there maybe something else happening? And the surface level steps are luck based. And so

when I looked at Muncie, as we were preparing for our show a couple of nights ago, I'm looking through some of his quality of contact numbers. And I'm like, that's interesting. I mean, even today, His hard hit rate in 2025 is better than in 2024. And he was very good in 2024, like 135 weighted runs created plus, 35% better than league average offensively. So his hard rate hit rate is up. His barrel rate is up. His average exit velocity is pretty comparable.

And so while the results weren't there, I was looking and saying a couple things change here, namely whiff rate and strikeout rate are the two numbers that have gone completely the wrong way for Muncie in 2025. But when he was making contact, he was actually doing some damage from a velocity, hard hit, barrel rate perspective. And so that's what gave me some optimism that he might be able to turn this around maybe more quickly than the quote-unquote eye test was telling us. One game, he hits the home run, sun triple like you mentioned. I'm not here to take a victory lap, although it is nice timing for him to do that on the day when I say it's the longest drought of his career, but maybe it's coming to an end.

And yet, like, I'm not willing to say he's all the way back. yet, but I think there's some reason to believe that the slump might be hitting the rearview mirror quicker than quicker than we may have expected. Yeah, I mean, listen, we want the slump to be over. Max wants the slump to be over. I'm sure Kelly Muncie wants it to be over. And I think, again, we're trending in the right direction for this team, just about everybody hitting everybody not named Michael Conforto. We'll talk more about that. We're going to look back at the entirety of the month of April. But first, we are going to hear from our buddies,

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Do That with Acrobat Learn more at adobe.com Slash Do That with Acrobat And we're back here We're going to talk about your Los Angeles Dodgers Some more because again It looks like they're not as bad As some people wanted them

wanted them to be. We do finish the month of May, or sorry, the month of April, 21 and 10, tied with the Mets for the best record in baseball. Jeff, like you mentioned, writing a five-game win streak. Listen, they're a good baseball team. They had some problems to open the season. It happens. Things are starting. The ship is starting to write itself a little bit, but what's your take?

I want to get your biggest surprise. I want to get your biggest letdown, but first I want to know. What's your overall take on the first 31 games of the season? The Dodgers are really good at baseball still in 2025. I think it's classic. Like it's April. Things aren't, they're not 162 and 0 yet.

And so it's easy to find the things that we're frustrated with. I know we've got a lot of smart people that are in chat that are telling us, hey, they're at a better place now than they were a year ago. And last year kind of ended in the place that you're hoping. it ends. And so I'm just glad that the Dodgers have gotten off to the big picture start they did. Obviously, they go eight and no to start. Awesome. Then they go eight and ten in their next 18, not awesome. And then now they've won five in a row. So that's baseball, right? Clint, like that.

That's how a season goes. They've now won five in a row. Yes, it's against the Marlins and the pirates. But they're in first place in the division. They've got a game and a half lead. If you had fast forwarded to this point and said, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to wake you up on May first. The Dodgers are going to be tied for the best record in baseball with a game and a half lead in the division, we'd all be excited. So I know we had to live through some bumps along the way, but overall, happy, happy that we're not digging ourselves out of a hole. Yeah. And, and, listen, like you said, it's baseball. I've been using that, that phrase way too much, borrowing from everybody's, you know, fan favorite Mani Machado, that's just baseball, it's baseball. It's part of a

long story. I mean, if you're reading, I don't know how to read. I'm not a big reader, I should say, but if you're reading a novel, you're reading a nice good book, I'm pretty sure if it's it's all like just positive the whole way through the book. You're not going to be intrigued. You're not going to have a good time. Or maybe you will. I don't know. Some people are weird.

But I enjoy going through the downs, through the pitfalls, through the, well, I'll say Michael Confordos again. Maybe he has some sort of redeeming moment or whatever. But we got to create villains. We've got to create issues. We've got to create problems. And the Dodgers have been through their first, you know, 31 battles, I guess, of problems. and so far I've come out on the other side here in the month of May,

smelling rosy, looking good and trending in the right direction, even if there are a number of issues with the starting rotation. But I did say I wanted to get your biggest surprise. What was the biggest surprise for you in April? I have a feeling I know what it is. I took a lot of flack for one of my bold predictions in the preseason. This might be what you're referring to. And it was Tommy admin related.

was my bold prediction. And here we go. I'm just going to keep stepping in it. My bold prediction for people that don't watch our show was I basically said, hey, the Dodgers experience of Tommy Edmund was NLCS MVP, Tommy Edmund. And when you look at the totality of his career as an offensive producer, I was just trying to help people set reasonable expectations for Tommy Edmund by saying, if you're expecting what you saw in the NLCS for 162 games offensively,

I'm here to tell you that his career is going to suggest otherwise. It might be a letdown. I do not dislike Tommy Edmund. I am rooting for Tommy Edmund. But that was my initial thing. I said, hey, I think offensively he's going to be good, but he might be quote unquote disappointing to some people. He, of course, has eight home runs in his first 30 games.

He has never hit more than 13 in any season of his entire career. He's on pace for over 30. I've joked. Like, I always sit in this place, Clint, and you can relate to this about whether I lean into the bit and just continue to stand my ground with Tommy Edmund by joking that the, you know, the OPP is 295, which isn't awesome, but the slug is 523, which is incredible.

And so the biggest surprise, easily Tommy Edmund's power. And I want to ask you a question before you answer your own. Is this sustainable? Like how much of a believer are you? And I'm not even going to say he's going to get to 30. Like, do you think Tommy Edmund gets to 25 home runs this season? and that would be 17 more in 130 games. And that's, I, listen, I agree with everybody.

I've decided when it comes to Tommy Edmund. Entering the season, I'm more on your side. And I understand I'm avoiding the question right now. So if we had a judge here, I'm pretty sure he'd be like, sir, please, Mr. Paseas, please answer the question. No, he doesn't get to 30. I think 25 is a stretch. He probably finds a way to maybe hit about 20, 20, 20.

still a very, very nice season. Of course, early in the season, we weren't expecting to be hitting a lot of third, a lot of fourth, which he was doing for this team. We've talked on this show. We've talked on my show. But at some point, if everything kind of sorts itself out,

I think Tommy Edmund hitting in that nine spot would be fantastic for this team, acting as a second lead-off hitter. But for now, he needs to be in a run production spot. But, yeah, I didn't see this. I was more of the, the mindset. set of like this is the guy we saw is not what his you know his baseball reference tells us it's

not what his fan grabs tells us but we hear we preach all the time the dodgers are good at fixing people they they have both sides have been open and honest about the fact that hey they identified some things to help them out and and and it seems like the changes particularly to his his left hand swing are better they're real it's legit now is he going to is it legit enough to to carry the team is legit enough to be a very tiny version of Barry Bonds? No, but we'll take the hot streaks where we can get them. And I would agree to pin this. I would agree with you. Probably the biggest surprise for me is Tommy Edmund in the month of April right behind them. Andy Pott has just the roller coaster that was the month of April. Well, March and April for

the second year center fielder. you center fielder loosely before i asked you your biggest letdown um did any did you see this pot has kind of turned around happening so drastically and dramatically no definitely not i wish i could lie to you and be like hey i was on this one from the get-go um one thing that that i have been consistent with is i'm way more patient i think than the average dodgers fan when it comes to these guys um last year i think i may have been one of the last people holding the Gavin Lux flag on Gavin Lux Island saying, just be patient. And it panned out for me. I'm going to be honest. I took a couple of victory laps after the second half that he had.

But it's the reason I wasn't ready to be disappointed, like panicked about Max Muncie. And Pah Hayes was more so because we had less of a track record. But the one thing that I kind of held on to was this guy was always an offensive prospect. The book on him coming up through the system was he's going to hit and he's going to hit for power. The question, is where does he play then he has the shoulder surgery and the other thing i've i've been reminded of is in twenty twenty four he was way ahead of schedule coming into spring training a year ago he was not a twenty twenty four wasn't going to be the year that he was going to make the big leads everyone was like he needs another year to recover from shoulder surgery build back up strength getting the swing of

things and then maybe twenty five is the year so hindsight is 2020 but i'm not going to say i'm shocked that he's figured it out now like you he has like a 150 weighted runs created plus for the season now. I don't think that's sustainable. But if you told me he lands as like a guy who's 115 to 120 weighted runs created plus, hopefully eventually moving to a corner spot where he can just hose guys with his arm and not have to read balls off the bat and dead center, then I think you're talking about a guy who's going to be a mainstay for, you know, a long time. Yeah. I definitely did not see a turnaround like that. It has helped the team massively. I'm seeing in the chat, people pointing out like Mr. Classic saying, you know, Pahas learning a lot.

from Teosca Hernandez, you know, kind of being, being his Tio Teo, if you will there. Going back to one of the things you said, you know, you're somebody who is not as panicky as other fans. From what I understand, I've seen online, people like you and your buddy Blake Williams, you guys are corporate chills. You're paid by the Dodgers to be positive all the time. That's one of my favorite narratives. People never give me that because I'm always, I'm saying, yeah, Blake, Blake gets it bad. Love that.

Well, I just, we all laugh because we're like, Blake is one of, I feel like, I think he would agree with this. I think he leans way more negative than he leans positive. So we were all dying when he got called a corporate show. I'm like, is there a different Blake Williams that I don't know? Oh, man. I just want to know how much the Dodgers are paying him because that's got to be a good gig. Moving on, I don't know that I buttoned that up well, but at least we had fun with it. Biggest letdown for the month of April or the months of March.

in April. Yeah, it's Conforto's the obvious one here. And again, you want to talk about some bad, bold predictions made before the season. I had really high hopes for Michael Conforto. He was coming off of a pretty good year in San Francisco, an absolute nightmare of a place to play for an offensive hitter. There was the famous stat about how like 20 of his home runs were hit in opposing ballparks. And despite the fact that he only played half his games there. So I just really believed was going to be able to figure it out and it just hasn't happened um i don't think it's like over with there's no chance that he's ever going to figure it out but you know i talked about the underlying stuff with max muncie with conforto it's just not there um he's bottom 40 percentile

in basically every single offensive stat except for chase rate and walk rate so he is walking the on base percentage over 300 is at least tolerable but um the number i keep looking at with him is he is only like guys are going to get to their power on the pull side. That's not rocket science. And obviously, if you want to hit for home runs, then you need to get the ball in the air. He's only pulling the ball in the air 5% of the time. Last year, that number was 22%. You're not going to be a successful hitter if you can't pull the ball in the air.

That's the thing that's got to change, but it's actually going the wrong way. It's getting worse. It feels like overtime. So Dave said he's in his head. That's probably right. But, man, I thought Conforto was going to be, you know, 2024 to Oscar Hernandez. honestly, and he has been a billion miles from it. I mean, the first few games of the season as well.

It was trending that way for sure. Now we're at a point. You know, I was going to ask you, like, what can the Dodgers do about Michael Conforto? Well, they can keep running him out there. I said it on the Twitter yesterday. It's like, look, at this point, I think I would rather see what Chris Taylor. You're paying him just about the same amount. And he's been around.

He's at least, you know, he has some sort of sweat equity into this team, giving him some opportunities in left field. the swing has looked a little bit better, but maybe given less of the lion's share of time to Mike and Fordo while he's still figuring some things out. I'm open to it. And I know some people are on here are even starting to relax to the idea of Chris Taylor getting at bats for the Dodgers in a non-spring training game. That's where Michael Conforto has been to open the season. But thoughts on that? Would you like to see something like that? Or you just kind of, you know, keep the course and hopefully the ship rights itself.

I tend to be in a place where the goal should be getting your team to the best possible place come postseason time. And I think the best version of the Dodgers is Michael Conforto figuring it out. So if it were me, I would ride out the Michael Conforto experiment as long as you possibly can. Give him every opportunity to figure it out. Because as much as I like Chris Taylor long term, I don't know if he's. short term the solution. We know what the ceiling is on Chris Taylor out there.

And it's maybe tolerable, you know? So I think the best version of this team is Conforto figures it out. So if that's giving him three days off, helping him get a mental reset and then throwing him back out there every day, if it's platooning him just so he can see the side of the ball that he's traditionally more comfortable with than go for it. But that would be my goal. So I would be patient with Conforto, help him work through some things in whatever way you think.

that would be my default. If Chris Taylor starts to play a little bit more, I wouldn't hate it. Everybody knows I also might be, speaking of, I'm on a lot of islands by myself. I'm realizing that is a theme. I still like James Outman a little bit.

So you could talk me into Outman, who's on a hot streak, playing at least a competent defensive center field, and you're upgrading defensively by moving Pahease to a corner. You could talk me into that a little bit, but my default would be ride it out with Conforto and let him figure it out.

Yeah, I mean, well, that's that corporate chill stuff there. I mean, that's the Dodgers move for sure. We know Dave's going to give him his 150 at Bats that, like Lux, last year, turned into about 230 before things really, really started a trend in the right direction. But as long as they're going out there and winning ball games, playing bad ball clubs and, you know, other people, it's as long as there's not five people not hitting the lineup, if it's one or two, they can manage. They can survive. And then it's less of a problem with Michael Confort. I just needs to kind of stop hitting into double plays. I need to, I want to ask you one more thing.

I want to get your grades and then I'll let you escape, but I do have to be corporate and hear from our buddies at Fowell Territory about Arena Club. But after that, we will be back and I'm going to ask you one more series, and then I'll let you escape me. But hold on briefly. Thanks, everybody. Todd, Father, I love the way that modern technology has changed the way that we buy, sell trade cards, even rip packs.

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I feel like they are my uncles, aunties. I treat people like family. I'm Brian and I'm committed to care. Hey, it's Carissa Thompson. Everything these days is fighting for your attention, work, family, social media, and it makes it tough to figure out what should. really come first. But here's something that absolutely deserves to be at the top of your list, your breast health. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer and the second leading cause of

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Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat. Thank you guys. Sorry, I went rogue there. Usually we would jump into Last Licks, but I'm having fun talking to Jeff here, and I'm stealing more of his time. I appreciate you hanging out with me. You're getting some love, by the way, for the, for the Outman take there.

I mean, there was a point a couple weeks ago where I was like, maybe James Outman might not be the worst idea, but we got a hell no from Diane. All right, before I let you leave, month one grades. We'll keep it simple. Offense, starting pitching bullpen, and for fun, management slash manager. What do you got for offense?

I'm going to go B-plus for the offense. And we're grading on a curve, so they're being graded compared to what we had as far as expectations for this team. Mookie Betts his struggle. We know that he's still been good, just not amazing and great. But I think the bottom of the lineup, which we've had to see a lot of Kike, Muncie, Rojas, Barnes, Conforto have all been tough. So B plus, maybe A minus.

You could talk me into an A minus, but I'm in that range. Yeah, I think early in the season they weren't doing their homework. But of late, they've definitely turned it on. I think they got a tutor as in they played bad teams. Starting pitching. I wanted to talk starting pitching, but obviously there's a lot to cover. And it's only half an hour show. But starting pitching, just give me a grade there.

What do you think? I'm going to probably be a tough grader here. I'm going to say B minus for the starting pitching. Yamamoto has been incredible. And the rest of it. Kind of been all over the place. Yeah, that's one bold prediction I did well. I said he'd be the top Dodger finisher in the,

the Cy Young voting. Dustin May has been a roller coaster. There's been great moments where you're like, this is why he's around. And then there's been bad moments where you're like, this is why he's going to be a free agent at the end of the year. Obviously, Snell has been good but not available.

Glass now all up in his head on all sorts of stuff. The young guys who have come up have all underperformed NAC, Robleski, Bobby Miller, etc. Sasaki, I think, has been okay. So B-minus, again, if you caught me on a good day, maybe it's a solid B because Yamamoto's been that good, but he can't carry the whole class project himself. Yeah, he needs that whole rotation needs some help.

Bullpen, what do you have? Give me an A-minus for the bullpen. I know this is a group that a lot of people don't love, but you look at some of the performances, Casparius being the guy that he's been, Jack Dreyer being the guy that he has been, I think has been encouragement. Again, I'm grading on a curve with who hasn't been there.

Evan Phillips recently back, OPEC hasn't come back yet. But Kirby 8's has been nice. 2-6 ERA, Tanner Scott, 24 ERA. Vessie has been solid. Bondas, you know, up until the last week has been solid. So I think all in all, I'm pleased with where the bullpen is at. Yeah, a lot of good arms and more help on the way.

All right, manage him. Or so manager. What do you think about Dave so far? Is he letting, you know, getting a little lax now that he's got all that sweet, sweet change in his pocket? No, it's an A plus for me. If you want me to call me a corporate chill, it's in the Dave Roberts department. But to me, I use this example. And some people think this is a terrible example.

That's fine. They're entitled to their opinion. A couple weeks ago, when the Ronald Acuna thing gets blown out, I forget the outfielder's name who doesn't run a ball out. And Acuna tweets, like, if it would have been me. Yeah. Yeah. Kelnick, if it would have been me, I would have been benched.

And then like the whole thing blows up, right? Yeah. This never happens with the Dodgers. Never. And that's Dave Roberts' superpower. There's no drama. There's no infighting. There's no nonsense. So, yeah, they have the best record in baseball. There's no drama. It's an A plus for Dave. No, that's fair. By the way, my grades, I got offense B minus. I think there's some room for improvement starting pitching C minus just because, listen, when you lose Blake'snell and Tyler, Glasnow and Glasnow, you know, pitching so few innings in the starts where he was there, it's a problem. Those are supposed to be your horses. That is straight up a problem. Bullpen gets an A for carrying the load,

doing everything. I mean, they're leading baseball in relief innings. And Dave gets an A. I'm not going plus, I'm not going minus. Dave's getting an A. He's doing all the work. He's doing the homework. There's maybe he can get an A plus if he tried somehow to go out there

and play himself and, you know, pitch a couple scoreless innings himself. That's how he's going to get it. But otherwise, he's been phenomenal. The Dodgers have been really, really good. And two more quick ones here for you. We got Richard Flores, super early in the show. with the $1.99 Superchat says you hate cheese and you hate Tommy Edmund bobbleheads. That's a thing.

Richard, I love you. This is just fake news everywhere. Again, I'll just step in my own stuff here. The cheese thing. Here's my take. People put cheese on street tacos. I think that's crazy. And my argument is if you want like a real burrito, like a good burrito, I don't need cheese on that burrito.

If the meat is flavored right and if you've got enough salsa, guacamole, situation going on, then I don't need cheese. People think I hate cheese. It's not true. But that's where I'm at. You tell me, you tell me if I'm crazy. That's your beef with cheese is what you're saying. That's your beef with cheese.

I get it. There's a play on words. Yeah, listen, I enjoy cheese, but yeah, good, obviously I enjoy cheese. But a good street taco should be able to hold itself up without added flavor like that. However, if we're talking about like queso tacos or whatever, you get the tortilla, you put it down in the nice boiling cheese, you add the fat, and then you have a nice, you know, tortilla bed to put your meat in, then that's a little bit of a different story. But one of these days, I'll have you on my channel where we have more of freedom to breathe.

And we're just going to talk all food. F the Dodgers will talk all food. But Jeff, I appreciate you joining me, man. You were one of the people, people very much wanted to see join me on the show while Alana's out. Always a pleasure talking Dodger baseball with you. Of course, people know where to find you, but tell them where to find you. And then I'll kick you out. Dodger Blue

1958 is the YouTube channel. Greg Bergman and I will be on live tonight. We go live every Thursday night and then we're live on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights as well. So Dodger Blue 1958 is the social media, dodgerblue.com as well.

Yeah. Again, I appreciate it. There's his handle in case you needed as well. I'll put links in the description below because he deserves it, but give him a follow, give him a watch. And Jeff,

I appreciate you. I do have one last thing for people before I get out of here, but you are free to leave my friend and quickly I'm going to get to last lakes. Sorry we're going long. Sorry, Mark. I'm steering the ship and I'm just going rogue here,

but I wanted to make sure I gave Alana some love here and of course Gidreys Guardian Foundation some love. Alana does have and Gidre's Guardian Foundation, sorry, trying to slow it down a little bit here. There's an auction going on. Great cause here, of course. All the proceeds do go to benefit Gidry's Guardian, which is a nonprofit.

It goes helping dogs, helping puppers that need help in the world that can't do anything on their own because their paws don't have no thumbs. But you can get tickets. There's an auction, 32 auctions.com slash LAA, LAD, Dodgers versus Angels, May 17th. The auction right now, I think last I saw, there's four bids. It's around $110 bucks right now.

That's pretty cheap for a Dodger game. Guys, go out there. You're supporting Alana, you're supporting Gidreys Giddy's Guardian, and supporting puppies. I see Steve in the chat, St. Gidreys the real MVP. Thank you very much. Steve also says avocado is extra mate, and I do agree with that. But I understand I should probably get out of here.

I just wanted to quickly, a baseball thought for the road. I want to shout out an old friend Gavin Lux for doing well to open this season. He's been great. He's been great. I've said for a while, I think he was somebody who needed a change of scenery. And not to say he didn't have a really nice season. season for the Dodgers last year. It was fine in 2024.

He's been fine at different points when healthy for the Dodgers. But he is a dude who would benefit greatly from a change of scenery and great American ballpark. Being with the Reds has helped him out a lot. He's enjoying baseball. And he's a buddy, sort of. And we appreciate him. Guys, that's it.

I appreciate you guys hanging out with me here on Dodgers territory. Big thanks to Jeff Spiegel for joining me here on the show. Again, go follow him on the. the Dodger Blue YouTube channel. I will be back. Alana will still be missing on Monday, but I will be back. 9 a.m. Pacific time early here live.

The Dodgers play an earlier game in the afternoon that day. My buddy Casey Porter, you also know here from the YouTube machine. He's going to be joining me. We'll be talking about the series that was a series ahead, prospects, all that kind of stuff. So smash a like, subscribe to the channel, do all the things that help us out, rate and review the podcast.

We appreciate you. I appreciate you. And I'll see you on the next one. Bye. This message is brought to you by Colagard. If you recorded songs off the radio for a mixtape, it might be time to screen for colon cancer. The Colagard test is non-invasive,

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