Dodgers Territory - Shohei's Bat Wakes Up, Dodgers Down PCA and the Cubs!

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Alanna Rizzo, Katie Woo, and Clint Pasillas recap a good weekend for the Los Angeles Dodgers. While the starting pitching was mostly really good again, the big story of the series is Shohei Ohtani's bat waking up. What changed for Sho? The hosts discuss. The other big storyline for fans involved shutting up Cubs outfielder Pete-Crow Armstrong. Did the lights get too bright in LA for PCA? We share our opinions. Roki Sasaki made a change to his split-finger fastball and it led to added velocity but another mixed outing for the pitcher. Katie shares more insight about the change and what it means for Roki. Plus, thoughts about the Red Sox house cleaning and more! To explore coverage, visit aspcapetinsurance.com/FOUL. The ASPCA® is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. Use our code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order* seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TERRITORY10 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount Check out DT merch at https://dodgersterritoryshop.com Support Guidry's Guardian at https://guidrysguardian.org Find Clint on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@alldodgers Follow Katie's work at The Athletic https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/author/katie-woo/  Subscribe to Dodgers Territory on YouTubeRate and review our podcast on Apple and SpotifySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO% on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcasts. It's Financial Literacy Month,

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I'm Daniel Alarcon, and this is my friend. This is much more famous than I am. I wouldn't go that far, but I'm John Green, co-host of the podcast The Away End, with my old friend Daniel. On our podcast, The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. Together, we'll find out why, of all the unimportant things, football, soccer, is the most important. Listen to the away end with Daniel Auerkone and John Green on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good news, everyone. We can all calm down. Show Hay's back.

Joe's back. He's not just back. He's all the way back. Happy Dodgers Territory Day, everybody. Welcome to a brand new live edition of DT. I'm Alana Rizzo. That is Katie Wu and Clint Piscius. We are so happy that you guys are here on this Monday, April 27th. We have surpassed the 16,000 mark in subscribers, as you guys know, but we're trying to make our way to 20,000 subs. It helps us so much if you support our show in this way. It is free to subscribe. So please like us, rate us five stars, follow us wherever you get your pods, certainly on YouTube as well. The Dodgers, cool down the Cubs, guys, taking two of three over the weekend.

Let's dive into the storylines in The Big Ticket. All right. As I mentioned, Dodgers winning two of three, ending Chicago's 10-game win streak. They did it with Will Smith and Max Muncie under the weather, mostly sideline. Katie, what impressed you the most about the way that they were able to handle business against the league's

toughest team at the moment? Well, first, that entire clubhouse is dealing with something. I have it. It's like a congestion cold, but they can play through it. Alex Freeland was not in the starting lineup yesterday, as we saw it, but he was able to take at bat, Max Muncie playing under the weather, still smacked with three run homer. So everyone's just a little banged up right now.

But I think overall what impressed me was I think with the Dodgers, we are conditioned to over analyze every single thing they do. And that is just kind of the nature when you are the back-to-back reigning champions. So we'll get into this later in the show, but Otani slumping, the offense overall, not really being able to put together those big innings and the rotation has been phenomenal, but to see the offense come to life, especially after a brutal loss on Friday and be able to bang out those big numbers. We love cricket numbers here on this show.

So for the offense to be able to do that top to bottom, I think the bottom part of the order based on Kim, Alex Freeland, they were kind of even, and Dave Roberts even said this, carrying the production for this team at times. So first of all, kudos to them, because we talked a lot about the offensive production for those two and how we weren't really sure

what it was gonna look like. But with Tucker slumping, show up until yesterday slumping, Friday Freeman moving up to the number two, just kind of a lot of, of course, the guy's not feeling too well, kind of a lot of moving parts. It was nice to the offense, take some good of bats, to Oscar getting up there.

Andy Paw has finding it again. Looks like Dodger offense. That was my biggest takeaway. That's your biggest takeaway. Clint, you were there live and in person on Sunday. What is your largest takeaway from the three-game set? You know, it's funny. Even the Dodgers are bad.

They're really good at playing baseball. They're really good at doing their jobs. And the starting rotation, even when they're kind of struggling a little bit, they still keep the team in games. The series was kind of starting pitching heavy for the Dodgers. Emich Sheehan had his best start of the year. Of course, the bullpen implodes on him on Friday very easily could have and should have been a sweep of PCA and the Cubbies.

Roki Sasaki working on some things there, mixed outing, but still a win. First win at the season. We'll talk more about Roki a little bit later. And then Justin Rubleski very clearly did not have command, did not have his best stuff, but put together a very good start, and the Dodgers take two or three against the Cubs. It's what you want to see.

It's what you want to have this team keep doing. Keep taking series, even when you're not playing your best, or even when there's a little bit of a bug spreading through that clubhouse over the course of 162, find ways to win ball games. That's the way that you spread stuff around. You're with each other 24-7. It's like a nursery full of big kids. Katie, you obviously were watching every single game.

Let's just talk about the starters in general. What is the bigger story? Emmett Sheehan with his best start of the season, but the bullpen implodes. Roki Sasaki, another mixed outing, but earns the win. More on him in a bit. Or Justin Rebleski really good,

despite not having his best command. What's the bigger story of the three? I like all of them, but I'm gonna go with Robo because we as we collectively, fans, Dodgers media, watch Justin Rebloskey, We haven't really seen him be tested too much in that rotation. And he came out on Sunday. Command wasn't there.

You know, his big thing is attacking the zone and notching strikes. And he wasn't able to do that. Walked a couple of guys in the first inning. And to me, that was like, okay, let's see how he responds from here. And how did he respond? A casual six shuddy. It's fine. So to me, that was interesting to see Justin Robleski because the Dodgers challenged him.

He went out and said, hey, I want to be a starter. And they said, okay, we believe in you long term. Let's see it. He's made four starts, five appearances. this season when he's a starter in the rotation that ERA, I think is 069. Nice. So what we're seeing from Rebleski is not only his comfortability in pitching, he's not a huge swing and miss guy. He's an attack the zone guy. I'm going to go right after you and you're going to bounce out to third or second. But also when he doesn't have

his command, his ability to adjust mid game, that says a lot about where a pitcher is. And he's so young in his career, only 25 years old, that he's able to come out over the first two innings, not have the command, be kind of sporadic in the strike zone, not do. things that make Justin Reblesky, Justin Reblusky, and then make that midgame adjustment that says a lot about where a guy is. And I think that's really telling for the Dodgers going forward on how they're piecing together their rotation. Justin Rebleski absolutely proved that he belongs in here for now. We know the starting rotation is kind of really the story of the first month. And we'll talk more about that later on this week as we get through the month of April.

But the story of this weekend, outside of the drama with the Otani rule and PCA, not knowing how to shut his mouth. The Shohei Otani did not, hadn't hit a homer in quite some time, has himself a hell of a breakout ball game yesterday, Sunday afternoon. The bat woke up, Katie, and you wrote about it. Tell us a little bit more about what went right for Shohei, and this is a sign of something to come, more to come. Sure. I'll preface this. Dave Roberts said it best. You don't hear the word slump correlated with Shohei Otani on the hitting side ever. And I don't really think anyone was concerned that Otani wasn't going to figure it out. He is again, show Hey, Otani. But the offense from Shoah was compounded by the offense overall. Again, we've talked about Tucker slumping

to Oscar Hernandez slumping and the bottom of the order really having to produce. But I think Shohei also knew that he wasn't in the best spot. He said it after his start in San Francisco, that it was fair to say he wasn't in the best position. It's only a matter of time for Otani to get out of it. But when he's going through it, it kind of demands a bigger magnifying glass just based on the player that he is. But we saw coming into the series, against the Cubs that he was expanding the zone below. He was going over and chasing those low pitches

below his knees. We're seeing a lot of weak ground ball contact to second base. That's because it's really hard to do damage on pitches that you have to go out and kind of essentially golf out, right? You don't see a lot of damage on the low pitches. You see a lot belt high or above because they're just easier to hit baseball math. So for Shoah was a combination of better pitch selection. And he actually saw that.

that he needed to make an adjustment in his stance at the plate, fix his posture. We saw better at bats on Saturday, was working the walks again that shows that a hitter is trending in the right direction, even if it's not producing on base hits. He is still getting on base and seeing better pitches. And then Sunday, the at-bats got incrementally better, lead off walk, single, double 108 miles per hour. And then you could just kind of knew that the next ad bat was going to be a home run first pitch to the opposite field, off a lefty, all good things.

good news everyone we can all calm down show his back show hey is back he's not just back he's all the way back and you mentioned kind of from what i saw and obviously i was out in left field pavilion it was not an advantageous position to be scouting show hey otani but from what i saw it did look like he was getting into his legs a little bit more kind of down into stance a little bit more he tends to do that against left-handed pitchers you'll see him open up ever so slightly and of course uh facing mike imanaga yesterday uh was a good eye opportunity for him to do that. But yeah, you know, the numbers in their totality are not Shohei. They are not Shohei numbers at all. It is funny that we look at six homers in a month and we're

like, man, this guy is really, really bad at baseball. This tells you how good he is at baseball. But I definitely see, you saw the signs of a breakout. I think I agree. I want to fully agree with the fact that Showe is back and he's going to have himself. He always, always has fun series against the Miami Marlins, but I think we're going to see some, we're going to see some real damage. He's going to get right, even more right,

against the Marlins coming up. Yeah, both away and home. Doesn't matter. He loves playing against the fish. Before we had the series against the Cubs, when we were previewing things on Friday, guys, we talked about who was going to receive the more, the louder booze, if you will.

Was it going to be Pete Crow Armstrong, or was it going to be Alex Breggman because of all the 2017 stuff? Katie, you were there. We're going to get into his numbers in just a moment. But tell me about the volume, if you will, of booze that paraded PCA and Breggman for that matter. Do you know how much Dodger fans have to dislike you for your booze to be louder than Alex Bregman's at Dodger Stadium?

And I know we talked about it, like who was going to be louder? PCA blew them away. It started with the pregame intros. I heard them. But it wasn't until the first at bat where it was like deafening. And it lasted the entire series. So I think we know, and I'm looking at some of the nicknames you guys have for PCA in the chat. There is some creativity.

Eat Crow Armstrong. That is good from Nicole Taylor 713. I did chuckle at that one. A couple of other ones that have some naughty words that I'm not going to say. But you guys have all made it very clear. You're out on PCA. And you know, I get it, but I will say this. I appreciate him doubling down.

on the comments on Friday. There's nothing worse than coming out talking a big game, talking your shit, and then walking it back. PCA said, you know what? I'm gonna double down, and I'm gonna really earn those booze and Dodgers fans gave it to him.

I loved it. Yeah, good for him. And he didn't perform well too, which was crazy on the doubling down. I mean, you look at the numbers, the golden sombrero. I don't remember the last time somebody that was under the microscope this much

had the golden sombrero. He did not run a route very well in center field. I mean, that was pretty, I think I could have even caught that. I mean, there was a 95% catch probability. Maybe not. But I mean, he's a, he's a big league ball player, right? So did not perform to the best of his ability at Dodgers Stadium and coming off the heels of his conversations and his comments. Blake Harris tweeting spent more time focused on Dodgers fans than on base this weekend. So a little funny comment there from Blake Harris, but. Whatever. We'll take two or three.

The lights got bright for PCA. You know, obviously the Dodgers bullpen. We need to talk about the bullpen before we head to break. But the lights got a little bright for PCA after that Friday game. You saw him chirping, as Blake Harris noted there. You saw him chirping Dodger fans worried about saying, oh, where are you guys at? Where was he for the rest of the series? You have the four punchies against Roki Sasaki for the greater part.

But four punchies on Saturday. Yeah, he misses that. that ball. It looks really bad doing it. And then on Sunday, he makes a nice play in center field that didn't need to look. He's, I mean, maybe it's a kid who came up on web gems in his head. He hears that, da-na-da-na-na-da-net or something like that. He's a tryhard out there. He's trying way too hard to make routine plays look special. And it bit him in the ass on Saturday when he just completely muffed that play. But yeah, I don't know. I kind of feel like. Like he's a solid public enemy number one right now for Dodgers fans.

And I was there. I was booing the shit out of him, rightfully so on Sunday. But, you know, maybe get that average up above 220 before you start chirping again, PCA. Respectfully. This is coming from some fat dude sitting in his office, you know, like, I'm telling you, guy. Yeah, yeah, you heard it here first. Get your shit together, PCA. Respectfully.

Oh my, respectfully. Speaking of getting your stuff together, so let's talk about this Dodgers bullpen. We knew this was going to be an interesting scenario, guys, once Edwin Diaz went on the IL. Other guys in the back end of that bullpen, we're going to have to, I know it's cliche, but step up, all right? Blake trying and struggles on Friday, consecutive rough outings. Haney, what are you seeing from him? Why is he struggling?

I wish I knew I'd be making a lot more money than I am right now. But I think with Blake and Vest – Jesse and Tanner Scott, too. These are the three that we knew we're going to have to step up when Evan Diaz went down. The Dodgers are going to close her by committee. Intentionally, it makes the job a lot more complicated for Dave Roberts. But then again, he did it all of last season. So it's kind of like deja vu in a way that the Dodgers didn't want.

But I think we tend to focus on Blake Trinen so much because when you look at the current Ritees in the bullpen, he is by far the most experienced and the one that has the most trust. And that says a lot when maybe the last two results have not gone well. I don't want to disregard his beginning of the season. The first three weeks were really good. And I'm almost inclined to throw out the course field appearance because it's course field. But I understand that's not how stats work. I think there is a little bit of apprehension because of how he finished last season and really pitching.

Again, it's so volatile. It's so much, what have you done for me right now? But there are not a lot of other Riteys that have the confidence are in the trust tree of Dave Roberts right now. And when there is a high leverage lane for Ritey, we're going to continue to see Blake, at least until Brock Stewart comes back more on him later. But I guess it's just a like, hey, figure it out. That's what they're telling the relievers. Figure it out.

And Bessie has done really well. That was his first rough outing all season. Tanner Scott, that was his first, you know, he's done. He's been very effective. And I know, again, we're going to have a lot of magnifying glasses on these guys based on what they did last year. One blown game, even though it was a bad one, I'll say it was an anomaly. They can't afford for it to become a trend.

and that's where I think we're really going to have to, if we're going to scrutinize one thing about this team, that's where I'm at least locking it on is the late innings. How are they going to patch together without Diaz? Done pretty well up until that Friday loss. Yeah, one guy I would like to see a little bit more out of, and, you know, Riz, this continues a narrative for me. You love this dude.

I want to see more Kyle Hurt. We saw him a couple times in this series, closed out the game yesterday to secure the series win, but if we are looking past the Blake Trinen era or we're looking to add to that right-handed side of Dave Roberts' trust tree, this is one of the few guys that's in there that's actually healthy, that's on the 40-man roster that is healthy and able to do the job. And I think at this point, you've got to start finding ways to get him into more leverage situations. I would like to know more about Kyle Hurt now.

Can he get the job done now rather than, okay, well, we've been. ran out of glass to break. This is the emergency. Let's go to Kyle Hurt in September and we learned about him then, even though I have faith in him in September, as much as I do in April. But I think this is the time. I think this is a time to start seeing Kyle Hurt get more opportunities.

And I actually, I think that's a fantastic point because it's April. The Dodgers have the luxury of being able to use a large portion of their regular season to kind of experiment. And it's what would, you know, if we're going to apply the same logic to they need to find out what they have in Alex Freeland right now. Maybe we start to apply that to Will Klein and to Kyle Hurt. Now, it's different because relievers are often coming in in the most pivotal parts of the

game. And if Alex Freeland goes 0 for four, but the Dodgers win, we can chalk it up to, okay, he's adjusting. If Will Klein goes out there, or Kyle Hurt goes out there with a two run lead and blows it, that's one in the loss in the loss column. And I think that's the big difference between adjusting relievers and experimenting with relievers compared to position players is because when you're experimenting with relievers, you're gambling with the win, loss column, the majority of the time. So because in order to see what Kyle Hart can do in high leverage, he has to be in a high leverage situation to find out.

He can breeze through down six. And you're like, okay, cool. But it's a completely different ballgame when you have a one run lead or a two run lead in the eighth or ninth. So I get it. And I do think they should have those opportunities. But with it comes at much different scrutiny, just based on the nature of the game, being a reliever. is a thankless job, guys. It is hard. But I do see your point there, Clint, and maybe try to see what other guys they can use. But it could cost them wins. And I think that's just going to be really hard for fans and the organization to come to terms with. Yeah, it might be a situation where it's causing a couple of wins here and there, but you need to throw guys out there to see

what they can do in certain situations. So, you know, it doesn't hurt you at critical, critical times. And again, we've always said the last three outs of the game are the toughest. And that's why closers are not as underappreciated as a lot of the rest of the relieving core happens to be. All right, really quickly, before we get to break, Katie, you do have a couple of rehab outing updates and when we might be getting some key pieces back. What can you tell us? Let's start with Blake Snell. Blake Snell is going to throw his second rehab start tomorrow, Tuesday in Ontario, the brand new

complex out there for the tower buzzers. I will be there, excited for it. I think Kike Hernandez should be trending towards a rehab assignment semi soon. Brock Stewart, he said he's going to be down for a couple days and then pitch him back to backs. And then the Dodgers will make an decision over the next week or so, when he could be activated. Still no update for Tommy Edmund. We're still looking late May, early June.

But for Kiki, he always has said that he wants to come back as soon as he is eligible. That's May 24th. We'll assume because he's missed so much time, he's going to need a lengthier stint. So I'm keeping my eyes out for hopefully Kikei Hernandez rehab start coming up in the next week or so. Stay tuned. All right. Behind this. Go ahead.

I don't know if you guys happen to see. He was on a podcast with somebody. And Kikee said like, the plan is one day after that 60 day, a 60 day I L stint is over because I think they're on the road and he doesn't want to have to go on the road. And just bring him back, have him play at home. But getting healthy, getting healthy. That is good for this ball club. Anyway, sorry, Alana. No, not at no value.

That's okay. That's typically what happens with you. You know what I can wait for or can't wait for is the standing ovation for Kike at home when he gets back from the aisle. Because of how much fans. Absolutely, absolutely love him. All right. Much more to come. And we're going to dive deeper into Roki Sasaki and some new information that Katie has about what he's been working on.

But first, a quick word from our friends at Fowl Territory. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. So if you're tired or lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app. We love our dog Bella, who's really just a couch cushion in our house. And you would do anything for her.

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Visit ASPCAPetinsurance.com slash Amazon terms. This is a paid advertisement. Insurance is underwritten by either independent American insurance company or United States Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. All right. We welcome you to behind the seams. Before we get into the Roki Sasaki Talk, I literally used ASPCA insurance today. I highly, highly, highly recommend you get your pet insurance. Bentley was having some, she's still dealing with some weird stuff. where she feels like she's getting sick, but nothing comes out. So I was very worried that there was some obstruction. So we went this morning to get x-rays and it was over $800. But I will submit it, which I've already submitted it to ASPCA. And they will cover, there's a lot of different plans. But I have ASPCA specifically.

So there you have it. Just wanted to say I'm not just a, what is that thing? I'm not just a client, I'm a member, whatever the heck that is. But anyway, I have them and they're very good in terms of client needs and satisfaction, all those things. All right, Roki Sasaki. Let's talk about him, Katie. And I think you're the first one to talk about this because everyone's copying your stuff.

And that's why we love having you because you're so good at what you do. Tell us more about the grip change on the splitter for Sasaki. How did you notice it? What's going on? Yeah, let's nerd out over Sasaki's new split forkball. I don't know what it is about him having like combination of pitches, the slutter, for example. But with this splitter, it's or the forkball. The change now is more of a traditional splitter.

And it's easy to notice when you have baseball savant pulled up on the right tab of your computer and can see, hey, he's throwing the splitter a lot harder. And it has a lot more spin and he's throwing it a lot more. So in his four previous starts, Roki Sasaki's split was averaging right around 85 miles per hour. Not a lot of spin at all less than 1,000. And when I was watching it on Saturday, just look at the radar gun. It was sitting right around 90. So to me that signals it's a brand new pitch. And I talked to pitching coach Mark Pryor after the game.

And he said that it was Rokey's idea, actually. When he was throwing his bullpen in San Francisco ahead of Saturday start against the Cubs, Rokey went up to him and Connor McGinnis and said, I want to throw my splitter similar to how I threw it for Japan and the 2023 WBC. I want to throw it harder. So Connor McGinnis made a couple of grip changes, slight tweaks. And Roki went out in the bullpen at Oracle Park and threw it. And the first one Mark Pryor said was disgusting.

That's a real close. Yeah, let's stick with it. And Roki wasn't actually sure if he was going to debut that splitter on Saturday until he threw it before the game in his pregame warmup. And he really liked it. So he comes out there. And him and Dalton rushing worked really well on this new pitch, reading the swings. He threw it over almost 50% of the time.

That's not how he's always going to use the split. But it really paired well with the fastball because the pitches tunnel the same. And the way that Sasaki was using this new. split because it tunneled the same was allowed. It just broke harder over the plate. It was difficult for the Cubs to pick it up. And you were able to, I think once he's able to use it more effectively in the zone, really give a tantalizing combination with the fastball. We know about Sasaki. He needs to be more consistent throwing strikes. And there were a couple of two strike mistakes. I think him and Dalton are going to continue to work on. But for the last month, all we've been asking for

is to see Roki take a step forward or show us something tangible that we can point to and say, that could be progress. His first four starts, he just kind of stagnated. He was kind of the same pitcher. It was just okay. I thought on Saturday with this new split, we had our first tangible evidence of looking at something Sasaki was doing and saying

that is something encouraging he can build off of. And I think the Dodgers feel the same way. Yeah, this is progress to me. This is something concrete you could build off of. And you know the baseball was coming out if we're talking about the script change because I've been talking about You love this.

But talking about this fucking forkball, people not wanted to call it a goddamn forkball. It's a goddamn forkball. Now we're going to an actual splitter. What he was doing before was he was getting tight in that grip. The horseshoe was more here. Now I saw him even putting it into his glove. It was a lot less choking down on that pitch. And with that, you're naturally going to get more velocity.

You're going to get a little bit more command ability with it. But also, you're going to get less of the, Alon. I think back to when they signed this dude, they talked about, oh, sometimes the forkball, the splitter goes this way, and it goes that way. You don't want that kind of inconsistency. I would like to know where my pitch is going to go so I could tunnel off of that ahead of time with my next pitch and he needs the help, all the help he can get with the fastball. But Katie, you bring up the baseball savant page and kind of seeing a little bit different

of the movement, but you're going to probably start to see, trying to get too far away from my mic, you're going to start to see that arm slot dip a little bit more. And in my opinion, you know, hashtag not an expert here. In my opinion, that's how you're going to start to see the fastball get a little bit of movement to it. We've heard so many complaints about it's a very flat fastball. It's not a very good fastball even at 97 to 101. It plays up a lot better at 101. But this is a huge step forward to potentially adding some movement, whether it's more backspin

or a little bit of armside run to that fastball to make him a better. more complete pitcher. So we wanted to see one month of Roki what he looked like. Now we know. We went through a month and he's like, okay, I'm ready to make some changes. And hopefully this is a huge step forward for him and the organization. Katie mentioned that it was actually Roki Sasaki's thought. It was his idea.

And Mark Pryor said, all right, let's do this. Katie, do you get the sense that the communication is a little bit better between the two? because we had wondered if it was kind of, you know, two different sides, very differing opinions kind of going up against each other. Does it seem, though, that he, to Clint's point, is willing to kind of make those changes and it's more of an open line of communication? Yeah, that was an interesting part to me that didn't make the story because I think it says that the communication on both sides is better. And I talked to Mark Pryor about this. Again, not in the story. But when he was discussing it, I think it's easy to just kind of say,

okay, there was some friction there. I wasn't here last season, obviously, so I can only speak to what people were telling me. I think it was more of a just, these two sides weren't familiar with each other yet. And that's, again, you would expect by September for the pitching side and the organization to know more about the player and vice versa,

but Roki missed like a significant amount of time. And they weren't necessarily in the trenches and grinding together, which meant they didn't get to know each other as closely as you do, obviously when you're short up to work every day and going through the motions. So I think, and this is something that Andrew Friedman has alluded to,

Dave Roberts has alluded to. There's more of an understanding from both sides, from the Dodgers and from Rokey as to how to communicate. And that Rokey felt comfortable enough going to Mark Pryor and Connor McGinnis and saying, hey, I want to try this. That's huge growth. That's huge growth on both sides. And a lot of credit should go to that pitching coach staff

for being patient and some credit to Roki for saying, okay, I want to bounce some ideas off of these guys. I want to be more communicative, because I don't necessarily think that that was the case for him last year. So I'm seeing growth all around. It's April so I can still be an optimist. It's going to take some time with Roki. And this is a conversation for another time.

That is just the nature when you're asking a pitcher to develop in the big leagues. But when you are doing that, trust me, I just spent five years in St. Louis. I know what this is like. When you are asking a player, especially a pitcher with such a high pedigree to develop in the big leagues, you have to look at things with silver lining sometimes. So the split are going out and being good, that was a silver lining for me. The bigger one was that Roki felt comfortable enough to go tell his pitch coaching coaches and communicate with them what he wanted to do.

And the coaches, of course, immediately fix something, fix the grip, and now they have something to build off of. Yep. Baby steps changes, but progress. We do got, have a question here, super chat from Nicole Taylor for Katie Wu has Wu or anyone asked about Roki if he's been tipping his pitches. Obviously, we saw over the weekend as well, Shoahotani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, kind of talking about his his glove positioning and maybe moving it when he is adjusting to that split uh what what was

kind of the conversation in the clubhouse or with dave about the tipping yeah i asked around a couple people i remember after i think it was against the rangers it being especially egregious that he was tipping because they had players bouncing up and down on base to signal it and i think it's been addressed i don't think it's been at that big of a problem though clint if you can see the grip change in the glove. Maybe it still needs some work. But I think that's, again, just going to be a work in progress with Roki when I was asking around. They were like, yep, he was doing it. Yep, we fixed it by the third. And they're going to continue to monitor it. Pitchers tip all the time, guys. And, you know, every now and then we're able to see it on the mound.

But the way that guys are able to pick up things, like the most minuscule tiny things in real time, blows my mind. We're going to continue to nitpick Roki. It's just what we do. I get it. But in terms of tipping, I think that's a very solvable problem. And the ones that they're going to continue to focus on is, again, the fastball command, the new split, and just overall building him up in real time as the season goes on. All we can ask is, all we can ask is for progress. And it looks like we're seeing that at least some willingness to make some changes and get better every single time. At all right. Much more to come on Dodgers territory on this Monday.

But first a word from our friends at Fowell. Todd, father. It's getting a little warm out. Let's hit some concerts. Let's hit some baseball games. And where am I going to go to find those tickets? And if you want to sing the answer, you can. We're going to see geese.

Hey. Listen, ultimately, at the end of the day, it is getting warmer. And people want to leave the house. And it's time to leave. Go see a ball game. I guess where you can find the best tickets, best spots, best places to go. Seat Geeks got it all, man. They got their red and their green signs, letting you know which good and bad,

all that good kind of stuff. They make it really simple for you at the end of the day. For a guy like me who's running around, I just need five-minute thing, bang, boom, I got my seats. Yeah, each ticket's rated on a scale of 1 to 10, so you know you're getting a good deal. And of course, the code for you, Territory 1-0 for 10% off your next set of tickets at SeaGeek. That's 10% off any tickets with promo code, Territory 10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and then have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you to Seatkeke, MLB's official ticket marketplace.

I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now I've got my own show. So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies,

available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app. Well, we made mention earlier that Shohei Otani loves playing against the Marlins. How about you guys have an opportunity to go see the Marlins at the Dodgers. It is a day game. It's a Wednesday day game,

but all proceeds benefit, at Gidre's Guardian Foundation. It is two tickets in reserve level, and it is also a parking pass in Lot F. So it's two tickets and parking. The bid just starts at $20.00. Go to 32 auctions.com slash Marlins, 2006. I want to thank Amy very much for her generous donation of this package.

And it's quick, right? Today's Monday, the 27th. The game is on Wednesday. The auction ends late tomorrow night. So check out 32 auctions.com slash Marlins. 2006 to make a bid. Listen, you might bid 60 bucks and get these tickets. So check it out. We appreciate it very much. All right. So this is interesting. I don't know. Mike Rable is so psyched about what's happening with the Red Sox right now because finally all of the attention

in the Northeast is off of Reable at least for a little bit. The Red Sox are a big fat mess. And I live in this area and they're a big fat mess. Clint, what is your opinion of it? you go next and then I'll tell you my opinion of this whole disaster that is the red sox i've been the guy with the bad words today and i will continue because when i put this in our own rundown i said bossed redsox cleaning house what the fuck this is this was insane this is absolute insanity whatever's going on there where like where's john henry through all this where sam kennedy like realistically ownership um you know it's such an overreactionary uh organization um I heard an interesting opinion about it where they were likely going to make one firing

and Alex Cora didn't want to throw anybody under the bus, any of his hitting coaches or whatever coach they were going to make a decision to move off of. So they just said, hey, it's going to be all of you. But I don't know. Craig Breslo seems like an ass clown to me. Maybe this works. Maybe it doesn't. But to fire eight people on the staff one month into the season when you failed the organization

as a front office in the off season. You let Alex Bregman walk. You knew he wanted to come back. You didn't stack up veterans, really. That team is in desperate need of some veteran leadership. Breggman would have fit that role, that role for them or continue to fit that role for them. I don't know what they're doing in Boston,

and I would argue that they too don't know what they're doing in Boston. But at least to save Mike Rables' ass. For the time being, Katie, what are, what are, I mean, you've been around several different clubhouses, as have I. I haven't covered just the, the Dodgers. So this is wild. It's just not the way that successful organizations tend to go about their business. I will use an example that we saw on an Instagram story of Alex Cora from Jason Veritech, and it is a thumbs down.

I think what I've learned covering that, I'm on my third manager now, and what I've learned anytime that there's any kind of discourse about how the manager is doing, you go to the clubhouse and you ask the players for, because they'll be honest. If they're not happy, baseball players are going to tell you. And it doesn't, it's kind of self-defeating because ultimately the players aren't the ones making the decisions, obviously, because if they were Alex Cora would still be in Boston. But if you want to see how a decision like that is being perceived by the ones that go out and go on the field and ultimately, you know, are going to be the ones to wear it because they're the players, that the clubhouse was so upset about it and was so mad with their front office says everything you need to know about this decision. Sam Kennedy went out

and told reporters essentially this was a Craig Breslo decision. We don't know what John Henry thinks because he's not talking to the media and he's not making himself available. So but if you go to the players, baseball players are always especially when they're mad, going to tell you how they really feel about things. I think just seeing the comments from Trevor's story, um, Garrett Whitlock. It was very made very clear. They weren't consulted about it. They weren't asked how they felt. And if they were, they would have vouch for their manager and their coaches. This can totally derail a season here. If you go out and you make your clubhouse so angry and you lose the trust, it takes months to years to build trust in an organization. It takes seconds to lose it. If you lose the trust of your clubhouse from

the player's perspective, I don't know how you can continue keeping, keep winning ballgames unless it's out of spite, which I support. But yeah, it is, it is a bad scene in Boston. Alana, I know you're there. What's going on? Yeah, it's insane. I mean, the biggest thing to me is the timing of all of this. Typically, you know, wholesale changes like this are not made, certainly not 27 games into the season after a 17 to one win. The way that they did it too was so, I think, off-putting. They flew into Baltimore, kind of like in the middle of the night. They're waiting for these guys at their hotel, Alex Kora, five other staff members, including one of the legends of the Boston Red Sox organization. You're going to tell me that you're going to

reassign Jason Veritech to a different role within the organization. Jason Veritech, Jason Veritech? Like, that's like R. Clayton Kershaw. I mean, that's insanity. There's no way Veritech is going to stay with that organization. And I am not, I'm not putting any of the good, good for Chad Tracy. I mean, he's a good baseball mind. He's been around the game a long time. Not as a major league player, though, again, but in today's age of analytics and Sabre metrics, you apparently don't have to step on the field one time in pro ball, which he did. He played minor league baseball, but not major league baseball. But this is a team, you guys, that now has a hitting coach that was in AA.

And in 2023, he was a video coordinator. And he's now on the big league staff three years later for the Boston Red Sox. No wonder Trevor Story is pissed. No wonder Vasquez is pissed because Jason Veritech is obviously one of his heroes. and Alex Cora was like a second dad. I understand the thought of this team is to make younger production happen, right? To go with the young guys. Now you want Roman Anthony, who's 22 or 23 years old to lead the team.

This is a whole continuation of the Heim Bloom having to get rid of Mookie Betts, the Raphael Devere's situation going to San Francisco, being so smug that you thought there wasn't a chance in hell that Alex Breggman wasn't coming back and he did it. Then he went to the Cubs and they had nowhere to pivot. They had nowhere to pivot. They've lost the clubhouse at this point. You could tell Alex Cora was like, thank God I'm done with this BS because he said he tweeted that he was happy. They had the whole thing about the plane except with Veritec. They went out in the north end of dinner last night and they all had thumbs up. Alex Cora is still getting paid. And Alex Cora will only be unemployed as long as Alex Cora doesn't want to have a job. And I can understand from the daughter's perspective, you guys. I get it. I was there. I understand the whole 17. thing with the Astros 18, with Alex Cora being back. I get it all, right? But Alex Cora has a lot of respect in the industry and a lot of those players loved him. And Craig Breslo just kind of saying, I'm done with this because he wants his stamp on the team. And there was never a good, even though

Breslo says that he believed he had a good working relationship with Alex Cora, I'm not certain I believe that to be true. I don't know that Alex Cora ever really respected kind of the robotic analytical approach that Craig Breslo, I remember when this team won a birth into the postseason last year, I was in the clubhouse because I do some freelance stuff for Nesson, and I interviewed Craig Breslo. And it was like there was just not, you know, again, not everybody has to be raw, raw, raw, but it was just very, just very matter of fact, you know, and that doesn't, that doesn't work. And now you have all these guys, Chad Tracy, the first base coach, third base coach, all these guys that are super, super duper young. And I get that Chad Tracy,

was Roman Anthony and Marcelo Myers and, you know, Raphael, you know, why am I, space, Sidane Raphael, you know, and all these, you know, Christian Campbell, that he was their manager. But this is the big leagues, guys. This is just, okay, final, final thing about this. What this tells me more than anything is that be thankful Dodgers fans that you have the ownership group and the front office staff that handles things the way that they handle thing. Andrew Friedman will talk. Stan Kasten will talk. When need be, Mark Walter, who was basically their John Henry, he will talk and he puts money into the organization. Dave Roberts is one of the most approachable managers on the planet. So it could always be worse, Dodgers fans. It could

always be worse. Agreed. Agreed. And let me tell you something as someone who has just came to the Dodgers organization, knowing that consistency from the front office and the manager, there is a lot of reporting on the athletic side right now that, you know, Alex Cora might not be the first or the only, he is the first, but he won't be the only one, perhaps, with a lot of managers, Carlos Mendoza, Thompson, the NL East and Chambles in general.

So I do appreciate coming to a place where there is some sort of solidarity, and it's nice and it's calm. And as I'm saying that, I'm prepared for drama as soon as I get to the park because I feel like I just think on this Yamamoto Monday. So I take that. It's all bad. Sell the team.

Sell the team. Well, that was it for Red Sox talk today. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it here in this edition of Dodgers Territory. If you want to support the show, do check out our members. When we hit a certain point, when we hit 25 members signed up on the YouTube channel, we will plan our first happy hour. I don't know why I'm clapping each time, but we're going to drink with you guys. We're going to have a good time.

We know Katie Wu can use it right now. But you also get discounted merch. you get shoutouts, you get priority replies. We're going to start doing polls at some point as well. Subscribe to the channel. I'm going to appreciate it. I'm going to sneak the music in now. We're trying to get the 20,000 subscribers so we could be angry about other teams more often.

Don't forget, guys, check out Monster Territory. If you care about the Red Sox with Robbie Hyde, they are on our foul territory network. Clint and I will be back on Wednesday. Remember, it's a day game. Clint and I will be doing postgame on Dodgers territory. and then, yes, Katie, it's the day game. It's the day game. And then all three of us will be back on Thursday.

So we appreciate you guys very much. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Go Dodgers. Bye. Bye. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available.

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