Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2383: How to Call a Collapse

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

Ben Lindbergh brings on Michael Baumann, who immediately makes Ben regret it by subjecting him to a lyrical ode to Effectively Wild inspired by the Taylor Swift song “Wood.” Then they play “College Baseball Player or Make and Model of Car?” before recapping the three decisive Game 3s of the wild card round (with an […]

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be horny about baseball? Every take hot and hotter, entwining and a budding, watch them climb big mountain, nothing's about nothing, every stitch wet with sweat, breaking balls back, darn me on effectively wild, but can you not be horny?

When it comes to podcasts, how can you not be horny? Hello and welcome to episode 2383 of Effectively Wild, a Baseball podcast from FanGraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined now not by Meg Rally of FanGraphs, who is on the mend, but not yet Men did. And filling in for her in multiple professional capacities this week, including on this episode of Effectively Wild, it's Michael Balman of FanGrafts.

Hello, Michael. Yeah, I've been spending this week being the emergency backup goalie from an editorial standpoint, because Meg has been sick and Matt has been, he's spent all week on a train back and forth to Yankee Stadium. Man, that's a lot of power to hand to you, the keys to WordPress. The first thing I told Matt was I was drunk with power. Yeah, they don't give me that kind of edit access at Fancrafts. I can edit my own podcast posts, and that's it. They don't trust me with editing anyone else's,

Or should they? I'm not actually on the Fangraph staff. You are, but still, that is a lot of responsibility, a lot of harm you could do. It was very much like the first episode or first season episode of Star Trek the next generation where Captain McCart and Commander Riker get trapped on the surface and Jordy is left alone in command of the Enterprise and everybody's like, what the hell's going on? Season one was rough at times. If you had one minute in the pool for how long it would take one of us to reference Star Trek. Congrats, you win. So we are going to talk about the playoffs. Go figure today. We'll talk a little bit about the series that are concluded and the series that are about to begin. And I will be joined a little later by the great Jason Benetti,

voice of the Tigers, TV voice, who unfortunately that voice has been silenced for October because he's not doing baseball. And we are all the poorer for it, but he is doing baseball. But he is doing baseball on this episode of Effectively Wild, so we'll talk about the tiger's near-death experience and how they can bounce back from that and what it was like to call a historic collapse and just their completely predictable normal path to the AL Division series. I assume that you have a prelude to the actual baseball banter. I've got two preludes, Ben. Yeah, I figured.

Before I asked you to come on, I had to weigh whether I wanted to be embarrassed about not knowing the names of college baseball players, and ultimately I decided you were worth it. I think this is not going to be as tough a game as it usually is. Well, now you've put more pressure on me. Well, I was just thinking the music festival I referenced the last time I was on here just came and went a couple weeks ago. And I remember how mad you were when you found out that you were responsible for knowing the name of the guitarist for TV on the radio.

Yes, you texted me from that festival to send me a photo of him. to remind me of my loss. So if you thought you were pissed off then, just wait, because I don't know if you saw this, but the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has released a new record. Yes. Haven't had a chance to give it a spin yet. Yeah, so it contains a song about the physiological and sexual prowess of her fiance,

the football player Travis Kelsey. He heard of him. And relevant to this podcast, like as much as I'd love to talk about that ordinarily, It's relevant to this podcast because she references the name of Travis's podcast in the song about his penis. The curse on me was broken by your magic wand. Seems to be that you and me, we make our own luck. New Heights of Manhood. I ain't got a knock on wood.

Ben, as one of the most experienced and venerable sports podcasters in the entire industry, have you ever had somebody write an ode to your? sexual prowess using the name of your podcasts and lyrics. No, I don't think Jesse has ever said that I'm effectively wild in the bedroom. Well, Jesse hasn't, but as far as anyone, you're about to have your world rocked, my friend. Okay. So I didn't write an entire song about this because this only came out this morning. Even I don't work that fast, but I do have lines.

And I'll admit that reading these back, they give more of a Beastie Boys vibe than a Taylor Swift vibe. Okay. So here's one. he makes all the d'is before seem timid and mild when he bends me over and goes effectively wild. Oh, my goodness. You're going to have to bleep this whole segment. Did you notice the double entendre there where I said bends me over? Wow.

You put some thought into this. I do think you should deliver it as if you were a Beastie Boy that might actually enhance. I need AdRoc behind me. Effectively wild. I'm surprised that no one has one of our listener themes. No one has done a Beastie Boys brand. Now it'll happen. Okay.

All right. Two, my man's effectively wild. He's got me screaming with a purpose. I get on top. He does a stat blast on my cervix. Wow. Okay. This pod should come with a parental warning.

And number three, part of the reason that I wanted to do this was one to see how mortified, I could make you on your own show. And also to see how much of this, Shane was going to bleep. Like, if we could get, like, an entire... I don't think you can bleep an entire segment. I think that's probably... Just like 15 seconds. Just leave it all up to the imagination.

Poor Jason Benetti agreed to come on this episode before he had any idea what would be preceding him. Such as, I've finally found an effective love. He's known to be wild and he's good with the glove. With his fingers and his teeth, he's tearing off my garters, saying, I'd like to thank a couple of our Patreon supporters. Wow. Getting all hot and bothered here.

I'm sweating, Ben. Yeah. Woo! Is that it? You have more for me? No, that's it. That's all the music I have for you. But we do have today's game, college baseball player, or make and model of car.

Oh, well, this is, could not be any more out of my depth. I, it's arguable, which I know less about, cars or college baseball players. Yeah, I've, I've heard of cars, though. I have heard of some, you know, makes and models just from being in them at times, seeing them around, being subjected to advertising. So there's more exposure to car names than there is to college baseball players. Yeah, with congestion charge and stuff, have you even seen a car in the past six months? Well, I live north of the congestion. Oh, bummer.

Yeah. So I'll warn you, not all of these cars are currently in production. Okay. And not all of them have ever been sold in the United States. So you'll have to, but like if I said Ford Proctor, that would be... Not a car. This is an actual baseball player. Yeah, Ford Proctor is a... I've heard of Ford Proctor because he's not only a college baseball player, but a...

He's a Major League Baseball player. Yes, that helps. Briefly. Okay. Number one, Dachio Logan. Can you spell that or is that against the rules? D-A-C-I-A. D-A-C-I-A.

Well, I have never heard of that car brand if, in fact, it is one. Then again, I've never really heard of any name that's applied to a person. So I guess I'd be almost more surprised if that were a person's name than a car. Because I was thinking of, like, Dotson as a car brand that you might pull out here. And this is not that, but it's close enough. I guess I had to go even more obscure than Dotson. I figured you would know about Dotson. Yeah, I don't know about this one, but I guess I'll go with car.

You are correct. The Dachio Logan is a Romanian compact car sold elsewhere under the Renault and Nissan badges. Wow. You didn't have to go this hard. Well, that applies to this entire intro, certainly the lyrics portion of it. Wow. I didn't even realize what I was doing there. There was a discarded verse to that song that included the line you didn't have to go this hard. Yeah. But the point is that you could have used probably among the more famous car names than you still might have stumped me because, again, I don't drive, but I appreciate you're going the extra mile here.

All right. Who or what is next? Number two, Tucker Stockman. Tucker Stockman. Well, that's got to be a human being, right? I guess. I'll go with college baseball player. That is correct, Ben. Tucker Stockman is a catcher at the University of Southern Mississippi. I thought maybe I could trip you up because Tucker was, in fact, the name of a car company, as you probably remember, being a film buff from the Francis Ford Copeland, a classic Tucker Man in his Dream. Huh.

The biopic of Preston Tucker, the automaker, not the former University of Florida outfielder. Could have gotten that wrong if I had remembered that, but I didn't. So fortunately, I got it right. Okay, 2 and O. This is, if this were a best of three wild card rounds, I would be sailing right through. All right. Number three, Proton Perdana. Proton Perdana.

That's got to be a car. That is, in fact, a car. That is a Malaysian family sedan. It's a rebadged Honda Accord. Okay. Yeah. Just couldn't really imagine a person named Proton. I'm sure there is one, someone somewhere in the world.

but presumably not in college baseball. Yeah. And this one, Cameron Fluky. Cameron Fluky. Well, that would be a weird name for a car, both the Cameron part, but especially the Fluky part. I mean, I guess I don't even know

what country of origin or language you're working with here. You've got all sorts of weird names in the Asian markets and Australia. Yeah. That could mean something else entirely in Romania, but I guess I'll go with college baseball player. He's a pitcher.

He's actually a fairly well-known pitcher. for a pretty decent draft prospect from Coastal Carolina. He opposed Kate Anderson in game one of the College World Series final last year. He's a native of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Of course. How could I not know that? Well, I look forward to him making it and probably having a much lower ERA than his FIP. Yes.

Big dude, six foot six, weighs about 110 pounds. All right. And the last one, like I said, you're doing really well with this. Yeah, can I pitch a perfect game? Holden, Tarana. Holden Tarana. See, with Holden, you had me thinking college baseball player, but then Tarana makes me think Carr.

I don't want to blow it. I guess I'll go with Carr. Ben, you have pitched a perfect game. Yes. Holden was GM's Australian brand. This was an Australian mid-sized sedan of the 1970s. Wow. I feel euphoric, exuberant.

Car knowledge, man. Who do you? Who knew I had it? You are such a connoisseur of vehicles, of all kinds, really. Just wheeled vehicles. I'm going to put that on my LinkedIn, Ben. Yeah, that should be your bio on some sort of social media. Connoisseur of vehicles.

Vehicles in the air, vehicles by sea, by land, by air, whatever it is. If you can drive it, ride in it, fly in it. You know it. The odds of March Song, too. Love that song. Well, this is good. This will tide me over the next time I get shut out or really ashamed myself with my performance. I can console myself with the memory of the time that I shut you out, that I pitched a perfect game.

I had a Cam Schlittler game in the college baseball or today. So that's exciting. And now, oh, I don't know, 10, 12 minutes into the episode, we can... I don't have anything prep for this. This is going to be short. Mercifully talk about baseball. I spent all my time writing song lyrics. Yeah.

Do you know who's playing in the Division Series? Do you know who was playing in the Wild Card Round Cyc? That's all you need to know. I know that the Dodgers are playing the Phillies. Yeah, that's pretty important. Yeah. Okay. So we had an eventful day on Thursday.

We had three games. We had three elimination games. It was, I believe, the first time in history that there were three elimination games on the same day. I don't think that's true. I think 1981, I think that's all. Oh, I thought I saw that fun fact somewhere, but maybe I was misled. Oh, I saw, we saw contradictory fun facts. Yeah, I guess so.

Well, we'll have to settle this while we speak somehow. But the Guardians, Padres, and Red Sox bit the dust, the tigers, Cubs, and Yankees advanced. I guess we can say that the better teams won, probably the favorites to the degree that there even are favorites in a best of three series where most of the teams are pretty. evenly matched, but nothing super surprising about the outcomes here. I guess the Yankees were the first team. This is another fun fact I think I saw. They were the first team to win a best of three wildcard series after losing game one,

which is not as impressive as it sounds, perhaps, because there haven't been that many of them. It's not quite coming back to win a best of seven after going down 0.3. More game threes this year than in the first three seasons of this format put together. Yeah. So that was good, I guess. enjoyed that we didn't have sweeps. For one thing, I feel uncomfortable calling a two-nothing win, a sweep, because it just, it doesn't even, I think we've had that debate before on this podcast, of course, but something feels unnatural about calling it a sweep when it's not even the length of a regular season series, even though technically it's correct, I suppose. So I guess we can briefly talk a bit about each of these, and I'll talk to Jason later about the Tigers more. We don't have to dwell on Tiger's Guardians, which is probably for the best, because as a spectator experience, it wasn't the best. But I am, as I'll get into a bit with Jason, I am just fascinated by all of the dynamics surrounding this emotional whiplash of suffering a historic collapse, immediately rebounding from it.

And for all intents and purposes, just erasing it. I mean, it happened. I don't mean to take credit away from the Guardians. They deserve credit for having completed that comeback. But then ultimately, what does it actually amount to? I don't know how Guardians fans feel right now. Do they feel proud? Do they feel robbed?

Is this all some sort of sick joke? I don't know if the joke is on the Tigers or the Guardians. Like, if you're the Guardians or their fans, are you less deflated? because, hey, we're playing with House Money here. It's amazing that we even managed to be in this series. Or are you more deflated because of the path you took to get there and this whole comeback you engineered? And then the slate is reset right away

and it's as if it never happened in some sense. I don't know. I have a hard time putting myself in the head of a Guardians fan. So I don't, you know, I concede I don't want to speak for these people who are out there. Yeah. But I would feel like I was playing with House Money. Like, this is not something I've really experienced in quite this way in a baseball context,

but I've rooted for teams that punched above their weight for a hot month and made the playoffs and got rocked in the first round. I think there's an element of happy to be there. And, you know, the fact that it came, the loss came against a division rival who you would just overhauled this. I would expect there to be some disappointment that they didn't finish the job. But, you know, if I were a Guardians fan, I would kind of be, I would kind of have my eyes open about how good this team. team actually was and be satisfied that, you know, they made it competitive. They won a game. They put on a good show. No, actually, no, they didn't put on a good show. My overwhelming takeaway from this series was how stark the differences between a close playoff series and a good

playoff series. Yeah. Because like Red Sox Yankees, I think they had three good games. And the Cardians and Tigers had three close games. Yes. And there's a big difference. It's true. Yeah. No, it's, even if you're a Guardians fans who got caught up in the fervor of the comeback, I think probably they were not in denial about how good that team was. Now, you don't have to be good to win in the playoffs or win a World Series, even so if you're in there, you can allow yourself to hope you can dare to dream. But I guess maybe you feel a little less robbed, just because not that you didn't deserve to be there, but it was just such a close call. to get in, and the team was, you know, negative run differential and probably a bit over its head. And I'm sure Guardians fans are sick of hearing that because it's been kind of a common refrain over the past few seasons. But, yeah, I don't know how you think of this over the long, cold winter. Do you warm yourself by the fire of the memory of having unseeded the Tigers and actually won

the AAL Central? Or does that feel like kind of a paper, not tiger, a paper division title? because you just get bounced right back into the series that you were playing a few days before you won that division title, and then your division rival immediately advances and leaves you behind, and I just don't really know what to make of that. It almost feels like this should be against the rules somehow. I was kind of excited by the fact that you had the intra-division matchups in the wild card round,

but it also does kind of feel like when you have a hard-fought division battle like that, And then ultimately there are no consequences to it because you just end up playing each other anyway and then... It is kind of very rocky too, you know? Yeah, yeah, I guess that's a good comp. So I don't know. I'm happy to hear how Guardians fans are feeling if you can muster the will to write in and let us know about it. I'll add this too. Like even if they, even after losing, like the conversation is about, oh, what a great comeback.

and even if it's like this team sucks and I can't believe they made the playoffs, you did get a really exciting stretch run and a playoff series out of this. And if that hadn't happened, the conversation around this team would be Emmanuel Claussay's gambling scandal, the Shane Bieber trade,

the impending trade of Stephen Kwan, and like what a downer, or that would have been. At least, like, if you're ambivalent about this series, the ambivalence is so much better than what it looked like this team was going to be at like three weeks ago. Yeah.

Well, when Meg and I were ranking the class, a little while ago, we noted that the tigers still kind of had an out. They could just forget about it or make people forget about it by just winning this series, and then it would be almost undone in terms of the practical effects. But I don't think that the stain of that collapse sticks to the tigers now the same way, but maybe that doesn't mean that the triumph of the title does not stick to the guardians. Like maybe it's not kind of an equal and opposite thing. It's like how strikeouts can be great for pitchers,

but not that bad for badders all the time. It's kind of like that. It's like, you know, the tigers don't really have to wallow in the indignity of having blown that lead because now they vanquished the team that unseated them and advanced anyway. But the Guardians still did do that. Everyone counted them out, and they forced their way in. And so I think they should still get to take pride in that. I don't know if they get to brag about it to Tigers fans specifically

or whether Tigers fans would even be bothered by that now. But I think they should generally be able to brag about it. I think that's right. And it makes me really grateful that there weren't multiple wildcard spots back in 2007 when the Mets collapsed because, man, I'm really enjoying that we're about to enter decade number three of Philly fans holding that over the Mets. Yes. Meg and I did declare like a one episode moratorium, at least on making fun of the Mets after that loss just for the sake of their fans. I didn't agree to that. No, I think there was a Phillies fan carve out for it. So you can do it. And also a little time has passed. So get used to it. Move on. You've had a whole week or whatever it is. The only other notable thing I think about this series, really, other than, you know, scoble shoving as usual, is that the reliever familiarity effect kind of.

went mainstream in this series if it wasn't already. Like Passon was tweeting about the reliever of familiarity effect. I don't know whether that actually came into play or whether that's why in the end the Tigers actually managed to score some runs off that Cardion's bullpen.

And it could be fatigue as much as familiarity because, you know, those guys were worked pretty hard down the stretch. But they had faced them an awful lot lately. Like there were guys who pitched in all the games in the series and then faced them last week too. And so it did seem like if there was ever going to be an overexposure, then this would be the situation. This was what, their ninth game in the span of three weeks?

Like, I'm pretty sure both of them are like, I'm just sick of seeing these guys, win or lose. Like, I'm glad to look at somebody else's stupid face. Yeah. Condolences, Cleveland and Detroit, we will talk about the Tigers more in just a moment. Padre's Cubs. So this got close and contentious at the end, mostly because of a bad call. But I was struck by the fact that the Padres, they built this fancy pants bullpen. And one of the frustrating things about...

I picked them to win the series, like entirely on the strength of the fancy pants bullpen. Right. And the fancy pants bullpen can be a big weapon, particularly in October. But it does require that you take the lead at some point. that's kind of, that's the Achilles heel of the great bullpen is that you don't actually get to deploy it to protect a lead unless you have a lead in the first place. And so it becomes almost extraneous like this luxury good if you can't get ahead. And I mean, you know, they did pitch these guys like Morayhon pitched in all three games and Miller and Suarez pitched in two. And there's some value in keeping it close, of course. But if you can't score enough or get good enough stuff, starting pitching to put the bullpen in position to protect leads, then ultimately it doesn't do you that much good, which I guess is the downfall of like stacking this super pen, which they did. By the way, the fancy pants bullpen threw 17 and a third innings and allowed one run, or allowed two rows.

It was as good as advertised. It worked, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if they had been able to continue, then maybe that would have been the story of the postseason. And, yeah, it was totally worth trading our top prospect for Mason Miller. And maybe it still will be. But a lot of that is kind of predicated on actually getting to use those guys in this situation.

And you can't count on that. Not that you can always count on using other aspects of your roster, I guess. Like, you know, starting pitchers can only pitch so many times. And there's a batting order that dictates when certain hitters can hit. But the bullpen, it feels in particular. It's just it's down to the vagaries of like sequence. basically. It's like if you you could score the same number of runs in the game,

but if you score them early and are able to put those pitchers in and protect that leads, then maybe you win one. Whereas if you get those runs late, then maybe it's too late. This is another thing I wrote about. Well, two other things I wrote about in my series preview. One, that the Cubs

defense was like a major event. We saw that with it was something like, like the Padres are not bad defensively, holistically as a team, but the Cubs were something like 40 runs better over the course of the season. I said that's going to show up in individual clutch defense plays, which we saw a couple of yesterday. And the other thing is this is a really shallow lineup for San Diego that like the Cubs for

all the injury concerns and, you know, PCA going cold at the end of the season, you know, maybe concerns about Matt Shaw at the end of the lineup. There's not a hole in that lineup. There are multiple holes in that San Diego lineup. And even on top of that, like, Tatisa Matrato went 0 for seven yesterday. Like, that's something you take for granted in any scenario where the Padres win. And so, you know, the bullpen worked. The holes in the lineup happens.

I don't think they were insurmountable, but, like, the stars need to hit. And the stars didn't hit. And if, like, that's just table stakes. And if you can't match that, you can't, you know, you're not going to make it very far. Yep. And really, that Cubs defense. It reminds me of 2016. It's like it's 2016 again where that team you just could not get anything by them.

I'm not saying it's quite that good, but it's not far, at least up the middle. They just do not really allow anything at all. Yeah, I think it's the best up-the-middle defense in baseball. I say, I think I don't think that's especially controversial. Yeah. And of course, the big story, one of the big stories from this game was one bad call on Sandra Bogart's in the ninth inning when the Padres. rallied, but were perhaps stymied by this one call.

It was Homeplay Empire DJ Rayburn, and Bogartz got called. It was, it was low. It was obviously low. It was visually low in the moment. Apparently looked worse than it was because of where the K-Zone was, but it was still bad. Yeah. So it's not, I don't know, I lost my mind over this when it happened. And I think it's not the one bad call.

it's that it was two consecutive borderline calls where Bogart's thought it was ball for and the umpire did the hot shot college ump show thing of wait for the runner wait for the battery to go to first and then call them back twice in a row and that was just like it's the thing that umpires do that drives me the most nuts like it doesn't matter to me

it almost doesn't matter to me that the 3-1 pitch actually did get a little bit of the corner just seems like such ump show stuff And it makes me, as you can tell, just incoherent with rage. And I'm not going to say, like, it ends up looking like it matters probably more than it did because the next two batters reached and, like, what happens if it's bases loaded and nobody out? Like, there's no guarantee that those batters reach if Bogartes is already on first. Like, we were into a whole other multiverse, but it, yeah, it's just like one of the worst and ugliest ball strike calls that I can remember,

particularly in this day and age where we're not just giving Tom Glavin seven inches off the plate just because you know? Right. Yeah, there was an era where nobody would have batted an eye at a call like this, but now it's an outrage because we're used to more accurate and conforming

and consistent strike zones. And the shame of it is that it actually was a pretty well-called game on the whole, I think. It wasn't as if he was blowing calls left and right the whole game, the ump scorecard suggests that it was pretty accurate.

It was just a really bad one. And that final, that strikeout call, it also, it seemed to evince some uncertainty to me because it was kind of a delayed call, and I don't know why exactly, but it seemed like he was waiting a second, like processing and almost... It looks like he was trying to show Bogart's up. It could have been showboating. Whether he was or not, that's what it looked like. Yeah, I don't know if it was that or if it was just like being.

a little torn about which call to make and then making a delayed call and making the wrong call. It almost seemed like maybe he knew that he had made a mistake immediately, but I don't know. We can't even see these people's faces. They have masks on. So we're just inferring based on body language and everything. But no, it's bad. And of course, you did have a lot of Padres fans saying that, yes, we would have had bases loaded no outs. And it's been drilled into me since I was a child listening to Michael Kay on the radio at that point where he would harp on about the fallacy of the

predetermined outcome, which is how he puts it. And, yeah, I don't think he invented the concept. But just, you know, like... It would be pretty cool if he did. It would. That would be quite a claim to fame if he had. But no, the next two batterers get hit by pitch is that probably does not happen if there's already a runner on base.

Like, you're going to be more careful. You're probably not going to throw that pitch there. And maybe those guys are going to swing or try to drive in the runner. Who knows what's going to happen. But, you know, it's a sliding. doors cascade of events and we'll never know, but obviously would have been better to get a guy on with no outs than to have nobody on with one out. So that is very frustrating to lose like that. And I saw there was some video shot by a fan who caught. There was kind of an

altercation as the umps were going down into the dugout and into the tunnel. And I don't know who inflamed this or who provoked whom, but the players were really kind of like, jawing at the umpires as they were leaving the field and kind of getting up in their faces and, you know, people being held back and everything, I wonder how often that happens where the debate rages on even after it's out of public view, even after the game is over. I'm sure, given the stakes of this game, obviously, it's going to smart more than it is in a typical game. This is where I'm disappointed you don't follow other sports because there was a famous, there was a famous Champions League

semi-final between Chelsea and Barcelona, I think, in 2009. And the ref blew all manner recalls. And Chelsea's players are basically, like, stop playing and just yell at him for the last couple minutes of the game. And they're, you know, they're going after him like this, the way off the tunnel. And Didier Dragba, the Chelsea striker, like, turns around and faces a, like, finds a TV camera. And Shane, it's good that you already have the bleep button out after the first part of this podcast. But he turns to the camera and says, it's a fucking disgrace,

like right into the camera. It's one of my favorite moments in soccer history. So, like, if we were going to do this, we needed, like, you Darvish to go full, Didier Drag or something on the way into the tunnel. Yeah. And, of course, you go back to baseball prehistory, and there were all kinds of rendezvouss and fisticuffs,

and that could happen away from the field as well. But, yeah, I wonder how often. Bill Clinton fighting guys, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's frustrating. I do wonder on some level whether MLB wants there to be a bit of ball strike controversy this month just to like pave the path even more smoothly for ABS and for the challenge system. because if they have a few howlers this month, you never really want it to be decisive in this way. But at least now there's some recourse or at least, now maybe it's more frustrating because if you're a Padres fan,

you're thinking, well, if this had just happened next season instead, then we could have challenged it. And it's also arbitrary. But if you're MLB, you're thinking, well, this is a bad look for baseball currently, but it's also a great advertisement for 2026, you know. Maybe you want a few howlers just to, point out how much better and new and exciting things are going to be next season.

I like that, just full tinfoil hat. I will say, so, like, as much as I'm on Bogart's side with this, and also there was, like, the weird auto strike that they tried to put on him in game one, he had an odd week. Like, I think Padre's fans are right to be aggrieved. I think there's a limit to the amount of aggrieved you can be when your team was in this position because they didn't score in the first eight innings of the game. Yeah.

And, like, this was not, you know, they were not facing Tark Skubel, or worse, it turns out, Cam Schlittler. Like, they didn't score off some pretty getable guys. And so it's hard to blame the umpires completely. Yeah. When the dust settles on this Padres baseball era, I don't know what we will make of it. It's just so much effort, so much expense, not just of dollars, but of AJ Prellors, just mental energy to assemble this roster

and build some fun, star-studded, competitive, contending teams that just have not gone all that deep in the postseason? Like, ultimately, it's got to feel unfulfilling, I think, to this point. I'm not saying it's over. They could be back, but they just constantly push their chips in, and they have not been fully rewarded for that. And they're not the only team like that in these playoffs. Like, you could kind of lump the Blue Jays in there with just, like, not having had the postseason success that the regular season excitement, seemed to portends, but I don't know.

This whole era of Padres baseball is just hard to know what to make of it. It's better than before, I guess, for the most part, but it's ultimately deflating. It's a little bit of a letdown. I would read the hell out of the John Kerry Roo book about A.J. Preller. Oh, yeah. Running the Padres. Yes. Okay.

Let's talk about Mr. Schlittler, as we carefully pronounce that. So, this was the Cam Schlittler game, and will forever be known as it, I guess, unless there are many more great Cam Schlittler games. But so many fun facts that were spawned by this performance, what, a first pitcher in postseason history with eight plus scoreless innings and 12 plus strikeouts and no walks. And he set the all-time record for strikeouts in a winner-take-all game. And he was the third youngest pitcher with 12-plus strikeouts in a post-season game. And he was the youngest pitcher to have at least 10 strikeouts and no walks in a playoff game since Don Newcomb in 1949.

Just various, you know, permutations of that. Third player, age 24 or younger to pitch eight scoreless innings in a playoff game without allowing a walk. However you want to say it. He was dominant and nasty and is immediately a true Yankee and a franchise legend. Just a monster game. Like I want to be cynical and jaded into. too cool for school about everything, but, like, if you're not marking out over that and you're not a Red Sox fan, then, or even if you are a Red Sox fan, apparently, because Cam Schlittler

converted his entire family were led to believe. We will talk about that. Yeah, but I've followed him with some interest this season, both the minor league stats and then the name and all the rest of it. And he's been, you know, kind of inconsistent. sometimes he walks too many guys, not that you would know it from this performance. And he doesn't even have like a change-up or a splitter.

You know, that's like his off-season project. So imagine when he actually has that to pair with his, I don't know, three different fastballs, but that's pretty much all he needed. He was just so nasty. And I was really looking forward to the rookies of October, the first-year pitchers who were slated to start potentially. And I highlighted this in a piece before,

the series that it could come down to Cam Schlittler versus Connolly early, but even I did not expect him to just step up like this. Like this was just, he just looked so in control, like barely broke a sweat, barely seemed to be phased by the moment whatsoever, like just looked like he had done this before. It was pretty impressive. I was, you know, not at all surprised, but just still sort of disappointed that he did not get to pitch the ninth. Like, I knew there was no chance, but it just felt like the sheriff's in town. I mean, he's the son of a police chief, I guess. But just, you know, let him finish what he started.

This is like a big boy game. Definitely. Like, it's not, I didn't go into this thinking it was outside the realm of possibility that Cam Schlow would shove and the anchors were just crushing this game. But in my mind, shoving was like twice through the order. And he, you know, he strikes out 10 and five innings, and also walks three or four guys. Like, this was just unbelievable. It's, you know, I think Jay Jaffe called it one of the best postseason pitching performances he's ever seen. And Jay knows about good postseason pitching performances.

So, like, that's a pretty hefty compliment, and I think entirely deserved. It's just incredible. And to do that in an elimination game, Yankees, Red Sox, like, I don't know, if the Yankees do anything in the next round, like, this guy. it's going to turn into a cult hero. Yeah, definitely. He has the name. He has the stature.

And now he has the performance. And this was not the only dynasty Yankees style performance because we had Ryan McMahon channeling Derek Jeter and toppling head over heels. Oh, man, that was so much better, so much better than the Jeter catch. Thank you. I feel like I'm a Jeter catcher or something because I've never been as impressed by it as I'm supposed to be, and maybe that's true of just Derek Jeter as a whole. And I say that as someone who was a class of Jeter played because it looked harder than it was.

Yeah, that's how I feel. Now, I've watched it a million times, and I understand how momentum works, because there are people who will say that it was kind of like a showboat play, like he didn't have to die, you know, because he takes a couple steps after he catches the ball, and then he just sort of Superman's into the stands. Now, he was going at top speed, and, you know, it was like a low fence, and I'm not saying that he could have easily avoided going into the stands. Yeah, I don't think he was, like, selling it or anything. Like, he actually did get beat up pretty bad making that play.

Bruises. He had wounds. He bled, yes. So, you know, it was an impressive play. But it's often lumped together with the flip, and I just don't find it to be nearly as impressive as the flip. Like, it's impressive. in the sense that he was willing to put his life on the line and, you know, just not spare body and limb and everything.

But, well, just the stakes of the moment, first of all, it was like, it was like July or something. It was, you know, mid-summer. Yeah, and like, you know, it was Yankees Red Sox at the height of the Yankees Red Sox rivalry, but they had like a seven and a half game lead over the Red Sox at the time. Now, I guess you could say that that makes it even more impressive and Jeterian that he was willing to go all out like that, and it wasn't even a postseason game. Like, maybe, you know, anyone will show the lack of self-preservation that Ryan McMahon did in a must-win wildcard game, and Jeter would do it midsummer. But that does still detract from the moment a little bit. I don't know. And I feel like maybe other people just would have made that catch without having to do it.

what he did, just because, now, that was one of the ways that he did have range, I think. At least that was my impression at the time that he could, like, go back on balls in that direction, and it was more just, you know, not being able to get to anything up the middle. Look, it was a good play. It was an impressive play. But I think the way that it burnished Jeter's legend was, like, just a bit overblown relative to even other Jeter accomplishments. And this Ryan McMahon play made me more afraid for his...

I want to say, it sounds like you were working through some stuff from your childhood. Maybe so. Maybe so. I don't know. You'd think that I'd be more in the Jeter cult than I am, but I just, I never was. I always found him to be a bit bland. And I was just much more of a Bernie guy and other personalities on that team. And, you know, I guess it was partly just because of the...

What a damning thing. It's so bland I prefer Bernie Williams instead. No, see, Bernie, okay, he wasn't flashing. and fiery, but he actually was... Absolute Ken Griffey Jr. of a Bernie Williams, the classical guitarist. Yeah, he was a gentle soul, which in a way, that's the real punk rock in baseball to be Bernie Williams in a baseball club house. I think that takes some kohones to be yourself, be kind of the quiet, gentle guy who just strumms his guitar and you're getting bullied by Cretans like

Mel Hall and there are other people. who are, you know, throw in stuff and cursing. And no, he's just a placid Bernie Williams, who's going to be just as good and just as clutch as anyone else. But, you know, he's going to do it in that distinctive Bernie Williams way. Anyway, they were both great players. But Ryan McMan's catch here, that made me afraid for his safety more than the Jeter catcher, or more than most instances I've seen of a player going into the stands.

Because that was like a total topple head over heels where I was, worried at first that like he's got to have a brain injury or something like he's just it was gymnastic like yes like just full like stiff as a board plank there's a do you watch taskmaster no okay i feel like you'd like taskmaster if anybody is listening to this who watches taskmaster when rob becket went over the fence in the task where you have to get soup out of a microwave that's what Ryan McMahon looked like to me on that on that play and like thank God there was somebody there to catch him also like I didn't know he just bounced right back up I didn't know Ryan McMahon was that springy yeah yeah and good for I guess for the Red Sox for just

realizing the gravity of that moment and how dangerous that appeared to be and actually offering some support because guys don't always do that in a opposing doubtship not to let your opponent maim himself. Yeah, I agree. I would jump over a fence to preserve some soup if that's what happened on Taskmaster because I'm a big soup fan, so that's important. Anyway, I'm not going to derail this. Soup is not food. That's ridiculous. Okay. Soup is, I feel like this is a Bill Simmons take that soup is the perfect food. No, Bill Simmons's take was soup is the ultimate food. Well, I don't know if it's the ultimate food, but it is a food that I enjoy very much. You'll notice that you want to know what people thought about that take? Ask how long

that show lasts on HBO. Oh, boy. Hey, you don't work for the rigor anymore. I still do. Don't get me in trouble here. But super's great. It goes down easy. It doesn't have to be a solid to be food. What's wrong? It's a liquid salad. Just like Derek Jeter. Exactly.

This could also be an effectively wild lyric if we're not careful here. All right. So that's a wrap on the wildcard round. And I'm kind of, I'm glad we got to see it, but I'm glad it's done also because I think that the division series is my favorite of the playoff rounds. I think it's the sweet spot, the postseason baseball spectating experience because the wild card is so chaotic. It's so frantic. It's 12-hour days. And I guess the beginning of the DS can be like that, too.

But there's a little more room to breathe just because it's a best of five. and some of the teams will get weeded out and then maybe you get some game fives and there aren't as many games on that day because once you get to the later rounds you have some disconcerting off days you have days without baseball at all and that's sort of sad

and in this round you still have enough baseball but not too much baseball because the wild card round sometimes it's too much it's like a fire hose of baseball and the DS I don't know it's just baseball soup don't stop it There needs to be enough baseball that, like, there's slightly too much, where if there's a dud game, it's not, like, the only thing you're looking for it to.

But now, like, we're getting the real heavyweights in there. Like, this Philly's Dodgers series has the potential to be just an absolute all-timer. Yeah. I am scared to the point of worrying about my own professionalism in the press box by this series. But, so, like, you're getting that, but you're also, you know, you're still getting four, you know, four games. day in a couple cases and yeah but it's not you know you're not just waking it feels like waking up and going right into guardians tigers and i had this i had an insane thought earlier this week that like the noon game like nowhere looks more noon than Cleveland you know i don't know if i do i don't know

if it's that just like that midwestern like winter sun that just feel it just feels so geographically noon. It's just the middle of the country, the middle of the day. I mean, I guess Cleveland's on Eastern time. I guess the whole, is it the Rust Belt? Is it Midwest? That could derail this episode, too. But I guess I know what you mean. I feel like Cleveland's non-controversially the Midwest. Like, I don't think there's any part of the Midwest that's non-controversial. That's what I've discovered in previous forays into this topic. I could make arguments like Toronto is the Midwest. The Pittsburgh is the Midwest. Like, please. Anyway, well, it's true that I did declare Ohio the epicenter of the baseball world barely, I don't know, a week ago, and now that is very far from the truth, unfortunately, for those teams. But they did briefly have the spotlight on them. So we've got these four series here, and maybe we can just discuss which one or which ones we're most excited for you've already given away your number one ranking. And I think it's a defensible ranking.

I mean, I think it's right. I think that that's, yeah, like, taking nothing away from, I think every one of these series could be dynamite, but like, I think these are the two teams or the two best teams left in the bracket. I do too, yeah. And it also feels like these are the best eight teams in baseball this year, which may or may not be a feature. I mean, sometimes it's good to have the random kind of chaotic team, but it feels like these are the teams that kind of earned it the most for whatever that's worth. I would say this is the best collection of eight teams possible, given the league divide. I think I would take the Padres probably over the Tigers, but... Yeah, if you could have unequal number of playoff representatives per team, then maybe.

But yes, so this was the best we could do, I guess, the closest we could come. And I agree that Phillies Dodgers is the most entertaining just because of, well, how good the teams are and how fairly evenly matched they are and how star-studded the rosters are. It's kind of obvious and normie, and, you know, this is the mainstream take. Really, what's the only argument against it, I guess, is that we've seen so much of these teams in recent October's, but we haven't seen them play each other. They haven't played each other since 2009. Like, if you're sick of these two teams going up against each other, like, sorry, like, congratulations for vividly remembering the late 1970s. Yeah. Well, I did dig this up, though.

The Dodgers, or sorry, the Phillies are the only National League team the Dodgers have faced in the playoffs during Clayton Kershaw's career and failed to beat. Oh, yeah, that's a good note. Good nugget. So he's out for revenge in his last chance. Yeah, right. Finally, he will get that monkey off his bat. Out for revenge against Jason Worth and Jeff Jenkins. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it feels overdue. it feels weird that they haven't faced off because they've been such postseason staples lately, but they have not, the path has not gone through each other. And so it does feel like the logical conclusion of all of these postseason appearances would be that they'd have to go head to head.

And we get the two best starting rotations going against each other. I mean, Shohei Otani versus Christopher Sanchez kicking things off. It just doesn't get much better than that. So I'm pretty psyched for this series, and you get to see Shohei hit. You get to see Schwerber hit. You get to see the two big lefty bomber sluggers. And I think there's something to having turnover in the playoff field each year. You want some new blood.

But I think you also do want some open. You want the heavyweights. Yeah, yeah. You want some continuity. You want just the familiar recurring characters whose arcs you have tracked through their ups and down. And you could say, well, the Dodgers, they got over the hump. They won the World Series last year with no 20-20 asterisks at all. And the Phillies, they're still searching for it.

And they're both getting up there in years. And who knows how many more times they'll both be back here. I mean, it's the Dodgers, so probably plenty. But, like, you never know. But, like, how far down the list of important players in the series before you get to, like, Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman? Like, either one of those guys. as with headline a couple of the others.

Yeah. You know, you mentioned John Duran probably, like, one of the biggest names that moved at the deadline. Like, this is what they brought him in for. It's just this feels very, I'm going to say, like, Yankees, Blue Jays feels very, like, classic baseball, but this is the marquee event for me. And then there's the Roki Sasaki factor. This is not what they brought him in for, but this is now,

the role he is filling, and he's looked so good that if he can be that guy for them, obviously huge bullpen issues behind him, depending on what other starters are working in relief. But, yeah, there's just no shortage of interesting matchups here. You know, you have all the Phillies, lefty aces going against the Dodgers, lefty sluggers. That seems like something that's going to come into play here. So, yeah, I think it's an obvious pick. This feels like a Yankees Braves World Series from when we were kids. Yeah, it does.

And for some people, that'll probably be too, you know, obvious, I guess. Tough. Yeah, it's not the... The postseason is for the casuals, you know? It is. It's true. Yeah. It's for us also.

But it's some, you know, sometimes our inner casual comes out and we just want to see the stars facing off against each other. That's kind of a big reason of why we watch here. Now, the next, I have a hard time, I guess, picking the next most exciting series, but I think I'll go with, I think I'll go with Yankees, Blue Jays. Yes, that, I think that's an easy number two for me. Yeah, I don't know if it's easy because there's another division rivalry here. You want to talk about Star Power, I think, and particularly the way the Yankees won that series, I'm so much more excited about the Yankees than I would have been this time last week.

Like, not just like the Cam Schlittler of it all matters a little bit, or matter. matters a lot. But, like, you know, how well free-pitched. Aaron Judge is box office no matter where, you know, where he is in the postseason. But the added wrinkle of, like, the Red Sox tested his throwing arm. Is he 100 percent? What can you get out of him? And then the Blue Jay is having the star power, you know, Vladimir Guerrero. I guess we'll see what they get out of Boba Chet. But, like, that's a really deep lineup. That's a rotation without, you know, maybe an absolute top end, number one, starting pitcher, but a lot of depth. I picked the Blue Jays to win the World Series, I'm pretty sure in our...

Not for the first time. Probably. I was trying really hard not to put, like, my prediction eggs in the Phillies basket again, but so I tried to pick something that was a little off the beaten path, and then I lost my NL pennant winner in the first round. I vaguely remembered one year when the entire base. Baseball staff of the ringer, which amounts to three or four people, was picking the Bouges to win, and then was that one of the years when they didn't even make the playoffs, or was that one of the years when they didn't win a playoff game, that doesn't really narrow it down. But I think the history here, the history with this team over the past several seasons, just the high expectations and the big characters and personalities and then either missing the play.

playoffs or just getting goose-egged and run right out of town. It just, they got to win a game with this group. And so I'm pulling for them to do that in that sense, just that they can kind of, you know, put that behind them at least. And this is another case. I mean, it's just like Guardians Tigers where you fight over 162 games and then right back into the fray, just facing off against this boss that you thought you had dispatched. So ultimately, the season series, I guess the bragging rights will be decided by that playoff round more so than the regular season in this instance, too. Yeah, it feels one thing that I'll sort of generalize about this, the Blue Jays are kind

of like the Phillies in that they have something to prove. Like they need to, like just making the playoffs with this group of players, particularly with Boba Shett, among a couple other guys. hitting free agency this year. Like, it's, I'm not going to act like it's their last chance or anything, but like this core has been together for a while, like you said, and they haven't done anything. Yeah, coming into the year, it seemed like it might be their last chance when Vlad was still a free agent and, you know, then they signed him and then they found some other guys and

who knows, maybe it's not the end of the road, but it's still. You'd say the Phillies have gone backwards since that surprise run of the World Series. You know, the brewers are in a perpetual case of like just win around, you know, the same about the Mariners who have just floated now this looks like the best team they put together under Jerry DePoto and they've suddenly become like the sexy pick to win the World Series despite never having been there in franchise history. Like there's a lot of teams with with a lot at stake here. Yeah. And so it does feel I guess like some of the thunder was stolen because you had the AL East matchup in the wildcard round with the greater historical rivalry and baggage. And so

you know, New York, Toronto is not quite... You said we were going to talk about this. Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, we completely forgot to talk about Cam Schlitler's family and their affiliations. Yes, let's. So Cam Schlitler controversially claimed, let's see, I have the quote here. So he comes from Walpole. He comes from Massachusetts. He grew up in a

Red Sox fan family. He pitched it northeastern, et cetera. So he said, before Wednesday's game. While his family may have grown up Red Sox fans, that's no longer the case now that he's in pinstripes. Quote, obviously growing up, I take pride in being from Boston. When it came to my career, this is where I want to be. They're full Yankee guys now, referring to his family. They don't wear as much around Boston, you know, just because when they're here, they're really prideful about it. So he's saying they're not wearing the pinstripes around Boston, but they're full Yankee guys now.

mean, we live in a golden age of lying in America. So I know your partisan credentials are not what they once were. And, you know, I'm just like thinking about, like, if my son grew up to play for the Dallas Cowboys, I think there is a situation where I would root for the Cowboys to beat the Eagles in a playoff game if my son was the quarterback or something. There are no circumstances under which I would wear Dallas Cowboys gear out in public. Yeah. And I think if my, I don't know, just going back to like the Cam Schlittler thing, like, if I'd grown up a hardcore Red Sox fan and my brother was pitching for the Yankees in an elimination game, like, I don't think I could bring myself to do better than, well, hope he gets a respectable, no decision in a, you know, in a close, low scoring game. Yeah.

Like, just imagine, like, being a diehard Red Sox fan, particularly as intense as that rivalry is. Like, it's not just, it's not just, oh, my son plays for the team other than the one he grew up brooding for. Like, that happens all the time. And, you know, the parents adjust. But, like, this is probably the only rivalry in baseball where it matters to this extent. And it's not just him. It's Ben Rice, too, grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in New England. And I just can't imagine love.

Like, I could imagine loving my son that much. I couldn't imagine loving like a cousin, you know, or like a childhood best friend. It's really a question of how much of your family do you truly care about? Like, how many, how much of your extended family do you have feelings for enough to trump your lifelong fan loyalty? Because it's fine. There have been a lot of controversies surrounding this rivalry with players employed by these teams. Because remember the Hunter Dobbins thing earlier this season where his father claimed to have played for the Yankees and then had a grudge against them and then that came out to not have been true.

And then that was weird also. But Dobbins was like a, you know, I'm dyed in the wool Red Sox guy now and Schlittler's the opposite. So it would have been hard for me to imagine this as a kid. This would have been inconceivable. It would have been anathema to imagine sort of changing my pinstripes, right? And I think I've told the story about how I went to Boston once when I was a kid. And my parents thought that it would be a nice thing to take me to Fenway Park because I was a big baseball fan. And I was mortified to be there.

I felt like a complete traitor, like I was behind enemy lines and that I was also just betraying my own team, just being there, because the Yankees weren't playing them. I was just at a Red Sox game. And of course, now I think Fenway is a beautiful cathedral of baseball. And I appreciate its aesthetics and its history and all of that. But at the time, I could not. I could not wait to get out of there because I felt like my skin was burning or something, just being there.

And so to imagine actually having to root for the team, of course, it's very difficult. And there was a quote in this same article, the CBS article, from Schlittler's high school baseball coach, Chris Costello, who says, Cam is a kid you... Man, what a Red Sox fan name that is. Yeah. Cam is a kid you root for no matter what hat he's wearing, quote, I'm still a Red Sox fan, but, you know, personal relationships will always overtake any fandom, so to speak. So I'll be rooting for Cam. I'll be rooting for Cam. Until Cam is not in the game. That is it. And then I'll be a Red Sox fan again. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's a very honest, reasonable position. I think that's probably where I would, you know, where I would come down. You know, root for him to strike out, 12 guys over eight scoreless innings, and then root for the Red Sox to make it all back up in the night. Yeah. Right. But if you're a parent, then it's harder to look at your son as sort of in isolation because, like, he's living and dying with the team's fortunes too. And you want him to keep going.

Like you want your son to win a world serious. Yeah, you want him to be happy. You want him to succeed on this stage. And so I don't know that you can sort of separate those things. If it's an immediate family, I think, you will become a convert. You just will because, like, how could you not? I mean, first of all, you know, I don't know exactly what their financial background and everything. I mentioned his dad's a police chief.

I don't know if they're like rolling in dough here or whatever. But, you know, your kids becomes a big league baseball player. that's transformative financially for many families. And so if you're suddenly like your kids paying off your mortgage or something with Yankees dollars, you know, are you saying like, I won't take. I'm not taking that blood money. Yeah. I don't think so, right? You're probably paying off your mortgage and you're getting the nice retirement home or whatever.

And at that point, once you are deeply indebted financially to that team, probably the feelings start to soften a little bit, I'd imagine. I just, I don't know. I think, I don't think you need to be that cynical of that. And I think you just, like, have unconditional love for your child. Yes, yes. And that trumps, you know, whatever petty differences you have with the baseball team. But beyond that, like I said, like I've, you know, my brother played baseball. And, you know, if he had gone to the major leagues and he had ended up in the Atlanta Braves, I don't know.

I don't know if I could have done that. Yeah. And I think it's different also if it's a homegrown guy. Like if your kid was drafted by the team as Cam Schlittler was. And you've got a long time to make your peace with that, I guess. You can come to terms with it. And also, yeah, you might have warmer feelings because they took a chance on your son. You know, like Cam Schlittler, he owes the Yankees, right?

I mean, you know, they owe him because he just delivered. It's a two-way street here. but, like, you know, they entrusted him with the ball, and they promoted him. And he wasn't a top prospect, and he was a seventh round draftee. So it's a little bit different if you're like Paul Skeen's or something, and, you know, it's just luck of the draw. You happen to end up with this team instead of that team, but any team would have been thrilled to have you. If you're Cam Schlittler, it's a little bit different because, you know, not every team wants you or wants you that way. And maybe you end up in some other organization, and they don't.

do as good a job of developing you as a pitcher and maybe you don't make it to the majors or maybe you're not as good so you you really i think do have to start to feel some fondness and some warm fuzzy feelings they're not even like against your will well i'm forced to root for this team because of my kids but yeah you know you're gonna feel you feel like they take you know they took care of your of your boy like yeah that's yeah especially yeah if you're drafted i mean you know he was drafted out of college but i guess especially if if you're a younger siney or Yeah, and, you know, they're housing you and, like, teaching you, you know, life skills and stuff. Yeah, it's almost like they're raising you in some way.

They're like, you know, your guardians away from home. So, yeah, I think naturally you would start to develop some feelings there. I will say this. I believe Cam Schlittler's mother is Christine, and she has a Twitter account, which is locked. But you can see her bio. I believe this is true. This is all fake news. I apologize.

But I saw her bio. I saw someone screenshot her bio, and you can never really trust the screenshot because that could be manipulated. But the Google Cash version of it still has her bio preserved. And it says, wife, mom, go pets, Red Sox, and now heart emoji Yankees. Okay. But currently, her active bio on Twitter now says, wife, mom, go Yankees, and Patriots. It doesn't say anything about the Red Sox.

So I think she may have scrubbed her Red Sox fan affiliation from her Twitter bio, either because Cam was playing the Yankees or because this started to generate some debate about whether this could actually be true and, you know, sending mixed messages on the Twitter bio. Once Cam says that you're a true blue Yankees fan. And having Go Yankees and Patriots on your Twitter bio doesn't send any in this political moment. Anyway, I think, yeah, you would find that it's possible. Even if you work in baseball, I mean, there are, you know, people who are not nearly as financially indebted to a team. Just if you're in a front office or something, there are all sorts of people who, like, become, you know, they root for that team, even if they grew up rooting for their rival or something.

Because once it becomes your livelihood and your future, as opposed to just your fandom, not that fandom is not important, but there are some things that trumpet. it. So I believe it. But yes, Cam Schlittler's extended family, I would imagine at most they're doing the Chris Costello while he's in there. I hope he does well sort of thing. Yeah, I'm not going to do the try to do an accent. Okay. All right. And I'll just put a word in for Brewer's Cubs because this is another one that I cannot believe has not happened. The Brewers have never played the Cubs in the playoff. This is like when the Mets played the Phillies last year, right? And they had never faced each other in the playoffs. And it was so strange because it felt like that should have happened before, maybe many times. And the Brewers and Cubs have never faced each other in the playoffs. And I know that like, you know, Cubs Cardinals will always be kind of the one true rivalry for the Cubs. But, you know, this is a real rivalry. Like these teams have been at each other's throats in the central. lately. So there's some stakes here. And plus it's like the Craig Council series and it's the George Webb Burger's series. It's just like the, you know, there's a lot of bragging rights at stake

here and two good teams. And also like I've been comping the Blue Jays to the Brewers all season long and sort of saying that maybe the brewers are like a better Blue Jays. Not by that much. Maybe the Blue Jays are pretty good too. But but they are sort of a similar. mold of team in some respect. So I'm pretty into this series too. I guess I'm a little less excited by the personnel because there are just fewer Chicago Cubs who excite me than there are Dodgers or Phillies or maybe Yankees and Blue Jays for that matter too. Maybe you could even say that about the Brewers. So there's a little less star power, but the matchup is pretty intriguing. I'm not that bothered by the lack of star power. You know, I don't know if we're going to get Kate Horton back.

for this series. I don't know what that. No, I don't think so. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, that's a, that's a bummer. Yeah. I think this is just all about the laundry. And, you know, the brewers sort of feel like, I don't know, they're like a mid-table English soccer team that they sort of, they turn over the roster, but they have like a cohesive identity and a, you know, a reputation for, you know, being put together cleverly and playing in a certain way. And, you know, we've seen the limits of that. and can they transcend it? I think that this, you know, this lineup has a chance to,

a better chance to do that than some of the previous incarnations, if only because I'm not that scared of this Cubs pitching staff. Like, I think it's fine, but it's not like a, I don't think it's going to go out and win them the World Series or anything. So, also, like, underrated local, I don't want to use the word animosity in relation to anybody living in Wisconsin because I don't think they're capable of it. But, like, these cities are only an hour and change apart. Like, I think there's a little bit of the little brother thing between the, with Milwaukee

and Chicago. And I think there is, like, even though you think of the Cubs as having, you know, direct cross-town rivals, there's, like, very much a familiarity breeds contempt, you know, Pawnee, Eagleton type of thing going on here. So, yeah, I think this is a, I'm pretty excited for this series, too. And the other way that the Blue Jays are like the Brewers is that they're both trying to put this postseason recent record behind them. The Brewers have at least won postseason games, but they haven't won a postseason series since 2018, so they're sort of in the same boat there where they both have the reputation for kind of coming up empty once October rolls around. So that's some extra stakes, just trying to put that behind them.

And then finally, that takes us to Tigers Mariners, which I think is a clear fourth place finisher here when it comes to excitement. But I don't know, it's not like all of these series aren't exciting in some respect, but it just feels like... There are elements I find exciting about this. Yeah, right. How could you not be excited about, I don't know, Scoobel versus Rally or whatever? But like, yeah, I just, maybe it's because of all the intrigue with the Guardians and the Tigers. that I feel sort of spent by that when it comes to any other matchup with the Tigers. Though I do still think that it would be hilarious if the Tigers won the World Series this year.

Just blow the 15-and-a-half game lead, be completely unfazed by that, go all the way. There's part of me that is kind of hoping that that that happens, but also part of me that wants Mariners fans to win for once. Yeah, this is not the same thing, but I was talking to somebody about, do you remember the podcast we did where we had Andy McCullough on during the Dodgers, losing 16 out of 17. Yeah. Yeah. Like that, they went to Game 7 of the World Series,

and a lot of people would argue they would have won it in an even playing field. So, yeah, I think that the fact that the, you know, the Tigers tied their shoelaces together for the last month of the season means virtually nothing in terms of their ability to put it together as postseason. Also, there's the local angle with Dark Scouble, because do you know where he played college baseball? If there were any baseball player who I would know played, but, no, I don't remember. Seattle University.

Oh, right. Of course, that has, that's actually come up on the podcast before I believe, as you might imagine. You're going to hear that a lot this week, I suspect. Yeah, probably. I have like, yeah, I have, I just have a void when I learn where someone went to caught. Mostly I never know. The information never enters my brain, but also when I do hear where someone attended. college, I immediately banished that knowledge from my mind.

Well, I look forward to you learning that again when he pitches in a couple days. Yeah, I guess that will be a constant refrain, as was we talked just the other day about the idea of athletes never having to buy a beer again in a city and whether that, or, you know, buy a meal or whatever it is, and whether that still applies in this era when athletes like make so much money that they don't really need a free meal or for a drink. and they might feel bad about accepting it. And also, like, a lot of them are wary of just going out in public because they'll just be caught on social media.

So is that saying obsolete now? And we got an email from listener, Sean, who said on a recent episode, you talked about the phrase never have to buy a beer in that city again. Tonight, after Cam Schlittler's Game 3 performance against the Red Sox, the broadcasters made that claim about him. When you discussed it last week, it was about Cal Raleigh hitting 60 home runs and also, like, leading the Mariners to the postseason.

an incredible feat accomplished by so few. Now it's being used for a guy who had a great postseason start, but has done it for the most storied franchise in the biggest city, not to diminish his stellar performance, but there have been plenty of players who had gutsy performances in higher stakes games, some who have been largely lost to history. For a comp, I think of Andy Chavez. In a bigger moment, he made an all-time great catch to keep the Mets World Series hopes alive. I'd wonder if he could walk into a New York bar today and have all his drinks paid for, or if he'd have to remind the locals of who he was and potentially produce video of what he did.

New York is a different thing, I think. Yes, there's a, yeah, there's like a park factor to this. There's, it's like a city factor. It's different if you are in a town that doesn't have that many sports teams or hasn't had that many great sports memories, then you can become a legend. If you're Cam Schlittler, you have a great game, but it's one of many great games.

Yeah, what percentage of, of, of New York City bartenders are going to recognize Cam Schlittler on site, you know? Right. That's, yeah, that's the other thing. It's just, you know, it's a melting pot, and there's so many people, and it's a baseball city to some extent, but there are two baseball teams and that, you know, what percentage of people are going to be able to pick you out of a lineup, especially if you're Cam Schlittler. But, yeah, no, I do think that it applies more. I mean, Andy Chavez, he actually, he should be getting his drinks comp for him if he wants to, for some. reason, but I don't know. There's a statute of limitations on it, I guess, as well. I mean, the more time passes, the fewer people are going to remember you on site, so you might have to. I think the move for the athlete, by the way, is accept the free meal and then leave an

outrageous tip. Yes, I think that's a good idea, too, because then you make the person feel good for having accepted their benevolent gift, but then also you just left them a whole bunch of money. So, yeah, that's a good call. All right. Well, it's time to talk more Tigers with Jason Benetti. Always a pleasure to talk to you, even despite the way that you started this episode.

So thanks for filling in. I do, you know, we love Jason Benetti. He's a prince among men. Ask him what he wrote for you, you know? Well, spoiler. I've already talked to him because that's the way the podcast recording works. But now people would be disappointed if I didn't ask him that after I asked me to ask that. I had to defend myself, but you did make Jason Benetti wait, made all the people wait

to hear from Jason Benetti while you trotted out your explicit Beastie Boys effect. You didn't make him wait. We've gone way longer podcasting. But you made effectively well as listeners. They're accustomed to waiting. It's true. They're in this for the long haul. Did Richard Love Lady have a striker, Taylor Teagot, and who had more war, Jason Kendall, or Russell Martin, what if show here, Tony's dog was also a good lawyer?

What would you do if my truck just showed a binger for you? Or is it foyer? Find out uneffectively wild. Find out uneffectively wild. Find out uneffectively wild today. Well, the Detroit Tigers have made it to the ALDS. If you've been unconscious for the past month or so, nothing about that sentence would sound surprising.

And if you're a Tigers fan, I kind of hope you have been unconscious because it would have made life a lot easier. However, I hope you are conscious now because the Tigers are about to play the Mariners in a best of five series. The only downside to the Tigers advancing is that Jason Benetti will not be calling their postseason games,

or any postseason games, for that matter, which makes effectively wild the exclusive home for Jason Benetti baseball commentary this October. Unless, I guess, he does other interviews about baseball. I didn't think of that. You're allowed to, to be clear.

Regardless, we're happy to have him on even non-exclusively. And honestly, we wouldn't want to keep into ourselves. So, Jason, welcome. Currently, I am exclusive, too, effectively wild. So as it currently stands, I'm glad to be here and be exclusive. Well, anytime you want to call us up and talk tigers or baseball, we're at your disposal. It's a standing invitation for you to blow off some baseball steam amid the football games that you'll be covering.

And what a whirlwind this has been for you, for Tigers fans, for the Tigers themselves. You came on this show last September to talk about how the Tigers never lost a game. And we were too nice to have you on this September to talk about how they never won one. But in your two seasons as the TV voice of this franchise, you've experienced basically everything that the sport has to offer. So I don't know where you go from here. Maybe you have a nice predictable middle of the road season next year. that sounds nice. But take me through just the emotional polar opposite extremes that you have experienced in the past two seasons. Yeah, you can't spell Detroit Tigers wildcard without

TLDR, I guess. Like, it's, that's the whole season is TLDR right now. Like, I, I, I, I don't really know what this is yet. And I think anybody who says they know what the tiger, are, it doesn't really know because they are a very good team when they're rolling. We saw it in the beginning just yesterday as we tape this in the finale against Cleveland. We know that when it's a fully constituted lineup, they can hit home runs for top 10 in the league purposes. And it's also like, it is just bizarre to watch a team that felt like it couldn't lose look like it might not be able to win again. But, you know, Thursday in Cleveland, at the end of the regular season, they needed something.

They needed some sort of shift of the emotional tenor of the whole thing, and they got it, and they got a win that was very, very necessary, and part of it was Troy Melton and his sort of Zen behavior, which obviously Troy gave up a couple of runs in game two of the wildcard round. But I also, to be honest, like, as much as they rode that wave last year, they felt like a team at the end of this season that was experiencing the most human of reactions and the toughest human reaction to get out of. It's the reason Las Vegas has as much success as it does. It's, you know, chasing bad money. It's the feeling that you've lost something that you had. that you feel like you should still have.

Like a feeling of loss is the toughest thing for humans to cope with. And I think that permeated the clubhouse. That 15 and a half game lead, I think that permeated the clubhouse. And they think that as a group, they had to figure out how to cope. Was there a specific lead

where you started to think, uh-oh, like this might actually at some point between 15 and a half and zero? Did it get really real? Yeah, whatever it was the day Cleveland came in for that first three-game series in September. I don't remember exactly what the number was, but I want to say it was like seven and a half maybe, right? When Cleveland first showed up and was within the fun zone, you know, within striking distance, that's when I thought, you know, I was the kid who grew up rooting for Coppin State in the NCAA tournament. So, like, I know long odds, and I know how to convince myself that long odds are available to be gotten.

And so there is a range factor there where you just go, oh, oh, if they win all six of these, like, that's not good at all. And when Cleveland first showed up, I'm looking at my scorecard right now so that I have it right. It was six and a half. So they were at six and a half with six to play against the Tigers. And at that point, if they win all of the games, they win the division. Yeah. And you just like enough of, I'm enough of a pie in the sky, underdog, router anyway. And we just saw it last year with the Tigers.

Yeah. So like anybody that just said, yeah, 15 and a half's enough. Like, no, it's not. Yeah, I was going to ask whether that made Tigers fans more afraid of the possibility just because they'd been on the other end of it the previous year. And so they knew that no odds, no long odds precluded a collapse or a comeback happening. It's just we did it to other teams, so theoretically someone could do it to us. And I, you know, this team has drawn comparisons to 2006 as well, which kind of faded down the stretch

and made a run in the postseason, obviously. So I think Tiger fans who've been around for a while have seen versions of this before, and they have generally been on the wrong side of it, other than 19. You know, they get out to the 35 and 5 and level off a little bit, but generally just ran roughshot on the division that year. So I think if you're old enough, you've seen all of it. But recency bias-wise, there's no team that was better equipped for its fans to understand what was happening and hate it than Tiger's fans.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you have a feeling when you were watching this team early in the season? And I mean, they ended up winning one more game than they had in 2024 and just took a completely different path to it, which would be funny, I guess, if you were not directly involved in it and suffering through it. And maybe now you can look back and laugh. I guess I'll ask you about that. Perhaps it's too soon to laugh. But did you think when everything was going so smoothly at the start of the season?

Because Meg and I kept kind of checking in with each other, are the tigers this good? Are they really good? I guess they're really good because we didn't think they'd be bad or anything, but we thought, well, maybe there will be kind of a consolidation year or I'm not sure that they'll be able to carry over that late season success. And then they were so good and so strong and so convincing early in the season that we kind of got lulled into overlooking some flaws. I think it's a couple things. I think it's number one. We still don't know what this pocket of Tiger's time is going to end up being, you know, like who lives, who dies, who tells your story sort of Hamilton. wise like we don't even know what this postseason is going to be but like you look at you look at may

they swept the red socks they swept the giants like they won two of three against toronto in may then in june they won two of three against the cubs and there was all sorts of reason to believe that they could beat a bunch of playoff teams then seattle came in before the all-star break and kind of took their mojo like it was it was some blowout wins and then suddenly that literally was the first time, that end of the Seattle series was the first time all year the Tigers lost more than three in a row. And then it happened twice in a big way in July once and then September. And I really do think there was like some coping that went along with it. And I also think when you play a ton of close games, you're just prone to some mercurial behavior.

And that's the way the Tigers have been. Well, good thing they don't have to play the Mariners again. Yeah, you don't want to lose three to Seattle now. That would be even worse, probably. But what do you make of this then, given this historic collapse that ultimately is meaningless, I guess? It's just so absurd that it happened this way. And then they ended up beating the Guardians. And so is that it?

Do they just exercise the demons like a few days after they took root, really? Like, is this just, well, shrug it off? Like, I don't even know how to analyze this or how it would feel for the players or for the fans to basically be given a reprieve here. I mean, not given. They took it for themselves by winning that series. But is the slate clean now? Does this continue to haunt them? Like, is this something, is this Tigers team notorious for all time because they blew the biggest lead that's ever been blown?

Or is it just completely insignificant now? I mean, you know, it's funny. Number one, those are some pretty acute symptom demons, you know? Like, just rushed on set demons. And I know this is true for every team that until you reach the finish line, you don't know exactly what this team is going to be for the year. like that only one team wins all of those cliches but i don't know that there's a harder team to evaluate what they currently are as a state of a franchise than the tigers because i think everyone wanted to paint them as the up-and-coming team and everything that i see would suggest they are like

you look at what they've done this season had they closed this year 31 and 11 and rampaged into the playoffs and had the number one farm system, according to some outlets in Major League Baseball, people would be like, oh, man, I'm buying stock in the Tigers right now. Like, they are in the best shape of any organization other than maybe like the Dodd, you know what I mean? Like, there's a list and they'd be on it for sure. And now they're in the division series after losing, you know, 17 of 24 to close. And they're in the same spot as they were last year with maybe just as good of a shot to advance. And so, you know, I think holistically taken, this Tiger's team is still on an upswing that is, you know, you would hope limitless. But you also have this enormous pitfall

right in front of you. It's like saying, like, ah, we don't live in Tornado Alley, two days after a tornado rip through. Like, just because you don't really live in an area that's typically volatile in that way, doesn't mean it can't happen. So trying to convince people that it can't happen again is going to take some time. But to win another playoff series, they would have to then have won at least five of seven at the time when it most mattered. So I think I'm actually coping with this as I'm talking it out with you because I don't really know what it is. But Ben, like I truly don't think we're going to know until at the end of the season. But, you know, how many teams have made the playoffs back to back year?

Like, you'd rather be the tigers than the Mets, I'm sure right now, right? Mm-hmm. Oh, sure. Yeah. And I just, I'm just fascinated by whether the psychological scars just instantly clear up or whether they linger a little bit. I don't think you can. Like, I don't, as a fan, I think you sit with all of it.

Yeah. I think you have to sit with all of it because you're invested. Like, whatever, there's a reason reason reason why us exists. Like, it just happened. So did 31 and 11. But, like, that was last year. Like, who knows if that's going to happen? It's funny.

Like, you can, if you're a pessimist, you can latch on to 7 and 17 being your forever future. If you're an optimist, you can latch on to 31 and 11 being your forever future with the 7 and 17 being a blip. And then everybody else is just trying to convince you to have a decent day. Yeah. Just like, do Guardians fans, do the Guardians get to gloat or not? Did they just immediately lose gloating rights?

like who who gets to say scoreboard i don't even know it's just it is an interesting question isn't it like it's it's it's one of those like you know in college basketball you play twice in the regular season and you lose in the conference championship game and you won the first two and you're the one seed and they're the three seed but they beat you the last time so like i don't know if you play a fourth time you both feel good about yourselves i don't know but they're not going to play again until who knows 2026. You can make so many analogies to other sports because you're such a utility man

when it comes to the broadcast booth. This is just great. You can comp baseball to basketball, football, just equally at hand. So one of the things that powered, maybe the primary thing that powered the Tigers comeback in 2024 was the bullpen and the pitching chaos approach.

And then this year it was the bad kind of chaos. And the bullpen kind of let the team down and was a weakness. certainly in September, really for much of the latter part of the season. And they just didn't really have the arms and they couldn't really miss many bats. And I was wondering coming into this year whether the workload would take a toll. Just having had to work so hard down the stretch in 2024, whether that would have some sort of hangover effect, I don't know whether we can possibly tell whether it did or whether

it was just different personnel or guys having different seasons or what. But that's something that I think makes the fan experience worse. Like, all losses are bad, but I think bullpen-induced losses are particularly bad when you don't have confidence in your pen and you feel like you're going to fritter away every lead and you just don't have that shutdown guy, especially in October when just about every team has one of those guys, if not several. That's something that this team is still dealing with, even though it's still alive. Yeah, you start using the phrase, just my luck, right, in life, right? Just my luck, they put green onions on a salad. I don't like green onions. Like, that's not your luck. Somebody just screwed up, right? Somebody just didn't pay attention. It's not that they don't like you. It's that they just didn't pay attention to your order. But, you know, that's the problem with bullpins is that we know they're volatile. We know that year to year, you probably need to change some pieces. But we don't know exactly. when those pieces are eroding, like, a car that you drove off the lot, right? Like, do you have 60% of that value still? Like, you just don't know.

And he tried to build a collective that's as immune to that as possible. But, like, you, I don't know if you got the same texts, but as Game 3 was rolling along on Thursday, I got a bunch of texts from people who are friends and in and around the league, like, hey, are they fine? Is there a bullpen, the Cleveland bullpen finally burning out? Yeah. Like, does Gattis not have anything in the tank? Does Cade Smith not have anything in the tank?

Like, that sort of question. And, you know, we asked our friends at Sport Radar, the stat people, like, during the third to last series, how often Stephen Vote used those guys three days in a row? It does it, is it decisive? I don't know. You don't know? Like, we don't know. It kind of feels like that. Like Tyler Holton, right?

Did Tyler Holton's workload create lessened. impact for him against lefties with that cutter and sweeper this year i don't know maybe but like we do have history that says bullpens do erode and so you know i i think everyone tries to be as immune to that as possible i think that's the idea behind troy melton is fresh arm who you're not going to maximize innings as a starter you're just going to put him in when you can to to be sort of a secret nuke out of the bullpen. But I think it's got to be part of it when you have a lot of the same guys in your bullpen from a year when they used the bullpen quite a bit. I think there's going to be some at least delta there, some change. I will never not hear someone say Kate Smith

and not expect to hear God bless America suddenly sounding. It's just too close. I know that you said that that Mariner's series in July was the turning point, but I would actually put it a little bit earlier in mid to late June when my best friend John Brebia was released. I think that was actually when the season went south. I know that he did not pitch particularly well for the Tigers, but I just think that as a personality, as a clubhouse glue guy,

he was so indispensable that they didn't know what they had. And really it was just a completely, just a tale of two seasons before Brebeah and after Brebribe. Yeah. So I would actually agree with that wholeheartedly. And here's why. So in May, I'm just looking at my text right now, Ben. It is so, like, you're the only person who's going to say that name to me in the postseason. And so you're going to get this story and you're going to like it. We did a podcast with A.J. Hinch in May, Dan Dickerson, Tiger's great radio guy and I, and we asked players for questions for AJ. So I asked John Brebeah, who has a grand sense of humor, for a question for A.J. Hinch. And here, in its full glory, verbatim from my text messages, is the question that John Brebeah asked. You ready for this? Oh, yes. Never been more ready.

The year is 2038. Earth has been decimated by a zombie apocalypse. Naturally, all of the relievers survived and have been thriving since the outbreak. AJ, you have a beloved pet owl named Owl Capone. One day, Raiders invade our camp and take Owl Capone back to their base as a hostage. You're furious. Owl Capone is more than just a friend. He's also your spirit animal. You can only fit three other people in your Prius to go on this rescue mission.

Which relievers are you taking and why? And what did he say? AJ was like, Will Vest and a lefty or something like that, right? Clearly the answer was not John Bripia, unfortunately. No, it happened to not be. That was completely detached from his release. But it was like a power arm, a lefty, and will vest, I think was the answer. For Owl Capone's Rescue.

This was a day later by, like, I go up to him in the clubhouse. I was like, hey, if you think of it. And then he texted me the next day and was like, yeah, so we didn't have a ton of time to think about it. But here's what we came up. within the limited time we had. I hope he gets to play baseball as long as he wants, but also I'm looking forward to his post-baseball broadcasting slash podcasting career, whatever comes next.

Okay, so what was your role as the broadcaster who's presiding over historic collapse? Because you're the constant steady presence. You're coming into people's living rooms. You're comforting. And you don't want to be a homer. Polyanish and assure everyone, oh, it's going to be fine. It's just, we've still got an eight game lead or whatever, right? You want to be clear-eyed about it, but also, I guess you kind of become a counselor of some sort as the tiger's world is falling apart around you. So did you see yourself

as some sort of play-by-play person slash therapist, or was that not really your role? Yeah, I mean, I think there's, you know, people can cancel therapy, right? People can be like, Yeah, I'm done with this. These sessions are no longer useful for me. I think at some point, it became very realistic that the tigers could miss the playoffs. And if I sit there and I tell people the tigers are going to make the playoffs, I'm certain of it. I am not telling the truth.

It wasn't the truth at the time. There was a chance. I mean, they finished tied with the Astros, for goodness sake. So, like, if I tell people, it's all going to be fine, we promise. Like, you just can't. You can't know. because 31 and 11 just happened the last year. So, you know, that Wednesday in Cleveland, the second loss,

there was a definite sense of lethargy around the team. And we commented on it, Andy and I commented on it, that there just wasn't the same emotional verve from this team. And basically what we said, and I'm just kind of paraphrasing, but what was in my mind is, hey, you have four days to fix this, starting tomorrow and you can go get everything you wanted to get other than maybe the division like that's still all is at hand but you have to go get it and there has to be a change and i think we were on something of high alert for that emotional change that whole series just those small things the details the tigers were doing that made them

so marginally better like turning fly balls into outs turning first base into third base like all of those things, we were just kind of magnifying those because I think that's what's going to lead you to winning two of four as they basically had to to make the playoffs. We didn't know the full number at the time, but you're going to have to win some games. I mean, there's also the piece where, like, I went back to my hotel room and ordered DoorDash Taco Bell that arrived on a bike while I was watching AF play the Astros. That's also a coping mechanism. But I guess if you if you wanted me to put it a certain way, like, what did I become? It was more like the eyes of Dr. T.J. Ecclberg in the Great Gatsby.

Like, you're just watching all of it and, like, kind of silently judging while you also are just gathering all the facts to make sure that you tell the truth to the audience. And I also wonder, because you're a funny guy, I think, and most people think, you know, not John Brebbya funny, but broadcaster funny for sure. And can you crack jokes while this is, like, is there a gallows humor that happens? Or does it have to be funereal? Like, you know, is it the wrong time to just kind of shoot the shit when this team is falling apart? Do you have to speak in solemn tones?

Yeah, we had a lot of votive candles around. No, I'm all for maudlin humor when possible. And it's funny, we actually had as a crew, we had that very disqualive. discussion because it was Wednesday there was a rain delay in the series. And we have all year since like May been playing hashtag rain delay questions during rain delays where we take questions from the audience and answer whatever. Like which saved by the bell character would you be? Or like what's your favorite cupcake or you know like any anything anyone wants to ask us, right? Like Jeff Daniels who's a Tigers fan sent in reenact your

favorite scene from dumb and dumber at one point earlier in the year and people have loved it like people have had fun with it i like we all get kind of chased down in public for people to tell us not that they love the tigers which is that but also that they love rain delay questions and so we we had a discussion like do we do it here like the tigers are collapsing historically do we do it and we decided yeah of course like we're not we're not wearing black so what we did was we did our regular open, came on, talked about the game for as long as possible, and then I pulled out a media guide because every broadcast that does comedy well does media guide props. Like the Mets broadcast passes it around like it's the high holidays and they just read from it when they're down 11,

which is amazing. So I pull out a media guide and I say to Andy Dirk's, I go, hey, do you think we should play Rainsley questions? And he was like, he was like, yeah, I do. And I go, okay, well, if That's true. We'll do it. But I need you to put your hand on this media guide and swear to me that when the game happens, you're going to focus on the game. And so he solemnly swore taking the oath of office for Rangelay questions that we were going to focus on the game during the game. And I just like, it is a game. It is all fun in games until like the thing that you really invested in falls apart. Nobody wants that. And so like I am sensitive to that as a fan base. Like, come on. You can, like, everybody says this about teams.

If you get tighter, you're going to get beat. So I refuse to do that. Like, it's just, it's not, that's not the sensibility of our show. And so, like, we still did have our fun. And we did joke around about stuff when it was available. And then, like, the way you earn that, I think, as an announcer, is you nailed the serious moments. Well, the Tigers live to fight for at least a few more games. and for all anyone knows, they're just a normal team that took a normal path to the playoffs.

So for anyone who has not been watching the Tigers all season and might just be introduced to them on a national stage and maybe just knows that that Terrick Scoopal guy is good, what else or who else should they be looking out for? This is a team that's very aggressive on the bases, of course, but who are some of the secret weapons or the players that people will come to know in love hopefully over the next days or weeks. Yeah, I mean, he hit a big, I'll start with the guy who hit a big homer in game three of the wildcard round, but Dylan Dingler has become a very complete catcher in year two. He's been one of the best blockers in the league. He is a very good thrower, and he combined with Javi Baia, as we saw it just the other day in game three, the zip on that arm and the tag ability from Javi, who is like the best tagger in the history

of Major League Baseball can thwart your run game in what could be. a low-run scoring environment series against the Mariners. Like, that could be really important. The combination of Will Vest and Kyle Finnegan, the way A.J. Hinch has deployed them as sort of closer one, closer two, you know, Finnegan, obviously, threw first in back of Flaherty in a leverage situation in game three. And there's reason to believe that, like, he would be a leverage guy once again, wherever AJ needs him first. But I think that combination, they both can get left-handers out. That's important. Will Vest's change-up is improved. Finnegan's splitter fastball combo. He's thrown more splitter since he's been with the Tigers. So that's fun.

You know, I think Riley Green gets a lot of flack for the strikeouts. And, like, I think it's going to be really fascinating to see how the Mariners pitch him, because everybody else has been throwing him fastballs, upper rail fastballs to strike him out. But that whole pinch hit for Riley Green in game two thing is the first time A.J. Hinch has done it since I've been there in the last two years. And I wonder if he just put it on paper. I wonder if that was like, number one, he wanted the righty at bat for Jemai Jones. He didn't know if he was going to get it another time. But A.J. Hinch loves forcing managers to think about things. And I do wonder if that maybe dissuades Dan Wilson from a left-hander at a certain time against Riley Green. So those are some of the headlines. And I also think Casey Mye's going to be an interesting.

cat as this team moves forward. His fastball has gotten firmer the past couple of starts, and he's always been the fastball splitter guy dating back to his Auburn days, but, you know, the breaking stuff has been somewhat better this year. And, and, you know, if the tigers are going to go anywhere, it's going to take him, Flaherty, et cetera, other than Scoobel to do a number on some people. Well, October will not be the same without you calling baseball, of course. Where can people hear you if they just miss your voice? Solely unaffectively wild. I won't be doing anything other than, no, this week I have Cowboys Jets for Fox.

I'm doing for Westwood One next Thursday night, Giants Eagles on radio, and then I'm back with my regular college football partner, Robert Griffin III, next Saturday in lovely Lubbock, Texas for the unbeaten 26 million dollar men, the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Well, someone's got to call the other sports, too. So I guess it's okay. We'll let you, we'll share you. It's all right.

Thanks, baseball. Thanks, effectively, wild. And, of course, you can always go look up the back catalog of Have a Seat with Jason Benetti and Dan Dickerson, where you can sometimes hear John Brebia submitted questions to A.J. Hinch. And you can hear Dan, of course, on the radio, Colin Tiger's games. So that's some consolation, at least. Well, it is always a pleasure, and I think the rallying cry will probably be win-one for Brebia because he doesn't have a ring, I believe. So I assume that the guys will just be mainly motivated by the idea of getting him some jewelry and also a full playoff share. And we will look forward to you calling Tigers games again one day.

And of course, you are always welcome. Moments notice, you have a stray Tiger's thought that occurs to you. in the middle of the night. I'm always awake. Just text me. We'll get you back on the podcast anytime. Ben, thank you. Okay, we had an incredible cutoff moment at the end of the intro, transitioning to the break before Benetti, where I was remarking to Bauman that he was keeping effectively wild listeners waiting to hear Benetti, but that they're accustomed to waiting. And there was a brief silence, and I hit stop on the recording at the very instant that Bauman began to say, they're in the cuck chair. And immediately he burst into uproarious laughter because he

realized that I had hit stop the second he started to say that and that it was not preserved on tape. And you know, I could have considered myself lucky and left it on the cutting room floor, but I felt like I had to acknowledge it for effectively wild lore. This is now, to my knowledge, the first time, and I suppose about to be the second time that the phrase, Cuckchair, has been uttered on this podcast. When you bring Bauman on, you both know what you're in for and have no idea whatsoever. I wonder, by the way, what the odds are that Zander Bogart still would have had a challenge remaining in that situation. in an ABS scenario? Because in an elimination game and a close game and the ninth inning by the time

you get there, given the roughly 50-50 success rate of batterers challenging, or players challenging in general, pitchers are the worst, catchers are the best, might the Padres challenges have been exhausted by that point anyway? And might that have been even more frustrating if you had a challenge system, but no challenges remaining when there was a glaring call like that. That's one of the reasons that I tend to think that we will eventually get full ABS, because You're bound to get a game with a terrible high-stakes call and no recourse. I wonder whether people won't just think, why are we depriving ourselves of correct calls at this point? And hey, speaking of Cal, he won an award.

He beat Aaron Judge for the Baseball Digest Player of the Year award. Not sure whether the outcome of the Baseball Digest Player of the Year award is predictive of MVP. Not sure if it's like people who try to predict the Oscars by looking at the BAFTAs or the Globes or the Critics Awards and the Guild Awards. I don't know, but my position was not necessarily that Cal should win MVP, if anything, I lean toward judge, but that Cal was the player of the year, that he should win Player of the Year awards in the American League. And so I suppose I think Justice was done here. Of course, justice is always done when people sign up to support the podcast on Patreon,

which they, or you, can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. And signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. Bob Dabalina, Alex Odie, Melanie, Paul, and Patrick Garza. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free fangras memberships, and so much more.

Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. Playoff live streams coming soonish. Of course, we need Meg to complete her recuperation, her convalescence. We need her to have a voice. But I hope that will happen soon. I hope she'll be back with us next time. In the meantime, if you are Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast

at podcast at fangraphs.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join or lurk on the Effectively Wild sub-edit at R slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes at Fangraphs to the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the division series action.

And we will be back to talk to you early next week. Where do you go in a world of bad takes for the good takes on baseball and life with a balance of. analytics and humor philosophical music Effectively wild Effectively wild Thank you.