Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cardinals Clash With The A's At Busch!

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Cardinals and A's clash in crucial series. Can St. Louis overcome Oakland's rising stars?JD Hafron from Locked on Cardinals and Booney from Locked on A's break down the Cardinals' unexpected performance slump and fan reactions. The discussion covers St. Louis's player development challenges, Sonny Gray's impact, and emerging prospects like Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker. Booney highlights Oakland's exciting young core, including Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson, while analyzing the A's rebuilding strategy. The hosts offer in-depth predictions for the three-game matchup, examining potential pitching duels and key factors that could swing the series.Tune in for expert insights on how these teams' contrasting situations will shape this intriguing interleague battle.Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-st-louis-cardinals/Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIOFollow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_CardinalsSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTee up that trip! Enter for a chance to win a dream golf trip for two to any golf tournament* in the USA. Visit 5HEWIN.com for full rules and entry. No purchase necessary. Excludes the Master’s tournament. Ends October 31, 2025.UpsideSimply download the free Upside app in the App Store or Google Play and use the promo code SEASON to get an extra 25 cents back per gallon on your first fill up. Start earning cash at the pump, today!Click Here: https://getupside.onelink.me/zlLr?af_xp=custom&pid=barrington&c=barrington_lockedon25&deep_link_value=promo&deep_link_sub1=lockedon25&af_dp=upsideapp%3A%2F%2FZippixGo to ZippixToothpicks.com and use promo code LOCKEDON for 10% off your first order. Zippix Toothpicks—energy and focus, anytime you need it.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONMLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.PrizePicks — Run Your Game.Click Link Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONMLBMonarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)#ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals #stlouiscardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, there Cardinals fans. It's J.D. And we've got a series against the A's kicking off at Bush Stadium on Monday. So Booney from Locked on A's and myself got together and did a crossover on Monday morning. Here it is. Hope you enjoy it. From dynasties to damage control, A's, Cardinals today. You are a locked on MLB crossover. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day.

Welcome to this edition of Locked-on MLB crossover, where we are locked on A's, Locked-on Cardinals. My name is Boone, host of Locked-on A's, and this is J.D. Hafron from Locked-on Cardinals is joining me here today. J-D., how are you, sir? I'm doing well. Busy weekend, obviously with the holiday, but back at it on a Monday. We do not get Labor Day off, Boone. Me and you are working, the Cardinals' A's are working.

We're back at it. Yep. absolutely, and I want to talk about the Cardinals. But first and foremost, JD, I didn't know if you knew. But today's episode is brought to you by Fandual. Football season is around the corner and visit the Fandual app today and start planning your futures bet now. J.D., when I think about the Cardinals, and for all the years,

I've been a fan of baseball, I always thought about the Cardinals as the Yankees of the National League. I mean, since 2017, playoff appearances, six NLCS appearances, four World Series championships, excuse me, four World Series appearances and two championships.

And as of late, no playoff appearances since 2021. What is going on with the Redbirds? Well, the excuse that is given is that, that, you know, player development hasn't quite worked out the way they wanted. That was something that they fell way behind when it came to how they were developing players. It wasn't so much that they were like drafting bad players.

They just weren't getting the most out of them moving forward. They put more of their resources towards what was going on on just the Major League roster instead of, you know, pumping it into player development and having more coaching available and just kind of the upgrades that a lot of organizations have used over the years to be a better overall system to bring people up. Because that was one thing the Cardinals did very, very well over all of the successful years that they've had is that they just kept churning out solid players. And then you would hit with a certain star like a pool holes or a Molina. But you would compliment those very good players that you built yourself with certain free agents. or you make a trade where you go get a gym admins

or you go get a Scott Roland. And that complements what you already have and that made the Cardinals excel. They were always pretty good at having pitchers coming up through their system that would become bona fide, legit, starting rotation guys or in the bullpen. And all of that has fallen to the wayside

over the last few years. And when contracts began to get bigger and bigger and the Cardinals decided, well, we don't really want to spend all that money. Let's dip into our pool and see who we, and we didn't have anything. It was empty. There was nobody to take over. And hence the demise of what was once considered, like you said, the Yankees of the National League, where everybody, they were like, this is, this is the blueprint. This is how we do things. The Cardinal way, as it's been known, as as cocky as it sounds. And the

best fans in baseball, as cocky as it sounded, things were nice. And it was a lot of fun. And even though they haven't fallen to the depths of some organizations. You know, this isn't a team that, you know, is finishing 20, 30 games out of it below 500 and stuff like that. Just being mediocre feels like that's where we are, you know, to be just floating around 500 every year, it just feels like, and everybody expects more out of them. And hence why you're not seeing as many Cardinal fans showing up the baseball games,

they finally kind of put their foot down and said, we've had enough, we've had enough. But this is something that's going to take time to fix. It's not an overnight thing where they're not going to go spend $300 million on a couple of different players to immediately fix it. They're trying to fix it from within. And it's going to take time. Speaking of the fan base, and I know very well about fan base, well, we don't really have a fan base right now. But that's besides the point.

I was watching something the other day as far as you talked about attendance, is how attendance has dropped considerably. And at the same time, I looked at the trade deadline, and I'm like, you know, Cardo's only two and a half, three games out of a wild card spot. Now, I'm not asking this question to criticize fans or whatever it may be. I want to know, is it a spoiled fan base? And are they expecting too much?

Because for me, when I saw attendance is dropped about, it's going to drop about close to a million. They're usually drawn about $3 million, 3.1. It's going to be a little over two this year, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. Is it a bit of a spoiled fan base? Are they expecting too much? It's only been a couple of years since they've made the playoffs. And again, I'm talking from the A's perspective.

You know, we go 81 and 81. We're throwing a freaking party. I've used that term before, actually, where I said, I feel like as a Cardl's fan, we have been spoiled, where it didn't seem to matter what decisions we made. things just kind of worked out. There was this aura around the Cardinals. They called it the Black Devil Magic that the Cardinals possessed that would turn guys

who were just average ballplayers into all stars because they were wearing the Cardinal uniform and they could do no wrong. And, you know, they were able to find production out of people that nobody else was getting it out of them. That used to be their thing. And it hasn't been like that. recently. Instead, it's been more where guys who are supposed to be pretty good start to go the wrong way, you know, guys like Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arnato, who, you know, just two and a half years

ago, excellent ballplayers. They were top of the line, you know, these were elite. I mean, Goldie just won the MVP back then. And then it just, foosh, and then it was over. And everything just hit a wall, and Molina was gone, and Wainwright was gone. And then you started to see Goldie. and Nato start to, their trajectories, they plateaued, and then they started to crumble. And we're like, oh, my gosh, what do we do? Who do we bring up? But we don't have anything. And the fan base at the time was like, here are some things that you need to do.

These are the ideas that we have that we think that it would be a smart move to help remedy this situation. And instead, the Cardinals management and ownership, instead of going out and spending on a couple of guys that they thought, you know, fans thought were reasonable. they instead would go dumpster diving and they would go find, you know, a Lance Lynn. They'd pull him off the trash heap. And they would go get, you know, Kyle Gibson. And, you know, fans are like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You can't, that's not going to work. That's not going to fix this stuff. And that seemed to be they were trying to put Band-Aids over serious situations. And the fans are like, look, you've taken advantage of us the last couple of years. still pulling in. And I'm just speaking from what my perspective of it is and how I feel like so, because not all the fans are the same way. You know, there are people that are still going out there. But most of them are just fed up with this regime. They're fed up with the decision making that John Moseilock has had and as much success as he's had over the years because he's been a very good

general manager and president of baseball operations. It's just been in the last five, six years that it seems any move he makes, it just blows up in the Cardinals face. You know, you're seeing prospects like Randy a Rosa Rana and Sandy Alcantra and Zach Gallen going into other organizations, whoever we're getting back for these certain guys aren't working out the way that Mo thought they would. And you're seeing these guys flourish in other places, Adolice Garcia. You know, they're seeing these guys had big time production for different teams on the biggest stages too. Like it seems like any time the Cardinals trade somebody away, that guy becomes the NLCS, MVP, you know, Tommy Edmund last year.

They, they sent him away for Eric Fetty. You know, if Eric Fetty pans out and things work out, everybody's like, okay, that's fine. No, it was a disaster. It was awful. And Tommy Edmund goes on to win a world series with the Dodgers and becomes the MVP. And it seems, and it's been that, that's been kind of the trend over the last few years. And fans are just like, I'm fed up. I can't take this anymore.

Get him out of here. We need new leadership. We need something new. We need to do fresh ideas. We need to do something different because this isn't working anymore. And fortunately, that is happening. You know, Heinblum is coming in and he's here, but he's going to be taking over that position starting full-time next year. And Cardinals are hopeful that that will help get them back to where they want to be.

It's crazy. When I look at the 2025 Cardinals, they're five games out of a wild card spot right now. But I believe they had six games a month ago where they lost four of six. correct me if I'm wrong to the Rockies. Yes. They take care of business in that series. They're right in the, you know, you're probably talking to right in the thick of things as far as an L wildcard.

Has this year as far as going into it, as far as expectations, have you been surprised as expected, disappointed? I genuinely thought they were going to be similar to last year where they were right around 500 because there wasn't any upgrades this offseason that were. unless the young guys that they, you know, they kind of put their money into, was going to light it up. And I'm talking about guys like Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker. Unless they stepped up to the next level, this team was going to be exactly where they were last year.

And that's kind of what happened. They did not take that next step. They haven't made the progression they were hoping. They've just become an average kind of below average guys, to be honest with you, in that lineup. And you're right. At the beginning, May, when they were on fire, and were shocking the world where they were like one of the best teams at baseball.

I was very much surprised. I think most people were that they were doing as well as they were considering who was in their rotation, you know, with a fete and a Michaelis and a Palante, like guys that are not good. Let's be honest, they're not good. And Sonny Gray's driving the bus. And you've got Matthew Libertor and that's really about it. The offense was bailing them out of some stuff. And when that cooled off a little bit, you saw.

them start to regress again and fall back into things. And you're right, though. You take care of business against the Rockies and you play better against the Pittsburgh Pirates who you have a losing record against. And you take care of those situations because you've got winning records against guys like the Dodgers. You played well against the Padres and played well against the Cubs. And there are times you see it.

You're like, this is the team that we thought we, you know, I see it that there's some positivity there. But then it's, and I've said it all year long, It's a dance. One step forward, two steps back, and that's kind of been where they are, which puts you right in the middle, which is not a great spot to be at all if you're a St. Louis Cardinal fan. Speaking of Sunny Gray, he's a former A, one of my favorite A's of all times. And he faces today one of the best prospects in all of baseball. And the A's have arguably one of the more exciting young teams around, which to me makes for an extremely.

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You can also find the link in the show notes. Hey, appreciate you guys helping us out. Thank you for making lockdown A's and lockdown Cardinals your first listen of the day. J.D. Cardinals A, start a three game set today. Sunny Gray, one of my all-time favorite A's, goes on the hill today against Luis Morales coming off seven innings of two-hit ball against the Tigers.

22 years old and the guy just throws absolute heat. It's interesting that we're going with, we're facing Sunny Gray because Sunny Gray is kind of represents what the A's have been and going against this particular team. And what I mean by that is Sunny Gray, first round pick back in 2011 for the A's, started growing with that team. Matt Olson was a first rounder. Matt Chapman was a first rounder. And all of a sudden we set up all these draft picks that have just scored.

It seems every time. And we go on a little bit of a run. Where we're making the playoffs four out of five years. Then their contracts come up. We don't resign them. We don't retain them. See you later. We're rebuilding again.

And here we are now, right? We got guys like Nick Kurt's first round pick from last year, fourth overall. Jacob Wilson, number six overall from two years ago. Luis Morales, who's the top international signing. You know, Shea Langleyer is who we traded for number nine overall. So it is draft pick after draft pick after draft pick. And we're setting up that same team.

How it does and how will we retain the players when we go to Vegas is in question. But it makes up for very, very intriguing. series. Who are you excited to see from both sides, from the Cardinals and from the A's. Well, the A's side, first I want to let all the A's listeners know that I have been a fan of the A's as a franchise back in the late 80s, early 90s when it was, I think one of the first baseball posters I had on my wall that wasn't a Cardinal guy was Konseko and McGuire with the Bash Brothers. It would just juice out of their tail back then. I mean, they were just juices. like crazy. That's great. It was so much fun though. Like I enjoyed those scenes. Stuart and

and Ack and Ricky obviously being a let like all of that was fun. Dave Anderson, you know, Terry Steinbach behind the plate, Cardi Lanceford with his TV. Yeah, with that right. I love watching those teams. I thought they were fantastic. So I'm also a Green Bay Packers fan. So the, the green and gold look always is appealing to me. Okay. So I constantly keep an eye on the A's and have always enjoyed them. And you see them where it's like, man, they really do come up with a very nice, you know, program where they develop very, very well. And like you said, it's unfortunate they are not able to hang on to some of these guys.

And you can only imagine seeing just former A's, how they're just littered around the league, just dominating in places. And what it would be like if you kept one or two of those guys, you know, and that would be a little thing. Yeah, right. Yeah, something. It would be great. So, yeah, I enjoy watching, like,

When I have to stay up for the MLB game night and watch the, and it's the A's and Dodge, I'd rather watch the A's. Like, I've seen this Dodgers thing for me. I don't need to watch them anymore. I love watching the Aids. I like watching the young guys and watching them thrive and having fun and exciting games. And I can see how they can become frustrated because they are a young team. At the same time, you just see so much entertainment value out of them. You can never count them out, especially in that ballpark.

They're playing in this year. Oh, really? Oh, really? I'll just fly. So I'm excited. hope Nick Kurtz is back for this series. He's certainly put his name on the map for folks who warn is familiar with them and that with that game against the Astros where he just goes bonkers. Love watching that. Love seeing Langalears or Bangaliers, as we call him on the show,

watching him just, you know, flourish finally. You know, he's been good, but seeing him really kind of come out of his shell this year and really come that awesome. And it's been a lot of fun to watch these guys. And then, of course, the pitching staff where you guys continue to churn out these young guys that you find. And one of them is going to be on the mound today, uh, watching him in his last start. I was like, oh my gosh, just just easy 98, 99 gas. No big deal. No effort. Whatever. Like, yeah, it was beautiful to watch. Yeah, he, he is, uh, he's something else, man. And, uh, Sodorstrom's another one. Sodorstrom had a 19 game, 20-something game hitting streak earlier on this year. Rooker. He's been on a tear. High school.

kids, right? Still young. 22. You're talking about Nick Kirk's 22 years old. Tyler Stowe's from 22 years old. And all these guys have basically come up together. They've all played at one time or another in the minor league. So it's definitely a fun team. Right now, I'm not sure. Going into the Texas series, we just got swept by Texas. You know, you face this guys like tighter and DeGrom. It's just that pitching's tough. And we seem like we were real satisfied with the Tiger series that we swept and kind of came in. Before that series,

best record in the American League, second best record in all of baseball. I think we're still up there. Should be interesting. We had our bottom three pitchers going in that series and Texas got us pretty good. But yeah, and Denzel Clark is on his way back.

Nick Kurtz had a strained oblique. The NPRI came back clean. A's are over-protecting him right now. I think we're going to see him in the St. Louis series. Maybe today, who knows? It just depends. It's a day-to-day thing and more of how he feels. Man, those obliques are so tricky because there's just no way to,

you can't do anything to fix it. It just has to heal. And they're annoying to the players and to the fans because there's just no treatment really for it. You just got to kind of rest it and hopefully it gets better. Absolutely. You know, even when you think you're feeling okay, it could still linger. And I know the A's don't want that. So I think they're going to be on the more.

cautionary tear, uh, cautionary side of things, but I sure hope he goes. Tell me about Sonny Gray. Sonny Gray was always, he's still my top five pictures of all time when he was in A. He was an all star one time.

I think he was third in Sy Young voting. He's, he's just a bulldog. Now he's kind of on his back end of his career. Sunny has been, since they got him from the twins. And I think one thing about picking him up as a free agent that year that excited fans was,

uh, because we'd, we'd had plenty of guys. who were giving up the long ball over and over. And, you know, sunny that last year in Minnesota, where he finished in the Cy Young voting was second that year. Yeah. That was one thing that he limited.

I think he gave up nine the whole year or something like something ridiculous like that. And it hasn't been that way since he's been with the Cardinals. The ball has been flying off out of his hand. He's close to setting a team record where I should say a personal record for home runs against this year. I know he was very close. He was like 21, something like that. And so he's had these games where you're just like, he just misses over the heart of the plate and people take him deep.

It just happened. It's a frustrating thing. But he's been much better at home. Bush Stadium is a pitcher's ballpark for the most part. And he's had a lot more success at home than he has on the road. This year at home, he's eight and four, three point five seven ERA. The strikeouts are still there. Yeah.

That's been a thing. And when it hasn't been, this is kind of been odd, and I don't know if I'd ever notice this about sunny before, but it's been very, very humid and hot in the Midwest this year. And like, like disgusting, like where it feels like a hundred down there on the field. And he, for whatever, it just, maybe it just doesn't work well with his sweat glands. I don't know. He seemed to struggle a lot when things were just disgustingly balmy hot. Okay. And games where like today it's going to be pretty nice.

he has pitched very, very well. So maybe it's just a comfort thing. But he's most definitely the number one on the staff. People get mad when I use the word ace describing him. But I'm like, well, he's our ace. I'm not saying he's the ace of the National League, but he's your number one guy. And to get him to leave things off on Monday,

which means we'll get two sunny gray starts this week, bodes well for what the Cardinals are trying to do, which is get back to that 500 mark. And, you know, at least in the year on a good note here in the final month of September. Any exciting prospects, Ace fans should be keeping an eye on that we'll be playing this week? Well, there's two, as I mentioned, Noah Gorman and Jordan Walker are two guys that, former first round picks that they wanted to give runway to this year. And they were hoping that they take that next step.

Jordan Walker's been, had some injuries and stuff to deal with. Just odd stuff, not like you're normal, not like an oblique or anything like Kurtz's with just like some odd things that he's had. And it's been a rough go. He had a horrible game on Sunday against the Reds over four four strikeouts. And it's been frustrating to watch. He's frustrated because all these years, you know, he's been the best player on his team, no matter where he's been. And then the last three years have been a struggle for him, trying to figure things out at the major league level. So those are guys that, you know, you'll see a little glimpses of. Nolan is starting to play much better now that Aronado's been out on the shelf for so long. So he's a guy

that's got in the bulk of the play at third base, which has been nice. But they started five rookies yesterday in Cincinnati. They had, yeah, they had centerfielder Nathan Church out there. Jimmy Crooks is their number one rated catching prospect in the organization, got his first hit and home run in the same abat in Cincinnati. Wow. So that was cool to see. They also had Thomas Jayce is a guy that they got from the Rangers in the deal for Montgomery

a couple years ago when the Rangers, you know, there's another guy, Jordan Montgomery went on to be awesome in the postseason. Yeah, and then he got traded away by the Cardinals. But C.J was a guy who won that double A MVP. So he's somebody, Yvonne Herrera is a young who came up as a catcher. He's kind of just like a DH right now. He's been very, very good this year when he's been healthy. So there are some names that are out there.

Cesar Prieto was the Cuban guy who got a start yesterday. And they just probably got him in the Baltimore deal. A lot of young guys, not the number one guy. J.J. Weatherholt's the number one guy in the organization that fans are hoping to see at some point. But because Mason Wynn has been so good at shortstop. Rightfully so. You're not going to push him to the side. You're letting Gorman play.

You're seeing what you got in C.C. and Prieto. And you're letting some of these other guys play while JJ thrives at AAA. I mean, he's only been there for a month, month and a half, something like that. So there's no pressure. But everybody's really excited to see him at some point. but they are going with the youth movement here in the month of September, which I think is something fans want to see. We're tired of seeing the same veterans taking the field and just being mediocre.

Like if we're going to lose, let's lose with the young guys and just kind of see what we got over this last month. Give us something to pay attention to. Game ones in a few hours and take this break. And I want to get some predictions from you when we come back. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks, the Daily Fantasy app. where making the right call can actually pay off. You and I make decisions every day. But on prize picks, being right means cashing in with football back.

Price picks is the simplest and fastest way to get in on the action. Just pick more or less on two to six player projections, and you could turn your takes into real prizes all in less than 60 seconds. I've been playing prize picks lately, and it's such a fun way to stay locked in for the season. It's quick, easy. And honestly, my favorite way to follow along. with football. I love checking projections like Josh Allen for more or less than 270 passing yards,

or Sequin Barclay for more or less than one rushing touchdown. And the best part, even if one of your picks misses prize picks invented the flex play. So you can still double your money. Download the price picks app today and use code locked on MLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code. Locked-on MLB for $50 in lineups after your first $5 play. Price picks, it's good to be right. J.D., we got Morales Gray today. Tomorrow, I believe it's Severino, Michaelis,

and on Wednesday, Springs and Libertor, I believe. Yes. What do you got? Give me your outlook on the series. Winners, who's going to win what? Let's see what you get. Well, with Sunny Gray on the mound at home, the Cardinals usually pull out victories.

So even though Morales, I expect to be very, very good. I'm excited to watch him at the throat today. Like, I really am just as a baseball fan. So I feel like he's probably not going to have a whole lot of trouble with the Cardinals lineup. But I'm not sure what's left in the A's bullpen after the trade deadline. How are we looking there? Bullpen by committee.

You know, you could have one guy, one guy is a close. closing a game, one day is your closer. The next day he's in long relief. So, you know, we don't know what we're really doing. It's by committee. It's that, you know, it's that old tag. So we don't really, actually, before this last series against Texas, I mean, the bullpen was fantastic.

And since the Miller, Tray's been one of the better ones in Bullpen, in baseball. But I don't know if they've shot their water or what the deal is. But, yeah, they've kind of leveled out, that's for sure. All right. So I will go for Monday. I'll take the Cardinals just because of Sunny Gray. I think it'll be a tight one.

I think this will be probably a low scoring one. Give me like a Cardinals three to two type of win. Like that where they pull something off in the late endings against the bullpen. I never trust any Andre Palante or Miles Michaelis start. I call it Michael. I call it Michaelis roulette because you put the bullet in and you spin it. And it could take your head off or somehow he becomes just a decent pitcher. He has trouble keeping the ball in the yard.

You've got a lot of sluggers with the A's. So I wouldn't imagine that they should have too much trouble popping. I'm just glad we're not playing in Sacramento because I would be scared to see what damage would go up against my close of that ballpark. So I will give you guys the win on that on Tuesday. And I owe this to the Cardinals fans because I actually, when I was doing the prediction, with Jeff Carr, for against the Reds series, and I had the Cardinals losing two of three, and I got destroyed. I got pulled over the, the Coles for that one. So I can't pick against them on Wednesday. They were like, oh, why don't you just go be a Reds fan? I'm like, well, hold on if you

being honest, I'm being honest. I'm not, you know, God, you want me to lie to you? This game, Springs Libertore, two lefties. Cardinals haven't hit lefties all that great this year. Libby's usually good for about four innings and then things start to go haywire. But I'll take Liberator in this one. So give me two out of three. Cardinals win Monday and Wednesday. And the A's take Tuesday's game. But it's going to be tight games.

I think it's going to be a fun matchup to watch a lot of U.S. Which excites me as well. today I got A's up 2-1 and about the 6th or 7th. Morales goes out, bullpen comes in and plodes, loses 5-2. Cardinals take game 1. Severino, who loves it on the road versus at home. See, one thing I'd remember, the A's are playing on the road, but they're really playing at home.

They'd rather be on the road than in Sacramento. So I got tomorrow, Severino's first start back from being on the I-L. I think he's going to deal. And I think the A's going to win tomorrow, 5-1. And Jeffrey Springs has been fantastic. And I got the A's winning the series two of three. So the only one we have different is on Wednesday, which is great news for the Cardinals,

because I've been running at about 12% on my predictions. So I've been doing so well. Price picks would sure love me as a customer. I tell you that. But, J.D., it's going to be a lot of fun, man. And I appreciate you coming on and we'll see what happens, man. Yeah. And for the Cardles fans, like, honestly, enjoy this series,

enjoy seeing some of this young talent that's coming up through the major leagues. And even though the A's aren't in Oakland anymore, but like just the, yeah, it's a fun team to watch of telling you guys, if you got, if you got any chance to watch these guys late nights, I love their games. Like, there's just a lot of energy around them. There's the youthfulness and it's a lot of fun. And it's something that I think the Cardinal should strive to be like if you're going to go in this youth movement that you're doing like, this is what I want to see. And I think it's what Cardinal fans want to see with, you know, like I mentioned, starting so many young guys on Sunday.

Like, I want to see these guys who are just, they're so happy to be in the major leagues instead of just, you know, going through the motions with the same veterans over and over. Like I want to see that energy on that ball club. And, you know, the A's have been able to do it all season with these young guys. and you've seen how they've been thriving over the last 30, 40 games. So it's a lot of fun to watch. It's a lot of young, great talent. And I think you guys are going to enjoy this series. So if you get a chance, head on down to the ballpark, check them out.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I wish I could be there. All right, J.D. Hey, thanks again, bud, and we'll see what happens. All right. Thanks, Booty. Take care.

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