Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - One Strike Away!

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

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One strike away. One strike away from a sweep. And it slips right through the Cardinals' fingers and extra innings. This one was tough. This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, the Cardinals fans.

I'm J.D. Hafford and I'm a national radio sports anchor born and raised in Lou and a lifetime Cardinals fan. And I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter, X, at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast at L.O underscore Cardinals. I do one. I'll thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcast.

We're also on YouTube. Come on by, like, subscribe, and comment so you can interact with us and hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info. about the birds on the bat. Today's episode being brought to you by Fandul. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets. That's guaranteed.

That's $150. When or lose, visit fandole.com slash locked on to get started. So close. So close. And no, we don't have to talk ourselves off the ledge here or anything. It's not that horrible. But you can taste it, right? You could taste it?

not champagne, obviously. It's not champagne worthy to, you don't drink that after just simple sweeps. But perhaps a couple of tall, cool, budwisers, something to kick back with and savor afterwards, whatever your drink of choice is. It was right there, right there. And then, of course, a former Cardinal, a former Cardinal fan favorite,

had to go and ruin everything. Damn you, Harrison Bader. You're dead to us. I kid, I kid. We will always love Harrison Bader, but we don't have to be pleased with him at this very moment. Pitcher's Dueling Queens today between Lance Lynn and another former cardinal and Jose King Tana, who I would also say is dead to us after today's performance.

But he had a tough year health-wise last year. So I'm not going to be as hard on him as I will be on Harrison Bader. Because Bader can suck it right now, right? him and his stupid short hair, which I still hate. He looked a lot cooler with the flow going. Anyways, this is not a barbershop podcast. It's a baseball podcast. And after taking the first two games of the series on Friday and Saturday,

they score four in Friday's game. They score seven on Saturday. The Cardinals bats, they got silenced by Keentana and the Mets bullpen today. Just one of those ugly days where the team just could not get anything going. just wasn't able to step up when they did get guys on when runners were in scoring position. They didn't hit. They were one for 12 with runners in scoring position on Sunday. And the only two runs they did get were on a squeeze bunt, which done beautifully,

by the way, by Michael Siani and Mason went. I made the crack on Twitter today that why doesn't Michael Siani, who seems like he bunts all the time anyway, why doesn't he just bunt all the time? Like, why are we even swinging the bat? He doesn't really put it in play all that often. And when he does, he usually grounds out to the first baseman. But when he bunts, cool things seem to happen, at least his legs, give him a chance to get on base. But that was well done by him and Mason win.

That was gorgeous. And then the only other run they got was because they got a free runner at second base in the 11th inning on an RBI single by Brennan Donovan. And that was Michael Ciani scoring again, who got a bad jump on that play. and Donovan had to get in a rundown to make sure that he could score because it was a line drive. And I don't think Ciani was quite sure if it was going to be caught or not. So he got a bad jump and he might have gotten thrown out at home plate if Donovan hadn't kept going around to second base. He might have got gunned. That was it, man.

We have thrown the stats at you all year where when the Cardinal score four more runs, pretty darn good baseball team. And when they don't, they lose. A lot. Today, the offense, the culprit in this 4 to 2 loss. And you know, it happens. The saying is good pitching beats good hitting, right? Like we just make that up and start saying for the fun of it. It's true. Some of the best lineups in baseball can get shut down as long as you have a really good pitcher out there. Jose Cantana was really, really good today. Eight innings, one run, three hits, one walk, three Ks, did all of that on 99 pitches. He was efficient. He was in the zone. Like, He would look like the Jose Cantana that used to be in a Cardl's uniform. Still a bummer. They weren't able to keep him for whatever reason. But that's your player of the game right there.

That's your player of the game. Lance Lynn, he was solid again today too, not taking anything away from him. It gives you five innings, one run, five hits, three walks, three Ks, one dinger, 87 pitches. Got in a little trouble there in the sixth inning and needed the bullpen to come in and rescue him. and a credit to the Cardle's bullpen in Sunday's game after using, and I don't know what we want to do as far as a nickname for these guys. You know, you hear the big three. You hear, like I went through some names that have to do with the number three.

You've got the trio. You've got the triad. You've got the Trinity, the three amigos. Which one do you guys like? Let me know in the comments section because I don't know what you guys want to call them. But no Jojo, no catcheridge, no hell's late today. So instead, you saw other members of the Cardinals bullpen, Giovanni Gallegos, Ryan Fernandez, Matthew Libertor.

And as a group, they toss five shutout innings against the Mets, who didn't finally break through until the 11th inning. Libertor's third inning of work. Geo had some hairy moments because that's what Geo does. It just makes you really appreciate when Andrew Kittridge comes into games, right? I mean, it's got to. High leverage situations. Kittridge comes in and does.

incredible stuff. And for years, we've been living on this Giovanni Gallegos roller coaster. And oh my gosh, gives you an ulcer watching him out there. It just never seems like it's easy with him, hardly ever. But he did get out of some jams today. Ryan Fernandez was awesome, continues to look more and more comfortable like he definitely belongs in the major leagues. So solid choice there by the front office. And then Matthew Libertory, he was really good until the 11th inning. He was still really good in the 11th inning except for two pitches.

Cardinals are one strike away from the sweep. And Libertor misses up and over the plate to Harrison Bader, who laces an RBI single end to center field to tie the game up. And then almost the exact same pitch in the exact same spot with two strikes to Vento's crushes it, lands over the wall in center field, despite the great effort for Michael Cian. Cardinals losing 4 to 2.

Libby told our buddy Jeff Jones after the game that the pitch to Bader was a missed spot, duh, said the 01 was the same pitch, but a couple inches higher and Bader had filed it off. So the thinking was that that was going to be the chase location that he wanted,

but it came down into the zone and was a hit. Same situation with Viantos. One of the fastball up, away out of the zone, and instead it was a little too close to the corner, and he was able to extend through it. knocks it over the wall. You know, it's easy to say now, looking back at it,

why aren't you throwing breaking balls to Harrison Bader, who we've seen go fishing plenty of times when he was a St. Louis Cardinal and swing its stuff and miss it down in the dirt. But it happened. Cardinals will move on from it, right? It's that end of the world stuff. They take two of three.

They go four and two this week after a rough sweep by the Milwaukee Brewers last weekend. That's progress. which is what we're looking for, right? We're looking for progress. We're trying to get better each and every day. It isn't always going to end up a W, but you were there.

You were one strike away from a sweep. So look at it that way, and it doesn't feel quite as awful as it did when the ball sailed over the wall. So we're going to sound off next. Questions and comments from the listeners, including their thoughts on Mo, Ollie, and the Jordan Walker to motion.

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That's code Locked on MLB. Order using DoorDash today, terms apply. Are you watching Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV? all day and have to turn down the volume because all of the shouting, then make the switch to locked on sports today. What are you waiting for? It's a free 24-7 sports streaming channel. It's program for you every day to bring you the biggest stories without all of that screaming. Locked-on sports today brings you can't-miss analysis. You get opinions, you get news, and it's all available streaming 24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app. And it's part of the Locktown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks for making a lockdown cardless your first list. and every day. Leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want. Your feedback is always welcome and encouraged. And it's something that I want to start bringing into the show a little bit more, especially on the weekends. I want to kind of have these sound off Sundays where this is just kind of me going through your questions and comments,

good or bad, evil or nice, whatever they may be. And just, you know, I just want to gauge what the audience is talking about and keep you in the loop in case you don't want to go through all the comments like I do. So I'm going to open up the floor to listener comments and just kind of see what everybody's chatting about today. We learned that there's no way to make everyone happy. So people just want to watch the world burn. So maybe we'll get some angry ones here, which are always kind of fun. Let's see what we got. Let's start with this one. Robert Christ. Okay, frequent commenter on YouTube on not only my channel, but other Cardinal podcast channels throughout the World Wide Web, a very passionate fan.

He loves the Cardinals, and he commented on the John Moseiloch GM episode this week, listing his favorite and least favorite John Moseilock moves. Here's what he said. Getting Aronado is my plus side since I love defense. The minus is firing Schilt because he wasn't a yes man. We have that now, and look where two years have taken us. He was also lucky enough to walk into what Walt Jockety had already put together. The Nato trade. First, thank you, Robert, for always coming on because I appreciate you.

I know you get worked up in the comments section and that's cool. I love the fact that you're super passionate. As long as nobody's getting mad at each other, keep it up. I'm probably with it at all. The Nato trade highway robbery, right? I mean, we can admit that by now. Yeah, something the wall jocoty was pretty darn good at. You got to admit that during his time as a GM when talking about trades with my friends and people who just talk ball. Like, it's hard to not look back in the Cardinals history and see names like Jim Edmonds, Mark McGuire, Matt Holiday, Edgar Rinterea, Scott Rowland, and not giggle a little bit at ripping off these teams, the Angels, the A's, the Marlins, the Phillies, in those deals. Like, I mean, listen to those names right there. all of them eventually will be Cardinals Hall of Famers.

Edgar Rents and not in yet, he deserves to be there. Everybody else, Cardinals Hall of Famers. Some of them, Major League Baseball Hall of Famers. Scott Rowland, we know he's in. I could make the argument for Jim Edmonds based on defense alone. McGuire, obviously, but the home runs, you can't deny that. Matt Holiday, one of the better right-handed hitters during his time in the big leagues. And you can put Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arnaud.

trades in that grouping too. And of course, you know, we've seen the bad ones too. We've seen the bad trades. Everybody makes them. We've talked about them plenty. No need to go down that path again. But Mo deserves a gold star for the Nolan Aronato trade for sure. So agree with you there. As far as the Mike Schilt firing, you know, we've covered it plenty on the Locked on Cardinals podcast. It sucks for everyone. It sucks for everyone involved, except Ollie, because Ali ended up getting a promotion and got the manager job. But it stinks because everybody liked Mike Schilt. It was never a personality issue.

It wasn't that they don't like Mike Schilt. The Cardinals were winning, at least in the regular season. He didn't win anything in the playoffs, but it was just an unfortunate situation where he felt one way. They felt the other. They couldn't come to an agreement on how to run things.

And in that type of situation, the people at the top are going to win. It just is the way it is. It's a bummer. But they both made their decisions and Mike Schilt was like, well, I'm not going to change. So. And as far as walking into what Walt Jockety built, I mean, yeah, but that is what an organization is supposed to do next man up, right? Like they're supposed to be able to transition seamlessly

when one guy moves on. The other guy comes in and you should have a good base of an organization set ready to go. So then when the new guy does step in, he's got something to build on. You know, The Cardinals haven't really had to rebuild in a really long while. And Moe still made some pretty good moves after he took over. It wasn't all just riding the coattails of what Walt Jockelly had already put in place. You know, he had to keep things rolling. Jim Edmonds for Freeze. That was a good deal.

Remember, I know it sucked for us because we're like, oh, no, we're trading Jim Edmonds. But kind of a shell of who he was in his heyday with the Cardinals. And you end up getting David Freeze, who I think did a couple of important things. for the Cardinals. The Matt Holiday deal. That was a Moseilock thing. The trade with the Blue Jays to fix that bullpen back in 2011. He signed Lance Berkman, Carlos Beltron. So it hasn't all been bad. It's just that the crappy year last year and some of these recent trays that haven't worked out quite as well, they're just, they're fresh in our minds. They stand out a whole lot more. So that's why there's this negative feeling towards John Moseilock right now. But if you go through the full body,

of work, you have to admit he did some good things. Okay, can we at least agree on that? He may not be your favorite guy, but you got to admit he has made some good moves in the past. I know it's been a while, but they did happen. On the Jordan Walker and Zach Thompson to motions, Bill Bays says, glad to see Walker and Thompson going to AAA. Hopefully Jordan will figure it out and start knocking down fences.

I hope they don't bring him back too soon. As you said, he is only 21. Hopefully Thompson will be a good part of the starting rotation at AAA. he needs to have time to develop. I hope they have someone at AAA to help him with that development. Well, yeah, that's why you have the coaches and everything like that down there at Memphis, too. And I was too. I was too.

I was glad to see that they finally kind of, you know, pulled the trigger on sitting both of them down. Not that I ever want people demoted or losing jobs or anything like that. But the major league hitters or pitchers, I should say, were just chewing Walker up and just spitting him out. like he was having a hell of a time. And I'm sure it's incredibly frustrating to be so good at something your entire life. Like Jordan Walker's whole life, he's been better than everybody else at the game of baseball. You know? And then he gets stuck in this rut that he finally can't get out of.

And he's just kind of spinning his wheels at the major league level. It's got to be maddening for him because I think more about the mental side of thing. Because physically we know, Jordan Walker is a very good baseball player, right? He's got everything. He's got power. He's got size. He's got speed.

He's got an arm. He's great. But the mental side of it is what I worry about more when it comes to some of the younger players. You know, it's got to be incredibly frustrating for him. You know, imagine that there's one thing in life that you do. Like, think about yourself for a moment.

One thing in life that you do better than anything else in your life, whether, I don't know, going golfing or. whether it's cooking or or art or working on cars, playing video games, whatever it is that you're like, I'm awesome at this. And then imagine that you suck at it all of a sudden. Like all of a sudden, you're just like, I am terrible at this skill that I've been so good at my entire life. That's, that can't be easy. And he's 21. You know, he's still a kid. Even though he looks like a 30 year old man,

he's 21 years old and has likely never seen failure playing the game of baseball like this ever. It's a lot for him, you know, physically trying to figure out how to hit those pitches on the outside part of the plate, laying off the ones that are just outside of the zone and then having an ump ring you up anyway, six inches wide. And then you've got that going on with mentally everything I just described. It's not easy. And on top of that, you're trying to figure it all out at the major league. level going up against the best pitchers on planet Earth.

So that's no picnic. It's not easy. So at least now at Memphis, he can probably relax a little bit, take a step back. You know, they gave him a couple days off from playing in games to just kind of, you know, give him a soft reset. And hopefully he'll figure it all out and be back sooner rather than later and at the top of his game. As far as Thompson goes, the injuries to O'Brien, Middleton, Sunny Gray at the beginning of These things kind of forced him to be on the roster in the first place.

And then when Gray came back, he was kind of sitting in no man's land anyway. Remember, it was like, what, 10 days in between appearances? Like, you're like, what the hell is he doing on the roster then? So I'm glad he's back in Memphis to get some regular work in. I just, again, I'll say this over to, just pick a lane with Zach Thompson. Do you want him to be a starter or you want him to be a reliever? All right, just pick a lane. and let him go that way.

GEI 2Z has something to say on Ali Marmal, says managers and coaches have one specific task to have the players show his best ability and also feel a good vibe, as you said, to make this possible, which is to me equally, if not more important. I'm not trying to downplay the fact that players aren't performing, but I mean, it seems to me that it's quite remarkable

how a lot of the guys we traded suddenly show a lot of progression. To me, that shows that something ain't right as far as the psychological side of being a Cards team member. I personally like the more emotional managers more. Ali looks so flat emotionally. I've been wrong before, though, and I might be here, just my two cents. Thank you, GEI-2-Z. Hey, I appreciate your thoughts.

I don't think there's a wrong answer here. My thing as far as managers motivating people, I don't know how much that's really done. at the major league level. You know, you see it high school when you're, you know, you're molding young minds, you know, you see that. I don't know how it's really handled in a major league clubhouse. You know, I'm not somebody who's in the clubhouse. So I don't know these people personally. I don't know what it was like when Tony LaRouca was here and in charge or Mike Mathini or Schilt. I'm just not in there. I think something that probably,

and you used to word flat, I think something that probably makes Ali an appealing manager to play for for some people is that he doesn't fly off the handle all that often. It seems to have a pretty good relationship with the guys for the most part, enough to which they were all sticking up for him in front of the media, in front of cameras and microphones last year when things were as ugly as they've been in St. Louis in a really long time. They constantly said it's not the coaching staff. It's not Ali.

This is not on them. Those were things they were saying, the leaders on your team. You know, not every player is going to respond all that well to every manager. You know, some don't respond well to relax managers while other players probably like playing for a more expressive manager. You know, Tony LaRousseau is one of the greatest managers in the history of Major League Baseball. And he had issues with guys all the time. You know, remember, young guy, Colby Rasmus was going to be the future. That didn't work out.

Bad relationship between the two. Ended up trading him away, which ended up working out for the Cardinals. Scott Rowland. We ran Scott Rowland out of town because of his relationship with Tony LaRussa. Nobody's perfect. But I continue to go back to how the players backed him up last year as a reason why they don't seem to have any issues with how Ali runs his clubhouse. And some of the guys that you mentioned, you know, that are going on to other places, some of them are just finally getting more playing time. It's not like we saw a whole lot of Dolis Garcia, Rania Rosarena, Lane Thomas at the big league level in a Cardinal uniform. You saw them in brief little pieces here and there,

but the Cardinals at those times had chosen other players to be their starters and were sticking with them, guys like Tyler O'Neill, Harrison Bader, Lars Neupar, O'Neill, he just couldn't stay healthy. You saw the one year where he was healthy an entire year and you saw what he did in a Cardinals uniform. That was his issue in St. Louis. I firmly believe that they've gotten by that. I think Tyler O'Neill and Ali and I think they moved past what happened last year. And it was just time for a fresh start for him in a different city. You know, the Cardinals were like, look, we've got other guys that we can go with it. We can, you know, plug in each and every day. And, you know, we're ready to roll with them. We'll send you somewhere else. And he's had a great start.

in Boston, but he's also gotten hurt already. So it continues to plague him. He missed some time. He's a freak accident where he ran to do his other player going for a ball. Sandy Alcantra and Zach Gallen, you know, guys that people bring up all the time. They were good prospects with the Cardinals. There wasn't anything wrong with them while with the Cardinals organization that they were like, get them out of here.

They stink. No, they just made a trade. Hicks never got a full shot at being a starter, excelling in San Francisco right now, but was a pretty darn good reliever with the Cardinal Sue. They wanted him back. He decided to go elsewhere. So I don't think the reason why these guys are succeeding in other places is a motivational issue by the manager.

It seems more like just bad decision making by the front office by letting those people go and choosing the guys that they kept around. That's how it looks to me, but that's just me. I wanted to speak about taking a look around. Let's take our look around the league and see what's going on in the division and the rest of the league. Things are getting interesting out there. And can it get any worse for Skip Schumacher and the Marlins? You hate to see Skippy and the boys failing in the fish down there.

And they're having a hard time. We'll get into it next on Locktown Cardinals. It's playoff time in the NBA and the NHL. Hopefully you've been watching the NBA playoffs have been a lot of fun. Stanley Cup playoffs, honestly, is there a better thing as far as professional sports? Like, are the Stanley Cup playoffs the best? In my opinion, they are. I love the game of baseball.

I love playoff football and stuff, but a best of seven series all the way through. Guys just kicking each other in the teeth. Guys don't have teeth. Like, what a great sport. I love it. Baseball is in full swing, obviously, as well. Fandle is your place to bet on all of these things.

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And now it is also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports. Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on, plus our national shows covering every league. You can find it now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. One thing that makes this extra ending loss against the Mets today, sting a little bit more besides missing out on your very first sweep of the season. That would have been nice to have.

But it's the fact that the Reds lost. Brewers got their butts kicked again. I know coming when I was starting this, that the pirates were losing. Let's do a double check and see how they finished. Pirates, Giants. Giants win at three to two. So you got all these guys that you're looking up to.

The Cubs are going to play tonight for Sunday night baseball, but these guys that you're trying to catch in your division, which, you know, it's pretty tight, but they all lost today. And you were one strike away from gaining a game on all of them. And see, see, go down the way it did. That's a kick in the nards a little more. Pretty tough. But Cubs, like I said, Sunday night game,

they got blasted by Boston yesterday, 17 to nothing. Brewers took it on the chin twice the last two days from the Yankees. Cardinals are 13 to 15. All right, nothing great about that. But I think a lot of us coming into this season, we knew April was going to be a difficult month. And if you could get to that 500 mark after April, things do loosen up and get a little easier for the Cardinals.

So we're hoping that they improve on. on that, but, you know, if we think we got a bad in St. Louis, I mean, look at some of these other places, like the Marlins. They blew a seven and nothing lead today against the Washington Nationals and lost 12 to 9. They're now six in 23 on the season. They've lost six in a row. This was a team that went to the playoffs last year. Yeah, Sandy Alcantra. He's out. Tommy John this year. But other teams have lost their top pitchers too and aren't having the fall off that the Marlins are having. And I know they're dealing with, you know, pitching issues all together. A lot of guys are hurt, but still, lost six in a row. Longest current losing streak

in Major League Baseball, like it is ugly in Miami right now. The White Sox and the Rockies, we kind of figured they were going to have some tough seasons this year, although the Sox, of course, because the Cardinals are getting ready to play them here real soon, started going a little heater. They just swept the Tampa Bay race this weekend. But how about the Houston Astros? The Astros so far. Coming into today, 8 and 19, did they win today? They were winning. Last time I saw, let's see, where is Houston at? Yeah, Houston beats Colorado 8 to 2. So that bumps their win-win loss record. That one goes up a little bit. So they are now 9 and 19 on the season. Not like it's great. They've had some injuries to their rotation too, but still pretty shocking to see them down as bad as

They are on the other side of things. You've got some teams that are soaring. You know, the Braves, we knew the Braves are going to be a good team. They're 19 and 7, which doesn't surprise anybody, but they've lost their ace Spencer Strider for the year. You know, and he's gone. And they haven't hardly missed a beat. The Guardians, the Guardians in Cleveland.

No Shane Bieber. He's gone for the year. No problem. They're 19 and 9. They lost their manager last year. He's no longer there. And they're 19 and 9. How about the Cardinals next opponent?

The Detroit Tigers, 16 and 12? I didn't see that coming. Not at all. And they haven't, unless something changed recently, they've been doing it all without Spencer Torkelson, who I had taken in fantasy baseball as my first baseman. And he sucked, like did nothing. I don't even know if he's got a home run yet this year.

I haven't paid attention. After I cut him, I picked up Mount Castle from the Orioles, and I have a look back. I'm like, no, I'm sticking with the first baseman. He's on a really good team in Baltimore. How about a stat attack? Let's go through some of these stats. Mike Trout, 10 home runs this year.

13 RBIs. Are you kidding me? 10 home runs, only 13 RBIs. 10 of his RBIs are himself. You know, I know a team that's got an offensive hole in center field right now, if he wants out. Similar colors, red, white, wear some grays and red on the road.

Look pretty good in them already. Mike Trout. Think about it. Think about it. Closer to your hometown, which is over on the East Coast. So, just saying.

Former Cardo Marcelo Zuna. He's hitting 3.40 with nine dingers and a league leading 31 RBI. Where was that dude in St. Louis? Where was the guy from last year with the 40 home runs at 100 ribbies at when he was in St. Louis? He was okay with the Cardinals. but what, what? Look at this production.

Cubs got 17 wins going into tonight's game, Shota, Imanaga, 4-0, ERA of 0.98. If you guys know Andrew Wang from the New News podcast or whatever they're calling themselves right now, he was big negatives on Shota. So if you guys want to hit him up on Twitter and be like, thoughts on Shotai Aminaga?

He probably would enjoy that, a little ribbing for it, because he's been crazy. crazy good. So much for having a slow transition to playing in the United States for him. Your league leaders and wins right now, five is the total. Tyler Glass now, who, you know, we talked about it. We tried to get the Cardinals, go get him. Ended up going to the Dodgers, which is where he wanted to go. Ranger Suarez is in Philly. He's got five, had a great start to the season. And then you got two relievers, A.J. Mentor in Atlanta. And then Reed Garrett for the Mets,

who I believe he was the guy who picked up the win today over the Cardinals in there. extra inning comeback win. So he's got five. I give the Cardinals a hard time about giving up home runs because they give up a lot of them. Two more today. That's 33 on the year, sixth highest amount in the league.

Number one is the White Sox at 41. So maybe later this week when they play the Chicago White Sox, maybe the Cardinals will show, you know, flex their muscles a little bit, pop a few out. Then you got the raise, the Blue Jays, and the Padres.

Now the Padres have the two top home runs against pitchers in baseball right now. Did I say that wrong? Top two home runs against pitchers in baseball right now. Michael King, who was a big piece of that one Soto deal to send him to the Yankees, has been taken yard 10 times already this year. Joe Musgrove, nine times.

Michael King also leads the league in walks with 21. So that deal, not quite working out for the Padres the way they'd hope so far. He does have 40Ks. which is top 10 in the league. But those other numbers. Last one, we got a little time here. Last one, highest batting average against in the league.

So a starting pitcher, highest batting average against in the league right now. 353 is what the league is hitting off of Patrick Corbyn for the Washington Nationals. He is 0 and 3 with an ERA of 6.82. He is making $35 million this year. Leagues hitting 353 against him. He's making 35. million dollars this year. Kind of makes the Michaelis,

Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn money doesn't quite look so bad when you put it in the terms of what the Nats are paying that dude. But wow, not good. All right, we got to wrap it up. Tigers on Monday night in Detroit. We'll talk more about that series beginning on Monday. Thank you for making

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