Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - UNLEASHED: St. Louis Cardinals OFFENSE Erupts — Burleson, Walker & Gorman SPARK 11-Run Victory

Starting point is 00:00:00 The St. Louis Cardinals bust out the whoop and sticks and force the pirates to walk the plank with an 11 run outburst to take game two. 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 there, Cardinals fans. I'm Jady Hafford and on today's show, we're going to be talking about Tuesday night's victory over the pirates, a convincing victory over the pirates. Kyle Leahy start pretty good, pretty good for the most part. The offense just went wild. But so much has gone on and to help us get through it all.

Starting point is 00:00:43 I want to welcome back a guy that we haven't had a chance to have on in quite some time. Not his fault. Totally mine. And that is Thomas Govane from Redwood Brants.com. Thomas, great to see you, buddy. How you been? I've been great. Yeah, you know, I'll take some fault too.

Starting point is 00:00:56 We all get busy. We've all got stuff going on. So I'll take some of that flame as well. Yeah, you know, life gets busy, man. and that's the one thing about baseball is like it very rarely takes any off days. And so it's kind of tough when you are not a professional baseball player or part of the organization to squeeze everything in. But it's great to have you, man, because I'm going to need your help getting through what we just saw on Tuesday night between the Cardinals and the pirates. We're also going to talk about one of, actually two of your write-ups as well about perhaps a guy or two that may not be here when the calendar flips to May as well as your thought.

Starting point is 00:01:33 on two quarterstone pieces that, you know, you're seeing kind of mature right before our very eyes become big pieces of this puzzle that is the St. Louis Cardinals rebuilding process. But first, let's talk about Tuesday night, 11 runs, 12 hits, an 11 to 7 game where it really wasn't that close. You see 11 to 7. You're like, oh, okay, it was a, you know, a fun offensive game. It really wasn't that close for the most part. Cardinals had leads of 6 to nothing. It was 11 to 3 at one point. You know, the Jolly Roger, going to have to stay hidden for at least another night, which is always nice to say because I hate that stupid flag. It's only because I'm jealous because it's cool.

Starting point is 00:02:12 It's cool, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean, I get it, I get. But let's talk about the offense. Let's start there since that was what got everybody's attention tonight, Thomas, on the offensive side. What stood out to you most about the offensive explosion we saw on Tuesday in Pittsburgh? Yeah, every player got a hit. at least in the game, five of the 12 hits or extra base hits. You've got a bunch of walks in there, especially Yvonne Herrera.

Starting point is 00:02:39 He got his three free passes there in the game as well. Everything just seemed to be operating on all cylinders. You get guys on base, you get him over, you get them in, or you get a couple of solo shots. It was a good balance across the board. Yeah, like the late in the game when the pirates caught up for a little bit, where it was six to three, and then the Cardinals immediately answered back. I was so impressed in that inning with what we saw from, from Walker and Gorman,

Starting point is 00:03:06 because we know they can be strikeout machines. And it's just part of their game, man. They're going to offer a lot of power. They're going to offer a lot of swing and miss. And that's just something you have to accept. And in that inning, when the Cardinals got those three runs back, it was two sack flies by those two guys who normally, you know, let's be honest, we would have been like,

Starting point is 00:03:27 one of them is probably going to strike out here. And they're going to strand a runner over here. And neither one of them did that. They actually both hit the ball walker just missed it. He almost hit it a little too hard where it didn't get up in the air enough or that would have been a home run. But he hit a missile to center for a sack fly. Then Gorman followed up with a really good at bat and hit a sack fly as well.

Starting point is 00:03:47 And, you know, that was really nice to see. You know, the term that we keep hearing, you hear you hear Chip and Brad talking about it on the telecast and you've heard J.J. Weatherholt say a number of times where they get punched in the mouth. And what do they do? they punch back. And we saw it on Monday night in a huge way in that miraculous victory

Starting point is 00:04:06 and come from behind win on Monday night. But tonight, they just came out swinging and throwing haymakers right away, didn't they? Oh, absolutely. And then to see Victor Scott get his first amount of the year, that's redeeming for him as well. It was just a great team effort all around offensively. You had the comeback, not really a comeback,

Starting point is 00:04:23 but you had to build back up with the lead after it was lost there for a little bit, it was good resilience. Yeah, and, you know, it starts at the top of the order, like J.J. Weatherhole, boy, and it feels like, he's, he's yet to get, like, what I would consider hot, you know? He's just doing all the little things that you ever wanted to. Is he the best player on this team right now, Thomas? Like, the most complete player. Is it J.J. Weatherholt right now offensively? It's got to be. I mean, I'd give Herrera an argument just with his on base. I still think that power is going to come through at some point. But Herrera, brother holds his defense plus his offense. It's solid. It's reliable and it's plus everywhere across the board. That and he's doing it from the lead off spot where he just continues to get on base over and over and over. He only had one hit tonight and he got one walk, but he scored three times. Like he's just constantly on base. And you know, you mentioned Herrera, three more walks.

Starting point is 00:05:22 He's just got this uncanny eye, which I mean, I feel like we kind of knew we had a good eye last year, but you're seeing it in two ways this year where not only is he taking walks to the plate, but he's killing it in the ABS from behind the plate where he just goes the zone so well that it's really starting to make some waves. You know, nationally they're like, oh, my, this Yvonne Herrera, dude, doing some pretty good things, both at the plate and behind the plate this year. And that was one of the things we were concerned with was how good of a catcher he would be coming back from the injuries and whatnot.

Starting point is 00:05:55 The throwing has still been an issue and he's still going to work on that. Everything else has been pretty freaking good, hasn't it? Oh, absolutely. And I'd even give a shout out, this is an Herrera, but the three, four, or five guys, nine RBIs out of Burley, Walker and Gorman, too. That's what you want out of the middle of your lineup. Get the top two guys on base, and then the next three need to drive them in, and they did that perfectly tonight.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Yeah, and when we talk about them putting the ball in play and making things happen, they still struck out ten times tonight as a team, but when they needed somebody to get a hit or somebody, to just at least put it in play. They were able to get it done. Gorman did it a couple of times, actually. So it was nice to see him. Obviously, he hits that bomb that, I guess,

Starting point is 00:06:38 got lost in the trees beyond the stadium in right field. That was absolutely smoked to get the whole thing going as far as the offense. You mentioned Victor Scott's home run, which was also a bomb, which made it into the Allegheny River, which gave a shout out to his dad at the end of the game. And he was just like, that one's for you, pops, because his dad from the area. So that was awesome to see. But yeah, you're seeing the production in this game from the middle guys where it wasn't like sporadic, where it was like, well, one guy was good, but the other two were terrible.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Or two guys separated, did some damage. And then the middle guy was an automatic out each time. It was everybody involved in this one. Burleson going the opposite direction, JJ going the opposite direction. Like it was just really fun to watch. That's the kind of offense that, you know, we've been lacking over the last couple of years. And that was fun to watch tonight. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:07:30 It was exciting all around, got people, got a lot of action on the base paths, got a lot of guys going that we needed to. Yeah. And running, obviously, is another side of this, too, taking the extra bases, you know, Nathan Church running around on the bases out there. Five for 16 with runners in scoring position, only seven left on base. And he had Herrera got a stolen base in this one. Jordan Walker had another one.

Starting point is 00:07:54 He's got five now on the season. And they got four double plays, you know, defensively. They were able to turn four, which is obviously huge because anytime Pittsburgh started to make some waves and cause some commotion, they were able to get out of it with a double play. So it was it was a complete effort offensively, defensively. They look really good too. Pitching wise, we had some questions there in the bullpen. But I want to start with Kyle Leahy and his start.

Starting point is 00:08:23 We're going to get into that next with Thomas Gauvain from Redbird, Rance.com on Locked on Cardinals. ED is way more common than most guys think. You know, millions of guys deal with it at some point in their lives. You don't need to be embarrassed about it. That's exactly why Hems offers a straightforward way to handle it, because it's something that a lot of people deal with. Hems connects you with licensed health care providers online,

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Starting point is 00:11:08 slash podcast right now. Support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on Lockedon Cardinals. Indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for Indeed. Sponsored jobs. Thanks again for making Lockdown Cardinals. Your first listen of the day. Thank you for for making Locktown on the number one sports podcast network with baseball back. It's time to celebrate with the full month of the everydayer club for free. Go to Lockdown STO Cardinals. dot supercast.com. Use the code finally and you'll unlock every episode ad-free and you're going to get access to our private listener group chat. Tap the link in the show notes. Use the code finally. Claim your free month today. Thomas Covey from Redber Rants.com back with us once again.

Starting point is 00:11:53 It's time to talk about pitching Thomas. The Kyle Leahy, I guess experiment we can call it, from reliever to starter. Has it gone that smoothly? There have been bumps in the road for sure. But this is a year for things like that to be okay with it. You know, you're not in what you would call like, you know, we're going to win now situation. And if some guy has one or two bad starts, we got to get them out of here and find somebody else. That's not where we are this year. We're in a year where that P word that Mo made so famous is very important. Patience, patience, patience with some of these young guys so that they can be better. So when we are ready to, you know, really, really participate in playoff chatter in the next year or two,

Starting point is 00:12:38 like these guys are going to be ready and they're going to learn from what's happening in 2026 and be ready to go when that playoff window opens. But Leahy, despite all the struggles that he's had in his first few starts, tonight he was excellent for those first five innings, wasn't he? Yeah, he was great. And he had all the stuff working. He got nine whips tonight. Solid, solid figure for him higher than his average for the year.

Starting point is 00:13:02 He's got those seven strikeouts. well. I mean, he struck out the first, aside from the hit first inning, struck out the side as well. It was good to see him get that working. Yeah. And, you know, seventh strike guys, I believe that is a career high for Leahy. And I think so. Yeah. What did you see watching the game? What was it that you saw that was working for, for Leahy that was able to, you know, push his game up to a higher level than it's been so far this year? Yeah, he had the Velo back up at touch from. the year his fastball was touching 94, 95, 96 a little bit there.

Starting point is 00:13:39 Synchered good movement on it as well. They didn't get any whips on it. But then you look at his sweeper, and that was a pitch that he's really started to employ a little bit more. He's getting those whiffs. It's a swing and miss pitch. He doesn't really have that offering in his other pitches throughout his upper twas. He was just working all sides of the zone, too. I mean, Dotten where he needed it to be using all six, seven of his pitches, six of his pitches.

Starting point is 00:14:00 He could have an eighth in there somewhere, too. We don't know about it. Yeah, he had good command those first five innings. Yeah, and as you mentioned, that sweeper, that just eyeball test watching tonight and just being a baseball fan, that the pirates weren't even coming close. Like, they were nowhere near that sweeper. Either they weren't seeing it very well, or it was just that nasty tonight because that was certainly the out pitch for him. And those first five innings, shut out, shut out for the first five innings. Like, he was in complete command.

Starting point is 00:14:31 And I don't know whether it was just, you know, this was the third. time through the lineup that they got him by the sixth inning or it was just, you know, he was wearing down. You know, he's still somebody that's building up that stamina to be able to go six and seven innings. So I don't know what it was, but that's when they touched him up for three runs, got a couple home runs off of them. And those pitches, to me, it looked as though they were up in the zone, which is normally

Starting point is 00:14:57 what happens when you're starting to get tired. Yep, absolutely. And then I think the other important part, the broadcast had this figure up as well. It's the third time through the order. His ERA is like 10 and a half at that point as well. So the mixture of fatigue and familiarity with his stuff and his offerings, I think that's what got to him there. Yeah. And that's something too that I think a lot of casual fans probably overlook as that the first few innings when a starter, he doesn't usually throw his whole arsenal because he wants to save something for later on. I don't know if Calahey is that guy right now. I think he's just

Starting point is 00:15:31 trying to improve on everything, every inning, and he's not really holding anything back. Absolutely. I mean, he's going to take advantage of his repertoire, and that's one of his calling cards as well, is having that deep pitch mix. So he's going to employ that whenever he wants to, whenever he needs to. He's not going to pocket his sweeper, his curveball for the fifth inning. He's going to use it early to get himself in control. Yeah. And with those strikeouts tonight, Kyle Leahy is now up to 22 whiffs on the season, which puts him in a tie for Dustin May. We know this is not a big swing and miss club, but, you know, to have Kyle Leahy of the guys that we have in the rotation, you know, Libby's been a little disappointing with the swing and miss. But we know Palante, for the most part, normally is, you know, he's a four to five kind of strikeout guy, although he had a big out of his last time out.

Starting point is 00:16:20 But we know McGreeve. He's not a strikeout guy. Dustin May is not a huge strikeout guy, although he's got the high velo. And Leahy is that guy that when he's on can get a lot of swing and miss. and we finally got a little taste of that tonight. Yeah, we did. We certainly did. And you saw that as a reliever last year for him. Obviously, that's going to drop when he moves to the rotation. But he's got that potential in there, especially.

Starting point is 00:16:41 Yeah. Moving on to the bullpen, which is always a lot of fun to talk about because there's one thing about this team this year that has been driving everybody nuts. It's the bullpen. And, you know, you've got your normal guys and Jojo and Riley, O'Brien, who you've been able to rely on for the most. part. And, you know, yeah, Jojo's been touched up a couple times recently and Riley finally gave up some, some runs in that series against Seattle. But, you know, tonight was one of those

Starting point is 00:17:10 like, guys, guys, come on. First off, Gordon Grisopho continues to be very, very good. We got to give Gordon Grosepho credit. He comes in, goes an inning in two thirds, finishes up the one inning for Leahy in the sixth. And he doesn't allow any run against that big double play and doesn't allow anything. No runs, no hits, no strikeouts, no walks, just a bunch of zeros, which is fine, which is fine. Get him out out and just get out of there. And you're working with that big lead. And so now you're like, all right, well, we still got to, you can't just throw Grisepho the rest of the time because you want to be able to save him. But if you need them tomorrow, what if you need them on Thursday in this series? So we go to Justin Bruill,

Starting point is 00:17:51 who I don't know how you fit, which bullpen guy, because we haven't had a chance to talk about this, which one of these guys drives you the most insane? Because my vote has been Justin Broll from the get-go. I didn't like the move in the off-season. I wasn't a fan of it. I was like, really? This is what we're relying on. I thought he was just going to be some depth piece in the organization.

Starting point is 00:18:12 And the guy leads the team in appearances so far. And he sucks, Thomas. He's not very good. Yeah, I can tell you the guys that I like, and there's only three of them, which you pick the other five who I don't like the most. Ryan Stanick always gives me a small heart attack, I think, when he's out there. He's been maybe a little bit better the last couple outings, but also I don't love it. Sponson for some reason.

Starting point is 00:18:38 I mean, when I picked him as the breakout pitcher at the beginning of the year, I was like, I'm a genius. This is it. He's going to lead the league in saves. And here he is with a 10.5 ERA getting launched on every other game. So probably Stannick, maybe Matt Sponson, just out of like frustration. and sorrow, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:59 You know, Sponson, I, you know, I still have hope for it because he's young and we're still working with him. And, you know, they keep talking about his metrics and stuff where they like, like, his stuff is good. He's just command is bad. He's not executing properly. And, you know, when he gets that straightened out, maybe we'll see the guy that we saw last year.

Starting point is 00:19:16 So I still got some hope for Sponson. Stanick, yeah, you know, it's, it's like watching a lesser version of Brian Helsley where there's just constantly people on base no matter what, you know, he throws smoke. He's got a wipe out slider, but for some reason they hit the snot out of the ball against him. Anytime he's near the plate, it's really weird. It genuinely is a Ryan Helsley light 2.0 because he's not even near that level that Helsley has ever been, but it can be frustrating. And then you see him like his last spirit.

Starting point is 00:19:49 He comes down and just blows the side away. walks have always been a problem for him, and they continue this year. But Brule is just a guy where I was like, dude, you've got to find some other veterans to in spring training. I was like, you've got to go find a couple of other veterans to, you know, compete for this job. And they just were like, nah, Justin Brule. And he has been brul's full all season. Like, it drives me mad.

Starting point is 00:20:14 And every time I say, I mean, you're in a game where you're up 11 to 3 and you can't throw strikes. It's like, I lose in my mind in that game. And I'm like, dude, and they got to use him because he ain't going anywhere. He's out of options. So he's not going anywhere. I don't have anybody in the organization to take a spot. So we just got to keep living this nightmare over and over and over. I think we just got to wait like one or two more outings, get Louis Peralta acclimated to the Cardinal system.

Starting point is 00:20:42 They just brought him on. Let's get Brulah out there and get Peralta in just to swap the lefties at this point. He's, I just looked at his walk rate. He's going to walk rate 15,000 and his strikeout rate's less than 10. He is walking 6% more batterers than he is striking the mound. Yeah, it's terrible. And it was like before tonight's game, like he was, hitters were batting 188 against him. And you're like, okay, so he's not that.

Starting point is 00:21:04 No, because they don't have to swing because they just watch him to throw the ball all over the place. Like it's just, it's matting. It's absolutely maddening. And on Tuesday night, again, he sucked. An inning, three runs, two of them earned, three. hits, a walk. He did have a strikeout, got a double play to get out of it, or it was about to get even messier. And all of a sudden, you know, we're sitting there looking at it's an 11 to 6 ball game. You're like, dude, don't give these guys hopes. Please stop. Please stop this. And then Sonson comes in.

Starting point is 00:21:34 And again, I'm the one who's been kind of easy on Sponson this year. But, you know, he gives up the home run to Connor Griffin, the super rookie for for the pirates, or at least he will be at some point, they think. But yeah, he's got a lead of five runs at that point. So, you know, I want you throwing strikes. If he's going to hit it over the wall, so be it. But just don't walk anybody. And he gave up the homer, but he also struck out three in the game. So I would say job well done, Matt Swanson on that one. So don't feel bad about your pick, Thomas. It's okay. There's time. We've got time. There is time that this man can still turn this thing around. And I'm hoping that he will. All right, coming up in segment number three, we are going to talk about a couple of things that Thomas has written about at RedbirdRance.com.

Starting point is 00:22:23 I'm going to give you a little tease on one upcoming write-up and also his latest one about a couple of the cornerstone guys that we were always hoping would be a cornerstone people for this Cardinals franchise starting to take control of those mantles. So we'll get into that with Thomas next on Locked on Cardinals. Baseball season is here, and now you can trade every game on Calci. On Cali, you can trade every single game. Like for Wednesdays, game between the Cardinals and the Pirates, Pirates are currently trading at 57% to beat our Cardinals. How dare they? Who are trading at 43%, which means if you were to go with the Cardinals,

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Starting point is 00:24:13 Thomas Govain from Redwood Rants.com, kind enough to hang out with us here today. and let's talk about some of the stuff you've been writing about. First off, let's talk about the cornerstones. You know, there's been some guys that, you know, the organization and the fans were always hoping would be taking that next step and become these guys, become the next, you know, Alberts and Yadir Molina's guys that, you know, we can trust and count on to be the meat of this team moving forward.

Starting point is 00:24:43 And you just wrote about two of them that you feel are really starting to take steps to becoming those people. Yeah, absolutely. So Jordan Walker and Mason, Wynn, those are two names we've heard for the last four years as prospects to keep an eye on. And I noticed something interesting

Starting point is 00:24:57 between the two of them. I broke up the season into two, two-week stretches. If you look from opening day through April 12th, that was Jordan Walker's peak of his hot streak. He had seven home runs,

Starting point is 00:25:08 a WRC plus of 219. He had a slugging of 760, batting average 33. He was on fire. But then conversely, you had Mason Lynn, 147 batting average. He was walking where he was striking out, but he only had one extra base hit and a 57 WRC plus. And then I flipped for the next two weeks.

Starting point is 00:25:27 So now we're April 13th through April 25th. And it was it was night and day for the two of them. Jordan Walker now is batting 214. His slugging percentage is 333, only one home run, 76 WRC plus. But then Mason Wynn started turning it on at that point, five extra base hits in that window, 186 WRC plus. So my thought process was what if these two sink up for the next month or two weeks, whatever, how good the offense could be. And that's just something that we've kind of been waiting for as Cardinal fans. And it was something to dream on for the time being at least.

Starting point is 00:25:59 Yeah. And they are still obviously big pieces of this puzzle. You know, Mason dealt with some injuries this year, which probably contributed to that slow start. But, you know, he has been the hottest hitter for the team over the last week, like, multiple hit games in a row. Like it was really a lot of fun to see the offensive side of Mason win breakout because that's been the biggest knock against him in his career, even coming up as a prospect, we're like, you're going to be able to hit in the major leagues?

Starting point is 00:26:28 Like we see the arm. We see the defense and the speed. We love that. Is he going to be able to hit? Okay. To be worthy of a spot in the lineup. And last year, the first half of the season, good. Then the knee issue came and he was pretty bad the rest of the year offensively.

Starting point is 00:26:45 And then you had the slow start this year, which maybe is just a thing with Mason. I don't know, because that's two years in a row where he has come out of the gate just ice cold. But, you know, you're starting to see him contribute. And, you know, he's not top of the lineup. He's not, you know, down at eight or nine. You know, he's right there kind of in the six, seven spot most of the time now. And he seems pretty comfortable there, don't you think? I do, yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:07 And I'm not asking for 25 home runs out of Mason. You know, but even a 100 average OPS plus guy, I think that's perfect for him. He's throwing his gold glove defense and his speed, too. Yeah. And then Jordan Walker, you know, the ups and downs with him. You know, we all knew that the hot streak he was on. It was going to cool off eventually and he wasn't going to be hitting home runs as much.

Starting point is 00:27:30 And, you know, you're starting to see he came down a little bit. And just like Monday and Tuesdays at bats look so good compared to what we were seeing against Seattle. He just, for whatever reason, he started to do. do the things that he was doing before. He was chasing a lot of breaking pitches low and away, and people were eating them up with it. And in the last two games, he's starting to stay away from that. He's starting to hold back. And, you know, you saw him take a couple of walks, which is always a good sign. And then on Tuesday night, you know, he's smacking the ball around the yard, two for four, three RBIs. And all those RBIs came in huge situations where they really needed him to come through

Starting point is 00:28:11 and provide some insurance there. So, you know, he's back what appears to be on the up swing again. That's this season, man. It's got to be a roller coaster. And every team goes through it. And every player goes through it. Nobody just stays hot the whole year. Everybody goes cold.

Starting point is 00:28:27 Even show Hey, Otani, everyone. It happens. So you can't just dump on these guys after three bad games and say, get them out of here. He's terrible. That's not how it works, unless it's Justin Broll, because he is terrible. And then finally, let's talk about one. one thing that we're going to tease about your next write-up at redbirdrants.com where you're going to be talking about some guys who may not make the cut and be around

Starting point is 00:28:51 anymore in May. Is there one of them you want to give us as a little teaser before it drops at redbirdrants.com? I'll give you all the obvious one and then I'll save the two others. You know, that's how this works. It's an entertainment market. So the obvious one would be Thomas to JC. I think he's been getting less playing time lately. he had, I mean, I think he had the fifth worst WRC plus out of batters with 40 or 50 more played appearances this year, which is not, I mean, you look at the guys below and then those are not names you want to be mentioned with.

Starting point is 00:29:22 I think given his prospect pedigree is Texas League MVP a few years ago, he needs to get that reset at Memphis and some more confidence back up before he, before he stays in St. Louis. Yeah. And when you talk about young guys like Thomas, who's still a young man. Like we're not talking. talking about a 28, 29-year-old guy here, not being able to play every day and work on it is probably hurting him at this point, too. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think just to get regular reps, like you just mentioned, it'd be good for him, too. Confidence.

Starting point is 00:29:53 Yeah. Yeah. And who, that's the real question, right? Who do you bring up? Who are you going to move him out for? Is there somebody that you have in mind? I've been rooting for Brian Torres to get some time. Yeah, he's 29.

Starting point is 00:30:11 He's not like, so let's see what this young guy has. It's more of like, give him a shot, let him get major league pay for a week, you know, something like that. Yeah, I have been a guy that's been, I've been asking people around, like, I'm like, why does nobody give him a shot? Like, what is he doing wrong? Yeah. People are like, well, is it just age-based?

Starting point is 00:30:33 Because last time I checked, having a guy who can hit for average, who has got good speed. and can play multiple positions, outfield and infield, and is a veteran style presence. I know he's a minor league, but you know what I mean? Like, just because he's not 24 or 25, that, like, removes him from being somebody who can be on this team. Like, I'm looking at a set.

Starting point is 00:30:56 He's hitting 343 at AAA this year. Like, 343, five stolen bases, nine RBIs. And if you think that's a fluke, he hit 328 the previous year. before that he hit 331 like this is what he does Thomas like what do you think it is is it just age I really don't know honestly it is sad and I so they can't even use the excuse like we're letting the guys play or trying to like either letting the young guys play or trying to win isn't there's plenty of young guys get in time and the ones who were waiting on Josh Baez crooks have things that they still need to do in the minors give Brian Torres a shot for all week here let the guy

Starting point is 00:31:36 once again just give him a major. really pay for a week. He's 29, let him make a few thousand dollars, get him on his way, you know, something like that. And who knows, maybe he has a good two-week stretch and you can give the shot the second to break here and there. He's got that versatility to him. Yeah, and he's on the 40, man.

Starting point is 00:31:56 It's not like you have to move anybody around. Like, he's on there. So it's somebody who can just be brought up if you need to. Yeah, very interesting because, you know, they don't want to quit on Cajie, but again, I don't know how much help your, giving him by just letting him rot on the bench all the time. Clearly, Rias is somebody that they love, that they want to give him playing time. They trust him a lot. For Mien is starting to come through

Starting point is 00:32:18 in big situations. We saw the huge stuff on Monday night. And, you know, Thomas is the one that's fallen off. So I'm very curious, very curious if they do. But I'm on team Torres as well. I would love to see him come up and, you know, get a crack at it. But it might have to take an injury or something for that to happen. And we got New Bar, who we think is going to come back at some point. We haven't heard any updates, but on the 68 day IL. So that's something we have to think about like roster-wise eventually. So I don't know. More importantly, we got a chance to win the series on Wednesday. That's what's most important right now against the Pittsburgh Pirates, finally playing guys in the division and to come back the way they did on Monday and then to just

Starting point is 00:33:03 blow the doors off on Tuesday. It was a whole lot of fun to watch. And I hope we get to see more of that in Wednesday's game. But life ain't going to get any easier because it was at Bubba Chandler tomorrow on Wednesday and then Paul Scheme. And then Skeens and then Schoen's getting up for Hunter Dobbins. I made the joke today. We hit Paul Skeens well.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Yeah. I was like, I was like oh Hunter Dobbins you get to make your debut with the Cardinals. By the way, you got to face Skeens. Good luck, kid. Good luck. Welcome back. But whatever. Hopefully they get the win. I can wear the ugly shirt. We can all celebrate. Sound good? Looks good to me. I love it. All right, man.

Starting point is 00:33:40 Well, guys, check out Thomas's work at Thomas Gauvain on X, obviously. Also at Redbird Ranch.com, all of his different write-ups and stuff, always entertaining stuff. So, Thomas, appreciate you joining us, as always. And for those of you who are still with us, thanks for making Locked-on Cardinals, your first listen every day. Now, if you haven't already, give us a follow on X at L0 underscore Cardinals. You can also find us on TikTok and Instagram at Locktown Cardinals. Are you doing TikTok yet, Thomas? Are you doing dances and stuff with the family?

Starting point is 00:34:09 No, absolutely. I hit 30 this year, this last year. So I think at that point, they don't even give me an account to buy it. You're too old for the talk. All right, I understood. If you guys never miss an episode, every day a club built for you, get locked on Cardinals ad-free,

Starting point is 00:34:23 ad members-only Discord access and more by using the code finally. Head to Locked on STLCardels.com to join the club. For those of you on video, we'll send you to the first ever 24-7, national lockdown podcast network, YouTube channel on audio. Make sure your second list. is locked on MLB.

Starting point is 00:34:38 Thomas, as always, buddy, thanks for doing this. Yeah, thank you very much for having me on, JD. Appreciate it. All right, everybody. You guys are the best fans in baseball. We'll see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.

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