Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MLB SQUAD SHOW! THRILLER: Guardians and Tigers LOCKED in Epic Pennant Race | Playoff chase continues

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

GUARDIANS SURGE, TIGERS COLLAPSE: MLB PLAYOFF RACE HEATS UP Cleveland Guardians stun Detroit Tigers with late-season comeback. Can they clinch a playoff spot in the final weekend? Jeff Carr and Justin Lada break down the Guardians' impressive turnaround, highlighting key players and strategic moves. The discussion covers the Tigers' epic collapse, vulnerable teams heading into October, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' bullpen concerns. Sully introduces his "Summer Score" metric, offering unique insights into team performance. Don't miss the heated debate on MLB's playoff format and its impact on fan engagement. Tune in for expert analysis on the most exciting storylines as the regular season comes to a dramatic close.  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYEnough with boring, flavorless caffeine, it’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots. Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in-store and online at https://www.5hourENERGY.com or Amazon today.   NutrafolSee thicker, stronger hair with less shedding in just 3–6 months with Nutrafol. For a limited time, get $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to https://Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code LOCKEDONMLB. ZippixGo to https://ZippixToothpicks.com and use promo code LOCKEDON for 10% off your first order. Zippix Toothpicks—energy and focus, anytime you need it. RugietReady to level up your confidence ? Head to https://rugiet.com and use promo code LOCKEDONMLB for 15% off your first order.   Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at https://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)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Cleveland Guardians are your favorite to win the American League Central? Yes, I said it. Fandall said it. We're going to dissect it on this squad show. Step up to the plate. It's the Locked-on MLB Squad show. From the Dodgers to the Astros, the Mets to the Rangers, and everyone else in the league, with the experts of the Locked-on podcast network bringing you the most comprehensive breakdown

of all the action around the war. We're coming from. We are just a few days away from the MLB playoffs beginning, and we're glad that you're alongside us here on this latest edition of the MLB squad show. My name is Jeff Carr. I'm one half of Lockdown Reds. I'm also the Lockdown MLB channel manager and your host for the squad show today. We've also got Bonie from Lockdown A's.

We've got, of course, Sully, the man, the myth, the solely of Lockdown MLB. and of course we have the happiest man in the room right now in Justin Lada because the Cleveland Guardians, one half of Locktown Guardians, by the way, because the Cleveland Guardians have overtaken or whether tied with the tiebreaker and it's tiebreaker season because we're talking about all the tiebreakers today and the the guardians have the tiebreaker over the tigers and of course we have to start there because Justin, how we feel it. I'm feeling pretty good. I got to say that I never expected to be here. Like I feel good just the fact that we're going into the final weekend and the guardians have something to play

for when we get to the end of the season and sully does his summer score the guardians they're not going to score very highly but you know what it has been it has been the best month of baseball i can remember in the regular season since 2017 guardians wired almost wired a wire last year to win the division very close to it but this run has been very reminiscent of 2017 when they won 22 and I mean, there's 17 and 3 in their last 20 games. The same team that lost 10 in a row earlier this season. I declared him dead at least twice. After the 10-game losing streak, I declared him dead when they're closer, who I will not speak of, got not suspended.

He's on the non-dis. He's not disciplined. He's not disciplined, but he's getting paid. I haven't felt this good since then. Justin, you brought up my summer score, which is where I, the metric that I invented. to keep track of the, I have a point system for the number of times

you wake up in the morning your team's in a playoff spot after Memorial Day. I can't do it before Memorial Day, but after Memorial Day, after third of the season. So I call it the summer score because those, if you have a high number, that means you had a fun summer, right? It means you, most of the days,

you woke up there. Right now, the Cleveland Guardian summer score is 34. Compare that. with the Astros, which is 285. Wow. One is in the playoffs. One is not.

The Guardians were a playoff team on Memorial Day pretty much through the day through June. I mean, they had a couple of days here and there where they're out of it. And then after June 25th, they fell out never to be seen again until September 21st. So from June 25th until September 21st. They were not a playoff team. That's all of, that's all of July. That's all, that's all of August. That's most of September.

And here they are in, in a position where they, you know, they're in a playoff team. I want to just, I want to do one thing right now. I want to be Superman. I'm going to spin the earth backwards a little bit. I'm going to go back to, not a lot of, very long time ago. Fifteen days ago, coming off the games on June 10th, 15 days ago, mid, I'm not June, should, September 10th, sorry, swing back to September 10th, all right, mid-September. And the Tigers absolutely dismantled the Yankees with an 11-1 blowout.

I want to just point a couple of things out. The best team in the America League that day were the Detroit Tigers, okay, just ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays. Now, this is how life is different since then. The Jays were three games up on the Red Sox and Yankees. The Astros were in first place by themselves, okay? And the Detroit Tigers had, had two weeks, 15 days ago, had a nine and a half game lead. It's so wild. Nine and a half.

That's as many games as Mickey Rourke and Kim Bessinger had weeks together. Nine and a half. Thank you for my really up-to-date movie references. And it was 15 days. With 15 days. Now consider there's what, there's like, what, three or four days. There's three days left. So let's just round it up.

You're up nine and a half with approximately, with less than, 20 to play. You're feeling good. You're like, hey, let's just, let's, let's ease up on the throttle and land the plane. After you just humiliated the Yankees in back to back games. I mean, the tigers were walking the walk. They were thinking like, hey, they were going to honor the late Chet Lemon and say, hey, it's 1984 all over again.

But I've said it's 1984 as an Orwell for the tiger fans because this has become a bureaucratic nightmare that they have fallen apart, even though they won today, and you got to give him credit for at least getting out of Dodge with something. Who thought when Ramirez hit that double in the eighth inning, I thought, here we go, here we go. But Terrick Scoobal, who is probably going to win the Cy Young Award, although the fact that he came up so small and crochet came up so big down the stretch, has got to get something. Scouble had all of the, you know, the the, the, the, the toughness of Don Knott's on the mound the other day. And at one point, he, like, he panicked and kind of tried to, like, throw the ball like a long snapper through his legs.

Did you see that play? That was absolutely surreal. And, you know, we're right now, we're at a position in 15 days, it went from the best record in the American League and a nine and a half game lead on, on Cleveland. who, by the way, that day, did they win that day? No, they lost to, Cleveland lost to Kansas City that day, who were breathing down Cleveland's neck at that point. They were, Kansas City was only a half game behind Cleveland at that point. Oh, God.

And now, Cleveland, the guardians are contenders. But Cleveland now may get a buy. You know? Yeah. I just want to get in, I just want to get in, okay? I just want a ticket. It's October. I don't care where they play. I don't care who they play. I just want a ticket. Well, good for you. Well, you should use game time. I do. I'm a company man. I'm a company man. Yeah.

I think you've got to adjust your summer score. So I think you've got to start giving negative points to people who are out of a playoff spot. It's not how it works. If the guardian has had negative points, they would have the most dramatic comeback in your system to be in from the, They still have a negative run differential, by the way. They still have a negative run differential. There's certainly people who have, like, one summer score or is it two? Maybe it's, no, because they're not on Monday. The Rockies would be in the hole for the next six years. Well, the lowest summer score is Arizona with four.

No, a low summer score is Kansas City with three. Arizona with four and Texas with five. Okay. By the way, Minnesota has a score of 20. Wow. Yeah. Well, they had 13 in a row earlier this year. Yeah, they had a good section there. And the Cardinals and the Giants.

One win for every player, they traded. Nice. I'm sorry. Brandon, I'm sorry. That was a pot shot there. It doesn't deserve that one. But no, it's crazy to see that comeback. And it's crazy to see, like, do you put, all right, real quickly, before we get out of this segment here, who gets more? or blame or credit, Guardians or Tigers?

I think you have to blame the Tigers. I mean, yes, but the Guardians have been getting win after win because their pitching has been terrific. They've had games where they're winning like four to two or two to a while. I mean, like when they were going on that huge winning streak, they weren't exactly lighting up the joint. But the Tigers were just playing awfully. I mean, it's a combination, of course.

I mean, you can't have one without the end. other. I mean, the great collapse of the Red Sox in 2011 is also the raise took over as well. I mean, you need to have that team take advantage of it. And Lord knows Cleveland took advantage of it. I mean, 15 days to do that sort of a reversal, that's unheard of. Tiger is losing two of three against the white socks at home. I mean, come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's. The guards took care of business, but the Tigers definitely let them back and let them close the door on him either.

Plus, I was opening the door to see if Sully still hated the Guardian. So, you know, we know it's all the Midwest. It's all the Midwest. Obviously, you got to hate Cleveland because you hate those teams that win in every single year. Every single year. Well, I know this. Like, there's definitely a lot of spots that are kind of spoken for.

And I know we mentioned that the, you know, the Blue Jays and the Yankees as far as the division goes, they're still neck and neck. And then you've got the last wildcard spot in the National League that I feel like we've talked about a whole bunch because of the Mets. And that is an easy answer of, yeah, it's the Mets fault. It's not credit to the Reds or the Diamondbacks for coming back in that race. But who is the most vulnerable as we head into October? Because I think there's a lot of different answers, a lot of different ways that we could go with that. So we're going to go that way.

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locked-on MLB for 15% off your first order. That's R-U-G-I-E-T-com and the promo code, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-M-L-B. Make sure to use our code so they know that we sent you. Thank you for making Lockdown MLB part of your every day. day routine. There is a podcast for your favorite team, whether it is the Guardians, Justin and Jeff Ellis over at Lockdown Guardians, the A's with Booney, whether it's the entire league, maybe you just love baseball as a whole. Sully's got you covered. And of course, lockdown MLB game, not watching every game every night all the way through the World Series. And the Reds, too. Maybe you just really were a big fan of Nuelvei Marte doing his best Glenn

Bragg's impersonation, albeit not in the World Series. But that was an amazing catch that Noelvie Marte. I just had to put that in there. I'm going to talk a lot about that on, you know, the lockdown Reds show. So I'm not, by the way, Jeff, Jeff, Glenn Braggs was a guest on the old Sully baseball podcast. So I called Glenn Bragg's friend of the podcast. Sorry, Booney, he was part of the Reds team that BTAs. But yeah, what are you going to have? It's because if you know ball, well, Sully knows ball, period, plain and simple. So being that, we know ball here on the squad show, there's definitely a couple of teams that are coming into this playoffs really hungry, maybe questioning some things.

And I start with the Milwaukee Brewers. And I'm not saying that they are the most vulnerable, but I'm saying that if anybody is going to be pressing in October, whenever they finally get going, it's Milwaukee, because we've seen this story before. Milwaukee has dominated the regular season for what feels like a decade at this point. The National League Central has been theirs to lose for a long time, and they haven't lost it.

They have absolutely dominated this division. And here we are, again, they are now the number one seat in the National League. And it just feels like to me, until they advance and until they show that the playoffs can be had for them, I kind of don't buy them. I'll tell you where I'm going to push back a little bit. Several times they've won the division, it's been because the Central has not been that strong. I'm not saying every time. And there have been a couple of years. In 2021, they were an excellent and legit potential penit contender.

They were upset by Atlanta. But there have been years where they were, you know, someone's got to come out of the central. And they were a good team in a division without a powerhouse. And sorry, no offense, Jeff. No, I watched it closely. You're absolutely. This team's a 96 win team. they're probably going to wind up with the best record in the history of the franchise.

And I think when I watch this team, there's something about this, and I made this comparison before and I'll bring it again. Yes, I know they haven't been as dominant down the stretch, but it's also like, do you know what? They're going to wind up probably with 97, 98 wins. And they also, the thing that makes them dangerous, I made the comparison to the 2015 Kansas City Royals is that they're not leaning on one star player.

They've got a lot of solid hitters and fielders up and down the lineup. They have a good, you know, they don't have to rely on Mizorowski. They know they have Peralta. They know they have priests. They know they have good pitchers on there. They know they have a pretty good bullpen with a little bit of depth. And they play great defense. And I think that they're, they don't make mistakes.

They don't, they don't play done. It's what the, what the Royals did in 2012. 2015, where again, they didn't have a superstar. They just had very good players, like, you know, Gordon and Mustakis and Kane and Perez. You know, they were all good players. Just none of them were the MVP superstars, but they had answers everywhere. And they had answers in the rotation. And, of course, they had a dominant bullpen.

But they also went first to third. They also stole a bunch of bases. They put their defense on their heels, and they played good defense. And I look at this Milwaukee team, and I don't see a team that's going to make mistakes. I see the Dodgers as a team that's capable of making six. I see the Phillies as a team. Gun to my head and please don't put one there. If I'm going to pick a World Series champion,

I'm sticking with my preseason pick, which is the Philadelphia Phillies. But you'll have to beat the Brewers. The Brewers won't beat themselves. And for that reason, I'm out. For that reason, I think that they look better than some of the teams that had got in the playoffs before. But again, I thought the team in 2021 was, I thought they were going to do better than they did.

So who knows? But I do like this team better than previous Milwaukee teams. And they're going to have the top seat. So it's not going to be a, well, they need, someone need to come out of the central. They've been really good. They've been dominant since pretty much the middle of June, you know, mid to late June.

They've been unstoppable. And I think that they're, I would not want to face them. all I took away from that is Sully was just finding a new way to hate on the Midwest. He's hating the Central once again saying so that's all I took out of your entire ramp. So I know. I

also picked the Phillies to win the World Series preseason as well. And I think they're under a ton of pressure, to be honest with you, because I know that mentioning a bond. No Zach Wheeler. Yeah. Yeah. No Zach Wheeler. Kyle Schwerber's a free agent at the end of the year. They've got a lot of weird tension going on with Nec Castiano's. I know they've had their players playing

better than him recently. Like, Trey Turner's coming off an injury, if I'm not mistaken. Like, I know they, I know Losardo and Sanchez are great, and they traded for Duran, but this team, I don't want to say, I hate saying windows because I don't think windows ever exist because you think it's open and then all of a sudden it closes and then it opens when you think it's not. But this is a team with a weird age and a weird free agent situation where I think there are under a lot of pressure to get it done this October.

So I think there's going to be under a lot of pressure. I think the Yankees is always under a lot of pressure in the playoffs. too. I think because they just have it. Everyone expects them to win every year and they never do them. What's the last one? 09 or 08, I think it was the last one. Oh, 9, yeah. So I think they're under pressure and, you know, the guardians, they're playing with

house money. If they get in, nobody expecting them to be there. So like, same with Milwaukee. Like, I think the manager of the year award is a silly award sometimes and you don't often see two managers win it in back-to-back years. But like, given where the guardians and Brewers were this year and what they came into with like I think both those guys are winning manager of the year because the expectations changed in the off season and during the season so they should be playing a little bit

freer and easier like sully said the process of the brewers manager of the year should be renamed manager of the team you didn't expect to contend yes yes because how do you quantify that like really like you always just give it to the guy you think the team is that's going to suck coming into the year at the end of the day it still comes down to the dodgers and when you got yamamoto Nell and Glasnow leading three pitchers that could lead any rotation right now. I like the Phillies without Wheeler's stuff. And hey, their lineup's not too bad either. So at the end of the day, I still think the Dodgers are the team to beat.

But the one thing I'd say, Boone, and again, you bet against the Dodgers at your own peril. Dave Roberts has to look in the mirror and, well, he has to come up to Clayton Kershaw and to Sazaki and say, guess what, you guys are in the pen because Tanner Scott's terrible. Blake Trinan should be DFAed. I mean, they have blown. Their bullpen has been not

mediocre. Their bullpen has been grotesque. Their bullpen has been Calvin Chiraldi Jun Young Kim, Armando Benitez, you name it. Jose Mesa's looking at this group saying, man, these guys are chokers. I mean, sorry, I'm sorry.

I've erased that name from my memory. Come on. Are you saying Brad Lidge is going to come out and close games for them in the playoffs? By the way, I'm convinced that Brad Lidge made a deal with the devil in 2008. They gave me one year where I can't blow one. And then he did. And after that. But yeah, I mean, like, I would use Otani as a closer. Look at Yamamoto, Glasnow, Shian, Snell.

that's the best when you consider wheelers out that's the best one two three four going into the postseason and part of me wants to go up to dave roberts and say hey pull an ozigian and just have them throw nine you know you're i'd be better off having yamamoto throw nine than having you know the and any one of the delta house who's in the freaking bullpen right now coming out and blowing the game i mean so like a starter on like 50 percent like energy i would rather have kershaw coming out of the bullpen. Absolutely. I would use Kersh out of the bullpen. I would use freaking, you know,

if Chean's not going to get a start, get him out of the bullpen. I just don't trust any, especially Trinin. I mean, Trinan has just been automatic. Do you know Trinan's ERA is right now? Ten? It's 547.

Yeah. Five. Yeah. That's a good slugging. Your ERA should not be a good slugging percentage. It's not 5, 6, 7, Sully? I still don't know what that means, to be honest. I did that to Jeff the other day, and he logged off on me because I am not

logged off. He's like, I'm out, yeah. Yeah, I got to admit, I'm making nine and a half weeks references. I'm not into today's references. Nine and a half weeks, yeah. We're talking about Glenn Braggs just a minute ago. But that's, but that is, I agree. with you, Boone, because it's tough. I mean, obviously, you have Yamamoto, you have

Glasno, you have Snell. Sheehan's been pitching great for them recently. And obviously, Otani is, you know, playing once again. Jeez, he, you know, he's once again, pitching well, 50 home runs. He's going to have 20 stolen bases. OPS is going to be over a thousand. And, you know, Betts is there, Freeman is there. Obviously, they're going to, they're going to score a lot and everything. But I, you know, the bullpen will be their undoing. absolutely be there unddoing. I'm not saying they can't win because you've seen teams that have, like last year, their rotation was a mess.

They had to throw a bullpen game every four games and they still managed to win it. By the way, I also think that the Yankees have one more dumb series in them. I think they have one more, you know, where they're playing yakety sacks on the, in defense or Boone makes one more, you know, dumb move. I, I, I, I, that's not wishful thinking on my part, but I think they have one, there's one more, you know, they're, they're not going to be playing the white socks. They're not going to be playing, you know, the, the, the, who else have they been playing down the stretch? The nationals or the, the, the twins. They're not going to be playing one of those teams. They're going to be playing a pretty good team along the way.

Right. And so, team they can beat them if they, if they, if they'll be a moment where he does something dumb. Or Volpe kicks a ball or something. or something stupid happens. And I think they have one more of that in them. It's been a while. It's been a while since they've had a dumb series. I guess they had their lunch stolen from them by Detroit. But I mean a dumb like, wait a minute.

He threw it at the wrong base or, you know, or like someone just a bad, someone crawl up and come to sleep at second base and put their head on the bag, you know, something. Some of the little league coaches go like, oh, my God, I just told my kids to not do this. One more. It's definitely coming. I can see that happening.

I want to take a step back, though, and look at the playoffs from a 30,000 foot, because I have a question for you guys that I think will provide some interesting discussion. That's coming up next. If you've been thinking about getting in on the action over on Fandall, now is the best time. They still have this great introductory offer that's only going to last for a little bit longer. When you place your first $5 a bet, if it wins, you'll get $300.

and bonus bets that's like literally double what it usually is and of course there's plenty of major league baseball lines to put that on including who's going to win the a l central because as we know the guardians have taken over and at least according to fandle the guardians are favored they are minus two 15 to win the al central right now the tigers are at plus 172 by how the tigers have fought man they've had like an opposite season compared to last year where they just barely made the playoffs after a huge comeback now it's the other way around but yeah go check out fan duel today like i said new users first five dollar win gets you three hundred dollars in bonus bets download that fan duel app today if you can't watch your favorite lockdown mb podcast on youtube you can always

listen to us on your favorite app because we are free and available everywhere you get your podcast all right i want to close on this because we're just a couple of days away from the playoffs beginning wild card round best of three all that great stuff and this is actually a little bit prompted by something that justin said the other day to me and i i want to ask everybody here and just and i'm curious as to your your long-form thoughts on this as well because are there too many playoff teams yes but no because if you would have asked you a few weeks ago or the start of the month i would have said yes because the guardians weren't going to be in and i just that i'm i'm tired of of watching teams sit around 500,

not make moves at the deadline, not try to push the chips all in and try to win. But now the guardians are back in it, yes, or no, there's not so many playoff teams because you want to know what, this is exactly why Rob Manfred did this. He's keeping,

I can't believe I'm saying something good about Rob Manfred. I'm so sorry, Sully. But this is keeping different cities in it. Like, this is the way you balance it out, right? Like, until there is a decision on, financials until you can force certain owners to spend certain money or you do something with

the TV contracts or the salary cap, whatever it is. I don't have the answers. That's why I'm not Rob Manfred, apparently. Until you have that resolution, the best way to combat the financial differences is more playoff teams. You have teams like the Reds, like the Guardians. I want to say the Pirates, but it seems like even extra playoffs, don't help them. No, they're way out. Yeah, they're way.

No, not, no, I'm just saying ever in general. That's the way you do it. So I got to say, like, you're keeping more cities, more fan bases involved. As much as I hate what it does the trade deadline and, and encourages a little more mediocrity, I see more fan bases getting excited in September, and that's what you need. That's what you want, ultimately. I mean, Arizona dealt a Eugenio Suarez, and they're still in it. It's crazy. Yeah. Well, that's because, okay, but that's because nobody the NL wants to win. Like, at the NL, the NL, it's very hard. It's very tough at the top, but it's easier to get it at the bottom, whereas the American League, it's easier to get it at the top,

but it's very hard to sneak in the last spot. Well, I agree with you. I think one of the, I've grown, I've learned to stop fighting when they make changes to the playoffs, because I've grumbled about in the past and I've always been proven wrong. I think that it's, you know, It's the answer to the old, it's the same teams every year. So, well, it physically can't be because we've cast a wide net. The thing that's made for the American League is that there's literally no way to pick a favorite in the American League right now. It's just going to be who's going to have two decent weeks. That's really it.

The Yankees could run the table or they could play stupidly, especially if they have to play in the wild card series. Let's say they play Boston and Boston throws Garrett Crochet. who's unstoppable. And if I are the Yankees, I would not throw freed in game one. I would throw Rodon in game one. Because maybe you get lucky and you, if you face, you know, you beat crocheted.

But like, but like if it comes down to like, you know, you're down one oh, then it's just, okay, the other team just has to split. Or I could just as easily see the Yankees in the World Series. Same thing for every other team. We've seen instances of teams that stumble and bumble and grumble into the playoffs and suddenly go on a rampage. The Cardinals in 2006 went in Linton to the playoffs or even the Yankees in 2000,

limped into the playoffs. And both of those teams went on win the World Series. So to have like all of these fan bases, especially in the American League right now, thinking not only we can punch the ticket, but we can actually make it to the, there's a path to the World Series that isn't banana boats like the Diamond diamond backs in 2023, which was just bizarre,

but this is like a legit path. Everyone team I mentioned has a good streak in them. You could see the Toronto Blue Jays who have been, you know, spiraling the proverbial spider in the toilet, but you could see them going like,

hey, we're in, let's relax. Boom. Though, you know, though Frankie goes to Hollywood and say, relax, don't do it and find themselves going to, you know, that's possible. And that makes it exciting. for these fan bases.

I wouldn't mind seeing shortening the regular season. If we have this many, I've been advocating for years ending the regular season on Labor Day and having the playoffs start in September and have baseball not competing with football in the best month of the season, but get August to be the great pennant race and then have the playoffs in September. So we're not going like,

oh, the World Series is going on during Thanksgiving dinner. You know, and so I'm, you're not going to find a bigger baseball fan than me, but I'm all four if it's like a, you know, 140 game season or something like that. I'm, you know, your pal celly is listening. But, you know, I think it's working, you know, for just to get people's interest that generations of kids can start to get interested in them. I teach at a high school in Pasadena and their kids, all these kids are walking around with Dodgers. jerseys. Now, granted, the Dodgers is one of the best teams, one of the most popular teams, but I'm seeing young people

watching baseball. And if that's happening across the country, remind me why that's bad? Or, or hear me out, you shorten the season and you don't start until late April, early May, because

people like us here in Cleveland have to sit through 35-degree home openers, and the fans sell out for that, and they don't show up again until this past week, which has literally been true most of the year. Yeah, I agree with you guys. I mean, I think the wild card format right now, and first of all, with the absolute chaos that it causes and the excitement down the stretch, also, I mean, for teams that are out of it, like the A's. I mean, 12 or our last 15 games have been meaningful

games, have been against teams that are in the playoff hunt rather than just meaningless games down the stretch for a team that's out of it. So, you know, I think it's a, win-win for everybody. I am intrigued to see exactly how this plays out because we were talking a lot about the Dodgers bullpen and stuff. If the Mets are able to make it in, you're going to have the Mets Dodgers. And then whoever takes their starter out first is just like spin the roulette wheel. Let's see what happens because the Mets bullpen is even worse than the Dodgers. So that's, that's going to be crazy. What you're saying is the Dodgers need Rousie yet. What I'm saying is the Reds need to make it. And that's where we're going to. in today's squad show.

Thank you so much for checking out today's lockdown. And there'll be squad. We will be with you back again as the playoffs get going. We'll be talking about wildcard baseball next week. It's crazy. This year is just absolutely flown by. But we'll be back in your feet next week. Thank you so much for checking us out.

Make sure you check out your favorite team's podcast, whether it's the Guardians, the A's, the Reds, or you just love baseball in general. We got a podcast for you because we are all part of the Lockdown podcast, network, your team every day. Chaos. Chaos.