OverDrive - Merrifield on entering the podcast world, the Blue Jays' pursuit of the division and the team's trade outlook

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Longtime MLBer and Host of 6ix Inning Stretch Whit Merrifield joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the Blue Jays, the team's pursuit of the AL East division lead, Davis Schneider's offensive prowess, the trade deadline outlook of the roster, the experiences of playing in Toronto, Yusei Kikuchi's hotel room conundrum, Aaron Judge breaking history and more.

Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Bryan Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Sons. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada.

The station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeartRadio app Retired ballplayer now a podcaster Welcome to the audio medium with Maryfield and welcome to over drive. How you doing? I'm doing good. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on guys. Yeah, man

We're fired up for you a ton of rave reviews on your pod with Lindsay Dunn and we'll get to some of the stories that you told in the first episode But we got to talk about this Jay's Yanks series to this point as someone who spent a couple years in Toronto with the Jays Seeing the ballpark the way it is seeing the Jays mash the way that they've been mashing against the Yankees What is your take on what's going on so far? Yeah, good series. Really good series. You know, kind of heading into the all-star break against the team that had a pretty, seemed like a comfortable lead in the East for majority of the year and as the Jays would play hot, it slowly,

it slowly, the lead has shrunk. And big series, um, early in the season when the Yankees came to come to town. And even though it's, uh, you know, first, second, third of July, that's when you're chasing a team like that for them to come into town, big series, Canada day, big crowd, you know, to be able to go and win the first three games of the series is huge for the morale of the team, not only the team, but for the morale of the fan base and the city. And then, you know, tonight, you know, hope to cap a rare four-game sweep and that'd be, you know, be a huge win. But you look at the series as a whole as a victory,

regardless of what happens tonight, but that lead that the Yankees had, has evaporated, and now the Jays are right there and playing well, but there's a lot of baseball left, so they need to keep finding ways to play well. There's a lot of debate last night, and keep trying ways to play well. With the, there's a lot of debate last night and I guess it's not particularly heated debate because the blue Jays won the game, but they, you know, they've got the big lead and the lead starts being frittered away. And then they got Aaron Judge comes up in a situation with a man on down two runs and Josh Schneider makes the decision to pitch to a guy who has

established himself as the best hitter in baseball by a lot of different measures. You know when you're on a team like are you hoping your manager walks the guy in that situation or do you want the showdown take him on and see where the chips fall? No it's your guy versus their guy. Yumi versus first judge. I mean, Yumi had a slider kind of back up on him and left it over the plate and the judge didn't miss it. But as a guy on the team, you want your guy to take a bond because as good as the judge is,

as good as he's been, he's still hitting what? Like three 60, three 70, which is absurd. But at the same time, that's still just over seven times that every 10 at back, he's going to make an out. Um, so you want it, you want your manager to show confidence in your guy to go and get that out. It didn't happen this time time but I hope the situation comes up again and I hope Schneider tries to get that out again especially at this

point in the season. It's different maybe if it's in the playoffs or if it's late in September but right now I mean it's July 2nd go get them. Have your guy go go trust your guy to go get the best player in the league out. And again, didn't work out, but I think that if they walk judge and then the next guy hits a double on the gap or a homer, it's a whole different feel in that dugout.

So I'm happy that he let him pitch to them. Whit Merrifield is our guest. recently retired ballplayer, now podcast. You can check out the sixth inning stretch podcast with Whit and Lindsay Dunn. As far as Davis Schneider, I think you could argue is the star of yesterday's game with the two home runs. You were with the Jays, you played with Babe Schneider as he was called in the early days of his Blue Jays tenure. What have you seen from him since that incredible start he had to his career in Boston where

he was the toast of the town and has definitely had some ups and downs since but it looks like he's back to his best form. Can you tell us something about Davis Schneider that you may have learned as his teammate? He's got the perfect personality to be a big leaguer. He's laid back, he doesn't let the game get him too high or get him too down. He's willing to make adjustments. That's really what's happened. You come into this league and I don't care who you are, if you come into this league and you're hot, that's great.

You're kind of establishing yourself that you can play, but then the league is going to not figure you out, but adjust to you and start understanding a little bit of your weaknesses and how to get you out. You got to in turn make that adjustment back. That's what having longevity in that league is all about and it's constantly adjusting, constantly learning and Schneider's definitely has that type of mentality to do and you know it's when you're not the when you're not a boba shed or a variety coming up and you go you have this big aura prospect status around your name when things don't go your way, you're not going to have that long leash to work it out in the big leagues. You're going to, unfortunately, have to get sent down and kind of reprove yourself all over again. And that can be frustrating,

but at the same time Schneider's got the perfect mentality to go through that and looking forward to him having a lot of success because there's nobody I cheer more for than him. Oh for sure. Wipp, again Wipp Maryfield is with us, spent nine seasons in Major League Baseball, Kansas City, Toronto, Philly and the Atlanta Braves and of course the host of a brand new podcast as well. So as far as what this Blue Jays team is and the expectations

weren't overly high heading into the season but that of course has changed considering what we've seen of late. What type of additions would you like to see Ross Atkins, Mark Shapiro make leading in the trade deadline? Like is there one position that you could pinpoint that you think Toronto should be looking to address? I think you got to make smart additions. I think it's easy to sit back and just start trying to add and on paper think about making your team better, but the team's got a great thing going right now. They're playing well, but they're also you can tell they're enjoying playing with each other. You can tell the team gets along and having a good time together

and that's what carries you through 162 and what keeps the The bad streak short and helps extend the stretches when you're playing really well is when guys really get along and gel together. So I'd be careful. I really would be careful with who I went out and got. Maybe a bullpen piece or two would be where my focus would be as a GM, depending on what Max's situation is. You're possibly going to get a starter. But you know, I don't know, I've never been a huge compo.

I mean, again, there's a fine line of walk because you want to show your team that you're willing to do things to improve and win now, but you don't want to overdo it and take out a guy like Ernie Clement or David Schneider that are pivotal, really pivotal points in that lineup. So I don't really know the right answer to that because I'm not there for the day to day. But I would just advise that just be kind of careful with what you go and do and what you go and get to not upset

what they got going on right now. You were with the Blue Jays for a couple of years and on the first edition of your podcast, you told a story about Yusei Kikuchi that has picked up a lot of steam on social media and elsewhere. Can you, would you mind retelling the story for our audience, Whip where because it's a hilarious tale

yeah i mean so just uh... the kinda give you a uh... summary of it uh... my going to more detail on the podcast but it to go she got into meditation and he was a big meditator and i think really think that was beneficial or have been official for his career helped her and could turn his career around. Um, but we were in Kansas city and he was, he was, uh, in his room,

which happened to be right above my room in the hotel. And he went to take a bath the night before he was going to pitch and turn the bath on, um, got in his bed or went over to meditate while the bath was filling up, fell asleep while he was meditating and ended up flooding his room, which in turn trickled down and flooded my room. And, um, uh, you know, I didn't know what was going on. So I called the, called the front desk. They went and checked it out. Um, as the guy banged on Kikuchi's door,

kind of panicked and realized what was happening. While he was still half asleep, he ran to go turn the tub off, tripped and fell. And fortunately he didn't hurt himself, but tripped and fell in the tub and finally got the water off. And it's just a funny, funny deal listening to, while listening to the hotel staff come and try to explain to me what he just witnessed from Kikuchi's room and then me asking Kikuchi the next day what had happened and he's just he's one of a kind and one of my favorite teammates I've ever played with. That's a great story,

Witt. And you tell a lot of great stories from your major league career on the podcast. The other one that I really enjoyed was the one about, speaking of Aaron Judge, who hit that missile into the second deck last night. He tied Roger Maris in Toronto a few years back when he was casing that American League home run record. The ball went into the Blue Jays bullpen. And I guess you had some strong feelings about what should have happened after that. Could you fill us in?

Yeah, well we had talked about it going into that game because it was an, well, I actually had theories because it was such a historic thing that hasn't, that has been since Roger Maris that someone had even gotten close to to that number so we knew how valuable we had heard how valuable that ball is going to be and So We as special players would poke fun with the bullpen because the bullpen is in left center field or

So it's very accessible for right-handed hitter and judges righty So we were saying, Hey, he has to ball into the bullpen. What are we going to do? What are you guys going to do? And they were all excited kind of as if it did happen as the one thing they could get what they were going to ask for. And they were talking a big game. And then lo and behold, Tim Mays it gives up the Homer and it goes right into the bullpen and these guys got it and the Yankees personnel comes over says hey can we have the ball they give it to them and the guy says whatever you guys want just let us know and so after

the game we were like what you guys get you guys had to get something good right you had to get some sort of custom engraved Rolex or you guys put off some sort of great request that the One of the wealthiest franchises and all of sports in the world It's gonna is gonna buy for you, right and they ended up just getting an Aaron judge signed jersey that they could have went and got on fanatics We gave him a bunch of crap for that because they didn't want to overstep their bounds

and whatever. But yeah, that was a good riffing we gave them. Yeah, now I want the sweep more than ever. Oh yeah? We gotta see a Blue Jays win. We need to see the Yankees crumble after a story like that. That is totally unacceptable. Wick, congratulations on retirement. Congratulations

on the podcast. You were a natural. It should be a huge success. We can't thank you enough for taking the time this afternoon. Thanks for having me guys. Appreciate it. All right, that's Wick Maryfield. Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Brian Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Gloria Sons.

Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada, the station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca. Or the free iHeart Radio app.