Rates & Barrels - Atlanta Heads Back to Houston With a 3-2 World Series Lead

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss a busy three-game weekend in the World Series as the Astros did just enough to avoid elimination in Atlanta despite facing a 4-0 deficit after the first inning of Game 5. Should Ian Anderson have been left in the game longer in Game 3? How did Game 4 not play out more like Game 5? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Watch the show *Live* on weekdays at 11:30a ET/8:30a PT on YouTube and subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic at 33% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70 celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. It is Monday, November 1st. Yes, we have November baseball. And for a brief moment during Game 5 of the World Series, it did not look like we were going to have November baseball. So we're going to recap all three games that took place over the course of the weekend.

Of course, Houston did just enough to send the series home down a game at 3-2, but a lot of exciting things happening along the way. We'll get a keg status check-in before the end of this episode, too. I know that's the question a lot of people on the stream are wondering about. What's the status of the keg in Eno's backyard? We did make some progress.

We will tell you how much in just a little while. Let's go all the way back to game three. All right. So let's go back to Friday. It was possible. It was going to be the rain game. And then it was really the Ian Anderson game. And that, of course, led to a series of pieces and a lot of conversations about the death of the starting pitcher and just the usage.

But in another way, it's really just sort of what we saw last World Series with Blake Snell. And rather than leave Ian Anderson in to see what would happen as Houston got more looks at him, Atlanta went to the bullpen, went to the strength, and it worked. They won that game 2-0. And it's kind of hard to argue against that, right? I mean, if you see how it plays out like that against an offense as good as the Astros offense, I guess I don't really see what the cause for complaint is here.

Yeah, the research is not even clear if dealing, quote-unquote, dealing exists. You know, I would say it doesn't. You know, if you look at pitchers who have pitched well and then you try to predict their next inning, and then you look at ones who haven't pitched as well and you try to predict their next inning, you don't do any better either way. There's maybe some flaws in that research. I don't know. Some people like to point out that there's

differences there between the average and the mean or whatever, and that you're more likely to be good in that next inning. You're just not likely to be so good that it moves the research. You know what I mean? Like, you're more likely to be good than not in that next inning, but it washes out when you start to, like, take averages and look at the whole population but I would say

he wasn't even dealing I mean yes no hits I get that but three walks against three strikeouts like I was not watching that thinking like oh this guy's going to throw even his manager after the game said this guy he wasn't going to throw. Even his manager after the game said,

this guy, he wasn't going to throw a nine-inning no-hitter. Right. Some of that might have been the pitches he'd thrown to that point too. He was sitting at 76 pitches after five innings. So was he going to throw 115 to get there?

That's a little bit silly too. But you and I were watching this game together and I don't think it even crossed our minds. Oh yeah, he's going to definitely get deep into this game, and he's got a shot at actually holding a no-hitter. That was not even a part of the conversation whatsoever. It was a really nice start that happened to be five no-hitting. That's the way I would look at it. You could be sad about it, I guess.

I mean, yeah, maybe in some other year or some other time they would have pushed him. But, you know, it's not just the game that has changed in terms of the athletes on the field and such. The game has changed as in the postseason is way longer. This is way longer than it used to be. And so let me. Good morning. Monday morning. Let me get my mic yikes uh but it's uh it's way longer so that's why i think you're seeing all these pictures like 85 pitches is new 100 for starting pitchers in the postseason 80 to 85 pitches is about the longest anyone's gone i think we've had like two pitchers that have gone further than 85 pitches

so i think that's partially because there's a whole other month now. It used to be like you jump into the CS and then the World Series. I think that you just have to manage these guys because the postseason is so long now. I think

part of that has to be we just had an off day. We have all of the relievers that we want to have at our disposal here. So we're not turning it over to anybody that we're uncomfortable with. We're using the four relievers that we like the most to finish off this game. I think that has to be part of the situation too, right? If you're doing this in, let's say it's a game five. You played games the previous days.

You're doing this in, let's say it's a game five. You played games the previous days. All of those A relievers have at least some fatigue from pitching in one or both of the previous two games. Then maybe you push Anderson out there for the sixth, and you can kind of play the let's see what happens sort of game one out at a time, and then quickly take him out of the game if he finds some trouble. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just, I think that, I think it played out perfectly.

I think they wanted that win more than they wanted a no-hitter in the postseason. You know, it's one of those times when the individual performance takes a backseat to the collective performance. I backseat to the collective performance. I think they did the right thing. The comments in the live stream on point, James, I think Kerry Woods 20K game proves that dealing exists, but maybe it's not something that's predictable. I mean, I think with, with wood, that's what I mean. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, when you're making that decision, you're trying to be, you're trying to be a probabilistic thinker you're trying to think using them the tools that are predictive and so you know it really wouldn't

be that if maybe if maybe rob arthur's research would be relevant here like maybe if the guy is sitting two ticks above normal you know then he could be in the middle of a hot a hot game right yeah we talked about those fluctuations. Yeah, and as Mitch points out, I don't think dealing doesn't exist means that good outings don't exist. That's not really what I'm saying either. We're trying to talk about the predictive nature of the first five innings when it comes to the sixth inning.

Yeah. That was a weird game too because Luis Garcia needed 72 pitches to get through three and two-thirds. I mean, conditions were bad in Friday's game three. It was cold, it was rainy. Gripping the ball, probably very difficult. Adds a little something to that Anderson performance, I guess, for me. When I researched pitching in the cold, back for Fangraph's article back in the day,

the big consensus actually was not, it was that the cold wasn't so bad. It was dryness. And you think about that in the context of the whole sticky stuff, you know, battle that we've had this year. I think that maybe gripping the ball wasn't so, wasn't so hard for them because it was wet, you know, but I do think throwing the ball't so hard for them because it was wet.

But I do think throwing the ball hard was hard for them. I don't think either of them had a good bump in Velo. So, you know, I think it does generally lead to offense being down. The ball doesn't fly as far when you hit it, and the The ball doesn't fly as far when you hit it, and the pitch ball doesn't go as fast. Anything else from the Ian Anderson game? It didn't look comfortable.

It didn't look like a lot of fun. No, it looked like a miserable place to be in a game and at a game. But anything else from this game that really caught your eye? at a game, but anything else from this game that really caught your eye? We were just discussing Ian Anderson in the context of the Pitching Plus model, and he does not pop in that model. He shows as having every single one of his pitches

has below average stuff. He does not have great command by most of the command metrics I've looked at. And so it was just interesting to see him shove while, you know, sort of publicly discussing, you know, what the pitching model thought of him,

you know, the, the consensus that we came up with or the different ideas that we came up with for what the model might be missing is let's see, one could be arm speed. He could sell the change up with for what the model might be missing is um let's see one could be uh arm speed he could uh sell the change up with really good arm speed um and so that would i would that might come someday because hawkeye can track limb limb limb speed limb movement so we might be able to put that in the model someday um and uh another one is he has a really over the top um he has

extreme arm angle is that is that something that's like obvious to it's not as obvious i think when someone's extremely over the top than when they are like a submarine or something right it doesn't it doesn't look quite like a josh cole mentorer to bring back a recent name on the pod. He's almost a Josh Colmenter comp in terms of release point. I mean, he's close. In terms of release point height, because probably not horizontal location, because the thing about Colmenter, it was like behind his head. It was like the ball came, if you're watching on YouTube,

right about here is where he started to come through. I don't think Anderson's got that going on. No, but he does an extreme sort of back bend thing i think to like you know almost like bauer at ucla um but uh you know so that that extreme arm angle in the model there's not going to have a lot of comps for that arm angle and so we we do a lot of things in the model to try and beef up places where you don't have a large sample uh there's different things boot bootstrapping bayesian work you can do to kind of like try and um try and beef up the sample basically but uh anywhere on the extremes is still going to be um you just the model has no other release points like that to compare to basically so i think it's

the extreme over the top i think it's probably he sells the change up really well and then it's possible that we're missing something so when we do location plus we you know we say what are the good places to put change-ups right just all change-ups so i think step part two of this model will be what are good places to put change-ups like ian anderson's and we may find that he puts his change-ups in good places for his change-up um and i i've talked about that in reference to like adam auto you know adam auto vino slider might have a very different location pattern than like ag mentor's cutter you know then so you know we we should maybe uh account for that in the model so those are the things

i thought of when i was watching it pretty nerdy stuff but you know you're trying to trying to watch and be like why why is that because like if we see an anderson again and you or you just want to watch some old thing it's not it's like the change-up does not move. Yeah, Sam Chess says he loves the look of Anderson's changeup, but in terms of movement, it does not differentiate itself from his fastball very much. A mystery for the model, too. I think it leaves you in a difficult position in the short term. It's like, well, do I go against the model,

and do I buy into Anderson? Because I think I understand where the flaws are. I had picked the Braves that night and then I was looking at that model and I was like, man, it really doesn't like him. And I switched my pick at the last minute to the Astros. But I think your model and your approach have had you on the under position with Ian Anderson.

Whatever Ian Anderson's expectations were, you've been below that consistently, really, since he was a prospect, too. So you've at least held the same position consistently, which I think is admirable. It's not working out well for me. But you've stood your ground. Let's take a look back at Game 4 where Zach Grinke delivered. I mean, that's what you wanted. You wanted that going into the beginning of the series.

I think it was before Game 1 or after Game 1. It was very clear that Grinke was going to have some sort of starting role in the series. And he came through. Kyle Wright, though, held it together for Atlanta. And it was a quick exit. Dylan Lee was basically the opener after they probably wanted to get a full inning from him before making a change. But Kyle Wright ended up pitching really well and kind of gave them a World Series performance that was right in line with what Drew Smiley did back in the NLCS, where no one really expected it, and it was really good, and it ended up keeping Atlanta in a position to win a game

that, frankly, I don't think any of us were predicting that they could win. Yeah, that one was an easy Astros pick for me because I thought with Greinke and Javier, they have an actual plan beyond throwing the spaghetti at the wall. I'm sorry. cow right is better than spaghetti you shouldn't throw spaghetti at the wall it's messy i have some stuff there's a question in the chat about like cow right stuff numbers but i think that they are a little bit irrelevant because last night you saw a cow right throw the sinker and the curveball most of all.

In the model, the model does not like his slider or his sinker, but it says that he's throwing all these different pitches, changeup, curveball, all this stuff. And I know that the shape of Kyle Wright's curveball has changed a little since he was first appeared. So the model does like his curveball the best, and he's throwing the curveball more. That's a thumbs up. Otherwise, I don't know if the numbers, the stuff plus numbers, are that relevant. Because I think he's changed some of the shapes of his pitches while he's in the minor leagues this year. I think he's changed some of the shapes of his pitches while he's in the minor leagues this year.

Yeah, and I think there's still legitimate questions about whether he's going to be a long-term effective starter or he's going to end up being more of a bullpen glue guy or if he's maybe a true back-end guy, four to five innings max, never really giving you more than that. I mean, that's all up there. But the fact that he's tinkering with the arsenal, I think, gives Beach that little glimmer of hope. there, but the fact that he's tinkering with the Arsenal I think gives Beach that little glimmer of hope. I'm thinking about 2022 really deep leagues. He's at least hanging around on the radar for one

of those very late darts. Yeah, one of the things I think that is a problem generally and has been even as the pitching shapes have changed is that his command is not good. But, you know, sometimes you can actually pop something command wise when you

change shapes too you know because you can be like this is a shape that's more repeatable I can actually put it where I want to put it yeah if he's getting away from the bad fastball curveball is working for him a little bit mixing in the change up it's a different sort of look than what we've seen

from him before. Yeah, I'm thinking about this game four. I mean, obviously the seventh inning, the home runs from Dansby Swanson and Jorge Soler swung it against Christian Javier no less. I mean, it's the classic it was an entire game

of you can't predict baseball, but back-to-back home runs off of a guy that Houston wanted in the game in that spot. And two righty-righty situations, no less. That was a big plot twist that I did not see coming. Yeah, but they were middle-middle fastballs, man. I don't know why he threw Dansby Swanson a fastball.

Because he was nowhere close on the breaking stuff. Yeah. I was a little disappointed in that one because I like Javier so much. But, you know, I think that some of it is, yeah, maybe some of it was pitch choice. He did throw more sliders than fastballs, so he was hiding the fastball a little bit. But his poor command, I think, shone through. Maybe the fastball was the right call,

but the middle middle was not the right location. Right, just the complete miss of the spot, right? Target was probably up and further away, and he ended up just leaking out over the plate, and damage was done. But that's a tough one, because you get what you want. You have everything lined up really well. You're in control of the game, and it falls apart that way.

I think it does kind of come back to a recurring question we've had with Christian Javier. Is he actually going to be a possible starter for them next year? Do you see in the past, obviously it was fastball slider in this outing, but do you see enough in previous attempts for a deeper arsenal to believe that he'll get a chance to stretch out again and possibly be a backend guy? Well,

you know, I, I've always uh you know there's i have the like first line stuff numbers like their overall stuff number but then you look at the per pitch types to the pitch type breakdowns and for javier i was like oh 104 stuff love this guy um but then you look at the breakdowns and it's a 119 stuff on the slider which is all thumbs up and then only a 99 stuff plus on the four seam and uh everything else is below that um and that includes a lot of relief appearances so i would assume that you know as a starter he has like a 95 stuff plus four seam everything it goes down a notch and then none of his locations are above average and we know that his command isn't very good um but um

the the other pitches aren't terrible they aren't like 60s and 70s they're like low 90s so i think that he could be i think they'll give him another shot i mean they might as well stretch him out and see what happens. But I guess the way I would look at it is, is it more likely than not that he ends up in the pen, even if they give him that chance? Is he a smart late pitching dart in a deep mixed league? Or because Ryan Presley's there and you're probably not getting saves,

you're really just getting a good reliever if he doesn't stick, if he doesn't make those adjustments. Yeah, I mean, I think with that level of command and with the fact that his team has already moved him, I would assume that he's headed more towards the bullpen. assumed that he's headed more towards the bullpen but uh one thing that i don't have in front of me is a sense of what the team looks like next year i mean i think they might just need him um you know next year because granky's a free agent right granky's a free agent verlander is also a free agent coming off of Tommy John, right? Yeah, so they have under contract. Odorizzi will have an option. Urquidy, Odorizzi, Garcia are your top three. And then Framber.

And McCullers if healthy. Ah. So maybe he doesn't even start the year in the rotation. It would be Odorizzi versus Javier. Yeah. Yeah, and I think with Odorizzi, he might be the kind of guy that while you don't necessarily want to start him in playoff games, you're perfectly content to start him every fifth or sixth day throughout the regular season because he's just more of a volume guy that helps get you there.

Yeah. He's just more of a volume guy that helps get you there. Yeah. Funny how that has become a thing that a few more teams have picked up over the last couple of years. But game four, I don't know. I thought it was the pitcher's duel that we didn't think we'd be getting because of it being a bullpen game. Way bigger surprise than game three. Yeah. Way bigger surprise.

I just thought the way the bullpens were shaken down. In fact, game five, I think, was kind of what I expected out of game four. Right. That's exactly where I'm at. One last thought on game four, by the way. That long out that Jose Altuve had

against Luke Jackson that ended the eighth inning. Eddie Rosario made a really nice catch. They said on the broadcast, it would have a home run in like 24 other parks. That ball was smoked, and Eddie Rosario had to go a long, long way to get it. But looking back at last night's game five, this was the slop that I expected to see on Saturday. But for that moment, right around 8.30 or so Eastern last night, it seemed like it was going to be over. The Adam Duvall first inning grand slam, everything was coming up Atlanta, a 4-0 lead. You're getting Frambois rattled early.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, I think maybe back-to-back bullpen games just caught up to Atlanta. I think that's basically what happened. Houston, as we've talked about throughout the entire postseason, throughout the entire regular season, they're the best offense in the league for a reason. They don't strike out. They put a lot of balls in play, and they do damage. That's a recipe that's going to generally come through

against the B relievers especially. against the B relievers especially. Yeah, what's interesting is the Braves did not strike out a lot more. In fact, I think it was six strikeouts each for non-pitchers, which hurts my narrative because I was thinking, okay, well, if you look at the top exit velocities,

the Braves had eight out of at the top exit velocities, the Braves had eight out of the top 10 exit velocities, right? And they struck out less, or they struck out the same amount as the Astros. And the Astros scored a bunch more runs. I think some of it is just sequencing, but then some of it might also be a little bit of lineup balance um i'm looking at this and i if i didn't know who pitched uh which i think is you know it's

you started with the lefty but you know when it becomes a bullpen game it almost you just sort of assume that you know there's going to be a lot of different matchups if i didn't know i would say that a lefty started, which I guess a frontrunner did start, but the lefties had a hard time. You know, Freddie had the homer, and otherwise the hits came from righties. That was a 460-foot home run for Freddie Freeman, by the way. Yeah, longest of his career. It was beautiful.

I'm looking forward to Sam Chess in the last... There's something about that. You know, he just took it. Like, it was a hard swing, but it almost something about that you know he just took it like it it was a hard swing but it almost looked like he took it and flicked it you know what i mean like he just took that ball where it was going you know what i mean i don't know there's something about that swing he just went out and just just sort of there was like a little bit of a flick to it almost it almost just like oh man, 460 feet later.

I really like Freddie Freeman as a hitter. But of course, the biggest, the big turning point was Zach Greinke's pitch hit of performance. And amazingly, three hard hit balls in what might be some of the last

at-bats by pitchers ever. Yeah, I mean, it may turn out that the last pitcher at-bat we ever see in a World Series is a pinch hit for Zach Greinke. It seems appropriate. It's a nutty, nutty thing. Wait, is this true, what this person's saying hold on hold on yes this is this is true what he had the top exit velocity yeah thp knob in the the live stream grinky had the top exit velocity for houston last night 105.9 on that single that is correct the next hardest

hit ball was a 104.5 the there he is correa, there's that 8 of 10. I mean, if you look at it, Freddie, Austin, Austin, Jorge, Duvall all hit it harder than Greinke. And then you've got three more Braves before you get to the Astros. The Astros had the next, dominated the next 10, though. Hit a lot of balls, 101.

I just wonder if there's something going on here. If that's like part of their method. Or if that's something going on here, if that's part of their method, or if that's just one game. I think one of the things you can see very easily on the slow-mo replay is you can see how ugly some of the swings are that put balls in play, but I think the ability to take a bad swing

and hit a ball that's difficult to hit and put it into play is a pretty unique skill that maybe Houston has a few more guys like that. Al Batube, he's his own thing because he's small in the first place and then has all that range and coverage. I wonder

if that's what it is. At a certain point in your game plan, you're saying, hey, we're not going to get the stuff we can barrel up in some of these sequences, but let's just put pressure on the defense. I think that was a good question. Like sort of B and C swings, you mean? Well, yeah. Well, it's situational hitting, right?

I mean, that's what it is. I was thinking about that. Bregman took that slider to the opposite field, and he told me in Oakland, I only want to swing at balls i can hit homers off of but that ball that he swung at was a slider on the outside part of the plate right it was probably not a ball he's going to homer on no he's using you to send smoke screens to other teams but then he also took a uh took like a b level swing right that that was kind of like an inside out like dink it

into the outfield swing if i'm if i'm not mistaken so yeah i think that i think that maybe that is something that they do uh hitting coach wise is is be like let you know have a good two-strike approach and then and it's not always to use it when it's a two-strike approach like just maybe access that if they're just not gonna give you a fastball where you want it. Got one here from Mitch. No one was more disappointed the series went six than Buck and Smoltz. It's been surprisingly low energy too

in the booth. Am I crazy? It's low energy. Because Smoltz was like telling some story about how he electrocuted himself and like it was so first of all it was weird um and then he had to be like oh don't electrocute yourself kid kids out there you know uh forgot that it was halloween kids were all out trick-or-treating and not watching the game. Right. But then also, like, the repartee there, like, that could have been, like, a funny, like, let's laugh about this moment. But Buck was like, yeah, make sure not to tell the kids not to electrocute themselves.

And I was like... I feel... Come on, guys. That was, like, the funniest thing you guys talked about all night, and you still made it sound boring. Pretty confident that if you or I had a story about electrocuting ourselves and we lived to come back to the pod,

we would be laughing about it. I did. I did tell a story about electrocuting myself on the pod. How did I forget that? When did that happen? Christmas light season last happen uh Christmas light season last year Christmas light season last year I don't remember that

my father-in-law is a tinkerer he likes to keep I guess uh extension cords that have raw bare parts on them around those don't get those extension cords, kids.

What are you talking about? Why would you leave that? And then it was partially taped up? Oh, okay, so he fixed this one, right? It was a live wire. Live wire right in my elbow. Woo-wee!

I was screaming. I screamed so loud that a neighbor three houses over was like, are you okay? That's how you know you've been harmed.

When you make such a horrible sound that an anonymous neighbor from some distance checks in, you did something very bad. Yeah, the scooter story, I think, is your classic Eno injury story

because, I mean, that was a bad situation. But I guess I don't expect much from Buck and Smoltz. I feel like... I had a low bar for them to hurdle, and they didn't hurdle it. Right. I feel like Buck was really happy that the series was off on a Thursday because then he could do the Packers-Cardinals game on Thursday night.

He could take a break from the World Series, call a football game, and then get back to it for the weekend. But I don't know. I mean, a 9-5 Houston win, I thought that was the Game 4 script. It played out in Game 5. I think the Minter fatigue, as someone pointed out, yes, that was definitely a concern just because of how

heavily they pushed him in the last two weeks or so. He wasn't down Velo compared to the regular season, but he was down Velo compared to the postseason. It just makes sense. There's going to be a cost to pushing a guy like that.

He lost two plus inches of horizontal movement on the cutter. Horizontal movement is very important for cutters. There was a little bit of fatigue there, I think. What about Framber? Just going back to early postseason Framber. Now he's back down to the one really good start against the Red Sox. The day that I said, I don't know if good frombers coming through the door.

That was the only day that good from this postseason. And it looked like the guy that we saw last year. And is there anything with the stuff? I think it's a bit of a two pitch pitcher that really has to dot the bottom of the zone. And I think that the Braves were just disciplined enough to say, hey, we're not going to swing at the very bottom of the zone. So if you really need a strike, you're going to come up a little bit.

And then they punished everything that he threw that was at all up. Is that about the same reason you got? Yeah. I mean, that's... He just didn't have another weapon to say oh you know oh you're looking for something his own here comes my change up in the zone like rikki did that that's why rikki was throwing the high change-ups he's like oh you're gonna sit you know you're gonna wait for something up up in the zone well then i'm gonna throw you some weird ass high change-ups i just

think fromber didn't have that that trick in his. Yeah, I wonder if he'll make a concerted effort to come back with a third pitch that he can use consistently next year. It seems like it could go a very long way toward making him much more effective and much more consistent. Because, yeah, if you have two pitches, you're not locating the fastball well. It doesn't really matter how good the other pitch is at a certain point. Big league hitters can sit back and do damage if you're not getting those strikes where you need them.

He can spin the ball. I know that the cutters are a little bit dangerous in terms of what they can do to your whole repertoire, what they can do to your fastball shape. Sometimes people think that what they can do to your overall velocity. But if you stay true behind the ball and you you keep your mechanics uh you know sharp i would say that a cutter would do him really well right because what would what would you do with a cutter in that situation is you say people are sitting on stuff higher in the zone you throw a cutter up and in you know and he's proven that he can spin the ball so i think that like a cutter you know obviously they must have tried sliders with him. And it hasn't come together.

So I might try the cutter story. This is interesting from JL. The Astros have a home run problem. Last eight runs by Atlanta have been scored via the home run. If they keep the ball in the yard, they'll have a much better time. That is, I think uh interesting when you think about the dodge i don't know why i'm thinking about this but the dodgers um the dodgers bullpen and their power sinkers right they kind of were like hey everyone's looking

for the strikeouts we're gonna try and keep the ball on the ground and give up the fewest homers in baseball um and i don't think that the astros have had that same epiphany or or or feel the same way you know they are going more traditionally for strikeouts and sometimes homers um and so um i think you know it would be awesome for the astros right now to be able to stick in like a Ruzdar Graterol, even if he has his flaws, like somebody with a superpower sinker would do them really well right now. Yeah, I don't know if they have anyone coming through the system who's going to serve in that role anytime soon. Well, they kind of they kind of develop these like riding four seams, sweeping slider. like riding four seams sweeping slider you know they they they do do the dodgers uh sweeper that that it's not a dodgers thing but you know the sweeper slider the seam searcher's weight slider they do that too so um there's some copycat stuff and like this is one of those moments where you

could be like man if you if you had like a little bit you know i think if i was in running an organization i would be like okay let's always have uh you know let's have a philosophy let's have a roadmap let's do these things and then let's also allow for creativity and for something else and be like you know maybe graveman is a little bit like that graveman has the power sinker and maybe they were like hey let's get someone who doesn't look like all the rest of our guys you know we don't want to get another presley let's go get a power sinker guy let Let's go get Graveman. Graveman hasn't looked amazing and gave

up a homer. Fromber does throw a changeup, by the way. I don't think he doesn't trust it. He doesn't command it. He threw four of them last night. He threw 47 pitches. He threw four changeups. That gives you an idea of how he feels about that pitch.

I think we have one more thing we have to get to I mean, he threw 47 pitches. He threw four change-ups. That gives you an idea of how he feels about that pitch. Yeah. I think we have one more thing we have to get to as it pertains to this series because I think this keg is forever tied to this series. What is the status of the keg in Eno's backyard? It is now floating in the water in the tub, which means that I think, if my physics are correct, there's less beer in the keg than water in the tub. Anyway, that's what I'm telling myself. I believe that explanation. Anyway, it's close.

I would have to say that we were down in the dumps. We didn't quite think we could do this. There were times when we doubted we could get to this mountaintop, but together, I had DVR come over and have a couple of beers. My wife on Sunday finally said, okay, I'll take a couple for the team and drank three beers on Sunday. And me, I have to give credit to me. All thanks be to me for doing the real yeoman's work here and drinking this one beer daily for now about 10 days. That's really good work.

I'm going to reward myself with like a stout at the end of it, something completely different. It's an ipa from field work called pulp it's double dry hop pulp it's delicious it's a hazy uh it's it's pretty delicious and the weather has been has been uh been huge in this in this battle the weather has been cold and has kept the beer cold so if we get a 80 degree day, that'll be it for the keg. Yeah, I woke up today and looked out the window

and saw what I think are actual clouds, not just like marine layer. That's a good day for the keg. Like, oh, it's so good for the keg. We don't have to throw another 20 pound bag of ice on it. The keg lives on for a few more days because the weather is being

very, very kind to it right now god i feel like i can do it i feel like i can do it well i could probably come over i got like two or three of these yetis i could probably just come over with lids and yetis and just like take a few to-go beers if that helps you just yes yes uh cousin came by uh and i made her leave with a with a growler yeah i don't with a growler. Yeah, I don't have a growler anymore. I didn't bring any of them with me. I should have made little mini growlers and given them out at Halloween.

To the parents. Yeah, no, you guys would have been the most popular house on the block. Yeah, by the way, someone in my neighborhood does dog Halloween, which is awesome. So they had a bowl of biscuits and they had a bowl of small tennis balls and they had a bowl of large tennis balls. So big dogs.

My dogs have been so happy that there was a small one. Hazel would have, I mean, Hazel enjoyed it. Like she would have probably stayed there all day if I let her. She would just take a ball, chew on it for a minute, pick another one. She really can't decide. But yeah, she was dressed as Harry Potter, and she enjoyed this a lot. The aspiring good boys were not very good last night. There was a lot of commotion by the front door.

So I banished them to the the backyard and they just spent all of Halloween barking. Well, they did pretty well with my visit on Friday. They're even better with people in the house. I ate a bowl of chili standing completely still, which I feel like I should get a trophy for. And they calmed down.

They were like, oh, this statue is not bothering me. They even came over and said hi when you were on the couch. Yes, exactly. Sam is right. I'm not sure that they are aspiring. They're sitting on command now, and they don't bark at every single person they walk by or dog,

only some. I don't know. Trending okay-ish. Two Chewinis. Chihuahua dachshunds. It's a long road. Buster Douglas

and Iggy Pup. Buster Douglas and Iggy Pup. We have game six, of course, coming up on Tuesday. They're birth names. That's what it says on the paperwork. Of course, on Tuesday, game six, we've got Luis Garcia lined up to go up against Max Fried,

which probably gives us an Urquidy-Ian Anderson matchup. Urquidy threw an inning in relief in game five, so you give him a day off, let someone else start game six. You could bring him back in seven. Oh my God. Orchidi, Ian Anderson. That's like a pitching plus,

you know, it's a referendum on pitching plus. All, all the model really likes Orchidi and it really doesn't like Anderson. Oh no. Britt should be back soon, by the way. I saw a few questions asking. She's not big-leaguing anyone.

She'll be back in the near future. So, fortunately, we'll have her probably back before the end of the postseason. So, looking forward to that. You can find us on Twitter. You can find Britt at Britt underscore Droli. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. We're, Eno at Eno Saris. You can find me at Derek

Van Riper. We're, of course, here at 1130 a.m. Eastern, so long as there are playoff games. I guess we're still rooting for seven just to maximize the number of shows. That's only natural. If you'd like to get a subscription to The Athletic, you can do that. Get 33% off for your first

year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. That is going to do it for this episode of Ratesathletic.com slash rates and barrels. That is going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening.