Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 11 | August 12th | Indians now have a share of 1st, House Puked on the Mound, Jake Loves Acuna

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

The Cardinals got back to winning. The Astros lost a game to the Orioles, which is the biggest upset in MLB this year according to Vegas. Cleveland and Minnesota are now sharing first place.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. It is Monday, August 12th. We had a weekend full of games. We had some good series matchups today. You know I've been eyeing this Twins Cleveland four-game set, and it brought some fun. There were some rookie home runs, some we're going to get into slump watch. Going to get in it all, Jake. Here we go. Talking baseball. Talking baseball episode, I don't know, 13. I think. We're excited. Monday, Friday, a little late today,

and that's because the Yankees are playing a double header and we do a Yankees podcast that we had to get a pregame show out for. We apologize for the slight delay, but we're here. We're here now, Jake. How are you doing? We are here, Jim. I'm doing well.

A really fun weekend of games. We, you know, your vaunted twins Indians series. We'll talk about that. But yeah, man, we had a lot of fun stuff. We had some gopher balls, young guys, a couple of silly veteran plays, one of the biggest upsets in baseball history, according to Vegas in the past decade or so. So I'm gearing up, had a good weekend, went to a show at Red Rocks. Saturday night.

Otherwise, watched a lot of baseball. I'm starting to get into a dangerous wormhole where I'm starting to watch a lot of teams too, Jimmy, and it's, it's, I mean, it's awesome, but it's probably bad for my health and my sleep and all that. But, uh, dude, it's just so good. And I, I know I'm going to talk about some individual players later, but man, it's getting the game out there more because, I mean, there's a couple guys whose names I've known for a long time, but I haven't, you know, watched a lot of action. And then I've watched them play over the weekend. And I'm like, yeah, that guy's really cool. He did this, this, this, and this. I love that. Um, so yeah, yeah. Now,

Now my new Jakey Brigade is going to be, how do we get players in front of people more? But that might be an off-season deep dive. How, what games did you watch? Well, I caught some of the Sunday night baseball. I caught the Giants versus the Nats. I caught some Cleveland, Cleveland versus Minnesota, because I knew how jazzed up you'd be about that.

What else did I catch? I think I caught a little bit of the Cubs. Sinci. I got some, dude, I'm falling head over heels for Ronald Acuna. You're going to hear about me talk about him. Like, probably every episode. It might become Jake's Ronald Acuna Corner. So, yeah, man, I was all over.

And, yeah, now it's, because normally the Yankees for us are kind of like the, all right, the Yankee game's over. Let's kind of tie a few loose ends and call it. Now I'm like, all right, I'll throw on another game. And so my girlfriend hates me. How are you doing? I'm good. We have a double header today for the Yankees have a double header.

So it's baseball. Baseball filled day, which I'm so excited about. I love doubleheaders. I'm like a little kid on Christmas. Just like, yeah, two games. Let's do it all day, all day. But talking baseball, I'm excited about this as well. We're going up in the rankings.

The reviews keep coming in. We've got some tweets here and there. Like, hey, this guy's got to be in Fuego. This guy's got to be on Slump Watch. I love that interaction. I love the engagement. So I'm excited. Speaking of engagement and interaction,

this episode is brought to you by Alejandro Barbaugh. Yes, like that. Alberto Vasquez. Nice. Robert Hanson. Bobby Hans. Yep. Wilson Son.

Thank you, Wilson. Or your son. Wilson. Wilson, son. Two sons. Wilson, son. He could go by son-son-son-son. for short.

Yeah. That's fun. Son, son. I like that. Okay. Matt McBride. Matt McBride. Where do you got them, athlete?

Baseball, football? So, no, that's tough, man. And this is, I mean, because of Brian McBride, but I'm picturing soccer. So that might be a tough break for Matt. But also I have that as a relief pitcher, if you are playing baseball. Okay.

Hayden. Hayden Cart? In cart. That's a good baseball name. Charlie Norman? Charlie Norman, I Benjamin George Ooh, two first names

Get out of here, dude Oh, come on, Ben, I like you Benny G, Benny G's fun Benny G's good, okay Tyler Peterson TP, yeah Brian Harmon Harmon

Harmon, that's a golfer with that name right now Jonah Bone Janibone Oh, this is another good one Sal Morale Sal Morale, dude Yeah, that's a good name.

Sal Moral. David Canuffed. No way, I'm still going to get that. David Nufft, David Knaft. How do you pronounce that? David Noft. I'm thinking like Knoblock. I like Noft.

Yeah. And Peter Talae. Tallow. Talao. Talao. Talao. I think I got a lot of names wrong there. I'm pretty upset with myself.

Yeah. Tough. Tough round. Who are those people, Jim? Those are our most recent Patreon sponsors. They can join the live chat in the show. I believe we had some watching live. If you guys are watching live and you want to tell us we're wrong or right

or add some insight during the show, be sure to do so. Also on Patreon, you get the chance to win two jerseys of your choice every month via raffle. The August raffle has not taken place yet. So be sure to enter before that does. It'll take place at the end of the month. And basically it just supports us, allows us to keep doing this. We got big plans for this show. And the support that you guys give allows us to make those plans come to fruition.

We really appreciate it. But enough about that. Let's get into the action, Jake. You have the National League report. I think the only other thing, I think the only other thing before we get into the action, Jim, is if you're looking for another way to help us and you kind of want to see the inner workings of our head, we drop the I Love Baseball line of shirts this weekend. Yeah, I love baseball.

You go to shop.jomboimedia.com and then there's a collection called I Love Baseball. If there's a, let me do it. Let me do a quick run through to make sure it's up and running. Shop.jomboimedia.com. There's three little things. Collection, slide down. I love baseball. Yeah, we put I love baseball because I have an I love baseball shirt.

And the history behind it is when the Yankees and Red Sox went to London, there was some fans there that had just the shittiest iron on. The colors were weird, but it said, I love baseball. And I was like, that's hilarious. I want this in Yankees colors. So I wear it a lot in the videos. I have two of them. And I constantly get people saying, like, I want that.

But I have like five people. I want that. the angies colors. So we have them up in every color for all 30 teams and multiple options for some teams. And just there is also just a white writing that is available on like seven different shirts. So if you want an I love baseball shirt, there you go. We also want to make talking baseball shirts with the font of each team.

That's the next project. So that's next. There you go. All right. Now can we get into the action, Jake? The National League report, Jim, you ready? I am so ready for this National League report. Two minutes on the clock, but not really.

You can take as long as you want. Here we go. National League report. Jake Sterling, I genuinely don't know what happened for the most part. Let me know. Jimmy, my Atlanta Braves, Ronald Acuna Show. They played four down in South Bish, splitting with the Marlins.

Kiko had a bad performance at, really jumped up his ERA and everyone was all over him. Martine Prado, old friend, he had to walk off a nice comeback for the fishies on Saturday night. Again, they split that series. The Nationals and everyone's favorite, the New York Metropolitan's. They played three in Queens. And those amazing Mets win two dramatic comebacks to win the first two games. They come up short the last game, but they win the series.

They keep on, keeping on. The fight in fills, Jim. not keep on keeping on. They lose three of four to San Fran, including on Sunday night baseball, the pitcher Will Smith, his first professional at bat, gets a two RBI single.

Hey, put one on the board for people that like NL baseball. In the Central, the Cubbies versus Cincinnati in Cincinnati. Jim, weirdly similar logos, just Red Cs anyways. They end up split in the four games set, some serious Reds highlights, between Bauer's home debut and Aristides Akinio, saying some of that right.

We'll talk about him a lot more in a little bit. The Cardinals, they return home after their horrible, no-good, very bad West Coast trip. They sweep the pirates. Yikes, Pittsburgh. What's going on? Including a dramatic go-ahead grand slam on Sunday by the rookie Night Train Lane Thomas. Jim, your brewers. They hosted Texas in an Interleague affair.

Some good baseball, Jim. All one-run games, Milwaukee takes the first two games of the series. Texas and Mike Minor shut them out on Sunday and win one nothing. And Jim, a wise man once said, go west young man. You know the Giants won there set against the Phil's. The Dodgers lose game one and extras to the Diamondbacks after bench is clear, a little Archie Bradley action. But the Dodgers win the final two games behind two seven-inning shutout starts by Maeda and Ryu back-to-back.

Geez, they are crazy. And Jim, finally, your Slump Watch Colorado Rockies visited beautiful San Diego, but the Rock struggles continue. San Diego wins the first three games, including a little 13-game hit streak for young, handsome Fernando Tatis Jr. but the prideful Rockies take the final game to salvage anything and anything they can for the rest of this season. Wow. Hell of a report. Congrats on the good report.

It felt good. It's good. Normally it's like, oh, Jake, you kind of half-ass that. That felt strong. Yeah, my report's half-ass this week. Grout of you. A little teaser. A little teaser.

The folks excited at home. All right, where am I going? The first thing that stood out to me, I was happy for the Cardinals. Yeah. They needed a sweep. That West Coast trip was like, holy shit, what's going on? This ain't it? So they needed not to beat the pirates.

They needed to sweep the pirates and get that fan base. Like, I don't know if the fan base lost faith, but like, yes, we're still in this. Because that's a close race. And, like, you have to stay close. It's like you can't drop back too far because then you're lost and the race is going on without you because everyone else keeps winning. So good for them. They actually reclaim second place.

It puts them a half game up on the Brewers because the Brewers only won two of three. They are, the St. Louis is currently the second wildcard team. Yeah. And they're second in the division, two behind the Cubs. For a team that for the past week we've basically been talking about like, are they dying on us? No, they had a brutal West Coast trip and that'll do it. But they're,

they are firmly back. They are one game out in the lost column in the NL Central. Don't get too comfy Cubs fans. That is going to be so much fun. Not as much fun as Dodgers fans are having 19 games up in their division. It's unbelievable, man. They're 79 and 41. Their run differential is plus 192.

the best in baseball. They got Houston by eight runs or so. How about that? That's a fun little race. Yeah, man, their pitching is unbelievable. I mean, you could get lost in Cody Bellinger, and, you know, he's fighting for the MVP and whatever other young guys you like on that team,

Peterson, Verdugo. Hey, well, old guys, too, David Freeze. How you doing? But, yeah, man, I mean, they, Jim, as we stay openly, because we don't want to be biased. We are Yankees fans. I mean, dude, the Dodgers just pitched two seven-inning shutout back-to-back starts.

Like, there was a time a week ago that the Yankees were sacrificing animals to try to get that kind of performance, and the Dodgers just throw it out there like it's nothing. That's crazy. The other thing I like here is that with the brave splitting a four-game set to the Marlins, It means two losses. It means the nationals who are six and a half back in that division playing the Mets could have crept up on the Braves.

It could have got a game or two on the Braves. But the Mets say, nah, uh, we're creeping up on you for the wild card. The Mets magic continues. Yeah, and Jimmy, I don't know if you saw it. The Mets, they had the chance for the sweep. Pete Alonzo throws over to first a couple runners on base early in the game and he throws it a little wide of de Grom ball goes away at bunch of runners score I think three runs I want to say

it was base is loaded and so the Mets come back and they tie it at threes but they end up giving up the lead late Justin Wilson gets knocked around so but yeah I mean there is there is magic going on at city field right now I mean the Todd Frazier home run. Unbelievable that leads to the Conforto walkoff. Then they do it again. So much fun in Queens right now.

Just watch the play with DeGrom. It's kind of on DeGrom, not on Alonzo. Do you see that? Yeah, it's tough. I mean, the throw's not where it needs to be. And it's, you know, DeGrom's running to the base and it's a tight throw. But did DeGroms stopped running? I'm I think I'm I'm 6040 p over de graham

Have you seen the replay that shows de graham stop running? Like Alonzo's trying to lead him he stops running and then starts running again Right but he's getting close to the bag Yeah He's got to stop running Yeah but he like stops like real before the bag That's weird that's brutal though if you're de gram and your whole thing is you're very very good And three run score on an error

they did get on base though so that's yeah that's a tough part there that's bummer the Todd fraser home run in the Mets nationals game and do little is a personal good friend of mine right you and sean do little are close so that was tough for you yeah and for those that don't know that just means he follows me on Twitter and that's all right that's that's it that's all um good friend this this this is a recurring thing for me every week and maybe I'll stop beating the drum on it. Baseball is so strong, man. The crowds this weekend were killing it.

The Cardinals Grand Slam to take the lead to go for the sweep. They were going absolutely insane. That's such a good baseball town. I mean, City Field has been rocking. City Field looks like a Springsteen concert every game right now after a couple weeks of wins and a couple pump-up speech and iPhone's notes letter posted on Twitter. So I'm I'm just I'm just happy with baseball, man.

Yeah. I mean, everyone that kept saying baseball is dead, it's not really. It's like just the only thing ESPN doesn't market baseball. If you don't use ESPN as your only source, baseball's alive and well and has like a lot of fans and a lot of people that love it. Does ESPN does a bad job? And the MLB itself does a bad job. But like there are people that love the sport. not like a dying, boring sport.

Yeah, and the other thing is, it's just, it's blind to it and there's nothing you could really do. Like, the NFL and NBA just have gotten a lot more popular. So, like, baseball's share of the sports world has decreased, but that's not on baseball. Like, it's good on the other sports. It's so easy to be an NFL fan. 18 games once a week. 16.

Well, yeah, I was doing preseason. People love preseason. You love preseason. 16 games regular season post-buzzle once a week and it's a Sunday when you have nothing to do it's the easiest sport to be a fan especially a casual fan

baseball moves so fast casual fans get lost in the shuffle you either stay up to date day to day or you have no idea what's going on and then you just come around the playoffs which I'm fine with I don't knock anyone how they be a fan of but I'm just saying like football set up pretty nice with their schedule to be a casual fan yeah and we'll

again, I'm sure this offseason will dig into some think tank ideas. But yeah, I just, I need to find a way you know I have my, every team should play everybody to get more athletes in front of everyone. Because Jim, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about them throughout the show. Ronald Acuna is basically on pace for a 40-40 season right now. I mean, you need to see that guy. And Jim, he had another play in that Marlins series.

The Marlins were ninth inning. They get a lead off hit. Your guy, Isan Diaz. He bloops one out there. there. He thought he might get a double, so he took a big round. Acuna throws him out at first. There goes your ninth inning rally. So yeah, just welcome to Jake's Ronald O'Couniour. This Brave series, so my best friend in the world blows the game one, Sean Doolittle.

Right, Sean Doolittle. He gets the save in game three. Be in a closer, you got to have a weird mental mindset to just completely blow it and then you've got to be the man right again. I mean, everyone knows this. Seth Lugo is the closer for the Mets now. They traded for Edwin Diaz and he just got straight up bumped because he sucks. Yeah. And well, and you might even hear Seth Lugo mentioned on

and Fuego, spoiler, teaser, coming up because he's been really good and it's tough to get relievers involved in the show because normally we look at things in series bits. It's not like you can be like, wow, reliever had two shutout innings. What a day. Yeah.

But Seth Lugo is putting together a month. Dude, we need to put Edwin Diaz on Slump Watch. In his last six games, he's allowed seven earned runs. And that's not including like one blowup of five earned runs. Like this dude has allowed at least one run. He has one, in his last six games, he has one clean outing with no earned runs. Other than that, one-run, one-run, one-run, one-run, one-run, two-run runs, two-runs. It been bad.

So I was going to say good for the Mets for, like, officially moving on, but they had no choice. If they didn't move on, it'd be bad from the Mets. But Seth Lugo is now the closer in New York for anyone that cares about that. Edwin-Diaz might have went past Slump Watch. He might be on, like, hide the Knives watch. It's getting tough. Oh, yeah. Hide the knives for sure.

There was a nice moment after he gave up his last homer. He comes out of the game and your favorite coach in baseball, the Mets pitching coach came up to him and gave him the like, this was good. We're still heading the right direction, which I liked. 82-year-old Mets pitching coach. Hey, how about the Giants reclaiming their magic? They get swept by the nationals.

It seems like they're dead and buried. They win three out of four from the Phillies, who are in the wild card hunt as well, but kind of not really. Do you think the Giants are still in this? Because I don't. No, I feel like we've discredited the NL West outside of the Dodgers. Just because, I mean, they're 500 teams. And, you know, a couple of these teams are going to pull away.

And it's just tough to picture Arizona or San Francisco being able to jump Philly, the Mets, Milwaukee, and St. Louis or Washington. at this point. There's just too many teams to jump. I know it sounds rude to a degree, and you never know, man. I mean, look at the two weeks the Mets had. Like, if you can find that again, but the Giants kind of already had that streak. Like those don't just happen once a month. The Giants had their magic run, so it seems like they're out. But I don't know, Jim. They had a road trip, and they came back to life, and now they're back home, and they won the games. And again, this game was the final game was 6-6 in the 8th and they put together a little magic rally to get it going so yeah yo they have a hard schedule the rest of the way the giants they host

Oakland Oakland's been playing really well yep then four versus Arizona that's medium a Arizona is just same level as I'm or as Giants right now Then they go at the Cubs. Then they go at Oakland. Arizona again, four versus the Padres. That's nice. Then the Cardinals, the Dodgers. Then they still have three versus the Red Sox, Braves, and they end at the Dodgers.

Yikes, Giants. Yates. I don't think, I think your magic will not be strong enough. I mean, they just took three out of four from the National, from the Phillies. and the Phillies are still two games ahead of them in the wildcard race. So that's when you know you're out. And who knows where, you know, you mentioned that it's Dodgers Brave Series to end the season. Maybe they're in rest mode and those games don't matter.

So I don't know. Never say never, Justin Bieber, but that's tough. Let's move on to the AL. Jim, could you give me a report on the teams that are based out of the American League? The Oakland Athletics took two out of three from the White Sox. They lost the series in Chicago to the Cubs, so they go over to the south side and bully them around, take two out of three.

They needed that. The Astros could not get the sweep over the Orioles. Embarrassing. They did win a game 23 to 2, though. Congrats. That's just one game, though. You lost the next one with Verlander on the bump. So all of the cool that comes with putting up 23 runs goes immediately away.

I'm sorry about it. but they do win two out of three Jake. The Yankees and the Blue Jays split at four games set in Toronto. The kids up in Canada are putting up some fight despite their season being over. The Blue Jays will play the role of spoiler to whoever game they, whoever team they host up there. It's actually a hard series up in Toronto, I believe. Those guys are good, those young kids.

The Angels won a series. How about that? They finally ran into a team that's on a worst slot. than them. The Boston Red Sox. They lost the first game. They won the next two, winning the third in extra innings. I believe Bemboom, who just got traded to the Angels as like a secondary piece,

gets the big hit to win it in extras. The Tigers and Royals played a set, which made me laugh out loud, and I did not check the results because, wow, those don't matter. Tigers and Royals. Yikes. The Indians went to Minnesota to reclaim what they think is theirs. Love this series. They took three out of four from the Twinkies.

They are now tied for first place. 71, the 47, a piece. That's exciting. I think the twins just kind of got like rocked in the face by this because they thought they had a 10-game, solid, sturdy lead in the Central. The Rangers lost a series to the Brewers. Jake told you about that. A lot of close games, good baseball.

and the Rays swept the Mariners. I like to call this the Pins in the Map series because it's the two corners of the U.S. you would put pins there to hold up the map, two of the four corners. Rays are on a nice little run, 12 and 2 in their last 14 games. Good job, the Rays.

And that about rounds it up. Yeah, Jim, I think we'll jump where we jump the episode, your Cleveland Twin Series. and Jim, you know, I like putting an emphasis when there's a four-game set. I mean, the difference between splitting with two games and winning three out of four is a big difference. And Jim, that final game goes into extra innings. It's tied at three-threes.

The twins, they hit one into the gap. They're sending the runners. Lindor pegs them at the plate to take it to extra innings. and then in the first inning of extra innings, get the guitar, Carlos Santana goes grand salami. I mean, talk about a twist of the knife. So that was huge,

and now we're locked up atop the AL Central, and your Indians are coming, Jim. Yeah, I mean, I just, the twins fans were sitting very pretty, and it sucks for them, because the wild card is so scared. We've been in the wild card the last two years. it's a motherfucker on your brain.

It's very scary. And Jim, we won the wildcard game. The Yankees. The twins lost one of those games. It's still no fun. It's no fun to be in that wildcard game. But yeah, I mean, Shane Bieber had a nice outing, seven innings pitch, two earned runs. Smelzer got smoked.

So there were some, the Indians came to town. The Indians debuted a kid. Randy Dobnack who went like four innings pitch zero earned runs in a winning effort which is kind of crazy I like that

so that was a good series I'm excited for the rest they play six games against each other the rest of the way it will be decided by their direct results I'll go full sports talk radio well Jim I actually might disagree with you because you're actually not going to like this news

the twins have the easiest strength of schedule the rest of the way. They've had the easiest strength of schedule from start to finish. Well, I think that's where the numbers would differ with you because they've got more of those easy games coming up at the end of the year that other teams have played. Jim, let's go full sports talk radio for a minute. Yeah. Is it officially time to put a knife in the Red Sox? Yeah. I was on Cessmas Family Barbecue DeZone last night, and they asked me that. I got the Red Sox done. And I was just like,

Yeah. And they're like, you want to elaborate like anymore? And I was like, I mean, that's a dumb question. Yeah. No, I don't know. We're, we're Yankees fans. So there's bias that I cannot control. But when the Red Sox do bad, they do so bad. They don't just finish in second place two games out of the wild card and oh, shucks, we missed the playoffs.

When they do bad, they do so bad. And right now, tough time. Sale gave him his best outing of. like the season. They still lose the series. So, I don't know. What's the Red Sox schedule looking like? Do you have a strength of schedule thing there?

Thanks, schedule. Well, didn't the Red Sox split the series? Because sale, was Thursday night. Oh, is a four game set? Yeah. So then they split the series. I'm wrong.

So they split. But they, everything I said was so wrong. I told you I half-assed my report. Damn. Yeah. Damn. Angels didn't win a series.

Bummer. No, sorry. So yeah. Now we're twisting the knife in the Red Sox and the Angels. What was the question? Red Sox's upcoming schedule? Man, a split series between the Angels and the Red Sox is almost more brutal than winning or losing because they both just walked in like malingering badness and they both walked away in the same exact place. Not one team can claim they walked away better than when they came in. Yeah, man. I mean, Boston, they've got, they go three. at Cleveland, so your favorite team in baseball. Then they host Baltimore for three, Philly for two, and then they go on that crazy

West Coast trip, San Diego, Colorado, Los Angeles. Which on their home, but... Yeah, it's not the best teams on that West Coast trip, but West Coast trips do take a toll on... West Coast trips are gnarly, so, yeah, I don't know, no. I think if we weren't Yankee fans, we would sit here more admirably and be like, The socks are done. But, I mean, it's rabbit out of the hat time for them soon. And sale getting right is a nice rabbit, but they need so much more than that right now.

They do. They do. Yo, what's Pueig been doing in Cleveland? Do you mind if I look that up? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can look that up. I saw he, dude, he hit a line drive into the left field gap. Like, it just cleared the shortstop's head, but it was like no.

doubt was getting to the wall. He, he tattooed it. Other than that, I'm not exactly sure how he did this weekend, Jim. Yeah, and even more this weekend, just what's he done since being traded over is what I want to find out. Oh, yeah, yeah, Puege, the Cleveland Indian. Yes. So since being traded over, Jesus.

11 games, 46 plate appearances, 3.57 batting average. 413 on base percentage, 571 slugging, 984 OPS. Guys a threat. Two stolen bases, one home run, six RBIs, four doubles, one triple. 15 hits, five runs. End of August, we should do a, like, a full recap on all the trade pieces, because I know Castellanos is still doing it, Pueger, Andrew Cashner, so much.

Dude, they put Pueg into their, he's their cleanup hitter. And he's just, he's started in right field and hit cleanup every game. One game he DH'd. Yeah. That's cool. So they got Lindor,

Mercado, the rookie center fielder is their two hole hitter. Carlos Santana at three, Puig at four, and then Ramirez at five. And since this stretch, that's their one, two, three, four, five. Every game. Kipnis and Reyes messing around.

It's cool. The Yankees don't have that because they rotate so much. I love when you look at batting orders and they're just the same every day. That's like part of the old school baseball that I still look at. And I'm like, damn, that's so cool. Just every day, it's Lindor, Mercado, Santana, Pue, Ramirez. Yeah, hop on my Braves train, baby. Albi Zikuna and Freddie.

Yeah, but that's only three. Hey, that's what you need. Donaldson has been clean up pretty solidly. It's been Akuna, Albies, Freeman, Donaldson, Swanson got the boot. And then there, 5 through 9 is the jumble. That's boot. What else do you like in the American League?

In the American League, what else do I like, Jimmer for debt? Man, I feel like if we need to get them on the elevator soon, although I think we might have had them early, but the A's, man. The A's just like keep winning series. That's what I thought, but they just, just lost. They just lost to the Cubs. So, like, I was going to put that in my report.

Like, man, the A's win another series. And I was like, wait, they just lost the Cubs. They played them well, but they just lost the Cubs. Right. But outside of that, I mean, they've, I don't know. That was, because that was in Chicago, right? And they were doing that whole stretch of AL slash NL baseball. Yeah, but, yeah.

So they actually, they haven't been winning a lot of series, Jake. It's very confusing. So if you go back like five series, they split a four game set with Minnesota. They lost a three game set with the Astros. Then they split a four game set with Texas. Then they won a series versus the Brewers, won a two game set versus the Cardinals, lost to the Cubs, and now they just beat the White Sox. So they've won three series out of their last six.

I just did this before the show because I thought the A's were on a winning series streak as well, and they're not. So for some reason our brains have them much hotter than they actually are. Yeah, I guess, yeah, six and three in their last nine. I guess that's not that special. Yeah, I guess if you go before that, it gets a little better if you could stretch it out with the Rangers games. But yeah, I don't know. And maybe it's not A's bias.

Maybe it is A's bias. But I guess they just keep trucking along, man. Yeah, they had a stretch where they had the two walkoffs in a row and some of the drama. And then they won three in a row right out. after that. I think we're still lingering on that. It's a good win by the A's, and they're sitting sitting nicely in the wild card, I think. No, they're one out, so we'll see. Yeah, they're one and a half out of Tampa right now. So Cleveland and Minnesota are tied, so that's your first wildcard and your AL Central team. Tampa, I guess maybe that's the team that I feel like we've been ignoring.

Yarborough twirled a gem the other day. We're going to talk about that a little bit more later. Tampa, man, I guess every week we found ourselves saying like, well, is Boston? I guess if they get, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think we have to stop talking about Boston and talk about Tampa. Yeah, yeah. They swept the, their recent stretch is very good. They beat Toronto two out of three.

They swept the Red Sox. They sweep the Marlins. lose to Toronto and then they sweep Seattle. I think I said they're 12 and 2 in their last 14. That's pretty good. And if you go up, they're 14 and 3 in their last 17. Yeah, and who, again, they have the easiest schedule. They have the easiest schedule right now.

Three games at San Diego. Jimmy, you're. The race schedule is kind of scaring me right now. three games at San Diego. Then they host Detroit and the Mariners again, who they just swept. Then they go to Baltimore for four games. Yeah.

Holy smokes, that's an easy schedule. Hopefully, hopefully some of those teams can play spoiler for the Yankees, for my sake. Then they go to Houston and then Cleveland. Oh, dude, but then it's so easy again. Okay, it's kind of a harder September. Damn. Good for the raise.

Jim, you mentioned Yaya Pueig, Jesus Aguilar, since coming over. He's hitting at a 385 clip with a 933 OPS. Shit, because he was having a brutal year. Yeah, I know we were, you and I didn't fully align on his July, but he was starting to figure some things out. And it's baseball, man. Guys can have a bad first. half and still be themselves, especially if they get a little jolt.

So good, good for big Jesus. Yeah, well, his July was just three games made his stats look good. And the rest was bad. Sometimes that's how it goes. Yeah. Since being over, he's got, he's playing well. Nine home runs on the season one. That's so weird to see nine home runs.

The last two seasons, this dude was a monster. Yeah. on the season doesn't you have 10 home runs he got his OPS above 700 with the Rays now with this hot stretch that's good so where are the Rays playing him first base every A first or D.H I'd have to assume is that mean Gman Choy's been kicked to the side not sure I'm gonna check it out I'm gonna check it out let's see where is Aguar been playing oh the Rays are like the Yankees it's just a cluster fuck

Aguilar has been D.H in and playing first hitting since coming over, Jake. He has batted 6th, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 5th, 5th, and been rotating D.H. First base, D.H. First base, D.H. First base. D.H. First base. Working. Two different methods. Cleveland and the race. Two different methods.

All right. Anything else? Not really. I know the Astros, the Astros lost to the Orioles, if you think we're being dramatic on that, it's literally in Vegas terms, it's one of the biggest upsets in MLB baseball in the past 15 years.

So that's pretty well. I need baseball fans to stop acting like 23 to 2 wins mean anything. when the losing... It was the most runs in Astros history, so that's pretty impressive. But this was... But when the other team just takes out their pitchers

and throws position players and stops trying, none of those runs mean anything. Yeah, I mean, I know what you mean. Like, in the scope of that game, it doesn't mean anything at once the leads double digits, but, I mean, it's going, the Astros record book.

The first 10 runs are cool. It should go in the record books, but people were like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing. It's like, they weren't trying. They're a bad team,

and then they were a bad team that honestly didn't try for five innings. So that's what happens. Oh, yeah. But it's happening a lot where there's like position players pitch way more now because they want to save arms.

And then you pad the stats on position players, and it's like, that's cool. But let's not like, Let's not think it's impressive. 10-0, impressive. The next 13 runs were like men's league softball. Right. Yeah.

All right. We don't really have any main storylines. It's just kind of gameplay. Yeah, I don't think so. Just some good baseball. Just the central races in the wild card. All right. Let's go to the standing out, standout performances.

The standout performances. I'm bad leadoff, Jim? Yep, here you go. Okay, well, I'm going to take the first pitch, obviously, because I always take the first pitch. And then I'm probably going to tap one back to the pitcher. But my standout performance, Jim, Aristides, Aquino, Jim. Am I saying that right?

You're dancing all around it, so I'll allow it. We always just, we slaughter names on this show as a joke. It's not a joke. We want to get the names right. Some of them are tough. Jim, this one's so tough. Our guy comes up. Welcome to the big leagues.

Right? Nine seasons in the minors, Jim. He's 25 years old. He was a kid. He comes up, and Jim, he has a three-homer game. And from a rookie that is very rare air in your first 10 games, only Bobby Estelaia. The old Rockies catcher has a three-homer games in their

first 10 games. Jim, it gets even better. He had four straight games with a homer, and this was the fourth, which was a three homer game. His seven homers in his first 10 games ties Trevor Story's record for most homers in your first 10 games, Trevor Story. A lot of Rockies involved here, Jim. Only rookie in MLB history to hit a homer in back-to-back innings. That's there forever, okay. Third Reds rookie to have a three homer game. Joey Votto and Art Shamsky from everybody loves Raymond lore, Jim. And I think the bigger news here, Jim, is, you know, we root for good baseball always. My guy has a career on base percentage in the minors of 308, which, okay, and by the way, he did this for the Cincinnati Reds. I'd mentioned that with Joey Votto and Art Shamsky.

308 career on base percentage in the minor. So you're saying, okay, like, what's the hole in this kid's swing? Like, we're going to figure this out soon, and I'm sure he's going to be a bum. Jim, he might have figured it out this year. This year in AAA, 28 homers, a 356 on base percentage. And Jim, I don't know if this is new, but as you've seen, he's got one of these big open stances to start, the lazy open stance, which is just always more endearing to a player.

So my guy Aristides Aquino Congrats buddy And like welcome Atestidis Dude his batting stance is fantastic Yeah it's the lazy open man It's when you're playing whiffle ball And you're just like you know you're just going to go so deep

You're like it doesn't matter Just throw it and then you step into it and crush it Yeah It's it's yeah they it's it's easter they let one of the nieces or nephews they're like oh let them throw a few pitches you could swing don't worry and you're like okay yeah toss it in here johnny but i hope you're all right consoling my nephew when i send this one into the trees because that's where it's going yeah yeah man dude he is a big prospect for them have you seen any of his outfield assist like he's known for having a huge arm Yeah, I was going to say, I know he's got an arm.

I know that from my nerdy video game. And yeah, he's definitely a rising prospect. Like I said, he's deaf. The light bulb's gone off. I don't know if it's pitch recognition. I don't know if he's changed his stance. Again, if you're one of our Reds fans, you're in the chat right now, or you want to tweet at Poppy Chulo at Talking Jake, send it if you've got some inside info.

But clearly something's happened. Do you know that he hit seven home runs in his first 10 games, which ties Trevor Story's record and all that. But this was the 10th game when he did this. The first game was last season, 2018. Right. And he only had a, that was his only only game played, which is tough. And he only had one bad.

I bet he's wishing he didn't play that game now. If he didn't play that game, I don't know, did he hit a home run the next game? Because then it would be another 10. if he didn't play that one game in 2018. Yeah, so he did not. But yeah, in Jim, that one game, it was one at bat, one at bad and he struck out.

Yeah. So that's a. Erastides, dude, I love his batting stance. And then Kyle Hendrick just given the same pitch. Kyle Hendricks, the most popular pitch is an 86 mile per hour like sinker. The first one was a little inside. Second one was right over the plate. It's like, dude, why didn't you just change that up?

25 from Santo Domingo in the Dominican. in Republic. Good, good on you, Aristides. And hey, maybe that was, him doing well in the miners was part of the reason they could move Pleig and go get Bauer and everything that went down.

So good, good on the Reds. Yeah, dude, the Reds might be set up next year. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. The pitching could be pretty good. Bauer, Sonny Gray, Castillo. Be nice.

All right, my standout performance, Jake. who's yours, Jim? And you're like, oh, very rare for a rookie to have three home runs in the game. Well, what if I told you if another rookie did it same day? Or same weekend. Astros fans are pissed. Oh, Aristides gets all the credit.

Aristides, Aristides, Aristides, Eristides. Your Don Alvarez, the manchild for Houston. He had three home runs in the game as well. He's a rookie. It's now a 17 home runs on the season for Alvarez. They weren't the first three at bats of a game, or they weren't the first 10 games of his career. But he still did it.

Still a rookie. Three home runs, one game, four runs scored, three hits, seven RBIs. Also took a walk. Both guys had a walk in their games. I went into his home run log because both these guys, their first home run was on O.O. pitches. or early in the count. Alvarez has 17 homers on the year.

11 of them have come on the first three pitches. I think seven of them came on the first two. Swings early. Doesn't want to get deep into counts. But yeah, another three home run performance. As is tradition in Houston, Jose Altuve likes jumping on those early pitches. Yeah, Jim, I love Jordan.

He's an absolute monster. the rookie stuff, all of that. I am putting an asterisk because it was against the worst pitching staff ever. It was against the Baltimore Orioles. So I am going to throw a little asterisk. I appreciate your three home runs, Jordan. But it's against the team that's going to give up the most ever's. But good on you.

Good on you. And Jim, he's right in his own rookie records. We talked about the RBIs in a month. I think he beat Albert Poolehus' record. Um, dude, 46 games. He's got 17 homers and 51 RBIs. He's, he's on, he's on pace for essentially a 25 homer, 100 RB. Oh, your phone.

Yes. I'm mad at my own standout performance. Oh, wow. I, this, I am, I take it back. It's all coming back. His last home run was versus position player. Just what I was talking. Oh, you broke your own rule.

Just I was just talking about this. Dude, I posted the, I posted the three. I'm so mad at myself because I posted the three home run video for Akina, Akino, uh, Kino, whatever. And everyone on breakdown on YouTube's so obnoxious like, whoa, Alvarez did it. Alvarez did it. So I was trying to give them some love here and be like, I'll be on the astrosite.

He's fucking hit it on a position player. It's not nearly the same thing. I got swindled into. trying to make these three two these two feats comparable. Damn. Are you kidding me? Damn. The other two pitchers, I never heard of Taylor Scott.

We saw him. Yeah, he's got the long hair. And Aaron Brooks, he's been bouncing around for a while. They're real pitchers at least. Fuck. Yeah. I chance. Congrats Jordan Alvarez.

You hit three home runs. the minor league game. Right? Dude, that's why I added the Orioles, the Orioles caveat to end Fuego. The Orioles are going to get a couple bats hot every week. I can't believe myself. I'm pivoting real quick and I'm giving it to Ryan Yarbrough.

So Gordon lost the award? Yeah, he's not getting that fucking award. Wow, okay. I love it. I was just gave the whole spiel like we need to stop acting like these 23 to two victories are any more impressive than 12 to nothing. Because once the team pivots and puts Stevie Wilkerson out there to pitch, it's not impressive. Howie buy as bad as lefty because it literally doesn't matter.

That was fun. It was fun. I enjoyed that. But like it's whatever. All right. My standout performance is my. All right, Jim. Let's do your standout performance.

My standout performance goes to Mike Minor. Didn't get traded, didn't get traded, Jake. Was that just a triple audible? Did you just go to Jordan, thought about Yarborough real quick, and went to Mike Minor? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Love it.

Yeah. I went to Mike Minor because the sweep was on the line. He didn't get traded. What's he playing for? He's got a couple more years. He actually struggled for a little bit. Mike Miner goes out there and tosses against a playoff team. That's really why I sweep.

from Yarbrough to Mike Minor. The Brewers are a hungry team playing for a lot. The Mariners aren't. Correct. So Mike Miner shutting down the Brewers, 11Ks, four hits, eight innings pitched. Mike Miner gets my standout performance. Yeah, and that series, I touched upon it briefly,

but Jim, they were all one-run games. Texas still believes they're battling. I mean, if we just ruled Boston out, We're ruling Texas out. But Jim, you also talked about how Sinci's set up for next year. If Texas actually thinks they found something in Lance Lynn and Mike Minor and they can plan on those guys coming back and being strong for them next year, Texas can kind of form something around that. That's true. Good on Mike Minor.

Great, great pick. Thank you. Great pick. Confident all the way. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Moving on.

Next up, we've got. Slump watch Slump watch David Price has been on slump watch for a while He went to the AIL We kind of missed that last week So you're off Yeah, it's one way to get off

It's respect the hustle there The Red Sox have been on slump watch take And the deal is you have to win a series to get off They split two games Versus the Royals And then it got The third game is currently tied It's being postponed

and then they just split a four-game set versus the Angels. So there's a tough way to stay on Slump Watch. They're currently on a three-and-three slump watch. That feels kind of unfair. That's the rules. They got to win a series. The rules are the rules. They got to win a series.

Okay. O'Dorhugnad. Rogue Ned. He went two for nine to double and a run and four walks. I don't know about this one. two for nine a double one run four walks so a 222 batting average a 4662 on base percentage Jim he's off man I didn't see the four walks I was going to say he's on but four walks that's a lie you're getting he got on base six times in a series in a three game set okay off I agree with you off uh Danny at Javaria got DFAed because the Mets dropped him and picked up Joe Panic again another brilliant way

to get off. And Jim, if you remember, we said as long as he gets one hit, you take him off because he's so good defensively. Well, you got TFA'd. Tough. Still gets off. Yep. Next up, Paul Goldschro was on slump watch because he had an O for series last week. This weekend, he goes seven for 12, one home run, four RBIs, one stolen base. His slash line was 583 batting average, 615 on base percentage 1.449. Shame to flame? Shame to flame, Jim. I got excited that we had a PTPer, Paul Goldschmidt, on Slump Watch, and he comes back in a series that, again, the Cardinals needed to write the ship.

They sweep Pittsburgh. Goldie's a big part of that. Good on, good, hey. Adam Duvall. You put Adam Duvall on Slump Watch last week. He went one for 11 with 3Ks, so he's still on Slump Watch. Unless you're putting him on, you're just bad watch. No, no, because he came out and we gave him all the love for the Vim and Vigur,

fighting through the minor leagues, keep it rolling. People were tweeting at us, get Adam Duval on there. Well, I'm sorry, he's got this, I mean, this is going to be his last week on Slump Watch because he either gets off being bad or he figures it out. All right. John Lester, you threw him on last week? Yeah. Five innings pitched.

Five hits, three runs, seven Ks. That is a very confusing line for if he's, it's not the best game. It's not a brutal game. It's not good. It's not bad. It's right in that limbo area. Are you keeping John Lester on or off? I think I got to dive into this one a little more because, I mean,

there's days when five and three is all you need, especially if he was striking out guys. Let's see. I got to get into the game log here. Lester, it's at Cincinnati, and we know the ball was flying pretty good. They end up winning that game six to three. And let's see.

Oh, no, Jim. When he left, the Cubs were down. It was three to one Cincinnati in the sixth inning. I think he stays. You don't like it. what you're seeing. No, I mean, three walks, five hits. Yeah, I'm sorry.

First inning, first inning was strikeout, strikeout, single, ground out. That's good. Fly ball, ground out, strikeout. Okay, the third inning when he gets in trouble. Ground out, line out. So two outs right away. Walk, double, walk, single. Ugh.

Then a clean fourth. Then gives up a solo home run. in the fifth. I don't know. That doesn't seem that bad. It's not bad. I just, I don't feel confident in taking him off, Jim.

All right. He stays on. I'm sorry, Cubs fans. I'm sorry, John. I know you're listening. Miguel Cineau. Sanoo. Braves come to town.

Snow goes kind of off. Hits a walk off home run. Had another big hit, I believe. The Cleveland Indians come to town, and he goes silent. Miguel Snowe went 0 for 11 with two walks Jake and now his August is looking brutal. His August numbers are 179, 273, 385 with a 657 OPS. He only has one multi-hit game in August right now.

I'm putting him on slump watch. I think he'll get off quickly. I think he may be ashamed of flame. But Siri four game set versus. the team that's coming for first place and he went dead. Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm fine with it. And Jim, I want to say one, one of our earliest episodes around the All-Star break, we were saying if the twins, if the twins wanted to win us over to the fact

that we believe they could compete with the Yankees or Houston, we said Miguel Suno would be a part of that. Like if he could come in and be another big time power bat for them, holy smokes. Um, and now he's, he's kind of slumping. Cleveland's caught up. So yeah, I'm fine with that. All right. Next up, I have Daniel Murphy.

He went 0 for 10 this weekend. He went 0 for 10 this weekend. 2 for 21 in his last six games. This is a dude who hits, and he's got a 0.95 batting average in his last six games. It's also the town weirdo, so I'm never shy to kind of pick on him. Right.

So Murphy's on Slump Watch. And weirdo watching for being honest. And Jim, the other guy you have on here, as I am going to throw in one late edition, but you put Josh Donaldson, the bringer of rain, who we talked about he's in that four hole for the bravos. He puts up an 0 for 12er. Not great.

Yeah. Now, this is going to be a temporary slump watch. I mean, he had a bad series. It's not surrounded by bad before this. It is a bad series, though, so I'm putting them on slump watch because, you know, we're just watching out for it. I do think Donaldson will come off pretty quickly.

Okay. And, yeah, man, I like watching Donaldson play, man. And the only other guy I was going to throw on there because I think we were a little light on the pitchers. I'm throwing Dallas Keikle in there, Jim. He got really roughed up in his last start, 3.28 runs against the Marlins. What's going on there?

One of his worst starts in a long time. after we gave Kikele a lot of love for being super consistent. He kind of, he really normally lives up to that John Boy competitive start metric that we're working on. Gives your team a chance to win, yeah. He gives you a chance to win in every game. Some of them aren't flashy. You're going to have a lot of two run, three runs, but your team is going to have a chance of Kikl's on the mound. He goes up and he very much does not do that for the Braves, 3.2, Adern runs.

And in his last 16 inning, so it's a little skewed by that one. but 16 innings, 15 earn runs to a tune of an 8-44 ERA. That's not good enough, Dallas. That's not good enough. Yeah, it seems like one bad start. But we're watching out if another one creeps up. Yeah. Start before that seven innings pitched four hits.

That's pretty good. Yeah, it's not bad, but it's a slump watch. We're watching out. All right, let's flip that coin over. Dirk. Nasty. Enfuego, Jim. Means on fire, baby.

We got a good infuego crew this week. Good infuego crew. A lot of outfielders, Jim. I was excited for this one. Jorge Solerer. Yeah. For the Royals. Came in to Boston

and played a little. I don't know. The Royals just played. The Tigers. I said I didn't care. The Tigers aren't good. But what he did was pretty impressive. and I like it. And this is a guy who had a lot of, a lot of like hype,

kind of, right? Comes up with the Cubs. Yeah, he was a, he was a Cuban player. The Cubs brought up, I mean, Big Boy, 6-4-230, you know, people thought he was going to be a part of that, Cubs, you know, whatever you want to call this Cubs run right now.

And then he kind of fell out of favor. He had some, you know, the, the batting average wasn't there for a little bit. I mean, 2016, 2017 were basically lost seasons. And Kansas City, they ended up getting him for Wade Davis, the reliever back in the offseason 2016. And yeah, Jim, I mean, his first season with Kansas City back in 2017, 35 games, a 144 batting average. Last year, he gets 61 games, and he puts up some respectable numbers. This year, he's,

He's mauling, Jim. 120 games, he's got 35 home runs. He's a player. Yeah, I was going to say, I saw that 120 games, and I was like, holy shit, there's been 120 games already this season. Yeah, he's leading the league and games played. I was like, that was a kick in the face of how deep we are into this season. But anyway, on the weekend, he went 6-4-11 with four home runs and eight RBIs. That's a hell of a weekend.

In August, he played 10 games, 10 games so far. August 424 batting average 537 on base percentage 1.658 OPS. And his season numbers like you were just saying aren't bad. So this is his first full season since 2015 when he was a rookie. And he's putting it together pretty nicely for the Royals. I don't know if they have any direction, but he can help them some way. Yeah. And I'm wondering he can become a free agent in 2022.

man, he's making 4.5 mill next year. Man, that might be a guy this offseason that the Royals get teams interested because it seems like he's not going to match up with their timeline, but he's going to end up finishing this year with 40 home runs. So, yeah, that's a little, hey, we talk some Royals. How about that? Do I say the name Jorge wrong? Jorge?

Baseball reference pronunciation for Horace. Jorge is capital H-O-E-R for the whore part. H-O-R. That's not how I would spell that phonetically, whore. Yeah, well, I think there might be problems spelling it phonetically, too, so. Just switch the R and the E. Hower. That looks like how, like, my mom and people that grew up in the Bronx said whore.

Hoa! Hu-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-T-K-O-H-H-K-K-K-K. Okay. Jake, next up, I put Juan Soto on here. Yeah, man, and Jim, I don't know, it's funny. We look at the baseball reference game logs. That's how it happens behind the scenes, guys, and we kind of dive in to see who done it.

A lot of young good outfielders. And Jim, I say young when I talk about Jorge Soler. He's 27. Juan Soto's 20. Yeah, and he got a cool name. Juan Soto is 20 years old. Jim, he has a casual three homer weekend, five for ten, a couple walks in there.

But I think the point that I again want to drive home, he's 20 years old. Do you think it's a little disappointing that Juan Soto and Bo Bichette aren't on the same team? Ooh, that's why people play nerdy baseball games, Jim. You got to put those guys back to back in the lineup. man Juan Soto dude he's uh I mean just a casual he's got a 3-7 war on the year right now he's one upping his numbers from last year last year in 116 games he had 22 homers 70

RBIs 923 OPS this year in 107 games 24 home runs two more seven more RBIs and his OPS is up 20 points. So he's making casual growth at age 20. More than me. Yeah, a lot more than you. Oh, well, come on. Hey, hey, let's be honest about it, Jim. And Jim, I didn't even realize we did this. If we were, if we were a little better, we would have figured this out. So there's a right fielder. Juan Soto is a left fielder in center to round it out. A guy, we watched a lot of this weekend. Teosker Hernandez. Imagine if we did a winner from each position every episode.

That would take so much effort. Oh, man, that'd be exhausting. It'd be doable. Teosker Hernandez, Jim, we saw him this weekend against the Yankees. He goes three for eight. And you're saying, okay, three for eight, that's okay. Well, his three were all homers. He has special power, especially for a center fielder.

And Jimmy, I think what's even more, impressive. In the first half of this Major League season, Teosker hit 204 with a 267 on base and a 628 OPS. That's bad. He got sent down for a little bit. The second half of this season, Jim, Teosker Hernandez, is hitting 277 with a 375 on base with a 1.050 OPS. And Jimmy, I know you and I were blown away, we actually probably should have said a little more at the top about it. The Blue Jays have this young core that's coming. And if Teoscar Hernandez can be, you know, a center fielder with an OPS that starts with an eight or even a hell of nine, I mean, that is just another piece to this young core that they can really be special with Bobauchet

and Vladi Jr. and Cavan Bigio will never be Royals, Lord is Gueriel. So yeah, man, that's Tay Oscar, when he puts on a show, he does it. And it tends to be against our Yankees, too. So that's nice. Yeah, good job, Teasker. I like that name. Teasker. Yo, Luke, my intern Luke, for us.

Yeah. He asked me, you know, he didn't ask me. He said, it's funny that the Guerrero's first name is Vladimir. Yeah, I think we talked about this a couple episodes ago. Like, what? Like, Vlad? But I just looked it up. and because it's such a Russian name, Vladimir.

Right. And then I looked it up and there's a bunch like Ivan. That's very Russian. Yeah. It's because the Soviets back in Bay of Pigs times put a stranglehold or they like, you know, had a lot of influence in those countries and those names got left over. But I hear Vladimir Guerrero, I never even thought like, that's a very Russian name. What's that doing?

Now I get it. Ivan Rodriguez, Pudge Rodriguez. Yeah. How about that? Little history getting mixed. into it. So when the Soviets and the Americans were fighting over that area of control and, you know,

have their ships and everything like that, the Americans gave them baseball and the Russians gave them some names. Not a bad trade. Not a bad trade. Yeah, all right. Not a bad trade. You got some pitchers on here. Ryu. Yeah, Jim, I love getting the pitchers involved. And Jim, this guy, he might be playing himself on the

too good to get on here. Riu, man. He goes seven shut out again. And Jim, since July is 6-0, 39.2 innings pitched, 39.2 innings pitched, Jim, to the tune of a 0.45 ERA. I mean, Jim, that's, it's unbelievable. He's, he's the leader for the Cy Young right now. And again, I just want to repeat it, 39.2 innings pitch to the tune of a 045 ERA. Unbelievable from Ryu. He was one of the names that people said we were getting wrong, so I think I'm saying it right now, but I could be wrong.

And then Jim, this next guy almost got your award, Ryan Yarborough. Almost. But he's playing against the lowly Mariners who don't care about anything right now. Mariners. And Jim, I don't know if you saw this. This was kind of classic raise. So he goes 8.2, zero earn runs. And Jim, there was a little extra venom in Ryan Yarborough.

because he got traded from the Mariners. So this was his original team. He gets pulled 8.2 zero earn runs. Kevin Cash comes out, pulls him. Yarborough starts yelling in his glove. He's all sorts of pissed off. He was the only pitcher this year in the major leagues to go 8.2 zero earn runs and not get to face another batter.

Say that again? So I think, and I don't think I'm misquoting it, but I believe there's been 17 or 18 pitchers this year that have gone 8.2 innings, zero earned runs. All of the other pitchers got to face another batter to try to get the final out, the complete game. Ryan Yarbo is the only guy who did not get that opportunity. Why? Why did they pull them?

You know why, man, it's the race. They have their rules, they live by them. Ryan Yarbrough hit the pitch count they wanted to. They thought Emilio Pagan was a better matchup coming out of the pin. So they went to them. The rays don't use emotion. They're an emotionless franchise.

Damn, man. Yeah. That sucks. Tough break. Good job, Ryan. I don't think you'd want to play for that. Like, if you're Yarbrough, You kind of have to buy into the analytics.

Right. But you'd much rather play for the manager who lets you just finish it. What was the score of the game? And that's what I'm... Tell me the score of the game. This might make me so mad. Ooh, here we go. John boys are running hot, baby.

I love it. There's only... There's only... Okay, I need two pieces of information to decide how mad I am about this. Let me know. What else do you need? If you're not up to date, I'm mad that they pulled Yarbrough with one out to go

To get a complete game shut out What was how many people were on base Jim you might you might not like this How many people were on base? So Jimmy first piece of information you asked me for And I will give it to you It was a one nothing game Oh okay

Oh that's okay That's the only answer that was gonna make me not mad That's fine Well, this part you won't like. There were no runners on base. And who was up? Navarez pinch hit for Santana. A pinch hitter?

So I think Santana would have hit if they left Yarbrough in because he's a big righty. And Yarbrose a lefty. So I think when they brought in Pagan and then they brought in the lefty to hit. What had Santana done versus Yardro? of that game. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to check like hard hit.

Reached on catcher's interference. Wow, that's intimidating. Line out to deep center. So maybe that was like a really hard hit ball. Yeah. And then a fly ball to deep center field. Okay. I don't see the contact there, but maybe those were very scary hits.

They were, yeah. There were maybe what did you could have. So that is one of the answers that I wasn't going to be that. If it was like three nothing, I was going to be livid that they took him out. because that's bullshit. Yeah. But whatever. And 99 pitches.

I think the Rays have their pitch limits rule, so all of it was there. So, yeah, it's tough. But I don't know, Jim. I'm always kind of going to be firmly on the side of, like, damn, I know all the numbers say this, this, and this. But, I mean, if Ryan Yarbrough gets that out, like your dugout is going nuts, he's going out. Everyone's stoked.

I mean, even if he gives up the one to tie it, eh. So, I don't know. but Ray's going to raise and it worked for them. They got the win. They got the win. Well, yeah, we'll clean up. A pair of relievers, Seth Lugo, we mentioned him earlier. He's taking over the closer roll for the Mets.

Jimmy, 14.2 innings, one earned run in his last 30 days. Giovanni Gallegos, Jim. One of the pieces trade to the Cardinals in the Luke Voight trade, 14.10 earn run in his last 30, so Cardinals fans can breathe a little bit. from that. So two relievers getting some love. I think those guys had been the best. And Jimmy, I wrapped it up with, again, a segment in a segment,

who'd the O's get hot? I put Jordan Alvarez, your guy. And Carlos Correa, Jim. Carlos Correa hit the longest home run measured at Camden Yards. Nice. Good for Carlos. And that's not a fluke, people. All right.

rounding out the show we got call up watch Jake you let you put some of these down some debuts who got called up anyone we should know about well we had three throwers get the call um you mentioned randy dobbnack before that's just a fun name to say huh um but i actually i i want to start with the bats jimmy because i i know i've got i've got one guy who's about to win your heart over i actually got a couple guys who are about to win your heart over But Jim, the number one guy that you need to know, because he's going to speak to your little tiny heart. Nick Deanie. Nick Deany.

I don't know if he's related to our friend Jeff Deanie. But Jim, Nick Deany, 26 years old. He's a catcher. Five foot eight. He's from, he's from, he's from New Jersey, Monroe, New Jersey. Jersey, and he went to school at Wagner College at Staten Island in New York. This is a man to your heart, Jim. Teeny-Deney?

Teeny, the 5-foot-8 catcher from Jersey-slash-New York? Are you kidding me? Man. Is he good? He can't be good, right? His minor league numbers were actually better than I expected. I don't think he's a big-time prospect at all, but he's going to get a... No!

This dude has 13 home runs in AAA this season in 58 games. Yeah, man. Teeny, Deanie. Deanie's raking, babe. So, yeah, I mean, a new favorite of the program, Nick Deanie doing it for the Kansas City Royal. So, yeah, hopefully he gets some love in the upcoming days. Jim, another kind of fun one here. 27-year-old gets the call.

Brian O'Grady gets the call for Cincinnati. And Jim, he's got a fun little mix here because he's playing first base and a little center field for them. And Jim, the important part I wrote down for Nick Deanie and Brian O'Grady, they each got one hit, and that's where it starts. You got that one hit on the board, wipe your hands off. Now you could do whatever. No matter what happens, you have one major league hit. So that's where I'm at with them. Well, and then we had three.

Well, O'Grady gave out a lot of hugs to Aristides. He gave him a hug after every single home run because I think they were boys in minor leagues together for a while. Yeah, the former eighth round pick, Brian O'Grady. And then, yeah, Jim, we had three hurlers make their debut. John Schreiber for your Detroit Tigers. He actually got knocked around a little bit. But hey, welcome to the Biggs, friend.

And then we also had, oh, lost my spot, Jimmy, per year. usual Randy Dobnack for Minnesota. I know coming up there on your favorite player list. And Junior Fernandez makes his debut for St. Louis. Yeah, he got lit up. The youngest guy to get a call, 22 years old, he also gets knocked around a little bit. But you're in the show, kids.

Trying to find fucking Teeny Dini's first hit. I knew he'd lose you on Teeny Dini. It's so lost. I just watched him pick a runner off on first in spring training. That was cool. I'm all over teeny dini. All right. Here's a home run in spring training.

This is great podcasting. This is me watching 5-8 catcher. Yogi bearer in car night. That's not the right word. Ooh. Yeah, man. He looks like me. If I was in shape.

Okay. If I was in shape and good at baseball, he's got a nice beard 5-8 catcher the kid might be my hero he's younger than me for sure oh yeah he is he's 26

yeah okay well go fuck yourself teeny dini all right we were fans of teeny deanie we are now fully out no good good job Nick yeah no no huge big time prospects junior Fernandez 22 getting the call

good for him on St. Louis maybe they'll be using him a lot you know say. Jim, I think, I think it's time for awards. My first award. Do I get to go first? You do not, but I mean, if you're really ready, I'll let you. Go first then.

All right. I'm going to go first then. Jimmy, I'm going with the one and done award. You know, college basketball, one and done, Zion. Zion. It's actually not related to that at all. And, you know, I could have gotten a lot more corny with this, people. So back off.

Whoa, got to attack the fans before you give your award. Everyone knows that. Jim, the one and done award goes to Will Smith. No, not the actor. No, not the rookie on the Dodgers. Jimmy, the reliever on your San Francisco Giants. Jim, we had a fun special moment. in the National League yesterday, and I know we're AL guys, but I will give the NL some love

while the D.H is still not there, 2021. Jimmy, Will Smith, he comes in. He's been the closer for the Giants this year, and he's been good, man. He's got 28 saves. He's got a 242 ERA. And he's been good for a while. He was an All-Star this year. Jim, since 2013, Will Smith has a 2-9-8. ERA. He's been twirling it for like six years now. Anyways, so he's the closer for the Giants. He comes in to get them out of the eighth inning, and it's a tied game, right? So the Giants come up, bottom eight, they get a rally in. I think Kevin Pilar hits a big old triple to take the lead. So what do they do? They walk someone in front of Will Smith because Will Smith's a pitcher. Yeah, get to the picture.

And they're going to leave Will Smith in the game now because he's the closer and they have the lead, right? Yeah. So Will Smith comes up, two runners on, or three runners on, excuse me. Base is loaded, they call that. Jimmy, his first ever at bat, his first ever professional at bat. He said he hadn't had a at bat since either college or high school. He didn't know.

He comes up totally late on a football. fastball but puts it in play to right. It drops two run scores. The stadium is going bonkers. The dugouts going bonkers. He's got a giant little league smile going because he's genuinely never had a

professional at bat. And what does he do in his first at bat? Just a two RBI single, casual, whatever. So that's why I'm calling it the one and done because if you're Will Smith you can never take another at bat. You have to, that's it. Yeah. I like that.

but Jim, you should, the smile on his face was so genuine, like, I can't believe I did that. Yeah, I think I see that. I think I'm doing a breakdown of it, but I don't like this because it gives people that don't like the DH a reason to be like, see, isn't that fun? It's like, yeah, because that happens one in 500 at batch. You guys think it's good. You know, I had people reach out because I said you were going to upset National League fans saying being so anti-pitchers hitting. And I had them reach out because you said, no, it's a national movement.

Everyone wants the DH. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We do not want the DH. Right. No, I mean, there's always going to be some diehards. People hate change. But it's coming. 2021.

The National League will have the DH. I think if you pulled all National League fans, I think it'd be like 90% don't want the DH. I don't think 90. It would probably be high. It'd probably be a little over 50. But you also have to think about the pride involved in it, Jim. I mean, they come from, we've talked about, you know, we're Yankee fans because it was part of our family. It's entrenched and been passed on to us.

So if you grew up a Cardinals fan and, you know, grandma loved the pitcher hitting, you know, that's been passed down through your family through the years. So I get that. But once it happens, it'll be gone and never thought about again and probably laughed at. But NL. Once the NL gets the DH, like 10 years later, five years later, they're going to be like, I cannot believe. It's almost the same way I look at instant replay now. Like an umpire blows a call and we get to change it right away if it's obvious. And I think I cannot believe we used to just live with these bad calls, knowing they were bad. We just had to live with it.

Yeah. That's how national league fans are going to think of the deal. I cannot believe we used to just live with four automatic outs or bunting for outs all the time. Yeah. And I hopped on a Rockies podcast a little while back and we went. went down this avenue, Jim. And he wants the DH because the other thing is you're losing talent. You know, could Luke Voight still be a Cardinal if they had DH at bats to give out?

So many rookies don't get to shine in the National League because they get called up. Mike Talkman got called up and all he did was be a defensive replacement, get one at bat every single, every single game. There's no way he's going to impress you as a rookie getting one at bat every game. He's never done that in the minor leagues. and there's so many rookies that get called up that don't have a spot to impress you because they just have to be a defensive replacement and one at bat. Voight was the same thing with the Cardinals. He never got starting position run.

Jim, I mean, if you do the numbers on it, it's 600 at-bats a year that you lose out on from having a DH in a pitcher. And that could rest players. That could be young players getting opportunity. So, you know, I think, you know, we're probably coming off as mean to the NL, but no, no. But for one night, Jim, it's kind of like a last night with someone you dated and you know things are falling off. For that one night, you guys had each other. And then you're going to go the separate ways the rest of your life.

Nice. My award is the I use these for acid indigestion award. Okay. You're not big of a movie guy. But little giants movie. Okay. They're playing against the big bad team. I use these for acid.

indigestion. What are we going to use them for? Intimidation. And then they put the Pohm and put their pills in the mouth. They start foaming at the mouth and start grunted. And this goes to a houseer on the brewers. Your guy. Pukes on the mound in the middle of the first inning. Gets the first two out. Third batter hits a comeback or two him. He boots it, makes the error throws up right on the mound. Intimidation factor off the charts. I believe he went six innings pitch 10 Ks. You're not going to. going to hit against the guy who just puked on the mount you're a little timid like holy shit what it's the second time he's puked on the mound as as you know well hey you love a good puker from talaqua

oklahoma who good on you adrian hauser um yeah jim you you did a breakdown of this and it was the title was what i was most excited for probably in a breakdown this year because i was and i i questioned you i was like oh boy i hope this isn't a fake and you came back at me, which was fair, asking if you thought I was, you that were some click-bake bimbo. We ran into some technical difficulty, so this conversation got cut off. All right. So, yeah, Houser gets the Puk Ward. And moving on to elevator talk. Elevator talk. Going up. Last, last episode, we didn't describe what elevator talk was, Jake. So as I pull up the wheel,

let them know that elevator talk is for when you're stuck in an elevator talk, with a fan of blank team, we're going to give you some fodder, some stuff that you want to talk about with that guy. I'm going to spin a wheel. It's got all 30 teams. If we feel like we've talked about that team enough already, we're going to go to a next one.

And the first team on the board is the Angels. We did Angels last week, I think. All right. Last step. Yeah, because we talked about how bad their pitching was. We are doing the Baltimore Orioles. Nope Just not worth it

Yeah Final spin Atlanta Braves You're Atlanta Braves Oh thank God Wow Child Things are gonna be easier

Jim can I tell you about one player real quick Ronald Acuna Jim Over the past 30 days He has the third most home runs in baseball and he has the most stolen bases. He's the only player with double-digit stolen bases over the last 30 days.

He has 15. Nobody else is in double digits. Right now he's got 33 homers and 28 steals. Ronald de Cunia might be in the 40-40 club at the end of the year, Jim. And by the way, I'm starting to like that player if you didn't know. Dude, the Braves have a lot of good talent. Ozzy Albies, Josh Donald O'Connor, Freddie Freeman, all have OPSs that start with eight or higher.

Yeah. Good on Freddie Freeman having a big year, huh? Yeah, dude, Freddie just rakes, man. And wasn't he the oldest N.O. All-Star starter at age 29, which some good talent. Man, Freddie Freeman has just been doing it since 2011, man. He's starting to rack up some serious stats for All-Star games. Good on you, Freddie. Yeah.

And then the young thick Austin Riley is on the IL right now with an injured partial terror in his knee. That doesn't sound good. Marcaicus also on the on the IL. The Braves are big in the division. Who are there one, two, three in the playoffs, Jake? Are we going to sound stupid by not knowing? No, I think it's Soroka, your guy. So Mike Soroka.

The kid. I mean, Jim, he's got a two three two. and 21 games started this year. He's earned the pill. I think you're looking at Max Fried, if I'm saying that wrong. He's got a 4-1-1-ERA, but that's a little deceptive. His FIP's actually a little better than that. He's got more strikeouts than innings pitch.

And I think it would be Julio Teheron. Tehran. Tehran. Tehran. We always say that one wrong. Jim, he's got a nice 3-3-5 ERA going this year over 137 innings. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think you're going to be blown away by those guys. And Jim, can Dallas Kichel?

I mean, I mentioned he got touched up. But before that, if there's a guy you could trust in the playoffs to give you at least, you know, five innings, three runs, six innings three runs, it's Dallas Kichael. All right. That's cool. What about Fulton Newitz, no way? I don't know how to say that. No. Do we have to be worried about their bullpen, Jim?

Is Shane Green calm down for them? because I know he had a brutal introduction. He's still at four innings pitched 11 hits giving up. Yikes. So yeah, I mean, Shane Green figuring it out feels like is going to be a big piece of how they finish this season. After blowing up the first, after the first three games went bad. And he did finish his third outing. He gave up a run, but he finished it.

Then he went, he came in for one out, got the hold, and then he... Yikes. Blew the save? Yeah, it looks like he came in with a runner on or something like that, and this was the walk-off game that Miami ended up winning. So, yeah, I guess that would be your... Okay, so you're in the elevator. It's Friday afternoon. Someone's got their Braves hat on.

You'd be like, man, I love our young guys. I love that top of our lineup. I even think our starting pitchers can hold up. Worried about that bullpen. Worried about that bullpen. You know, we traded for Shane Green. Is the guy going to come too? Yeah, that's a good one.

It's a good one. I like the Braves. You like the Braves. I think it's Dodgers than Braves. I think it's pretty clear cut. That's my whole tier thing I went on last up. All right. Cool.

That rounds out the show. Thank you guys for listening. As always, go check out the store if you want an I love baseball shirt. who doesn't love baseball. A lot of people. But shop.jomboimedia.com. Patreon.com slash johnboy media if you want to be in the live chat or get some other perks along the way and support us.

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