Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 16 | August 30th | So Many People Got Mad

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

The Cubs swept the Mets, The Twins and Indians both sweep, The Cardinals take care of the Brewers. Verlander and Reddick get ejected. Broxton hits the ump in the face with his batting glove.  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.

It is time to talk some baseball. August 30th is today. And we are into September. September baseball where hopes have already died for some and others. It gets fun. Let's do it. Let's talk some baseball. Short and sweet.

Jake gave me a face because it's like one day left of August. Is that what your face was? There's one day left. It's August 30. Well, there's two days. August 30 is August 31st. So, I mean, Sunday will be the first day of September. I already ran all around it.

This is a new thing. I already ran payroll for August, so August is done. Right. August has passed. Yeah. And I fucking hate August with all my heart. Right. You got the fall weather.

I mean, I understood what was happening in your brain, but I was just picturing, I was picturing someone listening to this at their desk and being like, Wait, it's September and then they're, it's like August 30th and they're a little bummed out. No, it's September. Okay. Happy September, everyone. Figuratively, it's September. Literally, it's whatever you want it to be, which is August.

All right. Welcome to Talk in Baseball. We had a little mini episode drop yesterday. We hope you all enjoyed that. Want to do that more in the future. We've got to kind of iron out, iron those out. But this is a regular episode. Series recap. I'm excited. A lot of stuff happened. I made the title of this. So many people got mad, Jake. The people got mad sections. The most full it's ever been.

Ooh. Who. Yeah. Did you know that? I did see that when I was checking it out. The Who Got Mad was big. I forgot. I forgot about Big Game Keon Broxton. That's a really fun one. But yeah, I guess we'll get a lot of Who Got Mad. A lot of people got mad. Yeah. So welcome back to talking. Baseball. My name's John Boy and I'm a coach. Jake, if you're not familiar with us, every Monday, every Friday. And here's some other people you need to know. This episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by Matthew Hayes. Gioffrey Mueller.

I bet he hates that. Jeffrey Mueller. Yeah. I think Jeffrey's pretty active with my stuff too. So if you could not G off him, that'd be ideal. Don't G off him. Okay. And Ross N, which I think stands for Neptune.

I think that's Rawson. Oh, it's just one. That's the bag they keep on the mound. Rawlsson. Rawson. Those are our most recent Patreon supporters. And hey, if you are not supporting on Patreon, it's patreon.com slash johnboy media. And guess what?

If you jump in today and tomorrow, like we said, there's two days left of August. If you jump in before the end of the day tomorrow, you will be entered into the raffle and two of the Patrions will win a jersey of their choice from Affordable jerseys.com. You get a free jersey and you can go pick out whichever one you want. And I think if they don't have them, like, you can be like, hey, can I get this number? Don't quote me on that. I mean, I'll ask if you want me to reach out.

I think like it's whatever you want. Get a jersey. So join up. Sign up. It's $2 a month. It really helps us. You get to be in the live chat here. We got Jim.

We got Hayden. We got Joe's a fish hanging out with us. I'm sure more will come by. So if you are a Patreon, you're in the raffle. And I'll do it a couple days after the month ends, and we'll give out two jerseys. Sounds good. Yeah.

Cool. Check out the Patreon. And this is going to sound like one of the, this would sound like a commercial that you would just change the TV off instantly and being like, that sounded sketchy. We might have some low-key cool stuff coming for our Patreon people soon. So I would sign up. That's all I'm saying.

And then you'd hear that and you'd be like, what? I'm not signing up. But no, you should sign up. And also, I looked at our reviews, Jim, we're on 420 on the nose. So, I mean, just blaze it. Wow. Jake, this is something I don't know if I've done on talking baseball, but I do it on a lot of our other podcasts. Where's your head at?

Tell the people what kind of mood you're in so they know, wow, that take of Jake's. That was crazy. It's like, oh, it was because he was so hungry. Right. No, I'm not hungry. I had a nice little breakfast. Jim, I think we're both pretty refreshed. We had a Yankees off day leading into this, and we both did, like, girlfriend stuff yesterday. We were just kind of laughing at our days yesterday. Would arguably hurt our street. Ah, you can't hurt my street cred anymore. But it was a nice day. And I'm geared up, man. I told you, maybe it'll be a spoiler for next talking baseball. I might be getting lunch with a major league player, no spoilers. But yeah, man, I'm, I'm

juiced up and like you said, I mean, September started today. It's that final run to the postseason, man. So I'm geared up, like you said, and I think the off day yesterday was a factor because we were a little less tuned in. But you're a little more checked out on the AL than you normally would be. I'm a little more checked out than the NL than I normally be. So I'm excited. to dive into it and see what happened. How's your headspace? Yeah, it sums it up pretty good. It's officially September.

If you're not on board, if you're like, oh, no, there's two more days of August, I need to celebrate August. Get on board at September. Everyone's doing it. Yeah, and the other thing that kind of put me over the edge on that, Jim, is, I mean, some people started Labor Day weekend yesterday. Labor Day weekend is September. Like that's just a fact

Do you know I kind of don't like Labor Day weekend Okay let's get this out of the way It's a bunch of people Still trying to like squeeze every drop of summer Right They're like trying to ring summer out And I'm like why would we're done with that Please stop acting like it's summer

No I mean I love any excuse for vacation Labor Day and Memorial Day Will always be the same holiday in my head Which I think is kind of offensive because Memorial Day has some actual background behind it. No, I went to the post office yesterday, and our dear friend there, she said, happy 4th of July Labor Day Memorial Day. I'm not sure which one it is.

And I was like, well, you know it's not the fourth. You know it's not the fourth. Don't push the fourth. But I love that she mixed them all in. And she's a government worker. So, you know, you're allowed to say they're all the same. And a dear friend. No, I'm personally normally one of those squeeze every ounce out of summer.

But yeah, I mean, We're almost there. All right. Let's go right into it. This is the National League Report, and it is brought to you by Roosevelt's shirts. No vowels, R-S-V-L-T-S. Jake, our ship today. Love that.

I got an email that said, your shirts have shipped. And, I mean, even more important than that, me and Eleanor Roosevelt share a birthday, so. If you ask my grandma about Eleanor Roosevelt. And we have on Last From the Past that one time. She just said very ugly. That's all she says. Yeah, it's tough. She might open it with a nice woman very ugly.

Right. So, but you know. People have said about me too, to be fair. Yeah. And you and Eleanor, you both get spruced up once you throw on a Roosevelt shirt. Yeah. It gives you a little character. It gives you a little flair.

You walk in, conversation started like, damn, your face sucks. But that shirt is awesome. Anything to distract from my face is usually a big helper. You say, well, I got it. I got it from R-S-V-L-T-S dot com slash john-boy. I put in code Johnboy. I got 20% off and now I'm less ugly. And that's what you say when someone says that to you at the party.

I'm just picturing someone tuning into their first talking baseball and being like, oh my God. Jake's ugly? I think they're saying, yeah, voice is ugly. Matches. I think they're saying like, I hope these guys are cool. Otherwise, what's going on here? So go check out Roosevelt's.

Go check them out. You're a Roosevelt or a Roosevelt guy? I think I'm a Roosevelt. Yeah. I think I go back and forth. I'm not positive. I like getting a ruse out of you. Jim, for the love of all things, holy, can you tell me what happened in the National League?

The National Split a series with their proximity rival. Orioles. And guess what, Jake? You have the AL report, so I'm sure you got some more on it. They got shut out by the Orioles in game one. Wow. Wow. That is a game you walk back into the clubhouse, look around, and maybe just all cry and hold hands. Damn. Or you just say, hey, miracles do exist. What can you do? The Braves also split a two-game set with the Baby Jays. so no ground was lost or won in the NL East. The Braves and Nationals both went one and one. The Phillies took two out of three from their in-state rival Pirates.

They won game one via walk-off. They lost game two in the ninth. Then blew them out in game three, Reese Hoskins had his first multi-hit game in 36 calendar days. Hoshababoon. The Cardinals took two of four. three from the brewers. Not good for the brew crew. They are now six games behind the Cardinals in the lost column. Yikes, that goes one or two more and we're looking like lost cause. That is not good.

The Cubs go from getting swept to doing the sweeping. They beat the Mets in three consecutive games and get back on the Cardinals' heels, while the Mets dropped to five games back in the wild card. Also, one or two more dropages from the Mets, and that is also damning the Mets and the Brewers kind of on the brink of losing the things they want to win. The Marlins walked off in the fourth game versus the Reds to avoid the sweep. They lost the first three.

Good job. Reds. The Diamondbacks took two from the Giants. I think San Francisco Giants. Hopes are officially down the drain as well. The Dodgers lost their first game to the Padres, but then won the next two to take that series from their proximity rival. And that about sums up the National League, Jake.

Jimmy, great stuff, man. Thanks. I'm proud of you every day. Thank you. I want to start here just because I saw it the other day, and it kind of blew my mind. You mentioned Reese Hoskins? I have more of that coming up in Slump Watch. Okay, well, it's his stat line on the season, this is all I want to get out there.

Reese Hoskins is, I mean, future baseball 101, 213, 235 batting average, and you're like, okay, what's the on base? Is it, you know, he's got a good eye. Is it 100 points higher? He's got a 380 OBP. His on base percentage is about 150 points. So I just saw his stat line the other day and I was like, wow, Reese is, he's really going for it. Yeah, he, yeah. I don't know if I put him on slump watch,

but I have another little caveat since it's the end of the month for slump watch. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's a new month. It's a new month. Yeah, we're done with August. Yeah. So August has passed for Reese.

Jim, the other thing that jumped out here, and I, A, this will be a mini plug for our mini-so, the sister cities we did, trying to pair up some teams for the rest of the season. Jim, A, my diamond back, so I've decided to claim. you know, they're currently four and a half games out of... Braves, Diamondbacks, Nationals. I'm not actually claiming the Diamondbacks, but I thought it was funny. You and I had a mini...

Because you were talking about the Mets. The Diamondbacks actually jumped the Mets in the wildcard standings. They're now the third team out. Mets tough, man. And Jimmy, I'll give you a pat on the back, a pat on the butt, wherever you want it, Big Daddy. Not the back, very sensitive back. I don't like that.

I'll give you a shoulder rub. I know you love a good shoulder rub. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. The Mets, man, Mets have lost six straight. And it's, like you said, I mean, this schedule was tough. Oh, yeah. Their schedule was brutal.

And I think it's, and Jim, the bigger thing about the Mets was last episode of talking baseball, we were sitting here. They didn't lose any ground in the wild card. And we were like, wow, you just got swept. It was the Braves. They got your number. It is what it is. keep on, keep it on. And then you go and do it again.

I mean, that's, that might be a knockout punch for the Mets. So, okay. So when the Mets went on their crazy stretch, Jake. Right. And they, like, dug themselves out of the gutter. And everyone was like, damn, it's back on. I sat here and I said on this very show, that's great. Congratulations.

I'm not really doubting you. But your crazy stretch came against the Padres, the pirates, the white socks, the pirates and the Marlins. So good. You did what you needed to do, but I was like, let's wait and see where they are at the end of this next stretch. And just to let everyone know, we're not done with this hard stretch for the Mets. And they are eight and ten in their last 18 games with this hard stretch, which was kind of what I was trying to warn people. Like, beating the pirates and the Marlins doesn't make you a contender.

It's fun and exciting. Now they've lost six in a row. And they have three games at Philadelphia, then at Washington. Then they host the Phillies. So they got nine more games on this tough stretch. They're eight and ten in 18. They got nine more to go. And it's, so we'll see how it fairs.

But yeah, I mean, it was fun. The Stroman trade gave them, like, a lot of juice and, and ammo and excitement and all the corny-ass Instagram posts were fun for the Mets. The schedule got hard on them fast. And Stroman, and this is kind of something I want to talk about when we do our trade recap, and I'll just do a little hint. Trading for Stroman was good and got them good momentum. Strowman himself has not helped them. It's been rather bad. No, he hasn't been great.

The concept of the trade helped more than the player of the trade. Yeah, it's true. And I mean, they do have Stroman for next year. So maybe, you know, the Mets will have that. But yeah, and it's, Jimmy, the Mets are 30 and 39 on the road and they're heading to Philly. If they want to get involved in this again, somehow they're going to have to get hot on the road. Well, and at home, but against a lot of good teams. So right now, I think we got to leave the Mets.

alone. They're one game over 500. Like you said, Jim, San Francisco is dead for now. I've got an interesting San Francisco thing, which I'm truly interested to hear your opinion. We knew this Giants run was going to come up short. They caught some magic at the right time before the deadline. They probably weren't trading Mad Bum anyways, but people were all over that. Jim, do you think the Giants, because they had a lot of relief pitching that they could have sold, Do you think the Giants even having these, I guess kind of two months of fun baseball that could have not been fun if they started selling off pieces? Do you think it was worth it?

Yes and no. Like, I said this on one of the very early episodes of talking baseball. I lived in the Bay Area for, I don't know, 10 years, oh, two trips. So many teams are leaving. Raiders are leaving. The, well, the Warriors left Oakland and going to the San Francisco. The Niners were supposed to be very good, and then they fired one of the better coaches or parted ways with one of the better coaches.

The Warriors are all they have. The Bay Area, it's tough because a lot of their teams don't give back to the fan base. Like, Oakland trades away all their guys as soon as they're good. Right. the Raiders are leaving. The Niners were in the Super Bowl and should have continued to be good and they're just like, we're like,

now we don't like Harbaugh. Jimmy G, baby. So in a sense, the San Francisco Giants very much play to that. Like, we're loyal to our families. We franchise our players,

Posey and Bumgarner. And the fan base likes it. Yeah. They eat it up. No, I'm sure. there's some some giants fans that are like an official turnaround would be nice right but there's also and as yankee fans we kind of knew this like when pasada and jeter were like nearing the end it was like hey do we want to smite these guys they got us a bunch of world

series and that's how they are with bum garner and posy and this whole crew like they're still heroes. Yeah. And I think there's still some wiggle room for them to let it fizzle out nicely instead of shipping them away. And so I think next year maybe we'll see more harsher rebuild and stuff like that. But I do think it served the fan base well to have exciting baseball throughout the year than an official like go in the gutter.

But it's a unique situation to San Francisco. Yeah. And I guess that would be the right answer is maybe they could have gone back and traded one or two relievers if they got, like, you know, a prospect they could really get behind. Like, hey, guys, you know, we're still going to, let's go out there and compete. But I think if they walked away and they could say something like that, but it is a tough line. And, Jim, I actually, I loved what you said at the end there because this is something in that I,

I truly, you know, there's a lot of allure of the Yankees that's just smoking mirrors. There's something badass about a Yankee spring training that it's just like, oh, there's Reggie Jackson, huh? There's Andy Padet. Like, there's, there's. Like the fact that you can do that. And like the Giants can have that. Like what, you know, there's going to be a day 10 years from now where it's like,

wow, look at Buster Posey and Mad Bum and Mad Bum's yelling at all the pitchers. They're not listening to them. But it's still, it's nice. It's good to see those guys rings and, you know, Posey could be a Hall of Fame guy, all that stuff. So. Yeah. Jim Montgomery in the chat said the once Bochie's retired, they can like officially move on.

And that's true. Yeah. So like, I don't think holding on for one last two. months of fun. I think it might have been actually worth it for a Giants fans. I like that. Because to be honest, whatever. What would they have got for bum anyway? I don't think it was going to be that high. No, and I don't think he's even the piece.

I think it's a couple of the relievers out there that could have got a little value. Maybe Will Smith. I don't know. But yeah, no, I loved all that, Jim. I mean, a team that you mentioned, Jim, that I think is on edge right now is those Milwaukee Brewers. They are now four games back of the second wild card. 68 and 65.

They're going, they're at Chicago. Milwaukee's got to figure it out quick. Yeah. Yeah, it's getting scary. Bad time for Yelich to get naked. Strongly disagree. Distractions. If you don't know, Google Yelich and Roxanne,

because it's some of the best baseball going. I should have made, I'm so mad I didn't make that my award now, but just yeah get get on that if you don't know fantastic stuff but i know we kind we kind of moved on already but the Mets and giants and so this kind of the Mets had a danie etchaparia as a utility guy and they dropped him and picked up Joe Panic who got released from the Giants and since that happened Joe Panic for the Mets has played 13 he started 13 games played 18. He has 15 hits, one double, one triple, no home runs, five RBIs, 268, 305, a 268 batting average, 305 on base standards, 627 OPS. Okay? I know that's a lot of numbers. A Dania

he got dropped by the Mets, the Braves, who were better than the Mets, picked him up. And in the same time period, he has 10 games started, one home run, seven RBIs, four doubles. a 778 OPS. So less playing time, but he is a utility guy. But higher OPS and just like kind of better stats. And as we've stumbled into way too many times on talking baseball, Danny Etrieu, one of the best defensive players you'll ever see. So that's just like he's outperforming panic offensively.

And I think the bigger thing, Jim, it's just year by year and something analytics will never be able to measure. let's be honest, both of these teams were taking a shot. If a Danny at Javria went 0 for 12 with the Braves, we wouldn't have been shocked at all. That's just what, this is baseball, and it's, you know, throwing guys into the right situation at the right time. And the Braves are having this, well, my Braves,

they're having this kind of magical season where, hey, Dansby Swanson went down, you know what, let's give Etchivria a try. He played really solid. I don't know. Who else needs to be mentioned in the, in the NL chin. The Phillies had a nice win

because they lost the series against Marlins. Yeah. They come home and host the pirates. They win the first game. We walk off. Lose the next. Their closer,

Nerris, blew two in a row. He gave up the lead in the ninth. Twice. One, the hits, one he walked two, and then, you know,

they moved him over and scored to, to blow it. And then they win big in game three. But that's nice. And now they, get to go play, Philly gets to go play the Mets, who have lost six straight. And if they sweep them or if they win that series, then we're having fun. And Jimmy, Philly's kind of got to keep it up because that NL wild card that we thought is going to be like this awesome race to the finish line,

if the Phillies start to slip, I mean, Cubs St. Louis fighting for the NL Central with the Nationals kind of breaking away, a couple sloppy weeks and we could have this wild card pretty much decided, which is wild. Wild. Or not wild, I guess you would say. I think that works. I don't know if this is the end to the National League,

but I think this is a little faux pot to say, Jim. I love Bryce Harper, man. I really do. He plays his part. When you don't watch him regularly and you see the stats and you're like, oh, Bryce is only doing this. this this year, blah, blah, blah, and then you hear some good stats, whatever. But when you watch him play, it's fun, man.

It is fun. Well, if people, he upsets so many people. And what I, like, start to think is sometimes I get upset. Like, how are you so upset about him? Like, come on. Right. And I think if people didn't get upset, I wouldn't enjoy as much because I enjoy how much he plays the heel and how many people just fall for it, like hook line and sinker.

And it's a whole thing. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, you do a couple things and a couple hair flips and people will turn on you a little bit. But how much he cares and hustles and all that? Like, I'm into it. My auntie is not a big fan, but I'm sorry. You know, he just had a baby and he's been going off since he had the baby. Yeah, dad strength.

It's a huge thing on R2C2, CCC's a Bathias podcast. A lot of the players talk about once they have their first child and they go home and they realize like, oh, baseball doesn't matter as much as I thought it did before. Yeah. And they're able to, like, leave it at the ballpark and then their game gets better. Maybe that's a mini episode. Maybe we need to find out one day, like guys stats pre-dad and post-dad. I don't know.

You find the guy that just, like, had a kid, then, like, his life went to shit. And now we're putting that in the spotlight. That kid grows up. He listens to talking baseball, finds out his dad doesn't love him. This is going to be tough. I don't know if we can do it. Thanks for listening. Jake, let me know what happened in the American League.

Jimmy, in the American League, the New York Yankees, your New York Yankees, grab some of that good Seattle coffee, and they sweep the Mariners. They finished their West Coast trip five and four after they got swept by the A's, good bounce back versus the Dodgers in Seattle, some really fun pitching matchups in this New York-Seattle matchup, including a great performance by our guy Masahiro Tanaka. The raise, they avoid being swept by Houston. They take the final game 9 to 8.

The raise, though, Jimmy, they're pitching being one of the best in baseball this year, gave up 31 runs in three games. This isn't a math podcast, but that's just over 10 runs per game. How about that? The Red Sox, oh my God. They win both against my Colorado Rockies. So yes, technically another sweep against the Rockies, brutal. Another big series by upcoming free agent Zander Bogart's hashtag Bogart's man gets paid.

The Baby Jays, you mentioned them, Jim. They split two with my Braves. The bringer of rain, he returned to Toronto. And Jim, the game Toronto won was one of those seven pitcher performances. 2019, baby. How about the Orioles? You mentioned them as well, Jim. They split the Beltway series, battle the Beltway.

And like you mentioned, the Orioles shut out the Nats one game. That's baseball Susan. In the Centrale, it's bully time, Jim. The Golden Gophers scratch that college football season. The twins sweep the Minnesota White Sox. Big Mike Paneda with another win. Minnesota breaks the all-time, Jim, you're going to love this. Minnesota breaks the all-time MLB.

be road home runs in a season record. So even away from that wind tunnel in Minnesota. The Indians, they also sweep as they beat up on the lowly tigers in three games. The tigers combined to score three runs in three games. Quick math again, Jim, that's one per game. That's not good, the tigers. We'll never be royals. As Kansas City hosted the athletics for four, the A's take three out of four.

The A's take three out of four. They blow out game one. Royals won the third game, and games two and four were decided by one run. So for Oakland, kind of a win. You want the four games, but you take three out of four on the road. Speaking of Oakland, you know they took care of their business in Kansas City. You know Houston bullied the race just missing the sweep. And you know the hipsters of Seattle got dominated by the Yanks.

Jimmy, Texas forever, my friend. They split a two-gamer with the head. Halos. Angels stop a five-game losing skit in game one, but they get shut out in game two behind Harado for Texas. And what a web gem by DeShields Jr. Go check out the highlights on that one. Wow. All right. A lot of things I like here. A lot of things. I love Minnesota sweeps. And this whole thing is a battle before they play each other, Minnesota and the Indians. Like how much. much space can Minnesota get before they play each other? How close can Cleveland keep it? So Minnesota sweeps, Cleveland sweeps. It stays three and a half games and they're playing

each other very soon. Is it the next series or is it very soon? I think it is soon. I don't think it's the next. No, Tampa Bay is playing Cleveland. So that's a fun one in the AL. So there's a while before this, there's this push and pull of how close can they keep it? Minnesota's at Detroit, Jim. This is what, as you were telling me about the Mets schedule and you were on that, I was kind of all over the twins. They had the easiest schedule the rest of the way. And with how good their offense is, minus the wind tunnel stadium.

They had the easiest schedule the whole way. Yes. Basically. So they're on a five-game win streak now. They're at Toronto. Minnesota, I just think that three and a half games is going to be too much for Cleveland to overcome. Maybe I'm wrong. Again, like you said, if Cleveland gets them in the next series and can put a sweep up there, it's back at it. But I think the twins are good enough that with

three and a half games, and we're already in September, like you said, I just think that's going to be too much to overcome. But I've been wrong before. Yeah. You want me to tell you some teams that have a better record than the twins against over 500 teams? Let's hear it, Jim. Let's twin hate with Jimmy O'Brien. It's not twin hate. It's just their schedule is so damn easy. Yeah. The White Sox have 30 wins over 500 teams.

Yep. The twins have 26. The Toronto Blue Jays have 27 wins over 500 teams. The twins have 26. Also a lot more games by the Blue Jays. Blue Jays are 27 and 45. Twins are 26 and 31. win. Tampa Bay, 29 and 33, twins, 26 and 31.

Of any division leader, the twins have the least amount, the worst record. Of all division leaders, the twins have the worst record against 500 teams because two-thirds of their games are against terrible teams. Yeah. So. Yeah. Well, same with Cleveland. Until they prove me wrong in the playoffs. I'm right. And that's a great place to be.

Hey, I'll just, I'll say this, Jim. I know you've been on Cleveland because I think you just like their team a little better. And why wouldn't you? I mean, they've got great pitching. They've got a couple more household names in the lineup. The Indians are 20 and 29 against teams over 500. Yeah, they don't scare me either. Yeah, I mean, there's a little push and pull there because you have to play the guys on your schedule. Like you mentioned, a lot of those guys are terrible. Kansas City. Detroit. White So, who am I leaving out?

The White Sox. So, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. But, Jim, you were on the Wind Tunnel Stadium. Minnesota breaks, early September. They break the all-time home runs on the road in a season. That's impressive. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's impressive.

I'm trying to think, Jim, I know, you know, East Coast bias, Yankee guys, oh, tell them to shut up. The fun pitching matchups in Seattle need to be discussed. We had Tanaka, a Japanese native, versus Yusai Kukuchi, another Japanese native. So that's fun matchup. Kukuchi was calling him Mr. Tanaka in the press conferences, which that's really good stuff. Because Tanaka is what, like 30? Kikuchi does some weird stuff, man, like asking for new balls, tying his laces when they're not like need to be tied. It's like, it was weird.

And then the next game was Justice Sheffield for Mariners versus James Paxton for the those two got traded for each other in the offseason. So it was two fun matchups. Dots connected. Tanaka is 30. I want to say Kukuchi is not that old. Kukuchi is 28. So Kukuchi is calling someone two years older than him, Mr.

Tanaka. So that's a little ridiculous. It might be how it works there. Yeah. And that's fair. But yeah, Paxton Sheffield, like Jim mentioned, it's kind of everybody's, you and I were kind of having a giggle fest about it because it's it's what you want in sports it's

oh two guys were traded for each other they're facing off you know we were pictures like it's awesome yeah so that that was fun yanks kind of rolled that whole series after game one um what else do we need i mean well tampa houston Tampa houston we were all excited for yeah it was it was different than what we got but there was like verlander got ejected reddick got ejected Tampa allowed so many runs. Like Morton got blowed up, right? Morton got knocked around a little bit. You might even hear his name later, Jim.

So, yeah, I don't know. The series kind of didn't live up to it. But hey, Houston, man. Houston put up big runs against the race, which, I mean, just doesn't happen. The rays have a lot of pitchers they go to. Normally they don't let themselves fall in that situation. Houston knocked them around.

Yeah. The raise relievers. I mean, the starters didn't have a good time, but the relievers had just as bad a time. Yeah. Wow. That's tough for the raise, but they don't lose that much ground, right?

No, Tampa is one game back of Oakland. It's two in the loss column, though, Jim. I know that's big for you. That's what matters. And a couple big series for those teams. Well, A, Cleveland and Tampa, we got to start getting excited about that. They're facing off this weekend.

And Oakland is at the Yankees. So we've got, I mean, four kind of playoff series in the AL. That's exciting. Good stuff. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And that Yankees have it locked up. Houston's got it locked up.

And Cleveland's coming for Minnesota. There's six games against. Cleveland's going to have to do damage against Minnesota when they play them. Otherwise, Minnesota's got it locked up. Yeah. And Jim, I'm just going to leave the door cracked open. it's a lot of games. I don't think it's possible,

but Boston keeps winning series. I know it's against my Rockies, which have been struggling. It is a West Coast trip, which we've talked about, AL teams going out west. They're heading to Anaheim. If they could take care of business there,

and if Oakland or Tampa can falter a little bit, they can maybe sneak back into this. But, I mean, after this series in Anaheim, they got three against Minnesota. Sota, four against the Yankees, three against Toronto who are going to play at Toronto, who are going to play them hard, then two against the Phillies. That's the stretch where you find out. And spoiler, they're not in contention.

Yeah, I don't know. Boston's a team that can find a little magic when they need to. It doesn't seem like this is the year. It's not a little magic. It's a whole fucking book of, it's a book of spells. It'd be a little magic. It'd be a lot of magic. I'm trying to think, yeah, I think that's kind of it in the AL.

I mean, and maybe the only thing keeping Boston semi-alive is the magical runs Boston sports has had recently. But, I mean, outside of them, I mean, everyone else is DED dead. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's Houston, Yanks, Minnesota, Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa. Boston has the only half-life if they can run into your witchcraft and wizardry book you were talking about. I mean, everything else in the AAL has almost gotten not fun. Do any of the losers excite us besides Toronto right now? In the AAL?

Yeah. No. Yeah, that's kind of tough. I mean, the White Sox have a couple young guys. White Sox have a good lineup. And I mean, like they called up pitching prospect. Dylan Sees is still twirling it. Almost put him on slump watch, though.

But yeah, I mean, Detroit, Baltimore, K.C., Seattle. The Angels, Texas, those are kind of tough teams to watch right now. So sorry, AL, shots fired at the end. Yeah, that was rude. Tough break. Do you feel bad about it? I felt a little rude. I'm normally a big AL guy, but yeah, that was tough.

Okay, all right. You want to move on? Yeah, I think it's time to stand out, Jim. Whoa. That's a new slang. In your Roosevelt shirt. No, no, no. Hey, don't give them extra sponsors.

Jeez. Okay. Sorry. All right. I don't have a sound effect for a standout performance, but we're moving on to standout performances. I have a standout performance, Jake. And as I was putting this on here, I had a bunch of thoughts about it because I first, I thought it wasn't deserving. So I had to kind of talk myself into it.

quit delaying. My standout performance goes to Mike Clevenger. You said I like the Indians. I don't really like the Indians. I just, I like a race, and they're the one race in the AL, so I'm rooting for it to be close.

Clevenger. You like that more than the twins, fair? I don't dislike the twins. I just, I just dislike that people don't realize they're not real until they're real. Okay. So,

I will, I will, I will, gladly say, shit, I was wrong. And when I'm wrong, currently not wrong. Anyway, Mike Clevenger, Hercie Jerk, Hercie Jerk motion. Of all Herckehirk motions, I actually hate watching this man pitch because it hurts my back to watch him throw the ball.

But he had his best outing of his season, which is a shortened season because he had an injury. But eight innings pitched, only four hits, zero walks, 10 strikeouts versus the Tigers. Now, the Tigers are bad and they're not, scoring a lot of runs at all. So that's why I was like, damn, is this really a standout performance?

But his team only scored two runs. So he was up against the ropes like, I need to keep this at bay. It was a close game. If it's 8-0, I'm not as impressed. And it being the longest outing of his season. And the other cool thing was this officially dropped his ERA below three, which is cool.

That's like a big significant thing. He now, he went from a 3.00 ERA to a 272 ERA. And the Indians have won eight of Clevenger's last nine starts. And in those nine starts, he has a 206 ERA. So he's doing big things for them down the stretch, a team that's hunting a spot or division title. And he's pulling his weight. And Jim, I think one of the bigger points to make with that is,

if, you know, if Cleveland's in the wildcard game, or if they win the Central or whatever they get involved in the playoffs, I mean, Mike Clevenger is their one. And I don't think a lot of people know that if you don't follow the Indians closely. You remember Kluber, everyone was on Bauer before he left town. I mean, Mike Clevenger is the guy you give to in game one. I mean, Bieber's really young. You know, Pli-Sack and Savali, you might hear a little bit about him later.

I mean, these are like young rookies. are borderline rookie guys. Mike Clevenger is their ace. He's been good. Shut down the Tigers. He's been really good. I don't want to give the Tigers too much love, but. Yeah.

And I mean, a 272 ERA, obviously that's been really good throughout time. But people, juice ball era, that 272 is kind of like a 172 in normal years, to be honest. Thank you for being honest. I'm trying. Trying. Who's your standout performance? Jim, my standout performance. So much East Coast bias for me, dude.

It's just an East Coast bias fest. I'm going with Marcus Simeon, the Oakland A's shortstop. I give the A's level where I can, man. And Simeon, two for six day. Okay, meh, whatever. Why is he on here, Jake? Well, the two were a home run and triple. The home run was with two guys on.

The triple was bases loaded. So Marcus Simeon put in a seven arm. RBI Day, Jim. And I also like to take my standout performance to highlight someone that deserves it. Marcus Simeon, dude, he's on path for a seven-war season. My guy. And if you're not a big war person, that's fine, and it can be misleading. But know that at the end of the day, it sorts out pretty well with the top players. And Seven War is kind of just coming up short of an MVP year. Marcus Simeon could be a top-five MVP guy. And this Oakland A's, Jim, I feel like whenever I talk about them. I give Olson and Chapman love on the corners. Give Simeon his love. And his story is really good,

too, Jimmy. When they brought him into town from the White Sox, they thought he couldn't play the shortstop position. His first year at shortstop, 35 errors. I know errors can also be misleading, to a degree, 35 is a big one. They kind of just hammered at home and they said, no, you're going to be shortstop. We believe in you. He has become a plus defender at shortstop. And Jimmy, just to go back to that 2015 season with 35 errors, if you are into advanced defensive metrics, which are also flawed, his UZR is zone rating, it rated out as the worst shortstop season from 2002 to 2019. So it was bad bad. So I want to give him some love. A guy that's probably going to be a top five MVP, he had a big 7 RBI day from the shortstop position for Oakland, the Yate.

Good for Simian. A lot of stuff in there I don't like, though. Right. Did you see who's leading the A.L. pitchers in war? Is it Mike Minor? And Lance Lynn. Yeah. It's the biggest anti-war thing I could hear. Like No Verlander, Derek Cole, like those guys.

Yeah. And it's, I think that. that's the F-WR-Nomer. War starts getting sloppy, so I think they get a little extra love for being in Texas, which Juice Ball era might not matter as much as it used to. So, yeah, I mean, we like analytics, but people need to appreciate that analytics are just a piece of the puzzle.

It's not a new puzzle. It's still the same puzzle just with a couple pieces added in, and you have to take them for what they're worth. Yeah, and UZR, DRS. errors they're all in the same bucket for me like cool look at those and then mix them all together but the uzr d rs people which is you i don't know what uzr stands for it drs defensive run saved those people that like live and die by those just say errors are completely useless and it's like no errors aren't useless they are misleading sometimes yeah other times they're not misleading

Like you have to take so much more into account. Yeah, like I think Matt Chapman won the platinum glove that year. Last year, I think, and he had like 19 errors. But like that doesn't matter because everything else was just, oh my God, amazing. He gets to balls other guys can't get to. So he makes errors on plays that other people can't even put a glove on. Right. That would be a double anyway.

So UZR's ultimate zone rating. Again, it's not a perfect stat. But again, it's what you take from it. and the fact that Simeon's 2015 is the worst ever measured out by a good degree, you can say, okay, that was bad. Tim Anderson has something like that going on. Like he led. Yeah, he was the second.

He was the second. Also, Simeon says that Chapman being so good at going to his left allows Simeon to not even worry about going to his right. And isn't that funny, Jim, because it's a team sport after all. Tell me where advanced dance would measure something like that, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, and that's, hey, man, the A's are so fun. I mean, we saw them whoop up on the Yankees, but, dude, when you talk about a third base, shortstop first base like that,

I mean, that's one of the best infields in the game that a lot of people probably don't know about, not to be rude to Oakland. That's true. All right. Slump watch. Slump watch. Yeah, slump watch. We got some updates here, and then I put some new people on, Jake. Are you ready?

Give it to me. I'll react, Jim. Update. Josh Hater, he's been on here for a while. He was coming off his first clean outing, but it was not in a save situation, so he said that doesn't count. He had a two-inning save. He came in in the eighth inning to a three-one ball game. Then the ninth inning, it was four to one at that point. And he faced the heart of St. Louis's order. I think he faced like the one through seven batters in a close game.

I'm going to take him off slump while. watch, but I mean, if he blows, like, if he blows his next one, it's very disconcerning again. Or concerning. Yeah, he, we thought about it last time, but it was pretty soft. This is, I mean, two-innings save. That's what they asked from Josh Hader. He's off. No claps.

He, and that's tough. Hater would have to do, like, five strikeouts in two innings to get clas. Jose Berrios, you put him on here a couple, after his last start. He had a start yesterday, six innings pitched, seven hits, three-hers. runs, 8Ks. Quality start, seven hits, 8Ks. He's off, but no collapse. No collapse. Quality start gets you off slump watch. Okay. Rugnett Odor.

Your guy. Hitless. Again. Oh, I didn't check this. Shit. I did this last night and their series wrapped up yesterday. So in the first two games, he was hitless. And I was like, uh-oh, what did he do in the last game? did he even play oh it was a new series anyway but he's still hitless bummer wow dude so he is now man that's a big time yikes odour is now hitless in his last nine games oh for 28

two walks i mean yikes odour that's tough rognad you are you are locked in the slump watch This is a fun update. Bubba Starling, the former top pick, Royals brought him up. He had, we had said he's getting off slump watch either because he's going on the bad watch and we don't care about him. Or he's getting himself off in a positive way. He comes out the gates with a three hit game. Then he had another hit in another game. He goes four for 11 on the series, 417 on base percentage.

Comes out the gates with a three hit game. He's off slump watch. And you know what, Jake? I'm giving... I'm clapping. I'm giving two claps. Good for you. All right.

Hey, when you're on the verge like that, a three hit game, that's big. That's clutch by Bubba Starling. Daniel Vogelback, Chris Farley in Seattle. He played two games against the Yankees, didn't get a hit, drops to 119 batting average in the month of August. He has 26 strikeouts in his last 20 games. Vogue's. still on slump watch. Yeah, tough. He was, uh, is kind of tough at bats to watch too, not to be rude to Danny V, but he, uh, never nervous watching him at the play. Well, he got a

hold of a Tanaka pitch, but he didn't swing through it. It was like a check swing to center field. And if he put together like a full swing, he probably would have got going, but I think he's hesitant to do anything. It's tough. Charlie Blackman, you put him on here. And we said it's probably a slight slide. He has a three-hift. He has a three-haping. hit game versus Boston. They played two games at 0 for five the next game. I think like, you know, three for ten on the weekend. He got ejected as well.

So, and some calls were rather poor. I think he's off. He's definitely off. Three hit games seems like you're normally going to get off. Yeah. Ozzy Albies, one for eight with two walks. And his, his, his, his, his hit was an RBI double. This one's confusing.

Jim, I think this is where my love for the Braves might backfire. I want to leave Ozzy on there. He's got to prove to me a little more. Okay, being tough love. That's tough love, baby. Tough love it is. Wake up, idiot, you're not paralyzed. It's my favorite line from that scene, from Talladeg nights.

Anyway, Trevor Bauer and Jalen Beaks did not pitch, so they are still on here. Here are my new additions, Jake. I was in charge of a swamp watch this this week. Yeah. Ryu for the Dodgers. I know. He faces, and this is technically next episode,

but it happened yesterday and I can't not talk about it. Right. Two back-to-back seven earned runs performances from one of the best pitchers in baseball this season. He went four and a third with nine hits and seven run runs versus the Yankees, and he followed that up with four and two-thirds, 10 hits, seven-earned runs versus the diamondbacks.

What the hell's going on, Riu? Not good. And Jimmy, it's the NL. Cy Young. I know you and I weren't super stoked about an awards episode. I think we're going to be able to have a lot of fun with it because Riu in these past couple starts kind of slipped out of the Cy Young favorite.

It might be Kershaw again. This old Clayton Kershaw, who some people look at as the third best on the Dodgers, he might sneak his way into another Cy Young. The awards are actually getting pretty fun. And I mean, in the AL, now it's looking like Kohler Verlander, so it could be a teammates battle for both Cy Young Awards. That's fun. That is fun.

We'll get into that. We'll do it up on. Yeah. Justin Upton, two for his last 27 and his last 8. games he's got a 0-7-4 batting average. That's not good. And Justin Upton still has some pretty serious money on the books. And I'm just looking for people that can help Mike Trout.

So come on, Justin. Get it going. Josh Hayward, speaking of Jays. Yeah. We like a while ago, we were talking about Hayward's actually having a good season for the Cubbies. He is. Well, he's not having a good August and he did not have a good series against the Mets. and the Cubs won all three games, but he was hitless.

And his month of August is 163. Batting average 287 on base percentage 613 OPS. Not good. Yeah, his numbers are quickly coming very close to his career numbers. But, dude, his defensive highlights are super cool. But that's not what Slump Watch is about. You threw Charlie Morton on here. In his last five game start, he has a 4-6-6-ERA.

last nine innings pitched, nine earned runs, four walks, two hit by pitch. August is the toughest month for pitchers and relievers, starters, pitchers in general, I guess. Like a lot of guys that are, they hit that wall. And that's why it's such a fucking tough support to put together a full season is so impressive. And that's, I mean, it was a tough break, but that's why I threw Charlie on here because he was battling. I know as of like three weeks ago, people liked him over Verlander and Cole, and he might have played his way out of the Cy Young race due to that.

So tough break, Chuck. So what I did was before we move on, I looked at the month of August, Jake, and I took every single hitter that was in the top 200 for plate appearances. Okay. Which I think was like 70 plate appearances was the main. minimum then. There's top 200. Who has the lowest OPS?

I wanted to see if there's any big fish on there that had, this is basically the month of August since it's officially over. Here's what we got. Bubba Starling had the worst August, OPS-wise. Then names, you're not going to know. Jake Rogers, Logan Forsyth, you know, Alex Gordon for Kansas City.

And then his buddy Chessler Cutbert, Kansas City. Todd Frazier, he had the seventh worst OPS in August. Josh Reddick for Houston. That was a little surprising. Buster Posey and Mani Machado come in at 10 and 11. Wow. Yeah, tough times for Machado recently.

Bad August. That was basically it. Hunter Renfro, Lori Garcia, Oscar Mercado, Kevin Kiermeyer. But Kansas City had three in the top five. Lowest OPS in the month of August. Starling. Gordon Cooper. Not good, Casey.

Not good. But I think Reddick, Machado, those are the biggest fish on there. Well, good. All right. Moving on to the upper side. Dark Nasty's on Fuego. That means I'm all fire, baby. Like Waco.

Jimmy, I want to start off with your dude, your guy. Yamo. Yadier Maline. Yadier puts up a 7 for 11. 711. How about that, Jim, with three home runs from the catcher position for St. Louis. And again, that was a big series against the Brewers. Yamo, he's a guy that he always finds a way. I feel like whether it's his good years or his bad years, he finds a way towards the meat of that St. Louis lineup. And he's, I mean, he's the leader. He's the heart and soul of that team. So it's almost, anytime he does something good with the stick, it's a multiplier. It multiplies the crowd. It multiplies the team.

Yamo and Fuego. Good for him. Good for him. Good for the St. Louis Cardinals. First, in that NL. Central, we didn't talk about them and now they're starting to go away a little bit. Jim, this guy almost won my standout performance because it's a very similar story. Xander Bogart's, man. He goes five for ten against the rocks. in cores, I get it. Three of those five are home runs. And Jim, his year is starting to get silly. Bogarts, and this is going to sound rude and Yankee fans, but Bogart's was one of the last of your concerns when you were playing the Red Sox for the past seven years or so. He's got 30 homers, 100 RBIs, 311, 389, a 967 OPS from the shortstop position in a free agent year.

homie's going to get paid paid. Yeah. It's his ender's year. I mean, not the best year for the Red Sox, but he had a great time out there. If you told the Red Sox fans before this season that Bogart's endeavors from the left side of the infield, we're going to do what they did this year. I think Red Sox fans would have told you, oh, we might break 116 this year. Yeah, true.

That just shows you how baseball goes, people. Jim, East Coast biased. I had to throw on Mikey Ford, a guy who is in Fuego and might be sent down in the matter of hours. And Jim, you know this, but the extra fun behind this, he hits three home runs against the Seattle Mariners. The Seattle Mariners took him in the Rule 5 draft a season ago. He came through, he did spring training with them,

and they said, nah, we're good. Catch you later. Yeah. So that had to be a really good feeling against his former team. And as we gave analytics a little shot jab earlier, we should give analytics a little love with Mike Ford because all those analytic peripherals were there. You and I had some of our doubts. It came through and he looked like a beast against Seattle.

Yep. Mike Ford. Yeah. Seattle said they only had one beefy first base, it's been D.H already. so they had to get rid of Mike Ford. No room on the roster for, I mean, you can't have Vogelback and Mike Ford on the same roster. You can't.

No, Mike Ford with that weekend softball player physique, but he makes it work. Jimmy, a fan favorite of this podcast, came in like a wrecking ball. Aristides Aquino shows up again for the Cincinnati Reds. He's six for his last 18. Okay, not super crazy. two homers in a stolen base. Jim, he's been insane. You know I love having some fun with stats.

A, he's hitting 3.30 with a one dot, 197 OPS. If you pro-rated his games played, Jimmy, he's basically on pace for an 80 homer, 180 RPI season. So expect that next year, right? Yep, yep. Lock that in. Lock that. Out of Stetus.

Jim, I think you're going to like this. Aristides Aquino might be guarantee. guaranteeing himself a bad next year because he's playing too well. Well, I'm worried about once they find his flaw and they find the hole, which they will, every great player besides Mike Trout, you know, you can figure it out eventually for a little bit. And then it's up to Aristides to respond. I hope his correction isn't like to change his batting stance

because it's the most fun batting stance in MLB right now. Most fun batting stance. Yeah, Pence, if you're in a keeper league, take them or just get that first over. overall pick because he will go 80 home runs, 180 RBIs next year. Jimmy, I mentioned Cleveland before. Aaron Savali, hey, yo, Savali, huh? Jim, he's a rookie for Cleveland. Six major league starts.

He's never given up more than two earn runs in a start. He has a 196 ERA. He's a rookie. He's a Connecticut guy, Jim. And he's a northeastern guy. This guy basically speaks to my soul. Who is he faced? he's faced some teams you saw him against the Yankees

I know but six six games never more than two runs I mean it's an impressive start I mean I think there's a couple AL Centrals in there that that will uh two against Detroit one against the Mets at Minnesota's impressive Yankees is impressive and uh Texas yeah so I I mean it's he's he's faced some real teams teams. Gave up his first homer. His first homer came against Detroit in his sixth start.

The guy's got a nice pitch mix. And Jim, I know we've been saying if you're one of these lowly teams, hire your hitting person from the Yanks, hire your pitching person from Houston. Hey, if you don't get the guy from Houston, go to Cleveland because they're doing it right over there. Dwal Lugo hit the home runoff. What'd you call me?

Fuck if I know that name. Is that wall lugo? DeW-W-E-L. D-A-W-E-L. D-A-W-E-L. TIGERS FANS. This is your shot. Reach out to at Johnboy, at Talking Jake, and tell us about Dwell Lugo. They say it's pronounced Dawa-Wel.

Dau-L-L-O-O-G-O. He played 27 games last year, 51-1-1-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I- Don't know that is. Yeah, I didn't, I don't have the full scouting report in front of me on Well, he pops Savali. That's tough, man. Savali, you're cruising. You're killing it. You haven't given up a major league home run.

You're seeing Aaron Judge. You're seeing Pete Alonzo in his magical year. And the guy who gets you is DeWal Lugo? Yeah. That's tough. Hey, man, don't feel bad. Duol Lugo also got his first career home runoff. Josh Hader, Aaron Brooks, and Kyle Gibson.

He likes the big names. And Jimmy, I'll tighten it up. Andrew Haney with the Angels. His last three games started, 21 innings pitch, 30Ks to a 171 ERA. Hashtag help Mike Trout. And Jim, this guy, he deserves to be on here. Masahiro Tanaka for the Yankees, your guy, 27.1 innings pitched, a 23 ERA in his last four. And one of those, I know you can only chop it up so much, Jakey,

but there was three runs in the first inning of that Oakland game, which was just a mess. But Jim, combine that with his career playoff starts, 30 innings pitched to the tune of a 1-5-E-R-A. If Tanaka stays right for the Yankees, that's huge. And he just looks great, and I'll give it to you on that. Yeah, the new ball in the lower seams, he lost his splitter. And he was trying to change his mechanics all season. and finally they're like, well, none of those are changing anything. And his mechanics are pretty much the same.

So they had to do all in a completely new grip so he can get more lace and more drop on his splitter. And it seems to be, it's not like back to normal, but it's effective enough that he has a splitter now, where before it was just a bad fastball. Yeah, if you have a buddy out there that's not buying the juice ball era, look up the Tanaka Splitter story. He literally got a ball.

There's no one denying it. The MLB himself is like, yep, the balls are used. Oh, Jim, you live on Twitter. I'm sure there's a couple people out there fighting it and like, no, Kettle Marte is a power guy now. Sorry, Kettle. That was a low blow at my Diamondbacks. Jim? We had a new sound drop for who got mad.

Oh, who the Orioles get hot. Oh, I need to get, damn. Oh, the Gary Thorn clip. It's not there? No, I don't have it. Well, Jim, and maybe that's, you know, the good Lord pointing in us to the right direction. I'll leave it to you on this. I was going to give some claps for the Orioles.

They had a shutout. Yeah, they did. They had a shout out. Aaron Brooks with a shoutout for the Orioles. It was very nice. He's got a couple. I was seeing if that was his best performance this season. It's not.

He's done it before. I was seeing how many times the Orioles have held a team to a shoutout. They've done it a couple times. They shut out the Indians. They beat the Indians. 13 nothing two games in a row or something like that it was wild anyway good job by the Orioles

they didn't get anyone hot it was only two games though so that was good they were on a stretch there proud of this this is the fun segment as this runs a little long and we got a new sound drop I forgot who tweeted this at me but it's a good sound drop for who got mad

that is so bad that is absolutely brutal that is unbelievable that is totally absurd Hawk Allison That's really good He got mad a lot All right There's so many people I got mad

Let's do the Houston Astros first Justin Verlander gets ejected In the middle of a game They're winning 9-0 He throws a 3-2-2 pitch He thinks is a strike He says the umps Been calling that pitch all game

Ump doesn't give it to him The next pitch The 3-2 pitch goes for a double Verlander Verlander was yelling at him Like that's bullshit And the um's like it's outside he's like you've been calling that all game.

I've had enough. And Verlinder goes, outside my dick. And he gets thrown out right away. I don't know. I saw you tweet that you thought this was brutal. I think it's, I don't know if it deserves an objection or not. I think it rides the line. Like Verlander was very much turning and yelling at the um

for one pitch in a 9-0 game. I don't think Verland. is excused being a fucking dick baby. The two things that triggered me, Jim, is that, A, there's some unwritten rules in baseball. You know, we see Big Aaron Judge do it all the time. Aaron Judge, whenever he talks to an ump, he puts his head down. So in theory, everyone at the stadium doesn't think Aaron Judge is fighting with the umpire, but Aaron Judge puts his head down and he says, hey, man, that pitches low.

And, like, you have to know that. Yeah, Verlander didn't do that. Justin Verlander, he gives up the hit, and he squawked at him twice, and then he turned around, he's facing second base, and he turned his head a little bit. But you can't do that. Like, I think if that was Justin Verlander's last piece, like he wasn't going to come back and give you anything else.

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, he did not do what Aaron Judge and what those players do. Like anyone at the stadium knew Verlander's yelling at the hump right now. Right. But the other thing is, I mean, for baseball, Jim, it was what, the fifth, or is the sixth inning? He'd been through 5.1 or something like that. How many people in the building came to see Justin Verlander, the Hall of Fame pitcher,

and how many came to see the home plate umpire throw him out? And don't get me wrong. I get it. If there are lines, I totally understand. But for Justin Verlander, in that game, in that situation, and like you said, for you it teetered the line. If it teeters, don't do it. And I personally don't think it teetered.

But I also think that's an argument. I think fans go to games hoping to see an ejection these days. Like I think that's on people's wish list. Verlander going six innings of shutout ball. And if he just completes that sixth inning and fans go home, they're like, yeah, we saw a great Verlander outing. Fans now go home saying we saw an ejection. I'm not trying to say like we should inject people now,

but you can't say fans didn't enjoy that more than not getting ejected. I mean, to a degree, but it's like a, I don't know, it's a Band-Aid. It's not a long-term solution for the growth of baseball. No, it's not. And, and I mean, it was a little quick, but I just don't think Verlander's kind of excused, excused. Yeah, Hall of Famer. Hall of Fame, angry guy.

And his teammate, Josh Reddick, got ejected later on. got call a ball Speaking of Aaron Judge, a ball that Per the stats, Judge gets called on him the second most in baseball. Carpenter gets called the most on the Cardinals and then Judge. Reddit got it called on him in a one-run game.

He thinks he gets to walk in the ninth inning, tying run on base, and umm rings him up. He goes, it's fucking terrible. Ump. Jordan Baker's name of the album is like 6. tall-ump throws him out right away

ninth inning game no real damage there but bad call told him it was a fucking terrible call he's out yeah don't tell astro fans that would have been tie and run on base no I'm saying the ejection right the bad call is brutal

I guess the ninth inning there's one out of way the ejection is like he didn't miss any game that he would have played yep the bad call is bad call Keon Broxton, my favorite ejection. Ump called, ump was pretty brutal in this game. I forget who it was.

And someone in Garcia, I don't know. Anyway, Keon Broxton's walking away and he's leaving his bat and his helmet and he throws it all down. And he's throwing his batting gloves backwards towards all his equipment. So it's all in one place. But he just whips it. And it's right by the ump. So you kind of got to know. Hits the hump in the face with his batting club.

Um, immediately ejects him. This is the one ejection. Probably not the one, but I'm firmly on the ump side here. I understand it was an accident. Understand he was not trying to hit the ump with his batting glove. But if you hit the ump with a batting glove that you throw, you have to get ejected. Like there has to be some sort of kind of society amongst this.

If the ump doesn't eject him there, I think dad um's a pussy. You, you've just lost the game. You got hit in the face with a piece of flying equipment at a guy who, who's mad at you and you let it slide, you've lost control of the game. So they suspended them for two games. I think that's fucked up. But the ejection's funny and worthwhile. We saw there's a lot of tweets saying it was a soft ejection.

And it partially was. Like, yes, it was an accident and he got hit with a glove. But what's softer? Getting hit with a glove and not getting ejected? Because, yeah, the ump would have gotten just walked out. You can't have players hitting the ump with stuff. No. You can't.

No, you just can't. Even if it's an accident, then the next guy can accidentally do it again. Yeah. So it's just a hard line there. And a very necessary hard line. You hit the hump with a piece of equipment, you throw. You're ejected. Reminds me of that Brett Favre clip.

Remember when he was throwing the ball to the line of scrimmage and he hits the referee with it? And the referee is about to throw a flag. And Farv's like, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. And it was like legitimately like such an accident. And do you remember this? The other refs had to come. tell that one ref, like, it was, it was really an accident guy. Yeah.

Don't flag him. Yeah. But Farb wasn't mad at the hump at the time, which is a little different. He wasn't doing that of anger. That's also true. Amir Garrett got ejected on the Reds. You remember him from the brawl with the pirates. It's pretty, pretty nothing ejection.

He walked a batter and the guy swung. They called it a non-swing. And it was probably a swing. so he walked the guy, he's coming out of the game, and as he's coming out, he says some things like, I don't know what he said, but, you know, bad call, bad call. And they just eject him. Again, he was coming out of the game anyway,

so it's like, who cares. Some non-ejection mad, Jake. Liam Hendrick wrote an article or spoke with the writer for the athletics that he's mad at the Warriors. He says when the Warriors were bad, Oakland A's used to take them to games and like hook them up. And they were like a team. now that the Warriors got good,

they don't even, they don't even like give the A's tickets. The A's players, Liam Hendricks was told because they share a parking lot that he wasn't allowed to drive through a parking lot. And the security guard told him, Warriors fans are more important than A's players. So he's got a grudge.

And he should. And he should. You have to take some of the ticket stuff. I mean, that gets tricky. 25 guys on Oakland, September callups. They're probably going to have 30 plus dudes on the roster. Yeah, that's a, I mean, it's cold.

I'm kind of with both sides here, except the attendant saying Warriors fans are over Oakland players. He can't go that far. Can't do it. And then Richard Blyer on the Orioles, he had a screaming match with the third base coach, who also was in charge of defensive alignments. So he was pitching for the Orioles.

I didn't look at it. Some ground balls got through that he thinks shouldn't have got through because of defensive shifts. And they just started screaming at each other. in the dugout. Then he says, let's go downstairs. So they go out of the camera well

and they scream at each other some more. I hate you, Dick Blyer. I hate you. It's wild. A lot of people got mad, man. It's a mad week. Dude, end of August, Jim.

That's what I'm saying. Dog days. People are frustrated. People are frustrated. Next up, what's this? I have a sound bite for this. Hello. Call up, watch.

You're in the big leagues now. All right. You're up to the show, kid. Seth Brown for your Oakland athletics. We got to breeze through these. 19th round pick, 27 years old, played three games in the left field. He went three for 14, and his first two professional at bats, he had a single in each. So good for you, Seth Brown.

There's no real big ones here. Tyler Rogers for the Giants. He faced three batters, got three groundouts, relief pitcher. Jim, he's the two. twin, Taylor Rogers on Minnesota. So that was, that was fun. I'm out. Sam Hilliard, Colorado's 31st round pick, 25 years old. He played two games in center field. He went in his first start, he went 0 for two, then he got a walk. Then he hits a home run in his first ever big league game. So it ends up being a great success for Sam Hilliard. Yeah, my, my rocks are pretty, are a little excited

about him. He was having a monster year, but a lot of people do in Albuquerque, but they're going to give him a chance. in Colorado. Rico Garcia, 30th round in 2016. He is also for Colorado, so they brought up a couple guys. He got a start versus Boston. Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a home run off him. Then Vasquez hit a home run of him. So, whoa, those are two guys that you don't want to hit home runs off of you.

Then Zander Bogartz hit a home run off of him. Rico Garcia got lit up. It wasn't a good start. Yeah, tough. tough for Rico Jim just final note on Sam Hilliard he had 35 homers 22 stolen bases toolsie Jim toolsie toolsie toolsie end of the call-up watch someone in the chat Anthony Vela so he's in the chat right now and I think he says he's like 20 minutes behind and he wanted to let me know that target field is actually a pitchers park not a wind tunnel

so he's going to be very upset when he catches up to the part where I said Minnesota's has an easy schedule and all that stuff. So I'm sorry, Anthony, if you get to that part. But also, I don't care what it used to be this season. It's a wind tunnel. I've watched a lot of series, the Braves game, the Yankee series, a lot of series. And there's something going on. The juice balls are magnets there.

Yeah. I don't know. If you're twin, if you're twins fan and you've watched your home games and you try to tell me that it's not, a wind factory. You're just lying to my face, right? Or are you just in denial? Well, I think the bigger thing they want to get across is with the road home runs.

Like, their team can hit home runs. Sure. But the home stadium is... They got power hitters. Yeah. Because, like, technically, according to Fangraphs analytics or baseball reference, Yankee Stadium is the least park factor on the season.

Yeah. And everyone knows Yankee Stadium as a short porch. So it's a wind tunnel. If you're a Twins fan and you're denying that, you're in denial. I've watched a lot of games there. I've been tuning in since I found out. And there's a lot of balls that just fucking go and go.

You're like, what? So, yeah. All right. Another day. Give us your award, champ. Awards. My award is the last man standing. Wow.

It's the NL Central. I just checked, I feel like this is wrong, but according to what I checked, the NL Central is the only division without a team mathematically eliminated? Yeah. Out of all six divisions, every division has at least one team

mathematically eliminated. You have Toronto and Baltimore in the A.L. East. You have Kansas City and Detroit in the A.L. Central. Seattle in the AL West, Miami in the NL East, and Colorado in the NL West. And it says the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't been mathematically limited yet.

The NL Central, because it's such a shit show. Last Division Standing. They got all five guys. Good for them. Congratulations on your victory. Proud of you, NL Central. You did it. King of the Hill.

King of the Hill. Okay. uh, Jim, I'm giving out, I mean, one of the more glorious awards,

uh, players, just fiend for this award. I'm giving out the good take Jake award. Wow. And it was funny. I mean, I have good takes.

I have bad takes. Um, I have soft takes, Jim. I don't know if you saw my, uh, my softest take from this week was when pitchers accidentally

throw it guys' heads, why don't they just give a quick like my bat? Like I, I know there's a, slight like well i want them in the box and fear but like in basketball if you foul a guy hard like i don't know they give him like my bad dude that was just a hard foul like yeah i think sometimes pitchers have done it i've seen some but it's like very rare and it's like guys get over it yeah yeah that's interesting um so that that was my soft take but jim the good take jake award uh it's

going to carlos carasco it's friday maybe you're listening saturday too i i want to wanted to get us near a high note at the end, although we'll see where elevator talk lands us. It's the first of September. Jim, cookies Carasco. He's going to start Sunday. He's coming off the IL. Cancer. He got diagnosed with cancer earlier this season. And he's going to start for Cleveland. So again, we're putting August behind us. I'm going to cry. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a crazy scene on Sunday. You probably want to tune into that. And, uh, and, uh, and, and, And by the way, Carlos Carrasco, when he's right, he's really damn good. From 2016 through 2018, he had 87 starts to the tune of a 3-3-E-RA with more than 10 strikeouts per inning.

So he could have a serious role in this playoff race. Just the fact that he's back playing baseball, though, I don't know. I wanted to give everyone good vibes heading into the weekend. And yeah, you might get your allergies kicking in with some waterworks on Sunday. I'm a cryer, big time cryer. Same. Same. All right.

Elevator talk. Elevator talk, let's get it. Let's get it. Cleveland Indians. Wow. Jake just gave you the biggest piece of the puzzle. Would you look at that? Cleveland Indians.

So, all right. All right. If you're in an elevator with a Cleveland Indians fan, right? These are the talking points. One, do you think we can catch? Minnesota. We got to keep it close. So what will we get them? We can do damage. I mean, that is one. Yep. You can talk about Carrasco coming back. That's a good, like, touching moment. You can tell some people, if you're like in, if you're Indians fan and you want someone to tune in that isn't diehard or maybe like someone who just likes the human element, then hit them with, hit them with Carasco story. Because sometimes you'll just like rooting for humans, not teams. And that's, when he takes the mound, you're going to want to root for that guy. Yeah.

I think you start with Carasco. You say maybe you throw Jose Ramirez out there. You're like, man, I don't know if he can get back, but if we could get him back for the playoffs, that'd be huge. This team could be special. That's kind of sucking up to them a little bit in playing the injury bug. And Jim, the other thing that I was on,

I mean, I mentioned the, if you're a bad team, hire the Yankees hitting person, hire the Astros pitching person. Dude, throw the Cleveland Indians pitching people into this equation. Shane Bieber, he's 24, 27 games started, a 3-2-3 ERA. Zach Plesack, he's 24. 16 games started, a 3-4 ERA. And where's our other guy?

Savali, I was talking about him. Six starts a 196. He's 24. Whatever they're doing in Cleveland, they got it figured out, pitching-wise. Talk about that. Do you know who the Indians brought up to replace Ramirez? Who'd they bring up to replace Ramirez, Jim?

They brought up a kid named Yu Chang. Oh, yeah, my guy. From Taiwan, 24 years old. Yu Chang, yeah. Well, his full name is Yu Chang Chang Chang. Yes, with the E, right? In the first name, it's Yu Chang with an E, and then the last name is Chang with an A.

You Chang Chang. Yeah. You Chang Chang. It sounds like a song. You Chang Chang Chang Chang. You Chang Chang Chang. That's cool. In his first game, in his first game after the injury,

when he got called back up in August, he went two for three with a triple and a walk. So that was good. And then in his most recent game, he went two for four. I don't know. So a lot of stuff on Chang's shoulders. You can sing that song in the elevator. Yeah, that's a fun.

You're both singing in the elevator and it's kind of a deep track Indians thing. Yeah, Jim, I've seen Chang a lot in my nerdy baseball game outside of the park I play. I don't know, anything else closing on the Indians? What's your get out of the elevator line? Just a hug after the Carasco stuff? Yeah, it's just got to keep it close.

you know, bank on Linder, Kipness. You talk about the new guys, Fran Mill coming into his own, Pueig, being a rocket. You know what you can even do? You can laugh a little bit about like, hey, I love Bauer, buddy. Ain't doing too great over there in Cyncy.

Ooh, that's really good, Jim. That's really good. Yeah. Looks like we trade them at the right time. Shit like that. Yeah, that's really good. That's fantastic. Who's their bullpen right now?

Brad Hand, who got off Slump Watch, and when he's right, he's awesome. Who else is down there for them? Adam Simber. Jim, your dude, Tyler Clippard having a big year. Yeah, good for that. They've thrown something together. Tyler Clippard throwing those high changeups, a 2470 RA in 51 games, and Oliver Perez still doing it to the two and two and.

of a 283 ERA and 35 innings. Wild stuff. Simber gets a lot of action. Oh, my God. He had a great July. And he's got four holds. He's got four holds in August. But I don't know if he comes in with leads.

It looks like he comes in. Looks like he's a down one, down two, or up three to four guy. Yeah, I mean, he throws underarms. So they're trying to get. the right matchup for him too. That, that, he throws crazy. All right. That ends the show.

Hunter Wood from the pirate ship. He's out there. He's playing all right. He's playing all right. He's good. Thank you guys for tuning in. We appreciate it. Oh.

I didn't want to play that. I want to play the boogie. Kind of worked. Thank you guys. We will be back on Monday to recap the weekend. And then maybe a little mini episode after that. Thank you all for listening. Keep in touch.

Let us know what's going on, as you can see. Just Jake and I, and there's a lot of games and there's a lot of research. And whenever we get help from you guys, it is fantastic. So we will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Enjoy your Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Jake, any last words? Happy September.

Happy September. It's officially started today. See you guys.