Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 188 | Orioles Keep Going, the Phillies Keep Disappointing, Mookie Keeps Amazing

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Jomboy & Jake are back to recap the week that was in baseball! The Red Sox tank job is obvious (7:50), but somehow the Orioles just keep going (12:15). The Cubs have been a fun team to watch (24:40), the entire AL Central is 5-5 in their last 10, Juan Soto and Mookie Betts are incredible (37:40). 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.

What's up, everybody? It is talking baseball. We are three weeks into the season. We've got some more fun, some more people climbing up the Homer board. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. Thank you very much for tuning in and hanging out with us for a little bit as we recap the series that were this week. I am Jimmy. He is Jake. That one is Big Baby David. And we're coming to you live from the Roosevelt's studios here in the Bronx, RSVLTS.com slash johnboy gets you there. Jake, how you doing today? I'm good, James. I like when you say producer BBD behind the plate. Some good baseball stuff.

Commenter gave me that. Yeah, okay. Thanks for the comment. Because I wanted to just say over there because I thought it was funny. Right. And then it said behind the plate's good. Some good, easy baseball stuff. We are live from the Roosevelt Zoo.

I think I'm going to Roosevelt Tats. I've been looking at myself in the TV, and I just don't like what I'm putting out right now. Why you have the top button done? I don't know. You know, sometimes you've got to take a chance. I think you've been top button in a lot. But ironically, right?

You're kind of, that needs to be undone. That's not the top button. It looks sloppy sometimes. I don't know. We'll deal with it as it goes. I'm doing well, Jim, and I think my biggest thing and not, because it's not what. The face looks nice.

You shaved. I shaved, so that's huge for the viewers. You sent a review today, which was like a perfect, you were like, this is the perfect review. This is exactly what we're going for. So thank you for the reviews. And I think why I'm excited, Jim, is I have some takes today that aren't like first take stuff. That's not like hot gossipy stuff. But it's stuff that I'm actually starting to believe in in this young baseball season.

Like you said, where we've hit kind of the three week point. So that's what, three out of ten weeks, something like that? Something like that. The review was from Sweatpants Zero Zero. So thank you very much to Sweatpants, which is something that I say, Oh, right. Huge fan of sweatpants always has been. No, every now and then I go look at the reviews,

and then I saw this one. I was like, this guy kind of nailed exactly what we're going for. Just positive vibes. So I sent it to our investors' sweatpants. No hot take. Yeah, so leave a good review, and we'll send it to our investors. So, yeah, man, I'm doing good. We, man, it's just funny going through the series.

Like, you know, baseball moves so quick. So looking back at a couple Monday games, it's like, ah. The week day, the Friday show is a little trickier than the Monday show in terms of reviewing it. Because we've had some games that happened yesterday that don't pertain to this episode. Right. And a lot happens. Monday feels like a long time ago. Feel like making love.

I mean, do we just want to get right into it? I think so. There's not any great news. We did the suspension. with Trev. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you tuned into every episode this week, it was our first five for five week. Series recap Monday. Rob Lowe and Matthew Lowe Tuesday, Trevor's tidbits, which we heard about the suspensions live, which was really cool. That was cool. Wednesday. And then owner of the Brewers, Mark Adonacio, on Thursday.

And now today. So if you're with us every single day of the week, that's a lot of content. Thank you very much for tuning in. Yeah, let's just run to it, man. I probably have some patrons, but I didn't prep those yet. I love it. Let's talk baseball. Let's just go in. You've got the East Coast, right? I've got the East Region. The East Region. I guess I'm calling it that. Well, let me know what happened. Here we go.

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Let me start out with my Atlanta Braves versus my New York Yankees. Jim, a little two-gamer, a little casual. Atlanta did lose to Philly on Monday night, which we didn't talk about, so a little extra twist of the knife there. Yankees take both games. Jordan Montgomery looks solid. Good bounce back start for him. Tuki Toussaint gets Tuki too rocked against the Yankees. Braves do fight in this game, which made the Yankees use some of their good bullpen guys. As Yankee fans, we got a little nervous. That would come back to bite him.

Spoiler, it did not. Tanaka looks solid. Clint Frazier, the lightning rod. He gets his first game up. He has a big day. And I think Zach Britton deserves to be noted. He's having a really nice year so far. He's leading the league in saves. So Yankees take both of those games. Tampa Bay at Boston. Tampa Bay takes the first one a close game. 8-7. Kiermire and Margo go off.

Normally defensive-minded outfielders. They have a big day. Tampa Bay most importantly wins that game. They keep rolling and they got to face the Red Sox pitching for the rest of the series. 8-2-9-5-17-8 to finish. Brousseau had a lead-off Homer in the second game. Renfro and Yandi hit a couple. They followed that up the final.

final game with some. Snell, five shutout. He's dominated the Red Sox. I looked at his lifetime Red Sox numbers are silly. Tampa has now won six in a row, I believe. The Rays are getting it going, and the Red Sox help with that. Baltimore at Philly. Again, that Philly team beat the Braves on Monday. We didn't get to talk about that. But then Baltimore sweeps, Jim. 10-9, the first game is one of the craziest games of this baseball season. Austin Hayes with an inside-the-park Homer in extras to help. give Baltimore the lead. There was a missed pop-up that kept Baltimore in this game,

and then Philly fought back. Insane game. And then, dude, Baltimore just keeps winning. Like, they were down in this final game. Rio Ruiz hits a homer, which we'll circle back on that. He laughed pretty out loud when I saw that. But Baltimore with a sweet, man, double-digit runs in two of these games. Offense is doing things.

Miami at the Buffalo Blue Jays. We're up in Buffalo. Travis Shaw, Jim. He's having a good year for them. Found that out. He hits the winner, 5-4 in the first game. And then another insane game. 14-11 Miami.

They went up 8-0-0 in this game. Toronto-slash-Buffalo fought back. Pearson versus Yamamoto, my guys, Bo Boshet goes 5 for 5 in this one. Miami gets the win. 14-11, my word. Washington at the Mets. Nats take the first two. Ascrabbs and Soto go off in game one to help put up 16 runs.

16 to 4. Corbyn gets another win. And then Scherzer out duels Percello, two to one in that game. And it's like, okay, this was our sweep series, get it going. The Mets put their foot down and make us half sad slash happy for the Mets. Alonzo and Dom Smith with the big game, they win 11 to 6. And then they take the final game 8 to 2. So they end up splitting the four-gamer.

And that's what's going on on the Beast Coast. Ooh, in those divisions, you have the Marlins, still technically in first place. The Braves have the most amount of wins. And those are the only two teams above 500. And on the AL, Yankees and Rays both have 12 wins. Rays have more losses. So the Yankees have the better winning percentage as of now.

But the Rays are coming. More so, the Red Sox are awful on purpose. Like, yes. Awful on purpose. I don't want to give them credit for being bad. Okay. Like, there's no joy. They're taking away our joy.

I kind of. Like, they are trying to lose. Yes. I think it's the most obvious tank job in a while. A little bit. The pitchers that they're running out, their probable starters for the next four games are all too be determined,

to be determined, two be determined. And native aldy. Like, even the Marlins had, like, some young arms that they were showcasing or like, you know, Caleb Smith's been rolling out there. And I think the one that Caravis was getting hot about was Brian Johnson, a guy we saw pitch a couple good games in history for the Red Sox, and they end up just, like, releasing him.

And it's like. Well, same with, they sent down, what was that guy's name, Singer or Sing's or? Like, no, he had a good outing out of the pen, so they sent him down. And they kept up Weber and some other dude, Maza or, I don't know. And it's like, what? Yeah. And, hey, uh, You know, the lineup is still there.

I mean, they had a couple nice days, but the pitching is world-class bad. And, yeah, hey, if you're a Sox fan, hey, you probably don't like listening to us talk anyways because we are Yankee fans. But if there was a year to tank, and this was, you know, I always count out a Boston team until they're counted out.

But if there was a good year to tank with a new GM, a guy from Tampa. What did you just say? You always count them in? Always count them in until they're out. Okay, okay. You meant to drop a never. Right. Somewhere in that sense.

Right, right, right. I said it silently. And then, yeah, that's my bad. My bad for the podcast and the YouTube crew, who I also didn't mouth it for. And BPD and I. I tweeted out a couple weeks ago. Maybe I'll give myself the retweet.

That's always a good feeling. The Red Sox haven't had a top six pick in like 45 years or something like that. I understand the tank. I'm just saying it's very obvious. Like the Ray is what they did. It's cool. They jump started their. whole offense, but it's almost like the Yankees have four games against them.

Yeah. And almost it's sweep or you're bad. Yeah, I mean, the Red Sox are getting, the Red Sox are getting close to you almost can't put guys opposing them on. If you don't score five, yes, but I just threw one guy out there. No, it's okay. And I like the conversation around it. So that's fine. But yeah, no, I mean, the Yankees, like if you're in a slump and you get to face the Red Sox,

and even if you're not in a slump, I mean, you're almost excited. I'm interested to see if there's a post, okay, this is getting mean Yankees. I'm interested to see if there's a post Red Sox effect where they guys play them, they get hot, and then they face real pitching the next series, and it's tough, almost like a cores effect with the Red Sox. So that's a new theory I'm watching this year. They're pitching stinks. You know, as Yankee fans, we're excited to see them this series.

Hopefully Glaber gets going and Gary gets going. Hopefully they can spark the offense. If you don't score five runs or more on the Red Sox pitching, staff, like that's on you at this point. A little bit. A little bit. I wonder what they're averaging. Yanks took two against the Braves. I think the biggest thing, and I guess we might as will get all this out of the way as we just put the Red Sox on there. Yankee fans are feeling good right now. Like in the second game of this series, the Yankees went down two nothing. They tied it up at twos, back-to-back homers, Gary and Clint. And, you know, we were

live for it, and we're not saying this in a peacocky way, but like, it very much felt like the Yankees were in control. Like, their offense just looks really good right now. Even with the stars out in that series, Judge sits the second game. We're waiting on updates on him. Stanton is out. And Akuna and Albies were out for the Braves, but that didn't stop Peter Moyland from owing me a dinner next time he's in New York City,

so whatever. But Yankees are feeling good, and with the red side. come in there feeling hot and, you know, it's all going to lead up to this is their biggest homestand. They welcome the race next Monday or next Tuesday. And that should be fun if the race stay hot as well. Should be. I did the math. 5.5 runs allowed is what the Red Sox are averaging a game. Which would be the best offense in baseball. Yeah. I believe. Or it would be the best offense in the AL, I believe. Yeah. So a lot of pressure on the A.N. beat the Red Sox.

Yeah, it might be some big numbers in the Bronx. Zero pressure on the Red Sox because they're trying to be bad. Dude, Orioles, bro. The Orioles are a huge story right now. It's kind of cool. Highest batting average in the American League. And Jim, they did this last night. And this is, we don't have the best way to put it into words, but they're winning games.

I know that sounds dumb. But they were losing to the Phillies. You expect them to grab like one a week, like a win. And a team walks away and says, oh, shit. Right. Orioles beat us. They're doing it like three times a week. and they're not funny business.

Like yesterday's the best example. They took the first two against Philly in games they went out in one, and then Philly gets an early lead on them, and it's like, okay, getaway day, you've already won the series. No, they go foot to the throat. They come back and take the lead, and then they put up an 11 spot. Like, they're silly. Some of their hitting numbers are insane.

Rui Riz, no comment. Go check out the Homer draft on the Talking Baseball pregame show. I mean, the Phillies are also bad. Yeah, they're starting to hit a very scary territory. They called up Alec Bohm, the big prospect for him. He gets a double in his first at bat, but I mean, it's kind of coming back to what we said. It just doesn't seem like they have the pitching horses. They're allowing six runs a game.

Average. There you go. Worse than the Red Sox. And they're trying. I wonder if you take out the Nola starts, like my word, because he's still been awesome. You want me to take out the Nola starts? If you want, I mean, if it, if it's, I'm not doing, I wasn't doing earned runs, just doing it as a team.

Just run runs. Yeah. If I can do just earned runs as well, it's not that different. Just run runs. So the Nola starts, you got to take out. Let's see. How many, how many runs has Nola allowed? That would be the easiest way to do it.

That would be the easiest way to do it. It's like one or two. He's been lights out. Do you got it, B, B, B, B. I'll let you guys. Six. Okay, six. So, 84, my.

minus six is 78. How many games has he pitched? How many games has he pitched? Three. Divided by 11. They're averaging seven runs a game when Nola's not on the mound. Not a good formula to win. That is awful.

It's bad, man. There's a chand. Did Nola pitch last night? No. Okay. Then we're good. No. Arietta did.

Yeah, man. They, I mean, they've got nothing out of the bullpen. They're digging deep. They called up that pitcher that everyone was talking about at camp. a bomb like they are hunting and I don't know if they're going to find it because they're pitching stinks stinks. Miami at Buffalo slash Toronto. Dude, my biggest thing, the second game gets out of hand.

It just gets crazy and that's fine. The biggest takeaway for me is Travis Shaw looks like the good Travis Shaw. His stats are there and he's like in the middle of their lineup right now. And he was a piece they got for super cheap, man. well, it was really interesting. Because he was terrible. Well, it was like an interesting, terrible year. Yeah.

I mean, he's two years above 100 OPS plus, above average player. And then he dropped down to a 44 OPS plus. Yeah. Like, bad. He had to be so injured or something. Injured or, you know, the baseball gods get in your head and then you start changing stuff. Yeah, that's not just regular bad, though. I mean, that's a sign.

And now he's back up to one. 136 OPS plus so far. He's been above average. So yeah, good for Travis. They split two games. Big Nate Pearson gets touched up for the first time. Interested to see how he bounces back because that's just how baseball works. And then Mets, man, this was our sweep series. And Nats got the first two. Yeah, how about that?

And then the Mets come back and split it down the middle. That sucks. So what does that leave the standings there? I mean, in the middle there. The Mets are 9 and 11, the Braves are 8 and 11, and the Nats are 6. to nine. So, I mean, look at the Mets are climbing up. That division's kind of wide open.

For what we thought that division was going to be, it's not looking like four good teams. Not as of right now. Yeah, we'll have to see if the Mets or the Nats can kind of kick it into gear. And, you know, with this season, we saw it kind of happened in the NL West last week. If one of these teams can put a sweep together, like you're right back in it, you know, so they're looking for that. Good for the Mets for fighting back, man.

Good, good on the Mets. Nats, Soto's back in a big way. He'll hear about him in a little bit. Ooh, all right. Let's move on to the Central. You leading us off? I will bat lead off, Jim, do my best. Get on base. See some pitches. Kansas City at Cincinnati. There's a nice Midwest battle for you.

Cincinnati takes the first game in 10 innings. Six-five final, Joey Votto. Still doing it. He gets the game winner. And then Casey splits it with them. 5-4 Salvi Perez, dude, is having a big year so far. Good for him. He's rolling. Also, Brad Keller for them. He's looked great so far. So they split two gamers. That's what happens a lot of the time there. Sorry, Braves. Chicago White Sox go to Detroit. Detroit takes the first game.

How about Daniel Norris, Jim? Your guy. He's back. First Dallas, Keikle, Detroit, man. Getting off to a good start. Jacoby Jones with an inside-the-park home run in this game. That's fun. And hey, good on the White Sox for bouncing back. The Elo Jimenez Dick Dropping Tour has started, and we're excited for that. Tim Anderson, man, he's a star. He's a stud. I think he had four hits in one game.

They were all over 100 miles per hour. He's been raking, like him, fun for the game, good for the game. Cease Outdoul's Boyd. We're officially on a Matt Boyd-Stinks tour. Jimmy, what else happened in the Central Alley? Matt Boyd does stink. Minnesota and Milwaukee teamed up. to play some games. Minnesota is

you know, round two of their Royals and Brewers only Tor. Minnesota takes game one. Dobnack beats our good friend senior Pukhouser. Then they go bullpen game and Milwaukee takes it. They started clippered. I don't know if the twins are good enough to go

a bullpen game. Trev kind of said he was shocked their bullpen was holding up. I think it was May and someone else gave up runs in this one. Lynn Blom gets it done for the brew crew. In game three, the rubber match. the Twinkies dominate. They win 12 to 2.

Mieda versus Lauer, who stinks out loud right now. Someone in our pregame show was like Lauer versus the twins. Uh-oh. And good call, because the twins had their way with him. Twins take the series.

The Cubbies played a two-game set against the Indians, and they just keep on doing what they were doing before the break. Lester goes six innings pitched, one-er-and-run. Hendrix goes six innings pitch,

one-er-and-run. Cookie. And the pen for Cleveland was bad. Every single pitcher that Cleveland ran out in game two of this series gave up an earned run. That ain't good, Jake. Five run six for the Cubs versus Cam Hill in game one. So the bullpen just looking terrible. For Cleveland, did we miss a game?

Did we miss a game? I think we did. Let's see it. Let's see it. Which game did? Did we miss 7-2 on Wednesday? What series don't we have? 7-1.

No, COVID. Oh, yeah, okay. You're good. Wow, we're good. We crush it. You scared me. Me too. Cardinals are coming back.

They play tomorrow or today or something like that? I think Saturday was the official. They just rented 41 rental cars for all their players to show up separately. Is that what they did? Yeah, that's not a joke. We'll see, Cardinals. That's cool for them. Yeah.

Start playing baseball and stay clean. Man, I didn't realize those Indian two-game results. I mean, I knew the Cubs were rolling. I kind of forgot it was against Cleveland. Tough time to be an Indians fan, huh? Bad pitching. Bad pitching. You just lost two of your pitchers.

Pli-Sack doubles down and just looks so dumb. He doubled down? Well, did you see his video? No. Oh, no. He did a video while driving. without a seatbelt on and tried to blame the media for the whole thing.

Said like I'm being dragged through the mud, I believe was an exact sentence. So the media came back. Hey, never tried to drag the media. That's always a bad move. Wait, Plesack posted this himself? Yes. And he, uh... Can I play it?

Yeah, if you want. It was the big thing yesterday. And he got put on... But someone else was... He also tweeted it. He got put on, it was from his Instagram or something like that. He's like, guys, I want to clear up the air. All right.

Let's me just play at least part of it. What's up, guys? Happy Thursday so that you guys can kind of understand what's happening so we can all be on the same page because the media really. Dude, pull over. It's terrible, man. The media is terrible. And they do some evil things to create stories and to make things sound better. Makes things sound worse.

And truthfully, I'm disgusted the way the media has handled this whole situation surrounding our team. And this is why, based on my feelings, I want to get on here and express the truth to you guys. And moving forward, kind of the learning experience and maybe some things taken away from this whole experience. Does he say anything of substance at any point? Not really. Yeah, in Chicago. He talks about what he does with his friends and, like, the rules. We played the White Sox in a day or a couple of days prior to leaving for this trip.

The MLB came up with these new protocols that required a curfew and some other things that... I think you're going to keep us more isolated. The biggest thing... So he does have the seatbelt on. He just still wears the seatbelt like a child underneath his armpit instead of over his arm. Sure. It's funny. You do that one?

you're a little kid and it like chokes you, you know, you put it under your arm. It's still improper wearing, but it's not as bad as completely off. Curfew, I came back late. And again, I'm not here to say I've never filmed myself talking while driving. I've done that so many, so many times. Right. But if I was in his situation and just got suspended for being dumb, I think I would have the wherewithal to know, why don't I just pull over and make this video?

Right. Like if McCutcheon, who's been loved as like the MLB silly guy for a couple of year, posted a 10 second video of him driving and like singing or something, there'd be a couple people that'd be like, you can't video and drive. And they're not wrong. But we'd also be like, Cutch doing it. Police Act in his apology video, you can't be doing it. And dude, the biggest thing, hey, he went at the media.

It was his teammates who told him you can't be on the team. Yeah, and all the response are you told the same exact story of the media release, dude. You just said lines up. Yeah. So he got killed yesterday. I mean, it's, you know, young and dumb. How old is he? 26 and 27, I think.

That's not young enough. I know. I know. And we've had our young thing before. That's just dumb. Jesus, please, sack. Yeah. Well, again, and these guys live different lives.

I mean, you know, a nephew of a former player pitching prospect coming up. Like I think, again, baseball players, they get given their schedule. They live by it. They kind of don't live real life. He went for it here, and he ended up looking even worse. So he got dragged all day yesterday. Someone else was like, I understand he's driving, and that's bad. But where's he driving to?

Isn't he in quarantine right now? I mean, it's just bad. So, yeah, now that I see that they lost both their games, and now they're without Clev and without Plysac, and what's going on in that clubhouse, and now there's more drama behind it. Bad times in Cleveland. That's so stupid.

Yep. On the other end, the Cubs are rolling, man. Yeah, dude. The Cubs are really good. What they're getting from their pitching staff is... Silly. It's awesome. I'm happy for them in a way.

Like, well, no, I'm happy for them. Yeah. A lot of guys are playing good baseball, so that's a thing to be happy about. They are, I mean, Darvish does it. Hendricks does it. Lester does it. I mean, and Darvish wasn't part of this two-game set,

but he did it yesterday in the next series against Milwaukee. You know, Chatwood had that blow up, but really they've been very impressive. Yeah, and I think it was foolish baseball. It was one of the Twitter accounts. They said Kyle Hendrix has only had one ball barreled this year, and they showed the clip, and it's just like a fly ball to center. So. What about when he got blown up by Pittsburgh?

Hendricks? Yeah. I don't know. I don't think so. They just crushed him without barren any? That doesn't make sense. Kyle Hendricks. Kyle Hendricks.

Cubs are rolling, babe. Or since he blew him up, not Pittsburgh. Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, yeah. So I don't know. Anyway, Cubs get the 13 wins. One of three teams now, I think, were 13 wins, and they had a little bit of a delay. Only three losses. If you're a Cubs fan right now, you're a cocky, son of a bitch. It's good times, man. You should be.

Servedly so. And then Minnesota, yeah, they bounced back against. Milwaukee Milwaukee still kind of hasn't found it including last night which we're not talking about although that was a lot of Darvish but yeah man

that Lauer matchup we were laughing on the pregame show someone commented if you're a if you're a especially a lefty if you're a lefty that doesn't have it right now and you're facing the twins I mean might not want to come to the ballpark yeah I mean he got blown up by

Sincy as well Lauer might not just if you're loud You might have to say like a calf's tight. Calf's the thing. It's a lower body thing. Lower body thing going on. What was his numbers last year? 4-4 ERA?

Just a lefty. He's a lefty. Twins are good, though. AWL. Twins have 13 wins? Maybe. Twins have 12 wins. 12 wins.

The AL Central is the coolest division right now. You got the twins with 12 wins. The Tigers with 9. You have no. No one underneath like a 420 winning percentage because even the Royals are 8 and 11. Yeah, the Royals can hit. They've been sneaky and getting overshadowed by the Orioles keeping it going. Yeah, I mean, we'll see how the Tigers keep rolling.

But yeah, dude, I was saying it last week. I'm locked in on this Central. I think it's going to be fun. A lot of fun. It's kind of crazy. Every other division has two teams. Oh, I've got one for you, Jim. Yeah.

Every AL Central team in their last 10 games is 5 and 5. Really? Yeah. That's a lot of fun. Silly. Flip a coin, babe. Damn, that's cool. Pirates are going to be bad.

Cardinals haven't played at all. The Brewers aren't what they would hope to be. And the Reds still, you know, they got to win more. No what I'm interested to see. Yeah, Reds, you got to win more and we'll talk about you. That's the rule here. Cubs look like a wag. Six and a half game lead, man.

Short season. season. The Brewers, I think your biggest thing is your offense has been horrible and you're still seven and ten. Like you're a series away from being okay. Yeah, that's nice. And I think their offensive stats have been like atrocious. Yeah. All right. Let's do the West coast. Give me the West, Jim. In the West, the Wild West, the Dodgers played the Pirates.

It was a four games set, seven games out of the last 10 days. against each other between these two. Bullpen, seven scoreless in game one for San Diego versus Dustin May. You had a good outing himself, but Hedges, Homer's, Hosmer gets the RBI. The Padres take game one, two to one. Game two also goes to the Padres, Jake. They win six to two off of a nice start by Richards, six innings pitch, one-er-and-run.

Stripling gets in trouble with some infield errors that lead to a Mani Machado brand slam. Then they traded for Alonzo. But the Dodgers came back. They take game 3, 6 to nothing. Gonsolin plus the Penn. Shut out the Padres. And then in game four, they win big, 11 to 2.

Paddock gets blowed up. Urius pitch as well for the Dodgers. Four home runs in the first. Mookie hit three homers in the game. He's in the lead-off spot now. More on that later. Seattle versus Texas. I was looking for a sweep or get swept series here.

I wanted the Rangers to sweep so Seattle can just go to the basement. Seattle takes game one. Justin Dunn has a nice start for them. They win soundly 10 to 2. But Texas does come back and win the series. They win 4 to 2. Marco Gonzalez blows it for Seattle. Minor plus the Penn deal for Texas.

In game three, they win 7 to 4. Walker versus Liles. They had a five-run eighth inning. A lot of hit by pitches in this game. I think it was like five hit by pitches. in game three. I didn't really see any. One got disputed.

Oakland and the Angels. The A's and the Angels, the California A teams met up for a three-game set. The Angels coming off being swept by the Rangers. They take game one, 10 to 9. Both starting pitchers sucked Tehran and Mania. Then the Angels take game 2, 6-0.

Fires. First Jake's dude, Bundy. Fires is bad. Bundy's is good. Rendon, cash, Goodwin, all Homer off fires in the fourth inning. So bad inning there. Oakland salvages the series.

They don't get swept. They win game three. Bassett versus Canning. They both give up four runs, but the Oakland bullpen out duels, the Angels bullpen the rest of the way. There was 15 home runs in this three-game set. Just home run. Crazy.

Colorado Rockies versus Arizona Diamondbacks. Similar teams in my brain. I don't know why. We had the Ray versus gray matchup game one. Bad. Arizona wins 12 to 8. Colorado won the middle game. Gallon versus Freeland. Gallon of free milk.

Both of those guys went good. Both Penns tried their best to sabotage the game. Rockies hold on 9-7 win. Arizona wins the rubber match. Weaver versus Senzatella, another high-scoring match. Arizona had five hitters with seven hits in a three-game set. They have five hitters with seven hits. in a three-game set.

Aronado hits three home runs. And then you go to the Houston Astros going up against the Giants. They probably could have used a sweep just to get the things feeling better. They do win the series. They take two out of one. McCullors was nasty in game one. The game two went to extras. Slater and Crawford get it done for the Giants.

And then Granky does his thing. He's having a lot of fun out there on the mound, telling pitchers what pitch is coming, but still getting them out. Houston wins 5-1 off a big Maldonado. home run in the sixth inning. Yeah, baby, ow. That's the West Coast. Rockies are in first place,

but the Dodgers have more wins than them currently. Padre is also still up there, man. The split with the Dodgers was good for them, 11 and 9. I think once they dip below 500, we may see them really struggle to come back, so I'm rooting for them to stay above. And then the A's are running away with it.

They lose two games to the Angels. It still doesn't even matter. 13 and 6. Four games up on first place. And it's a shit show the rest of the way. Rangers 8 wins. Astros, 8 wins. Angels, 7 wins.

Mariners, 7 wins. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if the Astros kick it into gear. I mean, all eyes are on them for a lot of reasons. Granky gets the rubber match. He looks really good, and he's being cranky out there. And having a blast. I mean, when Dusty Baker came to take him out after he started calling his own signs out there. He's like, Dusty, do you see that? He looked like an excited kid. It was really funny.

And yeah, you're right. If you're an Astros fan, you, after you lose that extra innings middle game, you're saying, damn, sweep would have been a lot nicer. You'd be riding a little higher. But hey, you know, get it going. Where else was I going in the West? Oh, my diamondbacks. They take two out of three against the rocks. I think the Diamondbacks, they're starting to win series. And I think they start the way they look at the West Coast standings, they just passed the Giants and they say, okay, we got them. Now let's catch the pods. Catch the pods. The Rockies are probably slipping down at that point, and then it's let's catch

the Rock. So I'm still in on my D-back's investment a little bit, especially at Zach Gallen keeps doing what he's doing, racking up the John Boy stat. And Dodgers, man, Padres take the first two. You're tied at 11 and 7. Both teams are 11 and 7, and then they just go bully ball. And 6-0, and then 11-2 was the last game. So I think so, yeah. So, yeah, they are still the bully in that division until they are. Oh, Paddock got slopped around, man.

Yeah, and we were doing this on the pregame show a little bit. I think it's, you know, second time seeing them in a week, something like that, maybe even third this season. Not third, I don't think, but. Paddock and Glass now have the same thing going for me. Yeah. They're too intense on the mount. Yeah.

I think it hurts them. I feel like they gas them. themselves and they put too much pressure when there's runners on. You just see them get so tight up there. Yeah. It's like, I think everybody has to find their thing, right? I mean, look at Zach Grinky and his career. I mean, totally different.

But like Scherzer's as intense as it gets. So I think you find it at a certain point, you know. But, you know, sometimes maybe you're trying that, you know, like I had a hockey teammate that liked being angry before games. So I used to try and rage with him. And I was like, oh, my God, I play awful when I'm feeling like this. You got to find your- I need to be joking and laughing.

You got to find your thing. Glassnow, you'll hear about him later, and I think you're right there. Paddock, I mean, tough, he's good, but also that Dodgers lineup is crazy, and you see them back-to-back starts. So, yeah, yeah. And Paddock's been fine. He's allowed to have a game like that. And jumping back to the A.L.

I'm just saying, like, the intensity at some points, it's like, dude, turn it down a notch, I feel like. The team we thought we'd have to give up on, Texas Rangers, they're technically second in the West right now. Mike Minor gets a good start, which is big for them. Lance Lynn is doing it and they get Mike Minor back. Now that rotation's come together. Gibson's been solid for them.

Is their offense doing anything? They signed Dietrich, Jim. First game, three for three. Or they hit by pitching a stolen base, I think. And I think that's a sign of kind of that they need more help. But if Willie Calhoun's been terrible, if he can get going, Todd Father's been really, really good for them so far. Gallo hasn't been special of late.

So, you know, there's more. hope in Texas. We thought we were going to have to write them off and not have fun with them, which we wanted to. They're back in a fun territory. Good. I like that. I said good. One last thing. Derek Dietrich after one game is ninth on their team in war. What is it? Point two. Yeah, I was going to say. So in the last seven games, Solac's been doing good things for the Rangers. Willie Calhoun's been doing good things. Todd Frazier.

and falafah. Maybe the key is having a beard on their team. Look at who's having good seasons for them. Lance, Gallo. Yeah, who's that young dude, right? Who's that? No, no. Beardless.

Kobe Allard. Who the hell is that? He's thrown the pill for them. I think he's got a couple starts for them. Needs a beard, though. Nice. Does Gallo have a beard? So he's young.

Gallo's got a beard going. Gallo stat line's so weird. stay tuned for Slump Watch. It's the weirdest stat line I've seen in a while for a serious recap. Let's do it. Bizarre. Let's keep it shaking. You got anything else?

No, that's all. I mean, the Padres are fun. The Dodgers are fun. It feels like they're playing each other every night. Everyone else kind of, you know, I wish the Mariners let themselves get swept. Okay. Just you're not going to be in the race. So let everyone beat you and make it more interesting.

Bundy dick dropping starts. Yeah. Continues. No, it's still kind of a mess. Even the West is still pretty close. The Wild West. Besides the Giants, they're not going to be good. We roll in the wild west.

All right, let's move on. Second half of the show, we got standout performance. Standout performance. I think you go first on Friday? Yeah, I think I'm the Friday guy. Jake, can I ask you a question? Yes. What was your standout performance?

over the course of the week. I took a real shot here. I took a real shot here. And I went with Juan Soto. Juan. He's a young ball player on the Washington Nationals. Four games set against the Mets. Seven for 15.

Four homers. Eight RBIs. Four games, four homers. That's pretty good. He only had one strikeout. It was on a terrible call. Did you see he so do soo shuffled it? He did the Soto shuffle and got punched.

His face was so funny. And, you know, he's Juan Soto. If you're listening to this, you know who he is, so I don't have to deep dive on some of that stuff. I think what's important, it needs to be noted, like, you know he's got power, you know he's fun. Jim, the on-base stuff is getting silly. He's got a 404 career on-base percentage, and he's 21 years old.

And, like, guys don't do that. I think I'm going to have to get into the jakey stats later, because you see young guys have speed or power or batting average, do what they do. you don't see guys get on base like that. And, you know, obviously eight games because of the COVID stuff this year, he's hitting 414 with a 452 on base. Okay, you know, can only do so much with that. Better than having a bad start.

But five home runs and eight games to start this season. He's a monster. Maybe the Nats can get more into it and Soto can matter a little more. I mean, he's just stupid, man. He's just silly good. He hit a couple bombs. One looked like it almost left city field, which people didn't know.

that was an option. So I'll go with Juan Soto any day. Okay. Thank you. Not bad. I'm going with another guy who hits two plays baseball, which is similar. Mookie Betts. Big time.

Mookie Betts had one of the better games you can have as a baseball player. For sure. Yesterday against the Padres, he went four for four with three home runs, five RBIs. He got hit by a pitch in his first at bat. Bad move. Haddock, you pissed him off. Yeah. And then in his last at bat, Jake, so he goes hit by pitch, Homer, Homer, Homer.

Yeah. And his last sat bat, infield single. Yeah. Just to remind him he's got speed, too. Five tools. I can beat you multiple ways. I also love the counts in which he got these hits. So in his first at bat, he took first pitch fastball and then got hit with the second pitch.

Probably thinking, I don't want to get hit again. I'll just swing at this first pitch. Delman Young strategy. Yep. I don't like getting hit by pitches, so I swing it the first one. There's one close. Get me out of there. That's what he said when he came on talking baseball.

We interviewed him. So Milky Bed swing is at the first pitch, right? So jumps a first pitch fastball. Awesome. That's the first home run. The second home run, he's down 02. It's supposed to be protect, change your strategy? No, they threw a high fastball, boom, home run.

The next step bad, he falls down 3-0. I think he takes a strike on the 3-1. You get the 3-1 fastball, then he gets to sit on it. and just powers that. So two strike homer, first pitch, then deep into the count, 3-1 pitch, did it every single way. He had a talk with Dave Roberts about wanting to hit leadoff. He said, I'll hit anywhere, but I prefer lead-off.

They put him in the lead-off roll last night, and I think he wanted to make sure that he stays there. Now, he's got a couple other games this season, batten lead-off. I think Jock leads off when they face a righty. But who knows, maybe he'll stay. He likes batting lead-off. He likes batting lead-off, and, you know, I don't want to overstep my boundaries.

Bat him lead off. He's awesome. It goes back to my old opposing team quote. If I'm the opposing team, you know what I don't want? Mookie Betts batting lead off. I don't want to see that to start the game. So if you're the Dodgers, you should do that. He's awesome.

You heard Rob Lowe talk about him this week on talking baseball, and they hadn't seen this yet. Like they've just seen Mookie be good and play. a good defense. He had the crazy throw from the outfield last week. Special, special man. And we'll, yeah, again, they added him to the Dodgers. Pretty insane. Yeah.

Easy standout for me. It's a good one. It's a good pick. Three homers in one game. That's a standout performance. Hell of a pick. Thank you. Five nine.

Yeah, it's awesome. Pretty crazy. All right. Next up. Enfuego? They're nasty's in fuego. That means on fire, baby. Like Waygo.

Jim, I was in the sheet and looking at potential in Fuego's. And there's a lot of options. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a lot of runs put up. I mean, between Corse Field and Boston and everything else, there's a lot of runs put up. But, Jim, there was something that jumped out near the top of the board. And I don't want anyone to be offended.

And we'll get a couple other shoutouts. But I almost put down a stars-only rule, because we had a lot of stars. go off. Yeah. I saw that, but then I wanted to put the other guy on there. He deserved a note.

You got a lot of stars on there. What stars you got on the Enfuego? How about, I'll take the third basement. And then you could take those other guys. Aronado, eight for 12 with three homers. Yep. Take that. Good stuff.

I'll take that. He can pick it with the leather, too, Jim. Not a lot of people know that. Anthony Rendon. He's back. Tony Meatball. He goes five for 11, three walks. That Angels, they get a couple win against the A's who were hot.

So a little credit to them, Dylan Bundy, Jake dropping. But Rendon gets it going. Dude, I check, the West Coast third baseman are silly. Who you got? Dude, I tweeted it out the other day. It's Aeronado. So Aeronado, Justin Turner. Eduardo Escobar is like by far the worst, and he's a good ball player.

Machado, Chapman. And then you go to the AL, who am I blanking on? Rendon, Bragman. Bragman. Kyle Seeger has had a really nice career. Leggates. Who's the Giants third base? Longoria.

Oh, slump watch. I could put Donnie Barrels there if I wanted to. Do it. He had a really tough game at third. But yeah, dude, the West Coast third baseman are awesome. So Aronado and Rendon, they're really good. Trout, six for 12, three homers. Yep.

Still doing it. Beating out infield singles as well. God. Stupid. Real dumb. Bryce Harper, four multi-hit games in a row. Any hit for the cycle in the series, I just wish it mattered.

They're so bad. They are bad right now. Seven runs on average in games Nola doesn't pitch. Mets, Phillies are Nass. That's impossible to win. That's an impossible formula. Matt's, Phillies or Nats, figure it out. Jesus.

But Harper, four multi-hit games in a row, good for him. And then I put Manuel Margo on here. He, just because he was awful. Basically a shame to flame. Basically a shame to flame, but we took him off slump watch because we're like, we don't care about you. He had three hits in his first 36 plate appearances. Yeah.

Three hits in his first 36 plate appearances. In his next 15 plate appearances against the Red Sox, he had 10 hits. Now this is a case study that we can follow. Yeah. Is this the Red Sox are intentionally throwing bad pitchers out there on purpose. Yeah. Which they are.

They would, you know, they've, with their actions, they've admitted to that. Or can you use the Red Sox to get hot? Or when you go back to another team, who do the Rays play next? Course field effect. Ray's schedule. Jays. I bet it someone in the East. Are they going to Buffalo?

Buffalo. Solja, yes. So let's see how Margo does against that team. Yeah, that's funny. The Red Sox effect. Yeah, and it goes nuts, man. I mean, he had 10 hits. He had a 733 on base percentage in the series.

Player noted for his defense. He goes off. Good for you, Manny Margo. Trout, hey, Oakland. I almost gave them my award for the end of the show. I almost said something about, don't be too proud. Trout had no walks.

Hey, don't pitch to that guy I hate to spoil it Don't pitch to that guy But hey, Rendon's on here That's the whole thing we said all offseason Get Mike Trout some help And if you're forced to pitch to him You're done

You're done He's good He's good for a reason All right Still good I threw the pitchers don't get Enough love sometime In Fuego

When the hitters turn it on Dylan Bundy Dick Dropping Tour Aaron Nola We kind of couldn't talk about him. He was a weird Monday series ender, but eight innings pitch. And then wrote down Darvish, but we'll save him for next time technically. Mostly Bundy with his dick on my shoulder the whole season.

Nola's pretty good. So we keep ripping the Phillies. We'll just give Nola some credit. Nola. Philly's pitching outside of Nola. Is Wheeler still okay? I don't know. According to those numbers, no.

Well, it might be even funnier if Zach, is okay. Let's see. Clicking Zach Wheeler, 289 ERA. So we're going to have to do, I'll do some Jakey. So their bullpen's just awful. I'll do some butter knife if you take out Wheeler and Nola, because that might be the worst pitching ever. It's like nine runs. BPD's interested, so we'll get him going later. Damn.

What do you want to do? A little race to 20, kid? Race to 20 got fun. Race to 20. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 789, 7-11, 12, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 20. Presented by Roosevelt's. Roosevelt's teamed up with us to keep track of the race to 20. Will someone hit 20 home runs in the short and season? That was Vegas's over and under.

We hammered the over. I'm very happy with the way we handled this bet because it's getting fun. And last week, Jake, Tatis shot up to leaderboard, and he was tied with Judge. And we said, let's get all the stars up there. And you were calling, like, I want, this leaderboard to be stocked with stars. And you know who climbed his way up?

Colin Moran. No. He did hit one. He did hit one. Okay. No. Buki Betz. He comes crawling up. Mike Trout. He comes crawling up. Jim, they have it. Real Mudo. There's Aronado. Chapman. Stars. There's three guys tied at seven right now. It's Betz Castiano's Real Mudo. Luckily for baseball reference, I think they have them an alphabetical order. So right now, the first four, if you check baseball reference. Aaron Judge, star of the New York Yankees. I totally forgot to even hit a Homer because he gets hurt and we'll see if he's really hurt or not this weekend.

There's a laser, too. Fernando Tatees Jr., next griffy, swag-wise. Mike Trout, arguably the best player ever, and Mookie Betts. Like, that's yes. Yeah. Yes. So Tatees has played 20 games now. It's pretty wild.

So that's easy math. If he does get to play all 60. Mm. Right? Yes. Eight times three. Eight times three. 24.

All over it. I did the calculator up. All over. He played it safe. I took a chance. I knew it was 24, but I was like, I can't fuck this one out. I felt like I was playing on the edge there. Yeah.

That's actually kind of scares me, actually. A little bit. I know what you're saying. I just had a realization like, oh, that only leads to 24. Uh-oh. We may not be as locked as I thought. I mean, Trouters got. Eight and 15.

We'll see how Judgey does health-wise. Mookie, seven and 19. So, you know, these guys are still doing it. And J.T. Real Mudo, man. Oh, Trouts only played 15. Yeah. We're locked still. Yeah.

We're locked. Yeah, and you're right. The defensive third baseman wizards, Aronado and Chapman being tied. That's fun. Everyone likes linking those guys together. That's a fun race almost in and of itself. My guy, Maddie Olson, sneaking in there.

Good for you, Mitch Morland. Manny Machado's on pace. Feel like many. He's played 20 games. He has five home runs. So that would be 15. 15. Not on pace.

Sorry, Mani. Hit a big grand slam, though. Do it, dude. Do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Mitch Morland with six and 12 games. Good job, Mitch.

Yeah. He had like that one stretch. Platoon in two. All right. Let's get bad. Let's get bad. Let's get bad. Slump watch

I dream slump run I talked to you about Joey Gallo And I'll just lead this segment off with Joey Gallo Can I tell you what he did this series, Jake? He's been on slump watch We kept him on slump watch And last series he went one for seven With the home run

And we were like, well that's $2.50 with the home run That's kind of what you asked Joey Gallo to do Listen to his stats this series, man. He went 0 for 7 with five walks. Yeah. That makes his slash line zero, zero, zero batting average.

Mm-hmm. 462 on base percentage, which is great. Great. Zero-zero-zero slugging. Yeah. That's like, dude, that's a weird three days at the ballpark.

Know what that is? That's, uh, and me and Trevor had this debate off air for a little bit, but analytics says that lineup protection isn't a thing. show that stat line to the nerds because I bet if someone better was behind Joey Gallo I think he might get a couple better pitches to hit because yeah that's tough

well I mean one of the walks was intentional he didn't get a hit all series he intentionally walked him I'm guessing the base was just open if it's open I there's almost no reason to pitch to Joey Gallo isn't that a weird weird stat line it's weird I mean that's

walk strikeouts or Homer I mean we've had him on slump watch for three series in a row now, and his numbers on the season are still good. They're weird. But they're so weird. But it's what Gallo does. And that's what, if I'm Joey Gallo, I want to play the ace because apparently if they pitch to Trout, they're going to pitch to him.

I mean, he's got a 130 OPS plus. He's 30. He's 30% better than the average baseball player right now, and he hasn't gotten a hit in a week. Yeah. He's gotten one hit in the last seven games. And he's 30%. I mean, and we've played 16 games. That's damn near half of his season.

He hasn't gotten a hit. And he's 30% better than your average baseball player. He's got 11 walks. Rangers, you go out get Dietrich. He's, you know, he's got some good stats against Ritey's. He's kind of a future ball player again. A very, very light Joey Gallo. If he connects it to home run.

Get another bad. I don't know who you got to call. If it's the Yenob. for some of their depth or whoever it is, get another bat. Give your starting pitching and Joey Gallo a little bit of help. Yeah, so that was an updated slump watch. I don't know. Do you want to keep them on or just take them off?

I almost want to make Gallo watch. All right, so it just Gallo. Because it doesn't deserve to be slump watch. No. But it's, so like Joey Gallo watch is a new segment on the show. Until it's not, it is. Are we taking long go off? And just like, don't care watch.

Kind of. He gets a hit in a watch. Yeah. Take a long go off. Goodbye. Tommy Fam. He goes three for 14, two walks. He did hit a homer yesterday.

He's been on twice. I think he's off. I'll take him off. I think he's off. We're pretty lenient sometimes. Eloy Jimenez. He's way off. Wait, how many homers?

He had two last series, but they were back-to-back games. Yeah, two and three days or whatever. And he continues for me in the talking baseball homer draft. So watch out. J.D. Martinez, I put him on last week because he went 0 for the last series. I said last series, there's no way he stays on here. He goes five for 13 with two homers. He's off.

He good. And then Miguel Sineau, kind of the same story. He went two for six with a homer and three walks on base percentage. Pretty there for him. Oh, Jimmy. I've got... No one stayed on. I've got another...

Wow. How about that? Everyone that came off. Altovae? We never put him on. I thought he was on there last week. We threw Madbom, Lorenzen, and Altuvae on late. Oh, we just don't have stats for him?

Yeah. Well, Al Tuve can stay. Lorenzen, we didn't, he's bad. The world is watching Al Tuve, so he stays. And don't, you know, Al Tuvei, if you're listening, when you're hitting, don't think about everyone watching you hit, knowing that you're mired in a huge slump coming off a cheating scandal. Don't have that in your head.

I mean, just, you know, clear the mechanism one time for us. When you're hitting, don't think about the cheating. Don't think about your slump. Imagine if fans were there to remind him. Jeez, man. Literally cannot imagine. What else was I guess? You got some people you put on there.

Yeah, I've got some new additions. David Dahl, he puts up an O-Fer, I think he's O-Fer 12, and the bigger thing around that is they were in course, and everybody else is hit in. So that's a bad feeling. Start pressing a little bit. Friend of the pod, I mean, he'll get going. You start to wonder about Core's effect.

You hit the road. Max Muncie and Jack Peterson. I think Muncie was like two for 15. I think Jock was either 1 for 11 or 0 for 11. Both those guys, you know, hey, get it going. But I guess Mookie can just carry you. And then Ben Gamal, star of the talking baseball family, O for 12 this week.

You put some hurlers on there? Yeah, Matt's has been bad, and I don't know. It's more like I wanted to ask you. Like, is he just bad? I've never been overly high on Stephen Mats. Yeah. But I think he's been, I think two starts in a row now, it's pretty brutal. And the same goes for Robbie Ray.

Where Robbie Ray always looking to get traded. So Matt's had a good, good first game and a decent, the-ish second game against. the Red Sox? The nationals just blew him up. Oh, I was going to say... 13 runs. In his last two games,

Matt's given up 13 run runs. Robbie Ray's got a little more street cred than Matt's. I think we can leave them both on there. I'm interested. I'm interested in the story. Robbie Ray with more street cred, better career than Matt's up to this point. The next guy totally deserves to be on here.

Oh, I was going to say this, Jim, about the Red Sox tank before, and J.D. getting off Slumpwatch. If the Red Sox pitching is so bad, and they know that, the plan. The other teams then use their bad pitching so the Red Sox hitters can boost their stats. So that's... That actually really scares me for the Yankees because they love using someone in the Patreon chat said the Yankees bullpen was terrible. And it's like, dude, you

talking about like hail and holder. I've been good. Not last series. Don't need them. They're not part of the playoff bullpen. Jim, my guy. Me and Trevor both hyping him up, Tyler, Tyler Glass now. He's been bad. Yeah. No dancing around it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to, like, dance on a grave or anything because I like Glass Now. His stuff is awesome. But I really, I really think, not just you and Trev, everyone overhyped this dude who has never done it.

Yeah. For a full season. That's huge. Trev says he doesn't even want people that have only done it one year. He needs them to do it multiple years. Right. And then he's hyping Glassnow up who had a good 10-game stretch. He's played a lot of baseball. Yeah, I mean, he, you know, there's the whole Pittsburgh thing.

He's made 44 starts. He's played in 83 games. He has a good TED game stretch. His stuff is electric. He should be really, really good. But he's just not doing it. So I don't know if it's Slump Watch. I don't know what it is.

I'm just saying people were way, way, way too high on this guy. Yeah, I mean, he, I think he's trying to do too much. I don't know if it's the hype because Jim has K per 9 this year is almost 16, which is like Chapman in his prime type stuff. But he's walking the bases. He's got 10 walks and he's just trying to do too much. So yeah, we'll see if it comes around. I still think he's an absolute stud.

And I think, you know, there are pitchers that take a little while to figure it out, especially if you're a 6-8 guy who's, you know, tallest guy in the majors right now. but yeah, absolutely deserves to be on slump watch, figure it out. He's got the stuff to dominate the league. Yeah. So something's going wrong somewhere. That's all I got, really. Yeah, I think that's good.

Anyone get mad? Strasbourg got thrown out, so that ump got mad, but Strasbourg didn't care. Strasbourg toss. He was happy to get through. I'll say this about it. I loved it. Obviously not from the umpire point of view, because... Yeah, I didn't include it in the breakdown,

but they were yelling after every pitch. Yeah, but I'll say this. Steven Strassberg, a guy who's known to be kind of introverted, the whole thing was, you know, the guys on the team last year had to, you know, get him out of his shell and everything like that. I just love the fact that it's easy for us as fans to ignore how much a guy like that loves baseball. Like if you were to pick players screaming from the stands at umpires, you'd take a while before you got to Stephen Strasberg.

Yeah, I don't even know if it was him. I want to What I wanted to do is see if it was someone else yelling in Strasbourg just took it And was like, I'll leave, I don't care I got the most money I can pay this fine But it could have been him

That'd be a hell of a teammate Whoever was yelling for the nationals Was yelling after every pitch of that inning That's tough So like I understand that up Yeah Please leave I don't want to do this, yeah

Please It's miserable Get out of here Uh yeah Before we go to awards producer BPD sent sent over the stats if you take out

Nola and Wheeler this year the Philly staff is 765 ERA and 80 innings including the bullpen or just the staff everyone yeah all for the rest of the staff yeah

bad and Disco Neal had a scoreless inning last night for them in his pitching debut so oh I should have given Giorme on an award You or May, our guy, friend of the family now. Huge. Huge.

All you have to do is send a retweet, and we like you. F. Linnea, Aria, to both have ERA pluses over 100. Like, they're not the problem. It's the bullpen. So it's full bullpen. Pretty much fully the bullpen. Tough. They're bad.

Tough. All right. Should we do it? Yeah. Awards. Jake, you get to go first. I do. Jim, I wrote it on the sheet.

I'm giving out You'll see It's going to two people I don't normally like Sharon Awards But I'm giving up the Dead Duck and a Camp Counselor Award Whoa The Dead Duck and a Camp Counselor Award The Dead Duck and a Camp Counselor Award

And it's being shared by Brandon Hyde and David Ross Ooh Brandon Hyde when he took the Orioles job Everyone kind of laughed and was like, hey, man. Like, do you know what you're doing? Like, this is a death wish. The yanks are hitting their stride.

Tampa's awesome. The Red Sox, the baby J's. Like, don't take that job. There's nothing. They are in full rebuild. Jim, they look really good. And we went there to their spring training facility. Best Wi-Fi in spring training.

We laughed. They were doing pop-ups with crowd noise on. and we're like, damn, this feels like JV high school baseball stuff. And, you know, we go, they were easy to make jokes about for obvious reasons. They are hitting the crap out of the ball. You know, my thing was they hit lefties. They're hitting everyone right now. They lead the AL and batting average.

I think they're scoring five-plus runs a game. Brandon Hyde. And more importantly, you know, what do managers do nowadays? They mostly babysit. Hey, Hyde had to tell those guys in a serious tone, like believe in yourselves this year. And I think we would normally make jokes before the season. I think we made a ton of jokes about the Orioles. So good for Brandon Hyde for having a serious face.

And now you could tell those guys like, we're beating teams. This is not fluky. Santander's going off. They're catching platoons going nuts. Jose Iglesias. So good for Brandon Hyde for being able to do that with a straight face because I hammered the easy under. and then I threw Rossian, David Ross, because the Cubs are going nuts. And I kept saying this, and I kind of fell into this take.

He was on their team, and I didn't believe in their pitching. So I was like, if this goes south, they could go south in a hurry, in a hurry. They've been great. And most importantly, well, it is most importantly. They've been, like, the best about the coronavirus stuff. Like, they've been the example across the league. The Cubs? Yes.

I think they're the only team that hasn't had a case or something at this point. and the whole thing from Joe Madden, and they said this on the broadcast, was, you know, Joe Madden was being Joe Madden, and the rules don't matter, we're cool. And David Ross, a guy who is their teammate, that's a tough thing to fall into. So I tied in the camp counselor,

because I think there's a lot of times you either have a camp counselor or someone who's your, like, you know, freshman coach who you're like, oh, that guy's cool, you know? They're 23, and then you realize later in life, like, oh, they're just a normal person. Like, are they not cool?

Are they cool? David Ross has been great. The Cubs are playing good ball. They've been the best at following procedures and stuff, which is important, especially with a new young coach who is your teammate. So I think both those guys deserve love. Do you think Brandon Hyde would have been the Cubs manager if he turned down the Orioles job? Would be interesting to know.

Do you think he thinks about that? No. I think the Cubs wanted a flashy hire. Like I think if you put Hyde against Rossi, I think Rossi still gets it. But it'd be as simple as promoting. promoting the bench coach. Right, but you probably do it as like a clean-in-house type deal, you know?

Did the Cubs? Yeah, I wonder, I don't know if the Cubs cleaned other house, but Hyde was with those Cubs for like four years or so before he left last season to go to the Orioles job. So I wonder if he thinks, huh, if I knew Madden was leaving after one more season, I probably would have stuck around. Well, I think he kind of did. Maybe the writing was on the wall there because we, you know, it was a storyline of last season. Madden doesn't figure it out, his contracts up, blah, blah, blah. So good on both them.

You know, managers don't get a lot of love. And they shouldn't for on-field performance. I don't think David Ross gets a ton of credit for what Darvish is doing. But for following protocols and keeping guys in order. Do you like what the Cubs dugout is doing? Like they're kind of acting like a college baseball team a little bit, but not too far. I've been teetering on if I like it or dislike it. I think I like it.

They're locked in. They're just, they're really. celebrating every hit. They're really celebrating every pitch. Not over the top. Not like dancing and inside out hats, but like if someone has a good take, you hear them like, yeah, good take. Like, they're locked in. Well, I like that. Maybe they're always like that. We just never seen it. I think, I think it's a Rossi effect. Could be. That sounds like Rossi. Exactly. My award is the 33 for three. 33. For three, Larry Bird. Wrong. Wrong. wrong.

Who is it, I don't know. There's 12 people in the league tied for most triples. Ooh. And one of them is 33-year-old Jay Bruce.

Jay Bruce. Got that bold on the stat page. How about that? Yeah. He's old. He's not selt. Bruce's old. He had a triple.

He had a triple, and then I was like, damn, I wonder when's the last time Jay Bruce had a triple. And then I was like, this season. Yeah. couple.

It's kind of funny. So both his triples are like inches away from being home runs. And he just must be digging out of the box then? Digging, a couple funky hops. They hit the wall and then they roll like back towards the infield. Yeah. So like it's getting a nice caram. Sure.

But you got to be digging still. Yeah, you still got to be able to run a little bit. You're 6.3.250 J. Bruce. He was athletic back in the day. He's got like an old Pursinsky vibe at the plate right now. Like, you know, not the most toned up face, thick. And he's roping the ball, man. At 29 he had six triples.

Phillies, maybe get one bullpen arm. Yeah. It'd be nice. Holy smokes. It's bad. I think that's the biggest takeaway from the set. So, Philly's bullpen is brutal. Phillies.

What do you do? And that's a bad feeling, man. That's like sweeps over a team. When you got a guy coming out of the ballroom. Oh, the pitching staff got to feel like, what? That's why at least the Red Sox aren't acting like. like they have starters. Right.

There's no starters to disappoint besides a Valdi. Everyone else just like, yeah, that sucks. All right. You want to spin the wheel? Spin it, baby. Time to move on to elevator talk. We will choose a random team. I spin a wheel.

If you're stuck in an elevator with this team, these are some topics you can discuss with them to make yourself sound a little more knowledgeable. The Braves. We have a lot of Braves fans in the chat. Braves fans are very nervous right now with Ozzie and Coonia out. Yeah. Like that's not a good time for them. They lose two to the Yankees.

You've lost three in a row. You're on a road trip. Two of them are to the Yankees at the stadium who haven't lost as the home team at the stadium. So you shouldn't be panicked about that. Should you be worried about Acuna and Albies? Absolutely. Because they're stars. They're obviously main cogs in that lineup.

I think the best news is we've been pooping on the Phillies all episode. They're playing them? The Phillies don't scare you. No, they're going to Miami. But I'm just saying worry-wise. Like, okay, who's behind us? The Marlins are still doing Marlins magic. You're going to play them.

Go beat them. That'll make you feel better. You're still 11 and 9. The Phillies stink. We've been talking about that. And the Nats haven't found it yet. And the Mets are the Mets. What's the Braves like staff now?

I mean, you lose Soros. You lost Hamels. So Max Freed's been incredible. You probably mentioned that in the elevator. Yeah, he's their Nola, but they have a better pen. Yeah. You're worried about Tuki Toussaint. He had one good start.

Now he's getting shelled. Kyle Wright, the number one pick. He hasn't given you much. Your staff's hurting right now. Your staff is hurting right now. Do you get Fulte the callback? That'll be wild. You're hoping Cole Hamels can get healthy and come back.

You're worried about this. You're worried about the staff. You're worried about health. Dansby's been good. Yeah, Dansby's been good, but now that, like, Dansby was good for Danzy. Now with Ozzy and Acuna out, the one, two, has gone from Ozzy Acuna to Dansby and Darnell. That's a much different feeling. Jim, we've buried the lead.

Okay. Freddie Freeman's been great. Johann Camargo. Oh, yeah. He just said, I fuck the pitcher nonstop. Doing it on the baseball. football field. What?

Look up. Search at John Boy Camargo on the internet. Because he's making love out there. Passionate. It's weird. Silky. It's smoldering silk intensity. Yeah.

So that's what you say to the guy in the elevator. You see Camargo iron down the pitchers? That's hot, right? You into that? You like that? Hold on. Let me bring it up on my phone. See, he's trying to eye fuck the pitcher.

You into that? All right. You getting off at three? See ya. See ya. Have a nice day. Ding. Jim, no, it's surprising.

No, it's surprising, Jim. Yeah. Braves' offense second and run scored this year in the NL. They also are like a, they are the highest meatball swing percentage. So that's the stat you can drop in the elevator. Do you know that the Braves have the highest percentage of swinging at fastballs right down the middle? And then the person in the elevator will probably laugh at you and be like, all right. What does that mean?

Is there any correlation to being good or bad? No, the Pirates are second. There's no correlation at all. Darno's playing good. Ozone is playing good. That's big for them. I was kind of tough against him this offseason. If I'm a Braves fan, I'm still a little mad.

They didn't make the big splash this off season. They signed a bunch of little guys, you know, a bunch of four-year, five-million, or one-year, $4 million, one-year-five million. That could have been another big bopper. And now with Albies and Kuna out, that lineup just looks different. Do you still, another thing, you can say,

hey, do you know Jason Kendall? Well, he said Tyler Flowers was a bitch. Yeah. On our podcast. On our podcast. What was the story he said? That they charged Flowers with a passball instead of a wild pitch.

Oh, yeah, he talked to, like, to the score. He ran into the scores, like, screaming or, like, very upset to change it. And Kendall was like, you are soft, dude. So that's a tough story about that. You care about that? Kendall's never. It was such good modern player versus. Kendall has never.

cared about that. Kendall caught with a broken thumb. Camargo eyeballs, babe. Yeah. That is Elevator Talk. That's the show. Thank you guys very much for hanging out with us for a little bit. As we recap the series that were, we will be back on Monday to do the same. Enjoy your weekends.

Have fun. Stay safe. Tell your parents. Hello. Hi. Call your loved ones for once in your life.