Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 30 | NLDS Game 2s & ALDS Game 1s

Episode Date: October 5, 2019

The Rays dropped the ball to the Astros and lost game 1. The Yankees took care of the Twins. Strasburg and Folty handled the Dodgers and Braves with ease. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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.

Four games of playoff baseball in the books yesterday. Four games won, four games lost. Let's talk all about them. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of talking baseball. It's a show. We talk baseball on it. We like baseball.

We post these on YouTube. We post them on all the podcast apps. We appreciate everyone that's gotten on board. It's hanging out with us each day to recap the games that were. Today's a doozy because there's four games yesterday, Jake. the most amount of games that can be played in the MLB playoffs were played, and because of the outcome of the NLDS games, there will be four games again guaranteed on Monday.

So we are in the thick of the playoffs right now. The most action that can be happening is happening this weekend in early October. My name is John Boy. I'm coming to you from New Jersey. Jersey. I've got my co-host. Jake, he is in Denver, and this episode of Talking Baseball is proudly sponsored by Adam. You have to make, you said when they only have one name, they're baseball players, so I think people are leaving one name to find out what baseball player they are. Are you going Duval? That's most obviously Adam Duvall. Okay, I thought it was too,

to be honest. Yeah. I'm glad we're starting the show with honesty. Alex Emmett. Alex Emmett Nick Sanders It's coming close Yeah coming close to my fake enemy Nick Sanderson Yeah This is just Nick Sanders

CIO You got a baseball player The first name CIO So that's that's a player's initials I'm going to have to dive into that during the show And see what I can find Okay But yeah that's someone with the initials

SIO SIO Stephen Ickles O'Brien So you just took your last name Yeah

One of the most generic S names Yeah And then you said Ickles in the middle Yeah This is a middle name I think Okay It's a chance

And AJ AJ Oh see That might be an issue for you It's not AJ Pollock He's already A.J. Pollack. He's already a friend of the program

I thought I was going to Barnett. No, for you, this is bad news. It's A.J. Cole. Why is that bad news for me? Because you were so hard on him at the end of his Yankee career. Oh, I forgot his first name was A.J. Well, there you go. That's the biggest misconnect that just happened there.

Cole World. Coal World. Can't get enough. All right. Well, those are our most recent Patreon supporters and subscribers. They get to listen live as we record this. as well as some other perks along the way. Jake, how are you doing in this fine Saturday morning? I'm doing well.

I just had a funny realization that's kind of classic rude ale to NL take, but I'm glad the American League will be taken off tomorrow so I can watch some of the NFL games and dip my toe elsewhere. Because I think my eyes are starting to go baseball blind. I messaged you during last night's game. There was a while that I had to watch the Yankees game in the reflection of my windows because my eyes were hurting so much from watching the TV. The baseball was bleeding out of my eyes.

But then it was just my TV. I started watching on my computer for a bit and I was fine. So that's weird. If we've got any I TV doctors, don't be shy to reach out. But I'm doing great, man. I needed some rest. I got, I think I, I got like six hours, but they were a hard six.

I was out the hard six-year-old college nickname. So I'm doing good. I'm ready for, ready for Saturday. Like a six out of ten? Yeah, some like that. Like they saw me in and like that guy's a hard six out of ten? Yeah. Is that what you meant?

Because that's awesome. No, it's talking about your winky. Six inches? I couldn't figure out the insult. Either way is a huge compliment. It was never an insult. Okay, great. This is fantastic.

Yeah. Have a happy Saturday, man. How are you doing? The weather is really nice. I'm really tired. Dude, for a game, I did a, did I already say this. I did it yesterday. I did it a little behind the scenes.

Maybe I'll get it edited today. Long day. We were doing Talking Yanks. I accidentally uploaded Talking Yanks to the Talking Baseball feed. So if any, Anyone got that? Like they woke up and saw it and listened to it. And they're like, what the fuck is this?

Now I got to listen to their talking Yanks garbage. I'm not into that because we're such homers on that show. What is this communist shit? Much more than here, I guess. Did these guys create a whole baseball podcast just to reel us in and then make us Yankees fans? Yeah. So I saw, I apologize about that. I posted on the wrong feed.

I caught it fairly quick, but changed it. Anyway, I'm really tired. Four games is a lot, dude. You know, like during the regular season on this show, we'd be like, hey, it's impossible to watch every game. It's not impossible to watch every game, but it's, I watched the Astros race game, Jake. Yeah. I had to remind myself about it. I had to go look at the box.

It's like, what happened? I watched the whole thing. So that's kind of where I'm at, little hazy. being a spectator for one of these teams, I forgot. I was tweeting the wild card games, willy-nilly, no care for anyone's emotions, just having a fucking blast as the third-party bystander. Then the first games of the NLDS doing the same thing,

covering them on Twitter, tweeting out every gif I liked, having a blast. And then the Yankees game comes, and every fucking pitch is a marathon and I'm just so in the mouse trap of like playoff baseball. I forgot. I forgot when you have a team in there. Like I was alive on Periscope for like at bats in the third inning

as if they were bottom nine. That's how playoff baseball is when you're in it though. It's really fun. It's taxing. I'm taxed. It's, uh, it's, It's a little daunting, and it's, again, we're only going to have one more four-game slate,

so I'm going to appreciate it. It was, I mean, in Mountain Time Zone, I went, I mean, noon to midnight with baseball. Pretty insane, but I'll take that more often than not. We are not the guys that's going to complain about the length of the game. I know there was a little bit of that on a couple of the broadcast last night, but don't care. Good baseball is good baseball. I think all the games yesterday were good games.

We'll get into them. You have Burns. The Reyes and Houston is the only one that I think wasn't like. Actually, okay, the Yankees and the twins at the end for non-Yankees fans. Yeah, both those games, the wheels came off at the end where I think the other ones kind of wrote it out. but I mean, Tampa Houston was a great game through five and should have been a better game outside that pop-up. But let's go, yeah.

Here we go. Jackie Burns, game two. Game one, ALDS. On your mark, get set. Burn! Game one, Tampa, Houston, the final level boss, Justin Verlander, and his Houston Astros hosted the,

Tampa Rays, hoping they wouldn't be made of glass now as Tyler takes the mound for them. A couple power righties. Insert your own Republican joke, I don't care. Like your ugly friend in college were scoreless through four until Jose Altuve, Jose Altuve, two runs shot into the Crawford boxes. Glass now would work out of it. Oh, no, Brandon Lowe. Two runs would score on a miss pop-up, yikes.

And you can't do that against Houston. And you especially can't do that against Justin Verlander. Seven innings pitch, one hit, eight K's. Why you mad, Tampa? As the who, what, where, when, and whys of Yarden and Yulee both hit RBI doubles, the race push a couple across late off of Ryan Elvis Presley. But Houston says, thank you very much. They take game one, six, two final.

Well, Elvis. Well, Elvis in the morning. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Didn't you date a girl that also dated Elvis? I dated Elvis's X, X, Elvis. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Elvis Andrus. As Andrews. This game, we were talking about this game together when we were doing whatever we were doing. yesterday. One, Verlander guaranteed seven innings. That's pretty much what I said. You can like guarantee it. Seven innings. One hit.

Zero and runs. Guys a fucking insane beast. My favorite pitcher to watch still. He's insane. McKay, or Glass Now was looking pretty good. Did you see the top of the first? The Astros came out swinging.

Like they put two hard hit balls that were caught deep in the outfield, which is what I said that their strategy should be like, if you want to do something, you got to jump on McKay early. They almost got him. Glassnow. Glass now.

I'm going to keep mistaking them because I want to talk about McKay later. Got to jump on Glassna early. But he was looking good, man. Then that Altovae home run, you have to be perfect. He gets pulled. It only goes four innings and a third. which, you know, with the Ray's bullpen, it's not kind of crazy.

Maybe that's all they needed. Or, you know, what I mean? Like, they're a team that's fine with a short leash, kind of like the Yankees. But that dropped ball, it's a stark reminder. Oh, no. We're the Reyes. They're the Astros.

And we just gave them a favor. And I think I, I think, yeah, Jim, before this game, I think I said something verbatim, like, the what to watch for is what's going to make. the raise crack. And when that pop-up dropped, it was over. I mean, the game ended right there. And yeah, Glassnow, he looked really good. Al-Tuve got him. It was a high fastball. It's why Al-Tuve is a special dude. 98 and at his shoulders. Al-Tupe cranks it to left field for the homer. He's, if you're a young kid who's listening, hey, take all your family's phones and leave us

five-star review and send us a picture of their credit card too. No, don't do that last part, just the reviews thing. But when your coaches are telling you like, hey, go up there wanting to swing. Jose Altuve is why. Yeah. Because you could learn how to take pitches. You can't learn how to do that. And yeah, I mean, that was the first crack. And then when that pop-up dropped, I mean, there was no coming back. that's a real because they scored two later on and i do think that's important for them if if the raise walked away from this game with no runs on the board i think you're kind of doing a little aw shucks and then if you don't score in the first couple innings against garrick cole which you're probably not you're going to be like okay are we just going to go scoreless this whole playoffs but

they got to presley in the bullpen and this is what i was kind of saying the other day and i got a little kickback, but Presley hasn't been the guy who started off the year with 30 scoreless appearances or whatever. So they get to the bullpen a little bit. They see a couple runs get put on the board. I do think there is a slight piece of importance on that. Garrett Cole and 14 strikeouts later, it might not matter, but that's for later. Why didn't the raise use, why did they use McKay out of the pen?

like white isn't that dude like was his name nick anderson yeah i mean they're all about matchups um so i mean what whatever they saw and i think he came in did brantley get him or no that's that's the whole pop-up thing um i don't know i was just like i was kind of why don't you use that guy who's fucking amazing yeah and that's that you we as you said to start this and i i texted you during the game, I said if the raise got through that fifth inning, which they clearly did not, that I thought it was basically a coin flip the rest of the way because you were going to get two more Verlanders and then the Houston pin versus that Ray's bullpen that'll match you up to death. They couldn't get through and I mean, that was kind of it.

Yeah. You want to share our thoughts on McKay? Because I think it's funny. Jake was so excited about Brandon McKay because he's a two-way player is a high prospect. You probably learned about him in your nerdy baseball game outside the park baseball. Is that what it's called? Yeah, and he was like a top pick in the draft. I'm usually pretty good with those guys too.

But yeah, I got excited. Louisville, I think he won the golden spikes. He could pitch. He could hit. And like with the Otani noise, it was like, all right, are we going to give this dude a chance? And so, yeah, and I'll preface this and I'll tee you up, Jim,

but I love baseball, obviously. We have a lot of T-shirts saying that. Baseball's fun. And don't get that as like, oh, you don't have to be competitive because winning's fun. I think that's why people like to go play for the Patriots and wherever you go to win. Brendan McKay is having a bad time when he's on a baseball field. It just looks like a pouty boy. He looks so angry.

It's like, dude, have fun out there, man. I think he's the most brooding man in baseball. He's like the John Snow of starting pitchers. It's like, like John Snow was kind of just like sad and sometimes it was funny. You're like, you do look sad, John Snow. McKay's so like pent up. It's like, dude, throw a curveball, strike someone out and smile. It's funny because I was like, damn, this guy sucks.

Presence on the mound alone. And yeah, I think if you're, if you don't fully understand what we're saying, maybe listen to when we talk about Edwin and Carnaccio and later. We just watch a game with McKay on the Mountain and see how he's the most brooding man in baseball. Yeah, or that. All right. Next game was, was next game Cardinals Braves? St. Louis, Atlanta.

All right, here we go. On your mark. Get set. Burr. Game two in the ATL as the Braves would turn to Mikey Faltenevich, hoping Fulti wouldn't it be Faulty verse. Oh, that's a bad man, mommy. Jack Flash Flaherty, one of the more special second halves of a season you'll see from a pitcher. As St. Louis tries to make it a 2-0 series lead, let the rain fall down and wake my dreams.

Josh Donaldson brings the rain with an RBI single in the first. They needed that. And then guess what, Jim? Fultie and Flashbowls shoved that JD RBI in the first was the only run until bottom seventh and what manager Brian Snicker called the old no yeah moment. Adam Duvall does it all. Two run, pinch hit Homer, hitting for Fulte. Wow, it's 3-0.

Melanson would shut it down by only giving up two hits, no runs. Atlanta bravely bounces back to win game two and tie up the series. I think we said like you got to get to if you want to get to, I'd say it's about every rookie pitcher. If you want to get to Florida, you got to get to him the first inning. It's your best chance. Glass now as well. They got one across and that was good enough for a while.

They rode Flaredy into the seventh because I don't know. It was a classic case of it was good enough for a while, but everyone in the building knew what happened yesterday and knew that one run was not going to be enough. I mean, once they push it to three, it turns out they did shut them out, but if you saw Malanson in the last inning, one run wasn't going to do it.

So, yeah, I guess that would be the conversation in St. Louis a little bit is... I wonder... I mean... I had to flip over to Yankee stop at this point, but I wonder who was warmed up. Because once they pinch hit for the pitcher, obviously, like, Fulte was shoving.

So maybe they leave Fulte in with the 1-0 lead because they want him to keep going and the Braves bullpen is bad. So maybe if you're the Cardinals, you think, okay, well, you know, McCann got a single. He's not that fast. He's not going to score. on a double even maybe.

There's two outs and the pitcher's up. So clearly you leave a man if the pitcher comes up. Then they pinch hit Duval for the pitcher. I think you can still, I think it's still fair to have confidence in Florida against Duval. Duval just came through. Yeah, I mean, Matt, if it was Joyce, maybe you say, okay, lefty and his splits.

Jim, this is where baseball takes over. and if you want to get mad at the managers, you can. But think about what I was just saying about the Braves bullpen. They looked like one of the least reliable things in this playoff. So they're pulling Fulte with a 1-0 lead, and Fulte just looked dominant. He was awesome. And if Duval goes out there and then the bullpen blows it, everyone's going to be all over Snickers saying,

oh, you should have just left Fulte in there, huh? It's kind of one of those do-or-dyes. He didn't know Adam Duval was going to hit. hit a 423 foot homer off Jack Flaherty, but he did. It's 3-0, and he looks like a genius. Yeah. And the cards get shut out. So this series is now one-in-one so much for the fear of Flaherty.

We didn't know that Fulte was going to go off. Yeah, Fulte'd been saving it. And again, I don't want to butcher the full story because I'm sure our Braves fans listen and know it better than me. But I think he had some hell stuff. He got sent down. and he just kind of wasn't right and he started showing signs

towards the end of the season and this was huge for him because he's a guy that was supposed to be part of this Braves future going forward he had a pretty atrocious year and now he's kind of cemented that's the guy they know and love in Atlanta so good for him

and how about freed coming out of the bullpen yeah I mean back to back games right two strikeouts again one inning pitch two strikeouts again one inning pitch two strikeouts again. We're seeing a lot of this in the National League. Yeah, and it's going to be, he's still lined up for game four. It'll be Soroka game three, freed game four, unless something changes.

But yeah, that's what the Braves have to figure out the rest of the way is because Anabal Sanchez, they have him and how and where are they going to use him. Is he just their emergency guy? and if he's not your emergency guy, then is Julio Teheran, another name we slaughter all the time. Tehran. How are you going to use one of those guys? You have to use Hannibal or you have to use Julio.

I don't think Tehron's on the roster. He replaced a cold play guy. Oh, Martin? That's what I'm saying, yeah. So now that you have both of them, you need to figure out how and where you're going to use at least one of them. him. Interesting.

Well, we'll preview game three tomorrow of that series. But that's fun. There's not going to be a sweep in the National League. And the other thing, the other big note about this game, Jimmy, I don't know if you saw this, but O'Connor Ronnie hustled the whole game as a normal baseball player would. And his quotes after were the quotes that they were looking for yesterday. He, like, apologized to little kids, and he's like, that's never acceptable. And he said, I've done that twice this year and it's never acceptable.

So just like that, I mean, look how the storyline of this series and everything that happened in game one, it's fully changed. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that he got a hard talking to from someone in PR department or, or hopefully he saw that his teammates were taking it serious. I'm like, nah, it's not cool. But, I mean, it's, I don't want to do it again. It's not that big of an issue. Yeah, and the other thing that was missing that you did say yesterday, I mean, the stuff that kind of gets lost in translation,

even the good quotes that came out after the game yesterday, they were still like just a little offbeat because there is a barrier. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I'm laughing because his translator, you'll love the way the Braves translator looks. So looks wacky. It looks like a music conductor for some Spanish orchestra.

I think I have seen that guy. Yeah. Yeah. He, like, translated him with like a stammer, which I don't know. Maybe the Yankees translator just cleans it up. But he like, yeah, yeah. I was like, dude, dude, dude, go to the next game, Jake, and this was ours. Yankees versus the Twinkies.

Yankees. Same burn that you did on talking Yanx or did you do a new one? Same burn. Let me make sure I've got it here. Yeah, I wasn't going to rewrite another one. So if this one has too much Yankee bias, I'm sorry, but noses your poses. On you, Mark. Get set.

Burn. Game one of the ALDS is the Minnesota Twinkies were hosted. by the 27-time world champion New York Yankees. How about some syrup on your pancakes on a nice autumnal day? James Paxton the Big Maple v. Jose Twigs and Berrios as Minnesota tries to gather a win in the boogie down, like pre-gaming when your buddies aren't home. How about a couple solo shots?

Jorge Placito, Polanco, and Nelson cruises one out, a pair of runs for the twins. Ha! Bottom three, show me your bird. Edwin's back, RBI double. Baby, baby, glaiby, oh. Two runs score with a little help from the air from C.J. Crohn. Three, two, Yanks. Minnesota would tie it up in the fifth, but they pulled a league course.

So not so fast, my friend. Happy college football Saturday. You got to see the baby. The Venezuelan Victor, Gracius de Caracas, two RBI double for the kid, Glaber, Torres. 5-3 yanks, but you so know the twins aren't just going to roll over as Miguel goes yard, but at 5-4, the bombers would open up the floodgates. I go DJ, and as a DJ, LaMayhew Bomb.

Red Solo Cup, hey, I'll fill you up. It's a guarded party. He goes solo job, a palm from Brett Gardner, 7-4, then like punching your address into your Tesla, let the machine bring you home la machina d j lamehue bass is clearing double another hit the pitching goes paxton to vino to canley to the goose chad green to britain to happer hello to chappie pinstripes take game one 10 four final it's a long one i still like that burn a lot as a yankee as a yankee fan got a lot of good stuff in there second time hearing it a lot of good stuff there's a lot of

a lot of tidbits. Yeah, I don't normally do the pitchers at the end for the other burns. But, yeah, no. And I had to clarify the goose being Chad Green. Yeah. Well, he is the goose. He is the goose, though. So now you know.

So what are national baseball fans or third party fans need to know? Two home run hitting teams. I think there was a lot of home runs hit. There's four? Yeah. Polanco, Cruz. Sano, LeMayhew, and Garty. So there's five.

Five home runs hit. All solo shots. The Yankees had guys on base every inning. I think every inning but one, they had guys on base. A lot of traffic. They scored 10 runs. They left 7 on base, which is good. I mean, good for the Yankees.

The twins pitching is suspect. And I know everyone likes to think that about the Yankees pitching. The Yankees bullpen's good. Paxton wasn't amazing in any regard. It wasn't anything you'd write home or show highlights of, but he gutted out four and two-thirds, all solo shots, whatever. Berrios, no one was fooled by his off-speed the entire game. Like, they were just spitting on it the entire game.

And Smaltz was like he started it too low. It's obvious it's an off-speed pitch. So he struggled. The story is the Yankees had eight walks. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the whole savages in the box rant that my friend on the other end of the mic brought to the world. They control the zone.

It's been their motto all season since spring training. Eight walks. And there was only one of the walks was a guy that came out of the Twins bullpen that was clearly overmatched in his first playoff outing. the rest of them were like good walks. Giancarlo Stanton was spitting on pitches. He had three walks. Judge had some great at bats. For Yankee Land, the big takeaway is that there was a couple guys, well, for me,

there was a couple guys that were injured, Encarnacion, Gary Sanchez, and Giancarlo hasn't barely played this year. They all looked good slash healthy enough. and for Jincarlo and Gary, I think it's a weird mix. Gary doesn't look right now necessarily, but he still looks solid. Giancarlo looks locked in at the dish, but he's running at like 75%. But yeah, I don't know. And I think this game played out almost exactly how you and I thought it would.

Like, yeah, there were some homers, and they kind of went shot for shot a little bit, but that Minnesota bullpen, and I'm sorry to all my twins fans, but you're going to have to point out to me one guy that you should, that Yankees hitters should be worried about. Yeah, that sounds harsh. Bruce Star Gratterol. He looked fucking good. He's the guy.

They need to up him up. I mean, do you think, well, we'll see how many games they play, but do you think like, If the twins were to make the ALCS, I think Graterall is going to have to become a main cock. But they're going to have to ride him. Yeah. Because no one else puts fear into hitters at all. He's the only guy that's coming out of the pen with special armed talent.

We only saw one of the killer T's yesterday, as I labeled them. I think he was the only twins pitcher that didn't give up a run. Yeah. and Gratterol. But yeah, so we didn't necessarily see the twins' best guys, and it did open up a little more. Kyle Gibson's had a horrible year. Stash it got knocked around.

So, yeah, I mean, maybe Taylor Rogers and Bruce Star figures it out, and that changes the storyline. But, yeah, I mean, the Yankees kind of Yankees the twins last night. Hopefully it'll happen again tonight. We'll preview that in a little bit, but we got one more game to burn, and this one was a little bit of a doozy. The National League has been given us good games.

Jake, are you ready? I am ready. Take us to L.A. Eddie Bach. It is it? Stephen A. Strasbourg and the Nats trying to break servers. The Dodgers and Clayton, Bigsby, Kershaw, as they try not to crack in Hollywood.

But top one, Howie Mandel, Kendry. deals out an RBI single 1-0-0-Natitudes. Top two, the Nats are eaten as Adam hits an RBI single, followed by Carmelo Anthony Rendon, shooting a deep contested two. His double scores eaten and it's 3-0-X-post. Justin the Wildling Turner turns things north for the Dodgers with a sack fly in the 6.

Only run they'd get off Strausburg, six innings pitch, 10-Ks dominant. But oh boy, here to be. comes the Nats pen. Doolittle does just that as Max Muncie. Pimp jobs won. One run game as droopal Cabrera with the big Geico insurance run, the Natitudes show fortitude as the score is 4 to 2.

But as the Joker said, you always need an ace in the hole. And out of the bullpen comes their defender of the night. Max Scher strikes out the side in the 8th, calling him Michael Orr for how he blindsided the Dodgers. Daniel Hudson does some yoga on the mound as he bends but doesn't break. Huge strikeout of Seeger to end it. Nats head back to the Capitol happy. Four to two win.

Series tied. They had the Dodgers had the bases loaded in the 9th, ready to break it open. But Hudson came through and struck out Seeger. Yeah. Corey Seeger puts a ball in the gap that burns a lot different. Oh, yeah. This was a good game. And Scherzer out of the pens of fun storyline.

Feel bad for Kershaw because did you like see? We were watching the Yankees game when this game started, but I went back and like, it's pretty brutal, man. Like, I hit by pitch in the first. A hit by pitch in the second. And then kind of like the first inning is pretty sad because it's double by Trey Turner. Then the first out you get, they gave you an out because they wanted to move him over. then you hit then you hit sodo kendrick gets a hit ryan zimmerman pops out and then Suzuki's out

there's like not impressive outs there yeah it's i mean it's it's it's playoff kershahn it's a debate because he ends up having a quality start but in the playoffs is it especially when you when you give up the runs early like that and then that's where three nothing and in control um Obviously the story would have changed if the Dodgers put up a seven spot, but they didn't because Strasbourg's dirty. But yeah, I mean, this has kind of been like the story of Playoff Kershaw. Like, it's not bad, but it wasn't good enough. And that hit by pitch on Soto, you could see like his, you could almost see the demons come back into his body. He was like, are you fucking kidding me?

I just hit him with that. So that was tough for them. I'm Strausberg, man. Everyone's, I don't know if you've seen these stats circling yet, but technically in four games started, he has the lowest playoff ERA ever. Yeah. Don't.

I can't believe you brought that up. I'm in on Strasbourg, man. I like Strasbourg. Don't give me in minimum four games. Who the fuck cares about that stat? Hey, I care for those four games, baby. That's Jakey's butternives right there. They're stats.

That's all they are. You can't let them hurt them. That's stupid. Minimum four games. Okay. Thanks for sure. They're the stats. They're irrelevant.

You think Dodgers fans are getting a little worried or bummed out about Bellinger? It doesn't have a hit yet. Um, interesting. Are they bummed out about Bellinger? I'd say no. Um, I mean, you saw, it was Corbyn game one. Corbin's got a wipeout slider. Um, when he, when he,

when he figured it out, he figured it out. And Strasbourg, I mean, like you just said, he's the best playoff starting pitcher ever. So I don't think you can necessarily hold Cody at bay. He needs to do something in Washington, though. He needs to get hit. Someone in the chat said, I'm salty. Strasbourg is amazing.

I don't care about fucking Strasbourg. It's just dumb to say for minimum four starts. Nothing against the player. It's the stat. Can you give me minimum one start? Let's celebrate that guy. Okay, yeah, best playoff start ever. I'd love to celebrate that guy.

He deserves it. Don Larson. I think he's had more than that, though. No, we're just doing minimum one game. Right, but it's like career stats. What's that? I mean, they're technically two different things, but I see what you're doing.

Balinger needs to get a hit. Big hit with how bad he was in the postseason last year. And he's hitless. Eight played appearances, zero hits. He had two walks yesterday. I don't, he's the MVP, Jake, currently has hitless. And he had the worst playoffs ever last year. I'm telling you, I think Dodgers fans are a bit on edge.

Like, they need a big hit. I think you're a little too far. I mean, yeah, you obviously want that out of that guy. but he got him based twice in the first game. He got walked. And then he, like you and the salty chat is telling you, he faced the best playoff starter ever. So he needs to do something in D.C. for sure.

His career postseason on base percentage is now 227. It's not good. 33 games. Yeah, it's not good. Yeah, the other thing from this game, A, the catch Rendon made in the ninth, did you see that? Yeah, it was pretty nuts. That could have also changed the burn significantly if he doesn't catch that ball. And then this is just kind of a fun fact.

Well, A, and I don't know if you want to dive into this a little bit, but Scherzer comes out of the pen. He strikes out the side in the eighth inning, and it was the first time a Nationals pitcher had struck out the side in the eighth inning, since June when Max Scherzer did it in a game he started. That's fucking crazy. So that's pretty cool. Jake, he didn't actually research that. That was on either after the game on TBS or one of them, but still pretty crazy.

And Dave Roberts, and again, if this Dodgers ship starts going downhill fast, disco Dave's out of town, he's straight upset. He's like, oh, yeah, we didn't think they'd use Strasbourg. And it's like, whoa, man. I mean, think about it for more than a second. Yeah. What changes, though? Like, they would prep for Schroesberg?

I mean, you maybe manage the game differently thinking, you maybe manage the game a little more differently thinking that instead of, hey, we're going to have three innings at this terrible bullpen instead of, we're going to have two innings at this terrible bullpen and won by arguably the best pitcher in baseball. We were a little surprised they didn't just go Scherzer for two. they brought Hudson out and we were a little close to being correct Hudson loaded them up and again the burn would be different this whole podcast would be different if if Corey Seeger gets one which he almost did there's seven straight high high and away fastballs that he had a chance to put

the barrel on Hudson does get him with a nice inside back foot slider but yeah and I if you're going to use Scherzer there which clearly they made a conscious decision before the game. It's not like, hey, Max, what do you? You want to run out there, bud? No, like they came into this knowing they were going to use Scherzer. And man, if Hudson blew that game, a two-run game and you did burn 14 bullets out of Scherzer, I mean, that would have been an awful look.

Yeah, that's true. I would have used Scher for true. And again, that's the whole playoff managing. I mean, we would be killing, killing the Nationals, if Hudson got rocked, which he basically did, but he didn't. Yeah, yeah. Come on, Seeger, change the storyline.

No, I'm happy that it's a one-to-one series. Both National League series are good. I was watching MLB TV, and who's the guy on MLB TV? I can't think of it. DeRosa? No, no, no, no, no, no. Howie. Oh, the, like, main broadcaster guy?

No, and he's on the studio. like it's such a popular name that I just Reynolds Harold Reynolds Harold Reynolds I don't know why I was blanking on that Harold Reynolds was talking about how you know these national league pitchers are just attacking and they're just going right at batters and they're doing really good and like he wants to see that in the American League and I'm like dude look at the Astros Yankees and twins lineups. in comparison to the Braves, nationals, and the Dodgers have a good lineup,

but the Braves, nationals, and Cardinals. Like, there's clear holes, plus a pitcher hitting that allows you to just attack. It's such a different animal

with the Astros, uh, Astros, uh, Astros Yankees and twins who have legit, like mashers up and down. Yeah. And I mean,

uh, and, sample size, too. Again, Strasbourg, you could watch Jimmy and I dance around it all day. He's really good. That's the consensus. He has 10 strikeouts. The Dodgers as a team have 17 strikeouts. But 13 of those came from Strasbourg and Scher to two of the best starting pitchers. And then the other ones came from who are supposed to be the back end of their bullpen. So that's a little different. And then we touched upon it with the twins. The twins clearly came in yesterday like, let's get ahead, which they did a lot, but they weren't going to give the Yankees anything. They wanted the Yankees to get themselves out, and they refused. Eight walks. It was not necessarily the prettiest baseball, but if you like a good at bat,

the Yankees were just saying no. If you're going to be off the plater in the dirt, we're not offering. And I think that's, well, maybe this is the segue, but in today's Yankees' Twins game, that's the number one what to watch for. For anyone watching behind the scenes. We have an ad agency that sometimes put ads in for us. Anyway. All right.

Let's preview these games coming up. What you segue with us into? We have the two American League series. The first game of the night is the Yankees at the Twins. Yankees have Tanaka going, who we have blind faith in in the postseason. He's been nothing. Yeah, do we have to preface this whole thing?

No, I'll tone it down. We have blind faith in Tanaka. He's, does he have rough games? Like sometimes he's a bit of a coin flip? Sure. He's always brought it in the postseason. So hopefully he does again for me as a Yankees fan. The twins apparently had Odorizzi warming up and then scratched him, put him on game three,

and have Dobnack pitching game two. Randy Dobnack, as a cool story, started the season in single A, was an Uber driver in the offseason. But that's kind of getting blown out of proportion because a lot of minor leaguers have other jobs in the off season. Like a lot our good best friend Tim Melville works at a barbecue place in the off season. So I'm kind of sick of people acting like that's so crazy. Like, yeah, you got a part-time job because minor league baseball players get paid dirt. Pretty normal. But he's only started five games this season.

He's appeared in maybe 10. He hasn't really faced any good lineups. His starts were against no playoff teams, right? Yeah, he only had one appearance against the playoff team. It was one inning against the Nats, and they did score a run. I mean, I'm not going to deep dive into that. They're taking a chance. Randy Domnack has pitched really well for them.

I think his ERA is at 159 or something like that. Good for you, Randy Dobn? Listen, I said I'd tone it down a little bit. But I've been saying this. I've been saying this all season. All of the twins' good stats are bullshit. Yeah, Randy Dobnick looked really good against the Royals and the Tigers in late September.

Yeah. What's the judge there? What are we judging? Don't tell me Randy Dobnack looked really good in September. He literally faced teams that were already bad to have zero interest in playing baseball. So we will see. But it's kind of like how all the twins numbers, you kind of have to like really peel in and like, wait, hold on. This isn't as impressive as it seems. Played a lot of bad teams. And yeah, the Odirzi thing is interesting.

And Jim, I personally like the move because, and again, tweet of me talking Jake if you think this is too Yankee land. But think about the names I'm about to say, Jake Oterizzi, who's been around the league and done it for a while in the ALEs for a little while nonetheless. Randy Dobnack, we already covered that. A rookie who's going to be on the mound at Yankee Stadium today against one of the better lineups you'll ever see on a baseball field. I like it because I think if you're the twins, you're trying to think of how to win baseball games.

Hot take Jake. Here I am again. And what are we working on today, folks? Well, Rocco, today the meeting is how are we? you're going to win the next game how are we going to win and i i think if you if you laid out the remaining options for minnesota it's okay are we going to try to put something together at home the stadium will be rocking in minnesota target field baby and we're going randy dobbnack to the pen and we'll figure it out or is your best chance hey we'll throw dobbnack and a bunch of different guys at

you and maybe the hitting goes off and maybe the pitching figures something out And if it doesn't, we lose, which bias podcast right now. But Oda Rizzi at home and game three gives them their best chance to win a game. So I like that for them. Okay. Cool. The lineup should be about the same for both teams, I believe, right? There's not a lot of splits going on.

Some Yankee fans think Didi might be out and Voight might be in. I think they roll back the same lineup. Yeah, I think the Yankees after the win are going to roll back the same line. up in Masahiro Tanaka, we said blind confidence before. He does have 30 playoff innings to the tune of a 1-5 ERA. That's the reason why we have blind confidence in him. For the twins, Jim, you might see a little bit of platoon stuff. The one that's going to be interesting, and I'm sure as a conversation, is Mitch Garver,

who's had such a great year and was batting leadoff yesterday. They also have Jason Castro, who came back down to Earth a little bit, but he is a lefty bat. so do they throw him in versus Tanaka. I think that's really the only conversation. Because the lineup didn't fully do their job. It was all solo homers. But, I mean, the twins' bats are there. If there's runners on base, you need to be worried about these twins.

Yeah, I was trying to find something, Randy Dobnack, Jake. Yes. The other thing, so like I'm too confident and it's going to, it might come crashing down on me or it may not. That's the gamble of life. He pitches to contact. Right. Against the Yankees. Yeah?

In the postseason. Pitching the contact to the Royals in September might work out. You can see how scared of contact the twins were yesterday, eight walks, so we'll see. Maybe we'll be punching ourselves in the faces, and it'll be frustrating as all hell. And you know how impactful a double play ball is in the playoffs. And I think the only other thing for the Twins is maybe they try to get Jonathan Schope in the lineup somewhere because he's a righty. Or excuse me, no, they won't try to get scope in there.

I was thinking about yesterday's game. Yeah, I don't know. Randy Dobnack, you're going to have to prove us wrong, dude. Well, it'd be a big time hero. It would be a big story. So I don't think we're that out of line with this because if Randy Dobnack deals against the Yankees for even five innings of like one hit ball, that's a huge story. Like that's going to be like Randy Dobnack came out of nowhere and beat the Yanke. Like you know what I mean?

Well, no, I think that would be the counter. I think if our twins fans are listening, they'd say, hey, Dobnack was good, man. He's got really good numbers. We're expecting him to be good today. Yeah, but they. And then if he was, they'd say, hey, you guys, you guys, you guys, Yankee fan jerks. Randy Dobnack's a stud. I've been on, I've been hard on the Twins way before I knew we were going to play in the postseason.

Day one. Beat good teams and I won't be hard at you. They had, for anyone that's listening for the first time, twins had the most amount of games against teams under 500. They had the least amount of games against teams over 500. And they had a losing record to the teams that were over 500. and their only team in the playoffs to have a losing record against teams over 500 because they play in the worst division in all of baseball.

Yeah. Three teams actively trying to not win games. So that's my day one stance has been this twins team is going to need to prove me wrong. And I didn't know they were going to be playing the Yankees. So it's not a Yankee thing. No, and today's a big game for them Because another thing that they did have That was a good stat for the Minnesota Twins

Was they had the best road record in baseball Which is impressive however you want to dice it up If a lot of those If a lot of those games are White Sox Royals, Tigers It does make it easier But an impressive road record is an impressive road record But game two at the Bronx Zoo today Dobnack

I don't know. Surprise me, twins, but like totally don't at all, because I'll kill you. In the other game, Astros versus Ray's, we got Blake Snell versus Garrett Cole. Hey, here's Verlander, seven innings, one hit, now enjoy Cole. Honestly, and not to be shots fired at Garrett Cole,

but it's still better than Verlander. Yeah, you got to take. Yes, I agree. You know, Garrett Cole, his postseason, he's got pretty good postseason stats, a 372 ERA 29 innings. So he's been there. Boston got to him last year. Yeah, last year Boston got to him. Cleveland put up one run, which would, hey, be better than Verlander.

So I don't know if you're Tampa, I think Kevin Cash actually handled it well. He said, hey, we got Verlandered. It is what it is. Yeah, you got to put together some at bats. And again, you have that belief from yesterday that if you get a chance, again, if you're in the game versus Houston's bullpen, that's basically as much as you can ask for for Tampa. And go do it, right?

Yeah. Snell hasn't looked that good since coming back from injury. And he's never made it out of the third inning in two games, where he threw 50 pitches and then 62 pitches, so that could have got him if he was pitching well. But, I mean, in his last game, Jake, he gave it in 2.1 innings. So that's 7 outs. Before he got 7 outs, he allowed 3 hits and 2 walks.

So before he got 7 outs, he put 5 people on base. In the game before that, he only went 1 and 2 3rd, so that's 5 outs. Before he got 5 outs, he put 5 people on base. two hits and three walks. So it's been a tough last two. He's going to have to like step up and bring it. Snell at his best is really, really good. But I wouldn't be surprised if Houston jumps him.

Yeah, they've got so many good tough righty bats. And they might only ask Snell to get through the lineup once, depending what that pitch count looks like. They're hoping that he would get through clean twice. but I wouldn't be surprised if they kick it. Like, is Torino's on the playoff roster? Because he's a righty and he's a guy that can frustrate you. But I don't know.

I don't want to, this sounds like such bad sports radio. I don't want to say I'm calling out Blake's now, but I'm calling out Blake's now. You know, you were the Cy Young winner. You had a bad year. You could cover up a lot of that. And there was injuries. You could cover up a lot of that with one good start today.

And he's got all the talent in the world And maybe it's just Yankees bias Because the Astros are a fucking force But I'd love to see Snell show something today Yeah They got Chorinos, Castillo, and Nick Anderson Are they like big Rides? Well, then Emilio Pagan at the end

Chasro they used yesterday I think Drake they used yesterday So maybe they're saving Chorinos and Anderson for today I have no idea And yeah, Chorinos, man, he's a guy that just frustrates you Because it's good stuff, it's not necessarily strikeout stuff, but it's good stuff That would be interesting if Snell could go clean and they kick it to Chorinos Or, I mean, if Snell can get four I mean, you're into the actual dudes in that raised bullpen

So, I mean, that's what that whole series breaks down to That's what that whole series breaks down to Boing. I think we're good. We've covered our basis, right? We're good. Four games? Maybe a longer episode than we wanted because it's four damn games.

But we have four again on Monday. But first, two on Saturday, both ailes, two on Sunday. We will be back each day to recap what happened and preview what's coming up. We thank you guys for listening. We appreciate it if you'd like to leave a review or if you'd like to subscribe. If you'd like to do all that shit. That would be kind of you. It would be very nice.

Thanks. Enjoy your weekends.