Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 321 | Reds are Rolling, Bauer's Balls, Conforto's Lean, & Byron Buxton

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Go to https://getroman.com/jomboy now to get 15% off your first order Head to https://kushydreams.com and use promo code 'BASEBALL' at checkout for 20% off your next order Timestamps: 5:00 - NL Recap 14:20 - AL Recap 30:30 - Controversial Mets Call 35:00 - Interleague Recap / Bauer's Balls 46:20 - Standout Performances 1:04:00 - Slump Watch 1:10:45 - En Fuego 1:16:30 - Awards 1:27:15 - Elevator Talk: Detroit Tigers Presented by DraftKings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. We got another series recap a full week of games. Some teams swept. Others got swept. That's how it works. Let's talk about it. Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Thank you guys very much for tuning in and hanging out with us for a little bit on this Friday afternoon.

As we recap the week that was. My name is Jimmy sitting next to me. I got Jake. We got Trevor Plouffe coming here from California. and BBD in the corner producing his butt away. This episode is brought to you some very, brought to you by some very special patrons. Ben Colpine, Joe Duffy.

I know that one. Dan Peters and Ian Jaffe? Jaff? I'm going to go Jaffe. It's more fun. J-A-F-F-E. Those are most recent patrons. Thank you guys very much.

We have a Patreon. We give them a lot of. of exclusive content. There's some Twitter account, an Instagram account that does a behind the scenes, lets them know when we have guests on, gives them kind of some insight. We also do a Q&A once a month, Jake and I, behind the scenes of the company, of our lives, of whatever we want. It's Q&A.

And there's a ton of other perks that come with a patron. So check it out if you want to. Young Jake, how are you doing? James, Trevor, David Mendelssohn. Doing well. Doing well. Just got my first VAC shot. backed up and waxed up.

Winkie's a little small, but that's no side effects from the shot. But I'm feeling good, man. I think the Yankees getting a day off. What's going on right now? Where's that come from? Some people are wondering if that's a side effect. Oh.

It's not. Well, I actually don't know because I have... That's a personal thing. I'm doing well, man. I'm excited to get into the weekends. slate of games. It's kind of, you know, we're starting to get out of excuses season, man, you know, a week in, you know, the arms are loose. The backs are loose. If you're slumping, you're slumping and we're going to come at you at you in Fuego. Get ready, Treve.

You and Chris Rose on the pregame show. Treve, how are you doing? I'm doing great now. I need a little picnic up right there. That was an incredible introduction. So I'm excited for your vaccine. Not related. Well, I got to talk to Jake and noodle last night when he was walking the streets. Yeah. And he had like a nice button up shirt on.

He just got some sushi. So it was like sexy, you know, kind of like established dad Jake. And I really liked what I saw. I saw like your future. You saw my city vibe. You saw the bomber jacket. on. You look really good.

Noodle. Wasn't there a couple that was like trying to commandeer you to come into their apartment or something? They made a play. They had a little wine

on their breath and oh, we like your dog. Why don't you come upstairs and try this vaccine? Nice people. That's where you got it from. Yes.

They gave me the first dose. Oh, you guys. Yeah. Love it. I got a haircut. Huge. Didn't you get a haircut right before you came out here?

Yeah, I had to go get it done up again because I'm going to Florida. You didn't like it. Oh, okay. All right. Well, let's get right into this slate of games. How are you, Tim? Oh, I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

You know, we front load our weeks like crazy at John Boy Media. Like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for me, Jake and BBD are, and especially this past Wednesday because we did that live show are an absolute like slog of content where Thursday's pretty light. Friday's really light. After this, I'm heading home. I'm watching the Yankees day game, opening up against the race. So I'm excited. So yeah, Friday shows. I mean, the drinking on Wednesday really threw me for a loop because Thursday felt like Friday. And then I was like, oh yeah, but Fridays are like to anyway. I was like, well, we have the recap show, which is a pretty big, big chunk of content we bite off. So I'm good. I'm excited. I did the classic. I knew I had

the NL. So I went through all the NL games. I like made sure I kind of tuned in to them. The AL Trev, which you have this week and Jake, you have the Interleague series. I don't know, nothing. And I'll be honest about it. Like I tuned in to games here and there, but I really, yeah, I was watching and following baseball, but I'm excited to see what happened in the AL. But let's start off and I will tell you guys what happened in the NL. Are you ready? Here we go. Oh, here we go. The Red swept the pirates. We talked about how they have an early schedule,

early week schedule, and they can really take advantage of it, and they did. Nacquint has two homers. Castillo, seven shut out innings for them. They needed that. Castiano's just going crazy, having fun. They're the swag, bad team, bad guys. Talking about sweeps in the central, the Cardinals.

They sweep the Marlins, they right the ship. They got good pitching from De Leon and. John Gant and our dude J-Flare, which they needed after the bad pitching in the first series. Marlins don't do a lot of the hitting. The Mets and Phillies, they played an exciting series. Phillies take two of three more versus DeGrom. DeGromoom goes six shutout. Then they lose the win for them.

Stroman pitch as well. Our guy Reese is hitting the hell of the ball. Brewers took two out of three from the Cubs. The brew crew arms are shot. showing off. Freddy Peralta, who we were told that they really like, has a good outing. My dude, Travis Shaw with the big three-run homer, Lo Kane with the three-run homer. Woodruff, he has a no-hit bid of his own. Giants and Padres played each other.

The Giants won the series as the Padres get the bad Tatis news, and they lose the series to the Giants. Darren Ruff had two homers. Braves take two out of three from the Nationals. Juan Soto hit a walk-off. in game one. Max Friede pitched pretty poorly, bad outing by him. And Yanoa and Strasbourg had a pitcher's duel. Well, there's a lot of National League's games.

Rockies and Diamondbacks, they played as well. Rockies took two out of three from the D-backs. Yeah, I got to get a longer version of the song. Marte left game two with cramps. Sanzatella had a really good, really good outing. And that's the NL. I can loop it. I can loop that song.

I think I'm going to loop it. Just follow your heart, man. It's been loop. How about that Phillies infield? How about that Phillies infield? People are talking. Pretty good. People are talking.

People are starting to talk about them. Yeah, how about the Reds and the Cardinals, both teams that Don Red in the NL Central getting sweeps? They meet up in a couple weeks, and we talked last episode about how, you know, if the Reds keep this train rolling, they got like Arizona coming. up and then I think another team that's not like, you know, on paper, incredibly hard. Whatever, you know what I'm saying. The pirates are also so bad on purpose and on purpose.

Pirates are bad. Jim, the Reds, five and one on the season, five and one at home. You know, I know baseball isn't a sport where we start a lot of people lean on home and road splits. I can help you out, big buddy. let me know next time. But, man, you know, MLB is the same way. We see teams every year that they've dominated home. They take care of their home series.

I mean, we've talked about it with Yankee stuff for a little bit. It's like take care of your business at home. When your home series, stay 500 on the road. And that's a formula to get into the playoffs. Interested to see as the Reds eventually go on the road. But, man, they are, you know, one of the early storylines in baseball. Them and the fills, keep hitting, man. Those are tough lineups to get through, and if they pitch enough, they're good.

I was happy to see the Braves take a few because they get swept and they go in, get the walk off. And I think they ended up taking two in a double header, right? Yes, they also went off. Because if they start to keep going down that path, I mean, that's my World Series champs right there. And, you know, sometimes you just need a few wins to get you started, jump start for them. So I was happy to to see them kind of clawback, show some fight, you know, start hitting the ball a little bit.

But there were some definitely some good series. You did not mention my guy Longo. He's got three homers already. Just an old dude getting it done for the Giants. Who are the Giants? Who are the Giants? Who are the Giants? I don't understand what's going on up there,

but they take two out of three from San Diego. Their pitching's been good. Gossmann had a really good game. Sonsetel had a really good game. game. You said about the Braves. They lost game one to the Nats, Trev, the nine in the game they played. But in that loss, Acuna homers in the first inning, Freddie Freeman homers in the first inning, Danzby Swanson homers in the second inning. Acuna homers again in the third inning. Like, they lost the game, but it was, I think it might have been a breath of like, okay,

we're going to be all right. Yeah, well, that's what they were, they were horrible offensively the first series. So they needed to get the bats going and they did. I mean, it's off Shurs or two. So it's not like you can be like, well, it was off. They're confetti. So that's cool. Ronald Acuna is sneaking up like the all-time lead-off homers list. Is he?

Yeah. He's like, it's like 23 or whatever. I think I want to say he's approaching top three all-time or something like that. I believe so. We'll double-check. Who are the leaders? Yeah. Can we get BPD, get some leaders on that?

Ricky Henderson has 81. Alfonso Soriano is 54. Craig Bizio has 53. Maybe like... Maybe there was like a caveat like for the Braves. I think he's got the Braves already. I'll get the staff for you. Either way.

Brian Dozier, Jock Jones. One nothing, baby. Really good. And gets overlooked a lot. Tied the Braves record. Everyone talks about Soto. But this guy's doing it too. Elise has 21 first inning homers.

Yeah, yeah. He tied the Braves record for leadoff home runs. He's still like... Yeah, but all the articles are like, is he going to catch Ricky? And there's some other all-time stuff. I mean, it's impressive. 20th lead-off homer.

20 lead-off homers. That's nuts. That's a freak. Freak show. George Springer's in the back from me saying that is that the Phillies are going to be good? BPD's taking all those pads. Yeah.

He kind of is. It's not just the infield BBD. It's everybody. They're playing really well right now. Team sport. It's a fact. Anything else in the National League? Galsman outpitched Snell.

That was pretty cool. That was like, you know, they went out and made the big, it's one game, so it's not bigger than that. But it's funny because they gave him the qualifying offer and everyone was like, what? And Snell was the big grab. So them to go head to head. Some offseason storylines matching up.

I thought that was cool. If you're a pitcher, leave Baltimore, man. Gossman, Bundy, Areietta. Jeez, man. Cobb. Nobody wants to talk about the Rockies, huh? Get a big series against Jimmy's D-backs. Yeah, I saw that series.

I just laughed. I was like, I got talking about this. Bruce Cubs. I feel like we didn't talk about that a lot. I mean, division is going to be up in the air all year. Low cane, baby. Back at it. Three run game win and ding dong.

Different. Yeah, they live in a guy with the three-run homer. Travis Shaw had a first inning three-run homer that I think they rode all the way to the finish of the game. Pretty exciting stuff. It's so early. Usually we're like standing and all this stuff. It's pretty early. Any Jack Flaherty update, Trev.

Pitched well. I told him, you know, obviously great job, great bounce back star, and he was happy about it. And he said, I'll get you a knock, though. He's like, it's coming. Oh, okay. Wow. Okay. Philly got his knock.

But Jay Flair, you know, I was going to be his hitting coach. Then the whole COVID thing happened and blah, blah, blah. So maybe look for that in the 2021 off season. Flare already had a rough first inning. And after his first start, I, some Cardinals fans may have been like, oh my God. I think he went like walk, single walk. He got helped with the caught stealing.

Yaddy, I'm guessing, was his catcher there. And then he settled down pretty nicely. Ends up with a one hitter. So through six. Good job for him. Yes, someone tweeted at me like, what's up, but your boy J. Flair? And it was like, I looked at the phone.

It was the same. It was the first inning, a couple runners on base. And I looked back again an hour later and he was six shuddy. Yeah. Aronado getting the love from the hometown crowd. that was cool. Baseball City, baseball guy. Let's move on to the NL.

Everybody. What's that? They give love to everybody there. It's cool. It's cool. Like if you ever played there, like literally ever played there and you go back like you're going to get a standing ovation.

Let's go to the AL, which is brought to you by Cushy Dreams. Obviously you know about our friends over at Cushy Dreams. They work with us in almost like everything we do. They love us. We love them. We're having a good time. You guys are having.

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I'm going to smoke a little bit, Trev, while you tell me what happened in the American League. I want to cut both you guys off because I see the chat. going a little bit. I think we do need to remind the people the series recap episodes are for this week's series. So I know a lot of you guys are jazzed up and you want to hear about the Conforto elbow and some of that stuff. That's next series. We acknowledge it along the way, but we're recapping this week's series. Yeah, we'll get to some of that. Yeah. Maybe there will be an award involved. Could be. Maybe not. Maybe not. I'm not giving Conforto an award. No. I debated it, but not part of this series.

What happened, Trev? My twins going into Detroit. They take two of three, but maybe the story is still Akeel Badu. Just coming up and doing extraordinary things. He has a walk-off in game two. Nelson Cruz does what Nelson Cruz does. Just hit, he hits bombs. Mr. Grand Slam foul hits it next to bat, gets it back.

I think he had two grand slams in the series. Twins look good, man. Twins look good. We always talk about them. Their offense has been showing out. Blue Jays visiting the Rangers. Rangers take two or three, which is shocking to me. But our guy Gibby, huge bounce back start. I talked to him about it.

I'm going to be seeing him in Tampa in a few days. I'm very excited about that. Matt's also looked really good for the Jays. You know I'm a big Matt's guy and he showed out for me. The Blue Jays needs someone to step up. Maybe Matt's will be the guy. Royals at the Indians. They split the series.

Duffy looks good in game one. Six shut up. out innings. Whitmerfield looking good to three run homer or hit his third homer, excuse me. J. Ram, our guy who's probably going to be playing for the Braves at some point this season, hits two homers in game two. And Jacob Junis looks good. Five shutout innings in the first start of the season. After two scoreless leaf outings against Rangers in game two. End of the song. Beauty. Was that perfect timing by you? That's professional. That's show. No, there's plenty more games. There's a lot of games. I'll loop it for you. Keep going.

Loop that bad, boy. I need the music. Oreos. Go into Yankees Stadium. The Yankees take two out of three. Stanton hits a grand slam. Judge Homer's, but then we're going to have to be talking about his oblique, because you know that's what it is, Jim. No hiding that. No sugar-coating it. It's not a COVID shot, as I guy Dan Rourke says. He's got to be his oblique.

Okay? They take two out of three. Montgomery looks really good. He's like been a C.C. Sabathia's taken under his wing, and now he looks all good. so Gumbi Nation, good for you. Red Sox sweep the raise at home. Full pension, Piv, my guy, goes in five shutout endings in game one.

Glassdowne looks really good, but they blow his game for him. Iovaldi comes out. Those seven one-run endings in game three, Christian Bastas with a few homers. Unfortunately, a couple guys on the raise. You're missing some time. Nick Anderson and then Fairbanks is placed on the I-L.

Astros going down and visiting the Angels. What a great series this was. They split the series. Trout does Trout things. Grinky, your guy, Jim. Looks phenomenal in game two. And the Astros are just, they're just hitting the crap out of the ball, basically.

But these two teams, and we talked about the Oakland A's and the Astros being at the top of the division. Sure seems like it's going to be a race between the Angels and the Astros right now in the West. And then to finish it off, The White Sox go into Seattle and they take two out of three. Rodon looks good in game one. Abraeu hits a grand slam.

Unfortunately, four, a couple players. Tim Anderson gets put on the I.O. With a little hamstring tightness and then James Paxton. Looking like he's going to have to have Tommy John. That is not what we want to hear. It's not what Seattle fans want to hear. That is what is going on in the AL. Man.

The James Paxon news sucks Tim Anderson, hamstring tightness Hopefully he can make it back And play enough where it feels like a full season Anyway Angels I like that I like what the Angels are doing it

They're doing it They're fun They're exciting People wrong They're shutting a lot of people up And they're like making headlines along the way Every game's been kind of like crazy Um

Yeah some of that Blue J's pitching is starting to show its head already Roark You're not good Hey Matt's had a nice outing Yep stripling two bad outings Riu They need more than that

Rew Ratz Zoyke had a nice outing I think he pitches again soon But uh Roark I mean His curveball looks like a bad Wiffleball curveball It looks like

The first time I figured out how to throw a curveball Like But I didn't know how to place it Orr didn't know how to make it sharp It just kind of like Floated a curveball into the zone You kind of look like Tanner Ork too Yeah

Where we have a beard and have chobbiness. Thick. That's what the kids say, Jim. Thick. Yeah, Blue Jays. That, uh, I don't know. Rangers take two out of three from you.

That's a series you want. That's a series you were writing in Penn. We got that. But Gibby's built different. Excide for you to see him, Treff. It's built different. They go into Yankee Stadium and take two out of three. Then they go down to Arlington and get a,

get a two to three series loss. Series split. Yanks. Yanks tough for winning a series. The emotions were in a bad place. Tyone makes his debut. He looked pretty solid. That was exciting.

He's got to be a big piece of this season. Cole and Monty, we're both Grosso. But yeah, I mean, the looming news there is Judge. I think we'll find out in the next two hours. What are they doing? That Aaron Boone is speaking to the media at one. 15.

115. Can I give you my take on it? Need it. So, sore sigh. That's what they're calling it, right? Yes. To me,

you know, I've done the oblique. I've done the, there's another little muscle like tendon in between your ribs and I can't remember what it's called for the life of me. Sounds to me like he felt some tightness

or is feeling tightness in the oblique area. It hasn't fully grabbed on. him yet. So when you feel that, you're like, dude, I think I can play through it, you know, whatever, whatever. Judge, obviously hears everybody in New York saying he needs to play a full season.

You know, we need you on the field, so he's trying to do it. But it's going to grab on him eventually. If you feel that tightness and you feel it being sore there, it's ready to go. And one check swing or one day that's too cold and you don't get it

loose enough, it's going to grab on him and it's going to end up being too month thing. If he's feeling that way, shut it down for two weeks. Just do it in April. Get it done in April. I don't know how you guys feel about that, but in my experience, you let that thing linger. It's going to cause you problems down the road.

Big problems. Yeah, it's basically how I feel about it. And then just going to lie anyway, so whatever. Yeah, you called it in spring training. You said he's hurt. Mm-hmm. It's obvious. Because I sat him for three days.

That's the thing is when you do that, you can still play. You can do it. Yeah, he's playing incredible. He's hitting. It's one check swing away. Yeah. I think he pulled the homer. His last that bat, he pulled a homer.

Like big swing, two-hand finish. And I think that tweaked it. And then he's been sitting ever sat after that. If he hasn't grimaced and like gone down on camera, then he hasn't pulled it yet. you can't help but react when you pull something like that it's true but it's got to be close big man nervous how about how about a little more fun

how about those red socks they won't quit on you trev they're back baby a little sweep a little got a little love from a rosarina the best ever to get that sweep in the middle there but man nasty nativaldi looking really good for him. Pitching coaches for the past 10 years or punching dirt.

It might be finally coming together for nasty Nate. And man, hey, we knew that team was going to hit. I mean, it's a storyline for so many teams early on this season, whether we're talking Reds or Phillies or Sox. If they can pitch enough, and, man, if they can get the Condor Chris Sale back, Sox Nation, they want to get excited. They really want to get excited. Cor is back.

I like what you're doing. I like what you're doing. You're pumping the gas. Now you get it a little bit. They'll have life. They'll have life now because Corr's back. I mean, Reniki was walking dead last year. Renekke and like no one was getting up for a game with Renekke.

Reneky wasn't even excited to play games last year. And Corr, Corr's got that. He'll shit talk you after you leave the team. He'll shit talk you while you're on the team. And I don't say that as a negative. I think it's it has a very, it's him, it has a very positive effect on his clubhouse, I think. Authentic.

He's a dude that's going to get the best out of his club. We'll see what the best out of the Red Sox looks like with the roster and the pitching by the end of the year. But so far it's been decent. I mean, well, they got swept, then they swept. So that's good. I mean, the question all year long for Tampa is going to be that offense. We know what they can do defensively. We know they can pitch a little bit.

but the offense has always been a question mark. They try to platoon guys, try to put them in the right positions to be successful. But, you know, I don't want to take away from you of all the your pavetics. I know they've worked hard and they're good pitchers, but this is, I think the race are going to have to find an identity offensively and figure something out because that's going to be their Achilles heel all year. When you talk about identity, I mean, Fairbanks and Anderson, I mean, those are two of the dudes. Those are two of the biggest dudes you game plan around if you're face.

them. So losing them for a little bit, they're going to feel that. So interested to see how they react. We're going to be able to watch a lot of them this weekend because rays and yanks are playing. So interested to get that vibe, Dick Mountain today, Archer tomorrow, TBD the next day. So interested to see how the rays bounce back after the Red Sox sweep. And you alluded to it in the in the AL recap. But man, angels, baby. They're fun. They're entertainment, which sometimes this sport does forget about to a degree. But it's fun to see a team identity come together. And Lucas Gialito talked about it on Chris Rose's rotation.

Like, that top of the lineup just ain't fun. And it's all different, man. And I think that's a part of baseball that I think the nerds will never be able to quantify. But you can hear it in a pitcher's voice when you hear Gialito talk about it. Going from David Fletcher. Fletcher, yeah. Who's just going to mess with you. Like, you're never going to have an easy time against him.

Like, he's going to beat you sometimes. Mike Trow, he's beating a lot of dudes. He beats everyone. Otani when he's in there. I mean, you know, I've seen some sequence stuff on Shohei Otani. Double ad in this one talking point? Wow. And then Anthony Rendon, maybe the most underrated player in the game.

The compound guys, three ads. Compound guys were talking about him as potentially like the second best. player in baseball on a given, or no, third. They said it's trout, it's trout, mooky, and then that third slot, you can make debates for a lot of guys and like Anthony Rendon on the right day can be that guy. And then it's kind of funny, the second half of that lineup, whether it's Upton, can Jared Walsh continue to step up? Is Albert in there just being the old machine at this point? Halos are fun, man. They are and they found a little bit of pitching that we didn't know about. we found they found something

Griffin Canning right well he's been around Cob had a good start he looked nasty Bundy Otony's a game like Otony is a game changer see how long it stays and hopefully it stays all year I just gave the blueprint on sequence if you want to go hit Otony

that was such a good sequence like you need to if you kept doing that so what you did what Trev did was like you talked about Otony but the middle thing when you were like well this is how if I was facing him that day, how I would read his stat lines and then decide what my approach is going to be. You need to, I would, I would watch that if you did that for a lot of pitchers.

Like once every two weeks, you just took like, yeah, this, if I was in a clubhouse and we were facing Scher or even a rookie pitcher, and these are the numbers that the stat department gave to me because you basically said you eliminated two pitches and then you were looking for, go watch it. It's good. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Yeah. I would, I would, I would, I recorded some fire yesterday, too. Some of the next ones coming out are going to be good. I was excited about it. Like that.

Yeah. The last thing I want to say is the Astros pitching has been good thus far. It hasn't needed to carry them at all because they're averaging like nine runs a day. But they got a young guy's Javier, Kitty, Luis Garcia, and they've done just enough. And they've also leaned on Ryan Stanik, who they picked up in free agency out of the bullpen. I think he's pitching four games so far and been really good. And he did like two innings one game. and he's helping that bullpen out a lot.

Astor is looking like a scary team. Scary. No surprise there. Any Trevor Plouffe tweet, leave a picture of Ron Darling. It is pretty funny when that happens. Ron Darling was all over the Mets thing. He was pissed.

He's the Mets announcer and was pissed at Conforto. We won't talk about it too much. I like reading Trevor Plouf stuff. He's got a lot of good takes. I love Ron, that guy. We can talk about the Conforter stuff at one point. New York was perfect for that. I forget who was tweeting about it, but they were like, you know,

a lot of announcers would have done the song and dance. But I think either New York booth, Kester, we hated that. New York. Darling. That was perfect. Darling. That was perfect. Darling or Hernandez?

Cone or Darling. It was it? Whoever was doing the S&Y booth, they were more mad about it than the Marlins booth. Because I had recorded both for the breakdown, so I listened to both. The Marlins were much more like, yeah, I think, you know, that definitely looks intentional to me, where the Mets booth was like, oh, that's intentional.

No, that's no good. You can't do that. That situation is so interesting to me because Culpa admitted he was wrong, Trev. When you said he's the one up that never admits it. But this is, he couldn't not admit he was wrong because once he starts to call the pitch a strike,

per rule, a strike in the zone overrides a hit by pitch. So it's not even really a judge. It is a judgment call, but like we already saw your judgment. The fact that none of the four umpires, when they got together, no one was like, well, Ron, you had it as a strike in the zone. So that means it cannot be hit by pitch. The fact that none of the four said that is a problem for MLB.

Like, come on. Look, you know, Koppel, you did the famous breakdown when he said, I can do whatever I want. That is the gist of his attitude out there. And, you know, look, do I know him? personally, no, but do I know him as an umpire? Yes, he's the guy that if you say Ron, that pitcher's outside. No, it's not. Oh, Ron, I'm going to go look at it. Okay. You go look at it. It's way outside and you go back and say, Ron, that pitcher's outside,

but no, it doesn't. Yeah. And so it's just, he's one of those guys. Dale Scott told us a nice story about Ron Culpa when he was coming out to the rest of the umpires. So that always humanized Copa in my head that. That's true. You know, I did forget about that. I, so on the field, he may be that way, but I mean. Yeah, personally, I don't know everybody, but. Ron Culpe is like a pitcher on the mound. Like when Ron Culpe is on the field, that's on the field. That's umpire Ron Col. Yeah.

It's probably maybe like second field is a guy. Second base on Ron Culpe's party animal. Oh, slut. He's like the guy. If he's on your team, you love him. If he's off your team, you hate him. I guess that's what Ron is. And it sucks that Conforto has to go in his post game and lie.

Because you like, you wish you could be like, yeah, you know, trying to just do what I can in that moment, having a tough stretch. And if ball's close enough, might as well give it a shot. But you can't say that because then you get fined and then it's a problem. So in his post game, he's like, I don't know. Baseball's dumb. I don't know if you get fined. I don't know if you find, but you basically just like admit to like intentionally.

I don't know. But in his post game, Conforta was like, you know, I definitely would have rather used the bat to win the game. But as a slider, I tried to get my elbow in, but maybe on its way in, it went up a little bit. fine, but you know, like, you want to be like, yeah. I threw my elbow into it. It was the complete circle where I forget if it was Buster or who had it best, but they said,

like, yes, Conforto did that, but that's instinctual in a way. Like, you shouldn't be mad at Conforto for doing that. You see that ball coming in. I don't think it's instinctual to put your elbow into a pitch. When it's moot. He didn't get out of the way. He leaned into it. It did a little twist.

And then after the, no, after the twist. He leans in even more. A little twist. He hits it. You see his eyes go from there to there. Yep. Yeah. I understand why guys use protective equipment, you know,

especially if you're a switch hitter and that's your throwing arm, whatever. And maybe you got hit there the day before, so he puts it on it. But I'm totally against the guys that just put all the gear on and then crowd the plate. I think that is, I don't want to say it's Bush League, but like, come on, man. Do you think he'll get hit, Trave? Do you think the Marlins will be like, well, here's a real hit? By pitch? I don't either. No. I don't know. I saw some people saying that as well.

Everyone was. Yeah. On my Twitter mentions. It's like, why? Like, you didn't. Yeah, no. He shouldn't get hit. Miguel Rojas, the most nicest guy in MLB. He, you can, I read, I did in the breakdown. I read his lips. And he's like, we got to replay that. And Colba says, you can't review it. And you can see Rojas go, why not?

And then Rao. Colpo must say like, I don't make that decision. Because right away, Rojas goes, Okay, okay, sorry. And walks away. But yeah, if replay exists, replay everything. And it's not even a replay thing. It's like Culpa just literally forgot a rule in the rule book. Add a common sense clause.

Strike overrules hit by pitch. He just completely forgot that rule. Add a common sense clause. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. Well, we got one. We got an Interleague series recap coming up.

Jake's in charge of Interleague. Let us know what happened, Jake. Here we go. using the whole damn song. Trevor Ploof's Dodgers at Trevor Ploofs A's. Dodgers take two out of three, game one. Dustin May, Trevor Ploose, Dustin May versus Trevor Ploose, Frankie Montas. Dodgers win game one, 10,3, game two, Kershaw show.

He's doing it again. That's all he knows. They win 5'1. And then the A's finally get in the win column. Let's go. in Oakland. They went four, three. Dustin May, six shuddy, Kershaw, seven.

Trevor Bauer, how's your balls? Getting inspected, just like mine at the vaccine today. Bad news. Trevor Rosenthal out 12 weeks, man. That's a big bummer for the A's and him. Get better, come back and be good again, because his comeback story was pretty cool. So Dodgers take two out of three from the A's.

A's get back in the wind column. Good for the A's. The most aesthetically pleasing matchup in the big leagues right now is A's, uh, is Dodgers. Love the uniform matchup right there. Okay. Green and yellow versus that Dodger blue.

Just, it just works. Just works. You got Oakland up there, huh? In the uni game? I do. I do. I like that they're,

they're just unique to them. Like, you know as soon as you see. see like those colors that's that's Oakland and you can't say that for a lot of teams a lot of teams share like the blue and the red whatever whatever and is there another team with green like no the red socks on say patty's day the rays do they have a hint of green in there still sometimes no i think off subject yeah my boy anthony swarzak swizzle stick swizz califah got called up to the diamondbacks and he put a picture of his jersey and let me tell you some those

Diamondbacks jerseys are kind. Uh-oh. You like him now? Uh-oh. They got away from some of the bad stuff. This one had like this beautiful blue. His name was in this like teal blue. Looked really good with like the red and the black.

Just it works. So shout out Arizona Diamondbacks PR department. Who they love us. Love us. Mariners have green. Mariners, yeah. Mariners do have green. Is that like odd-ish.

Aqua. Dustin May is having a good start to the. this season, so I'm happy for him. Six innings pitched, two hits, zero earned runs, used the four-seem fastball more than he ever has in the past. So he was a guy that you looked at and you're like, you need to change the pitch mix because you have all the stuff. And so far, he used the four-seem fastball. It was like his third fastball he used last year.

And it was a number one he used to get in this game against the A. So I like that. The big story is that they took some balls that Trevor Bauer was using out of play for inspection. They use Bauer's name in the headline. This is, I was explaining it, my thoughts on it to do the office here. Everyone is happy right now with what's happening and everyone is acting upset about what's happening. But really, they all got what they want.

Bauer comes out against pine tar and sticky substances heavily says, if you're not going to legalize it, I'll just use it. if you're not going to like if you're not going to punish guys I'll just use it uses sticky substance wins the Sy Young when using it gets $100 million when using it

now by doing that made baseball look dumb because he's like oh okay well if you're not going to enforce it I will just use it and gain all the benefits now he's doing that now they put in this play that they're going to inspect all these baseballs and they're inspecting

a lot of baseballs they've taken tons out of play but the only ones that they put a tweet out and write a headline about is Bowers because that's how the media wins. So Bowers winning because he's got paid by this. The media is winning because they just put Bauer on the headline even though it's happening across the league. That's what they want, Trev. That's going to be their number one clicked article of the month and you know that that's a win for them. Bauer wins because he gets to act like, why are you just using my name? I hate when you only...

you love it, dude. Then you make a vlog and people go look at it. So everyone is enjoying this. MLB wins because there's intrigue and casual people are like, what's this? Scandal always gets eyes. So everyone's winning in this situation and likes what's happening, but they're all acting like they very much don't like it. And that's just kind of the state of Pine Tar and baseball right now. I don't mind that take at all. I mean, I think that's a really good take. I think in general, Bauer has won this whole thing for sure. Came out, like you said, was against it, decided to use it in his walk here, gets the freaking Cy Young and the bag.

And I mean, just think about like whether he's going to do a documentary or write a book or whatever. I mean, this guy is going to, when he's done playing, he's going to expose everybody in this whole situation and people are going to be very interested in it because it's a, it is a big deal. And I don't, I can't wrap my head around why people don't understand how big of a deal. it is and how big of a performance enhancer

this shit is. People just don't care. The general public does not care. Even with all this going on, the Bauer and the article coming out, the casual fan cares not about the story, and it's kind of crazy to me that they don't care.

I think maybe they don't understand the difference, like the casual fan might not understand that 300 RPM jump. I'm just excited to see what comes from another MLB investigation. man get to the bottom of this get the story out there finally because it's about damn time we've done this no man it's uh everything you guys said is right i think the only part that sucks is again i think for baseball fans because i think every baseball fan and hey it's a nice conversation to have

and you and chris rose were doing it on the instagram live but like how is there not rules around this like that's insane it's insane that the people in the game don't care enough that there should be rules around this. We're literally messing with the ball. Someone, one manager. Was it, was it Roberts? Was it Bob Melvin? Might have been Bob Melvin.

A manager got asked about this and he said, oh, no, they're just collecting information on the kind of substances guys are using so they can make a one legal substance in the future. which like isn't public. What manager said that might have been like that. That was his interpretation of why they're sending balls to the lab, which actually makes more sense to me than MLB. No, we're not going to, you know, punish anyone.

We're just going to make it more legalized and easy, which is like a fine thing. But some tweet manager said that. And I was like, huh, I wonder if like that's the memo that got sent to the clubhouses. And like, don't worry. Because Lubba tweeted out and she deleted it, like, Oh, yeah, but we all know they're not going to do anything. And I wonder if that's the inside the baseball wall's secret.

Yeah, no, we're not punishing guys. Because, I mean, everyone's still being very obvious about it. Garrett Cole is being very obvious. Otani is being very obvious. Everyone's being very obvious about it still. So I wonder if inside the walls they're like, yeah, we are sending them to labs. No one's going to get punished. We're just trying to figure out the best substance that we can legally give to teams now

that does this, but not that. I don't know. Otani had the 300 RPM jump his first star. I'm just saying. Check everyone's balls. So I've been in the thick of I tweeted that out yesterday about like I think it's ridiculous that they're trying to make him the face of it. And then now I got people all of my mentions sending me like little clips of videos.

You know Bowers blogged everything or vlogged everything. So there's he's got content out there. The one thing that he really has messed up on is he was calling people out. And then he was calling into question their character, like the morality, saying he'll never use it because it's morally wrong. And then he just used it. So you can't, you can't do that. Also very like. And there's video all over the place of it.

Very semantical because like there's like tweets where like, so you're not used, you didn't use pine tar. And he says no. And it's like, well, I bet if someone asked so you didn't use a sticky substance that he would not respond to that one. But he tweeted out the ingredients. like Bauer tweeted out the ingredients. Pine tar, rosen, Coca-Cola boiled down. When he was mad.

That's the Bubba mix. Yeah, that's the Bubba mix. But that, you know, so like when he was rallying against it, he was like, well, this is the mixture that increased 300 RPM's to my pitches. But so I know that it helps, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I don't use it. And then he magically got that jump. So whatever.

I think everyone's happy. everyone's benefiting. Like for Bauer to be like, stop using me as the face of things. Like, dude, you were, you, you made yourself the face of it

for two years on Twitter. Like, you did that. So of course they're going to use you in the headline. I know what you're saying. I get it. He, he does put himself out there

so he's an easy target. But I wouldn't say he's the face of it. Because, I mean, he was saying it on Twitter, but he wasn't using it at that time. And we're going to have to say this. The Pinedard debate. The sticky substance debate,

he made himself the face of. He brought out that secret, that ingredients, that wasn't public knowledge. He was the first one to put that publicly out there for like Twitter sphere. So. He should be one, how about this?

He should be one of the faces of it. I don't want to name names here. And we have to say allegedly, because we don't know for sure, but he himself said the only way to get a 300 RPM jump is to use a foreign substance. And what did they do last year? Got 300 RPM jumps on all of his pitches.

So you kind of put two and two together. He should be one of. of the faces of it. Yeah. There's plenty of guys out there that need to be the face of this thing too. Well, yeah, I'm just saying like he. Trevor Maurer can like the clicks in the media that comes from it, but he shouldn't, the media shouldn't be able to just say like,

oh, this is the pine tar guy. We got his balls. It should be a collection of guys. Yeah. I mean, they did it with Cole earlier. There's always going to be one name on the headline. And it's going to be a name that gets a lot of people clicking and talking. I can't believe they did that.

To be honest, they really disappointed me because I respect the athletic and everything they do and even the guys that were involved in the article. I know they don't write the headlines, but it was a little disappointing for me. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's very misleading that they've taken balls out for everyone, but the general public baseball fan right now

thinks they just took Trevor Bowers' balls out. Yep. And that's pretty messed up. All right, well, there you go. Let's go into the... Good job, A's. Good job the A's. They won a game. Good job. The A's. They won a game.

We're going into just all the individual awards and segments, and it's brought to you by Roman. No one's perfect. Jake opened up this episode talking about his little winky, and even the best baseball players strike out with the base is loaded. The best golfers, three putt with the tournament on the line. So if you feel like you're coming up short in the bedroom sometimes, it's perfectly okay. But if it's bothering you, there are options.

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YouTube just go to Roman dot com Uber figure it out. All right. Everybody deals with it when you get older, man, or like half the guys. That's what my ad read said. So, hey.

Yeah. All right. Stand out performances. Stand out performance. I guess I'm the guy that goes first. I had a tough time choosing, to be honest. There was a lot of people like equal. Like for me, not one guy completely stood out.

But I went with Brandon Woodruff for the Brewers. He saw his partner in law, partner in the law firm, Burns, go out there and get a no-hit bid. And he said, like, you know, I'm an equal partner here. I can't have you taking all the name recognition of the firm. So he went out and had a no-hit bid as well. He goes seven innings pitch, zero earned runs, one hit, no walks, eight K's. Just another great, I think another great outing by a brewer's pitcher. I'm interested to see when this reaches the general baseball fan

because I think we were talking about it before like, hey, these guys are good. And now you get a lot of people that are in the baseball. Like, hey, guys, these guys are good. But I still don't know if they have the name power that they should. But these Brewers pitchers, man, I mean, even Freddie Peralta, he teamed up. But, yeah, Woodruff going out there, doing the law firm proud, shutting down the team. He's my standout performance.

if they pitch like this, I mean, we love the brew crew. And I think that was what was in question, like how are their starters going to hold up? And we got some information saying our starter's going to hold up just fine. And it sure looks that way right now. And I know I say this every single episode is because I mean it. I love the NL Central this year. Like this is going to be such a fun race. I hope the Cubby stay in it like you said they would, Jake.

I don't think they're going to. But if we can have the Reds added to that mix and it's like Reds brew. brew crew and Cardinals. There's like fiery personalities on those teams too if the Cubs stay in it great. They have great personalities on their teams too.

This division likes to fight. They like to get rowdy. They don't like each other at all and I think that is when baseball is at its best. I know everybody's buddy buddy now but it's fun when teams actually don't like each other. That ups the Annie a little bit and I feel

like that's kind of what's going on in the central right now. Do you know who broke up the no-hitter? In the seventh inning, leading off the seventh inning, you had a no-hit bid through six? Ian Hap. Ian Hap. Yes. So if anyone was to do it, I would have chosen Ian Hap. I love Ian Hap.

The more and more I get to see him and hear his thoughts, he's very, he's smart, man. Giving out waffle makers? Of course he's smart. He invested in John Boy, Media. I dig that guy a lot. coming on sequence today shout out oh he's are for you trev how who is your standout performance my guy and i'm going to include yesterday's game because his overall line is good and we we're rooting for this guy it's byron buxton now obviously we know him platinum glove uh award

winner but he's entering his age 27 season he's seen his ops in the eights the last two years And when he mixed that with elite defense, I mean, you're talking MVP consideration. So he's got to stay healthy. He's got to play a lot of games, which means he might need to dial it back a little bit in the outfield. But so far this year, got the numbers up for you guys. 421 batting average, 476 OPS 1.6.87 OPS 1.6. What would I say? Whatever.

1.68.0.0PS, a 356 OPS plus. Obviously small sample size, but he's been getting the ball in the zone more, which I think is a product of a few things. He is getting older. He's got those at bats under his belt. And I think he understands and the twins probably harping on that to him. If you want to be a productive hitter and hit in the middle of the lineup, what he is doing right now, you got to get the ball in the zone.

That's going to make you a better player. And sometimes that's all it takes is for a team to sit you down and say, do this specifically, and you're going to be a great offensive player. And I'm just hoping he keeps it up because he looks great out there. I love like this is when you get those at bats and you have that under your belt, like the confidence comes. There's nothing that Byron hasn't seen now from a big league pitcher. So he's gone through some swing adjustments.

He's had multiple, you know, guys in his ear about it. And I think Byron, the last time I talked to him, he's like, dude, I am doing what feels comfortable to me. And when you get that confidence to be yourself and you have the confidence that you know you're good enough at the Bigley level, that's the leap. So Byron takes that leap and we're talking he's going to be hitting in the middle of the twins lineup. You know, maybe not when Donaldson comes back. We'll see where they put him. But I am so excited if we get a. a full year of Byron Healthy playing defense and hitting the way that he's been hitting,

I think that we're talking about a top five MVP candidate, a dark horse guy, if you will, for the MVP. It's been awesome to watch. Do you know he's put four fastballs in play, Buxton? The results of those out of play. Three homers, one double. So if he's gotten a hit on a fastball, it's been an extra base hit. he also has been hitting

he's one of the most exciting players he's been hitting every pitch like he's got a good everything on breaking off speed and fastball so he's having a hell of a start Trevor I told you beforehand I was mad at you I was going to give him my award it was going to be big game Hunter I was going to draw some comparisons to the last twins team

that won a series 02 Tori Hunter put a huge year together I think Tori had 27 homers that year or something I would I think Buck and it was going to be big game Hunter because his nickname is Buck You hunt bucks, Tori Hunter.

It was beautiful. I like that. I love what you were saying, man. This is his seventh year. Seventh year in the league. Sure, he's been heard a ton. But you prep for seven major league seasons. You see games in seven league seasons.

And you just become your own player. You know, you talk about it all the time with coaches. Like, you know, you hear different things from coaches. And how many coaches probably told Bucks in like, hey, let's get that OBP up. You know what? Oh, my God. Hit the ball on the ground and run. Oh, my God.

Find that ball and hit it, dude. And by the way, he's hitting it out. The last three seasons, he's gotten 872 OPS, which, hey, you're like, all right, you know, that's a really nice players OPS. Yeah, but not many players can go out and get a plattie glove in center field, man. I'm with you, Trev. It's at this point, I think he's shown enough hitting-wise the past three seasons that if he is healthy, a buck-thirty games, you're looking at a top-10 MVP guy.

50 games, you're looking at a top five guy. I think he's a stud. He's a war guy because he's going to rack it up on both sides. Young Buck. Lead those twins, baby. Did you see... I'm mad at Buxton now. Okay. That one double on a fastball

came against Matt Boyd. We took Buxton in the Homer draft Talking Yanks, me, Jake and BBD. Against Matt Boyd, I didn't realize this. I mean, it's a foot off the wall. Did you know that BPD? Didn't know he got that close.

Yeah, it hit the wall on the fly, foot off the wall. So now, come on, Buckson, you can't go four for four on home runs on fastballs. The one non-homers is when we chose you in the homer draft. It's bullshit. A couple things mechanically that I see with him. He's looking really quiet up there. He is, yes, Jake. Trevor Plouffe.

Is Byron Buxon the best player on the Minnesota 20? Yeah, like full potential, yes, yes. Like if we're talking best of his ability, yes. I mean, who can match up? I mean, a younger Josh Donaldson might have. J.D. Kepler, I think is in the conversation. I think it's just interesting because I don't think a lot of people around baseball, you picture Bucks in that way, and this Twins team has been such a regular season monster.

And Nelly Cruz, I mean, he's his own sort of freak, but it's just old. The talent level on all sides of the ball, base running defense. offense now. He looks really comfortable in the box. His setup is really still. He's not moving a lot. And he's just seeing the ball really well. So I'm happy because he, like I said,

he's been coached a bunch of different ways. I think he's just found something that feels comfortable with him. But the other point I want to make is think about Minnesota and the center fielders they've had. They have drafted incredibly. We went from Kirby Puckett to a couple of year gap, Tori Hunter,

DeNard Span. Aaron Hicks. Ben Revere, splat twins, though. He's taking draft credit. He's taking draft credit. Oh, draft credit. Scouting credit.

Ben Revere kind of in the mix there. You've seen some of his highlights, dude. Defensively, that guy was, he couldn't throw much. I love you, Ben, but he can go get it. And now to Buxton. I mean, they've just done an incredible job. That lineage of center fielers is,

I don't think there's another team that replicates it on both sides of the ball. It's hot. Jake? Hot. Hot. Who's your stand-up? performance.

Guys. Guys, we need to talk about my rocks. Oh, no. Yeah. Jake's getting his rocks off on the pod. Guys, Ryan McMahon. How about a three Yabo day? Four for six. Three homers.

A bonus double for funsies. Four ribbies. Guys, I said this during the Rockies. TPP. You guys probably turn your brains off when I started talking about the rocks. get that. I get that. Ryan McMahon is a good young ball player. 2019. This guy had a nice year. He was 24. He had 24 home runs. 250, 329, a 779 OPS. He said, hey, you know, for a young ball player, that's a really nice year for your first like full, giving it hell in the big leagues. He's got the

classic core splits, which people are starting to figure out with DJ. And now Aronado's about to do it in St. Louis, these guys might be getting just hurt more than the benefits they get at Cores going on the road. In 2019, 863 OPS at home, 680 OPS on the road. My guy is getting half of his starts at third base, half at second base, so he's filling part of what Aeronado tried to leave. And man, he's 26 years old. Run it out, big guy. He's got four homers now leading the league. Three homer game helps a lot. But Ryan McMahon could be a nice little ball player. He takes another step up this year.

You're looking at a 800s OPS guy in the infield, swings a, you know, swings a nice little stick in Trev. He's a Cali guy. You could get behind that. Matter day, baby. Oh, moderate day. He's a moderate day guy. He's an Orange County guy.

So, you know, that's a little bit of a different breed down there. But I will say I did watch his homers. And I found something I like. The first one, you know, the count. 3.0. 3-0 maybe he took a fucking hack and put it in the seats and that gets my blood flow in a little bit and then to come back that's that's why 3-0 hacking is so amazing because you you're you get your pitch you don't miss it hit a homer it just builds that confidence up two more homers that game I get it you can

give your dogs credit we we know that that was coming we knew it was coming I'm expecting I don't want to hear it too much out of you this season but I'll let this I'll let this go first They're hot. They're hot, ish. Ryan McMahon. Congrats to him. Three homer day, man. It's pretty good.

That's hot. I never had a three homer day. Not in the show. Did you ever try? That's fun. Yes. Okay. That's all it matters.

I never even tried. Two homer day? Yeah. Of course. You remember them? What's the one that stands out? Yeah, that's true. That's true.

We don't have time. I actually do have one that stands out. It was against the brew crew when I was really just establishing myself. Me and Bronte were going back and forth, 2012. The game did go 13 innings, so you kind of giving them less credit then?

It's not a 9-in-3 homer game. No, it's still fine. I don't know. Didn't he get it in 9? No, his last one came in the 13th. Last one was 13? No, no, no. He got the game winning

or he got a big double in the 13th. My bad, my bad. I just saw it black ink. How's that bug? It's Diamondbacks, Rockies, Don't expect me to know a lot. Yeah. The chat is all over me saying that apparently Bailey must have done a video on the Yankees center fielder.

Yeah, yeah. He has. Can you guys enlighten me? I mean, I know that, but when was that? When did he do the video? What era is he talking about? Beginning of the Yankees until now. Like the start of the, like all time.

Okay. I mean, I was. Babe Ruth. He wasn't. I mean, guys, I'm talking. Well, he was. It starts with Bay, Bay, he played an inning in center. and then to like Mickey Manil, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Manil,

Bernie Williams, Mickey Rivers. It's a cool video that he didn't. Why do Yankees fans always have to bring up? Foolish baseball isn't the Yankee fan? I'm saying the chat. Yankees have a nice center field history. No shame in that. But can't I talk about the twins

without them having to bring up the Yankees for the 30s? No, you can't. Welcome to hell. Jesus. What she's signed up for, baby. It's the same thing as the championship. I get it. They were a long time ago.

You can see how they, I mean, you're giving the lineage of center field and they're saying, hey, the lineage I'm talking about is still here. One of the guys you mentioned is playing center field for the Yanke. Yeah, so is the Yankees. Whatever, we didn't bring it up. I think it's just saying like, yeah, it's a cool video that Foolish baseball did. Speaking of Bad Times. Passing.

What? Well, just, I don't know if that's where you're about to go, but bad times. Judge officially, not in the lineup. Boone's about to talk. I don't know. He was seen stretching on the field with the players on the team. Here we go. So, I don't know.

It's fine. Zero. Zero chance he was going to be in the lineup when Boone said what he said. No surprise there. I mean, I would hope they put him on the I. You can't play. Just I. Let him rest.

Like Trev said, there's no reason not to. Well, you're going to hear, you know, hopefully they don't go to the Boone lies and says he's available to pinch hit and then when he's not, again, loud. But whatever. I was saying speaking a bad time. What's that? Boone quote. Just felt like I wanted to wait at least another day.

We'll see where we're at in 24 hours. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. All right. Why don't they just say, dude, he feels something going on. We're being cautious with it. I don't know. They've dedicated themselves to this is how they operate.

It's pretty frustrating. They're just testing different vaccines on them every day. Let's move on. Slump watch. B.BD, can you update us on some of the guys that we put on Slump Watch last week? Have any of them worked their way off? Are they staying? What are we got going on? So Slump Watch starting at the top, Kestan Hiura. He was on last week, and this week it kind of continued one for 12, five more strikeouts.

Kestin? So he's now one for 23 with 11Ks. I think... Kestin's teetering a fine line, man. He's going to stay on slump. watch. I don't know. He's got, he's supposed to be a dude on the crew. Yeah. Staying. Okay, who else? Jock Peterson. Last, uh, last series he was 0 for 10, but he gets his first hit this series, two for 11 and that hit was a home run, a walk, only three Ks. Jock, Jock, Jock. If we separate, if we separate, no, he only got one hit. He stays. It was a big home run. He stays. I think he's inching off.

stays for now. I think he's inching off. I think his teammates about to leave. Yep, the other Cub on the list, Wilson Contreras, this week he goes two for nine, Homer, two RBIs, two more walks, three Ks. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, yeah, um, no claps. He only started in,

in two games as well. Um, two for nine, I don't have him as two for nine. He went one for eight. He went one for five with a walk. Might be on the year he's there or something. I don't know. I just read the sheet. Yeah, on the year he's there. So wait, hold on, though.

Then Jake, he went one for five with two walks and a homer. It's a 5.56 on base percentage. And the sluggings there, because he got a homer. It's not as easy off as we're saying, but I can take them off if we want. Well, now we're double-checking stats on the little thrown off. So that was the Milwaukee series. Yeah. Yeah, one for five, two walks.

Two hit by pitches. So he's off. doing whatever he can. He's got a 1.0.0. Yeah, he's doing whatever he can. Yeah, no, he's off. That's how you get off. I'll give him a clap. Lean into some. 556 on base.

The old, uh, the old conformo. Yeah. I'll be at least this series two for 10 with RBI a walk. Three K's. After last week going, he got a, he got a hitting two games out of the three. And it was only seven inning games. So he got less at bats than he would have liked with the walk.

No, it's still a 273 OBP He stays He's at one of the worst starts to the season And he's too He's too good To let him off with that He's better

So, okay And our final Review guy Alex Verdugo 5 for 13 4 doubles 2 RBI's walk I mean

Impressively off the list Impressively That's how you get off Sumpunch That's a great job By Doogie there You just needed that Ray's Pission to come into town.

And now our additions. Yes. Routy Tellez, 0 for 16 with a walk Friday. Routy! Yeah, so I threw him on there. Researcher Max didn't have him on there, but I just, when we were talking about the Blue Jays earlier, I was looking at their team, and

yeah, he hasn't got a hit yet this year. And he's only got one walk. So. It's a story really curse. That's a slump. That's a little slump watch. Aurely curse kicking in. Who else we got? Trey Mancini, on the whole season. He's five for 28. Two of his five hits are extra bases. Three RBIs, two walks, 11 Ks in that time.

I don't want him on slump watch. I mean, no. He's not on slump watch. He's, he's battling back and it's early, you know, I mean, he gets a. And that's, that's like a two for three game away from being just fine. Well, no, I mean, he had a really bad, bad series. He, he went, you went one for 12 with one walk. If it wasn't Trey Mancini, it's definitely... He's having a big day today. Three for four. He's already off.

Another guy who played against Mancini in that series. Aaron Hicks, on the year he's two for 20. Only walk three times. A lot of people that mentions about him. Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's a little interesting. He definitely should be on there. He did have two RBIs. He went one for eight with two RBIs and a walk, so.

But yeah, he's on there. So it looked rough to start the year. He only played two out of three, so it's always hard for me to... Well, even the season's body of work at this point. It's one week of stats. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's on.

And we got our first couple pitchers making their way on to our watch because we've got multiple starts now. Max, free, two starts, seven inning, seven runs, 14 hits. Just not the start to the year he wanted. And Madma, also two starts, nine innings, 11 runs, 15 hits. Five walks. A couple of your favorite lefties, Trev. They both got to go on.

Bumgarner had two bad games. So I definitely, he's definitely on there. Freed's first game was good, so it's kind of interesting. What do you got, Trev? I think he thinks more highly of himself. And like, I think he should go on. I think it's a little bit of a motivating factor. Go on.

Let's go on so we can take you off, Maxie. Bumgarner for sure. I mean, but he's a little bit of a motivating factor. He's one start away from being Sad watch. Taken off. You're just bad and we don't care anymore, watch. I talked about him with Rosie,

and he was saying the same thing about Mad Bum, what's he got to do? And then I started reading some articles. And this doesn't seem very Madison Bumgardner-esque, but he has been trying out different arm angles, like dropping down. He's been messing with timing. Did you read a couple articles?

Madison Bumgarner would ever do. Did you read a couple articles? Or did you listen to me on my, TPP. Huh? Oh, I read a couple articles. I don't remember that at all. That's the only

we talked about that. We talked about that? The only thing of substance I brought to the Diamondbacks TPP. Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time ago. We talked a lot of baseball. But he's doing Quato shit, which you're right.

He was only doing it on the backfields. I don't know if he did it in these two starts. In spring training, he's only doing it off camera. He wasn't doing it during games. You're right. I read that was in the article. So I apologize. brought that to my attention and I forgot. But like I said, it doesn't seem like

something Madison Bumgarner would do. You think you would just still go up there and throw 85 and try to muscle it by you or something. It's a good slump watch edition. It's almost sad watch already, but we'll see how it goes. So that's who we're watching. Yeah. Pick it up, everyone. You're on.

The opposite side of that coin in Fuego. Mm. Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby. like Waco Boom JD Martinez, Jake

Yep On the season so far 13 for 32 home runs 12 RBIs Pretty good He's a good hitter He's got his replayback iPad guy

Yeah He's a good hitter Same with Contrers Wasn't he the other guy Or was it Baez On the Cubs that was Baez There's a couple cubbies

Castianos He's been crazy four home runs, 10 for 23 to start the year. Jake already mentioned Ryan McMahon. We got Nate Lowe. Three homers, eight for 25, doing it for Texas. Akeel Badoo, we probably should have mentioned him to earlier in the show. He's doing things that rookies have never done, like a grand slam.

It was like a grand slam, a walkoff, and something else. No rookie has ever done that in their first week of playing. He's making noise. Nelson Cruz, three homers had a two homer day doing the damn. thing. He's nine for 21. Those are all the hitters. You guys got anything about any of those guys? I think it's cool that Akil Boudou

has been doing it in front of his parents. I think that's awesome. We love the parent reaction. Also, former Minnesota Twins Farmhand. You got Rule 5. Yeah, pretty crazy. He was blocked. Pretty crazy. And I think he had Tommy John or something, or he had an injury. That's kind of why I think the twins took the chance.

And good on the Tigers, man. I mean, you talk about, you might have just stumbled into a starting outfielder for seven years by taking a flyer on that guy. Man, I think the ones that stand out, Glass Now, you know. Well, I didn't do the pitchers yet. Oh. I just did the hitters.

Are you in the future, Jake? Yeah, a little bit. Are you? Yeah, we got a bunch of pitchers that are on fire as well. Glass now, two starts. One earned run. 15Ks. He's looked really good.

John Means for the Orioles. He had like, you know, he's got the stuff. He had a not a great year last year. He started strong. two starts, one earned run as well, 11.2 pitches. Gossman, I mentioned him. He's 13 and two innings pitch with only two earned runs. Zach Granky, no surprise there.

Jacob Junis, three appearances, one start, seven innings pitch, zero earned runs. Good for him. And my dude Matt Boyd has had two good starts. So I'll throw him. I don't think he's on fire. I think the second start was kind of like seven innings pitch, three runs. But I just give him some love since I always give him hate. He's had a good start.

That's nice of you, Jim. Bigger man. Very nice of you. Speaking of a bigger man. Tyler Glass now, like I was talking about in the future, is this it? Like, is it happening? You know, we've been waiting for it for now, you know, 23 months.

Is it all coming together for Big Tyler? Is it that some people are calling it the John Boy Media Effect? I don't know. I don't know. Some people are referencing it. I don't think anybody is calling it up. Some people are referencing the slider. But yeah, interested to see how the big man years plays out.

if he does kind of put himself on that pedestal that MLB and everyone was ready to, but maybe the stats weren't all there yet. Excited for him. John Mains, can he play himself onto the trade block in for that? You know? Yeah, that would be fun. Dude, Glass now, he went from not having a slider at all to now he's thrown at 35% of the time.

Like, it's his number two pitch. The curveball has dropped down to 10%. I actually thought those three would be closer. Maybe he's just going slider heavy. first time through because people have no one's seen it like opponents and then second time through the division or the league he'll he'll balance out the curve and the slider a little more because I still think needs to be three the the the two pitches should be closer his problem was early too yeah yeah his problem was he was two pitchers so the slider's nasty but I think

second time through I'm interested to see if he bounces up the curve so people like trev can't just eliminate it from their scouting report. Ooh. Is there, this is in my head, I have a really weird thought going on, so I'm going to share it. Okay, perfect. Was there a time this off season when Tyler was feeling extra cerebral? Because he's a cerebral person. We've heard him talk.

I feel like he's got a good grasp mentally. Do you think there was a time he looked in the mirror and said, I don't want to be known for my good looks? like I'm more than that like I almost feel like I'd want him to like shave his head and like maybe like put like you know how like in the

there's movies where like yeah and just be like I'm not a hot guy I'm a good picture like almost opposite of when like the shy nerdy girl takes the glasses off and lets your hair down like the opposite of that I mean I don't know if you ever seen Randy Johnson in his early years but he was just dashing, smooth skin, great hair, clean shaven.

But he didn't want to be known for that. I don't want to be a hot pitcher. I want to be a bird killer. So yeah, maybe Glass Noggleys himself up. Good face scar. That'd be something. Good face scar is the play. Like shaving his head and then like stubble, but like not a beard.

I don't know. I think if I had the option to be a really good picture, plus good looking, I'd take that. Whatever. He's so hot. It's ridiculous. Let's move it on. We got awards to give out.

Awards and an elevator talk. We're running along today. Some good topics, though. I'll go first. I have an award. It's the best friend award. And I am, I told BBD, I'm thinking, I'm asking you guys, if this should just be a segment we do? Like maybe BBD gives this award out and then I'll come up a new one, like an Evergreen Award.

And all I'm doing is I made a Google sheet of every friend of the. the pod. They've had to be on talking baseball. Like come and not just friendly with us. Like they had to be on talking baseball. And out of that pool of players, who was our best friend this last series? Best friend of the week. Best friend of the series. Yeah.

So I think BBD will present this in the future. I think it's a good one. Today, Reese Hoskins wins it. Taiwan Walker was the, and Jayflair were the reasons I thought of it. I was like, maybe those guys. But Reese Hoskins had a crazy. good series. 636 batting average.

I mean, it's three games. He had seven hits, four doubles, one homer. So he was our best friend this series. So I'm giving Reese Hoskins the best friend award. And I think in the future, this would be good if BBD just said, hey, BPD, who is our best friend this week? Best friend of the week. Best friend of the series, yeah.

Reese, are nice swing, Treve. You like that swing, I forget. Top five prettiest swings in baseball. That's what it is. a hitting coach's job real easy and you got a guy like that. Good job, Reese. Trev, what's your award?

Mine is the villain award of the week. Villain award of the week. Because of the year of the century, maybe. Because this team everybody hates, but they don't care. I think they're starting to finally just grasp it. It's the Houston

Astros. Go ahead and pull up team statistics and click on pretty much anything and then the good ones they're going to be on top hitting pitching everything right now oPS plus they're first in the league with the 149 ops plus that's 50% better than the rest of the league i don't know if you guys know that pitching their third with the 177 er8 plus they're doing everything now we know not all of the guys are the villains on that team you know we talked about stanick doing his thing odorees is going to be making his debut here Michael Brantley wasn't a part of any of that,

but they're getting trash canstone at them. They're finally going to be booed the entire year, and I think it's going to work to their favor. This team looks so freaking good. It's scary. And like, Correa is, like, leading the charge, and you can hate them all you want, but you've got to beat them on the baseball field

and not many people have been able to do that. I'm just, I like watching this team. Is that make me a bad person that I'm kind of rooting for them just to go do it? it this year. No, man. Because they fucked baseball up, but this is a good team, man. That's why I am so mad

at the A's, because you're so annoyed and you were going to get your vengeance, and then they just walked all over you, and it almost... All over you. And almost makes the Astros, like, the cool, bad guy, and the A's, like the weak, good guy. Do you like the A's? They're 6 and 1 right now. I want to like the A's.

They play the two best teams in the division. Yeah, they... did play the two best teams in the division. Like they can easily make it up. But no, I'd love to hate the Astros. And I think that's what this is. I'm loving, hating the Astros. And we talked about a team identity and needing one.

Like, as long as they buy into the evil villain, which Trev just gave the award, like, they have their identity. Out of the 10, they've had 10 players starting four games so far. One, two, three, four, five of them have an OPS that starts with one dot. So it's not just two guys carrying it. The pitching's been great. I talked about that.

All the hitters have been. great. My friend Alex, pretty good at third. I mean, Jordan Alvarez is doing scary stuff, man. Like very special, like baseball history special. I don't know, man. And, well, I guess it's something they'll have to deal with after the season, but it kind of got swept under the rug. I think people were just excited about baseball,

but the whole Corea extension stuff, they kind of lowballed them pretty hard. And man, if Correa keeps this up and just plays his game, he's lined up for a lot more than they were offering. And Trev, I do feel like right now that guy is the heart. Like, he's the engine. He wants it. He does it on the field.

He does it off the field. Like, it's going to be an interesting story. Like, what are they going to do? Are they going to empty the Brinks truck? Or is someone else going to step up and pay that guy? I mean, look at, it's funny if you look at their numbers back-to-back, Correa and Bragman. OBP 406, 407, slugging 643-640, OPS 1.0491.047. These guys are mirroring each other, both villains.

Everybody allows to hate both of them, and they're just saying, you know what, I'm sick of it. How about Dr. Smooth with a casual seven-for-13 out of the gate, 538? Who's he platooning with? How come he's only played four of the seven games? I know BPD's been yelling for some Al-Medi's. He's just a little older, I think. He's 34.

And Carlos Correa is 26 years old. Are you kidding me? Dude, that's, it got overlooked. The Astros offered him like 100 mil or something. 126. And he wants that wind door bag, baby. That's insane. They offered him that.

Right? They offered him $20 million a year. He's 26 years old. Oh, man. Yeah, it's just one of those things, man. Like, I almost find myself. I find myself kind of rooting for them Which is in my mind

I don't it's it's bizarre a land Was Brantley banged up Because he missed three games in a row Then came back So it didn't seem like If what are you guys gonna do? He's back though If Carlos Correa gets signed by the Yankees

Like what the fuck is gonna go on Yeah I mean A rod was a Yankee They're the same guy Makes sense Great point Jim Great point. Victor Rosa was calling for that on MLB Network the other day. Well, everyone is now because the laborers looked bad.

And it's fun. Yeah. All right, Jake, what is your award? You have to pivot your award. Yeah, I did. Trev stole yours. I've actually done two pivots now. Someone else got me juiced up before, but we talked about them a lot.

I am going to do the I'll seat award. The I'll see award prestige. It's what players go in. the season wanting. I'm an aisle seat guy. The aisle seat. Boys, we talked about this a little bit. I didn't know if we were going there too.

There's one thing. There's two things you've got to look out for when you're in the aisle seat. Your feet. And those elbows, baby. Conforto. We already talked about the hit by pitch stuff. And now everybody's talking about you. Mets, Lendor, you're the story of baseball for the day.

Yankees Mets. Little brother, big brother. back pages, all that crap. One, Michael Conforto, pretty good ball player. Go check out the baseball reference. Guys got a career 127 OPS Plus and 840 OPS. You got your announcer spitting the truth on you. Ron Darling, our guy, loves reading Trevor Plu's stuff.

I saw Conforto's face, and I didn't fully recognize him. Like, he's an outfielder in New York that's been a good ball player for a few seasons now. Well, guess what, dude? Now people are seeing you. Now people know you. And you're supposed to be a part of this Mets team middle of the lineup, hitting lefties. Man, he's got a couple nine OPS seasons out there.

Like, hey, man, now everyone's going to be watching you. And a lot of people are just not going to like you because of that one moment in time. So, hey, man, 2021 season, the Mets, Lendor, Alonzo. You've had some guys coming around you. to help you out in that lineup. I'm watching Comforto the rest of the season. I want to see how he reacts. I wonder if he picks up a little villain in his game. Or maybe he just goes and rides Mr. Smile the whole way. But Mikey, watch those elbows. Keep hitting and you'll be beloved.

But if he starts having a tough year, people are going to hate on him. Oh, he's not hitting. I mean, that's early, early. 176 batting average, 535. Guy's been a really good ball player. He's gotten overshadowed by that monster in right field for the yanks. Hey, he might be heard again. Conforto, go out and start winning some headlines. Go hit, kid. Go hit. I mean, it was so funny when that game, the Mets broadcasts. I think it was Hernandez. What do you do here? And they're like, oh, you walk, you're walkland door. Conforto has been struggling really hard. And then it was like, strike one, strike two, foul ball, foul ball,

strike three, ball elbow shot. Which needs to jail bows. A lot of a free agent after this year. he is he's been around for longer than you think yeah he's he's he's he's uh made four mill in 2019 eight mill last year making 12.2 this year in his last year of control you're right i don't know a lot about michael can right i just don't i know he's like a decent player but like his numbers are legit and he's making a lot of freaking money and he's going to get paid a lot he's going to be age 29. I mean, yeah. It's got the spotlight's on you now, kid.

Turn it up. Enjoy it. All right. He also shouldn't be like villainized for that. I mean, come on. Like, it was a... It happened. Bad call. Yeah, I don't care that he didn't.

It happened. A lot of people are always going to hold that over his head, though. Don't be defined by that in Fordo. How about that? Right now, like, I think of that picture of his mom that everyone tweets out all the time when I hear Conforto. Hot Mom? Yeah.

Not familiar? Clem. Mets fan. Anytime he hits a home run tweets out the picture and says Conforto Bomb. So that's what comes to my head. Okay. All right. Let's go to elevator talk. I'm going to spin the wheel. Two minutes on the clock.

One team. If you're stuck in an elevator with a fan of this team, here's some fodder for you. One, two, three. Unless it's a team that's got too much play already, we will re-spin. The Detroit Tigers. Oh. What you got on them, Jake?

It's been Akil Badu season, all season, whether it's talking baseball, farm to fame, Chris Rose. He's kind of, he's been low-key, one of the stories of baseball so far. So if you get in that elevator and you don't say, how about that's Padu Kid, you kicked off the elevator? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's kind of got to be the first thing out of your mouth. We're three and three. What do we got? We got a weekend series with Bileveland coming up. Starting off with Zach Plesack. I don't know if there's any ads to be had there.

Jimmy's dumb prop bed of the day is Zach Blesack. Is that what you're talking about? He's scheduled to come on sequence. Double ads. It's going to be a good. Wow. No one's really hitting besides Akeel Badoo. Heimer's got some base hits, but no. No slugging. Yeah, what about Wilson Ramos? Wilson Ramos has four hits.

Buffalo. Yeah, he's got four hits. Half of them have left the building, babe. Yeah, I mean, Boyd's been good. Boyd's been good. We talked about that. It's early. Boyd's been good.

I mean, Tehran's been good. Casey Mize had a good start. I don't know, man. I don't really know what you're looking for. Fulmer out of the panel. Starting pitching for, starting pitching. has been good for the Detroit Tigers. They're 500, right?

So that's good for them. I don't know where if Detroit Tigers fans lie. Do you want to be really crappy this year? So you get a high draft pick. You just want the rookies to be good. Like, who cares if Ramos is good? You know what I mean? I don't think that matters.

Casey Mize, man. Is the KC. Mize train going to pick up this year? Something special happens? Yeah. It's the Badoo train right now. I'm rooting for that. Maybe that's, okay, Jim, I think we just found it. If you're the tigers, the young guys need to keep passing the baton.

Like Akiel Bedou, he's got these first, like, first week, maybe hopefully the first couple weeks of the season locked up. Storyline, Rule 5, it's got all of it. I think he's got to pass the torch to Casey Mize. All right. I like that. See you guys. They got Cleveland, then they got Houston coming up.

So two fun series for them. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back on Monday to recap the weekend series. Jake Sucks.