Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 35 | Dodgers and Braves are Out, Nats & Cards Are In

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

The Cardinals scored 10 run In the first Inning and blew the Braves away. The Nationals waited a little longer to rip the Dodgers hearts out. A 10th Inning grand slam and some brutal managing ends the Dodgers season. We also preview game 5 vs the Astros and Rays.  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.

30 teams became eight, eight teams became four, but there's one more to go. We had a lot to talk about. What's going on, everybody. Welcome to talking baseball. Thank you for tuning in. If you've been listening throughout this postseason, every day, we've been doing a show recapping the games that happen and the games that will occur today. It's been a lot of fun.

I think this is our most amount to talk about. Only two games were played. but we got a lot to dig into here. My name's John Boy. I'm coming to you from New Jersey. We've got my co-host Jake out in Denver. Two crazy games last night. But first, let me tell you the patrons, the sponsors of this episode

because there's a good amount of crazy nice people. Number one, Michael Nielsen, Mike, is my nickname for him. I hope no one has that already. Mitchell Bollinger. Balls. Bollinger. How would you say it? Did you go Bulls?

Boles. Yeah. Sounds like balls. Yeah, bowls. The Riz. I don't know what his nickname could be. Lucas Perea. Yeah, that's a tough one.

We're not getting that right. Mr. Rose. You think that's Justin? It's Pete. Thanks for tuning in, Pete. Thanks, Pete. But you're banned, dude. Oh, I.

He's banned. Come on. Chris Griswold. Griswold. Scott Titmus. Yeah, every day. Mitchell Mowgren? Time out.

Michael. Michael. Michael Magrin. Conor Armstrong. We do have two Michaels and a Mitchell, so you're off the hook for that. And a mister. Yep. David Kudlow.

Yeah. Those are our most recent patrons. Connor Armstrong? Connor Armstrong. How can I forget? Yeah. Who are those people? Well, Connor Armstrong is Neil's great, great nephew.

Very cool. Who's not that into space and hates talking about it. No. Get over it. No. Yes. I am related. No, I don't care.

That's his answer every time. Well, those are our most recent Patreon. supporters, patreon.com slash Johnboy Media. Get you there. Get you access to the live show. We got looks like Ryan Buck Johnson's in here. He's in the chat watching live with us. He's excited because then that's one.

Jake, how are you doing on this fine Thursday morning? I'm good. James, I'm good. I'll be a little slutty for a second. Leave some reviews. If there's a day baseball people are listening, the reviews kind of unfortunately matter. We normally don't ask. Leave review and be like,

Jake is the playoff Kershawf podcasting or something along those lines. Insane, man. Insane. I was, I mean, the Braves-Nats game, it does have a ton of talking points. Baseball-wise, it bummed me out for a little bit. And then I was bummed out kind of halfway through the Dodgers game because it was just like, it was nothing. I mean, the first inning happened, and then it was just a lot of nothing is the Strasbourg bunting at bat, like, just twisted an NL knife in my back a little bit. And then we get, I mean, lifelong highlights. Lifelong highlights for a lot of guys.

That was insane. Yeah. I think looking back, when you were in the first game, and it was 13-0-1, whatever, in the first couple of innings, 10-0-0 after the first, it was like this game sucks. I put it on the back burner. Yeah. I actually didn't watch the last inning.

I fell asleep. Took a nap. But now, looking back on it, it's kind of like, we got a wild one. Because it was. Yeah, I mean, technically it's crazy. After that first inning, I mean, it turned into a social experiment. It was teams have never done this before. fans have never done this before.

Like, what's going to happen? It kind of sucked for baseball. And then it totally redeemed itself at the nightcap. Totally redeeming herself. And I was really tired. And I was watching movies with Katie. And then I had the game on my laptop. And I was trying to, like, make gifts or whatever.

And I was just watching. And I was like, holy shit, what's going on? And I got more mad at Dave Roberts than have. happy with the Nats. And that's unfair to the Nats because they deserve a ton of credit. And I know that on this episode, I want to talk about how terrible Dave Roberts was. And I'm not trying to take away from the Nationals because they deserve the win. They fought.

They come back. All that. It was really good. Howie Kendrick's great story. But in a moment, I was more like, what the fuck are you doing than holy shit, go Nats? You know, I was just confused. So we'll save that for a little bit because I know we're chronological podcast. People have been saying that nonstop.

We're a chronic podcast. Chronic podcast, yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Wow. Might make that into a sticker, just the chronic podcast. That cush. Nope.

Do they just go in chronological order? Oh. You may think this means one thing, Mom, but it just means they go in chronological order. Just in order. Yeah. So we operate. Back off on my chronic podcast sticker on my laptop, mom. Seriously.

It's a baseball podcast where they go in chronological order. And yeah, someone hit a skunk on the road outside the apartment. Yeah, I'm not high. All right, let's burn it, Jake. I can burn it. Burn game one? That chronic, yeah. I don't know how you're going to do this.

Here we go. On your mark. Get set. Go and burn. St. Louis versus Atlanta. Blues versus Thrashers. Nelly versus Ludacris. Game five between the Redbirds and the Braves and the ATL. Mike Fultenevich on the mound and Fultenevich is Algonquin Ferd. That ain't it, cheap. A leadoff walk by Fowler. Colton Wong, Sack, Butt. Runner on second one out. Maybe they push one across here in the first. Goldie, infield single. OZuna, RBI. single. The Gold Glover Freddie Freeman boots a potential Yachty double playball. Carpenter RBI walk.

Oh boy. De Young, intentional walk. Fulties out. Max Freed in. And it was more like the spelling Max Frye. RBI walk for, oh yeah, I haven't even mentioned him yet. Starting pitcher Jack Flaherty. Fowler's backup, him and Wong back to back. RBI doubles. Goldie lines out. Okay. Okay, Ozuna strikes out to end the, oh my God, it gets away from McCann, another run scores. Molina grounds out. It's a 10 spot in the first. That's it. Flaherty was solid.

The Braves died, a number that will haunt Atlanta forever, 13 to one final. Haunt them forever. Brutal, just slapped in the face, left and right. And like, it was a team effort. That's why I'm going to make a long breakdown of the first inning of just like everything that went wrong. It wasn't just bad pitching. It was a team effort.

Drop third strikes twice. Error by Freeman. Gold Glover. Walking in runs, walking in the pitcher. Like, it was everyone's fault. It's just. But you know who gets. Who gets the most blame?

Who gets the most blame? Oh, I know. Mark Malanson. You playing it? Looks like you're playing it. Let me bring it up. Let me bring it up. Because I've got a weird question for you that I kind of want to get out of the way.

Do you think there's anything to like city sports teams? Like, do you feel like St. Louis has a little good juju because the Blues won the hockey championship? Do you think Atlanta has a little bad juju? I mean, you could go back to the Falcons. You could go back to their, I mean, the Braves haven't done anything for a while. Do you think there's anything to that? Okay.

Analytic people hate this because it's about a human emotion and feelings. I do think there's a quality of when another team in your city wins, and you're sitting there watching it and seeing those fans and the parade, I think you get a bit more hungry, like, or just like it's tangible, like, oh shit, like that's what it feels like to win here. Let's, how fucking sweet would it be if we double down? Tiny, tiny bit of energy, I think,

maybe just a little bit more hungry. On the Atlanta side, no, I don't think so. Okay. I think it could also make your crowds just more energetic because they're just coming off highs nonstop. Yeah. They're like, hey, we were energetic for the blues. like let's bring the noise for the cards like let's go the city of magic we're all in and you get fans

that aren't baseball fans but they just like getting swept up in a moment they just got swept up for the blues they're like okay i'm in again what are we watching this time so it might make the stadium a little more rockets because it's been happening i don't think you can really say it affects the play on the field yeah it's it's interesting because i i think there's something there but There's definitely no way to quantify it, and it's not significant, but like, there's something. But I don't know what it is. All right. Here's Melanson's pump-up speech.

It's the most awkward weirdest thing you'll ever hear. Hold on. Pulling it up. Turning the volume on. Big day today, guys. We need your energy. Game 5 NLDS. Let's do this.

The energy. Let's go. do this. Need your energy. We need to fill that relentless energy. Get going. Let's go. Game 5. Here we go.

Finish it up. I mean that third one? Big day to day, guys. Energy. This one. Relentless energy. Get going. Let's go game 5.

Here we go. Finish it up. Relentless energy. let's go here we go game five finish it off hey i don't like i don't like how much you've watched that clip because you had the timing down perfectly i i i tweeted out those words so i knew exactly i was reading um the yeah the braves made i i know we're doing a lot of non quantifiable stuff to start but uh the braves made two fatal moves before the game even started a mark malanson releasing whatever that was and

B, they got rid of the foam chops, the foam axes, which, yes, there's a whole conversation out there if it's appropriate and blah, blah, blah. But they had them for the first two games to pull them back in game five. Yeah. You lost. You lost before you started and then you did start and it got even worse. That whole situation is weird and it's tricky and not really what I want. to talk about on here.

But, uh, yeah, we'll say, I saw some people saying that the opposing pitcher, what's his name? He's part Cherokee. Was it Hensley? Something like that. He's part Cherokee. He speaks like Cherokee language still. He was raised on a reservation. I believe, I believe all that.

I've read that yesterday. He didn't go out of his way to say he didn't like the chop. He didn't even tell them to stop. reporters asked him. I saw a lot of people giving this guy shit. And I just think if you're listening to this show and giving him shit, like, tone it down. He was asked, what do you think about the chop? And he said, well, I don't really like it because some people may think Cherokee people, that's all they do is they just make noises and wave their arm when they were pretty smart and like, you know, a civilized culture.

So I don't really like that that's the one thing that we're, you know, showcasing. And he was asked a question. and he answered honestly. The Braves didn't have to stop it because of his answer. Yeah. Especially the middle of the series. The whole reason the media asked that is because it is such a hot topic that when that ball gets rolling, it gets going. But that's for an offseason episode when we'll rename the Cleveland team and the Atlanta team.

But for now, are you a believer in, we've talked about game path a lot, or I've have, and I keep forgetting the actual word it is. but McCann squeezes one of those foul tips. The whole game takes a different course, right? Yeah. Yeah, man, it's like, you know, we were saying, you were trying to find a name for like thin ice games. We're like, you have to be perfect.

We kept saying it. We said it about the Brewers against the Nationals. We said it against the Rays against the Astros and an elimination game. I didn't think that this was a thin ice game, but they fell and cracked the ice. McCann drops that strike three. The bat extends that and then that error by Freeman. And then I mean like,

I don't know what you want to call the McCann pass ball on the strikeout. That's like your frozen body got unthawed just to die again. Yeah. That's fucking so brutal. Yeah, for me, the, um, because even the Freeman, Freeman boots a ball and you say,

I mean, that's like a total whoa moment. Like, okay, this is a do-or-die game. Freddie Freeman, who's like the heart and soul of that franchise, such a good defender, he boots one. And that's, you're like, you take a step back and you're like, okay. So this is insane. This is basically the worst, the first inning could have gone. But I think there's still like, hey, let's strap in

and we can still do something special. When you walk in a run to the pitcher, when you walk in a run to the pitcher in the first inning, that the game was completely lost. Yeah. There was a lot of moments, man. That's why I'm going to make a breakdown and just be like his saddest inning of all time. And I mean, if you're a Braves fan, you're just killing yourself. I know Malanson's a freaking weirdo, but, you know, you were in extra innings of game four

and you didn't use him. He's technically your closer. That ball goes off Freeman's glove and game for tough series for Freeman in hindsight. And yeah, I know a lot of people were tweeting out the stats that, I mean, a lot of the hitting was Albies and Acuna, which, I mean, adds up to a degree, but Donaldson and Freeman kind of weren't there. Marcaic also had a really tough series.

I mean, great for the Cardinals, man. Every time we rule them out, they just take it. a step further. Do you like their speech at the end, the coach's speech? I did. I did. Arrozania, I forget his actual last name, but that's a tough look for you, dude. Right now you're kind of a quadruplea guy. You can't be videotaping coach's speech in the locker room. Yeah, for anyone that, for anyone that didn't hear it yet, he was like on Periscope in the celebration. I think it's like, you know, the closed door celebration.

Yeah. What I was. What I was. We played the game bar. We played the game right. We started some shit. We finished the shit. Yeah. And that's how we roll. We don't start, but no one fucked with us ever. Ever. All right. Now, I don't give the fuck who we play.

We're going to fuck them up. We're going to take it right to him the whole fucking way. We're going to kick their fucking ass. Yeah. Let's go. I love the opening line. started some shit we finished some shit as a great that's awesome line strong at the end he loses me completely because he just seems like he's like trying too hard to just fit fuck into every sentence yeah he got lost in the fbom there a little bit for sure um i feel like that and you know you've been breaking down the ass it's like my eight year old cousin learned tatt just swear

and he just walked i'm gonna kick your fucking ass strong um hey I know you've been calling Mike Schilt like kind of the Dwight Shrewt looking manager. A, the fact he's got any of this in him is good. Well, he looks like Dwight Trute. He doesn't manage or act like Dwight Shrewd. Gabe Kapler doesn't look like Dwight Shirt. He manages an axe, or he did, like Dwight Shrew.

Yeah, Gabe Kapler fired. They need to switch their bodies to match their personalities. Because Gabe Kapler's always like, how could you not review this? I don't know. Like, just like taken back by the world. Grow up, Gabe. Why are you so full of muscles if you're such a pansy?

I think it's also funny. I mean, it starts getting crazy. We ignore, you know, analytics is becoming more popular and obviously all the on-field. But personalities are a huge thing. I mean, you just, you talk about Mike Schilt speech. Did you see Dave Martinez's winning speech? That was pretty. No, I was asleep.

It was like quiet. It was kind of awkward. And maybe again, like you're saying, this was the behind closed doors. Maybe when they closed the doors to the media, Dave Martinez gave a strong, powerful speech. But when the cameras were there, it's pretty awkward and timid. And it's like, oh, like, you guys rally around this dude? But that's another thing for another time. I mean, what else is in this game?

I mean, is the pitching an actual conversation? Like, what were your thoughts on the whole Jack Flaherty situation? I would have taken him out. Yeah. Like, would you let him still, what would you have done? I would have allowed him two or three innings to solidify, you know, because sometimes they can slap you right back. And you're like, oh shit, this is just one of those games where both sides are going to put up numbers.

for whatever reason. So I think you need them in the first. And then in the second, sure, maybe one time through the order. Whatever, I don't know the numbers on it. Whatever adds up to a throw day. Okay. Once you pass throw day,

which I'm guessing is 30 pitches, once you pass that, I mean, you could use them for game two guys. Yeah. You just wasted them when, dude, and then I know we were texting about this personally. When the Cardinals hit Acuna. I feel bad for Acuna because, like,

he's going to have a bad rap for a while. He gets hit a lot. And I think he's going to stay getting hit a lot. And he's getting this tough situation that Manny Machado's in where they play the villain and then sometimes they act like they like playing the villain. But then they play the villain. victim when the villain gets attacked and it's like well that's what villains do they get attacked so you can't you can't play both sides and i feel bad for him because he's really young and hasn't really

figured out if he's the villain or the hero yet and that that is i think that is a really important no because i i think you're right in the machado comparison almost like actually made my eyes open that he does have time to change that i mean he's still 22 and he can do a lot But right now, yeah, he's going to be the young guy villain. I mean, Machado, when he was really young, like the Donaldson tag play and throwing the bat at the third baseman, it was like, Machado's come down from that nonsense a lot. Yeah. And when you hear him in interviews and podcasts, he's like a nice normal dude. And I think he got his fill of the villain last postseason.

I think he may try to come off that a little bit. and I don't know hopefully acuna does it does it a little quicker because he's a great talent and i don't want his reputation to be there's that punk and i i want to correct myself really quick ronnie's still 21 so he he can do so much but yeah man i had you know we we deal with some of the crazies of the internet i had a couple people that genuinely reached out and we're like dude i think this series on acuna and it's like no someone else told me that i was like no it's not i was like no it's not But that's that's the rep. It's the Machado.

It's like Manny when Manny still had a bad rep before he came like silly winning Manny in Boston. Like you just kind of get this reputation and it's hard to shake. There's a couple, the casual fancy and not run out a ball you thought you hit for a homer. And then it just starts to like steamroll. So yeah, but that's that's tough. I mean, he's not the reason they lost or anything bad about on field. No. At all, obviously, that you'd be crazy if you think that, I think.

He's one of the better performing bats. But I just think personally, for his reputation and moving forward, be the villain, you're going to get thrown out a lot, or be the fun-loving player. There's a fine line, and he's kind of dancing all over it right now. But he's young, and that's kind of how it goes when you're young, and it sucks to be 21 and on a national stage. but you're also very gifted, so that's what happens.

Anyway, my point was bringing up that hit by pitch. Sending Flerty up the next inning with a bat in his hand is so stupid. I cannot believe they did that. There's no reason for Flerty to still be in that game. You guys just hit Acuna. If they want to retaliate, oh, my God, they can retaliate and they can hurt your star pitcher. there is no benefit of that at bat. Now, I know the Braves didn't throw at him,

and it was just a one, two, three strikeout. And half good for the Braves, half, I don't know, man, you should have. I would have buzzed him at least. Like, I hate that I think that, to be honest with you guys. Because I heard someone like, whenever I hear someone, you got to throw at him. I'm like, dude, shut up.

That's not, you never have to throw at someone. But I was like, yeah, buzz them. You texted me that. and you were like uncomfortable about it and you were right. So the things here is, A, kudos to Sean Newcomb. He was the dude on the mound. He was the dude in power there. He could have made things ugly really quick.

The last thing baseball needed was a brawl in the 13 to 1 game five deciding game. That being said, Newcomb walks away looking good. For the Braves, it would have just been an awful look. If you're down 13 to 1 and you start throwing at people, they kind of say they walk away the bigger man. No Brave fan really cares about that today. But if Newcomb did throw at them, I think baseball purists would have been like, yeah, yeah.

We're making the ads up. But even though they're... There's enough body of evidence. Even though they didn't, I still think it's crazy they sent Flerty up there. there was no need. Yeah, and that was my thing, too. I think, because at first I almost jumped on team, don't pitch Flaherty at all.

And then, you know, you start putting more logic to it, and they're like, well, he already did his full routine, like he'd been throwing. So I was kind of on the same team with you. Throw him two or three, get some bullets out of them, have them ready for game two. And, dude, it actually lined up perfectly. If I remember correctly,

say he pitches the third inning and he goes out there and it's his third at bat already, by the way. And there's runners on the pond and like, okay, if you send a pinch hitter there and you put up another knock, it's like 15. Not that the score mattered. It was already decided. But you could go to your bullpen and get through this and have him ready. I mean, it's going to be an interesting story going into the next series. There was kind of the fun moment that if this was a Cardinals podcast, you love that after the fifth inning, they were going to pull him. And then Flaherty comes in and he goes, no, no, coach, I got one more. And, you know, it's the pitcher and he's a young guy and yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Yadi follows him. He tells him, he's like,

no, he does have one more. He's good. So that, that was kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, 13 to 1, 10 runs in the first, one in the second, two in the third. Cruise control the rest of the way they had more runs then hits. I mean, every Cardinal batter scored a run in the first inning. Yeah, we had defensive replacements in the first inning. Harrison, Harry Bader comes in for Carpenter. That's, that's one of the more hilarious stat lines you can look back at. Dude, I didn't.

I didn't realize that. Yeah, they did defensive replacements in the first inning. Carpenter. You did your job, buddy. So, yeah, and I, Cardinals fans. Dude, there was a moment I was trying to make the breakdown, I made the breakdown of McCann. And there's a moment where Carpenter's having a conversation with some Cardinals,

not the manager, but someone. And I was like, what are they saying? I was trying to figure out what they were saying. And it was definitely about that. Because it looks like Carpenter's like, I'm out and he leaves. So I want to go back now with that context and see if I could figure out the lip reading. because I think Carbner was just like, I'm done then. Okay.

Like fine with it, but like, all right, whatever. And yeah, I think for Cardinals fans, again, like awesome, congrats. You guys absolutely blitzed them. If you think, if this has been too Braves centric for you, well, it's the last time we're going to talk about the Braves and we're going to talk about you guys more coming up. But good on them, man.

They did it kind of slash a Braves collapse. Nellie wins. McCann retires after the game. Yeah, I like McCann. Mark DeSherr's stepbrother. Their parents are married. Oh, I've got a Jakey Hot Take. You know, one of our crazy fans record this and get it ready.

I've got a free agent who's going to sign with St. Louis, or with Atlanta this offseason. Austin or all mine? No, maybe. That would suck if you just randomly guessed and you got it right and now my guy doesn't. Okay. Sorry about it.

No, it's a great job by you, man. I just took the sale right at you. I don't even think he's a free agent anymore. You ruined it. I was going to say, maybe he gets traded there this offseason and it's my new hot take Tommy fam that's who they need is Tommy fam a free agent I thought he was then I just looked at his page and it says he's not but I thought that was the whole reason wasn't he with them already he was with st. Louis I said

the Braves need oh okay okay because whoever they whoever they bring in house this offseason needs to be like no nonsense I don't give a damn about that 13th 15 to one game, let's go. So, yeah, basically the whole thing is ruined. And now Austin, Romine's a Braves. Congrats, Austin. Did you, oh, so, okay, little buffer combo. Sure.

Says you brought up Tommy Fam. Did you hear his interview after the game with the race? Yes. If anyone didn't hear it, I mean, I could try and pull it up. They ask him, like, you know, what's the question? It's intense. What's that? It's intense.

It's awesome, though. And it's weird. It's weird because if someone was to write these down, like these quotes down, I think you could read it and be like, that's like conceited or shitty. Here it is. You know, but, you know, I'm proud of myself, to be honest with you. I remember throwing a ball against the wall playing catch with myself, throwing a ball up hitting it, you know, throwing bat in practice.

to myself. You know what I mean? I believe in myself from a young age, you know. It ain't like I had a dad out there to play catch with me or throw me batting practice. So, you know, I'm proud of myself. There's a. I mean, if you were to just take that out of context, and I'm sure some fucker did, and just say, like, Tommy Fan, I'm proud of myself.

It sounds like a Reggie Jackson, like, quote from back in the day that would have went crazy. But, I mean, that's, that's cool. cool to hear an athlete actually give themselves credit. Like, you know, actually I worked really, really fucking hard to get to where I am. And it's because of my hard work that I am. A lot of people helped me along the way, but I'm proud of myself. It's probably the most real answer that you never do. I think Tommy Fam is so intense that a lot of people did not take it out of context because they didn't want to deal with his wrath.

Because he's a, he's kind of a bad dude. And yeah, that's, I think whoever comes. into the Braves this offseason. They need a little bit of that like that attitude. Like I don't care. I'm doing, I got to this point. I don't care what happened in that game five last year. Let's go.

Yeah. I mean, Tommy Pham has a crazy story if you haven't heard it. He was, there was one time he was injured Jake. He injured himself and they asked him like how the pain level was. And he was like, no, I was like, I've been stabbed before.

So, you know. Yeah. And I think it's a really sad story. I think I got a stepdad stabbed him. So go look in a Tommy Fam story. But I just thought that was an interesting quote that you never hear. I'm proud of myself. And it was delivered in a not a cocky way. No.

And good job by MLB and like ESPN and some of the outlets because they they were sharing that quote and in a good light. Yeah. I'm sure some asshole tried to make it sound bad. It's always one man. Yeah. You got one. No. Oh, shit.

Yeah. So. All right. You got to burn for the Dodgers game? I do. Anything else we need to say about Cards, Braves. Braves, good run. Yeah, it's tough.

I mean, you guys have all the talent. I think this offseason is plug and play with some mean dudes that won't care about this loss. And Cardinals keep the crazy train rolling. I think you need, like, Donald's. types, like a couple more that are good. Yeah, the Donaldson conversation is going to be interesting because young thick, Austin Riley, he's most comfortable at third base. So it's how ready is he and how do they want to allocate their money.

But yeah, Braves offseason talk is going to be a lot of fun. All right, here we go. Cardinals, Matt's, game five, on your mark, get set. Burn. The best playoff starting pitchers. of all-time asterisk, Stephen Strasbourg versus Walker Moxie-Vuehler in an elimination game at Chavez Ravine. Bottom one, Max Muncie, Burr-Bunt that funky Muncie.

Two-run, Yacker for Max. Those two runs were more than Strasbourg had given up in his previous 28 postseason innings coming into this game. Bottom two, Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding? Solo Dolo for her. It's 3-0-0 Dodgers after 2. The pitchers would exchange zeros until the bottom of the 6.

Soto hits an RBI scoring 1-R-R-R-R-R-Scoring 1-R-R-R-Sk. 3-1 Dodgers. Who's coming in out of that pen? It's three-time Sy Young, five-time ERA champ, one-time MVP, Clayton, Kershaw. He mows down, Eaton, and then comes back out for the 8th, and oh no. Tony meatballs, Rendon, crush you. A decent pitch from Kershaw, whatever.

It's still 3-2. Oh, my heavens. He might be the sickest man in the world. The very next pitch, Juan goes so high, so far, so toe, 450 feet bomb off the legend, creating his own legend. We're locked up at 3s, free baseball.

We're into the 10th, the Joker, Joe Kelly for L.A., Howie Kendrick, faces Huck, and Lemmy put a smile on that face. Grand slam for Howie. He was having a brutal defensive series he comes through with the swing that sends the Nats to the NLDS and ends the faux dynasty. Washington 7, Dodgers 3. This game was wild.

I have a buddy who I like to call him a Mets fan version of the Dodgers. This team sucks all season. They're never going to do anything. If they pitch Kershaw on a big spot, if they give Bellinger and Seeger big at bats, they're going to fucking lose. And I was like, man, you're crazy angry. Come on, they're pretty good.

And those three guys don't have good playoffs. And, yeah, the Dodgers dynasty is weird. it's a really sad dynasty to look at now. This is a sad end. And for the Nats, it's awesome. But this game was so mismanaged. It's unreal. I think Dave Roberts' brain froze.

The Joe Kelly stuff, I can't explain at all. Oh, it's maddening. Joe Kelly in his first inning, clean inning, right? look great through all curveballs. Fantastic. To throw them out for the next inning, fine. You know, fine.

But, Jake, like, they have relievers. Other relievers. May, Kenley. They have other relievers. Joe Kelly hadn't pitched two innings. since August 24th

because he's been battling an injury. So, I mean, so you've got Joe Kelly back out there and I'm fine throwing him back out there if you're going to go batter by batter because you have so many other weapons in the bullpen who that's why you have them there.

Right. So in the 10th, when he walks Adam Eaton, Right. Okay, Kelly, let's go to one of our other weapons, but they don't. Then Anthony Rendon hits a ground rule double on a line drive, hard hit, and they go, okay, Kelly, you're staying in. We're not going to have you pitch to Juan Soto.

We're going to intentionally walk him when you have Kohlrek in the pen, who's been your Juan Soto guy? Yeah. Why intentionally walk Juan Soto? Bring in Colorek and just see what's the worst case? Like he pops you? You're loading the bases with no outs. Bring in Colorek.

And then now bases loaded leave Joe Kelly in. It makes so little sense and not backtracking. In the moment, a ton of people were saying this. It was, it's maddening. Like, I think his brain froze. I mean, he had the arms available. Arias has been good. Dustin May's last outing was solid.

Ken Lee, I mean, that's your guy you kind of want to, if the ship's going down, that might be the guy that would be symbolically and the guy you'd want out there going down with the ship. Joe Kelly, yeah, I mean, there's no excuse. Ken Lee comes in after him, looks solid. Maida had one of the most impressive endings of the postseason. It's devastating.

And I ended up sounding pretty good about this game yesterday because I was mockingly saying the end of the faux dynasty. But it was funny you asked about Dave Roberts and the best way I could put it was, when have you ever been like Dave Roberts and gave a round of applause or been like, good job, Dave Roberts? No.

And I mean, maybe it's part of the curse of this team being so stacked. And the playoffs are a crapshoot. They truly are. This is what we were trying to put into words to Yankees fans without sounding soft. But when the Yankees advanced to the ALCS, we told Yankees fans on talking Yanks that, like, hey, I know this doesn't sound like the Yankee way, but like, appreciate this. Because this sport doesn't work this way. And then the Dodgers, a couple days later, are the perfect example.

It takes a lot of skill, but it also takes a lot of luck. Last year's World Series MVP was Steve Pierce. And the ALCS was Jackie Bradley Jr. You need a lot of things to go right. And you need your manager to not stick to their gun when their gun is Joe Kelly. Well, I even think the Kershaw move is kind of baffling too. Fine with him ending the inning there, but to throw him back out when you have all these other arms,

if you strip the name, he wouldn't be out there. He's throwing his fastball and his slider at the same exact speed. Yeah. They're both 80 plus miles per hour. Like, go watch the pitches that he gave up for home runs to Soto and Rendon and tell me what they were. They're just slightly moving 89 mile per hour pitches. And when you have all those weapons,

and at that point they had, how do you say his name? Maeda. Maeda. They had Maeda behind him. Yeah. And you have Colerac for Soto. Now it's a 3-2 game.

I don't get anything that Roberts does. did there. And this is now three years in a row where they're so good in the regular season. And all the puzzle pieces are there. Like they've built a World Series team. And they just got like a guy with like pins and needles hands trying to piece the puzzle together like just slamming them around, sliding around, not knowing what's going on. And I mean, and it's where baseball can be disgusting because, well, A, think about what happened to the Braves yesterday. baseball can be disgusting in a lot of ways. I mean, they ran into the Red Sox last year who were kind of on a war path and they just got beat.

They lose the game seven in 2017. And, I mean, just like that, I mean, you know, Dave Roberts goes from good manager to almost like a laughing stock. And, yeah, the Kershaw thing, he owned Eaton, which, hey, good for you, Clayton. Yeah, man, it's brutal. Colorek had been so good against Soto. Dave Roberts was still trying to play the game inning for inning when the game was batter per batter. And I don't know.

ESPN, again, I'm giving them some love today because guess what? When they cover baseball, they still have the resources to show some pretty cool shit. Clayton Kershaw, 34,374 regular season pitches, lifetime. Never giving up home runs on back-to-back pitches. He's done it twice in the postseason.

I saw that too. That's fucking insane. And then, Jim, I thought this one is actually, because that one's a little fluky, because who cares? Like if you bounce a curve in between giving up homers, you still gave up back-to-back homers. I don't really care.

Worst ERA when facing elimination. and this is actually, I don't know if you've seen this going around, but this is wild. So number one, worst ERA when facing elimination, 39 pitchers career have 20 innings pitched. So facing elimination, 20 innings pitch. Worst is Tim Wakefield, 675 ERA. Tough break, Tim. Second is Clayton. Well, he didn't record an out, right, in 03?

Yeah. So that's an infinity? Like, that's tough. Yeah. And I mean, he's like, he's the. knuckleballer that would come out when you need innings so that's that is what it is um clayton kershaw number two 577 roger clemens number three five two eight

Pedro martina's number four five one seven max scherzer number five five oh six uh that's kind of a cool list like I don't think it's damning to be on that list wakefield's the only odd ball there so that's why it's interesting Jim is the fact that that managers get, managers get away from what they normally do because of the name, like you just said. And that's how you find yourself in a playoff situation having a bad time.

Because that list outside of Tim Wakefield is like a who's who of star elite pitchers. But in these games, managers go out of their way to try to work them in, and that's how they run into problems. And I'm Clayton Kershaw, man. I mean, when he's sitting down having breakfast today, what's he thinking? Did you hear sad quotes? Yes. Everything they say about the postseason is correct right now.

It's like, oh, my God. Yeah. It's not wrong. No, he's not wrong. No. Dodgers need to make big changes. Like Dave Robert should be gone. 48 hours is on the clock.

If you go into next season with Dave Roberts and you go to the postseason and you lose because of some weird managing again, it's on you. At that point, it's on you. Management, it's on you. If you make a change, right? And you go to a new manager and you go to the postseason and you lose in some bad way again, it's like, well, nothing, at least we tried something different. same result let's find another you know what i mean but if you stay with jabe roberts it's fully on you you can't do it you you need to mix it i don't care how good he is in the regular season you can't put yourself in the situation where you look like fucking fools next postseason

if the same thing happens four times you need definition of face definition of insanity yeah you need you need the change of pace and um you know i had a couple people that were like dude this isn't the end of the Dodgers. Like, they're still good. And it's like, yes, the Dodgers are still going to be really good. They have a ton of talent. But the Dodgers can never be like favorites again until they do it. Yeah, they're like A-Rod and, you know, in the postseason or whatever.

Like, until you do it, you will be counted out. Yeah, you just can't. And that's how the Nats were until yesterday, you know. Yeah. in elimination games. The Nationals, A, kudos to, um, kudos to Strasbourg for settling down.

Um, you know, cup, you give up the two run homer instantly and then Kikey sneaks, like just gets it over the fence on you. That's brutal. Um, when they brought in Tanner Rainy, I was like,

we're really doing this. Um, and hey, big claps for Patrick Corbyn. Um, Patrick Corbin comes in. He goes 1.1. three strikeouts after the blowout game.

He was in a terrible position because when the Nats tied it up, they send them back out there. He potentially could have been the losing pitcher in all three games if they scored a runoff of him. And Patrick Corbyn shoved, and they've only got two dudes in the bullpen they believe in, Hudson and Doolittle, and they've been doing the job so far, more or less. So, I mean, big credit to the Nats. And dude, Soto's special.

Soto is so special. Yeah. What I wanted to say before we move on is the Dodgers signed A.J. Pollock for big money. They gave him what, like four years 80, four years 50 or 60 or something like that? Yeah, 460, 570, something like that. I can get there. He goes, oh for 13, Jake. Yeah.

In five games. Didn't get a hit. That's tough. Bellinger had a 549 OPS, which actually is like middle of the road for this Dodgers team, and that's kind of the problem because Will Smith did nothing. Corey Seeger did nothing. Turner, Peterson, and Muncie are the people that actually did something for the Dodgers.

And then the other thing is, so you had Pollock, right? well they also got this guy Joe Kelly and the reason they got him is because last postseason he shut them down in the World Series he made three appearances I think 3.2 innings pitch or something like that zero earned runs was a big reason they lost the World Series in 2018 and they sign him and he loses the playoffs for them. And they signed him for what, three years, 20 or 30 mil or something like that? Some like that. Similar to what Britain out of Vino, those guys got. Yeah. So just sucks that that guys cost you two playoffs in a row.

Yeah. And you got a you got to shuffle it a little bit. It's going to be really interesting to see because they have more young guys coming up. Gavin Lux, Will Smith, Beatty, Verdugo. Um, they, they've got a lot of dudes. They, um, they, they, they need to shake it up. I thought maybe one big trade, free agent here and there, but, uh, and the new manager. Yeah. I think it's a month. Someone who's asking me, because I was saying there's eight managers now that Kapler got fired.

There's eight managerial spots open, maybe nine with the Dodgers. And someone was like, he's got two years on his contract level. You really think the Dodgers are going to let him walk? And I was like, I think. I think the... I think the bold move is to stick with Roberts. Yeah. That's the gutsy move.

You think your guy Joe Madden's interested in this gig? Yeah. He probably looked good in Dodger Blue, too. He looks good in everything. He wears good-looking guy. No, picture him in a pirate uniform. Good-looking guy, man. No, picture him, pirate.

Are you doing it? Yeah, he'd wear a pirate hat. He fucking would. And that's obvious. They might move that... He'd show up for his first day of team meeting in a pirate hat and like a parrot on his shoulder. Peg leg.

You guys ready to have fun this season? It's like, get the fuck out of here, Joe. They would bring in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have that ship right past their end zone. They would put one of those in Pittsburgh. So now I'm rooting for Joe Matt in Pittsburgh. Every Wednesday's Penguin Day, every Thursday's magician day. On Friday we wear matching outfits. And on Saturdays, we talk about...

Pirates. Hey, pirates. You got a little talk this episode. Good for you guys. All right, let's move on. Hey, before we do, Howie Kendrick, having a brutal series. Oh, and then you just hit the series winning Grand Slam. That's baseball.

Like, I had a weird moment this morning where, like, if I have a son and he doesn't hate me, like, I'm going to, when he's 12 and getting frustrated with baseball, I'm going to be. like, hey, watch Howie Kendrick in this series be basically miserable and then an absolute hero. The X factor. Howie. All right, moving on. We've got another elimination game coming.

Game five, Rays at Houston. Garrett Cole versus Glassnow and the pen of all. Pends. Every clinching game has been won by the road team. Yankees celebrated in Minnesota. Cardinals celebrated in Atlanta. Nationals celebrated in Los Angeles.

Will the Rays be celebrating in Houston? Jake, what's your answer? I'm too biased as a Rays fan, man. Oh, Jakey Rays. I'm too deep in this. Dude, I don't know. It's funny. People love predictions and stuff.

And again, like I, yesterday you could go back on the tape. I said some stuff that sounds cool about the Nats. I also said I'm kind of endeared to the baby Braves. Anything can happen in the sports, so prediction is a little stupid. The pressure is clearly on Houston. They have the Trump card of all. all Trump cards and Garrett Cole. But Jimmy, how about that list I just read you of Star, basically the worst pitchers in

elimination games are the best pitchers because they get the most leash and the most leash doesn't necessarily pay off in playoff games. Well, I also think like to get the ball in game seven, only good pitchers get that. Right. So that list is going to be only good pitchers and Tim Wakefield. I love Tim. To a degree. And Tim,

Tim Wakefield will fight you like hell on that. But yeah, I mean, if you're Houston, you're at home, you're playing the home field advantage card. You're playing Garrett Cole, who I think in his last 17 starts,

there's 17 and 0, something along those lines. So Houston still has, Houston still has a lot going for them. And they are the favorites in this game. the pressure is on them and it might be and I guess this is what I'll be

looking for in this game to get a lean is the who makes the first bad play who pulls the first basement off who boots a ball in the outfield and they get an extra base on it because for Tampa you're the full underdogs you're telling yourself you know

we got to be perfect we'll play our best games we can beat these guys If you're Tampa, you boot a ball, that crowd gets loud, you're the raise, Garrett Cole's on the mound, it starts spinning downward fast. For Houston, if you boot a ball or whatever happens and the raise get the early lead, now you're facing the team with the lowest payroll in baseball, who could potentially be coming back on you from down 02 in the series. I mean, you're in a bad place.

So I'm watching for the first, who's got the first hiccup? I don't care about the first solo homer. If Altoove gets Glasnow in the first, I wouldn't be shocked at all. If Choi gets Garrett Cole, I'll be a little shocked. I'll be honest. But I'm looking for the first mess up because then that team is on the thinnest of ice. Garrett Cole struck out 15 rays earlier in this series. 15.

Tommy Fan had a single against him, though. Then a one, two, three inning, then a one, two, three inning, then a one, two, three inning. Then a one, two, three inning. Then a one, two three inning. Then a one, two three inning. Then Keirmeier had a double. And Adamas walked, and they took him out. But it's going to be tough, man. Watch out for fam.

He's been the Ray's biggest bat. Seven hits in four games, home run, one run scored, two Rube, Rube, eyes. He's got a 440, 4 on base percentage. But Willie Adamas, Jake, in 10 at bats, so less at bats, it's got a 615 on base percentage this series. Six 15. Willie went nuts the past couple games. I think this is going to be a close game because the first game is a close baseball game with a dropped ball in second base. Second game is a really close game. 3-1 with like the tying run at the plate in the ninth, right?

I think they had the leading run up at one point, yeah. In the drop, blowout and then game four, not a blowout four to one, but the raise dominated from start to finish in the field and with the pitching. Now they're going back to Houston. Houston hasn't blown this team out. yet on their own doing. Their biggest win was a four-run win, and they got gifted two runs on a

dropped pop-up. So I either think, I think it's going to be a close game. You would hope the Astros just, the Astros haven't, haven't dominated a game yet. Is that fair to say, or is that unfair? No, I think that's fair. You're right. I mean, the pop-up probably makes that first game a four-two game, and we look at it a little differently. And I mean, even six-two, it's not a domination. Although, I mean, what Verlander and Cole did in those games, but if you're the raise, you're doing everything you can to get to that bullpen. I mean, I think Garrett Cole's going to have about 115 bullets for you.

So you just got to constantly put together good at bats. You can't go down, if you go down 02, you cannot swing at that slider in the dirt. You're done. You have to put good at best together. And Jim, I just think, and maybe it's a little shock from what we've seen yesterday, but I don't think the only thing that would be surprising would be if Tampa won this game in a blowout. Every other result would make sense. You could see Houston having a big game and being like, oh, you guys thought we were done.

Here we are. You could see Tampa winning tight. You could see Houston winning tight. You could see either one of these pitching slash pitchers, dominate and be like, yeah, that makes sense. The raise through seven guys, and they struck out, they struck out 17 hitters of their own. Like, this game can easily go in a number of different ways.

It's just, it feels like it's going to be that playoff mentality where, I mean, you saw it last night with the Nationals, like, yeah, Bueller was shoving. They had some action on the bases, but they knew whoever was coming out of that pen was not Walker Bueller. and if we get action on the basis, you have to turn into hungry dogs, and it's time to eat. The rays might get two opportunities

to score runs in this game, and they need at least one of them. Astros better be rocking. It better be loud. I don't know. I'm excited for it. And I did the Atlanta-St. Louis fan base thing. That was kind of a weird question.

Nelly versus Ludicrous. Nelly versus Ludacris I'm taking Nellie. Paul Wall, the mouth of the south. Who's that famous Tampa rapper? Florida. Oh, my God. Oh, I'm at the strip club.

Yeah, oh, Steinbrenner Field. Why don't the race play here? They would sell it out, but the Steinbuners own it. Sound like a John Lejoy song. That was John Lejoy, the famous Tampa rapper. He'd actually probably love being called the Tampa rapper. forever. Jimmy, again, it kind of goes back into the mentality of this game.

Houston, what they've been planning this season, and they're like a historically good team, did some air quotes over here, but there's a lot of stats behind that. If they go down to Tampa, one-nothing, two-nothing early, I don't think that crowd's going to be loud. That's a proud city that might be on the verge of something

not very proud. Did you hear, speaking of fans, did you hear, I don't know who was announcing the Dodgers game, did you hear them laugh at Dodgers fans at one point? I'm trying to think. It was Ernie. Is there Ernie Johnson on TBS? I think it might have been.

It's a tie game. I don't know who's doing it. Tie game, Dodgers fans are intense, O2 count, and the batter fouled it back. The Nats batter fouled the O2 pitch. and the crowd cheers. And Ernie Johnson can't stop himself from chuckling. He's like, they're really on edge.

You're cheering over foul balls now. And like it's an O2 pitch. So like it was kind of like Ernie couldn't even help himself but laugh at the fans. Tough. It's tough. Tough break from Earn. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, Astroen's fans got to be loud. I think they will. Unless they put up a five spot. I mean, that's not going to happen. I don't have the Ray. You can hot take me. I don't have the rays blowing out the Astros. They can't.

That's the only one that would be like, what the fuck is baseball anymore? But no way. Yeah. I mean, I can see the Astros doing it and I can see it being a close game. I just can't see the Ray's doing it in Houston. So that's all I really got. I mean, unless Glassnow's overhyped. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see Glassnow.

I know this is something you're into. Altuve is the one that got Glassnow. So he's the guy to watch. And again, before that Altuve Homer and the 5th, I mean, Glasno was cleaned through Ford looking pretty good himself. It's going to be. What to watch for is how much leash are any raised pitcher is going to have? It's going to be the opposite of Dave Roberts.

Yeah. Hey, I have something to do before we end this show. As Yankee fans, we can give talking baseball our perspective of who we want to play as Yankee fans. Sure. And which guy, I think this is a fun question for either fan base, which guy I don't want to have to root against. Which guy I don't want to have to root against? Okay, you go first so I can follow.

Okay. I, like you just said Jose Al-Tubei. I love watching Jose Al-Tube play. I love how he can pull high fastballs. I love watching those little legs run around. Like, I really enjoy watching Joseo Tube play. If the Astros win this game, it's Yankees versus Astros. It sucks that I'm going to have to be, like, rooting for him to just

be awful. Right. So do you have a guy on either team? I mean, there's obviously the El Tuvei little guy thing. No, it's a lot of the Astros. I mean, like you said, when Verlander's special, it's one of the coolest thing in sports to watch. If he's doing his eight innings 12 strikeouts against the Yankees, that's not fun for me.

So, yeah. Jim, and Choi is another. I like G-man, but I'm okay with the Yankees pitchers mowing him down. No problem with that. Astros, yeah, I mean, like George Springer's a CT dude. I weirdly root for that because I'm a pathetic loser. Altuve short, I like that. Verlander's special.

I enjoy that. But yeah, I don't know. I saw this circling around the internet pretty hard yesterday. And the answer is the Yankees are rooting for Tampa. It's not a debate. unless unless you feel otherwise. Oh, no, I'd rather play the race than Astros. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're doing the home field advantage thing,

which clearly isn't as important as we're depicting, but Yankees would get home field. That's the biggest thing. You get more home games, straight up. You get more home games. Yankee Stadium is in part of the arsenal for Yankees. Like home games help. Ask the twins how they felt.

They're crying their little eyes out because someone said something mean to them. And then, like, down in Tampa, the Rays may sell that place out. There's going to be a lot of Yankee fans there. And they don't have Cole and they don't have Verlander. And the Yankees have dealt with openers before. And they've dealt with Tampa a lot, have a winning record against Tampa in 19 games and the time zone and the travel. Yeah, less travel, less travel. And yeah, I mean, they've played.

Tampa a lot this year. They did pretty well against them. Were they 12 and seven? Something like that. I mean, Tampa would totally be peskier and more annoying because it's like a new pitcher every inning and something like that, but don't, if you're

one of the people out there saying, no, I want the Astros, man. They haven't looked good. I mean, we, you know, their rotation is a little messed up. No. Don't get me wrong. It'd be slightly cooler to say, You took down the Astros on the way if you do end up winning it at all.

But you don't want the Astros. Who cares about it? I saw some people saying that too. Like, what path is more impressive afterwards? And it's like, oh, oh, buddy, buddy. No one cares about that. I think people care a little more than you think. Okay.

Tell me the most impressive path in history of a World Series winner. Oh, you're asking someone with a bad brain. That's, that's, I don't think anyone could be like, you know who had an impressive path? Oh, no, but people love saying you have Blah. People love saying you have a weak path. Everyone comes at the Patriots for that.

That's a big thing in sports. Yeah. I don't think anyone cares. You win the World Series. Cavaliers. Yeah. So I think that's all we got, right? I think that's it.

That's all. Well, thank you guys for joining us. We got one more game tonight, and we'll be back tomorrow to recap it. And then I think that's, it is a very short episode tomorrow. Hold on. What else? NLCS, babe. Well, but that happens Saturday.

So we're going to preview the. I thought the NLCS game one was Friday night. You're correct. You're correct. Back to the Outermost. All right. Cool. Cool party.

Oh, this is a much easier path for us now. One game a night, basically, except some. All right. Thank you guys. See you later.