Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 476 | Joe Maddon Intentionally Walks Seager, Hunter Greene Throwing 100, & Verlander is Still Great

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Get 20% OFF + free shipping with code 'TALKIN' at https://manscaped.com Download the Topps BUNT app today at https://bit.ly/ToppsBUNT22-JBM1 Timestamps: 6:00 - NL Recap 10:30 - NL Standings 11:15 - Rockies-Cubs 13:30 - DBacks-Mets 17:45 - Phillies-Marlins 20:15 - Braves-Padres 27:15 - Cardinals-Brewers 30:00 - Hunter Greene 33:45 - AL Recap 39:00 - AL Standings 39:30 - Rangers-Angels (Intentional Walk) 47:15 - Mariners-Astros 48:45 - Yankees-Orioles 50:00 - PitchCom 53:00 - Rays-White Sox 59:00 - IL Recap (Giants-Guardians) 1:02:45 - Standout Performances 1:04:15 - Justin Verlander 1:07:00 - Francisco Lindor 1:09:00 - Andrew Heaney 1:16:00 - Slump Watch 1:17:45 - En Fuego 1:19:00 - Awards 1:29:15 - Elevator Talk: Miami Marlins If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/ PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details. 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. The Giants and the Dodgers sweep the weekend. Joe Madden intentionally walk RBI. How about that? Let's do it. And welcome to talking baseball. It's the Monday morning series recap episode. My name is Jimmy sitting next to me.

Jake in the corner. We got producer BPD and in Hawaii. We got Trevor Plouffe. Jake, take over. Jimmy, ever since he walked into the office, like, the studio five minutes ago. It's like he kissed a cat. He's just been coughing and hacking.

Now he's going for, he's wondering if he's allergic to something in the chewy bar he just ate. Honestly, it's like a, it's like a cat's in the room. Yeah, I'm a little worried for you. Jimmy, BBD, Trev, the chat. What is going on?

Everyone, baseball hot in the streets. Big West Coast up, it sounds like. Giants, Dodgers, Joe, Madden, boogety, boogity, booggy, my halos. Jimmy's going to compose himself. Trevor Plouffe, you are coming live from a special location today. John Boy Media West, where are you? I'm in the far west.

I'm in Hawaii. Okay. I told you, Jake, yesterday. I'm built diff. Just doing all this on vacate. That's fine. I apologize in advance to all the people out there for any tech that's going on. I'm going to try to get it all cleaned up

so you guys can hear me. I know you can't see me that well. But I got some fiery takes. There's some things that went on over the week and I got to just talk about a little bit. And I'm happy because I'm a host on a show called Talking Baseball. So I'll get to do that.

Now, James, I'm going to ask, can you talk yet? I think so. No. We'll see how this goes. I'm suspect of a third in the room. You're suspect of a third. in the room.

The fourth, I guess. Like that this was like, came from a cat place or something like that. Okay. Oh. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. So, yeah.

You know, might be, we might be playing through some cats and some island time today. But we're, uh, Trev's got fiery takes. BVD in the corner. Yeah. Baseball's moving too fast. Ooh, interesting. It is. Mr. Bunny's whack.

There's too much weird stuff going on. And I can't keep up on. breakdowns or anything, and I'm dying. And it's just too fast. I had a laugh today. A, a couple things. I'd like to issue a formal apology to Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies fans. We missed your guys series last week.

We're talking baseball. It's unacceptable. We're sorry. You know, those are my rocks. You know, I was a Dallas guy for a little bit. to each of those teams. I'm going to attend a game at your stadium in the next year. And we're going to do a formal apology.

We'll do a Jake Day at the stadium. We need to be better than that. We're sorry. Just straight up missed it. Won't happen again. I love you. Two of my favorite team. My rocks are off to a hot start.

Rangers, not so much. And that's okay. But it won't happen again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So that's what I got. I'm sure I was brought to you by Seat geek. I don't know if I mentioned that when I was dying.

Also, it's a Drafking's Studio and I'm going to do the Draft Kings Read right away. Okay. And then we're going to get into all the recaps. You're a gambler now. I am a gambler. I am a gambler now. Five-leg parleyes, Treff. I did a five-leg parlay.

I felt hot about it. I missed it because of a hailstorm. Yeah. Which ruined Tyone. Couldn't go that deep anymore because of the hailstorm. So I had my wife Katie said, hey, place a bet on this bat. I need to make up for my thing. She placed one.

Six of my units. Whoa. You know, like a lot, a lot way more than I usually bet. She lost. So $6 down the train. Unreal. Yeah, usually five, five leg parlays are the way to go. I don't know how you didn't hit that.

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. I think I'm going to put a dollar on a five or I think I put two dollars to win like a hundred on a five leg parlay. And I think I'm going to do it every night. It was pretty fun. Okay. The Hailstorm ruined it.

Yeah. After the first inning, I had two of the five. After the third inning, I had three of the five. And then Tyone's night ended early because the hailstorms, so it got ruined. Anyway, if you want to do that. The force majeure. That's an act of God, James. I think you can look that up in a clause somewhere.

Dude. Yeah. I'm a force majeure these guys, Jake. Well, uh, what you should probably do is download the draft king sports. We've got to now. Use promo code John Boy. You can bet $5 there.

And if your team wins that game, they just got to win. You get $200 in free bets. If your team wins their game, that's promo code. Johnboy. The Afghan Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball. 21 plus restrictions apply. MLB trademarks used with permission. See show notes for details.

Yankees screwed up my bed of the day last Friday. God damn it, Yankees. Gosh dang it, Yankees. Let's get straight into the recap, shall we? We've got a lot of baseball talk to do. I'm going to be doing the NL today. We'll see if I can get through this. Between me dying and Trev's Internet,

we'll see if we get through any of these recaps. But I'm ready. I'm going to give it a go. All right. There we go. The Cardinals and Brewers split a four-game set warning update. We have a lot of four-game set splits coming up in the NL. Brewers win the bookends.

Cardinals win the meat. Brewers win the bread. Cardinals win the meat is what I should have said. Cardinals didn't have a ton of hits, but all their hits seemingly went for extra base hits. Four home runs. Brewers didn't hit that well. Cardinals starting pitches. Good.

starting pitchers, good, not bad. It's kind of a weird series when you look at all the box score stuff. Kutch got five hits. Matt's 5.2 shutout. So I think Matt's doing well. That's fun stuff.

Aronado is on fire. He's crazy. So they both split that series. The Braves and the Padres. They played four games. Padres got the bread. Braves got the meat. They go four games,

Splitsies as well. Olson, seven hits, three extra base, run. Osuna five hits with two home runs. Braves hit six home runs as a team. Padres nine extra base hits, four home runs. Machado. He had eight hits with a home run

a double. Think third baseman are going off to start the season, question mark. Musgrove, 6.2 shoutout innings in his start. Duval go ahead to run double. Darvish with a good start. And for the Braves, Ocuna Jr. scheduled to start a rehab assignment

tomorrow. How about that? The Phillies and the Marys. They also played four games. Not a split, not a sweep. The Marlins take three of four from the Phillies. The only game the Phillies win, Ranger Swares season. Philly starters were not good in this series. Neither was Jake's Trevor Rogers, the only win for the Phil's.

Marlins started Alcantara Hernandez Awesome Good job And oh the 7 to 1 The second game It was the Jesus and Jazz game Jesus Aguilar and Jesus What's the other Jesus on the Marlins

Zardo? What Sanchez and Jazz Those three had all the RBIs I thought that was fun The Dodgers swept the Reds The poor Reds No

Oh no Dodgers are good Reds are bad so no surprise There Trey Turner turns on a Hunter green fastball. Hunter game gets a lot of credit. I stood next to Trey Turner.

It doesn't make sense. Baseball's a weird sport. D-backs and Mets, they played three in normal game. Mets won two. D-backs win the middle game. Cubs and Rockies, they split four-game set. Cubs the bread, Rocky's the meat. How about that?

Cubs starting pitchers, awful. Rocky's starting pitchers, awful. Both bullpens. Kind of not good either. Kegan Thompson, 3.1 shed on innings and relief for game one. Keegan Thompson, two Kegans in the league starters. That's cool. Nationals and Pirates paid four games.

Nobody watched. Co-Tuck had a nice series. Pirates won three games. That's your NL recap. I watched a little bit of the Pirates and Nationals. Said the liar. Only when Kotuck was hitting. I think I saw bits and pieces.

I think I saw bits and pieces as well. Might hear about Kotuck in a little bit. Teaser. Oh, hot. Okay. Yeah, we were talking a little. It's Coachella, you know? Kotuck and Coachella go hand in hand,

even though he's playing ball right now. And I'm in Hawaii. But eventually in our futures, I think we'll end up at Coachella together. That's just me fantasizing. But whatever, what's going on, guys? The Cubs had 21 extra base hits against the Rockies.

I got bummed out. Vanessa Hudgens is killing it at Coachella. And I was like, Cole. Like, I know Cole loves baseball, but he'd love a couple days at Chella, too. We'll save that. You, me, and Cole. We'll do a retirement trip at Coachella.

Just to... Well, I'll just update everyone on the... Standings, yeah. Standings real quick. The Mets are in first place in the East, 7 and 3 record. The Cardinals, first place in the Central, 5 and 3,

although every team in the Central has five wins besides the Reds. And in the West, you have the Dodgers and Giants tied seven wins apiece. seven and two for both those teams. So they would be your one and two, and the Mets would be your three.

Let's see as far as, like, losing records, Diamondbacks have a losing record, Reds have a losing record, Marlins, Phillies, Nats. Only two teams in the Central and the West have losing records right now. It's very early, but there's your standings update. The standings are tight.

It's funny. You forget how early in the year it is, but, you know, you can't run away early, except the goddamn giants and the Dodgers. We'll come back to them. Rockies, I guess we'll deserve to go first with them because we missed them last time. We'll hit the Rangers in the ale too.

Boom. Yeah, they split, like you said, a lot of sandwich series. Yeah. How about it? Connor Joe. There's not always meat and sandwiches, by the way, James. Sometimes there's other stuff other than meat and sandwiches. Okay, we can do PB and J's.

We can do PB and honey and banana. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but in this case, in all the sandwiches. It was meat. Okay. Beyond meat. Give me a meat, Sammy. Kelsey Winger, been killing it if you don't follow her.

With the live in-game Rockies updates, I've never been more in tune with my Rocks. Connor Joe, your favorite player. Triple, big triple. Yeah. Rocks, hey, they're off to it again. These Rockies had like an okay bad year last year. They added Chris Bryant.

They lost Trevor Story. They won a couple games on the road, earlier this year. Interested to see where this season lands for my rocks and my Cubs. Sayah still doing it for Homer so far this year. Schroeman had a tough start in Colorado. They got to him. I mean, I think he was through four clean.

No, three clean. And then Sam Hilliard. Got him. Then Alan Trejo. This is the Rockies. They're at home. They know what to do. They can win at home.

What's their home record right now? I bet you it's pretty dang good to start the year off. If that happens again, they got to take a look in the mirror. They were abysmal on the road last year, really like a 600 ball club at home. Like there's got to be a correlation to that. I mean, they're two and all on the road and four and three at home. So it's a little tough right now. Well, it's small sample size.

But if they repeat again, right, like they have to start going into the data and figuring out why this is happening with this ball club. Maybe we already able to win on the road. Maybe we already figured it out. Maybe they brought in a special assistant to their front office that told them the secret. You and Kelsey just went up there. John Boy Media's rocks, baby. We're invading. We did Nats, Pirates.

What a series we all watched. Connor Joe. D-Backs Mets? Yeah. D-Backs won on Saturday when I announced the lineup for them. Adds up. They lost the other games around that. So I don't know.

There's some analytics for you. The story is the Mets and they're starting pitching. Yeah. Because they lost out on some guys, right, that were supposed to be there at the top. And McGill has been great. I don't think he pitched in this series, but Cookie Carrasco did. And David Peterson did.

Bassett. And Bassett. And Bassett's supposed to be good. And Bassett's been good. Between McGill, Peterson, he went 4.1. zero earned runs, 80 pitches. But yeah, the starting pitch is good. But the other story is the bullpen is bad for the Mets.

I was talking to Jali. I was talking to some Mets fan about it. I do think it's an easy thing to fix. If you can, you can always find bullpen arms, especially at the deadline, like the most traded thing. So I don't know, I don't think it's like a long problem. Much better place to be in having the starters be good. But I think Juelli Rodriguez has got.

I put into a game again and just gave up a run again. You want to, do you want to know how you win games and I think they're seven and three, right? Get up to a good start. They are giving up two and a half runs a game right now. Two and a half, only bested by the Giants who are given up 2.22 runs per game. And then they're scoring over five runs a game. They're doubling what they're giving up.

That's how you do it. It's not going to continue that way for the entire season. but that's got to be like if you're a Mets fan, that is a huge weight lifted off your shoulder to start out like this. Because, you know, we were, the Dagram thing and then Scherzer almost got, you know, he had like a hamstring thing right before the season. He looks great. Two and a half runs per game, man.

That's how you do it. That's how you do it. Hey, wait. And if they can, maybe if those starters stay healthy for when DeGrom at some point comes back, you kick a body to the bullpen, bada bada, boom. Matt's off to a really good start. One of the few teams that you can really circle and be like, they are off to a great start this season.

And with some like downside. I mean, obviously we talked about the pitching, but to start the weekend, they had to send Kana and Nimmo to the, to the aisle, call people up. And like no one's going off offensively for them. They're just all looking. I hear about one guy in a little bit.

But it's pretty spread out is kind of what I'm. saying it. I was looking at it today. And they're all kind of contributing, at least from the stats, I guess I haven't watched every single game. Do you see our guy Buck? No, what do you do? Taught some heady baseball. There's a nice little sack fly. They were going to appeal at third. And there was a runner on first. So the runner at first just took off because if they tagged them out, then you can't appeal the run.

So everyone was freaking out moment of chaos on the field. And then they still, the Diamondbacks realized that they still throwed a third, but they didn't get the appeal. So the Mets just got a free stolen base because Buck Showalter knows baseball. Someone did that last year. Who was that? I think it was LaRusa or the, I did a breakdown on it where they used that. Yeah. They used that as a loophole in the system.

I think it was a replay involved. Yeah, they wanted to review it. And if another play happened, they couldn't review it. Yes. So they did a mound visit. to stall so they could look at the replay for longer in the dugout. Then they appealed for home and they reviewed the appeal because they ran out of time to review the play at home. So they did a mound visit, watched more of it.

Then said, okay, appeal at home. Then they reviewed. They challenged the appeal instead of the original play. Fucking big loophole that I think it was the White Sox of the last year. That's good. Smart baseball by Buck. Always. Always.

Always. Trev what are your Phillies doing dude it's not it's not great it's not great with the Phillies right now it's not great with the Phillies right now gonna be honest with the there's three four to the Marlins

I said the Marley the World Series team remember that before I said the craziest prediction you could have is the Marlins going to the World Series the pitching has been great I don't know man I guess it's tough to go into Miami and face all those guys

so I'll just chalk it up to a bad series right? I mean, not offensively. That's their team. I know. I mean, bomb four for six, Ramuto,

five for 13, Harper at five hits. They don't, so that might have been in one game. They scored three runs in the first game, one run in the second game, and three runs in the fourth game. In the third game,

in the third grade, they scored 10 runs. I mean, true. We're going to need more out of that. That's, it's, but this is a tough NLE,

You know, we knew there was going to be some lumps. This isn't going to be one team running away with it, even though the Mets have looked, I guess, like the best team in that division. I don't see it playing out that way, though, at all. If you're looking for a fun midweek series this week, Philly goes to Colorado. Might be some hitting in that. Hmm.

But look who they had the face, though, man. Like, that's... It's true. That's tough. Our guy Nick Nelson, not doing well out of the pen for the Phillies. But neither did Gibby. Eflin had a bad start. So you got to give it up to the Marlins' back.

too. Because they faced a bunch of pitchers that we've been talking about being good. Was it Gibby, Ethlyn, Swares, Wheeler? You know, if those all had, if all those starters had good games, we'd be saying like, yeah, they got pitching in that kind of way. My guy, Hazu Sanchez, after I gave him a little love, had a big series. I felt good about that. Sometimes you say enough shit, you stumble into something.

So. Hmm. And a few Marlins fans reach out and said he's a dude, so I'm in. I'm drinking the Kool-A. Joey Wendell for RBI's. Joey Wendell. I have a bunch of Jesus Sanchez's cards in my

Topps Buntap. I've been getting a lot of him lately. So I think he's just like skyrocketing and popularity. So that's nice. I think you might have started that, Jake. Way to go. Thank you. A big deal. Thank you.

Jim, your Braves and your Padres? Yeah. Sandwich series. Yeah. What are you going to do? Peanut butter and jelly, not meat. Well, see, it's the same thing in the middle. That's where I'm getting caught up there.

Lettuce and tomato. I got a fun fact on the Padres. Interesting. I do enjoy fun facts. There are six or seven. I'll bring it up again. Starting pitchers in baseball that have two quality starts so far this year.

Three of them are on the Padres. Wow. Maniah, Musgrove, Darvish is a little loophole because he has had three starts. But they're getting some quality outings from there and the Braves. I mean, Gore had a good start for them as well. Musgrove's just really good.

Musgrove's really good. How are they using Lamet? I know that they were putting them in the bullpen. I want to. He's been in the bullpen. I know, but he finished one game, but. Yeah, I was going to see what kind of innings is he getting back there. Is he bulk guys?

He go all out guy. I guess baseball reference isn't working. Three games, three point one inning. Six case. Yeah, he's doing good. They've looked really good. And that's what we need. We need the Padres to be in there.

He's coming back. Stop playing soccer in the outfit. I guess I want to hear your guys take on that a little bit, too. but the Padres team is fun and Mani Machado is really good I don't think we talk about him enough I love Mani I'm freaking good he's just

like is he going to be a Hall of Famer he's on that trajectory he's 29 years old this year he's got a career 826 OPS he's racked up 45.2 war I don't know he's got a ways to go he's got to play for he's playing until 28 that's where his contract goes through So yes, this year and six more.

So he putting them numbers up, Manny. How about three stone bases for Manny Machado? Get those legs loose, kid. I love it. I want to hear Jimmy's take. Jake, I think I know what you're going to say. Jimmy, what do you feel about the whole Tatee's video almost breaking his ankle on a soccer ball?

I mean, it's his wrist, right? That's what he's out for right now? Yeah. So then you could say, yeah, well, Okay, soccer's just all the feet. But, I mean, you see that of his ankle going and him going down. And he lands on his, putting his hand. Put his hand that he lands on his wrist.

So, yeah. I mean, like, it's not great. No, it's a bad look. The player's got to be able to play sports and have fun. You know, you can't, I don't think you can stop them from doing this. That's what they do for a living is play sports and have fun. But when you're, it's just a bad look. I just think it's kind of

You just can't do it on the field And if you do, you have to be Like overtly cautious To where anyone Watching would be like, oh yeah He's just standing around kicking it back and forth They go to that clip of him Rolling his foot over the ball

And then falling and then landing on his like wrist shoulder Now I don't know if it's the left wrist or right wrist That is injured He lands on his right wrist kind of bad look i don't know i want it i want it to not be like upset about it whatever and then i'm not it's just like damn it's bad look not great good for good for ercosmer getting that to a hot start huh every day hearing your name slandered on the internet streets and like people saying get out of here they'll eat your whole contract to take you away like hey 924 ops 1.62 ops plus

suck it like I'm I hope he has a great year man I hope he has a great year it's tough to hear your name and talked about like that you know the entire off season and last year too hoss off to a good start Matt Olson off to a good start Marcello Zuno off to a good start Braves the record's not there right now I heard your your caller on baseball today on the Ampab Treb Braves Braves Nation seeming kind of calm there's their sticks are doing some of the work and Ronald Acuna Jr. starts his rehab assignment tomorrow. So they're on a little, at San Diego, I think they're heading to L.A. now.

So they're doing knocking out a brutal West Coast trip. And then maybe by the time they get back, we'll, you know, maybe Ronnie's on his way. I think the record's not there, but Braves fans are doing aye. Braves fans are doing aye. We talked about, you know, this next coming series, it's Braves going into L.A. See, Rose was asking me about, you know, what's it going to be like for Freddie to, you know, face his old team in L.A. And I started to read articles prepping for our show.

And every single one of the Braves players that was interviewed, you know, like, yeah, we miss Freddie. He's a good dude. Can't wait to say what's up to him. You know, not really thinking about the whole baseball thing. He's just a good person. But then they also kept adding, you know, it's pretty easy or it's a lot easier when you get a guy like Matt Olson to replace him.

They, I know Atlanta loves. Freddie. But Matt Olson has gone in and it's been a seamless transition. Like the guy is on fire. And not to mention he's just like a great clubhouse presence. I thought it was really interesting how they all were talking about Freddie and yeah, he's a great guy. I can't wait to see him. But they all said the same thing. But we got Olson. So you have to like give snaps or claps to the Braves front office for handling that situation the way they did. I mean, was there a better solution? I mean, there was signed Freddie. And I guess people would have loved that too, but like this is good if, just as good if not better, right?

Yeah, I also got to think players don't want Olson to hear that. Like they're sharing a locker room with them and to, to just be like, yeah, I wish, I missed him. I wish he was still here is kind of, could be taken. So you always have to have that caveat. I'm like, but I'm happy with who we got. Olson's great. Yeah, but they can, they're like, they mean it.

I don't think they're just saying that because I mean, many of the results are there too, but I think. Yeah, it's pretty funny. We know how we saw him in spring training and, you know, his demeanor. It just fits, man. He's, it's a guy guy. That's why they paid him. Helps when your lead in baseball and hits on base percentage and your fucking Mattles, too.

Does he date your daughter? Yeah, he might be doing more than that to my daughter at this point. Cardinals Brewers, I think, is the only series we haven't touched. Yeah, another sandwich. Another Sammy series. Ashby gets the win in the last game to split the series. Ashby, I think I might want to talk about this. I might make this my topic, me and Eno.

Ashby like changed a lot of his pitches to be even nastier. Ooh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Peralta got roughed up. Or at least they scored a ton of runs in that game. And Matt's, and Matt's has been good. which is Matt's had a bounce back.

His first start was bad. He had a good bounce back start, which is good coming over to a new organization. You don't want to throw up a couple duds early. Aronado's going nut job. I think there's some nice similarities to him and Goldschmidt's first year over in St. Louis, the numbers were a tick down. Aronado's first year in St. Louis, the numbers were a tick down. I think Nolan might be primed for a big boy season.

He is a big boy. That Cardinals team is scary, man. They're kind of relentless, too, and you just kind of like look at their lineup. And now they got Pooholls hitting homers, too. Like, what's going on there? That's going to be a great race there at the end, Brewers and Cardinals. Aesthetically pleasing for me, you guys know I like to mention that. It looks really good.

The rivalry is there. It's going to be nice. Crew, step it up offensively. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Dodgers are great Dodgers are great

the Reds tried to do an opener with our guy Luis Sessa Hunter Green a little bit a little bit huh 39 pitches over 100 miles and hours more than

your snakes my twins and like two other teams have thrown ever in the stat cast era are you guys like interested in that at all or as the 100 mile per hour club just like gotten too crowded for you. My thing is the Cardinals have Hicks who threw 100 miles per hour so much

that he injured himself. And now they're trying to get him to be a starter to not throw 100 that much. I don't know. It just doesn't seem like it scares me more than excites me for his future. Like you can't be throwing 140 times in one game. You're going to burn yourself out.

And you don't probably. probably don't need to. And then eventually, Trey Turner just sits on it and fucking smacks one. And that's not a big dude. So it's, you got the, you got the,

I know, but this is like you and launch angle, Trev, when you're just like, who cares? It's just like, it's just a stat. It's not a result.

That's how I feel about Velo. Like, you need to have other pitches and movement and all that. Like, he lost because his fastball got hit on a homer. It's very impressive. It's cool, but it's not.

It's not a result. Yeah, no, I totally agree with Velo, especially if you see a guy a couple times. I don't know what his fastball looks like. You know, when I'm watching it on TV, it looks like four seamish, which is typically pretty straight. Maybe he's got a little bit of that extra life on it.

But if you miss in the zone, like, yeah, guys are going to smack it like Tray Turner did. He has some good off-comprominary pitches, some good off-speed pitches to go with as well. I don't think he's laboring to throw 100. So he's a guy that I think just throws 100. Do you know what I mean? He makes it look easy. He makes it look easy. Yeah.

And everyone says, like, you know, the 100 is great. It helps. You can make more mistakes when you're throwing over like 96 than anybody throwing under 96 can. Guys just don't hit your mistakes as often. But when you're facing the Dodgers and you're facing like the elite of the elite, hitters, they're going to crush that, dude. A hundred is, a hundred down the middle is nothing. You know, we've seen enough Velo now as baseball players when you get to that level that

you can hit anything that comes over the heart of the plate. And that's kind of what we saw there. But I think, like, if you're a Reds fan, you should be super pumped on him. That's a, he's getting hurt by his era a little bit. Anytime you're the first to do something in baseball, it's really cool. But yeah, like, I remember when Chapman first came over and it was like this dude is must watch this guy can hit 104 um hunter green gets a little hurt by the fact that kind of every team has their hunch guy now i knew so many guys that threw a hundred like when i first started coming up and they were just bad pitchers like they just were like they could throw a hundred but they had nothing to compliment it with they couldn't throw strikes

those guys were laboring to throw a hundred like they were all out throwers he doesn't look like a thrower to me. He looks like a pitcher who just is big enough and strong enough and has the arm strength to throw 100. So hopefully he can add a little bit of movement to it because it kind of looks a little straight. I don't know. Maybe that's just me watching on TV. Go Farnsworth fastball. Right now, Garrett Cole fastball. Ooh. Ooh. It's too straight. Too straight. That's why everybody's throwing two seamen sinkers now. Yeah, I mean, if he can locate that at the top of the zone every single time,

like that's different. But when you start getting it, you know, middle of zone and especially down in the zone over the heart of the plate, you just drop the barrel on that. You know, it's an interesting thing as it hit it when you go up and you're facing guys that throw that hard. You have to go hard. Oh. So guys are able to make that adjustment in the big leagues. So he still has to live on the corners.

You know what I mean? And he will. He will. Let's live on the corners. Jake, can you tell me kindly what happened in the American League? I don't know. I sure can. I got no idea.

Nothing? No. Clueless. I watched a couple games. I've blocked him out. I'm going to start it over. Let's start it over. There you go.

Here it is. Yabado. Jim, how about we head out to Chicago, the White Sox and the Rays? Two American League powers in the White Sox. They win the first two games, same score, 3-2-3-2. A couple nail biters, and then the race take the final one with JP Firehydron as the opener. White Sox, they didn't really hit this series. 176 batting average.

And they must have been nervous games. fans let me know because your starters were nasty your relievers got hit a little bit so you were in close games that your relievers got hit a little bit that you were winning by one run must have felt it a little bit that being said they win the series they've won all three of their series this year raise hope you guys don't stink this year sarcastically mariners hosted the astros and they take two out of three they take the bookends a mini sandwich uh 11 one of Blah in game one, our guy Odo. Oh, no.

And then the last game, Matt Brash, I keep telling you guys about this guy. Go check out the pitch ninja. Talk about some X-axis. That slider. It covers the whole plate literally 14 inches of break, a.k.a. the Trevor Plouf in Hawaii. The middle game, you might want to circle as well

because Justin Verlander, he dropped it. The bad man might be back in Houston. That being said, good for the Mariners. They host the Big Bad Wolf, and they take two out of three. Speaking of Big Bad Wolf, the Baltimore Orioles take two out of three from BBD's New York Yankees. Oh my gourd. They take the first game in 11 innings, two to one. Yankees, what is you doing, baby?

Yankees take the second game, a little hailstorm, kind of their only offensive output inning of the year. They win that game 5 to 2, and Orioles on Easter Sunday win 5-0-0. Rugi-Odor, Yankee legend. Former Trevor Plouf teammate in Texas drives the stake through their heart. Yankees feel bad right now. Go listen to talking Yanks. A lot of emotion.

A lot of emotion. Speaking of, the Boston Red Sox, they're playing right now. It's Marathon Monday. I got graphics Matt is there right now. One of the best days. They're playing the Minnesota Twins. It's a best of four. Twins are up four to two in the seventh as we speak.

But the Red Sox have currently won two out of three. Tanner Hauk with a big start. 5.2 Shuddy could be important for the Red Sox season. Twins won the first game. Red Sox, they blew out. Michael. Michael Walker's Bailey over. Must watch television there.

Devers and Bogarts are hitting. I mean, I don't even have to tell you guys that. I think you know. Buckston, Buck Daddy, scared us all. Nervous slide in a second. No structural damage said he's going to miss a week. Let's see. Be good.

Be good, Buck Daddy. We'll see if the twins can wrap up the split, or if Baston's got a little magic up their sleeves. Your Toronto Blue Jays hosted the Oakland Athletics and the Jays. Take two out of three. Another mini sandwich, Jays 4-1, A's 7. and five Blue Jays and Manoa. They win four, three on the final day to get out of there, like that for them.

Chicken strips, Jim, your guy, you were on his podcast. He goes four shutty. Like that for him. Vladdy hits his fifth home run. And, yeah, he's just going to do that every year, it seems like. Blue Jays hit, yeah, that's kind of what they do. Christian Pachet, he had the big game-winning Homer in that second game, though. Buy some stock on that dude.

How about it? A tough game from umpire Jeff Nelson. in there. Sheesh. Manoa's dirty. The Rangers, I told you, I'd start with them. Here I am starting with them. My angels take three out of four. Uh-oh. You can see my halo, halo, halo. Our guy Joe Madden stealing the headlines. We're walking in runs, babe. It ends up hurting them, but they still win that game. Otani, were we worried about his slow start? No. He goes ding-dong city. Cinderguard looks good, people and Jakey two times ran out of time. Royals Tigers, Tigers take two out of three.

Awful offense in that series. Some good young pitching. Game four got postponed. Low scoring. 3-1-21-4-2. Nice. Hobby Bay is hurt. We don't like that.

No snaps for me. It was way too long. Way too long. Go fuck yourself. Wow. I know we said we're going to start off with the Rangers. I have some stats. Hold on.

Let me give the standings first. Blue Jays in first place in the east. Then the Red Sox Yankees and Reyes all of five wins. White Sox in first place in the Central. Guardians and Tigers. Wow. The entire Central losing a record besides the White Sox. Hey, about that.

Angels, first place in the West. Oh. Rangers have the least amount of wins in the A.L. Yeah. Does that lead into your stats, Trev? Was that your stat? It's not my stat, but it has something to do with that. Now, the Rangers as a team, we knew they brought in some bats and they can say,

these guys can hit, right? Like, they're going to score some runs. They're averaging 5.44 runs a game. That's pretty good. Not a lot of teams averaging five runs per game. The problem is they're averaging giving up 6.3 runs a game. that's how you lose some games. We knew they needed pitching.

They sort of addressed it. I don't know, man. Just kind of seems like, told you so. 10 games into this season, right? Yeah. I just don't think this year is their plan still. So I'm not like upset with them.

I think they're just getting ready. They got headlines. They won a game and they got an RBI walk, intentional walk. You want to talk about the intentional walk a little bit? Yeah, is that a topic later on? if we do it now, we'll just have to cut some other stuff short. I mean, Joe Madden is exhaustingly Joe Madden and remains to be so.

It's like kind of a bummer that the Angels came back in one. And now people are like, well, whenever it happens, the team wins or didn't hurt them. It's like, what did? And it was dumb. And the only reason to do that is to, like Joe Madden should go coach college. You know, the one good thing that came out of it was the Mike Trout meme. Yeah. And if no one knows what I'm talking about that,

we've talked a lot on this show about how college coaches, like, are the star of the program and relish in that they are the face of the program. Like, the only reason you do that is because you're getting camera time. It does, his quotes about it are even worse. They're horrible, James. They are horrible quotes. I'm doing the breakdown on it now because, and then he argues the ball call in, like, such a sad, embarrassing way.

and you just brought a new pitcher in out of the bullpen. He four pitch walks the guy. And then you go to the mound and you tell him we're going to intentionally walk the next batter for a run. It's like, man. Jimmy, he wasn't, he doesn't, baseball didn't matter at that moment.

He was working on the human element of the game. Don't you know that? He knew they were going to come back in the eighth inning and win the game, even though they were going to give up a run there. Zach Fly, there was almost a grand slam, Bach another run. Their team was down a ton of runs. They ended up winning the game.

But he was playing the human element the whole time. That's what, you know, us simple people don't understand. Thank you. Thank you. My manager of the year, why don't you guys back off? I mean,

the human element there is basically saying like he thought his pitchers sucked. He said the boys needed to pick me up. That's basically what he said, dude, I get the guys some Red Bulls. Don't like walk in a run. and like put your team down even more than make any sense. I thought Chris Woodward after the game,

they were like asking him about it. He's like, it didn't work. Like it didn't work. Like I know they won the game, but that didn't work. And that's like the, that is exactly right.

What's the word? Like did not work. What did Matt and not want to happen? A basis clearing double? Well, they scored all three runs. They did. All three of the runner.

All three of the runners that were on base scored. He wanted his whole team perplexed. I think that's the mind frame he wanted them in to come finish the game. Don't you know that? Like being perplexed is the new hot thing in the streets in baseball. Honestly, maybe every team to try it. Drum had it's so exhausting.

Yeah. In the fourth inning down a run in the second week of the season. To do that is just because you want people to talk about you. Probably. Yes. You know what? Go Angels. They're fun.

There was this shot of Trout and Otoni, like walking up to the plate. My buddy, my angel Sor Soto, put it on his Twitter. It is. Watching those two guys, like, I don't want to, like, say something stupid here because they haven't won any championships together, and I think people are going to say that. But, like, watching those two guys together, It's like Kobe and Shaq.

Is that like weird to, you know, it's like to like that, right? It's special, dude. Is that crazy? Mike Trout has an argument to be one of the best players to ever play this game. Otani, in his own freakish way, is putting together a similar but different, a you but different resume, if you will, of something we've never seen. And I mean, that's part of the reason why I drank the Angels Kool-Aid this year. Like it's it's wanting to believe that those guys are special.

Trout missed so much of last year. He just got hit in the hand with a pitch. X-rays negative. He should be all right. And like Rendon hasn't gone to going. Jared Walsh, dude. That guy's a dude. The stats are real.

And what may be the most important, Noah Cindergarde, two starts. Looking pretty good. I think he's got ERA and the ones, two solid outings from him. If he could keep that going, with manager of the year Joe Madden testing the players day in, day out. That's the recipe.

I'm sending the video over right now. I don't know. People are going to be mad that I called them Kobe and Shaq, but what are you going to do? These guys are amazing. And I did make this comparison. Tell me what you think. I think Jimmy's going to think this is a little crazy.

But is Jared Walsh, Jordon Alvarez-ish, as far as just underrated hitter that people like should be talking about way more? I don't think you're not underrated, right? Well, he was for a while, not anymore. Like, he was like this, like, dirty little secret that, like, people, like, weren't talking about. Now everyone knows how good of a hitter he is. I think Jerry Walsh is kind of the same thing. Like, unless you're, like, in Angelville, like, I am on Twitter, like, he's not getting a ton of national talk, right?

I mean, he's, he's hidden behind Trout and Otani and probably even Redoubt and Cindergards. Trout doesn't get a lot of talk. Rendon doesn't exist anymore. Angels have the dimest lights in national media. We're writing that wrong. We're talking about him all time. Yordon's age, I think, gives him a chance to be truly special. Like, Walsh came up and he had a tough go, and now that he's going, I mean, you know, he's 28 years old.

Like, that's not shots fired. But, like, Yordan is kind of on a special young dude pace. Walsh just looks, he just looks bona fide. Like, this guy, like, if he has an OPS, in the 900s this year. Like, we've talked about that. That's elite. He's got 942 now.

He did it in the 2020 season with a 971. I get it, you know, 32 games he played. That's not enough. Sample size last year was 850. I just, I think he, when you watch him hit, you're like, that is a problem. He's a problem when he comes up to bad. Need Rendon to find it to kind of complete the Avengers over there. How about the Mariners taking two out of three from the Astros?

I know the middle game I'm going to talk about later on, but they got the bookends pretty big. J.P. Crawford, Adam Fraser trade. Those have been big. Yeah, I mean, that's got to feel good. Early season, the Astros come into town to kind of hold home court. Again, I'm going to keep saying the name Matt Brash, because if you haven't seen even the highlights,

dude is Diffy like Trev. And yeah, I mean, like I don't want to say both teams walk away happy here, but, you know, early returns in Houston, JV with the big start, Pena, the rookie, he's lighting it up on the field and the baseball savant stuff. Like, it seems like he's just another one coming in. So happy the Mariners held serve.

I think both sides end up kind of being like, all right. Like, Yordon Alvarez wasn't in this series. He was on the COVID aisle. So, like, you know, I think both teams almost shake their hands and keep it moving. I like that. Thanks, guys. Orioles beat the Yankees in an opposite of a slug fast series.

You can hear our full thoughts on talking Yanks from that side of things. The Orioles side of things, they're the best pitching staff in the world. Hard to hit. Hard to hit. Yanks tried. Orioles just shut them down. Both offenses. Not too hot in this series, huh?

No, no, no. No one could hit a thing. It was pathetic effort. The pitchers were good, but it's so pathetic. I'm actually really interested, Jake. Go, do you have more on this, Treve? The Orioles. I didn't get to watch this series at all.

Did the left field wall come into play? Dude. How they pushed it back. Trev. No one's going to hit. a home run. It's 400 to dead. Really? It's 400 to to left center, closer to

to center or closer to left with a 13 foot wall. That's that used to be the place you went to hit homers man. Like if you left there without hitting a homer you're pissed and now you're telling me we got 400 to left center. That's ridiculous. It's

it stinks. With the wall. It stinks. I'm trying to do a, if there's change like appreciate the change. Let's figure it out. Like pitch. I hated it, but I wanted to try to welcome it. I'm okay with it. It's still not great.

I don't know why pitchcon they say the words. Why not just vibrate? For the pitcher? Yeah, weird. Yeah, just have a v-v-v-v-v-because. Because they're all doing this. Right. And now the crowd can drown it out.

And it's like, I did, I was- Give it an earpiece. Just actually put it in your ear if it's going to be audio. I was flabbergasted. Wait, it's not in their ear? No, it's in their hat. It's in their hat. and it says,

it clips to their hat like, Fastball outside. Like a golf ball marker, clips to your hat type. That's how I feel like it is. And what if, what if it's quiet? Well,

they control the volume, but like the Phillies now re-recorded all the audio with Real Mudo's voice. So it's him like being emphatic, like fastball, lowing in, let's go.

Let's go. Yeah. Like that's bring her. I like this shit at all. I don't, I don't, I don't, I just, I can't.

But I don't know. Yeah. Why did they bypass just a one buzzes fastball and two buzzes curve and three? Because I think they can't hear. Around the league, everyone else is saying there's no problems. The Yankees games have been a disaster. Yeah. It's been an issue every single game.

And if you're going to have the audio element, just give an actual earpiece. Like put it in the ear instead of them. Yeah. Yeah. Playoff games, there's no way this is going to be able to work. Tyler Stevenson did like a tutorial about it and he was like showing all the buttons to press. I put this tweet out there. No one cared about it.

Whatever. I liked it. He was showing where like the location was. He was showing like what pitches were. I'm like if you could see him inputting the pitch in, you could like find location pretty easily. It looks like it's just like a up down, left, right. Like a Nintendo controller dude, he's like pressing it at the end. You mark your pitch first.

and then you go to where the location is. I almost feel like you could pick that up unless he's completely hiding it, which has got to be tough. Yeah, they have, no, they say, they put their glove,

and then they put their hand under their glove. It's so dumb. I guess the players like it. I've heard more like it than don't like it, but. I'm open to pitch. It's a big thing being in an old head, but I don't like it.

There's a good avenue in Lane here for it to be better, but that's what I'm saying. And I tweeted that it was bad in the ace games, and everyone responded to me like, no, it works real good in our games. It works real good in our games. I think the fourth iteration of pitchcom is going to be pretty cool. That's what I'm hoping for.

The Orioles Outfield stinks, Trev. I mean, being a righty power hitter like you and I are, it just like, it kind of chops me down. I hate it. The fact it's 400 to like the power alley. It almost feels like an old, like you'd open up an old baseball. and be like, yeah, the Baltimore Orioles in 1935, actually,

played with these dimensions. And you're like, oh, that must have sucked. So good times in Baltimore. Yankees stunk it up. They're hitting. I want to hear about the Ray's White Sox series. Oh, let's talk about it. I know we're running out of time, but those are two good teams.

And the Ray's have now lost two series in a row to the A's and then the White Sox. What's going wrong? I guess, I mean, Ray's fans, White Sox fans, like, let me know. White Sox are saying the Babbitt death for the White Sox. Is it my baseball reference and internet isn't working at all? So I can't really navigate anything. You have to- Yeah, my baseball reference isn't working either.

You have to punch in the name and search, but it won't auto-populate. So, like, I typed in Walsh and then I had to... Yeah, but the game logs won't come up from me. Nothing will come up. Come on, baseball reference. I don't know. The Rays are going to have a bad thing. year this year because the division's so good and I believe that it's not just because I'm an angry

Yankees fan okay all right let's see I think I was the no you know what last year I think I was the one that said they were going to be off now you're this year I still believe in the race I'm like you're not going to have me slander them at all because I'll just look stupid at the end of the year and I don't want that to happen G man choy going off by the way yeah 10 for 22. He's got a 613 OBP with a 1.477 OPS. Whoops. I mean, it's just so funny that it's so early in the year,

and we know it's baseball. Like, if the Red Sox win today, they're 6 and 4, and they have one of the best records in the AL. If they lose today, they're 5 and 5, and they're same as the Yankees that we did a whole show last night that they feel like death. So it's some of the early season, baseball deep dives can be tough.

What do you guys got on Klub piece? Klobber on the raise, I think that's just a scary combination. I know he's 36 years old, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nine and two thirds innings pitch. He's getting up two earned runs. He's pitching to 1-8-6, like his FIP is good. You know, strikeouts are down, walks are up for him, but I think that'll average out. Have they, I haven't watched a start of his yet.

Has he been pitching differently? Any raised fans in the chat? Has he been throwing his slider more or less? I'm really curious to see what they do with him because he's one of those guys that has like video game pitches. And when you give that to the raise, it seems like it's almost unfair. Like that's just like giving exactly what they want. Anybody race, any race fans in the chat? Let me know.

I'm excited to see what he looks like. I don't know. I can look at the stats page, but I'm not sure. I know his first, I think his first start, he had a lot of walks, which was kind of a thing last. year. He had four walks, his first start, last start, no walks, four strikeouts. So if he's, that's kind of what it felt like at times last year with the Yankees was that he didn't believe in his stuff and he was dancing outside of the zone. So I guess that that would be the thing that I would ask Ray's fans. Let us know. They're saying a lot of,

a lot of off-speed pitches, more and more off-speed pitches, which is kind of like the theme around the league right now. Everyone's just throwing off-speed pitches. Yeah, fastballs just get hit. I mean, unless you have movement on your, unless you have a cutter or two seamer. It's funny to think about that because, you know, if you look at, if you just like straight up look at stat pages

and you're looking at like, you know, numbers against, well, numbers against fast balls, the batting average is much higher than, you know, the batting average against ospie pitches, specifically sliders, you know, depending on what other offsy pitches you have. I'm sure it's the same thing.

So I think teams now just look at that and like, wow, that's a glaring stat right in front of our face. Let's just throw more off-speed pitches. And then the baseball people are like, well, you have to throw a fastball to throw an off-speed pitch. And I think we're kind of learning that's maybe not true if you just have a good off-y pitch. It's a good off-speed pitch no matter if you have the heater to back it up or not.

And we're seeing that with some certain guys, like an Andrew Heaney, who will probably talk about in a little bit, people, sometimes you just go with what works, right? Like Lance McCullors Jr. throwing 80 million curballs in a row to start a game is an example. of that as well. Or Garrett Cole having a 933 slugging against his fastball because he just throws a very straight fastball and fastball counts and hitters just hit it.

Jim, what was that? What did your pitching coach at the minor league field tell you last year? Throw that good pitch again. The good pitch. When I was pitching the Kempak looking. Selfie? Sexual guy. What was the question?

Oh, yeah, he is. Oh, yeah. We got the I. I think we just got to check a couple of guys. We didn't say much about the Js. They take care of the A's, brutal umpire game. And then Red Sox Twins, again, they're still kind of playing out that series. And it's a lot of the names you'd expect on both sides.

Devers Bogartz. Zach Collins doing it for the Blue Jays, which is fun because they traded fun. Yeah. We like that. Joe Ryan. Joe Ryan. And Hot boy. Were you another bad start?

We got to go quick, but... What home runs? Torquelson stats are there right now. Torkelson. Him and Meadows are hitting for the tigers. His swing is just poetic yet just absolutely devastating. Like, he swings very hard. But it's smooth and hard.

He can be a problem for a long time. You can just tell. I like that. Should we get our aisle on? Yeah, let's get the ale on. You ready, Trev? I am. Don't run long.

All right, my people's. We only have one series for the interleague recap, and it just so happens to be My Giants. The Giants went into Cleveland and swept Chris Rose's Guardians. It was 4-1 Giants, then 4-2 Giants, and then a butt-wop and 8-1 Giants to finish it off. They didn't actually hit well, apparently. Neither did the Guardians. The starting pitching and the bullpen for the Giants was outstanding. They pitched to a 162 ERA for the starters and a 0.87 for the relievers. That is how you get the sweep. Jock Peterson has been going off. He had four hits and a homer. Croffer and Estrada both had three hits. They had a homer and a double each. Jose Ramirez still good at baseball, four hits with a double. Straw and Miller, they also had three hits with two extra base hits.

two extra base hits each, but only four Guardians reported multiple hits throughout the series. Rodon, our guy, we knew he'd be special up there in San Fran, both seven innings pitch with one earned run for the win in game one. Flores, Wilma Flores beat out a double play to drive in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of game two. Hustling down the line is nice. Liskoffini and Quintra both went four and two-thirds with two-thirds with two-urns in that game. from the final game, Wood looking nasty.

He goes five shutout endings for the win. Tyra Estrada in that game had four RBIs, including a two-run. Homer, Giants get the sweep. They are seven and two, and they are probably the most overlooked team in baseball. Again, that is what is happening in the I-L. Guardians offense, coming back down to Earth. Way to go, the Giants. Held them to one-run,

two runs, one run, Rodon, crazy. So. Filthy. Guardians get their first test. They're doing it. And then J. Ram is going off. I mean, his numbers on the year are fun to look at. I feel bad for Guardians fans in C. Rose because they came in.

They were leading the league and hitting, setting the world on fire. And then C. Rose mentioned, you know, we really haven't played, you know, anybody necessarily tough yet. This is going to be a tough stretch. They have the Giants, somebody else. I think the Yankees all coming into town that have good pitching. Good pitching, beating the good hitting, at least in this series, because the Giants went in there and just shoved. Absolutely shoved. Four-game win streak to three-game losing streak against the Giants. Guardians get got. Giants and Dodgers are going to just run the race all season again. Seven and two. Did any of us take the Giants in the playoffs?

Because I didn't. And it's going to be, I don't know what, I don't know what I was thinking. They won 107 games last year. And I just wrote them off again. I believe we all took the over. Because the over was lower than it was like 84 or something. Yeah.

Yeah, we definitely took the over. But I don't think I had them in the playoffs. Giants pitching. You mentioned Jock off to a good start. That's really cool for Sanford. Brandon Belt doing it again, and his numbers end up in a silly territory when you start comparing him across the league.

I can't stop yawning. Should we do some standout performances? My allergies are bad. Yeah, we can do some standout performances. Some guys who were really the tops this series? Tops. Yeah, that guy. Oh, that Brandon Bell, he's really the tops, man.

I heard that in the stands the other day. No, you do, man. And Tops, they also have this Bunt app. You might be familiar with it. If you saw any of our Arizona spring training house content, Tops was with us the whole way. Their Tops Bunt app is awesome. It's instant entertainment.

Peter Moylan is addicted. His family has been yelling at us. He can't get off the TopsBun app. Treve, I think Trev's getting into the TopsBun app right now. He's getting a bunch of Jesus-Sanchez cards. The app is a ton of fun. I mix it up in there. And if I can do it, that means you can do it.

That's kind of our company-wide technology test. It's the official trading card app of MLB. There's so much going on in there. You can play and trade and collect. Go download the TopSpone app today. Wherever you get your apps, app store, Google Play, are in the description of this very show. Trev, it looks like who you got there?

Is that a Jay? This is my favorite card that I have so far. It's a Vladdy signed card, and it has the patch, and that's the Blue Jay. right in the patch. How sick is that? That's crazy. I've got the judge autographed shoe collection. Not a big deal, but whatever.

It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. Not a big deal. Know who is a big deal, Jim? Your standout performer? Yeah, my standout performer's an easy one. Justin Verlander. Eight innings pitched, zero earned runs,

9Ks, zero walks. Coming back from Tommy John, which I'm always skeptical. about, but I said at the beginning of the season that I actually wasn't skeptical about him at all. His baseball reference page is crazy. Like the accolade section of it is insane. I love watching Verlander pitch before.

I don't really care about him when he asks or stuff. I always say he's my favorite pitcher to watch pitch that wasn't a Yankee. He's so good. And some of my favorite numbers from this outing, besides the numbers I already read, He had four, one pitch outs, seven, two pitchouts. So 11 at bats he had, he didn't throw a third pitch. That's crazy.

He had four, three pitch outs. So in 15 of the plate appearances or at bats, he didn't throw a fourth pitch. He was making quick work of them. He didn't have a single three ball count. Now one batter had three balls on them Three hits all came on the slider Meanwhile the curve ball Got seven swings

Two foul balls Five whiffs So I mean Seems like there's an easy recipe for him to get a little bit better too When all the hits came on this Kind of like Get me over not flat But definitely not sharp slider

Thai France had two of them. Oh. Yeah. But Verlander, when he's doing shit like that, is just so fun to watch. So he is my standout performer. I like that. It's a good standout performance. It's fun to see him come back.

20 months, I think Chris Rose sold me today. He was rehabbing Tommy John. He just root for guys like that. I told Chris this morning he might pitch for another six, seven years. I love it. He's one of those freaks, dude He's a freak If he goes full Nolan Ryan, that'd be pretty cool

I think he kind of wants to What else is he gonna do? Jamie Moyer, 49 years old Winning games in Colorado He's got a new elbow Like he's like, let's go My elbow's a baby My elbows is

That's my standout performer Jake, you get to go next I'll go, I'm going cross town I'm heading to Shea Station. Go check that out. Jerry Blevins Jolly Olive. Jim, you mentioned the Mets hitting. There is a guy that I think is super important to this team that is going right now.

It's Frankie Lindor. He put up a two-homer game on Mets' home opening day. They open up the, they show the Tom Seaver statue. They finally put that out front. Good job, Uncle Steve. and Frankie Lindor has a two-home-or day from both sides of the plate. Why else is it important? Jake, well, thanks for asking.

Frankie Lindor, if you remember, he signed that big-boy contract last year, right? And then what did he do? He stunk. He had, on June 1st last year, a 589 OPS. Frankie really struggled out of the gate. He ended up salvaging his season. His year-end numbers ended up being okay. They're still under what Frankie Lindor is as a ball player.

What he's doing this year, he's got a 4-42 on base. Trev, you always love this. Nine walks, five strikeouts. He's seeing the ball well right now. He's got a 1.048 OPS. Frankie Lindor, you know, go look at his baseball reference. A, he's got bold in some different spots, some plate appearances in at bats and runs.

That means he's playing in ball games. I like that back in his Cleveland days. He can play defense. If he is hitting, which he didn't do last year for that Mets team, you know, coming over to a new league, adjusting to new pitchers in division, love me some Frankie, Mr. Smile, and a part of the reason the Mets are off to their good start. Reach base safely in all 10 games so far for the Mets.

We like that. Is good. Hot, rich. Nice job. Trev, you got a standout? Yeah, I got like kind of two here. So someone tweeted at us.

If we don't mention Jonah Heim hitting a grand slam of his show, hey, and the stand-up performances, he'd be mad and would never listen to our show again. So here is me mentioning Jonah Heim. One home run. New York. Three for four with a grand slam,

five RBIs. No big deal. That's not really my standout performance. Okay. But I had to mention that, so we didn't lose a listener. Okay. Fair.

Fair. My real standout. Andrew, mother fucking heaney, baby. Six innings pitched, 11 K's. One hit, three walks. This is a guy who you guys know,

the Yankees brought him in last year because all of his advanced metrics are always really good. According to Enoseres, he last year was 104 on a stuff plus, 107 command plus. He was a top 25. having his K to walk ratio.

He's got high spin. Matt Blake, they couldn't really figure out what to do with him. He was struggled immensely with the Yankees. Dodgers said, you know what? Coming over here, we think we can fix you. And all they've done is made him basically say, get rid of your curveball. It's not good. Our metrics say it's not good.

Here's what we're doing. They have this new pitch that all of them are throwing. It's like a sweeping. slider. It's like a new variant. It's a ton of horizontal movement on it. And they have seven pitchers, Bueller, Eureas, Trinen,

and Phillips, and a bunch of other guys have added this pitch. And now you have Heaney, correct a few mechanical things. His arm slot is a little bit different. And you say, here's the sweeper. Go see what you can do with it. And he's just been effective.

And that is like, it's crazy for me to think about that, like where we've come, how fast we've come in the technology for pitchers that we're able to just make up pitches and just give him to an entire pitching staff. That's why I'm so high on like Kluber going to a team like the race where they can dissect, you know, what his fingers do and all these different pitches. Like teams are going to go start, teams are going to start signing dudes who throw like one crazy pitch just so they can get all the data on it. And then they can release them because now they have the data. that they can try to to duplicate this pitch. It's going to be an interesting time the next like five to ten years with pitching. Like are we going to see everybody trying to throw, you know, I don't know, who's got the nastiest

stuff? Like, Trinens like Sinker. We're going to try to figure how to throw that. Like maybe Kuber Slider from years ago. This sweeping slider the Dodgers have come up with what other teams are going to try to steal that. Because if you can just take a person and say, hey, you know how to manipulate the ball a little but here's what we've learned.

And he gets in six innings, 11 strikeouts, and is Heaney going to be a problem? It's a very interesting part of the game for me right now. And you just got to tip your cap to the Dodgers and I guess Tahini for being able to make, make the adjustments. Yeah, the Yankees are instilling the same thing. So I wonder if it didn't work with Heaney if he was reluctant to try it

because you didn't throw the slider. But the Yankees call it a whirlie. The rest of the baseball is calling it a sweeper. It's, um, Lindsay Adler wrote a good article about it. It's a lot of science. But basically, you know, your slider, Treb is usually a bullet slider. And that, and it gets that slide from that tight spin.

This is the opposite. They're calling it, um, seam shifted weight. So basically they're saying it like, almost like you throw it. They hold it like a two seamer. And then they throw it like a cutter. And at one point in its flight, when it hits the, axis. At one point, it's like kind of knuckles, like, not knuckles, but it's more like

the aerodynamics, then take it. Like, if you get it to this, this distance, like, kind of like blitzball shit. But yeah, it's a good article about how the teams have guys that are now inventing pitches, like in a lap, like with like the lab and shooting the ball and then if you can replicate it. And Kluber, because he does, he, his, his breaking ball, he just calls the Clue ball because it's not a slider nor a curve. It's very similar. And he teaches that too. But it's very sweepy.

Yeah. So, I mean, that is what he and he's doing. I mean, he is no curveball anymore at all. It's interesting to me because, you know, Klubers was a sweeper, but it was a tight spin. So I don't know if I've ever seen a seam shifted wake slider where like it starts off like knuckling then eventually catches the seam. Is that basically what they're saying?

And then it kind of moves from there because that would be very odd to see. Yeah, I mean, I can read you like some of the seam shifted wake is a, uh, and, and it's Yeah. Sometimes when you're. Do you want this, do you want the nerdy sentence on it? The whirly starts out here. The whirly starts out with gyrospin. Then it's theorized that the seam shifted wake phenomenon transitions the axis to side spin,

which helps it spin off horizontally like a spinning top toy. Again, this is a. Lindsay Adler article on the athletics. She wrote all about this, but a lot of teams that have the data, like the rays, the Yankees, the Dodgers that are like really invested in that are teaching this new sweeper, they're calling it. It's like you let hitters get comfortable with a pitch, you know, a regular slider, you know, it starts here, it's going to break there, you know, it changes depending on the velocity and, you know, who's throwing it. But typically a slider is going to have a little bit of depth to it.

And it's going to have horizontal break as well, but there's going to be depth. But if you can teach a different pitch that doesn't do what a typical slider does, it's just it's a learning curve again for the hitters. And that's why it's so hard to be a hitter. And now people are going to have to figure out how to get on plane with this pitch.

We already had to figure out how to get on playing with the fastball at the top of the zone. Figure that out. So now people are throwing more two seamers. They are throwing more horizontal pitches. And it's just going to be up to the hitters to make an adjustment. And as soon as that happens, as soon as there's an inkling of positivity from hitters,

you know, getting to this pitch, they're going to have a new one in a lab that's going to go more vertical. We're going to start throwing 12-6 curballs in, what, three years, probably? Just a lot of 12-6s. That's crazy, man. Nuts. Not a whirly. You might have to bring that to a midweek up at some point.

Whirley. Okay. Next up. We got Trump Watch. Okay, we got a lot of players to add that had tough weekends. We got Luis Robé. O for 12 with a K. Glaber Torres, 0 for 11 with a K.

Ahmad Rosario for 10. Eddie Rosario, the Rosarios. Yeah. Wow. Eddie Rosario, O for 9. Eddie Rosario has one hit on the season so far. doesn't have an extra base hit. Like he could really use their help,

so I think he's a lot to go on. Correa went 0 for 11. Brandon Lau went 0 for 11. Braggman 0 for 9. Croninworth 1 for 14 and Votto one for 13. Jake, do you have any want? Like I'm going to put Eddie on there. He needs our help.

Yeah, I've got two different mindsets. It's either we roll kind of this whole crew because we haven't had a true slump watch yet. Okay. And, you know, we try to motivate all these guys. You know, Kronenworth and Votto right now are a little bit of outliers because they have one hit. But with Votto's new social media presence,

kind of need him to be hitting if we're going to be Dunkin and dancing. I mean, believe me, I know. I kind of want to bring everyone and be like slump watch is back. You want them all. That's kind of where I think so. Okay. It's a lot to go through. We'll do it, though.

Hopefully they work. I mean, the only problem is if all of them don't work themselves, off. Like we need to just like get it down to the four or five. Yeah, this is the one. Okay. And we'll keep it moving now because we're running late anyway. So bang. Bang. Bang. That's how you get shit done. Dirt nasty's on Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby. Like Waco. Show Hey, O Tani hits his first homer of the season. Hits two more. He went six for 19 this weekend. That's a 3.50 on base percentage.

I mentioned him from the Blue Jays 6 for 11 with a Homer. Patrick Wisdom. Cubbies hit everything. Yeah, VR, Jonathan VR. They both went off. Wisdom had five doubles. That's crazy. Matt Olson doing dirty things to Jake's daughter, I guess.

Seven for 15 with the Homer. Trey Turner talked about him earlier, hitting the Homer. Adam Frazier, we spent all offseason, talking about him. He goes seven for 13 with a triple, a double, double five RBI's. Nolan Aronado, six for 14 with a homer and Jesus Sanchez.

All these guys we kind of mentioned because they've been great. Those guys were on fire. Whoops. Fuego. Fuego, Fuego, Poppy. Which leads us into. Oh, it's combio. Cambio.

Jake, I'm going to let you go first. Really? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. The honor is all mine. Um, Trev, I'm, you know, a little shout out to you. Uh, I am giving out, I think I gave out a similar award to this last year. I'm giving out that good, sticky, Icky award.

Um, you know, there's a lot of candidates this week for awards. You know, I still, I like highlighting guys, uh, especially if you're on one of my teams and your team's off to a little six and, six and tree start. And you did it last year. And you deserve a little. little more respect on your name. Because I'm looking for that good cron, man, that good chronic. And it's C.J. Cron for my Rockies.

He is off to another good start. I mentioned Vladito had five home runs leading baseball, and I said, just get used to that. We're going to be saying that a lot for the next 15 years. C.J. Crone tied five homers in nine games. Last year, he had the 905 OPS. That's no joke. people. That's no joke. He had a couple years where he hit. In 2018 with the raise, he had an 816 OPS. Like, it's not totally out of left field for my guy, CJ. He's balling out for my rocks. He's part of the

reason they had that sneaky, good, bad year last year. He's going again, five homers, a 1.117 OPS. And they got a couple more games at Coors coming out. So, you know, I'm just about that life. You No, so is my guy, CJ. C.J. C.J. C.J. Cray. He had some freaking absolute bombs over the weekend. The first one he hit up there into the con course, that was right where. I hope we can get video of this.

That's right where, what's the guy's name? It catches all the home runs. Hample. Hample. Hample. That was right where Hample schooled. me and came up over the top and just stole a home run derby ball from me. Just absolutely put me in my place.

It was right there. That's a, that's a bomb in a regular game right there. Jimmy's a C. He's got your contribution stat. He's gone on base in every game. And he also had six straight games with an RBI. So my guy's doing it.

Good for him. Snaps. You're happy for him? Yeah, big time. Kelsey Winger, you going? Daddy Trev. Yeah, I'm going to do. do a quick one. It's just kind of a counting stat. I'm going to give, uh, it, it's the, uh, it is the bottom

heavy fat butt award. Hmm. Oh. Oh. Goes to the Rockies and the Dodgers. Most hits from the 7-8-9 hole. Mm. Good place to be getting hits from. You're getting production from down there. Not bad. A lot of teams winning. That's where they are. You know who's the worst? Jake's Debecks. They have nine hits from the 7-8-9 hall. Nine.

Working on things. Nine. Colorado Rockies and the Dodgers have 29. Might be a way to get more production down there. Hmm. Hmm. Like that. So that's my award.

Trev, your award is going to be brought to us by. Trev, the final award of the show is brought to us by Manscaped. If you're having trouble with your bottom of the lineup, it's not getting up for big games. I'm not saying you, Treve. Trevor, if you were. You know, they're, well, hey, shave around your penis.

Because it looks better. And that's what you can do with Manscape. I'll be honest. I used some of my Manscape products recently. They went to work. So go to work on your downstairs. Make sure it's tidy. It'll make your stuff look bigger, which, I mean, that's kind of nice. You know, if you don't need that, good for you. But you still tighten it up. It's

kind of a sign of respect. So they've got the 4.0 tremor. Bang, you're going to want that. The whole 4.0 package, the crop preserver, revival, all of it. And by the way, Manscape, they're committed to raising awareness for the most common form of cancer in men ages 15 to 35, giving support and it's part of their We Save Balls Initiative. So Manscapes, they're with us. They should be with you. You should take care of your downstairs.

So with Code Talking, you get 20% off plus free shipping at Manscape.com. 20% off plus free shipping with code talking, manscape.com. Trev, give them what the people want. My award, first of all, Manscape, yes. Manscape before I came to Hawaii. It looks great.

Let me tell you something, guys. New York, New York City. You know where that is? Oh, yeah. There's two teams that play baseball there, and it's the Yankees and the Mets, and for a long time, it's been a Yankees town, and then this guy, Uncle Stevie, came around

and started spending some money and making some noise, and they, for all intents and purposes, they won the offseason before this year. They went out, they did the damn thing, Uh, spring training comes around where we're stoked about the team and then de Grom gets hurt. And then Scherzer has a kind of like a weird setback right before the season. And we're starting to say, is this going to be like a METC thing? Well, my award goes to the New York Mets.

I'm going to call it the Let's Go Mets or Go Mets go. I don't know. It's just a Mets award. Okay. Seven and three sitting in first place. They're getting contributions from everyone. And mind you, they still have no Jacob de Grom. They found some pitching with McGill, Bassett, an offseason acquisition has been incredible. Scher obviously signed him to a massive deal. He's been good.

They've done it. There's two categories I like to look for when I go to baseball reference. Go to the team stats page. I go to OPS Plus and ERA Plus. I know they're not all perfect, but for me it's a quick way to rank the teams and how they're doing. There's only one team in the top five in both of those categories, and that is the New York Mets. They are fifth in OPS plus behind the guardians who were going to come down to earth. The Cubs, the Angels, the Cardinals, and then it's the Mets sitting at 120 OPS Plus.

And if you go to the pitching, their third with a 180 ERA plus only behind the Dodgers and the Giants. So they've been doing it on both sides of the ball without their ace. Then door has been good. Eddie Escobar doubles machine. He's already got five on the year. He's been good. Nimmo's been going off. I know he's just on the 10-day I-L.

Is that a COVID thing, I think? I mean, they're just doing it. And we all have the joke about the Mets. And the Mets are going to be the Mets. I don't think we're going to be able to say that after this year. Like, this is going to be a special year for them. They showed it. I hope they can continue it because it is going to be fun watching those two teams,

you know, kind of fight for supremacy. Is that right? Yes, in New York. And I like the way the Mets look right now. So I'm just giving an award. Go Mets Go Award. There you go. There you have it.

TMG. Sure you guys don't like that one. Go Mets go. It's better when the Mets are good than bad. And then give us like one funny storyline a month. That's all I ask. It's kind of what they do. I think Bucson said he would.

John Haman. John Haman, you guys saw that like source he had that said, Steve Cohn and. Would it go after? Do you want me to give my yearly reminder to mute John Heyman? Please tell me. If you want to have a better time. Chris Rose is best friends with him, dude.

I have never said anything bad. I have never said anything bad about John Heyman the person or John Heyman, the columnist, or John Heyman, the writer. But John Heyman, the Twitter account is awful and should be muted. Okay. That's just my way. This was not a yearly reminder. John Heyman's Twitter account.

This was an article. He just said sources say that the Mets aren't going to go after judge. Yes, that's, I laugh at that too because I said, who's the source? Was it, was it a Steinbrenner? Was that his source? Like, it was ridiculous. But sources, it's just also like, well, no one asked. So you just want retreats and shit?

Exactly. Click, click. Good a word, Trev. Uncle. Uncle Steve will go after Aaron Judge if Aaron Judge is available. Mark my words. Yes.

Yes. Already is. I feel like they would like nothing better than to take him from the Yankees, right? I think that's crazy. I think that I think Uncle Steve owning the Mets is 80% of the reason Aaron Judge is still is not resigned. Interesting. Who is our best friend of the week?

It's Cope Tech. Let's go! Yes. He had a three for five game, including an RBI. Including an RBI. Got a triple in the mix. Nice weekend for Cole. Let's go.

Nice. Three hits in game one, right? Yeah. Hot. Five game one. Way to go. All right. It's on my Instagram.

Next up we have elevator talk. It's like not even a story. You guys ready to do some elevator talk? I think so. Yeah. I'm going to spin the wheel. We're going to put one minute on the clock. And this is just some stuff you can say to people

if they get an elevator with you and they're wearing this hat. And the team is... Drop my phone. The Miami Marlins. They just won a series against the Phillies. Their pitching is really good. Jesus and Jazz show is very fun. Miami Marlins.

I mean, I think that's what you got to say. Four and five, which hasn't been second place in the N. least, that's nice. You can say, hey, we're not playing that well, but we're in second place right now. Things can change really quickly. Jaze. Jizzo. Got to get it going.

Meggy's got to get going, but Jazz Chisholm's off to a great start. Joey Wendell, who was like a bench player off to a great start. Obviously. Yeah. And then Kupalup had himself a good weekend, but the story is and always will be, well, not always will be for now, the pitching. I mean, Pablo Lopez. has been amazing.

Jesus Lazzardo, I want to talk about him on the midweek episode because he is one of the biggest changes and stuff. He, like, redesigned his pitches and his one start so far was pretty good. Eliasur Hernandez is a fun name to say, and he just had a good start. Yeah. I don't know who they're playing.

Trevor Rogers. His name is Trevor. Jake sucks. Rogers had a tough start.