Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 9 | Aug 5th | Astros No-Hitter, Cubs back in 1st & Awards

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

In the AL the good teams swept and the floundering got swept. In the NL the central got shuffled once again. The Astros threw a combined no-hitter. Two new dads faced off on National TV. Awards, Slump Watch and Elevator Talk! 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.

Welcome to Talking Baseball. It is August 5th. We had a bunch of series played over the weekends. Some winners, some losers, Jake. Some big trade acquisitions did big things. Some did poor things. Let's do it. Let's talk baseball. We're talking baseball. My name's John Boy. I'm one of your hosts. My best friend Jake is here. He's the other host. A lot of stuff to talk about, Jake. They threw the ball, they caught the ball, they hit the ball. It's a simple game. Yeah, you were coming in real black and white today. I like it. Yeah, hard facts only.

Fundamentally strong. Throwing the ball, catching the ball. We had a few hits. No, man, it was a good weekend for baseball. I was just going over some things. A lot of, I think all the division winners won their series. I think Atlanta was the only one that they ended up sports. We had a couple teams that kind of decided, I don't want to say decide their fate, that's a little

dramatic for where we're starting, but they definitely decided how the rest of their season has to go down, whether it's Yankees and Red Sox, depending which side of the coin you land on. Yankees are firmly in control of that AL East now. The Red Sox hoping us stay fighting for a wild card at this point. Dodgers continue to just do Dodger things. Big week for the Cubby, so I'm, yeah, I'm excited to get in there, man. How are you doing? Notice how Jake said a lot of the National League things.

Jake's at the National League report today. I don't know any of this. You're spoiling. I mean, opened with Yankees Red So like half of it was A.L. Yeah, but that you just looked at the standings. You're just spoiling the National League report for me. Get people excited for the show. How are you doing, man?

I'm good, good. I hate when the. Yankees don't get getaway day. Right. As a day game was up until 3.45. Went to sleep. So when I got to bed, 3.45. Talking Yanks, recording and editing after the series ends.

So I'm all a little lack of sleep and I got a big day ahead of me. So I'm excited. But yeah, talking baseball has been a fun little, fun little record session for me. Because it's, because it's, it's, I learn what happened. like we've said, it's impossible to know. So I'm part of the audience. So I didn't know what happened in the NL. Got a little preview there.

I'm excited to find out. I heard that some standings shuffled. I heard a rumor. I'm excited about that. Early rumor. Post trade deadline rumors. Wow. Wow.

There's not, you know what, this weekend didn't have like a big storyline. Usually in our episode notes, which I will put on Patreon. for anyone that's interested in that. Usually there's a major storyline. And it was like the brawl, the trades. We've had some in the past that I can't remember right now. And I was trying to search for one this weekend. It was kind of just baseball.

It was just the games and the wins and the losses. And there were some big events, but nothing took over. Like Boone Savage rant that took over sports for a little bit. Nothing did. I'm not saying this in a bad way. It's kind of good. Like, it's just the gameplay and everything that's happening. So what gives us time to really breathe into our segments in the back half of the show

and talk about the fun little stuff and personal performances? Yeah, keep breathing, man. I hope to keep breathing for a while. Be an ugly podcast if you don't. You throw water on me? That's what you do to baby sometimes when they stop breathing. I wouldn't be able to do that. I don't know how you think I'd be able to do that.

You can mime it. Or through a computer. Figure it out. You're smart. All right. No. No. This episode is brought to you by DJ Eric Song.

Yeah. Peeper number. Can't be a birth name, but that's what they've signed up as. Peeper number. Johnny Harrison. Miguel Gaspar is how I want to say it. Yeah. Is that how you'd say it?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Crushed it. Samantha Granky? Grunky? For those familiar with baseball, Granky, there's a you in there. So grunky? Grunkey. I think we're calling her Grinky.

Miguel Gaspar is in the live chat, says I nailed it. Yeah, you did. Believe in yourself, man. James Braxtel, Montgomery, the third? Yes. What lineage do you think is the coolest? Would you rather be like the third, the fourth, junior? because I think the third is the coolest.

Third is cool because you have a chance to have all three of you, like, living. If you're the kid and you got the dad and the grandpa. Yeah. Like that's your best bet to have everyone that's lived out your name. So I get that a little bit. I think it's kind of the higher the number you get, the cooler it gets. Like if you met someone who said they were. No.

John boy. John boy, Jommer, the eighth. You'd be like, whoa. It's like, what are you the fucking king? Get out of it. Oh, no. See, I think you're underpin. I think it loses its luster after three.

I think you'd love the history attached to it, knowing that 300 years ago there was a Johnboy Jommer operating under the same name, and he was a blacksmith who played stickball in the streets. I think you lean into that heavy. You're a history guy. It's not fun to say. You can't, like, put it on your title, like this guy signed up, like RG3, you wouldn't be like

Robert Griffin the 6th at quarterback. Oh, see, I disagree. I think you're going to start seeing a lot of that in our lifetime. I think when we're old men, you're going to start seeing, you know... Why wouldn't we have already seen it? It's nothing's like... Because I think it's going to be more of a thing now. You need more generations to go on.

Jake, we're in like... Humans have been around for a long time. I know that, Jim. Thank you for the update. Why would this... Why would this just start being a thing? People have been naming their kids after themselves for a long time. It's not just starting. I didn't say that, but I think you're going to get some.

I guarantee we'll find a, we're going to get some more fourths and fifths common, dude. All right. Well, I think third's the sweet spot. Junior, the second, you go by junior, which is like, junior. It's kind of cute. It's kind of cute. You get regal when you get to third. And then I've never seen like the fourth or fifth and like not a king person.

So good job, James Braxton, Montgomery, the third, which is probably a fake name. And Keenan, Boo. Bukart Jr. Yeah. Junior. Look at that. I didn't even know that was coming up. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Kenan. Wow. Those are our most recent Patreon supporters and subscribers. They get access to the live chat of this show, the episode notes of this show, and some extra perks.

I live streamed making a breakdown last week. And we'll be giving away two jerseys after I record this I'll be doing that to Patreon member so if you want to sign up it's patreon.com slash Johnboy Media $2 a month. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

All right, let's get into the baseball. As Arad would say, baseball. Baseball. He says that a lot, which... Love it. If he just dropped it once, it'd be so weird, but because he drops it every game, I like it. Because he thinks it's his thing. Signature.

And it is his thing, but like, Baseball. I love it. I mean, the king of preparation found himself saying, I need to come up with something that's kind of a signature. He goes, I know.

I'll kind of yell the word baseball. Nailed it, Arad. He's pretty good. He's so weird. I like A.R.R.A.R.A.R.A.R. A lot. Did you see their... With a very different life. On Sunday night baseball,

they were showing Aaron Boone doing an impression of Arod's swing. Yeah. And I can't tell if Arod hates it or loves it because everything just kind of comes off a little bit fake. Right. Even when he's genuine, it comes off a little fake. I think when he's genuine, it comes off the most fake.

Because he's like, he puts so much preparation and thoughts into things that when something goes off script, it's like deer in the headlights a little bit. I think he liked it. I think it was genuinely the first time he saw it. They said that on the brink. broadcast and he was like, yeah, that was really good. And I think he was a little, like, nervous at first. And he was, like, almost weirded out because he was doing all the weird elbow taps and

head taps and stuff. But then he did the, he did the, like, run to first kind of like A-Rod. And A-Rod really like that. He's like, oh, he's got my old stiff jog. Yeah, something like that. Sad jog, I think he called it. Yeah. Yeah.

I think he comes in worried he's getting made fun of and he doesn't know how to react to it. But whatever. Same. Jake. Yes. Can you give me the Nats? report. I'm dying to know what happened. Jimmy, your

National League report will start in the NL Beast, the Braves. Split four hosting the big red machine, or I guess they're the small red machine. I don't know what you'd label them. The Reds. Final two games went into extras. The Bravo's had a nice Akuna walk-off single, Jim.

We like that. Washington Nationals, Jim. The two teams chasing the Braves kind of messed it up. Nationals lose two out of three to the D-backs in the desert. The D-back scored 25 runs and the two wins. The D-Backs scored zero in the one loss. And Jim, the Phillies, they also dropped two out of three at home to the White Sox. That's tough for them as they're trying to get some momentum. And it started out with the first game of that series was 15 innings. We'll talk about that. Some real fun NL baseball going

on there, Jimmer Ferdet. Step right up and greet the Mets. They win the rubber match in Pittsburgh to take two out of three. They are one game under 500, Jim, nine and one. In their last 10, the New York Mets, babe. And in the Orange Bowl, the race won both games over the Miami Marlins in the Battle of Florida and under-financed baseball teams. Jim, let's jump to the NL Central. You know the Pirates lost their series since he split with the Braves,

but sweep home Chicago. The Cubby sweep the brew crew, Jim, in Wrigley. They regain the NL Central lead, and they also regain it to the Cardinals, losing their two-game set versus Oakland, big swing in the Central, and the Cardinals have a West Coast trip coming up to the Dot Doyers, so that's going to be interesting for them.

Jim, the NL West, you know about the D-Backs beating up the Nats. The Dodgers take the Dodgers. three out of four from the Padres on a miracle Sunday comeback, walk off 1110 win. Padres kind of blew it, to be honest. And Jim, has the mojo worn off for your Giants? They lose two out of three at cores, the Slump Watch, Rockies, and the Giants drop back to 500 on the season.

Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Some things here that catch. my eye, immediately happy for the Cubs, impressed with the Cubs. Not rooting for him per se, but it felt like they were sliding a bit. And that's a huge sweep for them. And I believe Darvish had a good outing.

And if he can get right at this time, like all is forgiven in being kind of a bust of a signing for a while now. Yeah, and Jim, something I just stumbled into, and not exactly Saber metrics. Jim, the Cubbies 39 and 18 at home, which is really good. Makes sense, right? They're 21 and 33 on the road. Road cubbies, what's up? That's not good.

That's bad for division leader. You wonder how much bullpen plays into that on the road. but Jim, this was huge for the Cubs, and a stance that I think I'm going to start leaning into, was the Cubs need to stay out of third place in the NL Central. Hot takes only from me, but I think it's very important that with Joe Madden's contract up at the end of the season,

if they're in third place in the Central, things get really loud around the Cubsies and you start bringing in things that are outside of baseball. They get a big sweep over the Brewers. The Cards falter, too. so they have a nice jump. And Jim, this is what's so good about baseball, seeing where the standings were just a couple days ago.

If you're in a tight division race and you get a sweep and someone else drops some games, you can see teams really move up and down and your viewers end up getting the tough love on that. Jay Hay with two homers in this series. He's having a good season as well. He is having a good season. The season for the Cubs,

and I'm not entrenched in Cubs. Cubs fanhood, but I know Darvish has been a pain. I think Jose Cantana, how does he's, Kentana? Contana, yeah. Kentana. He was a trade that I think they were like, did this not work out?

I don't know. Were they questioning that a little bit? Or kind of upset with the results for a little bit? Because he had a nice game here. And then Hayward has two homers, has a nice series and is having a good season. And those three guys, I feel like Cubs fans,

they've never been Cubs. darlings. Yeah, Hayward got big paid and he had been kind of bad. But yeah, he's having a nice year, 825 OPS and he does a lot of the little stuff well. He's a great defender. Yeah, Schwabers getting it going a little bit. I'm sure we're going to talk about him. And yeah, I think for the Cubbies, Bryant, Bias, and Rizzo have kind of been Bryant, Bias, and Rizzo. And you're right, some of those other pieces around it. You know, they were wondering which which of their young guys were going to step up was David Bodie going to take over a position. Ian Hap, you know, he hasn't done much on the big squad this year.

Zobrist has been missing a lot due to some personal problems. So, yeah, they've had a lot of stuff going on. I think Kintana has been a little disappointing. He's got a 4-4 ERA. Darvish, that's more well-known. Kyle Hendricks, man. Talk about a guy who skates under the radar. 120-innings pitch, 3.07 ERA this year.

uh, Cole Hamill's twirling it as well. So yeah, I think, uh, the, the, the, the, the Cubs, Cubbies are prime to, to get it going. Yeah. Now, looking at Milwaukee's roster here and who they're starting. And it's like Yelich, Kane's not having a great season, he's defensive player, Braun, like, who's their like core? It's really, to me, it's Yelich and then, I mean, um, Thames and. Dude, you know who's really good?

Is Keston Hayura? Is that you say it? Yeah, Hayura has been great for them. Right now he's not a name in baseball that the average fan skims over and says, oh, that's one of their dudes. He's got a 952 OPS on the season and a 377 on base percentage. He's been great for them. Yeah, he's been great for them.

Yeah, and Mustakis has been Mustakis. He's got an 861 OPS. Braun just keeps kind of brawning along. Cain's having a bad year for them. he's a better player than 248, 675 OPS. But I mean, it turns into a pretty balanced lineup when you have Grandal, Thames, Moose, Braun, Keene, Yelich. So, yeah, and Travis Shaw having a bad year, that hurt them a little bit too. Jim, maybe they'll get a kick, a little kick from Trent Grisham, who maybe we'll be talking about in Colop Watch.

Yeah, I was going to say, he let off. He's a top prospect. He let off. We'll get to him and call up watch. But, yeah, it was kind of, Kane's the leadoff guy and he got bounced. It looks like it could have just been a regular sit down. But he went off.

That's cool. All right. The other thing is the Giants Magic wearing off saddens me. It saddens me deep. It was so fun. And it just felt like everyone besides fans of the Giants direct rivals can kind of be like, oh, this is cool. Yeah, and I don't know.

I said it. I forget if it was last episode or two episodes again, Jim, but, you know, we're a couple, the Giants are a couple bad weeks from being under 500 again with a terrible plus minus differential. They're minus 55 on the season. Now they're at 500. It seems like the Giants Magic has worn off.

Prove us wrong. Like we're still low-key rooting for San Fran. But there's another team that wears orange in the east in the NLJ. that get excited about baby. It's also the tail end of a road trip, though. So they go home now and play with Nationals, and if they start getting their walk-off magic on again, then, like, it's the National, so the magic's full on.

So let's see if it was just a hard road trip. Like what they end up going on the road trip, because it might go into my theory, on the road trip, one, two, three, four, four and five. Four and five on the road trip for the Giants. That's not terrible. No, and they're actually, Jim, they're trying to debunk you. They're 31 and 28 on the road, 25 and 28 at home.

So they need to start winning home games if they want to be involved in this. They will. I think recently they've been crushing it at home. Okay. Look at the picture. Sean Anderson versus Peter Lambert. Hmm. Saw him live in concert.

Markey matchup. Madison Bumgarner versus John Gray faced off. That's a good matchup. It's fun. Kyle Freeland, another decent start. It's good for him. There's something else that jumped out about this National League. It was trying to think.

Cardinals losing to Oakland. That's a bummer. Yeah, that's tough. A two games set in Oakland, Interleague play, those can be brutal on you kind of mentally, and now they're going on to play. Dodgers. So, um, little, some, some nerves in St. Louis right now.

Um, yeah, and I don't know. In the east, the Braves just say strong. The Phillies and Washington falters a little. The Mets are coming, man. Nine and one in their last 10, 55 and 56. They're going on to face Miami. They have a double header today. Two wins.

The Mets could be a game above 500 and very much in the thick of the wild card race. Did you see? any of the Brave series. So they walk off. Acuna hits his first walk off ever. Yep. And then on Sunday's game, they were down.

They were down three to one. They were down three nothing going into the eighth inning. They get one run in the eighth. They go, it's three to one going into the bottom of the ninth, and Acunae hits a two-run homer to tie it. Place went crazy because at that point,

The Braves keep passing every test. They're going nuts. They made moves at the deadline. Acuna hits his first walk-off hit the game before. Then he pops a game-tying homer in the bottom of the ninth. Big home run. Everyone's going nuts. And then they blow it.

Shane Green has allowed five earned runs as a brave. And he allowed four earned runs the entire time as a tiger, I believe, something like that. Hello. Yeah, that's tough start for Shane. He'll be pitching in the ninth. But, yeah, and Jim, it is crazy how much you and I, we were talking about starting pitching lines and how different a starting pitching line can look. If you go 5.2 innings and 3 earned runs, instead of six innings pitch and two earn runs,

like one looks like a great start. The other looks like, ah, he was out there. Yeah, we kind of wanted a little more. Jim, four game sets in baseball, the difference between splitting two, and taking three out of four is huge. The Braves were on the cusp of that. They ended up splitting. The team that was on the cusp of that that went the other way was the Dodgers,

Jim, which if you saw that Sunday game, that was insane, 11 to 10. Arias boots a ball at second base for the Padres to give them extra life. And once that happened, this Dodgers team just was rolling and going and was not going to be stopped. They just pounce. And Muncie gets it. There's some screaming and yelling. I might get to that later. Oh, that's a really good, Jim,

that's a really good term for good baseball teams. That when there's a mistake, a good baseball team is going to pounce. Yeah. And the Dodgers do that. The Padres are losing a lot. I know they're not supposed to win. Padres fans, if we have any Padres fans

that listen to this show, I thank you. I thank you kindly. Because your brethren are an angry bunch. Did I tell you this yet? No respect, man. I've run across Padres fans on all avenues of the internet now and social media. And they're all so angry.

Yeah. Like mean. You live in San Diego. I thought you're supposed to be happy. Maybe that's why they're angry. Their baseball team gets no respect, man. Yeah. Well, that Dodgers game was tied at six.

Dodgers take the lead to go seven to six after six innings. Padres get two back to go eight to seven. Then the Padres score two more to go 10 to seven. Dodgers score two in the eighth, 10 to nine, Dodgers score two in the ninth to win at 11 to 10. Yep. Crazy.

That was fun. All right, you ready for the AAL? Yeah, if you could catch me up on the American League, Jim, I've been living up to my promise, as always, of not. watching every baseball game. So I need it. All right. Well, here we go.

All right. In a series where the points aren't real and the results don't matter, the Blue Jays and Orioles split a four games set. Moving on quickly, the Rays and the Marlins faced off this week in Florida men. The Rays swept the Marlins, as Jake told us earlier. The Yankees swept the Red Sox in a four-game set, pushing the Red Sox to 16 games back in the lost.

and I think eight games back of the wild card in the loss column. Pretty big dent in their season. The White Sox went to Philadelphia and played a wild series. They took two out of three from the Phillies winning the bookend games. One game had outfielders pitching and pitchers in the outfield. We'll talk about that. The Cleveland Indians swept the Los Angeles Angels, Jake. The Indians and all their new pieces get it done.

The Angels can't buy a win. How did the twins respond? The Cleveland sweeps. Do they make up any ground? No, sir. The twins sweep the royals. They do some cleaning of their own. Stays the same in the Central.

The Astros swept the Mariners. This just in. Astros are really good, and the pieces they trade for are helping them. It's sweep weekend, Jake. Everyone's sweeping everyone in the AL. The Tigers get swept by the Texas Rangers who win one game in the walk-up. And as we know, the A's swept the Cardinals. Sweeps galore, sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep-sweep, sweep-sweep.

Sweep-week, baby. Sweep week. Yeah, I think I was doing this. I was like, holy shit. I think there was only one that wasn't. It was the white socks and the Phillies. And the Blue Jays and the Orioles split. Right.

But like you said, that's a. that's old whose line is it anyways rules the the points don't matter there i like that jim you know i was a huge who's line guy do you know that i thought you i thought you'd like that line thanks man because it's true those games don't matter to anyone uh they matter to a couple guys getting in fuego that we'll talk about later but yeah no it's it's it's kind of like have fun guys yeah knock yourselves out uh yeah win a spot for next season or win a trade or or those are the times baseball players say it's really hard to like got to get in there and fucking can you play when nothing matters

can you play when nothing matters the jake's story le story jim the the story in the a i was kind of hinting at it before i don't know if you want to call it separation the yanks four game sweep of the socks it was a funeral in the bronx jim We don't actually like that. There were probably some funerals. There were funerals in the Bronx this week and confirmed. Jim, like you said, the Yankees are now on a five-game win streak, Houston on a four-game win streak,

and Minnesota on a three-game win streak after their sweep. So all the top teams in the division are doing their thing. Boston is now six and a half out of the wild card. And Jim, it's starting, they've lost their last eight games, basically as bad as a week as you can possibly have as a baseball team. And it's, I mean, obviously there's, I think it was funny. You and I, when we were doing talking Yanks last night, you looked at how many series were remaining and you're like, okay, there's still a good amount of baseball to be played.

16 to let everyone know. It is August, but there's still a good amount of series to be played. So if Boston does figure some things out and their pitching has just given out on them, they need that to come around if they want any chance. but they're going to be, I mean, in under two months, they have to be six and a half games better than at least Oakland and Tampa. So will they be able to put the heat back on? Tampa's gotten it going again.

They've won six straight. So yeah, man, Boston's in a bad way right now. And it's, you and I were joking about the, there's kind of a team collapse checklist that goes on when a team falls apart. It's managers and players getting the boot out of games. And with Cora, we might talk about him later. Sale, same thing. They had a players-only meeting, the vaunted, players-only meeting,

between the double-header. They come out and lose the next game of the double-heder. I think we're an internal team fight away from officially saying that the Red Sox are imploding this season. And imploding sounds rude. You know I'm genuinely a hardest thing to do in sports is repeat, especially baseball over a rigorous season. And a couple of the pieces they didn't bring back were crucial.

So it, not in a rude way to our big Red Sox fans, but I don't know. I don't want to say you saw this coming, but to think that they were just going to find the onswitch, I don't think that's going to happen. Well, they do have a home series coming up that could spark some flames. they, Jake, they host the Kansas City Royals, then they host the Angels. Right. The Angels are sputtering worse than the Red Sox.

And they're only two games back of the Red Sox. So the Red Sox should win those games on paper, but they should have won a lot of games on paper this season that they haven't. Yeah. But if, uh, if, if,

if, if, if, if, if, if, like even split, right.

Yeah. It's, uh, seven games. So if the Red Sox, I mean, if you're a Red Sox fan, and I think a lot of them are losing hope.

I think you got a, you got to, you got to win both series. You got to win three versus the angels and two versus the royals. You got to win five. You got to win five. You got to win five of these seven games to have a spark light. If they win four out of five, it's bad, like they're done.

Yeah. No, it's a, I mean, every, every series at this point going forward has to be a strong performance. And you're right to kick it off with a homestand against two somewhat lesser teams. LAA is still fighting. But yeah, I mean, they have to find it. It's the pitching, dude. Price, sale, Purcello, they've been getting rocked. Yeah.

They are good at home, though. Yeah, I mean, the angels are bad, man. I'm sorry to my brother-in-law, Brett, but they're two and eight in their last 10. And, Jimmy, I'm a little curious to your thoughts, because I don't think you and I have ever covered this, but one stat I'm looking at right now are all these teams' records against over 500 teams?

Do you value that? Do you think that's important? or is it just kind of win the games in whatever way you can? No, I think there's value to be found in being able to play to play up. I think you just need to have a winning record against every team. We saw last year the 2018 Yankees were really good against good teams, but they could not beat lesser teams. So they played to their opponent's level.

So there's a part where playing to your opponent's level is bad. You should play to your level at all times. So if you're beating good teams but getting beat or just barely beating bad teams, that's a bad sign. Yeah. So hot take for me, good teams beat everybody. Ooh, hate when you come out in Fuego like that. Is anything jumping out on that standings? Jim, I mean, the number that's jumping out, well, Cleveland has a bad thing.

bad record against greater than 500 teams, and maybe that speaks to the NL Central a central a little bit. Jim, the Boston Red Sox are 23 and 36 against teams over 500. It's not good. What are they against teams under? Do they have that on that page you're looking at? It's not on this page, so we'd have to do math and usually. What are the twins? What are the twins? The twins, so I thought you'd also find this. They're 24 and 23, so they're a game over 500. I'm telling you, man. See, so I think Strength of Schedule plays like the twins and Cleveland are, they play so many games. Didn't I do the math?

They have like 60 games against Kansas City, Detroit, and the White Sox. And then eight and then seven and seven against Blue Jays and Orioles. And Orioles. But because they have three in their division, it's like 60 games against teams that are actively trying to lose. Yeah, I think, yeah, a little over 50, something like that. So, yeah, you're right, and that's where those central teams, their records against 500 teams aren't impressive. Oakland has a pretty good record against above 500 teams.

Yeah, and Minnesota and Tampa are right around 500. So, yeah, that's an interesting thing if you're into that. And in the NL, geez. You getting a call? off, alarm went off on my phone. I would have thought, I would have thought the Rays had a better record against 500 teams. Well, I think, Jim, it's, I think maybe it's an underrated set. I guess I'm starting to like the stack because the Dodgers, they're 39 and 26 against teams

greater than 500, which is good. I mean, not kind of when you picture how good the Dodgers are. Atlanta's 32 and 28. I think everyone else in the NL is under 500 or, and the Brewers are 500. So it's a really interesting set. The Cubs are 30 and 30. So it's, I don't know. I guess I have to decide mentally if I want to take a lot of merit into that stand.

It makes sense, right? When you play the good teams, if you're beating them, you should be better. The raise being 5 and 12 against the Yankees hurts their overall thing. Boom roasted. You know what I wanted to look into? So in the future of this show, and then we'll get back to the AL, if there's no big, storyline. I want to kind of, I want to kind of dig into some weird stat. And the one I wanted to do, maybe I'll do it for next for Friday's episode if there's extra time, is, and I don't know the

answer to this, but everyone, every Yankees fan complains that Aroldus Chapman never has a one, two, three inning. Right. I wanted to go look at like the top 10 closers in baseball this season and go look at all their saves and see how many are one, two, three innings. Because I have no idea. You could tell me that every closer, like, what would you, what would you guess the clip is for, for saves as one, two, three innings? I have no idea. No idea. 33% are one, two, three. Yeah. I think people expect it to be around 70 to 90. Like, that's how, how many times people are like, every, it's always drama, always someone on base, like they think it's going to be, and I think you're right. I think it's around 50 or under where it's actually

a one, two, three, and that's something I want to look into. So maybe I'll dig into that before next episode or if anyone's sitting at their desk and they want to go mess around on baseball reference or they know like how to find that easy. Go dig around for me. Dig around for me. I like that the, I like that, uh, the Cleveland Cleveland in Minnesota went toe to toe. Cleveland, Cleveland sweeps the angels, Minnesota sweeps the royals and they're, the Minnesota is still three games up. When do they face each other again? Yeah, we need to look that up.

I was just, I mean, Cleveland is hosting Texas, so those should be winnable games at home. And Minnesota is welcoming Atlanta to town. And Jim, that's, if the Minnesota ballpark is playing like it was when the Yanks were in town, that's going to be some fun baseball. Because a lot of guys in Atlanta are hitting, and those are, they talk, we just talked about teams playing each other. playing each other over 500

Minnesota Atlanta I'm actually I'm pretty jazzed up for that dude next weekend four games set Cleveland at Minnesota that is awesome I'm excited for that hopefully Baker Mayfield's in the stands four games set

at Minnesota and how many times they play each other after that and then the three games set at oh wow at the very end of September, there's two more series. Or, yeah, the beginning of September. So they got a lot of games. They got, they got 10 games against each other left.

The Yankees have played all their opponents. Like we have two games. Yankees have two games left versus the race and three versus the Red Sox or something like that. So it's kind of nice to see which races are going to go to the end. And Minnesota, Cleveland's got 10 games left. Nothing. So, dude. Minnesota's up three

That could mean if you're Cleveland That means nothing Because you just want destiny in your own hands Hey we don't care if they're up three We have 10 against them That means that it's up to us to take it still Change could change it this weekend That's fun

I'm excited for that All right anything else you want to talk about In the AL before we move on No I guess And I kind of hinted to this when we did the original Run Through Jim the top six teams in the American League, and I mean, it goes with sweep week,

top 16s in the American League are on three-plus game winning streaks. The dividing line's much bigger in the AL. Yeah. Good and bad. Houston Astros, combined no hitter. You want to talk about this now, or does that fall into a segment later? I think it falls into a segment if I was reading the sheet, right?

Basically. Basically. Well, let's do it. Okay, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. I could just talk forever. Let's go. Moving on.

I like that. Moving on up. To the side. To the side. Stand-out performances. If I had a soundboard that was working, I would do a sound. Jake, do a stand-out performance sound. Stand-out performance.

I thought you were going to do like a wow-a-wea. Oh, so you just want a noise. You do a-wa-a-wea. Wow-a-wea. Yeah. go. Yeah, just lean into some Sicilian roots there. Jake Storelli, Jake Storelli, the 8th. Am I going? Am I doing my standout? Sure, go first. Bueller, Bueller. Jim, your guy, Vanderbilt alum. Would you rather your first name be Walker or

Ferris? It's like toss-up. Ooh. Damn. For talking baseball question for the people. We got to have a lot. We got to Got to throw that on the Twitter. Would you rather have your first name be Walker or Ferris? Walker. Does the last name Bueller make mean you have to have a weird first name? Ferris is tough, man. Yeah.

For all our Ferris is listening. Thank you. Jim, Walker Bueller, and I've been talking a lot of Dodgers pitchers on talking baseball lately, which has me just as scared as the Astros. Jim Walker Bueller, nine innings pitch, 15Ks. Hello. Hello. Against the Padres.

Jim, he's 24 years old. If you remember him from the World Series last year, or if you missed him in the World Series last year, he got one start, seven innings pitch shut out against those Red Sox. As I mentioned, he's a Commodore, VU, go doors, anchor the front door. Anchor down.

Anchor down, baby. In his last, so I did Jakey Butterknife. So in his last 10 starts, he's been really good, Jim, but he does have one bad start that was at Coors. So I'm giving him a little Coors Field effect here. Jim, if you take that out in his last nine starts, 65.1 innings, a 1A-E-R-A excluding the Rocky start. Man, with what Rayu's doing, Walker Bueller, Kershaw,

I mean, it's the basis of how the Dodgers get it done. And, I mean, Bueller's got, like, the best stuff. I think it'll be interesting to see if he keeps it going. And, Jim, in his last nine starts, those, well, the butter knife starts I talked about, in his last 10, he has four starts with 11 strikeouts or more. He has the best stuff on the Dodgers staff when they're right. And I wonder, him and Ryu, they might be riding out. this season to see who can try to get the ball in game one.

So, yeah, I went, I went Walker Bueller. How, how, what's his size? Also, I want to let the talking baseball fans, listeners know. On talking yanks, we have Katie Sharp do a show with us, and she is an analytics guru and all into sharp stats. So she has the sharpest stat. When Jake gives his stats, they are called Butterknife stats, because they're not that sharp.

So if you're wondering why Jake keeps referring to his stats as butterknife stats. Yeah. They don't. Then how you know. What size do you think Walker Bueller is, Jen? Dude, do you think he's real skinny? Like they had that HD shot of him pitching. And he just looked like a skinny skater dude body.

I'm going to guess a hair over six feet 180. They got them at 6-2-185. Yeah, that adds up. I should go work at the carnival. Guess people's waiting nonstop. Fingers crossed. Yeah. So I don't know.

I'm a Walker Bueller guy. He had a brutal first month to the season. He finished the first month with a 5-2-2-ERA. So, I mean, since then, 15 games started with a, 265 ERA. So yeah, he's been in, he's been an ace for, you know, three months now. So giving my guy Walker some love. Good, good standout performance.

Yeah, man. And this was totally, I think you and I get weird giddies from this that the listeners won't get. But when we check the game logs to see the top performances, there's clearly like hitters weeks and pitchers weeks. This was a pitchers weekend. Yeah, it was. It was. It definitely was. My, which, who's yours, Jim?

Standout performance is Aaron Sanchez. Yeah. And kind of just the Astros in general. Yeah. Aaron Sanchez, if you don't know, the Astros threw a combined no-hitter against the Mariners. We're faltering. But here's the impressive stuff. Aaron Sanchez, his team had lost his last 13 starts.

The Blue Jays had lost his last 13 starts. 13 starts. He had the worst ERA in the Bigs. He was brutal, so bad, terrible. He's got spin rate, and the Astros like that about pitchers. And they like seeing what you throw and saying, ah, you should do this instead. They also picked up Beijini. Okay. Beijini in the month of July, he had a 4.85 ERA, seven earned runs and 13s innings pitched. Some good outings mixed in, but four outings where he gave up runs

out of 10 or however many it was. Catching for the Houston Astros, Jake, was Maldonado. He's back, baby. He's back with them. They just traded for him. He was with the Cubs. The Cubs had just traded.

for him and then they flipped them for Tony Kemp. So the battery. There's four pitchers. The starter first start with the Astros. One of the relievers, first appearance with the Astros. The catcher just got traded back with the Astros behind the dish. They never really worked together. And he goes out there, Aaron Sanchez, and goes six innings pitch, zero hits, two walks, six strikeout.

six strikeouts. Did you see the numbers? Did you see the numbers of what he did different? No. If you're the Blue Jays, if you're a Blue Jays fan, if you're any fan in baseball, because the asteros have done this to the Tigers now.

They did it with Charlie Morton. They did it with Cole. You know, Cole was already good, but they, like, he made it even better. Yeah. And it's, they just like look at the pitches and say this pitch works, you should throw it more.

This pitch doesn't work. Throw it less. how come no other team knows how to do this there's got to be more to it i'm guessing i think it's more the conviction that they build up in yourselves but so with the blue jays erin sanchise his sinker was his top pitch he threw it 37% of the time and it sucked all right and this start with the astros he threw his sinker 17% of the time and his four seam fastball jumped from 21% with the Blue Jays to 35% with the Astros and they elevated the fastball like Cole and Verlander do

put it in the top of the zone in this launch angle world people just pop that up or ground it out or just swing through it and bam slam bam thank you ma'am as my chemistry teacher would say no hitter bullied or another one dude the one I bullied and this was from another show sorry guys but

I just had girls that were in high school with me send me pictures of notes and it was like cartoons of him with like mean mean things and it's like damn we did bully that guy see uh yeah jim and i think it's it's funny when you lay it out there after the start it sounds obvious it's it's stuff we've talked about all year you have to elevate the fastball now with all the loopy swings erin sanchise who came up as kind of a sinker ball guy now guys swing down there and that's where that's where they get the big hits it's it's funny jim you know that I've started to enjoy this parallel between the AL West and the AL East. You have the Yankees and Astros on top and they dominate in their certain ways with Oakland and Tampa to the lesser funded teams in baseball, chasing them but doing very progressive things and have a lot of talent on those squads. Jim, I think we can make a parallel here that what Houston has been doing with pitchers, the Yankees have been doing with bats. I was just going to say that, actually. The formula there, I mean, and it seems easy.

Like the Yankees have been finding these guys that let the ball travel and have, you know, hard hit rate and stuff that sounds super basic in AAA. Mike Talkman, Luke Voight. The Astros, man, every arm they get, it seems like they turn into gold. So, yeah, I think if you're trying to fix your pitch and you're a front office, go plunder someone out of Houston because they know what they're doing. Yeah, I saw Astros fans saying that about Cameron, maybe he was with Houston, didn't have anything going, and now he's like, you know, doing well with the Yankees. They're like, man, if they combine forces, one can do the bats.

Not that Houston struggles with bats, but they're really good at pitchers. Yeah, it's more of a compliment to their pitching. John? He was so bad, Jimmy. Like, we could dance around and say stats. Aaron Sanchez was awful. And then he goes and does this. He was on Slump Watch a couple weeks ago.

He was living on slump watch John Bucci is in the chat Patreon and he did the saves leaders for me Nice So we don't have the percentages But the top six saves leaders

Have the following amount of one two three innings this season Yates 21 Hand 21 Smith 24 Osuna 22 Jansen 17 Chapman 13 So Yankees fans do have a great.

Yeah, look at that. Thanks, uh, Bucci. Thanks, Bucci, Maine. Uh, yeah, and I guess those, are those all nationally closers besides chat? No, hands in Cleveland. Oh, hands in Cleveland now. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I guess, and I mean, trying to do quick mat, that has to be what,

at like a 60% clip or something, so. Yeah. Good job. Mariana Rivera was like every time. That guy was good. All right. Standouts. Standouts over.

Good job. The Dodgers and the Astros World Series teams from last year. Yeah, good job the pitchers. Let's say bad job to a couple people, Jake. Let's move on. Do you think people like this segment the most? Slump Watch. Oh, smogity do.

Should we get meaner at Slump Watch? You think people would like that? No. Yeah, you're ready. I think it's good enough. We root for them to get off Slump Watch. We don't want to do this. So we have some updates for everyone.

Aaron Judge was on Slump Watch. In the two game set versus Arizona, he did kind of enough. Jake was thinking maybe we take him off. I said no, he's got to do more than that. This series versus the Red Sox, Judge went five for 15 with the Homer, scored four runs, had a 440 on base percentage. Aaron, Judge, congratulations, my best friend, you are off Slump Watch. Good job, big dog.

Coming up, another Yankee. James Paxton, Jake. I said it on talking Yanks. I think Aaron Judge is about to have a huge week. So that's a little put that in your back pocket listeners. A little hot take. Aaron Judge being good. Versus the Orioles and the Blue Jays.

Let's do it. I know. Hey, ooh. Ooh, it's hot. Sizzling. Be prepared, Asher, Wojikowski. Yeah. Judge is coming.

All right, James Paxton. Sixth innings pitched. Two earned runs versus the Red Sox to start the series. He's off. Good job. Get out of here. Good job. A lot of people working their way off.

Maybe we're motivating them. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I actually added, because we had a lot of guys going off, I got a lot of guys prep to come in. But Jim, this is the one that you've been on. And I think I think I know it's coming, but the Cubs bullpen. Yep. You've been on them. They go, what, you got a three inning pitch,

one hit, no earn run performance from them in a four inning pitch, one earn run performance? That sounds like good bullpen work, Jim. It's about this third game. I didn't have it yet. I got to go see what the Cubs bullpen did in the third game. Oh, so we're up in the air right now. You don't know how bad or good the Cubs bullpen could be?

Oh, my God. This is nerve wrecking. Say the first two games again for the people. I say a little bit for you. Three innings pitched no earn run, four innings pitched one earn run. So currently up to seven innings pitch with one earn run, which is pretty good. So in the last game, they did four innings of work.

But they had a, it was three to one when they came in. By the end, it was six to one. It was Derek Holland and Tyler Chatwood. Four innings pitched, one earned run, four hits. I'm taking them off. I think, I don't think Cubs fans will have. have you will be as lenient as Jake and I are right now. I think Cubs fans want more till they instill some faith.

Yeah, I mean, that's 11 innings pitch, tour and runs. Come on. Well, it gets you off slump watch. I don't know how many, I don't know how many big innings were had.

Right. That's my. Merrill Kelly and Purcello did not pitch, so they are still on lingering. Kyle Swarber, Jake. Yes. He comes off slump watch with a fucking bang. He went three for four with four walks and a home run.

His on base percentage and his three games set in the battle for first place was 889. On base percentage. It's good. It's good. He's fucking way off. All right. That's the updates. Now we've got to add some more people to slump watch.

Jake, I saw you add a whole bunch of people. Give them to me. Yeah, Jim, I'm going to start with a couple third basemen. and this one is tough, and you know I don't want to do this, Jim, put a red sock on there. But Raphael Devers, man. He's been so good for Boston this year. He's two for 21 in his last five games. That's an 0.95 batting average.

So I think I got to throw Rafa on there. And then, Jim, on the Tigers, Detroit, represent, Yimer, Candelario. Now, that's a fun name. Jim, he just, he's 0 for 13, and I, I need. needed at some point to talk about how poorly run Detroit has been as an organization. They're now by far the worst team in baseball. A really proud baseball city. And I know they went all in and so they were going to have to rebuild. But I don't know. When we talk about the teams like the Yankees being able to find Diamonds in the Rough with hitting, Houston with the pitching,

like Detroit, what are you doing? Like, who's Detroit called on? They've been like, oh, that's great. So, okay, I just took this chance. Heimer Candelaria, I don't know, O for 13 to shit on Detroit, but that's how things go sometimes. And then, Jim, I put David Price on there. His last four starts, 17 innings pitched 10-59 ERA. The socks are 0 in those starts. And Jim, his ERA has gone from 3-16, which is like a great season.

He was at 3-1-6, four starts ago. He is now up to 4-3-3. three six, which is just a very mass season. So it's crazy, crazy how quickly it can change. All right. I want to comment on some of these. Devers is the one Red Sox who I like right now.

Like I was kind of endeared to him in this series. Just the way he goes about himself, how much he's improved defensively. Kind of, I said to myself, if he wasn't a Red Sox, I could easily root for him. Yeah.

Just from on the field, I have no idea what his personality is off the field, how he does interview, any of that. But just his mannerisms on the field. He seems like he matured. We saw him mature between our, he was like a, like a pudgy young rookie,

and now he goes about himself. And they were saying that he, he kind of mimics J.D. Martinez. And it kind of does. It was kind of cool. I like that. Candelario, Jake, he hasn't had a multi-hit game

in three weeks. Yeah. So you have him as the 04, oh for his last three games. But he's got an 098 batting average in his last 13 games started. So it runs deeper than just this past series. He's got a 118 slugging in his last 13 games, in his last 58 played appearances.

So that's tough. What do you do? What do you do in Detroit right now? I don't know, man. And that article came off. I think it was Petriello talking about the trades they passed up. for Michael Fulmer. And I get it that hindsight's always easier. But you also have to have some sort of foresight to know where this Tigers team was heading. And they could have had guys like

Bregman. It's kind of unbelievable. And again, it's one transaction, so I can't slaughter them for it. But yeah, I mean, it's really disappointing to see the Detroit Tigers. I mean, they're four games back from the Baltimore Orioles whose pitching staff is going to give up the most home runs ever given up by a baseball team. It's, uh, I don't know, man. Kind of bum me out. Good baseball town. Red Sox you have on here.

Kind of like the Rockies. 08, man. Yeah. Sorry. Baseball schedule makers are presenting them with a great opportunity to get off Slump Watch quick. Yeah. Because our rule is you got to win a series.

If you're a team on Slump Watch. And they got the Royals coming to play at Fenway. So what are the probabilities? Do you have that? I could get there, Jim. Or race you. If you want to talk about your guys, you threw in there.

No, we're racing. Nope. Not racing. We got Montgomery versus Porcelo. Porcelo, he's still kind of technically on Slump Watch. Jacob Junis versus Cashner. Cashner also kind of on Slump Watch. Watch, Sparkman versus Eduardo Rodriguez, and that's what they've got for the three games set.

And that leads us right into my slump watch because Glenn Sparkman, Royal starting pitcher. In his last six starts, Jake, and one of these starts is a complete game shutout that I gave a standout performance to. Yes. So in his last six starts, one of them is a complete game shutout. He has an 8-10 ERA. Now he was in the bullpen last year, primarily in the bullpen to start this year, and he's been starting, and he did have that, like, the start of his year. But around that, so like July 1st, three innings pitched eight earn runs, six innings pitched four and runs. Nine innings pitch, zero earned runs. Good shit. Five point two and four, his last, five innings pitched eight earn runs. And then this past,

start this weekend. 4.2 innings pitched, 6 earned runs. Glenn Sparkman, right now you're on slump watch, but he's actually, he could easily lean to, you know, just bad watch. Yeah, he could be on bad watch pretty easy. Yeah, sounding like a good week to take some overs, Kansas City, Kansas City and Boston. The pitching's been struggling. And then the last guy got on here, and this was tweeted at us, and I appreciate that.

if you guys want to be our eyes and ears and help out. Jack Peterson's won for his last 23. And the one came in the most recent game, but still, one for 23, that ain't good. Yeah, he had like an 0 for 19 going at some point. I think it even got worse than that. Batting average went from 239 to 228.

That's tough. I have a new, as we develop this show and keep going, I'm going to propose something for you. So you said a lot of people were coming off slump watch today So we could so we added a good amount Should we have a cap like no more than 10 people can be on slump watch at once? 10 people teams

Right now we have eight Eight? Yeah we could say something like that I think it's I think I think you earn your way on slump watch I don't want to put it in box if there's someone that needs to be talked about on Slump Watch it needs to be talked about but I think it kind of is a you know kind of like scholarships on a basketball team if you got one coming out you should have one coming in okay there we go next up dirt nasties and fuego that means on fire baby who's on fire jim dude Nelson Cruz is on fire again I don't know if he ever got like put out he's just a walking flame ball he had a Another three home run game, Jake.

He had one like three series ago. Is he, dude, you're supposed to be the dude who's tweeting out Edwin Incarnacion and Nelson Cruz's home run race. Now Edwin Incarnation breaks his wrist. Nelson Cruz has three home runs. Nelson Cruz is going to end up being the winner, all-time home run hitter in the 2010s. This is brutal for Edwin. Yeah. And do you know how old Nelson Cruz is, Jim?

36. 39. Wow. Dude, he's doing this at 39. He has 30 homers on the season. 292 batting average, 30 home runs, a 385 on base percentage, 1.031 OPS. He's been killing it, Jim, and he's been going, I mean, straight nut job for a little while now. He, Jim, in his last 14 games, he has 12 homers.

We've got two three-run home games. games. It's insane. And yeah, we, on talking Yanks, we were excited when we got Edwin, because it was a really fun stat that Edwin and Carnacion had the most home runs this decade from 2010 through 2019. Nelson Cruz has now passed him. Nelson Cruz has 335 this decade. As Jimmy mentioned, Edwin got hurt. So it's pretty wild. And I think I mentioned it on here last week or a couple weeks ago that it's an impressive list. You see guys like A-Rod on there, Babe Ruth, most home runs per decade, and now Nelson Cruz, when that graphic gets brought up every year that ends with 19, you're going to see Nelson Cruz's name on there. Speaking of most in a decade, I believe

Trout just passed Kinsler for most run scored in the decade. One doubt it. I was surprised to see Kinsler. I was surprised to see Kinsler. I was surprised to see Kinsler. I was surprised to see Kinsler's name up there. Yeah. Mike Trout has passed Ian Kinsler for most runs scored this decade. Yeah, well, I mean, Kinsler used to do work at the top of those Texas lineups.

Yeah, no. Initially, I was like, oh, wow. And then I was like, oh, yeah, dude, Kinsler was like in the mix for a while. So the list here, though, for most runs scored for decades since you just gave home runs. This is interesting. 1910s. Honest Wagner.

Onis Wagner worked for peanuts, literally peanuts. 1910s, Ty Cobb, 1920s, Babe Ruth, 1930s, Lou Gehrig, 1940s,

Ted Williams in only seven seasons. 1950s, Mickey Mantle. Noticing a trend here, these are all fucking fantastic players. 1960s, Hank Aaron, 1970s, Pete Rose, 1980s, Ricky Henderson, 1990s, Barry Bonds,

2000s, Alex Rutterer. They're the premier names. They are premier names. 2010's Mike Trout. He just passed Ian Kinsler. Thank God. Trout.

Thank God. Ian Kinsler did not belong on that list. Ian Kinsler almost ruined baseball history. Mike Trout is much more deserving. It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. Who else is in Fuego?

Enfuego. Jim, I want to jump down. actually no. Yeah, I want to jump down to our baby Blue Jays. Because Boba Chet, not Boba Fett. I know that gets confusing on here. Jim, and again, the mini asterisk is against the Orioles, but they're a major league team, so it is whatever. Jim, the stat I love from Boba Chet, nine hits in his first five games. That's a Blue Jays record. Wow. Good for you, Bo. That's pretty cool. And Jim, I think I want to talk about my guy, Vladi,

Junior for a minute before I think you got a couple things you want to say about Boba Shett because that's that's just fun. Look at the hair on him too. Jimmy, Vlad Jr. I mentioned, I said it as kind of a throwaway line at the end of the last episode. I said, Jimmy, he's been getting hot. I wouldn't be surprised if by next week his stats are starting to look really good. Jimmy, he's up to 279 batting average, a 352 OBP, and an 819 OPS. And again, Jim, just a little while back, I mean, even a month ago, he was having like a bad go at it. His OPS was kind of in the low sevens. On July 17, Vlad Jr's OPS was 704, and as of today, it's 819.

He is on a warpath. He's going to finish with some impressive numbers. All right. Bobeship. Bobeship. And then Vladi Jr. just had a good series. It's just he just keeps going. Yeah, and against the Orioles.

So again, say what you want. But yeah, when I say good series, Jim, he went 10 for 17. Two home runs. That's a 58 batting average. So yeah. Nelson Cruz, his three home run game could have been a standout performance. And this was another standout performance for a single game. Because if you haven't caught on standout performance,

it's usually single game, to pitchers more, but hitters have gotten it before. Starling Marte had a really good game, Jake. Like that. They ended up losing, so like it's weird, but he went three for five with a home run and two stolen bases.

Starling Marte was all over that game. So it doesn't really fit for Enfuego. I thought it was going to be a standout performance, so I had it on the sheet. He's wanted to mention it. Good job, Starram. He's still doing it in Pittsburgh, Jim? Yep. Yes, sir. Starly Marte, he was part of the brawl.

He got hit as a retaliation during that big brawl with the Reds. But then on the other side of things, Robinson Canoe for the Mets. Bobby. Seven for 11. He had multiple hits in all three games of this series. He ended July. He should have been on slump watch. He was two for 30 to end July.

He starts August going nine for 15. He's been hot. Last four or five games, six-36 batting average. But a really good series, two hits, three hits, two hits, I believe. Good for Robbie. Yeah, I'm excited for Robbie to get it going. I think we actually might have had him on slump watch him because I think a couple people tweeted at us.

And he's still having a rough season, but, you know, Robinson Cano still gives you good at bad. And I'm rooting for him. I'm rooting for these Mets. Stay hot, Robbie. Zero to Hero. Zero to hero. Is that what we're calling it when you go from Slumpwatch and Fuego?

It's too unoriginal for me. Yeah, it's a little generic. Everyone that reached out for that, we thank you. But yeah, we're still going to land on our perfect term for that. The other one I thought was beanstalked. Beanstalked. Thought it was like, well, that could be weird. Yeah, totally is.

So we'll think about it a little more, I guess. And Jim, I think it's tough to- The way you said it was fun. Beanstalked. Beanstalked. leave a five-star review, Beanstalk. The reviews keep coming in, and thank you for that too. And, Jim, I think it's funny.

You mentioned standout performance in Enfuego. It's kind of easier to get a pitcher on standout performance. But Jim, a couple guys who are in Fuego, a couple NL Central starters, your boy, Sonny Gray, his last six starts, 39.1 innings pitch with a 1.83 ERA. I wrote down, gah, like a screaming noise. just some old Yankees frustration there. And Jim, Jack Flaherty, we've been looking for our guy to get excited about on the Cardinals, who can make them sexy?

Jim, I think it might be Jack Flaherty. His last five starts, 31.1 innings pitch, a 1.15 ERA. And this weekend against Chicago, he went seven innings pitch, zero earn run. He brought his ERA down in those five starts, Jim, from four nine. So like in a bad season, Jay Hap, how are you? you. And now Jack Flaherty's down to 393 and he's dealing for the Cardinal. So I'm on the Jack Flaherty train. Wow. I never thought I'd see the day.

You never thought that I'd say I'm on the Jack Flaherty train. I did not. I did not. All right. Next up, who got mad? Who got mad, Jim? Tell me. Cora and Sale and the Red Sox got mad. They were deflecting a lot of their anger within and their despair and Desperacy within. Now the umpire, I forget his name,

Estebrook, I didn't forget his name, it's Estebrook. He was bad. He looks like Rob Cordroy from all those movies, like what happens in Vegas and all those. Good movie. Yes.

He was, he was bad. Cora was worse. Sale was worse. Cora staged a screaming and then was proud of his staging of a screaming in the post game, which I found. rather sad.

One thing for a manager to stage, like by stage, when he went out for the mound visit and instead of talking to his team and players, he just waited for the ump to come out and say, hey, all right, let's play and then turned around and started yelling at the ump.

When he could have just walked out and started yelling at the um, there was no need to be so dramatic about it. And then they asked him like, did you go out for that mound visit just to call the um? and he was like, yep, it was, uh, don't say anything to my players. Just tell me when he's near me. And it's like, why so much drama? Like, why do you have to make manufacture fake drama to yell at the um and then be so proud of the manufactured fake drama? It's like, you guys are desperate for anything to talk about besides the poor play right now. So Cora and Sal got mad.

I thought what Cora did was sad coming from a very biased Yankee fan. Yeah, and I think a lot of Corr's acting. And Jim, this, I, I put it in my winning Cures Everything Bucket. When the Red Sox were going nuts last year, anything Cora did seemed like a genius thing. And he was showing emotion and rallying, the team was rallying behind him when he was getting kicked out and stuff. When you lose, that stuff looks dumb.

Josh Reddick got ejected from a game, but didn't even really get mad. But I don't know if you saw that. He did a breakdown on it. He thought he foul tip to pitch, but he didn't. It wasn't even close, Jake. It was so weird.

and the ump was like, you didn't. And then he started throwing all his equipment. And he threw one piece too many. The um, kicked him out. Maybe a short hook or whatever. But if you're the ump, like, you know how players get mad when the umps like blatantly miss a call?

Yeah. Like, dude, you didn't foul tip that ball. Like you were two feet away from the ball. You're the um, be like, yo, stop yelling at me for this, please? Yeah. And then Redick said in his press game, he's like,

I thought I'd tip. it. I don't know why. I watched the video. I wasn't even close. It's like, yeah, well, you were like screaming and yelling. You were so convinced. Jim, I'm, I don't want to set you up for a hot take or, or anything bad. I feel like Reddick's not a guy that you'd normally be into, but I think you like Reddick. Yeah, I like Reddick. Yeah. He's a Brett Gardner type. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. And I like when Cece's a fuck out of here, Reddick. And like, they were just like kind of fernic. And, like, they were just like kind of fernic. banter. Kirby Yates got mad for the Padres, Jake, and Padres fans want me to do a breakdown of this

because Padres fans think he may be mad at the catcher for not laying the tag down in time. I watch it a couple times. I think it's very much directed at the umpire for missing some calls because that's like 99% of yelling in baseball. So I have to do a breakdown that's to really figure it out. But it was, you know, Monsi hits the walk off as soon as the run scores,

he says something like, that's fucking poor shit. and we got to figure out what it's for. I'll go investigate soon. Okay. That's all I got. Yeah, before we get out of Who Got Mad, Jim, I've got a fun Josh Redick stat for you. Let's hear it.

What? I was just going to do something rude. Josh Reddick is leading the American League. Do you want to guess the category? That's what I was going to set you up for. But it's a kind of brutal ask. Outfield assists. Sacrifice.

flies, Jim. Oh, nice. And normally I'd say like, okay, that's kind of random. In 2017, he led the A.L. and sacrifice flies. So maybe that leans into Josh Reddick just doing like solid stuff that wins you baseball game. So how about that? Good job, Josh Reddick. Yeah, I think he's a role player and a fistic. Sack fly. I think he's a feisty role player like Brett Gardner. You're feisty. Cole Cahoon. Can we put them all in the same bucket? Ooh, so are we just, we're just making a

Feisty Corner Outfielder bucket, Gardner, Cole, Calhoun, and Reddick. If anyone has another Feisty Corner Outfielder, let's get all those guys in the pot. That's good at the, good at the things that don't get celebrated. Okay, I like that. Because, yeah, I was thinking about throwing Puege in there, but that's... No, he does not fit that mold. He's a little flashier. Okay, reach out to us, Feisty Corner Outfielders.

Quick walk off wats. Quick walk-off watch. Had to rewind for a second there. Moncie, as we talked about, the one we didn't talk about was Odor walked off versus the Rangers. 10th ending 4-4-game hits a bomb home run. Good job for Odor.

And Coonya. Coonya. Hit his first walk-off of his career. Pretty fun. Yeah, Jim, with the team, it's kind of the team this episode left behind. The Texas Rangers, man. They've won four straight.

half a game behind Boston. So I don't know if they're still going. You know, Lance Lynn had another great start. Why didn't they trade Lance Lynn? Why didn't they trade anyone? Fucking. I saw Lance Lynn have 11 strikeouts and like a really good start. It's like, what?

Seven innings pitched, one run 10Ks. Why didn't they get anyone for these guys? I have no idea. I mean, if they think that Lynn and Minor are for real, I mean, they've got them on the books for next year. so I guess if they didn't get a good offer. But yeah, so it's a little bummer. Four game win streak, though, for Tejas.

Yeah. Call up watch. Dude, there was a lot. And I realized that as we go, for call up watch, like when we get a soundboard, should we do like a bring, bring, bring. Bring, bring. Hello, I'd like another baseball player.

There you go. I'll just make that to soundboard. That's perfect. Jim, yeah, I think the best. way to do this. We had 10 people make their debut, and that's a record since we've started doing call-up watch. So I'm just, I'm going to hit them and then you give us the highlights, okay? Yeah, I went down all 10 of them and only wrote three down, so. Yeah. Sam Selman for the Giants. Pitcher, good for you. Trent Grisham. Might hear more about

him in Milwaukee. Dustin May, Gingerguard. You're going to hear about him pitching for the Dodgers. Reggie McLean gets the call for Seattle. Scott Heineman. Outfielder for Texas. Travis DeMert going to hear about him for Detroit. Zach Roth, that's a name. He gets called up to pitch for Seattle. Emmanuel Chase pitching for Texas. Kyle Keller for the Miami Marlins and Yanzie Diaz for Toronto. So 10 guys get the call gym.

Who do you like here? Tell me about him. Well, Grisham's a big call-up. There's two big call-ups. Grisham was a first-round pick for the Milwaukee Brewers. Yeah. In 2015, but I have that right.

I don't have it up anymore. But you have it, yeah, nailed it. 15th overall pick. Yeah, 22 years old, so he's a young kid

from Texas. He gets called up in the middle of this Cubs series. Like it's a, you know, first round pick, top high prospect, getting called up

in the middle of this Cubs series. Like we said, he started, he started, what, two games? He started the first game. and then I think he pinched

the second game, then let off the fourth game, Jake. That's the leadoff. So in his first game, he went 0 for 3 with an RBI. Then he gets his one pinch hit appearance strikes out. In his third game, they put him at leadoff

in his third ever game against the Cubs to avoid the sweep. That's pretty nuts. Pretty big things. He leads off against you, Darvish, and singles to right field later scores on a Christian Yelich home run. No, no, no, he got doubled up, then Yelich homered. And then he got two more hits, went three for four.

So they're hoping that he can do big things in Milwaukee. He's the real deal. And man, I mean, talk, what an opportunity, man. We talked about how there's, he can get some run in that outfield. You get the call at age 22, and you can, you might find yourself in the playoffs batting in front of Christian Yelich. if you get a little hot street going, Trent. So good luck to you, young man.

Jim, the guy I'm excited to talk about, Dustin May. Yeah, top pitching prospect for the Dodgers, 21 years old. They said third round pick, and the Dodgers kind of said, we didn't trade for any pitchers. We're going to roll with some internal help. I mean, they have a fucking amazing staff. Yeah. But Dustin May gets the call.

Why is he getting the call? call. He's a gas mask guy. Ryu got hurt Jim. He's on the 10-day I-L. Okay. So they called him up for IU with Rayu had neck soreness. Timeline isn't know yet. Okay, Rayu. Like, get a massage, bro. Yeah. Nexornness. That's called Tuesday Mike. Gingerguard. Dustin May has the red lettuce flowing from his hair. So it's Cinderguard, ginger guard. That's some fun if you like that. Yeah. And this, for the Dodgers, this

guy was mentioned in all their, he's been their trade rumor guy for the past 12 months, and he gets the call, and he's looking like they're going to let him rip in Dodger Blue. Him and Justin Turner, how many pictures have they taken next to each other? Oh, that's a good question, Jim. Two gingers and the Dodger Blue. It's a very contrasting colors. Isn't that a Bruce Springsteen song? Two gingers in a Dodger Blue.

Hey 5.2 innings pitch 3 earn runs Who got him? What do you do to Mani? If you allow me to check real quick That's what I'm interested in I'll allow you to check that man

Tatis ground out Will Myers single Mani Machado Groundball double play His first inning ever Sucker Strikes out Hosmer Gives up a single to Mejia

What's his next? next manny manny pops up and then manny singles the right field so manny got him on his third time that's kind of how it happens the next one i wrote down is travis demerite um wonder why this guy was a first round pick back in 2013 jake okay first round pick six years ago jim first round pick for the rangers

Travis demerite demurit demurita i say it demerit could be That's the simpler way to say it. The Rangers traded him to the Braves in 2016 for names that I'm not familiar with. And then he just got traded to the Tigers for Shane Green. The old saying goes if you're top prospects. If you're the real deal, you don't get traded, especially not twice. He's been traded twice. They called him up.

Hit his first hit. It was a triple. But he only got one hit in three games. and he's got a stolen base and yeah jim i i know it's crazy people like six years picture from 18 to 24 this guy's been in the minor leagues playing baseball uh some pretty good speed i didn't realize he was out of high school guy that's not that bad then i mean he's still only no um interesting prospect man he's he's got some good homer seasons um he's got a year with 28 homers He's got a couple years.

He's got a 17 stolen base season. So I don't know. It seems like Travis has some tools. Second base, left field, third base. That's an interesting listed position combo. So, yeah. His stats read very odd. Like last year in AA, he had 17 home runs,

which is pretty good in double A. Yeah. Like, you know, that pops out more than it would in the MLB for sure. but a 316 on base percentage. Yeah. If you're going to be a home run, well, I don't know what he is. I don't know, that's kind of, you read his stats, you're like, what is this guy? Yeah, we need to watch this guy play gym because it's six foot 180, so it doesn't feel like he's got a big frame on him.

We got to watch this guy. If someone's got the Travis DeMert, scouting report, hit us up. Hit us up. Next up on talking baseball. I believe you get to. to go first. Yeah, Jim and I, uh, this, this was a guy you were all over and he took some, took some MLB headlines and he's getting the Jake of All Trades Award.

Wow. Yeah. Very prestigious. Um, no way would I ever refer to myself in the third person instead of Jack of All Trades and say Jake of All Trades. Uh, Jim, you know who it's going to. Jake Bauer. Vince Velasquez, Jim.

Ooh. Yeah, we didn't even talk about this yet. I'm glad that this is your award. Yeah, because I know you were all jazzed up about this, so I was, A, I was glad I remembered. B, I was scared that it was going to be your award, and then I was going to be awardless. But, Jim, the first game of this,

the Phillies series over the weekend, Vince Velasquez is on the Phillies, by the way. Phillies, White Sox, they go into 15 innings. So we start doing some NL baseball. We get Vince Velasquez, the pitcher playing left field. And Jim, one of the classic corny baseball lines that is the most real thing in the world is if you, the baseball will find you. Especially if you're at a position you don't feel comfortable at or whatever you're doing. Vince Velasquez, we get a single.

Jose Abraeu running on second. He's a little slow, and he got banged up the play before. single to left field. Vince Velasquez comes up throwing, pegs him at the plate. Jim, he makes a diving catch later, which was just as impressive. So big shout out for pitchers being athletes for Vince Velasquez. And Jim, know what the crazier thing is? The White Sox ended up scoring a run. I want to say the next inning on a single that also went to Velasquez. He had an even better throw. He almost really pegs someone at the plate. That throw, I think, was more impressive than the first one. But a little shout out to Vince Valasquez.

Velasquez repping for the pitchers. Yeah. Yeah, I did a breakdown on it with all three plays if you want to go look at all of them one spot. The first throw, Abraeu was running and he just banged up his knee. So he pegged him. The next one, faster runner was running and didn't get him. But it took a perfect slide to be safe.

Yeah, I think it was Lurie Garcia, right? Yeah. He's a speedster. He's not just like a casual runner. And it was a beautiful throw. He roped it. So my problem with Velasquez is, Career 457 ERA.

Yeah. And I don't believe he's having a fantastic season this year. 440 ERA. Here's a thing, Jake. He's coming out of the pen. He's starting. They're kind of mixing them around. His two most memorable moments are not for pitching.

Yeah. So this year, it's this. Last year, Vince Velasquez took a comebacker to his throwing arm. picked the ball up with his offhand and threw a dart to first, which is one of the more impressive things I've seen. If you told me to try and do that, how ugly, how stupid it would look, they'd be calling it the Jake Storelli of throws.

Okay, well, hold on now. So now this dude's done two things. His top two highlights aren't pitching, which is, I think he wouldn't like that. Yeah, and I'll lean into this a little bit with the Jake of all trade awards, Jim. You mentioned he's been pitching out of the bullpen and starting. He's been starting lately.

His last six starts, Jim, 29.2 innings pitch, a 394 ERA. So for a guy that's kind of been the Phillies, like, swing man this year, that's a pretty good performance. Hasn't seen the sixth inning. I don't know if that's nationally getting in the way or not, but hasn't seen the sixth inning yet. Swing man. Who's pitching out of the pin before that?

Yeah. my award is the better dad award wow jim ho whoa we had a battle of newborn fathers on sunday night baseball yeah i know it blew your mind so much i thought i had to bring it to national audience j a hap and david price faced off in the bronx they both just came off paternity leave they both just had babies

I believe it's Hap's third kid and I don't know about Price. And now they're facing each other. The fact that they did it, it's come off the paternity list at the same time to face each other. It's national game. Sunday night baseball. Battle of the dads. Which baby is going to be more proud when they're 10 years old and they say, Dad, what did you do in your start right after I was born?

It's a question. All professional pitchers are asked nonstop. Yeah. Nonstop. What did you do the day after I was born? Happ It's not a great outing Five and two-thirds

Four earned runs It's not a great outing But David Price What do he'd do, Jayne? 3.1 2.1 2.2.2.2-7 earn runs, Jim.

So who's the better dad? It's J.A. Hap. Yeah. And congrats. He wins the Better Dad Award. And yeah, I mean, you you saw my eyes light up. Yeah,

there's just going to be a day that, you know, David Price's kid appreciates how much his, you know, his dad was a major league. Their dad was a major league pitcher and he was a good major league pitcher. Dad, what'd you do after I was born? 2.27 earned runs. I'm running away. Are you kidding me? Who'd you face? I'm going to go be his son. The paternity bowl, man. That was awesome. It's wild. Timing's everything, Jake. Wow. Can I use that? Yeah, you can use that. Just make sure you say it's a Jimmy O'Brien original.

Jimmy O'Brien original. Everyone's favorite segment to round out the show. Going down. Ooh, I thought we were going up. Oh, maybe we were going up. Okay, going up. Elevator talk. We have got a wheel here with 30 teams on it.

We want to try and get to all the teams, even if there's no news happening. We're going to give you some fodder. If you're in an elevator with a fan of that team, you will be able to host a conversation. We're going to spin this wheel. Random team. If we've talked about them too much already this episode, they get skipped on your mark, get set.

We're spinning. We're spinning. Come on. We're spinning. The Cleveland Indians. Ooh, I like it. Yeah, I mean, if you're an Indians fan, the number one thing you have to bring up in the elevator

is Baker Mayfield, shotgunning a beer. While the Indians are getting no hit, after he shotguns a beer, everyone starts hitting, they break up the no-hitter, they take the lead in the game. Did you see that Baker-Mayfield shotgun?

I think it fired up the ball club. I mean, that is what the water cooler talk is in Cleveland right now. Yeah, I mean, he's got. I made the joke on the Jake Down I got back into. Jim, Cleveland's playing some good baseball. They are 16 and 5 in their last 21. They're balling out. Frankie Lindor, he hit the homer after the biker shotgun.

And Jim, they had the big trade. They had the Bauer trade, and there's a chance this team has gotten even better. Man, the big dude, Fran Mill Reyes. If he's a name you don't know, that would be my elevator talk. Fran Mill Reyes, he was on the Padres. He's a beast. He's 6'5-275. He's hitting a lot of gopher balls.

Wasn't there defensively. He can d.H in the American League. Now, Fran Mill Reyes might be a big piece for them going forward. Yeah. You got, if you're in the elevator, you can talk about Bauer made his first start as a red. It wasn't anything special. The Reds did end up winning the game, I believe. It was the crazy Akuna tying shot.

Amir Garrett blew it. But yeah, so Bauer did make his first start as a red. Pugge died his hair red. What do you think of Preg? Like, that's a conversation starter since he's on your team now. But the big thing also, we talked about this top of the show. Cleveland Indian has a four-game set coming up in Minnesota. So you're in that elevator.

You're like, I hope we can give him hell in Minnesota. We go to Minnesota. We can really change a tide here. Oh, Jim, and you know who's kind of turned it around? a little, well, a little bit, Jose Ramirez. Remember when we saw him earlier this season? He, like, couldn't make contact anymore,

and it was, like, bizarre. He started playing actual, like, baseball this year. Because, yeah, man, I mean, there was a time this year. At June 8th, he was hitting, or excuse me, June 12th, he was hitting 198. This is a guy who has gotten, like, MVP votes in the past and not casual. MVP votes.

Like, this guy is one of the better players in baseball. He was really struggling this year. I'm going to try to do a... I got it. Since the All-Star break, he has a 1-0.003 OPS with a 337 on base percentage. Now, in his last seven, he's went back to struggling, Jake, so hopefully kicks it right back up. But he did come out of the All-Star break like a rocket. Yeah.

And, I mean, it goes back a little before that. I went back to that June 14th, number 42 games. 305, 344 on base and 943 OPS. And that's who he is. And I think he was, wasn't he really struggling to hit fastballs? And I think they said something he either opened up his stance or he did something a little bit that he's going again. Yeah.

And oh, Brad Hand, Jim. Yeah. What about him? The save stat from before. He's got some of the cleanest saves in baseball. 21, 1, 2, 3 innings. Yeah. Lind doors, look at that.

Linddor's going off. Oh, and Shane Bieber on the back of his tops card, they wrote down his name as Justin. He tweeted it out, and Justin Bieber quote tweeted him. So now Shane Bieber's fan base just fucking times 100. You got the Bieber gang, the believers. Now know that Shane Bieber exists. So, wow, that's huge news. He's going to be an all-star now.

Yeah, and Jim, just because I think it's impressive, and I missed it before, and if I was better, I would have had it. Jose Ramirez finished third place in the MVP the past two seasons, and again, he was hitting 198 June 14th. What a game. What a game. Kipnis has three home runs in his last seven games, six games. It's hot.

It's hot. All right. That about ends it here on talking baseball. we thank you guys for hanging out and listening if you want to give the podcast a rating and review. We would appreciate that. We had a lot of people come out and say what team they're a fan of Jake. I don't know if all 30 are claimed yet. We're going to need to get on that.

And then we'll have some stickers sent to the first to claim their team. So I don't know. Leave a five-star rating. Write down your team. It might not be claimed. yet. You win a sticker. If you don't want to wait for the free sticker,

you can go to shop.jomboimedia.com. And we got a bunch of stickers and shirts for sale. We're going to put some talking baseball shirts on sale and the color of every single team. That's a project we have lined up. And some more exciting stuff. We appreciate it. We thank you.

Go the baseball. Go baseball. Is that what we say at the end there? Work. Worked. See you guys. Thank you.