Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Angel Hernandez Retires from MLB & Acuna Out for the Season | Weekly Recap | 842

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

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Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Summers here. Memorial Day weekend in our rearview. Ronald O'Cunia Jr. out for the year. Angel Hernandez's funeral. Jose Ramirez is Barry Bonds. I'm Brian Dozier. I am Brian Dozier.

Homer, top of the zone. That's what I do. Lead off. First pitch. Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Presented to you by Seat Geek. Summers here go to a ball game. Life is a ball game, playing out each day.

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Click the link in the description. Download the app. see some of the baseball, Trev, because basketball only has a couple games left. Hockey's only got a couple games left. Football, we'll see that after summer. It's baseball season. And we're starting to hit a real spot, Treve Yellow. It's going to be June 1 this weekend. Yeah, we're starting to see like, hey, we can look at the records now. We can see what your favorite player is doing. Still, obviously, a lot of baseball left. But, Around this time, things start to get real.

We're two months into the season. I will say, I'm not a basketball guy. Like, I enjoy, I used to enjoy the Lakers. I don't really watch too much anymore, but I did watch Luca walk down Rudy Gobert and then just hit a three in his face and talk shit. And like, I really liked it. Yeah.

Like, maybe I'm back in on basketball. That was pretty sweet. But this is a baseball show, Jake. This is a baseball show. Luca's electric. There's no down it. He complains. much, which can be brutal.

He does do that a lot. I noticed that. He was complaining a lot. But they all do it, man. They all do. Maybe it's Gen C. They all do it. He has the reputation of being the worst about it. Every time someone goes down there, they pretend to be hurt to try to get the technical. It's a little bizarre. But don't care.

Yeah, I don't care. Don't care. Because, like I said at the start, Jose Ramirez is better than Barry Bonds. Yeah, what was that? Was that facetious? He was joking, right? He's not, like, really serious about that. I didn't really, I didn't see it in context.

I just saw the headline in the quote. J-Ram can do whatever he wants. If he wants it to be silly. I mean, you really can't say that. I don't think you can say that. Like, I like the guy. Yeah. Good player.

Great player. Hey, if Jose Ramirez has Barry Bond's second half of his career, he's clean. You used to say you're the cleanest guy in the game. Haven't heard that in a while. You've been choosing? I am the cleanest guy on the old. Holiday Hills getting to you?

I got sent something. I think we're going to be running ads on. Yeah. We're going to be easy. It's like some route, you know, from South Africa or something. And I'm taking that. And I feel great. You look great. No free ads yet.

Trev, we've got a lot of big topics. The Brewers got into another fight, and that's obvious. What was that about? It's just what they do. It's Pat Murphy, bro. Do the bad boys of baseball? Pat Murphy, we talk about managers embodying their city. Pat Murphy's stock in beautiful Wisconsin.

Especially after Monday's games, I don't even think they were talking about. Like, know how Jason Kelsey is on like the top 100 hottest guys list or whatever. And it's like, yeah, I get it. Like, he's the ultimate man. He's a bear. Yes. Like I think if Milwaukee came out with like top,

top 25 hottest guys in Milwaukee, it's obviously Yelly one. But I think Pat Murphy's coming in like 21 right now. His stock is flying. He's just kind of like, think about where he's done his job. Like Notre Dame, that's,

Notre Dame is like, you know, Wireboy, it's a Catholic school. Yeah. And then he's in Milwaukee now, which is like, you know,

that's a good hard, work in town, but he had a stinted ASU. Can you imagine Pat Murphy ASU? That's a dog right there. Before we get all of us in trouble. Woof, woof. Let's get through some American League. Your guy Kyle Bradish is back. The Rangers are struggling. Alex Kirillov is back. We're not going to talk, twins. Let's talk about what happened in the American League. because there's teams above the twins, Trevor, and one of them, it'll never be royals. They take two out of three in the drop.

Seth Lugo, drag that whole big thing all over the mound because that's all he's been doing. Talking about his curveball, people, seven innings, one earn run. I love when Michael Massey leans into one. Speaking of, Nelson Velasquez, we'll talk about Adam Frazier just a little later in this run. Royals won that game with three runs in the 11th, although our guy Johnny DeLuca tried to fight it, eh? Brandon Lau with the big pinch hit Homer, or excuse me, three-run triple to save the rays and salvage the series. The Tigers, your AL-Cent.

Trev Juicy. They take three out of four from the Blue Jays and I'm burying you. That's what everyone's kind of doing to these Blue Jays, man. Jack Flaherty is punching tickets and adding zeros to his next contract. 6.1 9Ks actually gets out dueled by Gossman, but the Tigray's get to them late. people Matt Veerling hit a walkoff and that means you're going to hear more about him coming up because Treve I think sees a lot of himself in Matt Veerling it's always been a weird little connection Jay's won that first game the Tigers took the final three including that chaotic 1411 back and forth good day to have those guys on your fantasy team tigers take three out of four Sox in the brewcoop kid

I mentioned We ain't talking about brawling Quentin Barry and Chris Martin Didn't have that Quentin Barry's like all time Nice guy I think Chris Martin is too But sometimes between the lines It gets different Trev

And the Red Sox they won that game 2-1 Tanner Hout continues his brilliant season Your guys Wileyer Abraeu and Rafai with nice ones in that one. But before that, it's all Brew Crew, baby. They won the first two.

Joey Ortiz can't stop, won't stop. Contreras is hunting MVP votes, and so is Yelly probably not, but a nice time by him with three hits. Brew Crew, they stretch out their lead in the NL Central. I wonder if we talk about that. Twins take two out of three from the Texas Rangers, man. I mean, credit to your twins. Larnack, baby. Yeah, Eddie Julian. Okay.

You need to step it up. Let's go, Eddie. Las Diaz mixing it up behind the plate. Corey Seeger's going nut job, but it hadn't mattered until the final game, which Texas wins. They get six runs all between the middle innings there. Rangers had lost six straight and 12 out of 14. You're defending champs. I don't know. The Houston Astros. They take two out of three from the athletics.

They win the bread games. Verlander on the front, six innings, one earned. Ronel Blanco on the back, seven innings, one, earn, run. J.P. Sears shut them down in that middle game. You kind of know all the names that would do it, except Jake Myers, and he has my name. He has a three-run homer in that first game. But yeah, Kyle Tucker, Altuve. Yeah.

The Baltimore Orioles, they sweep the White Sox, but they sweep him for four games. So we always acknowledge that a little more. And I think the highlight, Kyle Braddish, seven no-hit innings, 11 K's. Him and Crochet, that's actually a really fun pitching matchup. Jordan Westberg continues to be a menace for them. One of their stowers, I didn't realize how blonde he was. Go check out a picture of Stowers, the new Orioles outfielder. Like baby blonde hair.

Anyways. The Guardian sweep the Angels, because that's a good team and a bad team. We already talked Jose Ramirez enough. David Fry won't stop. Take that Chris Rose. That's what. That's what happened in the American League. And Treve, you have the standings ready because you never forget.

Would you like the standings, Pop? I need them, Daddy. And it's Tuesday. So obviously I'm going American League East first. And in the East, your Yankees, which we haven't talked about yet, but they had a nice little series down there in San Diego. 37 and 18, they're ahead of those baby, are they baby birds anymore? Those toddler birds. I think so.

You know what a toddler is, Jake. 34 and 18, one and a half games behind the Yanks. Boston's sitting right at 500 right now at 27 and 27. Tampa Bay. Are they going to figure it out? Randy a Rosarena. Go look at his stats, Jake. You're not going to like him.

He's on pace to break Carlos Pena's Ray's strikeout record. That's not a record you want to break. Randy! Put the boots on, dog. They're 26 and 28. And Toronto, 24 and 29.

Drake lost the battle of rappers. Toronto put out bad City Connect uniforms and they're in last place. In the AL East. I didn't hate the Toronto City Connects, but I have bad taste. Okay. Yeah, you do. It's not fun to, like, Toronto's like down bad right now.

Oh, sure. Just saying. In the Central, the best division of baseball, the A.L. Central. Cleveland, 36 and 18. Kansas City Rolls 34 and 21. My twins, 29 and 24. The Detroit Tigers, 26 and 27, and then the lowly white sucks. Oh my gosh.

I don't even know. 15 and 40. That's not good. Pop. In the West. Seattle, still. Still holding it down, man. 29 and 26.

And we just talked about how bad the Rangers have been. They can't win a game. They're 25 and 29, but they're only three and a half games back of Seattle. So if we get some resurgence from some of these players, they just haven't been able to score runs. It's been bad. They're right in the mix still.

24 and 30, the Houston Astros. There are only four and a half games back. The A is 22 and 33, and then Los Angeles Angels at 20 and 33. and those are the standings in the American League. That's crazy, dude. In the West? Yeah.

I keep opening up the MLB standings and the Wildcard standings. And it's a comedy show. I mean, actually, the American League has gotten to a good place. Right now, your last team in is your Minnesota Twins at 29 and 24. So, like, that's kind of where you want that to be a little bit. Um, like the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals are a game and a half out of the wild cart, technically. Uh, you know, I know they've put together a nice little streak, but, you know, minus 43 run differential.

Uh, nobody's dead. Like, nobody's, well, the dead teams are dead. You're Rockies, your Marlins, your White Sox, your halos, your athletics. But, uh, yeah, I, I try to get in front of myself because I do this somewhat annoying. thing, but it's also true, where it's like, up until this point and even another week or two, if you put together that 10-game stretch with the expanded wild card, you're in the mix. Like, the Cincinnati Reds, this was huge for them to reel out four games. We're not talking NL, Treff.

Yeah, this is a, this is stowers or stowers on the Orioles. I watched him hit an... You liked that hair. I watched him hit an Opo double, and I was just a little taken aback, seeing that blonde lettuce flying around. I thought it was Heston Kerstad at first, because he has, like, that Viking blonde hair name.

But no. No. I don't know. They had a nice blowout inning against the socks the other day. Trev, let's do this first, and people may be shocked, but they also might not be... Let's do Angel Hernandez retiring. pretty quick because,

A, big news in baseball, everyone getting some of their final punches in. This is the first call Angels gotten right. Oh my gosh, that's so silly. We've laughed on our end. If you're in the baseball content game and you want some clicks, put Angels name in the mix. Hell, we did that earlier this year. I think one of Jimmy's most,

I think the most popular video ever on this channel was Angel Hernandez. He's one of the most well-known names in baseball. And I think we've even done the fun bar conversation bicker on here. Like, is Angel Hernandez good for baseball? He's basically a celebrity. Yeah. Again, it gets eyeballs to the game.

He, in a way, is making a joke out of the game sometimes. So you can see both sides of the argument pretty clearly. But I don't know. Do you have any reaction to it? Is it just like good luck? Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you? Yeah, I mean, I think it was probably time. And this is going to go into a completely different conversation if we let it.

So let's not let it. I think there may be there maybe needs to be some sort of like, hey, you get to a certain age. You got to start getting tested. Right. You got to pass a test to be able to continue to call balls and strikes. I think that's the one thing we've talked about on this show before is a certain time, like, these guys, your eyesight goes. Like you're 50, 60, 70 years old. I don't know.

Beavs, look up the oldest umpire in the big leagues right now. Once you get to those ages, I mean, your eyesight starts to go. So now you're doing an already very difficult job with, you know, less than efficient tools. it's not a recipe for success. So there needs to be some talk about maybe those guys don't go behind the plate and we just do that for the young guys. Unless you pass the test.

I don't know what the test would be. And I test, I guess. Very quick, Google says Jerry Lane is the oldest at 65. I'm looking to confirm. So, you know, I think it's probably time. And all my interactions with Angel, for the most part, have been very positive. And I've talked about that before.

Like, he's a guy who will, ask you how you're doing. Almost ends every conversation with God bless you. I hope all as well. How's your family? So like I have zero animosity towards the sky whatsoever.

Like most umpires I had good relationships with you play third base. You have to talk to them. They're right in your ear. Like you just got, you have to. So I was always on the camp of

I'm going to be nice to the umpires because why would I be needing to them? They control so much of the game. There's already so much of the game as a hitter you can control. so might as well be nice to them and try to maybe sneak a call here and there. But look, I know he's been controversial. I know there's been bad calls.

I know there's been, you know, he's done some things in the game where you kind of scratch your head a little bit. And you say, okay, what's that about? But I'm not going to sit on here in Basham. I'm not going to do that. It's probably, like I said, it was time. But you could probably say that for another 10 umpires in the game. He's not the only one that's made bad calls or that, you know, has gotten under people's skin.

But it was about time. And you know what? I wish him well. I don't know what he's going to do now. He said he's going to hang out with his family, spend more time with them. That seems like a logical thing to do. He's been in the game for a long time. I believe it was 91.

Is that what they said? 91. 91. I mean, quick math here, people. That is 33 years. Ebes, you were born in 97. 97. It's a long time to do anything.

It's been doing it for a long time, man. Yeah, so I'm sure he's racked up some coin and put some away. Oh, what's Angel Hernandez got in his basement? I don't really know. I don't know him personally like that. I was only surface level with him. But always nice to me. I'm not, like I said, I'm not going to sit here and bash the guy.

It's enough people are doing that. Yeah, it's funny. I just clicked a random. like USA Today article and they've got quotes from Pedro and CC that are pretty tough. Yeah, I mean... Like recent quotes? One they had, and I, now that I've read it, I remember it. Game 3, 2018 ALDS.

It's like replay was still newish and Angel had three. He was at first base. He had three plays overturned. It was like, come on, man. And I don't know. I don't know. I guess I never had enough meaningful games. That's a me problem.

Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's one of those things, man. Whether, when your team was playing, I think if you turned it on and you saw Angel behind the dish, you almost got ready for a different game. Yeah. You got ready. For sure.

You talked about that as players. You knew who was behind the plate. And you said, okay, guys, probably got to expand today. Don't let him take the bat away from me. Let me ask you this Sure Joe West was of the same ilk Like you know

I don't know if people considered him like a quote unquote bad umpire Like they did Angel Hernandez But he was very Inserted himself in the game a lot Joe West did But when he first retired I thought man we're gonna be talked about this guy for a long time And then we'll talk about him at all

So was Angel Hernandez just gonna fade into the abyss I think Angel Hernandez will be a symbol of, this is rude, but umpires making egregiously bad calls. And I don't know, I would, I kind of, when I say I got deep in thought, you know, it gets laid early for me these days. Okay, like that. Angel Hernandez was like, I think, a symbol for a lot of people of someone who was like kind of bad at their job, but doing that. I think people kind of find a little bit of relatability and humor in that. Like, oh, I'm bad at my job too.

Look at this. This guy's been a known kind of bad umpire for 25 years. And they just let it ride. He's like the, he's like the Batman of, like bad employees. So you're saying like people saw him and were like, at least I'm not that bad at my job. A little bit?

Like a little bit. So yeah, maybe you've unintentionally bashed him like that. But he's like done, right? Like it's not, there's not a farewell game in July. Like it's. No, I believe one of the past or somebody tweets said like he has umpired his last game. How electric would that have been? Angel's last game behind the dish.

That would have been a full house, dude. Do you think so? You think he's got juice to sell in a stadium? Depends the city. Angel has juice. People love to hate Angel, so I could see how you'd rally around that and give him the standing ovation,

which is code for, thank goodness, you're gone. Like, I could see that. They should have lined up his last game with like a Paul Skeen start and just have it like two legends. Paul Skeens, Ains or Hernandez is clickbait, clickbait, click, click, click, click, click, click. Livy Duns in the dugout. Congrats on a long career, Angel.

Maybe well, he might be a good offseason up one day. Bringing Dale Scott, our guy. Let's talk a little American League baseball. Trev, I do quickly, again, clicks and quickly, the brewers are just fighting. Like we, it was a little bit of a joke. It wasn't a joke. And now it's, if you're playing the brew crew,

like get ready to fight. And they, we have a little bit of a scene in Boston, and they take two out of three, which they've been doing a lot of. Yeah, I don't, I mean, nothing happened. And I don't even really understand what went down. It was Martin and Quentin, Barry who I think were they teammates.

I definitely played against each other at some point. Those guys are like from my era still doing it. Quentin's a nice dude. But I think that's the Pat Murphy effect. I really do. We talked about Reese Hoskins coming in there and bringing a little bit of that attitude to that team. But I think Pat Murphy doesn't take any shit.

And that's rubbed off on his team, man. And they go into Boston. Like you said, they take two out of three. Cutter Crawford. they kind of put the business on him Contreras hits a homer that was off the popcorn right

in left field over the monster just nailed a thing of popcorn cool visual there Take a picture after the game sure Oh yeah Then he signed the popcorn

That's right Adomis big double To right field They There's something going on there Where I think And I don't know if it's all Pat Murphy You have to do it on the field as well

but they feel it feels like a little tougher like a little more aggressive than Brewer's teams in the past I was speaking to Yelly actually a little bit over the weekend my bad name drop people always say I name dropped too much what am I supposed to do?

Yeah we uh when I did my SNL story there was a lot of the comments and they're not wrong that was a name drop day by us we can admit that that's fine but I mean these are my friends who am I supposed to talk

about. I did, um, Chris Rose. I don't know. Chris Rose got me good. I was texting with him, uh, a couple days ago. And we made a joke at your expense. Um, oh gosh. That had something to do, uh, with one of your friend Matthew's body parts, um, in one of you want me to talk about the weekend we spent together down in Manhattan Beach. I'm not going to. In one of your orifices. Uh, go on. I'm, I'm bringing this around people to the story. But about, about, the culture there, I feel like that Merv's really implemented, I think.

Was that a baseball feel for my son's tournament, more of the tournament, and it happened to be at a field where Yelich played. So if you ever read out of Little League field or whatever, like they have the signs up of the all stars of years past, it lists the names, what they did, whatever. I see one with Yeli's name on it, so I throw an Instagram video out there and tag him, and we start talking. And

it was 2005 was the year he was on this all-cert team so I sent it to him and he goes man love that he goes I'm still grinding in the jungle 20 years later and I thought that was really cool like he's he still feels like he's grind

this guy's got hundreds of millions of dollars in the bag but they've taken that mentality now and I think it's showing on the field these guys are grinding man and they've had some really good like William Contreras playing at the level that he's been playing. Obviously, it helps their team out a ton,

but it's, you know, some of the young guys come up and doing their things. And Adam is kind of turning into what we always thought he would turn into, you know, big hits. And they're just, I think that you could point to teams around the league and say, okay, they're getting carried by such and such guy. And I think you could say, you know, Contreras is kind of doing that there. But they're also, they're just getting performances from different guys on different

nights, like a grinder mentality. next up mentality. And, dude, I mean, sitting in first place in the NL Central after trading away, Corbyn Freak and Burns. That's never going to get old to me this season. Like a rally around that. Your manager leaves for the division rival.

Gordon Burns leaves, your ace. New manager comes in. Obviously, he's been there. But, like, they rallied around that. And I think that's an important reason, you know, why they're at where they're at. And yeah, I... Great.

great AL segment by us per usual, but Cubs with an L5 recently has the Brewers the only team above 500 in the NL Central. And again, a lot of... I'm very interested to see the month of June for the NL Central because I think we will find out are the brewers...

If they open up the gap, it's kind of over. Like if we're sitting here on July 1 and they've stretched it out to 7, and the other teams are fighting each other, or are the Cubs and the Cardinals, or the Cubs and the Pirates? Are they going to close the gap and make that division a free-for-all,

which we knew it had a chance for to start the season? But if the Brewers stay like this, you're right, like the mentality is different there. And I don't know, like, you start to get into the point of the season and other dakey, jakey, Whoa, dakey. Another jakey daydream this weekend.

I saw a ball drop in front of someone who gave a really good effort. But they were, there was runners on base. They were keeping the game-tying run at second. Oh, I think it was in the Cubs Cardinals game, maybe Sunday night baseball. Ciani made a great catch. A lot of National League in the AL today, people. It fucking happens. Oh!

Now we got to bleep that. Were you going somewhere with that? There's kids listening. I was just talking about the focus it truly takes for a 162 game season of Trev, when I was a ball player, I didn't have a lot going for me that I prided myself on defense.

If I'm going to get two opportunities in a game, I better capitalize on those to the max of my ability because I don't know if I'm going four for four at the plate today. man, to actually keep your focus going, every inning, every hitter, you know, different scouting reports, what did they look like on that swing? To keep that focus up is tough, but I think when you have a team like what the Brewers are doing in that mentality, it's part of it. And even you mentioned Christian Yellich, the star of the team, the guy that's got the biggest

bankroll and that matters. You know that. Joe Maurer said goes, you know? Or at least that's how I remember it. The fact that he's talking about that, grinding in the cage? Is that what he said? The jungle, baby.

The jungle, welcome to the jungle. It is that. You're fighting for your life because people are trying to take your job. Now, Yelly has more job security than most, but even within your organization, guys are coming to take your job every single year. I love it, man. That's like, that was the best,

part about playing was I got a starting job. You know how hard it is to have a starting job in the big leagues? And then to keep it for a while? Like that's the thing I took most pride in my career. Somehow I got a starting job and somehow I kept it for years. And it's like, you do have to have that grinder mentality. Back to the AL. Right.

I think where I want to go, Trev, we're doing a lot of topics. is Memorial Day weekend. We're doing Tuesday, Friday this week. A little programming schedule for the people. Guards, Orioles got bad news. Good team beats bad team. Don't really have too much time for this right now. Although I'm going to give myself a little pat on the back, Trev.

My last award was to the Orioles and Cardinals to see how they would respond. Orioles got swept for the first time. Cards had a little win streak. Both those teams went undefeated, a little bit of Jakey there. Like that. Let's just real quick on those because... Because you took notes. Well, of course I have notes.

Gardening's, Angels, I don't care too much about that. David Fry, you're a stud. Jose Ramirez, you're a freaking stud. Good job, Guardians. Chris Rose went down there and saw them play. Yeah, that was good. I saw the pictures. It was really good.

Rose boys, edgy. Yeah, and they went back to back to back. You've got to mention that. That's good. You might have done that to burn. I tune out your burns. sometimes. And then the Baltimore,

Chicago, I understand, it's Chicago White Sox, but four game sweeps are great. And then they had that awesome moment, Colton Cowell was there, robbing the homer for Karekrimble to end the game. That raw emotion to me was awesome. I believe he hit one early in the game, earlier in the game as well. He's been really shrugging in May.

He's like five-something OPS in May after one dotting it in April. So it's nice, you know, when you're doing that to come up big on defense, and he obviously did that. That was just one of the cooler moments. And that was, you know, remember he tossed Camberl's ball into the Kansas City Fountains when I believe he tied some save record. And this one after the game, as he was coming in, to give Kimbril the ball,

because that's what people do for closers. Kimbril was like, you keep that one. You keep that one. And I thought that was pretty cool. He earned it, man. That was really, that was really awesome. Awesome. And then, you know, Orioles are down some more pitching. And Albert Suarez, who has been really, really good for them in the rotation early in the season.

He had kicked to the bullpen, been lights out in the bullpen, but, you know, kind of like not built back to being starter. So he only had somebody pitches. Of course, he comes back, four innings pitched, no earned runs. Like, who is this guy? Like, what are we doing here? He's Albert Suarez. I love it. Like, that's so awesome, man, to be able to have that type of depth where you lose, I've lost two pitchers. and to be able to call back on Cole Urban and Albert Svarez and these guys give you outings, I mean,

it's part of the reason the birds are and also Gunner Henderson still is just an absolute G. White Sox, worst 51 game start, and they're a hundred twenty-three year history. So that's worrisome for me. Popeck gets crushed in this series. Adley Rushman pinch hit. drives in two runs. I don't understand.

If you go back to that, and this is just for Orioles fans, because I'm just thinking now about this. First and second, two outs, Rushman hits a ball, Benettony dives for it, traps it, doesn't catch it.

But Benetennie's arm is so bad. Santander scored from first base on that. It was like a line drive to him that he trep. I don't get it, man. Yeah. How can your arm be that bad? It's an interesting thing for me. I mean, dude,

I don't understand. Johnny Damon, it was comical, and he was such a good baseball player in every other facet, but he couldn't throw the ball. It's almost, like, I wonder if they have, like, a childhood injury or something happened at birth that the doctor had to break their clavicle or something. Like, I don't know.

I don't know how you could be that athletic, get a crow hop into a throw, and not be able to put the juice on it. but also my favorite baseball player of all time, Bernie Williams. Speaking of it could do everything on the field. He had a crazy week throwing arm. It was bizarre. It's crazy.

I don't understand how you make it to the big leagues without being able to throw the ball. It is what it is. This also was a series with the interference call as well. I was going to mention that. That was pretty bad. Everyone knows that. They've already seen that.

It happened on Thursday. It's Tuesday. That's almost a week. Man, when. Yeah, when times are bad and something like that happens, it just, it just stings. Just really stings. Quick, Twins Rangers, Kierloff, struggling mightily. He comes up big, first two games for them with homers, you know, to help them win those games.

Rangers get the last one. Paul Lopez hasn't really looked great for the twins. So the last couple starts, I believe he's got up six runs in the last two starts, which is not a great sign for them. He's kind of got to figure out, he's been over the plate too much for me. Like everything ends up in the middle of the plate, and you can't live there. I mean, even with the guy that has strikeout stuff, like you just, you can't be in the middle of the plate in the big leagues.

They take two or three. Rangers are struggling. They don't really have a three-hole hitter. Like, that's kind of been their thing. They're trying to figure all that out. I know they're trying to shuffle a lineup around, but they've just, they haven't looked good, but still only three and a half games back.

So, like, I don't know what to say about the Rangers. They've looked so bad that I'm like, it's concerning, but they're still close enough where, like, you can mention a good week of baseball, all of a sudden you're at the top of the division. Right. You're Rangers fans, like, you're like, what the heck's going on?

But at the same time, hey, boys, let's just get hot. And we'll be right back in it. It's a weird time for some of these teams. Like, you don't know where you're going to go. It doesn't look good, but you're still in a decent position because the rest of the teams

haven't run away with it either. Yeah, and you're just, you're looking for a little spark. Like, I was going through the best team records this month, and it's a lot of the names you'd expect. Philly's crazy, Yanks crazy, guards, royals. Well, yeah, you know, San Francisco Giants, 14 and 11, if they can win a couple ball games,

I know you're going to talk about them, but, you know, if you can put up a 16-win month, and that's where it's going to be a feisty June throughout MLB. I was going to say MLB baseball. as these teams fight for, you know, hey, GM, go get us this at the deadline, go, don't sell. Yeah, in Texas, they've got reinforcements coming,

but, man, Corey Seeger's been going absolutely nut job. Yeah, he's a good. Shout out Detroit, they took care of business. The last game, or the first game, excuse me. They were getting no hit through, what, the eighth inning or something like that? Are you reading that wrong? I don't know, whatever. They lose the first game, come back and do their thing.

They actually get to Manoa, which is he was, I think, two straight starts with seven-nings pitch, nowhere in runs, and they got to him a little bit here. And then went a close one on Saturday, and then that big crazy game, which we'll talk about a little bit later with my guy Matt Veerling doing it. Three out of four. Tigers go on. Colt Keith hits his first homer. He's kind of been better.

He was really bad to start the year. They were really counting on him to. for some production there. He's swung the bat much better as of late. And the Blue Jay's like, I mean, Laddie's been going off.

Bichette's been going off. We said that's what needed to happen and they'd be back and that's going on and they're not back. Panic button. Panic button. Talks about them getting traded.

They're entertaining offers for those two guys. It's a weird time to be a Blue Jays fan. Royals, welcome to of being so good that your two wins barely get talked about. But that's a good place to be.

Because they are having a great month, having a great season. Can I say something? It's just going to piss people off. Are they for real? More real than your twins. And I think that's all the people. That's fine. You can say that.

I think that's all the people want to hear out of your mouth if I'm being honest. I'm not sold on twins. I think the twins need a lot of things. I think Royce Lewis comes back, number one. But like I'm just, I think it's because we're seeing such great performances out of people who you didn't expect for it to happen. Part of me is like, is there regression coming? But like Michael Massey's just been a freaking absolute stud.

Nice swing. Pretty swing. It's swing. Is he the real deal? Like, maybe he is. That's all I'm asking. Like, is Seth Lugo going to do this? Is that rotation going to do this all year?

There's more coming. No signs of slowing down. So I guess, yes. I'm just, I'm just asking. It's a baseball town, Trev. They got the juice. Just asking that question, bro. Like, if you're a Royals fan, I know you're stoked right now.

Things are going great. They're playing. They're like the best defensive team in baseball. Sal Perez is an absolute gangster. He's an OG. 16 and 8 in May. I know. I'm not saying they're bad.

I'm saying like, can they continue with this clip? It's crazy, man. I said, say, they're saying they're with the Guardians too. I think you could actually say that about all those teams. The Twins won 12 in a row. The Guardians won 9, Royals won 8, whatever it was. All of those teams, I believe, do have faults. Twins probably more than either of those other two teams,

but I'm asking the question, are the Guardians and Royals like legit World Series contenders? I think they will be viewed through a different scope than the Yankees. The Yankees currently have... The Yankees currently have three generational hitters in the middle of their lineup playing similar to their baseball cards. Obviously, Stanton's at a different point of his career right now.

But Juan Soto and Judge aren't. They're currently at the peak of their powers that... Yeah. When you look at a Kansas City or Cleveland lineup, you're just the name power is going to feel different. But what does that mean in a five or seven game series? Not a ton. So I don't know.

Keep winning ball games. Treve, I think the truth of it is, and it's why I kind of sent it with some real eyes at you. The Twins 12-game win streak is the outlier. Like those other two teams, those other two teams have been winning games all year long. The Twins won 12 games against the White Sox and the Angels.

Otherwise, it's been super blessed. No, but then they took series against Boston. It took a series against Seattle. I mean, you could say they just took a series against Seaglia. And guess what? They're playing the Royals. There we go. God, I know you won't need it for that series, Trev, because the testosterone is flying.

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And Elmy Blazer. Of course it's the National League, so like we did in the AIL with the Brewers, we'll talk about the Yankees. They took two out of three from the Padres. Yankees won the first two games. Carlos Rodon. Trev, a fun inning when Soto, Judge, and Stanton all go yabo off of you Darvish. Ooh, baby. Pump it into my veins.

Stroman shut him down the next day. San Diego salvages the series behind Disco Joe Musgrove and a big inning. To kind of slow down their winning ways, Yanks stay hot. Pirates take two out of three from the Braves. NL Central on the up and up. I don't know, but the big news from this series, Ronald Acuna Jr., out for the C-Zone. No, last year's MVP, they thought at first it would be a month, is sova. Man, Braves' offense, who hasn't been the Braves offense, losing him,

that will be a conversation point going forward. The San Francisco Giants, they win two out of three from the New York Metropolitan's. Late-night Giants, are they back? They win in 10 in that middle game, and they rally against the Metropolitan. in that first game with a five-run eighth inning. Patrick Bailey, Grand Salami. Matt Chapman's signature play to end the game. Giants fans having themselves ame and enjoying it.

The St. Louis Cardinals take two games from the Chicago Cubs. They only played two games. One got rained out. One of these games was on Sunday night baseball. Hope you got a chance to watch. Cardinals. Matt Carpenter. with the big pinch-hit RBI signal to come back.

Cardinals win six out of seven. Michaelis sets his season high in K's, and then they knock around Javier Assad, or at least Paul Goldschmidt did. Two run Homer for day while Sunny Gray shuts him out. Ian Hap, two homers, primetime TV. Whoops, sorry about it. Just sent him the text.

He'll be happy about that. Nationals. They take two out of three from Seattle. The first two games, McKenzie Gore and Trevor Williams each hold them to one run. Our guy, Keeper Ruiz, with a couple two-hit days at the office.

And then Julio, grab the stretch. Is that going to get them going? Seattle's been waiting three hits, four RBI day. But in attitude, they take two out of three. They must have bullied up on the Reds, right? Wrong. Reds, they bust out the broomsticks.

Jonathan, Indias, three-hit day at the office. And then Hunter Green, followed by a big Nick Martinez, bulk guy. Dodgers's been seeing a lot of lefty openers. Reds rallying to save their season. Will it be enough? I don't know. Phillies, they must have dominated the Rocks, right?

Wrong. They lose their first series in a minute to the Colorado Rockies who are putting a month together. Zeke Tovar. How's your young shortstop? Four hits and the walkoff. Cal Quantrell has been one of the better pitchers of May. Rockies have a couple guys twirling the pill this month. Okay, Rocks.

Phillies. That's baseball Susan a little bit. I don't think they're care. Ranger Suarez gets knocked around. 13 quality starts in May for the Rockies? All right. And then the Marlins. They win another series.

They take two against the snakes. Braxton Garrett. Nine inning. Shup Pete. Ryan Weathers. Six innings. Shuddy. Jake, how's your burger with a couple big games?

The game, Arizona won. Christian Walker and Lordeus Guerrille drove in a pair. That's what happened in the National League. Great job, Poppy. I almost want to go talk a little bit more Royals. Probably should... I should put a little more respect on Seth Lugo's name. I feel bad about that.

I've been trying. Yeah. Oh, Trevor Larnack. I didn't say anything about the twins. I don't think... I don't think the twins are better than the Royals. I don't. A lot of things got to change for that.

So all I'm saying is I'm just wondering how long that's... How long that starting rotation of the Royals is going to be able to do what they're doing? Lugo got a little better of a track record than I gave him. credit for it. Also Michael Massey, one on the I. I forgot about that. Do you have the NL standings? Of course I

have the NL standings. You remembered. That's good. I have them up. Do you want them? That'd be great. And because it's Tuesday, I'm going to start with the West, because that's what I do on Tuesday. NL. West, the Dodgers, they haven't been playing that greater ball as of late. Old Jakey boy. We'll talk about that in a little bit. They're 33 and 22,

five games ahead of both the Giants and the Padres. Giants at 28 and 27 with this surge. Padres, 29 and 28. The Arizona Diamondbacks, 25 and 28, and the Rockies, 19 and 34. They've been playing good at home. There's some stats about that. You know how it is. In the Central.

Oh, hey, Joe Mowers on the front page of baseball reference. What's up? In the Central, those feisty brewers who we already talked about in the A.L. portion of the show. 31 and 22. The Cubs sitting right at 500, 27, and 27. St. Louis, 25 and 27, Pittsburgh, 25 and 29, and the Reds,

24 and 30. And then in the NL East, Philly, running the way with it, man. 38 and 17, there's six games above the Braves who are at 30 and 21, Washington, 24 and 28. The Mets, 22 and 30, and Miami, 19 and 36.

Magnificent National League recap where we got to talk about some royals. Treve, We have a couple big ones, I think the biggest one. Ronald Cunia Jr., a historic season, stolen bases. It's funny looking back, he led the NL in OPS. That's before you get to those stolen bases, like how special he truly was last year.

Out for the year a torn ACL again? I believe it's a different leg, but geez. and if you're the Braves, the offense has been kind of struggling or at least to Brave standards. It's been struggling. I don't know. What do you do it?

I think there's a part of this conversation that when the Braves did win it all, Ronnie wasn't there. So you can play that card a little bit. But that's a guy you really want in the lineup. And it changes the whole dynamic of the Braves. It makes them think about the rest of the same. season.

When he did go out in 2021, they brought in, was it, Jocke in and Eddie Rosario? Jolair, Rosario. They went out and got a whole new outfield. So, I mean, they're going to be on the look, I believe, for some outfield help. It does suck, man.

The way it happened to, like, just change the direction. Was he going to steal third base on the throwback to the pitcher there? Did he see Christian Yelich do that and steal home? was like, I'm going to do it and steal third. That's what it looked like. It looked like he was thinking about it, then bailed and then was down.

A tough scene. And, is that name drop? Or I not. Just tell me, yes or no. Do it. Sitting there watching this with Stafford. Sure.

He loves baseball. We're talking about it. And he goes, and maybe he has more knowledge because he, I mean, the NFL is, you know, ripe with injuries. He said he's done it once That means you're predisposed to do it again

Because it's almost like What's that call? What's the word I'm looking for when you're born? Pre. Genetic thing. Okay. Like if you're predisposed to like tearing a ligament Like it's if you do one on one side

You're much more likely to do the other side Not because you're favoring it Just because that's like I can make sense of that. Sure. The way you're kind of made. Whatever it does it. You have ligaments that tear.

Yeah. You have ligaments to tear. Yes. The Braves offense hasn't just been bad for their standards, Jake. Since April 27th, second fewest runs per game in baseball. So Acuna 716 OPS, not great for him. But you got to imagine he's going to come back and bring that spark. Regress to the mean, a positive regression.

They're not going to get that this year. They're going to find it in some other places. Yeah, I mean, if you're looking around, it's, I don't want to say that the division's lost already, but the Phillies seem like they're kind of firing on all cylinders, and the Braves have been kind of struggling to get it going, and then you hit this, and it seems like, man, you can either use it as a rallying cry,

or they're going to be coasting in and trying to figure out a way to, you know, finish out the season. You know, some of their starting pitching depth is also getting tested. Smishabr's out, you know, six to eight weeks. So they're trying to figure everything out. And Snicker had some quotes.

He's like, oh, it's just part of the game. We're just, we're going to piece things together. We're not happy about it, obviously, but it's,

you know, they're going to address it. Like, yeah, they're going to be a team. When you have a collection of talent like this, and we always talk about the Braves, have an open air concept home.

Windows are always open. You got to go out. This is not a team that you have an injury to a play. Like, oh, season's fucked. Like, no, they're going to go out and make moves.

They're going to do what they have to do. I don't know, man Like part of me Part of me thinks the Braves We're going to use this as a rallying cry Like hey We got someone's got to stuff We can't we can't count on

On Ronnie to come And do what he did for us last year Like that ain't happening He's gone So who's gonna be the guy Like sometimes that's all it takes In the clubhouse You know to get the juices flowing a little bit

Yeah and it Maybe You know Ronald Ocuni Jr. Out but Austin Riley is back And so is Sean Murphy. So like if those two play to the back of their baseball card, you know, and Ronnie hasn't been this year. His Ops is right around seven flat. None of the guys have. Jake. Austin Riley has not. I mean, Sean Murphy with what, how many games he played? Two games. Okay, so they can't even count

that. Yeah. Austin Raleigh hasn't done it. I mean, Matt Olson's been getting better, still with a 745 Ops, Oziabee, Ziaw, RCA, 672, Kellnick 688, Michael Harris, 680, Michael Harris, 678. The only guy that's going, there's two, is Travis Darno and Marcelo Zuna, like fully on the year. And Ozuna's a pretty strict D.H only that Darno, who's been playing crate, is now kind of out with Murphy. So that's one of those, that's, yeah, I wonder what they do there. It's a little bit of a compound problem that, uh, I don't know, these are very first world problems. But no, it's going to be go time. Like, we're, we're, we're going to look up in three weeks and you're going to see Austin Riley or Albi's on Enfuego or Harris.

And, dude, you know, you mentioned Matt Olson, who's the numbers are in a fine spot, but this is a guy who hit, what, 50-something homers last year? So, you know, when we talk about the Braves being dominant and Braves fans are like, you guys aren't talking about us because we're winning. Well, hey, hey, we're talking about you now. Do you like it here? Matt Wilson at 54 bombs last year. Romano Cunia Jr. had the highest OPS

and 73 stolen bases. And that's before you get to Young Thick and Albies and everyone else. So, yeah, it's people got to start hitting. I think that's, okay, if you're a Braves fan, you lose Ronnie, these guys are struggling, you're behind the Phillies. On the surface level, things are not great. But in those games, I said since April 27th,

second worst runs per game in the Bileys, can you guess the last team? I bet you can't. The worst offense in baseball. Since April 27th, runs per game. The Mets. The Cubs. Wow.

Yeah. In those games, though, Jake, since April 27, 12 and 14. That's not that bad. Not that bad. A couple games under 500. So I think if I'm a Braves fan, this is what I think.

Thank God that we have, Renato Lopez and Chris Sale to help out with our rotation debt. Because if you didn't have them and you lose Strider, you know, Spaschavre, whatever, it would be in a different place. So you have those guys. That was a great move. Thank you, A.A. But if I was a braced one, I'd say these guys are going to get going.

Like, Matt Olson's not going to have a 745 OPS the rest of the year. He's just not because that's not the type of player he is. Sean Murphy being back is going to help a ton, obviously. But you've got to think that Ozzie and and Rob, and Michael Harris, like, it's the, the wave is coming. Like, they're going to run a part of the season very shortly. Like, I think that it's coming. And I think if you're a Braves fan, deep down, you know that.

Even though on the surface right now you're feeling hurt and it sucks to have some of your guys out, especially Ronnie, but like, you know it's coming. It's coming. If you don't think it's coming, you haven't watched. enough to raise baseball or just baseball in general. These guys are going to be who they are. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Don't butt me. At some time they got to do it. And there's a lot of time left. There's a lot of time left. It's Memorial Day. Like, you know, we're into the season. We said it's go time, but there's still four months left of the season.

Yeah. I laughed. Praise fans, let me hold your hand right now. Just come with me. Wow. I was looking at last year's Braves and baseball reference has the top 12 players pop up, top 12 players in war. And I don't know, just a dumb one.

Ozuna, his picture, was his Marlins picture. And he hasn't been on the Marlins since he was 26 years old. He looked like a baby. So it was kind of... Well, that's silly of them. Yeah, it was nice to see, but it was also, what are we doing, baseball reference? Okay.

Braves, you'll be okay. Everyone believes that. Let's see. You mentioned the Cubbies. They're at 500. You just mentioned worse offense. It's only two games, but I guess how, where's your panic meter for them?

Because I guess I'll come off hot, and I know Cubs fans like to come out swinging. I've never been fully bought in on the Cubs. And you can kind of tell in my voice, because I'm always like, hey, are these Cardinals going to go? Are the Pirates going to go? The Red's going to go.

And then I had a moment where it's like, hey, the Cubs clearly have something. Coaching matters, and I think they've figured out pitching in a way. Like you look up and you see guys like Javier Assad and you're getting these good efforts from their pitching staff and they've got top prospects on the way that the formula is there. But now you're back to 500 and you're not with the Brewers. You're with the rest of the NL Central. And what did you say?

Worst offense this month? That's a problem. Runs per game since April 27th, yeah. That's a month. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's clearly what's going on here. Just quick glance at the Fangraph's rankings right now. 26 in average, 22nd in OPS, there's 17th in runs, total runs. They don't really steal bags.

They don't really hit homers. A lot of guys there having down years. So I can say almost the same thing about some of them, although they don't have the, most these guys don't have the track record of guys that I was talking about on the Braves. I mean, Dansby 616 OPS. Your guy, Morel, 671. Happer, 686.

Like, Michael Bush, who was crushing it at the beginning of the season. OPS down to 749. Like, they don't really have anybody having a good year OPS-wise. So you can say, okay, they're going to get some of that. But again, I don't think any of those guys has, like, the track record of a Matt Olson. where I know that guy is not going to have a 745 OPS. He's going to be somewhere in the 8s.

He's going to end up with 40 homers. I don't know if you can say that necessarily about the Cubs offense. That's kind of where I think lies the difference there. I don't know if they have guys they can rely on to revive that offense just because they got to finish playing the games. They got to finish out the season. Like it's going to come for sure. I don't feel the same way about the Cubs I do about the Braves.

Cubbies figure it out because they're playing Miloway and then they're facing the Cincinnati Reds who are in fighter flight mode and just swept the Dodgers with some of the names they're looking for doing it. Trev, I think... Can I tell you something? This is actually really funny.

Sure. Looking at the top players in war, baseball reference, war on the Cubs. You got to go down to number five on the list to have a position player. I'm talking about hitters here. Can you guess who it is? The number one Cubs hitter in war? Yes.

I mean, you won't guess it. Miso Horner. Pete Crowe Armstrong. PCA, baby! What? Go and get it. And that's not even offense. That's for defense.

Defense, he's down in the minor leagues right now. Michael Talkman is the second. My guy. Yeah. Like you're saying, that's glass half full or glass half empty because, you know, you know, Dansby's offensive stats and Happer and a couple of the other guys. They're better than they're better than they're showing 100%. It's not Ronald Acuna Jr. and some of the other guys we mentioned,

but they're better. Okay. I love, I love Mesa Mano Central. I think it's going to get sloppy. I want them. I want them all to get gross and drag the brewers down, and I want to get ugly in the central. I got the starting pitching, man.

Right. You got what you need. Maybe they go make a move for a bat. I don't know. Like, clearly that would help. Great counsel. Come on to get some of that. Coach better.

Coach better. Why are we talking Craig Counsel and Pat Murphy? What is this? It was a big storyline, dude. It was a big storyline. Trev, in your National League. I mean, man, the only other, I think the only team that I really want to talk about, I guess it's a Dodgers and a Giants combo.

I mentioned the Dodgers got swept. I think the conversation ends up eerily similar to the Braves. Like, we're not worried at all. Those guys are going to hit. I think it is funny. They're seeing a bunch of lefty openers because opening up with Freddie and Freddie and Otani. Like, yeah, screw it.

that I think the Dodgers conversation, we know what that is. Giants are going. Like I did a little bit of this. Like they cleared 500. I think you're talking some about your guys later. Talking Giants later. Dodgers, some of the guys, like little mini slumps,

like Betts was on a little mini slump. Otani was like an 0 for 10 kick during the series. I believe in the Dodgers fully to beat that. I think there is some conversation about like back end of the lineup and where that goes. And yeah, can you navigate them during a playoff series with an opener? Like maybe? Like that's definitely going to be a strategy with them. That's for sure.

But yeah, I just, I'm not worried at all. I'd rather talk about the Reds and what they did. And there were some big freaking plays in that game, too. Like Fairchild, he hit a homer and then he basically robs one. I don't know if it was actually going to get out. I have in my notes, they out dodgered the Dodgers this series. The place was absolutely rocking too.

Weekend series against the Dodgers, like Memorial Day, like in Cincinnati, that's a great baseball town. I don't want to say season on the line, but season on the line a little bit. Like, kind of. If the Dodgers come in and sweep you, you have one of the worst records in baseball.

Instead, you flip the script and you have hope. Yeah, and you, and you, You get to all their starters. You get to Paxton. He gets at the Grand Slam to India, which was like, he's been struggling. So that was nice to see. That place was going crazy during that. You get to Walker Bueller.

You get to Yamamoto. Like, that's a good feeling for the Reds right there to kind of like get you back. I know they're sitting, I believe, they're in last place, right? In the division, I just read it. It would be a starting, like a stepping stone, a starting stone. What's the right one? say right there. I believe it is a stepping stone. Oh, stepping stone. You need to have

series like this to remind you of who you are, you know, offensively or just as a team. And, you know, you also like, if you're, they're pitchers, like Hunter Green doing what he did and, you know, holding the Dodgers to two runs over the last two games total. Like, that's something to

say, okay, here we go. I like that for the Reds a lot. Muck it up, Reds. Cardinals are a game back of the Cubs. Pirates are a game back of the Cardinals, Red's a game back of the Pirates. So get messy in the Central by Jake Story Ellie. Oh, man.

Trev, let's go on to the second half of the show because we're talking on some of these teams that maybe didn't get full love from us, but they're about to get it now. And you can get it from Black Box Sports AI. Black Box is an MLB-A-I betting tool. We talk a lot of AI on this show. And it's specific for MLB. Last year, they hit at a 68% clip. Crushing the coin flip odds you'll find with other pick providers.

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AI.com for your first week free. That's code baseball at blackbox sports a.I.com. Smarter baseball bets. Link in the description. Trev, who's your standout performer? I, oh, standout. Stand out.

This is my guy. Obviously. It's Matt Veerling on Sunday. He has the walk-off three-run home run against Jordan Romano, 3-2, 2, 2, 2, and 3rd, open base, kind of figure you're going to get a breaking ball in that situation, or at least you're not just going to get a cookie. It's kind of a weird mindset to be in as a hitter,

because you're like, okay, 3-2, like, doesn't really want to put the running or the winning run on base, but at the same time he's not just going to serve you up something. He gets the breaking ball and deposits it in the seats for the walkoff homer. He went four for six. There's actually a second home run of the day. You know what?

It's having a nice little year, Jakey boy. 311 OBPet, not great, but he's slugging 464 for the 7774 OPS, 117 OPS plus. He got five homers now, 23 runs driven in. I don't know why I like Matt Beerling so much.

But every time he does something special, I like to shout it out. And this one was in the Detroit City Connect, which I'm still deciding if I like it or not. Yeah, again, I'm not a taste guy. I'm not a Jersey guy. Like, I'm Toronto over Detroit, like, kind of easy for me.

Oh, really? I don't think so. I think they're pretty similar, but I would, I lean Detroit. Okay. Trev, I love how much you love Matt Veerling. Who are your current MLB comps? We played this game with Kelsey Winger, who just texted us, ironically, talking about floorball.

Who are your current? Kyle Farmer, Matt Veerling. Is he in Patrick Wisdom? Are we going there? Yeah. Depends what kind of, what years you talk on my career? Because I was good, then I was bad, then I was, like, you know, I've been all over the place, bro. You can compare me to a lot of different people.

Mookie. Yeah, cut me and Kyle Farmer are close. Treve, I'm an audible. I'll tell the people I had Jonathan India. I was going to give a whole thing, you know. He's a bona fide MLB hitter You do have On the sheet you do have Jonathan India

His stats are you know He's Jonathan India And you know these reds Are they gonna put a win streak together They put a win streak together last year Blah blah blah blah Nice Jake Cover your kids' ears

Fuck them I'm going Aaron Judge Dude have you seen what he's doing Yeah I have Trevor Trevor I don't sometimes we put on Yankee breaks because, you know, that's not what everyone loves.

First player in MLB history to have 11 homers and 12 doubles and 20 games, 20 games. The dude's out of his dome right now. And sometimes it just doesn't feel real because he's in a bigger-than-life human. But he's out of this world. And the fact that we don't talk about him sometimes, you just saw it come out in a moment of frustration.

He leads the American League in doubles, walks, on-base percentage, OPS. This was a guy that was struggling and people were worried about him in late April, and in a month's time, he's one of the AL-MVP favorites. So screw everybody. I mean, you can talk about him.

Why can't we talk about Aaron Judge? He's like... Oh, Yankees. Trev talks about the twins. He talks about the Yankees. Just tall. Stop, start believing in Seth Lugo, man. I do believe in Seth Lugo, and Brady Singer, and Alex Marge.

And Coleragons. Coragans. This is a, this is a Royals pot. We're a royals pot. We're a royals pot. Love them. Yeah, dude, he's, that was a fun scene in San Diego. You mentioned all three of those guys hitting the Homer.

It wasn't back to back to back. It was somebody in between. Verdugo hit a double at the base of the wall. And then Stan hits the homer, yeah. Off of you, Darvish, who hadn't given up a run in his last four stories. 20 innings. 20 innings score of the streak got pumped by Soto, then Judge, and then Stan. Yeah, no, the Yankees are firing on all cylinders, man.

So it's okay to talk about them sometimes. Don't go overboard, though, Jake. Last 21 games, 417 batting average, 533 on base, a 1.0.0.0.0.3. a 1.574 OPS. He's got 3.2 baseball reference war on May 28th. I actually don't ever really, it doesn't register in my mind how good Aaron judges a lot of the time. Like you guys always, you bring it up and I know how good he is. But like, he's historically good.

There's something to his body. body type that I don't think it feels real sometimes. I also don't think people give him credit for playing center field. If any other center fielder had an 800 OPS, we're like, baller. He's a fucking baller. He's got

800 OPS. Judge is a one dot guy. He's really good at getting balls in the gap. I think the more air time it is, the longer strides he has, and that's the equation there. But yeah, this dude's playing center field. waiting for He's 32.

Jason Dominion. Dude. How's he 32? Right? Mm-hmm. He feels like he's the same age as Soto and Soto's 25. Juan Soto. Don't even...

No. Juan Soto does not look 25. I will say that. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things that gets to a trick in area. It's okay to say. There have been some players. There's some players that have fibbed about that in previous years. He has 25-year-old energy.

He just happens to be one of the best hitters this planet's ever seen. Trev. Who'd we miss? We miss some people. We miss so many guys. Bryce Harper gets ejected, the first inning, then he hits the Homer or the second game. That was nice at him. We didn't even talk about the pirates at all.

Jose Ramirez is Barry Bonds. You know? Who else? Braxon Garrett, its third start of the year, he goes nine innings. shuddy Maddox sit I have this written down some where the heck is it hold on two other starts this year

Braxton Garrett five in a third innings pitch five earned runs four in a third in a pitch six earned run then he goes and goes nine shuddy against the snakes in Arizona under a hundred pitches so snaps for Braxton Garrett he probably deserved

a little bit of that Ronell Blanco still doing it Justin Verne everybody didn't talk you got 10th all time past Greg Maddox past Greg Maddox 10th all time and strikeouts so I would have he deserves some snaps who else? That's it that's it, that's it people

everyone gets a trophy It's not it because we're getting to our best segment of the show Dirt Nasty's on Fuego That means I'm on fire baby Like Waco I'm famously sober now For the month of June

It's not June yet I guess So I'll say it's some time Okay, hey, we talked about this. Toronto, first baseman, Vladdy. He's been freaking going off, man. Nine for 16 in the series, 563 average, three doubles, a homer, three runs driven in, two walks. I love that for him.

Jonathan India in that series, he'd been struggling. He was an over. Four for ten, though, a double. That grand slam, six runs driven in. Also stole a base, that's good for him. Paul Goldschmidt has got it going. It was last like 13 games been really good

but in this series he was four for nine with two homers and five runs driven in he has a ninth turn run into Big Mac land which is the most of any player since the stadium opened in 2006

Big Mac Big Mac I've never eaten a Big Mac but it sounds good right now I can confidently say I've never had a Big Mac in my life I haven't had a Big Mac in a while like probably close to a decade hold on

tangent okay because I went to McDonald's yesterday for breakfast I had to get up early. We're going to take Teddy to a baseball tournament. You know, that's, that's... You're on the road, you're going. You drive to McDonald's for breakfast, okay?

It's fine. Two deluxe breakfasts. Two egg McMuffin meals. That's it. $47. No way. I'm not kidding you. I said, where am I, dude?

Like, what restaurant am I at? No way. What's going on with that? Legal. I'm not. I'm not, it was $47 for that. How does that even make sense? $20 a meal?

I got all this Johnboy money. $20 a meal? I don't know, dude. I got it was like, it was like $15 for each thing, like an egg McMuffin meal. It cost them $2 to make, whatever people. Paul Goldschmidt going on for the week. Yeah. Cory Seeger, you mentioned it, Jake.

You're right. Seven for 25 home runs. But only seven runs driven in. Don't love that. When you get five homers, you want like 12 RBI. Seven for him, six runs, three walks. A Jose Ramirez, absolute stud. Eight for 23 in the week.

Two doubles, four home runs, 11 runs driven in, seven runs, scored three walks in a stolen pace. He's got an RBI in six straight games, which ties his career long streak that he set in July of 2021. We mentioned Boba Shett going off. In the week, he was 13 for 29. That's a 4-48 average,

three doubles, a homer, seven runs driven in for the 1.1 open. PS. And this, my friends, no hitters on this one this week from Dalt for two weeks. Atlanta starting pitcher. Chris, sale, 3 and 0, 21 innings pitch, only 11 hits, only one earned run, only one walk to 26Ks. Feed that to me. Fuck a Big Mac. Give me that. One walk, 26Ks, love that. 7 and 0 with a 117 ERA over his last seven starts. And Sale is the first Braves pitcher to win seven consecutive starts since. Russ Ortiz. That's a name. Russ Ortiz. Yeah, in 2003.

Miami's starting pitcher. How about that? Ryan Weathers, three games started, 21 innings pitch, nine hits, one earned run, four walks to 19K. So kind of like matching sale right there, snaps for him, that's nice. And then San Diego relief pitcher Jeremiah Estrada.

Six games, eight and a third innings, one save, one hold. In those eight and a third innings, only two hits, one earned run, no walks to 18 K's? Yeah. Yuck. He came in against the Yankees,

1.2, 5 strikeouts. 8 in a third innings, 18Ks. Estrada became the first Padres pitcher to strike out 10 consecutive batters. Breaking Jake Peabey's record of 9 in 2007. Okay, Jeremy Estrada, in my book. Yeah.

And that's who's in Flago. I mean, Trev, just fantastic. No other way to really put it. And luckily, it's so good we get to follow it with the worst segment of the show. It's your I.L. update. A lot of arms on the aisle. You mentioned A.J. Smith's shower? Shaver. Shav. Shavar. Shove. He shoves.

Shavar. Dean Kramer. A couple bullpen guys. Josh Lowe. Really hate that. I hate that for our raise. Jordan Beck, the rookie for Colorado. You mentioned it's a Michael Massey pod.

Ron Lucuna Jr. A lot of relievers on the list. Don't love that. Well, we do like returning from the IL. Mikel Anduhar, sure. Your plane buddy, Kenta Mayeda. He's back. Nick La Dola.

He doesn't know who the fuck I am. No idea who you. you are. Nick Lodolo, twirling that pill for the Cincinnati Reds. Sean Murphy mentioned he's back for the Braves,

Lane Thomas for the Nats. Josh Winder? In that Twins bullpen? Are they better than the Royals? Let's start everyone's week. Is it brought to us by somebody? It's brought to you by Trevor Plouf. Go follow him on Instagram.

He'll DMU. Dot.jomboid Media. Dot com. You can get a shirt looks like this. Or like that. Father's a sale going right now. I think I'm going to load up on these shirts. I really like this one.

It's light summer. Is that the one with the... What's it called? Yeah. Coney Island. Trev, where are you going? I'm going with the... I had a good name for it.

I'm going to change it right now, though. Where there's a bark, there's a bite. There's a bark. There's a bite. Where there's a bark, there's a bite. There's a bite. Okay. And this one's going to be centered around the San Francisco Giants.

If you remember, they went on a little bit of a losing tangent there. And one of their leaders, I believe they have many veteran good voices in that clubhouse, but one of their leaders, you know, an starting pitcher Logan Webb came out after the game and said, quote, that they were playing like dog shit. And it was unacceptable. Sometimes when that happens You're like hey man Just relax a little bit

But I think it was warranted at the time And it was real It wasn't an attempt to do anything It was just like we're playing like dog shit It's unacceptable We believe we're better than that So he calls the Giants out And the Giants since that time

Beers what's their record Since that time They are 11 and 5 which I believe is one game back of the best record in baseball in that period. And you know who can say stuff like that? A guy like Logan Webb, who's sitting, he started all 12 games, he's got a 274,

like he's a guy, he's a guy guy, he can say that. But they were an offense that wasn't really fine in their strut. You bring a guy like Matt Chapman and he hadn't been doing his thing. He'd been doing it defensively, but offensively he hadn't really gotten it going. But that's all kind of changed. For Matt Chapman, I actually have it since May 8th.

So, you know, a three-week stretch here. Hitting 303 with a 403 OBP, 591 slug for the 994. So Giants, not only are they getting called out, but they're having turnarounds. Have you seen what Lamont Wade Jr. has been doing? Like, he's like a real, like a stud, man. Yeah. Like, I don't think I give him enough credit. And right now, what's he slashing?

He's got 333, 470 OBP, 470 OBP people, slugging 426 for the 896 OPS. And they've been winning games. And they've been winning games in like really like awesome like comeback fashions, a bunch of late inning. We're not dead yet type of runs. And it's got them right back in the thick of things. Right now they're sitting, as we mentioned earlier, at 28 and 27 second in the NL. and this is more of the team that they believe they can be.

They got a bunch of young guys kind of like a roster crunch coming up because a lot of the young guys have been performing and they got some guys coming off the IELs. There's a lot of decisions with position players that needs to be, you know,

talked about a little bit. You know, you got a couple different things that happen with them. Logan Webb calling him out. Jung Hu Lee goes on the IL going to miss the season. times like that you can go one or two ways we just talked about that with the brazen

ron of the cunia the giants have used that as a rallying cry and have really gotten themselves back into the mix um guys like heliomas has been going off you know austin slater's about to come off the the aisle that's going to be an interesting thing to see uh with them but i just wanted to give them a shout out because they got called out by their leader they were underperforming you know, and I've just done it in a really trying to think of the word to use here. It's not sustainable. It's not a sustainable fashion, I would say, like the comeback victories like that. But those are things that you can build off of, like foundational victories that you can really draw off

throughout the rest of the year. When you're down, you know, say it comes in July or August, you got to go on a run to make sure that your front office, you know, gets you the reinforcements that you need and you're down in the game. Like, guys, we've been here before. We've done that. We went through that stretch where we came back, you know, four plus runs in all these games. And now they're able to draw off that. And a lot of it's just because someone stepped up and said something and challenged them. And then guys reacted to it. So where there's bark, there's bite. They responded in a positive way. Matt Chapman's been going off.

There was a play. He made a play against the Mets down the line to end the game, which is incredible. And then he made another one coming in on the ball, a walk-off defensive plays

what he called. He said it was his best defensive play he's made, his most excited he's been for one in his career as well. Chopper coming in on the ball, we know he's got the arm to have a play like that.

But he gripped the ball like a change-up. so the arm now is out of the question still whips it over there one hops Lamont Wade kind of an in-between hop he picks it so it's like bookend those two guys doing it

the way they've been doing it offensively as well responding to the bark with the bite and so go Giants go man again one game over 500 right in the thick of things this is more of the team they thought they can be and Blake Snell hasn't even really done anything he's had some quotes about

you miss spring training so he came back hasn't had a good start at all. It's had a horrible start for him. If Blake Snell can kind of figure it out, I'm buying big time into the Giants, man. I really, yeah. Kudos to the Giants. They're above 500 as we do this. You know, it kind of felt like they were constantly floating right below that. The Snell stuff, yeah, some interesting quotes. I do think, and it was part of my thing with him last year, he has gotten, he gets better, he's had a better second half in every season he's ever pitched. So clearly him getting in tune with either the mound or his body or whatever matters. Uh, so him saying he missed spring

training, that's a real thing. Spring training is for pitchers. I will say, Lamont Wade, late night Lamont. Crazy. His past, you know, getting on at a 400 clip, his last 180 games or whatever it is. He's about to go on the 10-day IL. And they've got a tough little stretch. Philly, Yankees, and then at Arizona. So let's see. I mean, losing a 400, almost a 500 on base guy this season, you're going to feel that.

And they need Chappie and Bailey to stay hot, right? Wisely contributing, sure. But a big, a tester 10 days as, man, I think that Giants Padre Snakes area of the National League is about to get a little more fun. You're giants Fingerprints everywhere I'm big on the giants

I'm big on the podgers I'm not sold on the snakes just yet I know they just went to the World Series people Seems a little bit different for me That's all I'm saying Okay Trev great stuff Fantastico

I think what I'm going to go with I'm going to go with the head of the snake award Doesn't have to do with my snakes Okay It actually has Does snakes eat birds? I don't know They do

Okay They do eat birds That's good news Yes Trev One of our more iconic episodes Of talking baseball

It's the position unit draft Yeah And it gets messy quick I just clicked around there You know my Braves Outfield pick Not as excited With the

Ronald Ocuni Jr. My first pick in the draft. Or actually, excuse me, it wasn't. My starting pitching rotation, I wanted. You know, there was a couple big boys heading into the year and who's going to click and, you know, Phillies, Mariners, very sexy. You can almost go Dodgers or Braves for anything, like, whatever. I went with the Toronto Blue Jays. Because I just thought they had a chance for all five, if not six or seven this year with Ricky Teetaman, had a big spring training,

Yario Rodriguez, what was he going to be for them, if Manoa kind of puts himself back into this season. Burrios has been fantastic. 11 starts at 294 ERA. Cacucci had been really good. 11 starts a 325. Gossman had a tough stretch there. He just had a good start.

Let's see if that's going the right direction. Manoa's numbers are in an okay place. Can he tap into Moore or which way does he go? Bassett had a couple stinkers. He's sitting at a 403. You mentioned that Vladdy's going. They've gone a lot from ICF recently. Davis Schneider is just kind of a guy.

They're going to need more from Bo. We asked Vladdy to go and he's kind of gone. Toronto is in, again, they're in a dangerous part. They're cellar dwellers right now. You got to go. You got to put in a big June. I'm going to put it on the Blue Jays rotation. Set the tone because all of those guys are super talented.

This Blue Jays team, we talked about a lot, they're not built offensively anymore. Like they kind of lead into that, led into that outfield defense thing for a little bit between Dalton Varshot, who's leading their team in war. I mean, the way he plays outfield is awesome. Kiermire, obviously, whenever he's, He's out there.

He's making a highlight play. Danny Jansen is Barry Bonds sometimes, which that's cool for them. My yanks have just gone on a little bit of a heater, and sure you can point to dudes in their lineup that are doing stuff. I talked about judgy. But the rotation was very much in past the baton mode, which is a real thing. These five guys, like, live and work together, basically.

If you're Toronto, none of those guys are having dudsies. It's summer. It's go time. Like, let's set the tone. I want to, in three weeks, I want to be talking about, you know, 13 of the last 17 Blue Jay games have been quality starts. These are guys that can do that.

And now if Laddie's going for you, like, now is the time. Otherwise, Dalton, who fills out our sheet of topics to talk about, there's been a topic like three times, should the Blue Jay unload. Should they rebuild? I don't want to do that combo. And Blue Jay fans really don't want to hear me have that combo. So I'm kind of going to put it on the head

of the snake. Set the tone. Mo guys down, Blue Jays. Because that's truly how this team is built now. I love it, Jake. I want the Blue Jays to be part of all of this. I don't want them to sell. I want this team who was constructed to win, to win.

I will say this. it's a bullpen matter for me. And you can have all the starting pitching you want, but if your bullpen is 28th in ERA, 25th and whipped, 27th and Ks per 9, 29th in hits per 9, and dead last in homers per 9, that's a horrible way to live, man.

And, I don't know if people hate this, but I saw the Tigers just when I played. They had a bangor offense, had a bangers starting pitching, but they couldn't close games out, man. And that's been kind of what's been happening with the Blue Jays too. So how about the whole rotation?

Put on the whole staff, not just the starting rotation, but the relievers as well. Like you got guys back that they can get the job done, but they just haven't been able to do it. So I'm in on you. I don't want them to sell. And the reason he's been putting them on the radar

and on the news about selling is because they've been apparently having discussions about Bowen Flay. They do have decisions to make after next year. So it is crunch time. And I got to imagine if this year goes the way it's gone so far that those conversations are only going to be amplified. They're getting a little bit of Chicago White Sox medicine. They've got two more games against them.

Pittsburgh, which, you know, that's not built offensively right now. and they're not seeing skeins. And then Baltimore. So I, it's like now or never that 0.7 chance to win the division by fan graphs, 17% to make the playoffs. Like, let's go. Go or be gone.

Trev, we're going to be gone. We will be back on Friday. May 31st, the last day of May. Then it's like summer, bro. It's like summer, summer. Jake sucks. And then I'll be in studio. I'm coming out.

June 4th, 5th and 6th. Oh. In studio. Big Apple? I'll be in New York a bunch this year. Or this month. June, excuse me. I keep thinking of students not.

In June, I'll be in a New York a bunch. Come on, Reds.