Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Giants Sweep the Dodgers & Red Sox Sweep the Yankees | 677

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKINHead to https://birddogs.com/TALKIN to get a free Yeti-style tumbler with every order.Visit http://get.bluemoonbeer.com/BASEBALL to see delivery options.Get 50% off your first box of fresh dog food at https://www.thefarmersdog.com/jomboy. #tfdpartner #thefarmersdogJoin us for out All-Star Game festivities in Seattle! Event is on July 11: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jomboy-media-all-star-party-tickets-656903595337+++++Timestamps:0:00 Intro4:25 Why are MORE Teams Joining the Party?7:55 American League Recap14:00 Tigers Beat the Twins?18:05 Red Sox SWEEP Yankees22:20 Texas Beats Toronto28:15 Mariners Beat Chicago33:00 Angels Beat Royals36:50 National League Recap42:30 Dick McBride44:35 NL Standings45:55 Braves Sweep Rockies49:05 Giants SWEEP LA55:10 Dodgers are in Trouble59:05 Cardinals-Mets Disappointment-Off1:01:55 Brewers Sweep Pirates1:04:55 What's Wrong with Sandy Alcantara?1:08:20 Interleague Recap1:12:20 Padres Beat the Rays1:17:30 Dbacks Beat Cleveland1:22:15 Reds Sweep Astros1:30:25 Cubs Beat Orioles1:34:15 Philly Gets Right1:37:00 Justin Turner 6 RBIs1:38:25 Nolan Arenado 2 HR Game1:40:40 En Fuego1:43:10 Injury Updates1:43:35 Catcher in the Rye Award1:49:40 Blake Snell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. There are new powers arising. Sinci, San Francisco? The Yankees are dead. Let's talk ball. Hello and welcome to talking baseball, presenting you by Sikhie. Code talking $20 off your first purchase order.

Myself, BBD, and in MC Studios on the left coast. Trevor, Paul. Plouf. How are you? Trevor. Not my middle name. It's Patrick, I know. It is Patrick. Thanks.

I'm doing great. I had a great weekend. You know, most of you know, I celebrated my birthday sometime last week. Thursday, I think it was. Mid, mid. And then Father's Day, like a lot of things happen. So we had some barbecues here.

And let me tell you something. There's nothing better than like a summer cookout. Kids are running wild. You know, wines flowing, red meat on the grill. I cooked some incredible try tip over the weekend. I'm very proud of myself for that. But the real story here, Jake, is this baseball that's going on right now. All these teams who, like, we got to go back to our, like, over-under predictions.

I think we got a lot wrong. Like, I don't think we did well this year because a lot of these teams are coming up in surprising. The Giants are the best team in baseball right now. They have like a 700-winning percentage over the last. month. Like over a 700 winning percentage. It's ridiculous. You just talked about the Reds. I don't know, man. I had a great weekend. I was thinking about Ball a lot. I got notes today for the first time I think ever on this show, like my own notes. Well, I guess we used to do them all. But I'm fired up. I even went live before the show. Did you write, were those handwritten notes? Yeah. Wow.

I'm on one today, bro. Look at this. There's more pages and I don't like to type. I don't type her. My handwriting is just awful. So yeah. Once we like once the society fully went iPhones, laptops, all that, I was kind of I'm out. Don't get me wrong. I get the concept of it. There's still something there.

Wrote a nice letter to Jess's dad before I proposed her. That's nice. Handwritten. That's nice. My friend Hobby Sanchez used to do that just like would send random handwritten notes out. Is that sexy agent, Harvey? Yeah.

Yeah, I bet he was writing some handwritten letters. Oh my God. Well, he's not an agent, but I know who you're talking about. Yes. And he has sexy. A lot of hot friends. What's up with that? That guy was sexy.

I went over to Staffords are building a house. Sure. So we went and checked in. out. It's like mid construction right now. Yeah. It's awesome. Okay. The biggest house I've ever seen. I'm, you know, Super Bowl, L.A., big contract. I'm happy for the

Stafford. But that, we don't do that here, really. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't do that here. Trev, happy Juneteenth. Like, it's a national holiday now. We, I think we have to be honest with people. We were, it's a new holiday. You do say happy Juneteenth. I did just, I told you I wasn't gonna. And then I sad texted Cole Tucker.

And I was like, me and Trev are asking each other if we say happy Juneteenth. And he says, yes, you can't. Of course you do. Don't be scared. And I said, okay. So happy Juneteenth. Fuck yeah. New, uh, federal holiday.

It's newly a federal holiday. Yeah. So a lot of you are probably at home. On a beach somewhere, maybe. Kind of the start of summer, man. And what you were saying about the baseball, Trev, I'm going to let out a cuss word pretty early. Or no, I'll say...

Just say your most. What the French toast? Because, dude, more teams are joining the party. Yeah. Like, we needed teams to leave the party, and now the Reds aren't an eight-game banger. The Giants are the best team in baseball, according to Trevor Plouf,

going to have our social media team put that one out real quick. Astros and Dodgers got swept. Let me see those muscles. Give me a flex real quick. I think you look pretty good. Same with my Yanks. I have this baggage jersey. Yeah, man.

I mean, some of the things that have been traditional power, I think for the first time we're questioning them. Like, it was so early on in the season that it's like, oh, Dodgers, like, who cares that the timebacks are out of them? They're the Dodgers. They're going to be fine. Astros, same thing, right? Like, it's Houston and it.

It's like, I think this was kind of the first, whoa. Like, not everybody's getting invited to the dance this year. And I'm not saying it's not one of those big boys, but it's just like, this is chaos, man. And I think we both believe in youth and how valuable it is. So when you see teams like the Reds and all of these teams that are now tapping into that and being successful, it's like, damn, I don't know how this story ends,

but I'm excited to write the book with you, Tram. I think I'm really emotional today because when you just said someone's not getting invited to the dance, I just felt really bad for someone who didn't get invited to a dance. Yeah, I think we figured that out. That's a messed up thing. Like, I think we've made it cool to, like, go to the dance by yourself or with your guy gang or your girl gang or whatever. I don't know. I think if you want to go to the dance.

I'm into that. I'm into that. Yeah. That's, like, not fair to be, like, left out. I don't like that. Don't be left out without your bird dogs. It's now become a special day for me When I wear my bird dogs

I get excited because I can do anything I'm a big uh I normally dress kind of like a fool And that's just being straight up But When I'm wearing my bird dogs I can do anything Like I don't if I'm going to the gym

Done happy hour done Work done traveling done Making love in my bird dog Gacky stretch shorts design a fit, slimmer through the thigh. Making you look truly sculpted. It's going to be a fun app. And as I told everyone emotionally and nobody really cared,

they've become my travel shorts, which is really important. Oh, I'm going to Nashville Friday, so I'll be in my bird dogs then. Yeah, Nashville this weekend. So go to birddogs.com slash talking free Yeti-style Tumblr. I got it. Your drink will be feeling good. just like your legs. They say Yeti-style Tumblr?

It's exactly like a Yeti, just as everyone knows. I mean, for them to say Yeti style, there's got to be... Interesting, right? Yeah. So, glad you have that. Must be allowed to say that. Get your legs comfy, get your drink comfy in the Yeti. Thank you, bird dogs. How do you make love in your bird dogs?

You start in them. And then... It'd be easier to tell you how you don't. You remove... Yeah. I'll send you I'll send you some vids I don't want those

I don't want those at all no thanks American League baseball Monday June 19th and how about this Cronpod the Minnesota Twins

well they played the Tigers and Trev you've been talking shit ever since your Instagram live I'm sure oh Tigers take three out of four from the Twinkies how about that

Javi Bia be hitting. How about Kerry Carpenter, Spencer Torkelson, be hitting for Los Tigres. Okay, panic button in Minnesota? We'll find out with analyst

Trevor Plouffe in one minute. The New York Yankees got swept by the Boston Red Sox. We'll check in with analysts Jake Starelli in one minute. The Yankees, and I think the twins have a little bit of the can't-hititis too. some bad at bats by the Yankees and some good by the Red Sox. You might even hear some stuff about Treves, Justin Turner.

Later, Brian Bayo gets another good start against the Yankees. Sox sweep, including a double-header day, just to twist the knife. The Blue Jays and Rangers, some AL powers linked up. Blue Jays behind Gossman and Danny Jansen. They got the nice 2-1 win. but your Texas Rangers showed fortitude on that second game and even more fortitude in the last game when they were down six nothing.

But guess what? They don't have a case of the we don't hits. Everyone is hitting. Seeger's going nuts. Lioti Tavares is a power hitter now. Josh Young in that thick old neck. The team's different, man. And they take two out of three from Toronto.

The Mariners take two out of three from the White Sox. Mariners, seen you win a couple series now. They take the bread games. Brian, woo-woo. 5.2 earnies in that first game. Tay Oscar, he's started to go a little bit. Julio Rodriguez with the big 2 RBI double. And Bryce Miller, seven innings pitch, one earn run.

I think we traded him last episode. How about Lance Lynn just punching out everyone in the loss? That's pretty crazy. Ben Intendi goes yard his first of the year. Let's go, kid. Kansas City Royals had a fantastic comeback on Saturday down 8 to 2 to the Angels and they come back. The rookie walks them off, Samad Taylor, sure. Outside of that it was Angels.

They take two out of three from the Royals. Patrick Sandeval with a big boy start. And on that final game, Trout Otani back to back. And man, when they do that, that's one of those reminders that's like, oh, They have two of those. And the angels sitting pretty. They're going to be a part of the conversation as that is what happened in the American League.

Dizzy. That didn't start out, like, great for you and I right there. Sure didn't it. No. Sure didn't. Okay. Also standings, Big Daddy. Neither will this for me, and you're still covered.

The Raz are 51 and 24, sure. Five games up on the Baltimore birdies. The Yankees, 10 and 10. a half back in the east, three and seven in their last 10, a half game ahead of Toronto, who's in fourth place, and look who's kind of rejoined the party. The Boston Red Sox are 37 and 35, which means we have perfect ALNL Central standings,

again, because the Minnesota twins are on top of the Central at 36 and 36. Guard dogs are 33 and 38. The Detroit Tiger. 30 and 40. White Sox a half game back. Royals, you. Texas Rangers, 44 and 27. Four and a half games up on your second place. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Third place, Houston, Seattle.

504th, Oakland. So yeah, I mean, who had Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, third place on your bingo card coming into this season on June 19th, but ain't that it? So, Trev, you know, we're a Cron Pod, and I think it starts out with your first place, Twins? I was doing pre-imposed for the Brewer series, which is right before this series, and we were talking about the Tigers coming into town. Twins had just swept the Brewers in a two-game set, things were looking good, late-inning

heroics, and on air. I called, I said, this is a series. You've got to go out and take three. Now I said that for the twins, not the tigers, but the tigers did it. And they just beat the twins. Twins didn't hit. I mean, that's been the story for the twins this year.

It's like they just haven't hit enough. And even in this one, you know, some of the pitching wasn't great. I thought it was cool to see Sunny Gray going up against Miguel Cabrera for some reason. I just felt like that was like bringing me back a little bit, some of the guys that I played against a lot, but Sonny didn't have a great start.

He gets pulled from the game early, and he's mad at Rocco, and Rocco's doing these things. Not great, but you want your starting pitchers to be fiery. Love that. Joe Ryan didn't have a good start. Louis Varland gave us some homers, but you got to give it to the Tigers, man. They hit with runners in scoring position. Zach Short had a bunch of nice plays and some hits.

You mentioned all the guys that were going off for the Tigers. Torkelson's getting really hot. Baez had some nice swings. He took the first game, and this is like typical hobby bias. He swung at a pitch that was like left-handers batters box and somehow pulled it into the left center to the gap for a triple. Like just a completely hobby bias play. Swinging at a ball, he shouldn't have swung at,

barrels it into left center and gets a triple. So that's basically what happened. know. Twins won one game two nothing. So they salvaged. They didn't get swept like your abysmal Yankees. But the tigers are, you know, they're

doing their thing. They can string together. Some victories if the guys get hot. I had one question for you, and I don't know the answer yet. Matt Veerlin, he had, I think he had two homers in the second game, pretty sure. Is he a giant?

Oh. Like how big do you think he is because I was watching and I'm like this guy's big I haven't looked it up yet so I'm gonna guess I'm gonna guess he's I'm gonna say six four but it wouldn't surprise me if he was taller than that listed six three 205 oh man um Notre Dame guy um maybe big bones I don't know he just look big in the box I guess he's just feeling it huh well that's uh Tigers fans we we haven't been able to sound off with you guys a ton in the history of talking baseball. Sound off with us because the thing that I think I'm excited about is this, this feels like the first time I've seen like a group of tiger hitters.

Oh, what's a group of tigers call? Pride. Pack? Pride month. It's lions. Bevers need you on that one. Bias been hitting this month. Torkelson, the breakout's kind of happening.

and you mentioned Veerling and a couple, Carrie Carpenter, like this, it feels like the, even McGee's been hitting. Feels like the first time I feel like there's, you know, we've seen the Tigers win some series and win some games, but not like a hitting Tigers team. And I'm excited Tigers fans have gotten to see some of that. Beeps.

Yeah, uh, I had to check like a few different websites because I couldn't believe what the answer is. You can call a group of tigers a streak of tigers or an ambush of tigers. A streak or ambush? I like a streak of tigers. But apparently tigers rarely gather in the wild. Ah. How about that?

That's one of the English languages' mysteries, like what we call groups of these animals that doesn't make any sense. How is it not the same world? Anyways, that's twins tigers. Tigers take three out of four. Um, twins, they had a, you know, in the last game, they, they, they, they, it was, I think it was like six to two. They get bases loaded. They score a couple, but Gallo strikes out, buck strikes out. Like, that's been their MO as, you know, bases loaded. They just haven't got it done as of late or like all season. So they rally, but just wasn't enough. And that's it, man. They're, uh, they're figuring things out. They're figuring things out. It's, it's not, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, trying to think of the right words to describe what's going on in Minnesota.

They're battling. Sure are. They're battling. Speaking of battling, how about you also might have to reach out to Torkelson. He took out Joe Mowers' like retirement plaque. Did you know this? He hit a foul ball and it hit.

There's a plaque honoring Joe Mowers' retired number and it like. Oh, the number, yeah. Yeah. That's up on the limestone there and left field foul line. That's not nice of him. But Joe, Joe's probably, oh, it's okay. Joe Maurer reached out on his accord and said it's all right. He does.

It's all right, Spencer. And by the way, you're dropping your elbow a little early. Speaking of mid, like your twins, the Yankees and the Red Sox teed up. I talked for an hour, 45 minutes with our friend James last night as we did a Yankee state of the union and just have. lackluster and bad this team is without Aaron Judge and Bader and Rodan and Nestor. Oh, oh my. It's a sob story, bro.

Everyone gets hurt. Everyone gets hurt. You have to play through injuries, so stop. Your replacement players shouldn't be four DHS that you're throwing in the outfield. Red Sox. You guys don't have any real outfielder. It's just like DHS or infielders. Treve, I know you were teammates with the fella, like, and I know you've seen me in the

warehouse. Me and Willie Calhoun in right field. I don't know. Haven't seen us in the same room. Willie's never been a defender per se, I don't think. I think with the Dodgers, he was like a second baseman and he's moved to the outfield. They find places for him to stand. What's gotten Jimbo to laugh is

we have on the roster, we currently have one classically trained outfielder that can play the outfield. It's Billy McKinney, by the way. Yeah, stud. Yankees legend. He's been good. With all of that, Red Sox, hey, they kind of had a gauntlet

laid out the last two weeks. The first two Yankees Red Sox series, are the Yankees a different team with Judge? Yes, is that their business? No. Red Sox go five and one against the Yanks, including doubleheader, sweeping Fenway.

Bayo drops it on the Yanks again. His sinker change-up combo, very nice. Nasty. Ampire had a good low strike zone and he took advantage of that and the Yankees stink right now. Yeah, what do you have, Trevor? I was going to mention Bayo and he's, you know, how long have we heard about this guy

and the results are coming in, which is great. The Red Soxswath can bang. We knew about that. Yoshita is a freaking stud. I'm going to talk about Turner in a little bit. Speaking of like classically trained outfielders, Duran, that catch he made in centerfield. That's like, I mean, it looked pretty, but it's not like the prettiest looking play. We're like, oh my gosh.

But like if you really like the technical aspect of making that play. It's bizarre. It's probably more impressive than a lot of these highlights you're going to see this year where you kind of like your jaw drops because it's a stupid. I mean, let's just be honest. It's a stupid outfield wall all around in Fenway. You have the pesky pole. You have the tiny little fence where the bullpens are that you could just trip over. I don't know what you're talking about, Treve.

I think it's Fenway's normal. No, but like navigating, that's nuts for an outfield. Especially the pyramid, what do they call it, the triangle, whatever the hell they call it out there. You know, to be able to stop your momentum, and if people didn't see it, go watch this play. Like, he stops his momentum and kind of like goes back along that little side there and little basket catch before he, I mean, that is something else.

But yeah, they can bang, man. Red Sox, I think, in this three-game set, I believe they had 21-two-out runs scored, which is kudos to them and damning to the Yankees. And, yeah, it's, Yanks are rough. Without judge, they're 8 and 13 this year. And it feels that way.

So interesting little homestand for them coming up, Seattle and Texas. And yeah, we still don't have like a judge update. Like he got a second PRP injection in his toe. We will see like, I don't know, Yankee fans are kind of guesstimating All-Star break. And if they keep playing like this, I don't, I don't know where that lands you. So go, go. That's what I say.

Pain in his voice. Trevor, two good teams, Toronto and Texas. Yeah. Both start with a T, although one's a city, one's a state. Any argument there? Yes. Okay. No, that's right.

You're right. Crushed that one. You got it. Here's what I'll say. I think if you're looking for some tape to believe in these Rangers, turn on the last game. And almost, and I don't want it to be shots fired at the Blue Jays because the, I know, ALE East, you could do this,

you could do this any day if you really wanted. They go down, it's a rubber match, two good teams, middle of June, let's go win a series. Blue Jays come out, they go up six nothing. They're walking tall, they're feeling good. Snap your fingers, it's gone. Yeah. Seeger, Tavaris, Heim, like,

Zeke Duran with a four-hit day. That's why this Texas Rangers team is special. And they showed it in that final game because they're so deep and sneaky to also have a comeback like that. Your bullpen has to be really good. And I think six and two thirds of one-run ball from their relievers has them come back and win this series. Yeah, these are two good teams. The Blue Jays are an interesting team to me because every time I watch them,

oh, they're a really good team, but they're still kind of like mired in that AL East. I love Boba Shett so much. First game, Gossbin has a great start. And the Blue Jays, who at the, it was, oh, your guy. Say his name, Jansen. Danny Janssen.

Yeah, it's the, there's only, the runs were all homers. It was Tavares, then Danny Jansen is the two-run shot, and the Blue Jays pitching takes care of the rest. Great victory. Same thing kind of the next day.

For the Rangers, all their runs came on homers, I believe. Then the rubber match, like you're saying, a 6-0-0, and then they scored three runs in the 4th, 3 runs in the 5th, three runs in the 7th, while their bullpins holding it down. And that's kind of, you know,

that's why they've been able to be so successful. Being able to put up crooked numbers, and then, you know, like, I don't know if the bullpins, you know, it's always not locked down that way, but it did this series. And, you know, you win two out of three, and that's how you're in first place. Like, the ability to put up big innings is something that not every team possesses.

Now, you might do it every once in a while, but for the Rangers, I feel like it's a pretty frequent occurrence. Because they just have guys that can drive the ball. And there's a solid, deep lineup. But definitely a very nice series for the Rangers, because you're right. I mean, you get down 6-0 in the last game, and you could just pack it up and say whatever, but they know they can score with the best of them. I mentioned Lioti Tavarrois a couple times.

Go check out his stats, 853 OPS, 24-year-old outfielder, getting some run. And, you know, I know people already know, but you also may not know. Corey Seeger is going ballistic in 40 games this year. because remember he missed a little bit of time 40 games 363 batting average of 420 on base and a 1.076 OPS. He is going mental and when they got off to that hot start there wasn't a ton of Corey Seeger in there and now he is and that goes with the Heimes and that goes with low and that goes with Duran and they're just top to bottom they're really good man. I'm hit a freaking

towering like a I think it was like a 38 degree launch angled Homer just like one of those moonshots sexy he leaned back on it too how do you how are you in first place Rangers you are first in runs

scored that's good first in OBP that's good and then your pitchers are your starters are fourth in whip and your bullpen the ERA not great doesn't matter your whip

fifth overall and whip that's what i look at in bullpins traffic on the base pass they're a problem man and like their uniforms like they fucking rolled out three beautiful uniforms in this series the baby blues the city connects and i believe that the the reggie is on as well so it's like wow they're kind of firing at all sailors they have a new stadium like yeah they're like the bell of the ball Bruce bocci trev it's um I know we've done it all year and we'll do it but more all year. You know, Seattle, 500. Houston, the Angels, Texas.

There's four teams there. Boston is now two games above 500. Nine teams. Nine teams that have playoff aspirations that, I don't know, you wonder about those two pivot weeks leading up to the deadline. And I just don't know. I know Texas is really good.

Toronto is also really good, but they're, they're mired up in the east. But I tell you what, the time to go is now, like, get some ground, get ahead of the Yankees by head and shoulders, because without judge, that team is not a playoff team. It's not a 500 team. Oh, they're really bad. Next two series, we'll kind of go over quickly. White Sox Mariners, both franchises,

fan bases keep asking me to pronounce dead. Interesting. You can't pronounce both you dead. Somebody's got to be alive in this series. Mariners take two out of three. The one game the White Sox win, I thought this was cool. This guy, Zach Remillard, debuts, goes three for three with a walk, has like the go-ahead knock.

He thinks the big leagues is super freaking easy. And he's like, why haven't I been here before? It's taking me this long to get here. I'm a raker. Like, put me in the all. star game. He goes 0 for 4 the next day. No big deal. A beautiful debut for him.

And then the I guess it was the rubber match. Yeah. Lance Lynn K's 16 Mariners in seven innings, 16 of them. And they lose 5 to 1.

It's interesting, man. Yeah, that... I guess that's what happens to you go up against Bryce Miller, who's, you know, He had a couple rough starts or one rough start, maybe two, but he's back to doing historic things on the mound again. Sevenings pitch, one and run, only four hits. Yeah, how funny.

Yeah, that last game, I mean, that's some Mariners White Sox action right there. Lance Lynn punching 16 tickets in the loss. Julio's double Kelnick With some With some ribby's there too Yeah, I mean that's That series doesn't do too much for me Happy for Big Lanselin

Happy for Mariners fans They've won a couple series now You gotta It's that time Big June And speaking of Big June's One of the best teams in baseball this June Has been the Los Angeles Angels

They take two out of three They just missed the sweep They blow that second game. And hey, good for Kansas City. Things have gotten tough. And I was texting big Vinny P this weekend, and he's already, he's rehab. He sent a picture of the pool. He's like, I'm going to be here the next six months or so.

And playing some MLB, the show. He wants to do some content, maybe a midweek while John's doing baby stuff. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Bobby Witt goes and gets the ball. that Samad Taylor hit in the outfield. That's fun. So there's your talking royals.

Outside of that, Trev, I'll tell you what. I know we talk Otani and Judge at nauseam, and we both end up frustrated with each other when we do. Joey Otani has been the best hitter in baseball this month. That's before getting to the pitching stuff, obviously. And then watching him and Trout Homer back to back off of Zach Grinky and Otani's like waving goodbye to the ball. It was one of those, I don't know.

I tilted my head. I was like, damn. Like how much the Yankees are missing their big guy? The Angels have two big guys. As long as they're on the field, like you basically have a threat of a two homer five RBI day from two players on any given day. And they're good.

And I think it's a really, it's their best Angels record. since 2015 or something? Like, some good stuff in the water. No, the starters had a great series here. Patty Sandoval, 70s pitched, no Ernie's,

nice. What I'll say about Shohey is, and I took this from somebody online, I think they tweeted it at me. Ever since the WBC, when he's won, he's like, they think he's, like, he's entering, like, a villain phase. Not a villain phase, but, like, feeling myself, like,

I'm the best face. I can win Japan. Which I like. I can win Japan the WBC. Hell, I can even take the Los Angeles Angels to the playoffs. I like that. Yeah, and he's like, you know, he's like showboat in a little bit, which is awesome. Like I, why wouldn't you?

You're the best player that's ever lived. It's how I feel when I step on the Blitzball floor. The best Blitzball players ever live. That's why I do some silly stuff. Me and Shohey, now that I think about it, kind of similar. Brandon Drury, excellent series for him. That's the difference with the Angels this year compared to years past is like the, I'm not going to call them role players, but, you know, up and down the lineup,

they're getting contributions from guys, and it's not so top-heavy. Now, what's up with Netto? I know he's on the I.L. When does he come back? I have to look that. I'd ask you, you're my netto, you're my netto source. I love him. I know, I know. Hopefully he's back soon.

And then, yeah, that's like having guys like Drury, having guys like Moniac doing their thing, the bullpen's been good. Although they blew that second game, whatever, not a big deal. This is a fun team to watch. And like when they're getting their, like their pitchers have it in them, their starters. Like to, like Detmer's when he's on can be really good.

and can like shut you down. And Sandoval the same way. And it's like, you mention the offense and what they can do. It's fine. I want to see them in the playoffs, obviously. And they are right now. Whoever ends up in these three-game playoffs.

Like, I don't know. Halos aren't a team you sign up to play. Like, you're going to get show hey. You know, if Sandoval fully turns it around. No, he did in his start. Like, I don't know, man. And Trev, you mentioned the other guys, and good, because that is part of what's making the Angels different this year.

I'll come back again with more Shohei Otani because in 17 games in the month of June, he has nine homers. He has a 1.439 OPS in basically two-thirds of the month. The war is up to five on the year. A career sneaking up That's insane Sneaking up to 30 war

In his career, by the way He's still, he's 28 Homers in four of the last five games The guy is a freak show He's leading the AL and home runs in RBI OPS Plus, total bases Like I We could do it every episode if we wanted

And guess what? If you're a baseball fan, you still click it Because It's what we It's what it comes back to It's not like he's just good at stuff. He's arguably the best exit velo, strikeouts, like, I don't know. I like the way you said it's obviously not pure villain, but just like, I'm that dude.

Yes, yes. Villain's not the right word. It's, it's, he just real, I mean, he's obviously known he's the best. Right. But he's just showing it a little bit on the field. But there's a little bit too, you know, we talked about it with the WBC. Like getting that done was a massive thing for him. That was his lifelong dream that once you, once this guy realizes he can do anything,

well, he's doing it. He's like also thinking, I'm about to get paid $60 million a year. Like, if that doesn't give you a little bit of confidence and juice and swagger, I don't know what will, man. Last thing on this series, and we need to get going, because we always do this now. Just go on. Samad Taylor.

How are you saying it? Family in the suite on his debut? Is that like a royals thing? They just got it like that? What's up? It's nice. I have no clue, Trevor. Good for him, by the way.

And Bobby Witt running after the ball. It's a pretty funny visual. And he, like, held it up. He was so happy. It was, like, very much, like, a joyous moment. When you're not winning a lot. Enjoy the wins. Enjoy the wins.

Let's talk some National League baseball. The National League is brought to you by Blue Moon, because Blue Moon beer was brewed in the National League. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. I had a couple Blue Moons yesterday during talking Yanks. I'm kind of getting in my feelings with Blue Moon and baseball. And you can get your Blue Moon on.

Visit get.com bluemoon beer.com slash baseball. Find your Blue Moon delivery options because nothing really goes better together than Blue Moon and beer. Get that Valencia orange peel. Be the difference maker. Be the difference maker. Get dot Blue Moonbeer.com slash baseball.

Celebrate responsibly. You know there's a link in the description. I'm Blue Moon and all summer. I'm a Blue Moon guy. Think about how refreshing that sounds. Like right now I want a Valencia orange. On the rim of a glass, a cold glass with a nice pour of blue moon. Yum.

Sold. I think you can have it for breakfast. I think there's nutritional value to having a blue moon with a Valencia orange for breakfast. You can. Mention some fruit. I think we're in the clear. One of the food groups. Let's do some NL.

We're starting with the farm to fame bowl. Kelsey Winger's rocks against Peter Moylan's Braves. and the Braves swept them and they dominated them. I mean, big time. We're talking the second biggest win differential in a Braves four game set ever. Name a guy on the Braves.

Michael Harris, too. He had a five-hit day. Arcia. Three-hit day, Homer, stolen base, sure. Eddie Rosario, Albies, Olson, Murphy, hell, Kevin Pilar. put in some work at the office. Oh, I didn't even mention Travis Darno's two home or day.

My goodness. Malibu Mike, hot. Rockies get swept in four. Speaking of sweeps, the San Francisco Giants sweep the Los Angeles Dodgers and jump them. They go into second place. The Dodgers go into third. Dodgers fans are screaming about their pitching,

even though Emmett she and, How's your MLB debut? Drop it on the table with that baby blonde hair. The San Francisco Giants. Gabe Kapler, Lamont Wade Jr., J.D. Davis, pinch-hit Grand Salami. And Trev, the one that really had them shaking. Giants win 15 to nothing in that middle game. And then Logan Webb does Logan Webb things.

No cater day for me, please. giant sweep and Dodgers. Ho! Asking questions for the first time in a while. These two fan bases are asking questions. Cardinals in the Mets. Cardinals end up taking two out of three as they take the final two games, including a dramatic last game.

Nolan Aeronado leans into one his second of the day in what would be a game winner. I don't know, man. I mean, these two teams are great. Tommy Fam is putting in that work. Your boy, Tommy Fam. I know you guys share a lot. Wayno gives a start. Pete Alonzo, fast healer alert.

We'll talk about it, I guess, but weird vibes both ways. Hey, Milwaukee Brewers sweep the pirates. How about that? The brew crew, take command of the NL Central. 5'4 in the first game. Wade Miley talking baseball. favorite comes back. Five shut piece.

Jelly Weamer with a couple home runs on the all-white, annoying voice guy team that I put out. Yelich has been killing it. Your guy, Treb. I think if you can butter knife, his stats, pretty good that he's been playing

good ball. Pirates get swept. There's a little bit of hope for them, though. They're calling up their top prospect. Henry Davis, catcher, Louisville. How about that? And the Marlins. They sweep the gnats

Because the Marlins kind of do that Go check out the record, man. Fish with arms. Our guy Dalton Feeley He's putting Braxton Garrett in his Instagram story Because he needs to be talked about more. Yes, six innings, one earn, run. Louisa Rise with a five-hit day at the office.

Baby Jesus. Marlins, man. They, again, it hasn't been a murderer's row, but they've got some stuff going on in their bullpen that's fun right now. And Treb, that's what's going on in the National League, pop-up. Great job there. Before you get to the standings, I'm on baseball references homepage. You know, I like to play the game.

Can I name all these guys? Right here I got, who's the manager for the Marlins now? You tell me. Skip Schumacher? Yes, Skip Schumacher, Sunny Gray, Jed Lowry. So I got three, which is nice. And then there's this one guy, no baseball. ball had. He's from the fucking

1500s. You know how they're putting those guys up there a lot? He's got a tie on. Ficked his name. Dick McBride. Let's see how good he was before we start this up. Oh shit. Pitched to a 271. 29.6 career war. 149

victories. More war than show. Hey. Two thousand innings pitched. Shout out to He died in 1916. He's barely. to the Lawnview Cemetery in Rockwood, Pennsylvania, if you want to go visit.

Road trip. Played six seasons, 2000. How about this? How about this? He was a pitcher in right fielder. Yeah. You said he pitched six seasons and has two thousand innings. No, but it says,

throws right, bats unknown. We don't even know which way Dick McBride was swinging the stick. He threw 538 innings. 1875. How do we know this stuff? There's no way this is real.

It's all not. How do we have that but don't know how he badded? I'm putting myself in the simulation. Bro, we know his, we know like his FIPP. Born in Philly died in Philly. He only walked in 538 innings. He only walked 24 people.

No need. It's the contact. He only struck out 27. 1640. Oh, that 500... This is not real. That 538 inning season. That's a grind.

He started 60 days. It's a grind, man. Shout out Dick McBride, wearing a bow tie, mutton chops. Those 24 walks led the league? Is that best? I believe... In theory, that would be...

be worse. That's, yeah, that's just the raw number. So I think that means he walked the most people. Enough. Dick McBride. Strike shortened. The Atlanta, he's not a real person. He's fake.

The Atlanta Braves are 46 and 26. Six-game win streak. The only positive run differential in that NL Beast. The Marlins. Winners of four straight, 41 and 31. A team we haven't gotten two yet. The Phillies are on a six-game win streak. You hear about them in the aisle.

The Mets? Oh, my. 33 and 38. Nats. Milwaukee, on top of the Central, 37 and 34, a half-game lead on the Cincinnati Reds, America's team. They are two games ahead of Pittsburgh,

who are two games below 500, a game and a half back of them, the Chicago Cup. Same record as the Mets, funny enough. Cardinals, 29 and 43. Snakes, 43 and 29, atop the N.L. West. The snakes are going to make everyone else just mix it up below them. Giants move into second place, a half game up with the Dodgers.

San Diego. San Diego! Half game under 500. Half game, what? And Colorado Rockies are bad. Trevor, National League, let's hit this one quick and just taste the Braves as much as possible because they put on a shalacking.

40 runs in four games. I think I did the math, right? 8 plus 8 is 16, plus 10 is 26, plus 14 is 40. Easy. Math pot. Nailed it. 40 runs and four games is going to get you a sweep. Colorado, ain't it? got some guys I like on that team.

I like watching Nolan Jones hit. That's for dang sure. And McMahon's done really well. He's been really good defensively too. All sides. But enough about, yeah, but enough about them. The Braves rake. They rake.

They absolutely rake. This team is a menace. What else is there to say? I mean, we don't have to go into a Colorado sweep. Four games set. Sweeping it is nice. We always say that. If you can sweep four games,

that's hard to do that. Even against the Rocky's team, who this is, you're clearly better than. But this one, yeah, just the offense was on fire. Like every single person that played in this series went off. And that's a good feeling to have. That's a team. At one point they had,

the Braves had three straight rookie starters. They won all of those games before getting to the saltman, Charlie Morton, Bryce Elder, six inning one earn again. He doesn't stop. And the offense, yeah, I mean, the numbers are video game stuff. That Ozzy Albies is hitting, was hitting 418 against lefties at one point in this series. They're a wagon.

And when Eddie Rosario is homering twice for them, again a bonus peep, Michael Harris, too, who had one of the worst month and a half so you can have, two months almost. Now he has a five-hit day. He's starting to turn things around. They roll. That was tough.

The DFAing of Charlie Culberson right before the Father's Day first pitch that his father was going to throw at the game. Don't love that for the vibes. Yeah, I get it. That's tough. Charlie Culberson, hot. Yeah.

That's probably hot. They are the second best offense in the league next to the Rangers. Their second and average, second OBP, they do have highest OPS because they hit a ton of homers. They lead the league in homers.

They're a wagon. Do you say that? Who says wagon? I think that's I think Carabas really leaned into that at first Okay Okay

I'll give them that People say that you and Caravis Lookalike He just has a beard Yeah Yeah take away his beard No tattoos Oh yeah

All this cool stuff Same exact hammer That's the surprising part You guys have You guys have shown each other Michael Tonkin Your boy First career

Yeah I'm happy for him man We love the talking truck. You know, we talk about Jason Kubel's brother-in-law. I love that. Can we talk about your best team in baseball, the San Francisco Giants? Yes. What do you want to talk about?

They go in. They face the Los Angeles Dodgers who have been the big bad wolf of that division, essentially for the past seven years or something like that. And in what is an important June. You know, it, it, I, I changed my tune a little bit at the start of the month, just looking at all of these teams and, like, what are we doing here?

The Giants, as of a week ago, were 500, 32, and 32. They just lost to the Cubs. They go and they sweep St. Louis. They sweep the Dodgers. And they do, they sweep the Dodgers in impressive fashion, Trev. They called up top prospect Luis Matos. The guys that are really good that we kind of got numb to. Like Logan Webb, dude, some of his, like, quality start type numbers are crazy.

He just gives it pretty much every time he's out there. And you're giants, and I'll give you credit, Trev, because I wasn't fully bought in. You were buying when some people were still selling. They are sitting pretty second in the NL West. This is a great series for them. You know, Sheehan, who is the guy you're talking with the baby blonde hair. What does that even mean? I mean, you saw his hair, right?

Yeah, but baby blonde, that's not a thing. Not the color, like the texture. Was like a baby? Kind of. Have you ever seen a baby? I've seen babies. Okay. I've seen babies.

I question that. You know, great debut for him. The Dodgers need that. They've been able to have their guys come up and perform well for the most part, although Bobby Miller did get lit up in that second game. 15 to nothing game two, but the first game was, a very impressive victory and it probably set up that second game

because they were down for nothing. They take the lead after Sheehan gets out. But then Freddie Freeman ties it against Camillo Doval, just a little bloop piece. Then they go into extra innings and they go up.

And all-time weird Dodger base running play. They drop a mooky bets flyball in the infield. Giants zoo it. They throw it over the first baseman's head. Mookie's trying to get to third.

Michael Bush is like going to go home, but then he stops for some reason. They end up getting them in a rundown and just completely kill the Dodgers rally. When you lose a game and have a play like that at the end of it and you're just like scratching your head like, what? We were up for nothing.

Then we were going to like Freeman ties it up. Vibes are good. Then you have something like that happened. It's fucked. Excuse my language. Roll into the next day. Get your, get beat.

bad. And then you have to face Logan Webb, who's been dominant. I almost gave my award today, but I'm not going to, but there's some really good quotes. He's just been quality start after quality start after quality start and being an innings eater, which is what you want out of your ace. Gabe Kapler, that's what a horse does. That's a great quote. And it's true. You've got to have a guy that goes there, can save your bull, pin go pitch deep into games. And that's one thing that's helped the giants over this stretch where I think, did you

read it off? They have over 700 winning percentage in the last calendar month or whatever. The bullpen, Gabe said, has just been incredible. He has trust in every single person down there. And he's like, I couldn't say that early on in the season. And they've been incredible as of late. And the funny, not the funny thing, actually the, the, actually the, impressive thing, I guess, is how you put it, is they haven't had like their starters really,

like they've only had like three starters, sometimes four starters. They've been piecing together those like the fifth days, the fourth and fifth days a lot, like kind of guys making spot starts or openers or whatever. And they've just been able to sustain this pace in doing that. And that's not something you would typically see in the big leagues. You know, when you're running out guys and you have your starters injured and you're trying to piece it together, that's usually you take ls on those days they just haven't been because the bullpen's been so good and they've been hitting they'd be hitting bro they be late night lamont's doing it like did that flarity like him and flaredy dusted it up a little bit got uh late night fired up and he carried it over

into this series it's they're an impressive team right now man they uh line up dynamics are an interesting thing to me. I think, you know, if you've ever played an opposing team and you're like, you know, there can be a hitter on a team that if they're hitting fifth, you're like, oh, that guy's hitting fifth for that team? I don't know. But if that same hitter's hitting eighth, you're like, damn, that's kind of like a deep lineup. Right now, and Giants fans sound off and let me know, but right now it says at the bottom of the lineup, they're mixing it up with Matos and Brandon Crawford down there. I love that. Like the old man in the sea down there.

And by the way, he had a couple good games. The kid, 21-year-old top prospect, Luis Santos. Like, that's a fun lineup dynamic. And, I mean, they're just the Giants. Things feel interchangeable. And when it's working, it's a beautiful thing. And they are now back in the mix, 60% chance to make the playoffs. And like we've done in the ale, like we'll do all year.

Some teams going to end up. two or three teams are going to end up really hurt that in this expanded dance playoff formula, they're not getting invited. And maybe that pivots us over to the Dodgers, Trev, because their fans, they've been tweeting, DMing us and rip into the pitching. This isn't your Dodgers team you're familiar with. Second highest bullpen ERA?

Yeah, the bullpen's been brutal for them. Bullpen batting average against. You know, it's easy. for us to say like these are the Dodgers they'll go and you know at the same time when i you know max munsey just went to the aisle Gavin luck's now out for the sea or was out for the season before the season Walker bueller Dustin may urea cinderguard like that's that's a pitching staff that's now on the iL um and that's before you get to daniel hudson and Blake trine and in fire eyes and like they've got the injury bug pretty good and it just feels like

the West has kind of caught up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, you definitely can point to the injuries because it is a long list, especially on the pitching side, and that's where they've been, that's where they've been hurt. But they've had guys come up and have success, and you can't write the Dodgers off.

I think we're going to continuously say that. I think losing J.T., or not losing him, just like letting him walk. There's some stuff there, I think. The vibe seem okay though. I'm not in the clubhouse, but we watch them play. There's no, like they're doing the right thing. Stupid base running that I mentioned before,

but everything else seems right. They just have to address the bullpen and get healthy. Can they do that? Yeah. But a lot of teams are going to be on that train come the trade deadline as well. A lot of people are going to be going after these bullpen arms, and it's never a sure thing

when you have a bullpen piece because it is such a fluid part of a baseball roster. But I think these other teams are catching up. It's a good way to put it. But we see a lot, I think, around baseball now.

More so than ever. This year, because of, I guess, because of some of the new rules, it's like, if you're young and athletic, like, you're going to be good. Think about the teams that are at the top of the division. like diamondbacks take the extra base can run

put pressure on you the rays do that insanely well the reds those guys can run mcclain their shortstop like he's beating balls out to uh i mean we're talking about these guys later ele day the cruz beat out a ball to the fucking first base he had a ground ball to first base and beat it out like teams that can run and are athletic like that's kind of like you've always wanted that on a baseball field but it seems like it's been emphasize more this year.

And I don't know if you can really say that about the Dodgers. Yeah, athleticism definitely became second, third fiddle for a while when we went, you know, home runs on-based percentage. Like, you know, three true outcomes. And now as things are shifting back, yeah, and that's where, again, like I don't think our Dodger concern level is too raised for now, but it's okay. Like they're going to be in a little bit of a dog fight this year.

There's a little bit there where it was like, oh, they're going to run away because they have Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts and they fix JD and like, no. I mean, their fourth and run scored. Right, right. Like the offense is not the problem. Yeah. And yeah, I wonder.

It's the bully. It's like you mentioned. Emmett Sheehan has the nice start, little Fordham prep kid, that if guys start getting healthy and so, some of the youth is there. Does that become a beautiful thing? I don't know.

I don't know. I'll tell you two places that haven't been beautiful. St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets. Yeah. Same reaction, Trev. I'm talking. My standout is actually from this, so I'll get there.

But I don't know. I mean, mid is complimentary to these teams. both of them still to me and this is just I don't know man maybe I've lost my touch my feel I still feel like these these teams could turn it around

at any moment but like I maybe I'm just wrong on that maybe I'm just flat out wrong the stuff that's going on with the Cardinals like they have some like real like clubhouse issues still

I'm happy you know Aronado's doing his thing in this series great they can still play ball. They still have really good players on both these teams, right? But that's not enough sometimes. And I know like they've, you know, they needed some pitching and things like that.

But the defense, I think for the Cardinals, is the weirdest thing to me. Like how do you go from a powerhouse defensive team, run the same guys back? Right. We're not changing anything. And you're like, the worst team, defensively.

And it's like the positioning is bad. Are they going to fix that? Can they fix that? Because we talk about the pitching, right? And we're like, oh yeah, they just haven't really got it done. I don't know what their ranks are. I just know it's not great. Defense can help that a lot.

Right. And they just haven't been able to do that. And you think about who's on the roster. These guys can play D, so it's all positioning. how does that make sense? It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't.

It doesn't. Let the boys figure it out. I feel like that's an issue that can be solved pretty quickly when you have the personnel in the field like the Cardinals have. Let them go play ball. There's some ball players out there. Like we're trying to do too much with this positioning. It's not working. So I don't know, man.

Quick healer. Alonzo. Quick healer. I'm happy you brought that up. That's one of our favorite things on this show is when a guy is a quick healer. I'm a quick healer too. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm a brutally slow healer. I mean, something very routine could keep me out. You stay bruised forever. I do. Oh, you're a bruiser, huh? That's tough. What does that mean that you need an iron? I think it's low iron, small pecker.

I don't know. Brewer Suite, Pittsburgh I don't know, dude That's hot Is it? Yes Pittsburgh's interesting Man, I mean they

What's the standings there? Milwaukee is in top of the division 37 and 34 A half game up on the Reds Pirates are now two games below 500 They are calling up I don't know if you know this

but Milwaukee was behind Pittsburgh entering this series, and they left ahead of Pittsburgh. It's hot. They swept him happy. Yellish does look really good. Joey Weamer, significant. After an O for 19, hits a couple homers. The pirates are bringing up Henry Davis.

We've heard about this guy for a long time. But apparently he might be playing right field. They're keeping the other two catchers. So yeah, I'm going to be interested to see how they navigate that because, you know, McCutcheon, all JM team. I know he was playing a lot of DH, so can he play outfield? Can Davis play outfield? Do you get in a little catcher rotation?

You should have a nice little game plan from what, you know, when the Orioles called a badly rushman, I think he was going catcher DH at first because they didn't want to overwhelm them on both sides of the ball. So I don't know. It seems copy and paste that because it worked for that guy. Yeah. I'm going to talk about the,

catching position a little later. That's exciting. No snaps for the brew crew. I think this NL Central race is going to be fascinating. The same thing with the A.L. Central race. It might not be the best baseball play, but it's going to be coming down to the wire. And who's going to get hot at the right time, I believe. But the Brewers could easily just run away with this division. Christian Yellich putting together a nice year.

He yells into the mic. What's that? He, uh, always confident. I got a nice, I got a chance to hang out with him a little bit, talk to him pregame on the field. Um, he's in a good headspace, which is good. That's good for Cardinals, or for Brewers fans, excuse me, bad for Cardinals fans.

That is bad. What they really didn't want to hear. It is bad news for Cardinals fans. Yeah, since, um, since May, Yelly's 304, 401, 500 sluggling. Sluggling. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Just take me out back. Go Brewers, go, go, go Yelly, go. Go Marlins, Trev. What? Yeah. Everyone pitches. A rise hits. Soler.

Not everyone. Everyone doesn't pitch. I don't know what's going on with Sandy. I need Marlins fans to talk about. Joey Wendell won two for four with a double. I need to know what's going on with Sandy. The overall numbers are just not good. He's pitching to basically a five, a four, nine, seven.

He's two and five on the year. Does that matter? Not really. He was supposed to be a shift regression guy. I don't know how much of it was that. I don't know if there's fatigue. I guess fish fans let us know. What's the FIP at?

Show me that fip. All right, it's up. It ain't looking too good right now. He's a lot more hits. Walks are right on there. Strikeouts are right on there. Braxton Garrett. Not going deep into games.

Okay. Dalton said we had to talk Braxton Garrett. Seven starts. His last seven. Two-one-three ERA, 49 strikeouts and 32 innings. Dominant stuff. and yeah, he had one blow-up game,

and if you take that out, his numbers on the year, incredible, that, again, that's, you know, Yuri Perez gets called up, and, you know, here's a bonus piece for you. He's been incredible. He got my last award. Lazzardo! Yeah.

Like you said, Sandy has not been Sandy, and Edward Cabrera just goes on the aisle. They've been without Quato. They've been without Trevor Rock. People wondered if Max Meyer would get in the mix for this team at some point. Yeah, man, the pitching, there's guys in some of the batting stats. I don't know, ninth and batting average. You know, it kind of one guy hitting 400.

Yeah, that's true. Okay, I take it back. I take it back. There are 20 fifth and runs. I don't know. Is it a sustainable brand of baseball so far? And I mean, their record is... Like, where their record is at,

I don't know if they can get to the deadline and sell, and they don't want to. Yeah, why would they sell? They won't, but that's what I'm saying. Like, Trev, nobody is at this point. There's some sellers out there. Cardinals, sellers. Cubs, sellers. Think so?

Yeah. White Sox, sellers. Yeah. Yeah. nationals. I don't know. Five and a half games back of first place, White Sox.

18 and 5 and one run games for the Marlins. I mean, we got to mention that. Negative run differential. It's crazy, but I'm happy. 16 and 5 in Interleague. They own the AL. Are you kidding me? Gita never should have left.

Jita actually built this team. 3 and 0 against the Royals, 3 and 0 against the Angels, 2 and 1 against the Minnesota Mids. Oh, white socks too. Okay, so it's basically been against the AL Central. Let's do some IL baseball. Trev.

The IL is brought to by the Talking Baseball YouTube. Subscribe. We're close to 100K. We need another 100K plaque in the office. If you're listening to this, wherever you listen, go subscribe to the YouTube. And buy a shirt too from the store. If we get to 100,000 followers on our YouTube,

Jake will do a photo shoot with Jared Karamis naked. It's fun. I was going to volunteer you for something, so I'm glad you volunteered me. Make sure you're subscribed. Buy 10 shirts. Let's do some interleague play. And in that interleague, the best team in baseball,

the Tampa Bay race, they went to beautiful San Diego. And the Padres take two out of three after dropping the first one on a McLanahan day. Randy does his thing, Luke Riley, sure. Blake Snell might hear about him later. Six innings, 12K0 runs. And then in the final game, Joe Musgrove does it.

Trette Grisham contributes, and that last game was crazy. Tatea is throwing people out from right field. Tatea's running around the bases like it's a little league game. And the Padres win, and they win the series. Blake Snell against his old team, how do you like that? Padres win two out of three. Debex, my snakes take two out of three from Chris Roses. Guard, dog, Zach Galland Day, seven innings, one-earned run.

I mean, scheduled tweet there. Christian Walker has a big series. Corbyn Carol does it. Big Homer inning, Jake McCarthy, wearing that sexy snakes leather jacket that I will wear one day. Guardians, they put a bunch of crooked numbers on that final day. Josh Naylor, putting together. what's now a nice season.

Will Brennan, Freeman, they get involved in that. Bo Nailer, the Nailer Bros. They're both playing in that last game. That's fun. Trev, the hottest team in baseball, IMO. The Cincinnati Reds, they sweep the Houston Astros. Here's Andrew Abbott, just refusing to give up runs. Why not?

Here's Hunter Green on the second day. Pumping, cheddar, and meanwhile, while they're doing their thing. Ellie de la Cruz, you mentioned him. Spencer Steers a kid, Homer, Stevenson, McLean, Will Benson's been going nuts. Ever since that pimp job,

Homer, all he does is get on base. They sweep the Houston Astros, and the Reds are really in the mix. In that NL Central, where the Chicago Cubs played, they took two out of three from the Baltimore Orioles. 33 and 38 Cubs.

Watch out. They won the first two games. Behind Justin Steele, who's back out there. We like to see that. Nico makes me Horner. He has a couple big games. Orioles, they win that last game. Ryan O'Herns been killing it for them, along with old friend Aaron Hicks. How do you like that? Phillies. They sweep Oakland. The Phillies have an argument for one of the hottest teams in baseball. They're back sitting pretty.

and they're doing it behind the guys you like to see do it for them. Kyle Schwaber is a freak show in the month of June. Homered in the first pitch he saw at the Coliseum is the last ballpark he played in. First pitch, get that out of here. Taiwan Walker, eight innings, one-earned run. That's significant. And the Phillies are hot, hot, hot, and that is what happened in the International League. I don't like that happen quickly.

You just crush that. bro let's get through the aisle standings um trev love that my favorite joke of the episode you stole it from me Padres race what do you have a hint my award is coming uh from this series uh that last game was crazy watching the highlights and watching some of it live um the throw from tatis the pick by nola the tag um tatis running the bass running i Um, they win a big series. And Padres,

again, like, think about all of the teams we've talked about. We just gave the Giants some more love. Snakes been on top of that division. Padres,

again, the Padres, they paid everyone. Uh, they're starting to win a couple series, and they're going to be, they ain't selling pop. No,

no, no, they can't sell. All those guys are locked up for 30 years. Like, this is a good team that'll get, the cream will rise to the top. It will.

I like, I like that, I do. Do you know how you churn butter? You just like do cream and you just like churn it. I don't, that's weird to me. I'm sorry, I went there. Tatease has been incredible. And we, you know, we talked about like how do you, how do you rid yourself of a, like a steroid suspension? Well, you just come back and go off and that's what he's done. That's what he's done. Go look at his. He's basically, yeah, he's mirroring his, he's actually under his, he has a 9-12 OPS right now, and he's under his, and he's under his, career number, which will tell you something about this guy and how good of the player he is.

And a lot of that war, he's got 3.4 baseball reference war, a lot of it is defensive. Like, he's added that element to this game. Like, as a shortstop, not great. Not great. You put him in the outfield, he's turned into a premier defender, maybe even the best right fielder defensively in baseball. Like, he is, this guy is going to be around for so long playing incredible baseball for so long and this is I mean I guess everyone saw it coming because you watch him play the suspension

was it pisses me off so much still and whether it was what he said or not doesn't matter but you come back and you play like this like you're going people are just going to absolutely forget about it this guy's a stud absolute stud and he

him going like this I mean if that doesn't motivate you if you're on the roster of the Padres and you see him doing what he's doing. If that doesn't motivate you to show up to the yard and try to match that every single day, then what are you doing playing ball in the first place?

This guy's setting the tone. Padres are, what are they? 10 and 6 in June. Okay. And yeah, man, if you... Hold on a set. You keep going.

If you haven't seen the play, go look at Fernando Tatis running the bases. You just don't you don't see it on a major league field. He steals second. The ball squirts away from Wander Franco. Franco gives it a light jog to get the ball, but he knows that Tatee is a sicko, so he's trying to bait him into going for home

because Wander's like, yeah, do it, Fernando. I'd love to throw you out at home. I'll take that out. Tatees sees him. Can't believe that Wander would dare do that to him. And guess what? Tatis was too quick. And you just, like, don't see that on the field.

And when you get to Tatis' skills, his speed may be his third most impressive skill behind his power and his arms a cannon. Like, the guy is electricity, so it's just good to have him back on the field. It is. He takes, like, four or five strides in between base pass, and he's like there.

And yeah, it's happened a lot with these guys with a speed like that, like Wander trying to deak him and say, go home, as soon as he gets on his heels, he's gone. Gone. And to make a throw, and it's only, I don't know,

like a maybe like 110, 120 foot throw, but on your heels, when you know the guy's going to be, I mean, he's lightning quick, so you have to be fastball or make an accurate throw,

and you just didn't. It's, that's the pressure that I'm talking about that's back in baseball, which I think is really cool. I mean, it looks like Little League. Tate's turns and looks like it's his buddy who's picking up the ball and he's like, you know what? Screw him. I'll just score. And he does. And you don't see that on a major league baseball field. This is, this is, as well as a fun series. Like McClanahan does this thing in game one, you know, the best ever do it, homers. And they're like,

okay, here are the race. This is what they do. They get pitching. They can hit. They can do all sorts of things. And then the Padre storm back and they win the next two. It's awesome, man. This is good baseball. And the Padres in June, seven to last 10, 10 and 6.

They're coming. Snell content coming later. D-backs take two or three from the Guardians. It's obvious. Zach Gallens. You're not on the Guardians? You off them? I'm not on...

Anyone in either central. Oh, come on. Sellers, by the way, could be. I said it, I think, three episodes ago, I was like, Sinci can't win the Central. They absolutely can. I... Are you off of Sinci?

Because you just said you're not on anyone in the Central. We're going to talk about Cincinnati next, and you're going to say, oh, I'm on Sinci. So don't contradict yourself, bro. I'm... I don't look at either Central Division right now, and I say, that team's going to win. win the division.

Okay. I'm just not. And that's where like, dude, I mean, Cubs and a, dude, Cubs have a hot week. They're involved in the Central and they're not selling. They're four games back of first place. So that's where I,

I realize stuff will happen before the trade deadline. And you know, a month from now, post-all-Star game, live event in Seattle, come touch Trevor's face, stay away from Olivia. You can touch just one.

once. There's a link in the description. After that, it's going to cost you. You're going to get a serious knuckle sandwich if you do that. What is wrong with you, bro? I don't. It's like there's some rooted stuff. I have no confidence in any central teams.

None. Okay. Shout out Zach Gallin, who's quickly becoming one of my favorite players in the babies because, well, he's good. and I follow him on Instagram and Evan Longoria has been singing his praises to me under the radar and telling me he's like a guy,

like a stud. Yes. He's wearing a snake skin belt, which was hot. He's the man. On that, Tommy Henry, what arm does he throw with?

I thought he was both, right? Isn't he like that pitcher or that unknown? Isn't he unknown? The big lefty from Michigan, Trev? Great start by him. Bounceback starts.

That's how this dimebacks can get it done, man. Good starts, and it's a good brand of baseball that they play. I really, really enjoy watching them play. It's tough for the Guardians, McKenzie, elbow discomfort? Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That changes this whole series because Tuki Toussaint flies on a plane just to get the spot start in this game. And he, you know, doesn't have his best day at the office.

And yeah, man, Jake McCarthy got, you know, he was one of the young baby snake outfielders before the start of the season, had a really rough go. Since he's been called up, he's looked a lot better. Talk about another guy that applies pressure. That guy will steal a bag at any point. And, yeah, him and Corbyn Carroll. They homer in the eighth.

The team just put so much pressure on you, man. That's why they're winning a ton of ball games. Jake McCarthy is going off. 12 stolen bases for Jake McCarthy since May 26th. Nice. I've been hearing about Geraldo at Short, and we talk about him, and we see the stats and stuff. I did not know he was a 400 OBP guy.

He's been going nuts. That's awesome. You know how I feel about guys that have 400 rupees. Those are my guys. I do. Bow Nailer gets called up, plays catcher. Naylor brothers on Cleveland. That's just cool.

What else was I going to say? Oh, Josh Nailer. His numbers are getting, I think, most RBI by a Cleveland first baseman at this point of the season other than Jim Tomey. Your guy guy. Um, how is Jim?

He's doing great. I haven't talked to it. Let's see. That's what I've taught to him. I want to group text with a bunch of old twins' legends. So we, I think maybe we cross paths in there. I used to see him at Pepperdine University just randomly all the time.

But I've got to be honest. I haven't talked to him in a while. Miss him. If we did see each other, big bear hug. Yeah. Jimbo. Love him.

I want him to crack my back. Trev. you mention them and you're going to say Jake oh Jake you're buying it you love this team I love the vibes the Cincinnati Reds

sweep the Houston Astros The Reds are a half game back of the NL Central lead Astros are now in a I don't know they join that Dodgers conversation they join the Yankees conversation they're missing your dong like he's a big part of it McCuller's out for the year sure everyone's got it two ships passing in the night here a little bit Trev whoa what does that mean um the the reds are

the reds are heading upstream and feeling good and it feels like the the Astros are treading water right now okay this is a great series for the Reds I mean first game uh close game both pitchers deal Abbott the lefties been incredible for them. So, like, you know, you get these guys to come up and they have performances like he's had. That's obviously how you sustain the winning that they've been able to do. JP France looked really good for the Astros.

But Stevenson hits a homer. Kevin Newman hits a double, and you win the first game. No problem. It's a good, solid baseball game. Great first victory in a series in Houston. And then the next game, you kind of go off. The offense goes off.

Hunter Green does his thing, six innings pitch, two and runs. What I liked, that I liked, is you know I like this. Our guy Will Benson, you mentioned him, he's on third base.

Kurt Casali squeezes him in. Kurt Casali's not a bat first catcher. We know that. He understands the assignment. He's like, I don't want to strike out. Executed the perfect squeeze,

and they have like, you know, he doesn't even make it down the first base. I don't know who was pitching at the time. I don't say it was Belak. like they kind of have that like hey i'm not going to run just tag me thing i just like that they scored four in the night to kind of put the game away uh which is another way to you know that's what you want to do as a team continue to score you go up and you know i think they were up uh at that point

six to three but you go and just put the game to bed with four in the ninth awesome and then in the last game i mean there was a bunch of weird stuff going on here regman had a little league homer Will Benson's just a wild man on the field, dives, misses it, and India gets the ball, and throws it into the stands. I don't know what happened there. So Little League Homer,

and then Jake Fraley and left, like fell over. Like, I don't know what was going on with the Cincinnati outfield in this game. But then this is when Dela Cruz hits the ground ball to Abraeu and beats it out. Yeah.

Like, it wasn't like, like, yeah, he had to go down and, like, he was, It wasn't like straight at the first basin, but it was at the first basement. Yeah. And he beats it out. Speed's killer.

India has the go-ahead homer in the eighth, and then McCormick ties it up in the ninth. And then they score, and the Astros can't. Trev, can I tell you, I'm going to ask you a little talking baseball trivia question, see if you pay attention when I talk. Why do I like the Baltimore Orioles this year? Why do you like the Baltimore Orioles this year?

What are the two things they do that I think makes them a problem? I don't know. You've got me confused right now. DBD? That is one of the things that they don't care. Oh, that would have worked. It wasn't what I was going for. It's everyone at home got it.

Their lineup is relentless. Oh, length. Nice. And their bullpen. And these Cincinnati Reds have put that together. On the season now, they're sixth and on base percentage. The Cincinnati Redd on the season, that's not butternifing since they've started playing a better brand of baseball.

That's on the season. Their second and stolen bases. And this bullpen, Alexis Diaz, okay, you're probably familiar with him, 18 for 18 and save opportunities this year. And they even started pushing his limits a little bit. I think he had like five appearances in seven days, which they've been very careful with him. Lucas Sims, Buck Farmer, Gibbal, Alex Young,

not your go-to names for Lights Out Bullpen. They've been getting it done this year. And guess what? If you get efforts from your bullpen and your lineups relentless and you stay in games, you give yourself a chance, and that's all they've been doing, and they've been winning ball games. are they aggressive at the trade deadline

in trying to procure or secure don't know the word a starting pitcher if the overall stats for their starters are not good right it's come up and then a great job hunter green can no hit you on any given night ben lively's been all right for them ups and downs if you will

uh like what the other guys I mean, Ashcraft, not great. Luke Weaver, not great. These are the guys that have made a bulk of the starts for them. What do they do? Like, are there, I don't know, I don't know the farm system. Are the prospects waiting to be called up,

or do you have to go get somebody? Because you can't do this in this season. Get to the top of the NL Central, which they're almost at, and then just sit idly. You'd love, you'd love to bring in, I don't know, man. even like a flyer piece, like an MLB flyer piece, like someone like a Trevor Williams. Like, you know, just in case someone gets hurt and you need a guy that can hopefully give you five innings every fifth day.

Like, I'd like something like that for them. Just because, yeah, before that Abbott start, I think they went nine straight games without a quality start. But guess what? They were still winning those games. So, like, yeah, I think. But now we're talking about the Cincinnati. Natty Reds adding at the deadline.

Yeah. Fuck, man. You worried about Houston? Um, no. No. I think, you know, get to the dance. And Yordaum being out, I mean, you just talked to how big of, you know, judge being gone, hurts. Same.

Yordawn being gone really, really hurts them. So, but we are seeing a shift in the big leagues. You know, a lot of teams graduating these, these excellent farm systems, like the Reds. I mean, they brought up like four of their, they had like six prospects in the top 100. They brought up four of them this year, and they're all going off.

Yeah. But I'm not worried about Houston. And I'm not worried about the Dodgers, to be honest with you. Like, these teams, organizationally are so good, like they'll figure things out, do what they have to do

because they are good organizations. You're done, man. They miss him. Go, Reds, go. Are you still not calling them America's team? Well, it's in jest. Like, they're just, like, messing around with it. So I'm kind of on it.

Like, if you're just messing around and calling yourself America's team, I get it. If you're, like being serious about it, I don't like it. Silly, but they're just messing around. So I don't really care. I still don't like the Viking helmet. Still don't. It's a lot cooler when you're winning.

I'll say that much. That's true. And Jonathan India is hot, and Jimmy O'Brien does know what the hell he's talking about. India's hot. Not Jimmy's type. Treb, these fun... These final two in the aisle,

we get it shaken, get you to Chris Rose. Cubs' Orioles series and Philly sweeps Oakland, which looks like Oakland's kind of being back to Oakland a little bit, but the Phillies are also back to being Philly, which we talked about a couple episodes, and they've got... gone and they're sitting they're sitting a lot better than where they were

a couple weeks ago because those guys in the lineup clicked. The pitching gave them help. And dude, Cubs, the more you dive into the Cubs, it's a pretty weird mental exercise, man, because they got some good numbers and that Central ain't it? Yeah, that's the thing though.

The Central's being just wide open kind of changes everything. I expected them to be sellers, but I mean, you're right. If they just go out and have, I guess, a great two weeks, they can't. If they play like 500 ball till the trade deadline, I don't think they sell. You can't be five games under at the trade deadline and buy, sorry. Like, they have to go off. I get their only four games back.

I understand that. But that's your one shot. They're not going to get a wild card. So your one shot's winning the division. And you'd like to, you know, they have to jump three teams to do that. It's, when you think about it that way, it's more of a hurdle than, you know, just the four games. Know who's been a little shot of life for the Chicago Cubs? Mike Talkman.

Mike Talkman, did a year, did a year across the pond. Max Maness's favorite player, right? Tom Prizman. Tom Priseman. Compound. Now Ian Hap's outfield. Who's Max Manus's player? Is it Confordo?

He's got a guy like that, too. He just loves baseball. He just loves all of them. I love Max Maness. Nico Hornerback, which he's an important part of that team. I don't know, man. I like to write the cubbies off when Stroman, Steele, Hendrix, I don't know.

Adbert Alzillet, baby. They have players, 100%. Like there's a chance of that. they can run things here and they can go do whatever. I don't know, man. I don't know. These divisions, being up for grabs the way they are, you know, it's not a typical baseball discussion, essentially.

And it really is going to come down to, okay, we're June 19th right now. So in a month, like all this stuff is going to get it figured out in a month. Like they have, like, if I'm on those teams, I would say, hey, guys, if I'm on the Cubs, this is what happens. I call everyone together. First, I say, hey, what's up, guys? Congratulations on your success. Your Big Leaguers love you. High fives. Okay, that's how I start my meetings all the time. Nice. A little bit of taster. And then I say, hey, for real, guys, we have to go in the next four weeks. We have to win series and we have to sweep series. We have to force the hand of the front office.

So we can go and either stay together or add if we don't. And we just play five hundred 100 ball. That dummy Jake Storelli said, we're not going to be together. This team's going to get broken up and the last two months of the season are going to suck. So you got to just rally around that fact and try to go. But a lot of those teams and those divisions are going to have the same exact discussion. There's one NL Central team with a positive run differential. It is your Chicago Cubs. Like that. Interesting. Any thoughts on the Phillies? Trev. Winners of six straight.

Again, hey, you took care of Oakland, which, hey, a week ago, nobody was taking care of Oakland, so good on you. They have a big, they have a big Brave series coming up. Braves and the Mets. Yeah. I'm looking at Taiwan Walker. Like, he's been, yeah, he's kind of been going off as a late. Sheesh.

He has that, he has a couple bad starts. He has a bad start against the Dodgers. He went three and a third with eight earned runs. But June 6th, 7 innings pitch, no earned runs. June 11, 5 innings pitched against the Dodgers, no earned runs. And then this one against Oakland, eight innings pitch with one earned run. He's been looking nasty. He's kind of feeling himself.

I follow him on social media and he's doing his thing. Like that's having a one, two, three punches. The Phillies are good, man. It's a sixth sport, man. May 17th, he goes 0.2.1. winnings against the Giants. Can't make it out of the first. 653 R.A. Oh, boy, what's going on with Taiwan Walker? Six starts a 175 since then.

And he turned it on. And Ranger Suarez has turned it on. Yeah, yeah. Swarver's turned it on. And guess what? Like, that's, those are them Phil's, those are the Phillies that went to the World Series last year. And you know I'm a Debrowski Stan. And Turner's been, Turner, his overall numbers aren't good, but I think he's been going off as of late, too. Let me check this out. Before we go, we, oh my gosh, we have to go so fast. Standout performances.

Standout performances. Standout performances brought you by the farmers dog. Oh, my mom loves this stuff. She keeps asking me like, hey, like, I need your code. We just, we just listen to the show. Tune in, mom. Hey, it's not Mother's Day, it's Father's Day, Mom. Yeah, figure it out.

I have a dog noodle. on the train this weekend, went out to Long Island, a little pool day. He was swimming, good time. He was hungry. Came back, jacked up some farmer's dog. Whether you got a puppy, an older dog, medium dog, big, small, they get the right dog. They get the right food for your dog, even. How about that? It doesn't matter if your dog is young or old. It's always the right time to invest in their health. And you'll get 50% off your first box at the farmer's dog. dot com slash john boy listen trebs mom the farmer's dog dot com slash john boy that's a great 50% off your first box 50% off your first box and there's a lot of food in that box and there's a link in the description

uh your dog will like it standout performances i am going with my guy justin turner he had two homers a double six rbi scored three runs, one three for five in that game against your yanks. And anytime you have over four RBI, it's a great day. Six, that's like a week in one day's work. I think this guy's a phenomenal baseball player. I like when he does well. So that's my stand-up performance.

It's fun to watch it, man. He really is. He like turned himself into a really good baseball player by making mechanical adjustments. know? I love that. Since basically the first week and a half of April where he got off to a bad start, 291, 357,

842 OPS. Just a really fun at bat to watch. Like, looks like when he's locked in, it looks like he can't be beat or fooled. And yeah, the red at Fenway, it's all a beautiful thing. And we love seeing

we love seeing a veteran, 38 years old, 39 in November, still getting it done done. Older than Josh Donaldson. How about that? My standout is going to Nolan Aronado in that Mets, Cardinals' final game, dumpster fire weekend. I think that was the theme of the weekend over there. He hits his second homer of the game to win it.

And Trev, the reason I pick up. him and yes, you know, every brave player could have been picked for this. Late Night Lamont, big Taiwan Walker. There's a lot of options per usual. Corey Seeger, every game. Watch the second homer that Nolan Aeronado hits. Because where we left off, Nolan Aeronado, press conference, telling the media, we're not executed, we're not getting it done.

This isn't it? Not happy. Doesn't want to be talking to the media. He wants to be talking baseball. when he rounds first and that ball gets out of the park Nolan Aronado lets out a whew! That I don't know if it changes things because I don't know if you can change the things

that are going on there right now. But man, just that feeling for Nolan Aronado, I could feel it. I could feel it in my core. It's worth watching. So I like the fact that he was in front of the press, eating it, taking it all on, and he ends up winning a rubber match

on a Sunday that, you know, would just have us digging and burying the Cardinals further. So I was happy for Nolan. So he gets my standout. Yeah, his overall numbers on the year, got the 815 OPS. One war, a lot of it's defensive related because he gets a lot of war from defense.

How much you want to bet this dude ends up with a positive defensive war and his defensive run, save, turn around and he becomes a stud because he's going to figure things out. whether that's positioning he's just going to take it upon himself to figure that out.

I love watching Nolan are not to play baseball. He's... I mean, I'm a third baseman. He's a third baseman. He's a guy that... How can you not love watching him play? Like you mentioned, the intensity. Do you remember when he got,

had the bloody eye or whatever it was and he was screaming? Same vibes there. I love that. I won't bet against Serenado. Can you tell me who's on fire? Dark Nasty's on. Fuego.

That means I'm on fire, baby. Like Waco. I don't know why have a piece of chalk back here. Why? For the series, Eddie Rosario, six for ten. Four homers against Colorado. Ten ribbies for a 2.4 OPS.

That's good. You like that. Brandon Jury mentioned him. Had a great series. Six for 13 with a double. Two homers and six RBIs. Justin Turner just talked about him. Five for 14.

doubles, two homers, seven ribies. For the week of 612 through 618, Christian Walker, I feel like we never talk about him when we talk about the snakes. We talk about Corbyn, Carol, Perdomo, some of the pitchers, Lord of Scarreal Jr. No, Christian Walker, 11 for 26, four doubles, three homers, 10 RBIs for 1.4.

Your guy for the Cubs, Chris Morel, 9 for 21, a double, a triple, three homers and 10 RBIs. He ranks first and slugging percentage and third in OPS among MLB hitters with at least 100. played appearances this season. Holy crap. I didn't know that. And that was coming off of a slump. He came in hot. He had a really bad

jump and now he's back. I like this one. Andy Ibaneas for the Detroit Tigers, 10 for 22, three doubles, two homers, only three ribbies. Get some guys on base for this guy. Six runs score for 1.3 for two weeks from June 5th through June 18. Taiwan Walker, we just talked about him. He's the man. 3 and 0, 20 innings pitch, only 11 hits in one earned run. That is how you get it done.

Aronado 16 for 48, three doubles, one triple five homers for a 1.1. His 23rd career multi-homer game was on Sunday. And then how about this? You talked about Texas bullpen. I'm going to mess this one up, not in my book. Josh Spores. He pitched in five games over those two weeks, eight and two thirds innings pitched, only two hits, no earned runs, 11Ks and two walks per a 0.46 whip.

Yikes. Susan Fuego. It's beautiful, Trev. Thank you nailed spores. How about that? Only might be one show in the love where he's getting the world where he's getting the love.

I've been cross-fire all day. You know, where he originated. Dodgers. Spores? Dodgers. Max Muncie's on the aisle. Gio Rochella, Mike Clevenger, Edward Cabrera,

Tristan McKenzie, Patrick Wisdom, your doppelganger, Alex Cobb, Tanner, Halk, Corre Lopez in that Twins bullpen. I hate it. Who came back? Nick Senzel, Alex Wood, Wade, Miley, Justin Steele, Pete Alonzo, quick healing, and Rake Fraley, which brings us to, we can begin the week, Trev. So I'm giving the Catcher in the Rye Award,

and I'm sure I've read this book at some point. don't remember anything about it. Is there even a catcher in it? Is it about baseball? I don't think it is. It's not, though. I think it's the story of Mike Piazza. Okay.

Yeah. I did a quick little research on it. Like this guy has a baseball glove. It's like the wrong hand. Beavers, are you in on this? I feel like you're one of those guys that would know about catcher in the rye. J.D. Salinger and I went to the same college.

Then he dropped out and wrote a book about a school full of phonies. which is Catcher in the Rye. So, you know, that could be anything. It's a little different. I didn't read any of these. Yeah, the classics you're supposed to read. You know, we did the spark notes thing.

Yeah, it was just spark notes. We're not, this doesn't sound good. I mean, nobody had time. We're not bragging about this. This is actually embarrassing. I don't feel good about it. Is it a good book? It could be a bad book.

It kind of sounds. I got a whole speech on books and why some are popular and some aren't. Okay, whatever. My word's about catchers. It has nothing to do with this book at all. I just didn't have a good name for it. Catchers. We talked about the game and what's different about the game.

We talk about speed and athleticism, and that's how you're going to get a leg up in today's game. I think the biggest differential, I don't even know what word I'm looking for there. The thing that can separate you most, in the big leagues and you see it all around the league right now is a good catcher. And I'm not talking about a guy that's good framing the ball or a guy that sucks at framing the ball and they can hit. Or I guess I am kind of talking about that.

You got a rake as a catcher. And if you have one of those catchers on your team, a guy that rakes, you're probably going to go to the playoffs. Think about what's going on around the league right now. I have fan graphs open right now, and I have Wobah highlighted for catchers, okay? Shaw Murphy, number one, they're in the playoffs. Will Smith, number two, they're in the playoffs. Patrick Bailey has come up, taken over the starting job in San Francisco.

They're in the playoffs. Adley Rushman, they're in the playoffs. Chad Wallach! For the Angels, they're in the playoffs. Now, Elias Diaz, they're not going to be in the playoffs, but great, great season, kid. Jonah Heim for Texas, they're in the playoffs. Matt Tice, another angel catcher. So two Angels catchers in the top 12 for Wobah.

William Contreras, Milwaukee. They're about to be in the playoffs. They're in the division. They're in the playoffs. Travis Darneau. Another one. J.T. Ruhamoto. Wow.

It's like a tight end, a top tier tight end in fantasy football. If you have one, it could separate you from the pack. Henry Davis coming up for the pirates. Are they seeing this and saying, let's get an offensive catcher up here because if we have it,

it's such an advantage. This shocked me. You know, you think about the catching position and every organization says, we just want a guy that can handle the pitching staff and we don't worry about hitting. That's secondary.

Bullshit, dude. go get you someone that can do both or go get you one that can mash because I'm looking right now at the Wobah leaders at the catching position and all those teams are in the playoffs so maybe we need to rethink this thing around the league

go get you someone that can bang score runs drive in runs you can figure out the catching part of it and you know some of these guys are excellent defensive catchers as well try to get you one that can do both how about that? There should be more of an emphasis

on like offensive-minded catchers because look what it gets you, man. Like this is, it was shocking to me to see all this because I didn't, you think some guys, oh, hey, we need someone that can handle the pitching stuff and that's more important bullshit. Go get you an offensive-minded catcher. Catcher in the Rye Award goes to all these dudes

that are raking behind the plate. It's not easy to do that. That's why it's, you know, not every team can have one because it's such a daunting, physically, a demanding position. But this is, it was shocking to me to see this. So I wanted to highlight it. Trev, you know, I talked about it,

I think early on this season with a Dadley Rushman. Like, it's a game changer. And I don't think we've quantified it properly. The guys who's calling the pitches, that matters, the pitch framing, that matters, adding length to the lineup, whether you're a top contributor or even towards the middle. Like, you know, there's a couple teams out there that have gone full pitch framing because they were like, we can't get offensive production from the catcher spot. So let's boost our pitching staff and make sure we at least get that.

But if you leave a hole in your lineup and it's everything I've been beating the drum on for a while now, well, guess what? You're going to have another guy who's slumping. You'll have another guy who's hurt. Then now you have a bad second half of your lineup kind of willingly. that yeah, man, the catcher position, I don't think has been quantified properly through war and a lot of the metrics we've begun to measure baseball with.

And I hope catchers have a big comeback because it's the most important position. It's why the managers are catchers. Some. Go Ray can be a catcher. You can make a lot of money, too. Trev, great award. I am giving out the halftime. speech award.

Trev, I love this guy. Again, early episode of Chris Rose Rotation, your Instagram lives, which is where we started this episode today. Blake Snell is on a heater. And, you know, tell me if you've heard that before. Like, you know, Snell, he's got a Scy Young in the bag. It's why I took him in the Scy Young draft.

I was being kind of cute because there were other options. Zach Allen probably should have taken him over a couple other guys. Blake Snell's having a hot streak and you're like, okay, that's cool. A lot of pitchers do that. In his last four starts, Blake Snell has given up one earned run, 25 innings. That's a 036 ERA. Why is that significant?

Blake Snell has been significantly better in the second half his entire career. Every year, every single season, Blake Snell. Snell has played baseball. He has been better in the second half. And his career stats back it up too, because, I mean, that's basically what I just said. In his career, Blake Snell, in the first half of the season, he has a 397 ERA. In the second half of the season, a 268. Go into his game logs.

Every year, he did it last year with the Padres. He did it with the raise. In his Cy Young season, he went from like the year he won the side. young. He was a two, seven something ERA in the first half, which you're like, oh, that's great. And then he was a 1.1-1 in the

final nine the rest of the way. Whatever it is, whether it's mechanical, whether it's getting his body right, you know, second half for players can mean a couple different things. Whatever it is, Snell is about that life. And the fact that he's already

going, if he if he stays healthy and he's out there for Padres fans, I think he's going to end up putting up massive numbers this season. So Blake Snow, go. If you're a baseball reference, click through his years and see that he's literally better like each month and each second half as he goes,

and he's already going, which could mean he's in line for a big year, his free agent year, by the way. He's a stud. He's like out playing golf, all these basketball players. Not a great swings now. I love you. bro.

No. Not. They work on that a little bit. But last four starts, 25 innings pitched, one earned run, 39Ks for a 0.36, a 388 OPS against him. Yeah, he's a stud. An absolute stud and a great guy.

And the only guy that I ever want to hear, Mike Dup, the rest of you guys stink. Compared to Blake's now, the rest of you stink. I'm sorry. Trevor Plufe has swag. End the episode. Go listen to Trevor Plufe. on baseball today with Chris Rose.

Some are saying it's the best show ever. You're a grinder, huh? Jake sucks. That's all I hear when I go places nowadays. It's ridiculous. I told you, I don't like people knowing me so much, but every time... Joe sucks. I had a big city day yesterday.

I got a lot of Jakey loves. Cool guy skateboard and pass. me. Whoa.