Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Should the Mets Be Worried? | 509

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Timestamps: 0:00 Halfway Through the Season 3:50 NL Recap 9:30 NL Standings 10:05 Padres-Dodgers 18:35 Cardinals-Phillies 25:25 Braves-Reds 31:45 Brewers-Pirates 34:45 Marlins-Nationals 37:55 DBacks-Rockies 39:35 AL Recap 45:40 Angels-Astros 49:40 Yankees-Guardians 52:10 Rays-Blue Jays 55:55 Orioles-Twins 1:01:30 A's-Mariners 1:06:55 Tigers-Royals 1:08:30 Interleague Recap 1:12:50 Red Sox-Cubs 1:17:50 White Sox-Giants 1:21:40 Mets-Rangers 1:25:45 Standout Performances 1:27:05 Christian Walker 1:28:35 Jeremy Pena 1:30:40 Mark Leiter Jr. 1:33:15 Slump Watch 1:36:000 En Fuego 1:38:15 No the King, But Where Would We Be Without You Award: Byron Buxton 1:43:55 Auntie Re and Uncle Ric Award: Orioles and Pirates 1:46:45 Trea Turner & Defensive Metrics 1:55:20 Elevator Talk: Cleveland Guardians Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/ NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. New customers only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply and product offerings vary by state. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome. I hope you had a fantastic July 4th weekend. It's July 5th and we're going to talk about the baseball you may have missed. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Presented to you by Seatgeek. My name is Jimmy. I'm joined by Jake Trevor Flew, producer, BBD, out in the corner of your screen.

Trevor's in Cabo. Soaking up the sun. Treve Soaking up the sun Katie and I Could not remember who sung that song For like half hour We were trying to figure it out

And then we were like, oh, we got it So anyway, that's a memory. Jake, how are you doing? Gonna soak up the sun James, Trevor, BBD, everyone with us. Let me be the last To wish you a happy 4th of July.

I'm doing well. Pretty tame weekend. Pretty tame weekend. Had some dackeries when the Yankees game got rained out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, little wedding planning, Trevor. And then yesterday went to Brooklyn to see the fireworks. So a nice little fourth, a recovery fourth, as we head into our dog days of summer. We're talking all-star games, some JM events going on.

Teaser. So I'm excited. And boys, we're about the halfway point of the season. I think Yankees play 81 tonight. Ooh, I do like that. So that's pretty, that's pretty well. Trev, you're at the halfway point of the world, Cabo. I wanted to say this, and you need to hear this, Jake.

Eating cake every night does not count as wedding planning. So maybe just curb that a little bit. We're trying to get in shape for this thing. It's, you know, I know where your wedding's at. You're going to be naked a lot of that time. So let's reel it in now. Yeah, that's what people say. I am in Cabo.

I don't know if this is a halfway point of the world. It's probably near the equator, I think. Maybe not. Equator is a kind of a cool thing that you don't really think about too often anymore, but that's where at. Some good baseball. I'm batting leadoff today. And I'm going to mention CJ Chrome.

Okay. I'm going to mention Peralta painting his nails. Like a lot of things were happening in baseball. I think we're going to like it today. James, you look, really cool in your backwards hat. What's going on with you, bro? Thanks, thanks.

I ruined both the hats I wear a lot on the floor ball tournament that's airing, I don't know, end of July, because I wore one and then I gave my other John Boy hat to my teammate so we could match, and then we both just sweated and then profusely. So now I have a trash panda's hat, and I turn it backwards because it was dark on screen. I don't know. We're all wearing similar color, like light, base shirts-ish. Jake and mine are actually kind of greenish. I don't know.

I'm doing well. I enjoyed my 4th of July weekend. I did like nothing. Watch some baseball with my dad. That was fun. And now I'm catching up. And I have the IL today. And I caught up on those three series.

And then I was doing, you know, prepping the standings, what changed. And some things piqued my interest. And I'm very excited to hear from you guys what happened in those particular series that affected the standings, a little bit. So that's where I'm at. I'm excited to learn from you.

That's what we do on this show. We recap the baseball that happened. Yes. And we're going to start with the National League, as we always do, because it was the first league, and we're a Cronpod. And I'm just going to let you know right now.

Why can't, why, what's going on with the Cardinals that they have so many good players. They can't catch the Brewers. Brewers. apparently have a good offense. Yeah. That's what the numbers are saying.

Last like two and a half weeks, best in the league. Ah, you want to dive right into it? Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's rip in the NL? Routi. Routy.

Routy, Teles, Chris Rose, rotation. Really good stuff. Let's do it. All right. The National League, Trev. Tell us what happened. Will you please?

We're starting in L.A., my people. The Warriors take three or four. They almost sweet San Diego. L.A. had won nine straight against the Padres before the father's storm back. With four runs off Kimbril, literally off of his back Sunday afternoon. The Dodgers pitched against him, New Staff was lights out. Catterday meowed his way to his 10th victory, going seven and two-thirds, one Ernie Friday night to bolster his bid to start the freaking All-Star game.

A vintage Kirsch was there, too. We'll talk about that. No one respects this dude. He went seven shuddy in the loss to the Padres. Miss Cues abound for the Pogers throughout the series, though, both defensively and on the bases. And those are both areas. They've been strength for them throughout the season. Dodgers take three of four from the pods.

Moving on. Big series here, Cardinals at Phillies. Phillies take two out of three. They take the bread games to win the series over the cards. The cards, Nolan, Hot Boy, Aeronado. He did everything in his power to win the first two games. But the Phil's overcame his cycle in game one with a nice comfort behind win. The same thing almost happened in game two.

Aronado and the boys had a Homer brigade against our guy Gibby back to back, to back, to back for the cards. They went Nato to Gorman, to Yepis, to Carlson. They go up five, nothing in the first, but the Phil's got fight. And they tie the game in the third inning, five, five on a couple sack flies, a single, and a Munoz double. But Nolan said, nah, I'm not having it today. he hits the go-ahead homer in the ninth, put the birds on the bat up for good, and then Wheeler dominated game three on Sunday night baseball

to secure the series win for, oh my gosh. Yeah, the Phillies, two out of three. Thought I messed that up. Moving on, Braves at Reds. Braves take two out of three, what, 9-1-4-1 Braves before the Reds won four-three in game three. I call this one that it's hard series. Dansby and the Red Hot Braves' offense

had the blood flowing and freed Strider and Morton Row. to the occasion. That's a good one. Game one was all bravos, freed shove, and that gorgeous shortstop provided the juice. Then came Strider at his mustache to make the Reds go limb. Shrek it out 11 and 6. Young Thick went Yatsy. He had an Rby. I double just because he wanted to. Danzby had three more hits in that game. Game three was a doozy. Braves going for the sweet Castillo and Morton go toe to toe for seven innings before the bats came alive. Drury drives two on a double against Jimmy's favorite pitcher, calling the Q.

But Ozuna and Harris both go up top to tie the game in the ninth. Four good a bats in a row, and Almorea walks it off for the Reds, and they avoided the sweep. Braves take two out of three. Moving on, Brewers at Pirates. They split this one. This is a four-game, bring one. Eight, seven pirates, 19 to two Brewers, seven-four pirates, two-nothing Brewers.

The brew crew, they went to the black and yet. They split the four-gamer. Game one, all about the homer, Michael Perez. He had three homers on the day. That's one day after Brian Reynolds did it. That's incredible. Pittsburgh scored all of their runs off the long ball, and they staved off of Brewers' rallying the night to win it.

19 runs for the Brewers in game two, and Corbyn Burns on the mound tells you everything you need to know. Pirates win game three. Nice all-around effort. O'Neill Cruz was on full display in this game. And then game four, the bad man, Woodruff, who's been absolutely nasty since going from the I.O., he goes six shuddy, and the Brewers win,

or split the series, excuse me, against the Pirates in the Four Gamer. Moving on, Marlins and Nationals, the Marlins are coming. People, my dark horse, they sweep this series. They went into D.C. and they've just done what they've done all season. They beat the Nats. Four game suite gets into the 12 and 1 against the Nationals this year. Trevor Rogers returned to form in game one. Offense backed him up.

The Nats had game three in the bag, or so they thought. Pagio Sanchez had other plans. He switches the game up. He ties the game up in the ninth of the go-ahead two-run home. A Robles ties it up for the Nats. in the bottom half of that inning. The Marlins win in 10. Same, same, but Diffy in game four, Luis Garcia,

ties the game in the eighth for D.C., but Marlins, Brian De La Cruz, hit the two-run digger the 10th to complete the sweep. And the last series, D-backs at Rocks. Rockies take two out of three. Jake Snakes, they go into Colorado, and the Rocks secure the series. After losing game one, in that game,

it was the Kapowski Fest, as both Kellys did it for the D-backs. Jake, I know you liked that one. Merrill goes seven innings pitch, one-and-run, and Carson hits a homer. rocks get a three-run shot from rogson the first against kikele in game two and they never looked back and then game three was the rubber match and cj crone said i got it boys two three-run homers to put the rocks up kelsey's rocks take the series from jake snakes and that my friends is what happened in the national

league a little long right there phallic it all was a little long good stuff as for the standings in the national league you didn't talk about them because they're an ios team, but the Mets hold on to their three and a half game lead over the Braves. The Brewers gained two games over the Cardinals. Dodgers gained two games and are now four and a half up on the Padres. That's the first game on the sheet, Trev. It's a little the one I'm interested in is the Dodgers and the Padres. What's going on with the Padres?

You said that they had some bad base running, bad defense. They have Tatis coming back. There's articles about if he's going to play center field. He's going to play shortstop. He kind of said he will play centerfield if needed. What's going on in L.A. in San Diego. San Diego, yeah, we talked about that a little bit this morning on baseball today. I kept saying, you know, I need to see it from Tatees.

Like he hasn't had a major league of bat since September of last year. But then Chris Rose reminded me how damn good he is. So then I remembered, oh, yeah, he is really good. So that's great for the poders. They need him to come back. They've done well without him, but their offense, especially in the outfield gyms, has been just, like, atrocious.

So you kind of, like, keep Kim, I guess, at short, who's, like, been around league average offensively and you could bolster the outfield. We'll see if it works. I don't know. It's not that easy to just, like, throw somebody in the outfield, even though it is Fernando Tatis Jr., and he's a world-class, you know, athlete.

We'll see. But the Dodgers were good in this series, man. One thing, like, in particular, you kind of got to look at as Justin Turner kind of getting it going for the Dodgers. Dave Roberts basically said, we're going to keep putting him in the middle of lineup because who else are going to put there? And he kind of like said, this is Justin Turner. Like when we need him to show up, he'll show up.

He had two homers in the first game. He had to go ahead Homer in the seventh off of Musgrove. He had both them off of Musgrove. And he came in the series, James, 217 batting average left with a 230 batting average. His OPS obviously went up two. So he's getting it going maybe just at the perfect time for. the Dodgers. And then Gonsland was Gonslin.

I don't know what's going on, dude. Like, I don't know if he saw my bullpen at the alumni game, like something click for him. That could be the case. But he's like legitimately going to start the fucking All-Star game, dude. Like, I don't, we talked about him in the TPPs a little bit. We're like, this guy's a stud and he really doesn't have a place in the rotation or like so we thought.

But he's been like the guy for them. He's been the guy that's held that rotation. together so congrats caturday that's 10 ws now jake on the meow after the game dude 10 ws um i don't know dodgers just have the podre's number uh one thing that we have to mention about gonselin going forward you mentioned halfway point of the season he's already thrown over his career high in innings so you got the rest of the season to go you got the post season to go i'm very curious to kind of see where they go with him. And if there is some sort of limit, if there's, you know, some sort of pitch count during the games, I don't, I don't really know, man. I don't

really know, but they're going to have to look into that. Kershaw was outstanding in the lost seven shuddy. He's off to, I mean, he's having another great year and nobody's talking about him. It's kind of been par for the course with Kershaw as of late. Just kind of gets forgotten about, but he's an all-time great, like an all-time great left-hander. The base running stuff was like there was a lot of different things. In that last game, Voight thought he hit the go-ahead homer. It ends up going off the wall. So he ends up on second base, we went out instead of the third base, we went out.

Hosmer, you know, hit a single and they replaced Voight at second base anyway. But just little stuff like that. There's some pop-ups and miscues. And then I thought this was cool. After the game pro far, which makes sense. He said they measure themselves against the Dodgers. Like if they want to be where they think they can be, they need to go and beat the Dodgers.

Haven't done that yet. But I think this last game, them coming back like that, at least leaves a good taste in their mouth going forward. I mean, that's a good way to measure yourselves. Yeah. I mean, it's an obvious statement. But like to hear someone say that is pretty good. Yeah. The Dodgers starting pitching, 25.2 innings pitched.

Three earned runs? Not bad. Who had odds before the season. Dodgers starting the All-Star game in L.A. I think we would have had Kirshaw, Bueller, Ureus, maybe Anderson. And it's looking like Tony G., man. which is insane and happy for the dude. Love your note about his innings pitched. Because, yeah, we still, like I said, we've had a fantastic first half of baseball.

We're going to have second halves. And it's going to be, you know, if you're a Dodgers fan, you've got to be circling that and saying, hey, what does the rest of his year looks like? If other guys are healthy, does he chill out and maybe skip some starts and things like that, interested to see? But yeah, I mean, for me, the story is more so the Padres than the Dodgers,

just because, I mean, what do we really expect? We just talked about their starting pitching. They seemingly get that. They are the number one team in OPS and on base percentage. They're number two in runs. So, like, yes, these are your Dodgers. They still are. So when Justin Turner decides to kick in a gear, that helps.

If you're the Padres, their offense has kind of been middle of the players. pack this year. They are 20th in OPS. 12th and run scored, but 24th in homers and 27th in steel. So like, yeah, getting that Nando guy back, that would be huge. And again, they're a big, they're a big trade deadline team for me because I, Trev, you know I believe in feel. You were talking about a lot of wiener stuff and your, your little recap there. Not only if you can add Tatee. It's Hardin Series. Not only if you had Tatees, but, but if you had another stick, now you just added two bats to your lineup

with the pitching performances you've been getting out of the rotation all year and some good stuff going on in that bullpen too. So as this deadline, I mean, less than a month away to the deadline, boys. Remember deadline? We all need to circle that. Deadline week last year kicked our ass. Probably might do that again.

Yeah. Luckily, we won't be too busy doing everything. We have to have a. an event. Doing literally everything. Yeah, we'll do something. We have three events in a row. Yeah, man. Before we move on past these teams, Clayton Kershaw had an awful start in Colorado. If I butterknife that out, Clay and Kershaw, I butterknife that Colorado start out, Jake. Will you allow me? Put that start just out of here. So, yes. Some people don't know the term butter knife. On Talking Yanks, we do a sharp stats segment, and then we called them Butterknife.

for when they're like not sharp. They're kind of like just playing games. Take that start out. Kirchall, nine innings pitched 173 ERA with the start that he had after that. So Kershaw. People will continue to wait. If you ask the average baseball player,

Clay and Kershaw, good pitcher, and they used to be, that's what they'd say. Because that's just for some reason, a storyline that happened. He's still one of the best pitchers in the game for like the last five years people have been saying he's not.

It's nuts. can overshadowed by Gonsolin. They don't like each other. Yeah, you're just taking one-year deals for no reason. I take that back. I have no idea of Kershaw and Gonson like each other. And they might like each other. They're buddies.

Kershaw can't believe he shows up with that beard. Well, you know, Kershaw was. Kershaw was the one who helped Gonson this year. he, Gonson was talking about it. After the game, he was saying, like, I was erratic and I wasn't throwing enough strikes. I wasn't trusting my stuff. So he was trying to be too perfect with them. And he and he encouraged him to, you know, you're going to like this, Jake.

Fill it up. Fill that zone up, baby. And that's what he's been doing. And it's obviously worked out because Gonson saw me throw a few pitches in the bullpen, probably went, you know, and then tried to recreate them. And here we are. It's not a big deal, people. It's okay.

Not a big deal at all. Let's, uh, want to move on? Yeah, where you want to go next? Am I like super delayed right now or something? You guys tell me right now. You just got a little frozen and delayed. I'll be honest with you. Cabo.

Definitely sounds like I'm delayed. But now it looks good. I did a little shift on my screens. I think we're good now. As long as you guys can hear me. We go Cardinals, Phillies. This is a big series for the Phillies. They take two out of three.

They win the bread games. First game was really, really good for the Phillies because, you know, Aronado comes off and he hits the cycle before the sixth inning, but the Phillies come back. They take advantage of an Aronado air in that one. And then Moniac, Mickey, my guy, Moniac, RBI double to set up second and third. Then Schwabes plays the small ball, moves the runners in and over. And then Reese hits a sack fly, so they tie the game. And then Derek Hall, all he does is hit Homer.

So he's to go ahead, Homer on the sixth. Reese, insurance Homer in the seventh. So, like, great, come from behind victory right there for the Phillies. really's, Reese has been absolutely red hot. Red hot. But yeah,

Aeronauta hits for the cycle, so I guess snaps for him. My notes say that the scorekeeper gifted him the single. I don't, did you guys see it? I don't think he was a gift. I did.

I want to hear you guys opinion on it, I will say this. The broadcast when they, like I know talking baseball put it out and everything like that. Because he hits a hot shot at the third baseman and it pops straight up.

and the third baseman then catches it again and then fires it to first but throws it over the first basement. It would have been bang bang at first, but like, you know, again, baseball errors and becomes judgment a little bit, but he ripped a ball, the third baseman. If he fielded it cleanly, he probably gets him, but he did not, and he didn't. So I don't know. I think it goes either way. I think like a lot of baseball, if you're the hitter, you're saying that's a hit.

pitcher under your breath, you're saying, it could have been an error. This is, I'm actually interested to ask. I think it's a knock. It's a knock. You're a hitter. I think if you're a third

basement. And a third basement. Yeah, hit her in a third basement. But I have a theory that scorekeepers are, because with the Yankees, we've seen this a lot. So with other teams, let me know of you're running into this.

They're judging, they're looking at the exit velo now. this official hit or error scorekeeper because if a ball gets hit like over 95 miles per hour even if it's right at the guy they've been giving him singles in the Yankees games i don't know if that's league-wide but i showed you a whole montage i'm trapped remember it's bizarre yep yep oh yeah you never released that montage no one day well that's mean i don't want to do it one day i like the i like the uh game two MLB wanted more hits so there's easy way to make more hits.

Yeah. It's less air. Bang. Game two was the back to back to back to back off Ghibi, who actually settled down after that, which was nice to see. Aronado just put the team on his fucking back. It starts that off. And then in the ninth hits the go-ahead home run.

So three homers in two days for him there. And they get the victory, seven, six. And then Wheeler in game three just came seven shuddy, you know, like just. just doing what he's done all season. He has a 16, 7 over his last 12 fucking starts. He's got a better ERA than he did last year when he finished as a runner up in the NL Sight Young. Like this guy, I remember when he signed his contract,

everyone was like, you can't give that guy money. He's been worth every single freaking penny. So he provides the Phillies with a win over one of the most complete teams in the National League of Series victory. really really into what Wheeler's been doing this year. And then Hoskins during that game, he had to go ahead solo homer in the fourth in Rio Muto, two run homer himself.

Like I said, Reese, four homers in five games on Sunday nights. He's sitting 341, nine homers in a 1.1 over his last 25 games. So go, Reese, go. Phil's got the Nats coming up for three. Get hot Phillies. And then I'm excited for this one.

They're doing a, they've got four in St. Louis. So I'm excited to see if the birds bite back in a little bit. But good for the Phil's without Rice Harper, right? Yeah. It's hurt. Broke his thumb. The Phillies got to figure out because Ranger Swares went on the I.L.

They've got to figure out some of their pitching and how they're going to get through all this stuff. We'll see, man. They keep winning on their top, but 029, I think I saw. They are with him as manager. but I think that included, what, like a 12-game winning streak or something like that? Helps. That helps.

Was the last back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back the Yankees in 2006? Oh, I thought it was the Red Sox did it against the Yankees. The Red Sox did against the Yankees. The Yankees started a rookie pitcher Matt DeSantos or something like that. I was working at a pool club when I had it. It sucked. So it was the Red Sox. Did it to the Yankees.

You did your, Jimmy forgot a decade and did 2006. Oh, then that's not the one I'm talking about. It happened. You're thinking of Chase Wright. I'm thinking of Chase Wright in 2006 or 2007. It happened since then?

Chase Wright was that, wasn't it? 2006 or seven. Yeah, yeah. It happened in 16 as well, Jake. I feel like I remember one happening between now and then, but I'm trying to find it. April 22nd, 2007. I remember when that happened.

I was like, this sucks. And it was a rookie pitcher. It was like a second ever start. The White Sox might have did it in 2020. But did that ever happen? No. 2020 doesn't exist. Oh, you won the World Series, though, Dodgers fans.

Please don't get up. Oh, boy. And I just, I want to mention this quick. I know we're already past them. Machado, you know I love some third base defense. Machado made an awesome play on Trey Turner running up the line, which. if you want to see some good third section. Yeah.

I'm going to make that my award. Remind me. It has to do with TT. Okay. Teaser. Big teaser right there. Teaser. Big old teaser.

Okay. You guys want to move on? Yeah. Yeah. Braves at Reds. Braves take two of three. They wanted the sweep. That's why I said it's hard.

It's hard to sweep series. Especially when you put a micro penis on the mound. you put you can't be throwing a micro penis I wasn't going to say that in the it's hard series allegedly bro not

nine nine one braves in game one free does this thing Danesby has been absolutely doing it yeah go ahead Jim you can go keep going I love this no no it worked out too perfect

that you named the whole series the wiener series and then the one pitcher The Get Hard and the one picture who got got, was McHugh. His wife said I had. Yeah, for those who are new listeners, Colin McHugh's wife said I had a micro penis. Right. And the only way she knew that was by comparison. So me and Colin both micropinuses.

Oh, that's. We're not. Oh, my goodness. Just saying, takes one to no one. So where did you see it? Yeah. Kurtzintweet. Game one, Freed.

I mean, is Max Fried the best pitcher in baseball, too? Like, my goodness, dude, he's been lights out, sevenings pitch, one and run. And then Swanson was 0 for 16 coming into the series. He had four hits in game one. They had a three-run Homer in the seventh, two more doubles. He's hitting 341 in his last 30 games. That was going into, that was coming after the first game.

they did the damn thing. Then Strider came, did it. He touched triple digits guys on his fastball 14 times. He threw a pitch in the third inning at 102.4 miles per hours. The fastest strike not put in play by a star. I don't know what the hell that stat is. But anyway, he threw a pitch 102.4 miles an hour. After the words, he said, I did see it on the gun.

It was pretty wild. That's fast. Yes. Strider, 102 miles an hour is fast. some other notes on what he's been doing. He's got a 36.2% K rate, which currently ranks among the top 2% of pitchers across Major League Baseball, and that includes relievers, which is really good.

Austin Riley had the Homer and the RBI double. They didn't need much because the Braves pitching was nasty. And then the game three was kind of like a really fun game. That's when McHugh gave it up. Reynolds had a game tying RBI single, and then Drury had to go ahead to run. double in the eighth. So the reds are feeling good about themselves. This is after two really good pitching performances by Castillo and Morton. But then top of the nine, Ozone, it's a second

homer of the game to put him within one. And then Harris, the second, who's been freaking lights out for them in center field, he ties it in the night. So you think, oh, here come the Braves. They're going to do it. And then in the bottom of the inning, Minter just had like, you know, a rough one, four straight batters to reach. Four good at bats, I guess you'd say. I think there was a Joy Votto walk. India got hit by a pitch. I think FAM had to get a bat too to start it off. Then now more are just ground ball single.

And that was it. And they avoid the sweep. That's what I'm saying. It's hard to sweep, even against the Reds. It's hard to sweep, man. Yeah, I mean, some of that Spencer Strider stuff is nuts. Charlie Morton, the Saltman, his last four, 26.2, a 135 ERA. Ray. And that being said, those are their three, four guys right now.

Because like you said, Max Fried has been electric pretty much all year. And Kyle Wright is having a great season. So the Braves, I know when we do kind of best rotations, we kind of, we skip over them. But that's a team that has every argument, man. They can shove, and it's part of the reason they went job in June, and I think they're going to carry it out the rest of the way. Did the Braves have the most players from their city? Definitely.

Isn't it's because Michael Harris is from Georgia. Yeah. So now they have, is Darren O'Day active right now? He's from Georgia. Will Smith is from Georgia. You have Olson from Georgia, Dansby from Georgia, Michael Harris from Georgia. I mean, we're not talking about like, I don't know, L.A.

There's a lot of baseball players from L.A. So maybe the Dodgers have more people from L.A. I'm not sure. But that's pretty cool if you're a Braves fan. You just add another guy from the area. I like that. Michael Harris, the second. Thank you.

Not Jr., the second. Michael Harris is the second, yes. Deuce. How does that work? That must mean there's a third, right? No, there's rules about it. So you can be June. I read this because I named my son James.

He doesn't have the same middle name as me, so he can't be the second. But if it's, I think the rule is, I don't know if anyone follows this, but the rule is if it's the same first name, middle name, last name, like literally same name, then it's the second, the third. But if it's just the same first name, you go junior and that. I don't know if everyone follows those, but I think those are the technical rules of it. That's the guideline, theoretically. Yeah.

Y'all. I had a friend growing up named John Franklin Lawson. he was the fourth. There have been three other generations of a John Franklin Lawson. I don't know if he named, I don't know if he has a son or if he's named him John Franklin Lawson. I lost touch with this guy. Yeah.

But a lot of pressure. That's a little too much. It's a lot of pressure. Reach out. I have a friend who is the third and he knows he's going to make a the fourth. I like that. If he's in on it, I'll like it. He's in on.

I'll try. Yeah. He's trying. Yeah. You got to make sure you're potent. Not active. Anything else? What other series do we have? We got a well, we have

Brewers Pirates. We have three more to go through so we can kind of hit him quick. Brewer's Pirates, they split the series. You know, we have the two games that the Brewers won. It was you gave 19 runs to Corbyn Burns. So he did his thing and it was funny. He went six games pitch with one earned run.

And after the game, he said his stuff wasn't good. He's got a lot of work to do. So that sounds about right for him. Bullie ball. So you win that one. and then the last game, Woodruff comes back. He's been absolutely lights out. He goes six shuddy.

You know, their pitching was on display a little bit here. The Pirates did, you know, they won a couple good games. The first game was the Michael Perez three Homer game. Brian Reynolds did the night before. It's the third time they've done it this month, or in the month of June, which is kind of crazy. But they needed all of those. How was there exit of that game with an injury?

So the Pirates took advantage of that. And they won game three also more homers Chavez go ahead, two run homer in the third. And O'Neill Cruz had a homer that game. And Ashby went three and two thirds and four earned runs. So when they had good starting pitching, the Brewers won. But the Pirates, you kind of got to get him credit, you know, going toe to toe with, arguably one of the best teams in the National League. Yeah, for a lot of the young kids in Pittsburgh, that's like a series you get up for,

I guess, because what else are you getting up for? but if the number one team comes in for four games, you know, getting swept, four game sweeps, embarrassing, and then to fight back and split it, that's a win in Pittsburgh, I think. I don't know if they're celebrating it. I think they should be. Yankees coming to town, Joe's McFlore.

Well, Cruz is just nasty. He had a, there was a play in game three, which they won seven to four. It was like, I want to say it was the second inning. It was early in the game, and they had a drawn-in infield and yellich up there. Runners on second and third, I believe, which I don't know why they had the infield drawn in.

But they, Yelich, it's like a liner to Cruz's backhand side. He's just so damn tall and lanky. He just gloved it. And the runner on third base for some reason just kept going. Like it was a contact play. I don't know what was going on. But they doubled them up.

But that would have changed the game a little bit there, given the Brewers the lead or at least to share or a, to tie, depending on what the runner on second did. But he's nasty, dude. He had a freaking a ball that was a screamer into the stands, too. Like, he's just kind of, he's so toolsy. Like, everything looks like so, I don't even know the right word for it. It's majestic.

I guess that's the right word. I don't know. I like watching you play a lot. Vogelback getting revenge on the Brewers, 500 OBP. No extra base hits, though. Took it a little easy on the base paths. Anything else? Marlins, sweep the Nats? Marlins sweep, dude.

They freaking sweep the Nats. I had the note, 12 and 1 against them this year. 12 and 1, dude. That's how you get things done. I think they're really close to 500. Jimmy, what are they? They're like two games under 500 now. I mean, look out.

Trevor Rogers had it going, you know, which is nice to see because he hasn't had exactly the greatest year. Here's a note that I did not know. You know who John Birdie is? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Birdie, birdie, birdie, rocking. 20 stolen bases since June 1st, 20. What's going on there? Time to go. That's so many.

Yeah. Love that, man. Paula Lopez looked good in this one. He's been, he took a no-hitter into the seventh. Casual. Not a great start, but my notes say it's a step in the right direction. he was really good in April and May and really bad in June. So to get this one, six and a third with two earn runs, you kind of got to like that for the Marlins. But that's what we've been talking about with these guys.

Like they can pitch. And if they hit enough, like they're a scary team, especially like in a series, a playoff series where you're going, you know, you can pair your pitching snap down to three or four guys and go for it. I mean, I don't know, man. We could be looking at a scary Marlins team at the end of September. I don't know.

let's get those fish above 500 and let's start talking about the nl beast because you know i'm talking about the al beast in a little bit my goodness um good for them that nat's that nat stat is equal parts cool and damning like oh so you're just whipping on them huh what does that say about their record against everyone else no good point yeah i mean they i mean and the marlins had to work for this it wasn't just like an easy sweep for them. And in game three, down to the last strike, Sanchez has to go ahead two run Homer.

And then Robles ties it for the Nats. But then they go ahead and score three in the 10th. The Marlins did on Anderson go ahead RBI single. So they work for that one. And in game four, same thing, man. De La Cruz hits a go ahead two run homer in the 10th after Garcia for the Nats tied the game up in the eighth. So they worked for these.

It wasn't easy. And I think that's even better. When you sweep a series and, you know, you go to 10 in the last two games, but you get the job done. I think that's, I think the Marlins are looking at themselves being like, okay, we can be, we can be this team. We could be, we could be guys. That was a big boy Homer by Dela Cruz too. Go fish. Go mess shit up.

You guys will love this. Wendell came back and, you know, kind of replaced Chishol now that he's on the DL or the aisle, excuse me. so Joy Wendell getting back in the fold there but they need jazz back if they have the whole team at full strength I mean I'm kind of the only Marlins truther in the baseball world but no whatever

whatever whatever all right and then last series D-Backs Rockies do you want to go into that what do you got? Quickly yeah I'm going to set timers and all right Rocky

they take to it I'm breaking up on you guys. I love you so much. The Rockies, they take two out of three. They won the last two games this year. I told you guys, it was the Kapowski Fest in game one. Merrill Kelly does it. I mean, Carson Kelly had a home where I just had to add that in because it's funny,

and I like Kelly Kapowski. David Peralta's daughter painted his nails, which is an interesting thing because he started to go off after that. So that's nice to see a little bit of nail polish, went a long way. but the Rockies took the last two games Brennan Rogers three run homer in the first Connor Joe three run triple in the fourth

that's nice they went out of three run inning and then two four run endings so you're going to win a lot of games when you put up 11 runs like that and then the last game debacks had it man up five nothing Peralta hits the Grand Slam in the fifth put him up five but then TJ Cron said fuck that three run homer in the eighth

and then he hits, or 300 of the 6th and another one in the 8th to put him up and they win the series. Nice job. A couple three runners from C.J. Cron to win the game, not bad. He's a beast, man. Yeah, Goldie's kind of ruining his, any recognition he would get.

Damn it, Paul. Come on. All right, let's move on to the AL. Jake's going to do the AL recap. Brought to you by C.keek, did we do this? Seat geek. Seat geek. We're going to a game this week.

Sure. We're sitting in seats. Big time. We're a bunch of geeks. Seat geek. Use code talking. And you get $20 off your first purchase. Code talking.

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As You Tell Us What Happened in the American League. Hope you boys don't mind if we head to Space City, H-Town, City where the top drop, City where the drink stuff, Kelsey Winger. The Astros sweep the Angels, and that's obvious at this point. And it was just a total butt-wipping until the final day. We got a tight game.

Jeremy Payne, you might hear more about him later, a little too home or day, including the walk-off. By the way, the Angels got to. embarrassed at the party if you haven't seen the play with Altuve, throwing to Maldonado, tripping up Taylor Ward at first base, kind of an all-timer. The Angels didn't hit at all. Only four players had hits for the Angels. Meanwhile, the Astros did their thing. They slashed 314 with a 657 slug. The Astros are one of the best teams in baseball. Pena. Oh, you'll hear about him.

The Yankees, they took two out of three from your Believeland Guardians. The Yankees, a little double-header day after the rain out on Friday. They blow them out, game one on cold day, 13 to 4. Matt Carpenter. We might have to talk about this guy more, Trev. He has a two-home-a-day. One's off a position player. Get over it.

Second game of the double-header. Yankees win 6-1 as well. Are you the one they call Cortez Nesson? gets his season back in line after a couple mid-starts, for lack of a better term. And then our guy sticks. He helps salvage the series. Two-nothing Guardians. They shut out the Yankees before the 4th of July.

They had an off day. Neither team really cares that much. Cleveland's happy to get the win. Yankees, they just win series. That's it. That's all they do. Blue Jays in the race. Speaking of the A.L. East, the race take three out of five, your classic five

game weekend or set. The Blue Jays took the first two. Jimmy, your boy, Yusay Kukuchi, his third quality start of the year. You like that? Wow. Not really. He doesn't. Nine to two. Blue Jays in the second game, but then the Rays turn it on. We got to start talking about Harold Ramirez. He's starting to hit for them. Isok Parades, everyone's favorite first name. And then the Wizard of Baz, maybe circle that one. He has a six innings pitch, one earn, run start. Thomas Hatch, great early settler name. He got rocked. Ten Ernie's in 4.2. Sorry you had to bite the bullet kid. McClanahan drops dick. Gousman has to come out of the game with some ankle stuff. So that's something to watch him. Blue Jays land. Rays take the final three and take

three out of five in the series. Twins take two out of three from the Orioles and hey, Orioles are playing a good brand of baseball. So shout out to the Twinkies. Three, two, four, three. Joe Ryan Trev thinks he's hot. He has a good start for them. Buck Daddy with the walkoff in that game. The twins's been walking off everything. They walk off the next game. Miranda with the walkoff single.

Orioles, they take the final game. Well, six-inning one-runeruner, Ruegnaudor his teammate. He hits a big homer in that one before Mancini and Mountcastle. Oh, belly to belly. Twins take two out of three. And then your Seattle Mariners,

they take three out of four. Have they been playing good since the brawl? Did they spark it? Maybe. I don't know. You're playing the athletics, so you better take three out of four. The game, the athletics won. Our guy, Caprily, and he gets his first win of the year.

We like that. Robbie Ray drops some dick. Blackburn and Kirby had a pitching duel in the third game. A little walk-off. Toro! Where's Toro? Shut up, Verlander. Tigers Royals is your last series.

Royals take two out of three. Again, this series doesn't have much for us in the standings. But some guys with good performances, our guy Keller with six shuddy, Vinny Pasquintino, huh? He got called up. He hits his first career Homer in his third game for Vinnie P. And then Riley Green, another super prospect. He hits the back-to-back walk-off Homer in the game the Tigers win.

Royals take two out of three, and that's what happened in the American lane. Good stuff. Good stuff. Good stuff. I'm going to put three minutes and 30 seconds on the clock for each team if we're going to talk about every series because we've got to tighten this show up. So you can guide us, Jake, where you want to go first. For each team or series or give me the rules again?

Sir, I don't know. We can't do 40 minutes on a league. Okay. Well, Kron guys. We'll do the Astros because I think there's two things that need to be highlighted. the Houston Astros, as we've tried to tell you for the last few weeks, are one of the best teams in baseball, non-negotiable. Their bullpen that I think is currently their team weakness,

just because they're starting pitching and their lineup is so good. They go eight shutout innings in this series, and they are one of the best in baseball. So it's more complimentary to the rest of their team. What Javier is on right now, talk about the pitching version of a heater. Another 14Ks for you, kid, in seven innings pitch. And yeah, man, on the other side of the coin, the angels are in their final death spin.

I told you guys I want some like Otani. I want Otani trade rumors. Like, let's get there. Oh. Let's get there. Because I think I told you guys from the fight, the Mariners Angels brawl, both team were looking for a little bit of a spark.

I think the Mariners caught a little bit of the juice. and have a better roster right now, while the Angels were kind of starting a death spin, and now I think they're in the end game. Shoutout Avengers right now. But yeah. Angels only had eight hits in the three games or four games. Three games.

Oh, God. Traffic gets worse. Only four players had a hit, and they had a 49.5% K strikeout percentage, 49.5 strikeout percent. That's what I was just looking at. Yeah, as a team. That's insane.

Javier gets 14. And then Valdez gets 13 in six innings pitch. And I was like, okay, what did Erkiti do? Because it's not on our notes. 16th's pitch, eight kids. I mean, that is. And then you add the relievers in. My goodness, dude.

That's how you get swept right there. Astros are 9 and 1 in their last 10. They're good. They have the easiest strength of schedule of all, like, the playoff teams. I think they're going to have a lot of, of fun in the second half of this season. They could. Not that we're talking about this, but Yordon walked him off yesterday, too.

Not talking about it. That did happen. Yeah, and if you haven't seen it, the Altuve throwing to Maldenado to get Ward at first base. In all-time baseball, weird one, I can try to describe it with words. Al-Tuve looks at first to Ward, who Gueriel is in front of him, the first baseman, and Al Tuvae is looking at him like I'm going to throw and Ward thinks he's kind of goofing around so he puts his hands up all excited

Maldenado had snuck behind him and is on the bag Altuve throws over Ward kind of alarmed by the whole process ball gets caught he gets tagged and the first base coach an all-time first base coach blunder awful I mean he gets is he fired on the spot I think

I don't I don't I mean is he even the first base coach his first base coach suspended that's the only like rationale I can have but if you're the first base coach there uh the pitching coach didn't didn't catch the pitcher tipping the pitches trout had to do it first base coach doesn't catch this I know I've been looking at the angels like you know Twitter responses and their Reddit pages and it's kind of like what is our coaching staff do is a sentiment I've seen amongst some of them so it's uh I mean that is It's so... Oh, hello. I didn't realize. I didn't realize. I didn't realize. I didn't realize I was going to get... I didn't realize I didn't.

You're an alarm like for real? I'm at stopwatch.com. I didn't... First time I did the countdown at the count-up. That was awful. Stopwatch.com. Well, Google took away their stopwatch. Come on.

Google. Anyway, Astro's good. Angels bad. Our Yankees, speaking of best teams in baseball. They go to Cleveland. We're rained out, Friday. We play a doubleheader. And, yeah, the Yankees let it eat.

Carpenter, Trev. I don't know if you've looked at his stat page recently, but it looks like something not even out of a video game. It looks like Blitzball stats. Rizzo Stanton. Stanton goes over the 20 homer mark. The Yankees first team with three guys with 20 plus homers. No other team has two. The entire A.L. only has three other.

There are only six guys with, 20 plus homers and the Yankees of 3. Oh. So, yeah, I mean, the Yankees opened it up when they needed the insurance runs and the final game they got them. Cole was good. Nestor was good. And then on the Sunday day game,

they sat judge. They kind of, they sat LaMayhew too. They didn't play their A lineup. They had the off day on July 4th. I'm a huge double rest get rest day guy now, Trev. If you can sneak some double rest, I'm here for it.

My life is double rest days. And, yeah, I mean, I hate to be rude to the baby Guardians because I, you know, I do like them. And shout out to our guy Sticks for dropping it. But this was like a very clear example of like, oh, the Guardians, they're a good team. But just completely outgunned. The Yankees are five and one against them this season. And I think they would have been six to know if they had played their A lineup the final day.

Sticks is cool. was a battle of curveballs. Monty and sticks both have, they're in top five for a curveball, like with percentage and strike rate and all that. So it was a fun game to watch. Yeah, and good start for McKenzie after two bad starts against Minnesota in a row. You know, he had his ERA down to what, 296.

Then he ran into Minnesota twice. He got six run runs and seven runs this time, getting back on track. So he loved Tristan. I'm happy they set all those guys. That's nice for him. He probably would have carved him up anyway. No, he looked good.

The Yankees only had one hit. They stood a better chance with Judge and DJ in there. But the little Yankees fun stuff, doubleheaders. So you get the 27th man. They call up Anduhar. He starts both games. And with every trade line, he becomes a good piece of fodder. So we'll see if anything happens there.

Brewers. Blue Jays and race. we'll keep it in the air least. One of our classic 2022 five game sets. We love that. Blue Jays, man, you boys know I called them out a couple episodes ago. And that's kind of what I'm seeing here is that the Blue Jays come in. They win the first two games.

Let's go. Blue Jays in Toronto. Double Vladdy Bumblehead. And then they lose the final three to the race. I mean, you essentially get swept. Yeah, I mean, like mentally you get sweat. Let's, I mean, they had a tragedy happen and I think pretty tough times. So I don't know.

Thoughts, prayers, I don't really pray, but thoughts out to them. Like, they, coaches had to leave in the middle of the game because first base coach, teenage daughter tragically died. And I think, I think people could sense it. And they didn't do a post game. They left. They were like disinterested. So that's horrific and terrible.

and I think it might have sank into some of the clubhouse vibe. I don't know if you didn't hear about that, it's awful. But they like left the game halfway through that third game or second game and didn't do a post game. I think it was overcame the series more than like the baseball in a way. Cacucci, quality start. Don't like that because he only has three on the season. His game log is awful.

Yeah. Like his best start is six innings, pitch, zero and runs. He's got two of four. of them. I just don't want to go hard on the Blue Jays. It's like a pretty tough time for them. Yeah. No, I mean, we can talk about the baseball. It's good you mentioned that, but I was more so spinning it to the raise, and the thing that I've been tough on the raise is they're hitting, and they've got a couple guys now that are starting to click, and it actually changes their outlook. What ESOC Paredes has been doing, what Harold Ramirez has been doing is significant

with our guy Wander Franco coming back. It changes the way I look at the raise, which you know I've been tough on them. But they sprinkled a little bit of their raise magic and were good organizations, bad organizations. They've now tapped into a couple guys that two lineup spots and a lineup that had been pretty empty plus Wanderback. I'm circling that for Tampa as like significant,

significant for their season. season. Yeah, we still got a lot of baseball left to play, man. So I got a lot of baseball left to play at the Tampa Bay raised. Like you're saying, can fill those lineup spots and kind of get it hot offensively. Like, they'll find their stride on the pitching side of things. They're still scary, dude. Like you said, this is going to be the year that everything catches up to them.

I'm not buying that shit. It's not. Just Wander being Switch helps them so much, too. Just getting to put a switch hitter at the top of the lineup again. And then they're pitching. Who's still got to come back? Is it like his glass now? What's his update?

Is he throwing? He was throwing. He was a big update, right? He was thrown off, off the mound in Tampa. I don't think they have a timeline for him yet. Don't know. Okay. All right.

Oh, no. Good job by the raise. Quieter that time. Volume control. Okay. Trevor Plouf. your Minnesota twins. They went two out of three.

The walk off twins? Is that what we're calling them? Needed it, needed it, big time. And again, the Orioles, no slouch. You might hear a little bit about them in a little bit. Orioles are playing a good brand of baseball. Twinkies, Buxton, walks it off. Love me some Buck Daddy.

You know that. And then, yeah, I mean, they walk off the first two games in the series, I think the bigger story in Twinsland is they're starting, I think Winder at a rehab assignment, they're trying to get some more reinforcements to try to keep their season going. Our guy Miguel Sino on the rehab wagon, so they win a series at home against the birds,

which don't get me wrong, the Orioles are better, but if you're trying to be a first place Minnesota Twins team, you've got to do that. They're just feisty. They're not a walkover Orioles team. And they've been playing. playing well recently.

Well, I think now they're starting to not because they just lost two or three series in a row. Let's see. But I think they're going to give you a game. Since June 11th, this comes from a noted baseball reporter, Jared Karabas. Baltimore Eagles have won 13 of 22. Only the Astros, Yankees, and Red So, have better records in the AL over that span. So you got to respect what the birds are doing. They were playing 500 ball last two the next two months.

but they just lost two series, right? Well, they beat the Rangers. We can't talk about that yet. Can't talk about that, yeah. Can't talk about that yet. Twins, Trevor, are they, like, what's to do? And what's the deadline? What's the, like, what's the pain areas that, like, they're like, we need this and this and this.

Like, what's, is there like, is it simple? I don't, I don't really know because when I think about their starting pitching, I think they need help. But if you go look at like the statistics of their starters, they've actually been pretty good. I mentioned this this morning with C. Rose. I mean, look at what Archer's done through 15 starts. He's at a 308. I mean, Joe Ryan's back doing his thing.

Smelzer's actually been really good. And Sonny Gray, who's always kind of an enigma for me, he's been excellent too. So like, you know, I could see them adding another starter. I think the main thing if you look around Twitter's fear with the twins is, you know, bullpen help, which a lot of teams need bullpen help. I think that's the area they'll go after. First is in the bullpen. And if they can get one of those starters, we'll see.

I just, I don't know how to feel against or about the twins. You know, you guys have your team. You know they're one of the best teams of baseball. The twins have been playing really good, like offensively. Like if you look at their OPS Plus, I think they're like fourth in the league in that, which is also kind of shocking to me. So like on paper, I look at them and I'm like, I'm not sure if this can hold up. but it has.

I mean, halfway through the year and they're, they're pitching deeply and they're hitting the ball. And, I mean, they're in, they're in first place. So talk kind of badly about them.

I don't know. I guess soft division, you could say, but if I was to guess, the first move they make is a bullpen piece. And if they can get a starter, then they'll try to do that as well. But they're doing everything they can to see if they can get Carlos

Corre to stay, I guess. I don't know, man. They're doing it. Like, they're in a really good position. to win the Ale Central.

You know, it's a little weak. We know that. But every time I think, like, they're about to, like, go on, like, a massive, like, downward, downward spiral, they just don't. So when you got Byron Buxton kind of doing his thing, you know, walking that pitch off, like, down and away, just kind of going down and getting it, he's, you know, obviously he's one of the best players of baseball. But I would say, yeah, I mean, it's pitching for them.

I reserve the right to change my mind. But I believe the twins will win that division. sure seems like it right now. Could change tomorrow. Yeah, get splashy at the deadline, twins. You're playing with house money, right? Think about last year we're talking about is Buxton leaving?

Did they miss their window? And now you're back atop the Central? Like, go get some pieces. Come on, Minnesota. And I remember us looking up their GM's contract. That was fun. Mariners, Athletics, Athletics are not really

a story except the one guy that will be a story in the coming weeks. Montas gets pulled with an injury. They checked in on him. He's supposedly all right. If you're the A's a little scary because he's supposed to be your trade asset. And scary for any player getting hurt, but supposedly they've gotten good news. Outside of that, Mariners, three out of four.

I think they are five and two since the brawl, something like that. it's something. It's better than what they were doing again when we get to this first half point of baseball. It's exciting. And then you're like, oh, shoot, there's still a second half. Mariners, I think, are the only hope in the AL West to kick into gear. There's only so many teams you can really circle in the American League that you're like, they've got a chance to go. I mean, it's them or the White So Mariners, I think as a baseball fan, even Houston fans I think should be rooting for the Mariners

to kick into gear a little bit so Houston can kind of feel something along the way but they take three out of four get a couple Kirby Ray with some kind of special starting pitching performances do you the Mariners are now

go ahead Jeff I had somebody tweet at me you know they're 11 and 3 since I pronounced them dead. The Mariners are. And I was like, I know they've been playing well. Let me go see. I mean, most of the wins have come against Oakland and then the Angels and also Baltimore.

So really soft spot on the schedule. I still believe they're dead. Would love nothing more for them to prove me wrong. Do like the undertaker thing. Like come back from the dead. And maybe the brawl was what they needed. But I think it's more. And I'm sorry, Mariners fans.

I think it's more of like just a soft spot in the schedule. I want them to be good. We all do. We've been talking about it for two years now. Happy they're winning now, but I think more, like, again, more it's just kind of the part of the schedule they're in. Maybe I should have waited until after this to say that. Leo Rodriguez. Two more homers, right? 15.

Remember when we were like, you know, it's a solid stat line. He's swiping bags. He's got a league average OPS. 15 homers and 20 stolen bases at the 81 game mark. you know, on pace for a 30-40 rookie season. And that OPS is up to 824, a 139 OPS plus. He's entering that kind of rare air territory for young baseball players. I remember Mariners fans tweeting at us early when his numbers didn't look so good

saying he had some, he had like an extended run of some tough calls and bad luck. The card contact outs, and the numbers are starting to match the, the stat cast a little better. It's gross. Treve, I'm looking at their schedule, the Mariners, and like the good news is, there's a lot of soft left

because their division stinks. You know, they got four against Toronto coming up. They beat the Padres yesterday. You got four against Toronto. They do have Houston and the Yankees coming up through July. But after that, I mean, it's a lot of angels.

It's a lot of Texas. A lot of Oakland. They got the nationals. Then it gets tough again. the end, but I don't know. I think that they are similar to where they were last year in that I won't pronounce them dead. I don't have them getting a wild card spot, but I have them not being mathematically eliminated

until like the final two weeks or like you keep rubbing your hands. Like, well, if they keep, if they get in like a fun September, because they just have a lot of teams that they're better than left on the schedule. So they're essentially the walking dead. They're a zombie, I guess. You could say. I like that. I like that for them.

Julio Rodriguez is an absolute fucking stud. And C. Rose proposed this hypothetical to me this morning. I'm going to push it back to you guys. Quick on this, because I know we're running out of time. A Cooney deal gets offered to Julio Rodriguez right now. Does he take it? Probably not. 21 years old.

80 games under his belt. $100 million in your face, that's going to be really hard to turn down, right? Wasn't for me. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I would take it. If it's just no extended years, but if it's just to buy out the arbitration,

I would take it. The thing is, they're going to want a year. Yeah, doesn't Ronnie's go like through age 30? That's the thing that's holding me up. He's got a bunch of optioneers on it. Yeah, I mean, he wouldn't want to do that. But again, you put 100 guarantees. in front of someone, some 21-year-old kid's face?

If you could get it. I'm doing that right now. Trev, you know what he wants? Trying to. Go look at that Tatis contract. That's what Julio wants, bro. Yeah. But they don't have to offer him that.

The Padres didn't have to offer him that. Yeah, that's a weird move. By the way. Like, so. If they buy out his arbitration, guarantee 100 mil, I'd do that. And then make your money in free agency when you get there. But that's, that's a,

pretty good safety net. And the Mariners would get a hell of a deal on it if he plays like a stud. Because instead of earning 15, 16 in his last couple years, he's probably going to earn 10, 11, whatever it is. But it's spread out. You start making bigger money earlier on instead of making the league minimum for the next three years. So I know we shit on players are taking those deals, but I still think, like you're saying,

if you're 21, you get offered that, I just wouldn't add on past arbitration. But if they can buy out the next five seasons, it can be a good deal for them. But I understand that thought presses both ways. Or at least make sure you get a real shot at free agency before 30. Yeah, that's all. Just keep that free agency.

Give him one more year or something. His eyes and smile in pinstripes. Tigers Royals, again, for the baseball part of it, these two teams have kind of sunk their battleship. But Vinny Bascotino, Piscuitano. I don't know, but my Paison hit his first career home run. That's exciting. Riley Green, also with the walkoff homer.

So some young guys doing their thing. Our guy, Scoobel has slowed down a lot lately. Hate that for him. And then, yeah, I mean, something, again, as the trade deadline approach is, Big Mike Paneda, five innings pitch, three runs, returns from the aisle. So I think those are the notes, but. Big Mike Pinata. I got a Scott Barlow note.

What is it? What? Do you hear it? Yeah. Yeah. You know how me and Tony Gonson, he worked in the off season. He's become an elite pitcher in the NL. Turns out Scott Barlow out of Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita,

I did not know that my brother was his pitching coach in high school. Wow. And he's been kind of nasty. I did not put two and two together. I remember going and seeing this kid in high school. I'm brother. I was like, yeah, he's pretty raw, but like he's, He's kind of got some stuff, like come check him out.

And I did. And he didn't have long hair back then. Now he's got the flowing locks. And shout out Scott Barlow, you know. We're just putting our, putting our fingers all over the majorly baseball pitchers. Do your brother still coach? A big deal. No, he's not.

He sells insurance. Same thing. Those days are behind him. Life coach. Yeah. All right. Scotty B. My guy.

You want to go to the Inter League? The Interleague had some contenders play. It really did. White Sox swept the Giants. The San Francisco Giants defense did them in. Not good defense by the Giants. White Sox take advantage of it in games one and two. Lance Lynn has his first good start.

Worked out of a jam and then settled down. Cease worked out of a jam. basically every inning and pitched well enough to get the win in game two. Wow, look at this. The Giants went Cobb, then Webb in an attempt to shake off the Cobbbs. Didn't work.

They continued to lose. I don't know about these Giants. White Sox trying their best to climb back into the race. The Rangers went to New York to play the Mets. They lost the bread games, won the meat. Perez, 6.2. pitch their runs in the win.

The Mets. Cookie Carrasco had a nice start, nice bounce back start for him. Peterson had 10 K's. They faced our guy, Glenn Otto. Rangers. He allowed four earned runs. Scherzer's returning.

Bassett's still in the COVID aisle. De Grom faced six batters in Singaleigh. The Mets pitching staff is getting whole. And they've basically survived this stretch while the Braves thrive. So I think they're ready to get back to thriving. The Red Sox. and the Cubs played three games.

The Cubs won game one, the Cubs one game two. Bad defense loom large in this series as well. Basically, every error or misplay led to a run. The Red Sox are kind of beat up right now. I think they're going to lose Bogarts for a little bit. The bullpen, I think every game had a reliever give up some runs or something like that. I'm not positive on that, but it was a lot. Alec Mills exited the first inning.

After seven pitches for the Cubbies, the bullpen found the rest of the way to get the win. And Red Sox, they went to extras to win it, to salvage it and not get swept. Same thing they did in Toronto, lose game one, lose game two, win game three and extras. They had a tough stretch coming up. So I think they got to figure something out and get going again. That's three series in the eye. Great job, James.

Yeah, I've been saying this like every series, but bad infield defense just is looming large. every time I watch a intense game highlight. It's like, oh, an error to let a guy on? He scores. Like, you loaded the bases here? Oh, okay, pass ball. He scores. So in this game, we had,

Boston, they walked in a run to make it a one-run game. They, in one of the games, there was a misplay. And then, no, that's the Giants game. Oh, man, I'm blanking on my notes right now. There's a wild pitch to give the Cubs the lead. Devers threw a ball away. The pitcher threw a ball away. It was nonstop.

It's like the Giants, White Sox was worse. The Giants were really bad. So I mean, sorry, Boston and Chicago. The Cubby's playing for fun right now. They win two. Their bullpen does really well. And I, you know, maybe the Red Sox should have just like snagg somebody's to come on the bus because they could use a little relief help as everyone can.

I'm interested to see when the first Cubs trade piece falls because they got some guys that people want. Happer at three hits in the game and Jackie Bradley Jr. broke his 0 for 26th streak with a double. Cubbies take two out of three. You worried for the Red Sox, Jay? Because they go into a, like, I think their next 14 games are against the Yankees in the race.

I wouldn't say worried. I do wonder. if, you know, like you said, a little slop, a little sloppy. I wonder if they, you know, you're playing the Cubs. You've got a big stretch coming up against Tampa and the Yankees. I think maybe you're pretty easy for your head to wander, wander into other places. I'm interested to see, man, you know, as the Yankees and Red Sox, we haven't seen them since the opening series, right?

They came back to New York once, but this weekend four games starts the first time to Fenway. You know, the last time the, you know, the last time the, Yankees saw the Boston Red Sox, they were one of the worst teams in baseball. They are currently the third best team in the AL right now. So I can't truly feel the vibe. I'm interested to see what goes on in Fenway. And yeah, like he said, the Rays, I told you, I think it's significant that their hitting has picked up.

And hey, Boston's supposed to get that Chris Sale guy back pretty soon. So what does that mean? So again, it's kind of, I guess one of the themes of this episode. but what is another half of baseball going to show us about some of these teams in Boston? I mean, talk about a wild card. Like, I couldn't tell you, are they going to make a big move at the deadline? Do they like what they got? What Chris Sale are they going to get?

You know, did they just put all that first month of baseball in their rear view and they're a fully different team? I don't know. I don't know. But, yeah, tough not how Sox fans thought their weekend in Wrigleyville was going to go. they got like all their starters on the iL and i believe i read that waka is going to go on the iL and not pitch yes with dead arm with dead arm which means that piveta is the only starter left for them so that's a tough tough and i can i do the name game with you guys real quick yeah nick paveta we know that

name Josh Winkowski, Connor Seabold, Cutter Crawford. These are all guys who are starting, like, lined up for starts. You know, like, and we should have Evaldi. I mean, Rich Hill's on the aisle now. Evaldi's on the aisle. Chris Sale is coming back a week from today, I think. And they said Whitlock when he comes back, he's going to pitch out of the bullpen. So it's, they got a piece together this. And I read a stat. I don't know where you guys find these like strength of schedule stats, but I heard the Red Sox have by far the hardest. I think somebody tweeted that. out. By far, the hardest remaining schedule of any team in the big league. So, yeah, what's another half going to do for all these teams?

We're going to find out from the Red Sox. I mean, we said the start, they'd go as the starting went. The starters actually were surprisingly good. And they kind of came back after that first month. But now we're going to have to fight through some more things. This is going to be a tough stretch for the Red Sox, I think. Yeah. We're also to the point, baseball reference has the strength of schedule stuff like up to this

point. And where teams have played enough around the league, because earlier on you don't play everyone. Now it's like teams have kind of played everyone once or twice or similar. Now like the hardest strength of schedule is the Blue Jays, but they're at 0.4. And the easiest strength of schedule is the Dodgers. It's negative 0.4.

So like it's the gap is like coming together where it doesn't matter that much. So now I just avert my eyes to how do they perform against the good and bad teams. And the Red Sox are... Red Sox are a 500 team against teams over 500. So I'm interested to see how they do in this stretch. Especially, like Jake noted, the rays are more whole. Their offense should be coming around. Wilson Contreras's numbers are entering kind of Looney Tune land.

He's a good game away from an OPS in the nines. All the Cubs trade pieces are like... In Hap's numbers are... electric on the year, 283, 381, 841. And these Cubbies deserve a little bit of love. They were on one of the worst stretches of baseball. And I think they've won their last three series, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and then the Red So, like, hey, kind of good for you, Cubs.

Yeah. And they're going to trade everyone and see what's going on, but that'll be fun for the rest of the league. Like Robertson, I think, is still He needs to be traded. A lot of their relief. Rowan Wick threw a ball away. Yeah. Like that's how the Red Sox won.

It was like a fly ball that dropped just like in this. I don't know if it was a sunball or what, but dropped and then a hit and then a swinging bunt by story, I believe. That's how Rowanwick threw away and two runs scored. That's how they salvaged the series. Make your throws, players. go to the Giants because I got to ask you guys about the San Francisco Giants.

They get swept by the White Sox. Good stuff for the white. And the White Sox side of the ball. They have three good starts. The offense slowly came alive. They took advantage of bad plays. Like there were misplays in this. In game one, the run came from an error.

They won one, nothing. The run came from an error. And then a ball hitting third base, like a nice break. And then a hit. And then in game two, a ball to belt's right. He just like whiffs on it And that leads to bases loaded

And then Jock ran in on a liner I just saw that went over his head And that led to the socks taking the lead So the Giants look pretty brutal They've made other mistakes as well But the Giants also just aren't good right now I've been like tiptoeing around this They fall further

behind and I believe in their last 10 games, they, where are they? They don't have a winning record like anywhere. They're 2 and 8 in their last 10, 8 and 12 in their last 20, 13 and 17 and last 30. They've just been playing losing baseball for a while, consistently playing losing baseball for 30 days. Yeah, the two top starters, you know, you have Webb and Rodon and those guys have had good years. But then beyond that, I think that's kind of where I see a problem.

I think I always go to starting pitching first when I'm looking at teams. And I mean, nothing really stands out here or impresses you or scares you, I guess you could say, if you're facing the Giants. I don't know what they're going to do, man. You look at the team and you wondered how they won 107 games last year. And we said, okay, we can assume that they're going to kind of do the same thing. They figured something out with these older guys. We talked about the player development and all this stuff. but they've been kind of reeling here.

And I don't know if it's the age is caught up with them or what it is. But I actually had them missing the playoffs. I'm going to pat myself in the back for that one preseason. I don't think they get there this year. I think, you know, we try to measure guys with war and different stats and everything. Within this slide, Brandon Crawford has been out. and I think when we talked about the Giants last year, two guys we talked about a lot were Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey.

And, you know, they were kind of being solid up until they lost Crawdady, and now, I don't know, you're two games above 500. You're equidistant from the snakes as you are the Padres. So, yeah, it's kind of fight or flight time in San Francisco. So for me, that means schedule-wise. watching snakes, Padre, snakes. So, all right, get back in it.

Turn it around. They're three and 11 in the last 14 games. That's not good. It's tough. White Sox win. That's good news for them. I don't think it did much for them in the standings, which is interesting. Did it?

Well, this is one of those things where it's kind of lucky we're recording the day after, because I believe they ended up losing yesterday. Okay. Otherwise, probably be peacocking a little... Yeah, they lost to Trev's twins yesterday. So otherwise would be peacocking a little harder for the White Sox. A nice sweep. That's kind of...

Like you said, it's their formula. Really good starting pitching. You know, on the road in San Fran, I know they're struggling, but still, that's not a series you mark down with the broomstick. But, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Tony is old. Well, the Mets and the Rangers play three,

and the Mets win two out of three. I got to say the Mets, I know the Braves I've been sneaking up on them and the Braves have been sneaking up on them, but the Mets went through a pretty, the Rangers aren't part of this, but a pretty tough schedule with a really banged up staff.

I mean, this is the Mets IL pitchers. Chris Bassett, Jacob de Grom, Tyler McGill, Max Scherzer, and, you know, Joey Likese. So they're getting some,

some of them are coming back and that'll be big. They win the series against the Rangers. They're getting it done. Eddie Escobar changed belts. He's a home run in every game. He's got a new belt on. Yes, he did. He's a superstitious guy.

So I know I think the Braves will catch him. I think it's going to be a close race. I don't think at some point I think the Braves catch them and then the Mets catch them. And I think it's going to go back and forth. It's going to be really fun. But I'm not really shitting on the Mets. Like they've been so bang.

up and they're still surviving and winning. Can be fun to see if Scherzer and DeGrom come back. Love the Mets. We need to see DeGrom. Remember what he was doing last year before he went down was like all time stuff. Need to see that guy back and the rehab start you guys mentioned. Struck out five. He hit the other guy with like a slider on the foot.

Probably what I struck him out too. I mean, he's a single-gillet batters against Jacob de Grom so you can expect that. But, you know, getting Scherzer back and DeGrom, still being in first place. Ceros asked me today, like, if I think the Braves still have what it takes to catch them? I don't know. It's a very, you can't really answer that because the Braves are playing so well, and the Mets have just done it so long without these guys, and you're getting two of the top starters in baseball back.

Like, that's just kind of crazy. So you have to say the Mets are going to, to me, in my mind, you have to say the Mets are going to be there at the end, because if they continue to play, they were playing, and then you add these two guys. I mean, there's not anybody else in baseball that you can add that brings what Jacob de Grom can bring. And then you add in Max Scher's or two. I mean, this is, if you're Mets fans, you've got to be very, very

happy that you are where you're at without these two guys. And now you can get them back. So it's party time. It's party time for the Mets fans. A good late night combo with the Rugi and the Lugie, Peter Moyland and Jerry Blevins, who they both like their team. And that's kind of the beauty of baseball. Yeah, Mets Braves is going to be. They have a series at the end where it could, you know, like determine it? Final series of the year check. Now we're talking.

Okay, we got three. It's not. There's Miami. The ends at Miami, but right before that they do play each other, for the Braves at least. Yeah. Yeah, they got, they've got three games, the 30th, the first and the second. The second to last series. That counts.

Well, they got a lot of games in August. A lot of games in August, yeah. I mean, I woke up to the Rugi and the Lugie chat. There's a nice thing to wake up to. Gentle. Yeah. They like their teams. The Mets bullpens are two specialists.

That was my only ad. They need a guy that can get both arms out. I know they got Diaz at the end, but they got two lefties they like using that can get lefties out. And they got two righties they like using that can get righties out. And they all have like, Atovino and Drew have bad splits against lefty hitters. And then Chasing Shreve and Juelly have bad splits against righty-hitters. And it's like, this kind of going to suck in the playoffs when a team can use their pinch hitters and lefty-righty, right-y-right-e-ie. Can't really hide.

But they can just trade for someone, so it's not really that damning. All right. Let's get to the second half of the show. Give out some awards, some standouts. You guys ready for that? I think so. Do you want to bet on it? I will bet on some of it, not all of it.

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Serious stuff, serious stuff. Jake, Trevor goes first. Yep. Trev? I have my guy. I want to make sure, I did this two nights ago. Oh, no. Okay, yeah.

I got to update my stats on this guy. My standout performance is going to create. Christian Walker of Jake's snakes. And let me tell you why people. He had a game, went two for two with two homers and a walk. I like highlighting him a little bit because he's one of those guys. 207 batting average, but his OPS, at the time I wrote it was 797, went down to 791. He's been worth 2.8B war.

He's playing a stellar first base. So some of that is defense there. He's got 21 homers on the year. He's got a pretty swing. We don't talk about him a lot. I just think that, you know, 21 homers, 42 RBIs at the halfway point. It's a pretty good season for this guy. He's Arb eligible again next year.

She's going to get a nice little chunk of change. She's making 2.6 this year, so that'll at least double going into next year. I don't know. I like highlighting guys that don't get highlighted all the time. And the numbers getting past the batting average, you're pretty dang good. So shout out Christian Walker on. Jake Snakes, 31 years old. You know, old for the game.

Stud. Shout out. Nice swing, too. It's the shit out of the ball when he hits it. Pop. Not that ploof. Not that ploof juice. Trev, I'm going in a slightly different way.

My standout performer is Jeremy Pena of your Houston Astros, the young shortstop. He put up a four-four-former. 5 with two homers and three RBI. The second homer was a walkoff. They won 4 to 2, so he scored approximately responsible for 75% of the runs. Math Pod. I mentioned you guys, Julio Rodriguez before.

You know, 15 homers, 20 stolen bases, the OPS is coming up. He's at a 3.5 war this year. Jeremy Pena is also at a 3.5 war this year with about 80, less at bats. Nice. So I also talk about the Houston Astros lineup and, you know, that top six or seven that makes them so diffy. I haven't even gotten a full dose of Jeremy Payne yet.

When the Yankees played, he was hitting six, and he had just gotten banged up. He was hitting two-hole throughout the whole Angel series. so that four for five and walk-off game winner, you know, to hit two holes a big deal. The Yankees, you know, they had judge there for so long. They prized that as the place you should have your best hitter. He's squeezing in between Altuvae and Alvarez. So pretty nuts what this kid's doing, Trev. I know you got the juice early on when you heard the term superstar.

and the way the kid moves defensively is why he got that as well. So not a bad day at the office for Jeremy Pena. Good job. Jeremy Pena. Yeah. Boramy. I said that name when I was a little kidden before they sent me to the trailer. Okay.

My standout performer? Yes. Not on the list curated for us because not a traditional standout performer. I'm going a little roundabout here. I'm going Mark Lider, Jr. I don't know why? Oh, yeah. Because Alec Mills got hurt after seven pitches,

and he got the call, like, hey, dude, we need you. Game time. We need the next 60 pitches. That's kind of his limit where he was at because he's been in the bullpen. We need them. Three days rest. Give us 60 pitches. Hopefully you can get us pretty deep into this game because we're out a starter.

He goes 5.1, one earned run to keep the game in line. help the Cubs get the win and save the bullpen moving forward, that's a pretty big task to just, you know, not be prepped. Go ask any starting pitcher what they do to prep for a game. And it's like some weirdo bullshit Daniel DeLis method acting shit. Not Mark Leitergen, just tapped in. He needed to get some quick outs. Red Sox gave him a lot of quickouts at the end.

So I was impressed by that when I saw it when I was doing my I L. so I think that notches up on my standout. I was like, oh, man, to just grab and go. 57 pitches, three hits, only one walk, was putting them in the zone, getting quickouts. Good job by Mark Lider, Jr. Junior. Nice, Jen.

Yeah. I have a tidbit on Mark Latter Jr. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm going to make this about me. You know, I never talk about myself. I never talk about myself and what I used to do, 106 homers in the show.

I never talked about myself. My last ever professional home run, Philly Spring Training, 2019, bro. Mark Lider Jr. Thank you very much, Mark. Damn. Read my book forever. Hmm. Former teammate of mine, too.

I mean, I didn't bring him up for that. Sorry. Sorry, Mark. Mm. Is it a pretty one, at least? It was right after the Phillies told me I need to be more aggressive and hitters counts. specifically 2-1 and 1-0, and I got to 1-0 against him.

And I just said, I'm fucking swinging no matter what. And I hit home run. So good job by the Phillies Analytical Division. That is a good job, but I'm really good job. You would be Christian Walker right now. I love Christian Walker swing. I do. So what?

So what doesn't get on base? I didn't get on base either. Okay, we slug, though. We slug. Yeah. Trump walk. Go go quickly through this. Come on, guys. We get anyone hot?

Looks like we got Santiago Espinal hot. That's good. We didn't do it last week. So these are two series. So we gave him extra time to get off of the slump. Nine for 27, a Homer, two doubles, five RBIs. That's a 3.79 on base. A 519 slugging.

Santiago Espinall, you're off. And you're welcome. Nolan, surprised he was even on here, because every time I check out the Cardinals, the Nolans are hitting. Three for 11 with a Homer and a double. Missed most of the Marlin series last week,

but returned this weekend. So that's why there's not that many at bats. Let's take them off. Homer double, three walks. Hell yeah. AJ Pollock, three for 16, a walk six K's. Misses the Dodgers, I think. I think so too.

And there's kind of the whole, White Sox and Tony I think he stays He's our friend Not Trevor's friend No He's my friend Okay who wasn't

Who was that robot I was talking Uh 167 batting average For J.P Crawford He goes two for 12 Is he serving his suspension Missed the A series this weekend But returned yesterday for start

Of the Padre series Let's let JP get out of this Yeah let him cook Yeah And then your guy Jake Cron and wear Six for 25, two doubles, two RBIs, two RBIs, two walks. No, it's not good.

It's not where he wants to be. The slash line's not good. It's not where he wants to be. See the new options and make a decision. I wouldn't be off of claps if he's off. Mike Trout, 0 for 11, 9Ks. Houston. They even have him?

He wasn't one of the four angels that got hits. Sheesh. Sheesh. Astros did that to Trout? O for 11 with 9Ks? Did they throw it down the middle? Isn't that the Mike Trout secret? It's middle in a lot of batters, but right in the middle.

Yeah. Damn, man. Oh, my God, Trev's guy, Matt Chapman, O for 10. I don't like this. Bobby Witt Jr. O for 12. Oh, my God. Max Kepler? This is like.

Joey Votto O for 9. I mean, Mike Trouts, I ain't even walk, man. What's happened, Troutter? Trouty. Dude, I think he might ask out. He's officially done with the Angels. Him and Shohei. Get out of there.

Here's some like giggling from Cabo. I'm putting Bobby Witt on and then I don't care what you do the rest. I put Trout and Bobby Wood on. I mean, he's a rookie. I want him to persevere. That's five. And overcome it. We're home.

You don't want those guys over Kronerworth or Crawford or anything? Let's put Matt Chapman on for Trev over Kronanworth. Kronerth did some stuff. Okay. Um, Matt Chapman had a little bit of a heater, so going 0 for 10, I don't like that. Okay. Sorry Cap and Votto. Not getting fixed.

Dirk nasties on Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby. Like Waco. Wabada. Trev, four guys hit three home runs over the weekend. Four of them. Nolan Aronado, heard of them? Yep.

seven for 13, three homers, a triple, a double, and he got hit by a pitch. Justin Turner, he went six for 12, that's 500, with two walks and three homers. Michael Perez in your book, Jake, he is. Five for 11, three homers, five RBIs, Eddie Escobar, got the new belt, Jake, not familiar with him. Four for 11. Austin Riley also goes six for 12. he hits two homers, two doubles, two walks.

Chaz with an S. McCormick. Too many Cs in that name for Jake. He doesn't like it. Five for 10, two homers through every guy's two walks. And our guy, Julio, we talked about him enough. C.J. Cron talked about him. Freight train, Peralta, four for ten with two homers. On fire.

Congrats to them. Love David Peralto. That was all his daughter, Penny is nails. I told you guys that. Thanks, David. Prout his daughter. Paint your nails, change your belt, hit homers. Do a little Metro baseball.

Jack Peterson with the pearls. We'll start painting nails. Let's go. I'm on baseball. Kelsey? Somewhere the raised bullpen freaks out. Trabb, you got an award? I'm going to give this award in Jet

because I think I've been ruining this show today with my internet, Cabo internet, not sure what's going on here. I'm not going to do a Tolkien baseball, but I'm going to talk about one player and then relate him to a character in the Lord of the Rings. Much different than Tolkien. So different.

I'm going to talk about Byron Buxton and his last 162 games. I got this tweet sent to me actually today. Last 162. I'm going to call this the, I don't know. Okay. Not the king, but you don't get anywhere without him. Award.

Okay. I think there's some other people that you would say are the best players in baseball before you had mentioned Byron Buckson's name. He'd be in the conversation, no doubt. People would cite his health and some other things, maybe like some years at the beginning of his career, they would cite. I think most people would say Mike Trout is the king. He's Aragorn. Maybe Shohey O'Otani's Aragorn. maybe he's Sauron.

Maybe Shohay is a evil guy. We don't even know yet. We'll find that out later in his career. But Byron Buxton, I think, is more of like a Legalis type guy where like where would the fellowship be without Legolas? And in fact, if I put Byron in that world, I feel like he fits mostly with the elves, the way he moves, the quickness, some of the magic that he brings on the field. I think he's like an elf.

Over his last 162, 52 homers, 99 ribbeds. B's 603 slugging for a 920 OPS, 152 OPS plus, 9.3 war for Byron Buxon. I don't know if that's F word B war because the guy didn't put it in there. Byron Buxden is an absolute stud. You love to see him healthy. Where would the twins be without Buckston? I don't know where. They wouldn't have signed Carlos Correa.

They wouldn't be in first place in the ALE Central. Like, Byron, you're that guy. And the magic that he created, I'll go one more. I'll go one step further with him. I have it up here. It's the first ever in the history of baseball, eight to five triple play. How about that?

I don't know what happened with the White Sox base runners right there. That was like the worst I've ever seen. But to do something that has never been done in the history of baseball, sounds about right for Byron Buxton. You are, what's the award again? Not the king, but where it would be without you award goes to Byron Bucston.

I say something. I'm not trying to be controversial. Versial, I think Byron Buckson, when healthy, is a top player in baseball. I agree with that. I don't think he has the name recognition at all yet. I think if anyone that's listening that is not in the AL Central, think about asking your dad who follows baseball or your uncle that follows baseball, someone that's not on the internet, to name, hey, dad, hey uncle,

can you name top five players that aren't on our favorite team? do you think like Byron Buxner would get said or like top 10 like I don't think he's got name recognition outside the Central at all yet because he just needs to put it together for like multiple full seasons not saying his talents are amazing but I don't know you said you said that people would name him and I just don't think he would get named I don't think my dad knows who he is I think he'd be surprised he shows up on a lot of highlights so I think he because of that like people do know who he is I mean platinum glove winner can, you know, hit bombs with the power that he has. I don't know. Maybe I'm just really partial to him because I've seen him progress and grow into the player he is now. But, I mean, those are stats are undeniable through his last 162. Yes, I'm not down. He needs to play 162 in a year.

I get that. There's guys that have played healthy and been good that don't have name recognition in baseball. It's a tough sport to do that. Yeah, I guess that's where when you're phrasing that is a, you know, name recognition, is that amongst real baseball fans? Because I think, you know, a lot of people in our office who are baseball junkies, I think would say...

But they're all young on the internet. I'm talking, like, to get past that. Because, yes, all his highlights are everywhere. That's a whole other discussion because you're right, how many players are getting named anyways. Trout and Otani. I guess...

I think my more overall point is... If he isn't the player he is and has the year that he has last year, okay? I know it was cut short, but, you know, the twins bank on him to give him the contract extension. They wouldn't have went out and got Carlos Correa. Like, they wouldn't have went out and tried to do that and, like, go all in and kind of, you know, we'll see what they do with the deadline. But they did that because they have a guy like Byron Buckson and they want to build around him.

So he's, he's like, Carlos Correa says this is Byron Buckson's team. And that's probably because he's only going to be there for one year. But I don't know, man. He's a stud. He's a stud. I'd like his name to be known anywhere. It's just, just piqued my interest of, like, how well is he known?

I don't know. Sure. Playoffs help. That's the other thing. Like, all the asteros probably get named because, like, Correa, Springer, Al-Tube, because they've just been deep. Dodgers, like, you know, being in the playoffs helps get that name recognition a ton. Jake?

James, Trev, giving out a very prestigious award. I'm giving out the Antirian Uncle Rick Award. Trev, you would mention someone earlier in the show. It might have been your standout. I think it was when you were talking about Christian Walker, and you're like, you know, a guy we might not talk about a lot on my snakes. Interesting season he's having. We hit the halfway point of the season, right?

I'm going to win horse this whole thing. No. My auntie and Uncle Rick, for those that know, my auntie is my mother's sister. She married Uncle Rick. They lived in the D.C. area for a while. where they took me to Camden Yards, my first ever time there.

Saw Orioles Yankees game, I believe. Ted Lilly autographed baseball, not a big deal. My Uncle Rick, huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan. They're retired right around their spring training facility. They head over there a lot. Two teams that we don't talk about a lot. When we have, we've been giving them just a little pat on the butt and keep it moving.

I'm going. orials and pirates. We were at the midway point in the season. And these two teams that have been kind of laughing stocks around baseball the past couple years, the Orioles are 37 and 44. You know, that is the same record as the Angels. I know they're in a death spiral now. But the Orioles, their bullpen is really strong this year.

They're fourth in ERA. They've got a top half of their lineup. They deserve some love. And then Pittsburgh, they've just been chilling at third and the Central. It's 32 and 47. I still think their record on the year isn't going to be pretty, but at least O'Neill Cruz is up there. The product is so much better. They just split four with the brew crew, and we were just like, all right, like, you know, last year, I think we'd be shitting down the brewer's throats. Whoa, Jake. End of a family episode. But midway point

of the season, I want to give both those teams some love because there have been franchises that have been much, much worse than them this baseball season. And they're still kind of the two stereotypical teams that I think if people were throwing jabs at, they would. Pirates are a fun watch now. O'Neill Cruz, my God, Brian Reynolds, like Key Brine, it looks like they're starting to show some signs. And the Orioles are just pesky, like you said.

So a little love to a couple of the four. formerly dwellers still kind of dwellers. The dwellers. Drellers. Drellers. Dwellers. Dwellers. Dwellers.

Did Trev leave? He stood up. So I roboted him just in case. Okay. You're out. What do you got, Jim? Well, I might save my award if Trev's not here. Because it has to do a defense of metrics, which we've talked about.

And we've talked about this before, and we talked about this in the office. once because people were talking about defensive metrics. And Trey Turner just came out and they asked him why his defensive metrics look better now. And he said, because I move three steps forward. And now the algorithm likes me more. And I just like Dodgers fans, has his defense been noticeably better or worse because of this change? Because the way Trey's talking about it, he's basically like, I'm just playing the, all I, this is just quote,

all I had to do was play three feet closer and the algorithm liked me more. I could be better, guys are better than me. I'm not saying I'm a gold glover, but I always wondered why they were better to me. It was kind of all based on the information I've gotten the last three months. The only thing that I could figure out

is that I needed to make the play going in. And if I scoop it up and make the plays, I'm as good as them, I guess. That's the answer I came up with. I don't know if it's right. I'm still debating it. But, Now is defensive metrics look better?

And we've talked about this, Trev, about how people have reached out to Mark Simon. People have reached out to the guys who run these algorithms. And third baseman can game the algorithm by standing a little bit closer to third because then they don't miss any balls to their right. And the defensive algorithm says, oh, that guy's nasty. He doesn't miss any balls who's right. And is the defense actually better? Or are we literally appeasing computers because teams are paying out based on the,

defensive metrics. Like we heard JBJ. It was a phenomenal center fielder. In the middle of like being one of the best center fielder, he reached out to Mark Simon. He was like, dude, how do I like make the numbers respect what I'm actually doing? And he had to change where he stood because the algorithm. So should I be as mad at the defensive metrics as I want to be here?

Did this, and I'm asking Dodgers, did this actually make him a better shortstop? Or are we just appeasing the robots? that the front offices have decided that they're going to go with. Defensive magic seemed like a crock of shit. This, maybe it should have been saved for like a midweek episode because there's a lot to dive into here. I think it's a little bit of both, James, where you are appeasing, you know, the algorithm. But, you know, when you think about, you know, what, what you do for a team, like say,

for instance, my thing at third base, playing down the line, saving some extra base hits, obviously that's going to help, you know, prevent runs. and that's all you're trying to do as a defensive unit. So something like that makes sense to me, like him coming in on the ball so he can get more balls hit in front of him. To me, that would cut off his range a little bit. And I don't know how many like ground balls like hitting the infield really affect, you know, runs. So that's strange to me.

This has been a conversation going on for years, though. You know, it was like Adam Jones and Kevin Kiermeyer and all these dudes, would talk like if you play deep in the outfield you're going to win the gold glove and center field instead of playing in and trying to like you know come and get balls you know so it's it's been it's been a talk for a long time and mark simon has helped a ton of people so we should kind of shout him out like dude he helped me happer um jbj and like i guess like more and more guys been reaching out to him i told me he just started charging a fee or at least some sort of consulting business um but dude we can go on this forever i was talking about i was

talking about this, you know, with Manfred and the owners. Like, we are appeasing analytics because that's who pays us. You know, you put all these people in place and positions of power and they tell you they're paying you for homers and they're paying for pitchers to strike people out. So guess what's going to happen? Guys are going to try to hit homers and guys are going to try to strike people out. now that's made the game for some unwatchable, and you have these owners now trying to put in things to speed the game up and to get more balls in play, but they're paying guys to do the exact opposite.

So it's going to come to a head at some point. But as long as we have analytics and we have data like this, you're going to see guys doing simple stuff like that to try to appease it because in the end, you'd rather see a positive defensive run save or positive UZR, because you're going to get paid for it. I mean, guys literally make careers, you know, playing good defense, having good defensive numbers.

Think about all the fucking catchers that are sticking around because, you know, Maldenado is hitting one something, but you can handle a staff and frame some pitches. Like there's a lot of things going on in the game, but I agree with you. The defensive metrics are iffy of best. I guess that's my stance on. It seems silly that center fielder's that can. go back and get it so they play a little in are getting penalized for their skill. And now they're having to.

Yeah. All right. It's like a lot of things in life, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. We just don't know where. Like the Trey Turner example, is it if him playing deep only allows him to cut off X amount of balls, but him playing in allows him to get a couple more choppers or something like that, I don't know. Is that actually valuable to the team?

is it all a math equation that's getting fucked up by expected batting average? A couple curses for me at the end of the app. All right. Is it, you know, a chopper, a taper to short has an expected batting average of 181, but a line drive up the middle has an expected batting average of 540, so Trey Turner doesn't get as penalized for the 540, then he does the 181? I have no idea.

I'm not smart enough. I think people would be shocked. I think a lot of the people that have the answers are grading this. out aren't too far off from being able to have a conversation with us. And like we always say, the metrics are continuing to evolve. They evolve and change every year. At the end of this season, we will hear, yeah, we just updated the defensive metrics and Aeronauto graded out better.

And it's like, no, shit. So you got to trust your eyes a little bit. And Trev, you mentioned our guy Ian Hap. We know he looked into it because look at this season and career Ian Hap. is having, you know, he's a career 8-10 OPS guy. If Ian Hap grades out as a slightly above-average defender with his hitting ability, that's a nine-figured dude. If Ian Hap grades out negative defensively with his hitting ability,

like he might, he'd be looking at those like one-year kind of Jack Peterson-type contract. So now we're talking about where you're starting your feet, beginning a play, depending, you know, how many zeros in a guy's bank account, it gets messy. Doesn't that make sense when you say it like that? Like where you decide to play? Yeah, positioning does matter in a baseball game. So that does make sense to me.

But, you know, I guess usually it makes sense to me. The trade turner stuff doesn't make sense to me, you know, like just thinking about it in my head. But I'll say this. If you made it through this episode and got through me having this bad internet, tag your favorite player if he stinks defensively and say ask Trevor or just go straight to Mark Simon because this dude is crowning guys out there in the field he's making you better by and all you have to do is have like a 20 minute phone conversation with him like you're saying Ian Hap could go from a $100 million dude or he could be you know a one year 10 million dollar dude and you know the

difference is is him having a conversation with the guy like just do it people just do it just do it Who's our best friend of the week? Our best friend of the week is Max Fried, seven innings one earned. Four case five hits didn't walk one guy. Damn. His fourth, he is the most best friend of the week, nods this year. Way to be. He better be at our party.

He better be at our party. Way to be. Elevator talk. As we get out of here, spin the wheel. Got my salad coming up the elevator right now. You heard that right, Trev. Salad. I didn't even have the chat up this whole episode.

I feel like naked, bro. I don't like it. Cleveland, the Guardians. We're on the elevator. A guy walked in, he had a Guardian's hat on. We said, wow, new hat, huh? He said, no, this is old. You said, oh, you're a liar.

You're lying. You're lying. Jim, you know where I'd start? I'd say, you know what? He just had a nice weekend. He had a horrible first half of the season. Can big Fran Miel Reyes get it going? Hit a couple ding-dongs against the Yankees.

I love me, a meal, a Fran meal. I think that'd be my like, you know, I think he's going to have a big second half. Okay, I like that. I like that. Soft A.L. Central, you mentioned how limp the A.L. Central is. And if they just get hard, they can, you know, run right through it, if you know what I mean.

I don't know. I'm interested in that. Tristan McKenzie's good. And that curveballs are from the wide. So fun curveballs, fun to watch. He shut down the Yankees. His only bad starts are against the twins this year, I believe. The only ones that get him.

And he's also going to be in our ping pong tournament coming up. Trev plays, I play. Tristan McKenzie plays. Me and Tristan were the first matchup in round one. Short wingspan versus long. Jake sucks. Tanner Tully.