Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - The Scary Truth About Each MLB Playoff Contender | 666

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

It's the Episode 666 Special! We're giving the Devil's take on each postseason hopefulUse code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKINHead to https://tryfum.com/JOMBOY to save an additional 10% off your order today.Upgrade your closet with Rhone and use code BASEBALL to save 20% at https://rhone.com/BASEBALLGo to http://shadyrays.com and use code TALKIN for 50% off 2 or more pairs of polarized sunglasses.++++++Timestamps:0:00 Intro4:55 National League5:30 Padres11:00 Giants15:30 Diamondbacks19:55 Dodgers23:55 Cardinals26:20 Brewers31:30 Mets37:30 Marlins41:10 Phillies46:20 Braves48:30 Mariners53:20 Astros57:30 Rangers1:00:35 Twins1:05:55 Guardians1:10:30 Red Sox1:16:45 Blue Jays1:20:00 Aaron Judge Blue Jays Breakdown Update1:23:20 Yankees1:26:00 Orioles1:28:00 Angels & Rays Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball. Your team is absolutely trash. This is episode number 666. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to Tongue and Baseball brought to you by Seatgeek code talking over there. My name is Jimmy. I'm sitting here with Jake and Trevor and BBD. And that's right.

It's our 666 episode. So Jake, tell them what's happening. Hello, Jimmy. Hello, Trevor. Episode 666, so we're discussing the devilish take on all of the contending teams. Why will your team not win the World Series? Not even make the playoffs. They might not make the playoffs.

They might go straight to hell. Wow. And I'll see them there. Jimmy, Trev, how are you guys doing? Trev? I thought I was going to be able to do the whole dark and sullen thing, but I don't know, man. You told me before the show that this is the first time you really felt like yourself. I feel comfortable.

Very feminine makeup, Paxton. I had you going, like, you know, battered or bruised or, like, you just look put together. Yeah, you look like me in my favorite punk band. It was just a better outfit. I really like your music. Like the biggest Sid Vicious fan out there. You could be the frontman for AFI right now. Yes.

Yes. Oh, gosh. Okay. But I'm excited about this episode because I do. Like, we're always so positive. At least I try to be. Yeah. And like sometimes there is that temptation deep down to just let it eat.

And give my true thoughts. And I think today, like, we're going to get a little bit of that. Like you said, the devil's take. Also, because I am so positive, I'm going to go, like, deep into positivity. I'm going to lust over some things today on this show. Oh. Yes. James.

How are you? I'm good. I don't want to do this episode at all. I think every team's really good and a contender and they're all going to make the playoffs. Well, now you're lying. So this is perfect for this episode. Yeah.

I have no real opinions. No, I'm excited. Dalton helped us. So we know exactly why your team stinks. Lies are the devil's love language. You're too good at this. Will you stop it? Comfortable.

The twins haven't won a playoff game since 2004. It's like Dr. Evil a little bit. he's evil can i get some water hold on oh sack mug dude youtube only gag that's pretty cool with the glasses that's like a really cool combo trev thank you all right let's get right into no no thank who's sponsoring the devil's episode episode six six six is brought to you by fume not everything in a bad habit is wrong. So instead of a drastic uncomfortable change, why not just remove the bad from your habit, award-nominated, flavored air device helps you do just that. It's completely natural. Instead of vapor, fume uses flavored air. And instead of harmful chemicals, fume uses all-natural delicious flavors.

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Fume, 10% off. with code john boy can you say fume in that that like voice what voice we'll see if the devil comes out of me again trev i can't control it do you want to start in order that we have it on the sheet or do you want to bounce around i think it's by division here um do you want to do all al all n l do you want to go division by division or spread the love what's your what's your perfect recipe for destruction. Well, usually we're a

Kron pod. Okay. But for this episode, I think we work upside down and go on the bottom up. All right. So Padres are first. Oh, they've had a lot of devil this year. Ryan Cohen, Padres fan extraordinaire, is in the office.

Is he a devil? Yeah. He dances with the devil. I have, there's a stat on the Padres that I kind of was interested in. I saw it and I was like, oh, let me go look at what's going on there. It's that they have allowed the second highest stolen base percentage. And then I wanted to go look because sometimes stolen base percentage might not tell you the actual story of if your catcher's good or bad.

Like, you know, if they never attempt to steal on him. But Trey Turner, you know, goes one for two. whatever, you know, percentage is hard. But no, it's actually, it's pretty bad. It's on some volume. It's Nola. And it's not good. Nola has allowed 32 stolen bases.

And he's only thrown three guys out. And he has started 32 games. So he allows a stolen base a game. That's crazy. He also has 11 wild pitches. the Brett Brett Sullivan he's allowed two and one so it's just Nola so yeah you get to the playoffs

and you go face a team that steals you face the wrong matchup there it can be hell if you if you're the Padres you get to that wild card series or whatever and you face a team that's got some runners or they have a bench and they could just like get a guy in scoring position after every walk that's a bad matchup

so fix that I guess No, it's kind of hellish if you don't hit. And the Padres haven't hit all year. It's supposed to be their team's calling card. After the Mexico series, Trev asked, how many times will Tatis, Bogart's, and Soto, Homer in the same game? And you were like, oh, multiple for sure. It's like, that's really hard, no way.

Batting average, obviously isn't everything in sports or everything in baseball anymore. You know, OPS is a really strong number. Batting average is still important because hits still matter, especially the year that we got rid of the shift to get more hits in the game. And for the Padres to be 30th in batting average and have the least hits is disgusting. And guess what? Having watched a couple Yankees teams in previous years that they were good at getting on base

but not good at getting hits, it kind of turns toxic. Like you have these innings where you have a quote-unquote rally. where it's a walk or two, but then you don't get the hit. And that actually pops the balloon and deflates you even more of that. I mean, Padre fans, I think they'll be the first to tell you. Like, you got a hit at all.

Power pitchers. Sounds like that's what we have in Major League Baseball these days. Not a lot of finesse. I'd go with mostly power. The devil's drunk with power. Oh, nice. tied it all together. I just made that up.

I just made that up. The Padres against power pitchers are hitting 176. They're slugging 266 for an OPS of 567. If you can't hit power pitchers, how are you ever going to win anything in this league? Runners in scoring position,

ain't it either for the fathers. Yeah, what was the stat we were looking at yesterday with them? They were really bad at converting the runner on third or something like that. I think it was just like least amount of hits with runners in scoring position or something. Yeah. They're batting 184 with runners in scoring position, slugging 314 for a 602. Not good. Anything offensively below a 666 OPS, that's devilishly bad.

I think we can call that that. You're getting burned. Nice, trap. And Jim, I'll reference you on this because you know I'm not as well versed as I'd like to be. But I mean, the friars, they have to have a good relationship with the big man, right? So maybe they need to get a little more devilish. They have a good relationship with their God. Right.

They were the devil to a lot of people. Okay. You know, missionaries converting the natives. Okay. There's some dark history in that part of the country. There's some hope then. Father. Are you talking the El Camino Real?

You are talking. I mean, one of the most famous ones. What's his name? Like Junipero Serra or something like that. Do you pronounce the J? Juniperosa. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a high school named after him. Oh. Sarah. Yeah. They just won the whole thing. They were like really good. Yeah. He's got.

got tough times. You will die. So yeah. All right. Depends what side you're on. Who else do we got? Well, I mean, if we're staying on Saints, we can go to the Giants. Tide for few as pinch hit RBIs.

Do you remember when that was their specialty? And that was like what they were good at in 2021 when they had that magical year. That was, they were like, Gabe Kapler's a genius. Every move he does off the bench works. And it did for that season. Well, now they're the worst at it. That's probably clientele more than managing, to be honest. But has most pinch hits at bats out of the teams tied for lowest pinch hits RBIs?

One. So out of all the teams that have only one RBI from a pinch hitter, they've attempted it the most. Pinch hitting is very hard and you will fail all the time at it. But pincheting kind of stinks. Teams are doing it way more than that. they should for how much it doesn't work, in my opinion. Or maybe I'm just talking about the Yankees.

I think players are getting a little better at it, but it's still, it's a losing game. Yes. You know, at the end of the day. Is Happer still good at it? I think it's happening a lot more throughout the league. And, you know, Mornow, who is a saint? And the devil will not touch Justin Mornow because he's so beautiful.

He asked Rocco Baldelli about the three-batter minimum, And when we brought that in, a lot of people were saying, well, it's going to take a lot of strategy out of the game. And Rocco says, I think it's the strategy is on par or a little bit more with a three-bat, that's why we're seeing some of these pinch hitting. You know, it could happen in the fifth inning. It could happen in the sixth inning. As long as you have a bench that you're happy with and a lefty comes in to face your lefty lane into your lineup. And we're seeing these guys get up there earlier in the games.

It's an interesting thing. It's hard. I did a segment on how hard pinch hitting was. And that's like basically all you can say about it as a hitter is it's hard. What the fuck are you supposed to do? Yeah, I mean, there are moments that feel right. Like when you have that reliever that has bad splits

and you can hit them with, you know, the lefties they struggle with or something. But yeah, it's pinch hitting is used a lot more and I think we need to find out more. And I think hitters are a little better wired for it. it. Like back in the day, old school starters, he'd be pinch hit. I'm dead in the water. I think New Age baseball guys, in the right matchup it works. Jim, I love the pinch hitting that got brought up there because also their bullpen's been bad, and that's the other part of their deal with the devil season they had, is they had the

best bullpen in baseball, and they had a bunch of freaks, and Rogers is coming underarm, and here's Doval, and they were just getting efforts out of everyone. Think about that now. So, okay, all your pinch hitting's working and your bullpen's really good. Okay, that's how you're going to win games. And they're not doing that. They're not doing that. 28th and ERA, 26th and whip, 28th and hits per 9, 30th in homers per 9.

They have some guys at the back end there that can get the job done. But if you're looking at bullpen numbers on a whole, they're not very good. In fact, they're terrible. There's a stat they have called just like base runners score percentage. So how many at bats, total number of base runners when a batterer's at the plate, right? So like if I'm on first base and then Jake strikes out, that's one. That's one. And then a BBD comes up and he strikes out.

That's two. I was two batters where there was a runner on base. And then they calculate the amount of opportunities you have to score that runner, be him on first, second, third. It's not just scoring position. and the two teams we've mentioned are in the bottom five at that. The Padres, 12.1% of the time, have scored their base runners. And the Giants, 12.8% of time have scored their base runners.

That's fourth and fifth place. So those teams, everyone complains about runners in scoring position or, like, advancing the runner or moving the runner. Those two teams are really not doing it. and three others. We're not even talking about the A's and the tigers because they're not contenders and they're the last and second and last place at this. Bad.

Bad. Jake, it looks like your team's up next. The Arizona Diamondbacks, a team filled with venom. Killing birds? Killing birds. I'm interested to see your guys' takes on these. again, Dalton did a lot of work on this sheet.

I guess that middle one is the most concerning to me, but third lowest percentage of swung at strike percentage. So, balls in the zone, are you swinging? They're the third worst at that. Interesting. And third lowest, actually, third lowest first pitch strike thrown by their pitchers, that's more concerning to me

because it's a lot of young pitchers that if you don't throw strikes and you get behind batters, that is a proven bad formula in baseball. Yeah. Third lowest first pitch strike thrown. So these, but these are the opposite. Because if you're the third lowest swinging at strikes

and that's like part of your philosophy as a team, you're basically telling the other team. Right. Throw strike one. Get ahead of us. And then you can't get strike one. So that's on both ends of the ball. There seems like strike one might be a problem.

A real devil's take on this team is that they have two good starting pitchers. Ooh. Wow. Ooh. Zach Gallin, Merrill Kelly doing the job that they need to do. Other than that, can you guys find me someone that's going to win a playoff series for them? Let the kids play. Let them play. You love Bobby Miller, just because Brandon Foss.

Just because Brandon fought is on the snakes. He's a kid too. Maybe he's good. Let's find out. Jake, he's got a 7-6-3-fip. Oh, my God. An ERA plus of 57. I want the youngans to be good.

It ain't happening yet for the snakes. They are fourth in taking strike one. So there's other teams worse than them, but I guess percentage-wise, their third. Hey man, you run that dry. Tell your pitchers. Throw it up the dish.

This team doesn't swing. I wonder if that's team philosophy or just a collection of guys with the same mindset. They do have a gluttonous bullpen that we must talk about. It's very good. It's performed well. But there's so many that it's gluttonous.

Why don't you turn them into starters if you like him so much? I think that's where some of the successes lied. like you just get to the bullpen, right? Like you have your starters throw enough. You have your guys that are going to give you length, and then you have your other guys that can just get to the bullpen. It's all you need.

Sometimes that's all you need for success. Chafin's appeared in 24 games. Yeah, their little, their roster resource bullpen snapshot. Like, they're using their guys. Yeah. They're using that. Miguel Castro also appeared in 24 games. Scott Miguel and Kyle Nelson,

23 apiece. So yeah, they're using those four guys are getting used. Besides Miguel, the rest of the numbers are good, though. At least ERA, that's not a full story there. Okay. Are you worried about anything for the Diamondback Shake? No. No. Corby Carroll's too fast.

That's a problem. It's too fast. No, man. The vibes are good. San Diego is like so messy right now. I'm not going to be worried about the snakes until San Diego figures it out. How about that? Aren't they a game behind the Dodgers right now?

They're a game and a half behind the Dodgers. Yep. That's insane. That's insane. I guess on both ends, the Dodgers being able to do what they've done with the amount of injuries they've had to their starting pitchers. Who I guess, I mean, segue,

way the next team up. This isn't Sin City. I was about to call Los Angeles Sin City. It's actually the city of angels. So that's... Really? Kind of burns to even say that on my tongue. It's going to burn for me to say this.

I mean, they made their deal with the devil a long time ago, right? Van Skoywick. Who? pronounce that weird, huh? Scooywick. Wait, we've only done three teams. Yeah, we got a little more. tempo. Yeah. Oh, the devil takes this time.

Doyers? They've been had the devil. They are the devil. Their bullpins the devil. Oldest lineup by average age. I thought it was hilarious. I'd put that. I put that as like a strength. Only team above 30 in average age. Wow. Allowed the most stolen bases. No, wow, that's not good. Dude they, they know who they are? That's my biggest question. Austin Barnes, who I think might be Clayton Kershaw's personal catcher, I'm not sure how that works. You can run every pitch on him. I feel bad because it looks like it's hurting to throw. Like he's throwing like sidearm. It's like two or three bounces to get to second base. And

when I was there with the twins, they just ran. They had the least. stolen bases in all of the big leagues. I think they stole five bases. Yeah, twins have no speed. They, uh, he's got 36 stolen bases allowed in 20 games. How many is he thrown out? Four. He's thrown four base runners out. 36 allowed. It's a better percentage than Nola, but the amount of stolen bases per games, Nola was one to one. 36 and 20 games. Clayton Kershaw, that game, you know, there's the, the third, disengagement rule. He picked over twice and then everybody knew that Willie Castro was going to run. And I was like, all right, like, Hershaw is at least going to do like the high leg lift and then throw

over there, try to get him going first move. He just like gingerly just like through the ball to first base. Like, hey, just go to second base. Just go. It was an interesting night. So I will say that's a problem with the Dodgers. I think their bullpen is something that needs to be addressed. They have a few guys at the back end. You have Bruce Star, you have Phillips kind of doing the thing. But there's some guys that there's a, I mean, they have high end guys. But some of the middle relievers, if you will, they can get hit. What's interesting about the Dodgers, if you care about these numbers and obviously

we're scouring for bad stuff. So I know these are stretches. That's the whole fucking episode. But they're killing it at home and against teams below 500. But on the road. against teams that are 500 or better, they're very close to a 500 ball club. That might change

or it might drown them. Yeah, the injuries to the pitching staff is can't go understated. I mean, no excuses. They stink. Tony Gonsolin. Clayton Kershaw is going to be back. He's just on bereavement list. But Tony Gonsalin and Clayton Kershaw, then you have Cindergarde and a couple

of rookies. Now, the rookies have been good. My guy Bobby Miller, I'll talk about later in the episode. But that's concerning, dude. Dustin made 60 day I.L. who knows what's going to happen with that Walker Bueller's trying to come back at some point this year I think that you know it's not going to be a strong point for them unless these two dudes come up and are just lights out which they might be so I don't know what the fuck I just said right there

hey this next team is on the list because they're supposed to be a contender but the Cardinals are you know they're losing record they're lucky that they're in the division they're in but they're 22 and 28. And, I mean, besides like their record, we have to say more, I guess, to why they're not good. They're the devil's favorite team this year. I mean, the devil. Perm oil.

The devil's moved on. The devil's like done his job. Yeah, and he's on to the next. Trinado went through, ruined everything. Cardinals are known for devil magic. And I do think it's, you know, we told Dalton the list of the contenders. And he did, he's got two teams in the central, cardinals and brewers.

and I think that's honest. I think that's honest. Here's what's going to happen with the Cardinals. No teams had a vibe reversal. I think this much, the whole contraris situation, a lot of other things, like to go from that to World Series when it would be nuts. Also, they have so many guys they can trade,

and they're going to get tempted by the trade devil if they're not soundly, you know, in first place. I disagree. I think because they have some. so many guys to trade. I think they're going to like bolster their rotation, which has been the devil's favorite part of this team.

Trade four piece and get rid of return. They're going to trade some of these outfielders that they have. There's a lot of them. Outfield DH types. They have depth. They have Jordan Walker just waiting in the wings. They sent him down for who knows.

That whole like two or three weeks at the beginning of the season for the Cardinals was 100% devil influenced. Marmal, what were you thinking? I think that this team is going to trade for a legitimate starting pitcher and watch out, man. I know this is supposed to be like a negative episode, but... You keeps doing it with every team.

I'm so bad at this. Solving three in their last 15. I know they're going and their offense looks fucking great. I think they release the devil at the right. time. We'll be talking about the 500 Cardinals in two weeks. Whoa, yeah. Yeah, I wonder. Wonder how much they start looking at next year. They got a lot of starting pitchers coming off the books next year. If you can use them to help you out longer term,

could be. The devil loves this next team. The Brewers, the Brewers are the one team that's in the lead right now, division that all the numbers are kind of against them, but they are winning in first place. Like their Pythagorean thing? Hmm. They're like the luckiest team in baseball right now. Besides the Marlins are also there. And there's a bunch.

If you look at it, I just had it up, I close a tab. But luck, the brewers are up there. They're Pythagrium win loss. They should be 23 and 25, it's saying. They are a losing record on the road. They have a, there's some other stats here that like, on fan graphs, they're like down in a bunch of numbers as well. What happened to the freshman?

That's what I want to know. I know Mitchell got hurt. Joy Weamer, 632 OPS for a 73 OPS plus, Bryce Terrang, 622 OPS for a 72 OPS plus. They need to get those guys going again. They need to get something going. What are the brewers right now? They're in first place.

They don't really, yeah. Like, by the devil's default, like, they're starting pitching right now. It's Burns, Peralta, Hauser, and Reya. There's your four man you got. In the lineup, nobody's banging. I mean, rowdy's being more or less Rowdy-Tales, but everyone else is below where you think they'd be. Like, I don't know.

And they're, you know, Devin Williams is Devin Williams, and that's really good. And then it's Trezlecky and Pie Amps, which... Say that again? Joel Pie Amps. Like his stuff, Trev. But I don't know. Like, who are you, Brewers?

James, I think you're going to like this. I'm on the baseball reference page, and, you know, there's a lot of information on it. Farm director, scouting director, check out these names. Farm director, Tom Flam. Lannigan, T-O-M, that's it. Tom.

Tom Flanagan. It's a Midwest. Scouting director, Todd Johnson, T-O-D. Mm-hmm. That's a Milwaukee name. Tom Flanagan and Todd Johnson are running things here. That's Middle America, heart of the country, solid names. Matt Arnold, VP and GM.

I'm not into that that much. At least he spells it M-A-T-T. if this was an M-A-T, I'd just be completely out. We would just never talk about the Brewers again. So he kind of saved them. Arnold has never... Odd with 1B? Yeah.

You have to be so different than the perception of Arnold, like Schwarzenegger, for that name to work. Yes, I think. Okay. Well, I don't think he looks like Arnold's words. If you look at all the offensive numbers, you know, plus minus, the brewers are below. They're below average at average, at on base percentage, at slugging.

at runs created plus, at ISO, at BABIP, at line drive rate, at fly ball rate, at like everything. So it's kind of, it's nice there in first, I guess. That's the flip side if you want to do it. Have we been asking them to get a hitter, like get somebody there that can bang the ball around? Yeah.

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Hmm. Hmm. Mm. Next up we got the Mets. They, they are number one highest-looking strike percentage out of all lineups. So just throw it in the zone. They'll watch it go by. It's very patient team, I guess.

They still haven't homered in the first inning, right? That's nuts. That's nuts. You sound? Yeah. Peter Alonzo hits in the first inning, doesn't he? Dude, they have some names who hit in the first inning, just not home runs. It's insane. You need to, you need to, it's time to sacrifice something.

An animal must die. Overall, their numbers on their roster resource page look pretty, oh-hum, if you will, offensively, 17th in OPS, Jake, your homer stat, they're dead smack in the middle, 15th in homers 16th in stolen bases The starting pitching is old One foot in the grave One foot on a banana peel

If you, I don't really believe that These guys are really good I think I think this starting pitching staff Is gonna go Sooner than later But we have a little bit of controversy It's the devil's episode

So let's just stir it up a little bit Okay I want to get your guys thought on Francisco Lindor not being a leader? Oh, I don't know because I'm not in the clubhouse. Oh, me neither. Yeah.

I haven't asked anybody. Jason Kittness, my friend. Yeah. Yeah. Said that Lindor, his actual quote was all those veterans and no leader. So that's kind of a shot fired at everybody in that clubhouse. I'm going to have to disagree.

With Kip on this one, there's some people there that have seen some things and are leading the charge there. It hasn't looked great early on. But that's an interesting thing to be thrown out there. And it became pointed at Lendor because Prasinski said, you played with Lendor,

and then he repeated himself. I'm going to repeat. He said, all those veterans and no leaders. Yeah. Metz fans, I don't know how you feel. about that. I'm sure you're not happy. Then Dors got asked about it. And he said that he hasn't talked to Kipness. Then Dore's wife went on Twitter and said it's yes. So a little bit of,

you know, a little bit of devilish things happen around that. A little controversy, if you will. So the Mets, Jake, the slugging, the home runs in the first inning. I was diving deep because I'm like, well, maybe they're getting on base and they're like, you know, hitting whatever, but they're not great in the first inning at really anything. They're not bottom tier in the league or they're right around the middle to bottom. But then I just did starting pitcher first time through. So like the first three innings, the first time through the lineup, they are 28th in OPS first time through the lineup.

And bottom half, they're like OBPs, all right. because they're just looking, I guess, and then their bottom sixth in batting average. So, yeah, they're just easing into games. They should get to starting pitchers better. A couple tweet stats. This one from Codified, New York Mets, haven't had a first inning homer in 228 days.

That's last year's playoffs. Every other team has homered within basically the last month. This is some Braves Twitter account that has a couple Ronald Acuna contrast to the Mets stats, knock a home a nation. The Mets have an OPS of 530 in the first inning this season. Ronald Cunia Jr. has a batting average of 535

in the first inning this season. And then their follow-up is runs scored in the first inning this year. This is, as of last night, Ronald O'Cunia Jr., 16 first inning runs. The Mets 10. Damn. I mean, they're a little older. They don't start out so hot.

Let them get warmed up a little bit. Well, the problem is the second time through the rotation. Their OPS is the second worst. When they see starting pitcher with second time, second worst. But then Trev, the third time they see a starting pitcher, they have the fifth best OPS. Sounds like there's a plan against the best. You can win with that stretch.

strategy. Well, unless the other team takes the pitcher out before the third time through, which is common practice. Third time through. And so then I looked at first time versus a relief pitcher, right? Because all right, we're going to crush your pitcher the third time through or you're going to go to a reliever and we crush those. Because that's kind of how the Yankees are. At least I don't know if the stats back it up. But the first time facing a reliever, they are 12th.

They're middle of the pack. So they have a very tight lane. where they're really good. They got to see the guy three times. So they got to rely on their starting pitchers to keep the game close. Yeah. Keep us in it. Keep us in it.

Okay. All right. The Marlins. Tommy Hunter. Oh, sorry. I've been one Tommy Hunter thing because I have to mention it every time. Of course. Second most innings pitched from their reliever.

Corp. Corp. What do you go? T.H. Core. Marlins are very much like the Brewers where a lot of their advanced stats are like, this is not going to continue.

They're so good in one-run games. If you do that all year, that's great. But according to, like, the analytics, you can't do that all year. So they have the highest luck factor, I believe. And, you know, playing over their head ability. They are but six in the luck factor. Their Pythagorean win loss says they should be eight,

or says they should be 18 and 31. It's huge. Yeah, the advanced numbers really don't like the way the Marlins are going about baseball right now. And there's a ton of other stuff too. They're bad on the road. They have a losing record on the road. They have a losing record against left-handed pitchers. They have a losing record against teams over 500.

There's, yeah, if you want to be like a doomsday or for the Marlins, you can be like, yeah, just wait this one out. It's not going to last. Offensibly, we know what we got here. Chris Rose tells me all the time about how it was painful to watch them when McGee Roe was there. More of the same this year. They get Louisa Rise.

He's hitting 370. That kind of, you know, takes the boo-boo factor away. Oh, shit. I hate this last bullet. It's like when your kids scratch their knee, they fall down. You just like, you know, give it a little kiss and like, you're okay, right? Like, Luis-a-R-R-Boo's still there, but they forget about it. Louisa Rise is hitting, but the rest of the offense.

I mean, let's get it going, guys. The image of Chris Rose painfully watching the Marlins because Miggie Rowe, his son is on the Marlins, is the devil likes that image. And yeah, lose big, win small. That's the devil's formula. What's up with Sandy this year, guys? Tired, dude.

Well, he was a ball and play pitcher, so I don't know if shifts hurting him. I don't know the full numbers, but he was always on that list. A lot of the guys on that list that we talked about before the season are struggling. Sandy, Sandy gives up runs in the eighth and ninth inning because they send them back out there because they also burn their relievers, Jim. Tell them.

Yeah, I don't like that stat. Most times relief pitchers have pitched on zero days rest and you have obviously a rookie manager and a younger pitching staff. I think you're going to do yourself no favors if you just beat up your bullpen. That's a group of guys you want to, you want them to believe they have your back in best interest in health. and they don't like pitching on zero days rest. 57 innings pitched and nine games started. That's 6.1, 6 and a third innings pitched per start. I got to imagine that's close to the top of the heap.

I do not have those stats in front of me. But, I mean, the getting tired thing, I don't. I've listened to him, talk about it. He says he feels great, but I got to imagine that maybe those innings are catching up to him a little bit. along with the no shift and think a little bit of everything. And if you don't have Sandy, as your number one there, I know you brought up your guys.

Like, you know, there's some, there's some real deal. You're Perez and we can't even talk about Lazzardo, his first name on this show. Can't? We just can't bring that up. Not today. They're in trouble. The Marlins are in trouble. Yeah.

Okay. Moving on. To the fight and fills. Trey Turner's had a tough start, our guy. have a lot of the World Baseball Classic guys at tough starts? The World Baseball Classic is getting like a lot of blame for, the Cardinals blame their rough start on the World Baseball Classic.

Well, I knew they were doing it because, but I guess if you go through the Team USA starting nine, is Schwerber off to, Schorber's not off to a great start. Chorber and Trey are having slow starts. Yeah. Goldie's been fine. Aronado got off to a bad start.

Then he picked it up. It's good now. Labor good. Shohay's good. Yoshida was tough to start now. He's good. He's been awesome. Who else was on Team USA?

Maybe it's just a Team USA thing. Will Smith is doing it. He's fine. J.T. Romuto. Cedric Mullins. He's been good. He's been great. I think it's baseball.

Alonzo? And a lot of homers. Good. Tim Anderson? Didn't hurt. Okay. Bryce Harper got in front of the scrum. yesterday and said he doesn't want the narrative of we don't care about the beginning of the season,

we'll pick it up and go to be what they think about in the clubhouse, said this game needs to be played with urgency. Everyone needs to take a look in the mirror and realize what their job is and get the job done. So Bryce Harper's had it up to here. I'm not rushing back for you guys to have no urgency. I'm not, you know, learning new positions and doing everything I can to get back on the field with the most urgency possible to get into the clubhouse. And you guys are like, don't worry. We'll pick it up later.

I love it. Dude, I like Bryce Harper. I know he gets haters because if you don't like the team he's on, you don't like him. But I, man, I wish so many players had his energy and tenacity at wanting to win the game. You know where Bryce Harper's from? Vegas. St. City.

Damn. I should have said that. It's okay. It's Mormon, though. Oh. Interesting. Hmm. I don't know how to act like the devil.

Like, this is very tough for me. I'm trying to be devilish, and it's just, well, I only put my hood on more. There you go. Throw that hood on. Jake, you got anything on Phillies? You like any of these stats of why they are terrible? The fewest induced double plays is funny,

because I still think that's a skill set from pitching staff and infield, right? Like who's out there? We've watched teams go from having a bad third baseman to a good third baseman, and voila, their third basements start turning a lot more double plays. So, yeah, I don't know if that's BPD's Philly's infield. I don't know if it's luck. I don't know if it's the pitching staff not pitching to double plays or what it is. Uh, double plays are one of the biggest momentum changers in the game.

Yeah. So get a little, get a little more of those going. Twirl it. Matt Strom has the highest ERA plus in that rotation. That's not what you'd expect. So I would say that, hey, guys, uh, let's, let's step it up a little bit in that rotation. That's fair. That's fair.

Uh, the Phillies swing and miss a lot. They're one of the teams that are up there on chasing pitches out of the zone with two strikes they are the fifth most will chase out of the zone with two strike team it's basically them

and the AL Central so there's something that they should change otherwise we'll doom them overall numbers this is supposed to be an offense first team right this supposed to bang 16th and on base percentage

12th and OPS it's not good enough for the Phillies 22nd and runs. Not good enough. It's not good enough. No, it's not good enough. Okay, anything else? With two outs. Oh, this is a fun stat.

Who's the worst team with two outs? Oakland. They're so bad. Hey, this Oakland team is every fucking thing you look at. They're the worst. I love them. I feel bad for the guys because basically... It's an unfair fight.

It's an unfair fight. You just got promoted when maybe you should... I don't know. but every stat I toggle by all 30 teams in Oakland is either worst or second worst. It's pretty insane. You love it. They're no, I don't.

And now they were like, might be back in the Coliseum. I want them to stay in Oakland. It's a really good fan base there. If they fucking just would build a winner. All right. I guess I would be rooting for them to go to Sin City, though. Hmm.

Oh, my God. Well, the next team, the Braves, they stink with two outs. They're done. You just get the first and second out, and then they're finished. They're the third worst team at hitting and producing when there are two outs. And again, Oakland's the worst. Colorado's the second worst. And then it's Kansas City and then Detroit and then Milwaukee and then the Marlins.

and Atlanta, right dab in the middle of all those bad teams. So get better, a two-strike approach. Everyone probably just swings for the fences with two strikes. Yeah, I think you mentioned this. Maybe it was last week or whatever it is, and we're kind of alluding it to it with Oakland this year and some of the other bad teams. When there's a good team that is bottom three at something,

bottom five at something, like you need to compute what that actually means because that, you know, Oakland basically doesn't count. Yeah. So when you're comparing them to the good teams, you have to think about how actually bad that is. For me, the one that jumped out is night games. You know, the sun goes out, the devil comes out a little bit,

the Braves' third best batting average. Day games, 228. And I'll say this, on teams I've tracked where they're just bad at day games, a couple Yankee teams were awful at day games, it's a horrible feeling. You start turning on the game and you're like,

we're going to suck today. Just because we're playing at 1 p.m.? This stinks. It is. But the good news is not a lot of playoff games would play during the day, especially if you win your division

with the Braves are looking like they might do. They're just good. The devil, yeah, the devil wants to move on, the brave serve. The devil can't do anything against them. No, the brave. Well, someone pull up the stats of with two outs during day games.

And then I'll tell you how bad they are. The devil loves this team. Oh, so that's the NL. We've done it. Moving on. Your Seattle Mariners. Oh, yes. Lowest percent of scoring runs with runner on second base and zero out.

That sucks. Zero outs. second lowest steal percentage out of all lineups. And you're supposed to be running. Why aren't they stealing? Yeah. Lowest OPS when leading off the game. Damn.

Is that Julio? Julio has had a tough year. Give them a lot of money. Hmm. You know what money breeds, right? Problems. I don't know. Yeah, no money more problems.

Exactly, James. Thank you. I mean, he is the driving force of this team. When they started to come on, like it was Julio who was leading the charge. Now, Kelnick is kind of, you know, he's doing his thing, so that's nice. But if you got a guy like Julio Rodriguez, you gave all the money to, and he's leading off games and he's struggling, I have Mariners fans asking on a daily basis to pronounce them dead again, and I won't do it.

I won't do it. You're too good for me to pronounce you dead. Wow. Who's leading off for the Phillies? Probably Trey. Trey. Because they're, that group of six teams at, you know, batting first.

So from the leadoff position, it's the White Sox, the Tigers, the Royals, the A's, the Rockies, and then the Phillies and the Mariners, are the two amongst them.

I mean, that's an easy switch. Change the lineup, unless you really, really have faith. Like with Trey, I wouldn't change the lineup. I think the Mariners... Mostly Stott. I think the Mariners...

Stott? Mostly Stott. They've been trying a ton of different stuff. It was Trey earlier than Stott, then Schwabber, then back to Turner, than Stott. Okay.

I think the Mariners have tried J.P. Crawford, our guy, a couple times up top. Trev, I mean, this is very simple. You pronounce this team dead, which the devil loves and they'll start to go. You're the problem, Pop.

The problem is they need to hit the ball. That's the problem. That's deflecting. No, the problem is they need to hit the ball. Driving some run. What are they? League wide, 25th, and OPS. No, I know you got great pitching. Up and down, starters, relievers, I get it.

Pressure. Too much pressure on your pitching staff. You got to have some games where the offense takes over. They just, they don't get that enough. Pressure. Yeah, they swing it. They chase a lot. They're also top five in Chase. Mm.

Not good. Not good. They should be good. Baseball's going to be more fun if they're good. So be good. Okay. On three. Like don't do the White Sox thing where you have like two years of like,

Oh, look. Oh, look. We're going to be so good. We're going to be so good. And then you just crash. Who are the White Sox in this episode? They're not contenders. They're not contenders.

They're also worse in like a lot of categories. Yeah. Hey, on three, thumb up, thumb down for the Seattle City Connectionis? I got to look at them. Okay. I'll give you five seconds.

I did not like the Reds one on TV. It just looked bad. Like, oh. One. Two, three. Jake and I, for the people listening to home, Jake and I went double thumbs up. Oh, I just gave one.

Yeah, you're kind of, you and BPD aren't that into them. Well, my other hand is mired and mischief. See that social media video from Blitzball Battle III where Peter Morland's talking about all that pitch sequence, you know, made it move for Trev. And then the editors found a clip of you playing in your pocket. Yeah, I know.

Oh, yeah. You didn't like that? I was like, how long did you hunt for that? Or was Trevor actually doing that when Peter said that? I didn't ask them that. I'm interested. Okay. Because imagine they were just like zoomed in on your pants for like the whole game,

just waiting to see if you ever, never adjusted. Spent the whole game searching. But things got to move off one leg to the other leg. Just got to. Anyways. Devil's tail. Speaking of the devil's team. Yeah.

the Houston Astros up next. Oh, dude. They're very similar to the Yankees. One Tanya Harding hit. Oh, where are you going with this? Judge and Alvarez, I mean, you take those guys out. Bam, you're done. Like, you want to go devilish.

You find a local henchman with, you know. Oh, my God. Sleeping dart and you put their leg to sleep before the game. Because those guys are carrying. You see Alvarez's numbers with runners on and then his numbers with runners on scoring position? He has a one dot slugging with runners in scoring position, like a 600 on base or something like that.

Dude's nuts. So I was thinking about this show. Yeah, as I was thinking about the show, I was saying, what am I going to say about the Yankees? And that's exactly what I was going to say about the Yankees. Not the Tanya Harding part because that was that. Even that made the devil's skin, you know, for all a little bit. taking these guys at the lineup,

yes, it's a completely different team, ball game, record, everything. Yurdon is obviously incredible at what he does. The rest of the Astros lineup needs to catch up with that even just a little bit. Altuvae left the he came back, he left the game last night with an illness. Yeah, yeah, the shit.

They said, he had to poop. Yeah, I mean, that happens, who cares? If you're hitting Yordan or judge with sleeping darts, you're going to want to send a couple? Because those are big fellas. Yeah, yeah. For the Astros, the offense is Alvarez and Tucker

than everybody else. It's so top-heavy that, I mean, their pitching staff has been keeping them in ball games. I mean, their record is still, what is it? 28 and 20, which is nuts to me because they've dealt with injuries to their pitching staff. They've had basically no offensive production outside of those two guys, and they're sitting here at 28 and 20. This is truly the devil's team. Well, let's find something they're horrible at.

Give me a set. Striking out looking, Jim, that's got it. That's frustrating as a fan. That is frustrating as a fan. Highest striking out looking. Really? Yeah. Reached on air most times out of all the lineups, does that mean some of this, good luck that's caused them to get some of these wins will turn bad. Oh, I like that. That's called regressing to the mean. Looking percentage, or what is he? Highest strikeout looking percentage.

Oh, tied with Reds and the Giants. Good teams. Yeah. 23rd and homers overall in the big leagues in that park. That should never happen for the Astros with the guys that they have. They're not stealing bases. 21st and OPS. it's offensively they have been challenged.

They are horrible against starting pitchers. Yes. Yes. 29th out of 30th against starting pitchers. Bumbs. Cool. So that plus Alvarez being put to sleep by his legs. Mm-hmm.

And you're halfway home. Are they good versus relievers? Yeah. Seventh OPS versus relievers. Relievers for the first time? Fifth. Fifth. They're playing that game, okay.

Yeah. Hey, you know who else playing that game? Yankees. They're also not good versus starting pitchers, but good versus relievers. It's a fine game to play with if your starters can keep the game close, as we said with the Mets.

Okay. This will be a fun one. Who's next? The old gun slingers. Texas Rangers. You did the devil's inting. guns or out on guns? Depends if you're using him for good or evil, like most things.

The devil doesn't he have to get like a little more messy with his devices? No, because the devil likes to use other people to carry out his penance. But I hope he's out on guns. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm not into this. Yeah, I'm not into it either. This little devil likes the Texas Rangers. That's kind of my comment.

That's the opposite of the show. You're supposed to dislike them. Yeah, I got nothing. They run differential. They are the best team in baseball. They just passed the Reyes who had an undefeated April and nobody was going to catch anything. The Reyes did this year.

Well, bugs. Rangers are good. That's my devil's thought. What a cop out? Yovaldi with another great start. I think this devil really likes the Rangers too. There's a few things with the bullpen, you know, some numbers with the bullpen that could sway you to the

dark side a little bit, but if you're banging like this team is banging, it's gluttonous, James. That's why I like this team. First and average, second in OBP. So that means they're second in OPS. They're first and runs, eighth in homers. They are absolutely mashing the ball. And they're relentless. They don't let up. It just doesn't stop. Okay. What's Dalton's stats on this team? Fewest pitches thrown in the strike zone. Second most hits given up by their pitchers on 02 counts. Let's see. There was some other stuff, I guess,

but you guys are just going opposite on us. The Rangers made a deal, Jim, and I think it's paying off. Okay. You say so. They just spent so much money, so much money, and here they are. I wouldn't have believed it.

At the beginning of the season, I'm pretty sure I probably took the under on this team, but they're proving me wrong. I'm running into a lot of good stats that I could share about them, but I'm not because this is reasons why they stink. Shake their hand, Jim. Make the deal. All right. They have the fourth worst OPS when it's late and close.

Them, the Royals, the Brewers, the Rockies, the Tigers, bottom five. So, ha, ha, ha, ha. You stink. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Try better next time. Third time seeing a starting pitcher, middle of the pack.

All right, well, the twins have a lot going bad for them. Are you guys going to cop out on this one too? I'm actually okay to do this one. I'm fine. Do you want me to help you out? No, I know what's going on. I've done a lot of research on this team. Okay.

bases loaded has been a huge problem for them. I mean, I think they have like 14 runs driven in with the bases loaded. And there's been, you know, quite a few chances here. It's just been, it's been really bad. Runners in scoring position has been bad. They've had their bullpen right now is just kind of not getting the job done. No matter who you're putting in those late innings. Duran's been fine.

Lopez, for the most part, has been fine, but Griffin Jacks has been getting hit. Brock Stewart puts a lot of runners on base. He can escape jams, but there's a lot left to be desired about the bullpen. Offensively, Carlos Correa has not getting it going, although he showed some signs with some walks as of late, but he has not performed yet.

Buxton's never going to play the outfield. again, I don't think. I'm strictly DH, although he's looking all right. I love Byron Buxton. I know I'm supposed to be the devil, but I love that guy. I think mostly it's the offense once guys get on base, it's been, it's been abysmal. So they're a big swing and miss team. They are, you know, it's the White Sox and them at chasing, swinging and missing at pitches out of the zone.

those two teams are the highest in terms of how many times it's happened, not percentage. With two strikes, they are the third highest at expanding the zone, swinging and missing. They are O swing, which is swinging out of the zone. They're in the top nine, but they're making contact with pitches when they swing out of the zone. They are bottom three.

So they're expanding the zone But not even fouling pitches off Or putting them in play They're just swinging and missing at balls I guess is the best way to Or top You know one of the three worst teams at that Which if you have pitchers who can get

The first strike, second strike I can exploit that You know if you get ahead versus twins It seems like you're going to be Faring well I can actually look at those numbers too This is like sort of a positive You know the starting pitching

The numbers are it. They're excellent this year. You know, when you go on a baseball reference team page, they have like the pictures of all the war leaders. The first four guys on that are all starting pitchers. Like, that's how offensively challenged this team has become. I do want to give a little rosy note here. The devil sometimes, sometimes, maybe I won't call it love. I'll call it infatuation, maybe a little bit of lust here. Do you remember when Kyle Farmer got traded over, and I think our take was, that's your shortstop? What are we, that's what we're doing here? Well, they end up getting Carlos Correa, and now Kyle Farmer has kind of taken over the third base role with Miranda going down, and he's become my best friend.

Oh, so no bias there. What does that mean? Trev, this team's going to be under 500 pretty soon. They go, they play Toronto, and then at Houston. They're one game above 500, as we speak, by the way. And then they'll play Cleveland, both probably under 500 fighting for the AL Central. And then they go on a road trip to the race in Toronto.

So middle of June, the whole Central is going to be under 500. I don't believe that. They have lost a lot of really close games. Even against the Dodgers, it really has been that bullpen and the inability to hit with fucking bases low. did. They went two and four on the road trip that I was there with them. Easily could have been four and two.

And you could even say they could have swept the entire thing. But those late leads, man, they gave them up. So some sort of adjustment there. I don't know if they have people waiting in the wings as far as bullpen help, but like they have to figure out that formula. And that's like a manager's number one thing he has to do is manage the bullpen. I think that's the hardest thing to do. And that's like kind of how managers earn their money.

and they just haven't been able to find the formula. They're 4 and 10 in one-run games right now. Yeah, they are 5 and 5 against the East, 3 and 3 against the West, 10 and 6 against the Central. So you want to win the Central, you got to beat the Central, but got to beat teams out of your division too. Not good. Go twins. Go twins. Go twins. Go twins.

That's a wrap on the Twins. This one's easy. Even Guardians hit the freaking ball. Yeah, Guardians, lowest slugging percentage, lowest OPS plus, lowest home run. But, you know, home run and slugging OPS plus, like, that's not Guardian baseball. I don't know where they landed at those last year. I bet it wasn't lowest. I bet it was probably middle of the pack, maybe lowest amongst contenders last year.

And I'm just completely speculating because that's like their brand of ball. So that doesn't paint like the full picture for them. I guess. You know who would look great in that makeup that you have on right now, Jake? Go on. James Karen Jack. He might do that on the weekends. Yep.

People have said he's a doppelganger for me, so now he knows what it looks like if he hasn't. Yeah. But he has. God, they're all. A couple mouth breeders. What? Guardians are one of the worst teams amongst contenders

versus left-handed pitching, six and 12. So that's not good. They have a lot of lefties, I guess. Decent amount. Switch hitters and lefties up top. Jim, it goes, the hitting thing I said before, in a year where the Oakland A's earned are being a AAA team. Yeah. 28th and batting average, 29th in OBP, 30th in OPS.

They are worse than them. Shout out Brent Rooker, dog. 29th and runs, 30th in homers. Keep going, big dog. It's disgusting. No thanks. But they can steal some bags. they can steal bags when they get on

what else are you gonna do fourth and stolen bases what the freak that's how they get their slug James our stat needs to come out AESS yeah talk to Eno about it or something well they're like there's these stats that are kind of like it I'm like no

I don't care about those stats I want a simple stat I want OPS or slugging percentage that just gets added on to when you steal a base yeah and then what happens so if you would it be like because this is a question for us just add total bases plus or something But if you get, how about this?

Okay. If you get thrown out, they have to take a base off, right? Sure. Yeah. Yes. What if you get thrown out going for an extra base hit? Also off, right? Yeah.

That should be anyway. I don't like that. Like, if you hit a double, I don't think you should get credit for a single. Do you get credit for a single? Do you get credit for a single? If you want credit for the single, stay at first. I don't, I'd never really like that.

Like that's, that's, That's your choice. That's the risk. There's no risk now. I still get this hit. Well, yeah. If you think you can make it and you want the double, get there. Otherwise, stay put.

You're out. Why is the stat keeper bailing you out? I kind of like that. I mean, seriously, you're not on base. You're not on base. You just made it out. Yeah. But there's certain situations, though, James.

What if you, there's a runner on second base, two outs and you're drawing the throw to have the RBI. That strategy would get washed away with our new strategy of, it's not worth the risk. Circumstantial, we might have to just go and like, you know, they do that for defense. They go look at all the place. Yeah.

Anyways. Why don't you guys get your shady rays? Nowhere's an actually pretty bright place. Hell. Hell. It's really good. It's dark but bright at the same time. It'd be really good to have a nice pair of sunnies in hell.

And summer in the city is coming, which sometimes can be a similar thing. Get yourself a pair of. of shady rays. They are the best in the biz, and they are at, not only are they normally at an affordable price, but with Code Talking, they are giving you 50% off 2 plus pairs of polarized shades,

and they've got their lost and broken replacement guarantee. So that means you get a pair of Shady Ray Sonny's, you basically have them for life. Get yourself a pair, or get yourself a pair and get someone else a pair. Wow. How nice would that be? They've been a big part of our Blitzball.

They've been a big part of kind of everything we do here. So thanks to Shady Ray's co-talking 50% off 2 plus pairs of premium polarized shades. Premium polarized shades. Shady Vision is like the best thing that's ever happened to a baseball themed event. Wow. Straight from the devil's mouth. Who are we on to next? The Red Sox.

Second lowest average from their first basements. Allowed the most home runs to left-handed hitters. Have Corey Kluber in their staff. Oh. And anything else? That was kind of a ruthless adult. And put that one in there. Oh, that was a Dalton?

Or are you just blaming Dolph? Okay. Oh, I was Dalton. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Oh. Oh. Oh.

I mean, hey, guys, the team that didn't go address their starting pitching, they all stink. I mean, Chris Sale, 5 ERA, Hawk, 4.99 ERA, Cluber, 6.26 ERA, Pivotta, 6.17. ERA. Well, yeah, but he had eight games started before they did that. Seven games for Brian Bello, 408. I mean, that's their best 408. I'll say this. I think they are who we thought they are.

They are who we thought they were. They can bang the ball around a little bit. Yes, there's some questions where they're starting pitching. All those sales had some good starts. He's had some bad starts. Bayo's been pretty good as of late. He looks the part, you know, they've been trying to tell us about him for a long time. He's struggled initially, but I think he's going to be all right.

And then, yeah, I mean, Kluber's been bad. Paveta's in the bullpen now. You know, Hauke has had some decent starts. So there is. they need to improve there. Paxton is back. He actually looks pretty dang good, so that's nice for them.

Can they pitch enough? The bullpen's been good, so can they, is it just the case of with the Red Sox? Pitch enough. Just pitch enough to get to the bullpen and we'll swing away and try to win these games by scoring runs.

Yeah, I mean, the problem is with their staff is that their middle of the pack innings one through three in OPS against, right, for their starters. But it's those four, five, and six innings where they can't. And this is for a lot of teams.

Those innings are very important. And they have the second worst OPS against innings four, five, and six. Guess who's worst? Oakland. So basically, of all major league teams, if you take out quadruplea teams, they're the worst. Then Kansas City, then Cincinnati, then Miami, then the nationals. So, like, company you keep.

and I mean, that was kind of like what everyone knew. They didn't have starters that could give you. Here, Whitlock is coming back, so there's another person in the rotation. They're really trying to piece it together. On the flip side, their offense is helping them out. Their offense is very good in those middle innings. Devil. Friendly devil.

Yeah. They can't hit on the road either, which I don't know. I don't know what that's about. Here's a stat for your starters. that's devilish. Homer's per nine, 29th. I got to imagine Oakland's 30th. I don't know.

Just throwing that out there. What was it? Homer's per nine. Come on, come on. Where would I find that? You're so good at looking these stats up quickly. It would take me a while. I think that would just be like standard pitching splits.

SP Homer per 9. Yeah. Okay. So wait. So what do you want to look up? Who's 30th? A's. 10.1.

10.1 homers per nine? That has to be hits. That has to be hits. All right. Homers per nine. A's are still last. 1.7. Okay.

They're last in every category. 29th in hits on fan grass. The A's. The A's. They have them. This whole episode should have 10.1. Yeah, I don't know how

how often roster research updates that page. But their starting pitcher numbers, the A's 30, 30, 30, 20, 25, 29, 30. What if this whole episode? Walks per 9, worst A's. What if we talked about how good it is

for them to go to Las Vegas? Just this whole episode. That's all we talked about. WIP. Worst. A's. FIPP. Worse.

A's. ERA plus, worst, is. Oh my gosh. Wild pitches, wild pitches, worst, is. Hit by pitch, worst, is. That's insane. Walks, you guys told me. A's.

Home runs. A's. A's. Runs. A's. Hits. A's. That's crazy.

They're starting pitchers. They're not an MLB team. 30th in ERA, 30th and whip, 30th in walks per nine, 30th in homers for nine. The relievers, 30th in ERA, 30th in whips per nine, 30th and hits per nine. 28th in Ks per nine, 28th in homers per nine. The devil loves the A's. It's very sad. It's very sad.

Makes the devil a little sad. Damn. That's bad. You know you're having a rough year when the devil feels sad for you. My goodness. Team had Sean Murphy, Olson, Chapman. Now they've got Vegas. Bassett.

Montas. Montas. Montas. Chad Pinder. Hot. All right. Who's next? Toronto?

Tied for third fewest three-oh counts out of all lineups. Wow. They'd be swinging. Most starts with 100 plus pitches so far this season. Okay. It's the most strikeouts when batting with runners in scoring position. Damn.

Bummer. Bummer. I'm a believer in this team, so the devil in the middle here doesn't have a lot of devilish takes on this team, although they just had a really bad, I don't know if it was a homestands,

a couple series in a row, they lost seven of eight, but they just put a hurting on the raise last night, 20 runs. 10 of them off a position player. Yeah, but still 10 runs. This is off subject, but let's just get a mercy rule.

Or wave the white flag. Watching that last night, that's not baseball. No one wants to see that. No. It's nothing. Not good. It's like, please can we get this game over with? It's just silly.

Yeah. I agree. Jake, you're a believer in the Blue Jays? Jays, right now you're lumped with the Red Sox instead of being lumped with the Reyes, Orioles, or Yankees. So you got your manager fired last year. I don't know. Are you going to do it again?

How does the devil feel about John Schneider? Nice beard. I don't know. I don't know. Would you kiss him with those black weird lips you got right now? Those things are just freaking out. Jake, would you kiss him with those weird black lips you have right now. I would.

I knew that was the answer. Okay. Anything else on Toronto? I'm trying to see if I got anything else. I mean, Manoa's not been good. And then there's swing and miss stuff. We got that. They're middle of the pack.

A lot of the stats I've been looking at, they are kind of just middle of the pack. They're not terrible. They are good at some of the offensive ones. But what's going to be their downfall, Jake? That's as much of a problem, Jim. Be good at something. Okay.

You're giving me all that middle of the pack? This is supposed to be the Blue Jays. This movie has been mid. I turn the movie off Sheesh I'm just kidding I really I think these blue jays are going to go You like the offense?

Yeah they're just sputtering a little bit And maybe they've just I feel like they need the baseball season To really settle in And just like quite all the fucking distractions For gosh sakes Your pitcher was tipping pitches So what? Move on everybody tips pitches

Dude But I don't know what's fucking crazy about that. I haven't done the break. I've been working on this breakdown of this. I don't know if it's ever going to come out because it's so, I can't find the answer. But from watching the footage, they know Judge wasn't looking at the first base coach.

Because when you watch back the game, you can see Judge communicating with one of the Yankees coaches on the railing in the dugout. It's clear as day. They're talking to each other. They're going back and forth. You can also tell that when Judge does his side eye, it's before the pitcher starts his wind up and it's right.

Literally, the pitcher says it. He does this. He brings his glove to his head like this, like he's sleeping, and then he comes down. And the pitcher said for fastballs, he was fast, and for his slider, he was slower. And you can watch. You could count and say one Mississippi, two, Mississippi.

And then if he's down, that's a break, or that's fastball. One, two, three. So I've been doing that. they had to know this, the Blue Jays, because one, the pitcher admitted it. And two, the footage is very obvious that Judge was not looking at the first base coach

or third base coach. And he's looking at the guy in dugout. So they, their whole keep the pitch, the coach in the, was like a smoke screen they, they thought up to get off the scent that their pitcher was tipping.

And that's even fucking weirder. And then they went, Why was he looking at a dugout then? He was looking in the dugout. Why? Because that's the guy who was relaying him the sign. If you can, if, why would he be looking at the dugout instead of just looking at the pitcher? That's what was going on.

That's the weirdest part. I think that coach had a beat on it. I think like, it was, it's very slight. So, but was he going like this, like to judge, like. At one point he goes like one. And then, and then they were doing this for this or, or this. And this. I'm doing finger stuff.

They couldn't just, I mean. So it's really weird. All the other batters were lefties, so they couldn't turn. And it has, like, you know, we've talked to baseball players before that. It's like,

we talked to Blue Jays catcher, Josh Toley, and he was like, Batista and them, Donaldson, they always knew the tip. I could never even figure it out. So they would just have to tell me.

That's what it seemed like, like that guy. But Judge goes back to the dugout. He wings at the guy. He says, thank you. It's all on camera. So the Blue Jays know he wasn't looking at

first base coach or third base coach, but they went out. and publicly said that and then yelled at the Yankees third base coach to get back in the box knowing it wasn't that situation. So they're just creating like a smoke screen distraction when then the starting pitcher just comes out and says, oh, no, I was tipping. It was my glove. It's like the whole situation is really weird. I think like sometimes coaching staffs, they're in their little bubble. Like they have the things they want to do every single night. They have a lot of prep to do for the game.

So they hear things and they make assumptions without, you know, really knowing what's going on. And maybe they just assume that he was looking at the first base coach and they just ran with it. I mean, it's like a weird dynamic. They found the tip. They went, the pitcher says the Blue Jays came to me and told me this is what you were doing. So they watched the footage. Where were they at before the game?

If you were the pitcher like, guys, help me out a little bit. I don't know. It's just the whole thing's kind of weird. But, yeah, judges clearly looking at the coach in the dugout. But they made this whole spectacle over the first base coaches. So, I don't know, weird. Speaking of the Yankees, we've got to finish this episode. Yeah.

The devil has places to be. Starting pitching. The devil needs to go see C. Rose. Yeah, this devil has to actually leave now. I'm on a zoom in two minutes. All right. Go Yanks. Oh, all right.

Yeah, the Yanks starting pitching injuries. The bullpen has four guys. that are going to come back, but they also, I mean, knock on wood, they got like three guys that are going to go down because they just refuse these guys so much. And the offense is very much judge, Rizzo, and then the bottom is like they have to help in small ways,

which I don't know how rely. I like it, but I don't know how reliable it is. Of late, they've gotten the contributions they need. Yeah, but you wouldn't look at those guys' numbers and be like, oh, look, they're, that's where they're playing well. But they are like, you know, bunting and moving over during this win streak.

Over a season, it's going to be tough for them to continue to do that. I mean, Judge last year kept the Yankees in everything with what he was doing offensively. It's seemingly like that's happening again this year. Like it's like repeat. Hopefully Stan comes back. Rizzo's having a monster year.

But they're top heavy. The bottom of the order can die. Right now they're just like they do. They're bunting. They're moving. moving the runner over, they're trying, which is good. But they can, they can just like, it's, it's not feast or famine. It's, uh, it's like scrape by or famine.

And the scraping is cool. It's complimentary. Last night, we had the, the Mayhew bunt that just didn't go well. Right back to Canoe first and third. This is the thing about situations like that. I think he had a good reason. He said, look, this guy elicits a lot of ground balls. There was one out.

I hit a lot of ground balls. And if he gets that bun. down anywhere but where he put it it's a run and people are saying wow DJ like doing that like giving himself up what a ball player what a you know awesome but when it goes wrong it looks just bad yeah he need to get a pass Yankees players was all over it got to practice you're bunting a little I don't I don't love the Yankees rotation right now so yeah yeah and Rodon I saw throwing what's that mean I know there was like really no timetable but has there now a timetable?

Yeah, for me, he needs to come back right after the All-Star break. If, you know, if you have to wait to mid-August, then that doesn't give me a lot of hope. I think before is on the table. We just haven't heard. From right now, you have to assume at least a month. Just needs spring training.

Speaking of starting pitching, the Baltimore Orioles. They've been getting just enough starting pitching but that's something they're going to have to address if they want to be a serious real deal world series contender I know there's a clip out right now

that a lot of Orioles fans they like me for this take I said I think that they are a threat to get into the playoffs and win it all but it's the model is not necessarily sustainable for me right now like they're kicking it to the bullpen they're getting like I said just enough

starting pitching I don't know if that's The way they win is sustainable if they're getting those starts But I don't know if they can continue to do that With the guys that they have Yeah That means Grayson Rodriguez needs to step up

Whether that means they need to go get some people Which is probably what they need to do I mean they have a stacked farm system They're spending no money on their payroll So they're in position to add I would say that is the biggest devil's take Is they Really if you break down the starters there

No offense, I love you. That's the weakness of this team. Yeah, it is. But their offense is really good. Really good. For this year, Jake said it well. Jake said it well on Wake and Jake that comes out today.

But just this Orioles team this year, hard to imagine any world where they have a one, two, three for the playoffs. Even with a big trade. Yeah, that's true. Just hard to see that conclusion for them. devil's take. That's true. Yeah.

Starting pitching is the weakness. And you really need that. Not to say anything crazy here. We weren't supposed to mention the angels at all because this is a devil's episode. Yeah, that's true. Devil's episode. The most devilish thing we can say is that there is calling them not contenders. And the rays.

Showing needs to can the sweeper. That's my opinion. Everyone needs to can. the sweeper. Yeah. Unless you're the top 10 guys. It's not... Probably that you have a good one.

It's so... If it starts with a 7, it's too slow. Okay. I like that. I like that. I saw them... I saw him and Trout

get just busted up and in all day long. And that obviously is their blue zone, their cold zone. So you can go up there on those guys. And the devil's take on that.

is teams are obviously I mean they've been doing that their whole careers but like I think that there's a chance that I mean it's a dangerous way to live I think these guys got to like get off the plate or something like make some adjustment in the box because if you're constantly getting thrown up and in like that the risk of injuries high it's scary really scary and then the raise the sweepers bad used to be the devil raised do you want to give a take real quick or Um, yeah, they're very good. Their bullpen is not great right now. I think statistically even.

They've been giving up some. The Yankees have like a five, four ERA off their relievers. Um, and too many repeat names. Never going to be. That's part of their plan to suppress stardom, to be honest. We'll have two lows. Three lows. We have two Kellys.

Well, have Randy. To suppress star. Yeah. Yeah, well, Randy. I actually like that take, James. We have Randy, Wondi. What are all the ends? Wander, Randy, Yondi.

Randen, Lowe. Be Randen, you know. No, uh, no stars here. Well, I think a lot of people said they were going to come back down to Earth in May. 12 and 9 in May. After going 22 and 6 in April. They're 14 and 3 in blowouts. That doesn't mean anything.

Nine and seven in one-run games. You'd expect a team like the race to have a better record than 9 and 7. Yeah. The devil take on them is, oh, that division lead, one team within three games, second team within five games in their division.

So division lead no longer in like a full safe place. Oh, yeah. Maybe it puts devil back in your name. It's going to be a slog. All right. That's everybody. Everybody we had set a sense. side.

Cool. Thanks for tuning in to the devil's episode. I never want to do this again. That was so hard for me. Jake sucks. Jake sucks.