Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - Wander Franco BENCHED & the Reds Get Back Joey Votto | 679

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKINVisit https://fubotv.com/talkinbaseball to get 15% off your first month.Upgrade your closet with Rhone and use code BASEBALL to save 20% at https://rhone.com/BASEBALLGet 50% off your first box of fresh dog food at https://www.thefarmersdog.com/jomboy. #tfdpartner #thefarmersdogHead to https://birddogs.com/TALKIN to get a free Yeti style tumbler with every order.Join us for our All-Star Game festivities in Seattle! Event is on July 11: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jomboy-media-all-star-party-tickets-656903595337++++++Timestamps: 0:00 Intro3:45 National League Recap9:00 Giants Take 3 of 4 from Padres13:40 DBacks Beat the Brewers17:05 Cubs SWEEP, Pirates Lose 10th in a Row25:25 Reds SWEEP and Votto Returns!31:50 Farhan Zaidi is a Genius?33:15 Cards-Nats33:40 Braves a Wagon37:15 American League Recap41:45 Twins-Red Sox46:45 Blocking the Plate54:00 Yankees "Beat" the Mariners57:10 Guardians Sweep Oakland58:50 Wander Franco Gets Benched1:08:35 Interleague Recap1:10:30 Hot Tubs1:12:15 Toronto-Miami1:14:35 Mets-Astros1:20:25 TJ Friedl1:25:40 Merrill Kelly1:26:25 Joe Ryan CG SO1:28:30 En Fuego1:37:50 Injury Updates1:39:00 Maverick Award: Clayton Kershaw1:44:40 Hangman Award: Bryce Elder & Orlando Arcia 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. We've got dueling win streaks in the National League. We got star players being benched. Oh, it's players only. Campio, Campio. Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball, presenting you by Seek. My name is Jake Ronald Storelli. I was born on my uncle Ronnie's birthday.

It was going to be Jake Charles. But then I was born on his birthday, so they named me Jake Ronald. David Mendelsohn in the room with me. Trevor Plouf, getting nasty and Calabassey. Getting ready for the freaking weekend, baby. How you doing, Trev? My parents were trying to have a girl when they had me. They thought they were having a girl.

And then the manliest son of a gun ever freaking born came out. I'm doing great. We had a barbecue last night, Thursday night. I watched Top Gun Maverick for a little bit before the sprinklers came on. I'm going to give a Top Gun Maverick award today. This episode is testosterone driven. We had a debate offline. And things are hot right now.

And I can't wait to see what that makes. What kind of baby we're going to make today on this show. We're literally the Tampa Bay race. We're number one. We're the best. But we're working out stuff too. You know? I would bench you right now.

Oh, you try. You try. I'd walk right up to whatever Niedermeyer's running it for the raise now, and I'd say like it fucking... What did you just say Niedermeier? Cash is being a fucking dick. I'm not sitting. I'm Wander fucking Franco.

Trev, it's a loaded up. It's a loaded baseball season. And it's brought to you by Fubo. Fubo. 200 live channels of sports, movies, shows, and news. And you kind of know why they're with us. They're the leader in baseball coverage. MLB TV, MLB network, other top sports networks.

BPD's NBA draft last night. You can stream all the action from game days anywhere. And hey, Triva, what is that? Cardinals Cubs in London. You can watch that on Fubu through Fox and Espin, 55,000 live sporting events. We're talking 4K quality. They've got a free seven-day trial going.

So sign up at FuboTV.com slash talking baseball. Today, activate a special offer for 15% off your first month. There is a link in the description. Fubo, baseball, talking baseball. It's kind of what it's all about. So with that, Friday. What's Jack Flaherty doing in London right now? Oh, God.

He, uh, The streets. Streets are wet. He's like the definition of like, I don't know, that American man comes over and orders a cheeseburger and like, a woman on the other side of the bar turns and is like, whoa. Whoa. She's got the accent. I mean, that's, Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song called Emmett Remus.

That's English girl, American man. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk some national. All right. Horny. All right. In your National League, the San Francisco Giants, Trev.

They keep it rolling. They have won nine out of ten. That one loss was in their last game as my guy, Snell continues. But otherwise, it's Los Hibido Hiantes. We saw the Yistramski walk off late into the drink. Jack Peterson, I'll have what he's having. He gets the walk off RBI walk. Same, same, but different.

And your boy, Blake Sable, from the beach to the bay, man. He keeps going. The Giants out of their bullpen. Jellyfingers. He goes four shuddy out of the pen. Giants, man. They can't stop right now, dude. They're sneaking up on my snakes.

Who took two out of three from Milwaukee? Elgonquin for the good place. Carol Kelly, Zach Gallen, the best one-two punch you don't talk about baseball. They won those two games. They got help from your boy Pardomo, who just keeps going, Trev. Alec Thomas has gotten recalled up, and he be hitting. Couple multi-hit games. Brew crew won the game in the middle, Eureas and Adomas.

That's kind of their formula, right? Snakes, though, we're playing for rings in the desert. The Chicago Cubs are a team that needs to be discussed. They sweep the pirates. Don't look at the L-10 for the pirates right now. Hello, but the Cubbies. They shut them out the first two games. You know Stroman was one of them, obviously.

Drew, he's just being smiley. Mike Talkman's having big games. Dan's Bay, Happer. I love it in that final game, Horno and Hendrix. That was our old name on this show. Cubs get the sweep. but they keep pace with the Cincinnati Reds, W-11 in their recent games.

It's unreal, man. Comeback wins. This was Joey Votto's return. He hits the Big Homer, then they lose the lead. They come back in that one. T.J. Frito, the next night in Elie Day La Cruz. This team, man, I mean, name a better time to be a Reds fan in the last decade, question mark.

They probably have some. Sound off in the comments. And your St. Louis Cardinals do take two out of three from the Nats. You mentioned Jack Flaherty. He goes 6.1. He gives a lot of runs, but he eats up the innings and they win that game. Cardinals, they put up runs, man, Goldschmidt, Edmund, Wilson Contreras, Dylan Carlson, 2-Dinger Day.

How about that? Trevor Williams and the boys, they blank them on the final game. as we mentioned, St. Louis heading across the pond. And then they only played two games instead of three because we had a postponement. Braves win two against the Phillies. Strider Suarez, that was a fun duel. In the final game, you might have seen the highlight.

Our boy, Schwabber goes for the diving catch would end the extra inning. Yeah, boy. Things fall apart. It turns into five. Braves win those two games. That is what happened in your national league. Electric.

Braves on top of the division. They have a six-game lead on the Miami Marlins, who are 43 and 33. Braves casually on an eight-game winner, by the way. Phillies are two games above 500. The Mets are 34 and 40. Come on, Mets. Nats, you.

Cincinnati is at top the NL Central at 40 and 35. The Brewers are a game and a half back of them. The third place, Chicago Cubbies. How about it? Three and a half back. They're eight and two in their last ten. I mentioned the Pirates, O for 10. Yipes.

Tough. St. Louis Cardinals. Yeah. Snakes, 46 and 30 on top. Three and a half games up on the San Francisco Giants. Hello. Dodgers. Half game up on them.

San Diego. They're back there, man. 36 and 39. and the Rockies are waiting to call up Cole Tucker. Trevor, in the National League, I know you call yourself the Kron King. I guess we do some giants. They're obviously your and Gabe's giants,

and we did cover, I think, a little bit of this in the midweek because that Yostramsky walkoff was sick to end that game. And then, yeah, man, I mean, we hate when we sound lame, Trevor, and I'll let you make fun of me. But like right now, one of these teams wins games at the end and one of these teams loses games at the end

and that's why they're, you know, however many games apart in the standings. Horrible analysis. No, it's right. That's the reason that's happening, though, and this series in particular is just kind of a snapshot of it, though, is hitting with firearms, scoring position.

I mean, how much do you talk about in baseball, timely hitting matters? And how do you quantify that? Well, mainly by hitting with runners and scoring position. The Padre did not do that the first three games. Snell jumped on the bump. Bump day. Snell Zilla puts up a great start for them in the last game and they hit with runners and scoring position.

And guess what? They won 10 nothing. Before that, yeah, they're coughing up leads. The bullpen's not holding. You know, they had a lead going into the ninth against the Giants in the first. game and wild pitch sack flyby Patrick Bailey who's like kind of passive for this team yeah they have these two young stud catchers and we and how often do we talk about catchers just being like absolute central cogs to a team they get the job done your stem tree comes up and

freaking walks it off of the three-run bomb in the first game it's this giant's team is doing what they're supposed to be doing which is just playing solid baseball they're getting hits when they need to they're having quality of bats. The bullpen's been great for them. Gabe Kapler's hot. What else is there to say? You got to watch out for this team. I'm so happy that like this is happening again because in 2021 when they won all those

games, we were able to talk about, hey man, like they got something going there. Like the culture is there and they're able to build this. And that's a real thing in baseball. And they're doing it right now again. What did they finish last year? Like straight at 500, I'm pretty sure. this year is completely different they're on a role right now

can they catch the snakes I don't know if it's yet to be seen but taking three or four from the Padres that's nice man on the flip side of the Padres again it's like you got all these guys what did I say some stupid thing like how many times are Bogards

you had like four guys in the same game which is crazy like that should happen though it's not crazy look at the names I'm talking about It's not like I'm saying freaking Jake Story Allie and Nikki Cass are going to hit home runs in a blitzball game. That's dumb. What I said wasn't dumb.

It just hasn't happened yet. So, I don't, I mean, with the Padres, it's just, it seems to me like it's a waiting game. And all of a sudden, we're going to be talking about the Padres and this 10 game winning streak they went on. And they're right back in it. But it hasn't happened yet, Jake. Yeah, it should happen. Will it happen? That's going to be very interesting.

But, man, I wonder if they're starting to get to one of those weird situations where, you know, like, Soto's been killing it for a while. Like Soto's got to be looking around. He's got a two homer game. He's like, you know, I'm doing my part. Tatis has been killing it. He's kind of looking around like I'm doing my part. Machado's back doing his thing. He's got to be looking around like, I'm doing my part that.

I don't know. I feel like that can cause some weirdness in a locker room when, you know, if you're not necessarily winning, but the stars feel like, well, we're doing our, like, I don't know what else you expect. I guess, I don't know. And going back to my what I called bad analysis, those first two games are tied in the eighth inning or later. Like you said they had a lead, wild pitch. That's kind of losing baseball. And then they walk jock to bring in the winning rung.

So yeah, that's not winning baseball. Some numbers behind it. Going into that last game yesterday on Thursday, 195, 289, 330 for a 618 OPS with runners in scoring position for the San Diego Padres. That's not going to get it done. That's how you end up losing series. I mean, they finally did it. They were four for 29 with runners in scoring position before the last day.

Then on Thursday they went five for ten. What happened on Thursday? They won the game. Like sometimes it is as simple as that. Like, yeah, you're going to have games where the bullpen doesn't hold. and you're going to have games where you just get beat. A pitcher comes and just dominates you. But if you're not able to string together consecutive good at bats

or plate runners when they're in squirm position, it's going to be a long freaking season. Now, are these things, do they end up averaging out? I like to say that. I think they will when you have an offense with names like this. I think it should. But you've got to do it or you don't do it. That's analysis.

We're hot today, baby. Oh, my gosh. Trev, we mentioned the snakes. They took two out of three from the brewers, which I think before the season would have felt off where we're currently at. Kind of makes sense. On. Right?

Like Kelly and Gallen, and by the way, you might be hearing about one of those guys later. Wink, wink, wink, nudge, um, that, yeah, I mean, Alec Thomas, I think he's the guy that I'd want to highlight here. He gets called back up. He's been giving them some big games. Remember the Diamondbacks, their outfield depth, they're trading away Varshow. He was supposed to be one of the guys.

Him and McCarthy got off to slow starts, and they've been contributing now. I did DM Jake McCarthy late last night. I was kind of in my feels a little bit. You were. We're going to see where that leaves us, because we're follow for follow, but we've never engaged,

but we're both Jake and we're both snakes. And I'll give Julio Tehran a little bit. love, man. Sometimes we move on from guys in baseball and he gets an opportunity. Six straight starts, five innings, at least five innings and two or fewer runs. Second longest active streak in the majors. Yeah. Not really super surprised by this series. You spot Merrill Kelly, who I think we're going to be talking about a little bit later. You spot him a six run lead in the first good things are going to happen. It's Corbyn Burns. Yes. Yes. Yes. second game

snakes were ahead in that one too you know get on the rumors for coming back and then you know you get Zach Gallant sevenings pitch one and run he just hates us I think he uses it his fuel he looks at that chart and says these idiots didn't even there was 20 something

pitchers taken you didn't even put me was there 20 yeah there wasn't 20 around there's 15 there's like 15 pictures taken he didn't take him he's got to hate us I think he's like the front runner for Scy Young right now. We got cute with it. I will say one of my cute last picks was Snell,

and I'm starting to buy that. But yeah, no, they're good. Talking about them a little more later, Brewers, I mean, NL Mid, which we're going, oh, I did want to ask you this before we go to the Cubs, because I really, I'm interested to get your thoughts on them. But Treve, can you, and I don't know, this 30 seconds high and tight

or if you start dreaming, let me know. But like, how good is that feeling? Like, you're the snakes. You come in. Corbyn Burns. Like, oh, shit. It's going to be a tough day at the office today. And you clip them for six in the first.

Like, how high is that T? You just set the tone right there. I mean, and they're rolling. I mean, I think the high T comes from, hey, we're in fucking first place in the NOS. And ain't nobody thought that was going to happen. Here we are. We showed up.

We're doing. And they just continue to win Sears. They're already riding high, but you're right. You do that against an ace, arguably one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Not even arguably. He's one of the best pitchers in all the baseball. And you go do that. It's a nice feeling.

And you have one of your studs on the mound and he does his thing. And you say, hey, ain't nobody's stopping us. It's nice to be a snake right now. Funny sentences with sports. Trevor, the Pirates L10, oh boy, the ship is sinking a little bit there, which a little bit, I think we have, I think we anticipated, I don't think we anticipated like this. On the other side of it, though, a team that, and this is where I constantly, whenever it gets brought up,

you see my brain just spinning and the hamster wheel doesn't have answers. The Chicago Cubs, eight and two in their last 10. They are now two games below 500. And, okay, that normally doesn't sound flashy. They're three and a half back in the NL Central. And this is a team you've liked their roster. You like the names on this roster throughout the season. And like I said, when you look at some of their stats,

like their starting pitching has been a strength, which I think coming into the year, you would have thought that could have been a weakness for this team. This Cubs team has a little bit of juice in a big June that'll dictate a lot of teams what they do at the deadline. They keep winning games. And you're right,

their pitching has been great. We can talk about Marcus Stroman, you know, all day long because he keeps talking shit and backing it up, which is like, that's when talking shit is great. When you can go out there

every fifth day and do your job and say, hey, the price is going up. Oh yeah, remember when I wanted that extension and I want to be here in Chicago? Yesterday's price ain't today's price. It reminds me of Josh Donaldson. We used to know, Billy Bean. Love those stories.

happy for Marcus Stroman the pirates quickly I don't want to harp on this but they're 14 and 31 since the beginning of May this is not a quick descent from the top

this has been a long slow sinking ship get it because they're pirates that was pretty good thought about that one for a while I don't know man this is I think the Cubs are in an interesting position here

where your two games back, you know, we know what the standings are, you have a guy like Marcus Stroman, who's going to decline his player option at the end of the year. What do you do? He's almost forcing them in to have an extension, right? Like, what are your options? Trade him can't do that right now. You can't.

You're too close. You know, you like to if you were out of the race, trade them, great. get some prospects, whatever, whatever. You need to sign this guy. Or else you just let him walk at the end of the year. It's a very interesting position that front office has put in. And I kind of like, I'm fascinated when this happens. And front offices have to make the tough choice.

What do you, I mean, what do you think is going to happen here? To me, I'll give you my answer quick because I like to just talk and I don't like to pass it off to you all the time. I think they extend them. I think he's forced them into an extension. You think so? Yes. I don't know, man. I mean, that just seems so...

But if you're Marcus, maybe you just say no. Then that's what I... I guess I don't see Stroman agreeing to anything. Stroman's been one of the best pitchers in baseball and he's got a chance to hit free agency that, you know, unless they're throwing, you know, true ace money at him, which, you know, that hasn't been the Cubs MO of recently.

Like, if I'm... A for war. If I'm stroh, if I'm stro, I'm sprinting to free agency. And if I'm the Cubs, I think they believe Marcus Stroman's really good. But, you know, right now he's on pace for an eight war, Cy Young, one or two season, basically, that I don't, to instantly react and pay on that feels like a guttural fan reaction. But I'm a fan.

You love those. You and Aaron wouldn't remind me to that all the time. So maybe it's then I'm all in. Yeah, sign them now. Max, give him NBA Max contract. I guess, yeah, what is, what does that look like? Because you're right, I mean, he's pitching as good as he can pitch. I mean, it's really hard to pitch better than he is pitching right now.

Values all time high. Values all time high, but, you know, you had your chance of them. He keeps saying to the media on his social media, hey, I want to be a cub. I love the fan base here. He's put you in a corner. Love that. I love when a player can do that to a front office, because it's always the other. other way around.

Anyways, good on the Cubs, man. I hope they keep going because I do like the guys on the team. I think they've constructed a decent roster. And, you know, they're in a division that's very much winnable. Know what's a good formula? I'll throw this in the binder, and you'll like this a lot for Stroman. He's leading the National League in, I get least amount of home runs allowed by a starting pitcher, per nine. 0.5 homers per 9.

And he's also leading the National League in WIP. So he's not letting runners on, and he's not giving up homers. That's the ticket. That's the ticket. I want to see who do the Cubby's got coming up? Pirates, ooh. All right.

Oh, I mean, Cubbies are in London. So that should, Cubbies and Cardinals in London. That should be electric. Are those games going to be on early? gotta be right? I don't know. Flaherty's already posting on his Instagram very early in the morning over here.

West Coast time. I wonder if the balls are going to, doesn't it seem like whenever we go like abroad, the ball is just fly? Like what's this stadium going to be like? They're going to be 300 foot fences all the way around or some silly stuff like that. I'm curious to see how it goes.

The last London one was crazy. I'm scientists coming out saying like the ball like was just super hitable. Like, how are you? How? Like this. I don't trust an English scientist whatsoever.

I don't trust English people, to be honest with you. Yeah, that's fair. You guys lost. Let's see. You don't got to do the voice. Cardinal, okay, so they got a 110 start, Eastern time, Saturday, and then a 10 a. m. Sunday. So, hey, a little Sunday, 10 a.m. brunch and baseball for you.

Why not? Okay. quick Cubs selling at the deadline. Yes or no? Eesh. Right? No, it's, I feel like Cubs fans probably don't want to hear us talking about this,

but it's the reality of the situation, guys. I think that they have to be within three games, the first place in the NEO Central for them not to at least move some pieces around. Okay. I think it might be like a sell, but not fully sell.

Like, hey, here's some stuff on offer-up here. Does anybody want this? Real quick, don't tell anybody about it. But here you go. I think they're into what they're doing. I think that front office is into what they're doing. Like, they brought in Stroman. They brought in belly.

Like, you know, they're pasted themselves on Mike Talkman a little bit. That, I don't know. I don't know. I think if they're within, like, five games, I think they keep. I hope so. Jake, you've been on this for a bit. I don't know who's going to sell. Whichever team decides to do it as a chance to be the only

or one of like two teams with stuff people really want selling. Cubs are in the group that might be. Can we just shout out Justin Steele and Kyle Hendrix? Yeah. Talk about Stroman all the time because he's fun to talk about. And he's been awesome. These guys are, yeah, he's been awesome. But so of these guys.

I mean, Kyle Hendricks and six starts got a two-six. Justin Steele and 13 starts as a 2-7. Like they're, gosh, I mean, look, the NL Central is up for grabs, and there's some good baseball to be played. I mean, we talk about, I think, like, you talk about AL Central, and like, there's some mid-teams in there. Like, I think there's better teams in the NL Central.

Interesting. Let me digest that a little bit, and I'll get back to you as we talk about the team that everyone in the Central is currently looking up at the Cincinnati Reds. Another, like, historic awesome night in Reds fandom history, the Joey Votto return home run. It doesn't get much cooler than that. Then he gets to go ahead, uh, hit, like the next inning. I mean, it's, it's just unreal. And his presser, you know, I've, I've had like the least popular opinion in sports. It was one of the most early talking baseball videos that sometimes Votto

was too much for me, which I think that'll shock people, because I'm too much. for everyone. Like a lot, most people. For everyone. But I thought it was cool when we met up with Todd Frazier and, you know, Todd's, Jersey, Paizan, goofball like myself, that he was like, yeah, you know, sometimes me and Joey were on different wavelengths. Like, you know, Joey, Joey's pretty intense.

Like, look at that pregame presser. And he's doing the whole, like, you know, I'll do, I need to, I need to earn my keep with this team. And it was awesome. And then he comes out and does this. that and he's got the Viking thing on that you hate. That's why you're banned in Sinci. But like we've talked about, dude, Alexis Diaz,

20 for 20 and save opportunities. And then they hit, man. Yes. That's, yeah. I love all weighing on the Jolivado thing. He was always awesome to me and not like too much. I thought he was just the right amount of Joe Yvado. I look up to this guy.

Like he's a professional, one of the better hitters that I saw in the big leagues. Like the way he approached the bats, the adjustments that he made. I mean, just go look at Joey throughout his career. Like you're going to see different setups. You're going to see different approaches because he just, he understands the ebbs and flows of the game. And, you know, he wants to be good. Like he, in his mind, that's all that matters. I want, he wants to be great.

And he is great. He is. He's going to be a Hall of Famer. So I love the fact that he said, I need to earn my way with this team. I don't want to be the reason that this Winstreet comes to end. I don't think I should just be in this lineup because I'm Joey Vado. Like, I need to produce. And he liked it.

He said there's no, he says, I feel like I'm a rookie again getting called up. Like, there's no better baseball or there's no other baseball that I want to play other than the type where we're winning games and I have to prove myself and that's so true man like when you feel like I got to keep up the motivation just comes

and not that he needs it he's been doing it for so long but to hear him talk about that pregame and then he goes on Scott Van Pelt after the game gives another great interview about that and the performance and everything it really I mean that that that stole the show

for this series him coming back and being around all these young guys. We talked about all the rookies that have come up and done well. Like, you know what they need? Like, they're going to need a guy like Joy Votto that helps them. Like when things start, when they lose a game and things start to like go down a little bit, they start to come back down to the surface.

Joy Votto is going to be there and say, look, this is how you handle it. This is what you got to do. It's so important to have that. Like you can run off when you're winning and you're hitting and everything's good, it is easy to be a big leaguer. It's so fun. You show up. And man, it just seems like, this is it?

This is the big leagues? But you're going to get smacked. You're going to come down to life. And to have someone like Joy Botto there, you can't pay enough for something like that. So this team is, they're so fun to watch. I'm going to talk about Friedel coming up here in a little bit. And you're right, they'd be hitting.

All of them. I'm fully on the Votto bus, especially where he's at right now. Like, dude, I can't tell you, there's a team I follow, I won't name any names, that they're veteran-laden, and they,

the veterans don't come in with that attitude. It's very much the, it's baseball and stay the course, and don't get me wrong. Oh, don't get me wrong. Like, I know that Joey Votto has, Joe Evato doesn't have an O for four and think, okay, I'm out of baseball.

Like, no, it's a brutal sport. I get it. But to hear him come in with that on a team full of kids, one of the teams I follow, they don't have that attitude. So it was cool to hear that. And my closing notes on Cincinnati, your boy, Andrew Abbott, goes six innings, 10Ks,

three earn runs. So for him, like a bad start. But again, all these kids they're calling up, And then something on our sheet, you know, Dalton highlights the star performers of each game. And, you know, if you check out a Brave series, you'll see Ronald O'Cunia Jr.'s name three times and then some Albies, also, whoever. All seven of the Reds names listed are different. Votto, Senzel, Fidel, De La Cruz, Benson, Freyley, Stevenson. Okay, there is De LaCruz twice, so that's on me.

But that's without mentioning McLean or Jonathan India. Like these guys are These guys are performing And that's kind of what it's all about 26 come from behind victories in 2023 Means a couple different things Yeah Means you do have timely hitting

Means you're getting guys on base late in the games Against the bullpen It also means your bullpen is doing their job And reminder, Rockies You guys have a solution He has fantastic hair And he's killing it at AAA right now 866 OPS.

Also a guy that wants to be in your front office, he's got great ideas about lineups, just have as many good batters as possible, and then on the pitching side, let's just keep runners off the base and don't get up homers. Simple game. Wait, hold on, on that note.

Okay. We just have to branch off real quick here because I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this. Farhan Zaidi, the guy that runs the Giants, who's been an incredible executive by many standards in the big leagues. That was like a point of emphasis that people like, oh my gosh, Farhan has the best ideas. He just wants major league average or above average at every position.

Like what? That's it. To be considered a great executive, you just got to try to put the best players at every position. Does that mean like, does that mean like if there's one of those like grids where you have $15 to construct your team? You just don't go for the $5 guys.

You just go for, you know, like all $3 guys. I mean, that's it. That's, that's all it takes. Trev, the people, you rarely run into a person that you're like, oh my God, you're at another level than me. And that's, I think, 29 of the MLB front offices. Like, get the good players.

A lot of these teams keep trying out bad players. You know what? How about no weaknesses on the team? Holy shit. Don't have something they can fully expose. Oh, boy. Treve, Cardinals, Nationals, I don't have too much. I'm excited to see them go abroad.

And obviously, the story of the Cardinals has been a big one. For the year, they get some big offensive games, but these are the two worst teams in the National League, so I'm kind of out. Hell it is, baby. Let's talk. Oh, Braves Phillies. Oh, yeah.

Braves are a wagon. Spence are a wagon. Spencer Strider, I challenged him. I didn't challenge him. I said, hey, let's check out Spencer Strider against the Phillies. He's been absolutely dominant against them, except that one playoff game, but he was coming back from an injury,

got lit up. That was the Reese Hoskins, throw your fucking bat at the ground. Do you remember that? Like, that kind of gets me. There's blood flow just thinking about that at bat because I'm so happy for him and you could just tell like how much that meant to him.

And I miss Reese Hoskins. I miss that guy a lot. He's really fun to watch. So he does his job. Ranger Suarez matches him. And then you get Bryce Elder and Aaron Nola and they go up to. to toe against each other.

But it ends up. Braves take both. They have the one game postponed. We have the Schwabber era like you talked about. And yeah, I mean, a tale of two teams. Braves win these games with the good starting pitching and the Phillies don't. I expect this to be, I love this matchup of teams. I think it's so fun.

I hope we get it in the playoffs again. We're like it really, really matters. Can I tell you something insane? Bryce Elder throws seven Shep piece. A, didn't get a, I don't think he was listed on the standout performance, like, potential guys. I was looking for him. Which is. That's on you, Dalton.

Okay, so this turned into shots fired at Dalton. It's also just not shocking or surprising. He is team best 90 innings. He's been the ace for the Braves this year. Yes. A year after they came off of Kyle Wright winning the 97th. I young, like Max Fried. They're a ridiculous franchise, man, in the best way possible.

You know what else is ridiculous, Trev? I'm going to rearrange this right now because I'm excited. Bird dogs. You know why? I'm wearing them right now. I wore him yesterday. See, Rose read the ad. I am full-blown bird dog in it right now.

And why? Because I'm traveling. I'm going to Nashville. Wedding season. Oh, boy. Oh, you're a baseball fan. Oh, nice to meet you. They're stretched khaki shorts designed to fit slimmer through the thigh and leg, giving you a truly sculpted look. They're so comfy. I'm wearing them right now. You know, if you want to put... They've got a liner in there, so I think it's kind of up to you if you want to throw on a layer under that.

I think it's kind of whatever you like. So if you're running low on... I'd wear underwear. If you're running low on laundry day, bird dogs can be a nice little play there. The wedding I'm going to is a lot of St. Louis people. So, uh, I, Jess was, Jess asked me how, how are the Cardinals doing this year? And I was like, you might, you might want to get out of that combo, Jess. That combo might not be for you. People are going to be really excited if you did not bring up baseball.

Yeah. She's like, I can do that. Uh, you should go to bird dog. birddogs.com slash talking, and what you'll get is a free Yeti-style tumbler with your order. Birddogs.com slash talking, free Yeti-style tumbler, so your legs will be comfy, and your drink will be comfy with bird dogs. Let's do some AL. It's a light a L. Hit it.

Which works on a Friday, too. Trev, we're heading out to beautiful Minnesota, where your twins hosted my Red Sox. And Sox kid. They come out. They win the first two. James Paxton drops it on him. Cut a Crawford. Oh, ha, ha.

Meanwhile, the offense is putting up almost double-digit runs. Yoshida, Turner, Arroyo five-hit day. Durant, sure. That socks lineup when they bang. But the twins come back. Max Kepler. Julian. Do you hit the Jane, Julian?

I guess I'll ask our broadcaster that. And how about Joe Ryan? I don't know who Trev picked out as a standout, but I thought it would be Joe Ryan. Hell, it could have been Buckdady with his two homers that were over 460 feet. Cheese and biscuits. These teams split two. Pardon my French. Rangers take two out of three from the White Sox.

A.T.O. And that's obvious. Heen dog with a little Josh Young, that thick neck. They slid him up in the lineup, Trev. They flipped him and Nate Lowe. You be hitting and that's what you get. I don't like what your fingers just did. Jonah Heim keeps going.

Zeke Duran, man. I love this team. They bang. Corey Seeger is on fire. Man, Texas Rangers are so good. White Sox game. They win. Dylan Sees.

Your guy, Rameleard. He's back at it. Sure. We got some blocking the plate stuff. Really interested to get some more thoughts. on that. Tigers take two out of three from the Royals, big series. BBD was locked in on it, so he'll tell you what happened. A huge series there.

Mariners versus the Yankees. Yankees take two out of three. This was a little bit of a mid-off. Yankees pitching actually was really good in the first two games. How about your boy, goofy Garrett Cole now? Having fun, wagging his finger, throwing balls to the backstop on purpose? Who is this guy? And then the kid, Johnny Brito, shuts him out the next day.

Billy McKinney is putting on a journeyman clinic for the Yanks. And then Seattle blows them out in the final game. They're up 10-0 at one point. IKF pitches and homers. Whoops, Seattle, excited to see you guys soon, if you know what I mean. Guard dogs, they sweep Oakland. Okay? That's really good for the record.

And that's what you're supposed to do with this. team. They took the first one in extras and both of these games were really good action, kind of intense. Guardians fighting for their season a little bit, and they end up getting the dub. Josh Naylor, brothers Naylor, at it for the Guardians. Mild Flaw has a big game on the final day. Big sweep for the Guardians. They needed that. Rays and Orioles. They end up splitting two. You know Aaron Hicks had a big series. You know, Randy or Rosa Raina had a big series. The two best to ever do it.

Trev, the conversation comes mostly off the field, way off the field, as Star Shortstop Wander Franco told, hey, why don't you sit this one out? Interesting, that is what happened in the American League. Rays, stay on top, 52 and 26. Four and a half games up on the Baltimore Orioles, 45 and 28.

That's a good record. Yankees are nine and a half back of first place. Blue Jays are a half game back of the Yankees. Sox, two games above 500 in last place, which means we have full standings. AL through AL Central, again, the twins are 500 atop the division. The Cleveland Guardians are a game back, Trevor Plouf. Very interesting.

Detroit Tigers exist. White Sox, a bit of the same. Kansas City Royals. 21 and 54. Texas Rangers are atop the west at 46 and 28. Houston's 5.5 back with the halos a half game behind them, so they're kind of neck and neck. Mariners, a game below 500 in the Oakland Athletics are down there.

Cronwise, Trev, we're starting with your Twinkies. What do you have from this series? I wasn't too locked in on my socks. I think, like you said, it's a light AL. I have this thing. It's like an apple pencil. I'm never going to use it. It's just a prop for me to play with.

Okay. I get that. Anyways, it's perfect. It's a light AL. I think we're going to talk about a few different, like, hot topics instead of kind of like going through all the series here. I mean, yeah, the twins, Red Sox, but the series, you do say the Jay and Julian.

He's a Canadian dude. You love him. English is a second language. You got to love that from the Canadian. He's a Frenchman. You know I love the Frenchman. Yeah. You are.

You love... I am a Frenchman. Yeah. I love myself. You have to love yourself. Remember that, people. Not much to do with this story. Buckson started the hit a little bit.

The Red Sox, obviously, came out. Pretty strong offensively, the first two games. James Paxton, nice little start there. Cutter Crawford, nice little start. He's got a weird arm action, doesn't he? It's a real short. Kind of reminds me of Nathan Yovaldi, which is a nice comparison there.

Okay. One sad note, we saw Corey Kluber come in at the end of these games and it's just kind of pitching in like a low leverage situations I don't love that for the KluBot man like in my mind he got faced him when he was on top of the world so it's a little interesting to see him back there

I get it but that was that's something that caught my eye go Joe Ryan first shutout complete game shut out in like five years I think you probably mentioned that he looked great Twins needed that big time to get back to 500. When I watched the Red Sox, can I tell you something? Sure. They scare me.

Like, they can hit. It's an intimidating lineup. They can come out and score runs with the best of them. I know I just said that on the heels of a Joe Ryan shut out, but like that's going to happen from time to time. It's a good team. I don't know. I, for some reason, I don't think.

I don't think this way about a lot of teams that are at the bottom of a division. I know they're above 500 better than the twins. But I just feel like this team has a real run in them at some point. Treve, it could be wrong. It's kind of why the Yankees are a bad matchup for the Sox. The Red Sox are 5 and 1 against the Yankees this year. And it's because the Yankees, like, can't score with them right now. Like the Red Sox will lose 7 to 5 games because sometimes they're pitching,

they'll let them down. But Red Sox aren't going to lose a lot of two ones because their offense is going to score. They do feel dangerous. Yeah, man, I mentioned, you know, different guys. I mentioned the Reds have different guys that can go for you. The Sox have different guys that can go for you, and you know their names a little better.

Some of them you don't. I mean, you know, Kossis with a big day at the office, Christian Arroyo 5 hit day, but, like, the socks have always been able to bang. It's how much they pitch. and they end up splitting with the twins. Trev, can I ask you another twins quick hitter? Because I've seen this on the internet.

When Pablo Lopez was traded for Araya's, everyone kind of did the, well, yeah, you go out and get a young pitcher when you can go get a young good pitcher. Like, that's kind of, them's the rules, right? Marlins always have this depth. I guess I wouldn't say any buyer's remorse on Lopez, although he's falling off a little bit.

But if you could go back and knowing where, I'm not saying to rise it's 400, but this guy won a batting title and what the twins's offense has been. Do you think there's any like maybe rethinking it just a little? I don't think so. Obviously the 400 will enter your mind, but he really didn't have a position. He was playing a little bit of first base. They have second baseman. They have Polanco when he's healthy. They really like Eddie Julian. So I think that that was kind of the thought process. Like we have guys that are going to play these positions. We love Luis Arise, but you know, you're dealing from a position of strength, essentially, to get back an area that you need. And Pablo Lopez was great at the beginning of the year. I think he's fine. Like, I love who he is as a pitcher, the way he prepares, and I like his stuff. His pitch mix is good. He has fallen off since the beginning of the season. But I don't think so. I think it was the right move. I still do. Yeah. No, I mean, it's one of those things that

again, you can't You can't overthink it because it's baseball. You needed pitching. You went out and got a pitcher. But yeah, I wonder if they could, you know, if you keep a rise and instead of signing like a Joey Gallo,

you sign a one-year pitcher. But, you know, that's a dangerous game. Who knows if they have the same season? I don't know. I don't know. Treb, the story, no one surprised the Rangers took two out of three from the White Sox, but blocking the plate,

and we saw this, couple times this week, dude, I don't, I don't know anymore, man. I'm, I'm in a really weird spot with it because I, I, I clearly I don't know ball. I don't manage the Yankees, but I don't, that one, that's, that's cutting you deep. Just let that one go. Let that one go. I mean, hey, you didn't mean it in that way. You know I'm a little self-deprecating humor, Treve. Um, and I defended Booney on it. Um, dude, I have no idea, what we're doing with the blocking the plate because one of them

none of them look like blocking the plate to me. So I mean, we didn't really talk about the Gary Sanchez one. I was in the Giants Padre series. That one's interesting because there is a caveat in the rule like if the runners like out like the umpire has discretion, if he's out by a lot the empire has discretion that's like not blocking

the plate. Podre's fans were sending me screenshots. You see Gary actually set up in fair territory and then he moved his feet. Well, it's like, dude, he did not give him a lane before he had the ball. I was like, you could call no blocking the plate because I think it was Yaz or who, I don't know who was running. It was Sable. My boy Blake.

He was out by so much. So the Empire could have just said, no, this is stupid. But, like, he was directly in the running lane without the ball. When you see where Sable slid, you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, you're almost nowhere near the. plate that I get that but the ball does beat them by so much. Yeah, that one's back and forth. It's difficult. That one confuses me. This one with Hime, I got nothing. That was bad. I don't understand that at all. That was more plate given up than I've seen any catcher give up before.

Usually it looks like this pencil. When you're sliding in, you have this little sliver of white and you're trying to touch the only base that isn't protruding from the ground. It's like a weird thing. they usually give you nothing. Haim gave the entire plate up, and that was called out. It's a rule that's obviously going to take some, they need to tinker with it a little bit or find a solution because that's just one thing

you don't want, you know, as major league baseball, is people talking about your rules. Like the rules should not really come into effect too often where they're like, you're getting bashed for one. They're trying to clean, I mean, they have, they've cleaned up. There's no more collisions at home plate.

that's what they want. Good. I'm happy for that. Great. Because Gary Sanchez would have gotten blown up. Yeah. In the old days. And the crisis averted because of this rule.

So that's great. But we can't have games being decided because of something like this. Where fans are like, what happened? What? I don't understand. Yeah. And that gets, I don't know what the next step is. There needs to be a next step because then, you know, think of it.

the other, let's say the Sable one gets called, you know, out. Next time does Blake Sable go in almost looking to like draw the foul, like in basketball? Like does he just run into Gary? Because he's like, well, he's in the path. And then we're back to the original problem of like, okay. So now guys are running overcatchers to prove they're in the way. I don't know, man. If I was a runner, I would just start like altering my line and like going way outside the base.

Oh, shoot, man, I had no lane. What the, hey, what is this? Normally that sliver of white plate looks like Gandalf riding Shadowfax off in the distance. It looks like his apple pencil and then also Gandalf. Don't talk about Gandh. There will be no Gandalf slander on this pot, especially not when he's riding Shadowfax.

There's no slander. It's okay. It's an emotional episode. It is an emotional episode. Rangers are a wagon. Yeah. They, uh, yeah. Babes, this Royals Tiger series.

What did you, what'd you say? Zach Short, he's awesome. That a really good year so far. Like a 791 OPS, I believe, right? Tigers have an All-Star. McKinstree. Yeah? He'll sneak in there.

They gotta have one by rule. So let's get Zach Short to the All-Star game. Conversation for another day. Please don't do it right now. But like, Harvey, what's up since you got there, man? Yeah. Don't do it right now. Don't do the voice.

Yeah. What's the voice? That's from a show, EBD show. Well, now you have to do it because I don't know what the heck you're talking about. No, that, like, that's the line. You're going to open up a whole can of words. That's the line from, so yeah, very carpenter. Zach Short, Hot.

That's what I have. How about this? quickly. A couple relievers on the move for the Royals. Raldus Chapman, Scott Barlow. Yeah. No, there will be a reliever

market. And again, Chapman, I've referenced it a couple of ups. Like, it's a fun game to play. Like, he's got a lot of landing spots. It's funny what a little half-season refresh can do to you. Dodgers could use bullpen. Texas Rangers could use bullpen.

Roldus Chapman's going to end up on one of the best teams in the league, I think. Well, when you're left-handed and like six-eight and throw 100 miles an hour, people are going to watch you on the team. Yeah. Even with the baggage that you carry. His, uh... Speaking of baggage, what's up?

Let's ball four. Can't wait to fete you up. We, uh, we, we, we, we filmed something with your boy, Jeff passing yesterday at the warehouse. Weird. I did not like it. Sorry, Jeff. A suit at the warehouse.

Yeah. I mean, the juxtaposition, great word. Great word. threw me off a little bit. Maybe I really like it. I like it so much that it's brought me to the other side where I'm like what? Where has his first suit? Trev, no, I, you're all over it at the end there because we were like, wait, is Passam going to come in like a, a t-shirt and joggers? Like, uh, and then when he showed up in a suit, I think all of us, all of us wanted him to not be in a suit. And then when he was, we were like, nice. Like, we, he was always going to be a suit. We got Jeff Passing.

We got Jeff Passing. That'll be some good warehouse content coming soon. Drive, how many strikeouts do you have against the oldest Chapman? Oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't think I faced him too much. The total at bats is not very many. How did you've never struck out against him? No need.

Yes. Soft throwing lefty? Three A.Bs pop up to second, pop up to first, ground out to second. And it probably hit him hard. Just, you know, the launch angle wasn't there. It's fine. Hair above. You're there.

Trev, my yanks took two out of three from the Mariners. I know Mariners lineup has been struggling strikeouts. They score three runs in the first two games. Yankees, I mean, they win them, and the pitching's powerful, and Cole's having a party out there. But in the last game, they get lit up, and it's kind of this realization at the end of the series that the Yankees, you know, they never scored more than four runs in a game.

So they're, you know, they welcome Texas to town this weekend. That offense will put up runs. So again, the offense is the challenge right now. The pitching has been good. So I don't know if you got any Yanks, Mariners, or, you know, coal. I got a question, yeah, about coal. I mean, I honestly didn't have a problem with how he handled that situation. The only thing I'll say, and I'm asking you if anything happened the following day,

Like when you throw a ball like that and you send a message, I know it was way up and he probably thought about it before. Like, I need to send a message. But I don't want to hit this guy because one, I'll put him on base. And two, retaliation could be coming. Was there anything the following day, any up and in pitches or anything like that? Because that's the one thing I thought of. No, and I was thinking the same thing, right? Like everything that happened was fine.

And like, you know, if you haven't been following Garrett Cole, if you're not a Yankee fan, you shouldn't really be. You just see some of the clips and stuff. He's become like a silly, confident guy, and, like, he had a joke lined up post game, and he's laughing on the mound. Like, it's very interesting, and it's been fun. Like, obviously we're close to the situation,

but it's been fun that, yeah, that was my concern, too. Like, are we going to end up in a pissed-off fest just because Cole, in a way, showed up the nine-hitter after the nine-hitter was trying to mess with him? The thing that was funny, Caballero the next day. And again, I don't really know what this is. Jimmy dug in and he thinks it's to keep the rest of their lineup together. Caballero had it batted leadoff all year,

and then they batted him lead off that next game. So in my head, I think there was just a little bit of like, hey, remember this guy from yesterday? Well, guess what? You didn't like him? He's leading off now. So, no, luckily there was really no, like, retaliation. No.

I mean, probably the most extra at bats I've seen all year was him against Cole. The stuff he was doing was just like, oh my gosh, bro. It was some good baseball, some good baseball both ways. If you haven't seen. Cole gave like the dab like, yeah. Oh, he was frustrated. In a way, Cabiero like won the head game. game, but...

You didn't go one for three, didn't you? That little broken bat thing, I'll start about it. The hits a Storelli hit, if I've got a way to label it. I'm interested to see this weekend. Mariners, you guys got to go, start winning games. Another team that we would label that, they win. They sweep the series, that you have to sweep the series against. Guardian sweep Oakland.

They're hitting now. Josh Naylor's putting together some big stuff. his baby bro gets his first hit on a hit and run. That was really cool to see. I don't know. They beat Oakland. That's kind of my piece on it. Yeah, it's scaring me as a Twins fan a little bit here.

They're kind of their offense is starting to go. Josh Bell has picked it up. I love that, yeah, Bo Nailer's O for 19 to start the career, kind of gets the knock. And that's such a cool moment to see the brothers kind of like in the same game. and Josh cheering. That was awesome. But yeah, Cleveland took care of business

against the A's. You know how we do in these series. We give them snaps. Take care of business. One game back right now. I do. I think there's going to be a funny moment. They called up top prospect Gavin Williams,

another young arm in that rotation. They called up Bo Nailer. I think, I think we're going to see Cleveland around July 1st, sitting 500 and being like, okay. Like you guys weren't,

really a part of the conversation and had a bad start to the year, and now you're in an okay spot that I still, my Cleveland 86 and a half wins over isn't dead yet. 11 times we've said, hey, congrats, you swept the ace. 11 times. It's June 23rd, people. Trev, the last topic in the American League, like I mentioned, birds and rays they split to Aaron Hicks is back to God mode

You want to know a slash line right now Because I have it right here Sure Trev 321 424 5771 for a 996 OPS 18 games with the Orioles Three homers 10 RBIs two stolen bags Man if Yankees could use a switch hitting left field But they're heavy those pinstripes are so heavy

Oh I got a shave again now his birds he's light as a feather nice trev nice son of a gun dude i mean hey shout out baltimore first game glass now i think they put up six runs in the first two innings uh hicks with the homer your guy santander with the homer they're up seven nothing in the fifth and then uh you know the rays actually made of the game i think margot got it to seven six before hicks had another hit yeah batista had to come in Bautista came in for a four-out safe.

Like, that's, that's, that's what the race do. And in that game, because we're going to talk about this real quickly, I think. Bronco had another ball, a little blooper down the left field line. Like, with his speed, 100% should have been on second base. It kind of gets away. They drop it. Standing on first base. Yeah, so let's do the whole wander thing because he,

gets benched and even even a step further from that, that you, you mentioned Trev, he, he's told to stay home, which is like,

I think that's what I read. They said, okay, we're not 100 on, well, no, in this, in the article on MLB.com,

he said he left well before the game and did not speak to reporters. Okay. Doesn't that mean they, he's, went home, right? Yeah, I mean, he's not.

Like, that's different, bro. That's different than saying, you're benched. Come root for your teammates. He said, No, bro. Take it to the house.

When I've watched Wander this year, it is an interesting mental exercise. There's, you know, he goes and gets balls from the shortstop position. Some of those pop-ups in foul territory are kind of fair that he goes out and gets in left field, and you're like, wow, dude, that's, you are a freak. You see him beat one out to first. You're like, wow, you have crazy speed. There was a couple, you know, a couple choppers that you're like, I wonder if Wander's going to make this interesting.

And then the camera pans to first, and he's already chopping his steps down. And you're like, oh, that doesn't add up. So, I, you know, that was interesting to me. And I guess there's a pattern of that while also having some locker room not being a guy, guy. I don't know. Well, he's come in the, the dug out a few times. And, you know, you can be pissed, but you can't be throwing your equipment around your teammates. It's just like it's faux pa, you can get somebody hurt.

It's just bad looks. Go in the tunnel. Do what you got to do. Like, dude, I mean, how many, I even saw Joe Mauer, who never gets fresh. Bang up some equipment, but he would go down on the tunnel. So you'd never know it. I just let his little secret out. Sorry, Joe Mauer about that.

I'll see you in August. That's your lake house. With Wander, I had a, oh, God. I can relate things back to me because I'm a narcissist, apparently. I played tackle football growing up. Pop Warner. And, you know, in football you run a lot. You're doing push-ups.

And the first couple of days I got on the team, I'm giving max effort. I'm going. And quickly realized like, oh, shit, like it's a lot of running. I'm pretty tired now. And so about the third day, I dial it back a little bit.

I'm not going 100%. I'm going like, 75 because I'm like, dude, I got to get through this practice. I remember, till this day, a coach saying, uh-uh, Trev, you already showed us what you can do. Give us that effort every single time. Don't dial it back. So when you have it, as Warner Franco has it,

he has the speed, he has the makeup to be a great player. That's why they gave him $182 million. You got to show it consistently. If you just pick and choose your spots, you're going to get bench, especially early on in your career when they're trying to set a precedent, send a message.

Like, look, the rays are doing great. Actually, I love this from cash, and I don't know if it came from the front office as well. I love it. They're on top of the division. They're playing the best baseball. They're on top of all the baseball with their record. And they said, you know what?

Let's make it a point right now. to show our roster that you have to continue to give the effort every single day. It doesn't matter who you are. I think it's a great message. It's going to set up Wander, you know, for his future, letting him know, like, you kind of got to go in and do it. We gave you this money, man. So you have to, like, that's a responsibility of yours. Honestly, if it was some guy that they didn't give all that money to, I don't know if the situation would be the same.

But for the race to pan out that much money, they're relying on him to be. like the guy, the example said her. So I'm okay with this situation, man. And Cash came out and just like straight up said, this is why we're doing it. It felt like some rays that high tea we reference a lot. Like, hey, we can do this. Like, you know, and I guess that's where,

and you can't tell this to someone when they're that age because you don't know it yet. But you're 22, man. Um, and like, dude, that's, that's young. I say it in, I say it in the coolest way. Like, I'm very jealous of 22 and like what I was doing then and, you know, how you can bounce back and how some things you think in life are real just aren't real yet, but you don't know that until you're like 28.

Um, that, yeah, I think, I, I hope Wander takes us the right way. Like, first place team, you might be the MVP of that first place team. And yeah, I mean, with how the Ray's organization is set up, I'd expect it to go swimmingly because this is something you'd rather nip in the bud than, let's say the baby birds get hot in August and they're on your ass and wanders having some tough hustle moments or something. You don't want to do it then, right? Like, that's something you noted out when, who got benched earlier this year? And you were like, you know, would you have done it if it was like a tied game? Like, you know, it's a lot easier to do it as the race. Like before the game, let's get ahead of it. We've got a lead in the east.

Like, I think they timed it and did everything well. And aren't they playing the Royals? Right? Who's coming up? I think they're playing the Royals. Yeah, that's a good calculation then. Yeah. Who got Bench?

We're we blanking on right now. What's that? Sound off in the comments. Sound off. It's going to make me mad because we've been laughing at that. Give me some context again. Someone got pulled. I think they were on a bad team.

Havi got benched earlier this year. Was it Havi? Yeah, it was Havi. Yeah. It was Havi. And the Tigers went on a little win streak and it was. Oh, yeah. And then he got the aggressive April was good.

He got benched in a blowout. And you were like, hey, if this was a tied game, I don't think Havi gets benched. Yes, yes. That's my manager, AJ Hinch. Oh, my God. The I.L. Is brought to you by Rohn, R-H-O-N-E.

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She said, I'm going to bed. And so I tried for... And you said, that's fine. That's fine. I said, all right, I'm going to watch some ball. You probably texted me, yeah. You know, wake up in the morning and see where everyone's at.

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Hello. Rone.com slash baseball, code baseball, link in the description. Load up. Load up. Load up. Okay. In Treves Interleague, the Miami Marlins and the Toronto Blue Jays. Ooh.

Here's a fun matchup. In the Marlins, baby girl put it on me. 11-0-0-0 in that first game. Luis Arise 5 for 5 to get back over 500. These fish, right? Uh-uh. Blue Jays, they win the next two. A pitcher's duel, cuckoocheevers, Yuri Perez.

How fun is that? But Matt Chapman, two for three. No thank you. They win that two-nothing. And then Gossman and the fellas get it done on the final day. Blue Jays. win a series over a good team. The Houston Astros, similar song here.

Mets, they win the first game, 11-1. Scher drops it on them. Eight innings, are the Mets about to click? Oh, man, Astros have the fortitude to win by that in game two. Verlander versus Framber, by the way. And then we got a crazy one on the last day. 10 to 8. Houston, just a little stronger Breggie Smalls with the three-hit day.

Houston wins two out of three. Dodgers, broomsticks, a two-game set over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. What I like here? Both games were 2-0. How about it? How's your pitching, Kershaw, and Detmer's go toe-to-to-to-cou? A couple south-oh, Trev's giving me the shush. He might talk about that.

And then a little Dodgers opener day works out for them. Brewster against Shohei, Frederick and Miguel Vargas, clip him for a home run. That's what happened in the I. Tight, tight. Tight I. I shushed you because somebody might be getting an award from that Angels Dodgers series. Reheheheelie. Yes.

Somebody's girl is in my hot tub. Oh, I love a hot tub, bro. Like, for real, like, to me, there's not much better than, like, getting in a hot tub. Oh, interesting. Like, hot summer day, I'll do a hot tub. Cold winter night. I'll do a hot tub. raining. Oh, you bet I'll do a hot tub when it's raining.

I'll go, I won't go hot with hot. Like when I, in St. Louis, they, they had like a warm hot tub, like it wasn't super hot, but that was still nice. That's not a hot tub. No, I mean, it was hot. It wasn't cold. It just wasn't hot, hot. So like, I would almost, because yeah, you're comfy in there. You know what the government does, bro? Here we go. You can, oh, yeah. Tell them the truth, dude. I'm a pool man. You guys know that, right? You can only set your spa temp to 104 degrees or below.

104 is not hot enough for me. Give me 106, but you can't because the government is ruining my life. Do you think there's a market for like juicing up hot tubs so they can get to 115? Well, you don't want to go that hot. hot, that's dangerous. But like, let's like, we can, look, we can kick it up a couple notches here, people. You know, 104's for the average person. Trevor Flew.

Give me 106. I just want 106. Okay. I can get you that. I don't think you can. You know whose hot tub's going to go up to 106? Matt Staff's in the new house. Tell you that much.

Oh, my gosh. You have no idea. Okay. Trev, like, we'll cover the L.A. festival later, it sounds like, I don't have much on Jay's, Marlins, actually I will say I was impressed after the Jay's got punched in the mouth in the first game, I kind of did like, damn, Jay's, like, you're really going to do this? So I'm a little pretty impressed that they came back and they won those next two games. They outlasted Yuri Perez and he looks amazing again.

And then Mets Houston, I mean, that's messy in its own way that I'm kind of good. So whatever you need or want in those. Well, the first day was the Larissa Raya's day, five for five. He's slapping John Jay on the chest. John Jay has bruises. He sent me pictures of his bear chet. I'm just kidding. He didn't, but I'm imagining that he did.

Following day, yeah, hey, two studs on the mound. Perez and Kikuchi. Kikuchi does it, matches Perez. Bullpen comes and does their thing. That was nice for them. Like you mentioned, after getting 11-0, you went 2-0. You got to love that. And then, yeah, Chapie does his thing.

in the last game 6-3 a sandy man like another like kind of ho-hum start it's so interesting to me like the season that he's had pitch clock shift all those different things come into play I believe it could also be some of these

massive seasons worth of innings catching up although his stuff looks freaking good man I don't know yeah Blue Jay's been two out of three I like this

Blue Jay's team a lot. I've told you guys that before. I think that they have everything you need to if you get them in a playoff series like watch out man. Like they got guys that can twirl the pill a little bit and they got guys that can bang bullpen. They have some guys. I think that will be an area that they're going to look to address but they are a fun team to watch and the Marlins, you know, they're just right there. They're right there. Jay's have a feeling that they could, in October, they could easily have a Phillies-esque run, right? They have so many dudes, but they got to do it.

Metastros, you want something there? I didn't have my pulse on this. It was just, it felt like Mets, come on. First two games, great pitching matchups. You got to love that. Scherzer kind of like finds himself, touches himself a little bit, if you will. Aiding's pitched one and run.

Hunter Brown's interesting to me. I got some statistics of him. He had five innings, six earned runs since May 2nd, or since May. You know, he made a start May 2nd. Up until now, that's nine starts. 50 innings pitch, 26 earned runs. He's got a 4-6-2 over those starts.

And typically we know him as some guy that's going to be wheeled and dealing. So I'm curious to see if there's going to be any adjustments made on his part pitch mix all that different stuff right there um and yeah then verlander framber going toe to toe was awesome to see framber i what can you say about this guy that hasn't already been said he's just he's a guy sneakily turned into a guy just right in front of our faces we've loved them the entire way and he hasn't stopped one bit not one bit 15 starts a 227 man he's the leader in ERA plus for Amber Valdez, 99 innings. He's, um, is Alex Bregman like us or not like us?

That's the kind of like my only question about this series. He loves us. I think he hates us, but then he loves us. I forgot when you guys were sexual tension texting. That was one of the weirder moments. I'm happy that we connected that way. Yeah. Didn't expect it to happen.

You guys were in an area, I forget if I've mentioned this before here, and it's better if you know the, other player in play here. But one night, you know, I'm around Wanderfranco age where I should get benched for some of my activities. Me and my buddy, we're, you know, we've had a couple. And there was some tension. And we texted each other like, are we about to fight or fuck, bro?

Like, we got. Oh, my God. And what happened? Which ones did you choose? That comes in the second. half of the show in the second half of the show that we've got standout performers some fuego some awards maybe some iL this second half of the show is brought to you by the farmer's dog shout out the farmer's dog no farmer's dog is a goat oh i see what's going about that uh whether you have a

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Get 50% off your first box at the Farmersdog.com slash johnboy. There's a link in the description. We just re-upped. And we're loaded up. And noodles loaded up. And Trev, I'm going to double down real quick. The last thing that we have to mention, and we can finish the rest of this show strong.

All-Star game. We're going out. We've already sold a bunch of tickets. We've sold all of our VIP. Although there's a wait list. So we might try to sneak some, but we want the VIP to be a real intimate experience. July 11th, Tuesday, the day of the All-Star game. Trev, Bebes, Jolly Olive, Chris Rose, old man, Dan Kenobio.

It's going to be a blast some rumors about Jess and Olivia being there. Yeah. So we're going to do a live ref guest with the audience. There's going to be a couple different Jolly Olive games. It might be some jam content. that'll either speak to you or not speak to you. We're going to do a live talking baseball. There's still a bunch of tickets left.

We're doing the live show. You can get a ticket to that. Or you can just come. There's tickets to come watch the game. We'll be hanging out. It's always a friendly, awesome baseball crew. So there's a link for that as well. It's at Eventbrite.

And tickets are limited. And we're starting to run up against it. But if you're out in Seattle for the All-Star game, make sure you do it. Treff. Two things real quick. Farmer's dog. My mom uses it for her dog.

Before we did ads for them, she loves it. She said her dog has lost weight, and he's not chewing grass anymore because his gut is healthy. When dog's guts aren't healthy, they chew grass, they poop grass, it's weird. So that's alleviated that for her. So I love Farmer's dog because it makes my mom happy. Happy mom, happy me. All-Star game. Great.

My favorite event that we do all year. That's better than Blitzball. It's better than any of the warehouse stuff. It's better than come out and seeing you guys in New York. I love the All-Star game. Not only is Olivia going to be there, but there's rumors of a lot of my Hidden Hills crew making their way to Seattle. A lot of peeps.

PJ? You know what? Maybe. I ain't paying for it. That much right now. Chris Rose doesn't pay me enough. Standout performances. Treff, who's your standout?

reference them earlier. I'm excited for this one. Yeah, so I have my guy, T.J. Friedel, as my standout performer on Tuesday, June 20th, five days after my 37th birthday. 37 is the worst birthday of all time. There's nothing special about it whatsoever. I'm just happy. I'm still in my 30s, not my 40s. He went four for five with a homer, three ribbyes in a run. You know they won that game because they swept because that's what they do. This guy, Friedel, we talk about the baby reds all the time. These young guys coming up. Well, you know, TJ's not exactly young.

He's 27. He has had some experience in the show. All this guy does is hit. I'm looking at it splits right now. Overall, 320, you love that, right? We still like batting average. Love batting average. You don't have to not like batting average, people.

It's still fun to reference. 320 and talk to any player. you got a three in your batting average you happy 380 OBP 486 slugging quick math can you do it 380 plus 486 866 that was an even number you could have done that really quickly

all of his splits are like that Jake last 7 days 899 OPS last 14 days 841 OPS last 284 OPS last 365 that's a year 875 OPS this guy be hitting. And he's doing it. And we talk about long lineups

and we talk about having these guys do their thing. And we talk about McLean and Spencer Steer and Ellie Day of the Cruz and Joey Votto coming back. And here's T.J. Friedel. Just doing it. University of Reno, Nevada, where he's from Pennsylvania. You know I like the random ballplayers

that just come out of Pennsylvania. That's a football state people. But sometimes you get guys like T.J. who said, I got to get out of here and go to Nevada. Reno, not really sure how that happened, buddy. Doing it on the Reds, unsung hero, wanted to mention him, shout out, T.J. So I just put myself through a little bit of a rigmar roll.

So when I filled in for you on baseball today, one of the two best baseball shows in the world, yes. Chris Rose asked, underrated Reds player. Or no, this was you and me. I'm sorry, this was when I filled in for Rosie, and you and me did the whole gambit. Like, you know, Matt McLean has an argument.

There's so many guys, Spencer Steer, like Alexis Diaz, like, so many guys have stepped up for the Reds. That's what's made them unexpected NL Central leaders. Fredo leads a team in war, which that's crazy to think about. And the other thing that really got me going was, you're right, we look at 27 differently. We're like, you know, 25 and 26, if you're new to the show, kind of. We give you the, like, 27, we kind of expect you to be all, you know, all systems go. He's only played 138 major league games. And he's got a career 800 OPS.

So I was like, damn, okay, T.J. Friedel, he's getting his opportunity now. Like, yes, you should mention him with the Reds. If you're a baseball savant person, do not look at T.J. Friedel's page. And so now I've just been watching videos of T.J. Friedel. He's got the big open stance. And, hey, I guess some of the stat cast numbers aren't about it, but the results are. And he's got some steals. Sure.

Why not? Stacast gets you signed. Yeah. Results get you paid. Okay. Okay. I like that. Yeah.

Think about that. Let that marinate a little bit. You know who's good on MLB network? and I don't say this about a lot of people. Okay. I don't know why this just came in my mind. Jake Peavy. Okay.

Never would have thought that. Never would have thought that. A lot of energy out of Jake. A lot of energy. Because isn't he like deep cut ranch guy? Like you think he likes being in the woods or he does like being in the woods and stuff? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does. Yeah.

No, it's funny though. Some of these guys like baseball too. Hey, Jake Peavy, like back in the day, when he was blowing 96, probably like the one guy you didn't want to face in the big leagues. nasty. I don't know how I got there, but... Ooh.

Yeah, you know what? Maybe that's why I like him. He mentioned one time that when I'm in the lineup, the twins lineup was so much better. It was Jakey Liddix. He's like, longer lineup. Yeah.

Jakes. How about that? You, me, and Peevy. How do I get there? I don't know. New John Boy Media show. Eight for 26. That's a 308 batting it.

I, uh... For d' doubles. Thanks, Bieber. I might audible I thought for sure you were going to go Joe Ryan

so you know what I'll go Joe Ryan Um He goes Tell the people Who you were going to give it to before Because this is, you know Another guy that we need to talk about

I was going to give it to Merrill Kelly You know him and Zach Gallen ended up with similar stat lines Um Merrill Kelly I just I think when a lot of people think of Merrill Kelly Uh they're like

Okay, I don't know, random Diamondbacks pitcher. He's a-8. I think people maybe go back to Team USA this year when everyone was like, well, U.S., they're not bringing their studs, like, you know, Merrill Kelly's out there. Merrill Kelly, 15 starts at 290RA. He's been fantastic, the top of that snake's rotation. Joe Ryan has a much better outing.

Nine innings pitch, no-earn runs, C. C.G.S.O. And, Mike, remember when he got the opening day start and we were like, twins, what's this about? Like, are you trying to just instill confidence in this young guy? No, man. Joe Ryan has been really good. Like you mentioned, Trevor, he is hot, really, really good social media. 15 starts a 298 ERA this year.

The FIP is there. The whip is under one. All the numbers are Ace stuff. And my guy Jolly Olive, Jolly Olive made me laugh the other day. Because a reminder, he was traded for Nelson Cruz to the raise. Rental Nelson Cruz was traded for Joe Ryan. Yo.

You know, we normally give the raise all the credit. Don't trade with the raise. They're going to tap into your guy. They got God on that. one. And he's such a raised guy too, which is nuts. Oh, he is a raised guy to a T. But he was, he never broke in the big leagues.

He was, he was in the minor leagues. But you know what he is now, Trev? Oh, Joe Ryan. I really, I really like that Joe Ryan. Here's a little tidbit. He ended up going to Cal State Northridge, C-Sy Sun for a little spell. You know who else went to C-Sun? and thank goodness they didn't overlap or I wouldn't have the life I have my sweet Olivia

who doge the bullet there no comment a lot of man a lot of guys missed out but I think a lot of these guys might be coming up on the next part of the show dirt nasty's on fuego that means I'm on fire baby be like Waco Tell them, Trev. I got a piece of chalk that I

I don't know why I have a piece of chalk here. It's so weird. Listen, people, In Fuego is probably my favorite segment that we do because I like to just give a tip of the old ball cap to these dudes in the series. But they just played. We're starting off with a guy who David Ortiz said,

you should have took the 440. And Wants said, I was like, maybe I'll make more than that, though, bro, in a place that I want to be. Juan Soto, eight for 15, double, two homers, three RBI, five runs, three walks, four games set against San Francisco. The team didn't do well, Juan Soda did well. 13th career multi-homer game, and it was his first since joining the Padres. So shout to him, Buxton, who had been my, if we still had slump watch, Buxton would have been on slump watch prior to this series.

Okay. Instead, he goes five for 14 against those Red Sox. He gets three homers. They go very far. Four ribbies, four runs, two walks. And you mentioned this already. Two 460 foot homers in the same game. That's the first time that's happened since Statcast started tracking in 2015.

A lot of talk about Bucksin. He ain't playing center field. Everyone kind of knew that if you follow the twins. He's not playing center field this year. I hope he ends up getting back out there at some point. I really do. I'll talk about that on baseball. Trevor, is it just straight-in-

Is it just straight injury risk? Is he not moving like he normally moves? Like are the corners not in play? Like give me, I don't have my head fully wrapped around it. So it's, he's been injury prone and kind of plays the game with reckless abandoning in center field. So like there's that aspect of it, but also his knees like when he when he like, so for instance, like the Dodgers series, my first series I cover when they were playing in

LA, he ran a bunch. Dodgers can't throw anybody out. So they just kept running. He ran a bunch and just, he just gets sore. Okay. He's had some, he's had some,

any problems and issues. So, like, it just kind of catches up to him. And I think they're thinking is that we have them out there in center field, like more often than not, we're going to be playing with a 75% Byron Bucks in out there.

And I think this, like, combination that they have, although, like, putting him at DH and not allowing other guys to go in and out is not ideal. Right. But, you know, if they have,

like, Michael A. Taylor's been great in center field for them. They're not missing a lot, defensively because he's also a gold glover and can run things down. This is the formula that works for them. I hope he plays maybe next year, but I don't know, man.

Is there like a Bucks and corner outfield formula that's there at all? Well, no, Bucks in the first base. Oh. I don't know. Something to clear up the D.H. That's never going to happen. I don't know why I just said that.

Don't fucking quote me, and then they're going to kick me out of being an analyst. Moving on. This is your guy. New York Mets D.H. Daniel Vogel. Say this name like you do Joy Wendell. No way, man.

Are you kidding me? No chance. It works though. No, no, no. No, no. You think you can beat up Joey Wendell but not Daniel Vogelbach? No. Boy Wendell would fight you and you wouldn't be alive.

I think he fights dirty. When I'm saying Joey Wendell or Joey Weemer at the plate, I think they want to be pests. Voguey doesn't want to be a pest. He wants to be the bear that like one paw swipe hits you. Five for ten in this series, a double a homer, six ribbies, 1,400 OPS. He only played in two of the games,

but he went five for ten. That's a lot of a batts for two games. Okay, Dalton. For the one week, June 16th, June 22nd, the best to ever do it. Tampa Bay out for the Randy of Rosaranda goes 11 for 24. A double two homers, nine, He's four runs, two hit by pitches for a 1.2.

Love that for Randy. Bryce Elder, our guy, Peter Moyland's guy. Shout out Peter Moyland. Two games started 13 innings pitched in those two games. Seven hits, only one earned run, two walks, 10Ks. That's a 0.69 ERA, Beaver. That's nice. And a 0.69 whip, Bebers.

That's very nice. Washington outfielder, Lane Thomas. goes 10 for I like Lane Thomas Every time I see this guy play I like I like how you play One of those guys for me Just a good ball

Kind of like Brandon Jury Before Brandon Jury got the bag 10 for 28 4 doubles 3 homers 6 ribby 6 runs one hit by pitch One stolen base for a 1.1 Currently he's got a 10 game hitting streak

In 18 games in June Jake He's got a hitting 16 of them can you break that down in the fractions for me 16 out of 18 goes down until what oh god that would be eight that would be eight and eight and nine yeah yeah look at that that oh boy where'd you go to college again no one cares two weeks june 9th better college than you bro June 9th and June 22nd and this is no surprise here I feel like we talk about this guy every seven of Enfuego. It's Corey Seeger. He plays shortstop for those Texas

Rangers. 22 for 54. That's a 407 average. Seven dubs. Four homers, 16 ribbies, eight runs, seven walks for a 1.2. The guy's worth every single penny that you gave him. I'm happy for him. By all accounts, just a wonderful person too. So I like that. Braxton Garrett's. How about this guy?

talk about why is Miami doing what they're doing? Well, they got some pitchers over there. Braxton Garrett, this is also Dalton's darling. Three games started, 18 in a third innings pitch, 10 hits, two earned runs, 30 Ks. 18 in a third innings pitch, 30 Ks. That's a 0.9-8 ERA with a 0.66 whip. That is very nice. His 13.9 Ks per 9 is the second highest by a starting pitcher in 19.

a month of June and I don't know who the first one is. Would have been nice to know that. Sound off in the comments. We talked about Kansas City relievers. I said Scott Barlow. I said, Eraldus Chapman. Those guys can be on the move. How about Austin, Cox?

Five games, 10 and a third innings pitch. No runs. Two hits. 12Ks. Now, if I said he pitched 10 in a third innings and he got zero runs, what's a ZRA? Zero. Yes. That's good for a 0.48 whip.

Six appearances in his career. He's thrown 12 in a third-d-d-dings pitch, and he's yet to allow a run so far. Yummy. That's how you do it. And my friends, that was who was in Fuego. Snaps.

Big old snaps. Randy Rosarena has two bolds this year on his baseball reference. Who can I guess? Would you like to guess them? For some reason, I want to say hit by pitch. It is not. It triples.

It is not. I'm done. So one is shocking in an impressive way, and then one's kind of a head tilt and a laugh. The head tilt in a laugh is caught stealing. I know that one. Randy has led in caught stealing the past two. This season would make it three.

six are those all like seven are those all like really recent didn't the race just have record for like not getting thrown out yes yeah um so yeah he's for the third straight year he's leading those were those were early on in the season because when i went to the raise they were still on that streak and he had five already at that point so those are early on so third straight year leading and caught ceiling which is hilarious the guy we call the greatest ever and he is randy rosarana leads the american league and on-base percentage. Oh. How about that? Like, we think of electric Randy, and normally that kind of ballplayer isn't your O-B-P guy, leading the lead.

Um, and on-base percentage. So, okay. That's why he's the best to ever do it. Uh, got to cut my eye and all that. Corey Seeger's one-doting.

What the f- Yeah, there's, I, I heard Corey Seeger MVP. I know he's guys in little on total games, right now, but like... If he keeps going like this, he was a shift guy.

I think that Texas Stadium, people have learned how to hit there, that lineup helps. 358 season batting act. He'll be in the short porch this weekend. Would have been cool if you were like interested in that for 10 years. On the IL. Not the Interleague, the Injury League. Alejandro Kirk, my short, thick king. I miss you.

Anthony Rendon. Damn, man. That's a guy He's there sometimes. Hunter Green, like you mentioned, Trev. Klobber goes to the IL. That's, uh, oh, Brian Reynolds for Pittsburgh.

Ten game loser and he goes to the aisle. That's a, that's scary. Uh, other thick king, Willie Calhoun and Reese McGuire for Boston, who's getting time behind the dish for them. Um, but back from the aisle. This is the, this is the sunshine side of the bus from, uh,

that meme. Lars Neupar. How about him? A little pepper shaker for you, Trev. Joey Votto, we've talked about that. Seth Lurgao for San Diego. Harrison Bader for the pinstrippers. Brandon Belt would have been doing a lot of good things for Toronto.

He comes back. So, which sets us up for the start of the weekend. Look at that. Is Kelsey coming to the All-Star game? I don't know. Not, we, she's currently not coming with us, but maybe she's doing stuff. Well, I'll hit her up. Okay.

Can Casey come if she can't? All right. That would be a requirement. Okay. I, my friends, am giving the Maverick award. Oh, God. Spoiler alerts here. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler.

No, like, if you haven't seen Talk Gun Maver, just. It's too late. Pause. Yeah, I mean, how have you? not. So maybe you need to get spoiled a little bit here. We all know Captain Pete Mitchell, right?

Sure. You know, the only pilot to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years, highly decorated. What do they say? What's the word that they keep using? Distinguished. Distinguished. Distinguished. Should be an admiral, even a

senator. Okay? he's kind of an old school guy but very you know he's he still knows he's one of the best pilots around he's flying these missions

he's kind of like where he wants to be right yeah he's where he wants to be well he has a little bit of a hiccup you know a plane blows up

that he's in and it's a very expensive plane he's going mock 10.3 when it happens you know he's he's a guy like that right yeah well they bring him in and they say hey before we terminate you from the navy once and for all we need you to go down and teach these kids how to fly this mission you have the real world experience to do it at first he's like well like i don't know i haven't flown an f18 in a while and i don't know who i trust that's what he says but they're like no bro you're going to teach it like don't worry about it we got these young guns coming in they're going to fly it with you or you're going to teach them and they're going to fly it And he's like, all right, I guess.

Like, are these guys going to be able to, like, do what I can do? Probably not. So all these young guys come in, you know, we got, we got rooster, and we got payback, and we got a hang man. And these guys, you know, they're cocky. And they're good, too. No doubt about the best that we have in our Navy. Right?

But eventually it just is apparent that Maverick is the guy. Pete Mitchell ends up flying this mission and brings the boys along with him because of course because it's top gun and because he is the best. He's the dust. You know who's Maverick for me right now in the show? I know who it is but I want to hear you say it.

Clayton Kirschau. He is where he wants to be. We always talk about why Clayton, why you keep signing these one year cheap deals with the Dodgers, bro. You can go get it. it whatever you want. Why are you still a captain? You should be an admiral, maybe a senator. He's like, no, I'm where I'm supposed to be. Okay? Dodgers bringing all these young guns.

I mean, Eureas, I know he's a veteran, young gun, Dustin May, Tony Gonslin, Walker Bueller, these young studs, hey, they're going to carry the team Clayton, you just do your thing, you know, whatever. Where are they all at right now? They're all hurt. Clayton Kirshah is the only guy from the opening day starting rotation that's posting right now and he is doing it in fact like he is doing it

in like Cy Young fashion he's still the best he's the one to fly the mission dude have you looked at this guy's numbers it's insane he's 9 and 4 with a 2-7 he's leading that rotation he's keeping them afloat because he's the guy. He's Pete Mitchell.

He's where he needs to be. And every year, he just does it again and again. And next year, we're like, oh, shit. He signed again for $17 million for the Dodgers. What's going on, bro? But he's where he wants to be, and he's the guy to fly the mission. I'll tell you what, right now, if we're starting a playoff series, who's getting the ball first for me?

Captain Pete Mitchell, aka Maverick, aka Clayton, freaking Kershaw. Love you, bro. I don't know what else to say about this guy. Trev, emotional episode. 79 career war. 79! I wasn't sure where my award was going to go at first,

and I considered him too. And I was going to give the whole Jakey speech how, like, I'm good for these two or three times a year where I just need to highlight, like, fucking Shoehah, because he's Shoehoy O'Tonnie. Or Clayton Kershaw, because he's Clayton Kershaw, man. Like, it's, it's unbelievable.

And yeah, man, when you, you know, you answer with him. Like, he's, he's the guy in L.A. He's, he runs it. He's been running it. And he's still so, so good. It's crazy, bro. It's crazy. It's a good one, Trev.

Thank you. It's a good one, Trev. I think him and Pete Mitchell have a lot in common. That's all I'm saying. Trev for my final award I'm going to go and I'm going to give the Hangman Award Oh

The Hangman Award Because I'm a big fan of the movie Top Gun Top Gun Maverick You know if it's on If it's an option on the flight today Might put it on for a little bit We'll see but you know spoiler spoiler spoiler um you know that final mission uh hangman it's kind of bummed out

because he's you know he's he's not invited to the party he thinks he's you know he thinks he's the you know he thinks he's the best wait hold on we're doing double maverick awards i love this yeah man i mean i was teamed up i was with you last night um and uh you know hangman not involved in the mission bummed out how do you handle that right like Like, are you... He's hot, hot, too. Very hot. And, you know, that can go two different ways.

Are you throwing stuff? Are you pissed off? How can you think they're better than me? He ends up getting involved. I guess I won't spoil everything. But he gets involved in a big way. And there's a team that I think is really good that they basically have a couple guys like this.

And I think they just need to be highlighted the Atlanta Braves, they've basically been the best team in the National League kind of throughout the year. And two of their top three leaders in war, like, okay, you know, you know Ronald Acuna Jr. And that he's leading the way for MVP.

Bryce Elder and Orlando Arcea, they didn't know if they were going to be invited on the mission this year. You know, I saw and watched a lot of Vaughn Grisham this offseason. There's a lot of guys on the Braves starting pitching staff that got mentioned before Bryce Elder. You know, maybe five, six, seven. I don't know.

And those two have been two of their top three players so far this year. Bryce Elder, 2-4 ERA. That is best on the team. Strider's a 3-9, Morton's a 3-7, Schuster's a 4-7. He has the most innings for the Braves rotation. The best ERA. He has joined the mission,

and he's been as good as it gets. And Arcia, man, I know coming out, he won the job, and they kind of made it not a discussion. He had that little period of time where he got banged up. he's hitting 333, a 392 on base, an 871 OPS. There's Orlando RCA, an all-star conversation going on right now. And man, these guys before the season,

we didn't know how much a part of the mission they were going to be, but they are vital to the best team in the National League so far this year. So that's where I wanted to land today. I'm glad you didn't go full spoiler. because I think that you just need to leave that alone. But yes, in any team that puts up a season, like we think the Braves are going to put up and they have been putting up, you have guys step up, guys that you weren't really counting.

Now Orlando Arcia, I think what we all said was, hey, man, like this guy is going to be a solid defender and he's going to have some big moments for you. Keep the ups and downs. I don't know if we said keep the seat warm. I think we said at that position where the Braves are at, he doesn't need to be special. Like he could just be a solid player that you want the ball hit to. But he's surpassed that, obviously.

And then Elder, yes, other guys. We're relying on these guys to come and do it. And he quietly was like, how about I just be the best pitcher? How about I just saved the day? Yeah. So love the award, love the Double Mav Award. And if you haven't seen it, let's go. what are you waiting for?

It's all I'm saying. It's a great point. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. Now I'm kind of hoping it's on my flight today. Trevor, enjoy your weekend. Enjoy your baseball weekend. Enjoy your life weekend.

And I hope whoever's listened to this as well. There's one last thing we were going to do today. Hello! Yes. Oh, do it, Beams. Hard. If you want to read the, read the, matchups to me at the bottom of the sheet there.

Hard. That's how it works. I can do that, BPD. The first, this is the first stimulator of the year? It's back day, yes. I've done a few on socials. Oh, my God. It's Friday, so we'll do the National League, and right now.

Oh, Trevor. The Reds versus the Dodgers? Ooh. Old man in the sea versus the kids? I think I'm going to not. believe in the Reds right now? Oh, God. Welcome to the comments.

The simulator just ran the numbers. They believe. Reds. They can't lose right now. I get it. The other side of the matchup, the Trevor Plouffe Bowl, the Marlins and the Giants.

No holes in those Giants. They move on. Giants advance. The Giants advance to play the Braves. Braves are really good. Braves are really good. They move on. This one,

welcome to June 23rd, the Diamondbacks, first the Cincinnati Reds to go to the NLCS. Our snakes, man. Yes. Wow. Zach Allen.

Welcome to the party, man. The one in two seeds in the NL right now. Shouldn't it surprise you, Trev. Let's tee up the American League. And look at this. Tell me if you've seen this one before. Twins, Yankees. You know, you got to believe in some things in this world,

and until it doesn't happen... Oh, no. You got to... You gotta say Yankees. How did you think it was going the other way, Treb? He believes in something in this world. Yankees beat the twins. I thought they were monsters on the world.

Somehow. If this happens, leave me in our TV watching room, our live stream lounge. I blanked on the name of it. Orioles versus Astros The Old Dynasty versus the new dynasty

The Astro season begins in the C-S Wow A lot of orange in that series A lot of orange A lot of hair Now a series we will see this weekend The New York Yankees would play the Texas Rangers Rangers

Rangers Yeah No one Defense rest And on the other side, tell me if you've seen this before. Ray's Astros. I just told you the Astros season begins in the CS. How about a little Texas two-step in the American League,

the Texas Rangers versus the Houston Astros to go to the World Series? The Rangers. Wow. New Sheriff. I like that. New Sheriff in town. Welcome to the simulator, baby. And they will be facing the winner of the D-Backs versus the Braves.

It's Atlanta. I could see it. I don't agree with its stimulator. I like the series. I like the series. Braves Rangers, two elite offenses. Braves are back in it. Texas resurgence.

The winner. Southern boys. Of the 2023 World Series is... Do you like these uniforms? It's the Atlanta Braves. Congratulations to the Braves, getting another World Series title. The first stimulator of the year. Expect a few more along the way.

Enjoy your weekends. We will see you back here Monday. See what the gods give to us. Shick sucks. Nashville, dad's coming home. Let's get a baseball team there. Let me just tell you something, bro. Let loose.

Okay. No. No holds barred.