Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - White Sox Need Some FIRE | 526

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Post your job for free at https://linkedin.com/talkin Go to https://shadyrays.com and use code 'TALKIN' for 50% OFF 2+ pairs of premium polarized shades Timestamps: 0:00 Experimental Pod! 4:00 TV Trev! 5:40 NL Recap 9:35 Joey Meneses 10:10 Excited for the Mets 12:55 Good Job, Phillies! 14:45 Cardinals-Rockies 17:15 AL Recap 21:20 Pirates-DBacks 23:20 Guardians are in First Place! 27:10 Dusty Baker 32:30 Interleague Recap 34:25 Twins-Dodgers 45:00 Padres 54:50 White Sox are Mid 1:06:30 Mariners & Orioles 1:18:50 Brewers-Cardinals Coming Up 1:23:50 Luis Castillo 1:27:10 Brady Singer 1:30:40 Slump Watch 1:31:35 En Fuego 1:33:05 Smell of Gasoline Award: Rougned Odor 1:37:05 Don't Eat All the Cookies Award: Lance McCullers Jr. 1:40:55 BBD Simulator Stimulator   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 episode number 526. It's front office only. Is that what Jake called it? And we're going to enjoy it. Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball presented to you by Seat Yeek. My name's Jimmy, Trevor in front of his guitars, wearing tie-dye and producer BBD behind the dish. Trevor wearing a Jake sucks hat. Jake is not with us.

He said front office only because you guys are players only. Is that he said? I don't know what he's talking. Do you ever really fully understand Jake? Not in text, man. I don't know. People that don't know Jake might not know that. Maybe the hardest person to understand what he's saying through text sometimes.

One time when we were on the Milwaukee trip last year, I forget the exact message that was sent. But I was with Rob in our hotel room. And Jake sent some message. that Rob had no idea what he was trying to say. Yeah, oh, yeah. Meet him in the lobby. I remember he did that with Sam once.

And I've got 20 years of Jake Tech in my life. And I was like, he's asking you, actually, if this is that. And they're like, what? It's very, it's very funny. Whenever he's serious, I don't like it. I'm like, why are you being serious? I don't stop being serious. He's always joking.

Always joking. token. Hey, I didn't tell you I was going to do this, Jimmy. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Okay. Live. Yeah. You and I and Jake and BBD have talked about the format of the show, kind of where we want to take it, where we think it's gone. We're going to try something a little different today. We're still going to recap all the games and do that. But we're going to hit that quicker. And then we're going to talk about kind of bigger, broader topics over both leagues and the inner league today.

I think it's going to make for like a smoother show. We're trying something. We're here with us. We, uh, yeah, there's been a lot of internal talk about the format of the show. Somewhat impossible. Somewhat stale. So we're doing it a little different. Trevor and I are going to try it out while Jake's gone.

I think Jake's gone next Friday or so are you. Um, so there's going to be a little wiggle period. What's that called? I don't know. It's, it's going to be an hour of me, um, just telling. everybody their team stinks. That's how people hear me anyway. And that's not true. Like you really enjoy the game of baseball.

And I don't care. I think because I'm indifferent, everyone just wants to hear praise. Like I only dislike the race and the Red Sox. Oh, speaking of the Red Sox might have a new nickname for them. Okay. Stay tuned. So yeah, we're still going to do the baseball boogie music, but we're going to just hit all three kind of at the front and then little chatter about some teams.

and then Treve and I both had like this is what I want to talk about, which I think is always makes for a better show. If we're actually talking about things we want to talk about instead of just kind of like going down the list and be like, what about this series, which as you guys have noted over and over again, it's really tough to do. It is tough. So. And let's say what we always say, James. Yeah, you guys know your teams better than we know your teams for sure.

For sure. For sure. Although I might know more than everybody. Like I'll just say that right. I know. That's fair. That's fair. Treb, your little hit on TV was awesome. Really good.

Thanks, man. It was, it was. They just come to find you. I know, but you're sitting there. Teddy looks so cool. You got your glove on. People think I'm a dork for being my glove, but I'm like, dude, I could say someone's life with this thing.

You could. Yeah. I mean, if anything like Hample should be paying your big money because you're kind of making bring your glove cool again. Do people, people see that as like nerdy, huh? Like a grown man with the glove? Yeah. Well, they think you're going to steal balls from kids.

I just like have my glove on. There's not a lot of times where it's socially acceptable. You bring it on like every trip with you. Yeah. I do. Yeah. You got a nice glove. It's all leathered up and shiny.

Show glove. Before we go on to the thing, I found the text I was alluding to with Jake and Rob. on the Milwaukee trip Jake texted a group chat of all of us Davis do you need the soup case And that was asking me if I needed The suitcase full of like headsets For recording the show

Yeah I only want to talk about Ian Hap on this episode Normal text would be BBD Do you need the suitcase Jake's not normal He sucks I'm happy he's going on. Wow. I'm just kidding. I love him. Homeowners. Remember when people used to think I hated Jake?

Yeah, they used to think of you and him like really didn't like each other. Like had like active beef on and off the court. The truth is when I first met Jake, I was like, who is this guy? What does he matter to me? And then I've grown into a big fan of Jake's. Okay. Good respect. Let's go. Let's go. You have the National League. I do. Four minutes on the clock. What the hell? All right, my people, let's do this. We're starting out in Slam Diego. Giants go down to San Diego and they lose.

Padres take two out of three. The first game won nothing. We're wondering, are the Padres ever going to score a run with this badass offense? The answer to that question is yes. They went 7-4 in game two and 13 to 7 in game three. There was some walk-offs. There were some big moments. There was Josh Hater having some hiccups.

We'll talk about that. Evan Longoria, did you get one stolen from you? You did. Jerk's and Prophart. Nice catch there. Padres wake up. They take two out of three. They're looking good. Moving on. Rets. Go, or, rats. That's the Reds at the Mets. That's why I said that people.

Mets sweep the series, 5-1 Mets, 6-2 Meds, 10-2 Meds. This one probably went like everyone thought it was going to go. Domination Station from the Mets. Game one, Basset goes eight innings pitch, one unurned run. Game two, Carlos Carrasco goes six and two thirds with two earned runs. In game three, Taiwan Walker goes six innings pitch with two earned runs. They just are hot right now. Scherzer and de Grom didn't even have to throw.

They sweep the reds because, of course, they do. They are the Mets and not in a bad way. That's a good way of them saying that. Marlins go into Philadelphia. Phillies take two or three from them, four one Phillies, four or three Phillies before they're. Marlins did it in game three, and they went three to nothing. Phillies at one point had seven wins in a row.

They're surging. Wheeler was six-dames pitch, one-and-run in game one. Sindegar looked really good for them. Six in innings pitch, two earned runs. In game two, they beat Sandy in that game with a late comeback there. They lose game three, and they also might lose Kyle Schwer. Got a little calf strain going on. That is not good as they head into a matchup with the Mets,

but they do take two out of three there. Philly's looking good. J.T. Arumuto is feeling it right now. Moving on, Cardinals at Rockies. The Rockies take two or three. Was this a look-ahead series for the Cardinals? They got a big one coming against the Brew. 16 to 5 Rockies in game one.

It was just all Rockies. I think they scored nine runs in the second inning or the third inning, something like that. Nine-five Cardinals in game two, and then eight-six Rockies in game three. It was Nolan Aeronado's, you know, coming type thing. He crushed it. Had some really good defense to play. It's hit a homer.

There was one ball, James. We'll talk about it. It was knocked. About 500 feet in this series. That's what happens in Colorado. They take two or three from the Cardinals. After that, Pirates at D-Backs. We're talking about two young squads trying to figure themselves out. D-Backs take three of four. It goes three-O-D-Backs, six-four D-D-Bats, six-four Pirates in game three, and the D-Bex-V-V-V-Pirts. and then Debex won the last one, 9, 3 as well. Gallon looked really good.

Seven shuddy, 8Ks, two walks for them in game one. Patel Marte and Jake McCarthy had two runs singles in the seventh in game two. Bum Gardner gets hit around in game three, and then Merrick Kelly does his thing. Five in his pitch. Three earned runs, though. Debeks had to take the lead with seven runs in the seventh. Manuel Rivera coming over and doing this thing. they end up taking three of four from the Pirates.

And I believe this is the last series in the National League. And it is nationals going to Chicago. And the Cubs win two out of three. Six, three Cubs, six, five nationals before the Cubs win the rubber match. Four to two. And that, my friends, is what happened to the National League. I do want to mention in that game. Joy Manessus, this is in the Nationals Cubs series.

Yeah. Teammates with this guy. All he's ever wanted to do is make it to the big leagues. He had to go over and play in Asia for a little bit. Gets his chance up. He hits the go-ahead two-run Homer in the eighth. He's getting a chance there, and I love it. Joey Manessus is a guy who sometimes I tell people,

you got to root for guys. Just trust me on this one. He's a guy? He's the guy. Stand up, dude. He can bang the ball too. I'm happy he's getting an opportunity. Joey Maness.

noted. I know that the Mets are not one of the big topics at the end, so I just want to quickly give them 30 seconds of time and say, I'm very excited for them in the postseason. I hope the Yankees are there too in New York's jumping, but I just want one of the New York teams, and I think the Mets look so good. I know the Reds are not a great team. The average been playing better late, but they traded away a lot of their studs. but to get those three pitching performances, to hold a team to five runs over three games, and your starters all go deep, and DeGrominscherzer did not pitch. They just seem to be having so much fun.

Vogelback walking up to, um, milkshake brings all the boys in the yard. And it was Bassett who said like, you got to do it. Uh, he was on, um,

the got to believe KFC podcast where he said that if you want to hear it. But they just got good mojo. man like they're being silly with buck show alter which is a guy that usually doesn't do that lindore's going off so then doors looking nasty out not a not a deep met's talk on this episode but fully appreciate what's going on i'm really excited for the postseason we got a lot of metz fans in the office it's going to be fun the met's like great um you got diaz and his trumpet song is you know lighten the world on fire his run is so good when he does the shoulders like this i love that They have a massive series coming up here.

Phillies, Mets. It's not like for the division or anything like that, but two teams playing really well going at it, and the pitching matchups are just like banging, bro. So this is, we're getting, we're getting the guys. We're getting Suarez versus Scherzer. I think it's Nola versus DeGrom. And then Wheeler's pitching for the, for the Phillies.

And I don't think they've announced two they're going to go with in that game three. but I'll tell you this. I was sitting next to Tyler McGill's parents because his brother Trevor is on the twins. Tyler. And Tyler. And I was asking him,

hey, why's this guy coming back? Like, Mets are looking really good. Like, and they said August 16th seems to be the day. She's going to put him in.

Sources. They're going to put him in the bullpen to see how he does. And that, to me, you got a guy like that who, has an arm like him, you put him in the bullpen.

Every once in a while, that happens where you got a guy starting and you put him back in the pen and then he becomes this lights out dude during the postseason. This could be the guy. Do the Mets need any more weapons? Because they're about to get another one back. Take them all. The Phillies also, we're not doing, that's not the big topic that you have lined up, but it's the same note.

To get the six innings pitch, two-run runs from Cinderguard, Wheeler six-in-s pitch, one-er-and-run run and then Gibby. Do you see his diving play? Yes. It was almost awesome. Like that play, it looks like two blunders, but I, or some people were acting like it was, but if everyone saw, Reese tries to make the big scoop on the hot shot, it hits his glove, but doesn't squeeze it, it flings up.

And then Gibby's eyes light up about like diving to his left to make, to grab the ball. And then as soon as he has it rolling or like, then, darting mid-dive to the other side. Like, you're not going to do that, Givie, but it was an awesome effort. But, you know, for the Phillies to get that pitching, and I think Real Mudo's on a homer streak, Hoskins was on a homer streak. I mean, their homers in the last 10 games have to be insane because they hit 15 as a team against the nationals before this.

So that's going to be a fun series. We have a good weekend of matchups after kind of like there wasn't that many great matchups is weak. Yeah, and like the one thing I'm a little bummed about is I think Schwerber's going to miss all these games. I think they said he's day to day, but he had like a little calf strain. I don't see them. I don't

see him getting in these games, which kind of stinks. Now you're out without Schwerber, you're without Harper. So, you know, I guess Philly's fans, you could use that as an excuse if things go badly. But they're playing with, they're playing with confidence right now. And they should be like, this is the team

that I wanted to see. I guess it's Rob Thompson. I guess it's, I guess it's Topper, bro. I just got to admit it, right? It's Topper. Anything about the cards, rocks, series? Yeah, no, it's cool. We had Aronado going back there.

He kind of just, he looks so dang good, man. And he's, he has a six war right now. I think he's second in all of baseball now. Behind Judge. And Fangraps, Judge is way up there. and Aeronado surpassed Goldschmidt in war. So people, if you go on draft kings and you want to check out the NL MVP futures, I think he can still get Aeronado at a pretty good price.

I was looking up online. It was like plus 1,600 or Goldsmith's like minus 140. Aronado's defense could catapult him if he continues to go offensively. Like this guy, I know we talk about him a lot, but just when you just really watch him play. I said it earlier today on baseball today. It's like the girl who dumped you or the girl like that just didn't work out, but then she goes and gets like hotter and it gets like with a guy that's probably hotter than you too.

And you're just sitting back being like, oh, man. Look at look at what I had. Because he looks really happy, man. And the Cardinals are playing really good baseball. Massive series with them too coming up against the brew crew. Yeah. There was one. there's one the Homer I was talking about. Yeah.

McMahon. Lefty, lefty, right? Gets like a curve ball. 110 off the bat. He goes in the stands over the bullpen in right field. You know they had that massive wall already. I don't know how many balls I've ever seen by a lefty go up into that portion. They gave it 495 on the stat cast, but I don't know.

his batting practice ball, the homerun derby. Yes. But this was like, this was like right center. Right center. Yeah, that was pull. Little League World Series, they just tried to turn a double play. And the guy's running into second had his slid, but his hands came up. And he just took the ball right to the wrist.

Broke up the double play. But he's hurt. Wild. All right. All right. Let's go to the AL. You ready? Well, no, I had some other things I wanted to say about.

All right. The Pod Race and their offense coming along. I talked about this a little bit on, um, on baseball today as well. So if you listen to that, you might hear it again. Isn't the Padres your big topic? Oh,

we're not doing big topics right now. Yeah, let's just, because some the IL. These are little topics. Yeah, these were little topics. See,

look, we're working through this, people. I love it. Yes, let me save the big topic then. Yes. You'll hear about that.

You ready for that? Let's go to the AL then. The Guardians swept the tigers who are playing such bad baseball. They fired their GM. The O's been there for 22. years going in a new direction. Cleveland, on the other hand, they're winning. McKenzie shutout, eight shutout innings. Beber pitched really well, uh, Quantrell six

shutoutnings. Those are the last three starts from the Guardians before game one. And then Bieber adds to it. And then in game two, you had, um, Cavali, only two run runs. We only went four innings and then Plessack throws a good start. So the guardians are still playing, man. They're having a ton of fun, six relievers combined for five shutout innings with Karen Jack and Claucet closing it out. Good vibes there, awful vibes in Detroit. I mean, like really bad vibes. They thought they were at the breakthrough point of this rebuild, and it turns out they are like

redoing it again. I don't know. They bring it in a new GM. Yankees went west to play the Mariners. They won the first game nine to four. The second game was an absolute doozy, a 13 inning. leave the longest extra inning game since the new Manfredman rules. Zero, zero, zero tie.

Really good pitching. Really good defense on both sides. Really bad hitting on both sides. And absolutely atrocious base running by the Yankees. Embarrassing, atrocious. The last three innings of extra innings trep, they only had sent two batters to the plate. The first three extra innings.

The 10th, 11th, and 12th, they only sent two batters because they made the free base runner. They turned into an out, free time. in a row. Unbelievable. And then Robbie Ray versus Cortez in game three was a nice fun baseball game. You had good pitching, you had timely

hitting, and the Mariners come through and beat the Yankees four to three. I thought they were good games. Mariner were better. Yankees still have some stuff to work on. Rangers. Go to Houston, and the Astros take two out of three. Orchidion Martín

Perez both get hit in game one, which was odd. Not Framber. Not Framber. Framber's nasty. It's like 19th quality start in a row or something like that. In game three. And the Rangers won the Burlander start in extras. How about that? DeVars with a big outing.

Woodward says, I am proud of him. He didn't say it like that. You're upset it. Dusty made some good quotes about drugs. Blue Jays and the Orioles. Only two games. rain delay postponed. Orioles win both.

Lenoa gets starts and they think in some singles and then put some runs up on him. Come back later. Liles and braidish, something kind of braddish, I think is his Twitter handle. He actually

has been really good since coming back from the IL. Orioles still fighting, man. More on them to come. White Sox and Royals. The Royals take three out of four from the White Sox more on this series to come. Granky had bases loaded, no one out in the heart of the White Sox lineup up and got through it. And I'm just like, come on White Sox, which is apparently what all of them are saying as well.

That's my topic for later. Angels and A's played and the Angels swept the A's. I don't know much on this. I wish I was more excited. I actually watched game one. And then it was a good, like, scoreless game. Otani almost gets hurt. Come back.

I don't know. That's all. I can't hear the music. Did I go away too long? I think you did great, bro. I can't hear the music either. I can't hear the music, and then I forgot to set my timer to check.

No, you're good. You beat by about 50 seconds. Oh, nice. Sped through. Yeah. So I want to talk about the White Sox. BPD has the Orioles, Seattle, on deck. So, Travis, there ain't any other teams that you're interested

or curious because I did, watch a bunch of the highlights and the recaps. I want to go back because I forgot. I had this queued up in my mind. It's the pirates, Devex. I understand people. These are teams that are not involved in the race right now, but there was an interesting play,

kind of like a double play at the end of a game, not the end of the game, but towards the end of the game. Key Brian Hayes, first and second, Kee Brian Hayes, like short hops a ball. They throw it a second. And then the second basement, for some reason,

instead of just firing to first base, decides to get, I think it was base is loaded actually, decides to get the runner at third in a rundown. So the run ends up scoring. Then the third baseman goes back and tags third base. That wasn't third baseman. There's like short stuff. Goes back in tags third base.

And it's like, well, it's not a forceout anymore. So then he runs the runner back. And then the runner doesn't just put his foot on the base. He stands next to the base. So then the guy tags him. Why did he out? On purpose? It was the craziest.

I was like, what is going on here? The baseball IQ was negative in this play right here. I just didn't understand it. So like the end up the timebacks end up scoring a run on it. But it was like, we like to talk about positive baseball IQ. This was like negative baseball IQ. And like kind of like. The Ironback just run.

That's their thing these days. They're just like running. It's tough. Anyways, I had to get that off because I was thinking about it's like, what just happened? Like the runner, all he had to do, he was already back,

James, he was back at second base with like two or three seconds to spare, and he just stood next to the base. Weird. And they just tagged him. I don't know what happened,

dude. Anyways, let's get back to that. The guardians, the guardians aren't part of a big topic, but they definitely deserve to be talked about. They sweep the tigers,

which is almost like the Mets sweeping the Reds, but the Guardians aren't the Mets. They're good, but you know what I mean? It's not like, not best in the league, but they are atop the division now, Trev. Yeah, I was sitting at Dodgers Stadium. They had already won their game and the twins were, I think at the time they were up on the Dodgers.

We're like, all right, they got a win to keep pace. And then obviously they lose. So now, yeah, the guardians are up. That's still a three-team race. I know we're going to talk about the White Sox. The twins, to me, looked a little, they looked a little, overmatch there out in LA, which is maybe you expect that, but I don't like that attitude that I saw from them. But get on the guardians, man. They just keep going. Yeah, some cool quotes.

Polisak said, we're buzzing. You can tell we have a winning streak. Guys know how to win. We're playing together. Timely hitting. It seems like everything is coming together right now. And it's pronounced Claucet, right? Yes. Why? What's up with Karen check? Is he self-aware now? because he is it's taking it to a whole nother level now every single strike out the end of any he's he's taking his hat off throwing his arms up going nuts are forget what you're the last weekend he did it and i was reading his lips to rosy and everybody it was it was a weird phrase that he was saying i forget what it was though if you're a guardians fan do you get

put this in the chat do you guys like that or is it like what do you what's going on now i think he's got some off the field other stuff that have people like out where if he was more Brett Phillips vibe maybe they'd be more into it so I think it's a tough combination it to me I'm like I don't like it and I'm like well no it's too I like I like some shit but not that it's too much

okay but um I like this quote from Brian Shaw in the gardens about Clause A he said he's starting to learn his finger pressure he's starting to learn command he's starting to become an elite pitcher he's I think he's kind of have been one, but like if he's, if he's making justice like this now. Yeah, he's had

the, he's had the electricity in his arm for a while. That's cool to hear someone else say about you. We've talked about this quite a bit on this show. I mean, the pitchers just, they have the tech. And if this guy is now learning how to manipulate the ball even more than a freaking

thousand mile an hour slider, then I don't know. I don't know how this game, the game I think might self-destruct because pitchers are just going to get too good. I swear man, I swear we I swear we haven't even got to the point yet where like everybody takes the jump. A few pitchers have used technology to get better and to get back in the game. But once everybody starts doing it, I don't even know what's going to happen.

Caleb Theobar, I'm going off on a little tangent here, but this is important. Caleb Theobar is a left-handed pitcher from Minnesota. He was a good pitcher, a relief pitcher for us when I played there. Took a couple years off. was coaching college baseball, Jimmy. They say, hey, come try out. Because he has like 100% spin efficiency on his pitches. Like this is a guy that organizations dream of.

So he's like learned, he's like all up in the numbers. He's learned to use his tech. And now he's back in the big leagues doing his thing. And it's like, I don't want to say it's easy for these guys because you still have to do it. But like, holy crap, man. What are we supposed to do? has hitters? Well, the shift getting eliminated might help. They should change the strike zone to lower it a little again.

Please help us. I think that's what hitters are saying. SOS, bro. Yeah, I think some of that stuff is going to happen. Dusty Baker has some awesome quotes. Did you not hear the one about drugs? I didn't hear the one about drugs. I knew he's he's quarantining right now. He didn't get to watch the game. He's in a mood. He is he on drugs? What's that? Is he taking drugs? He might be. No, they asked him because like, the Astros are kind of going through that August. They were going through a little August malaise of like,

we're in first place. What the fuck? Who cares? It's the dog days of summer. And they asked for, they asked Dusty about that. And man, he had a,

oh, I think I remember he said, well, back in my day, we had mothers little helpers to get you through that, but we don't have those anymore. And it's so, I mean,

I was almost going to build an award around this because it's like, all right, maybe baseball's too long. I mean, here you have manager saying, yeah, back in my day, everyone needed amphetamines and drugs, speed just to get through, just to like get up for an August game. It's the truth. I know it's the truth. It's a long season. I never took steroids.

I've never taken amphetamines. I've never taken Adderall. I've never done anything like that. You know what I played on? Sugar-free Red Bulls, bro. Like, come on, dude. Yeah, this is a funny quote. Too clean.

It was, it's funny. Started, now that I watch, I watch a lot of other sports and other countries and stuff because I have a baby and I'm just, whatever's on at 9 a.m. I'm watching.

And then, and then whatever league it is, it was like, I was watching the national rugby league. I was like, what the fuck is this? So I googled it and I'm reading and I'm like, damn,

man, it's, we play 162 games. I can't find another league that plays a hundred. There's nothing, bro. I mean, it's basketball.

And, basketball and hockey of half the games. Football has, you know, obviously you can't play that many games in football because of the violence that occurs. Yeah. Dusty also said OPS is fan stuff. He doesn't base his lineups on OPS, which is not true. Teams actually do OPS, but I'm sure there's other stats. He doesn't.

But he started Guriel over Mancini. And Mancini's been hitting the ball. And he said, I need a fly ball pitcher for Framber. He's only played 18 games in the outfield for Baltimore. If I got his squad, if I got Framber pitching, I need Yulee. He's the golden glove. There's only one gold glove. If I got a fly ball pitcher, Mancena only played 13 games in Baltimore.

I got to play my best fly ball guy out there. Is Framber a fly ball pitcher? I guess so. I don't know. I don't have, in my fly ball pitchers, I don't have Framber in my mind, but maybe. I love that answer, though. It's actual real answer. and good insight.

Oh, my God. We got some of the chat telling me that they've been using text since Nolan, Ryan, and Tom House. I, who is this in the chat? DW, listen, man. I get that there's been stuff around. Do you, you don't understand

the level that these guys are using every single bullpen. Even when they're playing catch flat ground, they do stuff. It's different. I don't want anyone telling me this. It's bullshit. Yeah, I mean, the Yankees...

What's going on right now is crazy. The Yankees just built their, like, Rapsoto, state of the art pitching lab like two years ago. And then they didn't do it earlier. But yeah, they used tech, but not every session. They would have to go to the internet when no one... They would have to go to Tom Houses, like, set up. And, like, he would run their data.

And now he probably does three times a year or whatever. I just, yeah. Yeah, so people in the chat are backing us up. saying that Framber has one of the highest ground ball rates in the game. So I don't know what's going on now. That's the quote. I know. Dusty's, you know, he's quarantining.

People aren't making to be around. Maybe even at first base? We're not going to go too far into Yankees Mariners, although I wish we would because the Yankees. Well, we have mariners coming up. Yankees lost out on Carpenter. Like he broke his bone. That's not good.

Rizzo comes back. Oh, we're going to do the Mariners. Yeah, okay. We'll do the talk about a little bit later. I remember you mentioning that. BPD. hit us with the I.L. And then let's get into these big old topics.

In the inner league, first we're going to go to Treves, L.A., where his twins faced his Dodgers. Dodgers took both. All three of these series are two games sweeps. So kind of boring, but the Dodgers, they're winning streaks up above 10 games, three sweeps in a row. Twins fall out of first place.

We just talked about the guardian side of that. Um, yeah. Taylor had a go-ahead home run in the sixth inning of game two. Gallo hits his first home run as a Dodger, went the other way with it. He had some quotes about enjoying having a beard again, uh, which Reddit people took too seriously. Over to Milwaukee where the Brewers swept the raise. Brewers win 5-3 and 4-3, so a couple close ones. Extra innings in game two.

The rays are 7-Eleven since the break. break. Only one win street within the seven wins. They've won three in a row at one point. Wander Franco's been running, throwing and hitting off a tee, could be ready to take live BP potentially today. Mani Margoe starts a rehab assignment. He's fun to watch. Hope he's back soon. Taylor Rogers received a cortisone injection in his knee. And over in Boston, the Braves came to town, swept the Red Sox winning the first game, an extra second game they win at 8 to 4. Matt's a suck, an ice cream cone in Grisham's face. The rookie who came up made his debut in Homer.

That was cool. Braves only gave only three. I've only bunted three times all season and only did it once. They resulted in a hit. They had a big bun. It was a week. Freed goes on the seven-day concussion I-O, retroactive to Monday. Sad, don't like that.

A bunch of two games, weeps. Don't care about those. That's the I-O. What job, BPD? We actually were watching the game live when Freed injured himself. Went for an errant throw, tried to cut it off and throw home. His feet, like, clipped each other and then just banged his head. I thought he was like, I thought he was just embarrassed at first because, like, it was like a pretty bad looking blooper type play.

But he smacked that thing, dude. So concussions are no joke. Hopefully he's all right, man. I don't think I've ever had one. I've never knowingly had one. I mean, I've gotten hit really hard and saw stars twice in hockey. Like, had to put my head between my knees because I felt like I was going to throw up. But it went away.

But I don't know. I had a hockey team and had like five concussions. It was scary. This one we could start Twins and Dodgers. I was at both of these games. The vibe there was great. The second day was Freddie Freeman Bobbohead Day. And the place was jam-packed.

And I mentioned, like, the twins' demeanor. It just, it never felt like they were in there like, we're a first place team. Let's go take these Dodgers. Let's like, let's make this a statement series. It was more like, ooh, we're playing the Dodgers. Like, this is going to be tough. Like, who's behind me right there. Hi, I love.

God, I love it. Love construction. Anyways. That doesn't fair well for the twins, man. That's like kind of their thing. I know we need them to have that confidence because, you know, we talk about in the playoffs, like they haven't been able to get it done, obviously,

and you have to, you've got to fake it, man. I told Peter this morning, I said if there's one trait that I have, it's the ability to conjure up confidence when maybe I shouldn't have confidence. I have it in spades. I don't know why, but I can make myself feel confident

pretty much in any situation. The twins did not as well. Yeah. I don't have that. The twins didn't have it, and it kind of showed during the games, even when they were up four to two, which in my interview,

I missed the chance to say four to two. I thought you were going to say it too. Missed that opportunity to do it. But it just, the Dodgers lineup is just absolutely relentless. It just never stops. Whenever the twins needed to make a big pitch, they didn't.

Whenever the Dodgers needed to make a big pitch, they did. You got Muncie and belly hitting now. Moncy's doing the stepback thing. I put the video, I was watching him. I was like that. Is he doing the step back?

and he just said it just he tried it out. It's feeling good to him. You know, and people were like, oh, you don't even make these big adjustments. So it's like, you know,

he might do that for a couple games to get this certain feeling back up into the hip. And then maybe he lets go of it. You know, you're making adjustments. The way he's been kind of hitting this year, he's, he's searching for things.

One last point on that game. It was the loudest I've ever heard anybody to get booed. My kids were actually like, scared. Like, and Dodgers fans were fine. they weren't saying anything crazy. There was a couple of you sucks and a lot of cheaters.

I had to explain to you. I was sitting with a couple of young twins fans, Jace Tingler's kids and Mike Herman, the traveling secretary, his kids were there too and Teddy and Ila. And I had to explain to him like, they were saying, why is he a cheater?

And I had to explain to him the situation. So the Dodgers fans weren't being bad about it, but loud, dude. And I don't, Correa kind of like feeds into it. He's like looking into the stands a little bit. He did not have a, a great series.

I don't know, man. I think it's just going to always happen for him. He just has to wear it. But he was loud. I mean, he leaned into it from the start. So he really, you know, he was cutting WWE promos where Altuve was definitely not doing that. We'll see if it fades. But Altuva won the MVP.

So that's kind of where that goes. Yeah. Like, damn. All right. We are going to get into some. topics. Treve wants to talk Padres, Hater. I want to talk white socks. We got Orioles and managers on

Mariner's on the docket. We have standouts and all that. Let's get into the topics. Brought to you by, ready for it? LinkedIn. Yes. Yes. As you gear up for fall, you need the right people on your team to help your small business fire and all sent cylinders, LinkedIn jobs

is here to make it easier to find people you want to talk to faster and for free. Jake loves LinkedIn. I think he's probably going to be upset. He didn't get to this ad read first time we're doing this one he's a he's just a connection guy all jake is network network network my dad i think any business professional just absolutely loves lincoln you can create a free job post in minutes on lincoln jobs to reach your network and beyond to the world's greatest largest professional network uh simple tools like screening questions make it easy to focus on candidates for

just the right skills experience you can quickly prioritize who you'd like the interview i think uh Jake's Jessica went viral on LinkedIn a couple a year or two ago. A couple times. Yeah, she's like a star. I use LinkedIn to have a secret conversation with a secret friend. It's the only place we message each other. And it's beautiful.

Like I have notifications on for his messages. It's wild. So thanks LinkedIn for giving me a secret pen pal. LinkedIn jobs helped you find the candidates you want to talk. to faster. Did you know every week? Nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com.

slash talking. That's LinkedIn.com slash talking to post your job for free terms and conditions apply. I had a buddy who like was saying this is like almost like a new social media type app. And you said like just went viral and like I haven't been able to use LinkedIn. I better set up a profile. I don't know what my title is. But can you give me a cool title so I can like, I don't know. want to brag on LinkedIn.

Just do a professional player. Like I think Gallo has a LinkedIn. Like I think there's professional players that have them. There's weirdly a lot of MLB players that say their bio is or their title is just like MLB player at Baltimore. That has to be like the teams made it for them. I don't know. But there are a lot of players that have LinkedIn. Really?

Yeah. I'm in. I'm in. And it's cool. You can see how. I don't know if people want this, but you can see how big like like you could go Yankee scouting department. just see everyone that works for there because it's in their it's in their bio and you just collect new york yankees and see the people who work for the yankees and you see the scouting

department and you can go to another team and see their scouting apartment it's like two people and it's like can i it's interesting stuff i've got lost in that web that's interesting can i link my only fans on my lincoln of course you can i don't see why not yeah let's talk podros yeah yeah i want to shout out gallo hitting the homer bbd mentioned it a little bit of course he's feeling more comfortable in Los Angeles. Like, of course he is. That should not be a story. Like,

the pressure is off of him. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's performing. I think he hit a Homer. Yeah, he's feeling better. I think it's a small enough sample

that the Homer has his numbers now overall good with the Dodgers. I am salty, sure, whatever you want. But, man, every, like,

Talking Yanks episode this season, I would talk about how surprised I was how much support Gallo got. I would ask Jake, why is it because he's Italian? Like, is it because like why? I've,

I had never seen someone perform as poorly and get as much support from, I'm not talking on Twitter or social media is because that's a shithole and a terrible like big place in the stadium. You go to a game, Gallo, Gallo before every at bat as you walked up. I had, I just had never seen it.

And you can go back and listen to talking next. This isn't me. Revisionous history, I would say, how come he's getting so much support? What's going on here? So for him to constantly be talking about how he didn't get support from the fans is, is irking me. I can see that.

Because I'm like, dude, there's never been someone who performed as poorly as you that was as in the stadium. Again, social media is a shithole. Like social media would have you believe that Brett Gardner is hated by Yankees fans. and you go to the stadium and he's a standing ovation

every single game. Yeah. Twitter's just not real. But yeah, so. And the LA writers are definitely like easier. Well, they're squeezing it out of him right now

so they can get, rile me up. But everything is less stressful. Absolutely, man. New York City, even if you're not

a pro athlete, is this fucking bottle of stress. It's the fastest moving. You're right. You're totally right. You're just visiting. there. You're like, holy. Yeah, if you're visiting New York, if you're like, let's go for a day in Manhattan, you're stressed.

It's a, it's a, it's, I mean, I don't know, it's like, it's a stress ball. At the end of the day. Yeah. It didn't work out in New York. And that's happened many times. And it is difficult to play there. And people always get on me when I say, shit, it's hard to play in Philadelphia. It's hard to play in New York. It's hard to play in Boston. Like, no. And he's difficult. And he got booed when he didn't perform. But he got more support than I, I've seen a struggling player get. I think there's only a few stadiums that you'll ever really get booed at. Honestly,

for not performing. Like, you might get booed for other reasons of visiting player or whatever, but I feel like there's only a few stadiums in all the baseball, a few fan bases in all the baseball that'll like really boo you.

Yeah, man, it's like how, Texas wasn't one of them, bro. You know what I mean? When you live other states, like you never hear the car horn and then you move to New York and New Jersey and it's a beep first state.

And it's, it's not, that they're as angry as you perceive them to be if you're from a place that doesn't boo or doesn't beep it's just like more casual like if you drive where me and bd you live which is the north jersey suburbs i mean you're gonna hear car horns every time you're out and then when i live in northern california you just never heard someone beat unless it was like uh hey the light turned green I got booed at Target Field.

Okay, so it can't happen. I played so poorly that Minnesota people, some of the nicest people in the world booed me. They booed performance. Jeter got booed. Everyone loved him. Everyone had posters of him. He didn't, he had a bad stretching up booed. Oh, when did he get booed?

It went over 30. They started booing him. It's not what others perceive it to be. It makes me so happy. People are booing in the stadium like that. They're not. It's like how just in some households cursing is nothing. It's not a big deal.

Some places it curses like my mom would call me little shit and I would call her big shit when I was like five years old. Like that was our nicknames for each other. Like that wasn't a curse word in my. It's just different. But people put their interpretation of it on Northeasters and think that like we're super angry all the time. I was like, no, it's just nothing.

Whatever. That's a different story. All right, let's go Padres. Padres coming out. We know the offensive struggles they had after the trade. All we wanted to talk about was Juan Soto. What are we going to do with this lineup? This is Murderer's Row.

I think even I said, is this the best one, two, three punch in baseball? And people kind of get mad of that because people get mad about everything nowadays online. But it was really good to see them break out. a lot of cool quotes Machado once we get going we get hot it's going to be a scary lineup

there's only one way to start a winning streak that was from Soto it's winning the first game I just like that the length of their lineup and it was inevitable for them to get going here

in the third game where they went they won 13 to 7 all nine Padres recorded hits and Soto another quote here when you know you have a good lineup if you don't worry about hitting the winning Homer, you just pass the baton, that the other guys do their job,

like we did yesterday, like we did today. It's interesting to say because it's interesting that he said that, because you hear teams say that, but not with power hitters like the Padres have. Usually it's like get on for these guys, but now like when you got a guy like Juan Soto, who's in the middle of your lineup, talking about passing the baton and just having good at bats,

I think that really resonates with the rest of the lineup. If the big dogs are saying like, hey, let's just go have good at bat says, I'm going to pass it to you. I think that instills confidence in the bottom half of the lineup as well. And like I said, it was only a matter of time before the offense started clicking. I'm kind of all in on the Padres. Snell looked really good. And he's kind of like a bonus piece is for them. Like if he turns it on, he's kind of always like a late bloomer in the season two. Like if he gets going and the Padres Pitching comes back and

the starters are what they can be, then this is a team that's very scary. That's very much a World Series contender. Obviously they're all in and they prove that. But, James, yes. They got a guy right now that's supposed to be closing out their games for them who had a little hiccup.

This outing in this series, He was all over the place. He was walking people. He threw a ton of pitches. Started checking into it a little bit. And I mentioned this on baseball today. But there's an article out there on that sportsinfosolutions.com. And they're talking about Hater and his release point.

Now, he's been one of the most unhittable pitchers in the last five years. And a lot of it has to do with, like, deception. He throws from way over on the first baseline. kind of like a lower arm slots the ball comes out of and that helps the perceived velocity velocity and all that means is you know for all the old school baseball dudes it just means the ball gets on you like what if it's 95 it feels like it's 100 and the reason it does that is because it doesn't have a lot of like vertical drop on his fastball he comes from a low arm angle and it kind of just stays there so at the top of the zone you're getting guys taking that pitch

or swings and misses. They're just not seeing it well. But for some reason, for some reason this year, the arm release point is two inches higher. And the fastball at the top of the zone hasn't been what it needs to be. And it kind of led me into thinking,

well, is that what the brewer's saw? Now, like, there are other reasons the brewers got rid of him. They, they know, next year he's going to be making a lot of money. But this release point thing seems to be an easy. easy fix. And I asked Peter, like, isn't that just like an easy fix? Like, you just kind of like, you got all the cameras, you have the data. Can't you just do it? He said yes. So it makes me wonder, like, why isn't there a fix yet with this? And is that why the Padre's are like,

sure, we'll go get this guy and we can fix him. There hasn't been a lot of games in San Diego. I think he's been in two, made a couple appearances. Like, so maybe, maybe they've already tried to do that. But that's interesting to me. And that's something that Padre's fans have to look out for. you know, come September, come playoff time is like, does this guy have that pitch anymore? And with all the cameras and like I said, all the data that you know he has the information too. And now it's up for him to make the adjustment. I'm just wondering why it hasn't happened so far. I'm looking at the baseball savant.

You can do like the image of the release point. So you can see that it is lower. Or it's higher this year. It's higher this year. People are in June and July, they hit 306 and 36 of bats against his fastball. In the earlier months, April and May, they hit 0.086, 3 for 35. It's higher and also it's like skinnier where last year there was, you know, there's movement, a little movement. It looked like a beehive.

And now it looks like March 6th. Simpson's hair. Skinny. But I had a thought. It's just kind of a joke. But I was like, what if he just changes cleats? He's just got like taller taller cleats this year.

I don't know what it is, dude. I know, but it's funny. It's funny that it can be anything. Like this could be, imagine if he was like, nah, I got new spikes.

They're a little taller. And we're like, oh, okay. You're good. So it's not that. He has to know about it. They have to know about this.

I mean, this is a reason some prospects get sent down and retool because their release points so different because you give credit to pitchers a lot, Trev, but you, M-O-B hitters will notice the weirdest and most minstrel stuff about, I don't think this is a tipping situation, but you notice this stuff. And it's not that you notice, you would notice the arm, the release point. And sometimes I guess you can if a guy comes from different places on different pitches. I don't think you're going to notice the two inches difference, like higher on the fastball. release point. But it's just it's the

what the ball looks like coming out of the hand. It before it's staying and it's staying true and it kind of gives that ride movement that we all talk about and now it's not really having that effect so guys are seeing it better. I mean that's just it's like a bread and butter pitch for him.

Got to have that pitch going forward and it is a mechanical issue. It's so easy to fix. He hasn't looked terrible but this is Josh freaking Hater we're talking about. You traded for Josh Hater. You expect a guy to be nearly unhittable because that's what he has been. It hasn't been that way all this season.

And I mean, this is a reason why. I kind of like when there are things like this instead of a guy being like, instead of people saying, oh, it's shelf life of a reliever. How was his September last year? Do you know? Because I'm looking at his vertical release point. I like this stuff. And it was, I really don't know what his number means,

It's 5.3 feet. No, it can't be that. But his... Yeah, yeah, feet. But he's taller. Well, because you're going down, you're crouching down as you release. Okay, so it was 5.3 feet. And that's kind of...

5.3 is where it was at all of last year. And then it spiked up in September. And if you go back to 2020, and oh, this is interesting. You go back to 2020. Oh, wow. His release point on his fastball has been slowly climbing for years. What could that mean? I'm not sure.

Like, I'm not a pitcher anymore. You know, I still dabble in blitzball, but I think maybe there's some fatigue issue setting in, or is it, it could be something before his release point also changing too. It could be,

you know, where he's starting on the mound, his stride length. If his shoulder doesn't feel, good when he releases from that point. So you kind of just subconsciously move up a little bit to feel that zip again. There's a lot of things that it could be. It's just, it's interesting to me because it seems like it's such an easy fix. And I've talked to pitchers about it. And they say, yeah, that is an easy fix. But it hasn't been fixed. And it slowly got to where it is now. In 2017 through 19,

it was like 5.1 inches. And then in 19, it spikes up a little bit. And then 20, 20, it goes up. In 2021, started 5.2 ended 5.4 throughout the course of the season. And now this season started 5.4. It got up to almost 5.6. In the last month, it did drop back down to 5.4. But it is, it is interesting that. And it's for his other pitches mirror that as well. And there's just so many aspects. It's just something to look at. If you're a Padres fan, if you're a hater fan, I mean, just kind of, let's see if he makes the adjustment. And this doesn't mean he's just going to get hit all the time. Like he's still going to have good outings.

He's got plus stuff. It's just a, this is the type of thing that could, and this is not hyperbole people. This is the type of thing that could win or lose you a World Series. This is your closer. Yeah. Rooting for him to fix it. He got saved by Machado's homer and that was nice.

Oh, my gosh. All right. Let's, I want to do one slider by Rogers. He freaking. Crush that thing. I want to talk about the White Sox. That's what I texted to you guys. There's an article that came out about the White Sox.

There was the stats. Who sent us that? Jake sent us that Jay Kuda tweet. White Sox this year, 500 record. White Sox second half this year, 500 record. White Sox first half this year, 500 record. White Sox's last 100 games, 500. White Sox since 1978, 500 record.

So, dude, have we fact-checked this? Because he went on more and more about this, James. He added on to that tweet. And I don't think, this can't be true, bro. Last 70 games, 35 and 35, last 80 games 40 and 40, last 100 games 50 and 50, that's 120 games 60 and 60. Last 140 games 70 and said, that's not true, is it? That seems absolutely crazy.

The end he said last 140 games 70 and 70, I'm afraid, which maybe is joking about how mid they are. I have no idea. But we also got an article. And this leadership and fire and leadership has been the talk of the White Sox all year. We've talked about it. There's been conversations and quotes already. But we kind of got an article with a lot of different players quotes on it.

Because Quato came out and said like, we lack fire basically i can find the quote so darrell van schewen from chicago sun times wrote an article and i i was very interested when i was reading it because one first quato came out and he said he like kind of questioned the team's fire after the game and quato's been great he's a veteran let me try and find the quote he said we need to be more aggressive show more swagger we can't get comfortable. We need to go out and play and play hard and show what we can do. We need to fight. We need to show the fire that we have if we have any. So, I mean, that's a veteran who came onto the team halfway through and wasn't like there last year and the rest and just kind of

noticing the difference. And it's interesting because in 2018 was it, the white sucks were like the young like swagger fire team. That was like look like. It's like look like. They still look like they have that, but the energy is zapped. And then they asked Tony Larusa about Quato saying that. And I do have to say this. I really respect LaRusa's the way he handled Quedo aspect of this. Have you seen these quotes? Yes.

Because Larusa said, I think it's a curious statement. And that's what he's getting dogged on. But he did go on to say, or it's better to be discussed with the family if there's a problem, will straighten out like keep it in house very like that's who he is but he did say about quato i was surprised he said that his opinion is welcome and it also carries weight the guy is experienced i'll ask him about it so i like that he he basically said i'm surprised he said that i wish he kept it in house but i definitely value what he says so i'm going to go talk to him so whenever i can show love to show appreciation for la rousse i'm going to do it because not

Not that often now because now I'm going to pivot and say, it's clearly leadership. Like this is a team searching for leadership. Like the Blue J said when they fired Montoya, they're like, we needed the leader. Like we needed someone to rally the troops and like get us going. And I mean, Quito says that. Our, your guy, our guy, Gialito says, I don't want to speak for everybody, but sometimes it's there to fire. sometimes it's not to climb out of a position we're in takes a lot of fight take some fire playing with purpose we're all trying but it's not about trying it's about doing have to have that

passion and energy andrew vaughn said i'm not a big rah rah guy pretty quiet and soft spoken whenever whatever guys need to get themselves going on the field is great basically vaughn being like don't ask me shut up i'm good and then they asked some other people and there's a lot of quotes on it. Harrison said everyone here knows he goes out and gives it everything he's got about Quato. So if it's something he might have seen and maybe the fire is just consistency is no secret. We haven't been as consistent as we like.

Seems like a team searching for direction or motivation or something. We've been talking about this for a long time with that. I mean, when I get guys. But now we got like five different quotes on. on it, like some substance to it. So I think when you said, I give Tony props for what he said. I'm okay with him and the, he's a veteran. So it takes, it carries weight.

But at the same time he's like, it's a curious statement. Like he's got to know the pulse of the clubhouse. Okay. He's sleeping in the first inning truck. I don't get it. And then this is the other kind of interesting aspect of this. we've been, I've been calling for a moment from the white socks, something to fire the boys up. Okay.

So then we get this quote. But what's really interesting is this was through a translator, okay? And I'm not saying this guy doesn't know how to speak multiple languages because obviously he does. But sometimes things like get lost in translation. And maybe he said that like the last part of the quote, if we have any. Like, yeah. That's kind of the whole thing.

Like if he just said, we need to show the fire that we have. end quote. No one's talking about this. I know. And even Gialito's quotes were like sometimes we have it, sometimes we don't. I think that was after this though. Yeah. So like the if we have any part might have just been like a throw in by the translator.

I haven't gone back to the transcript. I don't know Spanish fluently. But like that part to me, that was the whole. That was the spark. I think this, not just him saying it, but Gialito now mentioning it, you know, and it's going to be a topic in the clubhouse. You can't get away from something like this. I'm assuming Tony Larusa is going to have a meeting with the players about this.

Because if he doesn't, then holy crap, like, what are you doing? Like, why are you even there? Like, you have to address this. There's no doubt in my mind. You have to address this. This could be the spark that we've all, like, been waiting for the White Sox to take. And this is the division still up for grabs. Look, Cleveland is in first place right now by like a game or like two games up on the White Sox.

whatever it is. They're a really young team. They do have the starting pitching that's veteran, like, that is, they're veterans there. I like the team. They're very exciting. The twins are kind of like, I still don't know how to feel about them. Like, they're, hanging on for dear life. That's kind of my opinion.

That's kind of how it seems like to me. Like, if the White Sox got hot, there's no doubt they can go run this. And they still have a bunch of games against both those teams. This could be the moment if it's handled correctly. Now, do I trust that Tony LaRuce is going to handle it correctly? Fuck, no, I don't. I don't. I, uh, dude, I don't know.

I mean, why sometimes you can pinpoint it to a lot of other stuff. And they're not playing well. The, what I don't know what I'm saying? I'm saying like keeping Tony around is like, for what? I don't know how many years he's got going, but you definitely had a team that was full of Vim and Vigour and cocky as shit in a good way. that's just dulled down, unmotivated and directionless.

And there was like one big change. We had the Lance Lynn, Joe McEwing, dust up in the dugout. I thought maybe that was going to be the spark, but then they smoothed it over. And then it's just kind of been ho-hum, ho-hum.

When Jerry Blevins is texting me, talking about the white socks, saying they just have no life, they have nothing. That's very telling. Jerry does not talk poorly or badly about many things in life. He's a very positive person. And he couldn't help but call me or text me and tell me it looks bad.

Yeah. I was looking at like some offensive numbers for them, just trying to figure it out. I was actually like going through stats hoping they would land in the middle more. Just like versus fastballs and versus changeups and shit like that. And, oh man, did I just close it? damn i had something open they're really bad uh versus fastballs and sliders so fan graphs has all the pitches yeah the two main pitches you want to be good at fan graphs has

shit here it is so fan graphs has like um how many runs you score more than the average team versus pitches for their pitch value so the white socks score 20 22 less runs than the average team versus fastballs. They're not mid. They're bad. That is 24th out of 30 teams. And then they score 14 less runs than the average team against sliders. You don't want to be bad at both those pitches, you know?

Yeah. There's another team that's really bad at fastballs. The Padres are really good. not great at hitting fastballs, but they're plus against sliders. So you can be those two pitches, because that's, that's bullpen right there. I wonder what the White Sox numbers are against relievers then. I kind of want to go check that out because that fastball slider, that's relievers, right? Basically, yeah, you pair yourself down on two pitches as a reliever most of the time.

A couple pitches maybe to show, but your two main pitches are going to be a heater and whatever. off-speed pitch. Chicago White Sox are 19th in OPS out of 30 against relievers. So yeah, that's bottom of the bottom of the league. Those are not teams, not pitches you want to be bad against. Where like the Yankees and the Dodgers are both pluses versus fastballs and pluses versus sliders and the top one, two against relief pitching in baseball. Dodgers are just good.

That's just good, man. Blue Jays are also the same. All right. B. BADD, let's go to the Mariners and the Orioles because FanGraphs has a very funny and it makes sense, but it's funny when you read it stat. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.

So the Orioles and Mariners have essentially the same record. I think Mariners are one game ahead right now after last night's games wrapped up or something. But they have essentially, the same record. Fan Graf's as the Mariners is very likely to make the playoffs and they give the Orioles no chance

or a half game out of a spot. And a few reasons. Logically we know Mariners are probably more talented than the Orioles are going to have to play the Yankees and the Blue Jays and the Rays more in the Mariners. I think

did most of their games against the Astros already and get some extras against the angels and Rangers. Rangers and A's and the other mid teams there. They're not mid. They're bad. But it's just funny. The Orioles have such an uphill battle.

I mean, let me check. His baseball reference does odds as well. I have the remaining game, strength of schedule rankings right now in front of me. As it stands right now, according to tankathon.com. That's where I'm at. Orioles have the ninth hardest schedule in baseball left.

They have seven against the Astros, 13 against the Blue Jays. And then they play a three-gamer against the Yankees, Guardians, Rays, and Sox. Whereas the Mariners have the easiest remaining schedule in all of baseball. Really? They have three against the Braves, two against the Padres, and then seven against the Guardians and three against the Sox. They're counting those as difficult games. They got a bunch against the angels, the A's, the tigers, the Rangers.

Like, I'm assuming, I'm assuming that that's kind of where the biggest discrepancy lies is the strength of schedule. But maybe you got something else, James. No, I think it's starting to schedule. But I was curious because the Orioles are in the east where there's a lot of teams that are over 500. And they're going through the central. So that's not good. the Mariners have the easiest remaining schedule, but they, according to baseball, I've played one of the hardest.

At this point, the differences in strength of schedule, it's not like the NFL or anything because it's the point you play most everybody. So, you know, it starts out like plus five minus seven. At the end, it's really like average minus one or minus two. You don't get a large spectrum. But the Mariners have had the hardest schedule according to baseball reference. And I was, I was like, huh? really because how do the Orioles not have,

I would have guessed the Orioles because they just have more teams, but I guess who have the Mariners been playing in the inner league? They had a lot of tough games going on early in the season. That's when I declared them dead, a lot of people are pointing to that, hey, we got a really easy schedule coming up, the second half, like da-da-da-da-da. And sure enough, here we are.

For the most part, their Astros games are pretty early. I'm sure they play them at least one more. time the rest of the way. And then I'm trying to find. Oh, they played the NL East. So that makes sense. Did I completely freeze? You, everything sounds good.

Videos are frozen, which is weird. But then now you guys are back. Okay. Well. You can hear me? Yep. Audio was always coming through with a little funky. So baseball,

baseball reference has it as the Mariners has 86% to make the postseason. or 89% to make the postseason and the Orioles at 46%. So schedule matters. I will say the Mariners are a better team than the Orioles. The Mariners are a legit team. Like I think they're the third best team in the AL or I don't even know how to do that right now because we have some weird stuff going on. But I think the Mariners are a very good team after seeing them after seeing what Castillo's done in his starts, what Robbie Ray is doing. And then just kind of like they have a crispness and a top.

fineliness and more than anything, they have an intensity about them when you play the Mariners or the Yankees just played twice in the last three series. We're just like exactly the opposite of what we're saying about the White Sox and what you said about the twins where it didn't feel like they were up to task. Like the Mariners very much feel like they are up to the task whenever I watch them, whenever they play the Yankees, they're like they have this energy about them like, yeah, we're going to give you a fucking game and we'll probably win. which is cool. So I like their pitching. The Orioles kind of have that. They're kind of just, I think they're better off having these odds

because they're just, they're the, you know, back against the wall of Orioles. I went to a couple of other different websites and the rankings are completely different. So who freaking knows? Yeah.

First of all, baseball. Second of all, like, whatever. Mariners seem to be galvanized. I think that's a good word for them. You go through some struggles together. You go through some, battles like literal fights together like you start to get pretty damn close then you start winning together and that's what really puts a team together man james are you raising your hand

no i was stretching and laughing baseball reference has the tigers the angels and the athletics or the tigers the royals and the athletics their odds to make the postseason less than point less than point one are we uh we haven't had elimination season yet i feel like we're close to that. And nobody's been mathematically ruled out, right? I don't think so. I think we're still a few weeks from when that usually starts happening. Dude, the Orioles are kind of like, you, you were on it first, James.

You said the Orioles are really fun to watch. And now they got Batista coming out to the wire, uh, walkout song. Get the whistles going on. Like, Rugi Odor is like, I know his like overall numbers aren't great. Wait, hey, that's my award. Oh, I forgot about that. Come on now. They got freaking rushman coming up.

Like he's crushed it. Mount Castle is like superhero against the Blue Jays. Like, you know, like they have a lot of fun stuff going on there, dude. Yeah, they play these games against the Blue Jays and they win. And yeah, man, they made some plays.

They just got hits. They got some, Manoa early, which I feel is against any good pitcher. If his quality is very good. Rain delay happened at a, good time, like actually maybe a bad time. Bichette hit a bomb and then a rain delay,

they come back and they win. Although did it knock Manoa out the rain delay? Maybe. We all, I believe, had the under on the Orioles and they have made us look like fools and we're happy about that.

We don't want a bunch of crappy teams. We want teams to play well and they've done it, man. Yeah, it's one of those cities too in those ballparks. Like, I love Camden Yards. I used to It's amazing. I used to go down there just to walk because it's like a four hour drive. Or maybe it's cool stuff around the stadium and like, yeah, good vibe.

I sat next to a group of deaf people and that was like a cultural cool thing. They were signing the whole time and they weren't, didn't clap when they cheered. Makes sense. And I just like a little like, you know, I was like a high school or whatever was just a nugget. I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting. Yeah, it was cool. They do the big, oh, thing during the national anthem.

I like that too. It always got me. I always forgot about it. Oh, what the hell is going on here? The fight broke out in the stands. Yeah. He's going to talk about the oros in this matter. Brandon Hyde's been freaking biting it for a long time.

And now he's finally, you know. Good for them for sticking with them. Yeah. That's what, like, we've said about these teams. Like Jake said that about Tori Lavello. It's like, and we keep saying that about the Phillies who that just change managers every two years. Sometimes just let it go. I mean, and obviously these managers are not on teams with expectations.

So they're just letting them run out the rebuild. But it's a, uh, some just let a guy like instill some routine and some energy and, and figure it out. Yeah. Uh, the chat is saying, James, that there is a big, definitely. Academy in downtown Baltimore. It's called Federal Hill. So that makes sense. Cool. Yeah. I'd chat with them. Well, you know, however best we could. I'm a wallflower. I'm a very like, I treat, I treat baseball games a lot like, people watching at the mall, but not in a bad way. It is very much like taking in how

other people. I didn't, however people will watch the game and shit. I think Baltimore, I think Canada Yards is going to be one of those stadiums that sticks around for a long time. I think it's not that old it's not that old but it has the feeling of a timeless ballpark you got the you got the thing I hope they never change what's next to it like because they've been building a skyline up around it like there's some new hotels that they've built

and then they have the warehouse in right field and that's kind of that's a big part of the Camden experience you see the warehouse Utah Street all that stuff that I'm I believe they own the warehouse so hopefully they just if they put like a hotel or something there, I don't know if the vibe would still be the same.

But if you get a chance to go to a game in Baltimore, it's the atmosphere is great, especially when the team is good. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I like that being good. I was going to just say something and I forget. Oh, damn.

It's like pirate ships in the harbor and stuff. Like, what's going on in Baltimore? You get pirate ships. Oh, I was going to say that the White Sox could have had the plans for Hamden yards. They turned them down, built cellular, which is as mid as it gets. Yeah. Yeah.

I was trying to think like, do I like cellular field? I mean, they've done some renovation since I lived in Illinois and used to go. But when I lived there in early 2000s, it was as like, bland, basic ballpark as you, like, yes, this is an MLB ballpark. But what's cool about it? I don't know. That's how it was. Okay. And they turned down.

who designed Camden because they were like, no, retro ballparks aren't cool anymore. Just give us cement. Yeah. A big Jumbotron. Yeah. Kamiski. Before we move on to the second half of the show, did this on Wake and Jake the other day, but didn't get to talk about it with you guys. Just Adley Rushman is awesome.

You take out, his numbers on the year look good anyway, but you take out the first 15 games, and it's 50 games of a 9-13 OPS. than his, I looked at his baseball savant, like, bubbles the other day for the first time. Like, what he's, what he's doing as a 24-year-old switch hitting rookie catcher? Very impressive. Like, obviously, he was the top prospect for a reason, but. Also, fun and energetic as well. And, like, the defensive numbers love him, too.

Like, it's doing everything. They move the wall back, and they go on a run. I know it's coinciding with a few people making their debut. We just mentioned Rushman and the bullpen's been gray, blah, blah, blah, but I wonder if that's played a factor. It has to have. They would get shelled. All their pitchers are good now.

Interesting. People used to talk about the trees in center field at Target Field. What about them? They had them in 2010. We won 96 games. Then like a few guys on the team complained about them. They wanted just a black batter's eye. nothing behind and then since that day they haven't been very good i believe they're back

something's on something's out in center field now and then so i don't know all right Padres white socks Mariners Orioles talked about we're good a big series I know we don't talk about this a lot big series coming up peru crew and st. Louis they're six and six against each other this year. No game 163 people. So head-to-head matters if these two teams end up. Oh, they're more than six and six. I thought they were, oh, yeah, they're six and six.

But it's three, four-game series. Yeah. And they've been two and two. No one has ever left each other's presence a winner. Yeah, 48 runs scored by the Cardinals, 44 by the Brewers. Like, they're as locked in as you could be. And this, like we said, no game 163. so head to head will come into play here if the two teams are tied at the end of the year.

So fascinating series for me. I love the matchup of those two teams. And they both just lost or the Brewers beat the raise. Brewers beat the raise. Nice walk off, Adomas had it. We didn't really go into that much. Rowdy to Les kind of coming on. And he makes a play at first.

He gets the lead runner, the Manfred runner, gets a ground ball to him, fires the ball over, gets the guy, the lead out at third base. Adamus two pitches into the inning, walks him off. Or was it, I don't know if it was extra innings, actually. I got to go back. I know we walked it off for revenge game. Let me drop this stat on you, James. Let's hear.

This tidbit, all right? Get your head ready, okay? Because I want to drop it on you. Do you think the Astros are a good offensive team? Yes. The Brewers and the Astros are like identical offensive teams. go check out every single stats. The brewers have them in a lot of categories

that you wouldn't think. They have more homers, more stolen bases. They score more runs per game than them. They have a higher, like slightly higher OPS. Like maybe they didn't need the offensive upgrade. I don't know.

They're like a top 18 offensively. They're crazy, do they strike out? Because the wild thing, I don't know the Astros numbers this year was the Astros would hit home runs, get walks, but also not strike out.

Yeah, they strike out a little bit. bit more, but they're on base percentages higher. Like, it's, it's kind of crazy. The only question I have for the Cardinals is, did they, did they not, they lost two out of three in Colorado? Did they not use relievers on purpose because the Brewer series was coming up? Or, because, you know, sometimes you, you prep. This, this, that, that Colorado series means a whole lot less than this upcoming

brewer series, a whole lot less. You would not burn any relievers If then they would not be available Vers the Brooker. So I don't know if people know that or not. And talking Yanx sharp stats, I mean, they just had to play the Yankees who made them Use all their good relievers a bunch.

Oh, yeah. Ollie, Marmel, the coach of the Cardinals, the manager of the Cardinals, excuse me, said that there's no such thing as a big series. So I don't know if he approached that way or not. That's a lie. these games mean two. Not only do you win,

you also give them a loss and you're fighting for them in a division. So, I mean, that's the type of, that's the type of, that's the type of, that's the type of shit.

Where it's just like, dude, you're just lying. And there's no real benefit to that lie. Uh, stupid. All right.

Standout performances. Stand out performances. Oh, they brought, first by someone shady rays my favorite sunglasses place sunglasses you also get like the best deal i think that any of our audiences ever got from a company you can use code talking for 50% off two plus pairs so it's bogo but it's not simply buy one get one free because you can buy three for the price of one and a half which would be buy one get

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Yes, and I'm giving it to my guy Luis Castillo traded over from the Reds the Mariners. This time around he's faced the Yankees twice. First one is kind of a snooze fest because Cole gave it up early on. so he kind of had no pressure on him. I wanted to see how he was going to do second time around against them,

this time in front of the home crowd, eight innings pitch, zero earned runs, seven Ks, two walks. Are you up for the challenge? Is basically what we had to ask Luis Castillo, and he said, I got you guys. That's to do it. I mean, I guess you can think about two ways. One, the Yankees didn't hit him well the first game,

so are they going to hit him well the second game? Maybe not, maybe not, I don't know. But also you can think about like, hey, they just got a second look at you. And usually when you see a guy more, you start to find some things out. I think it's pretty cool for him to go back-to-back games against the Yankees and put these numbers up that he put up.

Because he is going to be the ace. And then it won in the playoffs, and he's pitching like it, which is really cool. And he did. He completely switched up his usage when he went to the Mariners. and I thought maybe it was going to be so when he faced the Yankees the first time he dropped the four seam fastball from 40% to 22 and up to the sinker a ton now that is a change a lot of teams are having guys make especially when they trade for him and like hey this is

what I think so I was very curious was like was that a setup game because he knew he was facing the Yankees again and then he was going to flip the script again and go back forcing him and drop the sinker down but no he actually stayed with the sinker even more, bumped it up to 40%, which is what the force team was at three starts ago. So the Mariners not only traded for him, they're tinkering with his usage already, going to that two seam, which a lot of teams have been doing for, for players. And it's working. But he went 40% sinker and then 26% fastball. So if you do math there, that's 66% fastballs. and then slider and change up he only threw like a couple of those so he's good man he's got like the moxie you want on the mound the smile and then and then to go back to back with with a new pitch mix is just like fully bought in like open to the coaching i don't know i'm just like making assumptions here but it's cool he looks like a big game pitcher which is you know i think you kind of have to have that to be honest with you like

Like, you at least have to have the confidence to do that. And, like, you know, facing the Yankees, a big, bad lineup. Your first two starts with a new team where you're still getting acclimated with everything. And, like, I think it's great. Yeah. I wouldn't have thought that. You asked me, you faced Luis Castillo twice against the Yankees. We talked about that when he first got traded over.

I would have said, hey, man, like, if he goes six and gives up a couple runs or, you know, whatever. like but he's been pretty much dominant. The Yankees hit the game before. They might have something on Gilbert. I don't think so, but they hit Gilbert pretty easily. My standout performance is a royal. Brady Singer. Hmm.

He changed something. I forget what it was, but he's been good for a little bit. I think he had one slip after being good. He shuts down the White Sox. 7.1 innings pitched. Only one earned run. Same situation as Castillo had faced them his last start.

And they got 11 hits off him. Only four on runs, 11 hits. I was facing those white socks again. And he goes into the eighth inning. Only one earned run. He changed something that he's doing. I mean, he had a no hitter versus the Yankees three starts ago. He's on a bit of a run here.

July through August. Now that one white, stock start might switch it, but two, four, five, ERA in his last seven games started. And what he's done is he's up in his sinker even more. Halfway through the year,

just up to sinker. But it's not a swing and miss pitch at all. He's pitching to contact more. It's only got a 7% whiff rate. But that's what a two seam are supposed to do. Yeah, a quick at bats, keep the pitch count down,

Hopefully you can go deeper into games, all that stuff. They, I think, did they fire their pitching coach or did they talk about firing their pitching coach? So like, oh, we keep forgetting about the Royals. They had all these young prospects and then they weren't panning out. And now Singer's been pretty good. So good job by him. Yeah, I got 3,4.9 on the year. Young guy too.

This was never going to be Kansas City's year. But it's nice to see, like, you know, some of the guys that you want to be there. for the long haul, they have some success. And there was a stat on, I think Farm to Fame put it out. Peter and I talked about this also. 27 straight RBIs for the Royals this last week were all gotten by rookies. 27 straight. Really?

So you could look at that two ways. One is there's a lot of rookies in the lineup or two, the veterans in that lineup. I haven't got the job done at all. But I tend to think of it like, hey, it's pretty cool that the young guys are coming up. They're given a chance to get acclimated and they're performing a little bit. Yeah. He had 29 swings on his sinker and he had 15 balls put in play. And I'm wondering how many went for hits.

I don't think that many should be able to find that soon. Two, two win for hits out of the 15 balls put in play. So we're getting out with it. It's a good pitch. Don't always get to strike everyone out. Tell them, Brady. Bebs, you guys stand out? Keep it tight running a little long.

Just shout out to Chris Bassett, eight innings, one unearned run. We said it when the Mets got him, but with the rotation they've got, he's just like a bonus piece, and that's pretty nuts. I know it's against the Reds. I know the Mets are just really good,

but Bassett, like you. And Bassett told him to come out to the song. Yeah, that was very, very nice of him to do for all of us. All right. Let's go. Tramp watch. Sean Murphy,

0 for 13. Come on. Ah, Eugenio Suarez. Ofer 9. Big strikeout in the extra inning game. Nice pitch by Lou. Trevino.

Mariners won the game. He got him last time. So the Yankees were paying extra special attention to Ah, oh, oh, for nine. He had two. walks. Devers back returns. One for 12. Maybe he's been back. One intentional walk. Good for them. And then Reese Hoskins. He had hit four games with homers in a row, maybe five or was. And he goes one for 11 of the week award.

Got the best friend of the week. So yeah, they, they just knew like, let's take care of this guy. He's hot. And Hoskins said, fine. I'll go one for 11 because my boy J.T. is going to light you up. Team baseball. It's what it's all about. Love that. Dirk nasty's on Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby, like Waco. How do you say this guy's name, Trev?

Joey Manessus? Yes. Five for eight with three bombs. How about that? Also three bombs, another fun name, Vinny Pasquatino, lit up the white socks. He went six for 14 with three homers. good for him. Aaron Judge,

he had two homers, four for nine, two, four walks. Nolan Aronado talked about him going home. There's old home in

Colorado, five for 14 with two homers. Tommy fam. I have not seen him in a red section uniform yet. Well, maybe I have it.

I just never like had my brain go. Oh yeah. Started on hot. See him tonight. Four for 14 with two homers and two doubles. Brendan Rogers.

Eight for 14 with the homer in five RBIs. Mount Castle 4 for 7 Homer 2 doubles I think he crushes the Blue Jays

Emmanuel Rivera 5 for 11 Homer 2 doubles and J.J. Bladee that's a name I haven't heard in a while or said in a while

that is so fun 4 for 10 for the Homer and a triple hey your other guy Terran Varva 2 RBIs in game 2

I'm telling you guys as a baseball rat dude a rat. Well, that's, speaking of the Orioles, I'm going to give out my first award. Okay, you go. You guys already know who it is. The smell of gasoline award.

And it goes to gasoline. What's that? I like the smell of gasoline. Goes to Rognetto door. Because the smell of gasoline, even people that like it will admit it's bad, but they like it,

is pungent get your attention but then it will wake you up a little bit it'll energize you a little bit but you don't want to but like O'Dor's numbers are bad Trev but his impact on the team

is huge and this is what he did to the Yankees last year numbers were bad so he was like we can't keep playing this guy and then you go on a three game stretcher like fuck do I like O'Dore and then he's the first one over the railing, hyping up all his teammates, coming through in somewhat clutch moments.

You're like, fuck, is this guy? Like, let's keep him around. Do I like him? And then he goes on a four game like stretch of like 0 for 15. You're like, you look at his numbers. You're like, 67 OPS plus. Like get this guy out of here. He stinks.

And then you're like, he makes a pick and like screams. And you're like, fuck, I mean, I kind of like the smell of this stink, though. He's a weird guy. He's a veteran guy that's, I think, really helping this Orioles club with, with the fire. Like if he's on the White Sox, is he helping them with like the spirit and the fire? That's what he did for the Yankees last year. They like leaned on him as a leader because they were directionless. The Yankees last year.

So he is just super interesting to me. He's not that old, but he's been in the league forever. And he just comes through and he had a clutch home run, made the last out of the game. You're like, shit. He's part of this team. And then you go look at the stats. And you're like, oh, my God. It's not good.

Have you seen his leverage splits? Yes, his high leverage numbers are insane. Yeah, and medium and low leverage. He has a batting average in the ones and an OPS in the mid-to-high fives. High-leverage, 250 batting average, 830 OPS. Look, I was a teammate with this guy through spring training. The vaunted spring training of 2018 with the Rangers. And I got to play against him a lot.

And I think he's always kind of been like an enigma for me. And I think I might have an answer to the high leverage, low leverage thing. He got paid really early on in his career. So like there hasn't been like a lot of times, man, when you're still hunting that payday, like you're locked in all the time. You're trying to get there. You've sacrificed your entire life. Like you understand the window. He didn't have to, he didn't have to do that.

He got paid, like I said, very early on. So maybe he needs the pressure. like he needs the pressure he needs to feel that but he is like a good guy in the clubhouse like i i liked my time around tim he did work hard it was like him and elvis andrews that we would all go out and take ground balls together and he would put in work um i like your comparison to the the gasoline that you're not really supposed to be smelling it but you do smell it i like it uh another another thing about high leverage numbers for lefties like that is that a lot of times higher lever situations mean there's runners on base and two outs or

something and teams will not shift the lefty like if he's up with no one on and no one out second baseman's probably playing right center and short stops playing on the right side this was Corey C or Kyle Ceger last year and a lot of Mariners fans were like well it's the shift it's not the leverage shift goes away and he gets hits I don't know if that that's the case, but it is just something that, like, you have to check on with the high leverage for lefties like that. I love it. My, uh, move on to my award. My award, uh, got a couple different names for it. We can call it the, uh, go mocks yourself award. Uh, we can call it, don't eat all the cookies award. I don't know. It's about having too much of a good thing because my people, we know

about the Astros starting pitching. They can line up right now and throw, Verlander, Valdez, Christian Javier, Luis Garcia, Nercidi. That's five deep right there, but they're getting Lance McCuller's junior back. He's pitching tomorrow against the A's. The Moxie King is back.

Hasn't pitched since he came out of the game in the ALDS. So he's worked his way back the entire season. And just when, you know, we don't even really talk about the Astros a lot because they have such a big lead. I think they have the best record in the AL right now. They're getting a guy.

They just grab that. They're getting a guy back that like puts him on another tier again. Like what are they going to do with this rotation? They already had to get rid of Jake Oteresey, who was pitching to a 375 with him. They had to get rid of him because they had too many pitchers. They're going to go to a six-man rotation. And it's not like a shitty six-man rotation like you usually have. It's like you have six guys that are really good.

So now we can piggy. back these guys during the playoffs. And now, like, if we need to have, you know, a starter comes out early, we don't have to really worry about the bullpen because we're going to have six guys stretched out. Maybe a couple of these guys, that's going to be the role. Like, we're going to put you in a position where you throw three to four innings. The Astros are getting better.

And I think that's a very, very scary thing for the rest of the league, for all of baseball. Because this isn't just like, this isn't just like some pitcher, dude. I mean, this guy is a guy that can be dominant who like Rugi O'Dore loves pressure situation seems to step up in the big games and he's coming back, he's going to have some time to get his pitch count up. You know, they're not going to have to do a lot of stuff with him

because they have the depth and because they have the big lead. So they're going to be able to take their time with him, get him where he needs to be, and then, bam, postseason comes. And they're going to have decisions to make about who the starters are going to be, but they're also going to be locked in We're like, hey, we can do so many different things. Dusty is going to just have a field day.

We get six legitimate starters. Throw some to the pen. Dusty has a plan. He always does. It's crazy, man. So, like, it's kind of gone under the radar because they don't need him and they have the lead in the division. But the color is coming back is about as big of a pickup as you can get. So Bill mocks yourself.

Oh, so mocked yourself. Babes, do you have an award? Do you want to give one away? I do. It's the best friend of the week award. And it's going to James and Tyone. Seven innings, three earned, battled through that one inning and survived and kept going to get through seven.

We liked watching it. Six case, three hits, three walks. His fourth of the year. No knock on Jima, but kind of a week. Our friends didn't have a great week. A great week. It's Hap's birthday. and he gets to go to Cincinnati

where he always walks away with the Homer so I think he's due for one on Monday. Nice double Happer in the game. I'm trying to premonition his. Wow, I like that. Happer had like a really short, mic'd up inning, and Joey Votto had like a really long mic'd up inning.

I think Hapr liked it that way. What's that? I think Happer liked it that way. Yeah, he's good with those, but he also gets out. Yeah. All right, let's stimulate. We got new stuff going on.

Just let everybody know the Guardians are the winners of the Central now, and they take on, they host, they host the six-seed race for three-game set. That's an interesting series. The Rays. The Rays win it in Cleveland. Damn, that would be the second time because the 2020 wild card was in Cleveland. and Yankees can beat them. All right, Blue Jays and Mariners.

That's a fun matchup. It would be the Mariners flying to Canada to play the Blue Jays at home. Robbie Ray turns. Who wins that? The Mariners are going to win that. I mean, Castillo Ray is a nice one, too. If Gilbert gets back, they're tough. Okay.

Ray's Yankees in the divisional series. The Yankees. obviously. The Ray's burned all their relievers in the three-game set. They don't even have starters. All they have is relievers. Exactly. They burned them.

Mariners and Astros in the divisional series. The Astros. Yes. A.O. goes through Houston. All right. On the other side, this is blank. Who's the sixth seed right now in the wild card? Is it a tie or something?

I'm getting that right now. I think the Padres is the last wild card team. Yeah, the Padres. So the Padres would be going to since St. Louis. Yes. To play the Cardinals. Cardinals. That's a fun series while Padres.

Heart's getting ripped out by the stimulator. Jeez. It's tough. They made the World Series last week. All right. Phillies and the Braves. The five and the four. Phillies.

Go to Atlanta. This would be a heated old. opening match divisional rivals. Braves still got it. I like the Phillies pitching when it's good. I've been trying to say this for a long time. Any given night, they're capable of having the best pitch around the field. Dodgers and Braves in the divisional series.

Dodgers. Cardinals and Mets. The Mets. Yes. Dodgers Mets is nice. I mean, this is a loaded Final Four. Beaves, you're making MLB money here with the stimulation. Dodgers Mets.

Just hoping to get a cut. Dodgers Mets championship series. Who's going to the World Series? The Dodgers. Damn. One of the Mets. Yankees Astros? Who's going?

Houston's going. We're going to have home field advantage right now. Oh, we're getting the matchup, people. What do you say? I didn't hear it. Houston. Damn. Astros, Dodgers.

A rematch. A rematch of 2017. The Dodgers. And the Dodgers do it. In your face, Houston. Take all your starters and shove them up your butt. No more Mickey Mouse. No more Mickey Mouse.

That's what they're going to chant. No more Mickey Mouse. No more Mickey. Imagine Johnson's going to have the best tweet ever about this. Damn. It would. It would have a good tweet. All right.

Hey, everyone. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you very much for hanging out with us. Love you guys. Only time I mentioned Jake in this episode was during the stimulation. He wasn't. That's it.