Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - WILD Start To MLB Playoffs!

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Walk off looking like a  legend and shop American Crew at your nearest Target!Start your free online visit today at https://Hims.com/talkin for your personalized ED treatment options.Use our code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/JMPLAYOFFS Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount Coach Trev and Talkin' Jake discuss the first games of the Wild Card Series and what to look for next!0:00 Intro3:00 Tigers / Guardians18:00 Padres / Cubs35:00 Red Sox / Yankees51:30 Reds / Dodgers 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. The playoffs are underway. Yanks go down. Cubs go up. Dodgers are balling out. And of course, the AL Central wins all around. Let's talk, Ball. Thanks, Snell.

Every player. There's so many points today. What hell will happen? Hello, and welcome to Talking Baseball. Presented by Seekek, Use Code, Jam, playoffs, 10% off your playoff tickets, and our special playoff edition to talk. talking baseball. It's presented by Team Mobile. However you guys watch the game, stats, watching on the road mobile, the magenta status perks, wherever you are. Check it out with Team Mobile. Head over to team mobile.com slash network. I am Jake's story Elliott talking Jake noted Yankees fan. We'll get to that. That is Trevor Plouffe. A fan of a fan of ball? How do you label yourself? I mean, I'm a twins fan, okay? But right now my guys are on vacation. We're managerless. And, uh, I'm rooting for good games, which we got today, I think, except for the last one.

Is your hat in the ring for the twins job? My hat? Yeah. Oh, like, am I? No, absolutely. No, I'm not a coach. There's a lot of rumors flying around the internet. I'm an online coach.

I'm not going to be sitting there for 180 days dealing with these scrubs. I mean, that's like to make all the decisions. Maybe reach out to ownership and say, you're willing to be a special advisor in the hiring process. I mean, dude, I have given my thoughts on this so much. It's the playoffs. We can't do, we can't do twins managers. Why are you asking me this?

I don't know. There was just a lot of rumors. That's on me. That's on me. Let's get into it, coach, because it's the juiciest day of postseason baseball. We'll see. Maybe there will be a day three that one day stands out of this new wild card format. If you've won game one, you've done pretty damn good in this format. I think it's 11 out of

12, have won the first game and then won the series, most of them in two games. So the tigers, the Cubs, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers are feeling pretty dang good right now while the other four are not. We're going to cronpot it. Let's get into it. I did write Burns. I was a little all over the place today with the John baby being born. Shout out to Frankie the Yankee. John Boy's third. I don't like that at all. What?

Frank's fine. Frankie's fine. Don't put that on him. What if you want to be a Mets fan? There's a lot of rumors he's going to become America's best cricket player ever. That's so true. Yeah. Baseball out. Cricket in. He's going to have options. Congrats to

to Jimmy, Katie, and the whole family. Let's get into some 1 p.m. AL Central dog fight baseball. It's a Tuesday, so we start out Wild Card Week in the Central where Gavin Big Country Williams would hope to guard Cleveland's AL Central title against the pussycats that blew it as Detroit came into town, being the first people to go excited to go scuba diving in Cleveland. Top one, the new J-Rod gets nailed by the carpenter. Costly error, Spencer has enough

torque for an RBI single. It's one-nothing kittycads. In the fourth, the shattered camera game. It's guard ball, baby. Two infield singles after the glass delay were tied up at one. Gavin Williams, six innings, two run, zero earned. Terrick Scoobel, 7.2, one-earned, one-earned run, four. 14Ks. Hey, now you're an all-star. Zach McKinsgo with the bun, small ball baby. My old nickname, Tiger Steel Game 1, 2-1 final. You know what the standings? Tiger's up 1-0 on the guards.

There you go, Pop. Well done. Thank you. Well done. What did you see, Coach? I think this game was advertised. There are some funny quotes from a hinge after the game saying, for anyone new to the Tigers Guardian series,

this is what they look like, like every game. And it kind of is true. I mean, neither of these offenses are, you know, going to blow anybody out of the water. And especially when you got these two guys on the mound, the game kind of went how we thought it was going to go. I mean, scoble looked absolutely, I mean, absolutely filthy. And Gavin Williams knows slouch as well.

You know, if we're talking about playoff baseball, we always talk about, oh, things are magnified in the postseason. Yeah, they are. And, you know, the things behind you get a little tight sometimes in the postseason. We saw that in the top of the first, man. I mean, the carpenter, like, little looping line drive single and Rodriguez boots it, gets on the second base, and Torkels said bloops them in for the one-nothing lead. And if you're the guardians, you're like, shit, Derek Scoobo is on the mountain and we're already down.

So not only is it like a early game And you know at the beginning of that game The Guardians fans were still like ushering into the stadium So like there wasn't a huge like electric vibe to start And then you get the one oh lead right away I think it took the year out of the stadium It took them a while to kind of like get into The game

I think the bottom fourth is kind of like when they started The fans started making it feel like a playoff atmosphere But you know we have have the Guardians doing guard ball, good base running by Ana Martinez to score on the chopper over Scoobel. But then in the end, yeah, it's just like small ball. One play here or the other decides this game. And that is going to be how like this series goes. We saw a classic game between these two in game one that the Tigers just capitalized on more mistakes than the Guardians did. And obviously scoble in the mound helps a ton. Yeah, pretty wild in hindsight.

looking back and being like those first two runs, or excuse me, that first run, it's you get an extra base on the air with Jonathan Rodriguez, batting cleanup for the guards in this verse lefty lineup. He's only got 31 games, I think, at the big league level this year. First playoff action. So that's pretty tough when there was two outs in that inning. And Gavin's almost out of there. and that's the only blemish on his day.

The other thing, the run they score on the, excuse me, the run the Guardian score on the infield chopper inning, scuba's got a chance to get him at the plate with a slightly better throw or a sharper throw. Kind of weird that he, that throw had a little arc on it. Well, get out of the way and let the guy coming in on the ball field that if bias feels that nobody's running home, but Scoobel, you know, fields it like over his shoulder,

and we know pitchers throwing to bases isn't great. I'm not saying he's terrible at it, but like in general, you can challenge a pitcher. And yeah, he grabbed that thing like a change up. He was choking it. That's just how it was, man. And he'd been throwing some great changeups, by the way, during the outing.

But, yeah, it was like a lollipop kind of throw. We're going to show it right here. I mean, if bias fuels this ball, like nobody's going home. but I don't know if he didn't have a grip on the ball or what kind of seemed like that, but yeah, it was very much a soft kind of toss there. And even during lifetime, I saw you react to it. I reacted the same way. You could tell that Martinez got his hand in there.

And that was great. I mean, you tie it up one to one. And look, the guardians had more chances, dude. You know, the tigers go up. McKinster gets the bunt down. They go up two to one. but then you get a freaking gift in the bottom of the night. A nice play by bias to stop the ball,

but bounces a ball, it hits Ramirez. All of a sudden, you got your little dude just scampering around the bases like he does. He's on third base with nobody out. It's unbelievable. And then it just doesn't happen for that man. Really nice play by Will Vest there.

We're pretty, pitchers when we have to because we're a couple hitters that will vest they have Jose Ramirez dead to rights but even then he pump fakes the throw runs at Ramirez make sure they get that out that takes him off a third base after when you see a play like that happen and you're playing the guardians you're kind of like oh well for sure we're about to blow this game somehow and one of these guys is going to come up and have have the game changing play so for the tigers invest to get that one done. I mean, massive for them.

And hey, the whole mentality coming into this, blowing the biggest divisional lead we've ever seen 15 and a half games, sure, you can say all the right things of, yeah, you know, all that's behind us and the season that's done, everyone, zero, zero. It really helps when you have the best pitcher in the world going that day. That helps. So huge for the Tigers, obviously to get game one for every reason we talked about. I do. I want to send one shot across the bow, and we can send the same shot across the bow at my Yankees in a little bit. That Guardian's verse lefty lineup, I know they're not an offensive

juggernaut either way, but with Kwan neutralized by Scoobel, who, hey, everyone's kind of neutralized by Scoobel. Manzardo neutralized by Scoobel. It was J. Ram and, man, Trev, I was going through the batting averages and OPSs of that Cleveland Guardian team. And it was a little shocking. And I'd been following them all here. It's not their MO, though. I don't think it's fair to compare them to the Yankees because the Yankees left how many homers on the bench will get into that.

The Guardians don't have that. So, like, they're doing whatever they can to try to exploit any advantage whatsoever. And they put themselves in a position to do it. Valera comes in with Ramirez on third base. but he just gets too big. You know, that's where like the inexperience comes in. He gets too big and just massive swings when he just has to really put the ball in play. Jerry Ram's a great baseball, like a base runner, just touch the grass in the outfield, man.

Anything. Vest isn't a strikeout pitcher necessarily. So like you get big, you get down, and all of a sudden now it's one out. And the chopper, we're going to show that play, Robbie, the chopper that Ramirez gets, I guess, sort of in a pickle. I watched it a couple times. I couldn't tell what the right base running move was.

I feel like you see the ball go up in the air like that. With Ramirez, I don't think he was able to get a huge secondary lead necessarily, but you see the ball go up, you just go. I think that is the right play, but he ends up stopping.

And I think once you stop, you're out, like make him throw home, I think is the right play. If you're going to go on contact, and maybe, maybe he's saying, who was it? Who was hitting then? That was Monsardo, right? I believe so. Maybe he's thinking Monzardo, get the second base, get in scoring position. Maybe that's the thought process, but Vest did a good job, just not even giving the ball. There was no throw. He tags them. Doesn't allow that to happen. Quick on his, on his feet to turn around and look to second to make sure he's not getting there.

So I think just great fundamental baseball from the Tigers, and then for Ramirez, I go back and forth. I don't really know what the right play there was. I think it's just continued to go home because maybe then he can still go to second base, but you can't stay in the rundown for three seconds. He's not going to be able to get there. So it doesn't have been a terrible play, obviously, for the Guardians. KFIS comes in, he pinched heads, pops up to buy his game over.

I think the Tigers did a good job, man. they took advantage of some errors. We saw, again, we got the buntz down in this game, which was really nice to see. You know, I like the postseason buntz, but, you know, between these two teams, it is just who's going to take advantage of what mistake and the tigers were better at that than the guardians were today.

Yeah, I think you probably want to make vests and the catcher dingler just complete the play that you're probably right. Especially that, like, 10, 15 feet is such a weird throw. Like, shovel passes. probably the best option there, but he wouldn't do that. He doesn't have that in the bag. And just like the catcher glove sometimes does weird stuff that, yeah, I don't know. I think it was a nice play by Vest and it's probably a moot point.

And hey, credit to the Tigers for having Terrick Scoobal because he was special in this Guardians lineup, didn't have much for him. Nobody had much for each other and that's going to lead into the next game tomorrow. they are in the same time slot. And hey, I'm nervous of going into that mode where we repeat a lot of the same things. Because if you're the losing team, we talked about this beforehand, it's all hands on deck. It's potentially your last game tomorrow that Casey Mise will get the pill for Cleveland, Tanner Bybee for the guard dogs. And I think you're right.

I think Hinch summed it up best that these are the games. these two teams play. You're not going to get the 11 to 8 Slug Fest. They don't have that. Yeah, they don't. And again, like this was, the Guardian's bullpen came in, did a great job. The Tiger's bullpen came in, did a great job.

This is just a well-pitched game. And maybe you expect that against these offenses with these pitchers, but I think we'll probably see more of the same tomorrow. Yeah, we had two. cases of 7.2 dominant performances handing it to the closer for 1.1, which again, we'll get to Yankees Red Sox coming up. Here's McKinsco, our guy Jimmy Norp's favorite player. And look at that, Trev. Bunt's come October. Do you remember we saw him sitting all alone at the press conferences at the All-Star game? We felt bad. Yeah. Now look at him, laughing at everybody.

laughing all the way to a game one victory first game of wild card weekend before we move on one quick weird thing scoobes afraid of Austin hedges is that what is that confirmed I saw a three one slide ball to him I think it was two outs nobody on a three one slider and then a three two change it to walk him Dalton has on the sheet 36th walk batters this year, and over 8% of them are just Austin Hedges. Sometimes it's a funny sport. I don't know. I mean, maybe there's an energy factor

that if that guy gets a hit off of scuba, all of the guardians get superpowers. I don't know what that is. Is it Chris Rose? Probably. Probably. Yeah, that was good for hedges. Good at bats.

Good at bats by edgy. Okay, let's get into game two of the day. We head up to beautiful Wrigley Field. Welcome to the friendly confines. As Matthew Oil, Cain Boyd and the baby bears would take on the Padres. When I say I need you, you say Povetta. Full pension Piv gets the pill for San Diego. Top two, Dr. Charles Exam.

would be proud as the X-Man Bogots with the RBI double. It's one-nothing fathers. But in the fifth, Suzuki doesn't need to motor around after that one. Fifth straight game with the Yabo. And how about back to back with April all-JM catcher, Carson Kelly? Those are the two runs they got off Povetta and his five innings. And how about the Cubby's bullpen? Penn. Palencia, Pomerant, Kitchridge, Keller, 4.2, no hit ball from the pen. Horner with the insurance,

fly the W. Cubs win. Three to one final. Sorry, I was just watching a clip of Mason Miller telling PCA to shut the F up. I didn't know that was there. I missed that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Hot boys running high. Padres down. They're 0 and 1 and 1 and 0. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Coach, I guess where do you start? I think the thing that stands out the most is the Padres vaunted bullpen. You look on the other side of the field and this is, I was guilty as anyone where the names didn't jump out to me as much. But as dominant of performance you could get out of the bullpen and how about our guy, kill a Craig, council going to Palencia pretty early there and getting the job done.

What a, I don't want to call him a rag-tag group of dudes in that bullpen because I don't think that's what they are. I feel like that sounds disrespectful. A little bit. But like it's kind of a rag-tag group of dudes back then. We got Keller shutting the game down.

He was let go by the White Sox last year. Yeah. Andrew Kittrich. He's a journeyman-esque player. They'll go look at his baseball reference. Spage, pretty damn good. But for Plencia, I thought that was great. I mean, since coming back from an injury,

I believe he came back for two games, and they were like low leverage, you know, kind of get your feet back under you. And then here he's going to be used Andrew Miller-esque, I guess you could say, putting out fires. But this was another really, really fun game. I mean, we had like the lefty lane

that we talked about come in to play a couple different times for Boyd in the top of the second, top of the fourth. Each time he kind of used that lefty lane to escape jams, which is really cool to see. I thought him and Povetta both pitched well. Povetta just got got. Suzuki, the Suzuki Homer was a mistake pitch because he'd been riding that fastball at the top of the zone and was looking really, really good with it. Suzuki gets one belt high, middle in and just turns on it.

But then Carson Kelly, he went up and got that. he took he took Pavetta's best pitch and put it in the seats man a huge huge answer ending for them in the bottom of the fifth it was it was awesome and that was cool to see because

again that top of the fourth we get the walk to Machado against Boyd or facing Boyd and then Merrill decides that bunt him over after the game he said that was all on him and you could tell like I think there was a mentality of the Padres like hey let's get a couple

runs and then our bullpen will come in and just shut this thing down like the shadows were coming into play it really seemed like we were going to you know it was going to be something like that whoever had the lead you know past like the fourth or fifth inning was going to that was going to be it and that's kind of what what ended up happening i mean these guys came in and were just blowing people away it was very difficult to see and you could tell even before that like the top of the fifth you started to see the shadows come into play um but the cubs like they they play day games there all the time. I think that plays into their advantage. We know how

to deal with the shadows. If you're the Padre, you don't play a lot of day games. If you do, you're not dealing with the shadows. I think that, I think that comes into play. You know, dealing with that because there was some rough swings like kind of later on the game

as guys were just throwing a little wrinkle in it and like, Tatees was taking swings there at the end of the game. I have a note on it. I was watching. I was like, damn, he seems like he's defeated. top of the 8 against Kittredge he gets up 2-0 and then just takes three straight pitches doesn't even take the bat off his shoulders and it looked like he was defeated to me like he gave up like oh the fucking shadows man i can't see you can't have that mentality you cannot you got to grind that

shit out it sucks it's horrible you're up there you feel like you have much less of a chance but you still got a chance right you're up 2-0 and you take i believe the sequence was fastball like down the middle, take, slider, fastball again, and you're sitting down without even taking the bat off your shoulder. I thought that was interesting. But yeah, look, again, a close game. I think both bullpins did their job. I mean, they came in at all zeros from them. Mason Miller looked great. Again, you get Drew Palm, rag tag dude, no offense, Kittridge, Keller, like this is a ragtack group that did it, man. They went toe to toe with the quote-unquote best bullpen in baseball and held that lead.

So great, great first game for the Cups. Yeah, I'm trying to find a different term than Ragtag, but I mean, what you're saying. Sorry, I don't, yeah, I've been using that a lot. I don't know why. Brad Keller as, you know, the last four years before this had negative war and a five ERA. Yeah, he was a starter with the Royals, goes to the White Sox that he gets DFA'd. I mean, that's, I think that's the right word. Drew Palm was out of baseball.

I guess guys with stories. There you go. Man, that Luriano injury, especially when we're talking about Drew Pomeranz's inning, and his numbers against lefties are fantastic that this, we could end up looking at this draw for San Diego and saying that injury was a huge one. and the way that they are constructed, that we talked about the Cubs muddying up the waters, and they did that a little bit with Palencia coming in,

putting 100 on the corner and lights out, and not much anybody in baseball can do with that, that they muddied up the waters. They got the insurance run late from Horner that, hey, this, it didn't feel like the Cubs best game, but it felt like winning baseball. That was the end of the game. game when that wild pitch happened i believe it was a splitter uh with the strad i think that was the

pitch um as soon as horner was up there and and and drove them in and made it three one i felt like the game was over and it kind of was especially with the shadows man just it just didn't seem like anyone was really going to string together two or three hits um so yeah good good situational hitting Matt Shaw didn't attempt the His entire career He gets up there and puts the bun Down a perfect bunt too So we saw I mean I was happy with the fundamental baseball that we saw

Yeah Padre fans not as happy With Merrill's bunt And hey I think a play that goes overlooked In this one Dansby Danzby had a couple nice plays that save runs Look at the scoreboard today You know we got 2-1-3-1-3-1 in the early games

or the first three games that like those plays matter so much and if you don't have a guy like Dansby Swanson that can flip the whole game. I would love the show that play. I'm glad you brought it up because that, yeah, that was like, that was that lefty lane inning where Drew Palm kind of used this again. I mean, this is first and third,

uh, one out. And Dansby goes, that's a tough play, man. I know it's not hit hard, uh, but it kind of puts you. a no man's then you see how it's like twist his body uh kind of going the wrong direction if you will but a great body control play then the wherewithal to just throw that ball in you don't have to like hammer that thing if you just start the momentum going towards the plate it stops the runner at third base that's what he did um and then sheets with a uh i believe it's a fly out to center

field after that so we talked about lefties and we talked about how yeah loriano being out puts, you know, it was Sheets, it was O'Hern and Croninworth all together, bunched up there. And it came, I mean, it happened twice where Palm was able to put out a fire because this lane came up. Nice play by Danesby, but I mean, if Luriano's there, I think we're, I think we're probably talking something different here, probably different moves by council, different at bats, unfortunate for the Padres, but again, just a well-played game by the Cubs. Yeah. Yes, Danzby had another diving stop in the infield before.

I mean, that's what he does. And say, Suzuki, uh, A, you want to enter the postseason at the right time. Five straight games with a homer. Yeah. Uh, six homers in those five games. And Trevor, it's something we dance around all year. But if you're doing an all underrated players and baseball team, say a Suzuki OPS plus the last three years, one 30, one 30, one 30.

It's pretty good. It's really damn good. Pretty good. nice swing there Plencia records five outs for the first time this season that time of year they will tee it up in the same time slot

tomorrow I think C's first Kitch Ridge right so that again I mentioned the Cubs muddying it up they're just going to try to do the whole thing target that lefty lane connect the innings and man i'll tell you what between you think that's what they do do you think they it's not just an opener and then shoda comes in um i'm interested to see right because didn't they talk about ray doing that as well that like they they they have options

yeah they have options um that i'm interested in like that how they exploited that lefty lane today makes me feel like i don't know man when a bullpen day works and this is a loaded statement. It's one of the most frustrating things you can play against. I remember the OG days of the race doing it and you're just like, who is this guy? I've got to deal with this guy for 15 pitches. And he's matched up against guys. He matches up well against. That if you're the Cubs and you can do that properly with the shadows, like, that's an easy way to walk out of there with a two nothing win. I don't know if that happens. Maybe they'll let Shota go. Maybe they let Ray go. But if the Padres are going to give you that

lane and you could make Tatis and Machado see three to four different pitchers on the day, that's a hell of a way to ugly it up. I agree. I think that might be what they do is start this game off with Kittred to get through those guys at the top of the order and then bring in Shoda and just kind of see if they can get an early lead and play the Shada game again. playing shadow games look at look at us it's the truth and by the way we're recording this we said hey we can start because the dodgers are crushing the reds uh 10 5 now hold the phone um 10 5 we got guys it was it was 10 to 2 and we were like hey let's we can start this bad boy up but you know the doctor's bullpen

i mean what are the chances um i guess the people will get some live updates on that Um, Trev, anything else, Cubs fathers before we jump to the night shift? I mean, I'm trying to, I got my notes in front of me. It seems like you just watched so much baseball in one day, but I think, I think we covered everything. I mean, PCA, my guy, not, not looking, not looking great right now. Like, hopefully that can turn around for the Cubs. I didn't need him today necessarily, but what do you, what do you think that is? I mean, hey, baseball is a really tough sport.

and he's had an amazing season. The on-base isn't necessarily his thing. Do you think it's pitch recognition? Do you think it's become mental a little bit? You know, he's swinging at some balls that aren't. Well, he's, the whole entire year he had swing and miss stuff. Right. Slugging to kind of back it up or to, you know, to make everyone gloss over that fact.

Well, the slug is gone and people, when you start to have a book out on you, Now they're just going to throw balls. And if you chase, you chase. You know, that's just the bottom line. You have to really try to get things in the zone. You're taking swings like that. Why would they throw you a strike? Right.

He's not making guys throw him strikes. So Big League pitchers see that right away. And they'll say, well, let's just continue to go there. And like, yeah, do we want to walk this guy? No, but if he's going to keep swinging, we're going to keep throwing it there. And, man, you know, we're obviously excited for. for all these games. But when we talk about the Padres being all hands on deck, there's a lot of impressive hands that, you know, go, I guess this is my best example if someone's

new to play off baseball. Like the Mets on the last day of the season, I think Edwin Diaz came in the six because it was like, hey, this is, this is our last arrive. And, you know, cease hasn't really been Dylan C's this year that, like, that will be a very quick hook and see how they can connected together. Everyone. Michael King's going to be out there. You Darvish is going to be out there. It's going to be everything. And Cubs bullpen that, you know, Cubby fans have properly. Rag tag. Don't say it. Yeah. It's, um, hodgepodge. That's worse than rag tag. You think so? I don't know. I don't know. Um, no, it's good though. American crew. Today's episode is sponsored by American crew. Let's talk about something that.

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Was this, this ad read was just for you. Smelly athlete. This might have been targeted. This might not actually be an ad on the show. This might have been like the company forced this through Rob just to target me. Like this guy needs some help. Someone, someone give him the message. I got a haircut today.

While we're, ooh, okay, coach. Okay, coach. While we're, you know, putting me down. Why don't we do some Yankees red socks then? Okay. The Yankees would hope to be freed from the wild card round with Maximus trying to out gladiator the Red Sox. And their ace Garrett as he tries to crochet a tight knit W. Bottom two, the next captain?

October Volpey, it's one nothing yanks as he takes a seat on the porch. Max freed was special. 6.1.0 earn runs. 6Ks. Crochet was special. 7.2. the one-er-run run 11Ks, but Luke Dreamweaver

was unfortunately a nightmare. Walk, back-to-back hits, cough up the lead. Oh, there's Alex Bregman. There's a Raldus Chapman. Yankees lose. 3-1 final. Standing's Red Sox 1-0

Yankees 0-1. It's a tough one for you, Coach, but look, let me just throw this out there. What did you expect? Garrett Crochet. Yeah. Filthy. an absolute dog

and you know what you guys had your own dog but you put your dog to sleep why oh jeez I mean I meant like actual like bed not to like the fucking needle go real night night

I don't know where to start with this one I don't know where to start with this one at all because I think there's so many interesting things I mean look the Yankees they come out swinging you get Goldie you get judge 100 miles an hour barrels it up first pitch. Heck yeah, dude. And then they just can't get anything done. And then crochet, like, really starts to settle in. Volpe pumps them bottom second. Great swing right there.

I don't want to call it a lucky swing. I'm going to call it a great swing. I believe it was a two strike swing too, right? Up and away. Fastball up and away. Great. I had to feel so good for Volpe because not only that, he gets a ball hit to him, what, the first play of the game. It makes an out. So he's like, okay, calm down. Then I hit a homer. Oh my God, I'm, I'm him. That's what Volpe's thinking. I'm back. Fowled off a nice pitch before the home run too, like you said, with two straight. And that's, it's part of the reason. Can he just do that? Can you follow that thing up? It's part of the reason Yankee fans get frustrated because every time he plays well, he has a compact swing where he drives the ball the other way. And every time he doesn't, he tries to pull off and hit 430 homers.

That's, I do that at Yankee Stadium. I know. I know. I guess, Trev, I'll, I'll reverse engineer this because we already did talking Yanks and, you know, we do it raw right after because you get the nasty feelings about that lineup stonking. These got, what are we doing and blah on? Hopefully in two days we can be saying we got crocheted. I mean, that dude, look what him and Scoobel did today. And I think him scoobble skeins, they are the top three pitchers in baseball, almost without a debate.

I mean, you could debate anything in sports, but I think if there's three guys you don't want to see on the mound, scubel, skeins, crochet, and the lefty aspect. Who else you got? Christopher Sanchez. Yeah, yeah. Tall fucking dog lefties. And another lefty, dude, that like the Yankees, they tried to play a game. Red Rosario is six for nine against Crochet this year. So getting him in the lineup makes sense.

You're juggling a lot. Max Freed is really good. He doesn't have the strikeout number. So you're juggling the Yankees' defense behind him. But the Yankees brought in all their righties and they couldn't do anything to get against Garrett Crochet because nobody can. So that's frustrating that at the end of the game, when they kind of got Chapman on the ropes,

they set out a whole strategy of we can't give them a lefty lane that they ended up giving her all this Chapman a lefty lane to end the game so that's some of that Yankees it feels like this is a game the Yankees lose and it feels like this is a game the Red Sox win. Dude, you guys are the number one offense in baseball and you tried to reinvent the fucking wheel, dude. That's what happened.

Did they do this every time they faced a lefty this year? No, they didn't. No. They didn't. So you're going to do that. You're the number, not even the number two offense. Right. You're the number one offense in the league, and you change up your strategy in the playoffs out of nowhere.

This isn't something you've been doing all season. If it was, then I have no qualms with it whatsoever. But as they reference many times on the broadcaster, even 60 homers. on the bench when we know stringing together with three hits ain't going to do it like you need to get lucky and pop a few out of the stadium against crochet that's it and you're right to do all of that just to leave

the lefty lane and jazz and grisham to end the game is crazy to me so I didn't I didn't love the lineup I didn't like if you want to sneak a med Rosario in there great other than that play your fucking dudes Well, and that's the red side. Well, everyone's a bad matchup for Garrett Crochet. Sure.

And then the other part of this is Max Fried, part of the reason he's closed really well, having Ryan McMahon behind him has been huge. And it's a massive, weird left field of Yankee Stadium that not having Cody Bellinger out there would be a mistake, that there was some debate. Do you put Rosario in left? Because he's played out there a little bit. But you're also protecting your ace, who, all of that came to fruition today.

Freed was awesome. He got slightly hurt by a couple mistrike threes that maybe that would have allowed him to go a couple more hitters. Or, you know, again, one of those weird Yankee things that you need to do a scope on. Max Fried looked fatigued the inning before that they were going to bring him back for Duran

and that was it because he had his number. But it is interesting when you look back at the box score and it's like, Freed goes 102, crochet goes 117, that, You know, Alex Cora is built on that player empowerment and you're my guy. And if you want it, you're going to have it. That being said, if Luke Weaver comes in and he's the guy who he's been all year, we don't have a lot of these conversations.

Instead, he's 02 to Raphaela, ends up walking him. And then he gives up back-to-back hits to Red Sox lefties where Cora is now pressing another button with Yoshida. So yeah, man, if people come here for the Yankees' frustration in the voice, when you name a lot of the stuff that happens, an extra base on Judge because he still has the elbow thing going on. And he got caught flat-footed. Like, I know his arm's not built up, but he played that way too laissez-faire.

The sack fly on Trent, that's not ideal. Again, Sogarde was flying around. Maybe he's got extra post-season speed. But when you go around and you, look at every little single thing, you're like, is this the Yankees of the past couple years? Like, okay, a couple extra bases allowed. The insurance run in the ninth, they steal on Austin Wells. Like, how different would that ninth inning have felt?

Base is loaded if they only needed one run. They probably pinch run for Goldschmidt because he's the lead runner. So maybe that jazz fly out is a sack fly. Like, there's on the margins, like what the Houston Astros made famous is, their strategy. It feels like the Yankees have missed on the margins and the Red Sox have done pretty damn well. And all of that's to be said, in the first inning in the ninth inning, Judge and Goldschmidt get back-to-back hits to start the inning and they don't score. And Stanton comes up in a couple

big spots that with one big swing, I could be telling you about the Yankees heroic four to three comeback and this team is different or not. Yeah. John Carl did have some chance. chances, the big double play in the first inning strike out there. I think we had something more about the Red Sox and what they did. Talk about Sogaard and the base running. You mentioned taking second base, getting into scoring position for Story, even though Story ends up striking out, gets into second base there, a flat-footed Trent Grisham.

That is a bad, bad look. I'm sorry, dude. It's a bad, bad look. I don't care that he didn't score. You can't let, as a center fielder. And that ball was not to the wall. That ball was 10, 15 feet in front of the warning check. and you've got a guy right in front of you taking second base, that's not acceptable.

The judge play, he can't be taking that ball. I need to see a replay if Grish was even close to the ball. I think he was like a decently close. But like, I don't know what you got to do. Maybe you just say, fuck it, they're going to take an extra base. We got to have judge out there in the outfield. But that's a huge play. It's a massive play.

It's a game winning run. It's the run that gave them the lead. I'm sorry. And come up fire. I was watching, I made a point to remember this. Good job by me. 8-0-0. The Dodgers were ahead at one point in the game.

And Kike Hernandez cuts a ball off like a bad out of hell keeping whoever the heck hit. I think it was Key Brian Hayes, or Austin Hayes maybe was. Or I don't know who the heck it was. Somebody hit it. Keys from off second base in an 8-0 game. Yeah. is the difference.

That's why the Dodgers were out there talking shit after last year's World Series. We're playing the game the right way, and the Yankees did not do that today. Shout out. Yoshita. I said I was going to talk more about the Red Sox. I didn't. Yoshida coming off the bench

first pitch hacking. He got hot during September was feeling good. So all of a sudden you got that extra button to press for Kora. That's really nice. So story of the game, Crochet, being an absolute dog. And then, yeah, I think Cora outmanaged today. I think he did.

Yeah. And the Yankees, they traded for those right-handed tools at the deadline. And they thought this would be their chance to execute. And that's, you know, it was a tricky conversation in talking Yanks before the game because you're trying to protect Max Fried while trying to put out the best lineup. But there was something that smelt funny to being like, all right, we're going to blitz

Garrett Crochet with our Ritees, but the Ritees we're blitzing with are Ahmed Rosario and Jose Caballero. Like, I don't know if that's going to affect the big fella so much. And it didn't. And now, because they lost, we do get to second guess everything. And

like I said at the start, as we're trying to find the optimism, You can look back and say you got crocheted. Like any team, whoever wins the damn thing this year can look back and say if they got crochet and Chapman on their best day, 7.2 to 1.1, you can lose that game and get dominated. If you can bounce back from that and get your lefties in the lineup. I will say this. Then we'll move on to the Dodgers game, Dodgers game. Dodgers Reds game

excuse me I think Cora looks at tonight and says I'm not using Chapman for two innings again I don't think it happens I think tonight was a special case he saw all the lefties in the lineup or excuse me

wanted to keep the right handers on the bench and you know Crochet told him hey it's just going to be one pass off me to Chapman I don't think he does it again because you saw Chapman come out in the ninth got those three singles in a row you're still like 95

yeah he didn't have have like the up-down ability right there. As he settled in, he started and got Stanton, he was back up to 100. So I think that has to enter Cora's mind as he goes forward to the playoffs. I wouldn't use him for multiple innings again. Yeah, I mean, the game to, like every game becomes a race for who can get a lead. And especially with the way we use bullpens now, for any of the losers from today, if you can get up early, the opposing team will not use their best pitchers because they will

want to bottle them for game three. Cora is interesting because if a win is out there, he will go and get it. So if the Red Sox are up or maybe even tied, Chapman will be back in play. But yeah, that's going to be the game of chicken tomorrow. Carlos Rodon will get the pill. He put up a really great season, like very similar to San Francisco giant Carlos Rodon. The Red Sox will have their versus lefty lineup in, obviously. And for the Yankees, they're going to have Ben Rice in, who.

was awesome for them. Probably their best right verse left at bats at the end of the season. Jazz Chisholm went 30-30, coach. Quick on the Jazz Chisholm back to the media. Quick? Quick what? Thoughts? I don't know, man. I don't think he liked losing. I don't think he liked not starting. That's a crazy visual. It's a crazy visual. There's a lot of things looking real bad for the Yankees right now. Okay.

I'm on that, I'm on that side too. Like, yeah, he's fucking pissed. He wanted to start. I just went 30-30. I can't even get a start in a playoff game. That's insane. But also, like, you got to just face it, man. And if you really want to, like, if you're upset, like, the way to get your point

across is to, like, just say, yeah, like, I thought I should have been in there today. Yeah. And another, hey, if you're really getting into baseball or getting lost in baseball, we did talk in Yanks. And again, it was very passionate. And putting all the righties in the lineup, it didn't give them a chance to pinch it for any of the lefties later in the game. And there's a weird dance around that. They also put Ryan Yarborough and Paul Blackburn on the roster that it's a little redundant in a three game set, where they have Austin Slater, who they traded for, who's a career lefty masher. But he's been, he's had a tough.

go with the Yankees. So, hey, that's a, I'll just say that's one of those points where always a talking baseball reminder, you guys know your team better than us. But yeah, it's got you questioning everything. But if they knock around Bayo tomorrow and they go to game three that was supposed to be Lucas Gialito, I don't know. The Yanks could have hope and say they got crocheted, but in the most recent chapters of this, it's like, Cora pulls a rabbit out of his butt.

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Let's go, baby. Ooh, that's now. Can you snow that snail? As Blake tries to begin the Dodgers title defense against the upstart Cincinnati Reds who might rename themselves the Greens

if Hunter could lead them to a game one dub. Sadly for Cincy, it was Showtime. in L.A. O'Tani with two ding-dongs. Taye Oscar gets Crouchy with a pair of his own. Can't shake Blake. Snellgo seven innings. Two earn runs. Dodgers end up pumping the Reds, although a little fight at the end, 10-5 final.

1-0-Dodgers, 0-1 for the Cincinnati Reds. Thank you. I will be honest with our Cincinnati and L.A. brethren, as this game was starting, the Yanks Red Sox were still going, and then we were courted talking yanks right after. So I am going to be leaning on you for this one, coach. There's not a ton to get into. I mean, this is, this was kind of, it felt big brother,

ish. It felt like kind of two different teams that you throw 100 green out there, and that is your chance, have him go and absolutely shove against the Dodgers. And he just, I mean, from the get-com, he show, hey, a hundred point four coming in, 117.7 going out. Like he absolutely demolishes that ball.

And from that point on, it just felt like it's inevitable that this was going to happen, the way this game went. I mean, at one point it was 10 to 2. They ended up scoring three runs in the 8th to make it 10 to 5. The score was more lopsided than that 100%, or at least the game felt that way. We got a big Tay Oscar and Edmund Homer's there to kind of put the game away. That wasn't the third inning. They're up five-nothing.

And Blake Snell is carving dudes up. I'm talking just dodding stuff, mixing his pitches. You know, it was just all Dodgers, man. It truly was. And Ben Rortford, your guy, just getting knocks. Like everyone contributing. I mentioned already the key Karen N is, You know, he gets a knock on his first aback

because he's a postseason hero. Eighty-seven games, I think I heard them say. For Kiki Hernandez in the postseason already, like that's insane. I don't know, man. This one, it feels lopsided. Because it was. And it's on both sides of the ball

and roster-wise it makes sense. And who knows what we'll be saying this time tomorrow and maybe the Reds will get a special performance and it's baseball and all that. Blake Snell took the mound. His last three starts coming into this game. 19 innings, 28 strikeouts, a 047 ERA. Blake Snell's a guy they paid a lot of money to pitch.

Blake Snell's a guy that's won two Sigh-Yungs. Blake Snell's a guy that peaks every time later in the season. He was ready to go. And Trev, those Dodgers swings, I mean, A, those guys are just really good. I don't know if they had any tips or tells or anything. I leave that to you or Johnboy. But from what I saw, I watched seven tight playoff teams today that could be playing in their last games. And then the Dodgers looked like they were having home run derby after the game for the fans.

They are peeking at the right time. They truly are. And we said that from the, we said that from the get go. They don't care about the regular season. I kind of hate that we felt that way. And I don't think they truly, I don't think they truly do. do feel that way. And they did deal with a bunch of injuries. But if you look back at the season, that's kind of how it's gone. They were just okay. They were just hanging around. They were always at

the top of the division. I think they gave it up for like a day and then they played the Padres and they took it right back. And it's been a cake, not a cakewalk. They've just been, what's the word I'm looking for? Just kind of coasting. Yeah. And the bright lights come on and fuck, man. I mean, Teo with two homers, Shohay with two homers, you're not surviving that game for the Reds. You don't have the offense to do it.

There was a clip that we put out and it made me sound really stupid so thanks social media team. It was like, the games didn't get decided by who scores more runs. I'm like, okay, I did say that. But like, what I meant was,

I think they might be equal as far as pitching, but the offense for the Dodgers is so much better. So like, that's kind of where I was coming from. And that's what this game was and like hundred green obviously didn't have his best stuff i guess today although there was there was the bottom of the second he has an open base so tani after clipping him his first to back

gets up there uh they decided to pitch to him and hunter green blows them away uh hasn't taken a a couple hundred-mile-hour fastballs to strike him out i thought that was very ballsy of hunter green uh to pitch to showy after that but he got done but then ultimately just the dodgers are They're too good. I think they're too good for this series. I hate saying that because I want the Reds to have a chance here. It just doesn't seem like they do. Yeah.

And I, hey, man, we're talking about a team that we said coasted to the NL West title that has a lot of good teams with high payrolls in that division. And we're talking about the Reds who, they backed into this a little bit. Like you just got to be honest that, um, Again, that means nothing tomorrow, although Yoshinobu Yamamoto is waiting for you. And of all these Cincinnati pitchers were fascinated with, Zach Lattel may get the start, which, again, Zach Lattel is actually had a nice career, but, you know, Lidolo's been sexy with the strikeouts, all their young arms. Andrew Abbott's here.

And last time I'll say it, everyone's going to be spikes on that. Cincinnati's going to throw their worst at them. And hey, man, maybe those runs, those runs they got late, the old baseball, hey, let's build on that. We found something later in the game. But, hey, if they can somehow scrap out of win tomorrow, which any team on any day can, making those Dodgers go to game three with that bullpen, Tito, I'd watch. man it'd have to be

we'd be saying oh that's baseball something crazy would have to happen it just seemed like they were overmatched today and they were overmatched during the regular season too they lost five of six they kind of got to get their butt kicked today and if you're going yamamoto is probably going to finish i don't know top five in the si young voting this year and again i agree zach la tell good pitcher but this lineup is

it's too good right now then you add in Kike and like what he does in the postseason and Tommy Edmund, he turned. Tommy Edmund hits homers in the postseason. That's what he does. What the freak is going on, man? What is that? On a bad ankle.

I just think this Dodgers team is too much for this round. For this, for the Reds. That's fair. Shout out Scott Barlow, though. My brother coached him. Shout out Scott Barlow. He did great tonight. How many, how many game threes are we getting coach?

I could see Cleveland, Detroit going game three. That seems like probably going to happen. That might be the only one, coach. Like the numbers would support that as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm interested to find out the fight my Yankees have, as I think the rest of the people are.

Hey, I'll tell you this much. Your Yankees are talking about, you know, could they do this again? Judge two hits. He also had the, ball like right at him over his head. If he misses that ball, I couldn't imagine Yankees Twitter. Couldn't imagine it. I was so happy when he caught that ball. First thing I thought it was like, thank, thank you for catching that ball. What is the internet done to us?

Yeah, I don't know. This wild card round, it hasn't offered a lot of game threes. It's been the Mets both times, Alonzo off Devon and the Joe Musgrove ear game. as it's remembered. You'd like to think, too, you'd like to think the Padres or the Yankees could put a day together to add their 163 games into one more option. And then, yeah, I'm kind of with you on Cleveland

that it's, the series kind of has to go three and it'll be one one in the eighth of the third game and someone will hit a homer. Yeah, I mean, it seems likely. We'll see how it goes. I mean, I would like some game threes. think that'll be a lot of fun.

Like truly a winner go home type game for both teams is fun. Like that's, that's what baseball is made for. We'll see how it goes, man. I'm waiting for the year. Imagine if all four, like opening day, the game ones are really fun.

Game two, you're kind of, you might be attending a funeral, so it's not as exciting. That day three, when you know you're attending a funeral. Yeah. I'm wondering if baseball ever gets it

Or if this playoff format is just kind of broken Is it true that people are super aged up at funerals That's a good question That's a wedding crashers thing Will Ferrell I think there's some truth to it I don't think so I've been at some funerals

I never once was like I'm all aged up right now Yeah I mean I think it's just like a confusing Lonely time Okay that I don't know I don't know I guess I've never deep thought about it Start thinking about that a little bit

Comment down below if you really believe that or not Because Wedding Crashers That movie you would say that there's some merit To the concept, right? Oh, weddings, everyone's aged up Right So I wonder if they're just going pure joke Like how could you do funerals

because that's Owen Wilson when he first turns his heading as a funeral. I don't know. It's a confusing time. There's a lot of feelings. Okay. Coach Trev, Rob Chiracco,

best in the biz. We're going to do it again tomorrow night. And then if we get game threes, I think we're going Friday morning either. way for our physical health. So we thank you guys. Jake sucks. Yanks Red Sox live stream tomorrow. If the Yankees lose tomorrow and it's your funeral, I will tell Olivia that we have to partake.

Just because. Olivia, it's not for me. Jake's dead. It's not for me. Oh, Big Joe's.