The Josh Innes Show - Baseball Put Me To Sleep At The Bar

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Game 5 of the ALDS put me to sleep at the bar. Well, perhaps that's not fair. My schedule mixed with beer put me to sleep at the bar. Is it possible that 15 inning baseball games are too long? Also, what the hell is Tarik Skubal doing "emptying the tank" after 6 innings? Modern day baseball blows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I was watching the baseball playoffs on Friday because I went out to the bar to watch Game 5 of the Tigers and Mariners Division series, spot in the NLCS on the line. And we got to see a pretty epic Terrick Scoobel pitching performance. But I say pretty epic. But I think we overblow it because to me, epic is the guy goes eight innings in a baseball game, which just nobody does anymore. Now it's, boy, the guy went six amazing innings. Yeah, there's still fucking 12 outs to get. or nine outs to get. She's got to get the seventh, eighth and ninth inning.

Like, man, if you're going to give me an epic starting performance to call something epic and call something amazing, how about you get through seven? You know, go old school. I mean, look, I'm not asking you to be Bob Gibson and pitch 11 innings in a playoff game or something like that. But can you at least give me, you know, as seven so we can get, hey, get through seven, then set up, man, then closer and shut it down. Like, look, I understand that everything is new school.

And every time we talk about the way things. used to be, you're some sort of asshole that's some sort of, you know, old school fuddy-duddy, okay boomer, old man yells a cloud jamoke jerk off, right? But like, what is wrong with, hey, my starting pitcher gave me seven innings, here's the guy that pitches the eighth, here's the guy that pitches the night. Why is it that once you get to the postseason in baseball, everything has to be fucking weird? Why is this?

Let me play a couple commercials. We'll continue. Like, baseball is the only sport. where the game totally changes. The strategy changes. Like, yes, I get in basketball, you'll hear, well, you know, the game is different. It becomes a half-court game in the playoffs. Sure.

But it doesn't totally change how you play a game or, like, the strategy you use. Like during the regular season, some doodle start. You have five starters usually, right? Sometimes your fifth starter's terrible and you might go with a bullpen game, which is more common now than it was 10, 15 years ago. Okay, fine. Yet somehow in the playoffs, you got a guy who's good enough to give you six innings every game in the regular season, but you're like, nope, just went two and two thirds innings, but we got to run her on. We got to pull him here.

Like, these managers are just, it's like they can't help themselves. It's like they have to feel like they're justified in their existence. Like their existence is justified by them making ridiculous pitching changes. So you look at this game on Friday, and you've got scoble pitching, and yeah, he struck out 13 guys. Cool. You know what I would have preferred over 13 strikeouts? for Scoobel, instead of having to throw four, five, six pitches in at bat, give me two or three pitches and some flyouts and some groundouts.

So when you got to the seventh inning, you didn't already have 100 pitches. But even though you had 100 pitches, go back out for the seventh inning. From the sounds of it, it sounds like Scoobel went to A.J. Hinch and was like, yeah, I think I'm done. I think I emptied the tank. That's what I kept hearing. I emptied the tank. I emptied the tank.

Well, then refill the motherfucker and get back out there and pitch the seventh. you know what happens when a tank gets emptied on a car if we want to use that that comparison we want to say hey i emptied my tank what you do is you pull up to the fucking amico and you and you put your debit card in the machine you hit regular unleaded if you're a member of the place you put in the little code get your 10 cents off and you refill the fucking tank what are we doing i emptied the tank sorry then refill it Because the last thing you should be doing in that spot. Like, I'm baffled by this. The idea that an ace who's going to get $400 million on the open market is like, oh, it's six innings and a playoff game, yeah, I think I'm done. I'm going to beg off for the rest of the game. But congrats on your 13 strikeouts.

Congrats on that. Way to go, Chief. It looks sexy in the box score. Six innings, 13 strikeouts. One problem. there was still nine outs to get and your dufous manager takes you out of the game next inning the game's tied then we get basically a whole other baseball game after that and i have thoughts on that too look as you know i don't love baseball the way i used to love baseball just for

whatever reason i don't know if it's because it bores me now or whatever deep down in places I don't talk about at parties. I do love baseball. And my best sports memories, 90% of them are baseball related, cardinals related, whatever. Okay? So, like, just to be fair, there's a place that is deep within me that I love baseball. And there are days that I'll just find myself watching old highlights, listening to old calls and shit. And I'm just like, God, I love baseball.

I follow this account on Twitter that's a St. Louis-based account. This guy's always posting old pictures. and old highlights and shit, and I'm like, God, I miss that shit. And maybe it truly is because my team, which used to be the gold standard for National League Baseball, is a clown college right now. Maybe that's why I don't love baseball as much as I used to. It's very possible. Maybe it's because just as time has gone on, I feel like the game itself is boring.

And I think that's fair. I don't think it's unfair to say that baseball games have gotten kind of boring and slow and whatever. I'm not into baseball the way I used to be. Fine. Okay. But there is no. need ever for there to be a 15-inning baseball game ever i hear these people wow this is epic and yes at least it was a 15- inning game where there was traffic on the bases and guys were getting

double plays and getting out of trouble like at least shit was happening but man once you're like in the fifth hour of a baseball game it's kind of just like it's the same thing with hockey when you get these like five overtime playoff hockey games at first it's kind of cool you're like oh shit every play matters then by like the third overtime you're kind of like you know even if the other team scores i think i'm okay with it now because i'm really just fucking sick of watching this like it's too it's gone too far and that's kind of how i felt watching the tigers game on friday although so i'm at the bar on friday and i didn't get a chance to take a nap so i had been up since about 345 so there came a point where i had been up for like

20, 21 hours, had not slept. I didn't anticipate being at the bar until like 1 o'clock in the morning watching this baseball game. I thought the game would be over at worst, you know, 11.30, whatever. I'd be home, betty by, see you later. So as the night wears on, I start to kind of doze at the bar. Like, I'm sitting at the bar on a stool watching this playoff game. Like, it's, and it's not because of the booze.

Now, I was drinking my normal beer, but like I can handle five, six, beers at the bar like it's not I mean like I'm not trying to brag like a degenerate brag hey I can handle six 24 ounces of the bar I can't okay for whatever reason I can do it I'm not a child when it comes to that but I'm sitting at the bar and I'll just gradually doze and jilly will kind of like knock me away when they hit the home run to take the lead I don't remember the pitch because I'm fairly certain I was asleep at the bar like I'm dozing at the bar and jillie's like they're starting to look at And these people don't know me, right? Like the bartender, they know me as the guy who the last two months or so has been there every Friday drinking beer at the bar.

They don't know my name. They don't know that I'm the dude on the radio or anything like that. So it's not like they're like, Josh, or we know, whatever. They don't know that I'm a guy that wakes up at 3.45 every day to do a podcast and a radio show. They have no fucking clue. All they know is I'm the guy that shows up, eats like a breakfast burger with egg on it, and watches sports and fucks around on the juke. box. That's what they know. And they know I'm a pretty good tipper. That's what they know about me. So, Julie's like, they're starting to stare at you. And I think they think that you're

just hammered. So wake up. I'm like, and then I'll be up. Like, it's that level of tired where, like, you don't, like, staying awake is a task. And you're only focused on staying awake so you don't even really know what the fuck else is happening. Like, I could not tell you how that game got to the 15th inning. Yet I watched it. And as I sit here today, I know that there were some great moments, and I know there were double plays that were turned. I know there was some drama. Like, I was like, it's like I was on autopilot. The lights were on at times, but nobody was fucking home.

And it wasn't the booze that did that. It was the, I've been riding on about 22 hours of no sleep. Like, word to the wise. If you're going to go to the bar and watch a 15-inning baseball game, make sure you take a nap before. And I didn't take a nap because my dog had me out on a, like a five-year. hour walk before that we walked like 10 miles this fucking dog is wild so I'm dozing off at the bar like it's kind of like now this is a different reason but when I went to game five of the world series and the Astros hit the walk off and what the 12th I have no recollection of the pitch

being thrown all I know is that like people went nuts and they won and that's all I remember about it that was the same thing here like I was dozed off and then I heard people like oh shit And I'm like, I guess it's over. That's all I, like, and again, it wasn't the booze. I know it's easy for you to sit back there while you're judging me and going, oh, we know what it was, Josh, you drunk. Was not the booze? Because I can handle four or five beers at the bar. I'm not a child.

But, man, the things I can handle, I guess are riding on 22, 23 hours of being awake and just, and I took it. And I never do like five-hour energies and ship. And I'm like, I'll try one of these just to see what happens. five hour energy ain't shit for a guy that's been awake like 22 hours I guzzled that bad boy and I'm like let's see what it makes me feel like usually energy drinks give me like heart palpitations usually energy drinks like make me feel like I'm going to die this did nothing I was so tired that my tiredness was able to like run over and destroy the five hour energy whatever the

five hour energy is supposed to provide for me it did not provide it for me because I just motored through. I'm like, fuck you, five-hour energy. Watch this shit. You think you can stop me? You put up some futile resistance? You think you can dissect me with some blunt little tool, five-hour energy? Well, you can't.

So that part sucked. And again, 15 innings of baseball is unnecessary. Like, I see people that are like, yeah, this just proves that the ghost runner in the regular season. and is stupid like no it's not because nobody wants to watch a 16 inning game in may no one's like boy i really want to watch that astros a's game go 17 innings like once or twice i guess it's a novelty but you know actually and like there's no fun at being at those games because then they shut down the fucking bar then like you've had time to sit there and have no booze in your system for like two hours like i would imagine that was the case for that playoff game like that was my

only thought was do these people get any more beer because like imagine sitting there for the next seven like imagine you spent all day getting lubed up for that game right like you took off of work even if you didn't take off work the game is starting late so i guess not technically super late in seattle but like you get up you go to the ball game it's a friday you've been at the bar drinking getting good and kind of you know buzzed for the game you're drinking beers during the game whatever time last call is in seattle i don't know the seventh eighth any whenever it is then they shut it down and two hours later you're still sitting there sitting there like ugh like you're in that weird state where you're not really drunk anymore but like you're kind of sobering up but you're starting to feel like shit because you are sobering up you're at that point where you should have been asleep and you're not experiencing it while you're awake but you're awake experience in it and it sucks even more that is no good that is not a good spot to be in anyway I'm very much against 15 inning baseball games and I think that's just the angry morning radio guy in me that has to get up at 345.

was falling asleep at the fucking bar. Anyway, more to come.