The Kevin Sheehan Show - Strasburg & Soto!

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

Kevin opens with a recap of the thrilling comeback win over Milwaukee last night in the National League Wildcard game. Aaron was there and described what Nats Park was like. Todd Dybas/NBS Sports Washington called in to discuss the win and look ahead to the Dodgers. Kevin talked more about the Louis Riddick comments from Monday Night and finished with Bill Belichick's thoughts on the Redskins. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, I'm here. Aaron is here. Todd Dybis from NBC Sports Washington. He covers the Nats. He's going to be with us. I don't know about Cooley today. If we don't get him today, we'll get him on Friday. What a night. Aaron was there. You went ahead and got tickets on Stubhub for you and what was it, the cousin of a brother-in-law or something like that, whatever it was. You were there, so you and I will go through this game together. I watched it on TV. I'll start with this. And you've been in some big environments before. You and I both love the environment in College Park for a big Maryland basketball game. I've been to a couple of those caps, game sevens. Obviously way back in the day when the Redskins meant something and had actual games. That atmosphere was great, not at FedEx, but at RFK. But there is nothing better in sports. than when your team in a huge game, a postseason game, wins the game from behind. It's one thing to have a 3-0 lead and then 5 to 2 and win the game 6 to 3. You never get the emotion, the frenzied atmosphere, the delirious atmosphere that you get

when your team is behind in one of those games and rallies to win like they did in the 8th, what was it like to be there? It was so interesting because the crowd was so good at the beginning of the game. I got there right before game time just because I was coming from work. The crowd was so good. And then immediately got deflated because of Max. Like they tried to rally again. And then that other home run in the second inning really deflated.

And it took a few innings to really get back into it. But then, yeah, when the 8th inning, it just started. building, it started building, you know, especially with the slow build, the fact that it wasn't any big hits. It was the hit by pitch. It was the bloop single. It was the walk. And it was like, okay, we know something's coming here. And we knew what it was building to. We could tell he wasn't going to pitch to Rendon. It was going to be Soto. And Soto had been in the slump. And it was a lefty, lefty matchup. But there was something there. And then just the weirdness of that play, the initial cheer, because, okay, it's tied. It's going to be a single. Or you think it's tied.

or there could be a throw to the plate. Could be a throw of the plate. But with Stevenson on second, you kind of assumed that, okay, he was going to score. All right, it's time. Then he gets by him. Oh, crap, it's going, you know, it's going to be the lead. Then you're watching Soto run around it. You kind of, you almost don't care that he's tagged out, but it's so weird because you don't get to fully embrace the fact that there's the lead before they have to go back.

Normally there is. He's standing on second or whatever. And you get the chance for the crowd to just be delirious for a few minutes before, or not a few minutes. but for 30 seconds before the next batter steps up. It was such a weird thing, but I think it was Mark Zuckerman who tweeted out. I'm pretty sure that's the loudest this place has ever been. And I think because of that two-tier, the initial hit and then the overrun of it, I think he's right.

That was the loudest that place has ever been. Yeah, I can only imagine because it was when he ripped the hit, you're like, okay, this should tie it. And then all of a sudden it gets by him and you're like, my God, they're going to take the lead on this thing. By the way, you just mentioned something. Look, Hater was careful with Rendon, but he pitched to him. He served up a couple at 3-0 and 3-1 that Rendon swung at. It didn't swing at the first 3-0 pitch. He took that pitch, but he swung at the 3-1 pitch. Clearly the lefty-lefty matchup was preferable, you know, with Soto coming up, but I don't think he wanted to load the bases with Rendon in that spot. But it was such a great at bat.

And then, you know, everything in that inning, you know, from the Taylor hit by pitch, which by the way, if it had been ruled a foul ball on the field, it would have stood on replay. It was really close. I don't know if you're able to see the replay there on your phone or anywhere else. But that ball, that pitch definitely hit the bottom of the bat first. And then it's just whether or not you could really describe it as simultaneously. Right. With hitting the hand.

And because it was ruled hit by pitch, you know, on the field, it had to stand in that spot, which was the right call. And then here comes Zimmerman. After being in that on deck circle twice and being pulled back, you know, he uses them in a higher leverage spot with a runner on. And he gets a broken bat bloop single, which is incredible. And then the Soto play where Grisham overruns it. And by the way, a lot of you on Twitter, when after me, when I said Soto

shouldn't have gotten himself into a position to be out. Look, in a normal situation, you definitely want to attempt to draw that throw, a third. But that was not a normal situation. There was no threat of a throw to home. Once it got by Grisham, that ship had sailed. Soto should have been on second. That was a base running error by him.

And it didn't hurt him, and ultimately who cares, because they won the game but he's in scoring position at second for an insurance run. Right. You know, and if they had needed it, and once Cain singled in the ninth, all I kept thinking was, good God, a two-run homer in this spot by, you know, by the way, Gamble's lashed at bat. That was a deep drive to center. Yes, it was.

You know, on a night when the ball was flying pretty good. Yeah, with all the humidity. Absolutely. Exactly. Go ahead. One thing about soda, though, it's one of those things that you're absolutely right. It could have cost them. But because it didn't, and because he was standing there,

celebrating, waiting for them to take. It becomes an all-time moment. Yeah, it was, it was such a, it was such a great moment. And it was, it was interesting because, you know, in a lot of those spots, and a lot of those dramatic postseason moments, you get multiple delays because you get, you get change of pitchers. You know, you get a couple of mound visits. The only delay you had was really the Taylor situation where it went to replay. After that, you know, Turner struck out, Zimmerman came up, got the bloop single, Rendon walked, Soto singled, and it all happened in roughly about six, seven minutes, you know, after you had the replay with the Taylor hit by pitch situation, but it was great. It was such an interesting night going back to the beginning of it.

You're there, and you said, you know, it was ginned up to start, it was raucous to start, but if the first pitch came at 808 p.m., by 8.10 p.m., you're like, You've got to be kidding me because it's two to nothing already. You say that. I mean, that's what I had been saying. We talked about this last week when we were talking about Scherzer v. Strasbourg, that Scherzer, when it comes to these big games, he's so juiced up for the game. He's sort of a bit that he usually does make a couple of mistakes early on.

And that was exactly what I was worried about. So, yeah, it completely deflated the crowd, but it wasn't, I feel like a lot of people saw it coming. Yeah, well, a lot of people did. and it was certainly a reasonable debate to be had, you know, Scherzer or Strasbourg for the game. And it did have to be Scherzer because of everything Tom talked about yesterday. We've talked about it. It didn't have to be, but Tommy was convinced that this was the thing that Davy recognized the clubhouse wanted.

They wanted their tough competitor. The irony is that Strasbourg has become a clutch competitive badass in these moments now over the last. couple of years. Yeah, he was awesome and it ended up being perfect the way that they were able to, you know, they were able to have him warm up for the full inning, get his normal warm up in, and then he came in and dominated. It was exactly what you would expect. I never know with Strasbourg, you know, really with starting pitchers in general, but especially someone who's as meticulous as Strasbourg, how they're going to handle coming into a ballgame like that. But the way they were able to set that up with the amount of time with getting the clean inning, it ended up

working perfectly. Yeah, it did end up. Everything worked out. You know, there were a couple of moments. First of all, I thought it was very interesting, the strategy that the brewers employed against Max. They were swinging early in counts. Certainly Grandal did first pitch, home run to make it two nothing. They didn't want to get behind. It wasn't their typical mode of operation. They draw a lot of walks, especially in the top half of that order. They take a lot of pitches, not last night. They went after him. And by the way, Grindals, you know, when he came up again in the third, he hit another one, another first

pitch bombed the right field that, you know, was an out. But, you know, Scher got, you know, he got hit pretty hard and they were very aggressive going after him. And it turned out to be the right thing because they ended up with a three-nothing lead in a big game like that, which was

deflating. And I'm sure it felt that way. I'm curious as to what you thought about the following, because in the moment I thought that it was definitely a debatable thing. When they get to the bottom of the third, and Scherzer is giving up two runs in three innings, and by the way, again, the top of the third, Grandal and is second at bat, drilled one to deep right.

Hit him hard in that spot, even though it wasn't out. Scherzer's due up second, did you think, watching it from your seat in the stadium, did you think there was a chance that Davy was going to pinch hit for Scher and bring out Strasbourg in the fourth. We were talking about that kind of going into it, me and the guy I was with. We kind of came up with the scenario where if Robles, because Robles led off that in. Yeah, he did.

If he had ended up in scoring position, I think they would have pinch hit for him. If he had gotten a single, I think they would have let him stay up there and bunt. But I think that if he had scoring position, then yeah, yeah, you definitely pinch hit for him there. and then when he struck out, you know, as much as we, you know, we talk about those first two innings, it's also the thing with Max in these big games is that he does get hit in the first two innings, but then he settles down. So I think that's what Davey was seeing there with one out, nobody on. I understand his thinking there. I think there was a debate, but with the way it played out, and in hindsight made the right move. Yeah, I agree. I was fine either way in the

spot, but if Robles had gotten on, and by the way, if he'd gotten on in a three-nothing game, you're going for a big inning. I don't know that you're sacrificing him from first to second or even from second to third if he had doubled. You're looking for a big inning in that spot because you've got a chance with a pinch hitter to then get to the top of your order with Turner afterwards. So I would have been upset had Robles gotten on

and they had let Scher hit or asked Scherzer to sack Bunt, either Roblese over to second or Robles from second to third. I would not have preferred that in the moment. And Scherzer came back. You know, they hit him, you know, a little bit. You know, you had Thames, you know, had the double off of him in the fourth. You had, I think, Grendal walked in the fifth against him. And a couple walks in the fifth.

A couple of runners on. And he got that guy, Hurra, to strike out. He struck out three times and then doubled a little bit later on off of Strasbourg. but it was it was that was the key stretch of the game man because if strasberg doesn't come in and hold that lead to 3-1 or if scherzer doesn't get through the fourth and the fifth with it being a three-nothing or a three-one game you know they could have it could have been over at that point it the night went pretty well for kregg counsel because he got four from woodruff he only got an inning from the lefty suitor who by the way he works pretty quickly doesn't he um and in that particular spot um he you

you get Pomerantz into the game in the sixth and the seventh, and this guy was money. I mean, no hits, two strikeouts. He gets six outs in two in two innings, and I know haters a two-winning guy, a six-out guy, and has been seven times this year and been seven out of seven in those spots. But I remember thinking in the moment, man, your closer, he better be dominant here over the final two winnings,

or you're going to regret pulling the big dude, Pomerantz, who they couldn't touch. You know, they couldn't touch. That guy's a big guy. Yeah. You know, and they couldn't touch him. I thought that was an interesting part of the game as well. You know, Pomerans, I've actually been watching because I worked in my league baseball for a little while. So his first season out of college, he was in the Carolina League when I was also in the

Carolina League. So I've been kind of follow. He was awesome in the Carolina League, and I've always been a big fan of this. But he's been a guy who you can't put out there too long. is a starter for a long time, and he's moved more to the bullpen role. Like, he kind of bounces between. He can be a spot starter at time, but he's a guy you can't leave out there too long. That's been his MO and his career. So I think that's kind of what they were thinking there. We did learn last night. To me, if you didn't know before, you know it now that, you know,

in these games that follow, which are different than the game last night, because the bullpen last night's different because you've got Strasbourg and Corbin that you can use. So you don't have to use rainy. You don't have to use Rodney. You don't have to use some of the guys that have really been problematic for this team during the course of the year. But you will have to use them in a best of five against the Dodgers until there's a fifth in deciding game, all hands on deck. You're going to be in a different spot there. But what we did learn last night, and I think you learned this because you had a left elite lead off the ninth is that Hudson's your closer. You know, you had a lefty leading off the ninth. He could have gone Doolittle. Well, Doolittle hadn't been

at all. Okay. That was one of the big things is Hudson had been warming throughout the entire eighth inning. He was warm. Doolittle had not gotten up yet. He didn't. Now you could have said, why wasn't Doolittle up and warming? But that was the- Hudson's, Hudson's his closer. I mean, he would have been in the ninth anyways, whether they were up or down. He would have been in the ninth. Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying is that Doolittle, if you've got a true closing situation, all right, and last night's four three, top of the ninth, and he went. went with Hudson. Right. With a lefty leading off, never thought twice about it. Anyway, it was such an awesome night. It's one of those nights, by the way, that you look back on and you remember, but you also have to remember this.

It was a wild card game. You know, they still have not been past the next round, and you got to, you know, something about the Nats here that's really interesting is that they've become a very important team in town. I don't know that we're a true baseball town at this point, but nights like last night help you along in that direction. But you've also had these painful memories, the St. Louis series, the Cubs and the Dodgers series, obviously,

and losing game fives three times at home. But, you know, the one thing you've got to say about the nationals is they have built a team that contends consistently. You know, they've been a consistent contender. It's hard to do in sports in professional sports. sports. We've talked a lot about it with the Redskins. The Redskins are not, you know, they do not have the owner or the front office to consistently contend. They don't. The Nats do. This is the fifth time now in eight years that they're going to be participating in a National League Division

series. That's a big spot. These spots in October, you know, you become one of those teams that the rest of the country says, yeah, the Nats are in the playoffs again. You know, I can remember, and I love October baseball, but, you know, Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, you know, they're teams that become synonymous with October. And when you start to become one of those teams, the city in which you play in, it becomes much more important. And you develop these memories. They've all been painful until last night.

And hopefully what this is leading to in this next series, first of all, a real low-expectation series compared to the other four times they've been in it. Maybe that'll work in their favor. different from the others. Yeah. So although the St. Louis, the first time in the playoffs, you know, I don't know that everybody was expecting them to make a deep run, even though they were the number one C. And that's the thing is at the beginning of the scene, but by that point, not just they were except to make the deep run, but if someone stopped them, it wasn't going to be

the car. Right. Exactly. Not that particular year. Yes. But, you know, you do want to have the occasional, you don't want to be the Red Sox and the Cubs for like, you know, a hundred years, or 90 years or 80 years or whatever it was. You want to be a consistent contender. They've taken that first step to where they are consistently contending. What's really ironic about that is at the end of May, when people are saying 19 and 31, oh my God, trade max, we need a new manager. And oh, by the way, if Rendon leaves, no one's going to care about this team.

People are going to be so irate with the learners and with Rizzo for letting Rendon go after they let Harper go. And by the way, at 19 and 31, you're thinking, how did they not bring Harper back? All those things are in play. But the bottom line is they knew something. Dave Martinez knew something. Rizzo was confident because they have built a culture here that contends.

You know, they're one of those teams in baseball that you think of at the beginning of every season will potentially and more likely than not be in the post-season. They were picked to be in the postseason before this season started. Most people had them winning the National League East. They've become one of those contending teams. Now, a contending team with postseason heartbreak has been their history. And last night starts to change the narrative on that a little bit. It's a memorable game, but it was a wild card game. Now they're into an NLDS and you've got to have three weeks from now or two weeks from now, you've got to say,

how about game three? You know, down 2-0 and down 4-1 in the 7th, and they come back and win that game, and that starts, you know, the Soto, the three-run homer that tied it, and the pinch-hit Zimmerman home run in the 10th, you know, at Nat's Park to keep them alive. And then they got unbelievable pitching outings in games four.

Like, you've got to have more of those. You know what you're describing? You know what you're describing right now, kind of a team that had underachieved in the past kind of came in with lesser expectations, getting a few big moments. You're describing the Caps Stanley Cup run. Yeah, that's true. It was unexpected.

Yeah, that was not the team to win the Stanley Cup. No, that wasn't one of the presidents. Yeah, that was a team that maybe might make the second round, but, you know, especially after they went down to nothing, people thought were going out in the first round, but definitely was supposed to lose to the Penguins in the second round. It's a great point. I mean, when you least expect it, and no one expected the Caps run in 20, in 2018, and they made that run. Now, the one thing I will say about these nationals is because of

their starting rotation, because of Scher-Straussberg-Corven. Baseball people have said they're going to be a difficult out in a series, you know, and the Dodgers have had, you know, just had one of the great regular seasons, you know, seasons for them or for any National League team in a long time. And they are going to be a sizable favorite. I don't know if those odds are up yet. I hadn't seen them as of early this morning. They're going to be a sizable favorite, though, but a lot of baseball people give the Nats more than a fighting chance. Some people think, even though Kirchin didn't with me yesterday on the radio show, some people think that this is the series the Dodgers can lose against the Nats. So that leads us to this, you know, and I'm going to ask

Todd Dibis, I asked Ray Knight this earlier. Patrick Corbyn's going to get the start in game one Thursday night. And by the way, that's a good thing because they, this is a lefty lineup and they have not, you know, handled lefties well, the Dodgers. The Dodgers don't do nearly as well against left-handers as they do right-handers. Do you think that Strasbourg's in play for game two Friday night? Yes. Ray Knight said he doesn't think it should happen. Well, should it versus is it in play? I think it's in play. I think it's going to be an interesting situation because Strasbourg, like I mentioned before, is one of those really meticulous. You got to have the same thing. So the question is, do you want him on short rest here? Because, you know, even though he didn't pitch a full game, he did pitch enough.

It was pretty close to a full game. And it will be short rest going into this one. It might be one of the situations that depends how game one goes. If they lose game one, I think you start Strasbourg game two. If you win game one, okay, then maybe you can play around with it, start him game three and start whoever, whichever order you want. Probably Strasbourg game three sure is a game four, but whichever order you want there. Yeah, I think Strasbourg's got a pitch before Max pitches in this series. So if that's game three, that's game three. The choices are Sanchez or Strasbourg for game two.

Yes. By the way, I do see the series price. The Dodgers are minus 190 in the series. And they're favorites for a reason. Yeah, they are. But it's baseball. anything can happen. By the way, one of my long-time betting strategies in the baseball postseason is to just take underdogs. It works. It really does seem to work out because these are, you know, we talked about this yesterday on the podcast with Tommy. You play 162 games, and then you're just going to play the best out of five.

Trust me, the Dodgers, I haven't looked at it yet, but I will. I guarantee you the Dodgers have lost three out of five multiple times this year. and sometimes to not even good opponents, you know, more likely than not. By the way, the biggest reason to start Strasbourg, if you are a big proponent of starting Strasbourg game two, is then you can pitch them game five if it comes down to that. Yes, you could do that too, but you could also pitch Corbyn in game five if you get to that moment. I'm looking through their schedule right now. There is like here's a perfect stretch. In August, the Dodgers lost in Miami, won a game in Atlanta, then,

lost two in Atlanta. That's three out of five. Then they lost three out of five in a series with the Yankees. They lost two to the Yankees and then lost the first in San Diego. Then they lost three in a row at Arizona. Then they lost three out of five. Like losing three out of five even for the best teams with the best records, it happens all the time. All right.

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You play, you win, you get paid. All right, we will come back to baseball here shortly. I wanted to talk a little bit about a follow-up to the conversation about the Lewis Riddick comments from yesterday. You know, we talked about the Joe Banner tweet yesterday. And then, and I mentioned to Tommy, you know, that Donovan McName, Nab had started, you know, one of those games under Andy Reid. I want to play the soundbite for you again, just to refresh your memory. And then I just have one more sort of follow-up to that conversation. We'll also tell you what Bill Pelichick said about the Redskins yesterday in his weekly press conference call.

But this was Lewis Riddick on Monday night football, leading up to Monday night football, with Steve Young, with Susie Calber, and with Adam Schaefter. It was more than a rough goal. But look, quite honestly, Glane Haskins going into that game, it was really one of the worst decisions I've seen so far this year as far as how people are handling young quarterbacks. All we have heard from the Washington Redskins

all along from their coaching staff in particular was that he wasn't ready. He wasn't ready. He wasn't ready. That's why Case Keatom has been playing. Case Keatom should have been made to finish that football game. He started it. He should have made to finish it.

They're missing their starting left tackle. There's missing their starting right guard. Terry McLaren, their best wide receiver this year. Out. Jordan Reed out. you see some of the best teachers in this game and Steve we talked about this a little bit on the ride over here guys like Andy Reid guys like Doug Peterson who come from a certain school of thought when it comes to quarterback development why would he why would you why would you why would you put him in there under any circumstance let's answer that

why it it reeks of an agenda to me okay as far as saying look he's not ready to play the team is suffering you've heard all along going all the way back to the draft about how there was dissension about front office one to one guy coach and stuff one and another guy And that kind of thing right off the bat, you think Dwayne Haskins doesn't hear that? You think he feels totally supported in this entire process? And see, these are the kind of things I talk all the time about setting people up for success. That young man right now is being set up for failure. And Dan Snyder needs to recognize that and say, hey, look, you just right now drafted another franchise quarterback,

and he's being set up to fail. He should have never went in that football game last night. You have some decisions to make about your franchise going forward, because we were just there for countdown. And did it look like a fan base that was very happy? while things are going. Okay, so the part that we talked a lot about that conversation from Lewis. Riddick, and my initial reaction is still my reaction, and that is he'd love to be a general

manager in the league and maybe in Washington where he once worked. By the way, did Joe Banner tweet from yesterday, just to refresh your memory? Joe Banner tweeted out, Joe Banner, the former team president of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Brown said, it's funny to watch all the Haskins lovers now starting to claim that Haskins was actually great, but the skins ruined him. He's responding to a guy like Lewis Riddick in that moment. And Banner wrote half a dozen teams, I respect, had him in the third round or later, and 14 teams passed on him.

Plus, none tried to trade up for him. Now it's the skins fault. I think that's a response to guys like Lewis Riddick who have been huge Haskins fans. And by the way, he may be right on him. I have no idea. So yesterday I said to Tommy that, And I sort of looked it up when I heard him say it, where he implied that guys like Andy Reid and Doug Peterson would never have made the same mistake of putting Haskins into the game on Sunday. You know, not having a full week of preparation, not being ready to play in an NFL game, having some key players out, yada, yada, yada.

So I mentioned that with Donovan McNabb, he had actually played him. Andy Reid played him in relief. But I went a step further when the show was over. I found that game on YouTube. It was a game in week two of 1999. Eagles at home against the Buccaneers. That was the Warren Sapp Buccaneers. They were one of the best and most physical defensive teams in the league that year. They went 11 and 5. They got to the NFC championship game where they lost to the Rams, the greatest show on turf in a game that ended, by the way, 11 to 6 was the final score of that NFC title game. The Buccaneers.

were nasty on defense that year. And in that game, I was the Berta Manuel game. The NFC championship game was, yes. In the week two game, you know, McNabb had been drafted. Philadelphia fans, remember, weren't thrilled with McNabb getting drafted, but Doug Peterson was the starter for the Eagles in that season. And they're in a tight game. You know, the game is 7 to 5, 13 to 5 in the game,

but they're booing Peterson who's really struggling against this very good defense. They can't do anything against this defense. And you know what Andy Reid did in the second half? He put the rookie in. He put McNabb in. I don't know if McNabb got first team reps that week. I do know this. He fed McNabb to the wolves.

They had no chance of moving the ball against Tampa in that game. And I watched it. It's on YouTube. and he was crushed, sacked six times in a half, fumbled a couple of times. They recovered him. Tampa, they didn't lose them on turnovers. So if you're going to go look it up on a box score on pro football reference, he did cough it up a couple of times in those sacks, but was able to fall on it himself and another time one of their tackles fell on it. He got sacked six times and a half. He was four for 11 for 26 yards. Now, he was running.

running around a little bit because he was mobile as hell. But he put him in a game that he was not prepared to play. So my only point, by the way, he then made another four appearances under Andy Reed in his rookie season in relief as well, not as the scheduled starter. He struggled mightily in those games. But ultimately for McNabb, it turned out pretty well. Now, I bring this up and I make, I make an issue out of it, not because I think that Andy Reed couldn't have changed his mind. Obviously, he didn't start Mahomes in his rookie year. Maybe he learned from that experience. Maybe 20 years ago is much different than it was now, and you gave first team reps, and he felt like McNabb was more ready to play. McNabb had started many years at Syracuse, had more college experience. I can just tell you this, though. You watch that game. He was not prepared to play a play. professional football game at quarterback.

But he learned, he took some lumps, took some big hits, and eventually it turned out really well for McNabb. But I brought that up because, you know, guys that have been saying, and it's not just Riddick, other people that have been saying, it's irresponsible, you'll ruin the kid, you'll damage him. You can't play him without a full week of reps. You can't, and Riddick really got after the Redskins, and Gruden in particular. You know, he basically insinuated that it was sabotage, that the coach who didn't want the quarterback to begin with, the football people who didn't want the quarterback drafted at 15 overall to begin with, was, you know, that it reeked of an agenda.

Well, if you're going to do that and then you're going to bring quality resume coaches like Andy Reed and Doug Peterson into the conversation, and you're going to say that they would have never done that or implied. that they would have never done that. You better know for sure that they would have never done that. Because Andy Reid did do that. He did it with Donovan McNabb. And yes, context is everything, and it was a different time, and there are different things.

But Andy Reid, go watch that game on YouTube. Search, Buccaneers, Eagles, Week 2, 1999. And you will see a quarterback that Reed feeds to the wolves. had no there was nothing that that stopped him with good judgment of putting McNabb into the game and again maybe it wasn't bad judgment

maybe it was hey the kids got to get experience not a bad spot to get experience right now doesn't have to think about it we're going to put him in there against a great defense and he's going to get some experience here they lost the game 19 to 5 and it was ugly for McNabb and it was ugly in the next few

starts for, the next few relief appearances for him. Look, if Riddick and Todd Bowles end up being, you know, sort of the tandem because Joe Gibbs endorses it, I don't know if that's going to happen or not. I'm going to be just thrilled that, you know, it's no more Bruce.

It's almost the same way I felt when there was no more Vinny. It was like, okay, thank God. You know, they've hired somebody else. But Riddick is a wonderful TV analyst, a likable guy, everybody I know loves him up there. But you also have to consider why hasn't he been hired? If he's such a genius, if he's such a great candidate to be a team president or a general manager, why hasn't he worked in the league for years? And maybe he doesn't even want to work in the league.

I don't know that. But you know, you start lobbying accusations towards an organization and a coaching staff about sabotage and having an agenda. And then you start bringing up other coaches that are higher quality resumeed coaches and say that they would have never done the same thing. You need to know that they would have never done the same thing. Because Andy Reid did do the same thing. And many other coaches, as I outlined yesterday, have done the same thing. I mentioned yesterday all of the quarterbacks that didn't have it perfectly set up

for their debut. You know, not every quarterback gets a full week of first team reps, has a great offensive line, weapons all over the field, a really good defense, a really good system. Not everybody's had that. Brady didn't have that. Rathlisberger. Eli Manning's first action was in relief of Kurt Warner in a game in a game which he got battered around and went like three for ten. In recent years, Baker Mayfield last year, he didn't have a full week of prep. He came in for Ty Taylor in the middle of a Thursday night game. Monday night game, whatever it was, it was the night game. Deshawn Watson came in in relief of Tom Savage, who actually I think got hurt. Daniel Jones, all right?

Danny Dimes. He didn't just get the first week of full prep for Tampa last week or a week and a half ago. He came in off the bench in the fourth quarter, Dallas. Pat Schumer said, let's get the kid in there. Let's get his feet wet. We're getting our ass kicked by the Cowboys. Let's see what he looks like in the fourth quarter. And we're going to let him throw it too, which they did.

again, everybody's entitled to their opinion, and we don't have all the information. I'll grant you that. You know, for all we know, his psyche is fragile. The coaches might tell us, you know, in private, no, no, no, you don't understand. He can't do it. He, we can't even eval. This is what you used to hear about Griffin with Shanahan and then also with Gruden. You don't get it, guys.

We can't be functional. We can't operate in a professional way in a game. Who cares if the season's over? We can't evaluate our other players, they would say about Griffin. I mean, the venom that came out privately about Griffin. I mean, they couldn't stand him to start with because he was so self-absorbed and so completely lacking in self-awareness. But the football stuff you would hear from,

you know, the guys on the coaching staff with Shanahan. And then from Gruden himself, who basically, you know, spilled the beans in an interview with Albert Breer in 2014, is that you guys don't get it. You know, yeah, we'd love to get him experience, but he can't do it. And we can't evaluate the other players with him in the game. And we can't operate as a professional, functional functioning offense with him in the game. And maybe that's what they would say about Haskins. And you know what?

If they said that and I believe them, I would understand why they're not putting him out there. I just don't know that I would believe that he's of that sort of situation, that he's so behind, that he's so lacking in, you know, thick skin and, you know, not a guy that could handle adversity. I just don't, I'm not buying that. And by the way, you know, if it's your job to make him functional enough. Griffin, you had a problem with, because Griffin was uncoachable. Everything we heard about Griffin over and over again. You try to tell him something and he just, he waves you off and he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it.

Multiple coaching staff, same thing, said that you couldn't coach him. He had all the answers and if you weren't sure, just ask him. But the problem was he didn't have any answers. And so then it became very frustrating. I have not heard those things about Haskins. I have not heard those things about Haskins at all. Anyway, that's it on that. Rate us and review us if you're listening to us on iTunes or Apple Podcasts.

That helps. All right, let's bring in Todd Dybis, who covers a lot of things, but covers the Nats for NBC Sports Washington. Follow them on Twitter at Todd underscore Dybis. Todd's always got interesting insight, especially in the strategy of some of the stuff that happened last night. Did we learn five minutes into that game last night that Dave Martinez should have started Strasbourg? Was that so obvious five minutes into it?

Was it so deflating being there that you thought that they couldn't recover? As soon as you started to say, did we? I knew what the question was going to be. And, you know, I was adamant before the game started that Scherzer should start it. I think certainly the organization was adamant. about that for a couple weeks. They aligned things accordingly. They kind of kept the lid on that.

And then eventually Scherzer was on the mound. And they told, you know, the world a couple days before that happened that he would be on the mound. So, I mean, I guess it's hard. It was this weird decision of sentiment, reputation, contract, face of the franchise sort of situation versus is there someone who, else who is really, really good and currently pitching better. And I think you can make an argument for both.

And certainly it appeared last night that Strasbourg was the sharper pitcher and doing so in a role that he doesn't commonly do. I mean, he hadn't come out of the bullpen since college at San Diego State where he was a closer at one point, which is a terrifying idea, looking at what he throws. So it seemed, but, course, they escape and they get out of there with everything. Every Corbyn to fight another day, I think is my very soft dancing around answer to that.

But, yeah, the visuals and obviously the line scores suggested that they made a tactical error, which they got away with. Yeah, I mean, look, Dave Martinez had a really good night in a lot of different spots, but that game started with a reminder of what a lot of... people thought should have been the decision, which was to start the better pitcher over the last month or so. And by the way, the better postseason pitcher in Strasbourg. I want to talk about a couple of things that happened during the game and get your thoughts on him because there was a lot of, you know, in a three-one game, you know, in a win-or-go-home game, there's a lot of strategy.

Did you think that he was going to pinch it for Scherzer and the third? No, I didn't. And, you know, I'm not surprised that he didn't. I thought it was the right decision not to. He continued to kind of ride it out, and that ended up serving him well. You know, and you want to be greedy, but you're also behind. So it's a curious thing because you're looking ahead to Thursday and Friday, and how many innings can Steven Strasbourg give me? And if I use Steven Strasbourg multiple innings to go four, five, six,

then what am I doing to get to Daniel Hudson or Sean Doolittle? How am I filling that middle space, which has been such a bugaboo for the nationals all season? So I wasn't surprised to me that was almost strictly to stay away from the Fernando Rodney's, Tanner Rainey's, Hunter Strickland, that whole situation. And that's why he didn't pinch hit for sure as at that point. Yeah, the only, I thought it was a possibility, Todd. You know, in thinking about it, you know, after the fact, I think it would have definitely been the right thing to do had Robles gotten on in the third. If you had a runner-on and you're down 3-0 in that spot,

I think it would have been a mistake not to pinch it for him in that spot. Yeah, and if that was, if you had something brewing, I could certainly see that. But, you know, Scherzer gave up a home run to the second batter, right? And he made a mistake there, and Grandal ambushed him. This is one of the fascinating things about last night. I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent here, if you don't mind. The Brewers came in with a very high walk percentage, and then led the National League and walked. Right.

And what people don't want to do against Max Scher's weight. We see teams come up and swan at the first fish all the time. because he throws so many strikes. And if you take the first strike and you're down 0-1, your chances of doing anything successfully are very limited against a guy with that arsenal. So the question was, are the brewers going to change? Are they going to adapt?

And if so, how quickly is that going to happen? Grandal hit the first pitch he saw into the bullpen. So we saw a distinct in the immediate change from them. Scher and Suzuki had to change back, which they did and they were able to kind of rein things in. Eric Taines home run. That was a backdoor curveball that both Suzuki and Scherzer didn't have any regrets about after the game. So those are the two defining blows. And certainly walking the first batter and then giving up that home run right off the top, that's on Max Scherzer. The other one, Thames, you know, sometimes the other guy just gets you. You make a pitch and that stuff happens, especially with this ball.

And I felt like that was the situation there. And so I use all that to say, I don't feel. like Scherzer was on the ropes perpetually in the game. Did he look his best? No, but was I, you know, severely alarmed that this guy is not going to be able to get out and he's going to get really knocked around? No. That's interesting because, you know, the context of it, obviously, was that there was a debate about who should have started the game going into it. And you're right. And, you know, the broadcast crew of Darling and Frankor and Ernie Johnson were talking about how the Brewers, essentially changed their mindset. Like their team, especially at the top of the order that takes, you know, a lot of

pitches and they walk a lot. And they decided to go after his first pitch. And by the way, they also knew that he had been giving up some home runs to lefties, you know, and so he's given up 10 home runs since returning from the injured list all to left-handers now at this point. Yep. And even counsel said during that one break during the game where they're, they interview him in game.

You know, he said, yeah, we, you know, we sort of thought that we needed to be aggressive to have a chance, and it really paid off for them because, look, 3-0, he may not have been on the ropes. Grundal, by the way, in that second at bat in the third, he hit, you know, he really hit a ball deep again, you know, on a first pitch against Scherzer, which is one of the reasons I really felt like Davy's explanation that Scher had gotten it together. I don't know if I felt that way in the moment. you know, after the third. But anyway, it all's well that, that ends well, because Davy had a good night

the rest of the way. How about Strasbourg, though, Todd? I mean, a guy that for so many years, we thought was soft, was delicate, was a creature of habit, a creature of routine. And if you got him out of that routine, it wouldn't be good for him. The weather had to be right, you know, everything. And then obviously, you know, we saw that change in game four and Wrigley a few years ago. but him coming out of the bullpen and pitching the way he did was one of those moments that, you know, he's turned into a true ace badass for them. Yeah, and it was interesting Ryan Zimmerman said afterwards, some of the things that used to bother Strauss don't bother him anymore.

And I thought that was intriguing to hear from a teammate. That was a very honest answer. You know, he's alluding to the things we would see. You would see it in his body language. you would see it when he would snipe at teammates or a coach or whoever it may be and you know to be honest we even

saw a little of it as spring training at Palm Beach this year when the first time out to the bullpen mound packs he picked the second rubber and the second mound when you're the premier guy in your group that guy pitches from the first one

and he says oh I don't like that mound so I'm using this mound and it was like you're just throwing a bullpen session and spring truck who cares about the mount. So there's still some piccadillos there. This is the way he is. And to your point, though, he not only pitched well last night, he killed them.

He dominated his innings, gave up the one hit. He looked in total command, especially with that strike zone. That was a wonky strike zone last night. Yeah, it was. And he was excellent. And his pitch count puts him in a place where I'm very interested. that they hear who's pitching game two in Los Angeles, and I would have seen this hit. Yeah, so that was, you just stole my next question. I asked Ray Knight that on the radio show this

morning, and he said absolutely not. He said, you know, it's 34 pitches, but it's high-intensity pitches, and you want him on normal rest. And he did not think that Strasbourg would be an option for game two, but it sounds like you do. Yeah, I would politely disagree with that, and I hate to disagree with someone who played major league baseball since I'm just a reporter. But I would counter that with the idea that though he was never in trouble, yes, was absolutely high intensity adrenaline because of the situation. However, not all pitch counts are created equal. And we talk about this a lot when guys are at 100 pitches and kind of this idea

automatically they need to come out of the game at this point in 2019. That's how they're treated. Those 100 pitches aren't all the same. It depends on what happened situationally, depends on who it is, it depends on what they're accustomed to. You know, Strasbourg is in a place where he was supposed to pitch that day anyway. So he's semi-in routine,

and I think if you start him in game two, you're still able to back him up and have some flexibility. You could back him up with Annabal Sanchez, if you want. You know, so if you threw four innings, you could go to Anibal Sanchez to kind of stay, again, stay away from the middle of the bullpen. You have Scherzer on regular rest come Sunday and coming around the bend. You'll have to sort some things out. But, you know, we'll see what they do.

I mean, it's him or Sanchez. Yeah, well, those are the choices, exactly. Yeah, those are the two choices. I wonder, Todd, if winning game one, if they were to win game one with Corbyn might change the, you know, the mindset. on Strasbourg in game two. Yeah, completely agree. If you win game one and then you say, hey, we'll roll the dice and go for a split.

Anandemort Sanchez, it performs well in big games. He's been pitching well lately. Let's put him out there and see what happens, and then we can rest everyone and have them all lined up. Then I would totally agree with that idea. If you lose game one, then you've got to push this guy a little further and see what you can get out of them. A couple of things from the Brewers' perspective.

perspective. Did you think counsel made a mistake by not leaving Pomerantz in there in the 8th, the way he had pitched two innings back to back? Yeah, I mean, it's a fair question, and it's a tough one. And we talked about this on our podcast at NBC Sports Washington after the fact that counseled, the Brewers, if they wrote out a perfect script for the game, it would have looked like how. the game went until Josh Hader came into it. The only thing, let me just interrupt. Couldn't have been better. Let me interrupt for one second on that, because listening to

counsel's post game last night, I think the only, yes, if he, if somebody said this is the script, he would take it because Haders had, you know, he was seven for seven in six out saves or, you know, more two winning or more saves. But he also said that he wished he could have gotten another inning out of the lefty, Souter. Yeah. Yeah. Which, by the way, then, would have pushed Pom Rance back to the seventh and the eighth. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, that's right. And that makes sense.

I still feel like it's a small quibble. I mean, you're in an elimination game. Brandon Woodruff gave you more than you probably anticipated. True. And so then if you're, you know, if you're not happy that you got another extra thing out of suitor, then okay. I think, you know, you're being kind of really greedy there. but things went really well. They wanted to manipulate the middle of the game.

They had tons of faith in Woodruff, and he showed why he's throwing 99. It was ridiculous, you know, up in the zone with good command. And then they just wanted to fill the middle parts to get the Josh Hader. This is how they manipulate the game. They match you up, and then they go with their first really good guy, and then they go to their back end, really good guy, and they just need to get there with a clean path.

So, you know, in general terms, I think if you told them, hey, you're up three to one, the offense is done very little on the other side of general, and now you get Hayter to start a clean inning and you only need six out to advance, they would be very happy with that scenario. It's just the nationals in a very savvy, calm, 20-year-old, and I don't know if we're talking about this. I know we talk about the stats and the little company that he has of what's been done by age. 20, I'm not sure we're emphasizing that enough how calm this guy is and in Los Soto came in and beat him. Yeah, I mean, you know, and that brings us to that bottom of the eighth. We're talking to Todd Dybis from NBC Sports, Washington. Everything, you know, that they haven't gotten in these opportunities previously, everything went their way, you know, in the eighth. First of all, Hader was hyped up, you know. He was off. You know, he got behind.

on Robles, got behind on Taylor, got behind on Turner, I think, and got behind on Rendon in that inning. He just, he wasn't himself. But, you know, they got the break of the Taylor hit by pitch, because if that's ruled a foul ball in the moment, the replay would not have overturned it either. You know, replay just couldn't definitively tell whether or not that was all bottom of the barrel, bottom of the bat or if it was bottom of the bat plus hand. And because it was ruled hit by pitch by the umpire there, they had to stick with the call on the field. So that was a break.

Then you get the broken bat single, bloop single from Zimmerman, and then Rendon's got the great at bat, and then obviously Soto in the air by Grisham. What an inning, huh, Todd? Yeah, and how many times have we seen that kind of inning go the other way? I even wrote about this before the game. The last time we saw Max Scherzer on the mound was the fifth inning at game five against Chicago in 2017,

when four outcomes happened consecutively that had never happened consecutively happening in the history of Major League Baseball. I mean, it's preposterous. The odds of those things happening all at once were, you know, essentially a million to one, yet they happen in the Nationals in an elimination game at home and they lose the lead. And so here with it being Michael A. Taylor, who is in AA Harrisburg, his time in the organization is dwindling, and he ends up kind of maybe getting hit. And so he's on base.

Then Zimmerman, who's seen everything, finally gets a break, gets on first base. Does the mini kind of the super baby shark motion, because he's just using his index finger and his thumb to represent his little blooper. And it looked like, to me, that Hater didn't want to deal with Rendon. when he knew a lefty was on deck, and he would much prefer to do that. As you said, he fell behind quickly. He came back and then ended up being a three-two count, but I still don't think, you know, he was fully in that at back.

He was more than happy to try to go lefty, lefty with one. Soto. Lefty's career have a sub-500 OPS against Hader, so why wouldn't he want to face one again? Yeah. By the way, just one more hypothetical. Do you think if Strasbourg had, hadn't been due up in the 8th, and of course you had to pinch hit for him in that spot with Taylor.

But if he wasn't scheduled to pitch the 8th, a bat in the 8th, do you think he would have pitched the 9th instead of Hudson? Yeah, that's a great question to me. You know, Hudson was ready. I would, for me, I would have pinch hit for him. You got what you could out of him. Well, you had to pinch shit for him. You had to pinch it for him.

I'm giving you the hypothetical if he wasn't due. up and didn't have to hit in the eighth, would he, would Davy had sent him out there to close it in the ninth? If they had to leave. Oh, man, that's a tough one. Ah, don't worry about it. You know, Hudson's been really good. Yeah.

No, Hudson's, I'm thinking, I'm thinking it through on, you know, like four and a half hours of sleep. It's a very interesting question. And I think Hudson's been reliable enough that you, you feel comfortable going to him and you back him up with you little. so I would probably take Strasbourg out at that point. You've been in a lot of stadiums and arenas for big games and big atmospheres. What was last night like? Compare it to something.

Compare it to something. You know, the elimination game crowds here have been really, really good. And I thought one thing that jumped out to me about last night was there wasn't the amount of kind of tightness and tension in the crowd. I thought there would be if they went down early. It wasn't sit on our hands. Uh-oh. You know, that mood that we felt at various things here in Washington, D.C., you know, prior to the caps winning, but we've seen that in a lot of places.

And that didn't happen last night. Like the crowd kind of took his – it was similar to Scherzerzer. The crowd took its blow, and then it took a second, and then it recovered, and it was – you know, everybody was back on their feet before the top of the first ended. And I thought that was interesting for the group to kind of act that way. And I felt like it was right in line with how the team has played this year. I mean, of course, this team created a hole for itself, right? And then figured a way out of it at the last minute. And if that's not the story of this year, I don't know what it is. Todd, thanks for making time for us

here on the podcast. You're headed out to L.A. Have a great trip. Really appreciate the conversation. Talk to you soon. Of course, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it. Game one tomorrow night in Dodgers Stadium. The Nats already have a bit of a playoff history with the Dodgers who have a lot of playoff history. And it's actually nice just to be now a small part of that. Hopefully the Nats can get some payback in this upcoming playoff series for what happened

the last time they faced them. Should be a hell of a series. Pitching matchups are going to be really important. You know, Ryu, they've got obviously Kershaw, and it'll be really interesting because I guess we have heard here recently that they're going to start Bueller in game one. Is that possible? You know, Walker Bueller might start game one. So, you know, you've got a Cy Young candidate in Rio. You've got Kershaw, you know, who doesn't have, you know, quite the same velocity. He's had you got Rich Hill still there. And you got Walker Bueller as well, who went 14.000. and 4 with a 3.26 ERA this year. Couple of things to finish up the show with. First of all, did you know that the AFC South,

that you've got four two-and-two teams in the AFC South, it's the first time that's ever happened through four games since the merger in 1970. Seems weird. Seems like it would have happened through four games. Yeah, I'm shocked that it hasn't happened before. Houston Indy, Jacksonville, and Tennessee are all, two and two, and that's the first time it's ever happened in a division through four weeks

of the season. And, you know, it is, this week you get matchups in that division that include the out-of-division opponents. The Titans play the Bills. The Jags play the Panthers. The Texans play the Falcons and the Colts play the Chiefs. So you could potentially get, you know, four, three-and-two teams. or four, two, and three teams.

By the way, the AFC North, you know, is a division with Pittsburgh winning the other night. They're only a game out of first behind Cleveland and Baltimore. And Pittsburgh gets Baltimore this week at home. The first of their, you know, division opponents, of the two top two division opponents, they beat Cincinnati on Monday night. I wanted to finish up with this, and that is the Bill Belichick quotes on his conference call with out-of-town reporters yesterday, which you get every week with the upcoming opponents, head coach has to do a media avail with the other markets reporters.

He had a lot of nice things to say about the Redskins. We don't have the sound because I have not found the sound of that conference call, so I'm going to read you the sound bites. It would be better if we had the sound of it. On his philosophy behind developing a young quarterback, he said, you know, well, I think every situation is different. Really we're focused on getting ready for all three of these quarterbacks for the Redskins. are all pretty good. Belichick said about the three quarterbacks of the Redskins, they are all

pretty good. Obviously, McCoy is an outstanding player with a great deal of experience, and so is case, and those guys have played a lot of good football, and they have a very talented group of skill players with them. They do? Haskins is a young, talented player with good size and can move, big strong guy in the pocket, great arm. We'll have to get ready for all three players, and that'll be a big challenge for us. By the way, this is how you handle talking about the upcoming opponent. That's what good organizations do. Bad organizations have their players running their mouths about knocking over GMs during

pregame warmups, about their former team being a mess and making big mistakes and paying back for them not resigning them. This is what good organizations do. He continued about the Redskins on Jay Gruden, asked about how Jay Gruden's scheme has evolved. And he says, the offense is very much in Coach Gruden's philosophy and background. I think it was a little less of that with Griffin. He was the kind of guy who improvised plays and was very mobile. With Smith, meaning Alex Smith, who had a great background in the West Coast offense, and then McCoy and obviously Keenham, those guys are very efficient at getting the ball into the

hands of their very good skill players. The Redskins have great skill players at every spot. Belichick said, with Peterson and Thompson in the backfield, Davis, and Sprinkles has been playing more. The receiving core, you add McLaurin to that group, and Quinn, Richardson, they've got a very good group of skill players and they get them out a lot in the West Coast passing game. It's up to the quarterback to make those decisions and get the ball to those open players and let them advance with their run-after catch skills. I think that Coach Gruden, Belichick says, is very good at that. He does a great job of game planning and creating problems for the defense, and they have very good skill players to get the ball to. I think that's really what they want to be offensively with a balanced running game.

There's a lot of balance in offense between run and pass with them. I mean, there have been a couple of situations where they've been behind, and they've got skewed a little bit, but generally speaking, it's a well-balanced offense. It makes you defend everything. The running game, the play-action game, the quick throws, the screens, the verticals, passing game where they've hit a number of big plays and had other guys open that they just didn't connect on, which is true. He also said about Gruden. Coach Gruden does a good job springing those guys free and getting them vertically into the defense for potential big plays. That's a consistent part of their offense, whether they do it off play action or part of their dropback game, just making the

right reads on seams, go routes, double moves, wheel routes, and things like that. It's a very well-balanced offense. They attack all areas of the field with multiple players, backs, tight ends, receivers, and really force you to defend everything. Very well designed and thought out offensive scheme. I actually think he believes some of that about Gruden's offensive scheme, but man, does he really build up the personnel? Really does. And then finally, he was asked, you know, about the Redskins being 0 and 4 and how you dig out of an 0.4 hole. I don't know why they would ask him that, you know, but he said, every year is a different year, every team is a different team. We were one and two last year. Sometimes you play good and lose. Sometimes you play bad and win.

Sometimes you play good and win. Sometimes you play bad and most of the time you play bad and lose or coach bad and lose. Just take it week to week. You know, every week is a one week season in this league. It is so true. I mean, one of the things you learn when you bet that sport, and Aaron and I know this and many of you do, is that the NFL is not year to year, it's not month to month, it is week to week, and things change so dramatically in a week. You think you've got it figured out one week,

and the next week you get knocked back in a big way because you were dead wrong about what you thought the week before. But then two weeks later, you're going to be right about what you were thinking three weeks earlier. He says, just try to go out there and match up against your opponent and try to do the best job that you can to prepare for the team that you're facing and compete hard on Sunday. Anyway, he says the records don't really mean anything this week.

It'll just depend on how the two teams compete on Sunday afternoon. That's all that really matters. Look, it is week to week, and it's really an unpredictable league. But what's really predictable is that the Patriots are going to win on Sunday. Now, what if they don't? What if Colt McCoy were to lead a victory? Can you imagine what Gruden would say to Dan and anybody else? All right, now, what did Tommy say yesterday?

Now that's my office. You get the hell out of here. That's my office. Colt and I have everything figured out. All right, we'll do more on the Redskins probably tomorrow, definitely more on Friday. But this was a Nat's day, and it was exciting to see that last night. night. We haven't had a lot of those moments in the city in a long, long time, and it was nice to

get one last night when you least expected it. Because remember, two, three, and four in that order, Aaron, before the eighth inning, oh for nine at one point. And then things changed in that bottom of the eighth, thankfully. All right, thanks to Todd Dybis, who joined us on the show. Thanks to Aaron, back tomorrow with Tom.