The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Tim Neverett On Astros-Dodgers Series And What's Been Different This Season

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Tim Neverett On Astros-Dodgers Series And What's Been Different This Season

is the Matt Thomas show. Time is 102. Tonight, we got both the Rockets and the Astros on our airwaves. Over here on 7.90, it will be the final scrimmage for the Rockets to take on the Boston Celtics. Craig will have that game for you, and then I'll join you Friday for the Rockets and the Mavericks as they get ready to start the seating play. It'll be Friday night. And then over on 740 this evening, it'll be the Astros against the Los Angeles. Angeles Dodgers in a repeat or a rematch of the 2017 World Series.

Coverage over there begins with the on-deck show at 7 with an 8-10 first pitch. And joining us that will be a part of it somehow calling and he has been doing the Dodgers. This will be a second season. It was a longtime Boston Red Sox. And then before that, a Pittsburgh pirate broadcaster and a good friend of the show. Tim Neveritt here on the Matt Thomas show, Tim, long time, no talk. How's Callie treating you these days? The weather is beautiful, but I'm kind of in my own bubble where you don't go out

very much. Just kind of stay in and then go to the ballpark and then come back and stay in, just trying to avoid as many people as possible, I guess, which I'm sure that's a lot of that going on down where you are. Yeah, no question about that. How peculiar was it calling a game with no fans, and have you done a game off of a TV set yet? I'll do Saturday's game on television from the Dodger Stadium TV booth. will be in Arizona. So I'll see the TV then. I've done it before at the Olympics

a few times off of TV screens, but as far as calling it with no fans, it was a little weird at first, but I think the piped in crowd boys because after a while, you just sort of forgot. I mean, it's hard not to forget because you look up in the upper deck,

which is usually full at Dodger Stadium. Right. it was over there. But just from the when you really focus on the game calling on the radio side, it's like, well, just call the game because you can hear the

organists, you can hear the PA announcer, you can hear the calls for charge, you know, different things like that. They've tried to make the fan or the experience more realistic involving the cardboard cutouts.

But at the same time as the game is progressing and as the game is being played between the lines, you sort of have to tune out the fact that there aren't actual human beings in the seats. It is a very strange scenario, that is for sure. Tim Neverde, Dodger broadcaster with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Tim, you bring terrific perspective to our show because let's be really brutally honest, if there are two teams that have been closely associated with the cheating scandal of the Astros, it's the two teams you have called between the the Red Sox and the Dodgers.

I just want to get it from your perspective because we feel like that there was a lot of talk in the off season before the pandemic and when people could go to the clubhouses and whatnot about how the Dodgers were going to treat any future series with the Astros and now that with the schedule and everything turned out. Do you have any sense of what's going through most of the players' minds as they go against the Astros for the first time since the suspensions and all that went down? I talked to the manager just a little while ago, probably about half an hour ago, Dave Robertson.

Basically, you know, it obviously is an open wound. However, they're trying to win a baseball game, and that's, he said he's not using the past, anything in the past as motivation to try to win tonight's game. So he probably would probably expect a clean hard baseball effort. And he said, you know, there'll be no intent on the part of his guys to do anything untoward. So I just think that if there were, for example, when the Astros come to Dodgers Stadium, if it was a 50,000 seat situation where fans would be there,

it would be a little different atmosphere than when they come without fans. but I do think it's going to be a hard baseball game tonight and tomorrow night. I don't think you're going to see anything in terms of retaliation. I would highly doubt it, actually. You know what? And we're all being very open and honest down here. The fact there are no fans, the fact there isn't going to be much talking with media members before games and whatnot. There's not a whole lot of Baltimore material, which probably helps the Astros out a little bit.

I mean, honestly, if I'm seeing it from your perspective a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, what the Astros, from what I understand, from what they had to endure during spring training when there were fans there, I mean, the comments that came from the stands everywhere they were, that's what it would have been like all year, except magnified, anytime that they traveled away from Minutemade Park. So, you know, they can concentrate on baseball, and they're not going to hear that. Who's to say what's going to happen next year, assuming fans are allowed back in the ballpark in full force. But at the same time, they got a little bit of a taste of it, I think, around the East Coast of Florida and spring training. But, you know, it was disappointing.

And, you know, I remember from the Red Sox side of things, when I heard the news, I went back and looked at the division series when the Red Sox played the Astros and how Altova and Bregman had back-to-back homers to start the game off of Chris Sale, who had been Dynamite heading into that series. And he had, I think, his worst game of the entire year. They laid off a slider. It just looked a little fishy after we knew the news.

And so it was, you know, those folks are a little sour over there on the East Coast about it. But I think they're more sour on the West Coast because the Dodgers hadn't won since 88. They had a representative team that could have won it. And, you know, based on the findings, you just don't know what the outcome might have been. Would it have been different? You know, I guess we really don't know. Yeah, and that's why I think this will be good at, you know, while I've been calling this season largely gimmicky, and unfortunately it just is because of the schedule.

We just got word a minute ago that the Marlin season has been officially paused because of their pandemic and what's going on. The only thing that will be good about this is that I think we will stay away from that sort of controversy, at least for the foreseeable future. So you mentioned you were obviously in Boston, and that's where you went from Pittsburgh to the Red Sox. And I'm not going to put you in a position of what did you know, what you didn't know, but what was your take when you had heard that Alex was involved in some things and videos and whatnot?

I mean, I guess it just goes to the bigger point, Tim, that we're just trying to find out which teams are trying to gain in competitive advantages, and maybe there are more teams that are doing it than are not, and that sometimes you just get caught, and sometimes you just get caught, and sometimes you don't. I mean, I don't know. What is your overall take on the team that you used to call hearing about, you know, what had happened with them and how the video coordinator really took the crux of the punishment? It's strange because, you know, I was there during that season,

but there was no way of knowing anything from, you know, even when you're in the clubhouse. For sure. Yeah. When you're on the plane and you know these guys. And there was just no way of telling how that was going to, happen or what they did or didn't do or that they distract the monitor that was hired by MLB so that he would not be there when they came out to look at film. I don't know. I don't know if Alex had ordered that or I doubt it. I think this was probably just a situation with the video

coordinator who, you know, was involved, as I know, but I guess I have to say allegedly involved, but he was reportedly involved in the situation two years earlier, or a year or two earlier, I think a year before Alex got there when they had the smart watch situation, because they would see the signs, they would relay it out via a smart watch to somebody in the dugout, who would then have a player relay the sign to the hitter. And, you know, the inside on that was that they learned that from another team. So who knows? What a hot mess.

It just really is. Yeah. You know, and they caught teams using cameras where they weren't supposed to and different things like that. The one thing I do remember, though, was when we came into Houston for the American League Championship Series in 2018, I was in Alex's office waiting to do the pregame radio show. And I said, I said, you know, how does it help you against this team? because you were there last year. And again, I didn't know anything that was going on. It was about trash cans or anything.

I had no idea, no way of knowing at that time. And when the news came out this past fall about the story, the light bulb went off on Alex's response. He said, I'm not too worried because they know, I know what they do over there. And I didn't think anything of it, other than, you know, he was the bench coach over there for a while. Right. policies, procedures, signs, whatever.

I didn't think there was anything unusual about his comment until Major League Baseball issued their report, and the light bulb went off, and I went, oh, that's what he was talking about. How cryptic is that, yeah? Yeah, and then the Red Sox went on and beat the Astros fair and square, and they went on to beat the Dodgers fair and square as well. For I let you run. Let's get to Muky Betts in his new contract. There was question marks as of about, I don't know, two weeks ago.

whether or not he would be one and done in Los Angeles. Frankly, it's just the opposite. What's been the reaction to Mookie's new deal and the fact that he will probably be a Dodger for a very long period of time? Yeah, it's been met with a lot of positivity, obviously here in Los Angeles. It's been met with great negativity in Boston

because many of the fans there, most of the fan base, wanted the Red Sox to go back after him following this year and re-sign him. But that ship has. has now sailed, and those folks are quite upset. But as far as the Dodgers are concerned, they are thrilled because of what Mookie brings to the table.

I mean, the back of his baseball card does not lie, you know, what he has done so far and what he will continue to do. And even in a short season, he should be very effective. Mookie Betts is an incredible baseball player. He's an incredible human, too. And a lot of things he does that nobody knows about that are really, really good, really positive He cares for other people and he's a solid citizen. So in all respects, the Dodgers felt that it was worth locking him up.

Andrew Friedman, who is the president of baseball ops for the Dodgers, fell in love with Mookie Betts a long time ago. And he had made overtures to the Red Sox in the past to try to get him somehow. And finally they were able to work it out. And, you know, I think once Mookie got to Camelback Ranch in Arizona during spring training and got to see the facilities, got to see how the Dodgers do things. He immediately thought that this was the place he wanted to be,

and he's even said that. He said, I don't want to be anywhere else. He goes, he fell in love with the whole situation very quickly, and the Dodgers are super happy that he did. That makes perfect sense. I got 15 seconds real quick. Clint Kirshall, when do you think he'll be back, or what's your best guess on that?

I think probably when he's able to come off the IL, the IL, I'm sorry. I know he's scheduled to throw a bullpen today, so, you know, it's probably in the not too distant future. I'd say, you know, maybe sometime next week, perhaps, but he said he's been feeling pretty good. It was just a small thing that wouldn't allow him to go on opening day, but I think he's going to be back probably sooner than later. Well, I've told my audience on multiple occasions, Dodger Stadium is one of my favorite. venues in sports period, except for when you try to leave. You will not have that issue this year, my friend. Thank you very much for the time. Congratulations on your success. The Dodgers are lucky to have you, and we look forward to talk with you. Maybe perhaps come playoff time. You never know.

Well, you never know. Anytime you want that, no problem. Yeah, the traffic coming and going to Dodger Stadium is a whole different, whole different situation. No question. No question. Thanks, Timmy, for the time. We really appreciate it, friend. Okay. Thanks, thanks, Matt. You got it. All right, that's Tim Nevert, one of the voices of Dodger baseball here joining us on a Sports Talk 790. Lance McCullors at 230. You and me next. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790.