Thursday: If the Yankees don’t win, is it a failure?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
It is the six o'clock hour. Thank you for spending
your afternoon with us wherever it is that you may be.
We've got baseball going on. Detroit's headed to Seattle for
the Divisional Series this weekend after beating Chicago today, beating
Detroit today, beating Cleveland day six to three. They the
Guardians scored two in the ninth, but they were five
down and could not come back from that.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Good. You don't like the Guardians they knocked out because
of the Rangers. Yeah, yeah, they were the one that
hit the pit that got hit by the pitch. Right, Yes,
too soon? No, you know what, No, it's not too soon, Andy,
because here's why. Here's why. Because the Astros did it
to themselves. You I know that. I'm not gonna say

(00:44):
that they collapsed, but they did it to themselves. Yes,
they had a lot of injuries. Every team does. But
you can't lose to teams that you should be beating.
You can't lose to the Rockies. You can't lose to
the A's, and granted the A's were better this year.
You can't lose to the Orange County La Angels of
San Bernardino, Oakland, John Wayne Airport John Wayne Airport, Inglewood,

(01:09):
California Angels. You know, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
They're gonna change their name again next year to something else, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Probably, maybe they'll toss in Sacramento in there as well. Well,
the A's are I know, that's so weird, so weird.
Did you did you actually go and see the picture?

Speaker 1 (01:25):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I did not, just some Sacramento and I'm like, God,
that looks weird, so weird.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
I'm actually the minor league team there feels like they're
being upstage for the for the next couple of years. Well,
and they all kind of they kind of are, but
not because of the A's. It's because of the teams
they're playing.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh I thought you were going to say because of
the Savannah Bananas.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Well maybe, I'm sure the bananas would sell more people
that sell out to the stadium better.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Than the A's would. You're not lying, You're not lying.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Chicago lead San Diego. It's a two to nothing. They're
in the bottom of the sixth and the Yankees and
Red Sox play there game three this evening in the Bronx.
All right, there is a football game tonight. I think
baseball is going to take priority at least for me.
Michael's going to watch football, but the Yankees and Red
Sox is usually epic television. So we'll see what happens

(02:13):
in that game tonight. It starts in about an hour.
How bad will it be for all that is right
in the world if the Yankees, having the expectation of
at least getting back to the World Series, get run
out in the wildcard game?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay, ask that question to me again.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
How bad is the baseball criticism going to be towards
the Yankees? The Steinbrenner family, I mean, and I talk
about the Yankees, and I became I was never really
a Yankee fan until about fifteen years ago when I
started listening to John Sterling call games.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well, I don't mind.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
You can call me a bandwagoner, and when the Yankees
suck again, I'll find somebody else I like listening to
and be a fan of them.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
As long as it's not the Dodgers, because you know,
if it winds it, well, I was gonna say, no,
it's not the Dodgers.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Are on too late at night, their games don't end
until midnight.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
As long as it's not the San Francisco Giants, because
you know, if it's the San Francisco Giants. Somebody's blocking
you immediately and never talking to you ever again.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, I understand his son could have been drafted there
and he would have had to have been a Giants
fan too.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Oh damn, that would have sucked. And for those who
don't Pat Evans.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, well Pat's sun got drafted by the by the
Washington Nationals, and he played for two seasons and the
Miners before deciding that becoming a business person paid far
more than working in the minor leagues. And he's doing
quite well, thank you. So he made the right decision.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
But anyway, I've always asked Pat, what would you have
done if he'd gotten drafted by the Giants. He said, well,
I guess I'd have been a Giants fan for the
limited time he was there. But anyway, with with those games,
those games going on tonight, I've said this a lot
in the last month or two and even be before that.

(04:11):
You can talk all you want about the success of
teams that are expected to win. If the Dodgers don't
war the World Series, to some extent, it's a failure.
Now the players and managers may think that for a while,
but there's also good teams in Philadelphia and good teams
with Chicago, and there's gonna be a lot of teams,
and if they play better and especially if they pitch better,

(04:31):
are gonna win playoff games and end up winning the
World Series. There's no guarantee you're gonna get Dodgers Yankees
again this year, and if you do, you're gonna have
a week bullpen with both teams, especially in their six
through eighth inning relief. The The Yankees have a little
bit better ninth inning relief, but six new eight has
been a concern for a long time, and the same

(04:52):
thing with the Dodgers. In fact, the Otani's even gonna
start Game one in Philadelphia this weekend. So you're gonna
have a lot of the questions and we're going to
see if those questions get answered, uh tonight, because I
think this is a it's really hard to figure out Boston.
You look at Boston's lineup and you go, how do
they ever score runs? But they pitch well and they

(05:14):
keep themselves in the game. Alex Bregman, that's how okay, Well,
that's that's what I am.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, half of your team is on other teams now,
that's not so true. The only person that's well, the
only two people that are yeah, sorry, yeah, I forgot
three Tucker Bregman and then George Springer. God I miss
them all. You know what, Kyle Tucker is gonna come back.
You know, he's he's part of Chicago now for what

(05:41):
seven months? Well, he Korea came back. He may like it.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
They're better, Well, Carlos, Korea didn't have a choice. Minnesota
was having a fire sales so they could sell the team.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well that's also, like you mentioned, you didn't have a
choice because Minnesota originally, like with George Bringer, like with Boston,
and because the ridiculousness that is the MLB Players Union. Hey, uh, congratulations,
you get to go to purgatory. But I don't want
to go play for a team that's going to lose
three thousand games. Sorry, they're paying you the most money. Okay, yeah,

(06:13):
I'm better at all.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
I think Springer could have stayed in Houston if he
wanted to. I would have loved that, but he wanted money.
He chose money over over wins. Hey, and now Donald's
good and and now and now they uh now with Korea,
at least he gets to come back and make the
same amount of money in Houston. But I think it's
no matter how you want to criticize these teams. When
you're not allowing managers to manage, then how can you

(06:36):
blame the manager when the team fails? And I you know,
we've already had uh snicker from Atlanta's not coming back.
Ron Washington's not coming back, but we're I think at
some point the owners are going to just look do
an experiment and have some guy from Harvard sending the
dugout deciding whether or not he takes people out of.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
The game or not.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Uh, and not pay them five million dollars, maybe pay
him slightly less than that. But this will be a
fun a fun game to night. Boston and New York
always is they usually even in the pitch count era.
In the pitch clock era, we have a usually along
elongated game, and I think it'll be fun to see this.
But I I don't know how Boston Manufacturers runs. They

(07:16):
just figure out a way to do it. Devers used
to be somebody that was really important that lineup, but
Regman has taken over that role. And you know Alex
is gonna get key hits, especially if he finds a
weakness in the pitching man.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
If only Rafael Devers decided to put his ego aside, guess.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
What, Andy, he'd be in the playoffs right now, Yeah,
instead of instead of out in California wondering why he's
not in the World Series or in the playoffs. Yeah yeah, so,
but hey, whatever, haven't over under Andy, because granted I
didn't watch the first game.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
The first game? Over under how many times tonight they
probably play like the you know the classic Oh it's
the Red Sox versus the Yankees, you know, all of
the old memorable moments and things like that over on.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I'm sure there'll be a highlight or two from Bucky
Dn's home run in seventy eight. Yeah, and was the
bill Buckners? Was that against the yank No, that was
against the Mets in the World Series. I mean it's
New York, so I'm sure they'll toss that in as well. Well.
You're probably more likely to have the Red Sox come
back from being three dad three oh in two two thousand.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And four, the Red Sox red sock. Yeah yeah, with
the bloody sock. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, we got to pull out all the stops tonight
because these two teams aren't going to play again until
next year.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Well, I'm sure we'll show the PI. They'll show the
Pedro Martinez unfortunate incident with uh Don Zimmer, Don Zimmer,
which again, God rest his soul. But Don, what were
you doing?

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Man? Like?

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Why were you charging Pedro Martinez?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Why? Ah?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah? All right.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
So the other series that I was, the Dodgers right
now are starting to play better baseball now that they're
in the playoffs. These these first two playoff games, I
think the Red were overmatched a little bit. But what
I'm finding is if you have a week bullpen, the
best way to not have to use that week bullpen
is to make sure that you give them a lot
of run support. And if there was a I think

(09:14):
it was last night the Dodgers were the Dodgers starting
pitching and their first relief guy through eight innings only
through eighty eight pitches. Not bad to have that many,
to have under one hundred pitches. I think they were
under a hundred pinches for the game. Uh, that's pretty

(09:35):
amazing from your entire staff. And and you're going to
go with your starters as long as you can, because
you know your bullpen has suffered. But when you have
a six run lead, you're pitching staff doesn't pitch with
as much pressure and stress and they're able to get
people out easier. So I'm I think that's going to
be a strategy for the Dodgers going forward, is get

(09:57):
on teams early and then worry about the bullpen with
the lead instead of having to get the bullpen in
there when the game is tight or year behind, because
that's when you have extra stress.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
On your on your bullpen. You said the Dodgers game.
It was a Dodgers game last.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Night last night. Yeah, the Dodgers Reds game. I don't
know what game you were talking about. I was just
listening to what the announcers were saying.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, because Yamamoto, who pitched six and two thirds inning,
who gave up four hits, two runs, two walks, nine k's,
had one hundred and thirteen total pitches.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Right, Well, maybe they were they were coming up with
another stat it was it was maybe it was Game one.
I don't remember that they had they they had a
limited number of pitches to win that game. That's just
something that you don't usually hear of, and I see
a lot of different games. So I'm not sure where
that stat came from, but there was somebody yesterday that
their combined pitching was around one hundred pitches.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
It was probably one of those weird analytics stats where
Andy where it was like between the hours of seven
seven pm to nine pm Eastern Standard time. You know,
Yamamoto only pitched this many pitches. So, all right, baseball
loves it, Staf.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
That's what it's all about, you except I don't. I
like stats too, but I like stats when they matter
or when they mean something. Like you said, I don't
care what your batting average is at two o'clock in
the afternoon when the temperature seventy six degrees, But if
you're one for eleven against a guy, or you're ten
for eleven, that's that's a trend that matters. That's a
stat that's worth talking about.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
You know who you know who would potentially care about that?
Like if just say, like John H John batted three
sixteen on a Tuesday, Uh, Ricky would because Ricky don't
care what that John hit three sixteen because Ricky gonna
hit three Twenty's God, I miss Ricky Henderson. We all do.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
All right, let's talk about the NFL matchup tonight, in
a couple of NFL games coming up this weekend.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
That's next. It's six twelve on the ticket.