Thursday: Why one play means more in baseball playoffs

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, four eighteen, it's the Andy Everette Show to Baseball.
Here for a second before I do that, however, I
got a notification on my phone about a golf tournament
that's going on over in Scotland right now. Oh no,
it's called the It's called the Alfred Dunhill Cup. What
the Alfred Dunhill Cup. It's the European version of Pebble Beach. Okay,

(00:25):
they have like two hundred people in the field. They
play Carnoustie, Kings Barnes in Saint Andrews.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey, I know that word KRNOOSTI you played there?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I have.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
I played Kings Barnes and Saint Andrews too, Kings Barnes,
that's right, Yeah, I forgot. I'm not a big fan
of Kings Barnes. It's okay, but the other two are good.
But they play around on each of the courses and
then they the top teams go to Scotland go to
the old Course on Sunday for the championship like they
do at Pebble Beach.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It's going to be forty mile an hour wins all weekend.
So just like I played exactly the same condition to
see how they do. There you go, so you'll be fine. Yeah,
I mean shot what was it you shot eighty two? Yeah?
Well I shot eighty one at Carnoustie. Yeah yeah, Well
Rory's not playing Bob McK Bob McIntyre as Kapka is playing.

(01:11):
A few other Ryder Cuppers are playing.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
But I'm telling you, Andy, you could take Phil. I
don't think I could take you could take Phil. I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Phil have to give me a stroke ahold and it
would still not be It's still win.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I mean you conquered. You conquered the old course eighty two.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
With the old Course, I shot eighty eight. I mean
you couldn't even stand up in that that day. If
they would, In fact, Phil wouldn't have even played that day.
He'd have been in the pub.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
See that's why I said you could take him. He'd
be like a I don't want to do this, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Detroit's up six to one and they're still batting in
the top of the seventh and they've got the bases
loaded and there's only one out.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Cleveland won nine of its last.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Ten games and then ended up winning the division the
last week of the season, and that got them to
where that's why Detroit's the wild card team and in
Cleveland won the division. Detroit's had the better season, and
I'm assuming they're going to hang on to this five
run lead. They're going to start a series this weekend
against Seattle the Yankees Red Sox winner gets Toronto, and

(02:12):
Toronto's had a really good season and Toronto's really been
the best most consistent team all year in the American
League East, although they haven't played great of late because
they had a five game lead with a week to
go and kind of mess things up down the stretch
and allowed the Yankees to tie them for the division lead,
and they only won the division based on the head
to head tiebreaker for the year. So but I think

(02:34):
it's so cool to watch postseason baseball because especially in places,
and I think Cleveland is one of those communities. The
Dodgers LA is certainly one of those those deals, the
Cubs and of course Yankee Stadium. Every pitch people are
on edge. The players don't sit down, they're on the
top step of the dugout. We were critical of the

(02:56):
analytical decisions that were made in Game one, and if
this game would happened in May or June, nobody would
have cared. Yeah, okay, it was an anlyical decision. We got
one hundred and sixty more of these things. But when
it happens in the playoffs, it is crunch time. On
every pitch, fans are are kneeling over hens in their head,
in their over their mouth, or over their head. And

(03:17):
then to see a guy like Jazz Chisholm, who could
have pouted after not playing in Game one and a
lot of players would have. He goes out, gets on base,
and when Wells hits the ball, he was already getting
a running start and scored first to third on a
single off the right field the right field sidewall and
a bang bang play at the play that he beat out.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
And it's just so cool to watch.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Even if the Red Sox would win, or if the
Astros were still playing, it would still be great baseball.
And I just to me, the postseason baseball is a
different animal than anything we see in the regular season,
and mainly that's because of the ridiculously long schedule, which
can never be shortened. This idea of reducing the schedule
from one sixty two.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Is never going to happen.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
If anything, they'll games because the owners want to make
more revenue so that they can pay the players their
salaries and create more revenue for the league. But it's
it's amazing to see the intensity that baseball players play
at in October, much more than they do it any
other time in the season.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, and again not to not to kind of change
the topic to h to compare it to, but it's
the same way with playoff hockey.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Is yeah you basketball, Well, no, I wouldn't necessarily the
defense changes in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, the defense changes in the playoffs, but like how
you mentioned, one pitch, one goal can literally can change
the outcome of the whole game.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
And the momentum of a game.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
One one particular bucket doesn't necessarily one play doesn't necessarily
affect a whole game as far as basketball, but like
you mentioned, yeah, every single pitch, every single play is
over micro managed, over analyzed, over talked about. You know,

(05:02):
the unfortunate one that I always rag on from last year,
Aaron Judge didn't have never had any errors whatsoever, glever
And then the one time you go back.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
To well, even Jared Durant's miss play on the ball
in the outfield yesterday. I think it was real to
hit because it was dying. He had to die for it. It
was a hard play to make, but he makes that
play ninety five percent of the time. It just got
a little bit high in the glove and he missed it.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, you go back to the Steve Bartman. As much
as we talk about that particular one play, but it
was so many other plays. But because it's baseball playoffs,
that's what we focus on. We focus on one individual
time in that game that can literally either derail something

(05:49):
or it can start something. So that's the one thing
I will agree with you on about baseball playoffs is
it is a different and it is different because one pitch,
like he's like you said, one analytic thing.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
We saw it the other day with taking freedom.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, with taking freedout, and it just because the computer said, hey,
he's not throwing one hundred miles an hour, He's only
throwing ninety eight something like that.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
He's get the hook.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, here's an interesting part. Last year in the World Series,
Garrett Cole pitched seven and a half seven innings or
seven plus innings, and when Aaron Boone came out to
the mound to take him out. He said, you want
to stay in. He goes, I'm gassed. I got nothing left,
but I'll try. And that's when Boone said, no you want,
We're gonna go get somebody that's fresher. And if Max Freed,
I told Aaron Boone, I'm I'm gassed, I got nothing left,

(06:42):
but I'll try. Then I okay, go to the bull bullpen.
But Free didn't say that. He goes, I'm fine, you
gonna go back to the bench. No, you've pitched six
and a third. We didn't even expect you to pitch
this long. We got a right handed hitter coming up.
Let's go to the bullpen. And then Boston all of
a sudden has momentum back on their side because they
haven't been able to get you the whole game.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
And I know there's this analytical.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Thing that says, when you go around the lineup for
the third time, the rest of the team has you
figured out. But if you're still pitching good and you're
still in a rhythm, you still have the advantage. The
pitcher always has the advantage. Baseball is the one sport
that the game changes every single day, because we change

(07:23):
the most important player, the most important player out there
is the pitcher. If he's dealing, the best offenses in
the world are not going to hit him. But if
he's off I heard Aaron Judge say this in an
interview years ago. The difference between a strikeout, a foul ball,
and a home run is a half an inch. If
I if I miss by half an inch, I swing

(07:45):
and miss. If I miss by a quarter of an inch,
I've failed off. And if I hit it on the screws,
it's going out of the park. It is literally a
half an inch difference be where the bat and the
ball are.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
If my exit velocity is one thirteen instead of one
twelve point.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
It's going three seats deep instead of seventeen.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
But it really and if you if you want to
get deep into the analytics of this, no, I really don't,
and neither do I. But if you look at where
pitches are pitched and and that, and you look at
where the ball hits the bat, that bat's what three
or four inches in diameter around maybe six whatever it is,
But it can literally be you know, just millimeters difference

(08:23):
in whether you get a hit or you get an out,
or you falling into.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
The seats, especially if you're using those cheating torpedo.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Bats, they wouldn't use those in a while. Yeah, funny. Yeah,
that didn't last long, did it.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
It was there for a little while, but it's you know,
nobody's using those anymore. And they weren't cheating. They said
they were legal, but we're not seeing much of it anymore.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, sure, all right. By the way, the Yankees.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Are going to have Rice play tonight finally, and Grisham's so,
I mean Chisholm so and Grisham for that matter.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
So other than.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Goldschmidt, they've got a pretty good lefty righting combination of
a lineup. We'll see how this works out, and we'll
see who is playing on the weekend. Let's talk Utsa
and Temple next with Kevin Kopp. He's the voice of
the Owls. It's four twenty eight on the tickets.