July 26, 2024 • 37 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon welcome in longtime NBA Insider Ric Bucher to preview Team USA’s Olympic run in Paris. Ric‘s optimistic they can secure their 5th consecutive gold but explains why it won’t be a cake walk. And Randy Arozarena has been traded to the Seattle Mariners!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
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Speaker 2 (00:22):
LEA give this you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Greetings, Welcome inside our three, The Jason Smith Show with
my best friend Mike Harmon, live from the Tirack dot
Com studios tirec dot com. I'll help me get there.
An unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road as a protection,
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tirack dot com is
the way tire buying should be. Well. The Olympics has begun.
(00:53):
We have the opening ceremonies tomorrow. TBUSA hoops a few
days away from Game one. Nobody better to talk to
than a man who is working on a new novel,
the Jalen Brunson Story. It is Fox Sports one insider
extraordinary Rick Bucker, who has also just gotten Bengals fan
that Rick Bucker is has just gotten a Joe Burrow
(01:16):
blonde haircut. He looks like he could be Joe Burrow's
older brother Rick. Welcome inside, man, how you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you so much. I'll have you know that. When
it comes to haircuts, and particularly buzz cuts, I once
upon a time I did that because my son was
doing it and he was probably six or seven, and
he looked pretty damn good and I did not. And
(01:44):
the worst part of it is is as bad as
you might look with a buzz cut, there's then a
like a two to three week period when you're going
from buzz cut to like hair long enough to actually
comb again, where I don't know, cross between a CuPy
doll and a chia pet. I was, it's not a
(02:05):
good look that. And mustaches. I tried to grow a
mustache once again. My wife, my wife will never allow
me to do that again. And the problem was is
that everybody would tell me when are you going to
shave that off? And I to myself, because I'm a
stubborn idiot, I was like, I have to go three
(02:25):
weeks without hearing anybody say when are you going to
shave that off? And then I will shave it off
because I didn't want anybody to think that they shamed
me into shaving it off. And as a result, it
probably was three more months that I was.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I was.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I almost had to go into hibernation to avoid somebody going,
when are you going to shave that off? So there's
all my hair stories and so I'm not about to
crack on Joe Burrow. He's a good looking he's a
good looking young man. I'm sure that he can pull
it off. So I am in no position to critique
his buzz cut.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So what you're telling me is the whole Hey, and
if the nick when the title you grow a mustache,
bet is not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That No.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
There are other things that I would bet, but that
that is no. My wife would disown me. So I'm
I can't go. My wife and my daughter, my daughter,
we were getting on a plane one time and there
was a a an advertisement for I think like New
Zealand Air or something and uh and there was one
(03:27):
of those Kiwi fruits and my daughter looked at it
and went, Dad, that's your monk.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Dad. So he ties it all together. He gets New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And when we're talking about the big New Zealand Canadas
soccer story.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So it's all good.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, there you go, There you go. That's all
I got. So yeah, I am in no position to
question anybody's hair style whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
All Right, So here we are. We're getting set for
the Olympics. Obviously, Team USA is going to take center
stage when they start playing. First game is in a
few days. Steve Kerr had a bad film session with
the team yesterday and said, hey, guys, it's time to
raise our intensity. Yeah, is that it for Team USA?
Is it something else?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What have you seen out a Team USA so far?
Because it seems like Steve Kerr is a little concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, Well, at the very least, they need to raise
their intensity and and that's the shortcut for teams that
haven't had enough time to develop a sort of chemistry
and fluidity to their game. And then the other part
is simply there. They are an older team, and older
(04:37):
teams generally don't play that way, and the stars that
we see on this team generally don't play that way.
And I've been thinking about this a lot lately because
I said it from the beginning. I'm sure I said
it to you guys when we discussed the composition of
the roster and what their chances were. And one of
my issues was, you know, it's in the star on
(05:00):
this team, the main pieces are are older, and the
international game plays with a greater pace. Even in the
half court set. The ball movement and the body movement
is tremendous, and I think one of where where it's
showing up the most is that other teams are able
(05:20):
to shoot a lot more threes and make a lot
more threes because our guys are slow in their rotations.
You know, Lebron James is not used to having to
rotate out and and and defend the three. Joel Embiid
same thing, and so Devin Booker is often a step late.
(05:43):
And so I've really been wondering, like, is there a
point where Steve Curse says, you know what, I got
to play Jason Tatum and Drew Holliday and Derek White
and Bam out of bio and maybe Anthony Davis, like
those are the guys that I need to go to,
because what I've seen through these exhibitions is that those
are the guys who have given the most consistent energy
(06:06):
at both ends of the floor, and we're just not
you know this is the harsh reality. I think there's
plenty of NBA fans and bats and US basketball fans
who see the names and just think that it's there
for the taking for us, like we're just going to dominate.
Those days are over. We haven't. The two thousand and
eight Redeemed team won, but it didn't dominate, and they
(06:28):
were built because we weren't. We weren't were not only
we weren't dominating, but we weren't. We weren't winning consistently anymore.
And so we're in a new day and age where
the talent disparity is not great enough if we don't
play with energy, and so I completely understand where Steve
(06:49):
Kerr is coming from. These games were close, These exhibition
games were close because because we lost the battle of
the fifty to fifty balls and rebounding and getting out
defending the three, and that is going to have to
change if we're going to win gold.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
The mountain of turnovers, the sloppiness to it all Rick
is concerning on a whole other level. Take me back
to Saturday, South Sudan and what they're building and they're
playing as you're watching that game, How a gape was
your jaw when you had to pick it up off
the floor, which.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Time well, you know, yeah, you know what's funny is
I think the thing that surprised me the most is because,
let's let's face it, there there were a number of
guys on Royal Ivy is the is the head coach
of that team, assistant coach with the Houston Rockets. Now
he was with the Brooklyn Nets, played in the league.
(07:39):
Like That's the one element that I think that we
we miss on is that, yeah, these are Isaac Bongo
and with Germany and and the guys on South Sudan,
Like they may not be household names, but if you
look at their resumes, they've played NBA competition. A number
(08:03):
of them have played against NBA competition, and so they
understand the NBA game and they understand the NBA talent
and then they also understand the international game better than
we do. I think what's what shocked me the most
was that South Sudan was beating us and they were
playing an NBA style game. But if there was ever
(08:25):
anything that would underscore Steve Kerr's point that they need
that the team needs to play with more intensity, it
would be it would be that game because South Sudan
was just they were out. They were out working us
from the beginning, and I got the sense that while
there may be US basketball fans who are just kind
(08:48):
of full of themselves when it comes to Team USA
and dominating, I got the sense from the team itself
that they felt like, hey, you know, we don't know
who these guys are, Like they know who we are
with this game, you know, we don't have to work
that hard to win this game. And they they nearly
(09:08):
got upset because of it. So I I was not
expecting it to be that close. Obviously, the point the
the odds and the point differential or by the by
the bookmakers was was plus forty or something. Yeah, So
so obviously they you know, there was an expect there
(09:31):
was never an expectation that this was going to be
a competitive game. But I just I don't know that
there's anybody in the world now that we can just
roll the balls out there and think that we are
going to that that we're going to dominate them. Because
there's the biggest maybe at least one of the big things,
(09:53):
is there's no longer an intimidation factor by by by
the names like Royal Ivy coaching that team, and some
of the guys who've had NBA experience and and know
the international game, they're no longer looking at Team USA
and shaking in their boots because it's Lebron James and
Steph Curry and I mean they played against them, some
(10:14):
of them played with them when and Gabriel played played
with Lebron James, so that that familiarity breeds a comfort
level that you know when we talk about the Dream
Team and some of the early Team USA is built
out of NBA players, you know, they still had the
shock and awe value teams. You know, the teams opponents
(10:38):
were looking to looking for autographs and you know when
somebody had Team USA would get on a roll like
they were, oh here it comes right. There's that does
not exist anymore. We don't we don't have that type
of intimidation factor and and that was a big reason
why we were able to roll up the score on
some of the teams that we did back in the day.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You know, I hear you reckon, you know, you see
exactly how tight things get in a gold medal game.
I still remember when Kobe Bryant said, screw all of
you that don't want to shoot the ball, Give me
the ball. I'll win the gold medal. And you know,
I hear your point about saying, hey, I got to
play Tatum and BAM and Derek White and a d
And I think, yeah, that's how it goes. And then
(11:20):
you're Steve Kurr. You look back at the guys on
the bench and it's Lebron sitting next to Steph, who's
sitting next to Embiid, who's sitting next to KB. I
mean that's really to do Rick.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, no, no, no, no, I mean that that to me
is the difficulty here, which is like, can you get
away with playing the best team the team not not
not necessarily the best team, but the best team for
the circumstances and for the opponent. And and that's where
he has his his hands full.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
It's I think the guys have the right attitude and
they want to win, but man, the pressure to to
play Lebron and Steph you know, over a Derek White
or even a Drew Holliday or or you know, playing
(12:16):
Jason Tatum over Lebron like this is this is also
if you look at how the team was composed and
Lebron and Steph committing to it early. There's also a
sense of obligation to them for that that I totally understand. So,
like I said, from the beginning, you know, and then
(12:36):
the thing that bothers me maybe the most is what
I've heard because of these games have been close, I'm
seeing on social media and I'm I'm seeing fans that
are ripping Steve Kerr like like it's his fault, Like right,
I mean, he's not the one who's not rotating out
to contest three. And that's the other part too that
(12:59):
I would say is the reason you know that the
X factor here in these close contests is and we
see it with the NBA, like the three point shot
has become such a big element that if you're making them,
you know you you and one team's making them and
the other one is is is not, but they're both
(13:21):
taking them at the same sort of pace. Those long
misses turn out to you know, fast break layups and
more open three pointers, and you can get you know,
landslides and avalanches going in one direction. And I think
Team USA has suffered from that a bit too, because
(13:42):
let's face it, you know, you got Steph Curry, who
hasn't shot hasn't always shot it particularly well. And then
you have Devin Booker who has not shot it particularly well.
And then you look at the rest of this team,
and Lebron has shot it particularly well. But Jason Tatum's
not a guy I count on to knockdown threes through
holiday can but I don't count on him. And so
(14:05):
I think there's there's an aspect of the game in
three point shooting that you know, other teams, if they
get hot and they see an opportunity we can knock
off Team USA, that's only going to embolden them more.
There's just so many intangible factors that are working against
us here that I don't think that the average fan
appreciates or recognizes, because if they did, they wouldn't be
(14:29):
walking around thinking, oh, hey, we got KD, we got Lebron,
we got we got Jason Tatum, we got Joe l MB.
We're gonna walk all over these other teams that those days,
those days are over and they are not coming back.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Also not coming back. A mustache, A go to any
sort of facial hit. There you go yes to sports
what Insider extraordinary?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Rick Buker, bull Patch I could do it.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Okay, if the Knicks win the title, you you go.
The soul patch.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's the deal.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Is it because it's patchy or is it too light
or what? What's the problem? Rick?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
No, for whatever reason, that's the one. That's the one
thing that I can work. Yeah, it's it's it's it's
I Although I will say I had one and then
I out of the blue, I got called by tn
T to do sideline and I don't think they were
they were ready for a sideline reporter.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
With a soul patch.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I'm pretty I'm pretty sure they thought I should be
covering like the uh the Hawaii Surf open with the
soul patch and hey, are.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
We gonna call Buker next week? We have an opening? No,
you mean the X Games? Guy, forget it? Hey, lame
duck season. Now all bets are off. Rick. Check out
the On the Ball podcast as well. Rick on Twitter
at Rick Buker. Rick is always buddy appreciated. We'll talk
to you after the play the first game.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Guys. All right, great stuff for the best right there?
I mean, I mean there there is no more pressure
than you get to the final few seconds or final
few minutes of a gold medal game and it's like, Oh,
who's on the court, who wants the ball? Oh, it's
gonna be outstanding. Uh, coming up next? Hey, great stuff
there in the NBA. We have a big story out
(16:14):
of not only just Major League Baseball, but out of
the NFL. Oh, keep it right here. Yes, we're at
full swing. It is training cap week zero.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Hey, we're Cavino and Rich Fox Sports Radio every day
five to seven pm Eastern. But here's the thing. We
never have enough time to get to everything we want
to get to.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
And that's why we have a brand new podcast called
over Promised. You see, we're having so much fun in
our two hour show. We never get to everything, honestly,
because this guy'll be over promising things we never have
time for.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Yeah, you blober Liam and me. Well you know what
it's called over promise. You should good at it because
you've been over promising women for years.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
Well, it's a Covino and Rich after show, and we
want you to be a part of it. We're gonna
be talking sports, of course, but we're also gonna talk
life and relationships, and if Rich and I are arguing
about something or we didn't have enough time, it will
continue on our after show called over Promised.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
Well, if you don't get enough Covino and Rich, make
sure you check out over Promised and also Uncensored by
the way, so maybe we'll go at it even a
little harder. It's gonna be the best after show podcast
of all time.
Speaker 7 (17:26):
There you go, over Promising. Remember you could see on YouTube,
but definitely join us. Listen to over Promised with Covino
and Rich on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Fox Sports Radio, The Jason Smith Show with my best
friend Mike Harmon live from the tirerac dot Com Studios.
Happy Kershaw Day. You want to say this because earlier
in the show, Justin Frossberg said something to me that
I still take to heart. That still is a very
a big thing they didn't think about. He said, Hey
(17:58):
Kershaw Days. Yeah, he was fo good. You know, I
got you know, here's what I think after seeing the pitch.
He goes height you better be good to him. And
I said why, He says, because I don't know how
many Curshaw days I have left. And I thought, wow,
you could be counting on well, maybe not two hands,
but I don't know four hands, eight feet whatever it is.
(18:18):
Uh yeah, thirty six Kershaw, you know, maybe twelve starts
this year. Who knows where he's at. I mean, we
could be looking at not many curse Shaw days left,
my god, then maybe less than fifty Kershaw days left overall,
because honestly, he's never gonna pitch a whole season again, right,
(18:39):
that's out the window. So you'd be looking at he
could be less than fifty starts he might have left
in his MLB career. Think about that for a second, him,
Ricky Bumm, I'm telling you, man, think about this.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
This is one of those where you know, you'd expect
him to step forward and some band starts playing maybe
the violin, and he starts talking about that young Texas
South baw coming in Dude Roger Stadium back in two
thousand and eight and witnessing greatness from the start, all
of those shades of Sandy Cofax and so many others to.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Where we are now. Is that kind of what we do.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
The long road with Clayton Kershaw and the many weary
miles traveled with that curveball from the gods to where
we are today, where we're just thankful for each start.
That's where we're at, Jason. We celebrate them all, right.
When the greats release another album or take another tour,
(19:34):
Mick Jagger eighty one today, got to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Happy birthday, Mick.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You know, you go and you celebrate it when you
get a chance to go see a movie with the
guy one more time. Sure it might look terrible, pick
your favorite actor. They've done something schlocky for the check,
but you go celebrate it because you get to see
them on the celluloid one more time.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Kershaw on the bump.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Even if it's only one more time, we'll all celebrate
that together.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Now. Look, I'll say this right today, he goes four
innings in his return, he gives up a couple of runs,
starts out six. It's not it was. It was a
pretty decent. It was about what I expect.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Forty seven strikes in his seventy two pitches, so I mean, yeah,
pretty efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, it's about what I expected. Like you know, watching
him today, I'm like, okay. He looked certainly like the
old enough, like the old Clayton Kershaw. And yeah, he
even said I'm not ready. I know I can't go
eight innings, but he wants to get back there and pitch.
He's not He's not one of those guys where I'll take,
you know, here's I'll take this rehab started Rancho Cucamonga.
I'm gonna starting. He's like, I can help the team.
I can give you five innings. Put me out there,
(20:37):
give me five innings. What are the Dodgors gonna say, No,
of course, okay, we'll give you five innings. And watching him,
it's like, okay, I don't see him very far from
being whatever the best version of Clayton Kershaw is going
to be, it's not gonna be. What we does is
fastball sitting around ninety miles an hour, which is that
you know, down from it's high a few years ago.
You know, he's got a little bit less oomph on it.
(20:57):
But when I when I think about him going forward,
I say, there's no reason to not be cautiously optimistic
about Kershaw for the rest of the season. Right because
we get to a point in sports now where when
your stars get older, they're just gonna be hurt. It's
like become an accepted part. Well, so and so is
(21:18):
now over thirty five, He's going to get hurt, and
you just have to hope that the injury isn't at
a time that kills you. Yeah, and it's not something
so bad they wind up missing the whole season. Right,
we see it a lot in the NBA. Hey gonna
hope Zion Williamson when he gets hurt, because he gets
hurt every year. Hey, he gets hurt the beginning of
the year, so he's around at the end of the season.
And you know that didn't work out. He got hurt
they needed the most. You know, we've worked look at
(21:40):
that with Lebron and Ad. You know, we know they're
gonna get hurt. Last year they were pretty healthy. But
when they do get hurt, you're hoping that it's going
to be at a time that doesn't just absolutely kill them.
And the Dodgers. If you want to paint a positive
picture for for Kershon, no reason not to. Maybe you think, okay,
he's he got by his injury this year. You're not
(22:01):
going to need to rely on him for thirty five starts,
because he's not gonna do that. If you have Clayton
Kershaw on the beginning of April, you know at some
point he's going to go on the injured list, right,
you know it's his back or whatever it's going to be.
He's going to get dinged up. Now that you're only
counting on him for ten to twelve starts, whatever you
have in the playoffs, Hey, maybe this, Hey, Kershaw is
(22:21):
going to be fine. The rest of the way he's
had his time. Had his time is you know, to
rehab and get back, and you only need him for
a shorter amount of time. So no reason to not
be cautiously optimistic that you could get a really good Yeah,
you get a good version of Clayton Kershaw. Now that
being said, the Dodgers still need two new starting pitchers,
because if you're talking about where you're at for the
(22:41):
playoffs right now, you would say, well, we got Glass
though in game one, and probably Kershaw in game two. Wait,
the guy just had his first start back. Doesn't matter,
that's where right because everybody else is hurt. You have
no idea if these other guys are going to come back.
When you hear for a picture like Yoshinoba Yamamodo. Hey,
maybe the end of August, beginning of September. When you
start looking at return dates with a month to go
(23:03):
in the season, like is that really going to happen? Like,
you get to the point where is that really going
to happen? It's not where he got hurt in May.
We're looking at a return date sometime in late June
early July. When you're saying sometime in September, how often
does that really happen? Right? And you have Walker Buehler
may not be the same, and Miller's and the miners.
You have to be aggressive because you can't look at
this year and go, Okay, we're not going to go
(23:24):
for it, right, it's an MVP year from show Hey
o Tani, they're hitting the ball. You have to go
out and get two starting pitchers, not one. You got
to go get two, and maybe that's going to be
enough to navigate the fall because it is World Series
of us. We're not talking about the Dodgers making the playoffs.
We're talking about winning the World Series. That's what they do.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean a couple of the things that you're considering, right,
is the number of pictures with injuries. So now you're
playing the game of Djenga or chess, whatever your game.
You're a game guy, so you know, you pick the
one that fits best. But the idea of you know, Kershaw,
you at least have the institutional knowledge, right, he's been
a dodger, so everything that's happened medically with him, you've
(24:04):
been privy to. This is not the exchange of information
that we have a lot of times, like wait they
skip that. Yeah, no, no, no, they didn't tell us all
of that. There's more going on, so you at least
have that, and you've watched how he battles through and
you know his makeup and obviously older, but still you
know what he's going to bring to the table as
(24:25):
you push forward. But you're playing the percentages and trying
to limit the exposure not only for him on the
injury front, but everybody else. Right, Glass, now is your
healthiest and he's just coming off the il. So that's
a terrible spot to start from. But now you're trying
to figure out how you're stealing innings, how you're managing
(24:48):
this right, load management in a much different form. Not hey,
you're going to miss a bunch of time, but all right,
is seventy to seventy five pitches eighty pitches going to
be the maximum for him? Maybe maybe that's where he's at.
Maybe the fastball doesn't get up, but maybe one or
two more ticks. Don't know, But you know, banking on
(25:09):
the rest of that rotation to come back healthy is
a fool's Errand so you've pushed all in by bringing
in Otani. You look at everything else, prayers up to
Freddie Freeman and his family is you know, got some
stuff with his kid that you know, we heard about
earlier today. So you're managing a lot of this as
(25:29):
you're you're getting into the stretch run. But you've gone
all in right to assemble the squad. Mookie Bets is
gonna come back, and hopefully that'll help facilitate, you know,
maybe some less stressful inning on the starters because the
offense picks up and is more consistent as well. So
all of that to say, the next week is going
(25:50):
to be really interesting to watch who shakes free because
there aren't a lot of teams that are obvious sellers
for this deadline. Jason, right, you got four teams in
the American League led by my pathetic Chicago White Sox,
and what do you have two or three teams in
the National League. I mean, if you read the local newspapers,
you'd be like, all right, the Cubs, well they're terrible,
(26:10):
said they're only five and a half games out of
a wildcard slot. Now that they've got to jump past
like seven teams. But that's a really good week and
a half of baseball and suddenly you're back in the mix, right,
depending on how the schedule shakes out and everything else,
and cannibal ism within within that group of teams, but
(26:31):
it's just to say you're gonna have a lot of
competition for very few names in terms of elite names.
And now this is where the Dodgers scouting department and
that you know, great analytics staff, they've got to go
find a diamond or two in the rough to help,
particularly as we start talking about the pen as well.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon live from the
Tirac dot Com Studios. I mean, this is a story.
This is a combo of Spygate and the Michigan scandal.
It's absolutely because this is the Spygate portion of it
with Hey, low level staffer taking video that nobody knows
because obviously, hey, soccer doesn't have the same sort of
(27:10):
protection around it like the NFL does or the NBA does.
We get around it. And with the Michigan part of it,
it's hey, all of a sudden, Canada soccer, which was
you know, hey, Canadian soccer was okay, and what's going
on the last you know, five to seven years, Canada
soccer men's women's has gotten really good, like all of
a sudden. Now it's like, oh, now I get it.
(27:31):
So kind of how Michigan went from hey, we're winning
seven or eight games a year, but Harbaugh's losing to
Ohio State every year and Michigan State every other year.
All of a sudden, Hey, we're ten wins, eleven wins,
were playing for the national champions We're in the playoffs.
Oh and by the way, yeah, we've been filming the
other team signals on the other side. We know what
they're running. Oh, now you know how Michigan got so
good so fast? And that's the same thing here. Oh
(27:52):
now you know why Canada got so good so fast.
I don't know, I don't know how this hasn't blown
up into being a baby because it's just because it's
it's not the United States, it's not Brazil, it's not
a traditional a big you know power, But like, how
is this not a bigger deal? Where this is a
country that has been accused of and there's stories of
(28:13):
how they've been flouting the law by doing this for
a long time, and yin you got Steve Disager with quotes,
Oh yeah, we can sneak out of the hotel and
we could get there. We could take video and hide
behind bushes like this wasn't rocket sized. No one's stopping
us from doing this, but it's not in our nature
to do this. Priestsman took over in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
I wanted to tie this together because Eric writes us
in the Instagram world, that's swollen dum quote. How does
Jason explain the Mets being good now from being really bad?
I'd like to know, being a Mets fan. I also
don't want to know because I really disliked cheaters. How
they get so good so fast? It was just one
(28:54):
Francisco Lindor led team meeting.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Evidently that pushed it over you talking about we got Grimace.
He threw out the first pitch Our winning percentage in
the Grimace era is seven to eleven. We have a
seven hundred winning So he's gotta Spendali like effect. That's
all it is. That's all you explained. It's putting in
the purple shakes. We had Grimace. I don't care, man, whatever.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
He's putting in there, either for you as an enhancement
or detraction. Here we catered, uh you know with Grimace
and show.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
It's McDonald's man, this is Grimmace doing it for him.
That's an easy question. Man. I thought you're gonna scare
me with that.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
But this is a huge deal, brother, I mean this,
this is a much bigger deal. I mean, do you
do the opposite of a metal ceremony? You have to
bring everybody back, they wear their medals and then ceremoniously,
uh you play have some band play them off as
you rip them off their necks.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Shame well, the shame bell rings in the background. Exit
out bout a Fresco, Exit Swollen Dome. The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon live from the tiraq dot Com Studios.
Coming up next. One big story today from the Olympics.
Maybe we gotta tap the brakes on it a little bit.
What is it? We'll tell you next right here, Jason
to Mike. This is Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific Fox Sports.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Radio The Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon.
Fox Sports Radios teamed up with tirerac dot Com to
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by Tirac dot Com. The way tire buying should be, well,
it's almost like we put it out in the universe
and it happened. We'll get to the US women's national
team coming up in a few minutes, but it was
last night. John Paul Morosi, MLB Network insider, joined us
(31:06):
and said, you know, we could be on the cusp
of the greatest trade deadline I have ever covered in
my twenty years covering the sport in Major League Baseball,
because there are so many teams that have a great
shot at the postseason, that are playing well now, that
are flawed and need to make moves. And it's been
especially fun tonight watching Braves Twitter just melt down after
(31:30):
the loss to the Mets. The Mets are a half
game out, Senga is back pitching tomorrow night, and they're like,
get this guy, get this guy. This is awful. Fire Sniker,
get rid of Kelnick, get rid of him. Dfa Loreoto afternight,
all man, it is because the Braves Twitter is so
smug with Look how smart we are. We signed all
our players to all these contracts before you have to Oh,
(31:50):
and now it's all.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Everybody's hurt, and then you get a great start from
sale that goes to the wayside.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It is fun watching Brave Twitter. Mel b bet, it
is fun. However, the first impact trade of the Major
League Baseball deadline is going down a huge bat, one
of the hottest bats in baseball is on the move.
Who's getting him special delivery? Steve de Seger has the
breaking news right now.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Break breaking news from Fox Sports.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Fox is Ken Rosenthal reporting the Mariners are acquiring outfielder
Randy a rose Arena from Tampa Bay. The MLB trade
deadline is July the thirtieth. You mentioned a hot bet.
A rose Arena was betting one ninety one a month ago.
He's betting about two to ninety since then. A ros
Arena is still so young in his career, he's not
(32:44):
eligible for free agency for a while. He is arbitration
eligible next year. But you acquire this guy, you could
keep him. And remember the previous three years straight, he's
had at least twenty home runs roughly eighty RBIs each
of the three years. Now, compare the Mariners and the
Tampa Bay Rays, because well, the Tampa Bay Rays are
(33:06):
about a five hundred team, but they're looking up at
the Orioles and the Red Sox and the Yankees in
their division Seattle about five hundred. They're only a game
out in the AO West behind Houston and guys, we
had another trade tonight the Mark.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Wait, but remember Steve a month ago it was a
ten game lead for the marriage. Yeah, that division and
that kind of disappee. And now you're waiting to see
how long Rodriguez is going to be out.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Yes, since Seattle has lost three straight games as well.
The other trade tonight the Marlins dealt reliever Aj Puck
to Arizona over in the NL West. Arizona is only
a game back of the Padres for second place. Pack
is six foot seven left. He was a starter early year,
so don't let the high era fool you. He has
been better as a reliever.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So if Chris Berman was doing that story, Stev would say,
and yes, the Coyotes have left Arizona, but there will
be Puck Phoenix this year. DJ, that might be your
best line. That's a good one because that's very fast.
I mean that that's the synapse is firing. All the
chocolate and.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Caffeine and whatever else. The highs of being a Met
fan right now are really kicking in.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Beg you, Steve, look this look, as we said, teams
are flawed. The Briners have seen a season where we
have a ten game lead, this is where we go
for it, and now they've really stumbled and the Astros
didn't think the Astros would overtake them. We thought the
Astros would be sellers. And when you got no, you did,
I thought they were coming. Oh stop, you're just you
(34:37):
can go find the tape. I'll go find the table.
Won't be there, it won't be Oh yeah, the tape
where Harmon. Supposedly you have conveniently killed it off. No,
that tape has just checked out. It's been missing from
the library. Who's at it, Mike Harmon is gonna send
two and a half months. We're gonna send the book
cop after you, the cops. Listen. Joy boy, you have
late fees for this book. You know, I think I
(34:58):
still somewhere have a book I checked out of the
library in like second grade. It was like NBA Greats.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
It was like a highly necessary thing for culture and posterity,
no question.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
One of those big books that had a bunch of
pictures in it, like each page is like a bio
of a star player, right like, And I'm like, I
don't think I have that anymore. Gives you that of
the Sandy kofax book, you kept righting The Baseball Life
of Sandy Kofax Man I got. I got to college
on that thing of that one. Absolutely, But look, Randy
rose Arena is he's the definition of streaky right. We've
(35:32):
seen him do it in the playoffs where he looks
like he's the best player to ever put on a uniform.
But by and large, he's a twenty to twenty five
home run guy, knocks in eighty five to ninety runs
a year, hits two fifty five to two sixty. He
is solid. He is a solid, good player who can
carry a team over a course of a few weeks
(35:52):
because he gets hot. But then you have times where boy,
he's hitting one fifty over the last month. But this
is a great acquisition by the Mariners. I love that
they struck early because hey, look it just the price
would have just gone up getting closer to the deadline.
And now you have someone that, hey, he not only
can he fill a void while Rodriguez is out, when
Rodriguez gets back, he's gonna play every day. This tells
(36:13):
the team we believe in you. We believe it. We're
not gonna sell pieces off because we give away a
ten game lead. If anything, we're gonna add to them
because we still believe and believe that this is our year.
I think there's this is a great move again. He's
as hot as anybody in Major League Baseball over the
course of the past month and a half, but he
was awful the first month and a half. This is
(36:35):
kind of who he is. But I love the guts,
I love I love the message more than anything, saying
don't worry, we're gonna go for it. And the Mariners
are going for it.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Thirty four extra base hit, sixteen stolen bases, and with
this hot month and a half, his batting average up
to two eleven.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, that's how hot. He's the Jeff McNeil of the
American League. Hey, look at this, he's red hot. He's
in a two oh four.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Now I remember how much you hated him. I love
Jeff Hill the night now you love him and Lindor
like no other.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I love Lorianto for missing that. But oh what happened?
What happened? Drift? The first big trade of the deadline
goes down. The Mariners are getting Randy E. Rose Arena
from the Tampa Bay Rays. My mom's gonna be really oh, oh,
you know what, they're out, They're out there in clear water.
(37:23):
Tape it and then play it back tomorrow. Night in
the show. All right, coming up next, Yes, we'll get
back into the biggest sports story of the day. This
is
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Foxsports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every night on the
iHeartRadio app by searching fsr.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
LEA give this you're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Greetings, Welcome inside our three, The Jason Smith Show with
my best friend Mike Harmon, live from the Tirack dot
Com studios tirec dot com. I'll help me get there.
An unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road as a protection,
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tirack dot com is
the way tire buying should be. Well. The Olympics has begun.
(00:53):
We have the opening ceremonies tomorrow. TBUSA hoops a few
days away from Game one. Nobody better to talk to
than a man who is working on a new novel,
the Jalen Brunson Story. It is Fox Sports one insider
extraordinary Rick Bucker, who has also just gotten Bengals fan
that Rick Bucker is has just gotten a Joe Burrow
(01:16):
blonde haircut. He looks like he could be Joe Burrow's
older brother Rick. Welcome inside, man, how you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you so much. I'll have you know that. When
it comes to haircuts, and particularly buzz cuts, I once
upon a time I did that because my son was
doing it and he was probably six or seven, and
he looked pretty damn good and I did not. And
(01:44):
the worst part of it is is as bad as
you might look with a buzz cut, there's then a
like a two to three week period when you're going
from buzz cut to like hair long enough to actually
comb again, where I don't know, cross between a CuPy
doll and a chia pet. I was, it's not a
(02:05):
good look that. And mustaches. I tried to grow a
mustache once again. My wife, my wife will never allow
me to do that again. And the problem was is
that everybody would tell me when are you going to
shave that off? And I to myself, because I'm a
stubborn idiot, I was like, I have to go three
(02:25):
weeks without hearing anybody say when are you going to
shave that off? And then I will shave it off
because I didn't want anybody to think that they shamed
me into shaving it off. And as a result, it
probably was three more months that I was.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I was.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I almost had to go into hibernation to avoid somebody going,
when are you going to shave that off? So there's
all my hair stories and so I'm not about to
crack on Joe Burrow. He's a good looking he's a
good looking young man. I'm sure that he can pull
it off. So I am in no position to critique
his buzz cut.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So what you're telling me is the whole Hey, and
if the nick when the title you grow a mustache,
bet is not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That No.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
There are other things that I would bet, but that
that is no. My wife would disown me. So I'm
I can't go. My wife and my daughter, my daughter,
we were getting on a plane one time and there
was a a an advertisement for I think like New
Zealand Air or something and uh and there was one
(03:27):
of those Kiwi fruits and my daughter looked at it
and went, Dad, that's your monk.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Dad. So he ties it all together. He gets New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And when we're talking about the big New Zealand Canadas
soccer story.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So it's all good.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, there you go, There you go. That's all
I got. So yeah, I am in no position to
question anybody's hair style whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
All Right, So here we are. We're getting set for
the Olympics. Obviously, Team USA is going to take center
stage when they start playing. First game is in a
few days. Steve Kerr had a bad film session with
the team yesterday and said, hey, guys, it's time to
raise our intensity. Yeah, is that it for Team USA?
Is it something else?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What have you seen out a Team USA so far?
Because it seems like Steve Kerr is a little concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, Well, at the very least, they need to raise
their intensity and and that's the shortcut for teams that
haven't had enough time to develop a sort of chemistry
and fluidity to their game. And then the other part
is simply there. They are an older team, and older
(04:37):
teams generally don't play that way, and the stars that
we see on this team generally don't play that way.
And I've been thinking about this a lot lately because
I said it from the beginning. I'm sure I said
it to you guys when we discussed the composition of
the roster and what their chances were. And one of
my issues was, you know, it's in the star on
(05:00):
this team, the main pieces are are older, and the
international game plays with a greater pace. Even in the
half court set. The ball movement and the body movement
is tremendous, and I think one of where where it's
showing up the most is that other teams are able
(05:20):
to shoot a lot more threes and make a lot
more threes because our guys are slow in their rotations.
You know, Lebron James is not used to having to
rotate out and and and defend the three. Joel Embiid
same thing, and so Devin Booker is often a step late.
(05:43):
And so I've really been wondering, like, is there a
point where Steve Curse says, you know what, I got
to play Jason Tatum and Drew Holliday and Derek White
and Bam out of bio and maybe Anthony Davis, like
those are the guys that I need to go to,
because what I've seen through these exhibitions is that those
are the guys who have given the most consistent energy
(06:06):
at both ends of the floor, and we're just not
you know this is the harsh reality. I think there's
plenty of NBA fans and bats and US basketball fans
who see the names and just think that it's there
for the taking for us, like we're just going to dominate.
Those days are over. We haven't. The two thousand and
eight Redeemed team won, but it didn't dominate, and they
(06:28):
were built because we weren't. We weren't were not only
we weren't dominating, but we weren't. We weren't winning consistently anymore.
And so we're in a new day and age where
the talent disparity is not great enough if we don't
play with energy, and so I completely understand where Steve
(06:49):
Kerr is coming from. These games were close, These exhibition
games were close because because we lost the battle of
the fifty to fifty balls and rebounding and getting out
defending the three, and that is going to have to
change if we're going to win gold.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
The mountain of turnovers, the sloppiness to it all Rick
is concerning on a whole other level. Take me back
to Saturday, South Sudan and what they're building and they're
playing as you're watching that game, How a gape was
your jaw when you had to pick it up off
the floor, which.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Time well, you know, yeah, you know what's funny is
I think the thing that surprised me the most is because,
let's let's face it, there there were a number of
guys on Royal Ivy is the is the head coach
of that team, assistant coach with the Houston Rockets. Now
he was with the Brooklyn Nets, played in the league.
(07:39):
Like That's the one element that I think that we
we miss on is that, yeah, these are Isaac Bongo
and with Germany and and the guys on South Sudan,
Like they may not be household names, but if you
look at their resumes, they've played NBA competition. A number
(08:03):
of them have played against NBA competition, and so they
understand the NBA game and they understand the NBA talent
and then they also understand the international game better than
we do. I think what's what shocked me the most
was that South Sudan was beating us and they were
playing an NBA style game. But if there was ever
(08:25):
anything that would underscore Steve Kerr's point that they need
that the team needs to play with more intensity, it
would be it would be that game because South Sudan
was just they were out. They were out working us
from the beginning, and I got the sense that while
there may be US basketball fans who are just kind
(08:48):
of full of themselves when it comes to Team USA
and dominating, I got the sense from the team itself
that they felt like, hey, you know, we don't know
who these guys are, Like they know who we are
with this game, you know, we don't have to work
that hard to win this game. And they they nearly
(09:08):
got upset because of it. So I I was not
expecting it to be that close. Obviously, the point the
the odds and the point differential or by the by
the bookmakers was was plus forty or something. Yeah, So
so obviously they you know, there was an expect there
(09:31):
was never an expectation that this was going to be
a competitive game. But I just I don't know that
there's anybody in the world now that we can just
roll the balls out there and think that we are
going to that that we're going to dominate them. Because
there's the biggest maybe at least one of the big things,
(09:53):
is there's no longer an intimidation factor by by by
the names like Royal Ivy coaching that team, and some
of the guys who've had NBA experience and and know
the international game, they're no longer looking at Team USA
and shaking in their boots because it's Lebron James and
Steph Curry and I mean they played against them, some
(10:14):
of them played with them when and Gabriel played played
with Lebron James, so that that familiarity breeds a comfort
level that you know when we talk about the Dream
Team and some of the early Team USA is built
out of NBA players, you know, they still had the
shock and awe value teams. You know, the teams opponents
(10:38):
were looking to looking for autographs and you know when
somebody had Team USA would get on a roll like
they were, oh here it comes right. There's that does
not exist anymore. We don't we don't have that type
of intimidation factor and and that was a big reason
why we were able to roll up the score on
some of the teams that we did back in the day.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You know, I hear you reckon, you know, you see
exactly how tight things get in a gold medal game.
I still remember when Kobe Bryant said, screw all of
you that don't want to shoot the ball, Give me
the ball. I'll win the gold medal. And you know,
I hear your point about saying, hey, I got to
play Tatum and BAM and Derek White and a d
And I think, yeah, that's how it goes. And then
(11:20):
you're Steve Kurr. You look back at the guys on
the bench and it's Lebron sitting next to Steph, who's
sitting next to Embiid, who's sitting next to KB. I
mean that's really to do Rick.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, no, no, no, no, I mean that that to me
is the difficulty here, which is like, can you get
away with playing the best team the team not not
not necessarily the best team, but the best team for
the circumstances and for the opponent. And and that's where
he has his his hands full.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
It's I think the guys have the right attitude and
they want to win, but man, the pressure to to
play Lebron and Steph you know, over a Derek White
or even a Drew Holliday or or you know, playing
(12:16):
Jason Tatum over Lebron like this is this is also
if you look at how the team was composed and
Lebron and Steph committing to it early. There's also a
sense of obligation to them for that that I totally understand. So,
like I said, from the beginning, you know, and then
(12:36):
the thing that bothers me maybe the most is what
I've heard because of these games have been close, I'm
seeing on social media and I'm I'm seeing fans that
are ripping Steve Kerr like like it's his fault, Like right,
I mean, he's not the one who's not rotating out
to contest three. And that's the other part too that
(12:59):
I would say is the reason you know that the
X factor here in these close contests is and we
see it with the NBA, like the three point shot
has become such a big element that if you're making them,
you know you you and one team's making them and
the other one is is is not, but they're both
(13:21):
taking them at the same sort of pace. Those long
misses turn out to you know, fast break layups and
more open three pointers, and you can get you know,
landslides and avalanches going in one direction. And I think
Team USA has suffered from that a bit too, because
(13:42):
let's face it, you know, you got Steph Curry, who
hasn't shot hasn't always shot it particularly well. And then
you have Devin Booker who has not shot it particularly well.
And then you look at the rest of this team,
and Lebron has shot it particularly well. But Jason Tatum's
not a guy I count on to knockdown threes through
holiday can but I don't count on him. And so
(14:05):
I think there's there's an aspect of the game in
three point shooting that you know, other teams, if they
get hot and they see an opportunity we can knock
off Team USA, that's only going to embolden them more.
There's just so many intangible factors that are working against
us here that I don't think that the average fan
appreciates or recognizes, because if they did, they wouldn't be
(14:29):
walking around thinking, oh, hey, we got KD, we got Lebron,
we got we got Jason Tatum, we got Joe l MB.
We're gonna walk all over these other teams that those days,
those days are over and they are not coming back.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Also not coming back. A mustache, A go to any
sort of facial hit. There you go yes to sports
what Insider extraordinary?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Rick Buker, bull Patch I could do it.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Okay, if the Knicks win the title, you you go.
The soul patch.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's the deal.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Is it because it's patchy or is it too light
or what? What's the problem? Rick?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
No, for whatever reason, that's the one. That's the one
thing that I can work. Yeah, it's it's it's it's
I Although I will say I had one and then
I out of the blue, I got called by tn
T to do sideline and I don't think they were
they were ready for a sideline reporter.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
With a soul patch.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I'm pretty I'm pretty sure they thought I should be
covering like the uh the Hawaii Surf open with the
soul patch and hey, are.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
We gonna call Buker next week? We have an opening? No,
you mean the X Games? Guy, forget it? Hey, lame
duck season. Now all bets are off. Rick. Check out
the On the Ball podcast as well. Rick on Twitter
at Rick Buker. Rick is always buddy appreciated. We'll talk
to you after the play the first game.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Guys. All right, great stuff for the best right there?
I mean, I mean there there is no more pressure
than you get to the final few seconds or final
few minutes of a gold medal game and it's like, Oh,
who's on the court, who wants the ball? Oh, it's
gonna be outstanding. Uh, coming up next? Hey, great stuff
there in the NBA. We have a big story out
(16:14):
of not only just Major League Baseball, but out of
the NFL. Oh, keep it right here. Yes, we're at
full swing. It is training cap week zero.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Hey, we're Cavino and Rich Fox Sports Radio every day
five to seven pm Eastern. But here's the thing. We
never have enough time to get to everything we want
to get to.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
And that's why we have a brand new podcast called
over Promised. You see, we're having so much fun in
our two hour show. We never get to everything, honestly,
because this guy'll be over promising things we never have
time for.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Yeah, you blober Liam and me. Well you know what
it's called over promise. You should good at it because
you've been over promising women for years.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
Well, it's a Covino and Rich after show, and we
want you to be a part of it. We're gonna
be talking sports, of course, but we're also gonna talk
life and relationships, and if Rich and I are arguing
about something or we didn't have enough time, it will
continue on our after show called over Promised.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
Well, if you don't get enough Covino and Rich, make
sure you check out over Promised and also Uncensored by
the way, so maybe we'll go at it even a
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of all time.
Speaker 7 (17:26):
There you go, over Promising. Remember you could see on YouTube,
but definitely join us. Listen to over Promised with Covino
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Speaker 1 (17:38):
Fox Sports Radio, The Jason Smith Show with my best
friend Mike Harmon live from the tirerac dot Com Studios.
Happy Kershaw Day. You want to say this because earlier
in the show, Justin Frossberg said something to me that
I still take to heart. That still is a very
a big thing they didn't think about. He said, Hey
(17:58):
Kershaw Days. Yeah, he was fo good. You know, I
got you know, here's what I think after seeing the pitch.
He goes height you better be good to him. And
I said why, He says, because I don't know how
many Curshaw days I have left. And I thought, wow,
you could be counting on well, maybe not two hands,
but I don't know four hands, eight feet whatever it is.
(18:18):
Uh yeah, thirty six Kershaw, you know, maybe twelve starts
this year. Who knows where he's at. I mean, we
could be looking at not many curse Shaw days left,
my god, then maybe less than fifty Kershaw days left overall,
because honestly, he's never gonna pitch a whole season again, right,
(18:39):
that's out the window. So you'd be looking at he
could be less than fifty starts he might have left
in his MLB career. Think about that for a second, him,
Ricky Bumm, I'm telling you, man, think about this.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
This is one of those where you know, you'd expect
him to step forward and some band starts playing maybe
the violin, and he starts talking about that young Texas
South baw coming in Dude Roger Stadium back in two
thousand and eight and witnessing greatness from the start, all
of those shades of Sandy Cofax and so many others to.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Where we are now. Is that kind of what we do.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
The long road with Clayton Kershaw and the many weary
miles traveled with that curveball from the gods to where
we are today, where we're just thankful for each start.
That's where we're at, Jason. We celebrate them all, right.
When the greats release another album or take another tour,
(19:34):
Mick Jagger eighty one today, got to do that.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Happy birthday, Mick.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You know, you go and you celebrate it when you
get a chance to go see a movie with the
guy one more time. Sure it might look terrible, pick
your favorite actor. They've done something schlocky for the check,
but you go celebrate it because you get to see
them on the celluloid one more time.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Kershaw on the bump.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Even if it's only one more time, we'll all celebrate
that together.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Now. Look, I'll say this right today, he goes four
innings in his return, he gives up a couple of runs,
starts out six. It's not it was. It was a
pretty decent. It was about what I expect.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Forty seven strikes in his seventy two pitches, so I mean, yeah,
pretty efficient.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, it's about what I expected. Like you know, watching
him today, I'm like, okay. He looked certainly like the
old enough, like the old Clayton Kershaw. And yeah, he
even said I'm not ready. I know I can't go
eight innings, but he wants to get back there and pitch.
He's not He's not one of those guys where I'll take,
you know, here's I'll take this rehab started Rancho Cucamonga.
I'm gonna starting. He's like, I can help the team.
I can give you five innings. Put me out there,
(20:37):
give me five innings. What are the Dodgors gonna say, No,
of course, okay, we'll give you five innings. And watching him,
it's like, okay, I don't see him very far from
being whatever the best version of Clayton Kershaw is going
to be, it's not gonna be. What we does is
fastball sitting around ninety miles an hour, which is that
you know, down from it's high a few years ago.
You know, he's got a little bit less oomph on it.
(20:57):
But when I when I think about him going forward,
I say, there's no reason to not be cautiously optimistic
about Kershaw for the rest of the season. Right because
we get to a point in sports now where when
your stars get older, they're just gonna be hurt. It's
like become an accepted part. Well, so and so is
(21:18):
now over thirty five, He's going to get hurt, and
you just have to hope that the injury isn't at
a time that kills you. Yeah, and it's not something
so bad they wind up missing the whole season. Right,
we see it a lot in the NBA. Hey gonna
hope Zion Williamson when he gets hurt, because he gets
hurt every year. Hey, he gets hurt the beginning of
the year, so he's around at the end of the season.
And you know that didn't work out. He got hurt
they needed the most. You know, we've worked look at
(21:40):
that with Lebron and Ad. You know, we know they're
gonna get hurt. Last year they were pretty healthy. But
when they do get hurt, you're hoping that it's going
to be at a time that doesn't just absolutely kill them.
And the Dodgers. If you want to paint a positive
picture for for Kershon, no reason not to. Maybe you think, okay,
he's he got by his injury this year. You're not
(22:01):
going to need to rely on him for thirty five starts,
because he's not gonna do that. If you have Clayton
Kershaw on the beginning of April, you know at some
point he's going to go on the injured list, right,
you know it's his back or whatever it's going to be.
He's going to get dinged up. Now that you're only
counting on him for ten to twelve starts, whatever you
have in the playoffs, Hey, maybe this, Hey, Kershaw is
(22:21):
going to be fine. The rest of the way he's
had his time. Had his time is you know, to
rehab and get back, and you only need him for
a shorter amount of time. So no reason to not
be cautiously optimistic that you could get a really good Yeah,
you get a good version of Clayton Kershaw. Now that
being said, the Dodgers still need two new starting pitchers,
because if you're talking about where you're at for the
(22:41):
playoffs right now, you would say, well, we got Glass
though in game one, and probably Kershaw in game two. Wait,
the guy just had his first start back. Doesn't matter,
that's where right because everybody else is hurt. You have
no idea if these other guys are going to come back.
When you hear for a picture like Yoshinoba Yamamodo. Hey,
maybe the end of August, beginning of September. When you
start looking at return dates with a month to go
(23:03):
in the season, like is that really going to happen? Like,
you get to the point where is that really going
to happen? It's not where he got hurt in May.
We're looking at a return date sometime in late June
early July. When you're saying sometime in September, how often
does that really happen? Right? And you have Walker Buehler
may not be the same, and Miller's and the miners.
You have to be aggressive because you can't look at
this year and go, Okay, we're not going to go
(23:24):
for it, right, it's an MVP year from show Hey
o Tani, they're hitting the ball. You have to go
out and get two starting pitchers, not one. You got
to go get two, and maybe that's going to be
enough to navigate the fall because it is World Series
of us. We're not talking about the Dodgers making the playoffs.
We're talking about winning the World Series. That's what they do.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean a couple of the things that you're considering, right,
is the number of pictures with injuries. So now you're
playing the game of Djenga or chess, whatever your game.
You're a game guy, so you know, you pick the
one that fits best. But the idea of you know, Kershaw,
you at least have the institutional knowledge, right, he's been
a dodger, so everything that's happened medically with him, you've
(24:04):
been privy to. This is not the exchange of information
that we have a lot of times, like wait they
skip that. Yeah, no, no, no, they didn't tell us all
of that. There's more going on, so you at least
have that, and you've watched how he battles through and
you know his makeup and obviously older, but still you
know what he's going to bring to the table as
(24:25):
you push forward. But you're playing the percentages and trying
to limit the exposure not only for him on the
injury front, but everybody else. Right, Glass, now is your
healthiest and he's just coming off the il. So that's
a terrible spot to start from. But now you're trying
to figure out how you're stealing innings, how you're managing
(24:48):
this right, load management in a much different form. Not hey,
you're going to miss a bunch of time, but all right,
is seventy to seventy five pitches eighty pitches going to
be the maximum for him? Maybe maybe that's where he's at.
Maybe the fastball doesn't get up, but maybe one or
two more ticks. Don't know, But you know, banking on
(25:09):
the rest of that rotation to come back healthy is
a fool's Errand so you've pushed all in by bringing
in Otani. You look at everything else, prayers up to
Freddie Freeman and his family is you know, got some
stuff with his kid that you know, we heard about
earlier today. So you're managing a lot of this as
(25:29):
you're you're getting into the stretch run. But you've gone
all in right to assemble the squad. Mookie Bets is
gonna come back, and hopefully that'll help facilitate, you know,
maybe some less stressful inning on the starters because the
offense picks up and is more consistent as well. So
all of that to say, the next week is going
(25:50):
to be really interesting to watch who shakes free because
there aren't a lot of teams that are obvious sellers
for this deadline. Jason, right, you got four teams in
the American League led by my pathetic Chicago White Sox,
and what do you have two or three teams in
the National League. I mean, if you read the local newspapers,
you'd be like, all right, the Cubs, well they're terrible,
(26:10):
said they're only five and a half games out of
a wildcard slot. Now that they've got to jump past
like seven teams. But that's a really good week and
a half of baseball and suddenly you're back in the mix, right,
depending on how the schedule shakes out and everything else,
and cannibal ism within within that group of teams, but
(26:31):
it's just to say you're gonna have a lot of
competition for very few names in terms of elite names.
And now this is where the Dodgers scouting department and
that you know, great analytics staff, they've got to go
find a diamond or two in the rough to help,
particularly as we start talking about the pen as well.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon live from the
Tirac dot Com Studios. I mean, this is a story.
This is a combo of Spygate and the Michigan scandal.
It's absolutely because this is the Spygate portion of it
with Hey, low level staffer taking video that nobody knows
because obviously, hey, soccer doesn't have the same sort of
(27:10):
protection around it like the NFL does or the NBA does.
We get around it. And with the Michigan part of it,
it's hey, all of a sudden, Canada soccer, which was
you know, hey, Canadian soccer was okay, and what's going
on the last you know, five to seven years, Canada
soccer men's women's has gotten really good, like all of
a sudden. Now it's like, oh, now I get it.
(27:31):
So kind of how Michigan went from hey, we're winning
seven or eight games a year, but Harbaugh's losing to
Ohio State every year and Michigan State every other year.
All of a sudden, Hey, we're ten wins, eleven wins,
were playing for the national champions We're in the playoffs.
Oh and by the way, yeah, we've been filming the
other team signals on the other side. We know what
they're running. Oh, now you know how Michigan got so
good so fast? And that's the same thing here. Oh
(27:52):
now you know why Canada got so good so fast.
I don't know, I don't know how this hasn't blown
up into being a baby because it's just because it's
it's not the United States, it's not Brazil, it's not
a traditional a big you know power, But like, how
is this not a bigger deal? Where this is a
country that has been accused of and there's stories of
(28:13):
how they've been flouting the law by doing this for
a long time, and yin you got Steve Disager with quotes,
Oh yeah, we can sneak out of the hotel and
we could get there. We could take video and hide
behind bushes like this wasn't rocket sized. No one's stopping
us from doing this, but it's not in our nature
to do this. Priestsman took over in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
I wanted to tie this together because Eric writes us
in the Instagram world, that's swollen dum quote. How does
Jason explain the Mets being good now from being really bad?
I'd like to know, being a Mets fan. I also
don't want to know because I really disliked cheaters. How
they get so good so fast? It was just one
(28:54):
Francisco Lindor led team meeting.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Evidently that pushed it over you talking about we got Grimace.
He threw out the first pitch Our winning percentage in
the Grimace era is seven to eleven. We have a
seven hundred winning So he's gotta Spendali like effect. That's
all it is. That's all you explained. It's putting in
the purple shakes. We had Grimace. I don't care, man, whatever.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
He's putting in there, either for you as an enhancement
or detraction. Here we catered, uh you know with Grimace
and show.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
It's McDonald's man, this is Grimmace doing it for him.
That's an easy question. Man. I thought you're gonna scare
me with that.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
But this is a huge deal, brother, I mean this,
this is a much bigger deal. I mean, do you
do the opposite of a metal ceremony? You have to
bring everybody back, they wear their medals and then ceremoniously,
uh you play have some band play them off as
you rip them off their necks.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Shame well, the shame bell rings in the background. Exit
out bout a Fresco, Exit Swollen Dome. The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon live from the tiraq dot Com Studios.
Coming up next. One big story today from the Olympics.
Maybe we gotta tap the brakes on it a little bit.
What is it? We'll tell you next right here, Jason
to Mike. This is Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific Fox Sports.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Radio The Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon.
Fox Sports Radios teamed up with tirerac dot Com to
give away a set of four brand new tires valued
ad up to fifteen hundred bucks every two weeks this summer.
That's right, three lucky listeners are gonna get a set
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(30:43):
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To enter and get rules for the first set of
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by Tirac dot Com. The way tire buying should be, well,
it's almost like we put it out in the universe
and it happened. We'll get to the US women's national
team coming up in a few minutes, but it was
last night. John Paul Morosi, MLB Network insider, joined us
(31:06):
and said, you know, we could be on the cusp
of the greatest trade deadline I have ever covered in
my twenty years covering the sport in Major League Baseball,
because there are so many teams that have a great
shot at the postseason, that are playing well now, that
are flawed and need to make moves. And it's been
especially fun tonight watching Braves Twitter just melt down after
(31:30):
the loss to the Mets. The Mets are a half
game out, Senga is back pitching tomorrow night, and they're like,
get this guy, get this guy. This is awful. Fire Sniker,
get rid of Kelnick, get rid of him. Dfa Loreoto afternight,
all man, it is because the Braves Twitter is so
smug with Look how smart we are. We signed all
our players to all these contracts before you have to Oh,
(31:50):
and now it's all.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Everybody's hurt, and then you get a great start from
sale that goes to the wayside.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It is fun watching Brave Twitter. Mel b bet, it
is fun. However, the first impact trade of the Major
League Baseball deadline is going down a huge bat, one
of the hottest bats in baseball is on the move.
Who's getting him special delivery? Steve de Seger has the
breaking news right now.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Break breaking news from Fox Sports.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
Fox is Ken Rosenthal reporting the Mariners are acquiring outfielder
Randy a rose Arena from Tampa Bay. The MLB trade
deadline is July the thirtieth. You mentioned a hot bet.
A rose Arena was betting one ninety one a month ago.
He's betting about two to ninety since then. A ros
Arena is still so young in his career, he's not
(32:44):
eligible for free agency for a while. He is arbitration
eligible next year. But you acquire this guy, you could
keep him. And remember the previous three years straight, he's
had at least twenty home runs roughly eighty RBIs each
of the three years. Now, compare the Mariners and the
Tampa Bay Rays, because well, the Tampa Bay Rays are
(33:06):
about a five hundred team, but they're looking up at
the Orioles and the Red Sox and the Yankees in
their division Seattle about five hundred. They're only a game
out in the AO West behind Houston and guys, we
had another trade tonight the Mark.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Wait, but remember Steve a month ago it was a
ten game lead for the marriage. Yeah, that division and
that kind of disappee. And now you're waiting to see
how long Rodriguez is going to be out.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Yes, since Seattle has lost three straight games as well.
The other trade tonight the Marlins dealt reliever Aj Puck
to Arizona over in the NL West. Arizona is only
a game back of the Padres for second place. Pack
is six foot seven left. He was a starter early year,
so don't let the high era fool you. He has
been better as a reliever.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So if Chris Berman was doing that story, Stev would say,
and yes, the Coyotes have left Arizona, but there will
be Puck Phoenix this year. DJ, that might be your
best line. That's a good one because that's very fast.
I mean that that's the synapse is firing. All the
chocolate and.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Caffeine and whatever else. The highs of being a Met
fan right now are really kicking in.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Beg you, Steve, look this look, as we said, teams
are flawed. The Briners have seen a season where we
have a ten game lead, this is where we go
for it, and now they've really stumbled and the Astros
didn't think the Astros would overtake them. We thought the
Astros would be sellers. And when you got no, you did,
I thought they were coming. Oh stop, you're just you
(34:37):
can go find the tape. I'll go find the table.
Won't be there, it won't be Oh yeah, the tape
where Harmon. Supposedly you have conveniently killed it off. No,
that tape has just checked out. It's been missing from
the library. Who's at it, Mike Harmon is gonna send
two and a half months. We're gonna send the book
cop after you, the cops. Listen. Joy boy, you have
late fees for this book. You know, I think I
(34:58):
still somewhere have a book I checked out of the
library in like second grade. It was like NBA Greats.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
It was like a highly necessary thing for culture and posterity,
no question.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
One of those big books that had a bunch of
pictures in it, like each page is like a bio
of a star player, right like, And I'm like, I
don't think I have that anymore. Gives you that of
the Sandy kofax book, you kept righting The Baseball Life
of Sandy Kofax Man I got. I got to college
on that thing of that one. Absolutely, But look, Randy
rose Arena is he's the definition of streaky right. We've
(35:32):
seen him do it in the playoffs where he looks
like he's the best player to ever put on a uniform.
But by and large, he's a twenty to twenty five
home run guy, knocks in eighty five to ninety runs
a year, hits two fifty five to two sixty. He
is solid. He is a solid, good player who can
carry a team over a course of a few weeks
(35:52):
because he gets hot. But then you have times where boy,
he's hitting one fifty over the last month. But this
is a great acquisition by the Mariners. I love that
they struck early because hey, look it just the price
would have just gone up getting closer to the deadline.
And now you have someone that, hey, he not only
can he fill a void while Rodriguez is out, when
Rodriguez gets back, he's gonna play every day. This tells
(36:13):
the team we believe in you. We believe it. We're
not gonna sell pieces off because we give away a
ten game lead. If anything, we're gonna add to them
because we still believe and believe that this is our year.
I think there's this is a great move again. He's
as hot as anybody in Major League Baseball over the
course of the past month and a half, but he
was awful the first month and a half. This is
(36:35):
kind of who he is. But I love the guts,
I love I love the message more than anything, saying
don't worry, we're gonna go for it. And the Mariners
are going for it.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Thirty four extra base hit, sixteen stolen bases, and with
this hot month and a half, his batting average up
to two eleven.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, that's how hot. He's the Jeff McNeil of the
American League. Hey, look at this, he's red hot. He's
in a two oh four.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Now I remember how much you hated him. I love
Jeff Hill the night now you love him and Lindor
like no other.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I love Lorianto for missing that. But oh what happened?
What happened? Drift? The first big trade of the deadline
goes down. The Mariners are getting Randy E. Rose Arena
from the Tampa Bay Rays. My mom's gonna be really oh, oh,
you know what, they're out, They're out there in clear water.
(37:23):
Tape it and then play it back tomorrow. Night in
the show. All right, coming up next, Yes, we'll get
back into the biggest sports story of the day. This
is
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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