Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Injury News Regarding Ronel Blanco

Brian Bogusevic Joins The Show After Injury News Regarding Ronel Blanco

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Love it O three Sports Talk seven ninety It is
the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. We spend ten called
a minutes with Space City Home Networks. Brian at Bogus seven. Uh, Brian,
I don't know if you and Josh Reddick are in
a fight for best suit wearing during competition. Whatever he
wore yesterday, he took the small lead on you. What's
going on with that?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I didn't see. Well he's got I mean, he's got
a bigger bank roll than I have, So I'm at
a dish.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Okay, I see what you're doing. I that does make
a little bit of sense there. But yeah, let's get
to the news. Ronel Blanco really no surprise at this
point and logo. Look, you're now you played outfield, so
it's not necessarily a situation been but you've got a
lot of friends at a pitch. I you've been on
teams before. Has this spin rate stuff? Has this new

(00:45):
wave of baseball learning? Are we hurting these young men's
elbows a lot sooner than more so than we did
maybe even fifteen or twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I think the answer is, like it's like an all
of the above thing. Yeah, you can't you can't look
at how prevalent elbow injuries are and have become, you know,
the last you know, pick your number of years and
not say that there's something going on. I mean it's
it's a it's a combination of Number One, guys are

(01:16):
just bigger and stronger than they ever were. You know,
you look at the size of what a major league
pitcher is now, there's so much stronger, and that just
equals more force, more stress on the body. You're maximizing
every pitch. There's no there's no pacing yourself to try to,
you know, save something for the later innings. Every pitch
is maximum effort, maximum extension, you know, you know, optimal spin.

(01:40):
Guys throw more breaking balls than ever before. Does that
put more stress on an elbow? I think all of
those factors combine and just how how quickly the ramp
up has been. I mean, pitchers now look completely different
than they did even you know, when I first got drafted,
you know, guys ninety three, ninety four, it used to

(02:01):
be you know, pretty good velocity. Now that's you know,
the bare minimum. And it's happened so fast, and the
one thing that hasn't changed is you know, the the
construction of an elbow. It's still a ucl holding together
the bones, and there's a lot of stress put on
that you know, ligament, and the sports medicine I guess,

(02:22):
or the rehab or the prehab I guess you would
need to do has not kept pace with you know,
all of the things that we've done to try to
maximize these pictures.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Brian, here's the reality.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
The NFL has down graded the role of running back
in terms of giving them big contracts, drafting them early.
Their shelve lives with teams are greatly reduced because of
the wear and tear that running back's taken. Now they
drop from say season four to five. If the pictures
don't address this as a fraternity, you're going to not

(02:58):
see big money, long term contracts spent on these pictures
because the perceumption is going to be from these owners,
these general managers is at some point every manager leaguer
is going to have to miss some period of time
with some sort of elbow injury. So I would like
to see the fraternity of pictures start to say something
about this as compared to just saying, well, it's just
a freaking nature. Because we're just seeing guys dropping like flies,

(03:20):
especially here, but all throughout baseball over what has turned
out to be a rampant increase in these Tommy John
elbow surgeries.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean it's almost you know, just kind of
you know, assumed going into a career, or assumed going
into a contract with a picture that at some point
you're essentially going to miss between one and two seasons
with an elbow injury. I mean, there aren't many guys
that come out of it unscathed. And you're right, I

(03:50):
don't think it's I think it's different from a running
back in that it's not necessarily that we've devalued what
that position is. I think it's more devalued the life
of the tract because of, you know, factoring in missed time.
So it's it's an interesting concept of, you know, should
pitchers go out there and start seeking more upfront immediate

(04:12):
money and not trying to do the long term contract
and getting rid of some of that unknown you know,
that's that's assuming risks themselves, and as players, you know,
we've been taught forever that you don't want to do that.
You want to lock in as much long term money
as possible, but could they make it up by going
for you know, the high AAVs. You know, if you're
if you're an ace type picture on the on the

(04:33):
free market, if you're saying, hey, what will you pay
me for one, one or two years? Teams that throw
huge money at you, you know, assuming that this is
not going to be the year that you get hurt.
So there might be a shift change at some point
of some of these guys seeking out bigger, immediate money
and and you know, the teams offloading the risk that way.

(04:55):
But yeah, it's you're certainly right because you know you
can't have it's such a small window of earning power,
and you just don't want Teams certainly don't want to
be paying players that aren't playing, and guys players don't
want to have their their prime earning years miss. If
you look at renew Blanco, like the timing of this,
I mean, obviously you put in the team concept and

(05:16):
it's a huge blow for the season, But for him,
you know, a guy who had finally established himself in
the big leagues, had a huge breakout year last year.
He's not to arbitration yet, He's not even in his
big earning years yet. And this is a guy who
is an older sign later to the big leagues, guy
like these are his earning years that he's now sitting
on the shelf.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Brian Bogosvik was us here on Sports Talk seven ninety
shifting gears to the on field play. Jose Al Tuve,
how can we not talk about him? Twelve hits in
his last five games? What are you seen out of him?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, Josel Tuve, Yes, kind of what it is? I mean,
it's amazing. You think that over the course of a
hitter's career, typically guys, you know, the ups and downs
smooth out and you get more of a steady thing.
He's just been. He's been straighty his whole career. We've
seen even when he's at his best, you know, there

(06:16):
might be a couple of games of where of offers
right around the corner where it's like, man, where did
this come from? And then he goes, you know, twelve
for fifteen in a couple of games. I think, in
terms of what is it that has kind of snapped
him out? A lot of the things that I saw
from him when he was struggling very similar to the

(06:37):
things that janer Diez was struggling with earlier in the season,
and it's just contact point backing the ball up. You know,
you get you get very aggressive hitters when they struggle,
they resort to what has always made me successful. And
for those guys, it's swing. Swing more, swing sooner, swing
more often, and I'll just eventually start getting hits. You
could see the tide turning for al Twove midway through

(07:00):
the Tampas series, had a couple of base hits up
the middle. Early in the Mariners series, he had a
sack fly to right field, So all of a sudden,
the ball starts going into the middle of the field.
That means that the contact point is backed up a
little bit. When all of a sudden you're in that
contact point backs up, the swing stays in a better place,
and now you start getting some elevation. Now those balls

(07:22):
to the pull side aren't hooking solid or staying true,
And you know, that's all it is for Jose And
once you feel that, that's the thing that you have
to feel as a hitter. And once you feel that
and are comfortable with that, it can turn this quickly
because you're not necessarily working through mechanical things. You're just
trusting where you have to let the ball travel to.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
And keeping with guys that are turning it around the plate.
Christian Walker, we've been talking about all season long.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Have you just seen a light bulb go on with him?

Speaker 4 (07:50):
Or do you think it's just some bad luck that
has turned what's going on with him as well? He
had the walk off of course on Sunday, and then
a home run, two run shot yesterday.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, he looks like he's maybe exhaled a little bit.
I mean he was, he was fighting. I mean, look,
when when you see a guy start shaving beards and
mustaches and pants up, pants down, like they're they're just
trying to They're just trying to find something.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
And maybe that's maybe it's the beard, are shaving the mustache?

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, kee, keep it shaved. Yeah. You know when when
things aren't going well, nothing goes right, and you can
go up there and you know you're facing a picture
who's maybe spraying the ball all over the place, making
mistakes down the middle, getting behind the account, and then
Christian Walker steps in and it's like dota fastball on
the corner, got a flight around the corner, and you're

(08:37):
O two and you can see these at bats where
he would go up there and a pitch or two
in he was like, ah, man, here we go again.
And I think with the walk off the other day,
he finally got the mistake right. He got the O
two pitch that just leaps back into the middle and
he didn't miss it. And then last night he gets
a pitch to hit and doesn't miss it. So you know,
once once those things start to happen and you can say, Okay,

(08:58):
now i feel like I'm putting in the work and
I'm getting myself right now. You know, the baseball gods
aren't against me anymore, and I'm just kind of you know,
I'm going to get a mistake or if I stay,
if I stay in the fight, I'll give a pitch
to hit. You can relax a little bit and you know,
knock on wood. It looks like he's feeling that way
a little bit because from a straight up hitting standpoint,

(09:20):
it doesn't you know, there's nothing wrong with his swing.
His mechanics looks fine. He's been swinging at better pitches.
It's just been like everything's piling on at once, and
it seems like he's starting to get out from under
that Now ran for to let you go.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Not that it was a must win series or life
would have been over, but the feeling around the clubhouse
probably had to improve. Knocking off Seattle three out of four,
you made up some ground to them.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
They could have come, you know, come in.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Here, you know one three out of four, swept the
series and really left feeling pretty good about themselves. Instead,
you know, after they won that impressive series in San
Diego and they took the Chicago White Sox, they probably
are thinking, oh, oh, we no matter what, but we do,
we can't get rid of ourselves, of the Houston Astros.
And so if you're in the Seattle mindset, Astros aren't
pitching there deep into games, their hitting has been sporadic,

(10:09):
and yet they're right on our tails again. So I
kind of hope it's that way throughout the course of summer.
But it just felt like to me that was a
beat your chest kind of weekend, And hopefully it's got
lasting effects beyond just what these next two games have been.
With the Oakland A's or the Sacramentos or whatever they're
calling themselves these days.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Just the prints and chare Yeah, I think, you know,
I think a lot of the thing with the Mariners.
Is you draw the comparisons to last season for the Astros, like,
if you don't let them get away from you, you're
going to be in a good position because because Seattle,
you know, they've they've been fortunate over the last two
seasons that the Astros have not gotten off to good

(10:49):
starts and they haven't been able to put them away.
And if the Astros can just hang around, there's I mean,
I've not heard this out of the out of the
out of the Seattle side at all, but it's got
to be the boogey man come and coming, you know,
looking over your shoulder for him, because they just cannot
shake the Astros. And look, no division is going to
be decided Memorial Day weekend or anything. Yeah, but if
you can just hang around, hang around, hanging around, you know,

(11:11):
we've not even seen this offense click yet. And and
when when you're Seattle looking at the Sastros team saying, man,
they haven't even played their game yet. We haven't even
we haven't seen them do what we know they can
do because we've seen it and we're only you know,
a game or two up. You know, we've not we've
not given ourselves the advantage that we should. So yeah,
I think I think it's, you know, not an end all,

(11:33):
be all series, but three out of four it puts
you in a good position to kind of just hang
around and work on the Mariners a little bit.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Bolly, thank you for the visitors. Always great stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And uh, let's watch at eleven thirty to see what
Josh is wearing today because the zoot suit yesterday he
put on was unbelievable. So I don't know if we
can get you one of those, I'd be happy to
help you sponsor that, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to Calvin Murphy and
see if you can hope you Murph.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Murph will absolutely lets you take the lead on that. Thanks,
Bogey's always all right.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
That's Brian bogus Evic with us here on Sports Talk
seven ninety