5/5/25 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, what's up? Five minutes after three ESPN fifteen thirty
on moegor. Thank you for listening. Hook You had a
good weekend. Hope your week is off to a great start.
Our buddy Jeff Carr is going to join us in
an ow are locked on Reds. We've got some Bengals,
some Bearcats. We've got some college football to get to today.

(00:30):
Full show rundowns available on Twitter at moegar. Thanks to
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I was asked by a buddy of mine last night
as we were talking about the Reds, and he said,

(00:51):
all right, one word. He was making fun of me.
He was making fun of me because last week we
had all these like NFL draft people, odd and people
who cover the Bengals and stuff across the board. I
would ask them to give me one word their thought
on the draft class right. And we did this with
some national experts, and we did this with some people
who covered the team, and I think it was a
good way to start a lot of those conversations. And

(01:13):
my friend last night's like, yeah, Coole, is that your
new thing to ask everybody to summarize how they feel
about something in one word? And okay, fine, cool, thanks
for listening. And then we turned to other topics, and
then it comes back and we started talking about the
Reds acause one word to describe where you are with
the Reds thirty five or so games into the season,

(01:33):
and my answer was annoying. Annoying that's not just a
reflection to the fact that the Reds lost two out
of three over the weekend to the Washington Nationals or
until it started raining, kind of had no plan against
Mackenzie gore a very good pitcher for the Washington Nationals
that Elie Dela Cruz came this close to going deep against.

(01:56):
But like it felt like the Red's best friend yesterday
was the wet mound and the rain that came at
GABP yesterday, because beyond that, nobody was touching Mackenzie Gorey Yesterday,
the Reds lose two out of three and in the
grand scheme of things, you might go, okay, not to
have big of a deal, But I don't know. This
team is not bad. Hell, they have one more win

(02:19):
than loss. They have a really good starting staff. They
have one of the best pitching staff starting pitching staffs
in baseball. The bullpen has been I think mostly good.
Certainly wasn't good yesterday, but annoyed. Annoying because there have
been a couple of times already this year. I think
if you're a Reds fan where you have felt like,

(02:40):
all right, here we go. Time to get going right.
They beat the Orioles. They win two out of three
in Baltimore. Beat an Orioles team that won a lot
of games last year, a lot of games the year before,
maybe not quite as good this year. They scored twenty
four runs in that Sunday game, which, let's be honest,
an anomaly, it outlier. One of the weird quirks of

(03:01):
baseball is sometimes you could win a game by scoring
twenty four runs and then the next day you barely
score any at all. That's kind of what happened. But
after that Baltimore series, I think a lot of us
were like, all right, cool, go to Miami, win that series,
go to Colorado, you could sweep that series. Then come home.
You're gonna play not great teams. Saint Louis isn't great

(03:21):
this year, Washington's not great this year. And maybe you
could put a little distance between yourselves and five hundred.
Maybe you could put a little distance between yourselves and
the other teams in the NL Central. Maybe, just maybe
you can put a tiny bit of distance between yourselves
and the Chicago Cubs with you being in first place. Maybe,

(03:44):
And instead they lose two out of three to Miami. Okay, fine,
go to Colorado, go to Denver. Sweeping the Rockies felt
kind of mandatory, and they did. They're terrible, and then
what do we do? Okay, here we go. Now they're
coming home four with the Carton three, now with the
Washington Nationals, gonna be better at home this year. Here's

(04:05):
here's let's go. And instead they split with the Cardinals.
It was a weird series because of the rain and
the double headered. It just it felt like the Cardinals
were here for a month. But they win the first
game of that series, lose two of the next three,
got swept in that doubleheader before salvaging the final game
on Thursday. They salvaged that final game on Thursday, and

(04:29):
then all right, Hunter Green on Friday. Hunter Green against
the Washington Nationals on Friday night at times looked almost unfair.
He was terrific. And then he go, Okay, the tone
has been set. Got some length, won the first game,
go ahead and win one of the next two. Take
care of business, winning homestand winning series. The Dolo gets

(04:51):
crushed on Saturday, and yesterday Mackenzie Gore stuck it to him,
and they waste a pretty good start for Nick Martinez.
They lose too out of three, They have a losing
homestand and it just it feels like and I get it, man,
it's a long baseball season. It's a long long baseball
We all understand that. I think we understand what this

(05:12):
team's assets are. It's good starting pitching. And we understand
what this team's deficiencies are. It's mainly revolving around their offense.
And there are a handful of players that we could
point to specifically, is maybe limiting this offense a little bit? Right?
But man, I just I cannot help but feel and
you can tell me if I'm wrong. This isn't being

(05:34):
negative for the sake of being negative. I just can't help.
But feel though that they have. They've let an opportunity
kind of slip away to take care of business against
teams that aren't that good. Now, look, man, they could
go to Atlanta. The Braves have recovered pretty nicely from
the er to seven start, and maybe they win three

(05:55):
out of four against Atlanta, and perhaps then they go
to Houston and the answers are now back above five hundred.
Maybe they win two out of three there, and it's
a good, successful, winning road trip, and they come home
next week and play the Chicago White Sox, who are
not exactly that much better from the worst team in
the history of the sport that Chicago put on the
field last year that lost one hundred and twenty one games. Man,

(06:18):
I don't know, dude, I just have I have a
a bad feeling. I guess I'm fearful that come September,
we're gonna look at this stretch here late April, early May,
still very early in the season. They've not yet hit
the one quarter mark. They'll do that this week, still
early in the season. That you're gonna look back on

(06:40):
losing two out of three to Miami and that series
against the Cardinals where you won the first one, then
got swept in a doubleheader and had to salvage a
split or losing two at a three to Washington. We
are still waiting for this team offensively to be maybe
better than it's capable of being. I don't know. We're
still for Matt McClain to hit. We're still waiting for

(07:04):
I think the Ellie Dela Cruz breakthrough. Charlie Goldsmith Today
is a newsletter which is a must. It shows up
in my inbox this morning and it kind of outlines
through thirty five games, some of the good, some of
the bad, the tone in the clubhouse. But he talks
about how Ellie Dela Cruz you could look at the numbers,
the raw numbers, and they're not bad. In fact, they're

(07:24):
not too dissimilar from the numbers that Ellie put up
last year when he finished eighth in the nl MVP voting.
At the same time, a lot of our hopes for
this season and again it's still yes, very early, it's
just Cinco Demayo. A lot of our hopes for this
season were based on Ellie taking that large step towards superstardom.

(07:44):
It frankly hasn't happened yet, and a lot of our
optimism for this year coming in was based on Matt
McClain being healthy, and obviously he did have to miss
some time. But when he comes back and he's healthy,
he's productive and well. Frankly, Matt McLain at the play
has looked like a strikeout machine more than he's looked
like a guy capable of helping this team lift itself

(08:05):
out of its offensive funk. So yeah, it's early, man,
And you know, the good news is they did pull
themselves out of the three and seven hole, and as
we sit here today, they do have a record with
one more win than loss. But if there's anything that
I think defines what it's like to be a Reds fan,

(08:25):
or has defined what it's been like to be a
Reds fan for I don't know decades now, you're constantly
you're constantly convincing yourself that something cool is about to happen,
and you're constantly convincing yourself that hey, here we go,
they're about to take off, or you're constantly being told, hey, look,
I know they had a bad week, but just wait,

(08:48):
or I never had a bad month, but just wait,
or I never had to get up to a bad start,
but just wait. And yet here we are. We're kind
of doing the same things we've been doing now for years,
either convincing ourselves that hey, they're about to take off
or being told yes, this week stunk, and this homestand
wasn't as good as it should have been, and this
series this weekend stunk, but hey, just wait, we'll see.

(09:13):
This team has for me at least thus far, been annoying.
And it's not because they're awful. It's a because they
actually have really good starting pitching and I'm fearful they're
gonna waste it. And b the schedule kind of set
them up for a chance to have some success the

(09:34):
last couple of weeks, and they merely treaded water at best.
At some point, this team's gonna have to do better
than simply tread water. My take on the Reds, and
it's just me before the season started was they're an
eighty three win team. Now. For some that sounded optimistic.

(09:55):
For some it was like, oh, come on, mode, just
eighty three wins. In my take was, you know, in
the first fifty to sixty games, do something that makes
me go, you know what, I got it wrong? They're
better than an eighty three win team. As of today,
they're on pace to win exactly eighty three games. I
think most of us kind of had them finishing somewhere there.

(10:17):
I have seen nothing in the first thirty five games
that has made me feel like they're gonna lose ninety.
But I also haven't seen anything of the first thirty
five games that would suggest they're gonna win ninety either.
And so eighty three wins. Eighty three wins isn't good enough,
and it's not going to be good enough. This team's
not going to be good enough until it can win

(10:40):
lots of games in a specific amount of time, when
the schedule is giving them a really good chance at
achieving victory. Well, when you lose a series to the
Marlins and you only split with the Cardinals in your
own building, and you lose a series to the Washington
Nationals and you do all that within a two week
stretch time, it's it's hard to say they've taken advantage

(11:02):
of what the schedule has kind of given them. My
phone numbers five point three, seven four nine, fifteen thirty
eight six six seven oh two three seven seven six
is our phone number. Nice to hear Mike Petrelia on
filling in for Tony and Austin since he three sixty
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Tony is back tomorrow. Jeff Carr
is going to join us coming up at four oh five,

(11:24):
because I did his podcast like two weeks ago and
said to myself self, we haven't had Jeff on in
a while, So he's going to join us here at
UH in just about forty five fifty minutes. Room for
you at five point three seven four nine fifteen thirty
and eight sixty six seven oh two three seven seven six.
I read an assessment of the Bengals today their most

(11:45):
improved position. I agreed with it, but there's a problem
with it. We'll get to that coming up here in
just a bit. And is the UC football team this
year going to be the one hundred and third best
in the sport? Plus Charon Moore Michigan a self and
h two game suspension, maybe the silliest non punishment ever.
We'll get to that a little bit later. On Glad

(12:07):
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(14:06):
Long Necks, stay long and come often. At the epicenter
of most Reds fans discontent right now has been the
lack of production from Matt McClain. And you know, we
talked about this a little bit during Friday Show. Matt
McClain has played in one hundred and fifteen big league games.
He is still from a game's played perspective, in the

(14:27):
middle of his rookie season, robbed obviously of being able
to play last year because of injury, called up later
than he should have been two years ago, and then
got hurt and missed the last month of the season
in twenty twenty three. So yesterday was his one hundred
and fifteenth big league game, and the numbers this year
are ghastly. He still strikes out a ton, He's not

(14:50):
making very hard contact. When he does make contact. He
has gotten a hit in four of his last five games.
But still, again, like if you were if you were
bullish on the Reds coming into the season, I got
to think one of the reasons why I was Matt McLain.
In fact, I am among those who said that he
is their biggest offseason addition because he wasn't on last

(15:13):
year's team, and so you know, he's not an acquisition necessarily,
but he's an addition. So the question is how concerned
are you about Matt McClain big picture, not exceedingly big picture, Like,
do I believe Matt McClain is a chance to hold
down second base and be a productive player for a
long time for this franchise. Yes, I felt that way

(15:36):
when he was drafted, felt that way watching him two
years ago, felt that way last year. Will acknowledge he's
he's kind of been injury prone and he's got to
separate himself from that a little bit. Will acknowledge certainly
he's performing poorly this year, but big picture, sure, Matt
McClain's a foundational piece. The question becomes how long of
a leash do you give him this year? And and

(15:59):
this is you know, we've been able to do this
about a couple of guys, but you could really do
it with Matt this year. Where he is I think
only going to gain from experience. He is viewed as
a big part of what the Red's going to be
moving forward. They cleared Jonathan India out of the way
to basically hand him second base. You want to give

(16:22):
him a lot of time to gain experience, and you
want to give him a lot of time to show
that he can or can't be that guy. At the
same time, in the short term, especially hitting second, he's
kind of killing the team. Terry Francona publicly has expressed
all the confidence in the world that Matt McLain is

(16:45):
going to figure it out, and once he does, he's
going to take off and the Reds are going to
take off. And not only has he said those things,
but the fact that he continues to hit him high
in the batting order second he's batting second tonight would
be reflective of not just Terry Frank Kna's confidence in
Matt McLain, but the organization's confidence in Matt McClain. I

(17:06):
think the question becomes how much rope do you give him?
Like how in a year where I would like to
think the idea is to get to the postseason. This
isn't twenty twenty two, This isn't twenty eighteen or twenty
fifteen or any number of years where the idea has

(17:28):
been not so much to win, but to see who
you're going to move forward with and let guys build
experience and weed out the pretenders from the guys who
are really a part of what you're going to be
moving forward. The idea this year is win games, get
to the postseason. And if that's not the idea, then
what are we doing? Well? You very well could argue

(17:50):
that a guy who is not performing the way Matt
McClain is performing, and running him out there every day
and not really changing his role on the team or
moving him around or putting him on the bench for
a while kind of clashes with the idea that twenty
twenty five is all about winning right now. At the
same time, you thought highly enough of him to take

(18:11):
him in the first round a couple of years ago,
you thought highly enough of him to move on from
a guy who plays the same position. And I know
he homewred yesterday, which people made a big deal about,
But Jonathan India is not exactly tearing the cover off
the ball for the Kansas City Royals, and Brady Singer
has been, for the most part pretty good. If you're
just in the middle of a rebuild, if you're just

(18:33):
kind of starting from scratch, you run a guy out
there and it doesn't matter how good he does, how
partly he does, if he's goes through a protracted slump,
you're just you're giving him opportunities. But if the idea
is to do more than just put a team out
there to let the opposition beat up on, if you're
trying to get to the postseason, well there usually is

(18:57):
a limit that you'll that you'll get to, and if
the player gets there, you put him on the bench
and do something else. Matt McClain is a conundrum. By
the way, he's also not exactly twenty years old. He's
twenty five, So I will admit like with him specifically,
I kind of go back and forth. You want to
see him get opportunities. You don't want to overreact to

(19:19):
a bad few weeks. You don't want to give up
on a guy before he should. You want to let
a guy accumulate experience and read the benefits from accumulating
that experience. At the same time, try to win this year,
or at least I think they can win this year,
And Matt McLain's not really helping you do that. So
how long do you go with him? And I think

(19:39):
for most the answer is going to be keep playing him,
but just don't hit him second like hit him seventh,
bat am eighth, or don't give up on him, but
you know, hey, let's maybe try something else for the
short term and see if maybe sometime on the bench
can can be a benefit. I don't know, but I
certainly will acknowledge. And I think even if you love
Matt mc claim, you'll acknowledge that if we're it's May fifth,

(20:03):
if on June fifth, we're still wondering when he's going
to get going. I think the conversation is going to
change if it hasn't already. Twenty nine minutes after three
o'clock five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty, ESPN
is power ranking all the NFL teams after the draft,

(20:25):
and they're doing so by pointing out every area or
the area in which every team has improved the most.
And what was mentioned for the Bengals that area that
has improved the most. I agree with the assessment, but
there's a problem. We'll get to that. Sports headlines give
you a red starting lineup and more coming up on

(20:46):
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

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Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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for life at kelseyshev dot com, Reds and Braves. First
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(21:44):
trip for Cincinnati. Brady Singer. We'll throw against AJ Shaver, No.
AJ Smith Shaver. Seven fifteen is Tonight's first pitch. The
game is on seven hundred WLW. Would you like a
Reds starting lineup? Of course you would. Friedel's and center,
McLean's at second, Eli is playing short, Gavin Lux's dhing Tonight,

(22:06):
Spencer Steer is at first base, Tyler Stevenson is catching
Freiley and right. Espinal is playing third base. Tonight, Tyler
Callahan is in left field. This evening, let's take a
look at this afternoon's injury report. It comes your way
thanks to our friends at Postman Law. The Postman Law
Injury report is delivered by Postman Law. If you're injured,

(22:28):
Postman delivers a couple of things here. Rt. Louder, who
hasn't thrown yet for Cincinnati, was sidelined in spring training
with that right forearm strain, is scheduled to pitch in
Arizona tomorrow and if all goes well with him, he
will pitch in Dayton next week. Christian and Carnassi on
strand before the game yesterday he ran on the field

(22:52):
and he has obviously had his second shot to help
relieve the pain in his back. He is on the
injury list right now with lower back inflammation and Austin
Hayes team is being pretty cautious with him obviously dealing
with that left hamstring strain. He has had a whole
slew of leg injuries. He says he feels better and

(23:12):
still no real timeline being offered as to his return,
although they obviously could use him asap. That's today's Postman
Law injury report. It is delivered by Postman Law. Injured
Call eight four four Postman Our buddy Jeff Carr locked
on Red's podcast is coming up at four oh five.

(23:34):
Your phone calls welcome here in just a bit. We
obviously did a lot of post raft stuff last week,
and you know, I think the consensus was there is
a lot of upside to this draft, but the Bengals
certainly did incurse some risk, and one would argue, and

(23:56):
I think pretty successfully that maybe a little bit too
much risk for some for eighteen that has I think
legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. ESPN dot Com did their power
rankings post free agency power rankings, and again, like there

(24:16):
are obviously free agents that can still be signed, it's
certainly worth wondering if the Bengals will dip their toe
into the water of safeties that are out there and available,
and maybe they'll still go sign another guard, although they
haven't yet, so I certainly would assume that they will.
But they do a post draft, really post free agency

(24:37):
power rankings, and I guess they did this kind of
post first wave of free agency, and now they're doing
it post draft, and again these are subjective post free agency.
ESPN dot Com had the Bengals at seven, seventh best
team in the NFL post draft. The Bengals are ranked tenth,

(24:59):
which is, you know, that's still pretty good. In the AFC,
only Kansas City Buffalo and Baltimore are ahead of them,
so fourth best team in the AFC. If the Bengals
are the fourth best team in the AFC, they will
be a playoff team. We will see. So there's two
things interesting about this number. One, though, is the placement

(25:19):
of them in relation to where they were after free agency.
After the first couple of major waves of free agency.
This would suggest that the draft itself was not that
helpful for this year's team. Again, this assessment could prove
to be dead wrong, and come November December, we're all

(25:40):
going to be laughing at it. But if you're doing
those rankings and you had the Bengals as the seventh
best team a month ago, and they've since added players
in the draft and via college free agency, and you've
slid them down for spots, some of that is a

(26:02):
reflection of how well other teams drafted, but it's mainly
an indictment against what you did or didn't do in
the draft. The other thing that's interesting to me about
this ESPN has somebody covering every NFL team in every
NFL city. In Cincinnati, it's obviously Ben Baby, who does
a really nice job for ESPN, And so each person

(26:25):
who covers their individual team was asked to write about
the most improved position on the team, and for the Bengals,
Ben wrote about running back. Now, this running back room
in Cincinnati has a chance to be terrific. If you
missed our show last week on Thursday, we had Taj
Brooks running back coach with his running backs coach from

(26:46):
Texas Tech, Kenny Perry, who was awesome and was already
excited about the Taj Brooks acquisition and even more so
in talking with his college position coach, and their running
back room has a chance to be really, really good
TOAs Brooks looks like a very capable between the tackles runner, physical,
can get tough yardage. He's a good blocker. There's some

(27:09):
wear and tear on his body, I'm sure because of
all the carries he got. He had over a thousand touches.
But you add him to a room that includes Chase Brown,
who is an emerging star, Zach Moss, and the dependable
samajp Run that's a really good running back room. The problem, though,

(27:32):
is for a team that was as bad as the
Bengals were on defense last year, is it that good
if your most improved position is not. On defense, running
back room may be awesome, and TODs Brooks might very
well be an awesome pick, and there's a lot to

(27:53):
like with that group and terrific right added to an
already lethal offense that has Higgins and Chase Burrow gas sick.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
He had.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
But when the season ended last year, did anybody go,
you know what the Bengals need to do make the
running back position better? The answer is no, I was
here for it. The answer is no. And so again
this is subjective. It's one man's opinion. But like I
read this and my first thought was, yeah, the running
back room probably is better. They made two good, solid

(28:26):
off season acquisitions. There's no more Travion Williams, no more
talking ourselves into Chris Evans like samajp Ryan, we know
what he could do. Zach Moss has been cleared, and TOADJ.
Brooks looks the part. So yes, the running back room
is probably much better. But wouldn't it be a little
bit more encouraging if I don't know, somewhere on defense

(28:48):
was better? Or heck the offensive line, which by the way,
I kind of buy the Dylan Fairchild hype, and do
think a guard they could be at least more originally
better than they were last year. But I don't know, Man,
I keep I keep coming back to this, I keep
coming back to what we were all saying about the

(29:11):
Bengals on defense last year, how it needed an overhaul.
I'm not sure they got one. Secondary looks exactly the
same defensive tackler currently four guys who are listed who
play the position on the roster. I'm not talking about
undrafted free agents, and I certainly think you could. You could,

(29:35):
I want to say, make the argument, but I think
you could look at their team and we've talked for
a long time now about boosting the pass rush, and
you may believe that the Shamar Stewart pick was a
good one, and I'm I'm kind of leaning that way
because I do think the pressures are going to translate
to the next level. And maybe you think the light
bulbs about to come on for Joseph Osai, Maybe you

(29:56):
think the light bulbs about to really come on for
Miles Murphy. It started to come on for Joseph Side
a little bit last year. It is yet to even
flicker for Miles Murphy. Maybe you think overall pass rush
is going to be better. But I don't know. Man.
If I would have said to anybody if you care
about the Bengals at all, at the end of the season,
that by early May, an objective assessment of the team

(30:20):
will have running back being the most improved area, you
would have said, that's not good because that means they
didn't do enough work on the defense. And yet here
we are. The draft happened, most of free agency has
come and gone, and yeah, you can make a very
reasonable argument that where the Bengals have improved the most

(30:41):
is running back. Do what you want with that, uh,
sixteen away from four o'clock, we have a guest in
twenty minutes. We have room for you between now and
then five point three, seven, four nine, fifteen thirty. Hopefully
hear from other folks. Next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (30:56):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen Traffic.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
From the UC Health Traffic Center. When it comes to stroke,
every second counts. That's why you see Health is the
clear choice for rapid life saving treatment. Learn more at
UCHealth dot com. There's a disabled garbage truck blocking off
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Speaker 2 (31:33):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. My name's Malegert. Thank you
so much for joining us. Take some other phone Take
some phone calls so we can hear from other people.
Do not want to monopolize the time, don't want to
hog it all of myself. Nobody wants that, So instead
we'll chat with our buddy Scott. Scott. You're on ESPN
fifteen thirty. High Scott, Hi, know you know you've.

Speaker 7 (31:56):
Made it when the weather gal is notating that she's
doing it for your show.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, first of all, she's a meteorologist and her name
is Jennifer er Yes.

Speaker 7 (32:07):
Yeah, it's Jennifer Ketchmark, right, But she specifically notated that
it was for the Moeger Show, and I don't think
she's been doing that.

Speaker 8 (32:15):
In the past.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well, I'll pull back the curtain here, so we are
huge Jennifer Ketchmark fans on this show for sure, And
as you know, Channel nine supplies the weather forecast for
you know, all of our stations here in the cluster.
And the morning of Mike McConnell's last show, one of
my favorite parts of that show was listening to the

(32:36):
banter between Mike and Jennifer Ketchmark. I think Jennifer's really
good at what she does, and you know, Mike is
maybe the greatest talk show host of all time. So
she was in studio for Mike's last show. I'm typically
not here that time of morning, but I wanted to
be here for Mike's last show. And there's Jennifer, and
she had been off TV for a few weeks dealing
with whatever she was dealing with. And I just said,

(32:57):
it's nice to have you back. It's nice to see
you on, nice to hear you back with Mike, and
it'd be it'd be nice to hear you on our
show in the afternoon. And she said, well, do you
want me to do a specific weather for your show?
And I said, of course, that'd be awesome. So she
has done that ever since, so it's very very nice.

Speaker 5 (33:14):
How about that about that?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Now?

Speaker 7 (33:16):
If I remember correctly, you used to work for Mike, right.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I was Mike's intern in the summer of nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 7 (33:24):
Ah see, I was a regular listener from to Mike
and I often called in.

Speaker 8 (33:31):
So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
I did. I did.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
Now.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I worked on Mike shows an intern, and then I
got a full time job working with Jim Scott in
the morning, and then they changed my responsibilities a little bit,
and I ran Mike's show for maybe two years, from
like three to four, middle of o three to middle
of five somewhere. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (33:54):
Yeah, so, uh, this is a little off topic, but
are you going to be a big Sandy al Contrera
al contra tonight? Yes, first game of the home the
first game of the home series.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Oh that's right, yeah, home dogs?

Speaker 7 (34:15):
Right, plus one seventy two, you go.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I had not. I have been swamped today, so I
have not even looked at the board.

Speaker 7 (34:24):
Yeah, it's that in the Nationals that there are only
plus one hundred, so those are the only two home dogs.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Very good starting a series. Starting a series, la is
sending Tony Gonsol into the mountain. La. No, I'm sorry, Dryer,
I'm sorry. I was looking ahead. I'm very well prepared
for this conversation, Scott.

Speaker 7 (34:49):
So my question is regarding two outfielders that are doing
pretty well down in uh Louisville, do you do you
think that they have lost confidence in either or both
of them?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Are you referring to Will Benson and resigns.

Speaker 7 (35:08):
Will Benson and resigns?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Right, yeah, yes, I do. I think specifically with Will Benson,
they want to see more than just a good few
weeks in Louisville. I mean, you know, Terry Francona said
there's a good player down there, and I certainly think
at some point, just the way the season works, one
or both are going to get opportunities. But you know,

(35:32):
when when you've you've got an outfield where you're using
Santiago and we all like Santiago Espinal it's a terrific
utility guy. When when they're running out there an outfield
that is not overly productive and is not exactly what
they were hoping to have on opening day, and you've
got Benson and Hines performing the way they are, you
can't help but wonder a how long is it going

(35:54):
to take for one of those guys to get called up?
Be how much in the proverbial doghouse are both players
because both are putting up good numbers right now.

Speaker 7 (36:04):
Right, And then then you didn't mention Gavin Lucks another
infielder that they're running out into the outfield. And he's
done adequately out there, but has looked a little overmatched
at times too.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
You know, when when when this when when he is
I've not seen anybody in left field. You talk about
somebody who must hate the six forty start, because when
that when that sun is shining the way it shines
in left field, I've not seen anybody struggle to the
extent Gavin has on some balls hit the left field right. Yeah, Look, man,
as as long as they as as long as they

(36:44):
are sort of you know, spinning their tires offensively, which
they are, you're going to wonder if some reinforcements from
Louisville would make sense to call up. I just I
think that what happened with Will Benson last year has
really buried him. You know, he was demoted pretty early
during spring training. It's not like he was a last
minute cut, And I just I don't gather that they

(37:07):
think Resigns is got the potential to be a quality,
everyday big leaguer. They could be wrong, and I could
be wrong about their assessment. But that's just how it
that's how it comes off.

Speaker 7 (37:18):
Well, that's kind of what I kind of thought the
same thing. And I wonder if they are buried at
this point in time, but let's hope that they aren't
because they're both hitting in the two seventies so and
solid power numbers.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
And Rbisig got twenty five. Yeah. Well, between the two
of them, they have thirteen homers. Both are having ops
well above eight point fifty. It just it feels like
the Reds the decision makers need more. They need more
than just you know whatever. It's been one hundred or
so AB's and Louisville before they changed their mind about

(37:58):
either player.

Speaker 7 (37:59):
Yep, all right, mom, it's been a great week.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
I'll do my best. Scott, thank you, thank you very much. Yeah.
I love Will Benson. Like among all the guys who
made their way to Cincinnati two years ago, I think
the guy that, just as a fan, I gravitated toward
the most was was Will Benson. I love his story.
Every time I would listen to him talk publicly, he

(38:25):
came across as very, very likable. But the dude was
a strikeout machine last year and then even watching Rehyese
Hines last season when he got caught up and hit
a billion home runs in a very short amount of time.
You just never got the sense, and I can be
wrong about this, but you never got the sense that
he was viewed as somebody who had an exceptionally bright
big league future. We will see it's up to either

(38:48):
of those two guys, or both those guys to force
their way into the big league roster, which they obviously
haven't done yet. Jeff Carr from the Lockdown Rets podcast
is next on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Now your chance to win one thousand dollars entered this
nationwide keyword on our website.

Speaker 9 (39:03):
Money.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's money. Enter it now, enter right now. There you go,
four h four, ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 7 (39:13):
Off ball Legg.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
I hope you're having an horrific Monday after Brenda min
A Jones on baseball coming up in just about forty
five minutes, looking forward to that. Most of the time
this year it's been about baseball. We're like five six weeks,
in seven weeks, in whatever it is. I feel like
most days it's been about baseball, which is which is nice.

(39:40):
Let's see more Bengal stuff to get to as well,
and is you see the one hundred and third best
team in college football in twenty twenty five. Apparently USA
Today thinks the answer is yes, we'll get to that
and more your phone calls coming up here in Justin.
But I was lucky enough to be a guest of
Jeff Carrs on the Locked On Reds podcast a few

(40:00):
weeks ago and enjoyed that conversation and it would post
it on the internet and stuff, and it was really good,
and I mean I was okay, Jeff was good. And
during the course of that conversation, I remember how much
I like talking about baseball with with Jeff, host of
the Lockdown Reds podcast, And so so we're having them
on the day and probably need to have them all

(40:22):
more often. How's it going. I like talking base both
with you too. I wish we were talking about a
better team. I'm annoyed, and I maybe I shouldn't be right,
but I'm annoyed that over the last couple of weeks
they've lost these series to Washington and Florida had just
a series split with the Saint Louis Cardinals. And every

(40:43):
time you think that, you know what, maybe they're about
to get going. They don't go yet. They are over
five hundred, they've recovered from the three and seven start,
they have really good starting pitching. Should I be as
annoyed as I am?

Speaker 5 (40:58):
I think it's just because it's early and we want
them to qualify for the playoffs already. Because I'm with you,
I think that the perfect encapsulation of their performance so
far is just that we want them to go more, like,
we want them to be more over five hundred, we
want them to be in first place in the division,
and and all this other stuff, because it feels like

(41:20):
whenever the Cubs lose, the Reds lose, and whenever the
Reds win, the Cubs win, so they can't make up
that ground. But I'm with you, I feel like like
even I think the perfect microcosm of this is Elie
de la Cruz because I think if we if we
were to just talk about what we have seen the
eye test and what we what we have watched on
the field, without looking at the numbers, we would say, yeah,

(41:41):
he's fine, but I would like him.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
To be better.

Speaker 5 (41:45):
But when you look at the numbers, he's the best
player on the team as far as position players and
wins above replacement are concerned, and the stats say that
he's having a really good year, but it's like, I
still want to see more. And that's how I feel
about the whole team.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
It's funny because when I think of Ellie, when I
think of ELI two years ago, I don't think of statistics.
I think of moments that made me go wow. When
I think of him last year, I know the statistics
were better, but I think of moments that made me
go wow. Now I see numbers that are fine, I
don't know that I've had that wow moment yet, aside
from maybe that that game where he had the ball
off the boat in center field.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
I would agree, and you haven't. You've seen some fun
moments in the field with the glove and he had
the home run that was the found ball that Tommy
Thrall made me think was a home run yesterday. But
I think that ultimately, that's kind of been his season
so far, is that it feels like he has a
chance to make us go wow, but instead he just

(42:44):
doesn't make us go hmm. And he does the fine thing.
We haven't seen the superhero thing yet.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yeah, of on the list of things that annoy me
quite frankly, is not Ellie Delacruz. I wish there was more, right,
I wish there was, and I think we all believe
there will be more. Matt McClain. What do I do
with him? What should the Reds do with him? Because
I fully believe that Matt mcclan is a foundational piece

(43:13):
of this franchise. I certainly understand the dude has not
yet played in one hundred and thirty big league games,
so he deserves a chance. He's got to establish health.
Hopefully he does that. At the same time, watching him
at the plate has often been painful. He's been a
strikeout machine, and so I'm trying to find the correct
balance between having patients with a guy who I think

(43:34):
has a chance to really help his team and wanting
the Reds to put the best nine guys out there.
Matt McLain right now doesn't look like he's one of
the best nine players. What should I do with this?

Speaker 5 (43:43):
Let me add to your frustration because you're worried about
the strikeout rate. He has hits in five of his
last seven games, and it feels like he's starting starting
a breakthrough. He hasn't broken through, definitely not yet, because
there's not a whole lot of impact with those heads.
They've all been singles. But also he's been a really
good glove. I mean, to this point, he's been the

(44:05):
best fielder on the team as far as above average
and defensive runs saved or concerned. And so when you
look at his performance in the field, it's hard to
take him off the field. So do you move him
down in the lineup? That's a worthy conversation at the moment,
because I definitely would like to see some better at bats.
The only thing is when you move him down the lineup,
he gets less at bats to prove that, and I

(44:26):
think that he's a guy that coming up here, maybe
this week we could see that breakout happen, because he's
still hitting the ball hard and he's still making good
quality of contact. It's just they've been finding gloves and
not grass. And then he has been swinging and missing
more than he did in his rookie season. And albeit
he's still struck out a little over thirty percent of

(44:47):
the time in his rookie season, so I don't necessarily
know that he is striking out exponentially more than he
will whenever things are going right, It's just he has
been super unlucky with the b that he has put
in play so far this year.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Uh noelve, Marte got called up and was hitting like
a man possessed. The production has since slowed. I still
want him out there every single day at third base.
I think most would agree, how about you.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Absolutely. I think it's interesting they already moved him up
into the cleanup spot. I thought that was a little premature.
But I love everything that he's been doing so far
because he is such a surprise. I mean, we saw
him in the Dominican Winner League. Those stats were horrible.
We saw him in spring training, those stats were horrible,
and obviously what he did on the field last season,
those stats were horrible. There's been nothing that points to

(45:40):
this kind of a breakout that we've seen, and yet
what we have seen has been fantastic, great contact, great
quality of contact, and pretty good fielding. We're not seeing
the glaring mistakes that he made on a regular basis
last year, and I think that's the biggest thing for me,
is that he has been consistent. Where we want on
this team to get more consistent. I feel like what

(46:03):
we have seen from him is mostly sustainable, although I
don't expect them to hit over three hundred, but I
do expect the plate discipline to be there all year,
which is going to raise his batting average in and
of itself, raises on base percentage, and raises overall value
to this team. But I do think that there's something
to buy in here with because we've seen the tiny
sample size in twenty twenty three that you really can't

(46:25):
bet on. I know we've seen this tiny sample size
so far in twenty twenty five that I don't know
that you or I are betting on, but we're happy about.
But I think that what he has shown so far
this year compared to what we've seen in the past
is growth in his plate discipline, and I can buy that.
I can buy that from any player if they're good

(46:45):
with their pitch recognition, and that's where he seems to be.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Jeff Carr Locked on Red's podcast, part of the Locked
In Podcast network, Do resigns and Will Benson deserve another
look up here?

Speaker 5 (46:57):
I'd like to give rees Hines another look. Will Benson's
kind of tough for me, just because I feel like
we've seen so much of him at the major league level.
I would like to see.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Him get more than one more game the rest of
the year.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
I mean, he got one game and he struck out
four times. That's kind of tough. I don't think that
that means that we know anything more than what we
already knew about him. But I also think that there's
so much opportunity in this outfield. I mean, Blake Donne
doesn't look like anybody that's going to be holding a
roster spot down from anybody else. Tyler Callahan, I don't
expect to keep anybody else off the roster because he's

(47:32):
up here. And Jake Frayley is interesting because we were
talking about this on today's live show, where he's actually
sixth as far as position players are concerned in war
on this team, which might be more of a comment
about the position player's overall value for the Reds than
it is about Jake Frayley. But I don't feel like

(47:53):
Jake Frayley is getting much better, and he sort of
seems like the guy that you need to improve upon, Like, sure,
are you mad that he's here? No, but you could
do better, I think, And I don't necessarily know that
Reese Hines is that answer, but I would love to
see him get more of a run amount of playing
time last season, but I still don't know that he

(48:16):
will ever be consistent enough to be called upon every day.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Is Amelia Pegan really the ninth inning guy for a
playoff team?

Speaker 5 (48:25):
This version of Emilia Pagan is he is striking out.
He has a strike at the walk ratio of five
point sixty seven strikeouts per walk and I don't know
that that's going to get much worse because he was
really good at keeping guys off the bases on balls
last year as well. It's all about can he stay
healthy and can he continue this high strikeout rate? And

(48:47):
I think the answer to the strikeout rate is yes.
The health will be the big question for me. But yeah,
so far the season, everything that he has done does
not seem fluky to me. I mean, he has a
whip of point five. Half of a guy is getting
on per any against him. So I think that for
right now, I'm buying this. And if it's October and

(49:11):
the Reds are facing shoheo Tani, I want Emmelia op
gun on the play on the mound in the ninth.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
To do the Rents have a good bullpen.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
I think they have a solid bullpen because I think
Graham Ashcraft has more growing pains to go through and
we saw a few of those on Sunday, and because
I mean, he fills up the strike zone, but what
does that mean whenever he gets it, gets a lineup
that understands that that scouting report on him. Tony Santyon
sort of seems like he has just one out of

(49:44):
every five days he just doesn't have it and can't
find his own and that's kind of tough because you're
gonna need him more than five times in a playoff run.
I think that they're solid and they're one really good
arm like I I can make a trade or something
like that. Same with the lineup. It feels like they're

(50:05):
one trade away in the lineup and one trade away
in the bullpen from being like good.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
So I feel the same way about the bullpen. I
think the problem with that for me is they're probably
not going to make a trade until close to the deadline.
And then which contending team doesn't need relief.

Speaker 8 (50:20):
Help right right?

Speaker 5 (50:22):
Everybody does, and it's it's all gonna be about how
you can pounce on it.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
First.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
I expected more out of Taylor Rodgers and I get it.
He's got a one point five v R and that's
kind of fun, but he doesn't strike anybody out and
he walks a lot of people. I don't know that
that one point five VRA is sustainable for him, and
so I think that pretty soon that might catch up
to him. But he is a guy that I expected
to be if it wasn't Alexis Ds, it was going

(50:47):
to be Taylor Rodgers in the Night Teddy and I
don't want to see that right now. And then Scott
Barblow is also a guy who I kind of felt
like was a really good option and he's growing into that,
but he didn't have a great start to the season either.
And it feels like there's two halves to this bullpen.
There's an A squad and a B squad and there's
a clear line as to who that is. But even

(51:08):
the A squad definitely has a tendency to not be
as reliable as you want them to be. That's where
I think that they're solid. They have depth, they just
don't have enough of the top end guys. And Emilio Pagan,
like if you put him up in the top ten
closers of baseball. I don't know that he's a top
ten closer, but he's I'm okay with him right now.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Flip it back to the position players. The Reds have
the worst performing first base combination in the National League
according to wins above replacement. Obviously, Cees is not healthy,
and the short term, how do they rectify that? In
the long term? How do they rectify that.

Speaker 5 (51:46):
Long term is the harder question to me. I think
short term is just steer until he's ready to play
in the outfield, and then you kind of consider if
you want to move one of the catchers out to
first base. I don't know that that's a good idea though,
with Tyer Stevenson, because we've already seen that and I
don't know that that gets much better for him.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And then do you.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
I think the short term answer is where do you
think Jammer Candelario is.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Once he gets back, because.

Speaker 5 (52:15):
I think that he's he's on the il temporarily, He's
going to be back soon. I don't love it, though,
because it feels like we already know what we know
about him and his good self is a two fifty hitter,
right the.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Ceiling is not very high?

Speaker 5 (52:32):
Yeah, yeah, So I think I think ultimately short term,
Spencer Steer is the answer. Long term, man, that's because
I don't know that Cees can ever stay healthy now.
He finds injuries. Yeah, it's his wrist, it's his back,
it's his leg, it's his you know whatever. And and

(52:52):
when he's in the and he's so all or nothing,
it's hard for me to really be sold on that.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
I think.

Speaker 5 (52:59):
I think it's very likely that they are still looking
for a first basement this offseason.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah. The Cees thing, to me, the end of the
twenty twenty three season feels longer ago for him than
it does for.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
Some of these other guys, even Noevi marte yeaheah sure, yeah,
go ahead, yeah. Now, I just think that Cees is
one of those guys that is going to always be
stuck in the scouting report and makes me wonder if
he's a quadruple A player, just like Will Benson, and
just like Reese Hines and Blake Dunn and Tyler Callahan

(53:35):
and maybe Jake Freiley as well. Like it seems like
there are so many of these guys that you can
make a big, a better argument that they're a quadruple
A player than they are a major league player.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Well, there are a lot of the names you just
mentioned to I try to PLoP them into the middle
of and people are going to say this isn't fair.
But I try to PLoP him into the middle of
the Chicago Cubs lineup, and I don't see a role
for him there. And then you could be you could
you could start to talk about the Dodger Madson, but
I just I make it about the team they're chasing
down in the NL Central and there are there are

(54:05):
a lot of guys who get regular playing time here
or who are on the team with the idea that
they get regular playing time once healthy that I look
at and go, I'm not sure that guy is getting
regular playing time for the Chicago Cubs.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
And I think with the Reds Cubs argument as well,
like we always like to make the argument a good
pitching staff beats a good lineup, but the issue is
if the Reds pitching staff isn't good on a given day,
I don't know that their lineup is good enough to
catch up. And we've seen them score a decent bit
so far this season. It's kind of overbloaded by that

(54:38):
one game in Baltimore. But I think too that the
lineup's going to be good enough when the pitching is great,
And the question is when the pitching is just good
enough or even maybe average, is the lineup good enough
because the pitching was good enough on Sunday, I still
even think with the with the bullpen giving up a
couple of runs, you should expect to win a game

(54:58):
where you only give up four. But this lineup is
so inconsistent. Albeit it has what feels like a good ceiling,
but it still seems like that floor is super low too.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, it's what annoys me about this team is the
starting pitching is, you know, number one in baseball I
think in whip you know, near the top of the sport,
upper fourth of the sport. In a lot of different metrics.
They're a number one in quality start percentage, which you
can do whatever you want with that, Like, you know,
I know, Nico Lidolo on Saturday wasn't great, but Nick

(55:29):
Martinez was good enough yesterday. Obviously Hunter Green was awesome
on Friday. I just I'm frustrated that I feel like
they're gonna waste the sort of starting pitching that year
to year to year is really hard to replicate.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
And I think that the biggest, biggest source of frustration
with this team, for you, and for me, and for
most folks that watch this team day in and day out,
is that we don't know what we don't know about them,
and that just means we fall back on what we
know about Red teams of years past.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Yes, I hate doing that.

Speaker 5 (56:01):
What we feel this way in May, we feel this
way in July, and then ultimately they.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
Missed the playoffs. Yeah, I guess for me, and I
started my show by talking about this, it just it
constantly feels like we're talking ourselves into, Hey, they're about
to take off, which which after that Baltimore series, I
harped on this, like, these next two weeks, win these series,
you should sweep Colorado, who's terrible, Go to Miami and
win two out of three, get three out of four

(56:30):
from Saint Louis, get two out of three from Washington.
The fact that they didn't obviously does not doom their season.
Nobody would say that on May fifth, But I just
feel like I feel like we keep talking ourselves into
how the most recent missed opportunity is one that they
can make up for, and they never do, and that
might not be fair to this team because I'm I'm

(56:52):
folding them into conversations about so many of their predecessors.
But I just I walked away from the game yesterday.
I went into that thinking, I get this one, and
Martinez pitched, well, get this one winning homestand you could
you can at least cling to that go to Atlanta
two above five hundred, you know, like it just it
felt like such a missed opportunities last two weeks, and

(57:14):
during this stretch they've gotten you know, representatives starting pitching
in many cases better than that, and yet they're still
offensively spinning their tires and they're not making up ground
and they're still flirting with five hundred, and they're still
an eighty three win team based on pace. Was what
I thought they were going to be before the season started,
And I'm frustrated. Can you hear it in my voice, Jeff,

(57:35):
I can feel it.

Speaker 5 (57:37):
I can feel it to the phone, and I'm with
you because I think that right now where they are
is so hard to evaluate because of their schedule, where
they're going to be in six weeks, I think we
will be able to we will know what we know
about this team because they are playing a probably the
toughest part of their schedule, and then they're going to

(57:57):
go into seven games before the All Star Break against
Colorado and Miami. That if they're if they're in the
All Star break and they're looking at maybe six games
above five hundred, I'm feeling really good about their chances
to make the playoffs. But if they are hovering around
five hundred, maybe a couple of games under five hundred,
I don't think they make the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
So for you, it's all about that stretch right before
the break when they played two awful teams both those series.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
Here, Well, it's and leading up to that, like, do
the is the serie?

Speaker 10 (58:27):
Is? The is?

Speaker 5 (58:28):
The is the group of games that they're about to
play that starts with Atlanta and it finishes with that
home stand of like the Yankees and the Padres, Like
does that sink them? Because if they can't get through
that close to five hundred, I don't think they make
the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah, I it was for me. I'm I'm gonna put
a lot of weight in the six games they have
against the Cubs here at the end of the month.
Three here, then three then yeah, right, like I'm I
make a dent head to head against the team that
right now feels like the one to beat in the
National League Central all apologies to the Milwaukee Brewers. Like there,
you know, you make your statement if you will, but

(59:06):
also like make your move, make your move against the
team you're chasing, and then you come out of that.
You know, we always talk about where teams are. Memorial
Day gives us an idea of, you know, where they're
going to finish. I put a lot of weight on
those two series, but I just I feel so much better.
Have they taken care of business against teams that Franklin

(59:27):
aren't that great? And here we.

Speaker 5 (59:28):
Are now and you add those three against Milwaukee after
those six against Chicago, and you've got twelve games that
you really really need to win.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
You're right about that, all right?

Speaker 7 (59:37):
Man?

Speaker 2 (59:38):
It had been way too long. I can't thank you
enough for doing this. We'll do it against so man,
Thanks so much.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
Absolutely no, God.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
That's our guy. Jeff Carr locked on Red's podcast We
Are Way Late twenty four after four ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (59:51):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from.

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(01:00:20):
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Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
This report is sponsored by the Greater Cincinnati four Dealers.
Blocked on Rets podcast Go listen to it. Go listen
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is what it's all about. Brendanman and Jones on Baseball's
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(01:00:51):
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fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (01:01:06):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.

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(01:01:34):
from a disabled vehicle, a medical emergency reported in that vehicle,
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ezelic with.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
Traffic ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Sports headlines are a service of a Kelsey Shovla home
of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their
family be yours for life, kelseyshow dot com. Redsen braves
tonight first of four all game starting with the series
opener and Atlanta. Brady Singer gets the ball from Cincinnati
against a J. Smith Shaver. Seven point fifteen is tonight's

(01:02:10):
first pitch and you can hear it live on seven
hundred WLW. Are you ready for a red starting lineup?
Well an hour ago if you said yeah, I'm ready,
but I don't have a pen. You've had an hour
to get a pen. So here we go. Friedel and center,
McLean and second, Elliott short lucks, Dhing steer it first,
Stevenson behind the plate, Frailey and right. Espinal is playing

(01:02:32):
third base, and Tyler Callahan is in left field, batting
ninth way. I did not mean to sound like I
was dumping on Santatio Estbad has been one of the
better pickups the Reds have made. And think of the
last year's team, think of this year's team without him.
But the idea isn't for him to be getting regular
playing time in left field. The idea is for him

(01:02:52):
to bounce around, and he is good at that. He's
You're not gonna find anybody who likes Santiago asbin On
more than I do. But and when plans were drawn
up for the season, I'm not sure him getting you know,
regular playing time in the outfield was part of the plan.
There you go. I don't think I have anything else

(01:03:13):
for sports, said lines, So let's talk to other people. Steve,
you're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank you for your patient, Steve.
How are you, Steve? Steve is not there. Steve is
not there. Well, hopefully Steve is okay, perhaps Steve will
call back. Mike, go ahead, No, hang on, you're on

(01:03:35):
ESPN fifteen three. I catch you mid conversation.

Speaker 8 (01:03:39):
Yeah, talking to the doctor.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
What's what's going on? Man?

Speaker 8 (01:03:45):
All kinds of stuff. But as far as sports goes
a lot of stuff going on there too. Yeah, Steve,
congratling your knicks.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Well, we'll see how they do in Game one tonight
in Boston.

Speaker 8 (01:04:00):
The greatest thing is I get I get MLB Extra
innings now on my phone, so it's really cool. So
I love being able to see all the different MLB
games at my whim m h. It's a nice teacher.
I had it for a couple of years at home,
but I really dig it because tonight the game to
watch is the Pods and the Yankee stats. The game
to watch tonight at seven o'clock, not the Reds game.

(01:04:21):
Oh I'm not check on the Reds game, but well
that should be a dandy game. Padre is a Yankees
at seven, So I'm curious, she said Chase Brown earlier.
You feel like he's an emerging star.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
I do I do with within the within the the
role that they're asking him to be. And uh, Chase
Brown is is is likely to never lead the league
in carries. We don't want him to because they have
Joe Burrow on the team. But if, if, if you
saw the way he grew into the role of running
back one last year, saw his impact receiving the ball,

(01:04:56):
running the ball, being able to be an every down guy,
I think he is a burgeoning star. I think he
is an ascending player. I think when people started talking
about like fantasy football, not that this necessarily is equated
to being a great football player, but I think he's
going to be the darling of fantasy football leagues. And

(01:05:18):
Chase Brown is on the verge after a season of
which he gained nearly fourteen hundred yards from scrimmage, I
think he is on the verge of having an outstanding
season year number three in the NFL.

Speaker 8 (01:05:30):
Cool. Yeah, he seems pretty durable too so and he
certainly got to desire. So I am written for that
kid really hard.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
He's from Illinois, right, yes, University of Illinois. I mean
he you know, and again, like at the beginning of
the season last year, our complaint was he was never used.
Like if you go if you just if you just
look at his raw numbers from last season, he did
not run for a thousand yards, which do what you
want with that. But once they finally made him the

(01:05:57):
lead guy in the offense, I thought, I thought he
was terrific. And again, it's rare that you're going to
see him carry it more than twenty five times. But
if you go back to early in the season when
they started zero to three, if memory serves me correct,
he had three carries in the first game against New England,
I think he had four in the second game against
Kansas City. The third game was against Washington. I know

(01:06:20):
he had fewer than ten carries in that game. He
was not a factor in the passing game at all.
And then as the season went on, he was the guy.
Zach Moss's lack of productivity and then the Zach Moss
injury were certainly factors in that. But once he became
the guy, once he became RB one, so to speak,
I thought he did a really nice job. He fits

(01:06:42):
what they want perfectly. You don't have to take him
on the field for certain downs. I think he is
on the verge of stardom. Now is he Christian McCaffrey.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Is he Sakwan Barkley No? Is he Derrick Henry No.
But in this offense, he doesn't need to be think
within the confines of what they are asking for from him.
He has a chance to really take off and be
a major, major reason why this offense clicks. I just
wish they had a Chase Brown on defense.

Speaker 8 (01:07:10):
Mike, Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, we keep trying to
avoid that topic because it's fairly gloomy. Actually, it's like
January in the Midwest. It's kind of a gloomy thought.
Did I tell you I got so lucky? I got
the luckiest hit I've ever had. A horse race on Saturday? Really, Yeah,

(01:07:30):
I was in my room and I'll be watching all
that pregame pre race stuff, which gets really tedious. So
it was on. I was glancing at it with the
women blah blah blah dah, and so I thought, I'm
going to start paying attention to what these guys that
know a lot about these horses are talking about. So
I really paid attention. So that close to post time,
I thought, I'm gonna I'm gonna drop a couple little

(01:07:52):
bit of money on us. So I called my buddy,
and I took Journalism by ASA and Samman on one
ticket and I boxed those. And then I took Journalism
by ASA and Sovereignty and box those twenty dollars. You
don't what to pay four four thousand and six twenty

(01:08:14):
two on a twenty dollar bit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Wow. So Mike had a good Derby day.

Speaker 8 (01:08:20):
I mean, I've never come close to that. And I'd
be like, used to go to the track, you know, frequently,
and I had maybe one four hundred dollars once, but yeah,
my blood pressure went way high and the nurse was like,
this isn't that cool, dude? You could hill out. I
was so happy, moro. I mean, my god, that's like
Christmas for a seventy three year old. You know, you

(01:08:42):
don't understand, lady, You just don't get it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
You you you you had a better Derby day than
I did.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Mike.

Speaker 8 (01:08:54):
Oh oh God? Love you? Not good?

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Uh not? From a wagering perspective, I listened. I listened
to the wrong people. I listened to the wrong people, Mike.

Speaker 8 (01:09:06):
That's what I've always done. That's why this time I
didn't listen to any friends or anybody except them guys
on the blood tooth and that that helped me. I
got lucky. I got a question for youse shoving me
nuts on the Reds. So this is kind of a
Bell versus Francona paradigm. So the last two years, the

(01:09:27):
Reds are about the best team healing bases in the MLB.
Now this year we're we're seventh or eighth, and we've
dropped off a lot. So is this the Francona effect
or is it partially because Ellie's needs to be hitting
second or even first to really bump that number because

(01:09:48):
ahead of us, the Cubs, the Pirates, and the Brewers
are in the top seven or eighth ahead of us.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Yeah, I gotta be honest with you, haven't thought about
that too much. I want to see Ellen Della Cruz
hit first or second. I think it feels like they're
being a lot more selective right stealing bases. McLean McClain's
perfect stealing bases this year. Right, he's six for six.
Him missing time hasn't helped that ratio. It does feel

(01:10:16):
like they are. I think two things have happened. Number One,
you know, if you remember two years ago the Red
stole billion bases. Part of it was the new pickoff
rules were new, and so they found ways to, you know,
really exploit a rule change. I think teams have figured
out ways to keep runners close that they were still

(01:10:37):
wrapping their brains around last year. I think pitchers are
doing a better job. And I say this without having
looked at the pickoff or caught stealing stats. But I
felt like two years ago when I watched games, teams
were just waiting for two pickoff throws, and now they
take off. I think pitchers have gotten better. Teams have
gotten better at slowing down opposing teams in the running

(01:10:58):
game within the fines of the current rules. I do
feel like they have been a little bit less willing
to force the issue running the bases this year and
stealing bases than two years ago. And I don't like
it because it's not a team that's going to hit
the long ball a lot, right, It's not a team.
They're probably not going to have more than one or
two guys that has more than twenty home runs this season.

(01:11:19):
I could be dead wrong about that, but it just
I would like to see them force the issue a
little bit more in the running game, and it just
feels to me and I say feel because I haven't
looked at the statistically, it feels like they've been less
willing to force the issue on the base pass this season.

Speaker 8 (01:11:34):
Oh yeah, because it seemed to me when they were
doing that a lot under David Bill, it seems to
really disorient the other team. Momentum seemed to swing. We
can create momentum. It was a crowd pleaser, the team
seemed to get jacked up. It just seemed like a
really good way to jack with an opposing pitching staff.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Also, and also, I mean, I think I think if
you look at like, you know, TJ. Friedel can steal bases,
but you know, the on base percentage isn't quite as
high as as you would like. Matt McClain can steal bases,
but when he plays, his on base percentage is like
two to eighty. That's not good enough for a guy
who's going to hit early in the order. You know,

(01:12:15):
they they they're not on base I think enough to
steal a lot of bags, and I think they are
being a little bit more selective.

Speaker 8 (01:12:24):
Yeah, I guess that's it. Can I do one quick
MLB NBA thing?

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Yeah, then we gotta go.

Speaker 8 (01:12:30):
Okay, Indiana just blew me out yesterday. What I hadn't
seen him play but once this year water squad in
Rick Carlisle. Now he's pretty good historically coaching against Boston.
So we'll see if they get that book. But and
so Indiana had an impressive outing yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
I go.

Speaker 8 (01:12:49):
But the Denver game, courts Harden didn't show up. But
that's what he already does. His gloss is completely gone.
This guy's out there way, he's way gone. But Michael
west if you had never really been fond though, but
I'll tell you what. That guy yesterday, And he's been really, really,
really important for them so far in this playoff, especially
with Porterham and his health issues. Yesterday has five steels,

(01:13:13):
five rebounds, five assists, sixteen points, shoots fifty five percent
from the field, and was instrumental in that butt kicking.
And this bron kid is some kind of little ballplayer.

Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
Mo.

Speaker 8 (01:13:26):
He can throw it up now if he gets hot.
He shot sixty percent from the three line. Answered. I
thought that Denver victory was really impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Yeah, I'm not a Russell Westbrook guy, but he was awesome.
On Saturday night, Christian Braun was really good. I thought
the story of the weekend. Is the team you mentioned
first though, the Indiana Pacers can win that series against Cleveland. Uh,
you know, offensively, they're as good as any in the sport.
They got whatever they wanted on the offensive end. Last
night played from ahead the entire time, and there were

(01:13:55):
a couple of different times where it felt like Cleveland
was trying to deliver a knockout blow and every time
they needed a bucket, every time they needed an answer,
whether it was Nemhard, whether it was Helliburton, whether it
was Thurin off the bench, Nessmith, they they have. You know,
if you ask a lot of casual NBA fans to

(01:14:16):
name like six Indiana Pacers, they can't. But offensively they
were terrific all year long. Is the reason why they
won fifty games. They don't get talked about in the
East because of the Pacers and the Celtics and the Knicks.
I don't know that i'd bet on him to win
the East, but I think they could win the series
against Cleveland and then you know, we'd see what happened,
presuming they played Boston, which obviously I hope they don't.

(01:14:38):
But yeah, that was that was That was a really
great performance in Game one last night, and I couldn't
find any expert who picked him to win that series.
And I'm sure to a degree like they were with
the Knicks last year in the second round, playing with
a chip on their shoulder. It certainly looked like it
last night. Mike, I got a run.

Speaker 8 (01:14:54):
They Will Garland make a difference when he comes back?

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Sure? The question is when will that happen?

Speaker 8 (01:15:01):
Yeah, thanks, Mo, appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
All right, it's thirteen away from five o'clock. Five one, three, seven,
four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. Brendan and
Jones on baseball coming up in just a few minutes
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
to stroke, every second count. So that's why U see
health is the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment.
Learn more at UCHealth dot com. Southbound seventy five at
Western Avenue, the right lane blocked off that from a
reported medical emergency in a vehicle Pippin Road. It's another

(01:15:39):
accident at Struble Road. Stevens Branch Road remains closed down
between Persimmon Grove and Flag Springs Pike on that ezelic
with traffic.

Speaker 5 (01:15:49):
This is Dave Lappler and you're listening to the Home
of the Bengals ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Really really quick here if we have not for a
while now talked about that Michigan sign stealing scan, you know,
the whole Connor Stallions thing during International Championship year two
years ago. But in the top of the hour update
it was mentioned that Michigan is doing a self and
post sanctioned. Sharon Moore, the coach, is going to be

(01:16:15):
suspended for two games for the upcoming season. Not the
first two games, by the way, No no, no, no, no no.
He is going to be suspended for the third and
fourth game against Central Michigan and Nebraska. Their first two
games are against New Mexico and at Oklahoma. And I've
read that well, they didn't want to suspend him for

(01:16:35):
the Oklahoma game because he's an alum. Like, dude, how
big is that? Look, I'll be honest with you, and
I was honest with you two years ago. I loved
the Michigan sign stealing scandal because it added just an
interesting layer to the college football playoff, and I enjoyed
the debates around it. But you know, when the NCAA

(01:17:01):
first sent their notice of allegations against the Michigan program,
the response from the university was that the NCAA was
quote grossly overreaching and wildly overcharging. They did charge Michigan
with major violations, and next month, I guess, is when

(01:17:23):
the official findings from the NCBA are supposed to come out.
Eleven charges in the NCAA's notice of allegations, more de
leaded a string of fifty two text messages with Connor
Stallions immediately after the sign stealing scanner blew up, explained
it away as anger towards scallions and not an omission
of guilt, and then would go on to actually produce

(01:17:45):
the text messages. So all I heard was from Michigan people,
this is a nothing burger, there's nothing here, this is
an overy. Well then why are they suspending them for

(01:18:06):
two games? Why if there's nothing there, if this is overcharging,
if this is an overreach, why are they suspending them?
I mean I've heard now for years they did nothing wrong,
there's nothing to see here. Well, if that's the case,

(01:18:32):
then don't you uh defend yourself, defend your reputation, not
punish yourself. And if you're the NCAA and you see
that Michigan is trying to head this off by a
self imposed punishment, aren't you kind of laughing at the
fact that they're just randomly choosing the games. And by

(01:18:52):
the way, like it's a little bit different now used
to be if you did you know a suspension where
a coach had to miss a game, he didn't have
to missed the week leading up to the game. That
is different now. So Charon Moore will have to miss
the two weeks leading up to the two games he
is being punished for. He's being punished even though Michigan
did nothing wrong, even though the NCAA says this is

(01:19:13):
an overy. I'm sorry, the school says to the NCUBA
that the NCAA is overreaching and overcharging here, and yet
they're still going to suspend him. Okay, all right, sure, sure,
I'm I'm not giving myself a punishment if I did

(01:19:35):
nothing wrong. I mean, I don't know what I would
be investigated for. But if I if I did nothing wrong,
and I can prove I did nothing wrong, and I'm
adamant that I did nothing wrong, then I'm not going
to give myself a punishment. So the school is going
to say this is not an admission of guilt. Well,
then why are they, you know, suspending him for two
games during the season. It's a fair question, which is

(01:19:56):
why I asked that it's the Nicelobultra of five o'clock
Happy Hour thanks to our friends at michelob Ulture, Superior Taste,
Superior Life Beard, Michelobe Culture. One sounds amazing right now.
I make last half full guy. I'm an optimistic guy.
I I have come off as annoyed with the I'm annoyed.

(01:20:17):
That's that's the word. This team has one hundred and
twenty seven games to go, a lot of baseball in
front of them. They have one more win than loss.
I think for a lot of folks, if we would
have said after the three and seven start, they'll come
out of the first weekend of May with one more
win than loss, might have shrugged your shoulders and said, yeah, perhaps,

(01:20:41):
yet Yet this team is still frustrating to me. And
it doesn't mean that this team can't, you know, figure
out a way to win the division, get to the postseason,
make all our dreams come true. And two weeks ago,
after they played three games in Baltimore, one two, score
twenty five in the last one. I think a lot

(01:21:01):
of us started to look at the schedule and go,
here's where they can make a move. And I don't
know that it was necessary to call it like a
season defining stretch or anything like that, but I know
I did, and I don't recall anybody telling me I
was wrong. I looked at the just the next two
weeks in front of him, and I saw a lot
of bad, a lot of mediocre. I saw the Miami

(01:21:24):
Marlins and the Colorado Rockies and the Saint Louis Cardinals
and the Washington Nationals. Those were the next four series.
The Reds won one of those series, lost to split one,
losing homestand they lose yesterday. Mackenzie gore. The only thing
the Reds have going for them offensively yesterday was when
it started to rain and they didn't put the tarp

(01:21:45):
on the field, and McKenzie gore seemed uncomfortable out there.
The Nationals pitcher and was falling off the mound and
was having a hard time gripping the ball, and the
Reds couldn't take advantage. They nearly did because Ellie Dela
Cruz hit a ball down the left field line that
was originally ruled a home run. I gotta be honest
with you, even at first glance that didn't look like
a home run. We have replay, so it got pulled
off the board. Reds lose the ballgame. Bullpen kind of

(01:22:07):
melted down last night. At the end of the day,
it's one game out of one sixty two and you
don't want to make a big deal of it, but man,
I tell you what, it does feel like. Rooting for
the Reds always involves, you know, either telling yourself that
they're about to break out and about to take off,
or making excuses for the fact that they didn't just

(01:22:28):
about to take off, that they didn't separate themselves a
little bit, that they didn't make a move. These last
two weeks to me, have been frustrating. The Cardinal series,
where you know, the centerpiece was the rain and they
had to have a double header. They're pretty much non
competitive in the two double header games, sandwiched or in
between wins in the first game of the series and

(01:22:50):
in the last game of the series. And then you
went on Friday because Hunter Green did Hunter Green things
against Washington to lose the next two games. It's frustrating,
and you know, to me, this is just one of
those stretches of time that I'll circle, and I think
if you're a Reds fan, you'll do the same, maybe
just mentally make a mental note that stretch late April

(01:23:13):
early May, where the schedule opened up a little bit
and where they had games against bad or mediocre opponents.
After the Baltimore series, they only won one of the
next four series, lose two out of three in Miami,
got the sweep in Colorado, which the Rockies are terrible
split with. The Cardinals lose two out of three to Washington.

(01:23:39):
And so there's there's that. Then there's the there's the
Matt McClain thing. Matt McClain is struggling, and look, the
Reds have a very high opinion of Matt McClain. There's
a reason why they drafted him when they did. There's
a reason why they traded the the other guy who
plays the same position is Matt McLain Jonathan India. One

(01:24:01):
of the reasons was Brady Singer, who pitched tonight. The
other reason was pretty comfortable with Matt McLean and I
think he's kind of now taking his turn as the
current whipping boy among fans, and I understand it. There's
a real interesting dynamic with Matt McLean where we all
understand the Reds as an organization have a very high

(01:24:22):
opinion of this guy, and we've seen why they have
a high opinion of him because he was arguably their
best player or two years ago. We also understand he
is coming off an injury, didn't play at all last year,
had an injury earlier this year that put him on
the shelf. You have to give the guy time. You
got to exhibit some patience. You have to understand, like
as of today, Matt McClain has played in fewer than

(01:24:42):
one hundred and twenty five big league games. They're still developing,
there's still acclamation, there's still all those things. There's still
all the rope in the world that you want to
give him, There's all the time in the world that
you want to give him to figure it out. But
he's playing for a team that we we are looking
at through a different lens than we have many teams

(01:25:03):
that have come before, where now let's get to the playoffs,
be a playoff team contend for a division title, win
the division title. These games matter more when you've got
a second place hitter who was just not hitting at all.
And I, you know, we Jeff Carr on the show
before locked on Red's podcast, you talked about like in
recent games, Matt McLain has gotten some hits and hit

(01:25:24):
the ball hard. Earn's it's it's you know. People have asked,
are are you concerned about Matt McClain big picture? No
big picture, no small picture. EMM like take away the name,

(01:25:46):
take away what you watch from him? Two years ago,
if I just gave you the statistical profile of Matt
McClain but didn't tell you whose statistical profile it was,
and I said, for a team that has legit designs
on getting to the postseason, this is their number two hitter,
you would have said, there's no way. And so one
of the things that's going to be really interesting is
to see if this continues, meaning his you know, profound

(01:26:09):
offensive struggles, If they continue, how long do they go
with them, How long do they stay with them, not
trading ham or cutting hamm or anything like that, but
how long do they go without doing something with Matt McLain,
Whether it be moving him lower in the order, whether
it be putting him on the bench for a while,

(01:26:32):
whether it be sending him out. I don't know. Matt McClain.
A source of frustration. The overall offensive performance of the
team often a source of frustration. Again, man, like, I'll
grant you, they dug themselves out of that three and
seven hole. They've got really good starting pitching. It is

(01:26:54):
way too early to make any profound proclamations about how
good or bad the team is. At the same time,
and I can only speak for myself. Before the season started,
when we were all taking a guess and how many
games the Reds would win, my take was they'll win
eighty three, you know, eighty three ish somewhere in there.

(01:27:15):
But they looked and felt like an eighty three win team.
I have spent the first month and a half of
the season hoping to see things that made me re
forecast things a little bit well. As of today, the
Reds are on pace to win eighty three games. Eighty
three wins is a winning record. Eighty three wins has
this team perhaps in the race for a playoff spot

(01:27:37):
for much of the summer. Eighty three wins in all
likelihood will not be good enough to get to the postseason.
So at some point they have to accelerate their pace,
and maybe they will, And if the starting pitching continues
to be the asset that it has been, there's an
okay chance that that happens. But I viewed the last
couple of weeks as an opportunity to accelerate the pace.

(01:28:01):
Unfortunately they didn't. We'll see if that changes starting tonight,
seventeen after five o'clock five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty and eight sixty six, seven oh two three
seven seven six. Uh yeah, you know, if you're not
guilty of something, don't plead guilt. Don't take a punishment. Sorry, man,

(01:28:24):
look at you didn't. If you didn't break any rules,
you don't think the INCIDAAA should be investigating you, and
you think the INCENTALA is overreaching, then don't don't impose
your own punishment. Not that hard, Not that hard at
maleger on Twitter. It is eighteen after five o'clock. The
USA today ranked every FBS college football team. If you're

(01:28:46):
a UC fan, you're not gonna want to see where
the Bearcats are. We'll get to that coming up here
in just a bit on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 6 (01:28:52):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from the UC Health traffics.

Speaker 4 (01:29:00):
When it comes to stroke, every second counts. That's why
you see Health is the clear choice for rapid life
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It is an accident on the left shoulder approaching Norwood
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(01:29:21):
off on that ramp and Stevens Branch Road is closed
between per Simon Grove and Flag Springs Pike. I'm at
ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
This report is five. This is ESPN fifteen thirty one
Mouligger tomorrow on the show our buddy Paul Danner cheer.
We are looking forward to that on a whole bunch
of different Bengals related items. Uh five one three nine,
fifteen thirty is our phone number eight sixty six seven
oh two three seven seven six works as well. Let's

(01:29:53):
take a phone call or two. John, you're John. You're
on ESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon, John, How are you?

Speaker 10 (01:30:00):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (01:30:00):
Good mo, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
I've never been better? What's up?

Speaker 9 (01:30:04):
Well, first of all, a whole the whole thing with
n c A sports and how they manage themselves. It's
it's just it's absolutely ridiculous. And the for a school
to be able to pick which games are gonna suspend somebody,
it's just it's it's laughable. I mean, it's just it's
it's almost like slapping everyone in the face and say, well,

(01:30:27):
we're going to do something about it. We're just gonna
do whatever it's for us.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
The I mean, the the idea of self imposed punishment
is just comical to me, right, Like imagine like your
your kids saying, yell, I'll uh, I'll come up with
my own punishment, Like no, no, no one would go
for that.

Speaker 8 (01:30:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
But if you're gonna do the self imposed punishment, you
then can't say, well, hey, there's nothing to see here.
The n c double A is overreaching. If you're punishing yourself,
you did that is an admission of guilt, you did
something wrong.

Speaker 9 (01:30:57):
It's it's it's just a big old shell game, and
one once all this money got involved into it, it
just kind of turns sideways. But but the main reason
I called was you talked a little bit about Matt McClain,
and I just wonder at some point he considered maybe
sending him down to Louisville and just letting him see
if he can clear his head and kind of get

(01:31:18):
at least on a little bit of a hit streak
or some kind just so he's feeling.

Speaker 10 (01:31:23):
I mean, we.

Speaker 9 (01:31:23):
Actually have a lot of second base options right now.
I mean, obviously spin All can play second, Lux can
play second. I mean, We've got a lot of guys.

Speaker 10 (01:31:34):
That we could play there.

Speaker 9 (01:31:36):
And I just think just he's, as you say, he's struggling.

Speaker 10 (01:31:41):
Maybe just it's not not not you could even make
an end to You could.

Speaker 9 (01:31:46):
Say we're going to send you down for five games
or seven games, and you're coming back as soon as
you get through those games, no matter what. We just
want you to take the take the pressure off, go down,
work on some things, and see if you can get
into a groove a little bit. But and then the
other thing too, is they're just there seems to be
no interest in maybe moving him down the six or seven.

(01:32:10):
Hit him in the two hole every single game, whether
he's struggling or not.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Yeah, I mean There's there's two different issues there. Number one,
I don't know how you don't move him down at
this point. And even if you acknowledge they have other
guys who are offensively not lighting the world on fire,
I don't know, just for the sake of I'm talking about,
like maybe maybe taking a little pressure off of him,
just put him in the seventh spot for a game.
The Louisville thing, for me, I'm not opposed to, because

(01:32:34):
it's not punishment. Right Like we talked about this with
Alexis DS. The rid certainly hope Alexis DS goes to
Louisville and figures it out. But what they were doing
at the time was they were letting him pitch through
what he was dealing with. That's fine. Why does he
have to do it at the level where the results
matter now they have obviously since sent him down. What
would be the harm with a guy like Matt McClain

(01:32:56):
if you said, look, man, you've got to work through
whatever it is you're working through here, but we can't
have we can't have that impact our ability to win
or lose games at this level. So go to Louisville,
get some abs. We'll bring you back This is not
a punishment. We have things you need to work on.
You have things you need to work on. Go work
on that stuff, come back better prepared to help us win,

(01:33:19):
and we'll go from there. I think that maybe it's
not on the table today, but if the numbers look
like they do in a couple of weeks, I don't
know how it's not.

Speaker 9 (01:33:27):
I yeah, I would certainly think so. And then you
take and then you take a guy like Santiago Espinal
who I mean, the guy probably walks into the into
the clubhouse every day and wonders, number one am I playing?
And where am I hitting at?

Speaker 8 (01:33:42):
In the life?

Speaker 9 (01:33:43):
I mean, he's done everything that's been asked of him
and then some and he still is kind of a
part time player and he hits in the bottom of
the order most of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Yeah, and I you know, I think he understands that.

Speaker 10 (01:33:57):
He knows. I'm sure he does.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
He knows why he's all the team. But you're right,
you have Santiago espinaal can play second base and he's
going to give you competitive at bats. He's going to
be fine in the field, and right now you could
argue he's a better option than Matt McLean.

Speaker 9 (01:34:11):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
Thanks all right, John, thanks thanks very much. I mean,
we did this conversation with Alexis Diaz last week, and
you know, he had the disastrous outing against the Cardinals
in the first game of that double header and gave
the first game of that doubleheader on Wednesday afternoon, and

(01:34:36):
they obviously sent him to Louisville the next day. Many
of us watched him during that last outing before he
got sent out, and we had already made up our
mind Senema Louisville. Now, I think you have some who
view that as Sennama Louisville and never see him again.
That's not the idea here. Like the idea behind demoting

(01:34:56):
a player is to never never see him again. The
idea behind demoting the player is, well, create room for
somebody who's a better option, but also go to Louisville
and work on stuff and get better and improve, play
your way through some things, maybe develop some confidence, and
then ideally come back. I do not subscribe to the

(01:35:19):
belief that just because somebody is a big part of
your plans that you can't send him to Louisville. You
can't send him to the minor leagues. There's a long
list of really good players, not just here, but a
long list of really good players who've been sent to
the miners, And the idea isn't to banish them and

(01:35:39):
never hear from them again. The idea is to allow
them to play through stuff, do it at a level
where the results don't matter, and in the short term
find a better option. And maybe we're not there as
it relates to Matt McClain now, but if his numbers
in three weeks look like they do now, come on.

(01:36:03):
Sending a guy to Louisville is not giving up on him.
Sending a player to the minor leagues is not abandoning
the idea that the guy is gonna be a huge
part of your team. But you've got to play the
best nine, and to play the best nine, you have
to be equipped with the best twenty six. So far
this year, it's been rare that Matt McLain has looked
like one of the best twenty six. He may have

(01:36:25):
three hits tonight, two homers, plays his typical dynamite second base,
and his season takes off from here. But I think
it is fair to ask, how long do you wait
for his season to take off before you try something
else and again. Try something else might be a different
place in the batting order. Try something else might mean

(01:36:46):
he's gonna come off the bench for a while. Try
something else could certainly mean he gets sent down. And
you know, then if that were to happen, you hope
he makes the best of it. We'll see five thirty
five one three, seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight
sixty six seven oh two three seven seven six. You

(01:37:09):
see is going to be the one hundred and third
best team in college football this year, according to one publication.
We'll get to that next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 6 (01:37:15):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the UC.

Speaker 4 (01:37:21):
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So that's why you See Health is the clear choice
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The northbound seventy five exit ramp to westbound Western Hills
Viaduct is closed due to a rollover accident. The left
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(01:37:42):
crews responding. Expect to take a few extra minutes if
you're going to be traveling through there on that ezelic
with traffic headlines.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
Are a service on the Kelsey Chevrolia home of lifetime
powertrain protection and guarantee credit approval from their family, The
Yours Life Kelsey chef dot Com. Red start a road
trip tonight, first of four in Atlanta against the Braves.
As it says here on at Red's, the road trip
begins in the A seven fifteen tonight on seven hundred

(01:38:13):
WL W Brady Singer and A. J. Smith Shaver. You're
starting Lina tonight for Cincinnati, Friedel McLain, Dela Cruz, Locks's
Dhing Steers at first, Stevenson behind the plate, Freiley Espinal
who's playing third base tonight, and Tyler Callahan in left field.
There you go. There is your starting lineup for tonight.

(01:38:38):
I saw this at Cincinnati dot Com. USA Today has
ranked every FBS college football team one through one thirty six.
One through one thirty six. U S was ranked one

(01:39:01):
hundred and third among FBS schools. Only Northwest I'm sorry
under Power four schools. Only Northwestern, Stanford and Purdue ranked lower.
The nearest Big twelve team was Arizona at number ninety

(01:39:22):
six one O three. This has been described as a
make or break year for Scott Saderfield and the UC
football team, and understandably so after a painfully disappointing last
five weeks of the season last year, one oh three
would suggest worst in the Big Twelve, worst in the
Big twelve, would, I would imagine mean there's no year

(01:39:45):
four for Scott Saderfield. We will see that again. Just
subjective ranking that sobering. Go read that for yourself at
Cincinnia dot com. By the way, if you're wondering, h
Io State, the defending national champions number six, Texas, Clemson,
Penn State, Georgian, Notre Dame one through five, Miami the

(01:40:12):
RedHawks number sixty three, forty spots higher than Cincinnati, and
I had jotted down Kentucky and I totally completely lost it.
But anyway, Kentucky eighty one eighty one Cincinnati won O three.
Expectations for this season not through the roof, I guess

(01:40:34):
one O three, which would suggest like a winless record
in the Big Twelve or a one to seven record
in Big twelve play which talk about like having their
work cut out for him. You know, a program that
just four years ago was in the College Football Playoff

(01:40:55):
the last two years, first two years in the Big twelve.
I've obviously yielded very disappointing results. We say this as
it relates to the job of UC football coach all
the time. You've got to energize the fan base, right,
You've got to engage the fan base. Scott Sanderfield has
his work cutout for him in that regard. We'll see,

(01:41:15):
we'll see.

Speaker 5 (01:41:17):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
Twenty three away from six o'clock five point three, seven
four nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number. I referenced
this before as well. And I feel like everybody has
issued a draft grade, right, everybody's waiting on the draft.
God knows, we have gotten everybody we can get on
to talk about the draft. And so now based on

(01:41:40):
the draft, maybe a recalibration of expectations for every single
team this year. So we love power rankings, right. ESPN
did their power rankings one through thirty two post draft,
and they have done this kind of occasionally throughout the
course of the off season. Did power rankings right after
the most recent season was completed, after the Super Bowl,

(01:42:03):
did it after the first couple of waves of free agency,
and they've done them again here after the draft. The
ones done after free agency, had the Bengals at number seven,
and again subjective power rankings number seven. After the draft,
they have fallen three spots to number ten, fourth in

(01:42:24):
the AFC. And you know, I would say, if you know,
any team listed in the top ten or twelve certainly
has legitimate playoff hopes. I will say something that I
was wrong about a year ago. I'll double down on it.
If Joe Burrow plays every game or all the meaningful games,

(01:42:44):
this will be a playoff team. I said that last
year and ended up being wrong. I find it almost
impossible to believe that Joe Burrow plays another full season
and the Bengals are on the outside looking in. If so,
I cannot even imagine what we're going to be talking
about as a related Zach Taylor in the organization. So anyway,
but the Bengals dropped to number ten, which is reflective

(01:43:05):
of the fact that most found the draft to be
for the Bengals kind of underwhelming. Will recognize its upside,
will recognize the upside of a lot of the individual players,
but still kind of underwhelming and maybe in some cases
not even kind of that's not what you want. The

(01:43:27):
other thing that was interesting to me is thirty two
NFL teams, each one has a correspondent working for ESPN.
Here in Cincinnati, it's Ben Baby. He does a nice
job covering the Bengals for ESPN dot com, And what
every local writer was asked to do is write about
the team's most improved position, and Ben wrote about running back.

(01:43:52):
Go read it for yourself at ESPN dot com if
you want to read the entire blurb. It's hard to argue.
Like it's one thing that Bengals I think has done
a pretty good job of this season. They've made the
running back room good. Samaj pen Ryan's edition is good.
We'll see about Zack Moss, Taj Brooks his addition good,
and Chase Brown I referenced this about an hour ago.

(01:44:15):
I think is on the verge of stardom. Stardom relative
to the role he's going to be cast in specifically,
but stardom, Like I think people forget how little he
was used early last season and then how good he
was once he became the guy, and how he was
in every down back. So yeah, man, I think the
collective at running back just because of Samaj p rind

(01:44:36):
a healthier Zack Moss and drafting Taj Brooks, that's a
better position. But if I would have said to you
or anybody else who follows the Cincinnati Bengals at the
end of the season that when we get to May,
the most improved position is going to be running back,
you would have asked me, Mo, did you watch the

(01:44:58):
team play defense last year? Did you did you watch
did you watch all of those games where the defense
couldn't stop anybody? Did you watch those three games in
November where the Bengals scored in ninety nine points combined
and didn't win any did you did you watch them
just get worked in the middle of the season the
way they did, And yet the most improved position is

(01:45:18):
running back. Again, this is one man's opinion. It's subjective,
and you may believe the Bengals defensively have gotten markedly
better because of the work they've done this offseason. But
I think you could also make a pretty good argument
that running back is their most improved position. If you

(01:45:39):
had a historically bad defense last year, should running back
be your most improved position?

Speaker 9 (01:45:50):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
No, No, We've We've dissected it to the point of exhaustion.
I think just what they've done and what they haven't
done with their defense, with their philosophy, is how they're
putting so much on al Golden. They got a secondary

(01:46:12):
with a whole bunch of guys that they've drafted early,
that they believe in, that they think will play better
with a new defensive coordinator. Like, I think we understand
the why, but I do think this is kind of
a different way of looking at it and a different
way of pointing to what is the single biggest question
about this team coming up this year? Are they better defensively?
Like that's is the defense better? Is the defense significantly better?

(01:46:36):
With pretty much the same group of dudes, you can
make the argument that running back is the most improved position.
What does that say about what you haven't done to
improve your defense? I don't think I like the answer.

(01:47:00):
We'll see but worth reading at ESPN dot com. Seventeen
away from US six five, one, three, seven, four nine,
fifteen thirty is our phone number. It is seventeen away
from six. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 6 (01:47:14):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from the UCE.

Speaker 4 (01:47:20):
Health Traffic Center. When it comes to stroke, every second count.
So that's why U see health is the clear choice
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The northbound seventy five wrapped to westbound Western Hills Viaduct
remains closed from a rollover accident. Left lane blocked by cruise.
Responding to that one on the freeway proper westbound seventy

(01:47:43):
four at two seventy five, it's the right lane blocked
off from an accident. I'm at ezelk with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):
Got cut by the Baltimore Ravens, which not a huge
surprise given a couple of different things. Number One, they
drafted a kicker in the sixth round, Tyler Loop. Number two,
Justin Tucker, by his standards, had a very uneven season
on the field. Number three, and most significantly, he is
the subject of an NFL investigation into allegations by sixteen

(01:48:14):
massage therapists of inappropriate sexual behavior. Now Tucker has adamantly
denied the allegations. That investigation is ongoing by the National
Football League. But I think the writing was on the
wall for Justin Tucker during the draft when the Ravens
took a kicker. We'll see if they bring in a
veteran for a competition for Tyler Loop and anyway, Justin Tucker,

(01:48:39):
who's had a as kickers go a Hall of Fame
caliber career on the field, has long been a if
you've watched the Ravens at all at any point over
the last twelve to thirteen years, a bonafide weapon. When
the Bengals drafted Evan McPherson, that was the initial comparison.

(01:48:59):
That's so many of us made right. You can have
this weapon that can inform how you call plays offensively
where you know you if you've got an offense and
you've got you know, you're stalled and it's fourth and
three and one option is kicking let's say a fifty
five yard field goal. The other is obviously going for it. Heck,
maybe you've got plenty on the table. Well, you feel

(01:49:21):
pretty good about having a weapon like and Evan McPherson,
which really didn't have as much last year. Justin Tucker
was the guy that a lot of is compared Evan
McPherson too, having that sort of weapon. Justin Tucker was
that weapon for the Baltimore Ravens. Things have, needless to say,
gone sideways for him. We will see, but that would

(01:49:41):
be your noteworthy NFL news of the day. Uh five, one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty. Let's see here, I got like five minutes, Steve,
you're on ESPN fifteen thirty high Steve, Hey, mow the going,
I'm good man, what's up?

Speaker 10 (01:49:59):
Well? Even going on about the defense, and I get it.
It doesn't look on the surface that a lot of
things were done. But I've got there's eleven positions on defense.
I got five of them that are significantly upgraded, and
they're in order here. Number one, Sheldon Rankins is gone
and his place is the number one rated run defending
the defensive tackle. Another one, one leg at Sam Hubbard

(01:50:20):
has been replaced by Joseph Osai, who had six sacks
in the final five games. And you also have Schmar
Stewart rotating in on the left side, and who knows,
we might actually see a rotation this year at the
defensive ends position. Nine of the snaps by Hubbard and
Hendrickson again, Jermaine Pratt replaced by your choice of Knight,

(01:50:43):
Garrett Burkes, or Carter, all three probably significant upgrades at
this point. Von Bell one hundred and thirty seven years old,
replaced by a younger, more effective Jordan Battle I like
fig Newton a lot. He was at a position last year,
playing outside, He's better in the spot. That's where be
this year, replaced by former first rounder Dack phil that's five.

(01:51:04):
As a bonus six, I'm gonna say Lou converting to
al because Golden is going to play rookies. It's not
the third coming of Marvin Lewis that the rookies always sit.

Speaker 8 (01:51:16):
At the end of the year.

Speaker 10 (01:51:17):
We saw what Joseph i I did. How can we
say what Miles Murphy's gonna do. We've never even seen
him play. They started letting Jenkins and McKinley play more
the second half of the year, and what do you know,
they did better because Shelton Marinkins was gone awful and
bj Hill got to play his more natural position, which
he'll get to do with Slayton in there. So I think,

(01:51:38):
kind of like the offensive line in the past, roways like,
can we have no donkeys? Could we have a defense
without one glaring horrible spot. I know the spot still
worries me a safety, and I really wanted Malki starts,
but this is what we've got to go on. And
I think there's five significant upgrades.

Speaker 2 (01:51:55):
You know what, You've almost convinced me. You've almost convinced me.

Speaker 5 (01:51:58):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
Yeah, No, Steve, I like, I like, I like how
you put that. No, You've you've you've almost convinced me.
I mean, I think anybody, anybody would be a more
short tackler than Jermaine Pratt. And I think they have
a couple who are going to be better. I certainly
they have emphasized being better against the run, which you know,
well it's cliche to say, and this division should pay off.

(01:52:20):
I'm not totally sold that the pass rush up the
middle is any better, But like the Shamar Stewart thing,
it took me a while. I have come around to
the idea that the pressure statistic will translate to him
being able to provide some disruption at the NFL level.
I I don't know about the secondary man, Like, there's

(01:52:40):
a lot of dudes, Like there are some guys you
mentioned Newton playing out of position. How they use Hill
von Bell being long in the tooth is no longer
going to be a thing because he's not here anymore.
I understand, But boy, they're asking a lot of a
lot of guys back there who are either hurt, benched,
or non productive.

Speaker 10 (01:53:01):
Or also in the contract year, which Cam Taylor, Brett.

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
And Dak still both are sure. Yeah, and a lot
to prove and a lot of money on the table.

Speaker 10 (01:53:11):
Yeah. I just look at it and I think, you know,
last year, the defense, I mean, the offense stunk in
the beginning of the year. We can't forget that. But
the defense was so horrible last year. The linebacking when
Logan Wilson was off god awful and we saw that.
You know, Geno Stone is seemingly a round peg in
a square hole. The end of the year showed a
little bit of promise. I don't know if that was

(01:53:32):
just horrible quarterback play or what. But he's the one
position that worries me the most. I'd love to see
Tyson Anderson push him. The kid got two picks in
a single preseason game, one for a pick six. He's
the fastest safety we've got, he's got the best tackling record. Sure,
how judging by his special teams play, I'd like to
see him push him.

Speaker 2 (01:53:54):
I would as well. And there's no denying Steve, thank you.
There's no denying what Tyson Anderson has done on special teams.
He has not played an NFL snap and safety. That
does not preclude him from being able to contribute on
that side of the ball. But I mean, you're asking
the guy to do something he has not done at

(01:54:15):
the professional level, not just play it, but play it
at a higher level than it was last year. You know,
I like the argument, though I think I think they
are better at linebacker. It was hard to be any
worse orin Berks in the role that he was asked
to play in Philadelphia was terrific. Demetrius Knight, I you know,
I'm now on the side of like like in the

(01:54:37):
fact that you could take a twenty five year old
guy and plug him in and ask him to be dependable,
very good against the run. When they asked him to
blitz at South Carolina, he showed something there. Barrett Carter
will see certainly can't discount the athleticism. Is that going
to translate to what they needed linebacker? They at least

(01:54:58):
have options, better options than Jermaine Prat last year. I
certainly do think. You know, TJ. Slayton was a part
of a Green Bay defense that upfront was awesome against
the run and should help there. Can they get pass
rush up the Middle and can Al Golden do with
that secondary what lou Narumo could not see we will see,

(01:55:18):
but that was a good argument. I like it. We
gotta go. Show's over Danner's with us tomorrow recap Reds
and Braves too, and so much more. My thanks to
Taran Bland for producing and to you for listening. Have
an awesome night. This has been the michelob Ultra five
o'clock happy hour. Don't forget since he three sixty tomorrow

(01:55:42):
at noon. Have a great night. This is ESPN fifteen thirty,
Cincinnati Sports station

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