October 16, 2025 • 35 mins
RYON HEALY AND KEVIN PILLAR We surprise Ryon Healy yet again, and this time, it’s with his best friend! We get insight from the former Blue Jay AND the former Mariner on what they saw last night and thus far in the series. How big of a deal was the game 3 win for Toronto? :30- MIKE SANDO (The Athletic) Mike joins us ahead of week 7 in the NFL and we kick things off with the old guys tonight! Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco face off when Pittsburgh travels to Cincinnati. Who has surprised Sando the most? What does he expect when the Seahawks and Texans meet up on Monday? Is Baker Mayfield in the MVP conversation? :45- We close out the show with one last thing!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
So Ryan buffet salute takes place every show. Now, Ye
pretty cool? Well, I don't think anybody would deny this.
I mean, we are very happy Ryan Heally's been a
part of our postgame coverage here and I think all
of our listeners really like Ryan Heally. And we are
getting so comfortable with avon Ryan Heally on our radio
program that we surprise. We surprised him yesterday by introducing
(00:37):
the old Judge, and today we offer another surprise for
Ryan Heally joining us with Ryan this morning is a
fella he happens to know. Kevin Palar is joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Former Blue Jay meets former Mariner on our radio show
this morning, and so we're gonna have them both there
to break down the American League Championship Series?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Are we not the fullest surprises?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
He Lee?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
How about this?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Were you guys mingling the media room yesterday?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
How'd you get kpd on here?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
He should be right now.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
It was the first person I met in the press box.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yesterday, right at you?
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, I mean we it was kind of it was organic.
We were talking and he asked me to come on
the radio show, and I said, yeah, I think I
can make it happen. And then he just kept talking.
He's like, yeah, we have Ryan, and I was looking
at his credential and I'm like, I know that credential
and be cause we mean, you just talked the night before.
And then I started explaining on my drive home we
were chatting and that we were gonna shack up together
(01:40):
because he made it up here we were going to
be we were gonna, we were gonna and I was like,
that's how close we are. I was going to share
the bed with this guy.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
What's the text that I sent you back when you said.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
That that you were Big Spoon or Little Spoon, I
can't remember.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
It dips on little spoon, little.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Argues for little Spoon.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
He well, it's funny because he's bigger than me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I had marching orders Ryan. My boss was like, hey,
it'd be nice to have like a Toronto feel on
your show. Everything's been great, but let's do can we
get a Toronto spin on it? And he shows me
the list of people. I said, Kevin polar is working
for them. I mean he played this year. He just
like retired like fifteen minutes ago. He would be great
to get on. So first person I run into is
(02:26):
Kevin Polar in the press box. We start having a conversation.
I tell him about your story with us. He goes,
that's like one of my best friends in the world
right there. And so here we are. We're all together.
How about that, Polar? See how magic radio is?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Yeah? See, I got up early for you guys.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
No, it's not really early. Trust me, newborn at home.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
This is me.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Sleepping into eight is like a dream come true.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well all right, well let's let's get your analysis here.
So I'll start with our guest Ryan, and then you
can just piggy back off of what he says. What
did it mean to the Blue Jays to show up
yesterday Kevin and remind people, hey, we can hit the
hell out of the ball.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Yeah, I mean, I honestly think it was a series
altering victory for them.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
I think if they go in and you know, find
a way scratching Claude to get a win, maybe a
three to two game. I think the Mariners are sitting
over in their dugout talking about maybe a pitch here,
or in a bat here, or maybe a defensive play
here where you know, maybe they still feel like they
could have won that game. Maybe that's one that got away.
But I think there was definitely a look in the
(03:35):
mirror moment for the guy, the Mariners guys going into
the clubhouse yesterday with how dominant the Blue Jays were,
not only from the pitching side, but from the offensive
side too. You know, coming here, you listen to all
the TV shows, the radio shows. You know they were
talking about sweep, sweep. You know, the Mariners did everything
(03:55):
they needed to do when they went into Toronto. They
stole two games there. They won game two very decisively.
They looked like the better team, and it looked like
Toronto had their tail between their legs. The Maritors had
their pitching lined up for, you know, their first big
playoff game in twenty four years, a rowdy, excited crowd,
(04:16):
and the Blues Is just decisively handed it to them.
And I think it kind of really flipped the narrative
and potentially a little bit of the momentum in this
series to the opposite.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Dugout, Wait, make it that.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Here's the hard here's the hard part about bringing Kevin
on the show today after what was it a thirteen
to two absolute for thirteen to four, but who when
we had two homers there late in the game. But
you know, here's the challenge here is we went to
Toronto and felt like we shocked the Blue Jays fans
in our home stadium. We came back home, Julio hit
that home run the first inning and the crowd was
as loud as I've ever heard them, and then all
(04:47):
of a sudden, Bieber came out and answered and silenced
that team was striking out the side and the second inning,
and I felt like, in playoff baseball, you can generate
and keV you can attest this. You can generate momentum
on both sides of the baseball. And Bieber stepped up
for the Blue Jays yesterday and he came out, he
made adjustment, se exc pitches. He looked like himself, the
guy from the Cleveland Guardians that you and I are
(05:08):
faced a lock keep. When he's mixing that fastball, slider, cutter, curveball, combook,
he's deadly. And then the bats came alive. I didn't
feel like the Blue Jays had poor bats in Game one.
In Game two, I felt like there's a lot of
loud barrels right at the defenders. So we knew that
they were gonna get hot. This is a team that
led the major leagues and batting average, third in doubles,
and manufactured a ton of runs all season long. This
(05:29):
team has a lot of fight left in him. This
series is going to be a dog fight till the end.
The fact that the Mariners came out and got a
lead early and shot then was big. But now they're
a little shocked right now and they have an opportunity
to respond.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Yeah, the idea of getting off to a good start
in Toronto obviously is important. And yet I didn't think
this was gonna be a sweep. I didn't. I don't
think it's gonna be an easy series. It's you're down
to the final four teams and it's gonna be a
battle uphill. I would wonder, like Kevin, I'll go to
you first and then you can respond to it as well.
When you're going up against a guy like George Kirby.
(06:02):
What they it looked to me like they were doing
was they were aggressive early. You know a guy that's
gonna pound the zone, he trusts his stuff, and yet
they just weren't letting him get off or get away
with any mistakes.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Left over the heart.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Is that something that you know that the Blue Jays
were preaching because it looked like it.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean it's a matter of fact. All eighteen
hits came within the first three pitches of the bat.
And when you have a guy like George Kirby, who
you know historically is in the strike zone, loves to throw,
you know, strike one of the zone has elite stuff.
The way you beat elite pitching in this game, you
have two ways when you have these hitters meetings. You
(06:39):
go into this hitters meeting and you say, were they
going to get him or he's gonna get us? But
we're going to do it early, because if you get
the two strikes, his arsenal is too good to really overcome.
So the Blue just had a really distinct plan to
attack early. I don't know if you guys heard John
Schneider's press conference pregame. He was talking about less jabs,
(06:59):
more uppercuts, you know, and that's code for, Hey, we
need to sit on pitches and be aggressive and when
you get your pitch, don't be afraid to swing it.
The Blue Jays have this superpower as a team to
put the ball in play and they are going to
continue to do that, but it's how they put the
ball in play. They emphasize not necessarily swinging for the
(07:20):
pen fences, but getting a good pitch and trying to
drive the ball and void did they answer?
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Kevin, You talked about this a little bit on another
show you did recently, about the team wide execution of
approach and how there's been some teams in the playoffs
that do it better than others. And yesterday was an
absolute clinic by the Toronto Blue Jays of let's execute
a team wide approach. I mean, eighteen hits when the
first three pitches. I heard that stat. I did a
radio show late last night and I heard that stat
and I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. It was impressive.
(07:47):
But there was two at bats that I thought were
really decisive for the Toronto Blue Jays offense. It was
Vladimir Guerrero's at bat that doubly hit through the left
field wall in that third inning he threw he got
two hanging sliders. George Kirby did not have the same
up with that slider that he has this whole postseason.
And then the kirk Get bat when he walked him
with runners on second and third. He was trying to
get that sinker to clip the outside corner. He had
(08:10):
a really hard time commanding his pitchers at the glove
side on right handed hitters, which is the outside corner.
He couldn't get that sinker to come back, and the
slider just kept kind of spinning in the middle of
the play. And when you cannot command the outer half
of the zone and the hitters able to split the
plate in half and really sit on one part of it,
it's really really dangerous for a picture that day.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Yeah, there was guys, you know, Ernie Clement, whole guy,
kind of a free swinger, ambushed the first pitch sinker
in for the double to kind of get the wheels
going a little bit, you know, andres Himnez hit the
two run homer where he said he was just trying
to move the run over and talk about this kind
of team approach. Sometimes when you do less, you do more.
(08:50):
You know, the Vladier bat you were talking about, he
took the first slider in that at bat and kind
of didn't even offer at it as a way of
kind of like saying, throw it again, you know, you
throw it again, George Springer, first pitch, homer, four seam
up in the zone. Got it. Like, guys, you talk
about having this collective approach, which you've seen through the
(09:12):
Toronto Blue Jays the entirety of the year, and if
you kind of flip the script to the Mariners, they're
a team that just kind of relies a lot on
the home run, a little bit more free swinging. I
don't have the statistics in front of me, but what
I've seen through the first games was all the kind
of small things that you would want to do right
from a team approach. The Blue Jay has kind of
let every statistic, but when it came to like slug
(09:35):
and home runs, you saw the Mariners like the swing amiss.
The strikeouts were all in favor of the Mariners. So
it's very interesting that trasting styles of both of these teams.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I know one statistic Mariners two games of Blue Jays won.
That's a pretty important statistic. At this point. Kevin Malar
is with us, former Blue Jay and former Mariner Ryan
Heay with us on the same show. Turns out their
best buddies, and they're joining us here this morning to
talk about the American League championship series. So it feels
to me like momentum is just something that's like a
(10:08):
figment of our imagination in this sport, this time of year. So, Ryan,
even though Mariners get stomped yesterday by this lineup, what
kind of chance do you give Luis Castillo just to
reverse that momentum here tonight.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I'm gonna let Kevin touch on like the realities of
momentum because he's played some big posts and games. But
just as an unwritten rule in baseball, you can see
things throughout the course of a game on both the
offense and defensive side, of confidence of players walking to play,
or the way the pitcher toes the rubber. Luis Castigo
has an opportunity tonight to get the crowd involved really early.
If we can put a zero up early, get the
(10:42):
offense included, it's gonna be a really exciting game. I'd
love to see more of a you know, a three
to two or a four to three type game. That's
more of the Mariner style that we saw in the DS.
They had the Game four against the Tigers that got
out of hand when the Tigers' bats came alive and
they responded with a fifteen inning game to win it
in the decisive game five. I hope we we don't
play fifteen tonight, but I do hope it's more competitive
and looks like the brand of marriage baseball we've seen
(11:04):
all season long.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah. In terms of momentum, I mean it's real, but
I think as soon as that final out is caught,
the momentum kind of goes away, and that really kind
of shifts into belief. I think what the Blue Jays
have is a ton of belief. And to your previous
point is the Marriagers are still up two to one
in this series with two more games left, you know,
(11:27):
And that was that was my big talking point post
game for the Blue Jays was kind of everything that
we had mentioned before, Like it kind of that win,
decisive win yesterday really just kind of switched the narrative
of the series to like allow people, maybe outside of
that both of those clubhouses, people like us in the media, fans,
to really believe, like the Blue Jays do have a
(11:48):
chance to win this series. But I got a chance
to talk to George Springer before the game yesterday, for
you know, about a half hour. Couldn't have been any
cooler calmer being down oh two in a series. It's
something he wasn't he was familiar with in his time
with the Astros, and he's like, it's and we both
agreed on this. It's a much bigger deal to everyone
outside of that clubhouse than it is inside that clubhouse.
(12:10):
But I do believe that Blue Jays are going to
show up with even more confidence today after what they
did yesterday. But I don't think the Mariners are ultimately
phased by what happened. I think they had a moment
of reflection in that clubhouse to be like, Okay, this
isn't going to be easy, you know, not to say
the first two games were easy, but they went into
a tough place to win two games coming off a
(12:32):
super emotional you know, fifteen in ing victory across country flight.
You show up to media day, your head's kind of spinning.
You don't even know where you're at, you know. And
I was even saying going to that series, and I
texted Dan Shulman before Game one, I said, this is
the one I'm afraid of. Because blue Jays have everything
(12:53):
in line. They have rest, they have Gosman on the mound.
The Mariners are coming off this emotional victory. They're pitching
plans are kind of shambles, and the Mariners just showed
up and stole one and then they won decisively. But
I think momentum really does kind of end when that
final out is done for the game. You're able to
kind of wash your hands, you know, rinse everything that
(13:15):
happened from that game. But I think we're gonna see
two very very competitive teams, very confident teams showing up today,
and that first inning is going to be very, very
pivotal for Luis Castillo. I think if he can decisively
get through the first inning, you know, I think if
he goes, you know, three up, three down. I think
if he gets into a little bit of trouble but
(13:36):
gets out of the inning, I think there's gonna be
more of a sigh of relief. I think you'll hear
an exhale. But I think if he can go one, two,
three and show some sort of dominance in those first
three hitters, I think you're gonna give that offense a chance.
With a very rowdy crowd and Max Schurz is on
the mound, I mean, I think this is the biggest
mystery box of a starting pitcher you know you're ever
(14:00):
going to see in a postseason game. He hasn't pitched
in a month. He says he's healthy. He had an
awful year this year. He's forty one years old. He
ain't the same guy, but he does. He have the
potential to, you know, turn back the clock for just
maybe eighteen outs today. I think that's the biggest storyline
of the game.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Kevin, I'm gonna ask, since you played with him just
this year, I mean, probably one of the scarier hitters
to step into the box is vlad And so I mean,
what is it that he has to work on you?
When you guys were in the batting cage, so we
know what his weakness is. Will relay this to our guys.
I mean, what is it? Is there anything that this
dude doesn't cover when it comes to him up in
(14:37):
the dish because of four for four, we can't afford
that tonight.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
No, he really has no weaknesses. And me and some
of the media guys were in an uber estay moving
to the bar. We were just kind of talking about
the stuff. We were talking about Vladdie, Like, he really
has no weaknesses. At the home play, He's basically his
dad with play discipline. He's got the power, he has
the ability to use all fields. He hits all pitches.
(15:00):
But he is also one of the few superstars in
the game that he can be the guy he was
last night. But then he'll have a period of time
where he can't hit water if he fell out of boat.
It's not like he has these like he just has
these really big ebbs and flows. But obviously he has
you know, more peaks than he has valleys. But right
(15:21):
now what you're seeing from him, and he talked about
it kind of towards the end of the season, he
was kind of struggling a little bit. He got those
couple of days off during the Wildcard series. He found
something in his swing that clicked. And he's been, you know,
the Vlatty that everyone in Toronto when they signed him
up to that fourteen year deal expected him to be.
(15:44):
He's been carrying this offense. He hasn't been doing it alone,
but he's been the real catalyst at the top of
the lineup. He's come up with huge hits. He sets
the table and really he has no weaknesses at home
plate when he's locked in.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Ryan As we get ready to close shop and this
a lot of fun. I could do this for about
four more hours, you guys into it. Kevin Polar has
authored some of the greatest defensive catches that the baseball
game of baseball has ever seen. What do you send
your buddy when you see him on the highlights? What
kind of text do you send him when if you
(16:20):
send them anything at all, when you see him climb
the wall in Toronto and take home runs away.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
It's usually banter. It's usually just like how reckless he
is with his body? Like we talk about that a lot.
And we've spent a lot of time with our families together,
so like when we both have kids, so when the
kids are reckless with their body, like Kevin, that's you, Like,
that's genetic. You gave that to him, or you gave
that to your daughter. They're like, you showed them how
to be reckless with your body and it got you
a ten plus your career. But man, you got some
(16:47):
cool stories to tell from me. And I'm glad he
never took a hit away from me. I don't think
you did, keV. But he was there for my first
major league kids, so him and I got some deeper
intent history together.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah, do we have time to share that?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Say?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Please?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Please?
Speaker 5 (16:57):
You want to hear the story, Yeah, go ahead tell
it well, as I was telling you, Ryan's sister is
married to my childhood best friend since I was like
two years old. So we've known each other pretty much
our whole life. Me and Ryan's age gap, you know,
when you're a kid at the age gap is a
little bit more serious, you know. You know, I'm four
years older than Ryan, so you know, he's four. I'm
(17:17):
not playing with a four year old as much when
I'm eight. So but his older sister, his older sister
is only what two years younger than me, maybe a
year younger than me. So my best friend has a sister.
Their sisters grew up together. So I've known his sister
my whole life, and Ryan I knew very little. But
as we got older, baseball kind of brought us together,
(17:40):
especially once he got into professional baseball. I was already
in professional baseball. We actually made this very courageous decision
to move to Arizona together at some point in our
career because getting out of California was a better tax decision,
but it was also a better baseball offseason. There was
more resources for us to explore, and we thought if
(18:03):
we did it together, you know, we would be able
to kind of push each other, motivate each other, work
out together, hit together, to kind of just expand our careers.
But going back to that, we were I was still
like we were both living in California at the time.
I was in the major leagues. Ryan was in Double
A with the A's. Our all star breaks had overlapped.
(18:26):
Was that the year you play in the Futures Game?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:28):
So I went Future Game in San Diego and I
went to Kevin's house, Yeah, for a barliament Christ's birthday.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
My wife's birthday, and he at the end of the barbecue,
I walked into the front door. He said he had
to catch a flight to El Paso, and you know,
like you said, we like to banter a lite And
I said, Hey, don't call me to your in the
big leagues, buddy, And that was like the last thing
I said to him.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And we were hoping up that second half.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
We were opening in Oakland, So he flew to l Paso.
I stayed the night at home. I flew to Oakland
the next day for like the workout.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
The next morning he calls me. I'm like, what do
you want, buddy, told you not to call me here
in the big leagues, And sure enough, they called him
up to the big leagues to start the second half
in Oakland, and I was. I was there for his debut.
I saw his first hit, which I think was a
home run off of Jay Happ or Dicky r A
Dickey all.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Right, Dicky?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Yeah, but then I think you had over the next day, right, No,
got the the happ The halp was the later in
the series. Later, Yeah, okay, but yeah, I was there.
His family was there, Your whole family was there, My
whole family was there, my uh, you know, my best
friend who's married to his sister was there. So it
was just kind of a cool story where, uh, you
(19:44):
know that I was with him the day before, you know,
thought he you know, he was in double A stone
l Paso. You know that I thought he would, you know,
and he, to his credit, you know, repeated double A
and he didn't feel like he needed to and he
just had a great attitude about going back there. But
typically the natural jump would be getting the call from
(20:04):
you know, going from double A to triple A. You know,
never in a million years. Did I expect to get
a phone call a day later for him to make
his debut? And you know, the universe has a funny
way of rewarding people, and and the baseball world is
just so small and intimate sometimes that I got to be, uh,
not only a front row seat to you know, his debut,
(20:25):
I got to compete against him. And the last thing
I'll say is that little wall scraper he hit. He
was lucky he didn't hit the center because I would
have brought that thing back. He'd still be still be
he'd still be searching for his first one.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I knew where I could.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, this was awesome, so Ryan, hopefully we didn't catch
it too much off guard with our little surprise we
had for you. But great having you two on surprise.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
I could have done it forever. Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I'll see you guys, all right, Yeah, we'll see out
of the ballpark. Kevin pulled a Ryan Heay joining us
here Farmer Blue Jay, former Marin Or breaking down the
Alcs for you right here on Chuck and Buck. In
the mornings, we'll talk to Mike Sando.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Next.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Sports Radio ninety three point three kJ RFM with Mike
Sando of The Athletic and brought to you by Hunt Services.
Get on the horn and call Hunts Now with Mike.
Here's Chuck and.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Bud ah Man.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We didn't get to chat with Mike last week, so
it's good to hear his voice. This week, we get
ready for Thursday night football. We also get ready for
Seahawks Texans Monday night football. So much to discuss. Good morning, Mike,
Good morning, how you doing. I'm great. Are you excited
to watch Ya Tittle versus Auto Graham tonight?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
I am?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I am.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
I like what guys. You know, guys in my well,
they're younger than me, but I mean, you know, they're
the closest to our h range I guess out there,
so that's kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I think Rogers was a senior when I was a junior,
if I remember correctly, right, Yeah? I mean, is this
Pittsburgh's division based on the fact that Baltimore is just
kind of collapsed and Cincinnati doesn't have Joe Burrow? I mean,
are the Can you just circle the Steelers as division
champs this year?
Speaker 7 (22:09):
I mean, probably, But what's to say that Aaron Rodgers,
age fifty eight, doesn't have an entry in the next
two weeks that totally changes their season. Right, So yeah,
right now they probably have a seventy five percent chance
to win that division just the way that it's going.
And the thing about Baltimore is like Lamar Jackson is
gonna come back, but is he going to be the
same He had a hamstring injury. So clearly the Steelers
(22:32):
are in the driver's seat. But they got the oldest
quarterback of you know, of the bunch, and that could
lead to injury too.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Who's the biggest surprise you Jags, Colts, or there's somebody
I'm missing.
Speaker 7 (22:47):
Probably the I mean, the Colts were one that I
had circled as potential, but I think just the level
they've been playing at offensively to me is surprising.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
You know.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
Did I think they could be good, good and win
ten games? Yeah, I think that was realistic, But they're
like top five in a lot of different things offensively,
and so I would say I didn't really see it
coming to that degree.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Mike Sander is with us our NFL insider, joining us
here on Chuck and Buck, as he does most every
Thursday throughout the football season. Well, let's talk about the
Seahawks opponent on Monday night, the Houston Texans. What a
strange start that they're off to. They've got a sub
five hundred record, yet their rank number one in the
NFL and defense and c J. Stroud still hasn't picked
(23:33):
back up where he left off at the end of
his rookie year. So how good a team is this
Houston team? Are they good at all?
Speaker 7 (23:41):
Well, they're definitely good, and that they haven't allowed more
than twenty points in a game this year, so you
know you're going to get a be in for a
scrap with their defense. And then the other thing is,
you know they're they're coming off a bye, so you
know they've had lots of time to really dissect Seattle
and they should have a really good plan defensively. Plus
they're going to know exactly what Clint Kubiak wants to
(24:03):
do offensively because you know they have some history going
against that type of a scheme. Denico Ryans was with
Kyle Shanahan in with the forty nine ers, So you're
probably going to get a really you know, the best
defensive test probably of the season so far will be
this week against Houston.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
What is it that they do that is the scariest
Is it the pass rush? Is it the fact that
they got some ballhawks in the back, just get good
complimentary football On the defensive side, what is it that Well?
Speaker 7 (24:35):
They, yeah, do they have a very good pass rush
and they've invested in that. They have a couple of
new faces this year, but they have good pass rush
and then they have, you know, a top five cornerback
in the league as well. So I think that that's
a really good combination for a you know, a defensive
head coach who's what in his third year there, So
(24:56):
they've got their program pretty well established. I think it's
a really good, you know, just whole operation on the
defensive side.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
One more question about this game, and we got some
other ground to cover. In the National Football League, you
do your quarterback tiers, it's award winning. Everybody loves it.
Everybody except maybe some of the quarterbacks maybe they don't
like it so much. But if you were to do
wide receiver tiers, where's JSN Which tier does he rise to?
Speaker 7 (25:24):
Well, he's got to be in tier one unless your
tier one of receivers requires you to be you know,
six foot two and two hundred and twenty pounds and
just an absolute physical mismatch. I think one of the
interesting things is you look around the league, though, is
the leading receivers in the league aren't that guy? Do
you notice that if you look around the guys with
the yardage, there's a lot of guys who are just
(25:45):
super productive because they can, you know, get open, catch
the ball. They're well schemed and and that. So I
think you have to put him in the top tier
based on his production, well, just allowing for the fact that, hey,
you know, historically there are some guys that are more
physically imposing.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He's a special though, Man, is he special? Mike Sando
is with us our NFL inside. You can follow him
at Sando NFL there on X joins us every Thursday.
San Francisco's got another major injury. I mean, they're without
Bosa and Warner. We've talked about this team a lot
in our sessions together, but how are they going to
hold this thing together?
Speaker 7 (26:22):
I don't think they're gonna And also their quarterback, both
of them have been banged up. But you know, brock
Purty hasn't really shown an ability to be durable over
the long term, and he's got a you know, the
type of a foot toe type thing that could bother
him a little bit longer term, you know, may linger
for him, or the type of thing that could be recurring,
(26:43):
so they don't get a bye to like Week fourteen either.
So I just think it's a tough grind. They're competitive,
they play hard, they're tough, but that's a lot to
ask to really overcome. You know, losing two players in
Bosa and Fred Warner, who might be the best player
on any team in the league if they went on
(27:04):
that team. Think about that. Those are stars, no doubt
about it.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Speaking of stars, Baker Mayfield, I mean, can you envision
a world where he ends up the MVP of the
NFL this year? I think I could.
Speaker 7 (27:17):
You know one thing about them though, is they've won
all of these super close games, so you know, sometimes
that doesn't be sustained.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Right.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
We saw last year the Chiefs were eleven and zero
in one score games, and then this year they started
owing three in those games. The Bucks are in some
ways not as good as they were last season because
of injuries, but Baker has been keeping their head above water.
So I see his path to the MVP being this
continue to get guys back from health, so you don't
have to win, you know, by one point every week.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And we saw last week they.
Speaker 7 (27:50):
Beat the forty nine ers by more than that forty
nine ers obviously hurting. So I think he's right in it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I do. I think they lose to Detroit though Monday,
don't you.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
They could? Ye, but they could, they could, they could,
They could score them too.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Last thing for you, we've seen the first head coach
get fired of the season, but man, it seems like
they are hot seats all over this league. Is are
we going to see a lot of firings? Do you
think before the year comes to a close?
Speaker 6 (28:19):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (28:20):
Not necessarily. I mean, there could certainly be another one,
but I don't necessarily think that as I looked through
to sort of the teams that are down there, like
the Jets have a first year coach. You know, Cleveland's
been super patient with their guys, so I suppose they could.
But you know, maybe Miami's want to watch it. It's
just been weird stuff at the podium, you know, and
(28:41):
that sort of thing. Years now, Yeah, that that might
be the one that I would look for if it
just gets out of hand with you know, Tuas talking
about leadership and all that. It just there's a lot
of noise around that team with an owner who probably
could be a little impulsive than Steven Ross.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
All right, well, enjoy the the old folks home tonight
and we'll talk to you again next week. Hey, thank
you appreciate it. Mike Sando from the Athletic. You can
follow him at Sando NFL. They're on Twitter, and of
course I mean heat podcasts and he writes fancy stories
and all sorts of things, and he joins us nearly
every Thursday thanks to our friends at Hunts Services. Get
(29:17):
a plumber, electrician, heating or cooling expert at your doorstep
for only forty nine dollars, Get on the horn and
call Hunts. One last thing is next Sports Radio ninety
three point three KJRFM. All right, final segment of today's
(29:44):
radio program. And you know how we do it. We
go round the room for one last thing. So, Bucky,
where are we starting?
Speaker 6 (29:51):
That was a fun segment with Ryan Healthy and Kevin Pillar,
except for.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
One I do have one thing.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Oh all right, I don't know where he gets this.
Maybe he's just because he's young. I'd like three to
two maybe a four to three ball game. No, no,
I want to. I want to ten to two ball games,
and I want it. Yeah, I want us, Yes, of
course I want I want to. I want a six
(30:18):
spot in the first two innings, Okay, And and then
I want to see Surezer in his mismatched eyes off
the thing and then just continue to rattle it off
a little bit, give them a little taste of their
own medicine from what we had yesterday.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't need all of the nail biting
and edge of my seat, no kind of nonsense that
we've dealt with in the past. Yeah, I mean, you know,
one turn deserves another. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
The ten to three or whatever it was at their place,
it was fun.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well that was you know, that was to be expected, right, Yeah,
and then do it again or yesterday. Oh no, we
gave you one. I'll give us one, right.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
I don't want the nail biting that will come with
a two to two series, you know. Ah, I see
a little you know, best two out of three and
two we're gonna be in Toronto type of thing. I
mean whatever, I'm not gonna be scared however it works out.
But just an absolute butt whooping today.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
It's gonna Ken Carr mentioned like the Max Scherzer is
the wild card going into this. That's a Toronto and
analyst whos Lea saying, we don't know what to expect
fro him in this game. I mean, he has pitched
so tremendously and so many big pressure situations. He's one
of those Kurt Shilling types that pitch is better the
brighter the lights get. But then again, it's been three
(31:40):
years since he's been a really effective starter and so
and he really hasn't been at any point with the
Blue Jays. So what do you get? Do you get
the Grover Alexander, you know, summon out of nowhere. Old
man's got a little bit more juice in it to
become a playoff hero. Or do you get the guy
(32:01):
that the Blue Jays have tried to massage through what
probably is his last season in the major leagues, and
we just light him up tonight. I'll take plan B yep, yep,
and he to me down for that.
Speaker 8 (32:12):
Yeah, you can take me down twice if you want, Yeah,
three times.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Had a great career, good luck in the Hall of Fame.
But if you insist on being on the mounda tonight.
We would like to light you up to end your career. Yes,
a plan on that.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
I'm expecting a big offensive explosion.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Are you really yes, honestly yes, okay, okay, like to
see it all right, Ashley, what do you got?
Speaker 8 (32:32):
I know that I have no right to say this,
but it really bothers me. All of a sudden, All
of a sudden, my normal parking spot is filled every morning.
What the F is happening? I've been parking in the
same dance for four years.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I took cares because someone took.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
You took the second one. Someone keeps taking mind.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Well, here is what happened. Is there are people I
can't say too much information. There are people who are
just parking their cars there and aren't working here or anything.
They found a they found a parking spot, and I
think they left town because those same two cars have
been for three days okay time. And I saw the girl.
(33:17):
I saw the girl in the rubicon.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
The one that took your parking spot. I saw them
pull in yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Oh so they're getting here before me and taking my
spot at day. I mean, I'm not supposed to be
parking there anyway, But still for four years.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Yeah, we have been well three years, I guess, because
we didn't have the parking when I first started the show.
But since we got access to that parking garage, we
have been parking in.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
The same spots every morning. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
I had some guy in a BMW that took mine. Yeah,
probably about a year ago. You guys every ounce of
self control to not spit on his windshield as I
walked by.
Speaker 8 (33:56):
Guy were kind of an a war because it was
whoever got here first was taking that spot.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
And we would sometimes be coming down Mercier the same time,
and I've been out driving for sure, and I would
get there and then now he just is like, well
just get there fifteen minutes earlier. You want to slash
his tire.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, the whole garage is open. Why are they
taking the spots that have been claimed for years? And
they know it too. Point out the guy that's taking mine, okay, Yeah,
and I want to know who's taking mine because I
can point her.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Okay, I'm gonna have words.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I know exactly and I don't think she works here.
Oh yeah, I don't think she does. Okay, So yeah,
I'm not gonna do anything terrible just you know, I'm
just gonna I will box him up and ship them away.
That's all we do.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Yeah, that'd be timed. The train tracks that are right
out there. Yeah, nothing are terrible, not tight knocks. They
should be able to get out of it exactly. You
know your way around a nod or two. Yeah you don't,
then your problem.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Whatever. I'm just gonna twist my mustaches and joy and
enjoy what happens to you. I like to call you splatter.
All right, we'll talk to you tonight. Actually, Best Baseball's
best postgame show will do it again after Game four
The Alcs Live from Jimmy so On First brought to
you by Snow Qualm Casino and Hotel. In the meantime,
(35:13):
for your entertainment pleasure, the rest of our KJR programming,
starting with MJ and the Midday next Sports Radio ninety
three point three KJR FM.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
on demand. Their podcast will be up right after the show.
Just click on demand on our website at ninety three
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Speaker 1 (35:42):
This report is sponsored by Washington State Department of Transportation
Speaker 5 (35:46):
Seeing major delays this morning traveling westbound
So Ryan buffet salute takes place every show. Now, Ye
pretty cool? Well, I don't think anybody would deny this.
I mean, we are very happy Ryan Heally's been a
part of our postgame coverage here and I think all
of our listeners really like Ryan Heally. And we are
getting so comfortable with avon Ryan Heally on our radio
program that we surprise. We surprised him yesterday by introducing
(00:37):
the old Judge, and today we offer another surprise for
Ryan Heally joining us with Ryan this morning is a
fella he happens to know. Kevin Palar is joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Former Blue Jay meets former Mariner on our radio show
this morning, and so we're gonna have them both there
to break down the American League Championship Series?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Are we not the fullest surprises?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
He Lee?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
How about this?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Were you guys mingling the media room yesterday?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
How'd you get kpd on here?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
He should be right now.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
It was the first person I met in the press box.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Yesterday, right at you?
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, I mean we it was kind of it was organic.
We were talking and he asked me to come on
the radio show, and I said, yeah, I think I
can make it happen. And then he just kept talking.
He's like, yeah, we have Ryan, and I was looking
at his credential and I'm like, I know that credential
and be cause we mean, you just talked the night before.
And then I started explaining on my drive home we
were chatting and that we were gonna shack up together
(01:40):
because he made it up here we were going to
be we were gonna, we were gonna and I was like,
that's how close we are. I was going to share
the bed with this guy.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
What's the text that I sent you back when you said.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
That that you were Big Spoon or Little Spoon, I
can't remember.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
It dips on little spoon, little.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Argues for little Spoon.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
He well, it's funny because he's bigger than me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I had marching orders Ryan. My boss was like, hey,
it'd be nice to have like a Toronto feel on
your show. Everything's been great, but let's do can we
get a Toronto spin on it? And he shows me
the list of people. I said, Kevin polar is working
for them. I mean he played this year. He just
like retired like fifteen minutes ago. He would be great
to get on. So first person I run into is
(02:26):
Kevin Polar in the press box. We start having a conversation.
I tell him about your story with us. He goes,
that's like one of my best friends in the world
right there. And so here we are. We're all together.
How about that, Polar? See how magic radio is?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Yeah? See, I got up early for you guys.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
No, it's not really early. Trust me, newborn at home.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
This is me.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Sleepping into eight is like a dream come true.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well all right, well let's let's get your analysis here.
So I'll start with our guest Ryan, and then you
can just piggy back off of what he says. What
did it mean to the Blue Jays to show up
yesterday Kevin and remind people, hey, we can hit the
hell out of the ball.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Yeah, I mean, I honestly think it was a series
altering victory for them.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
I think if they go in and you know, find
a way scratching Claude to get a win, maybe a
three to two game. I think the Mariners are sitting
over in their dugout talking about maybe a pitch here,
or in a bat here, or maybe a defensive play
here where you know, maybe they still feel like they
could have won that game. Maybe that's one that got away.
But I think there was definitely a look in the
(03:35):
mirror moment for the guy, the Mariners guys going into
the clubhouse yesterday with how dominant the Blue Jays were,
not only from the pitching side, but from the offensive
side too. You know, coming here, you listen to all
the TV shows, the radio shows. You know they were
talking about sweep, sweep. You know, the Mariners did everything
(03:55):
they needed to do when they went into Toronto. They
stole two games there. They won game two very decisively.
They looked like the better team, and it looked like
Toronto had their tail between their legs. The Maritors had
their pitching lined up for, you know, their first big
playoff game in twenty four years, a rowdy, excited crowd,
(04:16):
and the Blues Is just decisively handed it to them.
And I think it kind of really flipped the narrative
and potentially a little bit of the momentum in this
series to the opposite.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Dugout, Wait, make it that.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Here's the hard here's the hard part about bringing Kevin
on the show today after what was it a thirteen
to two absolute for thirteen to four, but who when
we had two homers there late in the game. But
you know, here's the challenge here is we went to
Toronto and felt like we shocked the Blue Jays fans
in our home stadium. We came back home, Julio hit
that home run the first inning and the crowd was
as loud as I've ever heard them, and then all
(04:47):
of a sudden, Bieber came out and answered and silenced
that team was striking out the side and the second inning,
and I felt like, in playoff baseball, you can generate
and keV you can attest this. You can generate momentum
on both sides of the baseball. And Bieber stepped up
for the Blue Jays yesterday and he came out, he
made adjustment, se exc pitches. He looked like himself, the
guy from the Cleveland Guardians that you and I are
(05:08):
faced a lock keep. When he's mixing that fastball, slider, cutter, curveball, combook,
he's deadly. And then the bats came alive. I didn't
feel like the Blue Jays had poor bats in Game one.
In Game two, I felt like there's a lot of
loud barrels right at the defenders. So we knew that
they were gonna get hot. This is a team that
led the major leagues and batting average, third in doubles,
and manufactured a ton of runs all season long. This
(05:29):
team has a lot of fight left in him. This
series is going to be a dog fight till the end.
The fact that the Mariners came out and got a
lead early and shot then was big. But now they're
a little shocked right now and they have an opportunity
to respond.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
Yeah, the idea of getting off to a good start
in Toronto obviously is important. And yet I didn't think
this was gonna be a sweep. I didn't. I don't
think it's gonna be an easy series. It's you're down
to the final four teams and it's gonna be a
battle uphill. I would wonder, like Kevin, I'll go to
you first and then you can respond to it as well.
When you're going up against a guy like George Kirby.
(06:02):
What they it looked to me like they were doing
was they were aggressive early. You know a guy that's
gonna pound the zone, he trusts his stuff, and yet
they just weren't letting him get off or get away
with any mistakes.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Left over the heart.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
Is that something that you know that the Blue Jays
were preaching because it looked like it.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, I mean it's a matter of fact. All eighteen
hits came within the first three pitches of the bat.
And when you have a guy like George Kirby, who
you know historically is in the strike zone, loves to throw,
you know, strike one of the zone has elite stuff.
The way you beat elite pitching in this game, you
have two ways when you have these hitters meetings. You
(06:39):
go into this hitters meeting and you say, were they
going to get him or he's gonna get us? But
we're going to do it early, because if you get
the two strikes, his arsenal is too good to really overcome.
So the Blue just had a really distinct plan to
attack early. I don't know if you guys heard John
Schneider's press conference pregame. He was talking about less jabs,
(06:59):
more uppercuts, you know, and that's code for, Hey, we
need to sit on pitches and be aggressive and when
you get your pitch, don't be afraid to swing it.
The Blue Jays have this superpower as a team to
put the ball in play and they are going to
continue to do that, but it's how they put the
ball in play. They emphasize not necessarily swinging for the
(07:20):
pen fences, but getting a good pitch and trying to
drive the ball and void did they answer?
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Kevin, You talked about this a little bit on another
show you did recently, about the team wide execution of
approach and how there's been some teams in the playoffs
that do it better than others. And yesterday was an
absolute clinic by the Toronto Blue Jays of let's execute
a team wide approach. I mean, eighteen hits when the
first three pitches. I heard that stat. I did a
radio show late last night and I heard that stat
and I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. It was impressive.
(07:47):
But there was two at bats that I thought were
really decisive for the Toronto Blue Jays offense. It was
Vladimir Guerrero's at bat that doubly hit through the left
field wall in that third inning he threw he got
two hanging sliders. George Kirby did not have the same
up with that slider that he has this whole postseason.
And then the kirk Get bat when he walked him
with runners on second and third. He was trying to
get that sinker to clip the outside corner. He had
(08:10):
a really hard time commanding his pitchers at the glove
side on right handed hitters, which is the outside corner.
He couldn't get that sinker to come back, and the
slider just kept kind of spinning in the middle of
the play. And when you cannot command the outer half
of the zone and the hitters able to split the
plate in half and really sit on one part of it,
it's really really dangerous for a picture that day.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Yeah, there was guys, you know, Ernie Clement, whole guy,
kind of a free swinger, ambushed the first pitch sinker
in for the double to kind of get the wheels
going a little bit, you know, andres Himnez hit the
two run homer where he said he was just trying
to move the run over and talk about this kind
of team approach. Sometimes when you do less, you do more.
(08:50):
You know, the Vladier bat you were talking about, he
took the first slider in that at bat and kind
of didn't even offer at it as a way of
kind of like saying, throw it again, you know, you
throw it again, George Springer, first pitch, homer, four seam
up in the zone. Got it. Like, guys, you talk
about having this collective approach, which you've seen through the
(09:12):
Toronto Blue Jays the entirety of the year, and if
you kind of flip the script to the Mariners, they're
a team that just kind of relies a lot on
the home run, a little bit more free swinging. I
don't have the statistics in front of me, but what
I've seen through the first games was all the kind
of small things that you would want to do right
from a team approach. The Blue Jay has kind of
let every statistic, but when it came to like slug
(09:35):
and home runs, you saw the Mariners like the swing amiss.
The strikeouts were all in favor of the Mariners. So
it's very interesting that trasting styles of both of these teams.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I know one statistic Mariners two games of Blue Jays won.
That's a pretty important statistic. At this point. Kevin Malar
is with us, former Blue Jay and former Mariner Ryan
Heay with us on the same show. Turns out their
best buddies, and they're joining us here this morning to
talk about the American League championship series. So it feels
to me like momentum is just something that's like a
(10:08):
figment of our imagination in this sport, this time of year. So, Ryan,
even though Mariners get stomped yesterday by this lineup, what
kind of chance do you give Luis Castillo just to
reverse that momentum here tonight.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
I'm gonna let Kevin touch on like the realities of
momentum because he's played some big posts and games. But
just as an unwritten rule in baseball, you can see
things throughout the course of a game on both the
offense and defensive side, of confidence of players walking to play,
or the way the pitcher toes the rubber. Luis Castigo
has an opportunity tonight to get the crowd involved really early.
If we can put a zero up early, get the
(10:42):
offense included, it's gonna be a really exciting game. I'd
love to see more of a you know, a three
to two or a four to three type game. That's
more of the Mariner style that we saw in the DS.
They had the Game four against the Tigers that got
out of hand when the Tigers' bats came alive and
they responded with a fifteen inning game to win it
in the decisive game five. I hope we we don't
play fifteen tonight, but I do hope it's more competitive
and looks like the brand of marriage baseball we've seen
(11:04):
all season long.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah. In terms of momentum, I mean it's real, but
I think as soon as that final out is caught,
the momentum kind of goes away, and that really kind
of shifts into belief. I think what the Blue Jays
have is a ton of belief. And to your previous
point is the Marriagers are still up two to one
in this series with two more games left, you know,
(11:27):
And that was that was my big talking point post
game for the Blue Jays was kind of everything that
we had mentioned before, Like it kind of that win,
decisive win yesterday really just kind of switched the narrative
of the series to like allow people, maybe outside of
that both of those clubhouses, people like us in the media, fans,
to really believe, like the Blue Jays do have a
(11:48):
chance to win this series. But I got a chance
to talk to George Springer before the game yesterday, for
you know, about a half hour. Couldn't have been any
cooler calmer being down oh two in a series. It's
something he wasn't he was familiar with in his time
with the Astros, and he's like, it's and we both
agreed on this. It's a much bigger deal to everyone
outside of that clubhouse than it is inside that clubhouse.
(12:10):
But I do believe that Blue Jays are going to
show up with even more confidence today after what they
did yesterday. But I don't think the Mariners are ultimately
phased by what happened. I think they had a moment
of reflection in that clubhouse to be like, Okay, this
isn't going to be easy, you know, not to say
the first two games were easy, but they went into
a tough place to win two games coming off a
(12:32):
super emotional you know, fifteen in ing victory across country flight.
You show up to media day, your head's kind of spinning.
You don't even know where you're at, you know. And
I was even saying going to that series, and I
texted Dan Shulman before Game one, I said, this is
the one I'm afraid of. Because blue Jays have everything
(12:53):
in line. They have rest, they have Gosman on the mound.
The Mariners are coming off this emotional victory. They're pitching
plans are kind of shambles, and the Mariners just showed
up and stole one and then they won decisively. But
I think momentum really does kind of end when that
final out is done for the game. You're able to
kind of wash your hands, you know, rinse everything that
(13:15):
happened from that game. But I think we're gonna see
two very very competitive teams, very confident teams showing up today,
and that first inning is going to be very, very
pivotal for Luis Castillo. I think if he can decisively
get through the first inning, you know, I think if
he goes, you know, three up, three down. I think
if he gets into a little bit of trouble but
(13:36):
gets out of the inning, I think there's gonna be
more of a sigh of relief. I think you'll hear
an exhale. But I think if he can go one, two,
three and show some sort of dominance in those first
three hitters, I think you're gonna give that offense a chance.
With a very rowdy crowd and Max Schurz is on
the mound, I mean, I think this is the biggest
mystery box of a starting pitcher you know you're ever
(14:00):
going to see in a postseason game. He hasn't pitched
in a month. He says he's healthy. He had an
awful year this year. He's forty one years old. He
ain't the same guy, but he does. He have the
potential to, you know, turn back the clock for just
maybe eighteen outs today. I think that's the biggest storyline
of the game.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
Kevin, I'm gonna ask, since you played with him just
this year, I mean, probably one of the scarier hitters
to step into the box is vlad And so I mean,
what is it that he has to work on you?
When you guys were in the batting cage, so we
know what his weakness is. Will relay this to our guys.
I mean, what is it? Is there anything that this
dude doesn't cover when it comes to him up in
(14:37):
the dish because of four for four, we can't afford
that tonight.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
No, he really has no weaknesses. And me and some
of the media guys were in an uber estay moving
to the bar. We were just kind of talking about
the stuff. We were talking about Vladdie, Like, he really
has no weaknesses. At the home play, He's basically his
dad with play discipline. He's got the power, he has
the ability to use all fields. He hits all pitches.
(15:00):
But he is also one of the few superstars in
the game that he can be the guy he was
last night. But then he'll have a period of time
where he can't hit water if he fell out of boat.
It's not like he has these like he just has
these really big ebbs and flows. But obviously he has
you know, more peaks than he has valleys. But right
(15:21):
now what you're seeing from him, and he talked about
it kind of towards the end of the season, he
was kind of struggling a little bit. He got those
couple of days off during the Wildcard series. He found
something in his swing that clicked. And he's been, you know,
the Vlatty that everyone in Toronto when they signed him
up to that fourteen year deal expected him to be.
(15:44):
He's been carrying this offense. He hasn't been doing it alone,
but he's been the real catalyst at the top of
the lineup. He's come up with huge hits. He sets
the table and really he has no weaknesses at home
plate when he's locked in.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Ryan As we get ready to close shop and this
a lot of fun. I could do this for about
four more hours, you guys into it. Kevin Polar has
authored some of the greatest defensive catches that the baseball
game of baseball has ever seen. What do you send
your buddy when you see him on the highlights? What
kind of text do you send him when if you
(16:20):
send them anything at all, when you see him climb
the wall in Toronto and take home runs away.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
It's usually banter. It's usually just like how reckless he
is with his body? Like we talk about that a lot.
And we've spent a lot of time with our families together,
so like when we both have kids, so when the
kids are reckless with their body, like Kevin, that's you, Like,
that's genetic. You gave that to him, or you gave
that to your daughter. They're like, you showed them how
to be reckless with your body and it got you
a ten plus your career. But man, you got some
(16:47):
cool stories to tell from me. And I'm glad he
never took a hit away from me. I don't think
you did, keV. But he was there for my first
major league kids, so him and I got some deeper
intent history together.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah, do we have time to share that?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Say?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Please?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Please?
Speaker 5 (16:57):
You want to hear the story, Yeah, go ahead tell
it well, as I was telling you, Ryan's sister is
married to my childhood best friend since I was like
two years old. So we've known each other pretty much
our whole life. Me and Ryan's age gap, you know,
when you're a kid at the age gap is a
little bit more serious, you know. You know, I'm four
years older than Ryan, so you know, he's four. I'm
(17:17):
not playing with a four year old as much when
I'm eight. So but his older sister, his older sister
is only what two years younger than me, maybe a
year younger than me. So my best friend has a sister.
Their sisters grew up together. So I've known his sister
my whole life, and Ryan I knew very little. But
as we got older, baseball kind of brought us together,
(17:40):
especially once he got into professional baseball. I was already
in professional baseball. We actually made this very courageous decision
to move to Arizona together at some point in our
career because getting out of California was a better tax decision,
but it was also a better baseball offseason. There was
more resources for us to explore, and we thought if
(18:03):
we did it together, you know, we would be able
to kind of push each other, motivate each other, work
out together, hit together, to kind of just expand our careers.
But going back to that, we were I was still
like we were both living in California at the time.
I was in the major leagues. Ryan was in Double
A with the A's. Our all star breaks had overlapped.
(18:26):
Was that the year you play in the Futures Game?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:28):
So I went Future Game in San Diego and I
went to Kevin's house, Yeah, for a barliament Christ's birthday.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
My wife's birthday, and he at the end of the barbecue,
I walked into the front door. He said he had
to catch a flight to El Paso, and you know,
like you said, we like to banter a lite And
I said, Hey, don't call me to your in the
big leagues, buddy, And that was like the last thing
I said to him.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And we were hoping up that second half.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
We were opening in Oakland, So he flew to l Paso.
I stayed the night at home. I flew to Oakland
the next day for like the workout.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
The next morning he calls me. I'm like, what do
you want, buddy, told you not to call me here
in the big leagues, And sure enough, they called him
up to the big leagues to start the second half
in Oakland, and I was. I was there for his debut.
I saw his first hit, which I think was a
home run off of Jay Happ or Dicky r A
Dickey all.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Right, Dicky?
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Yeah, but then I think you had over the next day, right, No,
got the the happ The halp was the later in
the series. Later, Yeah, okay, but yeah, I was there.
His family was there, Your whole family was there, My
whole family was there, my uh, you know, my best
friend who's married to his sister was there. So it
was just kind of a cool story where, uh, you
(19:44):
know that I was with him the day before, you know,
thought he you know, he was in double A stone
l Paso. You know that I thought he would, you know,
and he, to his credit, you know, repeated double A
and he didn't feel like he needed to and he
just had a great attitude about going back there. But
typically the natural jump would be getting the call from
(20:04):
you know, going from double A to triple A. You know,
never in a million years. Did I expect to get
a phone call a day later for him to make
his debut? And you know, the universe has a funny
way of rewarding people, and and the baseball world is
just so small and intimate sometimes that I got to be, uh,
not only a front row seat to you know, his debut,
(20:25):
I got to compete against him. And the last thing
I'll say is that little wall scraper he hit. He
was lucky he didn't hit the center because I would
have brought that thing back. He'd still be still be
he'd still be searching for his first one.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
I knew where I could.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, this was awesome, so Ryan, hopefully we didn't catch
it too much off guard with our little surprise we
had for you. But great having you two on surprise.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
I could have done it forever. Appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I'll see you guys, all right, Yeah, we'll see out
of the ballpark. Kevin pulled a Ryan Heay joining us
here Farmer Blue Jay, former Marin Or breaking down the
Alcs for you right here on Chuck and Buck. In
the mornings, we'll talk to Mike Sando.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Next.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Sports Radio ninety three point three kJ RFM with Mike
Sando of The Athletic and brought to you by Hunt Services.
Get on the horn and call Hunts Now with Mike.
Here's Chuck and.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Bud ah Man.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
We didn't get to chat with Mike last week, so
it's good to hear his voice. This week, we get
ready for Thursday night football. We also get ready for
Seahawks Texans Monday night football. So much to discuss. Good morning, Mike,
Good morning, how you doing. I'm great. Are you excited
to watch Ya Tittle versus Auto Graham tonight?
Speaker 6 (21:41):
I am?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I am.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
I like what guys. You know, guys in my well,
they're younger than me, but I mean, you know, they're
the closest to our h range I guess out there,
so that's kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I think Rogers was a senior when I was a junior,
if I remember correctly, right, Yeah? I mean, is this
Pittsburgh's division based on the fact that Baltimore is just
kind of collapsed and Cincinnati doesn't have Joe Burrow? I mean,
are the Can you just circle the Steelers as division
champs this year?
Speaker 7 (22:09):
I mean, probably, But what's to say that Aaron Rodgers,
age fifty eight, doesn't have an entry in the next
two weeks that totally changes their season. Right, So yeah,
right now they probably have a seventy five percent chance
to win that division just the way that it's going.
And the thing about Baltimore is like Lamar Jackson is
gonna come back, but is he going to be the
same He had a hamstring injury. So clearly the Steelers
(22:32):
are in the driver's seat. But they got the oldest
quarterback of you know, of the bunch, and that could
lead to injury too.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
Who's the biggest surprise you Jags, Colts, or there's somebody
I'm missing.
Speaker 7 (22:47):
Probably the I mean, the Colts were one that I
had circled as potential, but I think just the level
they've been playing at offensively to me is surprising.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
You know.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
Did I think they could be good, good and win
ten games? Yeah, I think that was realistic, But they're
like top five in a lot of different things offensively,
and so I would say I didn't really see it
coming to that degree.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Mike Sander is with us our NFL insider, joining us
here on Chuck and Buck, as he does most every
Thursday throughout the football season. Well, let's talk about the
Seahawks opponent on Monday night, the Houston Texans. What a
strange start that they're off to. They've got a sub
five hundred record, yet their rank number one in the
NFL and defense and c J. Stroud still hasn't picked
(23:33):
back up where he left off at the end of
his rookie year. So how good a team is this
Houston team? Are they good at all?
Speaker 7 (23:41):
Well, they're definitely good, and that they haven't allowed more
than twenty points in a game this year, so you
know you're going to get a be in for a
scrap with their defense. And then the other thing is,
you know they're they're coming off a bye, so you
know they've had lots of time to really dissect Seattle
and they should have a really good plan defensively. Plus
they're going to know exactly what Clint Kubiak wants to
(24:03):
do offensively because you know they have some history going
against that type of a scheme. Denico Ryans was with
Kyle Shanahan in with the forty nine ers, So you're
probably going to get a really you know, the best
defensive test probably of the season so far will be
this week against Houston.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
What is it that they do that is the scariest
Is it the pass rush? Is it the fact that
they got some ballhawks in the back, just get good
complimentary football On the defensive side, what is it that Well?
Speaker 7 (24:35):
They, yeah, do they have a very good pass rush
and they've invested in that. They have a couple of
new faces this year, but they have good pass rush
and then they have, you know, a top five cornerback
in the league as well. So I think that that's
a really good combination for a you know, a defensive
head coach who's what in his third year there, So
(24:56):
they've got their program pretty well established. I think it's
a really good, you know, just whole operation on the
defensive side.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
One more question about this game, and we got some
other ground to cover. In the National Football League, you
do your quarterback tiers, it's award winning. Everybody loves it.
Everybody except maybe some of the quarterbacks maybe they don't
like it so much. But if you were to do
wide receiver tiers, where's JSN Which tier does he rise to?
Speaker 7 (25:24):
Well, he's got to be in tier one unless your
tier one of receivers requires you to be you know,
six foot two and two hundred and twenty pounds and
just an absolute physical mismatch. I think one of the
interesting things is you look around the league, though, is
the leading receivers in the league aren't that guy? Do
you notice that if you look around the guys with
the yardage, there's a lot of guys who are just
(25:45):
super productive because they can, you know, get open, catch
the ball. They're well schemed and and that. So I
think you have to put him in the top tier
based on his production, well, just allowing for the fact that, hey,
you know, historically there are some guys that are more
physically imposing.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
He's a special though, Man, is he special? Mike Sando
is with us our NFL inside. You can follow him
at Sando NFL there on X joins us every Thursday.
San Francisco's got another major injury. I mean, they're without
Bosa and Warner. We've talked about this team a lot
in our sessions together, but how are they going to
hold this thing together?
Speaker 7 (26:22):
I don't think they're gonna And also their quarterback, both
of them have been banged up. But you know, brock
Purty hasn't really shown an ability to be durable over
the long term, and he's got a you know, the
type of a foot toe type thing that could bother
him a little bit longer term, you know, may linger
for him, or the type of thing that could be recurring,
(26:43):
so they don't get a bye to like Week fourteen either.
So I just think it's a tough grind. They're competitive,
they play hard, they're tough, but that's a lot to
ask to really overcome. You know, losing two players in
Bosa and Fred Warner, who might be the best player
on any team in the league if they went on
(27:04):
that team. Think about that. Those are stars, no doubt
about it.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Speaking of stars, Baker Mayfield, I mean, can you envision
a world where he ends up the MVP of the
NFL this year? I think I could.
Speaker 7 (27:17):
You know one thing about them though, is they've won
all of these super close games, so you know, sometimes
that doesn't be sustained.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Right.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
We saw last year the Chiefs were eleven and zero
in one score games, and then this year they started
owing three in those games. The Bucks are in some
ways not as good as they were last season because
of injuries, but Baker has been keeping their head above water.
So I see his path to the MVP being this
continue to get guys back from health, so you don't
have to win, you know, by one point every week.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And we saw last week they.
Speaker 7 (27:50):
Beat the forty nine ers by more than that forty
nine ers obviously hurting. So I think he's right in it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I do. I think they lose to Detroit though Monday,
don't you.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
They could? Ye, but they could, they could, they could,
They could score them too.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Last thing for you, we've seen the first head coach
get fired of the season, but man, it seems like
they are hot seats all over this league. Is are
we going to see a lot of firings? Do you
think before the year comes to a close?
Speaker 6 (28:19):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (28:20):
Not necessarily. I mean, there could certainly be another one,
but I don't necessarily think that as I looked through
to sort of the teams that are down there, like
the Jets have a first year coach. You know, Cleveland's
been super patient with their guys, so I suppose they could.
But you know, maybe Miami's want to watch it. It's
just been weird stuff at the podium, you know, and
(28:41):
that sort of thing. Years now, Yeah, that that might
be the one that I would look for if it
just gets out of hand with you know, Tuas talking
about leadership and all that. It just there's a lot
of noise around that team with an owner who probably
could be a little impulsive than Steven Ross.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
All right, well, enjoy the the old folks home tonight
and we'll talk to you again next week. Hey, thank
you appreciate it. Mike Sando from the Athletic. You can
follow him at Sando NFL. They're on Twitter, and of
course I mean heat podcasts and he writes fancy stories
and all sorts of things, and he joins us nearly
every Thursday thanks to our friends at Hunts Services. Get
(29:17):
a plumber, electrician, heating or cooling expert at your doorstep
for only forty nine dollars, Get on the horn and
call Hunts. One last thing is next Sports Radio ninety
three point three KJRFM. All right, final segment of today's
(29:44):
radio program. And you know how we do it. We
go round the room for one last thing. So, Bucky,
where are we starting?
Speaker 6 (29:51):
That was a fun segment with Ryan Healthy and Kevin Pillar,
except for.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
One I do have one thing.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Oh all right, I don't know where he gets this.
Maybe he's just because he's young. I'd like three to
two maybe a four to three ball game. No, no,
I want to. I want to ten to two ball games,
and I want it. Yeah, I want us, Yes, of
course I want I want to. I want a six
(30:18):
spot in the first two innings, Okay, And and then
I want to see Surezer in his mismatched eyes off
the thing and then just continue to rattle it off
a little bit, give them a little taste of their
own medicine from what we had yesterday.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't need all of the nail biting
and edge of my seat, no kind of nonsense that
we've dealt with in the past. Yeah, I mean, you know,
one turn deserves another. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
The ten to three or whatever it was at their place,
it was fun.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Well that was you know, that was to be expected, right, Yeah,
and then do it again or yesterday. Oh no, we
gave you one. I'll give us one, right.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
I don't want the nail biting that will come with
a two to two series, you know. Ah, I see
a little you know, best two out of three and
two we're gonna be in Toronto type of thing. I
mean whatever, I'm not gonna be scared however it works out.
But just an absolute butt whooping today.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
It's gonna Ken Carr mentioned like the Max Scherzer is
the wild card going into this. That's a Toronto and
analyst whos Lea saying, we don't know what to expect
fro him in this game. I mean, he has pitched
so tremendously and so many big pressure situations. He's one
of those Kurt Shilling types that pitch is better the
brighter the lights get. But then again, it's been three
(31:40):
years since he's been a really effective starter and so
and he really hasn't been at any point with the
Blue Jays. So what do you get? Do you get
the Grover Alexander, you know, summon out of nowhere. Old
man's got a little bit more juice in it to
become a playoff hero. Or do you get the guy
(32:01):
that the Blue Jays have tried to massage through what
probably is his last season in the major leagues, and
we just light him up tonight. I'll take plan B yep, yep,
and he to me down for that.
Speaker 8 (32:12):
Yeah, you can take me down twice if you want, Yeah,
three times.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Had a great career, good luck in the Hall of Fame.
But if you insist on being on the mounda tonight.
We would like to light you up to end your career. Yes,
a plan on that.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
I'm expecting a big offensive explosion.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Are you really yes, honestly yes, okay, okay, like to
see it all right, Ashley, what do you got?
Speaker 8 (32:32):
I know that I have no right to say this,
but it really bothers me. All of a sudden, All
of a sudden, my normal parking spot is filled every morning.
What the F is happening? I've been parking in the
same dance for four years.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I took cares because someone took.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
You took the second one. Someone keeps taking mind.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Well, here is what happened. Is there are people I
can't say too much information. There are people who are
just parking their cars there and aren't working here or anything.
They found a they found a parking spot, and I
think they left town because those same two cars have
been for three days okay time. And I saw the girl.
(33:17):
I saw the girl in the rubicon.
Speaker 6 (33:19):
The one that took your parking spot. I saw them
pull in yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Oh so they're getting here before me and taking my
spot at day. I mean, I'm not supposed to be
parking there anyway, But still for four years.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Yeah, we have been well three years, I guess, because
we didn't have the parking when I first started the show.
But since we got access to that parking garage, we
have been parking in.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
The same spots every morning. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
I had some guy in a BMW that took mine. Yeah,
probably about a year ago. You guys every ounce of
self control to not spit on his windshield as I
walked by.
Speaker 8 (33:56):
Guy were kind of an a war because it was
whoever got here first was taking that spot.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
And we would sometimes be coming down Mercier the same time,
and I've been out driving for sure, and I would
get there and then now he just is like, well
just get there fifteen minutes earlier. You want to slash
his tire.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I mean, the whole garage is open. Why are they
taking the spots that have been claimed for years? And
they know it too. Point out the guy that's taking mine, okay, Yeah,
and I want to know who's taking mine because I
can point her.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Okay, I'm gonna have words.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I know exactly and I don't think she works here.
Oh yeah, I don't think she does. Okay, So yeah,
I'm not gonna do anything terrible just you know, I'm
just gonna I will box him up and ship them away.
That's all we do.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Yeah, that'd be timed. The train tracks that are right
out there. Yeah, nothing are terrible, not tight knocks. They
should be able to get out of it exactly. You
know your way around a nod or two. Yeah you don't,
then your problem.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Whatever. I'm just gonna twist my mustaches and joy and
enjoy what happens to you. I like to call you splatter.
All right, we'll talk to you tonight. Actually, Best Baseball's
best postgame show will do it again after Game four
The Alcs Live from Jimmy so On First brought to
you by Snow Qualm Casino and Hotel. In the meantime,
(35:13):
for your entertainment pleasure, the rest of our KJR programming,
starting with MJ and the Midday next Sports Radio ninety
three point three KJR FM.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
on demand. Their podcast will be up right after the show.
Just click on demand on our website at ninety three
three KJR dot com and click on checking Bug podcast
to replay anytime anywhere. From Sports Radio ninety three point
three kjr FL.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
This report is sponsored by Washington State Department of Transportation
Speaker 5 (35:46):
Seeing major delays this morning traveling westbound
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