June 12, 2025 • 14 mins
Former Mariners pitcher and analyst Bill Krueger joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the state of the team after getting swept again and mounting struggles on offense, the bullpen falling apart, plus the skill of bunting and the building of offenses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for our weekly conversation with Bill Krueger, brought
to you by the brand new Occidental Hall next to
Lumanfield On Occidental, Seattle's newest hot spot for sports fans,
with massive HD screens and a menu packed with Seattle's
best smash Burger, Wiens and the best local craft beers
in town. Now with Bill Krueger, here's Safti and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am hearing rumors, by the way, that the Occidental
Beer Hall is literally days away from opening up right
outside Lumenfield, Man, so get down there check it out
before and after every Mariner game, Seahawk game, anything happening
down there in Sodo. Big thanks to our friend Juice
from the Beer Hall. The Queen Ann Beer Hall has
been open for a while, Moss Bay Hall and Kirkland's
hoppening right there in downtown Kirkland, and very very soon,
(00:45):
literally hours away, the Occidental Hall about to be open
to the public very very soon. Joining us right now
on the radio program to talk about those Mariners. It's
our friend Bill Krueger. Billy, how are you man?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm good. That's good. Hear your voice. It's so clear
and perfect. Now, yeah, I heard you after your trip.
It wasn't so good, but you must be feeling better.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, I felt fine the whole time, right, I mean
it just my voice sounded like crap, which is hard
to do when you're in radio. But I just want
to give you the floor. What the hell's going on
with this baseball team?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Billy?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Give us your thoughts from thirty five thousand feet.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, you know, they raced to a pretty good start,
you know, their april they were just incredibly offensively driven
and they had a lot of contributions. In fact, it
was right when they had a batch of injuries that
they kind of took off Rollbodys went down, Bliss went down.
Then were they not too far after that? And then
they just had this sort of amazing ham and egg
bottom of the order, the Master, Bonie Reeves, Dylan Moore,
(01:47):
all these different guys combining to really give this offense
a lot of on base and the role he's cleaning
everything up, and they look like, wow, just think what's
they're going to be like when they're pitching returns and
you know, some of the shine has come off the
offense and you know they were hoping that maybe you know,
the timing would be perfect, the pitching would come back
(02:09):
in full force, and as a hitting kind of settled
itself down, they'd find the happy medium and they continue
to win. But that hasn't been the case. They've had
some inconsistency on the mound. A lot of it's because
you just can't turn the big, the big aircraft carrier,
that being the starting pitcher around too quick, and unfortunately,
the club had to suffer to and in my opinion,
(02:31):
not correctly, to have George Kirby throw to rehab performances
in the big leagues and have Bryce Miller do the
same thing, and you kind of turned the rotation upside down.
And I think they could have weathered better this stretch
had they knock done that with those two guys. Granted,
it's hard not to want those guys back, you know,
so that's part of the problem. A lot of their
(02:54):
additions haven't necessarily been great offensive editions. As they've tried
to shuffle the lip and made additions to the club,
Taveris ends up being a guy that doesn't hit and
plays every day, and then suddenly the master Bony Dylan
Moore and right field is gone. And then Dylan Moore's
lost his way because they've got a kid at second
and the kid at third, so he doesn't play, and
(03:15):
now he's not swinging the back. Rebos was on base
like five hundred, but he can't play anymore. He's got
to go to triple A. So there's a lot of
that around the middle of the lineup, and the Riddle
lineup has really just been been Raleigh, so that makes
you challenged offensively. And then the pitching side outside of
the inconsistency because of the starting rotation shuffle. When you
(03:38):
have to shuffle, Look what happens Logan Evans who throws
eight Maddox like innings and then doesn't pitch for two weeks.
He throws four innings over two weeks and not in
the big weeks, and he comes back and he's not
as sharp. He was okay, but not as sharp. He
hadn't pitched much in two weeks, right because they had
to cool him, hoping that Bryce Miller was going to
be okay, when they should have tested Brek Miller in
triple A. They could have shuffled the deck. They could
(04:01):
have Emerson Hancock in there before they went to Kirby
too soon. They could have pitched Castillo on turn, they
could have pitched wu on turn. There was a way
to be more efficient. And lastly, their boatpen has just
gotten overexposed, and they're not uber talented and they only
have one left handed pitcher. Oh, by the way, the
league's getting left handed. Every team's got five or six
(04:22):
in the lineup or seven or eight. The rover is gone,
and we have no left handed pitching. How many times?
How many pieces can you slice spire into? Then Wilson's
hands are tied, So it's a number of things, But
that doesn't mean it can't sort itself out. Their pitching
is good enough that it kind of stabilizes here with
Gilbert coming back, that they could be They could get back,
(04:46):
could get their feet underneath them and just be average offensively.
But they do need a cup, They need a couple
of things, and I don't think they can get those
things right away. The deadline's a little ways off, so
they're gonna have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Bill.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I saw a different type of offense when Dan and
Edgar took over in September of last year. I saw
that carry over into April and this year, and then
I just saw it disappear again, and I don't know
where it's gone. And they haven't run as much. I mean,
they stole thirty seven bases in April, they stole sixteen
in May. Like this is just a dramatic reversion back
(05:21):
to the Scott Service offense. Why has it been like that?
Do you think, Well, they're just.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
They're not getting as many guys on base, and the
guys that could really run don't play as much. Dylan
More can really run, but he doesn't play. And now
when he comes back, he's not swinging the back dead.
Master Bonney can really run, but he didn't play. And
you know the other two kids are just learning Williamson
and Cole Young and Tavaris. That was a really interesting
(05:50):
experiment for Free main Bucks. A guy that can't play
right can't play the outfield right. I mean we saw
two instances where it was just almost like what, this's
the big leagues running back and almost like you're a
blind man and kind of throwing your glove up. I
mean wow. But addressing the on base, it's the on base.
They had so many guys getting on base with a
wat that they were able to kind of run and
(06:12):
move the game along and I think there's a lot
more trust when things are going good and you're getting
more contributions from other people. Everybody's willing to kind of
pass the baton. When things go bad. It tends to be, oh,
I'm going to get it done, because that's my job.
I'm in the middle of lineup. I'm a three or
four or five hitter. And then guys try to try to,
you know, make it happen. Maybe on a pitch that's
(06:33):
not a pitch they should be swinging at that, they
should allow the game to move to the next guy.
I'm over generalizing, but you know, their offense is just talented.
They're not real talented. Okay, that doesn't mean they can't
win with an average offense, but they're not. They can't
overcome starting pitching. It goes four innings, three eatings, four innings,
five ings. Just everything gets exposed, right, you have to
(06:57):
score more, and your bullpen gets stretched, and then you
start playing long ball to try to get back in games,
and there you go. You revert to the mean and
you fall into old habits.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Well, you mentioned the bullpen getting stressed, and Bill Krueger
again with us courtesy of the New Occidental Beer Hall,
which opens up in six days from now. By the way,
confirm next Wednesday that Puppy is going to be active
and online just outside Luomenfield, so check it out and
don't forget the Queen Ann Beer Hall and the Moss
Bay Hall in Kirkland. That last year the Mariners pitched
(07:31):
the fewest relief fittings in baseball, less than five hundred.
Now they're on pace for over six hundred this year.
Bullpen getting stressed direct result of the pitching staff rotation
getting banged up.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yep, yeah, it's a direct correlation. And they obviously always
are leaning on their system and their ability to find
undervalue pitching, and they've done a pretty job of that.
I mean picking up uh well, Kolwar coming back. I mean,
(08:03):
he's he he looks like he's going to be a
valuable edition. He's healthy. But certainly Vargas was a nice
fine But maybe they're asking a little too much of
a guy that had really zero experience and all of
a sudden he's pitching in critical situations. They don't the
depth isn't maybe enough, it's probably enough if you've got
guys that are going quality, star quality, star quality, start,
(08:24):
you've got enough. They've got three really good ones and
two that probably can pitch the middle enough that in
winning situations you're going to be okay. But yeah, when
you're having to cover five five innings, four innings, five innings,
three innings, four and five and that's that's a lot
for any staff in today's game. So they're going to
(08:46):
have to expect their starting pitching to pitch more and
pitch deeper. And they can, they really can. These guys
are built to go deeper and they should start to
round round into form because look at how Kirby's pitched
his last time. He's finally looking like himself. And you know,
Emerson Hancock's been really solid. They really don't push him
as much as they could. He could pitch more. Wo
(09:08):
can certainly pitch more. Castillo is a generational arm that
can throw one hundred and ten to one hundred and
fifty fifty in a game if you wanted to. He's
one of those guys. So they have the ability to
carry the game deeper. And I think things start to
settle down when you do that, and then you start
to see seven innings with the two guys you like
at the end and win three to two and win
(09:30):
four to three. I mean, that's still within their grasp,
but that doesn't mean that they don't need another bat
and that they don't need another pitcher in the bullpen,
preferably a left handed guy.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Bill want to go back to that first game against Arizona,
because I think that that game.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Bothered me more than any other game.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Probably in this losing streak. You have runner on at
second base and no outs five different times in that game,
and there is no effort to try to move that
guy around along. No effort in the tenth, no effort
in the eleventh, and then you end up losing the
baseball game. Where are you on how you handle runner
on second nobody out, particularly in the new fangled extra
(10:09):
innings world.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, when you're playing ghost runner, I'm I'm I'm of
the of the belief that you know, if you don't
have the ability to get inside out the baseball, if
you're right handed, then you should you should you should,
you should bunt because once it gets the third, you're
going to score. It's tougher when you're on the road
because on the road you can't assure yourself to win
by scoring you've got to score and then hold. So
(10:35):
the temptation is to score more than one. But I
think that you should always try to move the runner
to third. And I like the bunt. We've watched s
winning teams. We watched Arizona bunt. We've watched clubs that
we played against bunt more than we bunt or the
team bunts. So I'm I'm of the belief you know,
I'm older school, so I of the beliefs that that
(10:56):
bunting the ball and moving the guy to third, if
you can't hit the ball right hand side, then that's
a good play. I mean, it's just it seems like
a free run. You get the guy to third. It's
it's a free run almost right. You're handing, You're handing
the game. You're handing. At least in the ear I
played in, we'd be like, oh, you're handing us a run.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, But there's bill, there's one thing you're missing here,
I think, and I think I think a lot of
people are missing this. And you've said it now a
couple of times. In my era when I played right,
it's twenty twenty five. All of us, all of us
grew up being taught how to bunt? Can these can
these guys do it?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I don't see any reason why. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
They're not trained to do it, is why they've never
done it.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
That's why I'm not. I'm not. I probably bunted as
a professional maybe a dozen times in these like little
pockets of opportunities where I bunted a little bit in
the nash League, a little bit in Triple A. I
probably done it twelve times, maybe a little bit more
counting counting spring training games. I never fail. And I was.
I was an irregular hitter, irregular right career there and
(12:03):
here and there. Well, so yes, and I grew up
like you and we bunted, and the guys don't bunt.
And you know, there's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
That.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
The new the new thinking is why bunt? Why give up?
And out right, and a lot of that's built around
the fact that that people slug because the strike zone
is big and nobody can put it in play, and
we still shift and the sabermetritions sink. Well, they can't
string three hits some row together, they can't string another hit,
they can't string two hits, and really they can't put
(12:36):
the ball in play, So why should we give an out.
Our best chance is to walk and slug, and so
that you start playing that way, and guys are getting
paid to do that, and they forget that these are
these little these little things that help you win, and
they get thrown out the window. Because as long as
you're gonna keep paying guys to hit twenty five homers
and strack out one hundred and eighty times, guys are
(12:56):
gonna keep trying to do it right, why wouldn't you
can get paid. That's not good baseball for me, but
that's that's the pay structure until somebody sits down and says, hey,
I'm gonna build a team a certain way. I'm going
to have guys that use the whole field, and that's
the kind of guy that's going to move up in
our system. We're gonna put the ball in play, and
we're going to try to lead the league in doubles,
and we're gonna play defense and catch and pitch, and
(13:18):
I'm gonna pay guys to do it. I'm going to
retain guys. I'm going to retain a two eighty hitter
that's hits forty doubles and not shoot for the guy
that hits two twenty, that hits twenty five homers.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I just guarantee you that there's another show in the
country that's asking the same question, Dick, is how come
our guys don't bunt in the tenth inning with a
runner on base. I mean, it's not like these games
are going fourteen to fifteen innings, guys, and everyone's just
bunting and sacking people over. Nobody can do it anymore.
It's incredible, Bill, listen, great stuff and good to catch
(13:50):
you up. Always appreciate the therapy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll talk in a week my Friendsville.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, Hank Tuff pitching is coming, the pitching, the big
pitching is coming. So things are going to get better.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I love it. Bill Krueger with us again, have confirmed
that the Occidental Beer Hall is going to open up
next Wednesday, all right, June the eighteenth, six days from now,
that Puppy's going to be open. So you're heading down
there over the course of the next week for whatever reason,
stop by the new Occidental Beer Hall and check it out.
Mike Silvester did call back, by the way from Everett.
(14:22):
That means we are perfect and we can breathe easy
because we're off early tonight. We're pulling it for an
s and we're down at five o'clock tonight for the
hockey game Florida at Edmonton, Game number four Stanley Cup
Finals at five. We'll wrap it up with some text
amordials coming next on the unnamed text line oh yeah,
I'm sorry. Fun with audio next. The text will be
at forty five after but right now, a US open
(14:44):
update from Oakmont right here on ninety three three KJARFM.
It's time for our weekly conversation with Bill Krueger, brought
to you by the brand new Occidental Hall next to
Lumanfield On Occidental, Seattle's newest hot spot for sports fans,
with massive HD screens and a menu packed with Seattle's
best smash Burger, Wiens and the best local craft beers
in town. Now with Bill Krueger, here's Safti and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am hearing rumors, by the way, that the Occidental
Beer Hall is literally days away from opening up right
outside Lumenfield, Man, so get down there check it out
before and after every Mariner game, Seahawk game, anything happening
down there in Sodo. Big thanks to our friend Juice
from the Beer Hall. The Queen Ann Beer Hall has
been open for a while, Moss Bay Hall and Kirkland's
hoppening right there in downtown Kirkland, and very very soon,
(00:45):
literally hours away, the Occidental Hall about to be open
to the public very very soon. Joining us right now
on the radio program to talk about those Mariners. It's
our friend Bill Krueger. Billy, how are you man?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm good. That's good. Hear your voice. It's so clear
and perfect. Now, yeah, I heard you after your trip.
It wasn't so good, but you must be feeling better.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, I felt fine the whole time, right, I mean
it just my voice sounded like crap, which is hard
to do when you're in radio. But I just want
to give you the floor. What the hell's going on
with this baseball team?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Billy?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Give us your thoughts from thirty five thousand feet.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, you know, they raced to a pretty good start,
you know, their april they were just incredibly offensively driven
and they had a lot of contributions. In fact, it
was right when they had a batch of injuries that
they kind of took off Rollbodys went down, Bliss went down.
Then were they not too far after that? And then
they just had this sort of amazing ham and egg
bottom of the order, the Master, Bonie Reeves, Dylan Moore,
(01:47):
all these different guys combining to really give this offense
a lot of on base and the role he's cleaning
everything up, and they look like, wow, just think what's
they're going to be like when they're pitching returns and
you know, some of the shine has come off the
offense and you know they were hoping that maybe you know,
the timing would be perfect, the pitching would come back
(02:09):
in full force, and as a hitting kind of settled
itself down, they'd find the happy medium and they continue
to win. But that hasn't been the case. They've had
some inconsistency on the mound. A lot of it's because
you just can't turn the big, the big aircraft carrier,
that being the starting pitcher around too quick, and unfortunately,
the club had to suffer to and in my opinion,
(02:31):
not correctly, to have George Kirby throw to rehab performances
in the big leagues and have Bryce Miller do the
same thing, and you kind of turned the rotation upside down.
And I think they could have weathered better this stretch
had they knock done that with those two guys. Granted,
it's hard not to want those guys back, you know,
so that's part of the problem. A lot of their
(02:54):
additions haven't necessarily been great offensive editions. As they've tried
to shuffle the lip and made additions to the club,
Taveris ends up being a guy that doesn't hit and
plays every day, and then suddenly the master Bony Dylan
Moore and right field is gone. And then Dylan Moore's
lost his way because they've got a kid at second
and the kid at third, so he doesn't play, and
(03:15):
now he's not swinging the back. Rebos was on base
like five hundred, but he can't play anymore. He's got
to go to triple A. So there's a lot of
that around the middle of the lineup, and the Riddle
lineup has really just been been Raleigh, so that makes
you challenged offensively. And then the pitching side outside of
the inconsistency because of the starting rotation shuffle. When you
(03:38):
have to shuffle, Look what happens Logan Evans who throws
eight Maddox like innings and then doesn't pitch for two weeks.
He throws four innings over two weeks and not in
the big weeks, and he comes back and he's not
as sharp. He was okay, but not as sharp. He
hadn't pitched much in two weeks, right because they had
to cool him, hoping that Bryce Miller was going to
be okay, when they should have tested Brek Miller in
triple A. They could have shuffled the deck. They could
(04:01):
have Emerson Hancock in there before they went to Kirby
too soon. They could have pitched Castillo on turn, they
could have pitched wu on turn. There was a way
to be more efficient. And lastly, their boatpen has just
gotten overexposed, and they're not uber talented and they only
have one left handed pitcher. Oh, by the way, the
league's getting left handed. Every team's got five or six
(04:22):
in the lineup or seven or eight. The rover is gone,
and we have no left handed pitching. How many times?
How many pieces can you slice spire into? Then Wilson's
hands are tied, So it's a number of things, But
that doesn't mean it can't sort itself out. Their pitching
is good enough that it kind of stabilizes here with
Gilbert coming back, that they could be They could get back,
(04:46):
could get their feet underneath them and just be average offensively.
But they do need a cup, They need a couple
of things, and I don't think they can get those
things right away. The deadline's a little ways off, so
they're gonna have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Bill.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I saw a different type of offense when Dan and
Edgar took over in September of last year. I saw
that carry over into April and this year, and then
I just saw it disappear again, and I don't know
where it's gone. And they haven't run as much. I mean,
they stole thirty seven bases in April, they stole sixteen
in May. Like this is just a dramatic reversion back
(05:21):
to the Scott Service offense. Why has it been like that?
Do you think, Well, they're just.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
They're not getting as many guys on base, and the
guys that could really run don't play as much. Dylan
More can really run, but he doesn't play. And now
when he comes back, he's not swinging the back dead.
Master Bonney can really run, but he didn't play. And
you know the other two kids are just learning Williamson
and Cole Young and Tavaris. That was a really interesting
(05:50):
experiment for Free main Bucks. A guy that can't play
right can't play the outfield right. I mean we saw
two instances where it was just almost like what, this's
the big leagues running back and almost like you're a
blind man and kind of throwing your glove up. I
mean wow. But addressing the on base, it's the on base.
They had so many guys getting on base with a
wat that they were able to kind of run and
(06:12):
move the game along and I think there's a lot
more trust when things are going good and you're getting
more contributions from other people. Everybody's willing to kind of
pass the baton. When things go bad. It tends to be, oh,
I'm going to get it done, because that's my job.
I'm in the middle of lineup. I'm a three or
four or five hitter. And then guys try to try to,
you know, make it happen. Maybe on a pitch that's
(06:33):
not a pitch they should be swinging at that, they
should allow the game to move to the next guy.
I'm over generalizing, but you know, their offense is just talented.
They're not real talented. Okay, that doesn't mean they can't
win with an average offense, but they're not. They can't
overcome starting pitching. It goes four innings, three eatings, four innings,
five ings. Just everything gets exposed, right, you have to
(06:57):
score more, and your bullpen gets stretched, and then you
start playing long ball to try to get back in games,
and there you go. You revert to the mean and
you fall into old habits.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Well, you mentioned the bullpen getting stressed, and Bill Krueger
again with us courtesy of the New Occidental Beer Hall,
which opens up in six days from now. By the way,
confirm next Wednesday that Puppy is going to be active
and online just outside Luomenfield, so check it out and
don't forget the Queen Ann Beer Hall and the Moss
Bay Hall in Kirkland. That last year the Mariners pitched
(07:31):
the fewest relief fittings in baseball, less than five hundred.
Now they're on pace for over six hundred this year.
Bullpen getting stressed direct result of the pitching staff rotation
getting banged up.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yep, yeah, it's a direct correlation. And they obviously always
are leaning on their system and their ability to find
undervalue pitching, and they've done a pretty job of that.
I mean picking up uh well, Kolwar coming back. I mean,
(08:03):
he's he he looks like he's going to be a
valuable edition. He's healthy. But certainly Vargas was a nice
fine But maybe they're asking a little too much of
a guy that had really zero experience and all of
a sudden he's pitching in critical situations. They don't the
depth isn't maybe enough, it's probably enough if you've got
guys that are going quality, star quality, star quality, start,
(08:24):
you've got enough. They've got three really good ones and
two that probably can pitch the middle enough that in
winning situations you're going to be okay. But yeah, when
you're having to cover five five innings, four innings, five innings,
three innings, four and five and that's that's a lot
for any staff in today's game. So they're going to
(08:46):
have to expect their starting pitching to pitch more and
pitch deeper. And they can, they really can. These guys
are built to go deeper and they should start to
round round into form because look at how Kirby's pitched
his last time. He's finally looking like himself. And you know,
Emerson Hancock's been really solid. They really don't push him
as much as they could. He could pitch more. Wo
(09:08):
can certainly pitch more. Castillo is a generational arm that
can throw one hundred and ten to one hundred and
fifty fifty in a game if you wanted to. He's
one of those guys. So they have the ability to
carry the game deeper. And I think things start to
settle down when you do that, and then you start
to see seven innings with the two guys you like
at the end and win three to two and win
(09:30):
four to three. I mean, that's still within their grasp,
but that doesn't mean that they don't need another bat
and that they don't need another pitcher in the bullpen,
preferably a left handed guy.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Bill want to go back to that first game against Arizona,
because I think that that game.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Bothered me more than any other game.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Probably in this losing streak. You have runner on at
second base and no outs five different times in that game,
and there is no effort to try to move that
guy around along. No effort in the tenth, no effort
in the eleventh, and then you end up losing the
baseball game. Where are you on how you handle runner
on second nobody out, particularly in the new fangled extra
(10:09):
innings world.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, when you're playing ghost runner, I'm I'm I'm of
the of the belief that you know, if you don't
have the ability to get inside out the baseball, if
you're right handed, then you should you should you should,
you should bunt because once it gets the third, you're
going to score. It's tougher when you're on the road
because on the road you can't assure yourself to win
by scoring you've got to score and then hold. So
(10:35):
the temptation is to score more than one. But I
think that you should always try to move the runner
to third. And I like the bunt. We've watched s
winning teams. We watched Arizona bunt. We've watched clubs that
we played against bunt more than we bunt or the
team bunts. So I'm I'm of the belief you know,
I'm older school, so I of the beliefs that that
(10:56):
bunting the ball and moving the guy to third, if
you can't hit the ball right hand side, then that's
a good play. I mean, it's just it seems like
a free run. You get the guy to third. It's
it's a free run almost right. You're handing, You're handing
the game. You're handing. At least in the ear I
played in, we'd be like, oh, you're handing us a run.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, But there's bill, there's one thing you're missing here,
I think, and I think I think a lot of
people are missing this. And you've said it now a
couple of times. In my era when I played right,
it's twenty twenty five. All of us, all of us
grew up being taught how to bunt? Can these can
these guys do it?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I don't see any reason why. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
They're not trained to do it, is why they've never
done it.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
That's why I'm not. I'm not. I probably bunted as
a professional maybe a dozen times in these like little
pockets of opportunities where I bunted a little bit in
the nash League, a little bit in Triple A. I
probably done it twelve times, maybe a little bit more
counting counting spring training games. I never fail. And I was.
I was an irregular hitter, irregular right career there and
(12:03):
here and there. Well, so yes, and I grew up
like you and we bunted, and the guys don't bunt.
And you know, there's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
That.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
The new the new thinking is why bunt? Why give up?
And out right, and a lot of that's built around
the fact that that people slug because the strike zone
is big and nobody can put it in play, and
we still shift and the sabermetritions sink. Well, they can't
string three hits some row together, they can't string another hit,
they can't string two hits, and really they can't put
(12:36):
the ball in play, So why should we give an out.
Our best chance is to walk and slug, and so
that you start playing that way, and guys are getting
paid to do that, and they forget that these are
these little these little things that help you win, and
they get thrown out the window. Because as long as
you're gonna keep paying guys to hit twenty five homers
and strack out one hundred and eighty times, guys are
(12:56):
gonna keep trying to do it right, why wouldn't you
can get paid. That's not good baseball for me, but
that's that's the pay structure until somebody sits down and says, hey,
I'm gonna build a team a certain way. I'm going
to have guys that use the whole field, and that's
the kind of guy that's going to move up in
our system. We're gonna put the ball in play, and
we're going to try to lead the league in doubles,
and we're gonna play defense and catch and pitch, and
(13:18):
I'm gonna pay guys to do it. I'm going to
retain guys. I'm going to retain a two eighty hitter
that's hits forty doubles and not shoot for the guy
that hits two twenty, that hits twenty five homers.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I just guarantee you that there's another show in the
country that's asking the same question, Dick, is how come
our guys don't bunt in the tenth inning with a
runner on base. I mean, it's not like these games
are going fourteen to fifteen innings, guys, and everyone's just
bunting and sacking people over. Nobody can do it anymore.
It's incredible, Bill, listen, great stuff and good to catch
(13:50):
you up. Always appreciate the therapy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll talk in a week my Friendsville.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, Hank Tuff pitching is coming, the pitching, the big
pitching is coming. So things are going to get better.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I love it. Bill Krueger with us again, have confirmed
that the Occidental Beer Hall is going to open up
next Wednesday, all right, June the eighteenth, six days from now,
that Puppy's going to be open. So you're heading down
there over the course of the next week for whatever reason,
stop by the new Occidental Beer Hall and check it out.
Mike Silvester did call back, by the way from Everett.
(14:22):
That means we are perfect and we can breathe easy
because we're off early tonight. We're pulling it for an
s and we're down at five o'clock tonight for the
hockey game Florida at Edmonton, Game number four Stanley Cup
Finals at five. We'll wrap it up with some text
amordials coming next on the unnamed text line oh yeah,
I'm sorry. Fun with audio next. The text will be
at forty five after but right now, a US open
(14:44):
update from Oakmont right here on ninety three three KJARFM.
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