*Bob Tripi, The Drive's Director of Research

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Matt in the gang here on West Grand riverd Okamiz.
They're making friends. Were welcome back. It is a drive
with Jack. Spotlight Radio Network. Jack Eblin here with my
producer Boston Rob. Rob waiting very patiently. Bob Trippy, our

(00:49):
director of research, number one numbers cruncher, Captain Database Bob.
A big weekend of sports starting Friday and continuating through
late last night and ended with a Monday night game
that surprised, a Sunday night game that surprised a lot
of people, and uh I thought the Buffalo Bills we're

(01:12):
going to be the last undefeated team. But I thought
it might last longer than four weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, they they they came out and uh, they did
not look ready to play, you know, offensively, you know,
when you commit turnovers, kind of like what we saw
in the Michigan State game on Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
It's very difficult to win the game, it really is.
And uh, give credit to New England. I mean they're
an up and coming team. Drake May is a quarterback.
I think we're going to be hearing a lot of
in the future. And then then of course Stefan Diggs
who used to play for the Bills. You know, he
signed signed a free agent contract in the off season,
and uh, I guess he made a statement back to them.

(01:56):
It'll be interesting to see when they have to go back,
you know to New England and they have a rematch
later in the season and that to see how what
the you know, if there's any change or if if
New England's able to do anything with you know, having
having won yesterday, are they going to be able to
continue the momentum going forward or was that just like

(02:16):
let's get up for National TV and show shows who
we are. Rabel look the coach for for New England.
He's a good coach. Yeah, Mike Grabel and uh, you
know we remember him from his Ohio State days and
all that, and you know he did for.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
A while and yeah, an important part of Bill Belichick's
staff and and his lineup.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, so you know it's gonna be interesting to see.
They lost Antonio Gibson for the season today. He had
a torn a cl So you know, all of a sudden,
the running game isn't you know, going to be as
good as it was heading into yesterday's game. But you know,
for the Bills, maybe it's a wake up call that
you know, uh, you're not the nineteen seventy two Miami

(03:00):
Dolphins and you're gonna go undefeated and all that. So hey,
this is still funny of games left. You know, it's
it's hopefully.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
A lot real question. Yeah, and it was another Champagne
celebration in South Florida. The guys who are still with us,
and that number is shrinking rapidly. Those guys. Every year
they pop a bottle of the Bubbly when there are
no more undefeated teams the seventeen or no Miami Dolphins
of nineteen seventy two. And to think that It's now

(03:33):
been fifty three seasons, Bob, and we almost saw the
Patriots do that with Tom Brady, but they couldn't get
that last one and lost to the New York Giants
on a couple of wild plays. So very very difficult
to be even ten and zero in the National Football League?
What was your take with the Lions yesterday in Cincinnati?

(03:56):
And it looked like they were in complete control of
the game and then it took their foot off the
gas or they just made some mistakes, uncharacteristic play in
the fourth quarter and a battered secondary came back to
bite him and made it a closer game than it
was for most of the afternoon.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I think you captured it all in a nutshell there.
I think that's exactly what it was. And I know
that Dan Campbell was not extremely happy with the performance
when you give up that many points to a team
led by a backup quarterback that nobody thought would ever
play at all this season except for the injury to
Joe Burrows, so you know, and then today they announced

(04:35):
that Terry and Arnold has a long term injury and
he's going to be out for quite some time. And
they did after the season ending, and he said they
can't tell right now, so you know, there's another major
injury to the Lions defense. Spot now setting all the
way to side and everything like that. I think the
team to be And this is me saying this now,

(04:57):
remember mister Buffalo Bill's saying here. I think the Detroit
Lions are probably the best team in the National Football
League right now, you know, yeah, yeah, I still think
even their defense is pretty damn good, even you know,
minus Terry and Arnold. I think, you know, when they
play Kansas City, I think they will beat Kansas City

(05:21):
at Kansas City. And right now, I don't think any
team wants to play the Detroit Lions because they are
doing a job offensively, as we know. But when you
have Aiden Hutchinson playing the way he's doing in their defense,
you know, coming up with big plays, whether it's Kirby
Joseph or whoever on there, I really think that that's

(05:42):
probably your top team right now. Now. I could be
wrong in a couple of weeks, who knows.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Said, Philadelphia, if the Eagles had taken care of business
and hadn't been stung yesterday at home by the Denver Broncos,
would you have made the case that the defending Super
Bowl champions are still number one.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Probably so probably, So, you know, I think they miss
Kellen Moore calling the plays over there, you know, because
he's now in New Orleans and there seems to be
a little bit of this grounnlement going on, you know,
within the offense of the play calling that that's going
on there between A J. Brown and you know the

(06:27):
others and all that. So, uh, I think they'd squared away,
you know, maybe maybe they pop back up to the top.
But you know, the way I see it right now
is probably the Lions than the Eagles. Then maybe Buffalo.
We'll see on that. They've got some things to figure
out there. So if I'm a betting person right now,

(06:49):
I'd probably say the Lions are more so a favorite
in the NFC than the Eagles at this time. We've
we've seen the ugly warts that the Eagles have right now,
and if they can get rid of those warts, then
I'd say put them back at the top. And that
because it's still not a damn good defense.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
And we saw the ugly warts from the Lions in
the opener, but they did get by those and now
the offense is just scoring at will. It's scoring so
many times, and they get the ball, they can hurt
you rushing or throwing it. So I think the Lions
are in great position and I'm really looking forward to

(07:26):
this game in a couple of weeks, Bob, with Tampa
Bay rolling in, I had said that I thought the
Lions would go undefeated at home, and I saw this
gauntlet on the road. But Lions have already blasted Baltimore,
won that game by eight, and what they did to Cincinnati,
and I just think that this team is capable of

(07:46):
beating anyone it plays, including Kansas City on the road.
But I'm thinking they could have three or four losses
at the end of season and that might be as
good a record as there as in football, you.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Know, and then and next Hey, that's the pretty damn
good record, you know nowadays, And they're not going to
have the same number of wins that they had last year.
You know, I've I've thrown it out the window. I've
gone through that schedule a number of times. I just
don't see it. But you know, just in my mind,
they're the favorite to win the division again. Green Bay

(08:18):
is stumbled a little bit here recently, and you know,
we'll see if they get back on track, you know,
because they've got a pretty darn good defense, and offensively
they're you know, they're good, they're above average, but you know,
they they haven't put it all together yet like they
seem to have done in their first game against the Lions.
So that'll be a very interesting Thanksgiving Day game between

(08:40):
those two teams.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
You know when they changes, Bob, yeah, you think you
have an idea and then they throw that one out
and the start over. We haven't had a team yet
be consistent every week. And I don't think we have
any great teams. I think we have some great players
and some great units, but uh, in every area of play,

(09:02):
I think every team has its words. So I'm curious
about go ahead.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
I no, as I said, nobody has really like stepped up.
And we were all saying that's the team to beat
for the super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (09:16):
You know.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
At the start of the year, you know, the talk
was the favorite was, you know, Buffalo, and on the
NFC side it was Philadelphia. I can't say that that's
the case anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
You know, I think games yesterday they were both upset
at home. So when that happens, it's one thing to
lose a road game, but when you lose at home
to a team that is supposedly inferior to you, that
raises some serious questions. What about the Major League Baseball

(09:47):
Divisional Series? The American League has played two games. National
League going to have the second game of those sets today.
You have LA at Philly at o'clock and the Cubs
against the Brewers in Milwaukee at nine. But from what
you saw this weekend with Toronto blasting the Yankees twice

(10:12):
and then a pair of three two games in Seattle,
each team winning one, what do you make of what
you've seen so far in the AL and NLDS.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Well, Milwaukee has kind of surprised me in terms of
I didn't I did not think that they were going
to put together the performance they did in the first game,
and so maybe they are legit, but I somehow think
that the Cubs are going to come back and you know,
win the next game. I'm kind of leaned that way

(10:43):
now tonight. I think that Philly is going to try
to make a statement and probably win that game against
the Dodgers. That's a hell of a series, the Dodgers
in the Phillies, so I'm kind of looking forward to
see what that's you know, how that turns out now
in the Al Toronto, I don't think straight.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
You have you have Philly and Chicago winning.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Winning to winning tonight winning tonight. Okay, yes, yes, and
you know I have. I'm a believer in the Phillies.
I think that this is a year that you know,
they could end up going back, you know, to the
World Series out of the National League. But you know,

(11:28):
if it's bigot by the Dodgers, I think they're the
team to beat in the National League. I'm not a
true believer in the Brewers. I really am not. And uh,
I don't they had that big long streak during the
season and everything, but I don't know if they're or what. Yeah,

(11:49):
I know, I know, but you know.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
It's something else. A lot of teams, a lot of
people would not know that Milwaukee has been a fixture
in the playoffs. People say, well, Milwaukee, you know, they're
just kind of out of sight, out of mind, But
they've always been either in the wild card or winning
the division and then they don't get any further than that.
This might be the year because as a winning a

(12:13):
team in baseball, they've done it over one hundred and
sixty two games, and they're one went away. If they
win tonight, there'd be one went away from getting to
the NLCS.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Yeah, I mean you probably could flip a coin on that.
I just think the pubs have been playing so well
in all that that, you know, I think they're gonna
pull pull off an upset tonight. I really do. But
we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I know the
weather's not too great over there, so we'll see. And

(12:47):
I think doesn't Milwaukee have one of those roofs of
clothes and all that? I believe, so, you know, I'm
sure the game will get in and everything. So if
you look at the American League side, I don't see
how Toronto loses that series against the Yankees. I mean,
they've they've controlled it, They've dominated that thing in the
first two games. I don't think the Yankees are going

(13:08):
to recover. Uh, So I think that they will be
probably eliminated tomorrow night. Uh you know, when they play,
I'd be surprised otherwise, I think the interesting thing with
that series. Uh, And I don't know if you caught this, Max,
Sure's there is not on the Alds roster for Toronto.
He was left off the roster and I thought, wow,

(13:29):
you know that's the first time, you know that I
would call him being in the playoffs and being left
off a roster and uh so that's the trust. Now
let's turn our attention to Detroit and Seattle. Boy, you
know it was there for the taking. Yesterday he had
Schoogl pitching. After after the surprising, you know, victory in

(13:51):
Game one, you know, everybody's like, well, Schoogl stitching, Detroit's
going to come back to and oh and it's like
I told people during the day, I said, School is
a great pitcher. There's one problem. The Detroit Tigers can't
hit the damn ball. I said, you got to score runs.
I mean School. If School just left one run and

(14:11):
you got to score one or two runs, you know
this this team just is for whatever reason, they just
cannot hit the ball. They can't score, they lead guys
on base I did some I'm covering the games this
week for Reuters, and I was looking for some stats
and I really wasn't getting anything any help from Major

(14:33):
League Baseball. So I started doing a little crunching in
that Detroit has there three for seventeen with runners in
scoring position in this series alone, Okay, it's two games
with three of seventeen. Okay. In the playoffs they're seven
of thirty five. I mean, thirty five guys have been

(14:58):
running run you know, run scoring position, and they're not
they're not bringing them home. They're only bring them home
seven times. Then you look at left on base. That's
that's always a killer right there in the wit a minute,
hang on, I'm reading this wrong. Okay, runners and scoring
position in the postseason so far, they're ten for fifty two. Okay,

(15:22):
for left on base, they've left forty four guys on
base in the entire postseason. But in this in this
series alone, they've already left fifteen on base, you know,
and they're three for seventeen, which is seventeen point six
percent of the time they actually end up bringing the
guys home. So then I started looking at the batting

(15:44):
average just to see because to me, what I've been
watching is, you know, why aren't they bringing these guys
at home? Well, when you're betting right now, they are,
they're ten of seventy one. They're betting one forty one.
As a team. I mean, if you don't hit the ball.
You'll I'm sorry, you probably have to win the game.

(16:05):
It's just like that, we're talking football about the turnover battle.
You don't win the turnover battle, you're you know, you're
likely not going to win the game.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
They've struck out twenty Seattle in the same situation. Each
of these teams has scored five runs. And the Mariners
have one of the most explosive offenses. You had Cal
Raley with sixty homers. Hey, you HENNYO Suarez with more
than fifty thirteen just after he got to the Mariners.
And then they have Randy A. Rose Arena, and they

(16:36):
have Julio Rodriguez and you know, we've seen these guys
what they're capable of doing, and they're only averaging two
and a half runs as well. So it isn't just
the Tigers.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
No, it isn't the Tigers because you know, if you
look at you know, Raleigh, Rodriguez and Polaco I call them,
you know, the so the trip terror and that they're
batting eleven to twenty six. That's four to twenty three. Okay,
those three. If you look at the rest of the team,
they're three for forty four. So you know that that

(17:12):
shed a little bit of light there in terms of
there they're going through some struggles. They've actually got five guys,
you know, Naylor, Suarez, Ken Zone, Roebels and Raleigh and Reves.
They haven't had a hit yet. You know, these are
guys that have played in the first two games. They
haven't had a hit. Now you look at Detroit, you know,

(17:34):
you got Jones, Perez and Dingler they don't have hits.
So you know, Detroit only has two guys that are
above two fifty or better. You got Torres at two
fifty and then you got cold Keith at three thirty
three and he's one for three and Torres is two

(17:54):
for eight. Sore. The key number is is a strikeouts.
Detroit had struck out twenty six compared to eighteen for
you know, for Seattle. So you know it's it's a struggle.
You know, I'm expecting them to break out at some point.
I mean, you've seen this team break out, maybe coming home.
You have to look at it this way. By the

(18:15):
time the Tigers play tomorrow at America Park, they will
eventually gone more than a month without a winning without
winning a game at home. They last one at home
on September sixth against the White Sox. They've lost seventh
straight at home since then, so you know, let's hopefully
they break that that thing. And you know the other

(18:37):
thing too, You got to watch here is this this
Logan Gilbert that's going for Seattle. He's never allowed more
than two runs and pitched at least five innings in
four or five outings during September at five September starts.
And he's even a tough cookie to crack, you know,
in September. But we're in October, and I really hope
that July.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Beat the Tigers and handle the Tigers. And the matchup
that day, it was a Sunday before the All Star break,
and the matchup was Logan Gilbert versus Jack Flaherty exactly
what it's going to be tomorrow, and it was a blowout.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Well yeah, if you call that series, Seattle ended up pinting.
I believe it was eleven home runs in that series
when they swept the Tigers right before the All Star breaks.
So they got their you know, tigers got their work
cutout for them. I think these guys will be happy
to be home. The crowd will be pumped. Even though
the conference rain, it's probably the start of the game

(19:36):
and everything like that. But you know, I mean, who
knows what this weather, the way it's been, but I think,
you know, it's the crowds anything like it was last
year when the Tigers finally hosted playoff games. You know,
it gives a lot of energy, you know, in my mind,
if the Tigers can end up winning these two games,

(19:56):
you know, then you don't have to worry about school,
you know, bailing you out and game number five on
Friday night. So I think the Tigers will win tomorrow.
I'm not willing to bet any money on it at
this point because you know, yes, I really do, I

(20:19):
really do. I I'd be surprised if it's not. I
think that Seattle will win one of these two games.
If they win any game, I think it'll be tomorrow,
and then I think you got Casey Myz going on Wednesday,
and it will probably be the game that you know,
the Tigers win, and you know they'll be up well,
it'll be tied to to you know, heading back to

(20:40):
Seattle and Scooble you know, will be pitching. So yeah,
it's quite a series. I mean, it's very even you know,
if you look at it, you know on paper and
stuff like that. As far as you know, not a
lot of runs scored, like you said, each team's done
fifteen uh, you know, fifteen runs. So but I think

(21:02):
the big thing has been you can't leave that many
guys on base, and you got to when you get
guys in scoring position. I mean last night they had
a guy on second with no outs and they couldn't
bring him home. And how many times have we seen
that in the playoffs, where you know, the Tigers have
gotten guys in scoring position, whether it be second or
third with one out or no outs, and they come
up empty. So it's not a good thing to say

(21:25):
the least, you know, you can.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Talk to people about this, and Tigers fans of course
right now, because they just lost. If they had had
lost game one and one game two, then people might
look at it a little differently. But right now they're
looking at all the things that this team isn't doing right.
And I can tell you in Seattle they think that
they should be ahead to nothing. The game one went

(21:50):
eleven innings, and those fans couldn't believe Detroit won that
game because they don't think Detroit is as good a
team as Seattle. Seattle won the season series one more
games in the regular season, was much more aggressive at
the trade deadline, has more power, and has a deeper rotation.
The Mariner's rotation is so deep that Brian wu who

(22:15):
I think would be the Tigers number two starter, was
left off the roster.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, yeah, you know. Here's here's an interesting thing. The
Seattle bullpen over more than ten ten innings of relief,
they've only allowed to earned runs. You know, they'll tell
you a little bit right there in terms of you know, yeah,
you can knock the starter out, but you're gonna have
to contend with their bullpen. Their pitching is pretty darn good,

(22:41):
you know. So it's gonna it's gonna be a challenge.
But you know, I'm a true believer in that. I
think this team coming home, I'll be I will be
shocked if the Mariners roll off three straight here and
win this series. I think Detroit will probably split a
pair at home, and then they go back to Seattle
for the deciding game on Friday night. And plus I

(23:05):
think another funny thing about it is, since I'm covering
the games and all that, you're going to try to
get as much work out of me as I possibly can,
before you know, I have to switch back to football
for Saturday against UCLA.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, Bob Trippy wears a lot of different hats, and
he might be covering pro football one day, college football
the day before, and then dive back into baseball. So
you're going to be a busy guy. But we will
both be at Comerica Park tomorrow. Meanwhile, we will have
the Drive with Rob here on the Spotlight Radio Network

(23:42):
and no show for me tomorrow, but there still will
be a show here moving forward. So Bob, thanks so
much for joining us. Appreciate it. Hope I run into
you tomorrow. You'll be up in the press box. I
will be in the stands and game like this, I
would much rather be in the stands than be up

(24:02):
in the press box. So it's going to work.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
Out well for both of us.

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