A's Cast - A's Talk - September 13

0:00College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwick up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. It's time to hear from you, the fans, from road trippers. It's a strike. It's a ball. Same location, different call. Yeah. To fanatics. It's not a country club. And the rest. I'm so fired up up confused. This is A's talk. You know, it's an air for my heart, take. Go ahead, Michael. What's your heart, take? Here's your host. He's like the kid. Why can't I be a part of it? Can I play in the game? Michael Barrabald. Bye-bye, Seattle.

1:00Happy trails. Goodbye. Bye, Dan Wilson. Bye, Andres Munoz. Bryce Miller. Goodbye to all of you. Arrows Arena. Bye. See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya. I'm feeling good, Nate. What a win. What a win. No, you're not playing the Butler Highlight Home Run? Like in the intro, man, come on. Well, the intro, it's a very intricate thing and I had some work to do after the game. It was. Sorry. I will play it, though, because Ken had a phenomenal call. Oh, that was great. Yeah, it was awesome. It was great. And you know, with Bloodlorn's Butler did 16th home run of the season's second home run of the ball game, and it walks off the Mariners again. And it's the third walkoff win for the athletics on this homestand and what a way to end the penultimate homestand of the season. By the way, this is AIDS talk everybody. Michael Barrabal here, Nate Lofields in our studio,

2:02A336252278. We want to hear from you. We do. Because if this was a walkoff loss, we'd hear from a lot of you. But this is a walkoff win. And we want to take your phone calls. A336252278, Nate doesn't. But I want to talk to you. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm here for you. I'm here for the AIDS fan. I didn't say that, dude. I can see you in our video. See me do what? You do not look thrilled. No, I'm fine. I mean, it was just a three and a half hour game. I'm fine. What? We now have nothing. Three pitch clock. This game would have been four and a half hours. OK, well, we're not pretty. We're close to this. You might still be in the seventh inning right now. That's what we would be without the pitch clock. We wouldn't even have your hit yet. That's true. Oh, brute. Yeah. I hit with John. Pitch clock, greatest thing to ever have in a baseball. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. Well, let's start with Lawrence Butler. And again, 8336252278.

3:06You know, he went on AIDS cast live at the end of July when the red socks were in town. And there was a team meeting that was held that he took the reins on. And the AIDS really struggled after that. And but Lawrence Butler, he started to pick up his play. He was walking the walk the whole time since this meeting at the end of July. And it didn't obviously. The AIDS didn't hit their stride, obviously, until here in September, unfortunately, it's seemed like the last couple of years where the AIDS have played much better baseball towards the end of the season out of playoff contention. But when you look at Lawrence Butler specifically in the year he's had, and the struggles that he had, especially early on, not just the play, but he was getting picked off. He was having trouble in the right field. And he was the subject of a lot of disdain from a lot of people. And it was valid.

4:08But you look at what he's done as of late. And really since June 7th, he has really turned it around and is putting together as good a year as you can have for how it started for him. 16 home runs. Now, there's still an outside shot. He gets to 20, which I don't think anyone thought was possible going into even the All Star break, going into the month of August. I mean, so you have to give him an immense amount of credit for not only taking on a leadership role, because let's be honest, it was kind of lacking all year. No one had really stepped up that we know of to say, hey, look, this isn't OK. This is, we need to be better. As far as we know, no one else did that other than Laurence Butler. So give him credit for that. Number two, you can have the team meeting

5:09and be the leader and step up. But if you don't produce right after that, not only what does it mean for you, but what does it mean to the rest of your teammates? And Laurence Butler has done that as well. He's backed it up. And he takes 100 miles an hour from Andres Munoz, sends it over the right center field wall, a towering shop. By the way, I do have to give credit. I was sitting with Steve Sacks at the NBC set down the left field line. And he said, yeah, I think Lauren's going to get to end this one right here. Few pitches later, the game was over. Must be nice. Yeah, must be nice is B.C. Sacks, right? Two time world champion, all time single season singles leader in Yankees history. Oh, Yankees. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to talk about the Yankees. You can look it up. It's a fact. That's a fact. Yeah. Fact the Yankees are your favorite team, too. They are? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So what?

6:09Since I say one thing, you have to come back. I mean, it's a one way street here. Come on, Mike. Yeah, it is. It's a one way street. OK. What were you saying? Sorry. Oh, yeah. No, just get me off track. No, no, no, go ahead. Just get me off track is about to hear until seven o'clock. You're talking about Steve Stradamus. Yeah, he called it. Yeah. Sacks Stradamus. That's a better one. Right center field. And you could kind of feel a building, especially after the A's had that four run seventh where they tied the game. You just kind of felt, and with the way the Mariners season has gone, you just knew at some point they were going to blow it. So and they did on the call. It really like I can kind of, you know, I listen to every call, you know, Ken and Johnny make pretty much. And on the call, like, I can usually tell when the ball's going to go out, Ken, you know,

7:09he kind of takes you on a trip with every hit. But it did not sound like this ball was going out because it was hit so high by Lawrence. Was it just like just was the apex of this ball just out of this world? Or what, what did you think? Oh, yeah, super high. But you know, you could tell what the trajectory of it. Because where we are, we're down the left field line. So we go into rights and our field. We still have a pretty good view. And, you know, you're kind of looking at the right field or two drifting back. How is he playing in? And he just kind of kept slowly going back. And it goes over the wall. And we have Bedlam and West Sacramento. It's crazy. Chaos, huh? You love chaos. I do. I do. I do. You make this, you make this entire show chaos. My life. I love creating chaos for others. Speaking of one way streets. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fact. It's a one way street. That was funny. Yeah. Oh, now I'm full of jokes, huh?

8:10Like anything, Michael. Yeah, anything. I fired up. Let's go. The Venom. The fangs are out. Mariners have 80 losses. Dan Wilson couldn't stop complaining the last week. Did you notice that? Did anyone else not notice that he gets thrown out up in Seattle was complaining during that series? Then comes out three different times today and complaints about something. You got a bowener. You got a bone to pick with it. He's a whiner. Wow. I don't know. Does he feel like he's on the hot seat? Because they've had such a, I'll say it, it's a bad year for them. How long has he been manager? It's been like he took over in August of 2024. Okay. It feels longer. So I mean, when you look at him and obviously what the again, given the expectation, I touched on this a few days ago, you know, it's almost obviously, I don't think you can compare the A season to the Mariner season, given everything. But when you look at where the Mariners were last year within game, or within a game

9:14of the World Series and to come back this year and to, to perform the way they've had and had some of the losses. I mean, you think about the walkoff home run from Donovan Walton on Friday to today's walkoff home run from Butler. You just lost three out of four to the Yays at home. A place where you traditionally have dominated the A's over the years. Not good up there in Seattle. Not good. And yeah, Dan Wilson for whatever reason. I don't know what he was whining about down the left field line. He complained about something there. I don't know if it was the backboard and see or not the backboard, the ball boy down the left field line, but they weren't not in the field of play. So I don't know. He was whining. And then can I touch on this? How good this must feel for Lawrence Butler. After getting hit and his second at bat. Did anyone else notice that? He hits a home run off Bryce Moon. The first thing that gets hit in his next at bat. Think that was a little. Think there was intent there from Bryce Miller. Conspiracy Mike.

10:16Just saying, I don't know what's Bryce Miller salty that he gave up a home run. Deloan's Butler sure seemed like it. I don't know. Is it just me? I'm fired up today. It's a big win. I mean, given the situation and it was on the first pitch too. I mean, how obvious he tried to throw on right in his rib cage. Plain. It was so obvious. And then for Butler to do that, again, right center field, bottom of the ninth, A's walk off the Mariners. Oh, it's a great day. Great day. Let's go Nate. This is A's talk. We're ready to rock. I'm sweating right now. I'm so fired up. Wow, that's disgusting. What? That you're sweating? Yeah, I'm sweating. And I'm an air conditioning right now. But I'm flying the win. Yeah, while you're watching football all day, I'm watching the A's pull out a comeback win. Yeah, I was. I'll admit it. I'm not going to lie. I was definitely watching football through the game.

11:22I know. I know. I know. I it's exciting. It's back. Yeah, for me, football is not back until baseball's over. OK. That's a, that's a, that's a, you know, truth for me. I love baseball way too much. That's great. Then you're a great host for the show. Good stuff, Mike. Good. I know. No, you should be hosting the show that maybe I shouldn't be here. I don't know. Oh, Mike. Really, you're going to go there. I don't know, Mike. I'm just kidding. I love being here. It's fun. It's fun talking to everybody. The psychos would lose their mind if you weren't, if you were not here. I know. I'm kind of like a psycho mediator. You are. Yeah. Where are all the psychos? Are our phone lights jammed? It's a, I mean, it's a Sunday afternoon. It was a three and a half hour game. I don't blame people for not calling. But if you want to call a 336-25-2278. Nate gave out the number, and we're going to take your phone calls next. You're on Ace Talk.

12:23College football is back. So Hilton called him me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555-55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. And now the 3-1 delivery is swung on and hit high in the air, deep right center field, way back, Gen Zone at the track right to the wall. God, and the A's have wanted. Their third walkoff of this homestam. A towering, majestic right center field home run by Lawrence Butler. 8-7-8.

13:24Want to win for the athletics? They walk off the Mariners 8-7 Lawrence Butler, the third walkoff hit of his career, and the A's with another series win here at the ballpark in West Sacramento. And I'll tell you this, Nate, you can win here. They're finding ways to win here. Down 6-2, you tied in the 7th. Rose Rada hits the home run in the 8th. You're thinking they're dead in the water. And Lawrence Butler says, now we're still coming. Yeah. And the A's won another series here. Yeah, I mean, I mean, you could always win here. I just don't know. No one really knows why or what was preventing. I don't know. The slump this year, the word I used yesterday anomaly in regard to injuries and all that. I really hope that that is the theme of this season. And the A's just keep trending up in the correct direction.

14:24It'll be very fascinating to see how they respond next year with most of their talent back, most of their big hitters. And how many games are played next year in MLB in general? So it'll just a lot of unknowns right now, but you just got to enjoy a win like this. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. All right, let's get to your phone calls. 833-625-2278 is a number. Hi, Jeff. Hey, how's it going live from the Sid? It's Sunday night. And then A's, they didn't need expectations this year. So they're now the unexpected and walk off A's for the rest of the season, blowing everybody's mind. We didn't expect that, huh? Yeah, getting their asses kicked the other teams. That was really fun. And I could feel the momentum shift. You guys mentioned it. You really could feel the momentum shift towards the end

15:25of the game when it started to pick up that they were going to pull this one out again. And it was a lot of fun to hear rangoliers get up there, banging rangoliers and he bangled it. And hearing all these folks that have stepped up when other people had to take off for a while because of injuries, they stepped up and towards the end of the season here, they're getting into their own. Now you guys remember what I mentioned, how the moon affects the ball. You guys talked about how high that home run was today. It was like a moon launch. And it's the new moon. So the new moon and the full moon, they're on either the same side as the sun with the new moon. Or the full moon is opposite side. That's where you can see the whole thing. But that gravitational effect puts the earth in sort of suspension in between. And that's why there's more home runs hit during those periods of times, like three days before,

16:28during and after. That about the week of the full and the new moon, especially the full moon. But that gravitational effect, I was actually a little league on fire when I was a younger man. And I observed that. That's when I started noticing it. And it's been confirmed through various other resources where people actually tabulated this stuff. And it does affect how that ball travels. But you think about it. The ball, the baseball is just a tiny little planet or just another moon on the earth. And it's going to get affected the way the tides do and the way we do and everything else. Isn't that a bit of lunacy for you all to think about? On a Sunday thinking about the moon? Oh, that's tomorrow, moon day. All right, you guys, who's pitching tomorrow, right? Or is there a day off? Here's a day off. Jeff, thank you for the phone call. Yes, there is a day off tomorrow. And we will get to the pitching matchup in the third segment, like we always do.

17:30George, what do you got? Nate, Michael, no need for football because the real king is always baseball. I need to know it. The side goes, know it. Baseball is the true number one. We just don't market the sport role, well, we're probably the worst at marking. But baseball is still number one and we'll always be number one. And baseball is the best, OK? Absolutely, I agree. George Butler launching that home run shows you why baseball is the best. I thought you agree. Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah. You took the words right out of my mouth. It's the best moments like this or what make the game so amazing. Exactly. It's just baseball as an entity is not marketed right. We don't market baseball correctly.

18:31Baseball needs to be on TV way more than football. We have 1062 games. They're not even on regular TV. It's so hard to see stuff nowadays. But football is all over taking over the major market. But anyways, baseball is still a great sport. It's still a real interesting sport. And you know what should be on national TV? That interview with Towne and Billy Bing. Did you guys see that interview with Towne and Billy Bing? It was like past general manager to future baseball operations president general manager, Towne and Towne and Towne because he looked good and it's suit. He had the nice California blazer. And that was an awesome interview. And did you guys see it? Yeah, George. I was there, George. Hey, Michael, you were there all the time. And you also heard the words from the great Mr. Ula-la, Faxi Dom is even called the home red too with his baseball wisdom. Who was up with that?

19:33He had a feeling. And honestly, kind of hard to disagree given how the Mariners have just completely collapsed this year. And number two with the way Lawrence Butler's been playing over the last, really now you can call it a really good three month stretch warm. Yeah, yeah. And then also Gell-Off II diving for the ball in third base, preventing it from going in. And him just hacking at that one, but just lifting it right out the stadium. That was amazing today. We had some good baseball today. Did not even care about football. Was interested at all about anything about football. I was watching baseball. I know a lot of cycles watching it too. Hopefully the bad signal goes down. The cycles start calling in. But yeah, Michael, Nate, baseball is a true king. It just needs to be marketed better. Have a great Sunday, you guys. Thank you. You can agree more, George. Appreciate the phone call and enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Cancel the lockout. It will help baseball. George always brings it, man.

20:34Yes, always. Always always brings it. Who's that? Our next caller, the maller. What's up? What's up, guys? I got a lot of things on my mind. And I'm just glad everybody's calling. This has been great. One thing I have to say is I love that Hall of Fame. Yesterday, you know, I got to meet Blue Moon. Odom for the first time when I was in Anaheim. Got my picture taken with him. Just great guy. What a great guy. I'm so happy for him. And as far as the other guys too, I really appreciate all of them. What they've done for baseball and baseball. The other thing I heard that I listened to the radio feed. And Ken Korak and Johnny talking to each,

21:35they talk to Alderson, Blue Moon, and Mark Ellis. And dude, nothing against anybody else in the business. Man, Ken just knows. He just talks baseball with these guys. I love listening to him. I just love listening to him. So thank you for that. I always appreciate what all they do. And I can't wait to watch some of these videos that Tony did because I missed them. Anyway, you know, September is always a hard month for a fan like me because I don't live near the team. I have to see them on the road. This is the most I've seen them on the road. And I am going to Cleveland. So I'll be your roving reporter. Oh, nice. I love it. I also, like, if they're not a playoff team, I started going downhill as far as postpartum depression. First of all, I lose living in Western Pennsylvania.

22:37You lose your changing seasons. So I can't go to the pool anymore and get all nice and can. Like I like. And then you lose the sun, colder weather comes. And then I don't follow any other sport. So when the age are done, it's just like it's a long two seasons. And, but I'm glad I got this September. And I know this season's been rough, but I like seeing good baseball. And it's hidden this sometimes. I get it, but they're out there still playing hard. And I was thinking today, like, if the guys that were hurt were playing, we would have never saw these guys, OK? They would have been sparingly used coming in. Alika Williams, he wouldn't have been starting. Look what he's done since he's been starting. I got a hand at the Greg in slow for one thing. He was absolutely right about Jeff McNeil. And that dude, I would totally renegotiate with him

23:41a little bit, see if he wants to stick around. But I just love the hard drive and play. But there was a picture on X from the ACE cast. And maybe you guys seen it from the other night when Chris and Saxi were talking to Lawrence Butler. And he's wearing that Sacramento vest that they gave out at the game. I never noticed it until somebody mentioned it. That he kind of looks like Millie Vanilli. And I was just like, holy cow. So I'm like, you know, he's not a fraud like Millie Vanilli, though. No, no, no, not, but maybe in the beginning of the season, you know, we were like, where is Lawrence Butler? And then since, you know, since that Boston series in Boston, you know, Lawrence has come alive again. And who do you blame? You blame it on the rain. Thanks guys.

24:41Love you guys. See you next week in Cleveland. All right, Mueller. Thanks so much for the phone call looking forward to your reporting in Cleveland. Should be a whole lot of fun. I have to explain who Millie Vanilli is for Michael. Yeah, I've never heard of him. Yes. So it's a pop group, 80s, 90s, maybe you've definitely heard their songs. Maybe we'll come back with one, but they got in trouble because they were the front men for this pop group. I believe it was two guys. And they didn't make any of the music. They didn't sing it all during the shows or anything at all. They were all lip singing, lip syncing, I don't know which one it is, to everything. It wasn't their voices in the music. They were basically pawns for this pop group. And it came out, I think, one of their tapes messed up or something when they were performing. And everyone found out that they were total frauds and they just went away forever. Wow. It's an interesting story. Yeah, I never knew that.

25:42Complete stuff. Yeah, it's two guys. What, and what's the name of it? Millie Vanilli. We'll come back with some with a highlight in the next segment. Interesting. Well, good stuff. All right, coming up next, we'll look ahead to Tuesday's game. And we'll wrap things up here on A Stock. Two, two, and go on. Crews want to left way back in the A's lead, one nothing. A majestic shot to left by Zach Goward. 106.4 off the bat. One nothing A's in the bottom of the first is 18th home run. He does pounced on that pitch. What a blast, Zach. It was about 30 feet fair. Yeah. And no doubt. So you're telling me that they would basically play this song and they would just... Yeah, mouth out of the words. Exactly, yes. And honestly, they just really disappeared after that.

26:44Like, their songs aren't in anything or at all. They really just went away because it was such a big controversy at the time and people couldn't wrap their head around it. Now that's like, I'm pretty par for the course. But I think the big problem is that they were advertised as the writers, performers, all this stuff. Really, all they're going up there is... They were fraud. Yes. Yes. All right. I'm seeing the comparison out of the Milwaukee Mall. This is live. I'm getting photos. Interesting. Yeah. Looks similar. I mean, I don't think they look... Maybe they could be like cousins or something. Lawrence Butler. Man. Have a day. Yeah. Two home runs. And I love the fact that he gets hit. And it was on purpose. There's no one that can tell me that it wasn't. And he basically ends the game. And the Mariners seasons.

27:44Their season's been dead for a while. They've been... Their season's been dead for a week. I know they're technically still in it, but they're done. They win. They complain. I mean, Randy Rosarena acts like they're 30 games over 500 in the best team in baseball. It's a clown show. But the A's had the last laugh. Lawrence Butler had the last laugh. And I love it. Let's quickly go around the league here on this Sunday. Just one more game in progress right now. That's the Padres and the Giants. The Padres are leading six to two. In the top of the fourth inning in San Francisco. That's NBC's Sunday Night Baseball. Rangers seven to six over the dimeback. So they move to a game within the Astros for first place to the American League West because the Astros lost 14 to four to the Tampa Bay race. Redsox beat the Royals four to one. Pirates four, Cubs three, Cardinals three to one over the Whitesox. Reds four to three over the Brewers. The Guardians nine to two winners over the Twins.

28:46The Marlins, they walk off home run and they beat the Dodgers six to four. They score four runs in a bottom of the night to win that game. Blue J's beat the Orioles eight to one. Yankees two nothing over the Metz. Philly's nine to four over the Braves. Washington beat the Angels six to five. They also came back late against the Hallows to win that game and the Tigers eight to one over the Colorado Rockies. And of course the Ace eight to seven over the Seattle Mariners. I'll walk off win for the athletics. They win the season series and they take two out of three here at home against the Mariners. And the Ace win another series at home. Two out of three against Toronto. Two out of three against the Mariners. You go back two out of three against the Twins. Before that two out of three against the Rangers. Fourth series wins since the beginning of August here in West Sacramento for the athletics. You got two more series here. I mean the Angels. It's that quick little two game set before the Auschroes coming for the final four games

29:47of the season. But man, what a way to end the penultimate home stand here in West Sacramento and a really great weekend for the Ace organization when you add in the Hall of Fame. Ceremony last night and the events in the morning. Ace cast will be rolling out all of those interviews this week on Ace cast live and I'm sure on Ace cast on NBC sports California. So please be on the lookout for that with our coverage beginning beginning Tuesday at 130 because we have a 340 first pitch local time from the trop and Tampa Bay. So 130 first our first show begins. Ace cast live our wall to wall baseball coverage with the Friday Saturday Sunday in Cleveland night games Friday and Saturday and then another day game slash morning game on Sunday in Cleveland.

30:50Jack Perkins will take the ball for the athletics and he'll be opposed by Griffin Jacks. A quick note on gauge jump. Mark Houghtsay did say it's likely an IEL St infor gauge jump, which would basically end his season and unfortunate away for jump season to end if that is truly the case. But obviously seems something out of necessity. And I'm sure once a spot comes around in the rotation on Friday, a corresponding move will be made to get his star covered. To what we got Nate, you got anything. I know you're watching football. What do you got? Nothing. I'm looking forward to these last couple of weeks here. It's been fun. We have 12 games left. It's crazy. It started in March. It's September 13th. It's not that crazy. It sits, you know, it goes by fast, but it's also long at the same time. 162 of these. Yeah.

31:51A long season, but the A's are playing good baseball right now. That's all you can ask for. Obviously, you wish it was done a little bit earlier in the season, because you look at this division and you look at where the asterisks and the Rangers are competing for this division. The asterisks are 75 and 75. I mean, that's basically what the A's were when they were in contention. They were a 500 team. And being a 500 team, you know, could have wanted the division this year. And I think that's just what's so frustrating without the season has gone for the athletics. But you got to play out the last 12 games to try to win as many of them as you can and give yourselves a high note going into the off season. Well, that'll do it for us here on A's talk for Nate Littlefield and our studio, Michael Barabal here at the ballpark. Thank you all for listening to A's talk, everybody. Enjoy the off day tomorrow. This has been a presentation of the athletics. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. No two football players are exactly alike.

32:53And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm gifts to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.