A's Cast - View from the Press Box - September 7

0:00It's time for the view from the press box. Well, that's one of the fly ball that set a bit. Clark going back, still going back. You're the track on the track. And Clark reaches up. And Clark runs. Oh, I'm playing by Denzel. He strikes again. Where the voices of the A's get you ready for today's game. One stretch pitch. Swing in a drive. Deep to left. The A's take the lead. And grand fashion. Now live from the broadcast booth. Here's Johnny Dosco. I've been with the ballpark in West Sacramento. Great to have you with us. The athletics hosting the Toronto Blue Jays. As the A's coming off. A near sweep. They almost swept the Mariners. Lost the final game. Two nothing Brian. We'll with jam eight. And he's a one hit shut up baseball. Walk two. Strike out nine. Overall between between Wu and Munoz. They face just three over the minimum in the ballgame. Just a single in two walks. The only hit by Hank Bolte and the four thinning. And the A's now with that loss. Fall to 57 in 87.

1:00The blue Jays are 72 in 72. 13 and a half back. But the real number. There a half game back in the standing. So it should be very interesting to see what happens down the stretch. The A's a chance to play spoilers here. The pitching matchup today will feature the right hander is in the in the Sion conversation. Big time Dylan sees 10 and 5 2.25. Left hander Jacob Lopez. It fits so well of late. 64 4.71. I'm joined by David Feldman. The Feldy files. A's is story and. And a story and a sports and baseball and everything and it's great to have you with us. Feldy official story does everything. Feldy we have before we get into the A's and the blue Jays. You had a thought. On Michigan Western Michigan and that that. That fine people were up in arms. They said they put time back on the clock. I want to hear. What David felt first of all nice to see you. Let's see you. I want to hear what you think of what happened. Well I can just tell you from the TV side. Because I have produced many events.

2:02And we try and sink our clock to the stadium clock. And what you see on the on the score strip is also sink to the clock. But there is latency. So right there could be a tenth of a second offer. A hundred of this late. See the only thing that is officials if you can actually see the clock. In the stadium why the plays happen. That's the closest to real you're going to get. So like what I shoot the end of basketball game. Yeah. In the old days you just always see the embedded clock on the TV. Well that's not a hundred percent. The only one is if you see the clock in the frame. That's 100 percent. So in football because the clocks are on score strips and score boards. It's really hard to get a shot of that. So you sink as much as you can. But even in the replay center where they're looking at this. There is still possibility for latency. And Mike Pereira right the great NFL world judge we see him here at the ballpark. Yeah. He put it the best. He said the whole point is when we started doing replay. And it was 99 for college football.

3:03He said is to get what everybody's watching on TV. If they can see it's wrong we got to fix it. Right. Because millions of people are seeing that that's what's got to be correct. And in this instance on Saturday night. Millions of people saw the clocks hit zero. And three people in the in the replay center sought not hit zero. Right. Right. So he says there's no way they should have put time back on. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's not what this is for. Right. And it's almost like they were looking for a reason to put time on the table. Yes. That's where the bad intentions comes in. So from a TV point of view no matter what clock you see on the screen. Unless the actual stadium or arena clock. Yeah. Don't always trust. Wow. Interesting. Okay. I didn't know you were going to go there with the interesting. That's good. Okay. Well let's get into baseball here. We don't have a clock in baseball. Well he's sort of do now. We can. Yeah. We do know with the pitch time. But by the way when the pitch timer came in. I thought it was going to be a time you know old school time shouldn't be an element in baseball.

4:04Let them take their to you know. And now you don't even think about it. You don't. But you also noticed in that games are starting to take a little bit longer. Already this year. Yes. The average time of game is three minutes longer than it was last year. Which is not what they wanted. They didn't want to want right. And people all the ABS. But what the ABS does it actually makes the at bats longer for that at bat. Right. Because it's an usually it's an overturned so it's an extra pitch. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's where we're starting to get a little bit of the lane. Also you're starting to see the pace change a little bit. The umpires aren't as quick to start that clock up. They're giving the players a little bit more time. And you're starting to see the three hour game is coming back. Especially over the last two months. We're seeing more and more instances. We've had a bunch of them. We've had a 320. We've had a three you know that games. I'm really and now it's to a point where you know in this over the last two years. You see it 250 and that that's a long game. That's a long game. It's it's one of those things where it's really the umpires controlling the game and moving it along.

5:05The more leeway they give the players are going to take it. And it's going to lengthen out the game. It's just it's again. I think at some point the league is going to go. Let's go. Let's keep that clock moving. Let's start it up again. Um but we haven't seen that in the last couple months. It's been interesting to watch. It's been interesting is is when these guys are using challenges and and Corak and I were Ken Corak and I were talking about the fact that. They're using challenges sometimes in the first inning. They're wasting their challenges by the third or fourth inning. Not so much the A's but you see other teams. I mean they're wasting challenges early. Randy who was already. Yes. It's a culprit first inning one o pitch. We're going to challenge that. It's just selfish. Yeah. It's not going to change the bad. Now a one one pitch. I'm going to give you a more leeway because that's the pitch that usually changes in a back. Yeah. But the first pitch second. No. It's almost selfish. I call them a more emotional challenge. Yeah. So many emotional challenges. And you also have to think the game. If you have the lead late if it's a three to game a one run game. You know your closures coming in. You're batting in the bottom of the eighth.

6:05You should not be challenging anything because you want your pitcher to have that challenge in a close game. But they don't think that way that you know. And it's the players. It's not the managers. The players are going to do it. They're going to do it a lot off the emotion. I'm really impressed with with many of the catchers around the game. Yeah. Because they they are really good. They are. I'm so really good. That was Languleers and some of the opposing catchers. We said we go four for four five for five. You know I'm watching. I'm watching. Hey, Susla Zardo today who was fantastic against the brains. And JT Riemulta got him a got him a called strikeout. And you could see them a fist bump because he understood where that the ABS strike zone is. The umpire. I was Clint Vondrak who's a very tall umpire. And he could not see the low strike. Yeah. Whatever he's having a tough time. The JT Riemulta knew where that low strike was. And he was getting a strike after strike. It was it was fun to watch. I don't know. It sounds like Feldy's coming around on it. It should be called every pitch. Okay. And we don't even have to worry about it. There you go.

7:05Hey, so this Dylan C's cam Schlippler. Sa Young battle. You know, look, one has 10 wins. One is 12 wins, right? And of course, Sonny Gray has 17 wins. We talked about Sonny Gray too. But Dylan C's what a year for this right handed. Well, since July 1st, no one has a better ERA. And no one has a lower opponent batting average than Dylan C's. He's given a one run on the road in the last 47 innings. Something like that. Just dominant. And he hit a good first two months. Right? First starting SDAs. He was terrific in his Blue J debut. A three game series with the Blue Jage strikeout. 50 athletics. That's right. 50 strikeouts in those three games. Schlippler though over the entire season has been just as good. And probably better over the entire season than C's. Schlippler's got some streak of one runner or less. And 17 straight road starts. Something crazy like that. So I think for the full season right now, I think Schlippler's ahead. But since July 1st, there's been nobody better than Dylan C's.

8:05But isn't it funny? And we talked about it in the food room. Just the fact that it's such a different time. Sonny Gray 17 wins. He would have been a lot for the slot young back in the day. It was always wins. And we'll go back to 1980. My favorite year. Where Mike Norris got robbed by Steve Stone. The 25 wins. 25. Mike Norris had 22. Three voters left Mike Norris off the ballot. Off the ballot completely. A guy with 22 wins. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Norris had the much better year. More innings. More complete games. More strikeouts. 25 wins. You look and look back all through the 70s and 80s. The pitcher who had the most wins won the CY. Now, it was different then because pitch more deeper into the game. Yeah. More complete games and longer into the game. They really did decide the winner and loser. But now you've got a lot more five and fly. Six innings. They're not deciding the game as much. And that's where the win has taken. The underlying numbers, right? With, with, with, with, with, Greeneck, you didn't even win it with 12 wins. 12 wins. Yeah.

9:05But I still think losses matter too. Because if you've got a bunch of losses. That means you left that game with your team trailing. And you did not do your job. Even though sometimes you're one to not. Sometimes you want nothing. Yeah. You know, it's funny. He's talking about the Tim Hudson always said this. That he always felt that he can allow one run. Because if his team didn't score one run, they weren't going to win anyway. Right. So he said, I always felt I can allow one run. Yeah. And, and that, not. Hey, why has. Sonny Gray kind of been under the radar in Major League Baseball this year, despite the, the 17 wins? Because he's just, it's not as dominant as he's other. And not, you know, Cice has all the strikeouts. Another 200 site got strikeouts. Yeah. So there's just him. Just been fantastic. And Sonny's just been pitching, going along. Didn't make the all start team. Showed up. Yeah. And he keeps winning games, winning close games. Yeah. This is obviously the best. I think he's, he's pitched. And we've seen a pitch even when he first came up with the A's. How good he could be. Yeah. But this is, this is vintage. This is, this is what a career this guy's had.

10:06Yeah. Somebody came up in 2013. He's still pitching this well. Yeah, he doesn't get the press that the other two guys get. That's for sure. For a five nine. Yeah. Yeah. You know, again, that little bulldog, sort of Tim Hudson like. Yeah. It was funny. I was looking and talking about Dylan C.C. A six straight 200 strikeout seasons. Yeah. The record is nine by Tom Sievers. Wow. Tom Tarrupik. And so I'm thinking, where's Nolan Ryan? Yeah. Yeah. And Nolan Ryan had a streak of five straight seasons. And then he had, I guess he got hurt because he only made 24 starts. So he was under 200. Then he had five more. Yeah. And then he's 42 years old. He strikes out 300 batters at 42 years old. Same. Absolutely. That's wild. That's so wild. Well, 59 hundred strikeouts career for a little bit more than, uh, for Nolan Ryan. It's just, it's unfathomable now. As far as Jacob Lopez is concerned, he's been very well. Really right. When he got on.

11:06Yeah. And then he got hurt and he didn't pitch much in September. Yeah. He had another great August this year and his first starting September was fantastic. Yeah. He's been outstanding. And he's making a real case for himself to be part of the rotation next year. And he's making it hard to deny him that, um, you know, really tough beginning of the season. He's using his slider as a change up. He throws a slider at 74 75. And guys are not picking up on it. It's very different. You, I'm seeing a little bit around the league. Maybe it's guys you just can't develop a change up. Maybe lefty struggle with it. But Lopez has found out I can throw this at 76 75 miles an hour and it's getting the desired effect. Real quick. I told Ken about this with, uh, I, I get the comp of gauge jump and geogun's balls. Cause when geogun's balls came up, remember how, how much he, not struggled. Cause jumps not struggling. But, but, but, but he is at times. But, but the stuff is there and you know he's going to be able to do a geal. Remember when geochem came up, came up. He's struggling. No, definitely start.

12:06You got to learn how to pitch up here. Yeah. You gauge jump had a very good first couple of months. Hey, he was struggling. I got an ERA over seven in August. It's, Beijing things are hard. You got to figure it out. Uh, just one quick thing on the blue day. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they traded Kevin Gossman. Yeah. And they got this guy Brett Bateman. Yeah. And it's changed their whole season. Yes. So something you didn't even think about. They bring Brett Bateman up. He put him in center field. And his 22 starts. The blue days are 15 and seven. It's incredible. It's because they thought they were kind of changing. And how does the team retool at the same time? They're trying to trade a guy's. This has worked for them. Surrey Otto and Bateman. It's worked for the blue days. No question. You work for me. You work for me. I don't mean that. I work for you. I mean, you work. You work well for us. Thank you, Johnny. That's incredible. How do you believe I said it? All right, brother. Well, it's what we're going to do right now is we're going to talk to Lauren Spotler. And that interview is earlier today. Here's that interview. Back on the pregame show. We're getting ready for game one of a six game seven days. Seven days. Home stand and give one of a three games set with the Toronto Blue Jays. Laws with me, Lauren Spotler.

13:07Law has been fun. I just want to know over the course of a long season, understanding that season compared to when you came up in 23. Understanding the 162 and the challenge of that, knowing it's just a long season. Oh, yeah. You know, it's a hundred and 62 games and that's a lot of games. You know, people don't realize it. So, you got to learn how to just deal with the ups and downs of that many games. You know, you're not going to be the best player ever all season. You're not going to be the worst player ever all season. It's just going to flow. You know, stand even kill and just trying to win games. And understanding failure, right? I mean, that's the failure is such a big part of this game. You fail seven out of ten times and you're the best of what you do. How long did it take you to understand that? Because you guys have all had success your whole lives, but understand how to use failure to your benefit. I feel like you got to feel on a different level than you're used to to really understanding. You know, you got to really sometimes hit rock bottom. You know, feel like you're just the worst player ever in day. You know, you come out at it and you're like, oh, that shit wasn't so bad at all. You feel like it's just another day, isn't that?

14:07It's basically what it is. You go forward and go forward. Still another day. You still got another chance next day. And it's got to keep going on during a competitive. How did you stay positive in the clubhouse when you were at one point, you were in a buck 58 in June? How did you know you were the confidence you were going to turn it around? You know it's just a matter of time? I mean, I know what type of player I was and the player I know I am. It's good. So, you know, I just got to keep going. You know, just keep taking it day by day at bat by bat and just trying to get better and learn from it. You know, just don't let the fair eat you up. And you get, when you get locked in, I said on the air, there's nobody more fun to watch when you're locked in. You're seeing it well. What's been the difference for you as far as the adjustments maybe you made with Bush here or some of the things you've done? Really just, you know, shrinking his own, you know, not trying to hit everything. Just realizing that, you know, these pitches are good and you just got to kind of wait for a mistake. You know, if they dot you, they dot you, you know, you go up there and compete to try to fight it off. But, you know, today these pitches are good and we're good hitters. So, it's going to be about, it's not going to be easy. These pitches are nasty in this league. And I think you learn that right away, you came in 23, you're like, this is different.

15:09Yeah, these pitches are good. They're throwing wicked stuff. I mean, stuff's moving 18, 20 inches. I mean, it's insane. I mean, the pitches are really good. It has to be them. But, you know, we're all competitors. We're all trying to go out there. Well, I got food on the table. We're not trying to let the next man take it off of it. Exactly. You know, as far as this team's concerned, I mean, decimated by injuries. What's it been like for you to kind of be the leader with this group right now when you, you got a lot of young players? Yeah, you know, it means a lot. You know, when a lot of, you know, a lot of our, like veteran players, I would say, are hurting down. You know, they can't be with us every day on the road. So, you know, it takes, it takes people like me, you know, you know, you know, John Hymne, you know, Zach Gellop, the kind of just try to, you know, keep the team going, keep everybody spirits up and kind of take on that leadership, bro. I don't think there's anyone more excited for Zach Gellop than you. I don't think there is. Even Zach Gellop, I think you're more excited for his success than he is. Can you talk about how great it's been to watch him have this year? Yeah, I love Zach. He's a great guy on and off the field.

16:10You know, he's, he's struggling with injuries, you know, just struggle with, you know, the league of Justin Tom. But I think he's done a terrific job with, you know, just coming back and not giving up, and he's going to keep going and working and figuring out what he needs to do to get better and to be able to stay up here at the beginning of the live, and I think he's figured that out. How much does it, does it give you hope as far as the guys on the IEL right now to come back? You see, well, both he's doing what you're doing, what Gellop's doing. And then you see what this team could be with, with the guys around the IEL right now. Yeah, I mean, we're a good team. You know, everybody knows that. We just deal with some, some injuries in the touch stretch this year. So, you know, we're not letting that, you know, kind of distract us from the future and what we know we can be and what we know we can achieve. So, you know, we're just going to keep trying to get better every day, every year. And, you know, every year is the year we win the World Series until it isn't. Exactly. One more for you, Vegas. How excited are you for, to get this team in Vegas? I'm overly excited. I'm overly excited for Vegas. You know, we're finding that we're being a bigger stadium, you know, packed out fans. That's going to be amazing. I mean, it's just going to be like, kind of, kind of feels like our, kind of, like, first time actually in a, you know, big league stadium with their body behind us.

17:15Exactly. Yeah. Thanks for the visit. Love. Thank you. It is Labor Day. The Azerbaijan, the Blue Jays and the Blue Jays and the first of three of Marconce, Winos After a successful road trip for your ball club. But especially in Seattle, Conce, taking three out of four. Yeah, I thought we played really well this weekend. You know, we went in, in there, obviously coming off a nice win the last day in Texas. You know, we, we wanted to have an impact on this division and, you know, first Seattle. I think, you know, going in there and winning that first game, kind of took something out of them and then taking advantage of those next two days. Yesterday we faced a really tough pitcher in Brian Wu. It dominated us. But overall, I thought we played really, really good baseball. I'm not sure anybody would have beaten Wu yesterday. No, that's fact. I mean, for eight innings, he didn't miss a location. You know, that's, we've seen him pitch to that capability. And unfortunately, through one of his best games of the year yesterday. Yeah, you had Gage jump on the mound yesterday and take us to what you were thinking in that fourth inning.

18:19Because he threw its honor pitches, but I know you wanted him to get out of that inning and do it himself. Yeah, definitely. I think you got to challenge him in some, in some ways and yesterday and that fourth. You know, I, I could see him laboring a little bit, but then he, he hit another gear there where, you know, we've seen him do that in Boston. There in the sixth inning when, when we left him out there to get the big out. So I was really impressed with him managing that inning after, you know, giving up two runs and still having the bases loaded. And striking out the side showed a lot of maturity. Yeah, how important is it for a pitcher like jump to have that strikeout pitch? Oh, it, it's big. I mean, for any pitcher, when you, when you got capability to put a hitter away, you know, you need to finish those at bats and part of that inning yesterday and the fourth was he had two strikes on the pitch. He had two strikes on several guys and couldn't finish the bat. So it was nice to see him make the adjustment in the last three hitters and strike out the side. You know, your bullpen pitch really well again yesterday, Cotson. Of course, one thing that happens when you're winning and you had one for straight is your leverage guys work a lot.

19:23What's it been like for you to try to manage the bullpen over the last week or so? Well, I think, you know, obviously we have worked a lot. We've had a, we had a bullpen game on Tuesday. We had a start, shortened on Thursday, I believe. So we had to cover some innings. But overall, these guys have done a nice job. Like you said, there's a little bit of a rhythm. There's some confidence building and some guys that obviously need that confidence. And, you know, we did a lot of transactions. We did a lot of movement in the first of August acquiring some guys and the two that stand out right now for me are blue it and, and Roy Croft. They've done a nice job in their outings. And then Seth Johnson kind of blew the mirror under his away two innings yesterday. And with all the moves that you talked about, guys coming and going, you kind of morphed into a bullpen where there's a bunch of hard throwers down there. We do have some big arms. Seth Johnson was a trade with Colby Thomas from the Phillies. Seth is a young arm that, you know, the Phillies had in their bullpen.

20:27They didn't pitch much in high leverage situations. He's still getting comfortable. You know, we sent him down a triple A. We told him to work on a few things, especially the slider incorporating that to left handed hitters as well. We saw it yesterday come out and I thought yesterday was the best I've seen him since we acquired him. You know, we haven't talked to you since Jeffrey Spring, spooked up his first win on Saturday night since April. And just to validate all the hard work and what he's been through. That's been a grind for sure. And there's nobody that feels worse about, you know, the performances over the course of, you know, May, June, July for Jeff. And then he does. And I think yesterday or Saturday was was a great day. One that I felt really, you know, proud of Jeff and just the continued grind that he's been on to try to just get a win. And he did it really nicely on Saturday. How do you look at the challenge of facing Dylan Seas tonight? He pitched well against you over the first weekend of the season. But you got him here last year when he was pitching against her club for the pondries. Yeah, well, let's try to get him again, I guess. But yeah, he's having a phenomenal year.

21:34You look at a opponent batting average against neither side is hitting 200. He's been dominant. There's no question about it. And we'll do our best to try to get his pitch count up and get him out of the game tonight. Okay, Johnny D, the words of the skipper. He is in the blue jays on Labor Day and we'll send things back over to you. Well, I'm glad that you talked about Jeffrey Springs with the skipper because no one knows more than the skipper. How hard this guy has worked and the grind that's been pitching it. You know, he struggled pitching here at home. He struggled on the road at times. But for him to grind out and never making an excuse. And for him to get that win, it's not lost and everybody else big that was. It was really impressive. And he's hung with it all year. And you know, you go what 23 straight starts without a win or something like that. Johnny, it grinds on you for sure. And on the IEL with the hip injury. And I don't think that many pitchers by this time of the year are fully healthy anyway, Johnny. So yeah, real study and in perseverance with spring. We got 90 seconds here this series.

22:39We take one for the blue jays to save the least. I mean, they're fighting for their wild card lives. They are a half came back. They played really good baseball. They won 23 of 36. They won seven of nine. You kind of called it right before they got going. They don't sleep on the blue jays. They are coming and they have. Well, with a win, they would tie with Cleveland for the third wild card spot. And they have the tie breaker, which is big. Yeah. So it's like a one game lead if they were to win today. And so the reason this long stretch of playing games against teams that are in consensual. And it's good for the club. I mean, there was a lot of intensity up in Seattle. Johnny is you know. And these took it to the Mariners in that series. Real quick. Season low pass. This should be fun matchup. I would think you would see a lot of strikeouts tonight, Johnny. Yes, first sure. All right. Thanks. Can appreciate it. We'll see you, Johnny. I'll see you soon. See you right now for Ken Korak, Johnny D. After the break, you're going to hear from Stephen Lewis Sacks, Chris Townsend NBC sports California. Ace cast in the Ace Radio. Never get you ready for the blue jays and the athletics. Blue jays 572 and 72.

23:40The Ace 57 and 87. This game, one of a three game set off day, Thursday, Seattle in town for three. So after the break, you'll hear from Townian Sacksie. Enjoy the show. This has been a presentation of the athletics.