The Cutoff Episode 3: Divine Intervention

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3:00Once again, check your eligibility and book at VaxVAXAssist.com. Pfizer out to yesterday. The calendar has finally turned to October and postseason baseball rolls on. Welcome into another episode of the Cutoff podcast. He is Mario. I'm Dan. We've got a bunch of wild card games down. Three series are already done. We got a lot to break. This may be a long episode today. Yeah, I think so. The last one we went about 23 minutes. I'm going to take the over on this episode. Yeah, it's going to go over. And we're getting microphones now. That's they doubled our budget. It looks like which is miraculous because I don't know how big the budget was. I don't know if we had a budget. I think the fans were clamoring for it. They were. That's what they were saying on social media. I didn't see a comment or two about that. So a lot going on over the last three days. A lot of fun is I do like the three days in a row, similar to just a regular season.

4:02Match up where it's you get four games. You didn't get enough of that. You got four games the next day. Hopefully you get some three games or best of threes that you get to see on that last day. We're only getting one that we'll get into. But a lot of close games, a lot of action pack games, a lot of stars shining. A lot to get into. Should we get started? Yeah, and feels there's almost like a March madness feel to it. Yeah, a little bit baseball starting at two o'clock. Very early afternoon and games all the way into midnight one o'clock. Those those the West Coast games. Yeah, it's hard to stay up late for that. And then you know, get up early the next morning and have to come into the studio to do a show at 9 a.m. But listen, we do it for the love of the game as we do. We do. We do. All right, let's get to the game that is playing tonight. Best the winner take all game three braves and fillies. Braves took game one five three fillies responded with a late comeback yesterday and went in 10 innings yesterday. And we got on my notes. It says TBD versus TBD, but we just looked it up. It's going to be an opener for the braves. Aaronola going for the fillies.

5:03This sort of seems like a bit of a crapshoot when you look at it. Yeah, I mean, we talked a little bit. We've talked, you know, along in this podcast about, you know, starting your aces and having that horse go neither of them have their horse starting the game. I'm sure we will see Zach Wheeler at some point in the game. As far as the braves, it's just an opener. It's Ray Kerr. Ray Kerr, I was just reading that he was like a movie theater attendant. Yeah, something seven to eleven. Worked at a movie theater and worked at a gas of seven eleven and thought his baseball career was over. It was a really good story. Yeah. And now he's starting an elimination game for the braves. Yeah, so it's pretty cool. I think it's going to come down to bullpen, right? The fillies bullpen has proven all year to be sketchy to say the least. The braves clearly have the better bullpen, but I mean, the bats woke up late. I don't know. The braves bats. I'm not really sure about it. I thought that was their strong suit going into the postseason. And they seem like they had to fight a little bit to get some runs.

6:03You know, you had the Austin Riley late home run to put them ahead in game one. They went into extra innings yesterday. They didn't end up winning game two. So those bats have to wake up or they're going to be going home. Yeah, it's we haven't heard a lot from Matt Olson, Ronald Kunia. I walked a couple of times. He scored a couple of runs. But it really outside of that one home or by Riley, it's been very just. Sleepy. I don't know the best way to talk about it. It seems like they have traffic on the base pass, but they really haven't had that big swing outside of that home. Yeah, it's been a little bit uncharacteristic of them, right? We were talking before the show about Michael Harris the second. And he had only hidden to two double plays in the entire 2026. I will be seasoned. And they were both before the first half, not a single one in second half. Yeah. Last night hits into two double plays, straining runners. So that's what happens when the lights get bright, right? Yeah, yeah. The numbers against Nola, the braves have hit him pretty well in the past, but it. You also look at it.

7:03Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler, when you talk about them going in 2022, 2023, even 2024, those two guys were those two guys that you go one, two. You feel really good about giving yourself a chance to lead in the series. So Nola has not been good against the braves, but in his career in the postseason. He is probably one of the better pitchers you will see in the month of October. Yeah, he has the experience. Weird things happen in October. It's not just, you know, the stats and what's happened that season. There's a lot of weird things can happen. I think experience definitely plays a part into it. I'd like having Wheeler as a backup or, you know, the next guy in. If that's not confirmed, but I'm assuming that's what's going to happen. Then you have Durand, you know, Durand did allow the home run to Riley. What did you think of that? What did you think of the decision? I believe it was the seventh inning he went to him. And he ended up pitching two innings, but he gave up that go ahead through your run home on the eighth. I didn't like it. It was desperate. Obviously, you're desperate in October, but it's only game one. So it's not like when this game where you're going home, you kind of, you know, blow him, you know.

8:04And he's the only used to going one inning. You kind of overstretch him. It's the first game of the playoffs. You know, you're kind of setting yourself up to fail at that point by pitching him so early. And, you know, that proved costly in game one. Yeah, I didn't love that decision. I love it. We're already going to rival each other here. I actually like the move. I think in that situation, you go to your best guy right then, because let's flip it around. Let's say they said we're going to save him for the ninth inning. We're going to get him in that closed situation that he's used to all year. Say the same thing happens. Another reliever gives up a three run home or in the eighth inning. Can you imagine the dialogue around why didn't you bring in your best guy? Why is he not coming in the game? Because you're playing this, what if game in a situation that may not happen if things play out the same way? So I like it. He said he's we're going down with our best guy. They're bullpen as we laid out in the preview. It has been so shaky all year outside of him. If you can go from your starter to your to your closer, I think that's the best I do. And in a game one, yeah, it is game one, but it's a best of three.

9:05If you can steal that game and kind of give yourself that, all right, if game two doesn't go well, we can line ourselves up for game three. I feel like he went for it and he did the only thing that I have a question is early in that game, they said they're going to go from Hazel's Lazardo to Andrew Painter as sort of a long relief guy. All of a sudden you're seeing Hazel's Lazardo who had shoulder issues in September. He's going five, six innings and everyone's sort of like, all right, so then what's the plan? It turned out it was right to Doran who ultimately blew the game, but I think in that situation, it was the right call because if it got flipped around in the situation, it wouldn't have been the situation happened where he didn't come in and they still lost. There would be so many question marks that I think it would have made sense for him to do what he did. Yeah, I mean, I guess you're a do if you do, you do if you don't. Personally, I think game one, you know, you're setting the rest of the series by having him throw. He wasn't going to throw yesterday because he went to there, right? And then in game three, I'm sure we will see him, I'm sure we'll see him at any point. It's all hands on deck, right? We talk about painter dent pitch and game one, you question three scoreless innings out of the pen including shutting it down in the 10th inning to close it on a walkoff ABS challenge.

10:12I know they talked about it on the show today. It's I don't know how it's somewhat anti-climatic, but also when you saw, or a borderline pitch that was called about, oh, they're going to ABS. Oh, my gosh, the game's over. Yeah, I don't love that. I like getting the call, right? But I do like the human element of that's what happened. I mean, you know, history has been, you know, those kind of calls have determined history in baseball, right? You look at a Galaraga, not getting the perfect game with the Tigers. If we would have had ABS, you know, obviously, he would have had his perfect game. So I'm a little bit indifferent of it on it, especially in these big season, you know, these playoff games that mean the world. I want you to get the call, right? But when you're, you know, a couple of centimeters off for a strike, you know, I would actually, I think air to the point of having the human element with the empires. I would have it where it was a miss call and it got corrected rather than what we saw. I think that would probably be the better way to see ABS usually in the game, but it's there that they've been using it all year.

11:13It works to it as a advantage. I do like that it's any bit of the strike zone. I think that that has really cleaned it up a little bit. Yeah, it's been good. But all right, let's do love not having the runner on second. I do too into playoff. I saw some people arguing about that. And I mean, we played that was the rule for however many years in baseball before we did the Ghost Runner. So I have no problem with that. Yeah. So we go to game three, a couple nuggets here. See, I'm doing a little bit more baseball research for Dan on the show. So I trickling into us. It is. I basically get to go down these rabbit holes of baseball stats, which to me sounds like a great Saturday night really. If you can't tell, I am single. The Phillies are looking to become the first team since the Yankees last year to win the best of three after losing game one. The second team never do that. And the braves. This is kind of this may be a curse thing if they can't win. They have never beat the Phillies in the playoffs. They have only played them three times because for years, the vision teams couldn't face off until the championships years. That was just a rule that they instilled to kind of space out the league a little bit.

12:16They lost to the Phillies in the 93 and LCS and the 2022 and 2023 division series. So they're looking to kind of get over this hump because every time they've seen Philly, especially 2022 and 2023 back to back years of Philly, Santa Packen. Not only every time they've seen Philly, but they have not won a postseason series since winning the World Series in 2021. Is that right? I believe so. Wow. Yeah. See, even you're doing some research. Yeah. We're spreading that. All right. Well, we'll end with this before we move on to the other National League series. If you're the Dodgers, who would you rather face? Would you rather face the Phillies who have kind of had to make shift their rotation? Or would you rather see the braves who have sort of similarly been a bit inconsistently? I think I'm going to take an unpopular opinion here. I rather see the braves, especially seeing how the braves bats are acting right now. I rather see them. You have your three guys who are going to go whether that's glass now, snow, Yamamoto, some mix of those guys. Personally, and I know that they faced them last year, but I personally don't want to see Sanchez, Lazardo, Wheeler.

13:21Yeah. You know, those are guys that have experienced. Those are big game pictures. The braves have been great. I'm not going to take anything away from them, but they don't have those horses at the top of their rotation. Again, we're going, we're going against each other. I like this. I'm, I'm think the Phillies, right? They just played them a year ago in the divisions series. They won it. The recipe was, all right, yeah, you're facing the Sanchez as the Wheeler's the knowles, all that. You get into that bullpen, all of a sudden, then it's, it's, all bets are off. Like you don't know what's going to happen with them, and they were able to do that time and time again. I mean, you remember the walkoff error late in, I believe the ninth inning of game four of last year, sort of sealed it. So I think it's one of those things that WNO versus the W don't know. Who was that Kirkering? Yeah, Kirkering made the throw to the Phillies. Yeah, yeah. I see, I see, you're smiling. Don't act like you're a sad about it. Oh, I'd love that. I'm not rooting for the Phillies in any, any fashion. I believe we call that a good old fashioned hate watch. Is that what it's called? Oh, it's a thousand percent of hate watch. I do not want to see the Phillies, I don't want to see them.

14:21I would love they had a perfect game tonight. Yeah, I know you and Anthony were the two that sat down when we were watching in the, in the man cave the other day. And you were, you were just like, I just hope someone's losing. I don't, whether it's the Brage or the Phillies, somebody's losing. My hatred towards the Phillies, I think it's so much deeper. I have a lot of friends who are filled out with Phillies fans and good friends. And they are not nice people when the Phillies are winning. So, you know, I'm sad, I want to see them sad too. Okay, all right, I get it. All right, let's move on to the second nationally one. Now this one, you probably can't wait to talk about this one. Padre suite the Cubs into games, eight nothing, four one. Yep. The Cubs looked like ghosts, the entire series. Yeah, they didn't show up. They didn't show up at all. No PCA, I know will deep, you know, dig a little deeper into that. Yeah, yikes. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know, like this was a team that was the best run scoring offense in the entire league. In baseball, I believe. Yeah. And one extra base hit in the two games.

15:23They hit 129. It's hard to imagine. And P. Koran Strang, who you brought up, Mr. 4040, the MVP, the guy that you said he needs to be the one that leads this team. Even when things are going slow, he's got to be the one that gets on steals a base. Maybe hits a home or makes a great plan in the outfield. Yeah. Those those things, he went over in this series. Yeah. He did not get a single hit, he struck out. I have here, he went over seven with four strikeouts in the wild card. I believe we have a graphic for it too. See, the production value here is like going up. Wow. Look at that. 147, 16 strikeouts, zero home runs. Now, I get it last year. It was his first taste of the playoffs. He really sort of had to get his feet wet and learn. And there was the veterans there. The expectations were significantly higher this year for what he did in the regular season. So I ask you, does that regular season look a little bit different given how his post season went? I don't think so. I don't think so.

16:23I think it's like the Heisman, right? We can't include the playoffs. I'm not going to allow two games for this season. You know, we were looking at his stats for his career in the playoffs. But we can only look at these two games for this particular MVP season. Sure. I'm not going to allow that to deteriorate, allow that to deteriorate what he did in 162. Yes, disappointing. Yes, you start to have questions. But I don't think that should factor in at all. He went 40-40. He had a great season. You know, one point, Otoni was the significant favorite to win the MVP, according to the books. And he overtook that. It's clear that he's going to win the MVP. I know Otoni got hurt and, you know, he had some struggles. But you got to give him credit for what he did in the regular season and keep the conversation separate for what happened in those two games in San Diego. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that it doesn't take away from what he did. But if you looked at the state of what Chicago sports has been lately, even last year, there was the momentum that was building into it. Obviously, you've kind of barred with the black hawks.

17:24You have Caleb Williams as your quarterback. You have Caleb Wilson, who was a top five pick for the Bulls and you a PCA who just wins MVP. The city was buzzing with sports where more coming. More coming. Yeah, see, we'll get to them. Look at you already jumping ahead. I love it. There was a lot of excitement across all of the sports there. Caleb Williams gets hurt with a hamstring. What's the season going to look like until he gets back? Obviously, it's been looking great with their third string quarterback. But this is a baseball podcast. We don't talk a whole lot about that. It does kind of hurt a little bit that, all right, this guy who was the MVP of the league, kind of laid an egg. And it sort of leaves that sour taste in your mouth throughout the entire winner. And you're going to have those questions leading up to next postseason. And when can they do something different? Can he step up? He needs to have that moment because now of some, it's not this. Look at this exciting kid who can be an impact player. This is a guy that we know can change games, game in a game out. For sure. He has to step up. Yeah, I mean, you look at their offseason and what do they do different?

18:25I don't know if it all falls on him. You know, they have the Breggmins of the world. They have the Suzuki's of the world. They went out and got Galsman at the trade deadline. He didn't prove to do much. So I think it comes down to they don't have the arms. Yeah. You know, you saw what the Padres did in those two games. They hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. Yeah. And I think they're going to have to make significant improvements in the pitching rotation and in the bullpen. But I don't, I don't think it falls on him. If I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, I'm disappointed for sure. Yeah. But you can't put it all on him. You know, this is not the NFL. This is not a basketball where, you know, the quarterback or, you know, the leading score went, goes. It's one player. It's one out of nine in the lineup. And the pitching didn't do well either. So yeah. Well, let's, let's before we go to the Padres, I know there is a Metz angle here and I have to get it in because there's no Met playoff talk. There is. And one that brings a big smile to my. There is. And it's not even the peak croar strong trade, which this, you know, that's somehow just sort of slide.

19:26We're going to talk about that. Yeah. We're going to have to talk about it. But so you talk about the trade acquisitions that the Cubs made. That you got Clay Holmes, they got Tyrone Taylor from the Metz at the trade deadline got Tyrone Taylor, hit left these really well. And so it was going to be that bat that was utilized for only got one hit one at bat. He didn't really play much. And then Clay Holmes didn't, where was he? Like no appearance. I could have been on the roster. You could have changed. I think he was just chilling in the bullpen enjoying the San Diego weather. But the Metz ended up getting Jefferson Rojas who, for those of you who don't know about the prospect rankings. He was one of the most regarded prospects in the Cubs system. Comes over to the Metz has a great second half of the season. So now, all of a sudden, if you're the Metz, you're kind of both those guys are free agents for the Cubs. Yeah. You got a top end prospect. You kind of look at this like they didn't really make it much farther than we did. And I think we got better in the long term. Yeah. I mean, Jefferson Rojas came over. He's the Metz number one prospect at this point. I think he has a shot to make the roster next year. You put him at second base. You know, you pair him up with the benches and the ewings and the sodas and the lindores.

20:27I love it. I love it. You know, it's a good way. It's a nice bright side to look at such an awful season for the Metz. I never really trust the prospect stuff. Yeah. You know, I'm a big advocate of at the deadline. If you have a chance to buy and trade off, you know, some top prospects, you do it. I don't think prospects often work out the way that, you know, the way that they're so coveted. I look at, I was talking to Anthony in the back room and we were talking about Kune. You know, Kune, Luis, on Hill, Kune was supposed to be, I, you know, my penny was supposed to be, you know, and every day's second basement for us, he didn't work out. So there's a little bit of skepticism for me. Yeah. As far as looking at that. But everything proves that, you know, he had a great second half when he came over to the Metz, Jefferson Rojas. It's exciting, but I'm still not white there. Sure. I mean, everybody has their own perspectives on prospects and how they view it and everything like that. I love diving into that stuff. I think it's, it's very interesting to just see them before they debut and everything.

21:29But we can, we can dive more into prospects and a lot of season. We got the off season. My one point, I'm going to make on the Padres before we move on to the American League. Peter Siler, who is the former owner of the Padres, I believe he died in 2023 or 2024. I'm unsure. But he, before he passed away, he wanted to put a winning product. He wanted to push for a champion. And that resulted in signing Machado the Long Deal, given Bo-Garts the Long Deal. And while they haven't necessarily worked out, I feel like there's not many of those owners in baseball. The ones that are pushing year in and year out. For the Padres, unfortunately, it's out of necessity because they can't pivot to do anything else. But they traded their top prospects to get a Mesa Miller. They traded prospects year in and year out just to get talent to compete and push for a title every year. It's fun to see that. And when they're able to look as good as they did in the Wildcard series, it does make you kind of happy to see just because. I love for sure. So I want to preface that. I do enjoy, I think the environment in San Diego is top tier. I mean, I want to get out there at some point. They say it's one of the best places to take in baseball games.

22:31Yeah, so I want to at least commend them for that. Even if they don't end up going as far as I do. The fact that they push year in and year out regardless of what the motive is, it's something that we don't see a whole lot in baseball. And it's something that we need to applaud because that's what fans want to see. They don't want to see the five-year rebuild. They want to see the teams to say, this prospect's good. I know that, but let's get a mason Miller who has a sub-two out of the bullpen. He's the guy that, when you're in the ninth inning to clinch a series, that's the guy you want to see on the map. That's the guy that the fans remember the most. And I respect, you know, kind of almost to counter my point with the Padres. They've given up some really big prospects. So they've had to go out and, you know, make trades and get big names. They kind of lost out in that soda trade where they traded James Woods, C.J. Abrams, McKenzie Gore. Yeah. They traded one of their top prospects, the shortstop, I'm forgetting his name, Leo DeVries. DeVries for mason Miller. So they are taking chances. It's ending up where, you know, some of those prospects are becoming big names in Major League Baseball. But I respect that they're going out there taking chances and, you know, trying to get the talent to win.

23:34Yeah. Second point. New Padres owner. Enlighten me. Puerto Rican. I had to get it in. And there we go. We didn't have any last episode. So I had to get it in. We had. So, all right. I think the line got lowered a little bit from the last episode with there being none. So maybe, maybe it was half, maybe it was one and a half. I don't know. We'll see what the bookmaker said. They, they move on. They got the brewers. Now the best team in the national league. Yep. Miz was on the show not too long ago. Really great. He was, he was awesome. He was great. He was very laid back. Yeah. We'll say so. Yeah. It was, it was a lot of, he got loose for sure. And not we're not talking loose in the bullpenning. New York and league. A series that I regretfully have to, to talk about the, New York Yankees. I don't even, I don't even know the best way to put it. Just dancing around the red socks, like just, it wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. It wasn't even close. What was not close? Eight-nothing. Nine-two Yankees effortlessly move on to the division series where they play the raise. There's so much to break down here and as a, as a red sock fan again.

24:37I mean, do I see the pain in your eyes and. And what's the one thing we talk about? Journalistic integrity. We have to stay true to our roots. I have to really get eliminated now, too, with them. Not with you anymore. Was it, did I say them? No, I'm just bustin' here. Well, that's something I would do. So if I accidentally said it just subconsciously, I would understand why I did it. But I think the biggest question here is like, where were the bats? Now, Cam Schletler is obviously great. Can we please stop talking, like, tweeting at him and doing this? I get last year, it was, you know, the first time and he did it. He's done it twice now. I don't know if I have the exact numbers. I believe it's no runs in almost 15 innings in the playoffs. Can we, I'm gonna look right in the, please stop. Please stop tweeting at him. I think that this is a no-win situation for Red Stocks. It doesn't matter what he does in the regular season. When it gets to October, he owns you. Like, there is no other way to put that. I think we talked about it last podcast. I said, you know, this is gonna be either his October moment where he becomes the ace of the Yankee staff

25:37or the Red Stocks we're gonna advance. Obviously, we didn't see the latter. He looked like a study. He looks like he's gonna be the guy for the Yankees. As much as that pains me, it looks like they have their ace for the next 10 years. And that hurts me. Now, the one thing I will get a laugh out of this is that, so the Red Stocks have to go down to Tampa Bay to play the Cubs the last game of the year because we had a whole Northeaster up in the Northeast to get move games around and everything like that. They have these machines, right? They're called Tragic Machines. And you're familiar with them. So you can replicate pictures. It's essentially an advanced pitching machine where you can use the program and you can put in any picture you want. It'll simulate their motion, their spin rate, all that kind of stuff. The Red Stocks reportedly did that with Cam Schletler. And the words that they use were they wore out the machine. Oh, God. The number one question, can we get a refund on the hours and the labor that we use? Because we clearly did not see, I said, we, the Red Stocks did not wear them out. I just thought that was funny that that was the whole talk about their, they're ready. They're ready. And I think they somehow looked worse this year

26:39than they did last year. There has to be a seven day warranty. I mean, you guys don't know. Returning. There's gotta be something, right? Like is there in the fine print? Can we see where we can return it? I've actually, we went, we did the Super Bowl in San Francisco at the Giants of Cility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Yeah. And we use one of those machines. They are pretty cool. If you could, if you could go on the Tragic Machines and you could put in one picture right now, the face. Not even saying for success rate, like just one picture in baseball, who would you want to face? Either Mariano Rivera, the cutter. Yeah. Because everybody says that that was unreal or Randy Johnson. Just to say. So you just want, you want to walk up there, just no, no chance. No, I'm not, clearly I don't want to have any success. I would just like to see what all these, you know, great hitters that couldn't, you know, figure out two of the best pictures of all time talk about. See, there's a famous, again, I'm going off baseball. There's a famous quote from Brian Scalabrini when he was playing pickups saying, I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me. I would like to find like the worst major league pitcher

27:40and just prove how far away I am from even him that I have no chance and just will tell me how good major league hitter is. All right, we'll keep rolling on with the Red Sox. The bullpen ERA was a problem in the postseason. They allowed 15 runs, six and two third inning. Third best bullpen ERA in the regular season. The question marks about LeBee taking your stars out. Sonny Gray was clearly not happy about it in his post game remarks. I think he has every right to be so. This is a guy that you brought into sort of be that Yankee killer, a guy that could, the veteran that could go deep in a postseason game, you pull him after four and two thirds. He's had a lot to say about the Yankees years past. Yeah, and he pitched well. That was the thing. At first sign of trouble, they went and got him and it just spiraled out of control after that. We talked about it in the preview. George Lombard, Jr. Spencer Jones. We talked about the young guys that in this year's need to step up. Roman Anthony got hurt. Young guy for the Red Sox gone. Didn't do much. Lombard and Spencer Jones hit 375, six runs scored. The Red Sox as a team scored two. Like that is a difference right there. When you have your young guys that are not afraid of the moment

28:43and are playing well, that just elevates the rest of the team. And they did all this without Aaron Judge. But out. That was a big question going into this, right? I think I questioned the preview. Whether or not they were going to have the bats to do it. It didn't seem like they had the bats to do it. They had the, you need those Lombards. Those Spencer Jones, Luis Garcia had a home run yesterday. I think we talked a little about him. Him being, he's been a great trade deadline acquisition. Ben Rice, right? You know, we talked a little bit about him as well. He's not necessarily a young prospect guy. But he is kind of just making a name for himself the last two years. And he had two home runs in game one. If they hit like this and then you had Aaron Judge set line up, they're going to be, they're going to be a tough out, especially with the pitching. Did you know that Ben Rice is from Massachusetts? I didn't. Is he a Red Sox fan? I know. See, that's the thing. You would think he grew up in Massachusetts. You think he'd be a Red Sox fan? He was, that's the twist there. That is, I haven't heard that story line before. I mean, we're approaching. I just don't want the Red Sox to face the Yankees for two reasons. One, clearly the Red Sox have not been close to.

29:43I just, I need to stop hearing that. He's from us. We know we, this is, it's approaching levels of insanity at this point. If you watch, because the people that listen to our pocket, they watch baseball. Yeah, we know. We're not, then it's not the common fan that is just tuning in just to see the season. No, no, no. It is the great Pedro Martinez once said, the Yankees are your daddy. They are. And unfortunately, there is a lot that needs to change with the Red Sox. But again, we'll push that, that's an offseason topic. Yeah, I would like to get a little bit more into there. Them choosing to just extend Chad Tracy. I like to see, I like the move. I think when you take a team that was on its, on a pace to be historically bad by Red Sox measures and you turn them around and have the sum of that you did, I think he gets at the very least he deserved an opportunity to go in with a full year and all that kind of stuff. Sure. However, I think the way that this season ended, it does leave some question marks that, what does this look like? The bullpen management, I didn't understand that. I, you know, I get bringing in Garrett Crochet.

30:43The guy hasn't pitched in six months. You, you want to put, you just want to give yourself a chance. What's there to lose at this point? Where down big, let's see what our, you know, former Ace can do. Obviously it didn't work out for them. But the Red Sox think that, you know, he would be in demand or something. They wanted to lock him up early. I just, I don't understand doing it in the regular season because it's like we can just do this in the post season or we can do this in the off season. The same way, you know, the meds did way in the green. You know, they had a great second half. But why do it now? Just wait, go through, you know, the do, do process. Let's interview a couple guys. Let's get a full picture of what the manager could be. And then just, you know, committing without even weighing your options. I get both sides of it. I think that there's going to be a lot of micromanaging now that the series is done and what they did and didn't do. And I think it's already sort of, it's already begun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're already sort of dissecting where the Red Sox went wrong and all that kind of stuff. But again, we'll get into that. Sure. We'll get into that later time.

31:44Yankees face the rays. I mean, you sort of broke it down a little bit. You like their chances if they're hitting like this. Yeah, I mean, again, we, it's still unknown whether or not Aaron Judges is going to be there. But you have Schlittler who's nasty. You have Fried who's can't lose if you give up no runs. No, I mean, Fried look good yesterday. You know, he went six innings. Then you bring your bullpen in. They look good. You have Rodan still. You have Garrett Cole who's a big game pitcher. He's been in these moments. He knows what this is. You know, but I'm really interested to see this series because the rays have three studs. They do. Drew Rasmus who's been amazing. We have Nick Martinez. Nick Martinez Fordham University alum. Oh, so he's returning back to New York. I don't know if he'll get to start in New York, but he is a Bronx guy. Okay. I thought you were going to say Puerto Rican. I was like, Nick Martinez, I didn't know that. Okay. I think he's from Miami, but he went to Fordham University, which is right up the block. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, um, and then he had Freddie Peralta who, you know, he's met legend, right? Yeah, he's, well, stop it.

32:45He's proven to be good in the postseason. He hasn't had the most success since being traded to the arrays, but, you know, once the lights turn on in October, a lot of things change. Yeah. That's a series I'm looking forward to. The division rival. And like you, I will be hate watching. Yeah. That will be fun. All right. Let's go to our last one. This one, I think, was the most heartwarming to me this series. I wonder why? For a couple of reasons. One, I called it off the bat. Two in a row, I said, I don't think, I don't know if we can even roll the tape back. Yeah. I said the white socks were going to win into. I thought the Astros, based on their record, they sort of backed their way in, one field advantage. It did not seem legit to me. And as I will break down, the white socks have a lot of red sock ties. So I think it's like, it's more than just the name. There's players that I remember as well that were prospects that got moved and all that. The white socks sort of put together complete games. There wasn't a star that did something. The pitching had its moments where they ran in a trouble, but from the hitting, the pitching,

33:47the fielding, they just sort of pieced it together enough where you really didn't think the Astros had much of a chance to come back. Yeah, even with those bats, you know, again, we talked a little about it in the preview where we have, you know, they have veteran bats, you think these guys were going to turn it up. Atuwe did have a home run yesterday. They were fighting. My guy Jeremy Peña had a home run, you know, he came up big. But Yordanova Res didn't do much. Hunter Brown, again, you have your ace. You think that, you know, this guy's going to go at least six. He didn't even make a pass for a sitting. You know, it's never a good thing when you say, we're going to do a bullpen game, game one. We're going to, we're going to push our starter, our star back a game to game two. And then you get to game two and he throws two outs. It's like, all right, well, I guess we need another bullpen game. Yeah, and I get a respect Patrick Lambert who came in and he gave a couple good hitting. He did, you know, he kept them in there for a while until the home run, you know, three one home run that proved they were done. If you, you smell that, I think it's, I think it's nugget time. I think we've got another nugget. All right, let's hear it.

34:48I cracked myself up. Hunter Brown recorded only two outs in that first game as a set. It's tied for the shortest outing of his career. He went two thirds of an inning on April 11th, 2024 when he allowed nine runs and 11 hits. First of all, allowing nine runs and 11 hits in a first inning. Like, at what point are you on the mound? Like, get, can you come out here? Yeah, like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah. Like, at what point do you motion to the bullpen yourself? Yeah. You just walk off the mound. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that was, once that happened, I was watching the end of the Phillies game and the White Sox game sort of blended over into the start of it. So by the time I stopped watching the Phillies game, it was already four nothing in the top of the first and you're like, oh my gosh, they may actually do this. Astros kind of climbed back a little bit, but Chase Mydraught, that big three run home and it's sort of bomb. And he knew it. Yeah. Those are the best ones when you, when the guy, especially in October in the postseason. When they know they get it in the emotion that comes out, that's, that, it hits. Alvarez didn't even move. Not even like a courtesy like,

35:49trust me. Yeah, no, yeah. Cause I looked at him immediately to see if he was, you know, trying to track the ball down. He didn't make a step. Yeah. Yeah, it, it was the back breaker. Once that happened, I said, there, that's ball game. I don't, I don't think the Astros are coming back. The, the thing I want to get on, you know, so we talked, I said it was heartwarming because I got it right, even though some of my other picks were selfish. Yeah. So wrong, first of all, wrong end selfish. But Kyle Teal chased my Drought Brade in Montgomery. Those are three names that if you're not a white sock fan, you're probably like, who are these guys, right? They all are, I mean, they're looking like core pieces of the white socks moving forward. They were all acquired from Boston. Yep. In the same trade that gave the Red Sox gear a crochet. And now when everybody, when that trade first happened, everybody thought this was a great trade for the Red Sox. The Red Sox got the ace that they finally needed. The white socks, they got pieces, because they were all prospects at the time. Very rarely do you see a trade like this that is, when I call it win-win, like air crochet was top, he was the runner up in the side young last year.

36:50I still have high hopes for him. I think this year, injury riddled, you know, you kind of chalk it up to that. But the white socks got three pieces, possibly a fourth that was kind of floating around, that could be impactful. And those are the type of things that a team like the white socks, we don't spend much and we talked about that. They have to develop, they have to find the talent, they have to put themselves in a position where they get these young guys coming up and producing. The white socks want to play off series before the Red Sox did after this trade. Like if you told me that when that trade was made, I tell you no way, the white socks just lost 121 games. So again, I commended the Padres for pushing and winning. If you're a team like the white socks, first of all, I think everybody should be spending money and putting the best product in the field, and for agency. But when you can't do that, or you're, don't have the means to do it. Don't have the means to it, hamstrung by it, finding diamonds in the rough. Because outside of, I mean, Teele Montgomery where high end prospects, Chase Mydrauth was not. He was a fourth round pick, contact guy. He was sort of the throw in. If you want to call it that in the trade, has probably the biggest swing of the entire series. This is a thing that I enjoy seeing as well

37:52that teams that can build from within, even though they were required by the trade, they were developed to the point where they got to the major with the white socks and they were able to make an impact. I love to see that. Yeah, and I love to see it too. And these guys have been great. How Teele, I think he started the season on the I.L. He got hurt during WBC. Ah, to see. And we talked about that too. We talked about WBC and injuries. Yeah, I think he played for Italy. And he got hurt, but I love him. I think he's been one of the top catching prospects and Major League Baseball for a couple of years now. He's been great. Chase Mydrauth, who we talked about, Montgomery. I love that young team. And more comedy than even really do much in this series. So, you know, there's still a little bit of time to see what he's going to end up doing. Or, you know, he has some time to kind of prove himself. He's been a character. He's done a lot on the TV. Yeah. And, you know, his post game interviews. He's been a lot of fun to watch. But I posed this question to you this morning because I was thinking about it on my drive in. Was this a true test for who they can be in the post season? And I asked that question because if you look at that

38:54minimade park, you know, where the Astros play, they had a quote-unquote home field advantage. There was no one there. There was no pressure. There was no, you know, there was no raucous crowds. You look at the complete opposite of what was happening or what's been happening in San Diego. The towel was waving, you know, every single pitch living on them. There was no one in Astros and minimade park. You know, they were booing their team. And, you know, it felt like the Chicago White Tocks were able to settle in. They weren't, you know, they weren't moved at all. It didn't feel like a true home field advantage. Now they're going to Cleveland where Cleveland, that's a raucous crowd. Cleveland rocks, you could say. Yes, nice. See? There you go. Blue, blue, right? There you go. Yeah, that's a crowd that it's going to be, you know, it's going to be the crowd. They're going to be loud and they're going to be in your face. And you know, I'm curious to see, I obviously don't know. I'm curious to see how those young guys on that White Tocks team react to it. They've obviously played Cleveland a bunch of times being in the same division.

39:55But that crowd is not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same place to the, what is that field? I think it's progressive. Progressive field. Yeah, it used to be Jacobs field. And it's been progressive. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to stat board you here. It's Dijkian Park now. Not minimade. Oh, it's not minimade. Wow. I'm showing my age. I know. I'm going to see the thing is when you go down these rabbit holes of stats, I'm going to stat board you if I have. No, I, so I apologize. No, no, no. Why did you become Dijkian Park? Two years ago, I believe I believe before the 2025 season. OK. I'm risking my stat board integrity here. Yeah, that's why I'm putting it. I'm putting it back on. So you're going to reverse. Who know me? OK. I see how it is. It's an interesting question because when you see these full post season slates, you're like, all right, these games are great. There are the teams that are going to have the 2 p.m. and the 5 p.m. And breaking news, people have work, people have school, people, unfortunately, as much as we all love to go to post season games, not all of this can. So it is a fair question. And there was a story that came out that one of the Astros relievers, Bennett Suza, I believe,

40:58kind of came out and said, yeah, the crab kind of sucked. Like it wasn't very good. And he caught backlash for that. But he wasn't wrong. It was kind of quiet. And it is a fair point to make that they didn't really get the full on the road. They looked maybe comfortable. Yeah, they settled in. In my opinion, I think they settled in. So I think you're going to have two conflicting things that are going to happen in this division series. You're going to have a white socks team that beat upset technically by seeds, a higher seed, and really didn't make it close. I don't really think many white sock fans were nervous at the end of those games. And on the other side, you're going to have a progressive field that is going to be jumping. There's going to be a lot of energy. You do that every year. They have high energy at that field. So something is going to give one of those two things. And we're going to see it. I think that's going to be such an underrated series. I hope that one goes five. The divisional ride match is great. Seven six, the white socks won the season series. Okay. So very close, very even match. The fun thing I like to say, the C and my stats, first playoff series win for the Astros

42:02since 2005 when they won the World Series. So over 20 years since the playoff series win. And who do they beat in that World Series? The Houston Astros. The Houston Astros. Yeah, they were in the national league. So it's very funny how it kind of come. That was like, Germain Dye. I want to say Dye Paul Kinerko. I'll be Janks, Reston Peace. Yeah, so there's there's Mark Burley. Mark Burley. I mean, there's a lot Pope Leo was there. I mean, AJ Przynski was he on that team? I believe he was on that team. I do, we do have to ask, is there, is there divine intervention here? I thought about putting a little, just sprinkling a little bit because of that reason. We saw the Nick's win and Pope Leo has tied. True, he was a Villanova guy. He has ties to Nick's with Nova and, you know, the Nick's had in one since 1973. There could be something, you know, going up high above, you know, the big man may be putting in some work. Yeah, is there like a holy parlay or something like that that someone can put together with like the bears and the white socks and then when the Nick's, maybe they all, it all interlap,

43:04maybe the white socks play long enough where you can get all three of those in there. I may, you know, I haven't done it yet. I put a little bit of money on the Padres to win it off, but I may go a little bit of a white sock. I mean, Padres means like father, right? So you can kind of sneak it in there. I guess if you want to, if you want to do that. Yeah, this one, this one was fun. I'm very excited to see. And in honor of more of Kami, I'm going to get drunk yesterday. You are. That's what he said. Yeah. Before he said no tomorrow, which I don't speak English. Yeah, he doesn't know. And, but that's the thing. I love when he's out of his shell and celebrating like that. Oh, it's awesome. The one when they clinched and then the one when they won the Wildcard series, those are things. And then Mike Vassel, who has had Tommy John, so he's been out all this year. He's got the wand. It's like they're a little gimmick and everything. Yeah. Those are the fun things about the celebrations and everything like that. Although I, if you're dead, when you're the red socks and you're down nine to two, like the Wally head after a Homer, read the, put it away. Yeah, I don't think we really need to send Wally, put them back on the truck and send them back to Boston. Yeah.

44:05All right. Well, real quick, who do you like? Guardians, White Sox, early preview. I was going to go Guardians, but based on our conversation, 30 seconds ago, I'm going White Sox. Power above, right? Or above. All right. I'm going to go, because we'll recap, because we're not on again till next Thursday. So we'll have some, we'll have the division series games. I want to say mostly concluded, if not still going on. Real quick. I think the Braves win today. Okay. I think the Dodgers beat them, because we all, you know, like that. I think the Podries are going to beat the Brewers. I do too. I think that is, I think we're on, see if we take a look at the, see look at that. We're getting directed. There's graphics and stuff. I think, I think the Podries just have that, that vibe. If you can split those games in Milwaukee and go back to San Diego, one, one, I think the series can end there. Yankees raise, I, I mean, I have to put the raise. I have to pick them, right? It's kind of like the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Yeah. I think you do. I'm going to go raise two. I don't feel comfortable saying that though.

45:06I know. I think that one's going to be, that one's going to be very good. I, I agree with you. I think the White Sox win it in five. I have a buddy who's a Cleveland fan and he likes to, you know, one of my friends or fans of the Red Sox and the Metz and the Yankees and he's like, oh, this, you know, the guard ball. That's, that's what he terms guard ball. Guard ball. It's, it's like using situational baseball, like bunting, stealing because they don't, they don't slug. No, that's guardian baseball right there. It is. Hence the term guard. Yeah. So I figured he probably would like to let the world know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The plug of, of guard ball. But I think that's it. I think we covered everything. I think so. Yeah. I think I'm going to throw about that raise pick that I just made. I don't feel comfortable about a lot of these, but that's, that's the, that's a sign it's going to be a good series. Yeah. I don't know. I, I may reverse right here and say Yankees. All right. We'll see if it, we'll see if that bites you. But that'll do it this episode of the podcast. We're marching along. This is going to be fun. So we'll be back next Thursday. We'll have some games of the division series in the book.

46:07If not some series wrapped up, depending how far they go. We'll give you the breakdown. We'll give our insight. We'll do all that stuff. But thanks for watching. He's Mario. I'm Dan. I'll see you guys next time. I, as Marcus Allen, throw football Hall of Famer, NFL, and VP and Super Bowl champion. I played football for a long time. One thing I've learned is nobody really knows what's going to happen next. Before the snap, you can study the defense, you can know the play and you can see the

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