 It is time to talk some baseball, August 30th is today and we are into September, September baseball where hopes have already died for some and others, it gets fun. Let's do it. Let's talk some baseball. We're talking baseball. Short and sweet. Jake gave me a face because it's like one day left of August. Is that what your face was? Yeah. It's August 30th. Well, there's two days, August 30th is August 31st, so I mean Sunday will be the first day of September. I already ran all around it. This is a new thing. I already ran payroll for August, so August is done. Right. August has passed. Yeah. And I fucking hate August with all my heart. Right. You got the fall weather. I mean, I understood what was happening in your brain, but I was just picturing someone listening to this at their desk and being like, wait, it's September and then it's like August 30th and they're a little bummed out. No, it's September. Okay. Happy September, everyone. Figuratively, it's September. Literally, it's whatever you want it to be, which is August. All right. Welcome to Talking Baseball. We had a little mini-episode drop yesterday. We hope you all enjoyed that, want to do that more in the future. We got to kind of iron out, iron those out. But this is a regular episode, series recap. I'm excited. A lot of stuff happened. I made the title of this. So many people got mad, Jake. The people got mad sections. The most full it's ever been. Whoo. Whoo. Yeah. Did you know that? I did see that when I was checking it out, the who got mad was big. I forgot. I forgot about big game, Keon Broxton. That's a really fun one. Yeah. I guess we'll get a lot of who got mad. A lot of people got mad. Yeah. So welcome back to Talking Baseball. My name's John Boyd, and I'm McCos Jake. If you're not familiar with us, every Monday, every Friday. And here's some other people you need to know. This episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by Matthew Hayes. Matthew Hayes. Geoffrey Muller. I bet he hates that. Jeffrey Muller. Yeah. I think Jeffrey's pretty active with my stuff, too. So if you could not geoff him, that'd be ideal. Don't geoff him? OK. And Ross N, which I think stands for Neptune. I think that's Rawson. Oh, it's just one. That's the bag they keep on the mound. Rawson. Rawson. Those are our most recent Patreon supporters. And hey, if you are not supporting on Patreon, it's patreon.com slash John Boyd media. And guess what? If you jump in today and tomorrow, like we said, there's two days left of August. If you jump in before the end of the day tomorrow, you will be entered into the raffle. And two of the Patreons will win a jersey of their choice from AffordableJersey.com. You get a free jersey. And you can go pick out whichever one you want. And I think if they don't have them, like you can be like, hey, can I get this number? Don't quote me on that. I mean, I'll ask if you want me to reach out. I think it's whatever you want. Get a jersey. So join up. Sign up. It's $2 a month. It really helps us. You get to be in the live chat here. We got Jim. We got Hayden. We got Joe's Fish hanging out with us. I'm sure more will come by. So if you are a Patreon, you're in the raffle. And I'll do it a couple days after the month ends. And we'll give out to jerseys. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, check out the Patreon. And this is going to sound like one of those. This would sound like a commercial that you would just change the TV off instantly and being like, that sounded sketchy. We might have some low-key, cool stuff coming for our Patreon people soon. So I would sign up. That's all I'm saying. And then you'd hear that, and you'd be like, what? I'm not signing up. But no, you should sign up. And also, I looked at our reviews, Jim. We're on 420 on the nose. So I mean, just blaze it. Wow. Just blaze it. This is something I don't know if I've done on talking baseball, but I do it on a lot of our other podcasts. Where's your head at? Tell the people what kind of mood you're in, so they know, wow, that take of Jake's, that was crazy. It's like, oh, it was because he was so hungry. Right. No, I'm not hungry. I had a nice little breakfast. Jim, I think we're both pretty refreshed. We had a Yankees off day leading into this. And we both did girlfriend stuff yesterday. We were just kind of laughing at our days yesterday. Would arguably hurt our streak. You can't hurt my street cred anymore. But it was a nice day. And I'm geared up, man. I told you, maybe it'll be a spoiler for Next Talk and Baseball. I might be getting lunch with a Major League player, no spoilers. But yeah, man, I'm juiced up. And like you said, I mean, September started today. It's that final run to the postseason, man. So I'm geared up, like you said. And I think the off day yesterday was a factor because we were a little less tuned in. But you're a little more checked out on the ale than you normally would be. I'm a little more checked out than the NL than I normally be. So I'm excited to dive into it and see what happened. How was your head space? Yeah, it sums it up pretty good. It's officially September. If you're not on board, if you're like, oh, no, there's two more days of August. I need to celebrate August. Get on board at September. Everyone's doing it. Yes, and the other thing that kind of put me over the edge on that, Jim, is I mean, some people started Labor Day Weekend yesterday. Labor Day Weekend is September. Like that's just a fact. Do you know I kind of don't like Labor Day Weekend? OK, let's get this out of the way. It's a bunch of people still trying to squeeze every drop of summer. Right. They're trying to wring summer out. And I'm like, why would you? We're done with that. Please stop acting like it's summer. No, I mean, I love any excuse for vacation. Labor Day and Memorial Day will always be the same holiday in my head, which I think is kind of offensive because Memorial Day has some actual background behind it. No, I went to the post office yesterday and our dear friend there, she said, happy 4th of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day. I'm not sure which one it is. And I was like, well, you know it's not the 4th. You know it's not the 4th. You know it's not the 4th. Don't push the 4th into. But I love that she mixed them all in. And she's a government worker. So you're allowed to say they're all the same. And a dear friend. No, I'm personally normally one of those, squeeze every ounce out of summer. But yeah, I mean, we're almost there. All right, let's go right into it. This is the National League Report. And it is brought to you by Roosevelt's shirts, Noval's, RSVLTS. Jake, our ship today. Love that. I got an email that said, your shirts have shipped. And I mean, even more important than that, me and Eleanor Roosevelt share a birthday, so. If you ask my grandma about Eleanor Roosevelt, and we have on last from the past that one time, she just said, very ugly. That's all she says. Yeah, it's tough. She might open it with nice woman, very ugly. Right. Which people have said about me, too, to be fair. Yeah, and you and Eleanor, you both get spruced up once you throw on a Roosevelt shirt. It gives you a little character, gives you a little flair. You walk in, conversation started like, damn, your face sucks, but that shirt is awesome. Anything to distract from my face is usually a big helper. You say, well, I got it from RSVLTS.com slash Johnboy. I put in code Johnboy. I got 20% off, and now I'm less ugly. And that's what you say when someone says that to you at the party. I'm just picturing someone tuning into their first talking baseball and being like, oh, my god. Jake's ugly? I think they're saying, yeah, voice is ugly, matches. I think they're saying, I hope these guys are cool. Otherwise, what's going on here? So go check out Roosevelt's. Go check him out. You a Roosevelt or a Roosevelt guy? I think I'm a Roosevelt. Yeah, I think I go back and forth. I'm not positive. I like getting a ruse out of you. Jim, for the love of all things, holy, can you tell me what happened in the National League? The National Split-A-Series with their proximity rival Orioles. And guess what, Jake? You have the AL Report, so I'm sure you got some more on it. They got shut out by the Orioles in game one. Wow. Wow. That is a game you walk back into the clubhouse and look around, and maybe just all cry and hold hands. Damn. Or you just say, hey, miracles do exist. What can you do? The Braves also split a two-game set with the Baby Jays. So no ground was lost or won in the NLEs. The Braves and Nationals both went one-in-one. The Phillies took two out of three from their in-state rival Pirates. They won game one via a walk-off. They lost game two in the ninth. Then blew them out in game three. Reese Hoskins had his first multi-hit game in 36 calendar days. Hush, kababoon. The Cardinals took two of three from the Brewers. Not good for the Brew Crew. There are now six games behind the Cardinals in the lost column. Yikes. That goes one or two more, and we're looking like lost cause. That is not good. The Cubs go from getting swept to doing the sweeping. They beat the Mets in three consecutive games and get back on the Cardinals' heels, while the Mets dropped to five games back in the wildcard. Also, one or two more dropages from the Mets, and that is also damning the Mets and the Brewers kind of on the brink of losing the things they want to win. The Marlins walked off in the fourth game versus the Reds. To avoid the sweep, they lost the first three. Good job, Reds. The Diamondbacks took two from the Giants. I think San Francisco Giants' hopes are officially down the drain as well. The Dodgers lost their first game to the Padres, but then won the next two to take that series from their proximity, Ribal. And that about sums up the National League, Jake. Jimmy, great stuff, man. Thanks. Proud of you every day. Thank you. I want to start here just because I saw it the other day, and it kind of blew my mind. You mentioned Reese Hoskins. I have more of that coming up in Slump Watch. OK, well, his stat line on the season, this is all I want to get out there. Reese Hoskins is, I mean, future baseball 101. 235 batting average, and you're like, OK, what's the on base? He's got a good eye. Is it 100 points higher? He's got a 380 OPP. His on base percentage about 150 points. So I just saw his stat line the other day, and I was like, wow, Reese, he's really going for it. Yeah, I don't know if I put him on Slump Watch, but I have another little caveat since it's the end of the month for Slump Watch. OK, well, it's a new month. It's a new month. Yeah, we're done with August, so. Yeah, so August has passed for Reese. Jim, the other thing that jumped out here, and I, A, this will be a mini plug for our mini so, the sister cities we did, trying to pair up some teams for the rest of the season. Jim, A, my Diamondbacks who I've decided to claim, you know, they're currently foreign. Braves, Diamondbacks, nationalists. I'm not actually claiming the Diamondbacks, but I thought it was funny you and I had a mini, because you were talking about the Mets. The Diamondbacks actually jumped the Mets in the wildcard standings. They're now the third team out. Mets, tough, man. And Jimmy, I'll give you a pat on the back, a pat on the butt wherever you want it, big daddy. Not the back, very sensitive back. I don't like that. I'll give you a shoulder rub. I know you love a good shoulder rub. Yeah, thank you. Jim, the Mets, man, Mets have lost six straight. And it's, like you said, I mean, the schedule was tough. Their schedule was brutal. And I think it's, and Jim, the bigger thing about the Mets was last episode of Talking Baseball, we were sitting here. They didn't lose any ground in the wildcard. And we were like, wow, you just got swept. It was the Braves. They got your number. It is what it is. Keep on keeping on. And then you go and do it again. I mean, that might be a knockout punch for the Mets. So, OK. So when the Mets went on their crazy stretch, Jake, and they dug themselves out of the gutter, and everyone was like, damn, it's back on. I sat here and I said, on this very show, that's great. Congratulations. I'm not really doubting you, but your crazy stretch came against the Padres, the Pirates, the White Sox, the Pirates, and the Marlins. So good, you did what you needed to do. But I was like, let's wait and see where they are at the end of this next stretch. And just to let everyone know, we're not done with this hard stretch for the Mets. And they are 8 and 10 in their last 18 games with this hard stretch, which was kind of what I was trying to warn people, like beating the Pirates and the Marlins doesn't make you a contender. It's fun and exciting. But now they've lost six in a row. And they have three games at Philadelphia, then at Washington, then they host the Phillies. So they got nine more games on this tough stretch. They're 8 and 10 in 18. They got nine more to go. So we'll see how it fares. But yeah, I mean, it was fun. The Strowman trade gave them a lot of juice and ammo, and excitement, and all the corny-ass Instagram posts were fun for the Mets. The schedule got hard on them fast. And Strowman, and this is kind of something I want to talk about when we do our trade recap, and I'll just do a little hint. Trading for Strowman was good and got them good momentum. Strowman himself has not helped them. It's been rather bad. No, he hasn't been great. The concept of the trade helped more than the player of the trade. Yeah, it's true. And I mean, they do have Strowman for next year, so maybe the Mets will have that. But yeah, and Jimmy, the Mets are 30 and 39 on the road, and they're heading to Philly. If they want to get involved in this again somehow, they're going to have to get hot on the road and at home, but against a lot of good teams. So right now, I think we've got to leave the Mets alone. They're one game over 500. Like you said, Jim, San Francisco is dead for now. I've got an interesting San Francisco thing, which I'm truly interested to hear your opinion. We knew this Giants run was going to come up short. They caught some magic at the right time before the deadline. They probably weren't trading Mad Bum anyways, but people were all over that. Jim, do you think the Giants, because they had a lot of relief pitching that they could have sold, do you think the Giants, even having these, I guess kind of two months of fun baseball that could have not been fun if they started selling off pieces, do you think it was worth it? Yeah, yes and no. Like I said this on one of the very early episodes of Talking Baseball. I lived in the Bay Area for 10 years, two trips. So many teams were leaving. Raiders were leaving. The, well, the Warriors left Oakland and going to the San Francisco. The Niners were supposed to be very good and then they fired one of the better coaches or parted ways with one of the better coaches. The Warriors are all they have. The Bay Area, it's tough because a lot of their teams don't give back to the fan base. Like Oakland trades away all their guys as soon as they're good. Right. The Raiders are leaving. The Niners were in the Super Bowl and should have continued to be good and they just like, well, now we don't like hardball. Jimmy G, baby. So in a sense, the San Francisco Giants very much play to that. Like we're loyal to our fans. We franchise our players, Posey and Bumgardner and the fan base likes it. Yeah. They eat it up. Now I'm sure there's some Giants fans that are like an official turnaround would be nice. Right. But there's also, and as Yankee fans, we kind of knew this like when Pasada and Jeter were like nearing the end, it was like, hey, do we want to smite these guys? They got us a bunch of World Series and that's how they are with Bumgardner and Posey and this whole crew, like they're still heroes. Yeah. And I think there's still some wiggle room for them to let it fizzle out nicely instead of shipping them away. And so I think next year, maybe we'll see more harsher rebuild and stuff like that. But I do think it served the fan base well to have exciting baseball throughout the year than an official like go in the gutter. But it's a unique situation to San Francisco. Yeah. And I guess that would be the right answers. Maybe they could have gone back and traded one or two relievers if they got like, you know, a prospect they could really get behind like, hey guys, you know, we're still gonna, let's go out there and compete. But I think if they walked away and they could say something like that, but it is a tough line. And Jim, I actually, I loved what you said at the end there because this is something in that I truly, you know, there's a lot of allure of the Yankees that's just smoking mirrors. There's something badass about a Yankee spring training that it's just like, oh, there's Reggie Jackson, huh? There's Andy Pettit. Like there's like the fact that you can do that. And like the Giants can have that. Like, you know, there's gonna be a day 10 years from now where it's like, wow, look at Buster Posey and Mad Bum and Mad Bum's yelling at all the pitchers. They're not listening to him. But it's still, it's nice. It's good to see those guys rings and, you know, Posey could be a hall of fame guy, all that stuff. So yeah. Jim Montgomery in the chat said the ones Bochi's retired, they can like officially move on. And that's true. So like, I don't think holding on for one last two months of fun. I think it might have been actually worth it for Giants fans. I like that. Because to be honest, whatever. What would they have got for Bum anyway? I don't think it was gonna be that high. No, and I don't think he's even the piece. I think it's a couple of the relievers out there that could have got a little value. Maybe Will Smith, I don't know. But yeah, no, I loved all that, Jim. I mean, a team that you mentioned, Jim, that I think is on edge right now is those Milwaukee Brewers. They are now four games back in the second wild card, 68 and 65, they're going, they're at Chicago. Milwaukee's gotta figure it out quick. Yeah. Yeah, it's getting scary. Bad time for Yellich to get naked. Strongly disagree. Distraction. The whole Rocks. If you don't know, Google Yellich and Roxanne because it's some of the best baseball going. I should have made, I'm so mad I didn't make that. But yeah, get on that if you don't know. Fantastic stuff. I know we kind of moved on already, but the Mets and Giants and so this kind of, the Mets had a Danny Atchafariah as a utility guy and they dropped him and picked up Joe Panic who got released from the Giants. And since that happened, Joe Panic for the Mets has played 13, he started 13 games, played 18. He has 15 hits, one double, one triple, no home runs, five RBIs, 268, 305, 268 batting average, 305 on base center, 627 OPS, okay? I know that's a lot of numbers. Danny Atchafariah, he got dropped by the Mets. The Braves who are better than the Mets picked him up and in the same time period, he has 10 games started, one home run, seven RBIs, four doubles, a 778 OPS. So less playing time, but he is a utility guy, but higher OPS and just like kind of better stats. And as we've stumbled into way too many times on Talking Baseball, Danny Atchafariah, one of the best defensive players you'll ever see in the field. So that's just like he's out performing Panic offensively and he's like years ago. The bigger thing, Jim, is it's just year by year and something analytics will never be able to measure. Let's be honest, both of these teams were taking a shot. If a Danny Atchafariah went 0 for 12 with the Braves, we wouldn't have been shocked at all. That's just what, this is baseball and it's, you know, throwing guys into the right situation at the right time and the Braves are having this, well, my Braves, they're having this kind of magical season where hey, Danesby Swanson went down, let's give Atchafariah a try. He played really solid. I don't know, who else needs to be mentioned in the NL, Jim? The Phillies had a nice win because they lost a series against Marlins. They come home and host the Pirates. They win the first game, they walk off, lose the next. Their closer, Narris blew two in a row. He gave up the lead in the ninth twice. One hits, one he walked to and then, you know, they moved him over and scored to blow it. And then they win big in game three. But that's nice and now they get to go play, the Phillies get to go play the Mets who have lost six straight and if they sweep them or they win that series then we're having fun. And Jimmy, Phillies kind of got to keep it up because that NL wildcard that we thought is going to be like this awesome race to the finish line, if the Phillies start to slip, I mean, Cub St. Louis fighting for the NL Central with the Nationals kind of breaking away and a couple sloppy weeks and we could have this wildcard pretty much decided, which is wild. Wild? Or not wild, I guess you would say. I think that works. I don't know if this is the end to the National League but I think this is a little faux pas to say, Jim. I love Bryce Harper, man. I really do. He plays his part. When I, when I, when you don't watch him regularly and you see the stats and you're like, oh, Bryce is only doing this this year, blah, blah, blah and then you hear some good stats, whatever. But when you watch him play, it's fun, man. It is. Well, if people, he upsets so many people and what I like start to think is sometimes I get upset like, how are you so upset about him? Like, come on. And I think if people didn't get upset, I wouldn't enjoy as much because I enjoy how much he plays the heel and how many people just fall for it. Like hook on and sinker and it's a whole thing. Yeah, it's great. I mean, you do, you do a couple of things and a couple of hair flips and people will turn on you a little bit. But he, how much he cares and hustles and all that. Like, I'm into it. My auntie Rhee's not a big fan, but I'm sorry. You know, he just had a baby and he's been going off since he had the baby. Yeah, dad's strength. It's a huge thing on R2C2. This is about the podcast. A lot of the players talk about once they have their first child and they go home and they realize like, ooh, baseball doesn't matter as much as I thought it did before. Yeah. And they're able to like leave it at the ballpark and then their game gets better. Maybe that's a mini episode. Maybe we need to find out one day like guys, guy stats, pre-dad and post-dad. I don't know. You find the guy that just like had a kid then like his life went to shit and now we're putting that in the spotlight. That kid grows up. He listens to talk and baseball, finds out his dad doesn't love him. It's gonna be tough. I don't know if we can do it. Thanks for listening. Jake, let me know what happened in the American League. Jimmy, in the American League, the New York Yankees, your New York Yankees, grab some of that good Seattle coffee. And they sweep the Mariners. They finish their West Coast trip five and four after they got swept by the A's. Good bounce back versus the Dodgers in Seattle. Some really fun pitching matchups in this New York Seattle matchup, including a great performance by our guy, Masahiro Tanaka. The Rays, they avoid being swept by Houston. They take the final game nine to eight. The Rays though, Jimmy, they're pitching being one of the best in baseball this year. Gave up 31 runs in three games. This isn't a math podcast, but that's just over 10 runs per game. How about that? The Red Sox, oh my God, they win both against my Colorado Rockies. So yes, technically another sweep against the Rockies, brutal. Another big series by upcoming free agent, Xander Bogart's hashtag, Bogart's Man Gets Paid. The Baby Jays, you mentioned them, Jim. They split two with my braves. The Bringer of Rain, he returned to Toronto. And Jim, the game Toronto won was one of those seven pitcher performances, 2019, baby. How about the Orioles? You mentioned them as well, Jim. They split the Beltway series, battled the Beltway. And like you mentioned, the Orioles shut out the Nats 1 game. That's baseball Susan. In the Centrale, it's bully time, Jim. The Golden Gophers, scratch that, college football season. The Twins sweep the Minnesota White Sox. Big Mike Panada with another win. Minnesota breaks the all-time, Jim, you're gonna love this. Minnesota breaks the all-time MLB road home runs in a season record. So even away from that wind tunnel in Minnesota. The Indians, they also sweep as they beat up on the lowly Tigers in three games. The Tigers combined to score three runs in three games. Quick math again, Jim. That's one per game. That's not good, the Tigers. Will never be Royals. As Kansas City hosted the athletics for four, the A's take three out of four. They blow out game one. Royals won the third game and games two and four were decided by one run. So for Oakland, kind of a win. You want the four games, but you take three out of four on the road. Speaking of Oakland, you know they took care of their business in Kansas City. You know Houston bullied the Rays just missing the sweep. And you know the hipsters of Seattle got dominated by the Yankees. Jimmy, Texas forever, my friend. They split a two-gamer with the Halos. Angels stop a five-game losing skid in game one, but they get shut out in game two behind Herado for Texas. And what a web gem by Deshields Jr. Go check out the highlights on that one. Wow. All right. A lot of things I like here. A lot of things. I love Minnesota sweeps. And this whole thing is a battle before they play each other, Minnesota and the Indians. Like how much space can Minnesota get before they play each other? How close can Cleveland keep it? So Minnesota sweeps, Cleveland sweeps. It stays three and a half games and they're playing each other very soon. Is it the next series or is it very soon? I think it is soon. I don't think it's the next. No, Tampa Bay is playing Cleveland, so that's a fun one in the AL. Ben Shapiro. So there's a while before this push and pull of how close can they keep it. Minnesota's at Detroit. Jim, this is what, as you were telling me about the MET schedule and you were on that, I was kind of all over the twins. They had the easiest schedule the rest of the way and with how good their offense is, minus the wind tunnel stadium. The easiest schedule the whole way. Yes, basically. So they're on a five game win streak now. They're at Toronto, Minnesota. I just think that three and a half games is going to be too much for Cleveland to overcome. Maybe I'm wrong. Again, like you said, if Cleveland gets them in the next series and can put a sweep up there, it's back at it. But I think the twins are good enough that with three and a half games, and we're already in September, like you said, I just think that's going to be too much to overcome. But I've been wrong before. Yeah. You want me to tell you some teams that have a better record than the twins against over 500 teams? Let's hear it, Jim. Let's twin hate with Jimmy O'Brien. It's not twin hate. It's just their schedule is so damn easy. Yeah. The White Sox have 30 wins over 500 teams. The twins have 26. The Toronto Blue Jays have 27 wins over 500 teams. The twins have 26. Also a lot more games by the Blue Jays. Blue Jays are 27 and 45. Twins are 26 and 31. Win. Tampa Bay 29 and 33. Twins 26 and 31. Of any division leader, the twins have the least amount, the worst record. Of all division leaders, the twins have the worst record against 500 teams because 2 thirds of their games are against terrible teams. Yeah. So. Yeah. Well, same with Cleveland. Until they prove me wrong in the playoffs, I'm right. And that's a great place to be. Hey, I'll just say this, Jim. I know you've been on Cleveland because I think you just like their team a little better. And why wouldn't you? I mean, they've got great pitching. They've got a couple more household names in the lineup. The Indians are 20 and 29 against teams over 500. Yeah, they don't scare me either. Yeah, I mean, there's a little push and pull there because you have to play the guys on your schedule. Like you mentioned, a lot of those guys are terrible. Kansas City, Detroit. White Sox. Who am I leaving out? The White Sox. So yeah, I mean, it is what it is. But, Jim, you were on the wind tunnel stadium. Minnesota breaks early September. They break the all-time home runs on the road in a season. That's impressive. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's impressive. I'm trying to think. Jim, I know East Coast bias, Yankee guys. Oh, tell them to shut up. The fun pitching matchups in Seattle need to be discussed. We had Tanaka, a Japanese native, versus Yusai Kukuchi, another Japanese native. So that's a fun matchup. Kukuchi was calling him Mr. Tanaka in the press conferences, which that's really good stuff. Because Tanaka's what, like 30? Kukuchi does some weird stuff, man. Like asking for new balls, tying his laces when they're not like, need to be tied. It's like, it was weird. And then the next game was Justice Sheffield for Mariners versus James Paxton for the Yankees. Those two got traded for each other in the off season. So it was two fun matchups. Dots connected. Tanaka is 30. I want to say Kukuchi's not that old. Kukuchi's 28. So Kukuchi was calling someone two years older than him, Mr. Tanaka. So that's a little ridiculous. But and the shit might be how it works there. Yeah, and that's fair. But yeah, Paxton Sheffield, like Jim mentioned, it's kind of everybody's, you and I were kind of having a giggle fest about it. Because it's what you want in sports. Oh, two guys were traded for each other. They're facing off. Sort of pitchers. Like, it's awesome. Yeah, so that was fun. Yanks kind of rolled that whole series after game one. What else do we need? I mean, the Tampa Houston we were all excited for. Yeah, it was different than what we got. But there was like, Verlander got ejected. Reddick got ejected. Tampa allowed so many runs. Like, Morton got blowed up, right? Morton got knocked around a little bit. You might even hear his name later, Jim. So yeah, I don't know. The series kind of didn't live up to it. But hey, Houston, man, Houston put up big runs against the Rays, which, I mean, just doesn't happen. The Rays have a lot of pitchers they go to. Normally they don't let themselves fall in that situation. Houston knocked them around. Yeah, the Rays' relievers. I mean, the starters didn't have a good time, but the relievers had just as bad a time. Yeah. Wow, that's tough for the Rays. But they don't lose that much ground, right? No, Tampa is one game back of Oakland. It's two in the loss column, though, Jim. I know that's big for you. That's what matters. And a couple big series for those teams. Well, A, Cleveland and Tampa, we got to start getting excited about that. They're facing off this weekend. And Oakland is at the Yankees. So we've got, I mean, four kind of playoff series in the AL. That's exciting. Good stuff. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Learn that. Yankees have it locked up. Houston's got it locked up. And Cleveland's coming for Minnesota. There's six games against there. Cleveland's going to have to do damage against Minnesota when they play them. Otherwise, Minnesota's got it locked up. Yeah. And Jim, I'm just going to leave the door cracked open. It's a lot of games. I don't think it's possible. But Boston keeps winning series. I know it's against my Rockies, which have been struggling. It is a West Coast trip, which we've talked about AL teams going out West. They're heading to Anaheim. If they could take care of business there, and if Oakland or Tampa can falter a little bit, they can maybe sneak back into this. But I mean, after this series in Anaheim, they got three against Minnesota, four against Yankees, three against Toronto, who are going to play at Toronto, who are going to play them harder than two against the Phillies. That's the stretch where you find out and spoiler. They're not in contention. Yeah, I don't know. Boston's a team that can't find a little magic when they need to. It doesn't seem like this is the year. It's not a little magic. It's a whole fucking book of spells. It'd be a little magic. It'd be a lot of magic. I'm trying to think, yeah, I think that's kind of it in the AL. I mean, and maybe the only thing keeping Boston semi-alive is the magical runs Boston sports has had recently. But I mean, outside of them, I mean, everyone else is DED dead. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's Houston, Yankees, Minnesota, Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa. Boston has the only half-life if they can run into your witchcraft and wizardry book you were talking about. I mean, everything else in the AL has almost gotten not fun. Do any of the losers excite us besides Toronto right now? In the AL? Yeah. No. Yeah, that's kind of tough. I mean, the White Sox have a couple young guys. White Sox have a good lineup. And I mean, they called up Pitching Prospect. Dylan Cease is still twirling it. Almost put him on Slump Watch, though. But yeah, I mean, Detroit, Baltimore, KC, Seattle, the Angels, Texas, those are kind of tough teams to watch right now. So sorry, AL. Shots fired at the end. Yeah, that was rude. Tough break. Do you feel bad about it? I felt a little rude. I'm normally a big AL guy. But yeah, that was tough. OK, all right. You want to move on? Yeah, I think it's time to stand out, Jim. Whoa, that's a new slang. And your Roosevelt shirt. No, no, no. Hey, don't give them extra sponsors. Geez. OK, sorry. All right, I don't have a sound effect for standout performance. But we're moving on to standout performances. I have a standout performance, Jake. And as I was putting this on here, I had a bunch of thoughts about it. Because first, I thought it wasn't deserving. So I had to kind of talk myself into it, quit delaying. My standout performance goes to Mike Clevenger. You said I like the Indians. I don't really like the Indians. I just, I like a race. And they're the one race in the AL. So I'm rooting for it to be close. You like them more than the twins, fair? I don't dislike the twins. I just dislike that people don't realize they're not real until they're real. OK? So I will gladly say, shit, I was wrong. And when I'm wrong, I'm currently not wrong. Anyway, Mike Clevenger, herky jerk, herky jerk motion. Of all herky jerk motions, I actually hate watching this man pitch, because it hurts my back to watch him throw the ball. But he had his best outing of his season, which is a shortened season because he had an injury. But eight innings pitched, only four hits, zero walks, 10 strikeouts versus the Tigers. Now, the Tigers are bad, and they're not scoring a lot of runs at all. So that's why I was like, damn, is this really a standout performance? But his team only scored two runs. So he was up against the ropes like, I need to keep this at bay. It was a close game. If it's 8-0, I'm not as impressed. And it being the longest outing of his season. And the other cool thing was, this officially dropped his ERA below 3, which is cool. That's like a big, significant thing. He now, he went from a 3.00 ERA to a 272 ERA. And the Indians have won eight of Clevenger's last nine starts. And in those nine starts, he has a 206 ERA. So he's doing big things for them down the stretch, a team that's hunting a spot, or division title. And he's pulling his weight. And Jim, I think one of the bigger points to make with that is, if Cleveland's in the wild card game, or if they win the central, or whatever they get involved in the playoffs, Mike Clevenger is their one. And I don't think a lot of people know that if you don't follow the Indians closely. You remember Kluber, everyone was on Bauer before he left town. Mike Clevenger is the guy you give to in game one. I mean, Bieber's really young. Plisac and Savalli, you might hear a little bit about him later. I mean, these are like young rookies or borderline rookie guys. Mike Clevenger is their ace. He's been good. Shut down the Tigers. He's been really good. I don't want to give the Tigers too much love, bud. Yeah, and I mean, a 272 ERA, obviously that's been really good throughout time. But people, Juice Ball era, that 272 is kind of like a 172 in normal years, to be honest. Thank you for being honest. I'm trying. Trying? Who's your standout performance? Jim, my standout performance. So much East Coast bias for me, dude. It's just an East Coast bias fest. I'm going with Marcus Simeon, the Oakland A shortstop. I give the A's love where I can, man. And Simeon, it's two for six day. OK, meh, whatever. Why's the honor, Jake? Well, the two were a home run and triple. The home run was with two guys on. The triple was bases loaded. So Marcus Simeon put in a seven RBI day, Jim. And I also like to take my standout performance to highlight someone that deserves it. Marcus Simeon, dude, he's on path for a seven war season. My guy. And if you're not a big war person, that's fine. And it can be misleading. But know that at the end of the day, it sorts out pretty well with the top players. And seven war is kind of just coming up short of an MVP year. Marcus Simeon could be a top five MVP guy. And this Oakland A's, Jim, I feel like whenever I talk about them, I give Olson and Chapman love on the corners. Give Simeon his love. And his story is really good, too, Jimmy. When they brought him into town from the White Sox, they thought he couldn't play the shortstop position. His first year at shortstop, 35 errors. I know errors can also be misleading. To a degree, 35 is a big one. They kind of just hammered it home. And they said, no, you're going to be our shortstop. We believe in you. He has become a plus defender at shortstop. And Jimmy, just to go back to that 2015 season with 35 errors, if you are into advanced defensive metrics, which are also flawed, his UZR is zone rating. It rated out as the worst shortstop season from 2002 to 2019. So it was bad, bad. So I want to give him some love. A guy that's probably going to be a top five MVP. He had a big seven RBI day from the shortstop position for Oakland, the yay. Good for Simeon. A lot of stuff in there I don't like, though. Right. Did you see who's leading the AL pitchers in war? Is it Mike Minor? Lynn Lancelin. Yeah. It's the biggest anti-war thing I could hear, like no Verlander, Garrett Cole, like those guys. Yeah. And I think that's the F4 number. War starts getting sloppy. So I think they get a little extra love for being in Texas, which Juice Ball era might not matter as much as it used to. So yeah, I mean, we like analytics, but people need to appreciate that analytics are just a piece of the puzzle. It's not a new puzzle. It's still the same puzzle just with a couple pieces added in, and you have to take them for what they're worth. Yeah, and UZR, DRS, errors. They're all in the same bucket for me, like cool. Look at those, and then mix them all together. But the UZR, DRS people, which is, I don't know what UZR stands for, DRS defensive run saved, those people that live and die by those just say errors are completely useless. And it's like, no, errors aren't useless. They are misleading sometimes. Other times they're not misleading. Like you have to take so much more into account. Yeah, like I think Matt Chapman won the platinum glove that year, last year I think, and it was he had like 19 errors, but like that doesn't matter, because everything else was just, oh my god, amazing. Well, he gets to balls other guys can't get to, so he makes errors on plays that other people can't even put a glove on. Right, that would be a double anyway. So UZR's ultimate zone rating, again, it's not a perfect stat, but again, it's what you take from it. And the fact that Simeon's 2015 is the worst ever measured out by a good degree, you can say, okay, that was bad. Tim Anderson has something like that going on, like he led. Yeah, he was the second, he was the second. Also Simeon says that Chapman being so good at going to his left allows Simeon to not even worry about going to his right. And isn't that funny, Jim? Because it's a team sport after all. Tell me where advanced stats would measure something like that, you know? So yeah, and that's, hey man, the A's are so fun. I mean, we saw them whoop up on the Yankees, but dude, when you talk about a third base, shortstop, first base like that, I mean, that's one of the best in-fields in the game that a lot of people probably don't know about, not to be rude to Oakland. That's true. All right. Slump watch. Slump watch, yeah, slump watch. We got some updates here, and then I put some new people on, Jake. Are you ready? Give it to me, I'll react, Jim. Update, Josh Hader, he's been on here for a while. He was coming off his first clean outing, but it was not in a save situation, so he said that doesn't count. He had a two inning save. He came in in the eighth inning to a 3-1 ball game. Then the ninth inning, it was 4-1 at that point, and he faced the heart of St. Louis' order. I think he faced like the 1-7 batters in a close game. I'm gonna take him off slump watch, but I mean, if he blows his next one, it's very disconcerting again, or concerning. Yeah, we thought about it last time, but it was pretty soft. This is, I mean, two-inning save. That's what they asked from Josh Hader. He's off. No claps. And that's tough. Hader would have to do like five strikeouts and two innings to get claps. Jose Berrios, you put him on here a couple after his last start. He had a start yesterday. Six innings pitched, seven hits, three earned runs, eight Ks. Quality start, seven hits, eight Ks. He's off, but no claps. No claps. Quality start gets you off slump watch. Okay. Pugnet, O'Dore. Your guy. Hitless again. Oh, I didn't check this shit. I did this last night and their series wrapped up yesterday. So in the first two games, he was hitless. And I was like, oh, what did he do in the last game? Did he even play? Oh, it was a new series anyway, but he's still hitless. Bummer. Wow, dude. So he is now, man, that's a big time yikes. O'Dore is now hitless in his last nine games. Oh, for 28, two walks. I mean, yikes, O'Dore. Yikes. That's tough, Roganad. You are locked into slump watch. This is a fun update. Bubba Starling, the former top pick, Royals brought him up. He had, we had said he's getting off slump watch either because he's going on the bad watch and we don't care about him or he's getting himself off in a positive way. He comes out the gates with a three hit game. Then he had another hit in another game. He goes four for 11 on the series, four 17 on base percentage. Comes out the gates with a three hit game. He's off slump watch. And you know what, Jake? I'm clapping. I'm giving two claps. Good for you. All right. Hey, when you're on the verge like that, a three hit game, that's big. That's clutch by Bubba Starling. Daniel Vogelback, Chris Farley in Seattle. He played two games against the Yankees, didn't get a hit, drops to 119 batting average in the month of August. He has 26 strikeouts in his last 20 games. Vogue's, you're still on slump watch. Yeah, tough. He was kind of tough at bats to watch, too. Not to be rude to Danny V, but he never nervous watching him at the play. Well, he got a hold of a Tanaka pitch, but he didn't swing through it. It was like a check swing to the center field. And if he put together like a full swing, he probably would have got going. But I think he's hesitant to do anything. Stuff. Charlie Blackman, you put him on here. And we said it's probably a slight slide. He has a three hit game versus Boston. They played two games at 0 for 5, the next game. I think like, you know, three for 10 on the weekend. He got ejected as well. So and some calls were rather poor. I think he's off. He's definitely off. Three hit game seems like you're normally going to get off. Yeah. Ozzy Albie's, 1 for 8 with two walks. And his hit was an RBI double. This one's confusing. Jim, I think this is where my love for the Braves, my backfire, I want to leave Ozzy on there. He's got to prove to me a little more. OK, being tough love. That's tough love, baby. Tough love it is. Wake up, idiot. You're not paralyzed. It's my favorite line from that scene, from towel day nights. Anyway, Trevor Bauer and Jalen Beeks did not pitch. So they are still on here. Here are my new additions, Jake. I was in charge of stuff watch this week. Yeah. Ryu for the Dodgers. I know. He faces, and this is technically next episode. But it happened yesterday, and I can't not talk about it. Right. Two back to back seven earned runs performances from one of the best pitchers in baseball this season. He went four and a third with nine hits and seven earned runs versus the Yankees. And he followed that up with four and two thirds, 10 hits, seven earned runs versus the Diamondbacks. What the hell's going on, Ryu? Not good. And Jimmy, it's the NL Cy Young. I know you and I weren't super stoked about an awards episode. I think we're going to be able to have a lot of fun with it. Because Ryu, in these past couple of starts, kind of slipped out of the Cy Young favorite. It might be Kershaw again, this old Clayton Kershaw, who some people look at as the third best on the Dodgers. He might sneak his way into another Cy Young. The awards are actually getting pretty fun. And I mean, in the AL, now it's looking like Kohler Verlander. So it could be a teammate's battle for both Cy Young awards. That's fun. That is fun. We'll get into that. We'll do an up-down. Justin Upton, two for his last 27, and his last eight games, he's got a 0-7-4 batting average. That's not good. And Justin Upton still has some pretty serious money on the books. And I'm just looking for people that can help Mike Trout. So come on, Justin. Get it going. Josh Hayward, speaking of Jays, we, like a while ago, we were talking about Hayward's actually having a good season for the Cubbies. He is. Well, he's not having a good August, and he did not have a good series against the Mets. And the Cubs won all three games, but he was hitless. And his month of August is 163, batting average 287 on base percentage, 613 OPS. Not good. Yeah, his numbers are quickly coming very close to his career numbers. But dude, his defensive highlights are super cool. But that's not what Slump Watch is about. You threw Charlie Morton on here. And his last five games started as a 4-6-6 ERA. Last nine innings pitched. Nine earned runs. Four walks to hit by pitch. August is the toughest month for pitchers and relievers, starters or pitchers in general, I guess. Like a lot of guys that are, they hit that wall. And that's why it's such a fucking tough support to put together a full season is so impressive. And that's, I mean, it was a tough break, but that's why I threw Charlie on here. Because he was battling, as of like three weeks ago, people liked him over Verlander and Cole. And he might have played his way out of the Cy Young race due to that. So tough break, Chuck. So what I did was, before we move on, I looked at the month of August, Jake, and I took every single hitter that was in the top 200 for plate appearances, which I think was like 70 plate appearances was the minimum then. It was top 200. Who has the lowest OPS? I wanted to see if there was any big fish on there that had. This is basically the month of August since it's officially over. Here's what we got. Bubba Starling had the worst August, OPS-wise. Then names you're not going to know. Jake Rogers, Logan Forsythe, Alex Gordon for Kansas City. And then his buddy, Chesler Cutbert, Kansas City. Todd Frazier, he had the seventh worst, OPS in August. Josh Reddick for Houston, that was a little surprising. Buster Posey and Manny Machado come in at 10 and 11. Wow. Yeah, tough times for Machado recently. Bad August, that was basically it. Hunter Renfrow, Laurie Garcia, Oscar Mercado, Kevin Kiermeier, but Kansas City had three in the top five lowest OPS in the month of August. Starling, Gordon, Cutbert. Not good, Casey. Not good. But I think Reddick, Machado, those are the biggest fish on there. Well, it's good. All right, moving on to the upper side. Dirt nasties on Fuego. That means I'm on fire, baby, like Waco. Jimmy, I want to start off with your dude, your guy. Yamo, Yadier Molina. Yadier puts up a 7 for 11. 7-11, how about that, Jim? With three home runs from the catcher position for St. Louis. And again, that was a big series against the Brewers. He's a guy that he always finds a way. I feel like whether it's his good years or his bad years, he finds a way towards the meat of that St. Louis lineup. And I mean, he's the leader. He's the heart and soul of that team. So it's almost any time he does something good with the stick, it's a multiplier. It multiplies the crowd. It multiplies the team. Yamo and Fuego. Good for him. Good for him. Good for the St. Louis Cardinals. And first in that NL Central, we didn't talk about them. And now they're starting to go away a little bit. Jim, this guy almost won my standout performance, because it's a very similar story. Xander Bogarts, man. He goes 5 for 10 against the Rocks. In cores, I get it. Three of those five are home runs. And Jim, his year is starting to get silly. Bogarts, and this is going to sound rude and Yankee fans, but Bogarts was one of the last of your concerns when you were playing the Red Sox for the past seven years or so. He's got 30 homers, 100 RBIs, 311, 389, a 967 OPS from the shortstop position in a free agent year. Homie's going to get paid paid. Yeah. It's Xander's year. I mean, not the best year for the Red Sox, but he had a great time out there. If you told the Red Sox fans before the season that Bogarts endeavors from the left side of the infield were going to do what they did this year, I think Red Sox fans would have told you, oh, we might break 1-16 this year. Yeah, true. That just shows you how baseball goes, people. Jim, East Coast biased. I had to throw on Mikey Ford, a guy who is in Flago and might be sent down in the matter of hours. And Jim, you know this, but the extra fun behind this. He hits three home runs against the Seattle Mariners. The Seattle Mariners took him in the Rule 5 draft a season ago. He came through, he did spring training with them, and they said, nah, we're good. Catch you later. So that had to be a really good feeling against his former team. And as we gave analytics a little jab earlier, we should give analytics a little love with Mike Ford because all those analytic peripherals were there. You and I had some of our doubts. It came through, and he looked like a beast against Seattle. Yep, Mike Ford. Yeah, Seattle said they only had one beef. He first baseman DH already, so they had to get rid of Mike Ford. No room on the roster for, I mean, you can't have Vogle back and Mike Ford on the same roster. You can't. No, Mike Ford with that weekend softball player, Fazeek, but he makes it work. Jimmy, a fan favorite of this podcast, came in like a wrecking ball. Aristides Aquino shows up again for the Cincinnati Reds. He's six for his last 18. OK, not super crazy. Another two homers in a stolen base. Jim, he's been insane. You know I love having some fun with stats. A, he's hitting 330 with a 1.197 OPS. If you prorated his games played, Jimmy, he's basically on pace for an 80 home or 180 RPI season. So expect that next year, right? Yep, lock that in. Lock that in. Aristides. Jim, I think you're going to like this. Aristides Aquino might be guaranteeing himself a bad next year because he's playing too well. Well, I'm worried about once they find his flaw and they find the hole, which they will. Every great player besides Mike Trout, you know, you can figure it out eventually for a little bit. And then it's up to Aristides to respond. I hope his correction isn't like to change his batting stance because it's the most fun batting stance in MLB right now. Most fun batting stance. Yeah, Pence, if you're in a keeper league, take them or just get that first overall pick because he will go 80 home runs, 180 RBIs next year. Jimmy, I mentioned Cleveland before. Aaron Savali, A-O Savali, huh? Jim, he's a rookie for Cleveland. Six major league starts. He's never given up more than two earned runs in a start. He has a 196 ERA. He's a rookie. He's a Connecticut guy, Jim. And he's a Northeastern guy. This guy basically speaks to my soul. Who is he faced? He's faced some teams. You saw him against the Yankees. I know, but six games, never more than two runs. I mean, it's an impressive start. I mean, I think there's a couple AL centrals in there that will, I don't want to say. Two against Detroit, one against the Mets. At Minnesota is impressive. Yankees is impressive. And Texas. Yeah, so I mean, he's faced some real teams. Gave up his first homer. His first homer came against Detroit in his sixth start. The guy's got a nice pitch mix. And Jim, I know we've been saying, if you're one of these lowly teams, hire your hitting person from the Yankees, hire your pitching person from Houston. Hey, if you don't get the guy from Houston, go to Cleveland because they're doing it right over there. Dwall Lugo hit the homerun off him. What'd you call me? Fuck if I know that name. Is that wall Lugo? Dwall, D-W-L-D-A-W-E-L, Dowell, Dwall. Tigers fans, this is your shot. Reach out to at Johnboy, at Talking Jake, and tell us about Dwell Lugo. They say it's pronounced Dowell, Dowell Lugo. He played 27 games last year, 51 that I don't know that is. Yeah, I don't have the full scouting report in front of me. Well, he popped Savali. That's tough, man. Savali, you're cruising. You're killing it. You haven't given up a major league homerun. You're seeing Aaron Judge. You're seeing Pete Alonso in his magical year. And the guy who gets you is Dwall Lugo? Yeah. That's tough. Hey, man, don't feel bad. Dwall Lugo also got his first career homerun off Josh Hader, Aaron Brooks, and Kyle Gibson. Likes the big names. And Jimmy, I'll tighten it up. Andrew Haney with the Angels. His last three games started 21 innings pitch, 30 Ks to a 171 ERA. Hashtag, help Mike Trout. And Jim, this guy, he deserves to be on here. Masahiro Tanaka from the Yankees. Your guy, 27.1 innings pitched, a 2-3 ERA in his last four. And one of those, I know you can only chop it up so much, Jakey, but there is three runs in the first inning of that Oakland game, which was just a mess. But Jim, combine that with his career playoff starts, 30 innings pitch to the tune of a 1-5 ERA. If Tanaka stays right for the Yankees, that's huge. And he just looks great. And I'll give it to you on that. The new ball in the lower seams, he lost his splitter. And he was trying to change his mechanics all season. And finally, they're like, well, none of those are changing anything. And his mechanics are pretty much the same. So they had to do a completely new grip so we can get more lace and more drop on his splitter. And it seems to be, it's not like back to normal, but it's effective enough that he has a splitter now, where before it was just a bad, bad fastball. Yeah, if you have a buddy out there that's not buying the juice ball era, look up the Tanaka splitter story. He literally got a ball from- And there's no one denying it. The MLB himself is like, yep, the balls are reduced. Oh, Jim, you live on Twitter. I'm sure there's a couple people out there fighting it and like, no, Kettle Marte is a power guy now. Sorry, Kettle, that was a low blow at my Diamondbacks. Jim? We had a new sound drop for who got mad. Oh, well, who'd the Orioles get hot? Oh, I need to get, damn, right? Oh, the Gary Thorn clip, it's not there? No, I don't have it. Well, Jim, and maybe that's, you know, the good Lord pointing in us to the right direction. I'll leave it to you on this. I was gonna give some claps for the Orioles. They had a shutout. Yeah, they did. They had a shutout, Aaron Brooks with the shutout for the Orioles, that was very nice. He's got a couple, I was seeing if that was his best performance this season, it's not, he's done it before. I was seeing how many times the Orioles have held the team to a shutout. They've done it a couple of times. They shut out the Indians. They beat the Indians 13-nothing, two games in a row or something like that. It was wild. Anyway, good job by the Orioles. They didn't get anyone hot. It was only two games though, so that was good. They were on a stretch there. Proud of them. This is the fun segment as this runs a little long and we got a new sound drop. I forgot who tweeted this at me, but it's a good sound drop for who got mad. What is, that is so bad, that is absolutely brutal. That is unbelievable. That is totally absurd. Hawk Allison. That's really good. He got mad a lot. All right. There's so many people that got mad. Let's do the Houston Astros first. Justin Verlander gets ejected in the middle of a game. They're winning nine-nothing. He throws a three-two, two-two pitch. He thinks it's a strike. He says the ump's been calling that pitch all game. Ump doesn't give it to him. The next pitch, the three-two pitch, goes for a double. Verlander, Verlander was yelling at him, like, that's bullshit. And the ump's like, it's outside. He's like, you've been calling that all game. I've had enough. And Verlander goes, outside my dick. And he gets thrown out right away. I don't know. I saw you tweet that you thought this was brutal. I think it's, I don't know if it deserves an ejection or not. I think it rides the line. Like Verlander was very much turning and yelling at the ump for one pitch in a nine-nothing game. I don't think Verlander's excused being a fucking dick baby. The two things that triggered me, Jim, is that, A, there's some unwritten rules in baseball. You know, we see Big Aaron Judge do it all the time. Aaron Judge, whenever he talks to an ump, he puts his head down. So in theory, everyone at the stadium doesn't think Aaron Judge is fighting with the umpire. But Aaron Judge puts his head down and he says, hey man, that pitch is low. And like, you have to know that. Yeah, Verlander didn't do that. Justin Verlander, he gives up the hit and he squacked at him twice. And then he turned around, he's facing second base and he turned his head a little bit. But you can't do that. If that was Justin Verlander's last piece, he wasn't going to come back and give you anything else. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, he did not do what Aaron Judge and what those players do. Anyone at the stadium knew Verlander's yelling at the ump right now. Right. But the other thing is, I mean, for baseball, Jim, it was what, the sixth inning, he'd been through 5.1 or something like that. How many people in the building came to see Justin Verlander, the Hall of Fame pitcher, and how many came to see the home plate umpire throw him out? And don't get me wrong, I get it. If there are lines, I totally understand. But for Justin Verlander in that game, in that situation, and like you said, for you, it teetered the line. If it teeters, don't do it. And I personally don't think it teetered, but. I also think that's an argument. I think fans go to games hoping to see an ejection these days. The guy, I think that's on people's wish list. Verlander going six innings of shutout ball. And if he just completes that sixth inning and fans go home, they're like, yeah, we saw a great Verlander outing. Fans now go home saying we saw an ejection. I'm not trying to say like we should inject people now, but you can't say fans didn't enjoy that more than not getting ejected. The fans love that stuff. I mean, to a decree, but it's like a, I don't know, it's a Band-Aid. It's not a long-term solution for the growth of baseball. No, it's not. And I mean, it was a little quick, but I just don't think Verlander's kind of excused, excused. Yeah. Hall of Famer. Hall of Fame angry guy. And his teammate, Josh Reddick, got ejected later on, got called a ball, speaking of Aaron Judge, a ball that, per the stats, Judge gets called on him, the second most in baseball. Carpenter gets called the most on the Cardinals and then Judge. Reddick got it called on him in a one-run game. He thinks he gets to walk in the ninth inning, tying run on base, and ump rings him up. He goes, it's fucking terrible. Ump. Jordan Baker's name, I think it was like 6'6". Tall ump, throws him out right away. Ninth inning game, no real damage there, but a bad call. Told him it was a fucking terrible call. He's out. Yeah, don't tell Astro fans that would have been tying run on base. No, I'm saying the ejection. The bad call is brutal. I guess the ninth inning, there's one out of way. The ejection is like, he didn't miss any game that he would have played. Yep. The bad call is bad call. Keon Broxton, my favorite ejection. Ump was pretty brutal in this game. I forget who it was. And some in Garcia, I don't know. Anyway, Keon Broxton's walking away. And he's leaving his bat and his helmet. And he throws it all down. And as he's walking away, he's throwing his batting gloves backwards towards all of his equipment, so it's all in one place. But he just whips it. And it's right by the ump, so you kind of got to know. Hits the ump in the face with his batting club. Ump immediately ejects him. This is the one ejection. Now, probably not the one, but I'm firmly on the ump side here. I understand it was an accident. I understand he was not trying to hit the ump with his batting glove. But if you hit the ump with the batting glove that you throw, you have to get ejected. Like, there has to be some sort of kind of society amongst this. If the ump doesn't eject in there, I think that umps a pussy. Like, you've just lost the game. You got hit in the face with a piece of flying equipment at a guy who's mad at you and you let it slide. You've lost control of the game. So they suspended him for two games. I think that's fucked up. But the ejection's funny and worthwhile. We saw there's a lot of tweets saying it was a soft ejection. And it partially was. Like, yes, it was an accident. And he got hit with a glove. But what's softer, getting hit with a glove and not getting ejected? Because, yeah, the ump would have gotten just walked out. You can't have players hitting the ump with stuff. No, you can't. Like, even if it's an accident, then the next guy can accidentally do it again. Yeah. So it's just a hard line there. And a very necessary hard line. You hit the ump with a piece of equipment and you throw, you're ejected. Reminds me of that Brett Favre clip. Remember when he was throwing the ball to the line of scrimmage and he hits the referee with it? And the referee's about to throw a flag and Favre's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And it was like, legitimately, like, such an accident. And do you remember this? The other refs had to come tell that one ref. Like, it was really an accident. That guy, like, don't flag him. Yeah. But Favre wasn't mad at the ump at the time, which is a little different. He wasn't doing that of anger. That's also true. Amir Garrett got ejected on the Reds. You remember him from the brawl with the pirates? It was pretty, pretty nothing ejection. He walked a batter and the guy swung. They called it a non-swing. And it was probably a swing. So he walked the guy. He's coming out of the game. And as he's coming out, he says some things like, I don't know what he said, but, you know, bad call, bad call. And they just eject him. Again, he was coming out of the game anyway, so it's like he cares. Some non-ejection mad, Jake. Liam Hendrick wrote an article or spoke with the writer for the athletics that he's mad at the Warriors. Says, when the Warriors were bad, Oakland A's used to take them to games and, like, hook them up. And they were like a team. Now that the Warriors got good, they don't even like give the A's tickets. The A's players, Liam Hendrick was told, because they share a parking lot, that he wasn't allowed to drive through a parking lot. And the security guard told him, Warriors fans are more important than A's players. So he's got a grudge. And he should. And he should. You have to take some of the ticket stuff. I mean, that gets tricky. 25 guys on Oakland, September call-ups. They're probably going to have 30-plus dudes on the roster. Yeah, that's a, I mean, it's cold. I'm kind of with both sides here, except the attendance saying, Warriors fans are over Oakland players. You can't go that far. Can't do it. And then Richard Blyre on the Orioles, he had a screaming match with the third base coach, who also is in charge of defensive alignments. So he was pitching for the Orioles. I didn't look at it. Some ground balls got through that he thinks shouldn't have got through because of defensive shifts. And they just started screaming at each other in the dugout. Then he says, let's go downstairs. So they go out of the camera well and they scream at each other some more. I hate you, Dick Blyre. I hate you. It's wild. A lot of people got mad, man. It's a mad week. People, dude, end of August, Jim. That's what I'm saying. Dog days. People are frustrated. People are frustrated. Next up, what's this? I have a sound bite for this. Hello. Call up, watch. You're in the big leagues now. All right, you're up to the show, kid. Seth Brown for your Oakland athletics. We got to breeze through these. 19th round pick, 27 years old, played three games in left field. He went three for 14. And his first two professional bats, he had a single in each. So good for you, Seth Brown. There's no real big ones here. Tyler Rogers for the Giants. He faced three batters, got three ground outs, relief pitcher. Jim, he's the twin of Taylor Rogers on Minnesota. So that was fun. I'm out. Sam Hilliard, Colorado's 31st round pick, 25 years old. He played two games in center field. In his first start, he went 0 for 2. Then he got a walk. Then he hits a home run in his first ever big league game. So it ends up being a great success for Sam Hilliard. Yeah, my rocks are a little excited about him. He was having a monster year. But a lot of people do in Albuquerque. But they're going to give him a chance in Colorado. Rico Garcia, 30th round in 2016. He is also for Colorado, so they brought up a couple guys. He got a start versus Boston. Jackie Bradley, Jr. hit a home run off him. Then Vasquez hit a home run off him. So whoa, those are two guys that you don't want to hit home runs off of you. Then Xander Bogarts hit a home run off of him. Rico Garcia got lit up. It wasn't a good start. Yeah, tough for Rico. Jim, just final note on Sam Hilliard. He had 35 homers, 22 stolen bases. Toolsy, Jim. Toolsy. Toolsy. Toolsy. End of the call-up watch. Someone in the chat, Anthony Vella. So he's in the chat right now. And I think he says he's like 20 minutes behind. And he wanted to let me know that Target Field is actually a pitchers park, not a wind tunnel. So he's going to be very upset when he catches up to the part where I said Minnesota has an easy schedule and all that stuff. So I'm sorry, Anthony, if you get to that part. But also, I don't care what it used to be this season. It's a wind tunnel. I've watched a lot of series, the Braves game, the Yankee series, a lot of series. And there's something going on. The juice balls are magnets there. Yeah. I don't know, if you're a Twins fan and you've watched your home games and you try to tell me that it's not a wind factory, you just lie into my face, right? Or are you just in denial? Well, I think the bigger thing they want to get across is with the road home runs. Like, their team can hit home runs. Sure. But the home stadium is black. They got power hitters. Yeah. Because technically, according to fan graphs analytics or baseball reference, Yankee Stadium is the least park factor on the season. Yeah. And everyone knows Yankee Stadium is a short porch. So it's a wind tunnel. If you're a Twins fan and you're denying that, you're in denial. I've watched a lot of games there. I've been tuning in since I found out. And there's a lot of balls that just fucking go and go. You're like, what? So yeah. Another day. Give us your award, champ. Awards. My award is the last man standing. Wow. It's the NL Central. I just checked. I feel like this is wrong. But according to what I checked, the NL Central is the only division without a team mathematically eliminated. Yeah. Out of all six divisions, every division has at least one team mathematically eliminated. You have Toronto and Baltimore in the AL East. You have Kansas City and Detroit in the AL Central. Seattle in the AL West. Miami in the NL East. And Colorado in the NL West. And it says the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't been mathematically eliminated yet. The NL Central, because it's such a shit show. Last division standing. They got all five guys. Good for them. Congratulations on your victory. Proud of you, NL Central. You did it. King of the Hill. King of the Hill. OK. Jim, I'm giving out one of the more glorious awards. Players just fiend for this award. I'm giving out the Good Take Jake award. Wow. And it was funny. I mean, I have good takes. I have bad takes. I have soft takes, Jim. I don't know if you saw my softest take from this week was, when pitchers accidentally throw at guys' heads, why don't they just give a quick, like, my bat? Like, I know there's a slight, like, well, I want them in the box in fear. But like, in basketball, if you foul a guy hard, like, I don't know, they give him a, like, my bat, dude. That was just a hard foul. Yeah, I think sometimes pitchers have done it. Like, I've seen some. But it's like, very rare. And it's like, guys, get over it. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So that was my soft take. But Jim, the Good Take Jake award, it's going to Carlos Carrasco. It's Friday. Maybe you're listening Saturday, too. I wanted to get us near a high note at the end, although we'll see where Elevator Talk lands us. It's the 1st of September. Jim, Cookie's Carrasco, he's going to start Sunday. He's coming off the aisle. Cancer. He got diagnosed with cancer earlier this season. And he's going to start for Cleveland. So, again, we're put in August behind us. I'm going to cry. Oh, yeah, it's going to be a crazy scene on Sunday. You probably want to tune into that. And by the way, Carlos Carrasco, when he's right, he's really damn good. From 2016 through 2018, he had 87 starts to the tune of a 3-3 ERA with more than 10 strikeouts per inning. So he could have a serious role in this playoff race. Just the fact that he's back playing baseball, though. I don't know. I wanted to give everyone good vibes heading into the weekend. And yeah, you might get your allergies kicking in with some waterworks on Sunday. I'm a crier, big-time crier. Same. Same. All right, Elevator Talk. Elevator Talk, let's get it. Let's get it. Cleveland Indians. Wow, Jake just gave you the biggest piece of the puzzle. Would you look at that? Cleveland Indians. So all right, all right. If you're an Elevator with a Cleveland Indians fan, these are the talking points. One, do you think we can catch Minnesota? We got to keep it close so that when we get them, we can do damage. I mean, that is one. You can talk about Carrasco coming back. That's a good touching moment. You can tell some people, if you're an Indians fan and you want someone to tune in that isn't die-hard or maybe someone who just likes the human element, then hit him with Carrasco's story, because sometimes feel just like rooting for humans, not teams. And that's when he takes the mound, you're going to want to root for that guy. Yeah. I think you start with Carrasco. You say maybe you throw Jose Ramirez out there. You're like, man, I don't know if he can get back. But if we could get him back for the playoffs, that'd be huge. This team could be special. That's kind of sucking up to them a little bit and playing the injury bug. And Jim, the other thing that I was on, I mean, I mentioned the, if you're a bad team, hire the Yankees hitting person, hire the Astros pitching person. Dude, throw the Cleveland Indians pitching people into this equation. Shane Bieber, he's 24, 27 games started, a three, two, three ERA. Zach Plisac, he's 24, 16 games started, a three, four ERA. And where's our other guy, Sivali? I was talking about him. Six starts, a one, nine, six, he's 24. Whatever they're doing in Cleveland, they got it figured out pitching-wise. Talk about that. Do you know who the Indians brought up to replace Ramirez? Who'd they bring up to replace Ramirez, Jim? They brought up a kid named Yu Cheng. Oh yeah, my guy. From Taiwan, 24 years old. Yu Cheng, well, his full name is Yu Cheng Cheng. Yes, with an E, right? In the first name, it's Yu Cheng with an E. And then the last name is Cheng with an A. Yu Cheng Cheng. Yeah. Yu Cheng Cheng, it sounds like a song. Yu Cheng Cheng. Yu Cheng Cheng. Yu Cheng Cheng. That's cool. That's cool. In his first game, in his first game after the injury, when he got called back up in August, he went two for three with a triple and a walk. So that was good. And then in his most recent game, he went two for four. I don't know, so a lot of stuff on Cheng's shoulders. You can sing that song in the elevator. Yeah, that's a fun. You're both singing in the elevator and it's kind of a deep track Indians thing. Oh yeah, Jim, I've seen Cheng a lot in my nerdy baseball game outside of the park. I don't know, anything else closing on the Indians? What's your get out of the elevator line? Just a hug after the Carasco stuff? Yeah, it's just got to keep it close. Bank on Lindor, Kipnes, you talk about the new guys, Fran Mill coming into his own, Puyg, being a rocket. You know what you can even do? You can laugh a little bit about like, hey, I love Bauer, buddy. Ain't doing too great over there in Sinsey. Ooh, that's really good, Jim. That's really good. Yeah, looks like we traded him at the right time, shit like that. Yeah, that's really good. That's fantastic. Who's their bullpen right now? Brad Hand, who got off Slump Watch and when he's right, he's awesome. Who else is down there for them? Adam Simber? Jim, your dude Tyler Clippard, having a big year. Yeah, good for you. They've thrown something together. Tyler Clippard throwing those high changeups, a 2-4-7 ERA and 51 games, and Oliver Perez still doing it to the tune of a 2-8-3 ERA and 35 innings. Wild stuff. Simber gets a lot of action. Oh my God, brutal. He had a great July and he's got four holds. He's got four holds in August. But I don't know if he comes in with leads. It looks like he comes in. Looks like he's a down one, down two, or up three to four guy. Yeah, I mean, he throws underarms, so they're trying to get the right matchup for him, too. That, he throws crazy. All right, that ends the show. Hunter Wood from the pirate ship. He's out there. He's playing all right. He's playing all right. He's good. Thank you guys for tuning in. We appreciate it. I didn't wanna play that. I wanna play the boogie. Kinda worked. Thank you guys. We will be back on Monday to recap the weekend, and then maybe a little mini episode after that. Thank you all for listening. Keep in touch. Let us know what's going on as you can see. Just Jake and I, and there's a lot of games, and there's a lot of research, and whenever we get help from you guys, it is fantastic. So we will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Enjoy your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Jake, any last words? Happy September. Happy September. It's officially started today. See you guys.