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FairT - Torpedo bats = ALL the rage, Braves fatal flaw · Foul Territory

0:00
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Does it make him the greatest right handed
0:02
Speaker 1: hitter of all time? I think there are some other
0:05
Speaker 1: players who might want to join the conversation. Welcome everyone
0:12
Speaker 1: into the Monday edition of Fair Territory, the first show
0:16
Speaker 1: of the season, with the season actually in full progress,
0:20
Speaker 1: and of course over the weekend we had a lot
0:22
Speaker 1: of interesting things happen. I'm going to get to some
0:25
Speaker 1: of the great performances that we've already seen from some
0:28
Speaker 1: great players, and a performance from one great player that
0:31
Speaker 1: hasn't gone exactly well.
0:34
Speaker 2: But first I want.
0:34
Speaker 1: To get into the controversy of the day, or should
0:38
Speaker 1: I call it the stupid controversy of the day. This
0:41
Speaker 1: revolves around the torpedo bats, the new bats actually not
0:45
Speaker 1: even so new that some of the Yankees were using that.
0:48
Speaker 1: Michael Kay, their broadcaster, pointed out on their broadcast during
0:52
Speaker 1: that wild game on Saturday, the nine homer game in
0:56
Speaker 1: which the Yankees came within one home run of the
0:59
Speaker 1: Major League Now you might have seen in the aftermath
1:03
Speaker 1: a quote from Brewer's pitcher Trevor McGill. This made its
1:07
Speaker 1: way around the Internet and social media yesterday, and Trevor
1:10
Speaker 1: McGill was quoted as saying it's the Yankees, so they'll
1:14
Speaker 1: let it slide, referring, of course, to the redesigned bats.
1:18
Speaker 2: Trevor McGill, if I'm not.
1:19
Speaker 1: Mistaken, later said he was taken out of contact and misquoted. Whatever.
1:23
Speaker 2: A lot of other.
1:24
Speaker 1: People on the internet chimed in with similar reactions, including
1:27
Speaker 1: Dave Portnoy, the head of Barstool Sports, you.
1:30
Speaker 2: Heard this all day long Saturday and Sunday. Uh oh,
1:33
Speaker 2: what are the Yankees doing?
1:35
Speaker 1: Oh, it's something illegal, the usual conspiracy theory garbage that
1:39
Speaker 1: we get on social media. So let me point out
1:43
Speaker 1: one that Major League Baseball came out immediately and said
1:46
Speaker 1: these bats were legal. And let me point out too,
1:49
Speaker 1: and most important, because no one's gonna believe major League
1:51
Speaker 1: Baseball of course, because why not start another conspiracy pointing
1:56
Speaker 1: out too that, oh, I don't know.
1:58
Speaker 2: Every other team seems.
1:59
Speaker 1: To be doing this as well, or at least a
2:01
Speaker 1: number of teams and a number of players.
2:03
Speaker 2: Let's start.
2:04
Speaker 1: Let's go right in rapid fire through the Al East
2:07
Speaker 1: Baltimore Orioles.
2:08
Speaker 2: Did the Baltimore Orioles use torpedo bats?
2:10
Speaker 1: Uh? Ools Heading coach Kody Ashley says a couple of
2:13
Speaker 1: their players have dabbled with the torpedo bats that the
2:16
Speaker 1: Yankees used in their nine homer game. Pretty good business,
2:19
Speaker 1: right there, right, all right, that's the Baltimore Orioles.
2:22
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next one.
2:24
Speaker 1: This would be hm, the Tampa Bay Rays. Oh yes,
2:28
Speaker 1: raised Junior Karen Aarrow confirmed he was using one of
2:31
Speaker 1: those torpedo style bats that are suddenly all the rage
2:34
Speaker 1: during his pinchhit appearance. Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay
2:37
Speaker 1: Times later added Yondi Diaz was using the bats as well.
2:41
Speaker 1: All right, here we go with the Toronto Blue Jays,
2:43
Speaker 1: another team in the Al East. David Schneider, who has
2:46
Speaker 1: used a torpedo bat and will continue to use the
2:49
Speaker 1: torpedo bats, said it's a big ass barrel, and I
2:52
Speaker 1: like big barrels. So let's see, that's three teams in
2:56
Speaker 1: the Al East besides the Yankees. Alex Korra, the Red
2:59
Speaker 1: Sox man, was quoted as saying, you know what, our
3:03
Speaker 1: guys tried them in spring and some of them didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: like them, so they're not using them. This is just
3:08
Speaker 1: a way of redistributing the weight of a bat to
3:12
Speaker 1: give the hitter a better chance to hit it on
3:14
Speaker 1: the sweet spot. There is nothing illegal about it. And
3:18
Speaker 1: this is the kind of stuff again that circulates only
3:21
Speaker 1: in this day and age, only in this age of
3:23
Speaker 1: social media, where everyone is an expert, everyone has an opinion,
3:27
Speaker 1: and very few people are actually informed.
3:30
Speaker 2: I want to go back now also just to.
3:32
Speaker 1: Refer to a story that I wrote two years ago now,
3:35
Speaker 1: and this was about Austin Riley visiting the Maruchi bat
3:39
Speaker 1: factory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And you see, it's inside
3:43
Speaker 1: the high tech hitting labs where Austin Riley and other
3:45
Speaker 1: MLB stars test their bats. And in that story I
3:49
Speaker 1: explained how baseball players now are doing what golfers doing,
3:53
Speaker 1: getting bats fitted for them, similar to what golfers do
3:57
Speaker 1: when they get their clubs fitted to them and their
3:59
Speaker 1: specific deeds and styles or whatever. Well, in that story
4:03
Speaker 1: I dealt with the hockey puck knobs, which are those
4:06
Speaker 1: new handles that came out a few years ago which
4:08
Speaker 1: several players continue to use. That was another modification of
4:12
Speaker 1: the bat that people use and was perfectly legal. Folks,
4:16
Speaker 1: calm down, stop with the insanity, stop with the stupidity.
4:20
Speaker 1: This was perfectly legal. Lots of players are using torpedo bats.
4:24
Speaker 1: Lots of players are going to continue to use them,
4:26
Speaker 1: and like a lot of other technological advancements in the sport,
4:30
Speaker 1: they're designed to help players. That's what we want, the
4:33
Speaker 1: players performing at their best. Nothing illegal about them, nothing corked,
4:38
Speaker 1: nothing doctored.
4:40
Speaker 2: In any bad way at all.
4:42
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back.
4:43
Speaker 2: To the field.
4:43
Speaker 1: Let's get to the real stuff, the actual baseball that.
4:46
Speaker 2: Occurred over the weekend.
4:47
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about three huge stars in
4:50
Speaker 1: the game and their performances. Start with Let's see Juan Soto.
4:55
Speaker 1: Let's start with him. Wan Soda opening day, strikes out
4:59
Speaker 1: against Josh in the ninth inning. Kind of a weird
5:02
Speaker 1: swing for Wan Soto against the Haters slider looked like
5:05
Speaker 1: a really weak hack, the kind that you rarely ever
5:09
Speaker 1: see Sodo take. Well, what happens the next day he
5:12
Speaker 1: comes back, He's facing Hunter Brown of the Astros, and
5:16
Speaker 1: he notices Hunter Brown against the Mets other left handed hitters,
5:20
Speaker 1: Jesse Winker and Brett Batty was kind of going with
5:23
Speaker 1: cutters and doing some things that Soto picked up on,
5:27
Speaker 1: and he noticed that Hunter Brown was throwing those.
5:29
Speaker 2: Pitches to those hitters.
5:30
Speaker 1: The cutters to the left handed hitters, and Sodo picked
5:33
Speaker 1: up on this, and Sodo thought, Okay, that's what I'm
5:36
Speaker 1: going to sit on. Well what resulted his first hold
5:39
Speaker 1: run as a New York Met. Now, this is typical
5:41
Speaker 1: of Sodo. He is among the most talented.
5:45
Speaker 2: Hitters in the game.
5:46
Speaker 1: Besides that, and among the most disciplined hitters. Besides that,
5:50
Speaker 1: he is one of the smartest hitters. Mets hitting coach
5:53
Speaker 1: Jeremy Barnes told me that he basically is playing three
5:56
Speaker 1: dimensional chess up there, and that was an example of that.
5:59
Speaker 1: Instead Saturday's game, the third game of the series, Hater
6:02
Speaker 1: and Sodo were added again.
6:04
Speaker 2: In ninth inning, Hater.
6:05
Speaker 1: Threw him six straight sliders, walk Sodo off to his
6:09
Speaker 1: usual good start. This guy is an amazing player, but
6:14
Speaker 1: he's not the only one. Of course. We'll be back
6:16
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7:20
Speaker 2: Let's also talk about Mookie Bets.
7:22
Speaker 1: Now, Mookie Bets, you've read about him. He lost weight
7:25
Speaker 1: because of his stomach alement, dropped from one seventy five
7:28
Speaker 1: to one fifty five. Now lookie at one seventy five
7:31
Speaker 1: is not exactly the biggest guy in the world to
7:33
Speaker 1: begin with, and when he dropped to one fifty five,
7:36
Speaker 1: of course, he did not play the two games in Japan.
7:38
Speaker 1: He was questionable for the Dodgers opener, but returned to
7:42
Speaker 1: the field and played Opening Day and then in his
7:44
Speaker 1: second game Friday night, home run in the eighth inning,
7:48
Speaker 1: three run walk off homer in the tenth two homers
7:52
Speaker 1: for Mookie Bets in his second game back.
7:55
Speaker 2: He still didn't weigh one seventy five is full weight.
7:57
Speaker 1: He was about one sixty five in his estimation, and
8:00
Speaker 1: yet he did this, and you saw how emotional he
8:03
Speaker 1: was going around the bases. This for Mookie is pretty demonstrative,
8:08
Speaker 1: I'll say it that way.
8:09
Speaker 2: And why was he.
8:10
Speaker 1: Demonstrative, because, of course he had been so frustrated with
8:13
Speaker 1: the weight loss and everything he was going through, and
8:16
Speaker 1: he was happy to be back being Mookie Bets again,
8:18
Speaker 1: even ten pounds down. Mookie Bets does a lot of
8:22
Speaker 1: remarkable things on a baseball field. Friday night was one
8:25
Speaker 1: of them. And finally I have to mention, oh, mister
8:29
Speaker 1: Aaron Judge. Three home runs Saturday, including the grand Slam
8:33
Speaker 1: and the Yankees nine homer eruption another home run on Sunday.
8:37
Speaker 1: His OPS is something like two point.
8:39
Speaker 2: Five zero zero right around there. He already leads the
8:43
Speaker 2: major leagues in ops. He is just an amazing player.
8:47
Speaker 1: And Joel Sherman wrote an interesting column of The New
8:49
Speaker 1: York Post over the weekend, saying, you know what, with
8:52
Speaker 1: Soto and all the talk about him, you kind of
8:54
Speaker 1: forget how good Aaron Judge is. Now on the other
8:58
Speaker 1: side of the spectrum, he got another big star off
9:01
Speaker 1: to a horrible start. Of course, I'm talking about Raphael Devers.
9:06
Speaker 1: His numbers are astonishing, oh for sixteen, twelve strikeouts. Now,
9:11
Speaker 1: with all of this, you have to remember it's early
9:14
Speaker 1: in the season, and these sample sizes are ridiculously small,
9:18
Speaker 1: and you have to remember as well, with Devers, he's
9:21
Speaker 1: gone through these funks before. Maybe not oh for sixteen
9:24
Speaker 1: with twelve strikeouts, but.
9:26
Speaker 2: Probably he has.
9:27
Speaker 1: He has had periods in his career where he just
9:30
Speaker 1: looks absolutely lost. I am quite confident he will come
9:34
Speaker 1: out of it. But the issue now with Devers is, Okay,
9:38
Speaker 1: he's at a new spot. He's dhing for the first
9:41
Speaker 1: time full time.
9:42
Speaker 2: In his career.
9:43
Speaker 1: Can he become and still be the player that he
9:46
Speaker 1: was as a third baseman. That question is going to
9:49
Speaker 1: hang over Devers until he starts hitting again, which I
9:52
Speaker 1: fully anticipate he will. And the Red Sox you can
9:56
Speaker 1: see why now they wanted this alignment. Devors at DH,
10:00
Speaker 1: Alex Bregman at Third Christian Campbell at Second Christian Campbell
10:04
Speaker 1: is really good. They knew he was really good, and
10:07
Speaker 1: this is why they aligned it this way. Devers is
10:10
Speaker 1: going to have to get used to this. He will
10:12
Speaker 1: get used to it. Dhing is not an easy thing
10:15
Speaker 1: to do. I've talked with David Ortiz about this other
10:18
Speaker 1: dhs over the years, and they will tell you you've
10:21
Speaker 1: got to develop a routine. You've got to get to
10:23
Speaker 1: a point where you're comfortable in that spot.
10:27
Speaker 2: It will happen for ol Field Devers.
10:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if it will happen the way it
10:30
Speaker 1: did for Mookie and Judge and Soto. But again, one
10:34
Speaker 1: of the reasons we love this sport is watching great
10:37
Speaker 1: players do great things. And a lot of great things
10:40
Speaker 1: happened over the weekend.
10:42
Speaker 2: Well well, well, time now.
10:46
Speaker 1: For the inside Dish, the part of the show where
10:48
Speaker 1: I talk about maybe a story I've written, a trend
10:50
Speaker 1: in the game, or something from my deep dark past.
10:54
Speaker 1: And I'm going to go to the deep dark past today.
10:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about a game from nineteen eighty
10:59
Speaker 1: seven again that.
11:00
Speaker 2: Came to my mind over the weekend.
11:02
Speaker 1: As I watched the Yankees nearly tie the record from
11:05
Speaker 1: most home runs in a game by a single team.
11:09
Speaker 1: I was at the game in which the record was set,
11:11
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen eighty seven. The record, as I pointed
11:14
Speaker 1: out on X for home runs by an al NL
11:17
Speaker 1: team and a single game, is ten, set by the
11:20
Speaker 1: Toronto Blue Jays against the Baltimore Oriols September fourteenth, nineteen
11:23
Speaker 1: eighty seven. I covered the game for the Late Baltimore
11:26
Speaker 1: Evening Sun. I said late because that paper no longer exists.
11:29
Speaker 1: It was the night Calrichn Junior's consecutive inning streak ended.
11:33
Speaker 1: He was replaced by none other than yes Ron Washington.
11:38
Speaker 1: The game was at the Old Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
11:40
Speaker 1: Ripken's father, cal Ripton Senior, was the Orioles manager. Ernie
11:44
Speaker 1: Witt hit three homers, Rans Melinicks two, George Bell two,
11:47
Speaker 1: Lloyd Boseby, Rob Deosey and Fred McGriff each had one.
11:51
Speaker 1: I'm laughing at the middle of this. That's why I
11:52
Speaker 1: can't get through it. I remember these home runs.
11:55
Speaker 2: Like they were yesterday.
11:57
Speaker 1: Now, this was my first year covering baseball. I was
12:00
Speaker 1: just about to turn twenty five, and I really didn't
12:03
Speaker 1: have a clue about what was going on, and I
12:06
Speaker 1: was very inexperienced as both a reporter and a writer.
12:10
Speaker 1: And that night I did write a story about the game.
12:12
Speaker 1: Of course, it was a game story working for an
12:15
Speaker 1: evening paper, so I had a lot of time to
12:17
Speaker 1: work on it. Evening paper deadlines were like at six
12:20
Speaker 1: in the morning. So basically what I wrote was a memo,
12:24
Speaker 1: an open memo to the Commissioner of Baseball at the time,
12:26
Speaker 1: Peter Uberoth. That's how long ago this was. And I
12:30
Speaker 1: basically pleaded for you both to suspend the Orioles season
12:33
Speaker 1: right then and there, because, let's face it, it wasn't
12:36
Speaker 1: going all that well. Well you Beroth did not suspend
12:39
Speaker 1: the season. There's the story right there. That's actual newsprint, folks.
12:43
Speaker 1: You still see that from time to time. Today. There's
12:45
Speaker 1: no link to this story on the internet because there
12:47
Speaker 1: was no internet back then.
12:49
Speaker 2: That's the story.
12:50
Speaker 1: And obviously, as I said, the season was not suspended.
12:55
Speaker 1: And next year, coming off a ninety five lost season,
12:59
Speaker 1: the Orioles even worse. They lost their first twenty one games,
13:03
Speaker 1: and I couldn't pull out the memo to the commissioner
13:05
Speaker 1: card because I had already played it. Anyway, that wasn't
13:09
Speaker 1: the only thing that happened that night the ten homers,
13:13
Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier, that was the night also
13:17
Speaker 1: that Cal Ripkin Senior, the mager of the Oriols at
13:19
Speaker 1: the time, ended the inning streak of Cal Ripton Jr.
13:24
Speaker 1: Now most fans know about Cal Ripton Junior's consecutive game streak.
13:28
Speaker 1: He of course has the record he broke Lou Gerig's mark.
13:31
Speaker 1: It is one of the most famous records in baseball
13:34
Speaker 1: and one that I'm sure will never be broken. Well
13:37
Speaker 1: before the game streak, actually during the game streak, he
13:40
Speaker 1: also had, for more than five years, a streak of
13:45
Speaker 1: over eight thousand innings in which he played every inning
13:48
Speaker 1: of every game, never came out, not even in blowouts.
13:51
Speaker 2: Well, this was a blowout.
13:52
Speaker 1: The Oriols lost eighteen to three, and Ripkin Senior decided
13:56
Speaker 1: that night, you know what this ining streak, this particular
14:00
Speaker 1: thing is too big a burden. Let's end it right now,
14:03
Speaker 1: Ron Washington, go take shortstop. Ripton Junior was very surprised.
14:07
Speaker 1: Bill Ripton, playing second base, was very surprised. It was
14:11
Speaker 1: a crazy thing that happened, or a very unusual thing
14:14
Speaker 1: that happened, because it had not happened before in a
14:16
Speaker 1: game that was of course quite unusual in its own right.
14:21
Speaker 1: So because I was working for an evening paper and
14:24
Speaker 1: had the time that I mentioned, I could work until
14:27
Speaker 1: six am. I wrote not just a long story about
14:30
Speaker 1: the Tan Homers, but a long story about the inning
14:32
Speaker 1: streak and what went into Calprin Senior's thinking and why
14:36
Speaker 1: it ended the next day. First of all, I decide
14:40
Speaker 1: to get to the ballpark faster than anybody, earlier than
14:43
Speaker 1: anybody I was competing. And I've talked about this a
14:46
Speaker 1: lot against Tim Kirkton of the Baltimore Morning Sun only
14:49
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame right now, and Richard Justice
14:52
Speaker 1: of the Washington Post, who was a great beat writer
14:55
Speaker 1: as well.
14:56
Speaker 2: These two guys were extremely competitive.
14:59
Speaker 1: They beat my brains for the whole first year and
15:01
Speaker 1: most of the second year as well.
15:02
Speaker 2: Really the whole time that we were competing against each other.
15:06
Speaker 1: So I determined I was going to get to the
15:07
Speaker 1: ballpark early and talk to Cal Senior about whether he
15:12
Speaker 1: thought his job was in jeopardy. Remember, I'm still twenty
15:15
Speaker 1: four years old, about to turn twenty five. I am
15:18
Speaker 1: still quite inexperienced, and Cal Ripkinsenior is about the toughest
15:22
Speaker 1: man that I've ever met before and since Tim that
15:27
Speaker 1: year would ask different people kind of a funny question.
15:30
Speaker 1: He liked to ask players and managers, Hey, if you
15:34
Speaker 1: get locked in a room with the doberman, who gets out? Well,
15:38
Speaker 1: most of the players would kind of block up the question,
15:41
Speaker 1: say I don't know the doberman. Cal Ripkins, when Tim
15:45
Speaker 1: asked the question, said squinted, smoked his cigarette down to
15:50
Speaker 1: its nub as he always did, and looked at Tim
15:52
Speaker 1: and said that goddamn dog doesn't have a chance. That's
15:57
Speaker 1: what he said. And I'm going into his offer the
16:00
Speaker 1: day after the Ools give up ten homers in a game,
16:02
Speaker 1: the day after Cal Junior's consecutive inning streak ends, and
16:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask Calera mnnor if he's worried about
16:09
Speaker 1: his job. Needless to say, I was scared out of
16:13
Speaker 1: my mind. Now, this was back in the day when
16:15
Speaker 1: manager press conferences were not formal, when the clubhouse was
16:19
Speaker 1: really open from the moment the ballpark opened, and you
16:22
Speaker 1: could walk in at one o'clock or two o'clock in
16:24
Speaker 1: the afternoon and find the manager, who would probably be
16:27
Speaker 1: there by then.
16:28
Speaker 2: So that's what I did.
16:29
Speaker 1: I beat them to the ballpark. I beat Richard to
16:31
Speaker 1: the ballpark. I sat down and ripped Senior's office and
16:34
Speaker 1: I asked him the question, are you worried about getting fired?
16:38
Speaker 1: He looked at me. I thought he was going to erupt,
16:41
Speaker 1: and it was quite the opposite. What he said was
16:45
Speaker 1: last night was one of the most embarrassing displays in
16:48
Speaker 1: Major League history. Of course, I'm worried about getting fired.
16:52
Speaker 1: I am sure they are thinking about firing me. Why
16:54
Speaker 1: wouldn't they be.
16:55
Speaker 2: Thinking about firing me after a game like that?
16:58
Speaker 1: So that was a big relief. But also in the
17:00
Speaker 1: clubhouse that day, cal Junior approached me. Now, cal Junior
17:05
Speaker 1: was thinking about the end of his streak, and he
17:08
Speaker 1: had been made aware because there was no Internet. Somebody
17:11
Speaker 1: must have told him that I had written a long
17:13
Speaker 1: story about the end of that streak, And he asked
17:16
Speaker 1: me why I wrote a long story about that streak
17:20
Speaker 1: or the end of that streak when Tim and Richard
17:22
Speaker 1: had not well. Tim and Richard were working for morning papers.
17:26
Speaker 1: The game had dragged on and on because the Oriols
17:28
Speaker 1: had given up ten homers and they didn't have time
17:32
Speaker 1: to really write more than a few paragraphs each well.
17:35
Speaker 1: That day was kind of the beginning of the end
17:37
Speaker 1: of a great relationship that I hoped would develop with Rip.
17:41
Speaker 2: We had a good relationship, I would say for most
17:43
Speaker 2: of the.
17:43
Speaker 1: Time, but there were times where I wed questioned things
17:46
Speaker 1: and he didn't like that very much. So despite writing
17:49
Speaker 1: positively about him, I would say, I don't know ninety
17:51
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the time, that five.
17:54
Speaker 2: Percent wherever he thought of was negative. That was what
17:58
Speaker 2: lingered with him, and that was the first one that kind.
18:00
Speaker 1: Of set us on a path that I don't know.
18:03
Speaker 1: It wasn't so great at times. So that is the
18:06
Speaker 1: story of the ten homer game. The night Calrican Juniors
18:09
Speaker 1: consecutive inning streak ended.
18:11
Speaker 2: One more thing.
18:12
Speaker 1: About that game months later, I guess it was the
18:15
Speaker 1: Oriols general manager at the time, the late Hank Peters,
18:18
Speaker 1: put together a video a video.
18:21
Speaker 2: Of the ten Homers.
18:22
Speaker 1: Now he did it on VHS and there wasn't advanced
18:25
Speaker 1: video techniques back then. You couldn't get on your computer
18:27
Speaker 1: and do things. He put it together, I guess, one
18:31
Speaker 1: by one each home run on this VHS. He called
18:34
Speaker 1: it the barrage, and what he did with it was
18:38
Speaker 1: distributed to different Orioles pitching coaches, including the pitching coach
18:42
Speaker 1: at the time, Mark Wiley, and I guess he distributed
18:46
Speaker 1: it as well the following spring to virtually every minor
18:49
Speaker 1: league pitcher. The Orioles had the barrage. He didn't want
18:52
Speaker 1: to ever see anything like it again. Virtually every pitch
18:56
Speaker 1: was down the middle, and it was kind of a
18:58
Speaker 1: crazy thing. Ten home that night at Exhibition Stadium. And
19:03
Speaker 1: as you can tell, that night, even all these years later,
19:06
Speaker 1: nearly four decades later, is indelible in my mind.
19:11
Speaker 2: I still think about it.
19:12
Speaker 1: I still remember it because of the aftermath, because of
19:15
Speaker 1: Rip Senior, because of Rib Junior, and over the weekend
19:18
Speaker 1: after the Yankee game was over, I sent Tim Kirkton
19:22
Speaker 1: and the Orioles PR director at the time, Rick Vaughant,
19:24
Speaker 1: We're on a group text together, and.
19:26
Speaker 2: I sent them a text that just said, hey, long Live.
19:29
Speaker 1: The nineteen eighty seven Orioles. Time now for Grill and Ken,
19:33
Speaker 1: Let's get to your questions. The first question comes from Drew,
19:36
Speaker 1: who asks, is Aaron Judge the greatest right handed hitter
19:39
Speaker 1: of all time? If you watch them over the weekend,
19:42
Speaker 1: you might think so. If you watched them the last
19:45
Speaker 1: few years, you might think so.
19:47
Speaker 2: I don't know that.
19:47
Speaker 1: I want to be a prisoner of the moment here
19:49
Speaker 1: and get caught up in recency bias. Aaron Judge certainly
19:53
Speaker 1: is a great right handed hitter. And look at this
19:56
Speaker 1: tweet from Sarah Langs over the weekend, which shows you
20:00
Speaker 1: just how accomplished he is so far in his career.
20:02
Speaker 1: Aaron Judge now has three hundred and nineteen career home runs,
20:05
Speaker 1: Sarah wrote forty more than any other player in his
20:09
Speaker 1: first one thousand career games. That's incredible. Does it make
20:13
Speaker 1: him the greatest right handed hitner of all time? I
20:15
Speaker 1: think there are some other players who might want to
20:18
Speaker 1: join the conversation, just from the recent generation. Miguel Cabrera,
20:22
Speaker 1: Albert Poohols, two guys with an asteris Manny Ramirez and
20:25
Speaker 1: Alex Rodriguez. Then there's Mike Schmidt going back a few years,
20:29
Speaker 1: and then, if you really want to go back even further,
20:31
Speaker 1: Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and further than that, Jimmy
20:34
Speaker 1: Fox and Rogers hornsby greatest right handed dinner of all time.
20:38
Speaker 1: Let's hold off on that Aaron Judge is really good.
20:41
Speaker 1: Let's say that for now. El Gallo four nine seven eight.
20:45
Speaker 1: Who says, how worried should I be as a Diamondback fan?
20:49
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you should be worried at all. In fact,
20:51
Speaker 1: you should not be worried at all.
20:52
Speaker 2: Your team is.
20:53
Speaker 1: Two and two. Had a pretty good opening series against
20:56
Speaker 1: the Cousins. Not everything went perfectly, but except for Zach
20:59
Speaker 1: Gallen and the opener, starting pitchers were really good. I'm
21:02
Speaker 1: talking about Merril, Kelly at Water, Rodriguez Brandon fought. Thursday
21:06
Speaker 1: was a ten to six loss. That was the game.
21:08
Speaker 1: Gallon started the opener. It didn't go well for him.
21:11
Speaker 1: Ryan Nelson gave up some runs as well. Friday and
21:14
Speaker 1: eight one win Aohano Suarez two home runs. Saturday, Diamondbacks
21:18
Speaker 1: lose a run run game, and then Sunday they're down
21:22
Speaker 1: six to two in the eighth and they score eight runs.
21:24
Speaker 2: To win the game.
21:25
Speaker 1: Even the series. So I know people get upset with
21:29
Speaker 1: every moment of every game at times.
21:31
Speaker 2: That's the world we live in.
21:32
Speaker 1: If you're two and two coming off an opening weekend
21:35
Speaker 1: against a pretty good Cubs team, a Cubs team with
21:38
Speaker 1: Kyle Tucker hitting two home runs in this series, I
21:40
Speaker 1: don't think you should be particularly worried about what's going on. Kaito,
21:44
Speaker 1: who asks, out of the teams with a realistic shot
21:47
Speaker 1: of winning the World Series, who had the biggest glaring
21:49
Speaker 1: weakness after the first weekend? Kaito, I like this question,
21:53
Speaker 1: and yes, we all.
21:55
Speaker 2: Get crazy this time of year.
21:57
Speaker 1: We overreact to what's happening earlier. That's just the nature
22:00
Speaker 1: of human emotion. But you do see things that kind
22:04
Speaker 1: of make you scratch your head at times. And there
22:06
Speaker 1: was one team in particular that got swept that I
22:09
Speaker 1: picked to actually win the World Series. But there were
22:12
Speaker 1: two glaring weaknesses that came up with this club over
22:15
Speaker 1: the weekend. One I don't believe is a weakness at all.
22:17
Speaker 1: That's their offense. I'm talking about the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta
22:20
Speaker 1: Braves were really shut down by the San Diego Padres,
22:23
Speaker 1: who had a great opening weekend, sweeping a four game series.
22:27
Speaker 1: But my bigger concern for the Braves is their bullpen.
22:31
Speaker 1: They really didn't address their bullpen after the season ending
22:34
Speaker 1: injury to Joe Jimenez, and they're at a place with
22:36
Speaker 1: their payroll where they have the ability to spend a
22:40
Speaker 1: little bit more money and still stay under.
22:41
Speaker 2: The luxury tax threshold.
22:43
Speaker 1: They're about eight million dollars under by one estimation.
22:47
Speaker 2: And yet their off season was kind of curious.
22:49
Speaker 1: They kind of held back.
22:50
Speaker 2: They cut payroll at the start.
22:52
Speaker 1: We're kind of trying to just be flexible. Ultimately signed
22:55
Speaker 1: jerks and profar, but with their bullpen, they brought in
22:58
Speaker 1: some guys on minor league.
23:00
Speaker 2: Hector Norris is one.
23:01
Speaker 1: Craig Kimberl starting the season at Triple A is another.
23:04
Speaker 1: And I'm just worried whether the Braves bullpen is going
23:07
Speaker 1: to be good enough. Why I didn't see this earlier
23:10
Speaker 1: as I was making my predictions, I don't know. I
23:12
Speaker 1: probably should have seen it, but that's one concern I have.
23:17
Speaker 1: And maybe Brian Snicker and the staff there will figure
23:19
Speaker 1: it out.
23:20
Speaker 2: Maybe it'll turn over that bullpen as the year goes on.
23:22
Speaker 2: That's a likely scenario.
23:24
Speaker 1: As I said, they have room for the payroll to
23:26
Speaker 1: grow a little bit come the deadline. But that thing,
23:30
Speaker 1: that bullpen kind of stuck out to me immediately. So
23:33
Speaker 1: that's my biggest concern. Perhaps a glaring weakness for the braves.
23:37
Speaker 1: Perhaps not. And finally, I have a question coming from
23:41
Speaker 1: my colleague at the Athletic, John Greenberg, who asked, quite graciously,
23:46
Speaker 1: quite nicely, do you want me to buy you this
23:49
Speaker 1: T shirt? Answer T shirt from the White Sox Angels
23:52
Speaker 1: opening series of the season. I will answer this question,
23:56
Speaker 1: not on ex John, I'm going to respond to you publicly,
23:59
Speaker 1: in a public form. I'm good without the White Sox
24:03
Speaker 1: Angels opening series T shirt. It's not quite Dodgers Cubs
24:06
Speaker 1: in Japan put it that way. So John, thanks so
24:09
Speaker 1: much for asking, But yeah, I've got enough T shirts
24:13
Speaker 1: without adding the Angels and the White Sox. Want to
24:16
Speaker 1: thank everyone for their questions, everyone for watching, for listening.
24:19
Speaker 1: You know where to find us YouTube, Apple, Spotify. We
24:22
Speaker 1: will be back Thursday at our normal time, twelve thirty
24:25
Speaker 1: Eastern Live. Myself and Alana Rizzo have a great week. Everyone,
24:29
Speaker 1: don't overreact too much.
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