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Wenceel Perez Sparks Series Win For Detroit · Tiger Territory: A Detroit Tigers Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: And welcome into another episode of Tiger Territory, part of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the Fuel Territory Network, a Tiger's podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm curious Secley with me as always as a man
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: who's got a great squirrel defense system at his house.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: He is Cody Steven Eggan.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: How you doing, I'm doing good. I have is a
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: dog that can't actually catch squirrels, but she sure thinks
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: she can. She does get him out of the yard,
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: for whatever that's worth.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, squirrels and rabbits not fond of our house either.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: So apparently here in that squirrel is still alive, just
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: chilling in like the Tigers bullpen area. Uh, it's still
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: out there. And I guess it is a big story.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: You know, we're here. We're here to bring you, bring
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: you the real news. And that that was the story
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: of Tuesday's game, right forget six scoreless from Jack Flaherty.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Well, i'll tell you what it made headlines. It got
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it got more attention onto the Tigers because you get
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to push notification on the phone there's a squirrel in
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the field.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Oh is that? What are we doing about? Jack Flairy?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We can talk about Jack Flaarity And actually it was
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: perfect that that he had himself.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: The best game that that we've seen from him.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Uh in a Tiger, not in a Tiger uniform.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: But this year, this year, okay, okay, Well, I just
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: wanted to see how reactionary well we wanted to be
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Jack flarerty in a three to one victory today Tuesday
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was six went, six innings, two hits, eight k's, one walk, zero,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: zero runs obviously, and the number one thing that pressed me,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Cody was I love it when things that we talk
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: about either get corrected or become like a further talking point.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And we talked about the fastball last after Flarity's last outing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Bastball was working today.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And and thus it's funny how this works out. Thus
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: everything else tends to work a lot better for anybody,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: but especially for for Jack Flaherty. He had let's see,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I wrote this down. Seven whiffs on the fastball today
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: seemed like location wise, he was able to do pretty
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: much what he wanted when he went. Everybody's gonna miss occasionally,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: so it's on me harping, But when he missed, he
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: missed at times when hitters weren't looking to be aggressive.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So you know, quote unquote get away with it. Uh,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: if you would, kind of a weird game balls and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: track wise behind the plate, but that's how it goes sometimes.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: But what what did what did you think from from
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Jack today? Because keep in mind that we literally said, like,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: which version, what's the best version of Jack Flaherty?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: What kind of pitcher is he? Tuesday was was was
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: kind of that, So what do you think?
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we definitely saw something a lot closer to
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: the best version of Jack Flaherty. We'll talk about the
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: fastball since that's what we talked about a lot last time.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I'm obviously stickler. I just been pointing out the facts that, like,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: his fastball is a lot better if he's above ninety
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: two to five or ninety three miles an hour. The
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: fastball was pretty much right in line with his yearly
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: average tonight, but interestingly enough, it had a little bit
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: of different life, a little bit of different action. Even
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: though the velocity was up and down as low as
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: ninety one, as high as ninety four point eight, his
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: average induced vertical break was higher. So basically the balls
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: carrying through the air riding given that rising effect a
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: little bit more, and it was kind of like that
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: all night. So that tells me. That's probably why it
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: was more effective. I don't know exactly what he did
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: differently to create that, especially when the velo is very
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: similar and the spins pretty similar, but you'll take it,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: go to action on the fastball, and then yes, the command,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: whatever the velocity is, command's going to be important. What
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: the velocity really does for Jack, I think is make
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: the command a little less important. If you're gonna be
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: below ninety two, you better be pretty pinpoint. Well. Tonight,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Jack was incredibly pinpoint no matter how hard he was throwing,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: especially early in the game. A lot of fastball is
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: down in the zone. That's one thing I like about
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Jack Flaherty. There's kind of an old school nature to him.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: For as much as we think of him as a
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: swing and miss guy, he throws fastball low and then slider,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and then as that game went on, he kind of
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: started expanding up the zone, works the fastball high a
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: little bit. You know. I thought that was pretty good.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: He said he had actually no feel for his slider,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: which was interesting. And you see, he didn't use it
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: a ton a ton twenty five percent of the time.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: The knuckle curve came in handy. All in all, he
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: was just really sharp and I think location is the
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: biggest reason why he had the command dialed in.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: He had five whips on on on the curve ball today,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and probably most impressive was finishing the game with eleven
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: straight batters retired and first so yeah, yeah, and and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and and getting out of any sort of traffic like
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: really quickly too early. So so like it from from
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Jump Street, he was on.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And now.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: We like.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's one of those things that kind of like catches
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: up on you a little bit. Three straight scoreless outings
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: for for Flairty, is that correct?
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: So like he's he's uh, he's.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Looking like the number two. Last time we talked about
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: like is he a number two?
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Like, I mean, that's that's not correct. But I I'm sorry,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: he's giving up runs in every outing except that No,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: this was not anyway, it's not correct.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, well I misread he gave up three last time out. Okay, Well, regardless,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: he is, he's put together three pretty solid starts, pretty
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: good starts to really good starts in a row now
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and now he looks like a guy that, like I
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: see why he would bet on himself if he's capable
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of doing this against against like a team that is
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: going to try to to to kind of out out
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: maneuver you at the plate. They're going to try to
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: get on, they're gonna try to move over, they're going
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to try to work you out, and he ended up
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: working out the Giants. So overall, I thought that was
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that was that was as encouraging as I've seen flaerty
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in a while.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, he got the e RA under four.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: It's now three nine to four. Funny how we just
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: kind of look at certain things differently. I think I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: felt worse about Flarity when there was just a four
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: by his name, you know, But now there's a three,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: and it's like, oh no, it's all it's all great.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: No credit? Where credits do? We've talked a lot of
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: about Jack kind of dissected his game, and I'm sure
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: we're gonna keep doing that. He's kind of an interesting
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: picture to talk about in that way. But I think
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: encouraging to know that you can still go get six scoreless,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: that his command can still look like that, if he's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: able to dial on the mechanics and maybe regain a
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: little fastball life. So kind of scary what he could be. Again,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: he did this one the night where he didn't even
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: really have the slider going.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Why the correct the record on what I misread. It's
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a third straight scoreless start for a Tigers starter. That
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: is that is my fault, I you know, late night
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: tired eyes take full responsibility for that. But we haven't
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: done like a Jack Flaherty kind of you know, in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse update or anything like he there was. I know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: like we could say that wins are a pointless stat
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: but I'm sure if you're the starting pitcher, you probably
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: would like to have that w next to your name
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: in the box score. And then it's still one of
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the things that gets popped up, you know, statistically, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: you get associated with it, whether or not that's an
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: accurate representation of your value to the team.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But there was a time.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Where they were not winning games when he was starting,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and now now he's gotten a couple more. In the tally,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it looks a lot better than it did, you know,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: speaking of things that look a lot better even if
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it lacks nuance, How is Jack flairy these days in
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the clubhouse after good starts, you know, recently and you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: still working it through starts early in the season.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Jack stays Jack Man. You know, he's one of the
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: you hear them, never too high, never too low. I mean,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: that's that's kind of Jack, I think. I so you
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: can see him where his emotions want to sleeve a
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: little bit during the game, in the heat of competition,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: after some bad starts. You know, there have been some
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: postgame press conferences where Jack was just very short, you know,
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: the moods a little tense. But even after a great start,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: he's he's still just kind of Jack. You know, he's
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: pretty low key. I think a little bit about that
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: California low key about him.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: All right, and we'll talk about the other big headline
• 9:15
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• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So you talk about Jack Flaherty being like California cool,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: not everybody on this team keeps it cool.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: And and we'll talk about.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Some of the emotional spectrum that we saw in these
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: two games against the Giants. But what I wanted to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: start out with was we got the return of Wentzel Perez.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And did it take long to make an impact.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Three pitches and the third one goes over the right
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: field wall and The reason I bring up the emotional
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: aspect of it is, man, was he pumped up. It
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: was so fun to see like, you know, like him
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: back and then you know, getting the getting the first
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: tummer in the season in his first at bat in
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the major leagues this season. I could I'm I'm sure
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: like a back injury is one of those things that's
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: one of the more frustrating ones to come back from.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And and just like all these other guys, seeing the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: team succeed without him, I'm sure that's that's tough as well.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: But it was nice to see Wentzell back in there
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: center field. The Javier thing.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about Hobby a little in a second, but
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Wentzell being back, it did to me seem like he's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: one of those guys that.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Everybody's like always happy for.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Whenever he does something well, well and good because it
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: feels like he's just one of the more likable dudes
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you can have on on a baseball field, and it
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: was fun to see.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just just what a cool moment, right. It
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: kind of made me think of something, you know, an
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: editor sad Ones, which just like covering a baseball team,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: you're you're kind of trying to capture a story. You
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: almost think of the season like a book, and especially
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: at the athletic where we don't necessarily write a traditional
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: game story or even write every day, like you know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: if I worked for a newspaper, it's kind of like,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: all right, would this, you know, would this make the book?
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Would this be a moment in time that we're gonna
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: remember at the end of the season. And I was like,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I think the answer is yes, Man, I'm gonna write
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: about this one. Because this guy, fresh off the sixty
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: day il and not just that, but it was the
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: very last day after the last game of spring training.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: He had to go in and say, man, my back's
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: not right. All his teammates are getting dressed, packing their bags.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: I saw winstill coming out of the doors, slumped, looking sad.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I was like, what is going on. Took a day
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: or two until we got the news. His teammates went
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: and got on the plane headed to the West coast.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: It's go time season. Winstill got to stay in beautiful Lakeland,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: get to rehab your back. That sucks, man, that sucks.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: And then you you're going to miss sixty days. It's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: not ten fifteen days. You're out two months of your season.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: So it must have felt good for him just to
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: put on that Tiger's uniform again, just to step on
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: the field again, and then to be able to be like, ah,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I still got this, No wonder.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: He was so excited, right, yeah, I mean it did
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: kind of look like also he was like, oh wait,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I don't do anything.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I just high five whenever I get the clubhouse. Yeah.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because he also hadn't witnessed a home run
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: without a you know, without a celebratory action, you know,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: with the Tigers, like obviously last year, you know, with
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the spear and all that stuff. So like he was like, okay,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: we're just doing the old fashioned I five thing, Like
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you had to get these are the things people don't
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: talk about. You gotta get used to certain.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Stuff when when you come back to the team for
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: the first time.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: And and it ended up being like a spark Riley
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Green four RBI over the past two games. He just
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: continues to I don't want to say quietly because we're
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: talking about it, but.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: You know, do his twenty eight RBIs in twenty nine
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: games or something. May is going to be the highest
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: RBI total of his entire career. We're also kind of
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: past the point of like RBI's being a big thing,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: but it does speak to how steady for Riley, who's
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: a streaky hitter over the past thirty games, have been
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: really steady, and he's been that run producer for you. You know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: he's been exactly what you need. Helps that he has
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Glabor who's always on base in front of him, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: some other guys getting on in front of him.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the people that you would you would
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: have thought was going to start to kind of figure
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: into that conversation would have been Matt beer Lane, who
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the you know, the other part of the Perez piece
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: is that ver Lane has bigger officially called we're officially
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: calling it right shoulder inflammation.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Is that correct?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And so obviously that's the shoulder that was hurt from
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the beginning to spring training, and he had just come
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: back like we were gonna. I had planned to talk
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit about Matt beer Lane or you know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Monday Day's episode, but the school boy thing just kind
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of like ate everything up and I was like, all right, well,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we can get to it in a couple of days.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It's fine, And I guess we're kind of now getting
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to it, but not in the way that that I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that I thought. So I don't know, man, I don't
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: want to do like medical speculation or anything. But if
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I were to just wait, if I were to just
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: say there was not one event that occurred, which is
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: what the story was in spring training, and then now
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: they're saying there's also not an event that occurred that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: caused the inflammation.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I just don't have.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Good, good vibes on that, that's all I'll say. I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: just don't have good vibes on it.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't necessarily want to speculate,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: but I agree the vibes don't seem good for the prognosis. Here,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: there was a ball Monday, you know, hit to center.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I think Perski was on the mound, A guy was scoring,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I think from second. Vierling didn't throw home, and I
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: thought it was a little weird. He probably wouldn't have
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: got the guy, and there was another runner on base,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: so he gets cut off and he's like, yeah, maybe
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: that's a good decision not to make that throw. But
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: even the throw in was just kind of a little weak.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: And I was like that, all right, maybe whatever, Maybe
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: that's just he's a smarter baseball player than I would be,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: and just knew there was no sense to like force
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: a throw and risk another runner advancing. Now it's like,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: I think that arm was already hurting, and it does
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: make you wonder did this arm ever really stop hurting
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: or was he just obviously trying to get back to
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: the big leagues, you know, fighting through a little inflammation.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: We'll probably never know the answer to that. We wish
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: the best for Matt Vierling, you know, hope it's not
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: a long term thing. But the vibes don't seem great
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: right now. Yeah, probably not a lot else to talk about,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: and so we know a little bit more. But for
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: as great as the emotion of seeing Winstle is, like
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: man kind of deflating, Matt is back for two days.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: You think you're getting to full strength, and Matt's back
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: on the eye one another emotional swing. Parker Meadows might
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: be back as soon as this weekend.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Parker looks good.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm obviously not dialed into every you know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Toledo at bad or whatever, so I don't want to
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: pretend pretend otherwise. But you know, a lot of highlights
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: coming up Parker Meadow's way, I'll say that, so hopefully
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that issue is you know, resolved or whatever there. But
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you know it, there's I think an underrated fallout to
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the Matt Veerling piece of it that I want it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I just want to ask you, Cody. But first word
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• 18:16
  Speaker 1: All right, coming back here today, we saw Hobby Baias
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: start at third base and there's a funny element that
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: we'll get to in a second, but it did kind
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of it did kind of give me like a little
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: bit of a thought with the beering news and then
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you know Parker coming up.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Are we.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Kind of done with the everyday centerfielder thing?
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: With Hobby just by the very nature of guys coming back,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: is there other outfield spot possibilities.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just kind of.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Thinking out loud here because right now you feel the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: need to get the bat in the lineup, and there's like,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: obviously therese are not apples to apples, but could Hobby
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: be this year's Matt Veering But you have yeah, you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: have infield capabilities, you have center field capabilities. I know
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: they're not the exact same player, but he's hitting better
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: than you know Baerly never started a year. So just
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: just a thought out there, Just a thought out there.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: You know what this means for what was plus production
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in center field, but now you're getting your centerfielder're back,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and then another you know, you just got another's you know,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: outfielder with center field capabilities as well.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: So just thought, yeah, when Meadows is back, obviously everyday
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: center field for Hobby will be out the window. Also
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: just going to note this, since his two home run game,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: he is six four thirty five. That's a one ninety
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: four average, slewing down a little bit since since that
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: magical game. I am very interested to see how he
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: will be used because I would think it would make
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: sense to play him a lot at short stop, but
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the Tigers seemed to love then some Trey Sweeney just
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: playing as much as possible. So we'll obviously see Hobby
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: at third, maybe a little short, maybe a little ciner,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: but you're I think you're gonna want Parker Meadows in
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: there just about as much as possible. The question that
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: has kind of been thrown around but not really answered,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: was there any interest in Javier Baya is playing a
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: corner spot now with wind Cell here, I'm not sure
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you need that, but you don't have Veerling now, so
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: that does kind of open up a little room. It
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: would maybe be kind of more to learn. You talk
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: about like the angles off the bats being weird and such,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: but I'd be kind of interested in a little Javier
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: byas right field. Why not he looked so good in center,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: you know, in a pinch. I guess that's all to
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: your point here in Yeah, I think Hobby's probably gonna
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: move around a lot, right that's the only way to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: get him real regular playing time. Or I guess, especially
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: with Veerlin going back to the i L, maybe he
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: just plays a lot of third, maybe almost every day.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Third base work could be possible.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: And and in short action, he was a plus defender
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: at third base this year, so you know, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: for the record, but but yeah, I just again, you
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: don't really have a pure third baseman really, uh you
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: know right now. It's just how the roster has been
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: constructed and with with the right handedness, and I would
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. I at this point, I'm just
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: gonna trust that instinctually he can play right field.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: That's that's that.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I can't think of a reason why not. Yeah, that's
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: kind of angle is different. I think by is worried
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: about angles.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I think he can get the angles down. I think
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I think, I think you can figure it out.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I think he could. I could. I think he figured
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: it out.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And his arm has looked good too, Like I don't
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: know how it measures out, but his arm has looked
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: good as well.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: So you know, not not any like real concerns there.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But he's in the news this week because he got
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: himself ejected from the game on Monday after what was
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: like just I mean, everybody knows it was just a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: terrible call third strike by Phil Cousey behind the plate,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and it escalated in sort of an interesting fashion between
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the two of them little talk, little talk, little talk,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a turnback, and then right as AJ is trying to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: get in between, he just you know, got to work
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: on that sixty yard dashtime, AJ, because he was trying
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: to get in there before the injection could occur, couldn't
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: do it, had himself a nice conversation as well. Did
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: not get ejected because AJ has yet to live up
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to the promise that he said on this podcast get
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: ejected early in the season, and so so yeah saying
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: haven't forgotten there. But yeah, just like a really charged
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: moment early in the day a Memorial Day first game
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of the first day game of the MLB slay and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and and Hobby Baias is showing a lot of emotion,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: shown a.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Lot of emotion.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I assume if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: seen what happened, So I don't know that we really
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: need to recap it. Hobby was still pretty heated postgame,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: right he may have also seen some of his comments.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: You know there we had a couple f bombs mixed
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: in there, basically said Phil Couzy. You know, he told
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: him that's not an effing strike and cause he told him,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: you know, get out of here. Don't point. Looking at
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: the video, Hobby didn't really point, but he did was
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: gesturing with his arm. Hobby said, you know, he wanted
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: to talk to him, he wanted to ask him a question,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: and because he just wasn't having it, and then he
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: tossed him. Looking on the video, does seem like he
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: kind of turned back and maybe said something else even
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: as his body was heading toward the dugout. And that's
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: when when Couz he tossed him. But yeah, Hobby was
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: he and I tend to agree, like veteran player, veteran umpire,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know, you throw an F bomb at the umpire,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: you probably risk it and tossed. But that was a
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: pretty bad call. Habban said, if he just would have
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: told me, you know what, I missed it, I would
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: have been fine with that. I moved on. I understand
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: he's human, he's not perfect. But he also said, you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: it wasn't about the call. It was about the competition,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: and it was about the way he treated me. He said,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: don't treat me like an animal, which is pretty strong phrasing. Yeah,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I didn't really think there was any reason to run
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: him from the game, but I also get all right,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: you throw an F bomb at the umpire, you risk
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: that happening the AJ Hinch standpoint. We joke on here
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: a lot about AJ getting tossed. I don't actually I
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: think he is right that there's no real reason to
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: get ejected just to get ejected, right. That's something that
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: older school managers, maybe from time to time did for
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: show and if you actually at their career rejections other
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: than like Bobby Cox, most like Jim Leland. He got
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: ejected plenty, but he didn't get as ejected as much
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: as you probably think he did. So Yeah, Like AJ
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: talks a lot about the importance of being there to
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: manage the game. He talked about this when we had
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: him on Tiger Terror touring the off season. I thought
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: it was a really good answer, Like he gets paid
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: to manage. He doesn't get paid to sit inside, especially
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: on a team like the Tigers where there are a
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: million moving parts. That makes sense. I did ask AJ,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: but postgame, like, did you think you were going to
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: get tossed before you went out there? Because I thought
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: he was going to because it was a balls and
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: strike situation, even if he wasn't arguing the call. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: he was just protecting his player. It's still the easiest
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: way to get tossed his balls and strikes. Umpires just
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: don't tolerate that. And AJ looked pretty heated too when
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: he was out there. We've seen him go out there
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: before and just like talk, you know, he was. I
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: thought he got pretty animated. I guess he didn't say
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: any magic words or anything like that. So I have
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: no problem with AJ, you know, not getting tossed, probably
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: the right call on his part. Still defended his player.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Good thing. Joey Korr was there to restrain Hobby bias
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: and glibratures.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And all that body way to restrain restrain Hobby there. Yeah,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm of the opinion, like I understand
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: all the elements here that led to that circumstance. Obviously
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: understand Hobby being pissed. I understand Cuzy being like, look, dude,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: like this is this is my game. I'm calling the game.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a little bit. But once you do,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: like the third sentence like this role number one, you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: can't argue this all right, And then I understand AJ
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: not getting ejected but also protecting his player and Cuzy
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: knowing that like, hey, it's not worth this is not
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: a two ejection worthy moment.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: So like everything kind of, I understand all the elements
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of play real quick. Why don't we end with this?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Sad not like anything huge that I wanted to discuss,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: but I did want to just make note of something.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: We're still not seeing a lot of Jake Rodgers.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Still very surprised how little we're seeing it. The crowd
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: that was all for Dylan Dingler catcher number one. You
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: guys were right, because I was wrong. Right now he's
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: getting all the playing time. Man, I am stunned how
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: little Jake Rodgers has been playing since his return.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So if I have the numbers correct, Dingler just played
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: his forty first game of the season. So I was like,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: all right, well, Rogers was catching a lot last year.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: So you know today is May twenty seventh. When did
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Rogers play his forty first game of last year with
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the Carson Kelly time share that was June eleventh was
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: when Jake Rogers reached his forty first game. So Dingler
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: way ahead of pay of Rogers last year.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It seems to me.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, he did have a ribby in Monday's game,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: so it seems to me that this is a bat thing.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: That's the only thing bat thing or Jake's pretty sore.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I mean maybe it's as simple as that, but it
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: is something like it is something worth like monitoring, just
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like how often is Dingler going out there?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Because it does not seem like a timeshare right now.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It seems like Rogers essentially in mop up duty right now.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting you pointed it out off air here,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: and if it was really just about the bat, you'd
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: always d H Dingler and start Jake behind the plate.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: The Tigers aren't really in a circumstance where they need
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: that their offense is better than it was last season.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: You have, you're you're trying to get cold Keith's playing
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: time and which you know means you got to use
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the DH with probably one of Glaber Tork or cult
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: most nights. But you know, we saw Jake Rogers like
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: DH a ton last year, which was always weird. So
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: it's very doable. Dylan's doing a great job, so props
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: to him putting himself in. As we talked about maybe
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: all Star conversations. There's a lot of playing time for
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: a catcher though, so I'm interested to see if it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: going to continue this way. AJ talked a little about
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: wanting to ease Jake in, but you know, Jake's been
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: up for a minute now and he's barely played. The
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: only other thing I wanted to talk about here in
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: real quick, I just want to give some flowers to
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Chase Lee. Chase Lee, we've talked about his story, very inspirational. Really, like,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I'm really big Chase leaf in. Be honest, I wasn't
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: necessarily expecting him to come up and just shove right
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: away in the Majors. Chase Lee's pitched eleven innings for
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: the Tigers and he's only given up two earned runs
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: one point two six ERA. He's been used in mop ups,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: he's been used in leverage, he's been used in multi
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: inning situations, win a couple innings here Tuesday night. Just
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: really he's handled more left handed batters than I would
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: have guessed. Really impressed with what Lee has brought to
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: this bullpen. And I know I did say kind of
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: thought the Tigers maybe should have optioned instead of Gunter
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: over the weekend. So uh, maybe maybe I'm just in
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: a cold streak with some of my Chase Chase Lee's
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: killing it right.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Now, he is killing it and uh but you know
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: these you feel good about these two wins, there's still
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: three one wins, man, These are like these are these
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: are close games that every decision, you know, speaking of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: not getting ejected, every decision and every every at bat
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and every like guy on the field kind of mattered there.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And getting getting Chase to get to Vest obviously was
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: really crucial to get yourself a series win, especially when
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: you I would say you emptied the bag, but you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: used a lot of the bag on Monday. Uh, so that,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you know, just an overall well oiled machine. The Tigers
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: have been so far this week. We'll see what happens
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday. We'll talk about that and talk about the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Kansas City upcoming series later in the week. I want
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to thank everybody for listening, following on x formly know
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Cody Stavenhagen, I'm at Kieran Underscore. Steckley
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: pop page is at Tiger Territory Underscore, YouTube, Instagram, Apple, Spotify,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: You guys owe a deal, subscribe, rate review. We appreciate
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: all of you. So for Cody Stapenhagen, I'm Karen Steckley.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Everybody have great day