Rates & Barrels - Astros, Yankees win ALDS openers, and Deivi Garcia gets a big opportunity

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

Eno and DVR discuss the opening games of the ALDS matchups, and try to make sense of a mediocre outing from Blake Snell, Austin Meadows' disappointing 2020, and their appreciation for Enoli Paredes as an unheralded arm in the soft underbelly of the Houston bullpen.  Rundown 0:39 Giancarlo Stanton Puts Game 1 Out of Reach 3:02 How the Fifth Innings Shaped the Rays’ Bullpen Usage 9:18 Austin Meadows’ Oblique Injury and 2020 Struggles 11:44 A Pivotal Error Flips Game 1 On the A’s 20:08 Enoli Paredes: A Reliever for Stuffists 21:16 Deivi Garcia Gets the Nod for Game 2 25:59 Aaron Judge Did an Aaron Judge Thing 31:52 When the Play-by-Play Tweet Goes Spoiler Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/month: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 149, playoff episode number 7.

It's Tuesday, October 6th. And just like the A's and the Rays, we are down 1 today. No bridge roll-a today. Hopefully we get back to the three-person crew real soon. You know, we had a lot to discuss though from these first two games, and I'm just sitting here as the Yankees-Rays game ended, and I'm sad that it ended the way it did because I just wanted the Rays to come up in the ninth with a chance against the Roldis Chapman. That was the outcome I was really rooting for as that game was playing out. And of course, it unraveled in a big way. John Curtis gave up a grand slam to Giancarlo Stanton. It was a pretty big mic drop sort of ending for the Yankees offense tonight. Yeah. And Giancarlo Stanton

as a righty, they asked him know, what is it about San Diego? I actually covered the home run derby, the all-star game in San Diego, where he was just hitting smash after smash off that big video board. And I guess he had a good WBC there too. You know, that was one thing I found when I was looking at San Diego was it's way more friendly. It has one of the biggest discrepancies for righties and lefties in terms of how many barrels turn into home runs. So, you know, righty power, Stanton ends up being a huge key for the Yankees, I think, for being healthy, for being able to smash two grand slams now. And also just changing that lineup. You don't have, they had Tyler Wade in there for a little bit,

but there were lineups that the Yankees were running out in the middle of the season that had three or four holes in it. You know, this one pretty much has one hole max. And if you wanted to give it two holes today, because at some point Tyler Wade and Kyle Higashoka were in there, Higashoka hit a homer. So that's what happens when things are going well for you. He hit a big one, too, because that swung the momentum really back in the Yankees' favor

after G-Man Choi gave the Rays a 3-2 lead. I think this is a fascinating game because the Yankees didn't get the ace performance from Garrett Cole. They just got a good performance from Garrett Cole. So from the Rays' perspective, they did enough to put themselves in a position to win this game. And unfortunately, they didn't. And I think it was really the fifth inning. Blake Snell stayed in the game. Diego Castillo was warming up.

The Yankees pulled ahead, and they didn't end up using Castillo. The Rays kind of went with the bottom half of their bullpen instead of the top half of their bullpen. And sure, that's good for games two and three to have everybody that you really want to have fresh, fresh for those matchups. But if Snell gets to that fifth inning, it's a totally different sequence in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth as far as who we would have seen pitching this game.

Yeah, that was a huge inning, that last one for him. And, you know, I don't know about the game plan for Snell. It was weird because I asked him about his changeup before the game, and his changeup did get like 80% ground balls this year. And even in this game, he threw a ton of changeups, and it still, you know, didn't get hit that hard it wasn't that wasn't the problem however he didn't get any whiffs on it i don't think and it just he didn't get many whiffs generally you know four strikeouts in five innings sounds like oh like he did okay but like terms of like, when you like kind of break it down into,

you know, his pitch types, he got one whiff on the four seam. He got zero whiffs on the changeup. He got two whiffs on the curve ball and two is on the slider. All of his whiffs basically turned into strikeouts. You know what I mean? He had like four strikeouts. He had five whiffs. all of his whiffs basically turned into strikeouts you know what i mean he had like four strikeouts he had five whiffs so there was something and i like even watching it i couldn't figure it out like i feel like i feel like they just had a really good game plan or something like maybe they were gonna like lay off the the four seam all those 16 swings and 30 that seems normal ah man they just they figured something out. I think maybe... Could you tell me why Blake Snell wasn't good today?

I can't figure it out. I really can't. It wasn't like he was wild, right? It didn't seem like it. It didn't seem like he was missing his spots too often. I mean, you look at the hard-hit balls. Blake Snell, I think, gave up eight hard-hit balls. Garrett Cole gave up eight.

Their performances weren't that different. Blake Snell, I think, gave up eight hard-hit balls. Garrett Cole gave up eight. Their performances weren't that different, and yet the long ball killed Snell, but Cole gave up two homers too. I don't know, man. This was just a weird game for Blake Snell, especially after he looked so good against the Jays. You could have this feeling that if the last inning had just gone differently for Blake Snell,

yes, the reliever usage would have been different for the Rays, and the whole narrative would have been different. And yet, it's not like there was an obvious mistake or a call or anything. I had a hard time figuring it out. I'm watching Snell. I'm just like, why isn't he getting whiffs? He's still throwing. He averaged 96 on the fastball.

He just didn't throw many sliders. That was a little bit weird for me. The slider's been a huge pitch for him. I don't know why he didn't throw as many sliders. It got more called strikes and whiffs than any other pitch. Yet, he only threw it nine times. It almost seemed like maybe there was a faulty game plan there.

But, yeah, once you get into the soft underbelly of the Rays bullpen, you get John Curtis, and you get a postseason debut. First time ever, Shane McClanahan throwing 98s and 99s i mean it was pretty exciting but also dude looked a little stressed dude looked like he was 16 out there you know and like he ended up running into the second basement ended up running into uh brandon lau on a play and yeah lost lost a batter and yeah he should have been throwing a couple more breaking balls he was very happy with his fastball too so anyway that's I guess that's why you don't debut a guy in the postseason right I guess that's why you like kind of want to get your feet wet. At least have one regular season appearance

before you debut in the postseason against the Yankees. At least to the point they brought him in, it was after the Curtis Grand Slam to Stanton. So at that point, it was kind of decided, right? It was like, well, we're going to break him in on the big stage because if we need him in a bigger spot, at least that won't be the first time that he pitched in the game. So a silver lining sort of performance.

But yeah, he ran into Brandon Lau. The reaction on Lau's face was just like, what the hell are you doing? Why are you even near me right now? It was just disbelief and probably frustration from how the inning had been playing out, of course, too. But yeah, Blake Snell's start, definitely a mystery to me. As I said, Cole, I thought he was good. Got a little better later in the start, and that was the key, right? He sort

of turned a mediocre first couple times of the order into a strong finish, bringing 99 and 100 to get a couple of key whiffs at the end of that outing. So again, that's what an ace like that does, right? On a day of reason, that was absolute best stuff.

He holds it together and at least turns in a quality start before leaving. Yeah, the fastball command is not always there for him, you know? And I think maybe he kind of recovered and got that going later in the start. But one thing does stand out to me, 11 strikeouts for the A's and five strikeouts, no, six strikeouts for the A's and 5 strikeouts, no 6 strikeouts for the Yankees that's a fairly big difference and where they came Willie Adamas had 3 strikeouts, he's at the bottom of the order he's right where you kind of need someone to run into

one, you know what I mean? All the guys in front in front of Randy Orozarena had a big home run three for four. You know, G-Man Choi had the homer got on base. Even Manny Margot got on base. If Wendell Adamas and Kiermaier had done anything more than two for nine with five strikeouts, you know,

they, they might've stayed in a little bit tighter or changed the narrative by – changed the game by being ahead, you know, and getting the better relievers in there. But, you know, it's not the deepest lineup. It's the kind of lineup where you need a couple guys to run into to homers and keep you in the game. It's really interesting. I know he had a terrible regular season and he missed time with COVID, but Austin Meadows wasn't in the starting lineup in this game. It's a lot of faith in

Manuel Margot in particular, right? I mean, that's a guy that ordinarily would be a small side platoon guy playing against lefties and Austin Meadows would get the start against a righty, especially a tough righty like Garrett Cole. I don't know if that means anything beyond this season, but it gives you a pretty good insight, I think, into where the Rays think he's at right now. Yeah. And you know, I looked at, it was an oblique injury for Meadows. Yeah, it was an oblique injury. Yeah plus oblique um the the i was trying to look at like why did he strike out 33 of the time when he's never struck out anywhere more than 23 of the time you know and he established himself as a major league who strikes out around league average why did that happen this year and i saw this like walk rate and was like oh maybe he was super

patient but if you look at his swing rates, that's not what happened. Basically his zone contact rate just went through the, through the, the, the basement, you know, his reach rates, his zone. So like most of his swing rates are kind of in line with what he's done in

the past. It's just zone contact. And so what I think, and, and, you know, you're looking at a pitch types and be like, Oh,

maybe they just threw a bunch of sliders to him. Nah, you know, like a slightly, slightly more cutters. But I think his bat was slow. In the one-up bat that I saw, his bat was slow. He couldn't catch up to a heater.

He struck out on a heater. So it seems like a general fitness. You know, everyone reacts to COVID differently. And obliques, you need to turn your body. It's a rotational sport. So I think his bat might be a little bit slow right now. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't start tomorrow. Yeah, maybe he's just a bench guy at this point,

and that's what they're going to have to do. But you think about guys that going into this season, we expected to have a big role in the Rays' offense. If you said, tell me a story about the Rays winning the division and how they're going to advance in the postseason. That story offensively almost certainly would have included Austin Meadows being at the forefront.

Brandon Lau sort of picked up the slack. He had an off night on Monday night, too, so that certainly didn't help the offense at all. But to get what you expected from a Rosarena and Choi as your three and four hitters, that doesn't work for most teams most teams cannot get away with that and the Rays did those guys were amazing and it just happened to be in a losing effort so let's be clear when it comes to shipping internationally can I provide trade documents electronically the answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments?

How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh. But let's say that... FedEx.

What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where now meets next. Let's go to the Astros-A's matchup.

Dodger Stadium plays a little different than the Coliseum in Oakland, as the A's pitchers found out. Normally, you get cool temperatures coming off the bay in Oakland, and that suppresses home runs. It was hotter than usual in Los Angeles for early October. I think it was like 90 degrees. So the ball was really flying today. I think the thing that really sticks out in my mind is the very first thing that was in Jake Kaplan's write-up about the game on the Athletic. I mean, it was the Marcus Simeon

error with two outs in the sixth, right? If that play is made, the A's are holding a 5-3 lead going into the seventh, and they're using their best relievers to get those last 9 outs and they're probably sitting with a win in game 1 instead of looking at game 2 and saying, oh crap we gotta get one now otherwise we're gonna be in big, big trouble.

Yeah, those 4 runs in the 6th really changed the flavor. But you know, even with those, you know, it was seven to five, even with the next run in the seventh, eight to five, you felt like this one was within reach. And they did force Houston to use Christian Javier, which was something that we thought they might do, but also means that they use two of their five starters in the first game. So either someone's going to have to go long, or they're going to have a whole staff game, or they're going to have to try and repeat

this performance in game five if it gets there. But I'm a little bit... One thing I wanted to say, though, some of the ball flying out today thing was overstated, I think. As much as I've found in the past that Dodger Stadium is friendly to high drives, the Matt Olsen home run was hit 109. I mean, that ball was slaughtered. And the Carlos Correa home run, 106. The second Carlos Correa home run, 105. The Sean Murphy home run 105 the collective expected batting average

on the Chris Davis one 104, the collective expected batting average on all those homers was around 900 so I think those would have been out in most places, I think Bregman's might have been the cheapo

I'm looking here for Bregman's might have been the cheap cheapo um i'm looking here for bregman's homer it was only 96 miles an hour i had a 260 uh expected batting average but there is one thing i will tell you about alex bregman he is the king of the cheapos i mean yeah that's what he does he hits like the just enough angle and just enough exit velo to hit it barely out. It's still a home run the same way. You can hit it out by 50 feet. You can hit it out by 50 millimeters.

It's still a home run. And it's the Brian Dozer special, man. He's like a pull power alley guy. And I think he's lucky that in a lot of parks that isn't a deep part of the park. He hit a 370. A lot of pull power alleys are 360. It's just enough. So that part, a little bit overstated. However, I will say, and it's maybe not polite to say this

after a one game win when it's in everyone's best interest for everyone to pay attention and stay in stay with this and and and stay you know stay engaged i it's i'm having a hard time seeing a path forward for oakland and i don't want to be like recency bias and be like oh my god they lost my game yeah they suck they're done but like i like what happens like montas shoves for five innings and lizardo shoves for five innings you still have to cover those four innings they've been been throwing Lucho Vino, who I don't know why he's bad, but he's not good. And, you know, like, I'm not sure that the bullpen is deep enough. And even if you say, OK, we've got enough bullpen and we're going to get enough from Montas and we're going to get enough from Lizardo,

you still have to win one more game. And that one game tomorrow is going to be started by Sean Mania, who I've made my feelings clear about Sean Mania. So I love him as a person. I don't get how he's skated along in the regular season, and I can't imagine he's going to go more than two or three tomorrow. So now you're using your bullpen before you even get to Montas and Lanzardo, and Montas and Lanzardo haven't given you length, a.k.a. I'm depressed for the A's.

Well, mostly I think they just have to outslug Houston. That's the script if they're going to get it done, and they were positioned to do that in game one. Both starters struggled. Both starters failed to go deep, and the A's were positioned with a pretty high win probability

before that error. So, things looked pretty good. And it's disheartening because the series is so quick and one game is a huge deal. I think the thing that's also disheartening is that the Astros with that soft underbelly were able to get five scoreless innings out of the

bullpen today. Even though they used Javier, he threw 25 pitches. He'd be good to go probably by game four in a longer scenario. They did not use him like they used Frambois Valdez. They used him for one inning. If he had to come back Wednesday, he could, but I would imagine they could look at him

Thursday and say he's basically fully rested if we want him to go four or five innings. No problem whatsoever. Tandem him again. I could see that. You're right. I think we used Merle Petit. It's sad that they had to use him because he is one of the most underrated relievers

of our time. If you look at the last five years, he's a top 50 reliever and he just does it by giving length. You know, he's a guy that has had 90 innings out of the pen, 90 innings. He's done this in the last five years. He's done this in the juice ball era, be a top 50 reliever. And a lot of the guys ahead of him have come in and gone, you know,

names ahead of him on the list are like Cody Allen and Addison Reed, you know? So it's hard to kind of do what he does. There's almost nobody else who's giving you that many innings. He's like a modern glue guy. And maybe that means he can give them more innings. I mean, it wasn't a full year for him. It wasn't like a 100-inning year out of the pen like it usually is.

But at the same time, they had to use him. They had to use Jake Diekman, who is definitely, you talk about, I think it's actually interesting that you as a Brewers fan talk about the winning relievers and the losing relievers a lot because I think that's part of the Brewers' brilliance is they have the relievers that are good, and then they have some other guys that they pitch when they're losing. Every once in a while, the guys that they pitch when they're losing

are good enough to keep them in a game, and they come back and win. But they make sure that the ones that they pitch when they're winning are really good. And they don't have to have a full bullpen. They just have to have three or four that are really good. So the A's use their winning relievers in this one. Not all of them. I mean, not like Liam Hendricks, but almost everybody else.

Diekman is a winning reliever. Yes, he only went, you know, 0.2 of an inning. He only got two outs. But Petit is a winning reliever. Mike Miner, I think, might be a winning reliever. So they use a lot. Wendell Ken has been a winning reliever for them. So, yeah, that part's depressing.

But the part that's not depressing, Chris Davis, looking pretty good, showing some pop. When he's good, he's good. So that could be a big boost. Again, if these games turn into slugfest, especially they need him to show up and come up with a few clutch hits, especially a couple of long balls, that'd be really big for this offense. It's a good lineup,

man. If you look at it, uh, even if Jake lamb, uh, isn't considered like my, some people might consider him a hole. He hit,

uh, the hardest hit ball today, uh, out of anyone. It was a double play ground out, but it was the hardest ball today. And he's been hitting the ball hard. So if you give them Chris Davis and you say Jake Lamb can be at least,

you know, sort of league average-ish, then they don't really have a hole. Laureano hasn't been playing amazing, but Sean Murphy is like the best nine hitter in the playoffs maybe. I don't know why they keep playing him in the nine hole. I think he was the best hitter on the A's this year. But anyway, it's a good lineup. I guess that's their chance. It's a good lineup. I guess that's their chance.

It's a good lineup. He's a little buried there. There was one guy in the Astros' parade of relievers today, Enoli Paredes. A couple strikeouts, two scoreless innings, didn't walk anybody, didn't allow any hits, only had one hard-hit ball against him. He is the stuffiest dream as far as relievers go, where you get those big grades on the pitches you get

the low grade on the command but he came through in a big way and i think he's one of those guys that you know as we try to figure out what they're going to do throughout the postseason and possibly in the next year i think he could be a pretty big factor in their plans especially if he stays in the pen yeah he had 98 a couple times. Got four whiffs on 18 fastballs. That's a pretty good rate there. Looked pretty good. And I'm a big fan of anybody who starts their name with Eno.

I'm on board there. Yeah, K rates during the season are a bit lower than you'd expect for a guy with the quality of the stuff that Parade Ace has. So, curious to see how he gets used in big spots going forward. For these two series, we've talked about matchups for tomorrow. First from Astros A's, it's Frambois Valdez against Sean Minaya. The one thing we didn't know when we last spoke was that Davey Garcia is going to go in game two for the Yankees. So that's going to be pretty interesting because if that doesn't go well, are they going to go with a starter from later in the series behind him and

kind of piggyback it? Or are they going to dig into their bullpen depth and run the risk of using everybody? I think that's a high risk, high reward sort of move, but certainly one that you feel a little better about after taking game one. Yeah, Lindsay Adler had a good point on Twitter, and I think she actually made it a long time ago and kind of retweeted it today. That was pretty interesting. She was talking about maybe what you do is go ace in one and put your number two starter in the third game.

And what you're doing is sort of baking in not necessarily a loss, but baking in a stopper. Like your number two guy is going to go long enough to give some of your bullpen rest. And that's in the middle of the series, right? Right. So you're saying. You can use them back to back-back in four and five.

Yeah, and you're saying, Davey, you know, we're going to pull you pretty quick, right? And I think between Davey and Happ, you've got a cool little tandem there where you've got like a short right-hander who throws reasonably hard, and then you get this tall left-hander that doesn't throw hard.

You get different packages from those two guys. You can maybe get through four innings with those two guys, maybe five, and then you just use the bullpen the rest of the way. And then you try to get on the night off with Tanaka. You say, Tanaka, we kind of need six or seven from you. Yeah. And if you win game two and then you throw tanaka uh then maybe you can burn out your bullpen if you have a lead because you're going for the sweep you know what i mean so going going for the big rest yeah and if and if you miss that shot at it then maybe you have to rest some

guys in four and then come back in five to win in five you know what i mean so um do you think that um i don't actually feel as much pessimism about the rays in that series even though i point out the strikeout ray and the strikeout ray has predicted every series in this except for rays jays um the one thing that changes for me a little bit is that i think tyler glass now is amazing. I think sometimes he is the little girl with the curl where it's really terrible or really great, but I think he can go six with eight punches again and keep him below two or three runs. So that gives him a shot.

Yeah, they definitely have a shot with, I think, a pretty clear edge in terms of the Game 2 starting pitching matchup, and I'm really interested to see what the Yankees' plan is. My guess might be they're saving Hap for four. Jordan Montgomery might be that bulk follower behind Davey because you still do the righty-lefty thing, and if it goes to five, there's no chance that Jordan Montgomery is starting that game.

It's Garrett Cole, 100%. It has to be Cole. So I think Montgomery is kind of available as the emergency bulk guy whenever they need him, and they're kind of assuming game two is going to be the first time they're going to need him. They'd certainly be better off with Paxton. So I don't think it is fair to say the Yankees are fully healthy, but that lineup sure scares the crap out of me. I don't even have to pitch to it.

Oh, it's a brutal lineup to have to try and figure out a game plan for. And they game plan well. It's not just good hitters who go up there with a bunch of power. They go up there with a really good plan, too, as we saw against Blake Snell. I feel like they alternate

totally different kinds of hitters you know i mean dj lemay who is like a contact guy right then aaron judge comes up who's like okay on contact with superpower you know then you have hicks comes up there who's actually like a super patient guy you know what i mean and then you have luke voigt who comes up and he's just going to hit the snot out of the ball and stanton and then you have ursula who's actually kind of a contact guy so they they really alternate well and it must be so hard to get through that and then you have clint frazier match you know i asked clint frazier the arizona fall league um you know are you worried about the strikeout rates you know how are you going to get those down

and he goes he gave a little bit of a longer answer where he's talking about you know pitches and pitch types and stuff. But at the end he goes, but in the end, I just got to let it eat. And that's what he did today, man. He let it eat. He hit a pretty high fastball pretty deep into the non-fans.

By the way, if there were fans in the stands, Aaron Judge's home run might have harmed one because that thing was just a laser. It looked like one of the lowest home runs I've ever seen hit. Unbelievable. That's just the incredible raw power he brings to the table. We do know that the Marlins are going to use Sandy Alcantara in Game 1. I think that was assumed when we last spoke.

That's been confirmed. So Alcantara versus Freed when the Marlins open their series with the Braves. Nice four-game set. What we don't know still is the Padres' plan for Game 1. There's a chance that it is going to be Mike Clevenger, but that is not confirmed at this point. If it's not Clevenger, it's supposed to be Chris Paddock going up against Walker Bueller. So the Padres are going to hold into that one as long as they possibly can.

I imagine we find out maybe mid-morning on Tuesday at the earliest. Yeah. It's hard to figure out who knows. I feel like everyone's working their contacts. Everybody that works the Padres beat is working their contacts,'re they're trying to figure it out and I've seen different reports it's like it's definitely going to be one of the two that's just the weirdest idea why would it definitely be one of the two like I I don't does that mean they're both healthy they you know something are you telling us they're both healthy it's definitely one of the two

or they're just gonna throw a dart and like, which one do we want to injure? Like, I don't know. So, you know, I did want to look up real quick how many homers were at a lower launch angle than Aaron Judges because he hit his at 20. And there was only, looks like, let me change the sort order on this so i can give you the right number there were only well only i say but 25 homers in the lower launching all season by the entire the whole season yeah and amazingly i think it says here that austin hayes hit one and 11 degrees

are you sure that's accurate oh inside the park home run yeah oh how many of these are inside the parkers oh there's so many okay okay you gotta race like three two or three out of there uh the really close the really lowest one was williams a studio with a uh 16 degree line drive as it was said to let field off of zach please act but uh yeah it was a low one it was a screamer it was a fun one i i want clevenger lamette to be in there if you're asking me like what i think is going to happen i think think Lemaitre seems closer. It's a bicep thing. He's had more rest time.

Never the word elbow was necessarily mentioned. If you're going to guess that it's one of them, then I guess I'm going to guess Lemaitre. I feel like it's Clevenger just based on the reports I've seen, but at the same time, I wonder how good the information they're being given is.

Did you see that report that I saw that it was going to be one of the two? I saw one from the San Diego Union Tribune. Kevin Acey said it was going to be one of the two. I was like, what does that mean? Yeah, I don't know. That's bizarre. No one knows at least for sure. At least no one's been told for sure by someone who says they can tell someone else. So yeah, we are all left to guess. Uh,

anything else that caught your eye on Monday, uh, before we get out of here? You know, there was a lot of talk about, you know, whether or not there should be, um,

you know, whether or not this is aesthetically pleasing and, you know, we should have more balls in play and stuff like that. And I do think it's a relevant discussion to have about baseball in general. I do think that fans look up and are more engaged when there's a ball in play. We're at the

all-time low of the ball in play. I did want to say that both of these games until the ninth inning where the scores changed irrevocably. The score always changes irrevocably. You can't revoke the score, you idiot. But, you know,

the scores changed in a more dramatic fashion in the ninth inning in both of these. You know what I mean? Like, these games were close, I thought. You're talking about

a 10-5 game and a 9-3 game. It sounds like they were just blowouts and it was all about homers. And it was all about homers, but because it was all about homers,

when it was like 7-5 and 8-5 late in the game or 5-3 you felt like they were one swing away and that's that's enticing too you know especially in a playoff ball where you're you're you're more inclined to like sit on the edge of your seat yeah i'm with you i mean i felt going into the end of the yankees-Rays game, that we were going to get a chance to see the Rays put the go-ahead run maybe at the plate, or at least the game-tying run at the plate. All they had to do was get one guy on against Chapman, potentially,

and one swing could have tied it in that scenario. And, you know, because things unraveled, that didn't happen. So you're right. These games were a lot closer than the final score would lead us to believe. And if every team goes in there with that ability to hit the long ball then i don't think it's as aesthetically terrible as it could be like at this point i feel like the teams are even enough where you feel like just about anybody stepping up to the plate right now can actually come through in those spots. There's not a huge underdog with no power.

Those teams really don't exist. I think even they've got a handful of guys, though, that you look at and you say, actually, yeah, Jesus Aguilar and Garrett Cooper, these guys can actually do some damage. They don't have them hitting out of the 8 and 9 hole the way that some of the other teams do, though. That's a key difference, right? The depth of a team like the Yankees is just incredible.

It's on full display, as we've seen already just in these first handful of playoff games. Yeah. And then the last thing that I just, just a complaint. It's kind of insidery, kind of insider baseball. But, you know, there's things that beat writers do that's funny. So it's like, it's kind of funny, the grainy spring training trick, spring training pictures.

You've seen that? That's kind of funny. There used to be a Tumblr a long time ago. Is Tumblr still a thing? Yeah, I don't know. I don't go on it if it is. But that's like every time spring starts, the beat writer has to kind of be like, oh, there know, there's also the trope of like, this is where I get to work, you know, or like arrived at the office or, you know, like there's there's these funny things that beat writers do.

Some people get annoyed at those. I don't get annoyed at those. I do get annoyed at one thing. I do not need a play by play on Twitter. I do not need a play-by-play on Twitter. I go on Twitter to see reactions and to feel like we're all together. If you're going to give me a play-by-play that's like 15 to 20 seconds ahead of my TV, then you're spoiling. It's called spoiler. It's a spoiler.

It's not good. And I guess there's maybe people on the bus who want to can't don't have the game and they want to know what's happening they can wait 20 seconds that's all i'm sorry they can wait 20 seconds here's the thing though for people on the bus they can just get the mlb app on their phone and watch the pitch by pitch play by play there-by-play there. That's where I always wondered, who is the audience for the play-by-play tweet? I think it might just be to be the

first so you can be the people that share it, right? So you're the first person who say Matt Olsen-Holmert and then people can retweet you saying either Matt Olsen-Holmert or like, wow. I love that that's another one too. I've tried it sometimes, so I can't lie and say that I've

never tried it, but I saw Jeff Bassman wrote, wow, Giancarlo. And he got like 2,000 retweets. And how many new followers do you think he got out of that? I don't know. I mean, he's got a ton of followers anyway. It doesn't matter that much. That's why. But at the same time, I've tried it a couple times. I was just like, wow.

See what happens. No, but that's what people want to do. Matt Olsen hits a homer. They say it, and then someone retweets it and be like, oh, it was great, or let's go A's, or whatever it is. But I had two homers spoiled today in that A's game. I'm watching the game, and I drift over to twitter ah dang it and then i have to wait like 15 seconds oh there's the homer so uh i had to yeah i had to unfollow somebody for

that one today well i helped my own sanity for the better part of the summer by taking the twitter app off my phone so it makes me a lot less likely to see a spoiler. I have to be at my computer to see a spoiler. Yeah. So shame on me for looking. The play-by-play thing's not new. I mean, this has been a flaw of Twitter since it launched. It was one of the first things that baseball writers realized they could do.

They're like, oh, wow, I can be the computer here. I can put the things out there that are already over in this other space, but it's next to my picture. I think there are very few people that traveled for these games. There's a whole lot of reasons not to. And I think that being there has some value. But I think a lot of it is like like tell me who's warming in the pen yeah they don't always show that on tv right like yeah fill in the details um you know

i've noticed uh when i went early in the season uh there's some body language stuff like i'm not the biggest fan of body language meeting that much but there was some body language stuff with like chris davis early in the season where it looked like he was really struggling then he got taken out of the lineup you could say you can kind of report that he's slumped shouldered walking back to the dugout or whatever um you know there's there's definitely stuff like that it happens there um but um my discovery that there was very little of that compared to the tv experience was part of why i didn't go to many games this year on a related note though i think the broadcasters as suggested these crews that tbs has are better than we had in the wild card round

yeah pretty much across the board talk about the game more um not as much like uh let's make this into a whole discussion about the good old days versus what's happening now like i don't i don't need to even talk about that like they didn't even take the bait when uh glider torres stole the second six runs up i don't think they even talked about it which was fine with me because glabrador has just took a ball about two millimeters off his nose you know uh if he wants yeah i don't think that was intentional from from john curtis he was just like really like slipped out of his hand i think he was just trying to reach back yeah because he he's just giving up a tater dude he's giving up a grand slam so um yeah. So, yeah. Not as much just like opinion about how bad today's game is.

It's not what we need. No, we definitely don't. And if you want better Twitter follows, follow Eno on Twitter. I won't spoil the homer for you. Britt won't spoil homers either. At Britt underscore Giroli. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. You can drop us a line via email.

Ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. If you're looking for a subscription to The Athletic, the best deal around right now is theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels, $1 a month. That gets you everything that Eno writes, everything that Britt writes, everything we're doing league-wide for the postseason, fantasy baseball, fantasy football,

all the good stuff we have, $1 a month, our best deal since I started working here almost feels like two years ago, about 18 months ago. So if you're enjoying our show on a platform that allows you to leave a rating and review, we'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to do that. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.