Rates & Barrels - Margot joins October highlight reels, McCullers' excellent start, Atlanta throws the first punch

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Eno, Britt & DVR discuss the Rays' outstanding defensive effort, Lance McCullers' excellent outing in defeat, and Atlanta's Game 1 triumph over Walker Buehler and the Dodgers behind Max Fried and a late-inning push against the Braves' bullpen.  Rundown 0:48 Manuel Margot Secures His Place in October Highlight Reels 6:08 A Closer Look at a Gem From Lance McCullers 8:24 Revamped Arsenals for the Playoffs? 14:27 Alex Bregman and the Best 0-for-5 Ever? 17:07 Atlanta Quiets the Dodgers' Offense 20:51 The Importance of Jake McGee 23:40 Austin Riley & 'The Sound' 29:54 Questions About the Dodgers' Bullpen Plan Behind Kershaw in Game 2 Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] 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 154, playoff episode number 12.

It's Tuesday, October 13th. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Britt Giroli. To be honest, I actually don't know what day it is anymore when we record or even between recordings or when I'm watching a game. No clue what day it is. I know Sundays are clear because there's a lot of football on starting at noon my time. Otherwise, couldn't tell you what day it is because I'm just dizzy and confused, but I'm enjoying it because there's good baseball each and every day. We saw game two of the ALCS. We're going to start there today.

Manuel Margot was the story. Not only did he hit a big home run in that game, but he also made probably the catch of the postseason. I think we could probably say that that versus Cody Bellinger's catch in the last round is a fair toss-up, and I think Margot surviving his catch is probably a testament to some kind of miracle or something. I don't know how he didn't come away with an injury today, but he did it. Yeah, did he get concussion protocol, I wonder? Because just the way that happened, that was my first reaction, I guess. Yeah, Willie Adamas said in the Zooms that Margot was bleeding. And that he was really worried for him. And then I guess they apparently went into the,

into the, not the clubhouse, but like up the, up the, up the tunnel a little bit. And somebody asked Kevin Cash afterwards in the Zoom, like, you know,

was he going to come out of the game? And Kevin Cash was like, no, he wasn't. No, he was not coming out of the game. So I think unclear if they did the concussion protocol, unclear what is wrong with Margot,

but he definitely, that was a really nice catch. Reminded me a little bit of Eloy Jimenez's catch in the Futures game in the same place, but this one was even more because there's more on the line, just balls to the wall, went over the wall, and topsy-turvy and legs up in the air and just a beautiful beautiful play yeah i mean was it as good of a catch as the cody bellinger catch no i think it was better how many times do you see a guy literally flip

over a wall or into the stands right you you don't really see that they were both huge moments but uh you know what's interesting to me and um you, you've been on all the Ray Zooms, but what a great story Margot is. I mean, his dad died of COVID, which I didn't know. His rental car, like, set ablaze with his family inside of it. And they had to pull his kids out. Like, talk about a guy. I mean, we could talk all day long about catch probability. out. Talk about a guy. We could talk all day long about catch probability. Talk about a guy who has been through some stuff to now be on this big stage on a small market team that no one's really

paid attention to until now to hit the home run and to have that catch. I mean, it's just awesome. This is why I love the postseason, right? I really had no idea about him at all until today like i knew he existed i knew he played on the race uh but this is why i love the postseason is you see these like random guys and tampa bay is obviously full of them and then you learn more about them and now you're like damn i'm a margot fan for life i don't care where he go. I'm behind Margot, you know, been waiting to use that. Yeah, that, uh, that was pretty legendary. The, you know, it's funny too, because he has, he wasn't that good and he hasn't ever been league average with a bat. Um, but, uh, you know, I think they just took him because Kiermaier is, is kind of falling off a little bit.

And if you look at Margot against lefties, he is above average. So I think that they just kind of bought him to be a platoon center fielder. And, you know, they bought two of those with Renfro and him. And just, you know, they hoped that maybe one of them would be a full-time guy. I didn't think Margot would be the guy that would get more playing time than Renfro. I didn't think Margot would hit a big home run. And I didn't think Margot would hit a big home run off a righty, as is supposedly better against lefties. I didn't think he would hit a big home run off of Lance McCullers.

And I did not think he would hit a big home run off of Lance McCullers, who was in the middle of shoving. Yeah, I feel bad for middle of shoving. Yeah. Yeah. I feel bad for I really feel bad. Yeah. Charlie Morton after the game was like, no, he pitched better. Like he was good.

I don't know. I just got lucky. He's like, my teammates picked me up. You know, if you look at Charlie Morton, there's like there's a there's like four or five hundred and five plus balls that he allowed in terms of exit velocity. But one thing that was a little bit interesting, all the hardest-hit balls had single-digit launch angles or less. So, you know, he broke the sinker out more. I thought Charlie Morton was underrating himself.

He does that. He's a really nice guy, and he doesn't overrate himself at the very least but uh i thought that using the two seamer today was brilliant he used a lot of the two seamer for called strikes um and he got two today called strikeouts on the two seamer on the front door two seamer he hadn't done that in two years he had he had zero in the last two years yeah i mean derek's astros now are in big trouble here. I'm going to call them Derek's Astros because for those of you tuning in, Derek predicted that the Astros would win. We on this show, of course, do not gloat at all about when people are wrong.

Unless they expose our wrongnesses in the past. No one look at my bracket. the past. No one look at my bracket. Let's keep in mind that I have run a fantastic reverse jinx with my predictions to this point. So maybe I'm just harnessing the power that I've recently discovered and doing it for the greater good. So you're welcome. But Lance McCullers did pitch really well. 20 swinging strikes, 11 Ks. He threw 100 pitches. A late home run that he gave up to Mike Zanino was kind of the one tactical decision that I wasn't sure about because he was up in the high 90s with his pitch count at the time that that happened.

That put the Rays up 4-1. As we saw how the game came to an end, the Astros had a chance to actually make this really interesting. They still do. I think they could still reel off four in a row. Come on, I said Astros in six. I'm sticking by it,

but this was the kind of game you have to win. If you get a performance like that from Lance McCullers where you only use one reliever, Andre Scrubb came on and threw one inning, so he protected the bullpen. You're probably going to need a lot of relievers with Urquidy going in game three. This set you up really well

bullpen wise. If you're Houston, you had a chance against Nick Anderson and you didn't capitalize. So it's absolutely a huge missed opportunity for the Astros in this series, given the performance of the colors. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, you said this, I think yesterday that in game one, that the Astros had the best game they could imagine, and they still lost. And I was thinking about that today because they did it again. Like, Lance McCullers was great. I'm glad you brought up Anderson DVR because he looked human.

They loaded the bases. They had chances. And we can all agree that home run by Margot was great, but it was only set up because Jose Altuve had like the yips after making no errors all year. I think Jason Stark, the great Jason Stark had a great stat. I think it was 194 or something like that.

Throwing chances. Then he makes pretty much two and within the span of, you know, several minutes, it felt like. I want to parse this for a second. Do you think that Uli Gurriel had nothing to do with that? No, I thought he should.

See, I wonder. It wasn't a good stretch. Yeah, I've long thought this. Why is it only one person who gets an error on a bad play? That could be a team error. Yeah, that was not... Like, G-Man Choi was flashing glove brilliance today, doing a lot of stretching.

He does the splits. I do not. And Uli Gurriel lot of stretching. He does the splits. I do not. And Uli Gurriel did not look like he does the splits. He did not flash the same sort of ability. But, you know, another thing I was thinking about when I was looking at McCullers and Morton today was, you know, going into this, McCullers was, like, at the end of the season, he stopped throwing the change-up. Here are the final four starts of the season. He had 11% change-ups, 8% change-ups,

12%, 1%. Like, he stopped throwing the change-up. And then in this game, he threw the change up 28 times he threw it as much as he threw his fastball um and then on the other side uh charlie morton like he made him he made his bones as like a four-seam guy right like he used to be a two-seam guy and then he went to ask the astros and they're like no four-seam and curve and that that's all you need um he like threw the sinker a ton today um and so i i feel like uh i wonder if and you never get anybody to admit this but i wonder if pitchers that like you know think about the postseason or like think about six starts from now they're like six starts from now i'm gonna see this team, six starts from now, I'm going to see this team again. Today, I'm going to use a bunch of change-ups just to F with them.

Yeah. I listened to the radio broadcast for the Rays for a while because I love Dave and Andy, and they were just stunned with the way McCullers was pitching. They were like, there's no rhyme or reason to the game plan. He's totally unpredictable. And that clearly, similar to game one with Valdez a little bit,

that clearly seems to be Houston's playbook here against the Rays is to totally abandon what you have done in the past, which sounds insane, but it's worked. That's what Bauer said when we did the breaking code breaker thing.

He said the only thing you can do against a team that is this well prepared is to not do anything you've ever done before. He's like, I threw pitches to Michael Brantley that I have never thrown Michael Brantley. And I faced him like X amount of times. But I was like, you know what? He's not prepared for this because I've never done this before. Right. Didn't you say he had a change-up, change-up sequence against him or something?

He had some combination he'd never even thrown before to Brantley that was really odd. And he did something similar to Springer, too, where he threw a 3-2 change-up. And Springer tried to swing out of his – he thought it was a fastball. He swung out of his shoes, and he looked back at Bauer like, what the hell was that? of his shoes and he looked back at Bauer like what the hell was that and uh because you know Bauer doesn't throw that many changeups throw it on three two is just crazy talk so yeah I think there was a little bit of like let's just be erratic and crazy and nobody can sit on any one pitch and it really worked uh for McCullers it's a beautiful curveball yeah I mean you look at the whiff numbers uh we mentioned CS CSW. I think that was

on yesterday's pod that you brought that up, the called strikes plus whiffs, 50% on the knuckle curve, 36% on the change up, 33% on the cutters he was throwing. I mean, just outstanding across the board. You, again, couldn't ask for more. I'm thinking about arsenals though. And you've talked a lot on this show about the importance of having a third pitch or even a fourth pitch and how much that adds. How difficult is it to take those pitches away and then dust them off in a game situation? If you are trying to play chess over multiple matchups,

you're trying to kind of steer the advanced scouting in the wrong direction by taking a few things away. Is it really that easy to just go back to something you got to work out on the side basically to have it ready to go it's gonna get you in trouble eventually you know like uh like just with the bauer change up like if springer hadn't swung it probably wouldn't have been it probably would have been a walk because he doesn't command that change up well because he didn't throw very much so yeah and i think the the thing with with mccullers too is the same thing like he can't command the changeup very much so usually he doesn't use it but either he had good command of it today or they were just swinging a lot let's see what we what the answer is on that

by the way uh i'm looking at the raise bullpen usage and it was pete fairbanks who went two behind charlie martin That was kind of a big deal. They went loop for two outs. They went Ryan Thompson for one, and then it was Nick Anderson, not himself. That was the only sort of the door is

slightly ajar moment for the Rays. Their defense was outstanding across the board today. Adamas was really good really good yeah which is why if you're the astros you're kind of like what else can we do like did you guys see like springer in the ninth the base is loaded hits the ball right on the nose and it's a double play i mean well if you're the astros like it's almost tougher to regroup from these than from total blowouts because you feel like um you could have very very easily have been up 2-0 the race haven't hit kind of lost in all this

is that the race haven't really hit at all um and again they're they're just now sitting very pretty and it seems like i don't know if the bullpen is just that terrific or if every move kevin cash makes if he's just really really good good at roster management with this bullpen. But to me, it just seems like Tampa Bay, Houston's going to have a real hard time toppling them now. I mean, for Derek's prediction to come true, we're going to have to see some crazy, crazy stuff go down. And it has happened before.

It's not unprecedented. But you look at those seven-game series, when a team falls behind 2-0, it really seems to be the sucker punch, which is why, to me, tonight's game was so important for the Braves to kind of be able to topple the Dodgers, because that's going to be a seven-game series, I think. Even if the Dodgers win, I think Atlanta, tonight, by winning that game 5-1, surprised a lot of people.

Though it really shouldn't be a surprise. They're not this smoke show. They're not a cheap parlor trick. They're a really good team. No, they're legit, and they absolutely belong there. There's one more thing in this Houston game I want to mention. Alex Bregman may have had the best 0-5 I've ever seen. He had five hard-hit balls.

Dude, he averaged like 101. That's a great point. That's insane to hit the ball that hard five times and come away with nothing. And you see it in the XBA column. The Astros, of course, had 10 hits in the game, only scored the two runs. They had a.357 XBA today.

The Rays had a.167. So sometimes it just doesn't fall your way. The Rays had three hard hits and two hits I don't know it was a tough night for them even Dusty afterwards said we had a lot of hard hits according to StatCast but there's not a lot of time

for those to start dropping in Dusty said that 2020 Dusty rules he's the best version of Dusty said that? 2020 Dusty rules. He's the best version of Dusty yet. Stack ass Dusty. He also referenced Camus. I heard. Oh, God.

Some people are geeking out about that. I love him. It's been quite the turnaround. But again, Astros in six. I've never been wrong

about anything in the postseason, ever. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. 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 a- 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 move on to that Braves-Dodgers matchup, though. As you said, Britt, really important for the Braves to get off to a good start.

We mentioned the starting pitching matchups. The further into the series you go, the more that favors the Dodgers. The Braves got exactly what they needed from Max Freed. I think it's helping Atlanta, and it's helped really each team that's faced Walker Buehler so far, that he's clearly dealing with some command issues as a result of that blister problem on his hand. He's still walking a lot of guys, and the pitch count gets a run up. He was out after five, struck out seven, but walked five, only allowed one run. It was the solo home run in the first inning to Freddie Freeman. But for Walker Buehler to only go five, it opened the door for that bullpen a little bit sooner,

and they answered the call. Brewster Gratterall came in, pitched well. Dustin May loaded the bases and left. Victor Gonzalez got a huge strikeout. That was a big moment to kind of keep the Dodgers in it. But then it was Blake Trinan who got roughed up. Austin Riley led off that inning with a home run. Braves tacked down a few more in that inning as well.

And it's just unfamiliar territory. We've said this a few times. It's the situation that for years the Dodgers would have turned to Kenley Jansen, right? Home team, tie game, Jansen would have been the guy. You come win the game in the bottom of the inning, game over. And who was going to get that call was a big question. Trinan is absolutely deserving.

He's a high quality reliever and I think he just made a couple of mistakes and the Braves punished him for it. I don't really know if there's much more of an explanation than that. Yeah. I mean, it seems too early to kind of just go out and bash the bullpen already, right? Because you're right. He's the guy. My issue, if you're the Dodgers, is you scored one run and you're going to have to do better than that. Atlanta, they were lucky, as you mentioned, DVR, they were lucky Atlanta didn't have more than one run early on.

I mean, it was kind of like the case with Houston. A lot of hard hit balls, a lot of base runners on all day. Atlanta just seemed like it was only a matter of time before their offense scored again. The Dodgers never really seemed that way, I guess, especially when you get to that bullpen. You're seeing how good that Braves bullpen is. Yes, the Dodgers have some good relievers,

but the Braves, the depth of that bullpen, and we spoke with Dave O'Brien, the Braves writer, earlier today. He's been covering the Braves forever, and he said, I've never seen a bullpen for Atlanta this deep, and I think watching him, you have to agree. They've got so many guys who can come out there and shut the door I loved how Melanson caught that home run in the bullpen then goes out and gets the win um I just think they're a fun excitable team you see Azuna doing the the gestures

and uh you know they're just a really fun team they're not the Padres, but let's make no mistake, there's a lot of energy and a lot of spirit and a lot of fun watching Atlanta play the game. I think even if this game had continued one-to-one for several innings, it was set up for Atlanta to win, and they had to win this game. That was my impression, too. As you got Chris Martin, Will Smith, Mark Lanson, and you're trying to play along and be like, who comes next, you know? And you're like, oh, Darren O'Day and this and that, you know.

Once Dustin May came out, you realize, I think, that from usage patterns, you can kind of realize how much the Dodgers and or the manager, Dave Roberts, trust their bullpen. Because if they trusted their bullpen more, Dustin May would start because you could use him to start because there are no off days and you need a starter in four or five, right? So now what you've done is you said, no, May is a reliever for us and we need him. And so we got Gratterall, May, Victor Gonzalez. That's the A team, right? You got the Dodgers A team and they did well. Although I will also point out Brewster or Gatterall came on to face the bottom of the order. I don't know why they felt they needed

to use Gratterall to get nick marcakis out but they did um and uh then you use dustin may use victor gonzalez that's the a team uh trinan comes on he's part of the a team but that's it you know that's the end of the a team when you if you ask me you know the like jake mcgee wasn't used in the postseason before this and we saw why kind of i mean you know i i think that he was walking a fine line this year and then the generally on top of that i think usage helps you kind of realize who the good relievers are because otherwise we're talking about a 60 game sample you know we're talking about uh you know people being optioned up and down people being injured people being healthy and then not healthy.

So looking at a full-season bullpen number and saying, oh, the Dodgers were fourth best in strikeouts minus walks, that's great. They have a really healthy organization with a lot of guys they can bring up and down, and that doesn't mean that they really trust more than four guys. I would say they trust the four guys they used tonight and not many more. And if this has gone another inning and trying and had shut the door, somebody else would have given up the next run.

That's just how I saw it. I think Jake McGee is kind of important for them though. I think if you look back at the regular season, he had a 41.8% strikeout rate, which is just outstanding. It was the highest on the team by a decent margin. He kept the walks under control throughout the regular season as well. Velo was the best of his career almost.

Yeah, he came back and had a very resurgent sort of season. So he's an important piece for them because they don't have that depth. And he could come through. But what I think we're maybe overlooking with the Dodgers bullpen, or some people are overlooking, is that for all the guys they have who come in and throw hard, they don't miss that many bats. The K rates are so much lower than you'd think with this group. I mean, you go to a guy like Joe Kelly, throws hard, 21.4% K rate, not that good. Blake Trinan throws hard, 20.6% back in the regular season. Even Dustin May,

who we like. Average is like 22. Yeah, it's just like that's nothing special, especially for the stuff that these guys bring to the table. Gratterall, 14.8% in the regular season. That one's even more puzzling than May. I know the fastball is pretty straight, but how is he not missing more bats than that? Contact's going to come back to bite you. We talked about how important making contact was

earlier on in the postseason. There were a lot of teams with high strikeout rates as lineups. It did not treat those teams well moving through the first couple rounds of the postseason. The Rays have been an exception to that. If you're allowing a lot of balls in play in the late innings, bad things can and will happen to you. I think that's where the chink in the armor for me is with this Dodgers bullpen not being overpowering. They have good results, but they don't do it in a way that just keeps teams completely quiet. Yeah, that's a good point.

Also, it's that fine line of error, right? Like that fine margin. Nobody can be off because they don't have enough bodies. Like Eno was saying, they trust these four guys. Well, guess what? The Rays trust like six or seven. So they're throwing a party when Charlie Morton and Blake Snell go five innings. I guess five, yeah, exactly.

But with Walker Bueller, it's like, wait a second. We're not set up for you to go five innings. We need you to go more than that. The Dodgers are not set up that way. It's really interesting. When you sort by K minus BB, you get the Dodgers high. But it's because they had the best walk rate in baseball. It's not because they had the best strikeout rate. In fact,

they had the 13th best strikeout rate as a, as a bullpen. And it was kind of a run, a Homer suppression play. I think that is one thing that you do miss when you talk about Gratterall trying in and the group you, they should suppress Homers because they have this lateral movement. They have the high velocity. They should suppress Homers because they have this lateral movement. They have the high velocity. They should suppress homers, and they did in the regular season. And so maybe that's the play.

But I think when you get to the postseason, you're talking about the very best hitters, and you're talking about that fine line that Britt's talking about. You know, just like that one thing that can go wrong. And today for Trinan, it was leaving the sinker up maybe four inches, five inches over where he wanted it to be. And that was it. That was it for the game. Riley, though, you know, he kind of strikes me as almost like a future Ray. Because everyone's going to think about his negative parts, you know.

Not that great defensively. You know, not that great defensively, you know, not that great walk rate, you know, like there's question marks about him. I think the Braves were smart to hold on to him. There were talk, there was all these rumors that he was in talks for, like we were sending him on this podcast, we were sending him to Cleveland to get them a starter. And maybe the Braves were right to hold on to him because he has that sound, as I said on Twitter today. He has that...

Famously, we were at a Arizona Fall League game where there was a hitting group with Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley, and the Red Sox second baseman. Chavis.

Michael Chavis. And yesis, Michael Chavis. And yes, these three guys aren't going to the Hall of Fame necessarily. Maybe one is. It's probably not Chavis. Sorry, I don't know why I said that. That's so mean. Totally unprovoked. Totally unprovoked.

Somewhere you lost the listener. I'm mad about some fantasy stuff, I guess. But anyway, they had the sound, man. You could turn around and just hear the eggs of velocity coming off their bat. So that's what people saw today, I think. Riley definitely has that sound. Well, speaking of the sound, how much money is Azuna going to make as a free agent this year? I mean, his bat just stays in the zone. He just always seems to deliver, right? well speaking of the sound how much money is azuna gonna make as a free agent this year i mean

his bat just stays in the zone for he just always seems to deliver right like i'll be honest they had a really cool slow-mo where it looked like his bat was like you know level through the zone the whole way on the double yeah like i'll be honest i did not watch the braves for a large chunk of time because i cover the nationals and you can only watch one game at once a lot of the time but like this postseason um it just seems like he constantly dials it up. He gives them big at-bats. He's just this terrific... He kind of reminds me a little bit of Nelson Cruz in that,

how old is he really? Does anyone really know? He's an older guy. But he just always seems to give them these at-bats and freddie freeman i know that he gets a lot of attention but it just doesn't seem like he gets enough attention as to how good he truly is right like i know this year was this big you know nl mvp push um but i think when you watch him and you watch what he brings to that braves team um he's so clearly the leader of like like I said, a really fun, talented, ridiculously deep lineup that I was kind of disappointed tonight

watching the Dodgers because I was kind of looking forward to these at-bats from both of these lineups. You know, seeing a lot of really good hitters, a lot of really good battles. And I felt like the Dodgers lineup, and obviously credit to Max Freed and the bullpen with Atlanta, but the Dodgers lineup is going to have to wake up here a little bit because if they

do have this fine line for their relief pitching, then they're going to have to start scoring runs. And they're going, I mean, Clayton Kershaw this year in the postseason has been great. And they're going, how frustrating would it be if all of a sudden the Dodgers' offensive woes, their demons of playoffs past, come back here at the most inopportune moment? I'm a little bit less worried for the Dodgers as I was, say, after game one for the Astros because so much went right for the Astros. And this one, you went toe to

toe with Max Freed their ace their ace you know and there is a sizable drop off I think even to Ian Anderson as much as Ian Anderson can be uh looks like he's good like there's still you know the question of how much the league has adjusted back to him how much um the Dodgers may have you know spotted what they can do there might be some game plan that can get to Ian Anderson that hasn't been shown yet. So there's that. And then I'd say Kyle Wright is going to have a hard time against the Dodgers. I think in the Zoom today, we kind of gave them Kyle Wright. I would not give them Kyle Wright. I would say the Dodgers are very heavily favored to win games threes and four. So if they win the next one, they could be up 3-1 you know by game five so i i'm not gonna uh shut the book on the dodgers just because uh jake mcgee and blake

trying to work great tonight and then the offense didn't get going i think you know the braves show their a team in terms of pitching they're gonna have to show b and c eventually and um i think the dodgers will come through on that that's's one thing I agreed with Pedro Moura. He's just like this depth, the guys 20 through 28 on this roster are better than anybody else in baseball. And I think that's probably true. The Rays might,

might have an argument with similar depth, but you know, that's the kind of thing that the Dodgers do star power plus that awesome depth. On what other team would Gavin Lux not be on the LCS roster? That's ridiculous depth. Look at Kike, man.

Kike seems like an afterthought when you think about the Dodgers and he comes in and hits a big home run. He just keeps crushing against lefties. I know statistically lefty mashers aren't necessarily backed up by the numbers. I know that's a contention that our friend Dirk Hardy makes all the time.

Yeah, but he's good enough that if you give him the extra lefty boost, yes, there is a platoon boost. So he's good enough normally that if you give him a little bit of a lefty boost, he's a good hitter that can play any position and gives you this awesome versatility where you're just like, Oh, we're going to move this guy here, here, here. Taylor comes in and this guy moves here. And you know, like it's a, it's pretty awesome to have a guy that can,

he's played, I think he played nine positions one year. And he was sort of like a, like a tertiary piece in some massive trade. He played eight. I think he threw one year. He threw off the mound one year. So he did eight.

He can do pretty much everything. It's a, it's a nice piece to have, and the Dodgers have a couple guys like that. One other thought here. If the Dodgers get into some trouble, if Kershaw's pitch count gets run up, what's the plan? I mean, do you run a lot of the same relievers out there in game two? Dustin May, probably you back off him for two and come back with him at some point in three. Dustin may probably back off him for two and come back with him at some point. In three, what's the sort of desperation level if things don't go as expected with Kershaw getting deep into the start in game two?

You'll see Joe Kelly tomorrow, won't you? Oh, man. Am I supposed to look forward to that? You asked. He has great stuff. No, I do wonder. I think that the in-case of emergency break glass situation is Tony Gonsolin. But if you use Tony Gonsolin, then you use Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May,

and you have three starting pitchers. That means a bullpen day. And all of a sudden, you've seeded your advantage in game four. Right. So, I mean, it's important for Kershaw to get deep into this start and to take some of the pressure off the pen based on the other games.

I mean, deep like modern deep. Like five or six. Yeah. Not five, though. They can't absorb another five-inning start. I don't think they're built like that. He needs to do a six.

It would be rough. I would say at least six. Looking at the other matchup real quick, Yarbrough versus Urquidy is the Rays-Astros matchup. The game times tomorrow, today, Tuesday, are

just absurd. We have a 6.05 Eastern and an 8.40 Eastern, and the Dodgers are playing in the early game? What happened? Did somebody make a spreadsheet error and then hit send, and they're like, well, that's what we said we're doing, so that's what we're doing. Are they repeating the error by doing that again for

game four? Yes. Why couldn't they keep it the same? So is Yarbrough, is he an opener? Are they using him as an opener tomorrow? You know? Do you know? Is it like some sort of punishment for the Rays for using an opener in the postseason? Right.

They're like, oh, this is. I would assume Yarbrough just goes, you know, three, four, five innings, whatever he's able to do effectively. Five. If he goes five innings again, then the Astros are all done. If he cruises through five innings, then they get another five-inning start from a team that used more innings this year from their bullpen

than from their starting rotation. It really is all coming up Tampa Bay Rays. I mean, this game should favor the Astros, right? Harkity's better than Yarbrough, no? Yeah, yes. Normally, he would be. This year, he just hasn't been. He just hasn't quite been the same guy we saw last year.

That's true. He had the COVID, but I thought he didn't. The COVID. He missed a lot of time, too. Don't get me into my nicknames for it. I heard you lay those on you. into my nicknames for it. I heard you lay those on you.

But late in the season, he had a good start to finish. His last three starts, he had 14 strikeouts in 20 innings. Yeah, I guess that's not great, but he didn't give a bunch of runs or anything. 76 and 79 pitches

in his postseason starts so far, so should hopefully, for their sake, go about five or so. I think that's a pretty even pitching matchup, Yarbrough and Urquidy. Obviously, Kershaw versus Anderson, hard not to pick Kershaw in that spot, but a great test for Ian Anderson, who has borne the brunt of the Braves not really being tested to this point in the postseason. Any other thoughts from you guys, either on the games we saw on Monday or the games we're about to see on Tuesday? These are going to be great series.

I think we said that after we saw one game, but now that we've seen three, you could say with a little more certainty that these are going to be really good series. If you like baseball, this has been a really fun postseason, and it is not disappointing. It always kind of sucks when you get to these big rounds, If you like baseball, this has been a really fun postseason, and it is not disappointing. It always kind of sucks when you get to these big rounds, and all of a sudden you've got a team that's way better than another team. And I don't think that's the case here.

Even though the Astros are down, like we said, they very easily could have been up 2-0. So, you know, I hope that we get a little more of a series and that Tampa Bay doesn't run away with this. You know, I expect the Dodgers and Astros to win tomorrow and, and reflect better reflect. Like you said, the closeness of these series also wanted to pimp something. I got a piece coming out tomorrow. Randy, a Rosalina, the Randy Rosalina experience.

It's got some fun stuff in it, but it also gets at the question of like how sustainable this is uh because it is a hot run but i don't think it's like cody ross or marco scudero or you know uh eddie perez had this one nlcs that was just legendary but um i i think there's something that's really cool that i found about the way his strengths line up with what the league's trying to do. Um, so, uh,

I'll leave a little intrigue on the table. I'm going to show a little thigh, but not all. And, uh, hopefully you like my combination of heat maps and sexual innuendo. And sexual innuendo. Maybe that'll get a sub out of you,

but, uh, if not a sub, at least a rise. So you're going to show us the lower third of a heat map in an article about Randy Rosarena tomorrow on The Athletic. All right, we all got that to look forward to. It's $1 a month, theathletic.com.

It's $1 for the rest of the heat map. For the rest of the thigh. $1 for the first heat map and $1 for each additional heat map. Those were the days. I'm looking forward to the games on Tuesday. If you're enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, please take a moment to do that. We greatly appreciate it.

We did confirm my dad does not listen to the show. I didn't get a text from him today. No, mine didn't. Mine neither. He was nowhere to be found. There's always next week and I think I'm going to bring back with a round of trivia for you guys on the Wednesday episode try to raise a little more money

for charity if you want to see what that's all about I've got the tweet pinned on my Twitter page at Derek Van Ryper trying to raise some money for the American Cancer Society October of course is breast cancer awareness month so as always you can reach us via email ratesandbar at the athletic.com on Twitter. She's at Brit underscore drolly. He's at, you know, Sarah's I'm at Derek van Riper. That is going to wrap things up for this episode

of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.