Rates & Barrels - Pitching shines in Atlanta and early exits for Minnesota and Cleveland

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Eno, Britt, and DVR discuss Wednesday's loaded eight-game playoff slate, including an excellent pitching matchup in Atlanta, the A's effort to push their Wild Card Series to a decisive Game 3, and a collapse in Cleveland. Rundown 2:51 Braves-Reds & Trevor Bauer, Villain 8:03 The Twins' Early Exit 11:00 Chris Bassitt's Strong Start, Liam Hendriks Usage 13:02 Starling Marte's Injury & Sixto Sánchez's Chance to Advance the Marlins 17:27 The Future is Bright in Toronto 21:09 Cleveland’s Latest Collapse 26:02 The Dodgers Hold Serve in Game 1 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

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It's Thursday, October 1st, Wednesday. We had eight playoff games on the slate. Was it everything you guys hoped it would be? Britt, did you have enough screens? Did you have enough devices around to consume as much playoff baseball as your heart wanted? No. I liked it, but I also had anxiety about it. I felt like it was March Madness. And I constantly wasn't sure what was going on.

And teams suffered along the way, right? There were casualties. There were games that I was not able to be invested in because of this. So it was cool to say we did it, kind of like an all-nighter, but I never want to do it again. It was just simply too much. Yeah, there's a limit on what I can. I think I can watch two games at the same time.

Three I had to do for a little bit, and then you just lose track of, like, what count it is and what's happening and you know if you want to like opine about the game or write a brief or write a tweet it's better to like understand the flow of the game and understand how things link together at some point when you're watching three at one time you're just like you're kind of mix the games together and be like wait what wait what what what game is this again and then you're like you have the audio on for a game that you're not watching and you get kind of confused like i think people should know that both eno and I are wearing blue blockers. That's how much screen time we have put into it. We sacrificed our eyes for you.

No, but at the same time, it was kind of cool that it was just on all day, you know? And there was no sort of letdown. We were like, oh, well, that was that. You know, there was, nope, there's another game. I mean, this thing started at 9 a.m. my time, and here it is 10 p.m., and there's still two games on. So it's a pretty solid day.

I do think that in the future, baseball will kind of step back from the brink on this and maybe realize that 16 is probably too much. That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping that it's fewer, that we won't need eight games on one day. And we'll still have this feeling of having baseball all day, but maybe six games in one day. You know, that would be okay.

Twelve teams in the playoffs, making that work would be ideal, I think, from a balance standpoint. But a lot happened. One game, the first game of the day, the Reds-Braves matchup, I thought that thing was going to run all day. I thought we were going to get 18 innings from those two teams. Ended in 13. The Braves finally coming away with the win.

Freddie Freeman driving in the game's only run. So that game was as advertised. Trevor Bauer was fantastic. 12 Ks over 7 2 3rds for him. Max Freed, 7 scoreless with 5 Ks. The bullpens, everybody got used. So being that this was game one, not as much of a concern, of course, since I think only Michael Lorenzen actually went two innings of all the relievers on both sides. So most of the relievers are actually available in game two. So most of the relievers are actually available in game two. Anything that really caught your eye in that game, the Reds had plenty of chances to score before the Braves finally put that one away, Britt. Yeah, I mean, well, Bauer obviously sticks out to me.

He set the tone for that entire game. You're watching that game, and the Reds had a bunch of opportunities to score before the Braves ever did, and it just seemed like they constantly kind of squandered them. And I don't know about you guys, but it seemed like a day of like poor base running and just like stupid errors all day. We saw a lot of that today. And, you know, with the Reds. Twins. Yeah.

I mean, the also, I mean, it happened in San Diego too. Jake Cronenworth really kind of blew that game with a bunch of boneheaded plays. But, you know, watching that game, I just felt like, okay, please don't let this come down to an error, right? It was such a good game. I'm glad that it happened. And it was a legitimate run with Freddie Freeman. It was such a masterful playoff game. My favorite part was watching Trevor Bauer walk off the field and do the brave chop to an empty stadium. And Freddie Freeman clapping back later and saying, yeah, we saw it.

He can do whatever he wants. I'm glad we got the win. Like, I love the, the drama that's building the back and forth. It's just hilarious. I think, you know,

I think people get really riled up about Bauer. He's made some missteps, I think in social media, uh, in the past and maybe his politics don't line up with a lot of people. Um, but I have to tell you a little secret. A lot of the politics, if you don't line up with Trevor Bauer, you don't line up with a lot of the politics in baseball's clubhouses.

So I try to separate that out, and I think that his antics are decent for the game. I think they're fun. The billionaire strut, the mock chop. It gives us, you know, it gives media something to talk about. It gives people something to get riled up about. It gives, you know, it's jiffable. It's, you know, it's like, it's fun.

It's like, it almost seems like it's from another sport, you know, and I'm here for it. What I feel bad for is Mike Moustakas' day you know what's this 0 for 5 with 5 men left on base and I know that

it hurts and I know that like it's not the best day of matchups for him Max Fried comes from the left side and has a fairly low arm angle too which just makes it pretty hard on lefties. And, you know, like, you know, they had Will Smith come out there, Darren O'Day being all weirdo. And then Tyler Matzik, I think, got got him once, too, from the left side. They have A.J. Minter. You know, sometimes I wonder, you know, I was thinking of this when I saw Mike Moustakas. I wonder if teams get too obsessed with doing the righty-lefty, righty-lefty thing.

Especially because that seems old school in a time when we have this new rule about relievers and how many people we'll have to face. I almost think maybe you should stack your righties against a lefty. your righties against a lefty because you put Mike Moustakas in the middle of this group of righties and they just picked at him. And they just got the outs they needed from him.

I mean, Votto got two hits. Jesse Winker had what seemed like might be a big hit. But otherwise, it was Nick Castellanos, the righty, doing most of the damage. Nick Senzel had two hits. Aristides Aquino had two hits.

So it was the righties that did the damage that day, and I kind of wish they had almost stacked them up. Going into tomorrow, it does actually matter if you use your relievers once, especially since the Reds used Raisa LaGracia for four outs and Lorenzen for six. They put up a stat in one of the games. I can't remember which one because there were so many of them.

There was a stat that on more than one day of rest relievers had a 2-7-5 ERA and on one day rest they had a 4-7 ERA. It does matter a little bit they had to use these guys but of course they had to go

for the jugular it's a three three game series um and they and they could have they could have made it um but it was it was an interesting way to start out because you were like is anybody gonna score runs today exactly it's just crazy i mean i don't really feel that bad for moustakas i feel terrible for the twins overall derrick i know you're a brewers fan so they might not be like the number one on your i feel terrible for this team list overall. Derek, I know you're a Brewers fan, so they might not be the number one on your I feel terrible for this team list, but come on, watching that Twins-Astros game, I mean, tug at you a little bit.

So many mistakes. It's so frustrating to see it, and I think I'm still stuck on the error that Jorge Polanco made in Game 1 of the series, too, because that should have been a 1-1 game with the Twins coming up, being at home, having a chance to walk it off and get the win instead they're going home and they have that record streak 18 consecutive postseason losses now it's so hard to believe

one of the little factoid i found in the last 12 hours or so since we last spoke the day that the twins last won a playoff game was the same day that Scottie Pippen retired from the NBA, just to give you an idea of what was happening in sports that day. I won't bore anybody with the details of what was happening in my life 16 years ago because it wasn't good.

There's no more. No, you guys, I still got to put the donation in. I failed badly enough. Trivia is like a once a week thing. And I think I'm going to have to reach out to Jason Stark and see if Jason can come on and maybe answer some questions or help us out a little bit. Answer them. No, but look at this situation, though, with the Twins. I think it's a good team.

But you lose Josh Donaldson. Nelson Cruz is hobbling along on one leg. Even Luis Arias had just rolled his ankle and may not be 100%. So you had injury, and then you add in the just, I think, just unfortunate. I don't think this is an injury, like an error-prone team. I don't even think this is a terrible defense, you know? But Jorge Polanco played poor defense. And then you bring in Byron buxton to pinch run

and he gets caught i mean uh it wasn't even like an amazing move or anything it was just i don't know maybe he's still having the the concussion side effects and maybe um it's just more sad than uh boneheaded but um it just uh it just seemed to kind of sum it all up. Well, the Astros cruised with that tandem too. Jose Urquidy went four and a third. Christian Javier went three. It worked really well for them. Yeah, Dusty Baker and his bullpens, you guys.

I mean, this is ridiculous. Houston's kind of gone back to being a true enemy of the casual fan again. I think they skated by for most of the season with empty stadiums, but I think they're going to bring that attention back upon themselves now that they've advanced into the ALDS with the quick two-game sweep of the Twins. I thought the other thing that was weird about the Twins, I know the splits are bad for Jose Barrios the third time through the order. They took him out after 75 pitches. They were pretty quick to give him that hook. Trust in the numbers,

yeah, maybe, but this is your season on the line. Weirdly, he didn't throw any change-ups either. He threw very few change-ups and I thought that was setting it up to go change-up heavy or something and maybe get through the third time. I think they were just like, you're going to be a two pitch pitcher and you're going to go five and that's it. But you know, I'm thinking about like different approaches to bullpens and tandem starting.

And I'm thinking about the Oakland game and you know, Oakland staved off elimination. Chris Bassett played really well. If you want to read about Chris Bassett and why he's so good, Alex Coffey had a great story about how he's basically Lance Lynn-esque. And if you look at qualified starters who use, like, three fastballs the most or use that fastball the most, and in these cases three fastballs, it's Chris Bassett. Number one is lance land at like

89 and number two is chris bassett at 80 so um he's got a little bit at lance land going on he pitched really well but seven innings in you know they're winning something like five to one um and you think um you know what do you think what do you do here? Do you use fires of Mania? Do you try to save Hendricks? What do you do? They went to Hendricks for two innings. They wanted two innings out of Hendricks, and he just didn't look right.

And he was just barely getting along and tons of sliders, and they get to see a lot of Hendricks now, right? They get to just see Hendricks just working really hard on the, on Chicago side. And they actually had to bring in Jake Diekman to get the final out. Um, so I don't know that necessarily, I think personnel makes the decision for you a little bit and you kind of need fires in Mania, both of them for tomorrow, um, in Oakland, but at the same time, it's like, uh like maybe you can push a reliever too hard. You know, maybe two innings from your close.

Yeah, I think after Lizardo went short in game one, the goal there was probably to use as few relievers as possible to get everybody rest, have everybody available and just throw the kitchen sink out there against the White Sox in game three. But Hendricks, that seemed like a very bad idea health-wise. And like you said, he was not pitching very well in that matchup either. The other interesting thing that happened early in the day, this was kind of the ghost game on the slate for a lot of people. The Marlins knocked off the Cubs in game one. 5-1 win for the Marlins. Starling Marte actually got hit by a pitch in the ninth inning.

He's day-to-day with a non-displaced fracture of his pinky. So there's a chance he's going to play through it. But the Marlins, look, it's Sandy Alcantara, Sixto Sanchez. They got a chance to close it out with Sixto taking the ball on Thursday. And I think Sixto's got the stuff to do it. This is a Cubs offense that's been struggling. They're a below average group with guys who should be above average contributors.

So I'm really curious to see how he kind of holds up with the lights being so bright with the Marlins having a chance to advance on Thursday. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this earlier this week. The Cubs offense just goes in fits and spurts and it seems like they're on the downswing here now. And certainly, credit the Marlins, but if you're the Cubs, you're wondering, where is this core? When are they going to get on a hot streak again? I saw this stat come across earlier in the day over their last, like I want to say 10 or 11 post-season games. Their hitting has just been atrocious.

So it's not unique to just today. And I think the Marlins are playing with a lot of that momentum. And you mentioned them being the dead game. I do feel bad. I was, I was scrolling. I was trying to get to that game and it just seemed like very quickly, the Cubs played very sloppy, kind of got away with it very quickly.

That Corey Dickerson home run changed the whole tenor of that game. It seemed like the Marlins felt like, okay, we can win, kind of cruised from there. I think they're a young, dangerous team. I think the Cubs are in some serious trouble heading into an elimination game. Yeah, and we talked about how Ian Happ was the lone shining star in that offense this year. we talked about how Ian Happ was the lone shining star in that offense this year. And lo and behold, you get one for 12 out of Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez. And that one was a single.

So just not much offense from those guys. And you wonder, is it age? Is it just the sort of natural crumbling of a dynasty? Or is it just poor timing? If you'd given them more time, could they have gotten back on the horse? But Happ and a little bit of Hayward is not going to be enough offense, given, I think, the weakness of the bullpen a little bit. I mean, you Darvish, you go eight tomorrow and keep them in it and maybe win a 1-0, 2-0 type game.

But then they have to start somebody in game three. So, you know, who are the teams that are down 1-0 right now? We've got San Diego. It's the NL team. San Diego, the Reds, and the Cubs. Yep, all down, All down, facing elimination on Thursday. And the Brewers here in just a...

Which team do you like best to get back on top or win the next game? Zach Davies going for the Padres is probably a guy that you could see just kind of settling

things down. Not that he's overpowering or anything like that, but Davies versus Wainwright is not a matchup that favors the Cardinals. That's an even sort of pitching matchup. As Britt mentioned, the Padres made a lot of silly mistakes. One thing that's weird about this,

Dylan Carlson's hitting cleanup. He wasn't good enough to be on the roster three weeks ago, and now he's hitting cleanup in the playoffs, which it's so weird to see how teams have handled some of the young players generally being very aggressive with promotions, but maybe too much is made of lineup construction.

I think the point you made earlier, Eno, about not necessarily mixing lefties and righties or alternating them the way we typically do because of the reliever rules being different. I think that's a really good point. But it's surprising to see Dylan Carlson being asked to take on a very prominent role. But I think it's the right move because they tried to do it with him buried in the order and they couldn't score runs. So you might as well go down with the best possible configuration in that lineup.

At least what you think is the best chance to win. We saw the Twins with Alex Kirilov getting that opportunity in their elimination game. So, you know, you want to go down swinging. But yeah, we're getting a final from the Brewers here momentarily. The other early game, the Rays jumped all over Hinjin Ryu. And with Tyler Glass now going, we knew that was going to be a problem. We're not going to spend a lot of time digging into the teams that were eliminated, but if you're a Jays fan, I think you're really optimistic about where this team's headed. You've got a great young core of position players.

I think some of the pitching that they have developed and acquired in the last couple of years really kind of came through. Thomas Hatch out of the bullpen. Nate Pearson pitched a couple of innings. Nice to see him healthy at the end of the year after he dealt with a little bit of an injury a few weeks back. So it was a tough draw getting the raise first, and especially with the chances they had in game one, not converting on those.

Just kind of a sad ending for a season where they overcame a lot. I mean, they were displaced. They played in buffalo all season right so um i think they had a better season than a quick exit from the postseason will will kind of like be marked in the history books yeah i i texted a coach i i know within the organization in in toronto and i just said that you know i i think they're going to graduate some arms you know i think pearson julian merriweather uh throws really really hard and has a really great change up um you're gonna see it's possible that hatch gets stretched out um and i i've seen the kind of the inner workings of the pitching development plan and what they're putting together in Toronto.

And you know that Mark Shapiro coming from the Indians probably took some trade secrets with them. So I think that eventually we're going to see Toronto start to turn out some pitching to match their hitting. And I think that I think that they'll be in the next couple of years, they'll have another, another great have another great season like this. On the Rays' side, there's just so many relievers they've got with so many funky, different. Ryan Thompson pitched from right sidearm, basically.

And Aaron Loop today pitched from left sidearm. And then you've got Nick Anderson coming in from way over the top at, you know, 96, and Glasnow just blowing them away, and, you know, Randy Rosarano looks amazing, and they just, you know, one of the things that's really cool about this team, the way that I tried to focus my piece on them clinching was just, you know, Renfro wasn't in the lineup yesterday, and he hit the big grand slam, and Mike Brousseau wasn't in the lineup and went two for three with the run, so they are just, they've got all the players bought into this, like, oh, Nick Anderson, I'm going to pitch in the seventh, you know, I'm not closer, but I'm going to pitch in the seventh,

going to pitch in the seventh you know i'm not closer but i'm going to pitch in the seventh or hunter renfro i've hit in like i've hit like 70 homers in in my big league career but i'm just going to be like a part-time lefty smasher for a while um and uh you know i think that they do a really good job of mixing and matching and they've they've sort of perfected the art of like constructing a roster i think yeah it's dodgers like depth albeit without the pricey star power at the top of the roster i think that's what makes them such a tricky team to match up with and the different looks from the bullpen also very nasty from tampa bay as well 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? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next.

Well, we finally made it to the end of the Yankees-Cleveland game. The Yankees come out 10-9 winners. Cleveland done already. And that was my World Series pick. So that was a World Series pick in the trash. Okay, I had the twins in the World Series. Yeah, so we're off to a fantastic start on the prediction front uh brit what the heck happened here i mean this was a cleveland team that had a four nothing lead early

they had a lead going into the ninth inning they had their closer brad hand on to finish it out and here they are now answering questions about the future of Francesco Lindor instead of playing a game three on Thursday. Yeah, there was a lot to unpack in that game, guys. It was four hours and 50 minutes, which is the longest game, nine inning game in MLB postseason history for a regular nine inning game. And, you know, we were on this earlier waiting for this to end and you know said you know i don't feel so good about brad hand and then of course brad hand went out and proved why you know saris is one of the top baseball minds going uh and did exactly that but look i think it was a lot of

things um there's a lot to unpack in this game but that ursula garan slam changed the whole tenor of the game cleveland goes out they score those four runs you know the yankees get a solo home run back fine you know you're not going to contain them the entire night uh but that grand slam put the yankees on top five to four it changed the whole complexion of that game it really woke up cleveland into hey we might lose this game i think they kind of felt good those first couple innings around what was transpiring in that game. And for me, the story later on was the walks. Cleveland issued 12 walks. How many games are you winning in nine innings, another playoff nine-inning record, when you are walking 12 guys?

They have now lost 11 straight elimination games. We talked about the Twins. The Twins actually, I think, are at 10. So Cleveland is in even worse territory when you look at recent postseason history. And they were set up so well. You mentioned it, Derek. They had the pitching

we thought. We didn't expect the Yankees lineup to be hitting quite the way they were hitting. Quite frankly, Judge and Stanton look scary the way that they're approaching these at-bats. I think the Rays-Yankees matchup that we're going to see next week is just going to be terrific. And not just because they had several brawls and issues during the 60-game season.

I think this is a great matchup of two really talented rosters. But it is disappointing on the Indians' front. And basically, guys, they had two guys hit the entire series in Abreu and Naylor. Really, there was no other bats. And you saw that. And you saw some questionable moves with Sandy Alomar taking out Naylor that actually paid off. And you thought, hey, maybe they're going to save this game, rescue this game. But in the end, they just didn't have the bullpen. They just didn't have the arm to go to in a one-run game to shut down the Yankees. And to me, it was the constant falling behind in counts.

Again, those 12 walks. You could not win an elimination game walking 12 people in nine innings. Yeah, that's just not going to happen. So a disappointing ending to be sure for Cleveland. I mean, this division is loaded. There's a chance that all three of those teams are out by the end of the first week. We'll have to see what happens in that Oakland-Chicago matchup. You know, the Urshela thing also really struck me because, you know, he does it against his old team. And, you know, we're to the point now where he's almost had half a career with the Yankees and half a career without the Yankees and half a career without the Yankees. In the career without the Yankees, he hit eight homers.

With the Yankees, he's hit 27. And he comes and he does it in Cleveland, so you can't even be like, oh, you just went to Yankee Stadium and you're just hitting easy cheapies out of Yankee Stadium. He came back to the stadium where he had one home run in 2017 and showed off his power. It makes you think about all those outfields that we've talked about. Naylor did play well,

but how about all those outfields in Cleveland that have frankly sucked? As much as they've been good at developing pitching, this game kind of was like, hey, you know, there's the other half of the game. You guys,

you did develop Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, but there have been a lot of missteps since. And I wonder if there's going to be any consequences for that. Yeah. Kind of the struggles, I guess you'd say, to continue the development of Oscar Mercado. He looked so good

last season when he debuted. He wasn't even a factor for the Indians throughout this season. Things like that have started to pile up on them. I think, look, that's an area they have to address somehow. They continue to trade away pitching depth and continue to develop replacements.

But eventually, you've at least got to win some more of those trades. Maybe Josh Naylor ends up being a long-term solution who really gives this offense another boost to go behind those stars at the top. But again, we don't know what's going to happen with Francisco Lindor either. Last game of the night, Brewers-Dodgers almost got in before Yankees-Indians. It was close, actually. Christian Jelic had a chance to tie it against Kenley Jansen

with two outs in the ninth, struck out on a cutter above the zone. And I think that's about as much as you could ask for if you're the Brewers. Like, you had a chance to tie the game with your best hitter at the plate. Things continue to go wrong. Brent Suter could not find the strike zone in the first inning.

Amazingly, the game didn't completely unravel there. Ryan Braun left injured with an injury of some kind. We don't know what exactly it is just yet. That was in the fifth inning. Tyrone Taylor, pinch hit for Ryan Braun in the middle of the game. Not a good development there either. We've talked about all the pitching issues with Devin Williams, his shoulder,

Brett Anderson, the guy they need for bulk innings not being there. It just feels like nothing's going right for the Brewers right now, and they're facing the most loaded team in the league. Are there any positives when you look at what the Brewers are able to do in game one? I think so.

It was a highly winnable game still. It wasn't a blowout. I messaged you, Derek, in the first inning. I thought, God, I can't even watch this game. I thought they were going to be down four or five runs from the jump. I think if you're the Brewers, nothing really went. You got punched in the mouth early. Obviously, that home run, I think it was Arcia who hit that

home run all of a sudden it was three to two. So if I'm the Brewers, I'm thinking like, hey, we didn't, we kind of imploded there on the mound, but the Dodgers didn't really hit either. So I know you take these losses very hard as a Brewers fan, but like, you kind of have to look at it as like the Dodgers might be human here, right? Like their lineup, this feared, vaunted lineup we talked about, had four walks and a double and only turned that into two runs in the first inning. So I think the fact that it wasn't a blowout, which it looked very early on like it was going to be, is probably what you take Solis in if you're the Brewers,

because now you've got Brandon Woodruff, who's not an opener, who's capable of going deep into games, and you have a chance here to at least tie it and not get swept which is probably a massive success considering you know most people outside of the great state of Wisconsin consider this series already over yeah they showed some underbelly I mean Max Muncy I said the defense might be an issue for these guys and Max Muncy did something hilarious. What did he do? He booted a ball from the edge of the outfield grass,

maybe 20 feet in at most, almost into the right field corner, which I've never seen that before. I just saw Twitter light up with a minimum Muncy's. I guess the main takeaway, Brent suiter started this game for the brewers he walked five guys only gave up three earned runs left after getting five outs and they were able to keep the dodgers pretty quiet with eric yardley and justin topa and drew raspison so maybe you got some really nice future relievers there i mean topa's a guy the brewers found on pitching ninjas flat ground app and he's out there throwing

99 against the best lineup in the league and keeping them off the scoreboard. So, silver linings, I guess. But the Dodgers did what we thought they would and used their starting pitching depth to do a tandem start. Julio Urias coming in for

three pretty stellar innings, five strikeouts in three innings, no runs, no walks. And they still have that ability with Tony Gonsolin. So Clayton Kershaw could go four or five tomorrow, Gonsolin two, and finish it up with Jansen. So I don't know if I share the optimism. I don't know that this was necessarily a winnable game for them, but I don't know that it gets any better for them.

Like I said, we've got the Brewers trying to come back. We've got the Cubs trying to come back. And I think those two worry me the most. San Diego, the fastball wasn't there. And like Hunjin Ryu, Paddock and Ryu both got beat on their best pitches or something, where Paddock, the fastball hasn't been as good, and he got beat on the fastball. They whooped the fastball pretty good. The Rays took 14 swings on 17 cutters from you. And I just don't necessarily think Cutter is one of his top two pitches.

So, you know, in some places there was some game planning issues. And I kind of think that the Padres might have more luck with Davies tomorrow, especially since you look at this St. Louis lineup. And why is Dylan Carson hitting fourth? Because the bottom of that lineup is all zeros. Harrison Bader, Fowler, Carpenter, DeJong, and Molina even. I mean, Molina went three for five today and DeJong went two for two,

but I think generally that's about the poorest bottom half of a lineup that's left in the postseason. Yeah, and Carpenter had a pretty good day too, didn't he? I think with San Diego, they lead MLB in comebacks. That lineup threatened a few times. That game was close. It always felt close. It never felt out of hand.

So I agree with you. I don't think you keep the Padres down for very long. They're playing at home. They lead the league in home comebacks as well. They're a team that kind of has that young fun. We believe we can win. I don't see them just all of a sudden getting tight and folding tomorrow. I think they'll probably, it will at least get to a third game and then it's a total toss up, right? Anything can happen as we've seen with the wild card in previous years. But you know what really sucks and we didn't on this, is that Francona, this whole era in

Cleveland is over, and Francona's not even managing. How weird is that? Especially if Braun is not in the game tomorrow, he's the type of player, I mean, I don't know, did he say he's totally retiring, or maybe playing next year's on the table because of

how this year was weird? I think it's on the table, but they've had a few tributes late in the year that make you think. And also, I don't think he's necessarily that useful for them, but I feel that what my point is not to denigrate Brian Braun. My point is actually to point out that that's, I think the saddest thing for me,

like if Ryan Zimmerman doesn't come back or if uh ryan braun doesn't come back or if that was tito francona's last game managed in cleveland or whatever it is you know like the those endings are going to be kind of sad and i and i hope the teams and i think they probably will but i hope the teams bring them back for rounds of thunderous applause, you know, and I hope that they, you know, get that moment, but there is something different about coming back in street clothes, I think,

and having people, you know, give you that big round of applause and maybe being out there in uniform and, and getting that, that same approval. Yeah, it is just one of those things that a lot of players and managers and coaches, they're just not going to get the send-off that they would have had in a typical year.

We'll know soon what the plan is. I think it's about 50-50 in the case of Ryan Braun. It just seems like his body keeps breaking down on him. The injury that he left with on Wednesday night didn't seem that bad, but it was just like it was bad enough to knock him out of a playoff game where they needed him desperately to provide offense. And I don't know, those bumps and bruises, they don't slow as you get to those final years of your career. One really quick thought as we close it out, Alex Reyes looks really good. It's nice to see him finally

healthy as a guy that we saw at the top of prospect list for years. You see some really uncomfortable swings against Reyes. I think he's kind of an X factor in that Cardinals bullpen that I had pretty low expectations for him coming to the season, but the last couple of times I've seen him, he's looked really good. So what they might lack in the ability to score runs in the bottom of their order, they might make up for that by having a better bullpen than some people realize. And I think Reyes is absolutely a part of that. Any other thoughts here before we go? Yeah, how about tomorrow?

I think it might be the day of the pitcher's duel. You've got Sixto Sanchez against Hugh Darvish. That could be a real low-scoring game. And after the 1-0 game in Cincinnati, Atlanta, I don't see starters listed, but my assumption is it would be Luis Castillo against Ian Anderson. And if Anderson keeps up the string, that could be a really low-scoring game. You've got Brandon Woodruff against Clayton Kershaw. That could be a really low-scoring game. You've got Brandon Woodruff against Clayton Kershaw.

And Adam Wainwright's been decent this year, and so has Davies. That could also be a low-scoring game. So you might have three 1-0s or two 2-1s tomorrow. And that would be weird after the kind of last five years that we've had with the ball just flying out and you know games like uh eight to what was it ten to eight or nine to eight with the the yankees today so um i have a feeling that tomorrow could be a little bit different in terms of run scoring yeah i definitely like the pitching matchups uh what were you gonna say brit no i was just gonna say with five games i feel like i can watch them all today or tomorrow or whenever like we're calling it because it's now 2am

almost my time. The Hugh Darvish-Sanchez game I think is going to be... The Marlins were like the 15th most interesting thing today, but they won a playoff game. They're on the cusp of winning a playoff series. I don't think they get enough attention. And that'll be

really fun to watch. Just so many bendy pitches and I think it'll be really fun to watch i mean just so many bendy pitches and just you know i think it'll be a great pitchers duel for sure every time the marlins make the playoffs they win the world series that's what they tell me so you've been waiting for that one i didn't want to say i felt obligated i felt like that just comes with the the position of having to throw that out there. The lowest hanging fruit possible. That's how you sign off a show at almost 1 o'clock in the morning. If you are enjoying this show on a platform that allows you to rate and review it,

it means a lot to us if you take a moment to do that. We really appreciate that. If you don't already have a subscription to The Athletic, you can get one for $1 a month at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. They get you Brits coverage, Enos coverage as well, which now includes Rays coverage for this postseason, league-wide stuff, fantasy things,

everything you could want, all for $1 a month. As always, you can email us, ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com. On Twitter, he's at Enocera. She is at Brit underscore Droli. I am at Derek Van Ryper. That is going to wrap things up

for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Enjoy the games on Thursday. We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening.