Rates & Barrels - The A's stay alive, the Yankees face elimination, the Braves roll, and Dodgers-Padres drama heats up

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss the state of all four Division Series, which could all draw to an end Thursday as the A's, Yankees, Marlins and Padres all face elimination.  Rundown 3:24 The A's Mash Their Way to Game 4 9:04 Did We Undersell Atlanta's Bullpen? 16:32 The Yankees Face Elimination 27:44 The Randy Arozarena Experience 30:40 A Robbed Home Run, Blowing Kisses, and a Near Blown Save 41:09 Why Didn't the Padres Add MacKenzie Gore to the Roster? 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

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. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Welcome to Rates and Barrels, episode number 151, playoff episode number 9. It's Thursday, October 8th. On this episode, we discuss another four-game postseason slate.

The Yankees have joined the A's on the brink of elimination in their ALDS matchups. The Braves and Dodgers doing their part to earn a couple of extra off days before the NLCS with 2-0 leads over the Marlins and Padres. Britt, how's it going for you on this Thursday? You know, going pretty well. I'm a little sad. I think we've all been kind of pulling for the Padres a little bit and now it doesn't look so hot for them. So you know it's been good it's been a good day of baseball watching i know there was a big birthday in the sarah's household it's not enos because i don't think he would care that much so tell us about the big birthday and the cake calvin turned six he had a lego cake uh he we had a zoom uh he only lost his crap like two or three times and uh they got actually they got a really fun present that is like a self-flying drone that um has a sensor on

it then you can like wave your hand at it and it like just flies around the house and if you wave your hand in front of it you can make it stop you can kind of you can like wave your hand at it and it like just flies around the house. And if you wave your hand in front of it, you can make it stop or you can kind of, you can kind of like shove it towards somebody else just by sort of moving your hand towards it and you can put your hand over it and make it flip. So I was like, geez, like, yeah, the kind of technology that these kids grew up with. Like, I remember at one point in my childhood um we had an unfinished basement with clay downstairs and i dug um like a i made like a like a civilization in it i like dug holes in it i made like a cave civilization you had me at legos i can relate to legos i played with legos you lost me at drone yeah Yeah. Did I lose you

at the basement cave dwellings? Also a little weird. Tell me more about this clay basement. I've never even heard of that before. I did not have any toys. I mean, growing up in Jamaica, the other thing I did was just terrorize the chickens. Well, I have a theory

that if I had a child that I wouldn't buy him any toys and just let him play with like cardboard boxes in his imagination because that's a lot of kids like like the most random stuff anyway right instead of these overpriced toys i don't know we had a fair amount of that but then there's just too much of family trying to spoil them yeah and like competing grandparents and you know everybody coming in and trying to buy him stuff and like we literally have a room that's just legos we have a room called the lego room it used to be called the playroom and it used to have like other toys in it but they've been bought so

many legos that it basically is just the lego room now so yeah they Anyway, it's a baseball podcast. All right. Glad things are good. Thought you were going to get your son a surfboard, but maybe for his seventh birthday you can follow through on that. Send him on his way. Let's talk about the Astros A's first. The A's extended the series in a slugfest.

That was kind of the only script that made sense. We talked about the game yesterday as far as how is Oakland going to do it. They're going to have to out-hit Houston, and they did that. Liam Hendricks threw a million pitches again, three innings out of the pen, four Ks, 37 pitches in total, just to be more exact. Jake Diekman pitched well as well. He got four outs through 20 pitches. Jesus Lizardo really wasn't good. It's kind of been the story of the A's starting pitching throughout the series so far. And Yusmero Petit got hit, which is kind of rare

also. I thought Jose Urquidy was going to pitch better than he did, but Oakland really had no trouble doing damage against him. I thought it was weird. We went through this in DFS Twitter at one point, batter versus pitcher splits, and lefty-righty splits in small samples. I've seen all those fights happen. And to see those numbers increasingly popping up in my timeline now in playoff matchups as a justification for doing things a certain way, it kind of makes me scratch my head because I know that that's not how teams actually think, but it's how some writers think that teams think. I don't think the A's looked at Jose Urquidy and looked at a handful of innings this year and said,

oh, well, he's got a reverse split, so let's not use lefties against him, even though he's a right-handed pitcher, right? I mean, am I crazy for thinking that they didn't care at all about the tiny splits that we saw from Urquidy from this season? I was looking at some things, and I think it's possible just that Urquidy's changeup is his best pitch. And there was the John Danks rule, which was that if you had a pitcher that had a changeup that was his best pitch, you might stack the lineup with same-handed hitters. But, you know, Urqu with same-handed hitters. But

Orkutti's breaking balls are decent. So I don't know that it's like a full John Danks situation. And I think it might have been like, you know, who's healthy and available. I mean, who did they really leave on the bench? I think it was like they wanted

Chris Davis in there because he's hitting. I don't think they have leftists. Which also sounds a little bit iffy, right? I mean, chris davis in there because he's hitting right i don't think they have left which also sounds a little bit iffy right i mean it's like oh because he's hot i mean do we really believe in the hot hand now but i you know you can look at exit velocity and things and be like he's healthy now you know he used to have a bad hip now he doesn't right well i mean the a's were facing elimination they had like the same two or three guys that have been hitting during the playoffs. I don't have a problem with reaching for anything, whether it's the hot hand or what. Sometimes like the backup catcher is the guy who sparks you, right? I mean, you kind of have to do what you got to do. My issue, guys, is that I don't think the A's have enough to complete this comeback,

because that's the natural question, right? Now they're alive for another day. Can they win two more games? How many more pitches can Liam Hendricks throw? Right? It seems like that guy's arm's going to fall off. I don't know. They gave him a long rest in between. I feel like he's available for like two-thirds of an inning, or like, you know, he's available for one inning. Hopefully he doesn't get in trouble kind of deal, you know, like one inning with a lefty behind him. Right, but can they use him in this series to win these games? They really can't.

After throwing three innings today. Yeah, I mean, they can't use him like that again, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And then who do they have to pitch, really, that's left? Right, I think the tricky thing is if you use him in game four and you extend the series, which you have to do to get to five, in that case, if he pitches on back-to-back days where one of those days was what he just did on Wednesday, you probably don't have him in game five.

And if you do, you run the risk that the stuff just isn't going to be as good. As great as he was on Wednesday, that's the cost, right? You're going to be limited with what you do he was on Wednesday that's the cost right you're going to be limited with what you do with him in these next two games but the pitching matchup Montas versus Christian Javier I think that's a fair pitching matchup I wouldn't say there's a clear advantage one way or the other I thought Montas looked really good out of the pen last time we saw him I think he just needs to give the A's a little bit of length they have not had that from any of their starters in this series and that would go a long way toward not draining the bullpen even further.

If Montas can push five innings even and not leave Oakland in a bad spot where they're just chasing this game, that might be good enough to give them a chance. We still don't know if Zach Greinke would even pitch in Game 5. They're saying he has arm soreness and no structural damage. To me, there's no guarantee he's going to pitch in this series. Well, I think they'd like to not pitch him in the series, right? And so you're right.

It's definitely more evenly matched in game four. And you can maybe see a scenario where they force a five. Certainly don't see that scenario, I think, in the Braves-Marlins, where the Braves won 2-0 today. They now lead the series 2-0. Derek, you had picked the Marlins for a hot second, then you went back on your pick, obviously. So I'm going to ask you, as the most Marlins-friendly person

on this podcast, do the Marlins have a chance to not get swept here? Yeah, I think with Sixto Sanchez taking the ball, they do. I think the prediction held up about as long as that lead in game one, right? That's about as much of the series as the Marlins controlled. So that was actually a really good flip-flop to the Braves based on what's happened so far. I mean, I'm kind of kidding, but Pablo Lopez pitched well enough to give them a chance to win. It's just the offense didn't come through, and Ian Anderson did on the brave side. Eight Ks, only one walk,

five and two-thirds scoreless innings, scattered three hits. I wondered, when we started talking about playoff matchups, if we undersold Atlanta's bullpen, the more you look at what they did, three and a third scoreless from then to today, it was O'Day for just one out, Matzik for an inning, Will Smith for an inning, and Mark Melanson

for an inning. Melanson to me is still more reputation than current stuff, but I like the depth they actually have in that bullpen. So if they're able to get through this series without taxing that bullpen too much, and if they can continue to get quality starts at the front, I think they can lean more heavily on their relievers in the back part of series, and their pitching won't be exposed quite as much as we thought it would be. I'd like to see that staff against a better offense, though. You know, people are pointing to that the Braves is you know as as far as they've gone as being you know evidence that pitching beats hitting and I mean when you

look at the numbers mostly the evidence is that that you want to bet on the better hitter if you're looking at a postseason the better hitting team if you're looking at a postseason matchup and so i wonder if this the reds and the marlins have made them look good you know i mean i i found something out that was really interesting max freed gave up the hardest hit ball in the history of stat cast not in one of those games just it wasn't by really yeah john carlos stanton hit a ball 122.2 off of Max Freed once but okay I was gonna ask if it was Stanton yeah it was yeah Stanton I've got a Stanton superlatives piece that I'm just sort of waiting for him to do another superlative thing so I can publish it but uh I think you're good that's too much no I mean tonight's Homer I don't think was good enough so I need a little

bit more that's too much of how the sausage is made, though. What I would like to point out is that Will Smith was not that scary during the season. Tyler Matzik has the velocity, but Mark Melanson, I thought, was one of the worst bullpen signings back for the Giants. I thought that was a terrible signing when it happened. I don't think it turned out to be that great for them. So I don't see him as a great closer. I don't see him as a top-tier closer. So I see Matzek and Minter as being some of the best stuff in that bullpen,

and yet they also have had issues with command. So I think the Braves can get in trouble against a better hitting team. I just think that we've seen that the Marlins did everything they needed pitching wise to stay in it. You can't ask Pablo Lopez and Sandy Alcantara to do any more than they did. And even their bullpen, as bad as it might be, you know, has given them basically like a three or four runs in six innings over the two games. It's really not been that bad. It's all on the fact that Magnuris Sierra is actually hitting for that squad

when he should be a backup center fielder and stuff like that. It's unfortunate. They don't have the offense. I wonder about the A's down 20 versus the moderns down 20 the one thing that you could say about when the a's were down 20 is what we said which is if their bats wake up if they just you know start slugging they can get back in this

and that's that's going to be true maybe of the Padres in a similar situation. But you just don't have that in your back pocket if you're a Marlins fan. It just doesn't seem like that's there for them. Yeah, you're right. I just think they're overmatched, right? Their roster, they just don't have the talent to compete with the Braves. And I think you're right. I think for the Braves, Derek, back to your point about the bullpen,

their bullpen is better than i think people realized what i still i'm waiting on a little bit is the the rotation because you can cover for it in the wild game series you can cover for it here if they're going to win all three games but over a seven game series who's pitching game four for them who's pitching game five for them um these are the things that i think where you can kind of see right where their underbelly is to use one of our favorite words on this podcast like where is it um i think that's where you're gonna see a lot more of okay what is this brave's team and that's where you're gonna maybe hopefully see this offense a little too because we heard so much about this vaunted lineup and they haven't really, you know,

they've had some outbursts here, but certainly not really in that red series. And certainly not today winning just two to nothing. That's really when you're going to need that lineup to put up kind of a crooked number, I think to kind of overcome some of those shortcomings in the rotation past these first two guys who everyone can agree Anderson and freed have been really good.

Where do you go from here? There's a pretty steep drop-off, I think, once you get past those front two guys. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, Mike's Soroka injury, every time I look at their depth chart, I just think this team would be so much better off if that hadn't happened because it would just bump everybody down a spot. I wonder if Josh Tomlin is a factor in a longer series as a starter, if they would trust him more than they trust Bryce Wilson, for example.

I think Bryce Wilson and Kyle Wright both have major control issues. Tomlin's not going to go out there and walk the world, right? You want to just kind of avoid disasters in the postseason, again, to avoid taxing your bullpen when you don't have days off. Yeah, I think it's interesting to see how they'll use that. I feel like Bryce Wilson won't be used barely at all. I think he's like a garbage time guy because if you look at how they had him this season, I had him on some rosters in fantasy and there was a point in the season where I was like, are they going to pitch him? Is he on the major league squad? I think I checked two or three times this year to be,

is Bryce Wilson on the major league squad? Did he get like options? You know, I just didn't know where he was and it didn't seem like they have any confidence in him. Kyle Wright, on the other hand, kind of battled through some of those command issues and I could see actually starting the game with him because almost like an opener situation

you know one of the reasons the opener works is because you use somebody who's going to go and act like a reliever and try to get the top three guys out try to get the top of the lineup out and it's a good time to do it because you know that you're going to get those four batters. You know you're going to get the best four batters. It's one of those few times a game where you know when the best four batters are going to hit. You throw Kyle Wright and you

hope that he doesn't walk a bunch of guys and that the velocity is there and that he acts like a reliever and you tell him, air it out, man. We're going to get five outs from you tops. And Kyle Wright goes in there and throws 97 and hopefully down the pipe a little bit so he doesn't walk anybody. And then I think Josh Tottenham coming off of Kyle Wright would be pretty weird.

Yeah, different looks, and you go to the bottom of the order, right? So maybe he cruises through the bottom of the order. You give him a crack at one more inning. He starts to get to the top of the order, right? So maybe he cruises through the bottom of the order. You give him a crack at one more inning. He starts to get to the top of the order again, and then you start matching up with relievers. Last time I was up, I saw 97. I think there was one game where I forget who it was. Oh, Matt Olsen against the Astros saw five different pitchers.

Yeah, well, but openers don't always work because you look at the yankees you look at what they did yesterday you can get in trouble with the bullpen and these in these tight games without without rest days right they they lose eight to four to the race today now if they lose this series there's no way that people don't talk about game two and their decisions davy garcia for the end of time, right? One, because it's the New York and two, because it seems like, and we said this on the podcast yesterday,

it seems like it could potentially be a turning point for the series. And it seems like it is. It doesn't look like the same Yankees team as we saw absolutely obliterate Tampa Bay in game one. Well, I guess the devil's advocate argument here is, okay, so if you didn't throw davey as the opener in game two if you put tanaka in game two right i mean look what the rays did the tanaka in game three five runs eight hits only four innings knocked him out after 73 pitches a lot

of hard contact they had eight hard hit balls in four innings against Tanaka. If you just flip yesterday and today, essentially, are the Yankees any better off? They might have followed the exact same script into a 2-1 deficit, just reversing the order of their starters. So it's going to be one of those things that people dwell on, but it seems kind of like a waste of energy to me. I don't think it would have made a difference.

And I think that's something that people need to keep an eye on. It is interesting because I was saying like, okay, what if yesterday, because we were talking about how yesterday's decisions put some pressure on the bullpen. And so you needed Tanaka to kind of give them some depth today, right? And so you couldn't really throw Tanaka for two or three innings today because then you're getting three innings from Michael King or two innings from Nick Nelson, and that's not exactly what you want in a tight game. Those were kind of garbage, almost Yankee garbage time pitchers.

So you would have been in trouble if you'd taken Tanaka out early. But the person who homered was Kevin Kiermaier, who, for all intents and purposes is a subpar batter. Easy. I mean, he's beautiful and he's a great defender, but you know, in terms of like,

uh, uh, how scared you are, like, I think you leave Tanaka in Joey Wendell and Willie Adam is going on base. You're kind of like, you know,

I think you leave them in, I don't know. I, I, against Kevin Kierma know, I think you leave them in. I don't know. Against Kevin Kiermaier, you think, okay, Tanaka can get this out. And so I don't necessarily think that yesterday caused Tanaka to stay in too long and cause today's loss. Right. If that's sort of where you were going, Derek, I don't know. Yeah.

And I think bullpen management has been the ongoing story of this postseason just because of the condensed schedule. We saw it on the Rays' side of this. As well as Charlie Morton was pitching, he only went five. Pitch count got run up to 86. John Curtis, who gave up a grand slam in game one, came on in a much tighter spot, relatively

speaking. One and two-thirds scoreless from him. He scattered a couple of hits. To use Curtis and to not have to go to some of your other glue guys in the middle, that's a big win for the Rays as well. Shane McClanahan came back out, gave up a couple of runs. Only one was earned. They used Curtis, McClanahan, and then Diego Castillo for one inning at the end. Castillo should be able to bounce back pretty quickly. They're in a really good spot going into game four.

Serious, serious shout out to John Curtis and Shane McClanahan. Because they gave them three innings with one run. A day after, they couldn't have looked any worse. I mean, Shane McClanahan ran into Brandon Lyle so hard that the announcer said he ran into the franchise. He looked so bad that the after game zooms were like, yo, so how did that feel? Because it didn't look good. He's a veteran now. He's a veteran.

What is this, his second appearance? He's a veteran now. He's a veteran. What is this, his second appearance? Yeah, and all those in-tight shots of John Curtis after the Grand Slam where they're just like looking at him, looking at the catcher, looking at signs and taking those deep breaths. And you're just like, oh, John Curtis, I feel so bad for you right now. So to bounce back, really cool thing.

And it made me wonder a little bit about the role of fans, the lack of fans in this um this has been pretty chalky for the kind of offseason we thought we expected right i mean what are we gonna get astros yankees dodgers braves like that's almost straight chalk and i was wondering you know how much the fans can play the role in a comeback and like an and like an upset yeah you know like yeah i agree just like think about you know uh in the pot not to jump ahead but to think about in the padres game when you know they're putting guys on in the ninth or when Manny hits a homer after Haas. If they'd been in San Diego, I don't even know.

They're the away team, so it doesn't really work in this analogy. But still, you could have had Padres fans in Dodger Stadium. But my point is the fans could have impacted a lot of these situations in ways that they they intimidate the umpires uh they they inflame the the you know what am i my dad's a uh like a bookie like he bets on stuff right and one of his favorite things to bet on is um home dogs in college and what he says is that the fans he says that there's more parody in college football than betting line suggests so that's that's the kind of betting thing that he's that he's talking about but the soft thing he talks about is just these are kids and they get inflamed by the by the the fans and they get really into it, and they can overcome odds

when they're on their home ground. And in a chalky, no-upset postseason, I kind of wish now that I'd just gone with chalk. Yeah, well, the Astros are a great example of that. You can't tell me that the A's fans wouldn't have been out there borderline throwing batteries at the Astros. So

to me, that's the series that hurts the most, right? The Astros could have very easily been bullied out of some of these opposing. And if we had, not just fans, but if they were in Oakland, right? If they were in some of these opposing cities. I mean, ironically, Oakland's known for their drums, right? So they would have just

been banging on the drums constantly. A lot of can banging. Yeah. It's, you know, this year, like the Padres' wives, I was told, wanted to bring cowbells in. And MLB was like, no. So they're very much controlling. They let the Braves grounds crew bang those drums. Yep.

Yeah. So there seems to be. A little hypocr. Yeah, so there seems to be... A little hypocrisy. Yeah, there seems to be a little everyone wants the Dodgers to win maybe outside of San Diego. Certainly MLB wants those television numbers. The ratings.

The revenue, the money. I mean, back to... We got a little off topic with Eno's dad and the betting lines, but I did want to ask you guys how you feel about Jordan Montgomery starting with the Yankees season on the line and whether or not they can actually, I think they can make this a series, but can they win

now? I think they can certainly win. I mean, they can hit anybody. That's why the Yankees are still dangerous even facing elimination, right? They could score 20 runs the next two days and knock off the Rays, and we could be talking about that Yankees-Astros matchup that Eno was suggesting just a couple minutes ago. I think it's interesting because Montgomery is probably going to be used similar to Davey Garcia, where they're going to look at him and say, if he's really good for an inning, maybe he gets a second one. If he's really good for two, maybe he goes three. But is he going to go more than three?

Probably not, right? I mean, I think Aroldis Chapman still isn't pitched in this series, so at some point there's going to be a high leverage opportunity where you want to get him into the game. And maybe it's a little bit like what the A's did in game three where Liam Hendricks came in in a high leverage spot in the seventh and stayed in the game. Maybe you do something like that with Chapman just to mix it up a little bit if the situation arises.

I think part of why Hendricks managed to go three was because he was so efficient the first inning. 39 pitches for three innings, it's a little bit borderline. It got there at the end when he had to throw some more pitches than maybe they wanted him to. But I think you could bring chapman in for two plus if you can take chapman in for two plus and you can use davy garcia for two plus and you can get montgomery for two zach britain's in there somewhere probably and right chapman chapman's totally rested right yeah that's what i'm saying chapman for two if you get two and a third from him and you get one and two thirds from britain i mean it's gonna be a bullpen game but they could win a bullpen game because they have good bullpens every year and this wasn't their best bullpen ever but they're

just it is still good and as bad as chad green looked on camera and they really gave him a lot of camera time for for giving up a homer i mean i was like come on dudes it's not chad green's fault um but um you know one thing that i would say is uh they they still have a really good bullpen and they can get back in this and yarbrough it's gonna be the weirdest thing i bet you it's a low scoring game after we have all these guys throwing 98 99 tomorrow we're gonna have yarbrough versus maybe Jordan Montgomery. They're going to crack 91 twice. No, actually Montgomery has been a little bit better this year. But it's still not going to be a high-velocity thing.

It's going to be a little bit more crafty situation. And it would be funny if they didn't have as many homers with the lower velocity. And the Rays are going to go funk with the opener because they have Ryan Thompson coming from that weird slot on the right first before they go to Yarbrough. I wonder how far they'll let Yarbrough go. I mean, again, performance dictates this a lot of times with followers and openers, but I think there's a chance Yarbrough goes through the lineup two complete times if he's pitching well, but that's playing with fire, especially on a day where you should have Nick Anderson available to go to again if that situation arises.

Dude, Yarbrough throws 87, but he actually kind of uses his 83-mile-an-hour cutter as his fastball. So it's like even worse than 87 makes it look uh i asked him in the zoom who he thinks he looks like because i don't think he looks like anybody out there and he was like you know mark burley but you know in today's game uh dallas keitel i guess i could see it command good change up lefty, but he doesn't work that fast. It's like Dallas Keuchel. I mean, even Dallas Keuchel cracks.

Yeah. So I think it'll be introduction to some people. Ryan Yarbrough, the Ryan Yarbrough experience. Speaking of the, the Ryan Yarbrough experience. So what about the Randy Raza Raina experience? I mean,

this guy is hitting, like, I don't know if I've ever seen like it's just like he's super super on fire and you know if you look at the underlying stats you're like oh my god he you know he deserves it he had a 14 percent barrel rate and he you know average exit velocity through the roof and the you know x slugging of over 500 and all this stuff. I would say that there's always regression. So I've been asked a lot about what he would look like next year for fantasy and if people should sell high and this and that

because there is always the NCAA tournament bump where somebody gets drafted too high in the NBA draft just because they had a really good NCAA tournament. I think there could be some of that. Who he reminds me of is Ramon Laureano. And so I would go to sort of back of the napkin, write him down for like a 275 to 280 batting average, 25 homers, 10 plus steals. And in the keeper league, I feel like that's super valuable, and you have to keep it. I guess you could maybe get more out of a trade,

but it's also a young person who's stealing bases, and even though he'll regress when it comes to barrels, and he'll regress when it comes to launch angle just because that's how it works. He's done a lot of 50-degree ground ball rates in the minor leagues, and he had a lower launch angle in 2019. He's going to regress back a little bit so he won't have this kind of light tower crazy um you know put his team on his shoulders power and next year for all high likeliness but he's still going to be good so

it's kind of hard to be like yeah sell high because i still think he's gonna be good i do like the loriano comp in terms of the categorical comparison, especially. I do wonder, though, also, the Rays, they have a type. They trade for players for a reason, right? They have certain guys they like, and they turn them into something else. They did it with Yandy Diaz, getting him to unlock more power. I wonder if some of the gains we're seeing with the Rosarena hitting the ball in the air more often this season are more sustainable than we'd think when we're looking at his track record, right? Like maybe there's an actual adjustment. It's hard to go back and find minor league video

of a Rosarena and compare it to what he's doing right now, but that might be worth doing during the off season. You know, Yanni Diaz was also older, so maybe more set in his ways, had other flaws, injuries. So, yes, Rosarena, even with a little bit of regression, this could be growth. So I take your point on that one for sure. But, you know, it's good to see him go off like this because I feel like we may not have Fernando Tatis around much longer in this postseason. And they're kind of exciting on the same level. 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 one peloton.ca slash bike slash rentals all access membership separate terms apply unfortunately yeah you're right with the padres going down 2-0 in the series here on Wednesday night they made it interesting against Kenley Jansen Kenley Jansen came on with a three-run lead had plenty of cushion the Padres loaded the bases Joe Kelly took over and Eric Hosmer rolled out to end the game Tatis had a home run taken away by Cody Bellinger. That was the drama in this game in a huge way, right? Brewster Gratterall comes in. I think that was the seventh inning. Cody Bellinger pulls back a home run from Tatis. Gratterall in celebration draws the ire of Manny Machado and

a few other Padres on the San Diego bench. And both sides started chirping at each other. It was high quality entertainment, frankly. I thought it was fantastic. Yeah, it was awesome. I mean, Manny is just more fired up. And we talked about this a little off the show. He's more fired up than I've ever seen him. And as I'm sure Eno's going to explain, that play was ridiculous.

Jansen, though, and I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to address this. The Dodgers have a, I mean, what do you do with him? Because you need him to pitch well. If you can't put him into a game where you have a three-run lead in a non-elimination game, what are you going to do with him? Why does Joe Kelly have to come in and bail you out, which also doesn't make you feel too great? The Padres, one swing away, one strike down to their final swing, had a chance

to come back despite all of this. And this is probably it for them, right? This was a total gut punch. We can argue about what happened with their pitching staff, but obviously that catch changed the whole tenor of the game. I don't have a problem with Graterall blowing kisses to Manny Machado, who started yelling expletives at him. That was caught a little bit off camera.

Because if we're going to invite the bat flips, then we have to invite the other side. And I am here for the glove spiking in the seventh inning. I am here for that kind of playoff juice. And we've talked about the drama, how much these teams hate each other. I thought this was one of the best playoff games we've seen yet. Yeah, I mean, I thought that I could see

Gratterall being so excited about that play. And even though I understand some people being like, well, he didn't do it, you know, he kind of almost gave up a homer. What's he celebrating for? I guess I understand that. What's he celebrating for? It was a great play, you know? And the whole

thing was amazing. Brandon McCarthy had a great tweet about it. If you think about it, I mean, Brews dog Adderall threw a 99 mile an hour fastball backdoor to Sam. It looks like it's not going to go into the zone. And then last minute, it hits the zone. And Tatis

took him deep. Like the most exciting young shortstop took him deep. Like the most exciting young shortstop took him deep and then out in center field you got a first baseman that was so athletic that the team was like, nah, let's make him center

and he robs Tatis. I mean, that was, I think, the best play of the night. That was hands down just the, that's modern baseball at its finest, you know?

And just a really exciting moment. That's why teams look for athletes. That's why velocity is important. Like all of these things come together in a good way, in a way that you can champion. You're not whining about balls in play or too many homers or this or that. It was really modern baseball at its finest. So you got to give it to San Diego to give us moments like that. But, you know, down 2-0 without Clevenger. You know, we've talked about ways forward and they kind of, you know, they kind of had that A's game

where they did slug and stay with them and they lost it where the A's won one. And it's kind of like, well, did you, did you take your best swing and miss? Yeah, and Bellinger was playing pretty shallow too, wasn't he? You look at that route and the way he had to kind of double back. And, I mean, that's why he's an MVP. It's why he's one of the best players in baseball.

But you're right. That's why you love baseball, like the best robbing the best right there. It doesn't really get better than that. I could have been the first base coach on the play, and I would have been hopping around. You know what I mean? I don't know if I'd throw my hat on the ground, but I definitely would have been fist bumping.

The kisses was the next level. I mean, clearly there's no lost love. After Manny Machado kind of, we should probably mention as well that he threw, when Manny homered him and Hosmer, Eric Hosmer went back-to-back in, I don't remember what inning it was, maybe the fifth, sixth inning maybe? Kershaw's last inning? Kind of stunned Clayton Kershaw.

Of course, I've seen that before. The Nationals did that in the NLDS. We were able to topple the Dodgers last year. But you watch those back-to-back homers, and Manny, the first homer, takes that bat and throws it and starts shouting at the Padres' dugout. I took it as he was trying to get them kind of riled up. I don't know.

I don't really have a huge problem with that. Derek, I know you were letting your dog out and had to play catch up. What did you think about that whole issue? I'm so sad I didn't see it happen live because it was the perfect 2020 baseball sequence. And it had all of the emotion and all the drama that we want to see in playoff baseball. This is how I want to see players play all the time. I don't want this to be a big deal. I don't want there to be controversy when Brewster Gratterall celebrates like that. I don't want there to be controversy when Manny Machado tells him to F off or that he's coming for him. I think that's good for the game, right? Just as I'm annoyed by caveman

beanball stuff at the opposite end, I love the intensity because there is a component to sport that is entertainment at this level in this game delivered in every facet. I think people forget that a lot. I mean, they get so wrapped up in the numbers and even the analytics or the non-analytics, all that stuff. It's entertainment.

I guess you can still you can flip that on its head and be like well some people are not entertained by bat flips and they're upset by them but um you know sometimes people just want to be mad so maybe that is entertainment for them too maybe just being mad is part of the deal but i would say that i would that's that's when i thought of the whole fan thing was when Machado was doing that because I think if you don't have the fans the players have to be the fans there's a little bit of evidence that with the Gratterall thing too right like if you don't have the fans where's the energy coming from and it's got to come from the guys on your team I think Charlie

Morton was even talking about it it's like we're playing for each other. And so that's why he threw the bat back at his own dugout because he's like, yeah, you and I, let's do it. All of us. And it's possible that these teams are tighter. They also don't have the media milling around and they don't have as many controversies

intra-team, within the team because there's not as many quotes out there. It's just all from the Zooms. Everyone has a lot of time to think about answers and stuff i do yeah it's funny the dodgers are like this big super team we're all like oh who can beat them and um they can actually kind of beat themselves here with these last few outs if they don't figure it out i mean our colleague grant brisby had a hilarious tweet about where he quoted Eminem. You guys know that? Did you guys see this tweet?

It's the lyrics of Lose Yourself by Eminem. It says, his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti. He's nervous because he's watching Joe Kelly. It's hysterical. I mean, it's funny, too, because it means that the Dodgers have to hold somebody back, right? They have to have somebody behind Kenley Jansen. They can't just be like, well, we'll put Kenley Jansen there in the end, and we don't care about who's behind him.

It's like they have to hold on to one more reliever they trust, which you wouldn't think was Joe Kelly, but they gave him a bunch of money. I just think they thought a three-run lead was safe. I think they'll handle it differently going forward. This was the last time that they rolled Jansen out there in that situation. I don't know where he pitches. I don't know if he just pitches in middle innings, like fifth, sixth inning, up a couple, down a couple, maybe even more blowouts. I mean, it's a strange twist, but look, this is a team that's fallen short

way too many times to screw it up in the endgame. They know he's not himself. He's in that 90-mile-an-hour range with the cutter. He is not the Kenley Jansen he was at the beginning of the season. He's far from Pete Kenley Jansen. Yeah, it's brutal. My question for y'all is,

do we have a series anywhere? And which one is it? Not Dodgers-Padres, I don't think. Derek? They could all end tomorrow, can't they? That would be a little bit sad. Wow. I mean, it provides the teams a little rest, but it's not what we're hoping for.

The Yankees could obviously win tomorrow. rest, but it's not what we're hoping for. The Yankees could obviously win tomorrow. The Yankees seem like the most likely team to keep their series alive. I would say the Marlins are the least likely team to keep their series alive.

But I would say that probably Oakland and San Diego skew towards less likely rather than more likely. Pretty comparable. I could see San Diego just hitting enough to get one, but then you go, okay, let's say Paddock goes five or six innings, but you still got to figure out four and five with your pitching. It's really unfortunate what happened to this team at the end of the year.

And they didn't throw the Hail Mary. No, they went Dan Altavilla instead. It's Altavilla. Well, yeah, I think I would have guessed Altavilla if I looked at him, you know? Because if I looked at him and was like, well, that's not an Altavia. Right. I didn't see him before I saw his name and his stats. And I'm like, I had to guess.

It might have been a quote. It might have been a hint. Yeah. Yeah, you said it, and it wasn't that confusing. I was waiting for some weird pronunciation. I was like, well, it's not Alta Villa. Got to make the Spanish teachers proud. That's right.

Well, I cannot, I am not ever allowed to make fun of everyone ever for their pronunciations. That's how deep in the hole I am on pronunciations. Daniel Cabrera? That's right. That's right. You're right. That's right. That's right.

That name can work with multiple last names. I mean, any name can, but that one to me was closer to 50-50. But they did. No, my point is they didn't do the Hail Mary. So either Mackenzie Gore has been looking like crap at the alternate thing, or they're just not willing to, you know, McClanahan this where they, you know, they don't want his first bite at mlb to be this i hate that though i really hate that i think that's the wrong call you never know in the grand scheme of things but how do you how do you build a team this good get this far have that thing go wrong have that pitching prospect ready to go theoretically and not take them out of the bubble wrap and see what happens i think

they should have i'm saying this is a grown man with a bunch of figurines and plastic behind me right now. They should have taken him. They should have called him up. Yeah, they should have called him up late in the season. There was something that actually Pete Fairbank said, and it seems weird to bring this up, but Pete Fairbank said about

the Rays and the Relievers, and they said, you know, the Rays were losing Relievers left and right to injury and all that stuff, but they were also just pitching everybody everywhere. They had 13 pitchers that had saves. And what Pete Fairbank said is, I'm more ready for this. I got my first save in the postseason, but I'm more ready for this because they use me in all these different roles. And they use these other guys in different roles. And they use me in the eighth and the sixth and whatever. So I'm just, I was ready for this and I'm cool with it. And I would have then called up Mackenzie Gore late in the season and been like, Hey dude, like this is the major leagues,

check it out. Uh, we may need you later. And even if it's just for one or two starts, you can undo whatever service time that is next year by starting him in the minor leagues. If you need to, you know what I mean? Like it's not, it's not a service time thing. You can still undo that service time with, you know, with sh still undo that service time with shenanigans, and they're still shenanigans, but you can undo it. So I would have brought Mackenzie Gore up just in case I thought I needed Mackenzie Gore in the postseason. You and me both, and I think Britt's on board with that one too.

I saw a nod there. I do. Why not at this point? What do you have to lose? It just makes me paranoid that something's not quite right with Gore at at the alternate side they didn't like something they saw this year but all we heard about was how polished he was for his age and how good he was going to be and then over a full season he was probably going to debut in 2020 host a 30-minute playoff podcast they said well this one ran about 45 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. If you don't already have a subscription to The Athletic, please get one. It's a dollar a month at theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Get Brit stuff, Eno stuff, everything we're doing for the postseason and some fantasy rankings for 2021 dropping hopefully next week.

I'm not going to guarantee that, but that's my goal is next week. As always, you can reach us via email ratesandbarrels at theathletic.com on twitter she is at Britt underscore Giroli he's at Eno Saris I'm at Derek Van Ryper that is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels we are back with you

on Friday thanks for listening Music.