Rates & Barrels - The Tigers Are One Win Away From the ALCS, The Mets Are Through to the NLCS!

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Eno, DVR, and Britt discuss the Tigers' Game 3 win over the Guardians that has put them one win away from the ALCS, the Dodgers' bullpen game shutout of the Padres that will send their series back to LA for a Game 5, Francisco Lindor's heroics that vaulted the Mets into the NLCS, what's next for the Phillies, and the Yankees-Royals matchup in Game 4 that features a rematch of Gerrit Cole v. Michael Wacha. Rundown 7:30 The Tigers' Staff Cruises (Again) in Game 3 11:30 Matt Vierling's Catch Halts a Guardians Rally 19:45 The Dodgers' Bullpen Game Shutout Win in Game 4 30:41 Francisco Lindor's Grand Slam Sends the Mets to the NLCS 36:30 The Phillies' Current Window; Offseason Needs 41:59 The Yankees Push the Royals to the Brink of Elimination 48:51 The KC Bullpen Decision: Lefty-Lefty Against Wells, or Righty-Right Against Stanton? 55:25 Michael Wacha's Success & Changeup Usage v. Aaron Judge Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Wednesday and Thursday this fall. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Thursday, October 10th. Derek and Rapper Inosaris, Britt Rowley, all here with you on this Thursday. On this episode, we dig into the Tigers Guardians series, which moves on to game four on Thursday, on hand for that series. So we'll discuss how the Tigers set themselves up to possibly advance to the ALCS,

if they can win again on Thursday. Got the Yankees Roy Royal Series also going to game four on Thursday night, we'll talk about how we got there in that series, got a Garrett Cole, Michael Wacha rematch from game one on tap. The Mets are through the ALCS, we'll discuss that, including the heroics of Francis Golden Door, we'll say goodbye to the 2024 Phillies,

and we'll check in on the Dodgers and Padres with Game 5 on tap now for Friday. So a jammed packed show. Britt, how's it going for you? You're on the road. This is why I look like so for those of you watching on YouTube. Playoffs, you know, you've done playoff games there. It feels like every day is a week. AJ Hinch actually said this to me yesterday. As you mentioned, I'm here for the ALDS in Detroit. The momentum changes. So the entire series changes in these short five gamers, guys, like day to day, right? And I know we're going to get into that Dodgers-Padres later, but a great example of that. So you feel like you live almost like a mini season through these games every day. So they're

exhausting. They're really fun. Everything matters. The Tigers players were saying how it feels like every inning is the ninth inning in the playoffs. I think that's a good way to describe it. They're stressful. They're full of pressure. And you see all these moves that you wouldn't see during the season. Because again, especially in these five game series, it's going to be a little different strategy in the seven. These games all feel like these innings all feel like theywins. Otherwise, teams feel like their backs are up against a wall. Has anyone commented to you about the breaks in the schedule in the series, right? The break between games one and two, even though there wasn't a travel day there? That kind of stuff seems extra strange in the short series when you're trying to build momentum.

It is, but for some teams it's helped. Take Detroit, for example, who has pretty much one starting pitcher. If they didn't have that off day after game one, they wouldn't be able to do kind of what they're doing with this pitching chaos. So I think the way the schedule is set up is very odd. The interesting thing is going to be if the teams that had buys, if the Yankees lose that series, if the Dodgers lose their series, are we going to see a real change to the format? Because it seems like nothing matters except, are you a hot team coming into October? Guys have talked about the schedule a little bit, but the teams that I've been around feel like it's been a benefit, particularly the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals.

I felt like they were playing playoff games for several weeks before they got to Baltimore and steamrolled them in the first round. So I think it depends on who you talk to, whether the schedule is a good thing or not. The Phillies may now say differently after being on the flip side of this with the Braves a year ago. I learned an interesting fact from Tom Tango, which is that in the in Korean baseball, they had this crazy system. We've talked about how in the first round, you basically the home team in the wild card round basically has a win in the tank. They

only have to win once the the the away team has to win twice to advance all this stuff. But he said that the upshot of it is that the number one seed going into the playoffs has like a two week buy. Like a ladder situation. The number one seed has won the World Series in the Korean baseball in the KBO 20 out of 23 years. So I tend to think that the buy thing is overrated in terms of getting cold in just, you know, the course of five, six, seven days.

But if people do, we have talked a lot on the show about like, there's so much chaos in baseball and people do want to give an advantage to teams that have one more games during regular season. I like that. We slog through the regular season, we should give it more weight. What if we just did something where we played around with the travel schedule for this series? And what if we just did something well, okay it's a five game series but the first three games are home for the higher seat. And we're not as concerned about fairness within this, you know, in terms of oh you have to have these many days on the road and then you have to travel and travel.

What if it was three straight days and three straight days with no rest in between fewer bullpen days? Yeah, I think that favors teams that have better depth right that would be what you accomplish there Yeah So maybe the the compromise if you're not going to get to the point where you do what the kbo does and start the wildcard Series with the home team having a one game advantage Maybe it's your home in those series if you're the higher seed like you are currently like wildcard Better team regular season home for the whole thing Maybe you roll that over

Into the DS round which is a bummer if you're a fan of a team that Had to sort of grind it out to get to the playoffs that you don't get to go watch a home game in your stadium But then you could get that in the CS round, right? So you have to get to that level to actually be guaranteed a home game. Maybe that's the extra carrot that can help separate things a little bit more. Maybe you're away for two and then you're home to finish. I mean, just the travel back and forth, those extra travel days are allowing us to have these bullpen days too. And the other thing that I would personally like to legislate the bullpen game out of existence.

We've seen a lot of it and I don't think it's compelling baseball. It leads to fewer runs. It leads to more anonymous people on the field that you listen, I love the leavers. I don't want to upset them. Trevor May is a friend, but you know, people don't go to the ballpark to see Eric Sabrowski and Alex Bessia. You know, like that's just not what they went. You know, they didn't think of that when they before they went to the game.

And so the other thing that I would do to legislate the bullpen game out of existence is what I've talked about here before is the active roster. So you pick five or six pitchers and that's all you've got. And unless it goes extras. I think that changes decisions. You have to, it's a little bit like, you know, when people are always like, you have two catchers and they don't really want to sub the second catcher in because then you have no catchers on the bench. If you only have five pitchers for the night, you always want to have one in your back pocket. So that means you actually have four, you

know what I mean? So that would lead to a lot of different game plans than what we've seen I I can sit here and recognize how smart it is What these teams are doing because they're using the off days and they're using the fact that changing looks on hitters and bringing fresh relievers out with different stuff and doing the lefty righty thing and Doing the oh this guy has a sweeper and this guy has a hard slide or all that doing the lefty righty thing and doing the, oh, this guy has a sweeper and this guy has a hard slide or all that playing around with the matchups as much as you can is to their benefit but I don't know that it's to the fans benefit. Agreed.

I think you saw that yesterday in Detroit, like they won game three but I was sitting there with the Tigers beat writer for the athletic Cody, Steven Hage game and it was like what was compelling? There weren't any home runs. Their starter win six pitches, one inning before they turned the ball over to Herder win a couple innings. But it is difficult to watch the game if you're a casual fan and say, one, who are these guys? And two, how do I get excited?

This isn't a guy pitching until the sixth inning. This isn't a team with stars. I do think, as you write, the taking away some of those travel days makes it almost impossible to have these bullpen games as much as we are seeing them. I don't know if there is a whole lot of solution for incentivizing a team to win a division, unless you, what, I don't know, give them an extra player.

There has to be something that is is so far and above you know three games at home sounds nice except if you've been sitting around for a while maybe it's not that nice I don't know there has to be a way to incentivize back winning the division in a big way in a meaningful way. One of the problems with three games at home is that you might clinch on the road that means more clinching on the road. No but the three at home thing I've already I've nixed that I said no I'm not accepting that it has to be the whole series has to be the entire five game series that has to on the road. No, but the three at home thing, I've already, I've nixed that. I said, no, I'm not accepting that. It has to be the whole series.

It has to be the entire five game series. That has to be the carrot. But no sport does that though. No sport does that. Well, we do it in the wild card round. Right, we do it in the wild card round. So I think we extend it through the best of fives. And then, yeah, well, it's not, I'm not enjoying it.

You gotta go back to the winner take all wild card because it takes too long, I think too. Like, Dave Roberts yesterday was advocating for the division series to be seven games. Oh, Marrone, I mean, how long are we gonna play baseball? You can't do that. You can't have some of these cities be hosting the World Series November 15th, right?

So then you have to eliminate travel days. Yeah, I get it. Like the Padres Dodgers feels like it should go seven. The Phillies Mets felt like it should have gone seven I'm not sure I've won seven of these Tigers Guardians Yeah, like but seven games like I just I in the division series I don't think you can do that and I don't think MLB is gonna eliminate a wild card team Which would be the only other way you can convince MLB to add more days to the postseason though

I mean they they're OK with that. That's that's they just see the dollar signs. Well, then let's shorten the regular season. There has to be a pull somewhere else. Right. There has to be go back to one training. You're sitting there, dude. Yeah, I know. But like you have to do something here.

Like, didn't the team that won game one pretty much win all of the wildcard games anyway? Yeah, we're at like 20 of 22. So go back to a winner take all. We should talk about this game though. I mean, one, one, one thing that was really cool was the Matt Veerling play was, was outstanding. And some of the pitching, Will Vest has a really nice fastball and Eric Zabrowski has a really nice breaking ball.

Uh, there was some, there was some good pitching. I'd say let's talk about the game. One, one little piece. I was listening to some of this on the radio and oh my God, did they update so often about the shadows. The shadows were weird though. Were you watching, were you thinking about the shadows the whole time?

The shadows were strange. And Britt, you were there, you could speak to this. Yeah, they were a lot. This happens in a lot of stadiums because of the unusual start times and the time of year. It's like the planning for the stadium is around what's usually happening with the sun in the summer and like a one o'clock start time because that's typically what you get for day games. But these late afternoon kind of playoff matinees create these really difficult hitter versus

pitcher situations, which also I think aside from seeing a different reliever, a different pitcher almost every time you step into the box does make it even more difficult to put runs on the board which I think is a problem for More than casual fans like the league has a problem with this I think the league wants a little more action in these games, too So I think how they get there all those things you put out there are legit now I think this is really kind of a critical point in the game when you look at yesterday in the seventh inning

The Guardians are setting everything up, right? This is when the Matt Vierling catch happens, right? I think they were runners on the corners and Kwan's on first base. So David Fry ropes this ball down the third base line. Vierling snags it. It probably scores both runs, because Stephen Kwan's the runner on first.

It would have made it a 3-2 game and there would have been a runner-in-scoring position for Jose Ramirez. So it would have been kind of the ideal situation for the Guardians to maybe take the lead or at least tie the game, if Vierling doesn't make that catch. Instead, Ramirez starts the next inning,

nobody on base, down three. Completely changes the game. So yeah, that Vierling catch was massive because of who was on the on deck circle in particular. He used to play basketball and say he was joking around that that's where he gets those ups at Notre Dame. They would kind of like play around at the rec center, I think. And he said he used to be able to dunk. He's not sure if he can still dunk, but that's one

of those plays where it's just pure reaction. You don't have any time to do anything but react. I agree. I also think another key moment in the game was in the second inning when the Tigers changed pitchers already and Cleveland was forced to use several pinch hitters. So all of a sudden, you're managing a game where you may have opportunities later in the game, but you don't know if you're going to or not. So you're kind of burning through your bench. And I think that's what makes the Tigers so pesky to face.

They switch all the time pitchers, so they're forcing you to burn up that bench and that reserve and it just makes it really difficult. Guys talked yesterday, like you guys were saying, that it's tough to get into a rhythm when you're facing a new pitcher every single time. And the shadows were weird. That did come into play to some extent as well. So Cleveland had a couple of chances, but they also had like David Fry up in some big spots because they had to insert him as a pinchhead earlier in the game. They were kind of handcuffed by some of their earlier moves. And this is exactly what Detroit wants. This is exactly how Detroit has got here. Is this like pitching chaos and

Using they do use their whole bench. They are big on pinch hitters They mix and match a ton as well But they force the other team to dip into their reserves very early on in the game and that is ramifications down the line they planned basically on Brandt Herter being the Volume guy the whole time But they announced Cater Montero who has been a starter on the Cleveland side. They put Manzardo at two Which I think that they sort of assume. Hey, let's get two at bats from Manzardo against Montero and instead they get one at bat and

Have to burn fry early in the game there. You also you're right later they pinch hit for Bo Naylor and Because they did that they had to bring in Austin hedges and at that point I think it was the seventh inning when they did that they only had Daniel Schneeman on the bench They had nothing nothing left after that so they were left one guy on the bench at the end of this game and it had to do with they were left with one guy on the bench at the end of this game and it had to do with Always chasing that platoon advantage, which is a it's a good thing to get but I wonder at some point

If a team is pulling this much chaos on you, I wonder if as a manager I'd be tempted to just be like fine. I'm just gonna leave Kerry carpenter in this whole game I mean just just stop with this, you know, like Kerry carpenter Can you handle one at bat against Eric Zabrowski? And then you get a righties after that? Yes. What except that the Guardians had, you know, multiple lefties to throw at them. So it was a lot of switching around. It's kind of National League style. There's some that's the part of this that I do like is like some intrigue about, oh, are you

going to burn these guys? When you're going to use these? I like that. But a lot of that's sort of outside baseball. It's not between the lines. It's a lot of like, you know, oh, my gosh, he used, you know, Austin hedges and age of Martinez basically for one at bat, you know, I don't know how compelling that is to the average user. I think the other thing you think about is even if you had the five pitcher limit Tigers only used six So they would cut one guy out Gunther ended up getting one out give a hit in a walk as well So maybe make a plan where you don't use Gunther or maybe you stretch Montero more like you have to save one You have to have the one I have to save one So if you take Tyler Holton and Seth Gunter out, then you you have to get more innings from somebody Yeah, I don't know this this style of baseball is very effective as you said earlier It's it's a little it's a little strange if you're not accustomed to it at the very least I do like those tactical applications when and where do you make those adjustments to your lineup?

How quickly do you go to your bench? It was nice to see Spencer Torkelson Get involved because I think if the Tigers are going to over 14 before that because I think if the Tigers are going to- He's 0 for 14 before that RBI hit. If the Tigers are going to advance and continue this run, they're going to need to find some ways to put a few more runs on the board. They're gonna need some of those secondary contributors to heat up, and maybe Torque could do that.

I mean, it's just easy to forget how good he was throughout the second half of 23, because his 24 has been awful, and included that long demotion to Toledo. So if they could get something from Torque, that would be a nice lift for them as well. Looking at game four with the Tigers having a chance to seal this, I would imagine we're not going to see scubal unless it's like a one inning, ninth inning situation where they are feeling good.

Like it's throw day because they don't play again until Saturday. I don't think we'd see herder in this game, but everybody else should be available It kind of was available Get a money start again if they wanted to but Reese Olsen is probably the bulk guy I would imagine they follow something similar to what they did in game one Maybe with a slight wrinkle since the game one script didn't go quite as well as they hoped early I bet you Gunther gets more than one out too. I bet you they use him as a herder type where they're like,

we want to stretch you. We want you to get this lefty, but also this, these two lefties. Like we want you to get three lefties in five batters. So we kind of need you to get five outs. That's, that's how I think the Gunther would be used. Reese Olsen I think is going to, they haven't announced, but I would imagine it's going to kind of be the starter today, Reese Olson, I think, they haven't announced, but I would imagine is going to kind of be the starter today. Whether he goes in the first inning or the second inning,

he's gonna give them multiple innings. He's the guy who, if they do advance, is the closest thing to a starter that they have outside of scuba. I keep wanting to pull the guy who closed the night before opens the next day, so I'm gonna call it for the second night in a row. I wasn't too far off yesterday, just, they used Bobris uh, catered, Montero and sort of Bob risky,

but Tyler Holton finished the game last night and Tyler Holtons, the lefty, maybe it makes sense to use him at the beginning of the game, or maybe they actually start the game off with Sean Gunther. It is chaotic though. And I think, you know, if you look at AJ Hinch, obviously he didn't do this in Houston because he didn't need to. They need to do this because of the way the Tigers roster is set up because they don't have these knockout starting pitchers because they traded Jack Flaherty and they traded away some of their chips outside of Scubal. They traded away anybody who really had value.

So they're in this position where it's like, how do we get 27 outs? And that starts right from the beginning. It's just an incredibly interesting way to manage. And I'm not sure how many managers could pull it off as well as AJ Hinch has. It feels like every move he makes has worked so far. Obviously there's an element of luck involved with that as well.

But I expect a lot more mixing and matching tonight because they have a chance to go to the American League Championship. Foley's probably gonna pitch two, like Broberski pitched two last night. Broberski is probably not going to pitch tonight. So Foley for two. Gunther for one, you know, for five outs.

Reese Olsen for, you know, nine outs. Yeah, three or four. Maybe you get more. I mean, I think he got, he ended up getting through five innings in game one. So I just gave you 20 outs. They just have to find a few more. Right, and that's with just about everybody still available, even though it's the second part of a back-to-back.

It's funny to me that the Tigers, because I don't think any of us expected them to be in this position even three weeks ago, that's fair for us to say, yeah, they were a team rallying late, and we were very dismissive of the possibility of them getting in and making a run like this. It's funny to me that the Dodgers are in a situation like this on occasion.

They were in that for game four. They ran a true bullpen game. We thought we'd see Landon Nack early for two, maybe three innings. We saw Landon Nack for the final inning with an eight run lead, which gives you an idea that they trusted Ryan Brazier more with their season on the line matching up against the top of that Padres lineup. So the Dodgers cobbled it together, eight pitchers. Nobody completed two innings in this one, but it worked. It kept a red hot Padres lineup completely off the board. So we're seeing teams that have deep pockets, teams that had at one point really good rotations still have to resort to this in the playoffs.

And the Dodgers have done it for a few years now when they've had to. But if it works, teams are going to keep doing it until something changes that keeps them from doing this. Hockey is back on ice and the Athletic Hockey Show has the game covered four days a week all season long. something changes that keeps them from doing this. news or breaking down last night's OT winner, you can't miss a single episode. Listen to the Athletic Hockey Show wherever you get your podcasts. It's such a weird thing. We have all these teams playing in a playoff game and all these TBDs, which again is indicative of where they're at, right? They haven't announced a starter. Darvish is probably the guy for San Diego, right? Yeah, I think they'll definitely use Darvish. Dave Roberts wouldn't say.

I mean, I think you have the option of Yamamoto for some and Flaherty for some. They're both going to be rested enough where you can throw them because of the off days and the way the calendars come together. So they completely changes their side of the equation. It's an all in situation because it's a game five, you know, it's win or go home. So that is all kind of in place. I just I thought the Padres were going to end it on Wednesday night. I really did. I thought they were going to take advantage of the situation.

I think the question I had still even coming out of this one is when you go on short rest the way that Dylan Cease did, you know, what are you most likely to lose? I think it may be various from picture to picture. Do you lose some velo? Do you lose some command? Because it really seemed like Dylan Cease, whose command is not his strength anyway,

even when he's very good, had even less command than usual in game four. And that's ultimately a big part of what got him out of that game so quickly. Yeah, command is really finicky, I think. I think it goes, comes and goes. And when you look at the mistakes that Cease made, the homer to Betts was middle middle.

I think when you look at these spray charts, the one on the left for us is the, is last night's game, right? Yeah, it's game four with the. One thing that I think you notice is it's the exact opposite of what you want. It's a lot of chase or middle middle, basically. Whereas on the right, what you see is

more sort of shadowy stuff, you know, and less middle. So, you know, Cease was kind of either too far away from the zone for it to matter or right in the middle of the zone. And I guess that makes them easier to kind of keyhole. And it could have something to do with using it on short rest with the how well the bullpen games are gone for everybody else. I'm not second guessing. I understand using Cease is it was probably a good idea, especially since you have you Darvish,

you know, and you're you're you're kind of leaning into your strengths and it ended up being a bullpen game for them anyway But I do think that what I would have done is to do a bullpen game and start to see some full rest Oh, so you would have saved Darvish and just you know not use them because I think I could get three outs from Martine Perez Maybe five outs from Martine Perez and then play lefty righty, you know, they go pretty deep. So if you go Martin Perez, Brian Hoeing, Adrian Morahoe, and if you look at last night, like, you know, if you just looked at the relievers,

it was a closer game. I mean, usually there's like one or two things in these playoff games we can analyze, but it just seemed, the Padres' bats looked dead. It wasn't like, oh, this was the one key moment here. Like they all say to nothing. I do think early on when it was so kind of close, I was wondering with Cease if they were going to have a short leash with him, why let him pitch to Otani that second time?

That was a little – because they took him out pretty much right after that. So that was a little odd. But overall, this was the most life I think we've seen from the Dodgers, this whole series. So if you're the Padres, like you said, I thought they were going to end it last night. If you're the Padres, you're now a little, I don't want to say afraid, but the series goes back to LA, which was a very contentious environment. And now it's anything can happen, win or take all. Like Anything can happen in this game. So any advantage the Padres had, pretty much gone. The only thing I think you can take heart is the fact that the Padres heart of their

lineup did hit very well in LA. There is a lot of confidence in guys like Fernando Titis and Manny Machado and Jirkson Profar and what they've been able to do. But this is now like a coin flip in my mind. I can't predict these one game playoffs. I don't know what you guys think. But to me, this was set up to be the Padres game last night. And not only did they lose, but they lost in such emphatic fashion that you've got to think the Dodgers have a little swagger heading back on that plane going back home knowing they have a chance to win this. Mookie getting a hole again is a problem

because when he was struggling, you could maybe walk Shohei, get Mookie, and then get two outs from the next two guys and get through the heart of the order. And so, the one thing that I would say, the Dodgers are favored, but the one thing I would say is they used all their relievers and they're gonna do another bull bullpen game there is research that suggests that the more often

you see a reliever in a single series the better you are against them so all of the relievers that they're going to use in game five that the Padres hitters just saw so nothing's going to surprise them and when I look you know one thing that I probably you know didn't give the Dodgers enough credit for going into this is that they had in the regular season, 14 relievers that had above average stuff. That's pretty deep, you know, so that works in their favor. However, Anthony Banda was not one of those and Daniel Hudson stuff has been, you know, trending in the wrong direction. So, you know, those two at least and Brazier is right around the average. So it's not he's not that great. So those three pitchers, if they throw them again,

the Padres have to do damage against those three guys, at the very least. If Evan Phillips and Blake Trinen pitch well against you, that's one thing. But Brazier, Banda and Daniel Hudson, you know, throw in three innings of shutout ball against you. that's one thing, but Brazier, Banda, and Daniel Hudson, you know, throw in three innings of shutout ball against you, that can't happen again. I thought it was interesting to see a little more from the bottom of the Dodgers lineup in this game though too, right? Will Smith homered, Gavin Lux homered, they had 10 hard hit balls between the five through eight spots in the order. Chris Taylor had to play though, he went over four with four strikeouts, and I think Freddie Freeman, you could tell on the play in game three, where he had to leap at the bag to pull

that ball in and came down to that bad ankle. You could tell that he was limping as the way he came off the field. The fact that he wasn't in the lineup in that situation last night tells you a lot about how uncertain his status is, probably for the rest of the playoffs, even if the Dodgers are able to advance. So we'll see if he's in the lineup and able to give them anything in game five. But they're a little thin on the bench, which gives them fewer options. They're a top heavy, loaded sort of team anyway.

So they're not doing what the Tigers or some of the other platoon teams do as much anyway. They were doing some annoying stuff though. I mean, the Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor, third base left field, third base left field, third base left field, third base left field, third base left field dance was grading. I don't know, I'm like, I know,

okay, so you have some number somewhere, one of you guys is a better ground ball defender, one of you guys is a better fly ball defender, and so you're looking at the spray charts and that's what you're doing, but it was like a circus. But they have put themselves in that position to do stuff like that with Edmund, Enrique Hernandez,

and Chris Taylor all being multi-position guys. So, you know, at least they can cover themselves wherever they need to with those guys. It's a smart way to construct a roster, and that's how they're gonna get past this Freeman injury. So I think it's gonna be a good game, and I'd expect every pitcher to go four or five outs at most. Even if you're even even Darvish, like even if we see Yamamoto,

you expect those guys to get really quick hooks to Dylan sees like pitch what like an inning. Yeah, but that was that was short rest, though. I mean, that was a different situation. If Darvish pitched like he pitched earlier in the series, no, you don't take him out. I mean, he was cruising. But you do with such a good bullpen that San Diego has. And it's winner-take-all. You have to have a very short leash. So if it's the seventh inning, it's one-nothing,

and a guy gets on, that might be it for you, Darvish. I think that's not even that far. I think two times through the order for both guys. You do? So four innings tops. It's such a dangerous game to play, though, if a starter's cruising. You know what the papers will say. I'm going to stick with the original series prediction and just stay with the Padres.

I'm not flipping and flopping on this. It's interesting that Dodgers are minus 140 favorites according to Bet MGM. Thanks to our producer, Brian Smith, for grabbing that. I mean, it's it's still like you're a slight favorite. I think I think our brains really struggle with numbers like that. It's like, well, okay, so they have a 52.8% chance of winning or something based on those odds. That's not really a heavy favorite at all. Anything can happen, as Britt said before, because it's that kind of game where everyone's going to empty out the bullpen and do anything

they can to just shut down rallies. And I think it's going to be absolutely just a blast on a Friday night watching this matchup. King of Waffles, you're sticking with the Padres I assume right? Britt I don't even know if we ever got a prediction from you for the entire postseason so who's winning game 5 at least? The Padres. Alright so we're all on the Padres. Bad news Padres fans.

Which means they're going to lose. Seems like it. Let's get to the Mets Phillies series. A Francisco Lindor Grand Slam was the highlight of the game, but there was a lot going on earlier. Rangers Suarez got out of a whole bunch of jams. It felt like the Phillies were hanging on by a thread for a few innings.

They ended up scratching out a run. You thought maybe the Levee would break in that inning. Mets got out of the jam themselves. Jose Quintana, more magic, just like he had in Milwaukee a week ago. And this Mets team, I just, I don't know. They've got everything clicking at the exact right time. Maybe rest will prove to be a bad thing for them.

This is the first time they've had a chance to sort of catch their breath in a few weeks. So maybe that's the thing that sort of slows them down. But I'm blown away. I'd love the Phillies this year. I thought they had a chance to actually take that improved bullpen, make that run, finish the job and win the World Series and they're gone and the Mets are in the NLCS. Words that if you'd said that back in May, people would just laugh at you as making just a completely ridiculous prediction. Even a month ago, I think people would have laughed at you.

Who thought Edwin Diaz was going to blow that game? Did you have concerns that Edwin Diaz was going to cough it up in the ninth? He threw seven of the first eight pitches were balls. So, yeah, it looked like it looked like Taylor made to be Edwin Diaz implosion because it was clicking closer and closer to Bryce Harper, too. If Bryce Harper gets up in that game, are they winning that game? I mean, I think you feel pretty good. I had that moment when they put the stats up.

So they're two on, nobody out. And he gets a strike out, gets a fly out, and Schwabr comes up. And you're looking at this, you're like, okay, Schwabr's at the time 0 for 9 in his career with seven strikeouts against Diaz. Okay, that's like a he's do sort of thing his career with 7 strikeouts against Diaz. Okay, that's like a he's do sort of thing. He's been so ineffective against Diaz. Maybe this will be the time he'll come through.

Even if it's on a home run, maybe he'll just find a spot. And that'll be part of the How Did the Phillies Rally story. The improbable Kyle Schwabers first career hit against Edwin Diaz. And no, that's where the game actually ended. Diaz got him eighth time in his career as he struck out Kyle Schwerber. I think the thing that really surprised me as far as the tactical decisions in this game, I'm not even sure it's wrong,

but we saw Carlos Estevez much earlier than expected. He was the one that gave up the grand slam to Lindor. He was used in game three for a reasonably heavy inning but it wasn't absurd. It wasn't a case where we didn't think he'd be available. I wanted to be any sort of carryover effect. I think in terms of Velo there was none. But would you have gone to Lindor or gone to Estevez against Lindor in that spot or is there someone else in that Phillies bullpen you felt good about in that matchup you could have used In hopes of also having a stevez available later if you were holding that lead in the eighth or ninth inning

Yeah, I don't know because the guy who's pitched the best for them in this postseason in the bullpen has been a Ryan Kirkering and One thing about him is that the sweeper is not you don't want to throw the sweeper as much righty on lefty and Lindor is going to bat lefty against the righty Orion Kirkering so it does neutralize a little bit Kirkering's best weapon so that's the only other option I've got. I think the weird thing about this is that Orion Kirkering is the only one with an ERA under three this postseason for the Phillies. Carlos Estevez, despite the Grand Slam, was their second best

reliever by ERA this postseason and even by, you know, sort of stuff like strikeouts minus walks. Everybody else had an ERA over six and Strom, Alvarado and Hoffman had a combined ERA, you know, around 18, 20. Strom, Alvarado and Hoffman during a combined ERA, you know, around 1820. Strom, Alderado and Hoffman during the regular season pitched 190 and two thirds innings to a 269 ERA. That's baseball, I guess. It's just, I thought this is the best bullpen they put together so far.

The interesting thing to me, and this might not be the story, but the Phillies have been playing bad leading in, and I think the hope was that they'd be better and they just weren't. Like the Mets and what was so kind of nice to see, I guess, if you follow the Mets closely, which I tend to do, doing stuff for SNYs, nobody gets more criticism than Francisco Lindor, who every April starts slow and every April he's the subject of so much vitriol from talk shows, from the press, from everybody because he is the guy there. He's supposed to be the guy there. And obviously he had a season that I think many would consider an MVP type season. And then he goes out and

has the grand slam that essentially puts the Mets in the National League Championship Series. So I think from the Mets point of view, that couldn't have been scripted any better. Yeah. He had that huge home run in the doubleheader too. So it's like he's, he's, he's been the guy. Yeah. Yeah. And people complain about his contract whenever he's not doing well. And he gets a probably, in my opinion, unfair amount of criticism for what he's done and he has never once Let that affect him outwardly publicly with the fans. He gets booed. He's never once taken anything but the high road

So I think as a baseball fan if you didn't have a rooting stake in that game yesterday Really nice to see Francisco Lindor do what he did from the Phillies perspective though, guys, this window that we saw two years ago when they kind of stormed deep into the World Series keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Like you said, DVR, I thought the Phillies were one of the best teams in baseball for much of the season. They played like one of the best teams in baseball. They seemed to be a team that had finally addressed their bullpen issues. We know they're an owner. Ownership group is probably one of the best in baseball. If not the best, they want to win. They want to spend money. They pay their stars. They're a fun team to watch. And then to watch them, their offense kind of totally go cold at the

wrong time, I think it's really tough to watch and really tough for Dave Dombrowski and the rest of that front office to go back to the drawing board and say, what could we have done differently? What should we have done differently? This feels like a case where maybe in seven games it's different. I don't know. This was definitely a situation where I think we can all agree on paper, we all thought the Phillies were the better team. They were the better team for most of the year. This is what makes the playoffs so maddening, is the Mets are playing hot. They're playing with that can't lose sneaky vibes, or they constantly are rallying back

and you never feel like they're out of it. They could win the World Series the way they're playing. It wouldn't surprise anybody now. But I think from the Phillies point of view, it's like, what do you do here? Where do you go? This core still is together mostly, but it keeps getting older. are they going to win a World Series in this little period that we have right here because they are being eliminated earlier each year it's trending in the wrong direction they have a 278 million dollar luxury tax payroll for next year the fourth emperors 297 297 and that 278 figure for the Phillies does not include arbitration money for

Hayes Suarez, Bohm, Sosa and a couple other players so I would assume that they are really close to the 297 the the final luxury tax apron and they'll be losing Carlos Estevez, Spencer Turnbull and Jeff Hoffman. That's not the worst pairing of flares to lose, but it does mean that I don't know that they have a big move in them this off season unless they somehow get some money off the books and they don't have the type of money that you can get off the books easily. There's no, there's no, you know, one year left kind of guy. You know, Nick Casiano's will be paid to have two and 40 left on his contract.

Cal Shorver, I guess, one in 20. Taiwan Walker, two and thirty six. But I don't think that's tradable. So they're going to be just looking to find relievers and fifth starters on the cheap in the offseason and just re-racking it again next year, basically. Which I mean I know it's hard to sit here the day after you get bounced and say we're gonna run it back with the same core. Still pretty good team. I think

it's a compliment to the core. You can't look at this team and say they had massive holes here and this is why they fell apart. This is playoff baseball. Someone wins and someone loses every series right. We're're at the point now, a good team goes home, a good team goes through. That's how it works. If you're only losing Hoffman and Estevez in free agency, that's not a big deal. You can paper over that.

I wonder if Alec Bohm needs a change of scenery. Like Dave Dombrowski tends to be pretty aggressive on the trade front. Whether they wanna actually trade a prospect, I don't know. Andrew Painter would back in the equation from pitching side, so that could be a huge addition for them. I think that's nice to see, like one more arm.

If you trade Bohm, you might be able to put Walker on him and then, you know, get a reliever back even. It might not be exciting, but then you'd actually have some money to spend too, maybe. Trade Bohm for Devin Williams and everything's fine. Two changes scenery candidates now, right? That's how that goes down. Easy problem solved right there.

I think the Phillies do have long-term help coming with Aidan Miller as their best position prospect. He reached double A, spent most of the year between single A and high A this year, but they are in a good spot. It feels awful to hear that the day after you get eliminated. But this is still a team I think is going to be among the five or six favorites to make a run and win the title next year.

So it won't look exactly the same, but I think it's going to look most of the same for the reasons Eno mentioned. Maybe you find something else to help in the outfield. Maybe that's the other way to go. Like if you're thinking about that boom trade partner, maybe it's a team that has an extra outfielder. That's also the Brewers, you know, potentially they got some outfield depth. So it might be someone else, might be the Brewers, who knows? The Phillies, I think are going to be active on the trade front. As for the Mets, mentioned before, some much deserved rest for them. We'll see

if that actually helps someone like Edwin Diaz, maybe improve that command. I kept wondering every time that he got a day off, like, all right, maybe Edwin Diaz maybe improve that command. I kept wondering every time that he got a day off like all right maybe Edwin Diaz comes back in his peak Edwin Diaz. He wasn't peak Edwin Diaz on Wednesday but it was good enough to slam the door and get the Mets into the NLCS something that again I did not see coming. Britt's actually got to go. Britt thanks for joining us today we appreciate you enjoy the rest of your time covering that Tigers Guardian series. Yeah, look forward to 10 different starting pitchers, 10 different pitchers on each side tonight, guys. Yeah, see if they can break the record

they set yesterday for their series. All right, you know, let's move on to the Yankees and Royals. Yankees holding on for a 3-2 win in Kansas City, now having a chance to send the Royals into off-season mode on Thursday night. This is another series where we're gonna have a repeat matchup from what we saw early in the series, where it was Garrett Cole against Michael Wacha

in game one. We'll break that down here in just a moment, but I think you warned us on the pod about your concerns with Chris Bubich, and John Carlos Stanton got him in the eighth inning for the homer that put the Yankees on top for good I also said Michael Massey was going to be an important one for Clark Schmidt to circle circle and Michael Massey had that nice Triple that put them ahead, but it was the game of John Carlo. He was the post game interview.

And honestly, I think it's, it's kind of nice because his career has been one of ups and downs and lots of missed time. And he's been booed and he's been circled as the problem on the team. And, uh, for him to go out and go three for five with a huge homer and a double and basically be responsible for most of the Yankees scoring in a 3-2 victory, I think I liked it. You know, I think he's a character. He's been good for baseball and he's the king of stat cast. So yeah.

Yeah. The extremely hard hit ball. That will always be like Giancarlo Stanton's claim's claim to favor right for fire emojis next to his name appropriately for that game and I think The contract much like it does with Lindor always brings that sort of extra criticism being in New York will also bring extra Criticism the Lindor ones hilarious. We talked about that at some point this summer He was a top 10 player by war coming into this season during his first three years with the Mets.

I think now he's a top three player because of the season he just put up. The fact that people blamed him for anything that was a shortcoming for that team is ridiculous. I think in both cases, batting average has led some fans astray. I mean, these are really good players that do things other than what shows up in batting average.

And some dusty sports talk radio voices in that market. Yeah, for example, Lindor is like, you know, 15% better than the average for his career in the post season has seven homers has one homer at least in every postseason he's been in, except for the one where he had nine at bats in a short series. And he's been excellent in the postseason. And well, he's a 258 average. I hope nobody's reporting that as how he's done in the postseason. I remember when it's actually the three of us on the three show at the time, we were talking about the Lindor trade to the Mets.

And we were frustrated because the Guardians, you know, even a small market team can have at least one, possibly two players on big deals like that. It turned out it was Jose Ramirez. We didn't know that. They gave Ramirez money, but it's not even the same money that Lynn Noren ended up getting from the Mets. I realize most small market teams don't go to that level, but even at the time it was

like, if you're going to do it, this is the guy you do it for. Skills should age well, plays a key position. Like even in years five and six of a long-term deal, he should still be a good player. He might be a great one. I wonder how long he'll play this good shortstop defense. He's at 30. We saw Brandon Crawford play into sort of 33 and 34.

We don't see shortstops. Many shortstops go past 30. So he's so good that like, I think he'll still be an above-average third baseman, you know for a while After that, but it does behoove them to identify if you know Somebody like Acuna's is the heir apparent at that short stop, but that's for another day. I mean just Lindor Excellent Stanton excellent. That was a good game, you know, Clark Schmidt pitched really well and so Lugo pitched well, but, you know, had a little bit of trouble with the zone. And I think, you know, in the end, some of the the bullpen

depth pieces that I had been worried about, you know, ended up being something to worry about, actually. I think the key with Boobich is that he doesn't have premium velocity in the bullpen. I think there's actually still a brighter future for him as a starter. I think he's got enough pitches and we saw some improvements before surgery that make me think that in 2025 he's actually a part of that Royals rotation again. They use him for multiple innings a lot too. But there was a point in the fifth inning where the momentum was shifting in a big way

toward the Royals. It was when Juan Soto missed that attempt to dive and catch and that was the Massey hit that you were talking about. And it came down to Clay Holmes versus Vinny Pasquentino. And it was one of those moments where I wish we could have it again with a completely healthy Vinny Pasquentino. He ended up flying out.

It was runners to the corners, two outs. I mean, it could have been a spot to do damage and maybe change the complete, completely change the script on this game, but that was the spot they were in, right? Their most dangerous lefty is just not quite himself because of that thumb injury right now. I hope somewhere on some talk show in New York,

somewhere in some Yankees' hearts in New York, see Yankees' fans' hearts in New York, somewhere in some Yankees hearts in New York, see the Yankees fans hearts in New York, they feel a little better about Clay Holmes. Yeah, I mean, there was a tough spot that was that was a pivotal, pivotal point in the game. And he got that out, came out and chewed up one more inning after that. And four scoreless so far, although I will admit that, you know, the strikeout rate for Clay Holmes in the postseason, you know, hasn't been great, but a 58% ground ball

and, and really suited, like I thought to this role, middle to late innings can deal with traffic, can get out of innings and won't give up big homers. I mean, for his career, Clay Holmes has a.53 home run per nine rate, and in the postseason it's a zero. So that's super helpful, even if you wanna have Luke Weaver close it out. And I do like Luke Weaver closing it out, and he threw five outs to finish this one.

Does that make him unavailable for this one? I don't know. I mean, if they want him, that means that they're closing out the series. And that seems like you say to Luke, OK, we're only going to get two or three outs from you today, but we kind of still need you because we want to finish this game off. And then you get, you know, a couple of days rest after that. Yeah, it's a fair question. I thought it was interesting. They brought in Brady Singer, struck out the only battery face, and then he didn't come back in. It's a guy that's completely

stretched out the way the schedule lines up. Who did he strike out? Oh, who was it? Because if Bubic gave up the homer to Stanton, he must have, maybe he struck out Judge? Yeah, that would have been, yeah, that would have been... that was judged to end that inning. So I would have left Singer in because I'm not as worried about Wells. I'd rather have Singer for Stanton and if you want to go to Bubich for jazz, that's still on the table. That was one of those spots where I mean you're doing the unusual thing for Singer already, bringing him in the middle of an inning,

which I think is kind of a unique wrinkle to using a starter in that way. So why not bring him back with the bases empty to start the next inning? Yeah, which in a more of a starter situation. And yeah, I mean, I guess that you're thinking about Wells in that situation since Wells bats lefty, but I think you're thinking too hard because I'd rather have Singer for Stanton

than really be concentrating on Bovich for Wells. And maybe they're looking at the fact that Wells this season, all 13 of his homers came against righty. So going lefty lefty, you take the power away from him. But then, yeah, you're going lefty lefty against Stanton or lefty righty on Stanton. That's not exactly the situation that you want to be in. As far as the matchup for game four, Cole versus Wacha part two, I think I mentioned, I was surprised to learn during this series that Michael Wacha has been very effective

against Aaron Judge in their respective careers. I keep waiting for the Levy to break on that one, but how do you think this could be different than the first time we saw this matchup? The first time, you know, I thought the story would be, you know, that, you know, Cole was either back or not. And I think that the answer was that he was sort of back. They had 11 hard hit balls against Garrett Cole.

That's what I'm talking about. I mean, you know, the four strikeouts, five innings, three earned runs. That's, I mean, it's not vintage coal. VLL wise he was up, but he wasn't up to where he was pre you know, pre-injury. So if he had looked like vintage coal in that first game of his in this series then I Then I would just immediately hand him a huge advantage But the one that gives up tons of hards hit hard hit balls and kind of struggles through five Kind of feels like every to anybody's game, but if I if you force me to pick a side, I'm picking the Yankees

I mean, I think I can't take Michael Wachow over Derek Cole. I just can't do it. Even if it's not as tilted. I just talked about this earlier. Even if it's not as tilted as it seems, that's still a spot where I think the Royals could have some trouble despite the success they had. Because my thought coming out of game one

was that that was the game in the series that truly got away from the Royals. They did enough to potentially beat Garrett Cole and that was the game in which they really struggled with free passes. Eight walks as a team, we talked about the difficulty of teams in the postseason issuing eight walks like that. They're 23 and 73 all time. Terrible, terrible record in that spot. So like you look at that and you say, okay, that was where their pitching let them down. That was where Zerpa had some traffic and the Yankees were able to grab a run in that spot.

They got, I think, one off of Long, one off of Lorenzen in that game. And you just, you didn't quite get to work with the top A relievers in a spot where if you could could have kept that group a little tighter, the Royals could have actually won that game. And that may be the thing that cost them the series because it seems like it would be surprising if they hit Garrett Cole that well twice in the same series. Not impossible. It's just not the thing I would expect to see.

Yeah, the Yankees have the highest walk rate this postseason, 18.5%. So it's not just that game. The Yankees have the lowest chase rate this postseason by five percentage points over Detroit and the lowest swing percentage by six percentage points over Philly and Detroit. So they are being super patient. That is their game right now. And during the regular season, I don't remember this being such an issue.

The Royals walk rate was 11th best for the whole staff and it was 11th best for the starting rotation. So this isn't necessarily I Think necessarily the Yankees attacking a weakness of the Royals It's a strength of the Yankees that the Royals are running up against basically As far as the walkout versus judge matchup now, it's 23 plate appearances Combined between the postseason and the regular season just one hit and a total of 12 strikeouts like what is it about Waka that works so well against Aaron Judge.

Do you have like pitch usage I mean I feel like I mean the thing that Waka is is a guy with a great change up great change up up. Yeah. And like, you know, this is something that Trevor may pointed out to us when we did a couple of those, how would you pitch to guys was people don't see right on right change ups that much. And I've seen a fair amount of yelling in both directions where the twins to some, to some extent were, I think the Kings of right on right change ups, um, and did it more than other people. And Trevor, you know, know comes from that that tree of knowledge and you know you'll sometimes look at heat maps and look at things and say well these hitters don't see that very much so that's a good idea. Then you look globally at pitch types and you say well change ups you know right on right or not a great idea globally you, but maybe in this one situation,

what you're seeing is, Judge doesn't see a lot of right on right change ups and Waka feeds him those in a way that makes him uncomfortable. Yeah, so in their previous meetings, 37.6% change up usage, 24.7% cutters, a lot of cutters and change ups. And that's 40% change up usage right on right.

I would guarantee the judge sees very few other pitchers like that. Do you sit change up if you're judging just to hope he's not throwing you any fastballs? I think you could do it situationally. I don't know if I'd sit the whole thing, but if he gets one strike on you, you feel like now he's going for the kill, he's going to give me a change up, you know? I think I might try it sort of count to count. I might sit cutter, you know, early and sit change late. That makes you vulnerable, of course, to, you know, Waka just going change up early

and cutter late. That's the other sort of pivotal matchup in all this is like can can walk in neutralize Aaron judge to possibly three times to the order depending on circumstances that That does change a lot about the complexion of the matchup if that holds It's the level of dominance that it's sort of like the Mookie Betts playoff struggles from a couple days ago You're like yeah, okay like that can happen But you know how long is that really gonna continue like that's sort of the vibe I've got about this. Like, there's a reason for it.

And I understand the reason. But even with that, eventually, Aaron Judge is going to find a way to do some damage against Michael Walker. I think the other part of this walk story is that teams are or maybe just the Royals or in this particular case, they're like, okay, we're gonna be fine with walks to Soto and Judge,

who have a 20% walk rate in this series. We're gonna be fine to walks to Soto and Judge if it means no power from them. And so far you've got, I think, one double from Soto. And that's the power from those two and That's why Stanton ends up being the guy who wins a game for them because it's we're fine with walks to Soto and judge And we're gonna get everybody else out Well, if anybody else steps forward, you know

Then they're in trouble because then there's there's people on base then a double can tend can score a run Then then a homer is you know gonna score more runs. So, you know, Gleyber Torres, John Carlos Stanton, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm, I still have circled as a potential game winner tonight. If they are gonna continue this, it might just be more walks to Judgen Soto and Jazz hitting a three-run homer to kind of tidy the game away.

I'm looking at it right now. I just found it, I can't get it on stream for people to watch on YouTube, but you can actually look at the pitch types by count if you do a savant search. Waka, okay, OO, four seamers and cutters mostly, right? So you're looking first pitch fastball. To judge or just generally?

To judge, to judge specifically. It's four seamers and cutters. That's what he's done historically. So you're probably just looking for one of those. 01, if he gets him 01, it's a change up more than half the time. There you go. 02 is about half the time. 1, 2 he goes back to a fast ball heavy mix.

2, 2 it's almost certainly a change up. If he gets to a full count, it's only change ups. So there's definitely some tendencies here of the extreme change up. If he gets to a full count, it's only change ups. So there's definitely some tendencies here of the extreme change up use that will eventually, I don't know if it's tonight, I don't know if it's next year, I don't know if it's three years from now, that is going to bite Michael Wacha eventually.

That's being too predictable. I would put money on the fact that the Yankees are a trajectory team and if they were home, you know, judge would turn on the trajectory and be Yankees are a trajectory team and if they were home, you know, judge would turn on the trajectory and be like, just put change up, like put, give me, fit me 50 walk of change ups in a row, you know, and see if I can't figure something out here.

But I think a change up in particular, not having ball in hand out of the machine, just, you know, it makes it harder to make that valuable. All right. Well, we'll see. We'll see if it bites him on Thursday night. Looking right, well, we'll see if it bites him on Thursday night. Looking forward to watching this one to see if it will. That's the stuff that Trevor talked about. It's like any time you get over 60%, you start saying, I can sit there.

I can sit on something in this count. Yeah, and there's a lot of counts where he does it too. So you could just, after the first pitch even, just say, I'm just waiting for a change up. You didn't get your Bobby Witt hits a sweeper prediction, but maybe we'll nail the Aaron Judge sits change up on a two two count. I know, my oddly specific prediction

got ruined by the bullpen usage. Witt didn't get to see him that last time. They pulled him right for the third matchup. I was like, no, this was it. This was my script and you'd burn. They were never gonna let Clark Schmidt go three times through the order. No, it had to happen quickly.

And look, it was making a mistake. Schmidt was executing the pitch well. I was just thinking if he missed with one, that was gonna be Bobby Witt Jr. hammering one. And Witt had a bounce back sort of game anyway. So I think it's gonna be fun to watch how this one plays. I will see if the Royals can send it to five. I think this series ends tonight.

My predictions have been awful throughout this postseason so maybe read other people's predictions on the Athletic. TheAthletic.com slash rates and barrels will get you in the door. Two dollars a month gets you started. You can find Eno on Twitter at EnoSarris, find me at Derek and Riper, find the pod at rates and barrels and of course Aaron judge does in fact get a Change up and send it out of the yard, especially in a two-two count. You got to tag me on that right you got Yeah, I gotta get something right eventually in this playoff. Thanks a lot to Brian Smith for producing this episode

We are back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening