Bobby and Alex discuss a new zen that’s come across Bobby as the Mets have ridden an adrenaline rollercoaster over the last two weeks. Then, they bounce around the various Division Series, highlighting the takeaways from the first games and whether or not any teams have changed their prospects of going deep into October, or whether the Phillies, Yankees, and Dodgers are still in pole position.
Tipping Pitches features original music from Steve Sladkowski of PUP.
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and be able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitch and kind of help out so he wasn’t tipping his pitches. So tipping pitches we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand what tipping pitches all about? That’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, is— as you well know, the calendar has flipped over month to October since last time we recorded a podcast.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And so that means I’m just really a Zen, you know? I’m just feeling really— turn on my NPR voice right here. Welcome to Tipping Pitches. Drink a decaf coffee, herbal tea.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Getting walks in, getting some sunlight. Deep breaths, box breathing, in for four, out for four.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Hold for four.
ALEX: Oh, my gosh.
BOBBY: In for four. Out for four. Hold for four. I left a hold out on there, I think. Just nothing stressing me in life right now.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Everything would support this, including the data from my aura ring, including— if you eyewitness interviewed my neighbors—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —they definitely would not say anything about any yelling.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: That has gone on in the past week. Been listening to a lot of just smooth jazz all day long, walking around, basically levitating.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How are you feeling?
ALEX: Well, as a Philadelphia Phillies fan, I’m kind of going through it right now. I’m doing great, honestly. I’m having a lot of fun.
BOBBY: You can neither confirm nor deny the allegations that you’re playing both sides so that no matter what happens, you win.
ALEX: Right. I— I actually have made the— I have a custom made like, you know, like split Phillies-Mets hat.
BOBBY: Right. That you got at the MLB London Series.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And that I’ll be wearing to the game on Tuesday.
BOBBY: You’re just in it for the love of the game. You know, you’re like Rob Lowe wearing the NFL hat.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The NFL logo hat.
ALEX: I just— I— I’m gonna be wearing my I Want Both Teams To Have Fun—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: —shirt, you know?
BOBBY: Good game, next game.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Line up and shake hands after every single game like Little League.
ALEX: Exactly. That’s— we used to be a country, man.
BOBBY: Couple of the moans in today’s men’s Phillies game two, felt a little— touch a Little League-y. You know, there was a play where— there’s a play where there was a stolen base that was caught by the right— and then a pop fly caught by the right fielder and thrown back to first, overthrew first, runner came back to first, then ran back to second, because the ball squared away. You know, we’re just— it’s October. Anything can happen, right?
ALEX: How— how are you feeling, Bo— I mean, it’s been— it’s been kind of a crazy— we’re gonna get into it. I know, we’re— we’re gonna go through sort of things that have stood out to us from each series so far. But, like, a lot has happened—
BOBBY: Correct.
ALEX: —since we have last recorded. The Mets have advanced through the Wild Card round.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Through some mighty heroics from a certain polar bear.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. I think since we were— no. We had recorded after the Braves game last time, right?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: To be clear, I’m not referring to the Braves games in which they played against the San Diego Padres and got promptly eliminated from the playoffs. Goodbye. Enjoy Cancun. Funny how that works out. You know, they didn’t get a break. Seemed a little tired in that series.
ALEX: Yeah, I agree.
BOBBY: Maybe they should have had the layoff.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Rest versus rest, which wins out? Apparently, the team playing against the Braves.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: I’m protecting my peace.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: That’s my mantra this October. Protect my peace, not getting too invested. I’m obviously getting very invested.
ALEX: Right. But you’re walking down the street when you see a fellow Mets fan, you’re saying, “Hey, peace be with you, brother.”
BOBBY: I am taking a very religious approach to this October.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s out of my hands. It’s in God’s hands. Doing a lot of praying between pitches.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I just— maybe we can get into this when we talk more about the Mets-Philly series. But there’s something that is spiritual about October baseball that is just, like, beyond the one— beyond the one that’s out of my control. So I’m just kind of like, “Things are happening. I’m watching them.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which is maybe feels like an obvious thing to say, like you’re powerless at home. But as you well know, I have never felt that way before. I have felt like everything I do has had a positive or negative impact on the team that I root for and everybody around me. And that should the team fail, it is my fault.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And there was something that I should have done and should have found.
ALEX: Right. Should have been holding the charm in the other hand.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Why’d you get up to go to the bathroom right then?
BOBBY: Correct. And I’m still doing a lot of that. I’m just taking it a little later when it doesn’t work out.
ALEX: That’s good. You’re not white knuckling the— the wheel as much.
BOBBY: I was white knuckling it for the Mets Wild Card round in game three. It— it really felt as though season was over.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Pulled a couple reverse jinx cards out of the hat— out— out of the hat.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I’m intentionally trying not to be— you know, I received a text message from Jordan Shusterman this morning and that we’re sitting here to record this on Sunday evening after the Mets have lost game two against the Phillies in one of the most exciting baseball games ever.
ALEX: I think I’ve ever witnessed.
BOBBY: Really exciting stuff, really great game. Well played by both teams. Turns out that the Phillies are good, you know? You give them opportunities, those—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —players are going to step up. I received a text from friend of the podcast, Jordan Shusterman. He said, “What’s the vibe?” And I told him a similar thing to the way that I jokingly started this podcast. I was like, “Trying to protect the energy, trying to hold it together, trying to remain calm, remain peaceful. Just take a really positive approach on this.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: This is, like, my reactionary positivity pivot.
ALEX: Right. When they go low, you enter a different astral plane.
BOBBY: You watched Shogun, right?
ALEX: No, I didn’t.
BOBBY: You didn’t watch Shogun?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Okay. Well, I don’t remember—
ALEX: I’m sorry that that doesn’t tee up your— your reference well.
BOBBY: We’re doing so well. We’re doing about as well as Luis Severino against Bryce Harper. There’s this concept in Shogun that one of the character— characters explains that when bad things are happening to her, bad things are going around— go— going on around her. She conceives of them as out of her control, and she goes into a mental walled off guard. And she goes—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —into, like, this peaceful place in her mind, and just goes full stoic. I’m working on that, not quite there yet.
ALEX: You’re getting there.
BOBBY: We’re getting there. Maybe by the time I’m 59, and the Mets actually win the World Series. I’ll be there.
ALEX: Yeah. No. I can tell, honestly. I— sitting down with you here recording—
BOBBY: Ohtani strikeout washed.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Washed.
ALEX: Overpaid.
BOBBY: Overrated.
ALEX: Yeah. I can tell there’s a bit of a different energy crackling in the room right now. There’s a— there’s a sheen of acceptance, right? That— that what comes will come. We’re— we’re pawns and in— in the game of Lindor and Harper.
BOBBY: The Dodgers-Padres series must be what everybody else is feeling watching the Mets-Philly series, just like— just haymaker after haymaker.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Longtime rivals, 100 miles away from each other, star power on each side, hostile environments, little brother narratives.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Anyway, I replied to Jordan, and I said— I said all that stuff, that I was trying to remain calm and— and then I said, “However, Tuesday night, I’ll be attending the game.” And I do think that it is incumbent on me and everybody else who is going to be at Citi Field that night to release what I can only describe as a feral energy—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —upon the universe.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I would like the Phillies to remain stranded in the mechanic yards.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Outside Queens for the rest of the offseason.
ALEX: This is— let’s see, if we’re keeping the metaphor going. This is, what, like— like, confession, you know? This is where you kind of let it all out.
BOBBY: At the game?
ALEX: Or— or maybe it’s—
BOBBY: Confession is a pretty calm environment.
ALEX: I wouldn’t know. I think of it— I—
BOBBY: We’re one round into the playoffs, and what— what are we doing? Talking about confession.
ALEX: I think of it like a— you know, it’s like a— like exorcism vibes. You know, it’s like you’re getting the— you’re getting it all out of you.
BOBBY: That’s how you think confession works?
ALEX: Right? Or you just— I mean, it feel like it should work that way.
BOBBY: Have you ever—
ALEX: What do you mean, just saying the bad things you do?
BOBBY: Well, let me ask you a question. Have you ever watched a movie, maybe a TV show perhaps?
ALEX: Oh, I know. It just—
BOBBY: Famous scenes of Confession in film and television?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I can think of a few.
ALEX: Well— so wha— but what else— what matches the vibe? Is it just church then?
BOBBY: Oh, no, no. I think Tuesday night will be the sins that you need to confess about.
ALEX: Okay, there you go.
BOBBY: It could be like last rites. We could be reading Phillies their last rights.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: I don’t know. We’re losing this— we’re losing the [9:04] a little
ALEX: We’re losing the [9:04] a little bit, but—
BOBBY: Okay. Well, we have a lot of playoff baseball to talk about. We have some narratives to check in on. Alex picked a book up off the street on his walk over here that he wants to read to you guys. Like, story time with Alex Bazeley. And then we’re gonna do a little check in on each team’s fan base as we go through. And then a couple other, you know, couple other tidbits that we’ve picked up along the way. Before we get to all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Got a little homework to do here first, Alex. Lot of new patrons this week. Thank you to Graham, Eline, [9:55] Garrett, Jordan, Zander, and Rafael. It’s that time of year again. You know, people are like, “Oh, baseball.”
ALEX: It’s a good time to check back in, I will say.
BOBBY: Yeah, I agree.
ALEX: I— I don’t begrudge anyone who checks in.
BOBBY: While we’re here talking about the Patreon, Patreon bonus episode coming on Wednesday. They come every two weeks. We are due for one this Wednesday. I have to assume that it will be heavily influenced by the happenings around Queens, for me personally, but also just a playoff heavy Three Up, Three Down. That is the segment that we do to fill every Patreon episode. But if you’re a patron, you well know that it’s not exactly like on the rails from the beginning on the Patreon episode, so it’s a lot of fun. I feel like if you— maybe I’ll make you talk more about confession. So, like, you really just, like, don’t— you just don’t have context for how that works?
ALEX: I— I do. You go— and so you sit in a little booth and you can’t see the guy, right? But, like—
BOBBY: Right. But at my church, we didn’t have a booth like that, or certainly it wasn’t practical to just always go in and out of the booths, because then, when I was going to CCD, you know, you kind of, like, lined up and did your confession.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And everybody would kind of be able to hear, if you were just lining up outside the booth the whole confession. So instead, what we did, here’s what we did, we had a room, not unlike the room that we’re in right now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: This is sort of our confession.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: These are— these are our confession.
ALEX: Interesting.
BOBBY: Like Usher said. And we went into the room and there were two chairs, and they were facing away from each other.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: And the— the priest was sitting in one, and you sat in the other. So you were just back-to-back, like speed dating, which is maybe not the right metaphor to use here in the Catholic Church, but I’m powering through anyway. And you just said it— you just said it aloud. No veil, nothing. And you could— you could make the choice much like you can when you go into the confession booth, whether you slide away the privacy thing or not. You can make the choice, you say, “I want to turn— turn it around and go—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —eye to eye with you.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: What do you think— what choice do you think I made?
ALEX: You big eye to eye guy?
BOBBY: Do you know me? That’s what I’m saying.
ALEX: No. No. I— I— I assumed you— you face those chairs away from each other.
BOBBY: Yeah. Tough time with eye contact.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I can only make eye contact with you.
ALEX: That’s right. We don’t break it when we record.
BOBBY: When one of us is talking, the other person is just kind of making, you know, kissy faces at the other. Put that in your mental projector as you listen along. Let’s talk about the playoffs.
ALEX: Let’s do it. Hey.
BOBBY: Where do you want to start? Because the Wild Card is kind of old news now at this point.
ALEX: It is kind of old news. Yeah.
BOBBY: If we wanted to talk about the Wild Card, we should have got off our asses and potted. You know, no one wants to work anymore.
ALEX: No one does want to work anymore, us included.
BOBBY: Why don’t we just start by running through each series, talking about the narratives as well, folding that into each other? So we— we should probably just start with the Mets and the Phillies.
ALEX: Yeah, let’s just— let’s just do it. Let’s get it out of the way.
BOBBY: All right. So tough loss today for my New York Mets. You tell yourself that there’s a silver lining coming out of Philadelphia, splitting 1-1, bringing it home. You’ve— you’ve won home field advantage back, whatever these things mean. But it doesn’t feel good when you have multiple opportunities to win a baseball game in game two. I gotta say, though, it does appear that this is just what the Mets are now. They’re just the rally team.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They are just the pulling a rabbit out of the hat team. They’re kind of— they kind of have Cardinals energy. They kind of have Giants energy.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: It’s weird.
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: It’s completely—
ALEX: Do you hear yourself right now?
BOBBY: —bizarre to me. It’s true, though.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: They signed a Minor League second baseman who’s a Latin pop star, and all of a sudden, he’s hitting .400. This is the type of thing, you know? These are the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This is the— these are the type of players that those teams would find and pull magic out of a hat.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But the Phillies are a juggernaut. They are what— they are as advertised. It took them about 15 innings to remember that.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But then they remembered that.
ALEX: They remembered it in— in— in great fashion.
BOBBY: What I would say to other Mets fans, if you’re listening to this on Monday, on the day off between series, what I would say to those fans is, I would say, did you really think that you were just gonna walt into Citizens Bank Park and win both games without any sort of trials and tribulations, without any sort of circuitous journey, without Bryce Harper being heard from, without Nick Castellanos being heard from? I really thought maybe we could get a walk-off three-run bomb from him, and that would mean that, like, I would refresh Twitter, and Trump would be dead. He was in PA with another guy that I wouldn’t mind if he was dead.
ALEX: This is my Jack Black moment. This is where I say, “Excuse me, sir, we’re— we need some decorum.”
BOBBY: I— I know it’s sort of, like, not really the vibe between these two teams. There’s not a lot of like— among— I should say, really, among the fan bases, because it seems like amongst the teams, they kind of respect each other.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Particularly, the stars. Like the Mets obviously, have a lot of reverence for Bryce Harper, in a way that maybe the Braves could have benefited from in the last couple years. The Phillies, obviously, kind of understand that the ways in which the Mets are dangerous. You know, I don’t think the lineup necessarily fears Met pitching, but, oh wow, David Peralta homer. It’s clear that the Mets are able to put good at-bats on these— on the Phillies bullpen, at least.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But me— like me, personally, I feel kind of outside of the whole, whatever, deranged thing is going on between these two fan bases on and offline right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because I just have a tremendous amount of respect for this Phillies team. They have a lot of— honestly, a lot of my favorite players on the team over the last few years. And so I just feel a little bit, like, at peace and resigned about when things happen like that, because I’m almost like— I’m almost expecting it. Someone asked me on Twitter, they were like, “What’s your level of fear about Bryce Harper out of 10?” I’m like, “10. It’s a 10.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This is— this is— I said aloud during the game today. It was like, “This must have been what it was like to root against Michael Jordan.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You’re just watching, being like, “He’s gonna do the least probable thing. It’s definitely gonna happen.”
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: And then he does.
ALEX: And then he does it. And then he does.
BOBBY: And then he does.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it’s been a fun series so far. The— I mean, frankly, both— the— the difference in energies between the National League series and the American League series right now is, like, radical. And maybe it’s just because—
BOBBY: Because the American League is a bunch of squares, let’s be honest.
ALEX: They’re a bunch of squares, exactly. This is what happens when you embrace the DH for so many years, is you lose your edge.
BOBBY: Yep. Complacency.
ALEX: Absolute complacency. And to your point, the, like— the online aspect of this, like in— in Dodgers versus Padres and Mets versus Phillies, you have just four absolutely feral fan bases who are, like, ready to slit the necks of the opposing fans.
BOBBY: Our friend, friend and composer for this podcast, Steve Sladkowski, compared Mets versus Phillies to Alien vs. Predator if you’re neutral. Like if you don’t— if you don’t care about either the teams, it’s basically like going to the cinema and watching Alien vs. Predator.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s fun. The Mets definitely do have, like, a— I mean, I don’t know what the stat, but they’ve, like, had the most comeback wins all year, right?
BOBBY: Yes. They’ve also had the most four-run innings—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —of any team this year, so they’ve stringed together a lot of magic throughout this year.
ALEX: So, like, it’s a lot of these, like, weird situational stats that, like, aren’t predictive in any way.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But, like those— those, quote- unquote, “teams of destiny” tend to check one or two of these boxes. So, like, they’re fun, man. I don’t know— I don’t know what to say. It’s like—
BOBBY: It’s been a lot of really good baseball that’s been played so far.
ALEX: It has been a lot of good baseball.
BOBBY: And that, you know, maybe this is worth generalizing to the rest of the series, too, but I’ll just say it now here, as we talk about Mets versus Phillies, I thought that the regular season this year was kind of devoid of sauce, if I’m being honest. Like it was pretty boring for a lot of that— for a lot of those stretches. There were a couple teams who have sort of turned their seasons around, and it did get really exciting towards the end of the season with the NL Wild Card Race. The Diamondbacks opened the door for the Mets and Braves to make it in, and then three NL East teams were suddenly in. But a lot of the other division races were so not really early. The wild card, a lot of teams were sort of sputtering to the end, leaving the Tigers aside too, because they were sort of on this type of Mets, like, magical run on the other side of the bracket. But maybe that was just to give way to an incredible playoffs, because—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —each series so far has been just really entertaining, and I have thought really well played and pretty well-managed. Like, we’re at this point in baseball where you kind of know what’s gonna happen. Like you kind of know how managers are gonna handle their different situations, and a lot of guys basically stick to the plan. And yet, there’s been a run on, like, good relievers. So a lot of the good relievers are really concentrated on a couple different teams and/or even if you went and had a few different good relievers, many of them got hurt. Like, that’s what’s happening with the Mets right now, is that they lost key relievers along the way. Like a guy like Brooks Raley. Imagine how much of a tool it would be to have that guy, to be able to go to him instead of being like, “Okay, David Peterson and Tylor Megill, you guys are the guys now in the ninth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies or to close out the Milwaukee Brewers.” So there’s a little bit of— a little bit more uncertainty, and I have just thought that there’s just been a lot of really high-level baseball played in these series so far, and a lot of comebacks where in the past has felt sort of determinative once a team takes a two, three-run lead. And those momentum swings that we maybe got way back when, when it was a lot more singles, doubles, triples being strung together, and/or when we still had the juiced ball, when it was just like, “Okay, bomb after bomb after bomb.” You can’t even keep it in the ballpark, so we have no idea who’s going to win. I felt a little bit more of that in this postseason so far, and it’s been— it’s been refreshing. We’ll see if that holds firm throughout. I don’t know, but even like the series that I’m kind of least interested in, which is Yankees-Royals, just in terms of how the two teams match up, like I think the Yankees—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —should pretty easily win that. And they did win game one, and they held home field advantage, but that— that game had five lead changes, which is the first time a postseason game has ever had five lead changes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So it’s not like that was not without pomp and circumstance as well.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, with the exception of probably game one of the Guardians-Tigers series, right? Which Guardians won 7-0 pretty handily.
BOBBY: Yeah, that game was over—
ALEX: That game was over pretty quickly.
BOBBY: — expeditiously. I was at the gym during that game, and someone else came in, and turned the game on one of the gym TVs. And I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t really see what was going on. I just saw him just, like, kept turning up and looking at the score, looking at the score, and I was like, “Something must be going on.” So I walked, like, really close to the TV, and I’m like, “Oh, it’s 5-0. It’s bottom of the first and it’s 5-0.”
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like most of the series at this point, I don’t want to just feel like, “Oh, it could go either way,” because, like, most of the series are 1-0 or 1-1. But, like, we do— I do feel like there’s— it’s a relatively even matchup. Even in a series like the Phillies versus the Mets, where the Phillies are, in theory, pretty heavily favored, or— or probably weren’t coming into it. It’s been good. Even the Dodgers-Padres had a— at— well, you know, that was a big back and forth game in game one. And I mean, we’re— we’re currently watching game two right now, and I— will evolve throughout this recording. But, like, it’s been— you know what I’ve heard a lot of, I will say, from the— from the broadcaster? Then especially true in the Phillies-Mets series.
BOBBY: Bad broadcasting?
ALEX: Well, that’s for sure. I mean, we can just get into the— kind of how the broadcasting has been. But, oh, my God, I— A-Rod was so happy with the Mets performance, game one.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Did you hear that?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: All singles, baby. That was— that was baseball, tried and true, station to station baseball. Waino could not get enough of it.
BOBBY: Eight singles to be the team that you’re heavily the underdogs of, is like an A-Rod wet dream, honestly.
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: I can’t believe that happened. Yet he still picked the Phillies to win the series, by the way. Papi was—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —the only one who picked the Mets.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Love, my man Papi.
ALEX: Yeah. Thoughts on— on broadcasts so far?
BOBBY: Okay. I kind of like Adam Amin. I hate A.J. Pierzynski.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: As a guy. And I’m kind of indifferent on Waino as a guy. Indifferent leaning dislike because he was a Cardinal.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Okay. So that’s where I’m at with all those guys. And Verducci, we all know how I feel about Verducci.
ALEX: Okay. I don’t know if it’s just your— if it’s just my stream or whatever, but every time they cut to Verducci—
BOBBY: So quiet.
ALEX: —his mic is, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —75% lower than the rest of them. I love it.
BOBBY: Call— call my line, 785-422-5881, I will do audio consulting for you, Fox. I’m—
ALEX: You’ll make sure that Verducci mic is turned down all the way?
BOBBY: —very reasonable. I think that game one, they were okay. Game Two, I think they were just kind of saying the same stuff that they were saying in game one, and they were not really reading the room. They were just kind of coming with those same talking points that they clearly prepared for game one, about how these teams operate and about what you need to do to win a series. And who am I to tell A. J. Pierzynski and Adam Wainwright how to win a playoff series in the modern age? You know, these guys are guys— both guys with World Series rings. Like this is a pitcher and a catcher, so they know how the game is thought and called and all of those different sorts of things. I think Wainwright has decent insights on the mindset of a pitcher and Pierzynski has decent insights on the mindset of how a game is called. That being said, I thought that they were pretty bad today and caught up in the energy of the Philly crowd, so maybe not really calling the game as it was unfolding.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: More so calling the game at the whims of how the fans were reacting to it, which doesn’t work on TV, because you can kind of only sort of feel how the crowd feels—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —when you’re watching it on TV. Made worse by the fact that the Fox Broadcast does not mic the crowd well. They mic the umpires too loudly, so you’re like listening to the umpires saying things to the catcher or batter, and not really hearing what the crowd is doing, yet the broadcast is almost always talking about the energy of the crowd. And I’m just like, “You guys are just describing a thing that I am not participating in.
ALEX: Right. And it’s not going to change how I engage with this baseball game. It’s not adding anything—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —necessarily to the viewing experience. I thought you astutely pointed out that Wainwright does— does the— loves to start a sentence and not really know kind of how he’s gonna end it.
BOBBY: He’s a podcaster.
ALEX: He is a podcaster at heart.
BOBBY: You can’t podcast on air.
ALEX: I will say, props goes to A. J. Pierzynski, who had my favorite line from tonight, which is with Trea Turner at the plate. I think this was in, like, the bottom of the ninth, and Harper’s on deck, right? And— was it the bottom of ninth? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
BOBBY: You’re gonna have to tell me what the line was before I could tell you what it was.
ALEX: Like, but it’s— but he’s like, you know, like, “You really don’t want to let it get to Harper.” Right? Like, I think if you’re a Mets fan, you’re okay letting Turner get on, hit a single home run, whatever. You’re okay with that, as long as it doesn’t get to— to Harper. I was like, “That’s a really interesting— you’re okay taking the walk-off home run from Trea Turner.”
BOBBY: I don’t think he said—
ALEX: No, I—
BOBBY: Verbatim.
ALEX: He did. I’m not kidding. I— he— maybe he misspoke and that’s fine.
BOBBY: So bottom of the ninth, the— Harper roped that one down the right field line, and it landed just foul. I was like, “Damn.”
ALEX: Right. I mean, that aged Mets and Phillies fans 10 years.
BOBBY: I— that was the first moment where I really allowed myself to be like, “Are we just gonna fucking dumb luck our way to this shit?” Like, I mean, they would have— they would have earned the comeback.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like the Vientos— the two Vientos home runs today are just absurd.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I like— I like Joe Davis a lot. I think he’s not being helped by the fact that he was stuck with John Smoltz, but I’m really breathing sigh relief post-ESPN round, because the ESPN broadcasts, and I really will only speak affirmatively about this, about the Mets-Brewer series, because that was the only one that I watched every game from the start to— from start to finish, and was listening to everything they were saying. That was like— that was some really bad shit. Like they were saying stuff like, “The Brewers are now in run prevention mode.”
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: “They would like to prevent the Mets from scoring—” ideally, you’d like to prevent the Mets from scoring runs here. It’s like—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: God. Thankfully, they went into run prevention mode, because otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened.
ALEX: Well, I see—
BOBBY: They would have been run allowing mode.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know when teams get in run allowing mode?
ALEX: I— I do. Well, actually—
BOBBY: Where the pitcher is like intentional walk, intentional walk, intentional walk, intentional walk.
ALEX: This is in— in today’s game. That’s Adam Wainwright, almost tongue in cheek suggested that, and was like, “Hey, I— if you’re— a strategy for the— for the Phillies, maybe at this point you try and let the Mets get ahead a little bit. They haven’t done that so far.”
BOBBY: And guess what? It worked.
ALEX: And it worked. Yeah.
BOBBY: I have less to say about the AL side because I was watching those games with the sound off, except for part of the Yankees games I was watching. And I just think— and this is gonna offend you maybe, because you’re the number one Bob Costas guy. You pushed so hard for him to be on our A-listers list as one of the most—
ALEX: I still stand by that, without a doubt.
BOBBY: —famous people in the baseball world.
ALEX: He, without a doubt, is, but—
BOBBY: No, he isn’t. No, he’s not. No one under the age of 25 knows who he is.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: Also, no one under the age of 25 knows who any baseball player is, but—
ALEX: Right. Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Anyway, he stinks at calling baseball games.
ALEX: You bet. That’s— I— I would not [27:56] that for a second.
BOBBY: Okay. Now, that we’ve got all the announcers out of the way, can we go back to the series?
ALEX: Yeah. Let’s— all right. Real baseball.
BOBBY: Maybe we leave the Padres and Dodgers out of it for a little while, because we don’t really know what’s going on with this game. Dodgers back and forth game, won game one. Behind Ohtani who back flips now, I guess. That’s just— sure. Sure, sure, sure. Both of these teams are absolutely star-studded. And maybe the two best teams in the playoffs right now?
ALEX: Possibly. I— depends on your mileage with the Phillies.
BOBBY: I mean, I think the Phillies are better than the Padres. I just think the Padres are a little bit less in their own heads at— at the moment and not—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —might not be sure of the Phillies’ postgame too, because they kind of broke out of their slumps, but—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Padres are an incredibly well-constructed baseball team, and that’s why me and every other hipster baseball writer was choosing them to win the World Series.
ALEX: Of course. Well, and it starts with Jurickson Profar, right? I mean, that’s the heart and soul of that baseball team.
BOBBY: As an insane home run robbery.
ALEX: Yeah. That was crazy.
BOBBY: All right, let’s flip over to the AL side. Would you like to start with Yankees-Royals— oh, do you want to audit any of our narratives from the previous episode before we move on from the NL?
ALEX: Sure. Yeah, let’s do it.
BOBBY: Which narratives do you think are still alive? I mean, like, the Brewers narrative is not still alive. You know, the Braves narrative is not still alive, but I mean, like, has— have the events of either of these series made you believe that there would have been a better option to narrativize any of the teams so far?
ALEX: I think— I mean, I think that I— obviously, I sold the— the Tiger short. I’ll— I’ll— I’ll come out and admit it. You know, I thought they were gonna get bounced. This— maybe this is— I don’t even know if this is—
BOBBY: I mean, who— who was surprised by that? Fly over Alex selling— selling out Detroit?
ALEX: I know. That’s—that’s—
BOBBY: You hate cars.
ALEX: I hate cars.
BOBBY: You hate the Midwest.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: You hate the cold. The Tigers never stood a chance.
ALEX: I know. Yeah, I think I— maybe I discounted them as the underdogs a little bit too much. Maybe— maybe they do have that— you know, I— almost the AL Mets type energy. I mean, I think the Mets are like a— probably a more well-rounded baseball team and have bonafide stars.
BOBBY: I would say the Mets are definitely a more well-rounded baseball team. Name three people in the Tigers lineup.
ALEX: You’re not a Parker Meadows guy?
BOBBY: I don’t— I don’t mind me a little Parker Meadows. Yeah, but they bounced the Astros.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: Ding dong, the witch is dead.
ALEX: Exactly. Well, that’s— that’s just my point, is like, “Hey, maybe I— you know, I should have drank the Kool-Aid a little bit.” But I’m not gonna lie. I’m vamping a little bit because I don’t really remember what any of the narratives were, so I think we’re probably in a pretty good spot, vis-a-vis all the sort of narratives that are coming down the pipeline, especially the big ones.
BOBBY: Yeah. The small ones as well.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, the smaller ones, those are the ones that will keep up on you, you know? And so that’s why you got to stay locked in.
BOBBY: You sound like Wainwright.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Really, Wainwright is the Alex Bazeley of broadcasting.
ALEX: I’ve— I’ve always said this. I’ve always said this.
BOBBY: Kind of a false-y charm to him. All right, let’s go. Yankees take one— game one against the Royals. Gerrit Cole stinks. Yankees still win. Aaron Judge stinks, Yankees still win.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Juan Soto, he’s good. He’s good.
ALEX: He’s quite good.
BOBBY: Alex Verdugo, clutch gene.
ALEX: Goddammit.
BOBBY: Clutch gene. Royals got to be kicking themselves for that one, because they beat up on Gerrit Cole, Yankees best pitcher, and they still didn’t win game one at Yankee Stadium. I— I mean, still a series. Still— still a series. I think—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —the Royals maybe have a slight advantage on the pitching side in the next couple games, but it’s pretty neck and neck, and there’s a lot of variability on the Yankees bullpen, at least. And there’s also the looming question of whether Aaron Judge is just going to, like, Wrecking Ball a series ever in his playoff career, or if he really is going to not be able to beat the allegations and end up like Clayton Kershaw?
ALEX: This— this is the narrative I want.
BOBBY: I mean, it’s not a narrative anymore. It’s just what’s happening. Like, it’s just— he’s not hitting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But still, it’s only— it’s only one game, and they did win. So I do think the Yankees are going to the World Series. I feel like we failed to discuss the fact that three AL Central teams made the playoffs.
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: And then we are pretty— pretty quickly made to look silly about that fact, because then all of those teams advance. I mean, the Guardians had a buy. They just can’t get Tatis out. Like, they just nobody can get Tatis out right now.
ALEX: Well, that’s because they’re not in— in run prevention mode.
BOBBY: Fuck. Does anyone have Dave Roberts phone number? Has anybody had Dave Roberts phone number for the last seven years?
ALEX: Right. And failed to tell us—
BOBBY: To tell him to give them run intervention mode?
ALEX: There— actually, I think one of my favorite visual shots in watching a baseball game on TV is watching the ball go down, like, the first or third baseline, and you have the— the perspective, like from left or right field.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Just like watching it curve. Oh, my gosh.
BOBBY: It’s really [33:20]
ALEX: Especially if you have— it just going past a diving fielder’s glove.
BOBBY: I feel like the ball just sneaks past a diving Max Muncy very often. I don’t know why that is. Maybe Dodgers fans can explain it to me. Yeah. We— we dropped the ball on the AL Central, and again, flyover Alex fails to properly prepare us.
ALEX: Hey, I have the Guardians in the World Series, bro.
BOBBY: That’s true. Okay, Guardians, Tigers. We talked about it a little bit, Guardians laid it on the Tigers. To me, my take about this series is it doesn’t start until the Tarik— the Tarik Skubal game.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So, like, if the Guardians beat Skubal, then the series is over.
ALEX: It’s over.
BOBBY: I mean, I— I know it’s obviously 2-0 after that point, but like, the Tigers have zero shot. Now, if the Tigers split, and they win the Skubal game, you assume that they would have a shot at winning a game five with Skubal on short rest. And so they just have to get some bullshit in one of the other two games. And at that point, it’s a tossup. I do think the Guardians are gonna move on. That’s my take.
ALEX: I completely agree. A tough situation to be in when you’re like, “Well, our hopes hinge on one starter, kind of entirely.”
BOBBY: I mean, that’s not to take away from the fact that the Tigers definitely have other guys who, like, get outs, but when it comes to a series where the Guardians in particular have a lot of cerebral hitters with good bat— bat to ball skills. You can’t really just keep trotting out like the same believers. It’s a hard thing to do in a playoff series, and I don’t think that’s necessarily what happened in game one. I do think that they just jumped on them early, and then just— the game was over quick. And Tanner Bibee is good.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Although quick hook for him. Guardians bullpen is fucking real.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That was kind of what I was alluding to earlier, when I was talking about how you kind of expect each team to stick to the plan, that— to stick to what they’re about. Like vote— giving Tanner Bibee the hook after four innings, even though they were up a lot, and just immediately going to the bullpen.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s what they do.
ALEX: Right. It’s like you’re trusting what got you here.
BOBBY: Yeah. I’m a real don’t trust what got you here. I’m a real mix it up.
ALEX: Right. You’re like tear up the script.
BOBBY: What— 2019— 2019 Washington Nationals, what did they do? The bullpen got them there, in a way, and they were just like, “Thanks for coming, guys.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. “We don’t need you anymore. We’ll take it from here.”
BOBBY: “Now, it’s the starters.”
ALEX: Yeah. They have Keider Montero.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: That’s hope— I guess he’ll go game three for them.
BOBBY: I guess so.
ALEX: He’s— has 19 career games under his belt. So, I mean, they had— they have other guys who can— who can go out there and put up some— some innings for them. But you’re in a tough position if you— the opposing team only needs to go— get four or five innings out of this starter, and they can hand it over to a bullpen that will shut you down. So I don’t know. I— I— I still think the Guardians are gonna pull out of this handily.
BOBBY: I have a question for you.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: What is the funniest outcome for this October? Set aside the narratives, which you chose as most compelling last week. What’s the funniest thing that could happen? Because I think the Guardians eliminating the Yankees is up there.
ALEX: I think that would be pretty good. On the other hand, I will say Yankees-Dodgers is the series that would make everyone go insane. Like all— like 28 fan bases would be pulling their hair out.
BOBBY: Yeah. Our friends at Batting Around were talking about the fact that that would be really compelling if only to see whether or not it actually affected the ratings, and finally, end that conversation once and for all.
ALEX: Exactly. Right.
BOBBY: And I thought that was an astute point.
ALEX: That is an astute point. Yeah. I mean, there’s not a lot of, I don’t know, humor— well, there’s some humor, joy, and whimsy on the— on the NL side.
BOBBY: Stop with that.
ALEX: Okay. Okay.
BOBBY: Stop with that.
ALEX: Yeah, I think like— like, I don’t know, Mets-Guardians.
BOBBY: The Lindor series.
ALEX: The Lindor series. But I mean, like, funny from— from who’s—
BOBBY: If the Mets actually beat Emmanuel Clase, I just— I might stop watching baseball. Might just go out on a high note. I just think all the funniest situations involve the Yankees losing in heartbreaking fashion.
ALEX: To the New York Mets?
BOBBY: [37:54] I mean, that’s funny. Yeah.
ALEX: That’s— yes.
BOBBY: It’s funny for me to imagine the Yankees losing to any of the teams remaining in the field, basically, except the Phillies. That’s not that funny to me.
ALEX: Right. It’s a real lesser of two evils.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Don’t really win that way.
BOBBY: I don’t even know if it is lesser. I think I would root for the Yankees in that situation.
ALEX: Oh, my gosh.
BOBBY: I rooted for the Yankees in 2009.
ALEX: I— I— I have a picture on my phone somewhere of you in a Yankees hat.
BOBBY: That was blackmail. And that wasn’t 2009.
ALEX: I know. That was like—
BOBBY: That was like 2017.
ALEX: All right. What else? What— what have we yet to talk about?
BOBBY: Well, we haven’t yet— we haven’t really talked about—
ALEX: We haven’t talked Dodgers-Padres.
BOBBY: Yeah. I mean, we’re recording during game two, so it’s a little bit hard to talk definitively about what the series looks like necessarily. I will say these teams are an incredible matchup for a lot of different reasons. One of which we mentioned already, which is that the fan bases sort of have this tortured relationship where the Padres fans— honestly, the Padres fans have kind of talked me out of wanting the Padres to advance in the playoffs.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Like they’re really kind of unhinged in a not that fun way right now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But these teams match up really interestingly. There are— the Manny Machado aspect makes it feel a little bit hot. Ohtani in the playoffs for the first time, compelling. Freddie Freeman on a bum ankle stealing bases is interesting.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Mookie Betts, still one of the best players in the game, still one of the most relevant playoff hitters of the last decade. Yu Darvish being on the other side of this rivalry after not having a great stint with the Dodgers in the playoffs.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I’m— I’m really excited for this series. Padres fans are— are going through it right now.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: At least online.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It— it—
BOBBY: Should we talk about the, like, Ohtani two batters away thing? I really—
ALEX: Yeah. Like—
BOBBY: Like I wanted to try to avoid it, but it is kind of relevant because so many people are talking about it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So this is on the Fox broadcast, and I will point out they did this to Bryce Harper too, so it was not just an Ohtani thing. It clearly feels like something that they pioneered because of Ohtani, though. On the actual broadcast itself, above the score bug, when the Dodgers are hitting, they would put up— as Ohtani was coming up soon, they would put up a little counter of how many batters he was away. This infuriated people.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Why do you think that is?
ALEX: I don’t know. Because sports fans are, by and large, children at heart who don’t like it when someone else is getting attention and they’re not. Like—
BOBBY: But when did— like when did sports fans become marketing executives? That’s an honest question. I’m not answering— I’m not asking that question in a smarmy way. When did— when did sports fans suddenly start caring about micromanaging every single little thing that invol— that had anything to do with their fan experience? Like, do we— is it really just that we live in a society right now where you can customize all of your experiences to your exact liking now, and that we just, like, vociferously complain about things that we can’t customize down to a T like that? Is that it? Like, is that the explanation, or is it just that, like, people are whinier than ever?
ALEX: I mean, I do think it’s like, “Hey, everyone’s got a microphone these days.” Right? Like—
BOBBY: I mean, sure.
ALEX: I— I also think that, you know—
BOBBY: Me and you included.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s for— for better, for worse.
BOBBY: Bitching about— bitching about these Google AI— Google Cloud AI ads, or whatever the hell.
ALEX: I mean, it comes on the heels, obviously, of, like, a lot of attention being paid to Shohei Ohtani since the very beginning of the season, right? Like, since before the start of the season, in a way that maybe he was not getting the national spotlight in the years prior, right? And you see people in Jeff Passen’s mentions being like— like, you know, mention Tatis or whatever. And it’s like—
BOBBY: Tatis got this treatment three years ago.
ALEX: I’ve— I know, I know, I know. Exactly.
BOBBY: It’s his— Ohtani didn’t get his 81-game PED suspension. Okay? So he— he still gets the same promotion.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: But Tatis did.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All right? So guess what? MLB League offices weren’t promoting him as much anymore. Sorry, should they? Yeah. Okay?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just fucking deal with it.
ALEX: It’s also— yeah, it’s like, “Oh, just look away, then.” You don’t want to see the little ticker that says, “Ohtani is coming up with two batters.” Just don’t look at it. That’s great. You can still experience the game as it was intended to be experienced.
BOBBY: What do people think life is supposed to be? Like, do you think it’s just only ever supposed to be exactly what you want it to be? Like, they’re only ever supposed to tweet out the exact right amount of Ohtani highlights for you and therefore everyone else?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because that number is the same? Like it’s never going to be exactly what you want it to be, and exactly what Dodgers fans want it to be, and exactly what pirates fans want it to be, and exactly what Stevie wants it to be, and exactly what their bosses want it to be. It’s just like— it doesn’t actually affect you, bro.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: It doesn’t actually affect you. You’re still watching the game, Tatis hit a home run.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Just enjoy it. It’s weird. It’s weird.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Got me fucking arguing with rando Padres fans then making them delete their accounts, on a Sunday morning.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s just goofy. Especially after years of being like, why isn’t MLB marketing the game in the way it should be? You know, like we have such— there’s just amazing stuff going on in this sport, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: And it’s like, “All right. Well, here you go. We have Ohtani in the postseason,” which fans have been clamoring for, for years.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Across— across the spectrum.
BOBBY: You can’t make fun of the Angels for not being able to make it to the postseason, and then also make fun of the people who are talking about how cool it is that Ohtani made it into the postseason.
ALEX: Right. They’re like, “We get it. Ohtani is in the post—” it’s like, “Actually, we’ve never seen this before.”
BOBBY: We’re so irony poisoned, like we’re so cynical about everything, where— and social media is in particular, is this way where, like, if you can tell that someone is trying, if you can tell that they’re trying to make something happen and they care, our first reaction is to be like, “Out. I’m out. I’m out on that.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Someone cares too much about that. It must not be for me. You know? Someone likes this band too much. This band’s not that good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Someone’s trying a little too hard on stage. Not into it. We got to be cool and aloof. Really? We have to be cool and aloof about Ohtani, who has 58 home runs and 54 steals this year, and by the way, he’s gonna pitch again next year. We have to be cool and aloof about that?
ALEX: Maybe this year. Hmm, hmm.
BOBBY: It’s useful for casual fans, and I know casuals, it’s such an insult now that we throw around to people, like someone you have to be a full-time fucking expert on your team at all times, or else it’s not valid. But guess what? They need to have casual fans watch these games. If they don’t have casual fans watch these games, in 20 years, no one’s gonna get to watch these games. You know? Like these teams are gonna start defaulting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s not actually true, you know this. But—
ALEX: I mean, it just strikes me as, like, not having anything better to complain about. Like, I’m sorry, your team is in the postseason, fucking enjoy it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You really should not let the generational talent that’s on the other side of the ball field take away from your joy. Like, go outside.
BOBBY: People—
ALEX: Think— think about yourself a little less.
BOBBY: Oh. People are like, “Oh, they won’t tweet out the highlight of Dylan Cease striking out Ohtani, because it’s not a highlight. It’s just one out.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: A one of 27 outs. That happens a lot. Actually, what— that’s what he’s supposed to do.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s the most likely outcome. It’s not a highlight. Now, if he strikes them out with the bases loaded to get out of a jam, they probably will tweet that out.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: They probably will.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I just— God, I told myself that I wouldn’t get mad about this on this pod, and now, I’m— I’m worked up. You know, I’m worked up. I’m Zen about the Met—
ALEX: Right. That [46:16] garden is only for the Mets.
BOBBY: I’m Zen about the Mets, and I’m somehow really mad about this.
ALEX: As you should be.
BOBBY: Who knew Padres-Dodgers? This should be laid back something California vibes.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: This would be the thing that’s really bringing out all the venom. Any other observations that you want to share about this postseason? I mean, I know you threw something at me before we started recording earlier this afternoon about doing maybe, like a little bit of meter on each fan base. Like, who is the most going through it at the moment?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ll tell you what, the answer to— that— that question has changed a lot in the last two hours.
ALEX: That, it has.
BOBBY: It was the Phillies number one with a bullet.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Until about two hours into game two.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And Bryce Harper hit a two-run home run, and then Nick Castellanos hit one right after.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But what about other observations? I got a couple little ones.
ALEX: What are your little observations? I’m gonna pass the baton right back to you.
BOBBY: Okay. The first one, Steve Cohen sent the best tweet of the baseball season. This was after the Mets eliminated the Brewers, and they packed it up.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: And flew to Philadelphia. Steve Cohen said, “Is everybody enjoying swing state baseball, Georgia to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania?”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Fucking no one is doing it like him.
ALEX: No one is.
BOBBY: He’s retired from .72.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: He’s just dicking around.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s just riding the wave. Okay? That’s the first one. The second one, I saw a lot of folks— Blake Treinen came in to close out game one for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Diego Padres. He did strike out Manny Machado—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in the courts of doing that. I saw some folks saying, “This is MAGA on MAGA crime.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s not correct, because while Manny Machado is MAGA, and that is confirmed on account of the fact that he wore a shirt that said “Make America Great Again” during an interview.
ALEX: Hmm. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which is an underrated thing.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: I don’t think you— we can— I don’t think we can characterize Blake Treinen as MAGA. I believe he is QAnon.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Important distinction. This is QAnon on MAGA crime, more infighting on the right.
ALEX: That’s true. Yes. I would say the distinction is becoming less and less relevant as most people just become Q these days, as it just becomes part of the normal mainstream narrative. But yeah, it’s tough.
BOBBY: Has Q said anything to you recently? Like, if there were secret messages in the press?
ALEX: Just said, “Don’t count the Tigers out,” and I didn’t listen.
BOBBY: What is going on in Michigan? I just want to make sure that everybody is being accurate, you know, the journalist that I am. Those are not the same— they do not occupy the same spaces on the right.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Manny Machado.
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: Florida MAGA guy.
ALEX: Right. He’s like—
BOBBY: He’s not the same as Blake Treinen—
ALEX: He’s like, “I want lower taxes.”
BOBBY: —evangelical QAnon weirdo.
ALEX: Blake Treinen— Treinen is like, “I will fly to Springfield, Ohio right now.
BOBBY: What I get— what I do when I get there? That’s between me and my God.
ALEX: Exactly. The—
BOBBY: Brandon Nimmo’s like, “I’ll meet you there.”
ALEX: The— I— I will say, the Trump advertisement that’s playing, that’s been playing all series?
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: One of the— just most despicable, sickening thing, like—
BOBBY: It’s downright reprehensible.
ALEX: And it’s like between every inning, too.
BOBBY: There’s not a single joke I can even make about it.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: It’s downright reprehensible.
ALEX: It’s so bad.
BOBBY: It’s also, like, fake—
ALEX: Well, yes.
BOBBY: —news. Like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —I know you can’t really say that phrase anymore.
ALEX: Alternative facts.
BOBBY: If you can’t tell that that audio is edited to make it sound like she is saying, “I would like to give—” I— actually, let’s not even get it further than it is.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, in a normal functioning society, we would shoot the person who made that ad, like on live television.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s also just particularly grim, seeing it back-to-back with a— like, a Kamala commercial, which is like, “She’s gonna look out for me. You know, I’m just a— a small working class man.”
BOBBY: The Kamala commercial where the guy is like, “I’m not super rich.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: All right [50:29]
ALEX: I’m like, “That’s cool. Effective counter messaging there.”
BOBBY: Okay. Here’s my third and final observation, my mini observations here at the end of this. You know, I was watching Mets-Phillies game one, as I’m sure you were, too. And they went to commercial, and what did they do? They played the song “I’m not okay” by My Chemical Romance. Let me dig into this a little bit for you.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: My Chemical Romance is, for me, the essential— the quintessential New Jersey band of our time. Now, you might say The Gaslight Anthem.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You might say Bruce Springsteen.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But I’m talking about our time, Alex. I’m not— and I’m not a Gaslight Anthem—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Now, they are from North Jersey, so I would say they probably lean more Mets. Frankly, they’re probably Yankee fans. Frankly, they probably don’t know how baseball is played, because they’re theater kids.
ALEX: They’re theater kids. Wow. What a stray.
BOBBY: But it does feel a little bit on the nose in a Truman Show kind of way, for me to be watching Mets versus Phillies and them to be playing a song from my favorite band, cutting to commercial, that came out around the same time that I started to perceive the fact that I was a Mets fan and everyone around me were Phillies fans.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That is weird, man.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s weird shit.
ALEX: Yes, that is weird.
BOBBY: And nostalgic culture comes for us all, by the way.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: 21 years that song came out, 21 years ago.
ALEX: Oh, God.
BOBBY: 21 years. How does it feel to be on death’s doorstep, sir?
ALEX: Yeah, I haven’t been paying close enough attention to what they’re using as the bumper music. I know that’s been a topic of conversation here [52:23]
BOBBY: They used OMG a couple times. They used Bryson Stott’s bumper music—
ALEX: Yes. I figured that, yeah.
BOBBY: —after he had that big triple right to take the lead today. They’ve been doing the walk up music thing a lot. You know, they’ve— there was another one that I can’t remember, that I was, like, singing along to.
ALEX: I believe you.
BOBBY: I thought that was an interesting choice by them, a deep— deeper cut. You know, they didn’t go with, like, Teenagers or Welcome to the Black Parade.
ALEX: True. Although, I think that was probably the prevailing mindset of every Mets and Phillies fan at that moment.
BOBBY: Yeah, but do you think that, like, people were listening along and being like, “That’s clever.”? Like, I don’t think most people really caught that, because it wasn’t even the lyrics. It was just the, like, guitar intro.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, keep going.
ALEX: I will. I will. Watch me. You know, I think that’s for mea culpa. That’s MLB’s mea culpa for calling Blink 182 emo the other day.
BOBBY: They fucked up.
ALEX: I know. Did you see they deleted the tweet? And did not replace it. They just said, “Never mind.”
BOBBY: I actually didn’t see that. Is that true?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Bullying works.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Well— okay. On the one hand, they fucked up by calling Blink 182 emo, by saying that Tom DeLonge is the lead singer of Blink 182.
ALEX: Right. Right.
BOBBY: That’s not true. He’s the co-lead singer—
ALEX: Yeah, he leads with Mark—
BOBBY: —along with Mark Hoppus.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Blink 182 is not a thing if the two of them don’t have shared creative responsibility for the sound.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Okay? That is blink 182.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: And you know more than me. You’re an even bigger Blink person than me. I— I agree that they fucked up on the emo thing. That being said, there is nobody worse than the people who are still, like, in the minds fighting about what can be considered emo, and whether or not Midwest emo is real emo, or whether emo had to come from a certain time period, from a certain subset of bands, from a certain area of the United States, created on independent labels. It’s like, we— what are we talking about? What is this for? Who are— you’re like that one soldier still fighting when they didn’t find out that the war is over.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, I mean, technically, you know, emo technically comes from the— the strain of DC hardcore, right? Midwest emo, frankly, could be— is basically indie rock at this point. So I just— I frankly don’t understand how you don’t get the distinctions, Bobby. That’s— My Chemical Romance is basically pop, you know?
BOBBY: Sure. My Chemical Romance is rock opera.
ALEX: That’s actually accurate, direct line but from them to The Who.
BOBBY: Only two of their albums, though.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know which you can draw a direct line from? Fucking emo to their other albums.
ALEX: Yes, actually.
BOBBY: Because that’s what it is. The episode of the music pod, where we fight everybody who’s ever said anything about genres is gonna be a banger. No, it’s million downloads.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Here’s the genre definition album episode.
ALEX: It’s gonna be even worse, because I’m gonna be— going to be on the other side of that from you. I’m gonna be holding it down, I’m gonna be like, “There is a distinction between fourth and fifth wave.”
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: Frankly, fifth wave is basically just pop punk at this point.
BOBBY: Are you a big MGK guy?
ALEX: Like, mach— all right.
BOBBY: What wave is that? I have a big 10 for emo for everybody except that guy.
ALEX: Won’t even say his name.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: He doesn’t deserve it.
BOBBY: No. Remember when he got in a rap battle with Eminem?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: Cool. That happened.
ALEX: I’m glad you do.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I’m glad you’re using your brain.
BOBBY: I was producing a music podcast at the time, so I had to be invested in that. Okay. I have two questions for you to end this podcast.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Number one, who’s gonna win the World Series? Number two, which player are you most excited to continue to watch— are you most intrigued by throughout the rest of this postseason?
ALEX: I still feel kind of decent about the Padres. I think that the Yankees may— maybe a slightly more reasonable pick over the Guardians if I were to revise my picks from last week.
BOBBY: Again, you were picking based on narrative, not based on talent.
ALEX: Right. Yes, I know. But I still actually feel like the Padres have a pretty good fighting chance. I guess at this point in time, honestly, might go with the Yankees. They just feel— even though, like we talked about last week, like it’s not like they necessarily have a— like, a murderer’s row type lineup. But, again, you have Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, which kind of goes a really long way. Even if the rest of your guys are relatively average, they have a decent enough amount of depth.
BOBBY: So you’re saying that everybody but Aaron Judge and Juan Soto on the team is relatively average?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s interesting. It’s interesting from the world’s number one Jazz Chisholm defender. You heard it here first, relatively average.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s like a quote on the movie poster.
ALEX: Well, it’s— you know, it’s like—
BOBBY: You put that on the back of his player card, relatively average, Alex Bazeley.
ALEX: They average each other out.
BOBBY: Oh, that’s what you meant?
ALEX: Right. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Right. So Jazz is basically—
ALEX: I mean, it’s in Judge territory.
BOBBY: Right. He’s like a young A-Rod.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And Verdugo is so bad that that’s— basically, you put them together, they’re like an average player.
ALEX: Yeah. You put them together, you get a DJ LeMahieu.
BOBBY: A lot of Austin Wells going on from this team. Sorry, I just can’t see that winning the World Series.
ALEX: Who— who’s in your eyes right now? Who do you think— I mean, I— I know it’s a little harder for you, because you have, like, a actual investment in this.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Bec— by investment, I say you have put your life savings on the line for the Mets.
BOBBY: I think that the Phillies have that look. Yeah, I think the Phillies have that look.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If I had to pick one team of all the teams that I’ve watched that looks the best. Now, I— that seems a little bit ridiculous, because they looked so flat in game one, particularly on offense. And everyone was really frustrated, and they were like, “Season’s over basically.” That’s how the Phillies fans reacted, because that’s how they react to everything, even though they’ve had it so much better than most fan bases over the last 20 years. Like, so much better.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, as good as any other fan base, except the Giants.
ALEX: Quite literally, yeah.
BOBBY: And their babies about it. I just think that they have a lot of adults on the team, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And a lot of players who rise to the moment. Speaking as someone who’s had to watch his team manage navigating their lineup, it’s fucking impossible, dude, because it just always feels like Schwarber is right on deck, you know? And you can’t put in somebody who you don’t trust to face Schwarber, because he’ll take a walk and then Turner is up, who hasn’t looked great so far, but you know, he still can. And then Harper’s up after that. So—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —you just like— you’re basically drifting out in space without the anchor line against this lineup. And—
ALEX: Yeah. Postseason Schwarber is just on another level.
BOBBY: It’s unbelievable. And the believers are all good. I mean, I know the Mets dinged him up a little bit, but every single guy that they brought in, I was like, “Man, fuck. He’s good. He’s good. That guy’s good.” Orion Kerkering is nasty, bro. Some of those sweepers that he was ripping off, I was like, “You might as well go up there without a bat.” It’s absurd. Stroman looked a little weak. You know, Hoffman didn’t look great, a couple obvious errors that he was making. So I would say the Phillies to win it. The player that I’m most interested in, honestly, is Aaron Judge.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Because, like I said, he couldn’t just singlehandedly win a series. I mean, this is a guy who was hitting home runs at times throughout this year like every fifth at-bat, and it just hasn’t come together in the playoffs, but there’s— I still am not amongst the people who are like, “He shrinks in the moment,” necessarily, even though I’ve made— gotten a lot of jokes off on his behalf.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: At his expense. So I know it seems like a sort of square pick to pick him, but I— I just really am fascinated. Like I’m watching all of his at-bats just with bated breath, waiting for it to be the moment where he gets the monkey off his back, and he hasn’t been able to do it yet.
ALEX: Yeah. Right. Again, it’s been five plate appearances, so like he’s got a little bit of time, but—
BOBBY: Right. And they’re winning without it. So—
ALEX: Right, exactly. But no, I mean, I— I see that pick. He is a— just a— kind of fascinating player, and the kind of— I— the kind of player that, again, feels somewhat rare in baseball, to your point of— of a player who can actually put the team on his back singlehandedly.
BOBBY: Yeah. He’s like [1:01:16] yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I am excited for Jose Ramirez. I am excited to watch him this postseason, and honestly, Tatis as well.
BOBBY: Yeah. Tatis, they can’t get him out.
ALEX: Like, they cannot get him out, and he’s making plays in the field.
BOBBY: He kind of owns the Dodgers.
ALEX: He kind of really does own the Dodgers.
BOBBY: Especially in Dodger Stadium.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: We don’t get shit like this anymore.
ALEX: Which— which makes me really happy. That’s really enjoyable to watch.
BOBBY: Higashioka, are you a big Higashioka head?
ALEX: Hmm, well, I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: Gotta say, Butto boys not coming out of the playoffs, feeling quite as strong as we felt going in.
ALEX: No. No. It’s been a— it was a quiet day for a tied ball game today as well.
BOBBY: Yeah, he just didn’t play.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Defensive sub.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: No at-bats.
ALEX: But hey, he did what he needed to do.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: He was on that foul ball that Harper hit down the line. He would have gotten it in relatively quickly, I think.
BOBBY: Yeah. Relatively quickly, about 30 seconds after Trea Turner scores—
ALEX: Drops the play.
BOBBY: —the winning run. All right. Well, this was somewhat scattershot, but that’s kind of what the experience of watching the playoffs has felt like to me. It’s just bouncing around to different games, checking in with everything, trying to just consume as much as possible, and just organize our thoughts as well as we can. Like I said, Patreon episode coming up on Wednesday. We’ll do Three Up, Three Down, which will be a slightly more organized version where we run through three things that are bringing a story, three things that three things that are taking that joy away. I don’t— I guess we’re gonna do that one after the Mets game.
ALEX: On Tuesday?
BOBBY: On Wednesday.
ALEX: Oh, I see.
BOBBY: They play Tuesday and Wednesday.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So they could be eliminated, or they could be moving on.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Or— well, or either.
BOBBY: Or they could— yeah. I mean, anything’s possible. I don’t feel good about going back to Philadelphia for game five with Zack Wheeler looing.
ALEX: No. Uh-uh. Uh-uh.
BOBBY: By the way, Zack Wheeler, we didn’t even mentioned his name on this— on this podcast. Just straight up the best pitcher in baseball. Not even a fucking debate.
ALEX: Not even close.
BOBBY: Not even close. He is the best pitcher in baseball. He gets— he is so good that he could just get away with throwing his fastball for multiple innings straight, without even having to go to anything secondary.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: His extension, his glove side command is absurd. He, to me, is the spiritual successor to Jacob deGrom, without sort of being built out of class.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He has that exact pitch repertoire. Maybe the slider is not quite as good and he throws more of his pitches, but his fastball, man, man. That is a devastating, devastating weapon—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —I say in the outro of this podcast.
ALEX: I— my— I appreciate that it’s always Google AI insights into— into the game, because they bring us, like, revolutionary stuff like, “Google AI presents Zack Wheeler is at 224 strikeouts this year.” And I’m like, “Wow! Whoa! AI told us that?”
BOBBY: Actually impressive that they got that right.
ALEX: They actually— they’re like, “For the New York Mets this year, Zack Wheeler has—”
BOBBY: They’re like, “He’s had 224 home runs.” All right. Patreon episode coming up with a couple days, yes, that’ll be after the Mets game on Wednesday night, game four. That’s— you can get access to that at patreon.com/tippingpitches. Highest tier gets you access to bonus episodes. Any of the tiers gets you access to our Slack, which during playoff baseball is electric. The best commentary about baseball that you’re gonna find on the internet. Any parting thoughts? Are we gonna get a tied ball game moment on Tuesday when we’re at the baseball game?
ALEX: It feels like we have to.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: If we do, I’m getting the jersey right there. I’m doing the one where you can, like, go and they’ll make you the jersey on the spot.
BOBBY: If tied ball game and Jose Butto have important moments on Tuesday, we will go to the MLB, the team shop.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And get those jerseys.
ALEX: Without a doubt.
BOBBY: That is the Tipping Pitches promise. Thank you everybody for listening. We’ll be back next week.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So, we’ll see you next week. See ya!
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