The Roundtable | Are the old Dodgers pressing?

Summary

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The Windup: The Roundtable | Are the old Dodgers pressing?

Podcast: The Windup: A Show About Baseball
Episode: 189 – The Roundtable | Are the old Dodgers pressing?
Date: October 31, 2025
Hosts: Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough, Sam Miller

Episode Overview

The Roundtable crew—Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough, and Sam Miller—reconvene to break down the ongoing World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, focusing on the legendary marathon extra-inning Game 5, the emotional momentum and fatigue of the rosters, particularly the aging Dodgers core, and whether the team’s struggles in the clutch are evidence of “pressing.” The trio discuss how narrative themes like aging rosters, overcorrection, and the hunt for “athleticism” recur in October, and trace how those can collide with the hard realities of a seven-game grind. Other highlights include in-depth praise for Shohei Ohtani’s dazzling performance, debate about “pressing” as a concept, and the undeniable fun of breakout Blue Jays players. Spirited banter, thoughtful analytics, and trademark dry wit blend to deliver an essential NLCS/World Series roundtable.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. World Series Marathon: Extra Innings Magic and Misery

• Collective Awe at Game 5

  • The hosts marvel at the epic extra-inning contest, agreeing that the game belonged among the greatest of all time—until it dragged on, testing everyone’s resolve.
    • Andy McCullough: “That was, like, one of the best games I’ve ever seen until about the 14th inning. And then I was genuinely afraid it would never end. There was, you know, too much game, as they say.” [06:09]
  • The game’s drama included exceptional, awful and bizarre moments (“the whole menu”), capped by legendary individual performances: Shohei Ohtani’s 2HR/2B/5BB marathon, Clayton Kershaw summoned from the bullpen, and Will Klein closing after nearly throwing his arm off.

• Exhaustion and Surreality

  • Sam Miller recounts how the stadium itself seemed trapped in an infinite loop—Fox Sports ads replacing Geico, camera guys marooned behind walls, “a cruel experiment.”

    • “Around inning 13, 14... I noted that there came a point where I realized that all the Geico ads had been replaced by Fox Sports in-house ads and I started to feel a little bleak, like, oh, we've gone too far.” [07:28]

  • The group references past marathon games and the odd folklore they produce, like the infamous 33-inning pro game where a 12-year-old never returned to baseball:

    • Sam: “It was a 12 year old who stayed through the entire Pawtucket Rochester game, never went to another baseball game.” [16:05]

2. Shohei Ohtani: Playoff Legend in Real Time

• Historic Performance (“The Greatest Inconsistent Hitter”)

  • Ohtani’s Game 5 was lauded as one of the defining postseason performances, with awe at his unpredictability and power.
    • Andy: “He is a player who, when he locks in, is uns—he’s the greatest inconsistent hitter I’ve ever seen, if that makes sense…” [14:03]
    • Sam: “When he’s on that day, there is nothing he can’t do.” [15:10]
  • The hosts note the rollercoaster nature of Ohtani’s form—periods of over-anxious misery, followed by stretches where he becomes “unsolvable.”

• Baseball’s Postseason Randomness

  • Ohtani’s domination prompts a reflection on how even the greatest can disappear or reemerge game-to-game. Andy points out how the Blue Jays at times let their starters face Ohtani three times, yet weren’t punished—a testament to October’s “small sample madness.” [12:29]

3. Dodgers: Are They “Pressing”—Or Just Old?

• Sam Miller’s Research

  • Sam shares findings from his (widely praised) Pebble Hunting newsletter article, using Statcast data to show six Dodgers regulars have altered their swings this series—getting steeper, harder, and popping up fastballs, all hallmarks of "trying too hard" (or “pressing”).
    • Sam: “Their swings, according to Statcast bat tracking data, are…what you might associate with trying too hard...to hit a home run because you’re trying to make up for three bad weeks in one swing.” [28:51]
    • The four Dodgers sticking with their normal swings are fine; the “pressers” are putting up abysmal lines.

• The Age Factor

  • Andy and Grant riff on the aging Dodgers core, noting how late-series exhaustion and creakiness are magnified in pressure moments:
    • Andy: “Playing 150 games of elite shortstop in his age 32 season has left Mookie Betts looking pretty tired... In the process, though, he’s had his worst offensive season of his career.” [33:28]
  • The hosts discuss the cyclical tendency for front offices, fans and analysts to over-interpret October—claiming teams need “youth and athleticism,” only to chase big veteran bats again come December.

• Mental Pressure and the “Favorite’s Curse”

  • Sam shares a theory from a child development professor about negative emotions arising when reality diverges from expectations. For the Dodgers, the burden of expectation as favorites may be producing anxiety and “pressing.”

“The downside to being the favorite...you have a vision of the future where you’re just clicking...When it stops working, that probably causes a lot of stress...” – Sam Miller [29:52]

4. Manager Moments and Physical Comedy

• Dave Roberts’ Stumble

  • A supposedly lighthearted footrace between Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and infielder Hye Seong Kim turned into a slapstick moment:
    • “Unfortunately is at an age now where when you try to run, you immediately trip and he fell face-first into the infield.” – Sam [34:57]
  • The crew jokes whether this was a deliberate “work” to loosen up the tense Dodgers, but agree “the sniper got him as he rounded [second].” [35:53]

• Aging and Empathy

  • Grant riffs on his own anxieties about sliding in front of his kid’s softball team for the first time in decades, channeling universal empathy for Roberts’ “Dad moment.” [37:27]

5. World Series Bullpen and Roster Chess

• Pitching Plans and All-Hands-On-Deck

  • The conversation shifts to forecasting the final games, especially Dodgers strategy using only their “core” arms, notably Yamamoto, Sasaki, and maybe Ohtani in a dramatic relief cameo.

    • Sam: “I love seeing starting pitchers unexpectedly come out and you don't know how tired they are. You don't know what they've got.” [42:38]

  • The possibility of “kitchen sink vs. kitchen sink”—potentially deploying Scherzer, Bassitt, Trey Yesavage, etc., in Game 7—promises more legendary chaos. [43:40]

6. Blue Jays Love: Breakout Heroes and Fun Vibes

• Energy, Vibes, and Roster Building

  • As fun as it is to micro-analyze Dodgers malaise, the roundtable agrees the Blue Jays simply “have more energy,” led by unexpected October standouts.
    • “The Blue Jays played the last two games with a lot more energy and...like they still felt like they were playing World Series games and the Dodgers felt like they were kind of [not].” – Sam [22:16]
  • The group has fun praising new folk heroes (“I love David Schneider now... Addison Barger... smashing hair...”), agreeing the refreshing vibes beat the October pressure narrative. [46:46, 48:58]

• Ernie Clement & “More Ernies!”

  • An extended, tongue-in-cheek run about the discovery of infielder Ernie Clement and the desire for more “Ernies” in baseball history ensues.
    • Grant: “All these guys are brand new to me. Like Ernie Clement. Wow, there’s an Ernie…More Ernies? Ernie Lombardi. Ernie Riles. You know, we need more Ernie’s.” [50:54]

7. Meta-Analysis: October Lessons and Overcorrections

• Patterns and Pitfalls
  • Sam cautions against false lessons drawn from small samples—one year it’s “get athletic,” next it’s “find an Eddie Rosario.” There's no single trait that guarantees postseason glory, other than being loaded with talent, good fortune, and the willingness to try.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“That was, like, one of the best games I’ve ever seen until about the 14th inning. And then I was genuinely afraid it would never end. There was, you know, too much game, as they say.”
— Andy McCullough [06:09]

“He is a player who, when he locks in…is the greatest inconsistent hitter I’ve ever seen.”
— Andy McCullough on Shohei Ohtani [14:03]

“They are swinging harder by swinging longer at steeper angles...They're hitting a ton of pop ups, like a truly historic, like, comical launch angle collectively, especially on fastballs…You can draw reasonable guesses about…trying to do too much.”
— Sam Miller, on his Dodgers “pressing” research [28:51-29:49]

“Playing 150 games of elite shortstop in his age 32 season has left Mookie Betts looking pretty tired…In the process, though, he’s had his worst offensive season of his career.”
— Andy McCullough [33:28]

“The more the anti heroes are the Dodgers…the unexpected trajectory, like, is kind of the Dodgers and the Blue Jays. It’s like watching Teletubbies…like, yeah, these guys are fun…Look at them succeeding.”
— Sam Miller [46:46]

“All these guys are brand new to me. Like Ernie Clement. Wow, there’s an Ernie…More Ernies? Ernie Lombardi. Ernie Riles. You know, we need more Ernie’s. That’s a good baseball name.”
— Grant Brisbee [50:54]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:06–04:53: Andy’s travel saga and arriving sleep-deprived for the show, setting the energy for the episode.
• 05:19–11:28: Celebrating and dissecting the all-time great extra-inning Game 5.
• 12:29–16:05: Shohei Ohtani’s legendary performance & the quirks of postseason strategy.
• 28:51–34:57: Sam’s “pressing” article breakdown, Dodgers analytic woes, and aging narratives.
• 34:57–37:52: Dave Roberts’ pratfall: physical comedy as team morale booster or just time’s revenge?
• 42:38–43:40: Previewing Game 6–7 pitching chaos; all hands on deck, legendary relief scenarios.
• 46:46–50:54: Blue Jays’ lovable, fun roster—how energy and joy beat out meta-narratives, plus “More Ernies!”
• 51:16–53:03: Final thoughts—resolving not to make predictions (“that’s not how baseball works!”)

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Closing Thoughts

This roundtable episode captures the drama, randomness, and emotional whiplash of postseason baseball—revealing how analytics, pop culture references, humor, and storytelling combine to bring the game’s biggest moments to life. Whether you missed the episode or just want a deeper read on where the World Series stands, this is the essence of October baseball, delivered with wit and insight from three of the sport’s sharpest commentators.

Transcript

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[B]

This is the wind up. Welcome to episode number 189 of the Round Table. I'm Grant Frisbee here with Andy McCullough and Sam Miller. Let's start with Sam today. Sam, how are you doing? He did a finger gun at me. Man, I wish this were a YouTube show still. Andy, I already know how you're doing, but I'm gonna ask you last because it's funny.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Did you catch Max Scherzer, by the way, throwing it? Might have been in the ALCS where he like, he was throwing, warming up and he like unleashed a curveball and then like as he released the ball, he dropped a finger gun catcher. It was.

[C]

That's nice.

[D]

Pretty sick. Yeah. I. I must say, it was.

[B]

What would be the writer equivalent of that? Like, we don't have those.

[D]

Well, no, it's when you. It's when you file your game story and then blow on your fingers, like.

[B]

Oh, that's a good one.

[D]

I gotta.

[B]

I gotta add that in, Andy. But for real, how are you doing?

[D]

I'm bad. I'm having a bad day. I had a bad day yesterday. I had a very bad travel day. No one cares about ball rider travel. I understand that. I understand we're very privileged to do these jobs. So I'm not complaining. I'm just explaining for why I might be a little peaked during the show today. So I flew from Los Angeles to Toronto. At least that's where I was supposed to fly to. But I was connecting through jfk. There was weather issues in jfk. It was. It was raining. So all the. The flights to Toronto got canceled. Unfortunately, the good folks at Delta declined to let me know that the flight had been canceled. So I was kind of just like wandering around waiting for. It's like, okay, I got like three hours to kill. I'll just like go get some steps in. And then by the time I got back, maybe like half an hour, 45 minutes later, the flight had been canceled. There was a huge line. All the flights to get to Toronto on Friday morning were sold out. Apparently it's. There's not a lot of flights from New York to Toronto or. After 16 years of doing this job, I remain just completely incompetent at travel. Either way, this is a long way of saying I drove overnight from. From John F. Kennedy Airport to Toronto a healthy nine hours. My initial plan was to drive about halfway. I got halfway and checked into a hotel at about maybe like 12, 12:30. The hope was, you know, get up around 4 or 5 and, you know, hustle here so I could, you know, be in time for the show. Cause I love the show. I love the roundtable. I love being part of the Athletic Podcast network on the wind up. But at about 12, I started to have a bit of an anxiety issue about being able to fall asleep. I couldn't fall asleep till one, so I got up and drove the rest of the way through the night. Got into my hotel here in Toronto at about 5:45, slept about four and a half hours. And now, you know, I'm charged with writing a game story that will be blown or will be sent out to the. All the readers of the New York Times immediately as soon as the final out is recorded. So what could Go wrong. Am I right?

[B]

What you've described is awful, and I do feel for you as a human, but if it were possible for producer Brian to make you drive overnight before every podcast, I think we do it because this is where the nectar comes in. This is. This is the good Stu. This is the good Andy. I've seen this Andy before. He's got the. And he's like, dada, like, not making. It's perfect. It's like the perfect combination.

[C]

It is a little bit like the premise for Drunk History. Yes.

[B]

Yes, that's exactly right. We have actual baseball to talk about because there were three World Series games since our last podcast. I'm not going to say all of them were classics, but one of them was, like, three classics in one.

[D]

I would say one was like. Like, four fifths of one was a classic.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[C]

But let's talk.

[B]

Let's go. Do you want to go chronological? Do you want just thoughts or. Let's just talk in general, or let's get to Sam later.

[D]

Let's.

[B]

Let's talk about extra inning games in the World Series, and I just. I freaking love them. I love it when it gets deeper and deeper and you're at the ballpark, Andy, and you're shaking your head and you hate me. I'm on the Internet, and I felt something on the Internet that I haven't felt in a long time, where it's just communal fun watching baseball. And so I. I appreciated and adored that game.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, look, I think. I think all of us who, you know, have enjoyed consuming baseball and consuming baseball. Media long for the experience of, like, the Cliff Lee flight tracker or, you know, the Dan Johnson, you know, game 162 sort of thing. So I'm glad that you were able to, you know, feel that once more. I mean, that was, like, one of the best games I've ever seen until about the 14th inning. And then I was genuinely afraid it would never end. I mean, there was, you know, too much game, as they say. You know, there was just too much game. There was, like, great plays, there was dramatic plays, there was atrocious plays, which I think is like the right. You know, you got to get the whole menu right. The thing about baseball is, like, when it's bad, it's good. Right? It's like, you know, pizza. It's. You need to have the bad pizza to remember, you know, what that good New Haven sort of style is A.

[B]

Is that the one that.

[D]

It can.

[C]

It.

[D]

Sometimes it can. It's mostly, like, flat and Crunchy. Well, most pizza's flat, I guess, because it's, you know, sits on a surface. The 12th inning, Clayton Kershaw coming in with the bases loaded. That was harrowing for Dodgers fans and for people whose book sales might, you know, reside or rely on it. Quite the baseball game. Glad it finally ended.

[B]

A lot going on.

[D]

A lot going on.

[C]

Yeah. Innings 13 to 18 of a baseball game are never as good as you think they sound in the abstract. And this was kind of the rare occasion where I wouldn't say that I wanted it to keep going. Like, around inning 13, 14, a few things happened. The Will Smith ball to the wall where, you know, it. It just. It became clear that the. The ballpark was holding. Everything made it feel like we were trapped. I noted that there came a point where I realized that all the, like, Geico ads had been replaced by Fox Sports in house ads and that I started to feel a little bleak, like, oh, we've gone too far. I saw the guy who caught the Freddie Freeman home run ball on a bounce. I saw a little video production about him, and he's like a freelance camera guy. And they showed the video of him, like, just sitting there in his little golf cart waiting, and then the ball lands right in front of him. He's like, oh, cool, I got the ball. And then they all drive out on the field. And I didn't really think about this, but someone pointed it out to me, a reader pointed it out to me, that, like, those guys, there's like a whole gang of camera guys sitting on carts behind the center field wall, and they can't do anything but sit and stare at the back of the center field wall. They can't see the game. They can't do anything. They just have to be on high alert. And I would say, like, four and a half hours of that does sort of sound like a cruel experiment that we played on all them. Anyway, it was a great game. Like, I would say, five. Four legendary, iconic player performances that we will never forget. Ohtani, we saw a guy reach base 9 times. I never thought we would see that. I mean, like, have you ever seen Guillermo Mota, Barry Bonds matchup stats? He's got a 5,000 career OPS in nine plate appearances against Guillermo Moto. He. He either homered or walked in every of those plate appearances. And Ohtani almost did that. He had, you know, two homers, two doubles, and five walks. So that. And then, of course, Kershaw. That's probably our final, you know, moment with Clayton Kershaw on the Mound. And then, you know, Freddie Freeman, of course, with second biggest home run of his life. And Will Klein. Will Klein, like, that's it. Like that's, that is the, that is the moment of the decade for me, is Will Klein throwing his 72nd or so pitch. A guy who was, you know, the last one on the mound because he was the last person the team ever wanted to use. He's gone way too long. His, his curveball is basically like no longer a weapon by that point in the game. And then he just snaps off a perfect curve in a 3, 2 count to end it and to get the win. To like they won just in time. And those are just four, like kind of iconic moments. So to squeeze them all into a game and to actually have them all be in the final 10 innings, really, I mean, Ohtani's homers and doubles came earlier, but to have them all in the final 10 innings made those innings pretty special. And I didn't hate it as much as I hated the Red Sox Dodgers 18 inning game, which was absolutely a horrible experience, an awful experience.

[D]

I distinctly recall coming down the elevator or the escalator at Dodger Stadium with the great Dave Shinen of the Washington Post. And after that game, and he just goes, man, I don't ever want to do this again. And I, you know, was like, oh, yeah, you like extra innings? He goes, no, watch a baseball game. That was the worst baseball game ever, actually. It was like 2 to 1. Right. Anyway, keep going.

[C]

The longest game in professional baseball history, I believe was like a 33 inning game. I don't know, it's like the Portland Sea Dogs or something like that.

[D]

The Dan Barry book.

[C]

Yeah. And I think that the lore of that is I believe the ball boy was 15 during that game and I believe he never went to another game.

[B]

We should check into that.

[C]

I'll look it up while we're recording.

[B]

No, but I mean, like to write and follow up, like, still no baseball and have him just give quotes like, yeah, no, for real, you know, thinking.

[D]

About that X rating game and Ohtani specifically, what an argument for how sometimes individual games can be completely, completely divorced from all that has come before and after. In that Ohtani was the greatest hitter on the planet. Four extra base hits, they intentionally walk him four times. They, you know, unintentionally intentionally walk him in the 17th inning. The next day John Schneider is asked, are you going to intentionally walk him in the bottom of the first to start the game? And Schneider was just like, well, we'll see. By the Way John Schneider, the absolute bro. That guy thumbs up for whatever he's doing. And then the next two nights, the Blue Jays starting pitcher faced Shohei Ohtani three times. If I told you that happened once in this series, you'd be like, Jesus is like, is Schneider okay? Did he get, like, kicked in the head by a horse? But he made the right decision in doing that. And that's actually happened in three different games this series that the starting pitcher has faced Ohtani three times, and they have not been punished once for it. That is just, like, fascinating to me if you. It's. It's, like, wrapped around the. One of the greatest individual performances you've ever seen.

[B]

Find it fascinating that we're talking, like, we've been doing these postseason podcasts for about a month now, and it feels like we have talked about how long the postseason takes.

[D]

Sorry.

[B]

Calendar blindness, Andy. Calendar blindness.

[D]

I'm sorry, guys. I'm mainlining Tim Hortons here to stay with me.

[B]

But it's so we. We have talked about Shohei Ohtani. Like, he's been lost. Like, he's been a problem. Like, he's the greatest player ever to do anything in any professional sport, whether it's baseball or otherwise. And it's fascinating to me because a. All of it's been true at the same time, which is sort of the feeling of the postseason. Yeah, he didn't have a swing for a few days, and he was a little over anxious, and then he locked in. And that's baseball. Right. But it's also just fascinating to watch the progression, to think maybe this second part that we're talking about, the greatest of all time, the greatest performance of all time. Some of the greatest individual performances relies at least a little bit on Orion Kerkering. You know what I mean? And that's not to. I'm not trying to pick on him. I'm just saying the way that the ripples flow out of the pool. It's just. It's fascinating to me that we get to watch this Ohtani postseason when it was never guaranteed. That's always the fascination of the postseason.

[D]

He is a player who, when he locks in, is uns. He's. He's the greatest inconsistent hitter I've ever seen, if that makes sense. Right? Like, because there's. There's always the fear that he will click, and once he clicks, you won't be able to get him out. Basically, then you, like, you cannot throw a pitch to him. One of the homer. I'm trying to remember which of the homers he hit against the, the brewers that was like 98, you know, like, it was like an impossible pitch to hit. He, like, shouldn't have swung. But anyway, then he's like, kind of human and there's ways to get him out. And he has the same, you know, frailties and flaws that humans do, specifically that he's like, trying to pull the ball too much. He has a hole up and in on his hands. And, you know, you can, you can work him up and then get him to chase down. Right? Like, but then when he clicks, you're like, oh, my God, how does a human being, like, ever get him out? Which feels slightly different than some other sort of elite types of hitters, if that makes sense.

[C]

Yeah, he, more than most players, more than any player, it feels like what he does in his first at bat just tells you how the rest of the game is gonna go.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's like kind of an illusion with other players where, like, you'll sometimes hear, well, he homered against this guy in the fourth. And you're, you know, you know, that, that doesn't really mean much. It was just one pitch. But, like, Ohtani really does feel like he can when he's on that day, there is nothing he can't do. And you have to put that out of your mind the other days. You have to pitch to him. You can't, obviously. You can't walk the leadoff hitter to start a game like that. That would be dumb. You can't do that. So you have to just forget what he did the day before and trust that those days, you know, most of the time the other guy doesn't have pocket aces, and Ohtani gets them a lot more than the average person. And so you have to be aware of it. But most of the time he doesn't have it. You know, he doesn't have them either. By the way, it was not the bat boy or the ball boy. It was a 12 year old who stayed through the entire Pawtucket Rochester game, never went to another baseball game.

[B]

And that man was Mark Kerrig. I have a theory about Shohei, and my theory is that when he's swinging and every other swing he takes, he winces in pain. And we've talked about this and he goes, oh, and you're scared that he tore his everything. My theory is that he actually is tearing is everything on those swings. But he's got Wolverine like regenerative power. So those slumps are just. It's just like his oblique stitching back together. It's as good as any for what he's doing, because it's. It's absolutely ridiculous. Do you remember, Andy, anything specific from that Dodgers game? Because I don't remember.

[D]

I remember Nathan Uvaldi, Nathan, Max Muncie, Dave Shinen. Those are the three things I think about from that game. And not in that order, I would say.

[B]

So. I was like, trying to. I was like, man, this is the first game since that one, which I was at. And then I tried to, like, get my memory going. About what? Man, there must have been. There must have been backflips and there must have been, you know, a car in the field.

[D]

No, the thing about these games is that once you get past a certain point, you know, like the kind of the 13th as Sam was talking about, the offensive approaches are really, really, you know, they're swinging for the fences. The problem is that they do not have the physical strength to swing for the pences. And then they are also facing relievers who, you know, Will Klein.

[B]

This is.

[D]

This is not like a unique point. A lot of people have made it, but like, Will Klein would be like the best reliever in the world in 2006. We talk about this all the time with pitching. Like, he's. He comes in, you know, someone posted something effective, like, here he comes, the last guy in the bullpen, their last resort. He throws a hundred and it's like, you know, like. Was that you, Grant?

[C]

I don't know. I love it when people tell you your own tweets.

[D]

Grant, I don't mean to be rude. The idea that I'm following you on blue ski during this game is insane.

[C]

Okay?

[B]

That's where the magic was happening. Enjoy your Nazis over there.

[D]

If you think the screen experience I have is ESPN.com box score, MLB TV broadcast, MLB.com gamecast, Baseball Savant, gamecast, and then Grant Brisby's Blue Sky. You're out of your mind.

[B]

No, that's where the magic is. That's where everyone was. Community, you know, these guys back, baby. Or where it should be.

[D]

So, yeah, you just. You get this. It's just like I wrote this in my story. It was like the first, you know, nine innings, 12 innings. You're like, it is a shame that this game has to end. And then you're like, I'm afraid it never will. I'm afraid we're going to live here. We're going to be, you know, John Isner and whoever that other guy, he was in the. In the tennis match.

[B]

My daughter was coming out periodically throughout the game, 12 innings, 13 innings, 15. And then when it got to 15 is when her curiosity was peaked. Like, now she's like, I'm not a baseball fan, but I am now. Like, this is something different. And I was explaining to her that all of these games have that similar pattern where you are into it. And, I mean, why not reference Mitch hedberg for the 100th time? It's a stack of pancakes, right? All exciting at first, and then you're effing sick of them. And at some point, that happens every time in the 12th, 13th, 14th inning, where you've got the Yukadoo swings and the uppercut swings. And I was explaining that to her. It's hard to explain, but that's exactly how it is. There's just nothing for you after the 15th inning and until that guy hits a home run, because that's how it has to end. There has to be someone who's still strong enough who, like, still in his 10 percentile strength, can hit one over the fence.

[D]

So I had a thought, kind of. And this kind of connects to the. To the next few games. I think my second favorite Sam Miller tweet was the idea. I'm going to get it wrong, but it was the idea that if you were too cheap to hire a pitching coach, you should get a soundboard that says stand tall on the rubber. And then the other button is, why don't you try a cutter? If you were too cheap to hire a general manager, you would just have a soundboard that says, we need to get younger and more athletic. That is like every baseball team that crashes out at this time of year. Well, there's two types, right? There's like, you know, they're not ready for prime time, and the primetime is coming on. And watching the Dodgers kind of get old overnight during this World Series, I think has been really interesting. Everyone knew they were an old team. I think they're the oldest team in baseball, you know, but watching that age really start to show as they played three games, you know, three really intense games with the Blue Jays at Dodger Stadium, you know, you find yourself thinking like, yeah, they. They need to get younger and more athletic. And that, you know, it's like no one mentioned. I mean, I always say no one, but it felt like, to me that the concept of their age was acknowledged but not really brought up as, like, an issue until the end of game five. And then everyone was just like, oh, my God, this team is ancient. And they look it. You know, I call it the.

[C]

The.

[D]

The. The Nick Castellanos corollary. Anytime in the middle of a baseball game, you're trying to figure out how to trade the bad contract that the right fielder has when you're like, could they move him for Luis Severino? Would the Athletics do that? Would they take Teoscar Hernandez for that? Right. Like that's a problem. And it's not to slight Teosco. Hernandez, he's a really good player and you know, he was a huge part of what they did last year and this year. But like, he feels unfairly kind of emblematic of some of the issues they've run into this year where they just, they maybe they tried to run it back and, you know, the sequel is never as good as the original, if that makes sense.

[C]

Interesting. I have not. I've never thought about that. I like that. I'm not 100% sure that was my tweet in the first place, but it's.

[D]

True that the pitching coach is mine.

[C]

I'm not, not 100% sure. Yeah. @ the start of a series, you go to Oscar Hernandez, like that guy, like he's, he's a proven commodity. He's dangerous. You definitely want him over Addison Barger. And it feels like at the end of these series, you're always like, you know, you got to get more Addison Bargers. Like that guy's running around like his long flowing hair is on fire. Still, still making diving catches, you know, running out, running out ground balls and. Yeah, that's an interesting, that's an interesting point. You're right. That like the, the theme coming out of a lot of the last few World Series has been be more athletic. And. But then in December, you never, it sort of fades. You forget that you want to be more athletic and you're like, teoscar Hernandez hit some, some dingers. Like, that's the guy. You're not thinking, what's he going to do after an 18 inning game seven months into the season? But yeah, I think the Blue Jays clearly have. I don't know. Clearly. No, I'm not gonna say clearly. The takeaway, the, the sort of mental takeaway that you'll have from this series is that the Blue Jays played the last two games with a lot more energy and, you know, like, they still felt like they were playing World Series games and the Dodgers felt like they were kind of. Not for the last couple games. That's not. I mean, if they had won, we wouldn't be saying this. If a couple things had gone differently, we wouldn't be saying this. But it is definitely a takeaway that you had from these last two games. You know, just like a series of, you know, pitches that Will Smith like can't quite, you know, move his feet for in, you know, this deep into a series is kind of like the Dodgers experience right now.

[D]

And you can overcorrect, by the way. You know, at the end of these series, like I saw some like, some chatter among Yankees fans. They were like, look, the Yankees bottom third of the lineup, you got to get, you got to find guys like Isaiah Kiner, Falefa. And I'm like, you won't believe what this, you know, the Yankees used to do in the bottom third of their lineup. There, there isn't a way to overcorrect for this at the end of the day, right? The lesson to take out of every World Series is that someone must be declared a champion. And that's probably, you know, probably the overarching lesson of the Blue Jays if they do happen to win at all. Also, the trying is good. They have always, they have been trying for a while. They've just been not like succeeding. And so we've sort of mocked them for a while. The problem with like searching for the Addison Barger type player is like, he's a, he was a one win player this season, you know, and like credit to him for playing his ass off in the playoffs. Credit to Ernie Clement, credit to all these guys, like, you know, they're, they're playing great baseball and they, you know, are a deserved champion if they, if they win, you know, this weekend. But like you don't go searching for like that's how you become the Rockies, right? If you're looking for one win players, right? Like that's not, and not to say that those guys can't be more, it's just more like you want a player who you believe can be better than that. You know, you don't, you don't just try and carbon copy what worked. You try and get as many good players as you can.

[B]

Point of clarification, the Rockies actually had two wins this year. They must have had two players. Go on. Sam.

[C]

I am agreeing with Andy in the sense that like it feels right emotionally right now. And I to say that and I'm also agreeing with him when he says it's easy to over apply or overfit these lessons after one series. You know, it's very easy to think about like the Giants in 2010-2014 and like their hair on fire guys were like mediocre 32 year old veterans. You know, it was like, it was like Juan Uribe and Ryan Terrio and Marco Scudero and Cody Ross. Like, those are not, those are not Addison Bargers. I remember, I remember hearing Andrew Friedman after, I think, I think it was the 2022, whatever eviction from the postseason. And he was saying, you know, like, look, we had a really good team. I like our team. They did what they had to do in the regular season. It just came down to, you know, like, we didn't get the big hits in a small sample. We didn't have our Eddie Rosario. And like the thinking was like, you just, you got to find an Eddie Rosario who's going to get red hot for you. And there's like a sort of obviously like you, you should be, you should be tongue in cheek when you say that because Eddie Rosario's are not like, they're not a consistent set of traits that you can like go look for and count on them to show up. And this year the Dodgers have had on their roster Eddie Rosario and, and they're, you know, can't get the big hit in the postseason. So. But it does feel like that, it felt like that with the Diamondbacks, you know, it feels like that lately that, you know, the athleticism, I don't know, maybe I haven't thought through enough to go any deeper than that. I'm nodding and shaking my head at the same time.

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[D]

I don't know if I'm ever going to leave Canada and my book plates are in New York.

[B]

Not with your criminal record, but yeah, it is. Andy does great stuff. He write. He wrote a book about Clayton Kershaw. It's great. Sam Miller has a newsletter and it is the best baseball writing on the planet. And I just want. It's Andy, like, Sam's better than us, right?

[D]

Yeah. I mean, I think I'm taller, but other than that, I would. I mean, Sam's better at everything.

[B]

I'm not even taller. Why would you go there anyways? You're older. So, anyways, check out. The newsletter is pebble hunting. And the reason I am promoting and encouraging you all to subscribe to this newsletter is because he had an article titled Dodgers are pressing is a fair guess. Right? And he makes the argument that the Dodgers are pressing, that they are swinging. They're. They're swinging harder without better results. They have changed their launch angle, all this stuff. And I know when someone's done research to the max, when there's a slash line that they had to calculate themselves. Like, that's the defining line. Like, if you're about to, like, go into a spreadsheet and start figuring out someone's OBP over like 20 plate appearances, you're the greatest researcher of all time. So anyway, great article. That segues into Sam. Talk about that. Great article. Are the Dodgers pressing?

[C]

Basically, there's 10 Dodgers who've had any plate appearances really at all in this series. Six of them have played terribly collectively. Four of them have played pretty well collectively. And it just so happens that if you look at the six who've played terribly, their swings, according to Statcast bat tracking data, are different. They are what you might associate with. You don't know. You don't know what's in their head, but you might associate with trying too hard, basically, to, you know, to hit a home run because you're trying to make up for three bad weeks in one swing kind of a situation. So they're swinging harder by swinging longer at steeper angles. And the problem with that approach is that it makes it kind of likely that you're going to be behind on a fastball. And the Dodgers this postseason, well, this World Series specifically, are hitting a ton of pop ups, like a truly historic, like, comical launch angle collectively, especially on fastballs. A lot of these pop ups are going to, you know, the opposite field, field, which further suggests that they're late on Swings and. I mean, I don't know. We're not a. So, you know, that's all. It's like there's a physical. There's like, there are physical characteristics that are leading to outcomes and that you can draw reasonable guesses about, like, what is causing them trying to do too much. Because the offense is struggling. And probably more than just the offense is struggling. I don't know. I had a professor one time of child development tell us that, like, most negative emotions come from envisioning how the future is going to go and then reacting when it isn't that way. So you're angry because you have projected into the future what you think is going to happen, and then it wasn't that. And you get angry or you get stressed because your plan that you had projected is not coming off. And this could be the downside to being the favorite, to being the team that everybody knows is, you know, supposed to roll over the opponents. You have a vision of the future where you're just clicking, where you're, like, you know, winning, playing well. You have a plan and it's working. And when it stops working, that probably causes a lot of stress, a lot of, like, mental stress. And it makes maybe hypotheses, all of these. Maybe it makes you more likely to press than if you simply are like, you know, like, you know, I don't know if the Reds were pressing when they were getting rolled over by the Dodgers or if they just thought, this is great. This is what I thought was gonna happen. So I don't know how we feel about pressing. You know, we're a podcast that doesn't say choking. We would never say choking. Andy is pressing. Okay.

[D]

Yeah. But I also think, too, another. Another button on the soundboard, if we can afford to add, would be one that says our lineup needs to be more contact oriented and our lineup needs to have more team at bats. You know, like, take what they give you. Yeah. Like, pitch it where it's hit. You know, that sort of thing. But the thing about the Dodgers is, like, they're built to slug. You know, what makes them elite is they have guys who can go deep all up and down the lineup. And then some of those guys happen to be really good hitters in addition to being good sluggers. When you get to the point in the season where everyone in your lineup is kind of 33 years old and tired, that's what, you know, it looks like. You know, you're pressing. Right. And you're also late. And so that's pop up City.

[B]

I was wondering about that. I was wondering if, if we were going to get to marrying those last two points with Dodgers of old Dodgers are old Dodgers are pressing. Sam, are those. He said six players struggling players with swing alterations.

[C]

Basically six players with swing alterations and four without. And the four without are great. They're like dead on their season line. And the six that that have altered, they're like essentially the worst hitter. And like we're talking like 150, 250, 300 type slash lines collectively, that does include Freddy Freeman, who's hit some balls hard. So I'm not saying that 100% of them have been bad, but the collectively, the six of them, like the championship win probability added of the four non swing alterers is like 5%. They've been like positive influences on the Dodgers championship chase. And then the other six, their championship win probability added is negative 50%. They are the whole story other than the bullpen.

[D]

In a shocking development, playing 150 games of elite shortstop in his age 32 season has left Mookie Betts looking pretty tired. And I think, you know, because he was so good at transitioning to the position, right? And because he did this thing defensively that frankly a lot of people, you know, like, I, I didn't think he'd be able to do it like, I thought he would be playing right field right now. You know, his ability to do that is remarkable. In the process, though, he's had his worst offensive season of his career. And they bat him second. He's not, you know, your glove first shortstop. You know, Andres Jimenez is batting ninth, right. Like Moogie Bets is batting second or third as they, you know, sort of. And they reconfigure the lineup. And so, like, that's part of it. You know, Freddie Freeman plays every day, you know, gets his five at bats every day. And he's remarkably consistent. But it's not shocking that at age 36, you know, maybe he's not operating at the sort of peak level of performance he was, you know, when he was in his 20s, in his early 30s, all that sort of stuff. I mean, I just think, you know, ages, you know, they had to play an extra round in the postseason. This, this year has been pretty stressful for them, I would say. You know, they haven't been in cruise control really at all. And like, I think they're still so, you know, they're two wins away from the World Series, right? Like, we could come back on Monday and be like, you know, how about that, Yamamoto? But Yeah, it's.

[C]

I don't know, it's interesting I guess. On the off day yesterday, Dave Roberts, formerly the fastest man in baseball, got in a foot race with the unused Dodger infielder Hye Seong Kim. And you know, Roberts obviously got a head start and cut some corners and anyway, that was good. It was just going to be a normal thing of like older guy faces younger guy. Except for Dave Roberts, unfortunately is at an age now where when you try to run, you immediately trip and he fell face first into the infield. It was really. As a guy who is probably like, probably remembers most of the same music videos that Dave Roberts does, that was hard for me to watch. I'm just curious, Andy, as my designated guy, I go to, to find out if something is a work or not. Do you think Dave Roberts might have done that on purpose to loosen the club up?

[D]

Okay, no, that was the shoot. Yeah, he, you know, the, the sniper got him as the, as he rounded. I mean, I think, I mean, and it's like, how do you, how does it loosen the club up where it's like our, our manager almost died trying to cut second base.

[C]

I don't know.

[D]

I do think that it is, you know, if you're a Dodgers fan and you're looking for hope, you know, going into this, like, you have to hope that they have the internal toughness that they displayed last year. You have to hope that Yoshinobu Yamamoto can, can really bring it. You have to hope that in Game 7, whatever they're going to do with their pitching and Shohei Ohtani will, will be enough. But you really just have to hope that they show up tonight, Friday and play with energy, you know. And so, you know, Doctober sort of blowing a tire in the, in the dirt at, at Rogers center, maybe that helps. I don't know.

[B]

This year, my softball team, it was the first year that I had to do sliding practice and the whole lead up was I haven't slid on the bases since 1994 and I'm gonna do it for you guys. And that was the build up and it's, it's 12 year old girls and they, they want to see me do the Dave Roberts and eat it. And I was pretty convinced that I was gonna do it and it for about a week. Like it was just, I was thinking, I was watching YouTube videos. This is something that I've done, you know, a million times when I was a kid. Sliding. Everyone does sliding. You do, you do you get in a pickle. You're on a slip and slide sometimes, and you're.

[D]

You're.

[B]

You're playing pickoff and stuff like that. I know how to slide, but then as I was rounding second base and I saw myself. I just saw my left foot getting caught behind me and starting to scratch the back of my head. Like, it went fine. But this is all to say that I really empathize with Dave Roberts. Like, I've done this a million times. I can run. I'm Dave. I mean, millions of dollars because I can run fast. And. Yeah, time.

[C]

Time gets us. Time gets us. So what is the plan? Did the Dodger. I mean, obviously we know what the plan is, but if you had to bet on it, would you say it is. What did you say? It is more than 30% likely that any Dodger pitcher, other than their starting their opening day starting rotation, will pitch in the next two days with, like a. Any lead of less than four runs.

[D]

Was Sasaki part of the rotation?

[C]

Yeah, I'm counting. I'm counting Sasaki.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

So four starters and a reliever is there. Is it greater than 20%? Is it greater than 30% that anybody else faces a single batter?

[D]

I would be pretty surprised. You have Yamamoto tonight, and, like, let's be realistic. Yeah, you can get six from Yamamo Yamamoto, right? Let's not, like, just pencil him in for a complete game. Again, they'll take more than six, but you can probably get six from him. They'll probably try and push him through seven, which has kind of been the problem with Blake Snell and his two starts. Right. He's been pretty good for six and then has gotten, you know, sort of worked in seven. We'll see if Yamamoto is able to get past that sort of that proving ground. And then you have Sasaki behind him tonight. You might see Emmett Sheehan for an inning if Yamamoto cannot finish. You know, if. If you can't just do Yamamoto to Sasaki, I think you have Sheen. I think they. I think they feel like what she and did in game three is enough to give him, dude, the MG and roller coaster of this podcast. You know, they were saying he was tipping earlier in the. In the postseason, so I don't know. You know, the Blue Jays are really good at picking tips and they're really good at home, but I think they have Sheehan and then game seven, you know, they haven't said what they're gonna do. You know, the dramatist in Shohei Ohtani, I suspect, you know, would probably want to close, but from a rules perspective, it Just makes so much more sense to start him, you know, because of the way the, you know, the Ohtani rule is written. If you come in as the starting pitcher, dh, you can remain in the game as the dh. If you are a two way player who comes in as a reliever, you give up the dh. So I just can't foresee them giving up the dh. Dave Roberts was asked, could Ohtani play the outfield? And he said, everything's on the table. Shohei Otani walking into right field, you know, after pitching the sixth inning, would be far crazier than anything I feel like I've ever seen on a baseball field, given the investment in him. But I just feel like, you know, because people pointed out, you know, Ohtani closed out obviously the 2023 gold medal game in the WBC. That was before his second elbow reconstruction. I think that if you're the Dodgers, you probably want to do it more conventionally. You probably only have him for an inning or three and so just have it, you know, at the start and have Glass now as the bulk guy behind it and him and hope that Glasnow, you know, isn't super affected by coming in. So I don't know, they got to get there, they got to win, they got to win tonight.

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[B]

My knee jerk instinct is to say, well, there's going to be a spot for Jack Dreyer or Justin Robleski, but that doesn't apply to the Blue Jays. You're not sitting there going, we got to say, you know, once, once we get in a jackpot. And then Nathan Lucas is up. You know, that's, that's dryer time, baby. You know, that's, that's not how the Blue Jays are built. So I, there's no real, like, it would be much different if the situations were reversed. And you're like, well, you know, Mason Flaherty is going to be a huge part of these next two games. It's not like that for the Blue Jays.

[D]

Yeah, you could see if Alex Vezia was in this series. You could see a scenario in which he comes in and gets Varsho or something like that. And you know, they trust him to maybe go like Kirk Varsho, Clement or whatever, you know, because they know I can get righties. But he's not, he's not part of the series. And that's, you know, that's affected the Dodgers.

[C]

I'm, as you guys know, obsessed with starting pitchers on their throw days in the postseason or once you get to the end stage of a series. Just like all hands on deck moments. I love seeing starting pitchers unexpectedly come out and you don't know how tired they are. You don't know what they've got. And ordinarily you'd say like, wow, we might get to see Ohtani in relief. The Ohtani relief experience for the first time in the majors. Like that's like a, that's a headline moment. It's conceivable. Conceivable given the Dodgers bullpen that we could see Yamamoto conceivable that he pitches like he does the Randy Johnson no days rest in Game 7. And yet I think this is maybe the rare, ultra rare occasion where the other team has a starter in reserve that is more interesting to me than the others. Trey A. Savage, Game seven. Oh, like that might be the thing I'm looking forward to. There might come a time in game six where I find myself rooting for the Dodgers to pull it out so that I can see Treyus Savage in game seven.

[D]

Yeah, you're talking about a real all time kitchen sink versus kitchen sink game. Right? You're talking about on one side Max Scherzer, Chris Bassett, maybe Trey Savage, maybe Shane Bieber, the Hoff daddy, Jeff Hoffman. On the other side, Ohtani Glasnow, Yamamoto on zero days rest. What? You know, Sasaki, somehow they'll find a way to bring Kershaw in in the 20th with six guys on base and a right hander up. By the way, the, the scenario we discussed at the beginning of the postseason, right? When it's like, do you want to see him come in and knowing the downside risk, knowing that if he gives up, just knowing, you know, what the discourse will be came to fruition in the most horrifying way possible. You could not conjure up a worse spot. Like, I mean, I guess, you know, whatever he could be facing, you know, Juan Soto or he could be facing, you know, Barry Bonds or whatever. Right. But like, bases loaded, top of the 12th, like, no margin for error against a contact sort of hitter. That was, man, that was harrowing for, for Dodgers fans.

[C]

I love when you say no margin for error, and I love that he got into the situation where there was literally no. It was three, two count bases loaded, three, two count, two outs. And you would say no margin for error. Like, it feels that way. And yet he then demonstrated the margin for error, which is that you can throw a pitch that isn't a strike, but that the other guy has to swing it because you don't know. I don't know if in the. I don't know if next year this will apply quite so much with, with abs, but in that situation, the batter can't leave it up to the umpire. You just can't get called out looking or at least, you know, some, some hitters would say, yeah, I'm not going to change my zone. But, you know, you protect with two strikes, you protect on the edges. So he was able to throw two pitches, both of which were out of the strike zone, and get swings fouled off and then use the location and the tunneling of the second one to set up a third pitch that was even further out of the strike zone and get the rollover. And I thought that was a really fun moment for like a baseball die Hard to see. So I love that as well. That's a nice way for him to go out, I would say.

[B]

All right, this has been episode 189 of the Roundtable.

[C]

It feels like Toronto people are going to be not just Toronto people, but everybody's a Toronto person. We did spend like 90% of the time talking about the Dodgers. I feel like maybe like two minutes about how like.

[D]

Yeah, but that's what Monday's for.

[B]

Yeah, it's our biases. I, you know, it's. There's east coast bias, then there's our.

[C]

Biases as far as like dramatic complications. Like the more the anti heroes are the Dodgers, the unexpected trajectory, like, is kind of the Dodgers and the Blue Jays. What? Like, it's like just, it's like, it's like watching Teletubbies. Like, yeah, These guys are fun. No, you know, like, look at them succeeding. Like, I love David Schneider now. Like, I was really. Like, he hits a leadoff homer. We get to see his dad filming it from Google Glasses.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[C]

Unbelievable. And then we get to see that in the. In the scrum after the game. Blake Snell being like, that dude just got lucky. I don't know if you guys saw this. Did you.

[D]

I did catch that.

[C]

That he was, like, moaning about how well he only hit it 98. So that's kind of lucky. Like, he. Like, he said about six times, like, yeah, Vlad's a great hitter. You know, the other guy got lucky.

[D]

Look, I'm always for athletes being candid, right? Like, I prefer candor over canned answers. Right. You know, and that's a McCullough guarantee. But, man, that was. If you're a Dodgers fan or a Blue Jays fan, you're not happy with.

[B]

Watching that writer slash podcaster?

[D]

No, because from our perspective, like, I think it gives an insight. I think there is. That is a very modern. A very modern pitcher trope is once the ball leaves my hand, you know, everything else is just kabloo. Like, whatever. You know, I'm not involved. Like, you know, it's none of my business. Essentially, once the ball leaves my hand. And there have. There are pitchers who. They'll give up a homer and. Whereas, you know, the pitcher 10 years ago be like, yeah, I got to locate better. You know, he just. He beat me there. They'll be like, well, I mean. I mean, I threw it 98, you know, top of the zone. I mean, I guess he got on top of it, you know, like, and that. There's something about that that, like, in. It just is off putting. I would say it's just off putting because it's not. It doesn't feel sporting. It feels like, yeah, you beat me, but I should have won.

[B]

Sam, did you see that? We need to talk about the Blue Jays more now. We're talking about Blake Snell. We can't help it. We're broken.

[C]

I don't have a strong rooting interest in this. Everybody in my hometown will be aghast to find out that, like, the Dodgers winning would be fine with me. Like, I. But I don't have a strong rooting interest here. But I will say that, like, just the Blue Jays wins after the fact that Blue Jays wins generally have felt more fun to me, you know, like, Davis, Schneider, fun guy. Addison Barger. I liked him. But then when he made that diving catch and his hat came off. And I saw his hair. I love. I was all in on Addison Barger. Someone told me that locally his nickname is Smashley Addison, which I liked much better than his bad nickname that the broadcast keeps bringing up. Bam Bam. I'm anti Bam Bam. Ernie Clement revelation. I mean, like, what a great defender he is. Basically like Jacob Wilson. If Jacob Wilson's dad had been like a CPA instead of a major league baseball player. He's like very Jack Jacob Wilson esque in everything he does, but without the, you know, like, famous name, like you've heard of him. Like, without the you've heard of him aspect of it. Like, you're like Ernie Clement.

[B]

Yeah, more Ernie's.

[C]

Are you talking about the much more famous Jeff Clement? So love him. Alejandro Kirk, you know, like, how many times have we heard that the security guards won't let him in because they don't think he's a player? I've heard that about a thousand players in my life, and I've believed it once. Alejandro Kirk is the first time I've ever believed, like, oh, yeah. No, I mean, I get it. He looks like Turtle, right? Like, I get why you wouldn't think that he has a pass. So all those guys are performing. They're all delightful in their own ways. I watch a lot of baseball. I'm overplaying the amount of discovery that I've done in this postseason. But yeah, like, they're not guys you thought about until very recently. And they're really fun.

[B]

I would just like to point out that I am not exaggerating my sense of discovery. Like, all these guys are brand new to me. Like Ernie Clement. Wow, there's an Ernie. Any fun? Like more Ernie's? Ernie Lombardi. Ernie Riles. You know, we need more Ernie's. That's a good baseball name. Good classic baseball.

[C]

Ernie Riles was a great one.

[B]

10,000Th RBI or home run.

[C]

What was it? 10,000th home run in major league history. Or runs? 10,000 millionth run. Millionth run in major league history. I think he was maybe the millionth run in major league history. What was that? Ernest riles. Golly.

[B]

A 10,000th home run. And it was like in a 192 game against the. The Cardinals. Now we're not remembering. Some guys remember some games and guys.

[C]

You think it was 10,000, like 10,000th home run in. Oh, yeah. 10,000th home run in Giants history. Yeah, there you go. All right, fine. I missed that one entirely.

[B]

That's all right. All right, so we'll be back. Do we Even bother predictions. I don't. I don't even think predictions mean anything because it's like this part of the postseason is fun because we all collectively agree to pretend like the Dodgers can't go on a two game winning streak. You know, like they're on one now. Like, they can't win two games in a row. Definitely not in the road. And that's just not how baseball works. So I don't think predictions.

[C]

It's pretty close to. You can just like do the 1/2 times 1/2 type thing. It is pretty close to, like, that's all you have to do at this point. And, you know, it's a little different because obviously the Dodgers, they don't have to ever. They don't ever have to put Anthony Bonda in a uniform again if they don't want to. You know, like, it's a different roster for the final two games.

[D]

So.

[C]

So is it for the Blue Jays? You know, like, it's a different roster for them. Treya Savage, like, want to repeat. He could come back for game seven. So, yeah, I would say it's not worth doing. Any predictions? I think we're gonna let this one play out, especially because the last time we did an episode, I said the Blue Jays have a pretty good chance if they can just make the Dodgers bullpen get 10 or more outs in a game. And then that night, the Dodgers bullpen threw 14 innings, 13 innings and maybe the greatest postseason bullpen performance in history.

[B]

All right, we'll be back on Monday to talk about who won the danged World Series. Do you want to pick the Twins? Andy, that's an old time joke.

[D]

Yeah, we'll be. We'll mostly be doing Derek Shelton talk on Monday.

[B]

All right, we'll talk. We'll talk Shelton on Monday. Thanks for listening. See you then.

[D]

I was very wrong.

[B]

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