Listener Email and Closing Thoughts

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That's wherefigs dot com code figs RX When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns . With Granger's vast selection of high qual ity motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place , so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call one eight hundred granger, clickranger dot com or just stop Granger for the ones who get it done Thanks for joining me on this Cleveland Baseball Morning. The final from Rait Field in Chicago. It's the Guardians losing two games out of three to the Chicago White Sox , with the final on Wednesday, it is the Guardian salvaging a win in the finale in extra innings four to three. I'm David Barris, lifelong Cleveland Baseball fan, and I want to talk about the actual game on the field. The thing I enjoy watching baseball being played. And this is not the way we wanted to go down against our current division rivals who we didn't expect to be our division rivals atop the American League Central. Our new division rivals the Chicago White Sox. You thought you'd be battling with the Detroit Tigers, but nope, it's the Chicago White Sox and I mean the good news is you had a game a kind of a game lead on them , so you're basically tied still atop the American League Central despite losing two out of three . You're one up in the win column, you're one behind in the loss column , but you're both five have a five nineteen winning percentage , but still this was an opportunity to establish who was the best team in the American League Central. And right now the White Sox have the juice . The White Sox are the best team in the American League center right now . And your offense is hurting, your offense is really hurting. You did have a little bit of offensive production in this series. Caleo Watson finally came around and there were there was an article about him something about him from Tim Stebbins, I think the MLB dot com beat reporter where he basically Cleo Watson admitted like, yeah, I was super uncomfortable those first that first series like that was that was hard. That was hard to make that transition to Major League Baseball and I said I'm finally starting to feel a little comfortable this starting to feel a little bit more , you know, like just like baseball, right? That's that's the goal, right? You want you get over those nerves, you get over those initial nerves, right? You get over the fact that you're now playing major league baseball against the best players in the world and it just becomes another baseball game . That's the goal. And so it shows in this series, right? He brings the offense in this series. So you know, not a complete dud offensively. I would say Tuesday's game was you didn't do much to support . I got to keep all my starting pitchers straight here. Parker Messik and his great start on Tuesday despite almost throwing a complete game for eight innings. He still ends up with a loss, a two to one loss. You did have six hits in this one, but the top of the lineup goes ice cold. Nothing . Nothing from the top of the lineup. The bottom of the lineup is trying everything they can, multi hit game for wat son, including the solo home run, his first home run of his career, multi hit game for hedges . Even Kwan and Pete Halpin are getting in on the act a little bit, but the top of the order goes ice cold zeros above Watson in the batting order. And so yeah, once again, we're we're feeling we're feeling that hole in the lineup with Ramirez and Chase Lauder and Hel on Martine being's out . We're going to have to figure out a way to get a little squeeze a little bit more out of this juice, right? We got to got to find a way to get more going offensively because we're wasting some really good starting pitching performances . You know, and don't blame Brian Rocchio totally . You know, I can't remember exactly how many days it's been since Ramirez has been out, but I was thinking like, well, how's Rochio doing hitting the he's mostly hitting in the three hole sometimes in the two hole depending on a left or righty situation? And Rokio's actually been pretty good hitting at the top of the lineup. Like it hasn't torpedoed him at all. I know nobody out there was like calling for Rocchio's head or blaming us all on him, but it just made me think, you know, the guy literally filling the shoes of Jose Ramirez, how's he doing? And he's batting three hundred over his last seven games , he's batting three hundred . He's got a three hundred and twenty three on base and a four hundred slugging. The problem is he's not driving in any runs and he's not scoring many runs. He's got one RBI in that time and two runs scored. So a guy who was producing RBIs from the nine hole in the lineup now that he's hitting third, he's hitting just RBI opportunities aren't there or he's not coming through in the RBI opportunities . So right, let's get into these games. This is another vacation episode. So it's going to be another shorter episode. We're going to kind of rapid fire through the week that was the Guardians versus the White Sox . And yeah, you have every reason to be upset. You have every reason to be disappointed in where the Guardians are right now . They are struggling in June for sure . They were a much better team in they were a much better team in May . There is some reinforcements may be coming. They did say the lottery is res uming baseball activities and could return in the upcoming days and week or so . So that's good to know. The law are is getting healthier . Tim Stebbins was reporting that. I looked at the numbers by month and yeah, you were three and three in March and then you went thirteen and thirteen in April. Remember we were happy that they went five hundred in April. They survived April. It was a tough spot in the schedule. We knew May was going to get a little easier and they were successful. They were eighteen and eleven in the month of May . Now June , really schedule hasn't gotten that much harder. The injuries have hurt. They're eight and twelve in the month of June. So they've definitely the pendulum has swung the other way from a very successful May to kind of struggling in June. However , you know , we're kind of at the end of the month here There might be time to get back to five hundred , but you're running out of days. You can at least close the gap a little bit here in June . It's surprising, you know, the Guardians may have had a better record in May but they were,n't technically that much better off ensively in the month of May . They had a seven hundred and eleven OPS in April when they were a five hundred team. They actually had a seven hundred OPS in May when they were this above five hundred team . Again, the competition was a little different. They were the basically the batting averages and then the ombase percentage and the slugging percentages were pretty close all around . They were scoring way more they hit more sacrifice flies for sure in May. Remember that was a problem in April. They stole way more bases in May compared to April . They walked more but they also struck out more and then they just drove in more runs. They had nineteen more RBIs, they scored nineteen more runs . So yeah, that helps actually driving those runs, those sack flies add to that situation and but in April but in June here it's fallen. It's a six hundred forty OPS the slugging percentage is fallen. The I'm base percentage is under three hundred a as te a team asam, they're bad in two fourteen for the month. Pretty bad, pretty bad. So yeah, this is not been a good June. But again, it is only June. You're still tied for first place. You're so one of the few teams in the American League with a winning record. There's no reason that this White Sox series is the end of the season. There's no reason that this is torpedoed or chances to make the playoffs should change the way we attack the trade deadline at all. You still have a chance in the American League, in the American League Central there's plenty of time to turn this season around. So this isn't going to be a total oh my god episode, right ? It sucks. It sucks. You want to establish your dominance over your division. One of the easiest ways to win your division is to literally beat your , you know, win your division games. And yeah, we're going to have to step it up when we see the White Sox at home. I think the White Sox two, let me go to the standings . I feel like are the White Sox one of those teams that are just really good at home . The White Sox are twenty six and thirteen at home and they're fifteen and twenty five on the road . You are a much more even team. You actually have a winning record at home and on the road . So yeah, so we'll see when the White Sox come to town if they're the same team if they have the same juice when they come play a progressive field . All right , so let's just let's fly through the details of this one . Let's start with Mondays game, a bit of a gun punch. Again, this isn't I've been saying this the last few series. It feels like these are some series that you should be able to win . Like your offense actually comes through and rallies and gives you a five to four lead in the ninth inning. Like come on guys , you should be able to put this one away . That's what you've been doing all season. And Cade Smith, the real storyline of this is that Kade Smith implodes twice in this series . He's human . He's allowed to have bad days . Being closer is heart. And part of being closer is being able to put these games behind you and just go pitch tomorrow like it never happened. So we'll see how he responds from all this. But look, Cadesmith look he was on pace to set the record, you know, the guardian 's franchise record for saves . He's probably falling off the pace now for for maybe setting the all time record for saves , but he least still has the chance at the franchise record so I'm not going to crush Cade Smith in this episode . It sucks. He's got to he's got to figure out how to bounce back from this, but yeah, Gavin Williams gives you a pretty strong start on Monday , he only lasts five innings, so you know he doesn't go deep into the game, has to work. He has eight strikeouts, sometimes when you go high on the strikeouts, it does take up a lot of pitches. But the final line is five innings pitch, five hits, two and runs, one walk, eight strikeouts. It's the bullpen. They can't do anything in this one. Herrin gives up a run. He gives up a home run in the sixth , in the seventh, Armstrong gives up a run as well. A couple hits and then you ask Kade Smith to try to go six outs you try to make them pitch the I don't know I don't know why did they give a reason on the broadcast why he was going to Cade Smith so early but you',re trying to make Kade Smith go two innings to save a game and it just doesn't it doesn't make any sense. So he yeah he runs out of gas he actually he gets through the he gets through the eighth inning . Maybe scroll down to the eighth inning here . So he goes one, two, three in the eighth. He gets gritched to ground out, he gets Tale to strike out, a returning kyle Teal. And then Colson Montgomery, he gets called out on strikes. So he actually dominates in the eighth inning . You rally in the ninth , you know, starts with a bazana bazana walk . Then he steals moves the third on a wild pitch. Patrick Bailey is able to single him in and score tie the game up. Rokio doubles sets up Patrick Bailey a third. Again, there's a situation where great hit by Rocheo but it,'s not an RBI situation. So we're just not seeing those RBIs from him, but still, you know , huge moment right there for Rokio. Hoskins would strike us swinging and then you would get Manzardo with the S ackfly in the center field. This is the one where Bailey basically runs kind of kind of leaps not quite a leap but he's definitely stretches doesn't slide and stretches that leg out over the catcher's tag, over Kyle Tiel's tag and the call is reversed upon review and it turns out that Bailey was safe. He did get the foot in there. So it turns into a sack fly gives you the five for a lead. Arius would strike out swing and then go to the bottom of the night and Kate Smith still out there working. Chase Meredith would fly out to right and Brady Montgomery would walk Tristan Peters with a check swing double that brings Brain to Montgomery all the way around a third and then pinch hitter comes in Jacob Gonzales. He strikes him out swinging. So is he going to get out of this thing? Cade Smith is working his tail off here . Then we get Sam Antonucci singling up the middle. Could Rochio have stopped this ball? I had a real hard time figuring out could Rochio stop this ball . There were two balls hit in this game that let me just go to the scoring plays here . That I thought maybe could have been corraled by one of them was in the bottom of the seven it's both by Antonucci. So he singled on a ball to right field was deflected by Rhys Hoskins at first base. This is the one where the bat broke. And I think Reese Hoskins basically admitted after the game, like he took his eye off the ball because the bat was flying towards him too. And so by the time he found the ball again, he just couldn't field it. So I literally the broken bat distracted him and I mean screwed him up and they gotten the ball past him . So unfortunately that one there gets through our infield defense . And then this one up the middle by Antonushi in the ninth inning. Again , it happens so fast and they never really show replay where they slow it down. Could Rochio could Rochio have knocked this thing down . Like could he have I wish he had but unfortunately two runs come to score we get a strong throw to home as well but it's a little too late and yeah just Verchia was right there and I just I never get a good angle to see like could he have got it. The throw comes into home it's a strong throw to home and it just a step behind him. It's just a step behind Tristan Peters and the White Sox walk it off. It goes to review and they walk it off . So a delayed celebration for the White Sox . So again, you ask Cade Smith to do a lot in this game and unfortunately waste a good start by Gavin Williams. The other thing about this game is that Gavin Williams going against hang on let me flip over to the right game here all over the place on Stackcast Gevin Williams going against Kay the starter for Anthony Kay the starter for the White Sox, Kay's not a good starter. He's bottom of the league percentile ranking in a lot of things, including just overall pitching run value in strikeout percentage and wiff rate, but you made him look fantastic in this one. Anthony K delivers a strong start a guy who bounced around mostly as a reliever in this league finally getting a chance as a starter and you made him look fantastic. Gavin Williams had a strong game , a thirty two percent whiff rate, mostly on the sweeper and the force and fastball, but got a whiff on every pitch, sixteen called strikes. It's a thirty two percent CSW . He was aggressive early, seventy percent first pitch strike was hit pretty hard . The average he gave up five hard hit balls but the average ex velocity often was ninety three point four so they were squaring them up pretty good when they were but Anthony K ott fifteen whiffs mostly on his sweeper and his slider the guy throws a lot of pitches. A thirty one percent wiff rate and nineteen call strikes. It's a thirty four percent CSW he was not throwing first pitch strikes. He was only forty two percent first pitch strikes , but you only put hit four hard hit balls off them and your average exit philosophy of them was eighty three point five. So you really weren't doing much damage against Anthony K. Made him look pretty good in this one. This is the story of the one. 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It's chic, it's timeless, and it's even the same color as my apartment. Cause I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I love adding custom embroidery to make my scrubs as personal as my style. And since I work in telehealth, my embroidered figs even double as my ID badge. It's never too late to reinvent yourself or your scrubs. Get fifteen percent off your first order at wherefigs. com with the code figs RX. That's wherefigs. com code figs RX for fifteen percent off your first order. All right, bouncing over to Tuesday's game . This is the one where the top of the order , well actually the top of the order was doing stuff . And hang on, that's not the right game Let's bounce over. Let's try this again. Let's bounce over to Tuesday's game, the two to one loss and yeah, this is the one where the top of the order was doing nothing. Kalia Watson was trying from the sixth spot in the lineup and you give up a run in the fourth inning . This is man. This is again another pitcher's duel. Parker Messicoes is great. Seven two thirds, three hits , two earned runs, one walk, ten strikeouts. He does give up a solo home run and ninety five pitches he's hard at seven tim es. Meanwhile on the other side Sean Burke goes six point six and a third in he's pitched, six hits, one earned run, one walk, six strikeouts, does give up a solo home run, and ninety pitches he's hard eight times, but then Sean Newcombe comes in for almost three innings save . So Newcombe goes two and two thirds in relief and just shuts you down, doesn't give up a hit? One walk, that's it . So man wasted another good start there from Parker Messik . But they score in the in the fourth inning that's a double by Gritchic and then Colsaont Mgomery is able to single him in. You get the lead off home run from Kaliel Watson in the fifth inning, one hundred and four point seven off the bat, twenty eight degreelaunching of three hundred seventy three feet, eighty two point five swing speed. Whoo as smoking. twenty nine out of thirty ballparks this would have been a home run and then they answer right back in the sixth inning it's Miguel Vargas with a lead off home run to break the one tie, one hundred and one off the bat, thirty three degreaunch angle three hundred and seventy six , eighty three mile per hour swing speed. twenty nine out of thirty ballparks as well . So you waste a really that's it.'s That's the that offense right there. You waste a really good start from Parker Messik . He had a thirty six percent wiff rate mostly coming on that four seam fastball which there was an article about his velocity increasing on the year he averages right now his average is up to ninety three point nine on the year so basically ninety four miles per hour. He was averaging ninety five miles per hour. He was hitting I think ninety seven or ninety eight on some pitches and he said it's all this is all like mechanical stuff. This is all just working on his windup and all the work he's put in in the last two years working with the Major League Staff. That's where the velocity is coming from. He says where this ends, he doesn't know like how high this can go. He doesn't know. He's like, I'd love to throw ninety eight miles per hour on every fastball. But I know I don't have to do that. I know I can live ninety three to ninety five now and I can reach back and find a little bit more when I need to . And it's really working for him. If Sball is really working for him . So adding sixteen call strikes that's a thirty five percent CSW . His average exfosioflam was only eighty six point seven fifty nine percent first pitch strike pretty solid right there . So yeah, so it's a shame because Parker Messic is pitching at an all star level probably going to represent you in the All Star game, maybe competing for Rookie of the Year, you know, depending on what some of those offensive rookies are doing and you waste another strong start from him . Speaking of strong starts, let's get into Wednesday's game because you luckily don't waste a strong start. I mean, he doesn't get credit for for the win or anything, but Danner Bye is pretty good on this finale here. So starting pitching all around is fantastic. Bye goes six innings a shutout baseball, three hits, one walk to three strikeouts. He's being efficient, eighty nine pitches. He's only hard hit four times. That's a solid start there by Tanner Bibi . Fortunately the bullpen , you know, Sabrowski gives up a run , but he is able to get out of some things. He was in a lot of trouble, but he's able to limit the damage to only one run. Holderman gets him out of it. Hunter Gaddis gets into a little trouble, but Tim Harrin gets him out of it. And then Kate Smith comes into the ninth inning and gets blown up and we'll get to it in a second. Let's kind of set the table on how we get here . So the Guardians actually jumped out to the lead in this one . They had they scored two in the top of the sixth to break that zero zero tie and his Cala Watson coming through again with the bases loaded . Drives in Roccio, drives in Pete Help in a score . Yeah, just a line drive in a left field. It delivers Let's see, what was the exit philosophy on this one ? So we're jumping into the sixth inning here and Cal Watson this was after Reese Hoskins had struck out by the way with the bases loaded, so he had a chance. This inning was also set up by an error by their short stop on a David Frey Groundball that probably could have been a double play, so they gifted us an extra out and we took advantage of it. But Clea Watson ninety point one just a nice shot there through the left side . So the guardians score two there. They finally get a hit with the bases loaded and are able to get something done . Brady Montgomery had to sack fly, scored a run in the bottom of the seventh. That was the run off of Sabrowski . Top of the eighth you actually add to it . Again, bases loaded situation, but all you're able to do is draw a walk. Patrick Bailey at least draws a walk and gives you an insurance run, makes it a three to one game. But come on guys, it would be great to get a big hit. We're still waiting for that big I mean Clear Watson kind of delivers it, but we're still waiting for that big hit something in a gap clear the bases, something with those bases loaded. Come on and then you get into the ninth inning and let's go out by out here . Let me jump back over to Stack cast . So Cadesmith getting a chance to , you know, wipe this leg clean, get back out there , you know, fight again and unfortunately it looks like it's going to go okay he gets Colson Montgomery to fly out fly out deeply on a fastball that creeps back towards the middle of the plate , it's over the plate, flies out at one hundred and four point five miles per hour. Actually, at an eight ninety expected batting average, but Pete Halpin runs it down. And then Chase Meredith would get called out on strikes. He would challenge, but it would be a call out on strikes . So you've got two outs, two outs. You're about to put the save in your back pocket and then he finds himself in the middle of the plate to break in Montgomery. It's a fastball right down the pipe on the one count and he hammers at it one hundred se andven point one twenty seven degree relaunch angle four hundred and eleven feet for Brady , the young rookie Braden Montgomery who just got called up by the White Sox . You just found yourself in the middle of the plate and then Randall Gritch jumps you on the first pitch, you throw him a sweeper that sweeps right into the middle of the plate. It's a little bit low, but Gritch goes down and hits it at one hundred eighty point six thirty one to relaunch four hundred sixteen feet. So you just found yourself stuck in the middle of the plate all of a sudden and you can't get the save. You blow the lead, they tie the game up. It's a three game . Sean Armstrong has to come in and get you out of the situation. And then luckily we are the away team and the away team will always have the advantage in extra innings and the guardians are able to put together a rally in the tenth with that runner, that gifted runner on base, manzarda would strike out, Reece Hoskins would single, move the runner over to third, and then Cal Watson would come up. Look, it's a light hit ball, eighty five point six it's a minus twelve degree launch angle. Like you don't smoke it for sure, but he finds the hole. He puts the ball in play, finds the hole through the left side and brings in that gifted runner to score . Schneimen would force out, hit in a force out Patrick Bailey would hit a in force out and that would end the threat. But you do score one run which you want to score two in that situation, but scoring one is huge. At least you did your job and got that gifted runner home because you know the away team the home team coming up if they only if it's a tie game and they just got to get that one run home life is easy for them so you didn't make life easy for them. So they do go for that one run they are just trying to tie the game up Kunya is with a sack butt but, then you get into trouble Sean Armstrong is not making life easy for himself, walks Kyle Teal, puts the go ahead run now on base, walks Colson Montgomery, puts the go ahead run in scoring position, gets chased Meredith to hit into a force out. They come home with it. Rochio comes home with it and they get the out at home Bailey can't get it out of his glove. Maybe they could have turned to there. I don't know. We never got like a wide angle to see where the base runner was, but they get their out of home, they get the force out of home. They're hanging on a knife's edge, but they're hanging in there. And then Brandon Mont Brandon Montgomery , again, who's been hitting great for them hits one to first base one hundred and seven point one but he pounds it into the ground . Manzardo comes up with it, races into the bag, dives to the bag and actually tags the bag to make the out . It's a pretty intense play with the bases loaded in the tenth inning , but he's able to get out of it. Sean Armstrong survives the bases loaded. So boy drama. These two teams going back and forth. Here's the thing about one run games . It's great if you feel comfortable as a team playing in one run games . But you got to win them. You got to win them. Losing a bunch of one run games is not something you'd be bragging about at the, you know, at the team dinner at the team banquet . I'm thinking like a high school baseball team, right? Having their team banquet at the end of the year, you know, all the kids showing up in ties and sitting around in the coaches g iving speeches , losing a bunch of one run games is not something you'll be celebrating at the end of the year at the team dinner, right? If you want these one run games to matter, if you want to be a team that , you know, walks around prilyvate struts around like Joser Ramirez because you play in one run games . You got to win them . So we will definitely have to see if Cade Smith can stay out of the middle of the plate and if he can bounce back from two blown saves in this series in a series where you needed him , like if the offense isn't going to be strong without Ramirez and Delawater in the lineup and anal Mart Iinez, want to want to I don't keep discounting on how Martinez but he was hitting towards the bottom of the lineup whereas Ramirez and Delauder were two and three hitters in the lineup. So I don't want to discount on how too much, but it's definitely Ramirez and Delauder that are uh well not home wars hitting towards the top sometimes against Lefties and stuff like that but all three of them let's just say all three of them We We got to survive till they get back , but one way to do that is to have the bull pin. One way to do that is to have the starting pitching be fantastic. And guess what? Your starting pitching is fantastic right now . It is all five of them . The other way is for the bullpen to step up and hold tight one run leads. And so we can't be doing this. We cannot be doing this. The bullpen has to pick up the slack where the offense is not scoring a lot right now . All right, so NVP on the series has to go to College Watson big RBI hits, including the go ahead hit and extra innings , his first home run of his career , Kalia Watson definitely definitely had a moment in this White Sock series and has definitely become a major league hitter, right? He was a rookie with bright eyes and completely overwhelmed in those first few at bats and those first twelve at bats. Now we got a major league hitter on our hands right here. So this is one of those situations where