Kentucky Derby Preview and Analysis

It's the Mike Francesa Podcast on the Bat Rivers Network. Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Mike Francesa Podcast, part of the Bet Rivers Network. We come to you this evening as the Knicks have elimin ated, embarrassed, destroyed, disseminated, just you know , just by limb by limb, taking apart the uh Hawks this evening, uh and moved on in the east. And it looks like right now , although there's a lot of time left in the third quar ter, but the Celtics maybe headed for a game seven. So uh and so the Knicks will have to see uh they can put their feet up and wait and see what happens. Now um I've seen a lot of NBA games in my life . Uh I did a lot of NBA games. I was at the I was at the uh Memorial Day Massacre, Celtics and Lakers in the finals, when uh you know the Celtics ran the Lakers ran out of the building and then we hung around till Thursday night when everyone is written off Kareem and then he came back with a huge game and tied the series at one apiece. Um I remember the Portland games against the Sixers in the finals that were one-sided, but nothing, nothing in a playoff game like I've ever seen tonight. I have never seen a surge like that in the first half of an NBA playo ff game in my entire life. I mean, this game bought it, it w it was 72 to 22 with 439 left in the first half. 72 to 2 two . So obviously the second half was meaningless . Uh what do you take from this game? Listen, the Knicks turned the corner in this series, took over the series, did it in a dominant fashion, did it with their defense. Uh OG has never played better. I think this is the best basketball he's ever played in his life in this ser ies. Um Towns played well. And tonight they even got a rebirth from Bridges, who had uh 16 points at the half. And I think he's gonna wind up somewhere in the 20s. Um this was as you know, Atlanta had 14 first half turnov ers. The Knicks were shooting in the high 60s . And like we said, this is 83-36 at the half, the most one-sided first half game in the history of the NBA playoffs. And for it to come in an elimination game is you know very surprising. But you know, you're around sports long enough, everything can happen. Um here's the thing. There's no question that when you look at the problems that the remaining teams are having in the East , uh the Knicks can get to the final. I mean , uh, and if you want to tell me that you think they should get to the final, I don't think that's crazy . Cleveland has issues. Detroit has big issues and needs a second score in the worst way. Um Celtics dealing with Embiid. If a beat when if Embiid's gonna play, it's a whole different deal. You know that. With their guards and Embiid, they're tough . And And uh, you know, this game that game's not over yet because you know the Celtics can get hot. You know, they can get hot from three, they can get crazy hot from three. So that game is still early in the third quarter, although the Celtics uh have dug themselves a pretty good hole. Um I thought it was meaningful the way they played. I thought it was meaningful how they have tried to meld towns in Brunson , uh start to think about combin ations . What he can do with cat, what he can do with cat with Brunson, what he can do with Cat with Robinson. And these things are going to be so important going forward, no matter who they face, the rest of the way . Now uh as far as analyzing a game like tonight , you know what can you possibly say? I mean, the game was the The game was 9-9, it was 15-11, then it was 21-11, and then before you knew anything, it was 40 to 15 . Then it was you know fifty five to 19, then it was uh fifty eight to nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty nine to twenty two seventy two to twenty two and I was tweeting a friend and I said if I was at Lana I'd start a fight and about a minute later they started a fight. I was being I was half joking, but I really wasn't because I was gonna say, what if you're on the Atlanta bench, what else could you possibly do except turn the game into chaos? You're not gonna win it anyway. You're that frustrated. I mean, you can keep getting technical fouls. Uh you can, you know, you know your season's over. Uh what a way to go out from where they were early in the series. I mean , yes, they didn't have size. Yes, they lacked sophistication. Uh, but it really came apart. It really did. Uh, these last couple of games culminating in this craziness tonight. Uh there's some good things to see here . I think this will settle down the Nick critics who have been very upset lately with the head coach, with bridges , with the way minutes were being dispensed. Listen, when things aren't going well, you know they're gonna start taking shots right away. When things turn around, all of a sudden, well, then it's bouquets. That's the way it works. That's just the way it works. They want to get this team to the final. This team is capable of getting to the final. There's no question about it . Now, are they gonna be a heavy underdog? Enormous underdog . I don't think anybody's beating OKC . But again, what you want to do is get to the finals. It would be a great achievement to get there. And you get there and hey, give a hamstring pull away or a you know calf muscle or a knee or an ankle or an Achilles from maybe winning a championship. You never know . You never do. So that's why you take your shot. And try and win a couple of games and see. And hey, crazier things have happened. You got you can't win it if you're not there. And the idea is to get there. And they now have a legitimate chance without any question to get there . Couple things here. 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Ells will play it as only a gambling problem called 1-800 Gambler in New York, in New Jersey. And in New York, it's 877-8 Hope NY. 87 8 Hope NY or text Hope NY All Caps 467 369. Now Let me say this. If the weather was a little better, sort of uh and he got robbed, obviously in the first inning w by a brilliant play. Uh took a home run away from him. Um he could have easily had three or four home runs in the last couple of games. He hit the every every time he hit the ball, and I was surprised they pitched to him as much as they did, because if you look at that lineup, why would you ever pitch to him? Just put him on. Who else is going to do any damage ? You got Bichette in front of him who can hit. And I'll tell you something, Bichette is hit in very hard luck all year. They gave a stat today that he's hitting more hard luck than anybody in baseball so far. He really has. He's had a lot of he's been robbed uh uh eight or nine times. Uh I'm not worried about him offensively. And Soto has been unbelievable. To come back and get he now looks like you know he's ready to just tear the cover off the ball. And going out to the Angels and the Rockies and the Diamondbacks and getting good weather and everything else. He should get very hot. I don't think there's any question about that. Um he's already been hot. I mean hit the ball hard every time up. He has a quality bat every single time up. The guy is a great. I mean, say what you want about him. The guy is a great offensive player . But of course , they can't hold the lead. Weaver puts a uh changeup where he doesn't want to put it, gets knocked out of the park, they lose the game. So responds with a double, they can't get him home. Uh it's just one thing after another thing after another thing, you know, it when you're going this bad. When you have a picture of a matchup today, where you have a pitcher on the mound for Washington, whose numbers are so staggeringly bad that you wonder why he's even getting a st art . Against the Peralta , this is a game that should be an absolute laughter. I mean, the Mets today, I looked at at the at the odds before the game, the Mets were well above two to one fav orites to win the game. Why? Because the line is based on pitching matchups. That's all it's ever based on . They don't take into account winning streaks, losing streaks. It's a perfect example. The Mets never win now and they were heavily favored today because the picture was so abysmal for Washington. What happens? They don't , you know, they don't make him pay when they could . And then you know Prozley gives up a couple runs, make a couple bad plays in the field, and the next thing you know, they're down three nothing, they tie a three-three, they get the lead, and then they blow the game. Okay . They're ten and twenty one . The place is a ghost town . I don't understand what they're doing . We know that we've seen teams already cut loose very , very talented managers, accomplished managers, including a guy that I've told you that how highly I think of him as a manager and baseball does too. I mean there was talk today that he's already turned on the Philly job. There was talk today that he will could have five job offers before the season's out . Um I don't know what his plans are . If I were the mess, I would have already been. And I don't know if they have done or haven't made contact or don't have any interests or do have interests. I don't have any idea . Um , you will not get your hands on a manager like that again. The generational manager. And they had no intention, I gather from what I've been told by someone up, a friend of mine up in Boston was that that whole thing just escalated. It reminded me of the Tortorella thing years ago. Tortorella wasn't gonna get fired that day. And then the next thing you know, you wind up getting fired. Things escalate. This was about changing his staff, and then it escalated into a lot more, and he wound up getting bounced . Um, with a lot of money on his contract . Uh He's out of work only because he wants to take some time off . Let's just put him aside for a second, okay ? What are you doing? If you are the Mets, it's May 1st. You have one of the highest payrolls in baseball. You were even with the Yankees as the second and third favorites behind the Dodgers to get to the World Series this year. Now, maybe that was an overreach. Maybe that maybe all of us thought the team was going to be better than it was . Okay, fine. Nobody thought the team was going to be like this. Yes, they've had injuries, but you know what? They brought in players that were injury prone . And they brought in players who, let's be honest, haven't been great lately. Except Flanco was, but he, you know, he was injury prone. He hasn't played at all . And to me, Robert was already going south before he even went to the uh went to the list . I don't like him offensively, never have. Um but here's the thing. What message are you sending to your fan base ? Now do I believe they're out trying to pick up a big stick? Yes. Because what are they going to do? Shut the season down ? Obviously, they can put it, they can put a guy at first base, they can put a guy in in the outfield. They need a big stick . You notice teams out there that have guys on the contract that they want to dump the salary. The Mets can absorb anybody's salary. Do they want to? Do they have an appetite for it? I don't know. We'll see. Clearly they're going to make moves . But what are they doing ? How long can they let this thing continue? All right, they gave it a couple more days, give it a couple more days, give it, and it doesn't get better, it gets worse every single da y. Because now May 1st, and they are 11 and a half games out of first place, and they are 10 and 21, and they've lost 17 in the last 20 games. And still nothing . And this is so patently unfair to the manager . Listen , we all know how baseball works . You can't get rid of the whole team. So what do you do? You change managers because you'd have to change something . We know there's been times you kept the manager and got rid of coaches. I was in City Field that night, or Safe Stadium that night, whatever it was at that day, I don't remember which I think it was Shay Stadium at that time, if I remember right . But when they kept Bobby, made the change during the Yankee Met series, got rid of the coaches, and then went like 40 and 15 in the next 55 games . The bottom line is you have to do something. Now, if you want to make a if you're making a commitment to Stern's plan and to this manager, then come out and say it . I don't care what you're telling him privately, come out and tell the public and the media, which is on gallows wat ch, and the critics and everybody else what is going on . Because right now all it is is a watch as to what minute is going to get bounced. If you have decided we're not bouncing this guy, we believe in this guy, we're keeping this guy. It'd be a hard thing to sell considering what he how he finished last year and what it's looked like now from last year into this year . But if you want to do that , if every prerogative to do it, it's your team. Show some conviction and come out and make a statement, he's our manager for the rest of the season. And if you don't feel comfortable doing that, then you need to change the manager . Put him out of his misery. I mean, the guy, you can tell day after day doesn't know what to come out and say anymore. I know everyone talks about I don't really know him. Just knew him to say hello to. I don't know I didn't know him . Everyone says he's a class actor. Everyone says he's a good guy. Everybody likes him. Listen . No one's that's not the that's not the point here. The point here is this is a dead team, a completely dead team that cannot continue along this path . Something has to be done. Statements have to be made, and you've heard nothing out of management, you've heard nothing out of the owner. You can't run and hide during in New York during this kind of run . The weather's gonna warm up very soon . Before you know it, the Yankees will be in City Field . Everything the Yankees are doing, and this isn't about the Yankees. Okay, the Yankees are having their typical year and they have a lot to prove in October. We know that no matter what they do in the regular season . They're playing well now . We know that . They hit a lot of home runs. They got their power pitching. Okay. And they're going to play in front of huge crowds. And you're gonna have archery practice at City Field . And what you have to realize , and I would think the Mets knowce . This only continu es until you are confirmed dead. Then you don't exist . Then it will be about the Yankees, then it will be well it'll be about the Knicks for as long as they 're in the playoffs. And then it will be about football camps by the time those open up in July and everything else. And no one even no one even wants to talk about your team or your scores or anything else. Nothing you do matters. You can't give away the tickets . And this guy, although he got all his little toys that he wanted. We know that . We know what he wanted. We know he got everything . But he made big promises . Promises he can't keep, but he made big promises . And he was clearly annoyed last year by how bad the attendance was the year before . And he went out and he beat the Yankees for Soto . And that meant a lot to Met fans because they thought of it as a sign of things to come, a harbinger of things to come. And the Met fans responded in an enormous way, even through a terrible finish last year, because Stern screwed up the pitching so badly . And he has been just dreadful here. And I'm not saying don't give him time, but he has been. I mean, listen, you can't have a worse You know , the first year, so be it . Once he started putting his finish his his hands on the team, this thing has been an utter disaster. There's no other word for it . But they filled the ballpark last year. The Met fans showed up and showed up and showed up and showed up. Their attendants went right up the charts. They were a big deal. There was a vibrancy in the ballpark. The place was alive. The place was excited. Yes, the team didn't play well. It was very disappointing . So they went out and decided to make really remodel the team . And it has crashed and burned in a way that no one even could have seen possible. But you can't just run and hide from that and think it's going to be okay . Not when you can't even come home against losing teams and win games . You can't come home like they did, crawl into your stadium and get swept by the Rockies ? And lose doubleheader and get beat by the national? I mean, this this can't. And this week they're going out there. They're playing the Angels who are eight games on the 500. They're not playing the Rockies who are four games on the 500. They're playing Arizona, which I think is a game or two above 500 . They're not playing the Dodgers, they're not playing the Padres . But right now, I don't think it matters who they play. They don't think they can win. They win, they go out there. They have anemic at bat after anemic at bat after anemic a bat . You got guys in the lineup who have no right even being in the major leagues and no part of the team can perform to a level that allows other than Holmes and Soto . Listen, Soto you can't knock Soto. I mean he is an offensive machine. Holmes has been terrific . But otherwise it has been an utter, utter disaster in every way and it just cannot and i i feel bad for the manager you know either make a commitment to him or put him out of his misery what are you doing ? I don't know what they're doing. It almost seems like they're hiding under their desk. I don't know what they're doing . But in this town, it's that doesn't work . And this isn't a case of oh the Willponds won't spend money and they won't do that . This guy has gone out and given everything you wanted. He got it for you . Look where their payroll is, and they're ten and twenty-one . And if you go by what's gone on the last three weeks, they can't win a game. They can't get I have never seen more poor at bats from a team consistently in my life . Do something . Take a stand in some way . He just can't let this go on day after day. The people are gonna just, you know, they're gonna go their own way . They're not gonna buy you tickets . They're not gonna walk into your ballpark and in this town you become a non-ent ity non-entity nobody cares they're on to the next thing. The Knicks will be all anybody cares about for as long as they're alive . By then the Yankees are ready to begin their summer march to what they hope is a triumphant October. We know there haven't been many triumph in Octobers lately, but that's what everyone's gonna hope for. There's gonna be great enthusiasm around the Giants, and there's even gonna be a curiosity around the Jets . Because hope springs eternal until they show that they can't do anything and then you forget about them . But when you get the cold shoulder of I don't care . When apathy sets in in this town, it is paralyzing . It is the worst. It's a fate worst than death. And that's where this team is headed. And headed fast . Now tomorrow morning, uh ten o'clock we will do the derby . Uh I know uh I have to keep my streak alive. I've the Derby's always been a great race for me. I've always done great in the Derby. Um I've made a lot of big scores in the Derby, made a hit a lot of big exactors, picked a lot of winners. I'm on a streak now . I will try to keep it alive. I came in for two weeks thinking I was going to pick renegade and then he got the one. And I don't I don't see how he can work out a good trip. Now, I remember some of you might not, some of you if you're old enough and you're real racing fans, you might. Willie Shoemaker with this classic ride with Ferdinand at seventeen to one Charlie Whittingham's horse, the old jockey, the old trainer, taking Ferdin and on a shh for a horse that is a closer and renegade is a closer. He is a classic Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby clos er . He is not gonna leave. If he leaves, he will have compromised his race enormously . And there's enough speed in the race. I'll get into that tomorrow with you . I I just don't see how he can win out of the one . So that has sent me now hunting and pecking for another horse to put on top . I'm down this evening to about seven horses . I'm working on it . I'm having a lot of trouble with the foreign horses because I really have trouble integrating them into the race. I really do. I watch them work. Two of them look to be very good horses that forever young has driven me crazy since he's come to this country . I'm never very good at quantifying horses from Japan or the Middle East. I don't do a good job of that. I never have . I don't like integrating him into our races . I find it difficult to do . And forever young has cost me a couple of exactors and he's won some races and he's a pain in the neck and he's a wonderful horse. Loved own him . These foreign horses have talent. Two of them especially have a lot of talent. I've watched every horse's work this week. Obviously I can't do much. So I I've watched I've gone on YouTube and watched all the workouts . Horses working well is not always an indicator that they're gonna run big. Some horses are just morning glories. I've had a couple that worked I had one that worked every time he worked, all we talked of is this work was so good as and the horse would never, ever, ever Reynolds Channel, he would never transmit that into the afternoon. Ever . Never. Drove us crazy . Drove Bill Mott crazy. And Bill Mott's one of the great trainers of all time . You have horses like that. I can't tell you how beautiful Reynolds channel is. I can't tell you how unbelievably he worked in the mornings. He never ran to that in the afternoons. Never . It happens . But when you see a horse that is on the muzzle and is ready, like sovereignty was last year. When I looked at sovereignty, I said, there's no way anybody's beating sovereignty. There's no way . When sovereignty, when I watched him in person at the Belmont, I said, No way is anybody beating Sovereignty. You can just see him come on the track. Casa came on the track that way a couple of times where I just said, I don't care, they're not beating him today. I mean, he is just perfe ct . He is he is breathing fire . And there's a couple of horses working really well. I'm sure you've heard about Chief Wallaby and how well he's worked for Mart. And when you put that kind of horse with that kind of talent, even though we didn't as a two-year-old , and that's if a lot of people disqualify him for that reason. Plus, a lot of people don't believe anyone's gonna win back-to-back derbies. Martin Alvarado would have to win back to back derbies if Chief Wallaby's gonna win, but Chief Wallaby. And if you're looking for one race, I can give you that tonight. If there's one race that looks to be the key race of the preps, it's the Florida Derby. I don't think there's any question . So I will have all that for you in the morning. We'll do that uh at 10 o'clock for you Nick fans you can take a deep breath and get ready for the next round . Stop breaking up the team, stop worrying about everything . Step one has now been completed. And completed in historic fashion. Let's see if let me see what the final score of that game was. The final score of that game was 140 to 89. And right now the Celtics trail by 14 with eight minutes to play. So they're getting ready for a game seven . Unless they come up with a big comeback . What was that again? 140 to 87? 140 to 89. And in the fourth quarter, they all played the back the you know the bottom, the back of the benches. I mean the entire quarter. So the you know, the second half was that way, but the fourth quarter was completely back of the benches. 1408 9 . Wow . 8 3 to 36 at the half. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Mike Francesa podcast on the Bet Rivers Network