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Zolak and Bertrand evaluate the Red Sox winning three games at the Yankees before reflecting on the team's personnel decisions.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

#mlb #redsox #baseball
Transcript
00:00The Red Sox and Alex Cora just took three of four from the Yankees in the Bronx.
00:08Bats fell silent last night, and so the Red Sox were unable to get a sweep in New York
00:14for the first time in a long time.
00:15But the Red Sox have sort of had their way with the Yankees.
00:18Yeah, they're the same for what it is.
00:20They're their bitch, right?
00:21I mean, that's the way I look at this thing.
00:23And gone are the days where I think you fear going into New York.
00:27I think it's more like for the Red Sox to play a team like Toronto or Baltimore
00:31and lose three out of four to them.
00:33It doesn't happen with the Yankees anymore.
00:35They own the Yankees.
00:36I don't know what the reason is for.
00:38I don't know if there's injuries, and they got some players out, so do you.
00:41But think about what you just said.
00:43It's August 25th, and the Red Sox took three out of four from the Yankees,
00:47go back about a month and a half ago.
00:49And any tiebreakers that may come into play.
00:52And we said that at that time.
00:54Just at the end of August, be in this thing.
00:56Be in the mix.
00:57You could play yourself into this thing, and they have done that.
01:00And they have done that.
01:01And I don't think they've done it with luck.
01:03You know, they grind out wins.
01:06And it's like they don't fear anybody, and that's good.
01:08That's good.
01:09But, damn, you come away from something like that, and you think,
01:13imagine if they just added, like, one more stud at the trade deadline.
01:16People will be talking about you potentially as maybe even a favorite.
01:20Seriously.
01:21Like, that's the position you're in now, right?
01:23You're the number one wild card team.
01:24So, wait, favorite for what?
01:26For it all?
01:27I'm not saying for it all.
01:29No.
01:30Wait, I'm sorry.
01:30I don't think they're going to win a World Series.
01:32I don't think they're a World Series team.
01:34But it's like, what do you want?
01:35You want your team to be in the mix and be a contender,
01:38to call them potentially a contender.
01:40Two, three, go.
01:42There it is.
01:43There it is.
01:44But August 25th, Milliken, how many August 25ths have we been through
01:49where we don't even talk about this team?
01:50It's usually over by now.
01:51The last three years, you have been not even able to get to September 1st
01:54and be closer than three games out of the third wild card.
01:57To actually be a half a game up right now, you've got an 87% chance
02:00to make the playoffs.
02:01If you go 500 the rest of the way, you're going to get to 86 wins.
02:06Two teams made the playoffs last year were 86 wins.
02:08So, that's where you are right now.
02:09Just even playing 500 and being mediocre,
02:11and you have the 20th hardest schedule in terms of strength of schedule
02:14remaining.
02:15So, it's not like you've got Killers Row coming up or anything.
02:17I said when they were having their issues against Baltimore,
02:22I said, ah, they'll get some space to skate here.
02:24It's really the Yankee series.
02:26So, my big takeaway from the weekend is that they know how to respond,
02:30that they can rise to the occasion, that they can understand the spot.
02:34This was a really important series because, one, we wanted to make sure
02:38this wasn't a second half late season core collapse, which has become his thing.
02:43And you know where the standings were and what the math looked like
02:48in the wild card race.
02:49You knew that it was the Yankees, and they checked all those boxes,
02:53taking three or four over the weekend.
02:55Good result.
02:56They're in good shape.
02:59Despite their flaws.
03:00Right?
03:01And they have plenty of them.
03:02And they've got plenty of them.
03:04But not as many as the Yankees.
03:06We've gotten on the Red Sox throughout this whole year about playing dumb
03:09baseball.
03:09Well, some of the stuff the Yankees did over the weekend, some of the throws
03:13to first, I actually, like, gasped at some.
03:16I haven't seen that ever since, like, the Little League World Series.
03:19It was absolutely crazy to me the way that the Yankees performed
03:23and just how bad they are on a day-in, day-out basis with some just basic,
03:26basic stuff.
03:27The pick-off move where he's not even covering first?
03:30Unbelievable.
03:31Four errors in that first game, five total in the series.
03:34They're essentially playing the brand of baseball the Red Sox were the first
03:36couple months.
03:37And you can see now, the Red Sox defense has improved pretty significantly
03:40with Bregman getting healthy, with some of the stuff they've been able to do
03:43in the outfield as well.
03:45Even Nathaniel Lowe coming in and making a couple nice plays at first base,
03:48it's a much different situation for them at this point in time than, you know,
03:51the first three months of the year.
03:54So, you're feeling good, Milliken.
03:56I can sense it.
03:56How can you not?
03:57It's got high vibes right now.
03:59Like, I think even the first three games of the series, what impressed me so
04:02much, that first game you went three for 19 with runners in scoring
04:04position.
04:04You still found a way you were trailing in the middle innings.
04:07The second game, you pull out a 1-0 win.
04:10Brian Baio, who just deserves all the love in the world right now.
04:13It's been great.
04:14But Yankees killer, 195 ERA, 297 fifth in 10 career starts against them,
04:18144 ERA and five starts at Yankee Stadium.
04:21That's a Yankee killer.
04:22That should be flipped, too.
04:24And that should be flipped.
04:25Go ahead.
04:26Doesn't last night show you, though, that you need home field against them
04:30in a short series, in a three-game series, best of luck.
04:34No, I don't think so.
04:35I don't think that the Yankees could go off for two games and hit a billion
04:39home runs and just beat you.
04:41They could.
04:41But if you're starting a playoff series, you're throwing Crochet.
04:46You're throwing Giolito.
04:47They're throwing Max Fried and Rodon.
04:48Okay, but if your lineup goes quiet, then you're cooked no matter what they do.
04:55I don't know.
04:55That's how I look at it.
04:56They're going to win playoffs if they win a playoff series.
04:59They're going to do it because they get three really good performances out of
05:02Crochet and Giolito and Baio.
05:05That's how they're going to do it.
05:06That's it.
05:07That's what they've got.
05:09That's how they get there.
05:10That's how they win a series.
05:11It's not going to be because they bash the ball and produce a bunch of runs.
05:14I just don't see it that way.
05:16But if it's a tight game, a low-scoring game,
05:19more likely to win that game at Fenway Park.
05:20I think the Yankees choked that.
05:22You watch them in a dugout.
05:23They're a dumb team.
05:24They're tight, too.
05:25The manager's tight.
05:26He looks nervous.
05:27And I'd say play them down there because it puts more pressure on them.
05:31Because, man, if you lose to the Red Sox again.
05:33You don't think so?
05:34I don't know why you'd be rooting for playing dead and lose the advantage.
05:37No.
05:37You absolutely want to be at home.
05:40This team at home this year has been ridiculous.
05:43You don't want to be playing on the road and someone else is doing it.
05:47I will say that's one of the more impressive things about this series, though.
05:50For a team that's now 30 and 35 on the road,
05:52the fact that you showed up and handled business like that,
05:55it's nice to see them do it outside of Fenway Park.
05:57The Yankees were riding hot.
05:58They had won five in a row.
05:59You had lost three in a row.
06:00And you completely flipped this series on its head.
06:02And a lot of that goes to Brian Baio and Garrett Crochet.
06:04That's a real one-two right now.
06:06Like, I know we talk about wanting Joe Ryan, and I still do.
06:09You need to go find who that arm is.
06:11But Brian Baio is turning into the number two that this team is badly needed.
06:17And he's put the work in.
06:18Adding the cutter, which he's done this year, working from the stretch exclusively,
06:21has kind of opened up things since the start of June.
06:23Even last year, it really changed before that Miami start in July when he added the four-seamer.
06:28Baio's been willing to tweak his stuff over and over again to get to this point.
06:32Doing that in season and over the course of, like, trying to win,
06:35like, that is one of the more impressive things to me.
06:37And that's something the Pitching Lab deserves credit for because it's very similar to what happened
06:40with Logan Webb in San Francisco.
06:42And that was always the guy you were kind of comparing Brian Baio to and saying,
06:45hey, can he make this kind of jump under Andrew Bailey?
06:48He's doing it.
06:49So, Ref Schneider can come back this week.
06:51Abreu can come back this week.
06:53Justin Slayton.
06:54Justin Slayton is going to come back this week.
06:57Bernardino, who has come back, is going to be the opener tonight.
07:01Walker Buehler.
07:02And then...
07:02And Ref Schneider's a guy they will need in a short series.
07:05Yeah, they will.
07:05He's definitely a bat you're going to need.
07:07And then, and then, and then, you have September 1st, and you've got potential call-ups.
07:14Who do you want to see when September 1st rolls around?
07:18Who do you want to see on this roster?
07:21Milliken?
07:22Payton Toley.
07:22I think it's Toley.
07:23Yeah.
07:24And here's why.
07:25One, if you've got an opener tonight, you know the back end of this rotation is garbage, right?
07:29Dustin May sucks.
07:30Can we just admit that?
07:31Can we just admit that Dustin May stinks?
07:32That was a panic move at the end of the day.
07:34Panic, stupid move at the end of the deadline.
07:36Forget that.
07:37But here's what you can do.
07:38You can bring up Toley and start him in September.
07:41You can go to a longer rotation if that's what you want to do.
07:44But you know where this could pay off?
07:46If he's ready.
07:47If he gets up here and he's ready.
07:50The big fella.
07:51The big fella.
07:526'6".
07:53And big.
07:54If you bring him up, you can use him in the playoffs out of your bullpen.
07:58And that could be really beneficial.
08:01Definitely.
08:01I think they might even go further than that.
08:03I think they'd consider him in a bulk role and basically fuse him and Richard Fitz together.
08:08Because the one thing with Toley, which sucks here.
08:10Wait, wait, wait.
08:11Explain this again.
08:12In a what role?
08:13So you'd use Toley to throw the first three or four innings.
08:15He's throwing 60 to 70 pitches.
08:17You're talking about in September.
08:18Yes.
08:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:20You're not doing that in the playoffs.
08:21No, I think it'd be an option.
08:23I don't think it would be one of your first three picks.
08:25I still think that's going to be Giolito, Bayo, Crochet.
08:28But if Giolito continues his up and down second half, I wouldn't be against this either.
08:32Let him rip for 60 or 70 pitches.
08:34I think his stuff can play up with almost anyone.
08:36And then give him $120 million.
08:38Can we just slow down and let's make sure he can get here and he's ready?
08:41Yes, that's a big part of it, right?
08:42But when you're talking about...
08:43$113 million.
08:44It says a lot that they aren't willing to go to Kyle Harrison.
08:47And I think Alex Cora really told you what he thought of him with his comments the last couple
08:50days just saying, hit or miss, not efficient, can't go beyond five innings.
08:54Well, Peyton Tolley's the real kind of arm that can come up.
08:56He's thrown his last 14 innings.
08:58He's given up one earned run at AAA.
09:00Even that first inning when he got smoked in that first start, he did enough to get out
09:04of that inning.
09:05Tolley can come up right now.
09:06And with his growth with the curveball and the cutter, he has real secondaries with a
09:1070-grade fastball that would be one of the best in the big leagues already.
09:13I'd be willing to take that risk.
09:15It's just protecting the arm.
09:1670-grade, baby.
09:17He'd be one of the best in the majors right now.
09:20So why is he still sitting there?
09:22You know?
09:22Because he just got to AAA.
09:24I know.
09:24I know.
09:25I'm with you.
09:26I'm picturing David Price in 2008 coming out of the pen for the Rays back in the night.
09:30Oh, yes.
09:32Sale.
09:33Crochet.
09:33Your own teammate.
09:34You can go and talk to that guy about what it was like.
09:36Look at this guy.
09:37I can't get enough of how his physical appearance is so awesome.
09:41My God, I can't wait for him to do no wrong once he gets up here.
09:44No, I can't.
09:44I can't wait until I get mashed up with a song for him.
09:48But that's why he's different than Chris Sale and Crochet.
09:51He has already grown into that body.
09:53Go look at Crochet in 2020.
09:54He looks like Chris Sale.
09:56Like, Peyton Tolley's body is already fully built.
09:59Wait, no, no, no.
09:59Peyton Tolley, there's no way he was skinny at any point.
10:02No.
10:03He's a horror.
10:04That's what I'm saying, though.
10:05Crochet and Sale.
10:06That's a body type you are born with, baby.
10:09Peyton Tolley took years to put that muscle on.
10:12So, listen, everybody, if you haven't seen Peyton Tolley pitch for Worcester
10:16against Jacksonville, right?
10:18When was this?
10:19When was this game?
10:20How many days ago?
10:22Three.
10:22Three days ago?
10:24You got to see this kid.
10:25I mean, it's awesome.
10:28It is ridiculous.
10:30It'd be great if you had the nickname Meat.
10:32Let's give it to him.
10:34Come on, Meat.
10:35You're up.
10:36Meat.
10:36Get Meat up in the pen.
10:37Meat Tolley.
10:38They got to get this kid up here.
10:40Peyton Tollhouse.
10:42I like it.
10:43I like it.
10:44Tollhouse.
10:45He calls him the piglet.
10:46You got the pig and Garrett Crochet.
10:47Never mind.
10:48Nope.
10:49Nope.
10:49Wrong.
10:50Wrong.
10:51Love, Lou.
10:51That's not a better one.
10:52I don't like that.
10:53We're calling Crochet the pig, and we have another six.
10:55We're not.
10:56Lou jinxed him against Baltimore last week.
10:58We're mad at Lou.
11:00We're mad at Lou for that one.
11:02But doesn't that excite you, the fact that you have a chance to have Crochet, Bayo, both
11:06age 26, and then Tolley, who's rising up and looking like one of the best pitching
11:10prospects in the sport?
11:11Way more excited about Tolley than I am Bayo, as great as Bayo has been.
11:15Even if Bayo's just a number three and Tolley becomes that number two, it doesn't matter
11:19either way.
11:19Just his presence, man.
11:21He's just walking up to my feet.
11:23I could get on board with this, watching this every five days for the next decade.
11:30113 right now.
11:31Give it to him now.
11:33Right now.
11:34Is he done?
11:35Did you enjoy the Walker Bueller bullpen experience, Tim McCone?
11:40Oh, he blows, man.
11:41He stinks.
11:41He's throwing seven pitches out of the bullpen.
11:44Who the hell does that?
11:46He sucks.
11:46Genuinely.
11:47Like, that is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life.
11:49A starter that gets moved to the bullpen.
11:51They can't pare it down, though.
11:53Tell him to throw the knuckle curve, the four-seamer, and the cutter and get to it.
11:56You're throwing seven pitches, and you think you're going to find consistency in one inning
11:59when you couldn't do it throwing four or five?
12:02That's insane.
12:03What a stupid approach.
12:04Between him and Yoshida, that's $40 million down the drain.
12:12And I understand you want to save money, right?
12:14Like, this is my whole thing.
12:15Again, coming out of this, like, imagine if you went for that one big move at the deadline,
12:20and it would be an indicator that you really think you could do something this year.
12:23And I understand you've got to build for the future.
12:25We talk about this with the Patriots.
12:27Like, we want them all to go get Terry McLaurin.
12:29They're not going to do it.
12:29This is what happens when you go for the value plays.
12:32You get what you pay for, man.
12:33Yeah, and it's like, at some point, the Band-Aid rips off, right?
12:37Or the thing falls apart.
12:38You can only hold it together for so long.
12:40Guys are what they are.
12:40We know what this guy is.
12:42He's not good.
12:44But, like, what else can we do?
12:46That's what we have to roll out there.
12:47Because we did nothing.
12:48Do hit two home runs this offseason with Bregman and Crochet.
12:52Awesome moves.
12:53A's, this dude, though, a complete swing and a miss with Walker Buehler.
12:57Brought nothing to the table.
12:58He's really the only one.
12:59Look at Chapman.
13:00Chapman's the best reliever in baseball this year.
13:02Absolutely.
13:02Narvaez is one of the best finds you could possibly have.
13:05Justin Wilson.
13:06Hit.
13:07Like, all those moves.
13:08And if you're the only one, it's okay.
13:08Chapman, they paid Chapman.
13:10Yeah.
13:10I think they had the best offer.
13:12Did they have the best offer to him?
13:13Yeah.
13:1310-75.
13:14Yeah, they had the best offer.
13:15And so they beat everybody out there.
13:17And that was one they paid for.
13:20They paid the price for him.
13:22And it's paid off.
13:23So they got it right.
13:23I did not think that was going to work out.
13:25No, nobody did.
13:25Not many people did, yeah.
13:26He's been fantastic.
13:27The day they signed him, we were here.
13:29Maz came in.
13:29Maz was like, he sucks.
13:30He blows.
13:32And he's been really freaking out.
13:33I mean, he did not have a good year last year.
13:35But it was $10 million.
13:37That's good money for him.
13:38They got him to have the lowest walk rate of his career.
13:41A guy who that was his biggest bugaboo all those years.
13:44You look going back to 2021.
13:46Like, the last time he was even below.
13:47Who's the biggest bugaboo?
13:48Milliken.
13:49I liked it.
13:49I liked it, too.
13:51I got to be honest with you.
13:52I liked it.
13:54What does that even mean, though?
13:55The bugaboo.
13:56The thing that bugs him.
13:57Problem.
13:57Oh, I love it.
13:58Bugaboo Steakhouse.
13:59Bugaboo Creek.
14:00I'm thinking, yeah.
14:01Are they still a thing?
14:02I don't think so.
14:03I don't think it is.
14:03There's one in Milford that's gone.
14:05It's gone.
14:06Well, then there isn't one in Milford.
14:07I loved it.
14:07Was Bugaboo Creek the one that had, like, the singing moose?
14:10Oh, yeah.
14:10Yeah, Bugaboo Creek, man.
14:12Don't put us in a room.
14:13The 90s chain restaurants, man, they were a thing.
14:15They sure were.
14:16Yeah.
14:17There was one in Braintree.
14:18It's gone.
14:19Bugaboo Creek.
14:21Anyway, I love it.
14:23I love that you used it.
14:24Well, 2016.
14:25Thanks for coming out.
14:26Oh, that's been a long time.
14:28Nearly a decade since the creek was open.
14:30Chapman's ERA this year is .01 lower than Koji Uhara in 2013.
14:34Wow.
14:36Damn.
14:37That one's paid off, but Walker Bueller has not.
14:40That one, not so much.
14:41That was a waste of $21 million.
14:44$21 million.
14:46A guy who seemingly does not give a damn about the pitching lab or what they tell him to do.
14:50He's going to kind of do it his way, and he's shown that he doesn't really believe in whatever instruction they're giving him.
14:55It just never was a match.
14:56It's never worked at all.
14:58I do wonder when Justin Slayton comes back, how are they going to justify this?
15:02Is it just pushing Richard Fitz into the fifth starter role and keeping it that way?
15:06Maybe, but with him out there and Jordan Hicks, those are two guys you're terrified to hand the ball to at any moment.
15:11I still think the thing that will handicap this team is their ability to hit.
15:17That's the thing that's going to hold them back, and that is what I worry about when we get to the playoffs with this team.
15:26They will be in, and I worry about their bats going silent.
15:30I do.
15:31Having games where they can't score runs, where they can't produce, where they just don't run the bases well and make stupid mistakes and don't send the runner from third and all of that.
15:40You're not going to get away with that runners in scoring position problems from Thursday night.
15:44No, you're not.
15:45You're not in the playoffs.
15:46No, you're not.
15:46They've scored three or fewer runs in seven of their last ten.
15:51If you have a stretch where all of a sudden you're not hitting and you can't score and you can't move, strand runners, they're cooked.
15:58They are.
15:59They can't have that happen.
16:00That's my biggest fear for them is their lineup.
16:03It's almost like they could use another bat.
16:05That's the point, yeah.
16:06It's almost like they could use another middle-of-the-order bat.
16:08You're not going to get that.
16:10I wonder where that would have come from.
16:12It's scary to think what this team would have done over the last week without Nathaniel Lowe here, who's seven for 16.
16:18He's been awesome.
16:19Knocking him on every game or setting up the game winning run.
16:21Like, that's not going to last, but it's been great.
16:23Yeah.
16:24It just makes you scared if you didn't have him how bad it would actually be.
16:27Right.
16:28You know, it's an excellent point.
16:30Good job, Breslow.
16:31Picking off the trash heap on that one.
16:33Good job, Bres.
16:34That one paid off, Bres, you effing stiff.
16:37That one did pay off.
16:38He's been, but that's not going to, that's not going to be his level.
16:43That's, you will find no consistency in what he's produced for them to this point.
16:47It's almost like if they had Devers.
16:50They had Rafi Devers in their lineup.
16:52They might, they might score more runs.
16:56Is that a possibility?
16:58Yeah.
16:58Oh, yeah.
16:59Did he really become what I talked about, like, a team that you would fear?
17:03Like, I don't want to play that team in the playoffs.
17:06Like, you got the chance to go in and make some noise.
17:08And, boy, he would, he would help put you over the top.
17:09Well, so.
17:10But something wasn't jiving here.
17:11So, what if you had a bad, what if you had two more months of a bad clubhouse with him?
17:16It wasn't a bad clubhouse.
17:17Just ask the players in it.
17:19They told you it had no impact on it.
17:21David Hamilton.
17:22Beetle, I don't think you were in for this.
17:23Two weeks ago, they asked him when he was down in Worcester about Rafi.
17:26He goes, that was the guy I went to if I ever needed anything.
17:29Anytime I was ever having a problem or I needed to talk to someone, Devers was that guy.
17:33He'll always be my guy for that, like, extremely strong comments, like, showing that whatever narrative there is around Devers, and there isn't much.
17:41We would have gotten more from now.
17:42There wasn't.
17:42The closest thing we've gotten is that he wore headphones in the dugout or in the clubhouse, like, before games.
17:47He wasn't very talkative.
17:48So what?
17:49Who cares?
17:50That's the worst thing anyone said about him or reported about him.
17:53I won't let it go.
17:57I can't let it go.
17:58I cannot let the Devers trade go.
18:00I still, even when they're performing well, I just can't.
18:03I can't.
18:04Because the best piece you got isn't even good enough to come up and take Walker Bueller's spot in the rotation.
18:09I don't even, I'm not even as mad about that as I am mad about them taking him in that bat out of this lineup.
18:14Yeah.
18:14That, to me, is the bigger problem.
18:18Not even the return.
18:18The fact that he's just not in this lineup, and if he was in this lineup, as this team has come together and gelled and grown, that they would be a better team for it.
18:27They would.
18:28They'd be a better team right now.
18:31And they're playing well.
18:32And they're in a good spot.
18:34And so maybe it would have come together the way it was predicted to have come together prior to the start of the year.
18:39Maybe.
18:40That's all.
18:41Yeah.
18:42Just have a hard time letting it go.
18:43But here's something else that I think should be a big takeaway of the weekend.
18:46Who in the American League truly scares you?
18:48That this team can't hang with.
18:52Nobody.
18:54That's like my point of like, why did they have a shot?
18:55And I think that's what you just started talking about a little bit.
18:57Yeah.
18:58And you're like, okay, what do you mean?
18:59Contender to do what?
19:00To win the whole thing?
19:01Who knows?
19:03Like, this is the type of year where, holy crap, you actually have a chance if you stay healthy for another month and just win the games you're supposed to win.
19:11You said it last week.
19:13They got some room here.
19:15They can do some things.
19:16They can relax a little bit.
19:18The big thing is they responded last week, and that's good.
19:21But you look at the way that, like, New York plays.
19:23I don't know how you could consider the Yankees legit contenders based on the way that they play baseball.
19:28I don't know how you're going to win consistently in the postseason with making some of the errors that they do.
19:34They haven't.
19:35They haven't.
19:35Like, at the beginning of June, everybody around here is talking about firing Cora.
19:39What's going on down there?
19:40Like, how does that guy still have a gig?
19:43You know, thinking of blown opportunities they've had over the years.
19:46Who's the one team they haven't had success against?
19:48The Tigers?
19:50This year?
19:50They haven't played them much.
19:53I don't even know if they have a win against them.
19:55When was that series?
19:56That was in May, I think.
20:02Yeah, right.
20:03Middle of May.
20:04Middle of May.
20:06Yep.
20:06And they lost.
20:07Oh, you're a different team now, too.
20:08They lost two of those in walk-off fashion.
20:11Those were.
20:11So that's it.
20:12You got one team.
20:13There's nobody there.
20:13There's one team, and it's the Tigers, that you haven't had any success against in the playoff field.
20:19Everyone else you have.
20:20You've had at least some limited success against everybody.
20:24Tigers are the one team.
20:26So there you go.
20:27They can hang with these teams.
20:29If they're playing well, if they're going through one of their good stretches.
20:32A lot of positive things about the Red Sox this morning.

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