00:00I want to start with Cincinnati, who actually holds on to the tiebreaker right now.
00:04If the postseason ended on Monday morning, the Cincinnati Reds would be in the postseason over the New York Mets.
00:11The Reds are hot.
00:13Again, they just swept the Cubs in Cincinnati over the weekend.
00:16They've won five in a row.
00:17They're four games over 500 at 80 and 76.
00:21The pitching has been unbelievable to watch.
00:25They need a superstar to step up.
00:27Dave Roberts said beautifully in a conversation with Bob Costas I saw over the weekend.
00:34The postseason is about people.
00:36It's about players.
00:37And they need their superstar to be better than he is right now.
00:41Eli De La Cruz, don't look now, but over the last two, three months, has been pretty darn disappointing for Cincinnati.
00:48I want to see Eli De La Cruz even just start the lighter.
00:51Like, let's just get a spark out of the lighter here so I know that you can catch fire once October rolls around.
00:58Yeah, because I think it's unrealistic to say, oh, well, we need the entire offense to be about 10, 15 percent better.
01:05Right.
01:05And I think Steer has come alive.
01:07I think that's been really encouraging to see.
01:08I think you've seen Tyler Stevenson come up with some big swings and like these are all complimentary guys.
01:15There's one guy on this team that has the potential to take over a series or take over, you know, a ball game in a way that a baseball player can, which is very difficult to do in general.
01:25And it's Eli De La Cruz with the power, with the speed, with all the different things that he can do.
01:31And at a 107 WRC plus on the season, right, 772 OPS, it's just not good enough to propel a team that has had some offensive challenges.
01:42It's a propel a team that added at the deadline by getting a glove first third baseman, right?
01:47Like that addition hasn't been bad.
01:50He's been solid for them and Cabrian Hayes.
01:52But I think looking at it from that perspective, who is the guy that can ignite this offense?
01:56It's Eli De La Cruz.
01:57So I think that's the dude you got a circle.
02:00And then beyond that, I got all the faith in the world in the rotation.
02:04My other burning question is what is Chase Burns, the reliever, look like?
02:07And can he actually be a late inning weapon for them right now?
02:10It seems like they're just trying to get his feet wet in there.
02:12He hasn't fully looked comfortable in relief yet, but he also is coming off of a long layoff.
02:17So that could be more of the issue.
02:19But if Burns can kind of supplant Connor Phillips as your setup guy right now, I think that would make me feel a lot better.
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