00:02Good morning, 97.1 WBC's in the books. Venezuela takes down the U.S.
00:10Tarek Skubel in uniform in the dugout watching. Should he have been pitching? Are you mad at
00:15Skubel? And part two, is this city turning on him? Because the way he's being discussed,
00:20it feels that way. Yeah, and it's not one thing. It's a culmination of things. It's
00:28a frustration with him because he is so damn good. And the weird thing about this is, hey,
00:37he's been the best pitcher in the American League for two years running. And last year
00:42was even better than the year before. He's our guy. But it's frustrating because he won't
00:52pitch over 100 pitches through the regular season, almost ever. And you get to the sixth
01:00inning of a series deciding game. And he comes out and then in the seventh inning and then
01:09it's reported, well, you know, we didn't want him to face this other batter. Like he's the
01:12best pitcher in the American League. That's the guy you either win or you lose with. And
01:18I don't even know if I would have these feelings. And I think a lot of people are very similar
01:23in their feeling of Tarek Skubel where they know he's great, but they're frustrated because
01:29he came out and the Tigers ended up losing. It's the frustration that it feels like Scott
01:36Boris is running the show. And I've said it a number of times. I know other shows have said
01:42it as well. The agent works for you. You need to be the boss. You need to be the one
01:49that
01:49directs everything. And it doesn't feel now. We don't know all the ins and outs. We're not
01:54in those conversations, but it feels like Tarek Skubel isn't standing up for himself and
02:02setting the parameters for Scott Boris. If he wanted to be here, I believe we would already
02:07have a deal done. And he has all the right in the world to get to free agency and go
02:13to the highest bidder, which we know won't be the Detroit Tigers. So that adds to the
02:17frustration. And then the way that this entire thing plays out, right? He comes into Detroit
02:24for a guy's sports weekend and he's endearing himself to the city and doing all these things.
02:31And it's still the contract things are going on, the arbitration. And there's plenty of blame
02:35on both sides. But then you get to the WBC and he comes out and pitches against Great
02:43Britain for three innings, goes back to Lakeland. And then he says, well, maybe I want to pitch
02:53again. I don't know. I need to talk to my advisors. And then his advisors tell him not
02:58to pitch. So he doesn't pitch. And then you get to the championship game on the heels of
03:08another great pitcher from Pittsburgh who also has, and I understand why he pitched because
03:16he's got the, you know, he was in the Air Force Academy and, but then you get to the championship
03:22game and McLean is on the mound and you all, you just wanted the best pitcher available.
03:28And he was in the dugout wearing his Dylan Larkin Jersey. It's frustrating. And the word that I have
03:37for him is if you're the best and you want to keep proving you're the best, then don't be soft.
03:43I thought it was soft that he didn't pitch in that game. I thought it was soft that he didn't
03:49go out
03:50and pitch in the seventh inning. And I think that's the worst thing that you could ever say to
03:55an athlete, a competitive athlete. And, and it's also on the heels of what we saw him do in Cleveland,
04:00the fist pump, the gotta have it. It just, there's a cognitive dissonance going on with how we are
04:10feeling about Tarek Scooble. So you don't use that word lightly. So when you texted it last night,
04:16I said, Oh, you better say it on the air. And I know you mean it when you say it
04:19Scooble soft
04:23because you wanted him to have the baseball last night. If you're going to be there in the dugout,
04:27I get how it would irk people going to just take the baseball and go win the game at the
04:32same time,
04:32John.
04:36The issue was they couldn't score any runs. No, I know. Yeah. But don't you want to have a pitcher
04:40on the mound that doesn't let up any runs? No, I know. He's not infallible.
04:43I'm not blaming Scooble for the fact that team USA didn't win the world baseball classic. I'd much
04:48rather point the finger at Aaron judge three strikeouts or the offense at large for not
04:52showing up. But then I, I don't also want to get overly worked up for something that's a watered
04:57down tournament. If you enjoyed watching it, I'm not telling you like what, what to think or how to
05:02feel. It's a watered down tournament. It's awkwardly placed before the season. Many of the top
05:07arms didn't throw in this tournament, including Scooble's teammate from her Valdez didn't pitch for the
05:13Dominican. Nobody brings that up. I get it. We're not doing radio in the Dominican. It's
05:18not Santo Domingo, the ticket, but John, even other great American pitchers gear crochet was
05:23nowhere to be found. Max freed Dylan cease, right? Jacob's the gram. And I don't know the
05:29history, the history with Eric Scooble here. Yeah. Is. And I think it really all goes back
05:34to game five. Yeah. The sixth inning of what happened in the dugout, but let's, let's talk
05:40about that a little more because I do feel like the city's turning on Tarek Scooble and
05:44at the same time, he's the biggest reason this team has made the playoffs the last two
05:49years. There's a 500 baseball team when he doesn't play and they're 22 games over 500
05:54when he pitches that game to which we circle back to, he set a record that day and no one
06:00has brought it up since the game. He struck out more batters in a winner take all postseason
06:05game than any pitcher in baseball history. And I'm probably breaking that news to a lot
06:09of our listeners right now because it's gone in one year and out the other. Did I want him
06:14to take the ball in the seventh? Hell yes, I did. But I think things are swinging a little
06:18too far the other way where people are turning on a player who's at the centerpiece of a world
06:24series run this season. Like John, I know people are mad at pitch count. That's a bigger issue
06:31than Tarek. He was fourth in baseball in innings pitched a year ago. Your issue isn't really
06:36with Scooble. Your issue is with Major League Baseball. It is. And my issue is still with
06:41Scooble. And yes, there's a lot of compounding factors and it is with Major League Baseball,
06:46but at a gotta have it moment, where was he? And that's the issue that I have is you're the
06:56best pitcher in the American League. And we needed you for one more inning, as we think,
07:03right? And it could have been, hey, well, he didn't come out for the eighth. All right. But it's
07:09whatever you've needed him the most, it feels like he hasn't been that ultimate competitor
07:16to stand up and be there when you needed him. I get why that emotion is there. We're saying that
07:23about a guy who set a record with punch outs in an elimination game and pitched one run baseball
07:28in a gotta have it spot. Could he not get two more? I wanted him to pitch the seventh to.
07:32So I
07:32get where you're coming from and I get why people feel the way they do. I think you can be
07:36upset in
07:36that moment. But some of the calls yesterday to the midday show, to our afternoon show, the city's
07:43turning on our best player in a gotta have it season. And maybe it's as simple as it just feels
07:51like
07:53he doesn't really want to be here. And I know he did the tour of Detroit and I know that
07:59he's
08:00going to go out and he's going to give it his best when he's on the mound. But because he
08:06has
08:07all of these things are compounding. It's not just one thing. I guess because it's not that I think
08:12the guy's perfect. Like I, some of this annoys and irks me too. The thing that probably bothers me
08:17the most is the one foot in, one foot out. Yeah. The half wet Tarek Scooble this, this
08:22spring. You're in or you're out. You're on the team or you're not.
08:28That's the, and I, from that standpoint, I think public relations wise, this has been a
08:32nightmare for him. He's done himself no favors. Go be Garrett Crochet. Who, by the way, had a ton
08:36of strikeouts last year is as close to Scooble as there is in the American league for the Red
08:39Sox. Are they bitching about the fact that Crochet didn't pitch last night in Boston?
08:45I don't think so. Cause he isn't giving it any oxygen, right? He wasn't on the team. He
08:48wasn't in the dugout. Let's go to the phones. Two, four, eight, five, three, nine, 97, 97.
08:52We'll do that immediately. Next 97 one. Hey, you want to know.
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