00:00Never in the game. That's the phrase used by Rod Wood to describe the Lions pursuit of top free agents.
00:07It also could have been used to describe last night's baseball game. Yeah, it's a tough start. We'll get to
00:12the Rod Wood comments, but you guys are waiting on hold want to talk about JV's re debut and some
00:17of the emotions of that, right? We're excited. I stayed up late one to see the first couple innings. And
00:22I was reminded that this is a different Justin Verlander. This is 43 year old Justin Verlander, not the guy
00:27from my memories, right?
00:30And it was kind of one of those nights, too, where you're like, OK, gives up two in the first.
00:33You're like, all right, maybe he's just finding his groove. Yeah, he always got to settle down. And all of
00:38a sudden that is three in the second. You're like, well, but the JV from your memory and they even
00:44mentioned it early in the broadcast. Like, yeah, he's probably not going to be the Cy Young guy from. Oh,
00:49no. Or the MVP guy from 2011 and 2012. Yeah, he's not pumping 100 miles an hour and dropping the
00:54curveball off the table. He's throwing 94 and he's got that dive bomb slider.
00:59But if it stays in the zone, yeah, gets crushed. And Corbin Carroll had a couple big hits on him.
01:04Let's get to the phones. Let's go to. Troy in Ferndale, you're on 97 one. Hey, it's Tony in Ferndale.
01:11I'm good, though. How's it going? That's bad. I do. What's up? Good. Hey, Justin Verlander. Look, you know, again,
01:20it would have been awesome to see him pipe 100 down and everything you just said, Jim. But, you know,
01:25I think I'll speak for myself.
01:27I was not expecting that from him. It was going to be nice to see him back. And, you know,
01:32I'm going to the game next Sunday night. It's going to be electric when he walks out there and everything.
01:36But I think the real conversation with the Tigers, already a glaring problem, is where are the bats? We have
01:43this consistent issue where we just strike out. Look at Riley Green last night.
01:48We had Spencer Torkelson striking out last night in moments early in the game when they still could have fought
01:54back with guys on base. So I don't know if this is going to be a reoccurring issue with strikeouts,
02:00specifically with Riley Green. If Riley Green keeps striking out, if he is not the player we want him to
02:06be, I think maybe getting on the horn when it comes to trade deadline time with Riley Green in mind
02:12might be our best interest.
02:13I don't see it because, again, as a team trying to chase down a World Series, you're probably not trading
02:1830 home run guys, flaws and all. And I'm not telling you Riley doesn't have a strikeout issue. He's admitted
02:24he has a strikeout issue.
02:25But, Tony, I'm glad you brought this up because we hadn't discussed it and it was a late night game
02:30and maybe people didn't realize. Tigers struck out, was it 14 times yesterday? And they had an immaculate inning against
02:37them. A nine pitch, three strikeout frame in the fifth.
02:42Where Torres struck out, Karp struck out, and Baez struck out. All swinging.
02:54It's frustrating because yesterday we were talking about Kerry Carpenter and the fact that, again, it was four strikeouts for
03:05him yesterday.
03:06Now, he finally did put bat to ball, but it's been one through, what, four games.
03:14And it's, yeah, there are 14 strikeouts. It's way too many.
03:20And you're going to, but on the bright side, Cole Keith still breaking.
03:25McGonagall didn't get much yesterday. A couple walks.
03:28He got on base twice.
03:30Sure.
03:30He didn't strike out notably.
03:31Correct.
03:33And so it's, it's, you need those other bats to start producing.
03:38Let's get to Linda in Kalamazoo. Linda, good morning.
03:42Good morning, gentlemen.
03:43Yeah, it was kind of an emotional night for me last night.
03:47I, I didn't have, you know, a disappointing expectation for Justin.
03:52Justin, I just figured whatever's going to happen will happen, but it was very emotional because the last day that
03:59he pitched as a Tiger in 2017 was the last full day of life for my cat, Oscar.
04:07And he died of cancer.
04:08And my fiance and I train our cats to be sociable.
04:13And so all of our cats, including the ones we have now, all recognized the theme songs for the sports
04:21teams and all the voices that related to them and so forth.
04:24And, and when he was pitching, he came out and he was, he was so happy to see him pitch.
04:30He'd roll around on the floor and just have a good time.
04:33And then a friend of ours who also had cancer passed away after the trade to Houston.
04:39And I talked to him and I said, what'd you think?
04:41And he said, I was bummed out.
04:42I said, yeah, we all are, but we wish him the best and hope he wins the world series.
04:46And he did.
04:49Yeah.
04:49I mean, a lot has happened since that Justin Verlander deal.
04:53It feels like, you know, a baseball lifetime for him has passed.
04:56I'm sorry to hear about, you know, the death of the cat.
05:00Lifetimes have passed.
05:00Yeah.
05:01I mean, they, they brought up just how long it's been since Justin Verlander pitched for the Tigers.
05:07And you go through the emotions of where you were in your life at that time.
05:11Right.
05:11I mean, we talked about this when he signed that, you know, people grew up.
05:16While he was here, you know, you went from a point where, you know, I was in high school
05:21and college for a good chunk of Verlander's career.
05:24You know, I mean, people, their dad took him to the game and now they have kids and are
05:28taking their dad to the game.
05:29Yeah.
05:30In terms of text and what people thought, I'm glad the organization decided to prioritize
05:35bringing back a dinosaur just to sell tickets during a season.
05:39It's a cool story rather than actual pitcher who can help us win.
05:44I think there's, there's still going to be some good performances by JV.
05:48Good enough to get wins.
05:50What did you think would happen?
05:52We saw a full supply of breaking balls with zero gas.
05:58Guys, it's what he was doing in the spring.
06:00I'm not surprised JV had that type of outing.
06:03It's his first start of the season.
06:05He's a veteran.
06:06He's going to take some time to ramp up.
06:07Anybody freaking out needs to simmer down, give it till at least May or June before anybody
06:12complains about Verlander.
06:14This isn't 2012 JV.
06:16Relax, Randy and Livonia.
06:18Yeah.
06:18You're talking about a guy in the back end.
06:20Take the name out of it.
06:21You're talking about a guy on the back end of your rotation.
06:26You're going to get some of these performances from the back end of your rotation.
06:30Now, if this is how you saw it from Scooble on first start or Framber on his first start.
06:40Okay.
06:40Now, hey, let's panic.
06:42I'm not going to panic with.
06:46I'm not going to panic about anybody's first game or first start, but this is anticipated.
06:52People are anticipating Verlander.
06:53So you are met with a mixture of emotions when you see him in the old English D again.
06:58And that was a sad performance.
07:00That doesn't mean it will be a sad season.
07:02I don't even think it means Sunday when he's back at Comerica Park will be sad.
07:05I mean, people are going to be excited to welcome him back to the city.
07:09But for a night where you stayed up late, it's disappointing.
07:12Yeah, of course it is.
07:14Texas, you guys definitely overhyped his return here.
07:17He's been washed for years.
07:19He's never won anything in the playoffs.
07:21Typical Detroit crap.
07:22Everybody holding on to nothing.
07:25I don't think we overhyped it.
07:27No, I believe we even said it's more than nostalgia,
07:30but he's a number four or number five.
07:32Yeah.
07:33Which is all I believe to this day that he's expected to be.
07:37Yes.
07:37I don't expect any more.
07:39And he was useful at the end of last season.
07:43He was good the second half of the season.
07:46They weren't going to bring him in until Reese Olsen got hurt.
07:49They weren't just doing this to do this.
07:51Well, and he even said that, hey, after the season, I called up Scott Harris and they said,
07:54ah, you know, but let's hit the brakes on this.
07:57And then he identified, hey, they had an injury on the staff.
08:01And that's when the talks got going.
08:04It wasn't until somebody went down and they're like, well, we're going to need somebody in the four or five
08:09spot.
08:10And so JV is that guy.
08:13Tech says Costa always moves the cat calls to the front of the queue.
08:16It's not fair to other callers.
08:21We have open lines.
08:22You can talk JV.
08:23We're going to talk Lions next.
08:25Quote, never in the game on top free agents.
08:27Are there priorities off base?
08:29It's 97.1.
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