00:00The Braves last night did get the victory 3-2.
00:02I mentioned it earlier, the Matt Olsen home run in the ninth inning
00:06was what capped it off.
00:07I wanted to focus in on one thing, though, about this game
00:11that really caught my attention.
00:15Let's start with Dylan Lee because I'm watching him throw.
00:19He has a clean, completely clean seventh inning,
00:23and he gets three strikeouts.
00:27I think whenever you see an elite reliever, his ERA is now 102.
00:32I think you look at that and go, man, that's all-star caliber stuff.
00:35A guy like that that's a middle reliever that's a 102 ERA,
00:38that's all-star caliber stuff.
00:40The problem being is that now you go to Robert Suarez,
00:44who's got a .57 ERA, and Rysel Iglesias, fresh off the injured list,
00:48who has six saves and 0-0-0 ERA.
00:52What's your definition of a middle reliever?
00:55Somebody who's not a setup man, not a closer, but not a starting pitcher.
00:59Okay.
01:00They can be a specialist.
01:01They can be an extended guy that's going to come in and pitch through,
01:04but essentially not a setup man, not a closer,
01:06not somebody that's going to rack up holds or whatever,
01:09but somebody who you can be flexible fifth, sixth, seventh inning.
01:12Because I think Dylan Lee, depending on the matchup,
01:17could come in in a hold situation as well.
01:20Oh, 100%.
01:20And I think that what you have is you have three guys this year
01:25that are having, now maybe Dylan Lee less because his ERA is over one,
01:30and when you get to the actual innings, it means he has had moments.
01:34But you have three guys that on any given night,
01:39you go to the ninth inning and be like, you know what?
01:41I need the lefty.
01:42I agree.
01:43And that's the point I'm kind of building up to,
01:45is that I think in any other situation you look at Dylan Lee
01:47and say he's had an all-star caliber year.
01:48The problem is that his two teammates that are also relievers
01:51are probably having better seasons, which is insane to think about.
01:56Yeah, and they all do it.
01:57I mean, Iggy does it differently than the other two.
02:02Like, Iglesias is a pitch-to-contact guy.
02:05He might get a strikeout here and there.
02:09But, like, I mean, he had two last night, but he also gave up a base hit.
02:12Yeah.
02:13Right?
02:13Yeah.
02:13And then he got the last guy to ground to Ozzie.
02:18He is, though, a – he is more of a contact-out kind of guy.
02:25And I think, you know, traditionally Suarez and Lee are probably going to get you
02:29to swing and miss a little bit more.
02:30Yeah.
02:31I don't think there's any doubt about that, but I get so excited.
02:34But, as we kind of mentioned earlier, like, this ability to shorten the games
02:39for Walt Weiss with three – I'm going to call them elite.
02:42I'm going to flush the first half of Ricell from last season.
02:46I'm going to flush that down.
02:47I'm going to call all three of these guys elite at what they're doing.
02:49And, look, I mean, I can talk about, you know, nods as far as all-star games go
02:56and what the matchups are.
02:57The bottom line is that when you have three at the back end,
02:59and you're just essentially – if you're getting a dominating night
03:02like you did from Bryce Elder last night, you're shortening this game.
03:06And it's going to pay dividends, massive dividends in the long run, in my opinion.
03:10So, it's just beautiful to see.
03:12We've talked a number of times.
03:13Was it the Royals 10 years ago that made that World Series run?
03:17They had the kid that actually they drafted come straight up from college
03:19and start pitching in the seventh inning.
03:21Well, they went to back-to-back.
03:23Yeah.
03:23And they won the second.
03:24The first one was the Bumgarner World Series where he pitched, like,
03:30he closed it out.
03:32Remember, he was the MVP in the awkward truck.
03:35Oh, my gosh.
03:36It's got all the coolest technology and stuff.
03:38Yeah.
03:39Yeah.
03:40Yeah.
03:40But, dude, look, that's why I think what's –
03:46we have so much emphasis in the offseason about what we didn't do.
03:51Rightfully so.
03:52You didn't go add the rotation.
03:57You added Haeson Kim essentially last year, but then you had to re-sign him.
04:04The big moves were Suarez and Dubon.
04:07And you were sitting here like, we didn't do anything.
04:10Suarez, yeah, but we're not even going to use him as a closer.
04:14And now you look at it where your back of your bullpen is legit,
04:18feels that way through a month.
04:21But Dubon is having the career year from the plate,
04:27and your rotation is a little bit better than first thought.
04:31And now you've had to supplement it with some young guys like Fuentes
04:34and Richie and then take a veteran that was essentially off the street
04:40and Perez and voila.
04:45So it's kind of – but the bullpen thing is crazy
04:48because it's so much better than you expected.
04:50And you've been – and Walt Weiss's usage, his willingness to change a plan.
04:57Grant Holmes was supposed to be the starter.
05:00I want to win this series.
05:01I'm going to put Perez in there.
05:03That's the way I saw it.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Or I'm going to use Perez out of the bullpen today
05:07because I need to win this game.
05:08I'm with you.
05:09I'm with you on that.
05:10And, man, it's just exciting to watch.
05:12And we spent a lot of the morning giving kudos to Matt Olsen.
05:15You missed it off the top of the show.
05:16I made the proclamation.
05:17And this is just for me.
05:18Nobody else has to follow this.
05:20But I'm not even going to bring up Freddie's name.
05:22Even if I'm talking to Matt Olsen haters,
05:25I am going to let Matt Olsen, in my view, in my comments,
05:30in my analysis, stand on his own two feet with his career in the Braves.
05:34I think we owe him that.
05:35I think the city owes him that.
05:37I think he has earned that.
05:39And to not always be mentioned in the same breath as a Freddie Freeman.
05:44Now, are there going to be the detractors?
05:46Are you going to get the loud 10% that say,
05:48well, it'll never be Freddie until he wins a World Series
05:50or he's not MVP, whatever, whatever.
05:53But the bottom line is the man has earned his right.
05:56As a guy who not only is a great Atlanta Brave at this point,
05:59but somebody else who's from this area, from this city,
06:01I think he deserves the right from me, from my perspective,
06:04to not always compare him or even bring up his name to answer haters
06:07in the light of a Freddie Freeman.
06:10Well, it's old.
06:11And I noticed how many people have jumped on the bandwagon this year.
06:15I mean, he's five years in, and it's all of a sudden,
06:18let's jump on the bandwagon.
06:22It's kind of funny.
06:23And you look at his career here, he's been the best player year in
06:30and year out for the five years for the Braves.
06:34It's easy to look at Ronnie because of the MVP year in 23,
06:38but if you look at Matt's year, he had a pretty good year that year too.
06:42And then don't worry about the other two years that, you know,
06:45Ronnie wasn't able to play as much because of the injuries, unfortunately.
06:48You know, Ozzie's been a mess the last two years.
06:52He's all of a sudden on track.
06:54Austin Riley's been a mess the last two years too.
06:57He's still kind of a mess.
06:59So, like, you look at it top to bottom, it's been Matt Olsen, man.
07:03He's been the only consistent in this lineup day in and day out for the most part.
07:08Yeah.
07:08I completely agree with you there, man.
07:10He's been so much fun to watch.
07:11I do want to keep one of these conversations going.
07:14We did for which one Wednesday.
07:15We're doing the mailbag coming up around 845 if you want to call in and weigh on.
07:19If you want to get at us at 929MorningShift on Twitter,
07:23I asked Bo and Dylan the question.
07:26If I gave you Matt Olsen or the combination of Ronald Acuna and Austin Riley,
07:32who hits more home runs this year,
07:34what is your belief level in those other two guys that they'll eventually be able to get it going?
07:37Or Matt Olsen, possibly with an MVP caliber season getting into the 50s?
07:41We'll have that conversation ongoing, nonetheless, heading into the morning mailbag.
07:46All right.
07:46We got to move on.
07:47We're going to go to break.
07:48When we come back, the college football playoff is back in the conversation.
07:52The AFCA, the American Football Coaches Association,
07:56dropping recommendations for an expanded playoff
07:59and for the loss of conference championship games.
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