00:00It was a phenomenal performance. A lot of people kept using the term vintage DeGrom like they're Michael Cole or
00:07something like that.
00:08But let's talk about the Texas Rangers weekend that was, as we say goodbye to the Cubs, hello to the
00:15Diamondbacks.
00:16I have to admit, after Friday's game, I was like, oh, crap.
00:21Because not only did you lose, but for the second straight time, you got absolutely hammered.
00:29Because you got destroyed by the Yankees on your way out of town.
00:33And then the Cubs were on fire when they roll in.
00:35And so you're looking at those two games on Thursday and Friday, and you're like, okay, not only did we
00:41lose, we lost 16-3.
00:42And you did not feel, obviously, particularly competitive in them.
00:46And so I'm like, man, I am nervous about all of this.
00:50And now you're four games under .500.
00:53Worse, you've been all season long.
00:55I know it's just two games, but I was really worried that you were going to finish out that series
00:59with the Cubs and feel like everything was spiraling out of control.
01:02And I know those two games don't alone make or break your season.
01:07But, man, oh, man, getting those two wins and excellent pitching performances to get you, not at, but close to
01:16.500 at the end of the 40 games that we talk so much about, we probably will again later,
01:21it helped me relax so much more.
01:24Did seeing Josh Young kind of stay where he's been also help you out, too?
01:32Because him getting up to the plate, I just see a confident hitter right now.
01:36Oh, for sure.
01:36And so that's making me feel good that if he's – I know this can't last all season.
01:41It's hard to keep that up all season, but where he is, that baseline for him, if other people can
01:48just come up a little bit, you know, that makes me feel more confident.
01:51But, yeah, Kevin, we know the pitching is supposed to be solid.
01:54It's the rest of the things that can go into creating that.
01:57And the defense we've talked about, the last couple years since the World Series, the defense has been one of
02:03the other things that's carried these teams.
02:05And then the other night, as you said, Friday night, it was the – when Corey Seager and Foskey run
02:12into each other, I was like, it's a clown show right now.
02:15This is bad.
02:16The discipline's not there anymore.
02:18And that's when I started getting concerned.
02:20I feel like maybe that was a wake-up call for the team.
02:23Yeah.
02:23And there was probably some talks after that game that were like, all right.
02:27And they turned it back a different way on Saturday and Sunday.
02:31Now, keep this up.
02:32You have a stretch here that's very important for you.
02:34Didn't seem to be a wake-up call for Corey Seager, though, did it?
02:37Well, Kevin, we might have to face a reality with him.
02:41Yeah, let me ask you a question.
02:43I have concerns.
02:44Okay, if you think this is another conversation for another day, we're fourth of the way through the season.
02:51Are you more excited about Josh Young, who – like, to your point, I'm not saying for sure he's going
03:00to hit 330 all season and win the batting title.
03:03I think right now he's second.
03:04But are you more excited about Josh Young or more concerned about Corey Seager?
03:10Because if we're talking about, hey, Josh Young has been phenomenal a quarter of the way through the season.
03:14Corey Seager, then, a quarter of the way through the season is hitting below 200.
03:18It's poor.
03:19And he was awful against the Cubs.
03:20Yeah.
03:21I think you talk about the excitement for Josh Young.
03:25I might be more excited that Jock Peterson's contributing the way that he is the last few games.
03:29Like, there's part of me that's like, oh, my gosh, that's happening.
03:32Josh Young is like, okay, I need you to play that way.
03:35Like, that's kind of an expectation for me is you should be hitting like that if you are a guy
03:40who won a World Series and is a starting third baseman in Major League Baseball.
03:44You need to be playing at that level.
03:46So the Corey Seager thing is the biggest concern.
03:49And the concern is where his head is.
03:53You know, he's up there swinging to crush the ball.
03:56He has a hard swing.
03:57And he's not connecting, dude.
04:00And there's something about where his hands are right now that just isn't working for me.
04:05Okay.
04:06But also, Kevin, I'll also add in this.
04:08Your boy.
04:10Alejandro Osuna.
04:11Yeah, baby.
04:12Providing some much fun spark to this team.
04:16And I'm really glad that you said that because the other thing about Osuna that I've really liked is, does
04:22it not feel like he's been involved, whether on the base pass or at the plate, and then also that
04:29one time in the outfield, in key plays that have kind of tipped the game?
04:33Now I realize that one in the outfield did not tip the game in the right dynamic whatsoever.
04:37But it feels like he's been around or up in a lot of these scenarios.
04:43And him and Jock Peterson over the weekend, they had some vibes going on.
04:48It was like, hey, let's keep driving you in.
04:50And that was pretty cool.
04:52A couple things.
04:53You might not bring these up from the game yesterday specifically.
04:57Sure.
04:58Yesterday's game specifically disagreed with the Josh Young being safe at home.
05:03Oh.
05:04I thought he was out.
05:05But I understand how they're like, it was too, you know, too kind of a close thing.
05:09Bang, bang.
05:09Also then disagreed with Danny Jansen being out at first.
05:12So I was like, both of those should not have happened.
05:15But you make that trade because you're like, well, I know the one got me the run.
05:18Yeah, I got the run out of one of them.
05:19So that's perfectly fine.
05:21But then the other thing, too, was when I saw that Jacob Latz went in for the eighth inning, I
05:27said, oh, it's our two inning closer.
05:31Oh, man.
05:34Oh, that is interesting.
05:36That's exactly what I thought was, oh, we're sending this dude in because, what did he call him, the silent
05:41assassin?
05:42Is that what Skip called him the other day?
05:44When he went in, I was just like, oh, this is what Latz does.
05:47Get him in for two innings and shut this thing down.
05:48Let's go home.
05:49And that's where I am right now with my confidence in Jacob Latz.
05:53Like, first off, that conversation we had with him at spring training really opened up with the way I see
05:58he thinks a lot.
06:00Man, this is his second multi-inning save.
06:03Fascinating.
06:04And again, not like he had a six-run lead.
06:07Sure.
06:07Not like he had a whole lot of room.
06:09He had to make sure he shut it down.
06:13That was awesome.
06:13But seeing DeGrom and the way DeGrom handled business yesterday, that was one of those games that, was it,
06:21Ballesteros could not catch up with the high fastball from DeGrom.
06:24And DeGrom was like, I keep striking you out with it.
06:27It's awesome.
06:27Good pitching performance.
06:28Yes, a lot of confidence, Kevin, heading into this stretch of this schedule right now.
06:33So, Jacob DeGrom hit 1,900 career strikeouts in the second fewest games in the second fewest innings in Major
06:41League Baseball history.
06:42Though he does not trail the same person.
06:44In terms of games, he's behind only Randy Johnson.
06:48Randy Johnson got to 1,900 strikeouts four games sooner.
06:51In terms of innings, he trails Chris Sale.
06:54Chris Sale did it 17 innings faster than Jacob DeGrom.
06:59But, yeah, seven scoreless.
07:01There's no excuse for not winning a game.
07:05Well, and luckily, you didn't have to make an excuse because they did win the game.
07:08But there's never going to be an excuse if you were to lose a game where you get seven scoreless
07:12innings from your pitcher.
07:13Interesting thing that I learned, courtesy of Jared Sandler.
07:18Ever since Jacob DeGrom came to the Rangers, he has pitched in the rubber game of the series six times.
07:27Okay.
07:28In those games, I know it's an obscure stat.
07:31By the way, for anybody out there that doesn't know what the rubber series is.
07:35You have to make it really safe.
07:36Nope.
07:37Make sure.
07:38It's not 100%.
07:38Oh, it's a good point.
07:40It's when the series is tied and this is the decisive game.
07:42Gotcha.
07:43And that's why, Alec, I hold firm that at the newspaper, when Allen was playing Ulus Trinity,
07:51and in the past two years they had split their matchups one-to-one,
07:55that Eagles-Trojans set for rubber match was a viable headline.
08:00I agree.
08:01My editor of the paper, he vetoed it.
08:05Was that Mr. Rickman?
08:06Yes, it was.
08:07Yeah, I understand why.
08:08I think Mr. Rickman was wrong.
08:10He's a smart guy, though.
08:11He is a smart guy.
08:11Not in that case.
08:12But also, Alec, I will tell you, I did use some discretion because he didn't check our stuff.
08:20So I could have let it fly, but I was like, if I don't run this by anybody, I think
08:26I could get in trouble.
08:27If he ran it by me, I'd just be like, hell yeah.
08:29Yeah.
08:29Do that.
08:30Corey's not a good sounding board.
08:32He just encourages my worst instincts most of the time.
08:35But anyways, in those games, six of them, he's 5-0 with a 1.22 ERA.
08:43So he's good.
08:44He's unbelievable in these scenarios.
08:47Yeah, and he had it cooking yesterday, dude.
08:49He had every single one of those dudes guessing where he was, and even whenever they knew what it was,
08:55they couldn't get there.
08:56Did you hear Schumacher's scouting report of him afterwards?
08:59It was awesome.
09:00He goes, that's what I remember when I faced him 10 years ago.
09:03He was on the attack, low pitch count, but high strikeouts.
09:07That's so hard to do.
09:08He was just on cruise control.
09:09It's as good as I've seen him this year.
09:11Maybe his best start so far.
09:13Yeah.
09:13I think we would agree with that.
09:15He looks so comfortable, so confident up there.
09:17Yeah.
09:17No, you're absolutely right, man.
09:19It was a beautiful game.
09:21If you're one of those that loves the artistry of pitching, this was one of those where you're about four
09:26innings into it,
09:27and you're like, holy crap, I've been watching Masterpiece this whole time.
09:30Absolutely.
09:30Josh Young, by the way, has back-to-back three hit games, and I want to take you back to
09:35Saturday for just a second.
09:38Justin Foscue hits his first Major League home run, solo shot, and I know it's only been five games,
09:46so it's a small sample size thus far, especially since I think he pinch hit.
09:51In those first two.
09:52But I was really happy for him, especially since, unfortunately, he was part of the collision.
09:56He has had really bad runs in Major League Baseball, so it was cool to see him have that moment.
10:03And then for the bigger aspect of the team, you would love to see more and more and more of
10:07it.
10:07Yeah, and I would say, again, one of the things, one of the reasons he's ever on a Major League
10:13roster is because of his bat, not his defense.
10:16That's been his history.
10:17Yeah.
10:17But being two for whatever so far, and like you said, I know some pinch hitting situations there.
10:22Let's get on base a little bit more.
10:24I agree.
10:25Get on base a little bit more.
10:26Give them a reason to not ever send you back again.
10:29Yeah.
10:30I'm with you.
10:31Yeah.
10:31I'm with you.
Comments