00:00I want to start with the Washington Nationals, which...
00:03Why?
00:04I want to...
00:04It's tough because...
00:06They know how to start.
00:07They know how to start.
00:08They just can't finish.
00:09They just can't finish.
00:11Problem.
00:11I was running around last night.
00:14Shelby had lacrosse tryouts all the years.
00:16It was a chaotic night.
00:18But I'm driving home from NBC, and I got Charlie and Dave on the radio,
00:22and it's a tight game.
00:24I get home.
00:25I get onto my porch to watch the ninth inning.
00:29I get there, and it's 4-3 Nats with Kyle Schwarber at the plate.
00:35And I'm like, man, that's about as juicy as it gets.
00:38Kyle Schwarber has an excellent at-bat.
00:40And honestly, the Nats reliever threw a lot of good pitches.
00:43Schwarber's just one of the best hitters in baseball.
00:46Yeah, he battles.
00:47He doesn't quit.
00:49So, Schwarber eventually gets on base.
00:51Then they pinch hit, and the dude just takes them yard.
00:56Like, what did White Bryant say about the Nats pitcher in the thread last night?
01:02I think he was like, that dude's still in the league?
01:04Yeah.
01:04I heard that.
01:06Hill, right?
01:07It was, I mean, it was like they tried so hard to get Schwarber out,
01:14they didn't, and then the pinch hitter goes yard three pitches later.
01:18Was that two pitches into the at-bat?
01:19I think it was like three, four, five pitches.
01:22But the funniest part is everyone knows Trey Turner, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber,
01:27the three former nationals on the Phillies.
01:29It was the fourth former national, Derrick Hill.
01:31The one that nobody knew of.
01:32No one has ever heard of this guy.
01:34Like, still bounced around baseball, and he delivered the deck.
01:37White Bryant texted, Derrick Hill is still in the league?
01:40But it's just what I said before.
01:42Like, they have this tendency to play up when they're playing against certain people,
01:47and then they play down when they're going against certain people.
01:49And in that situation, great pitching against Schwarber,
01:52and then you get a kid, somebody comes in that you don't really know,
01:55and you give them a pitch, a juicy one.
01:57Now, they were only down one run.
02:00They still had the bottom of the ninth.
02:01Like, they still had an opportunity to come back.
02:03They're at bats in the bottom of the ninth that I thought were piss poor.
02:07Like, it just seemed like everybody was trying to get it back in one swing.
02:11That's what young teams do.
02:12Dude, the blown saves.
02:15We've talked about the bullpen a fair amount,
02:16and when we did our rankings of the best teams,
02:19I understand James Wood is statistically probably a top ten player in baseball right now.
02:25Like, James Wood is the real deal.
02:27C.J. Abrams has been great.
02:29But the reason I put the Nats at the bottom of my local teams rankings
02:32is I have very little.
02:35I won't say zero.
02:36I'm trying to be positive this morning.
02:37Very little belief that they're going to spend any money.
02:39And, like, the bullpen is an area where you have to supplement with some cash.
02:45You have to sign some veterans that you know can get out.
02:47This is from Spencer Nussbaum last night.
02:50For the second night in a row, the Nationals are a strike away and can't close out a win.
02:55They are on pace to have 46 blown saves, which would be a Major League Baseball record.
03:01And if you want to go glass half full, dude, they're over .500 through 81 games half the season,
03:08even though they are on pace to blow 46 saves.
03:11So, glass half full, that's pretty admirable.
03:14Glass half empty, spent some money in the bullpen, and you might have won 50 games.
03:20But, see, that's the reason, because as you get closer to the playoffs, pitching is important.
03:26Bullpens are super important.
03:28And I know the guy called yesterday, he was like, oh, the Nats are the number one.
03:32No.
03:32Until that pitching is better, they are not a contender.
03:37Because if you go into, you play the better teams and you can't close,
03:41and your pitching is not as good as the rest, they're going to go yard on you all day.
03:46I understand we're scoring a lot of runs, but the better teams will find a way to nullify some of
03:52that,
03:52and we won't have a damn chance in hell.
03:54So, it's just been, like, everybody kind of understood this series against the Phillies
04:00was a real kind of acid test of where this team is, right?
04:05Because we know the Phillies have been in the playoffs, the Phillies spend a ton of money,
04:10like, they have, I mean, four former Nationals, including three former All-Stars.
04:16Like, we know what the Phillies are, and I think the Phillies have become the Nats' biggest rival.
04:22I'm not suggesting that the Phillies-Mets doesn't mean more to the Philly people, but it's a real rivalry.
04:27Everybody that played the Phillies is a rival.
04:31For sure.
04:31Because their fans hate everybody.
04:33Right.
04:35And to lose, I don't know which game was the worst loss between the last two to give up a
04:41ton late
04:42or to give up a little late, but regardless, to not be able to close these two out,
04:47I mean, you can make a real case they should be up 3-0 in this series, and then tonight.
04:52But they're giving it up late.
04:53I mean, that's the whole thing.
04:55You've got to be able to close in baseball.
04:58They can't.
04:59And if you cannot close in baseball, you're going to have problems.
05:01I understand people are like, how great things are.
05:03Oh, you look so great.
05:05And then at the end, boom, they just take it away from you.
05:07That hurts more than anything in the world.
05:09Stallion, you're Mr. Locked On.
05:12Which loss is worse of the last two?
05:14I mean, pick your poison.
05:17Like, I would say two games go, but, like, last night sucked because it's like, okay,
05:22they just blew it the night before.
05:23There's no way it happens again.
05:25And the same exact thing happened.
05:27Back to back.
05:28I think last night might be worse.
05:29Because that's the second straight night it happens, and it wasn't like the offense
05:35didn't just get nuts.
05:37They had Schwarber down to a strike.
05:40And credit to Kyle Schwarber, who's a great hitter, and, God, he stayed in that at bat.
05:45I mean, just fouling everything off.
05:47Looked like for a second he had ripped the tying home run on his own before he got on base.
05:53It was, I just don't know what to think with the Nats, and I want to choose optimism.
05:58I'm trying to preach that in my own head about life.
06:02And 46 blown saves on pace.
06:06Maybe things will get better.
06:08But damn.
06:08If you look at 41 and 40 right now with the blown saves they've had, they're midway through
06:12the season, basically.
06:15You know things are going to get tighter and tougher in the second half.
06:21You know what I mean?
06:23Yeah.
06:23If the pitching doesn't improve, I don't see a 41 and 40 second half.
06:28Agreed.
06:29Especially with that type of production when they got the bullpen coming in.
06:33Especially when you look at, who's the dude that's hit home runs in back-to-back games?
06:38That's just like total, kind of fringe roster guy.
06:43Charlie and Dave were joking about it last night when I was listening.
06:47It's just, you wonder if the bats can keep this up.
06:52It was Vivas last night, right?
06:54Yeah, Jorbit Vivas.
06:55Hasn't he hit a dinger in the last two games?
06:57Yup, big time home runs.
06:59I don't know.
07:01So, Mike Rizzo always used to say, look at the back of the baseball card, right?
07:05Like, look what it extrapolates out to over 160.
07:08I don't know that we're going to continue to see this production from Meade and Vivas.
07:13You know what I'm saying?
07:14Yeah.
07:14Like, it's just really frustrating.
07:20Nassim Nunez has been excellent all year.
07:22He has an error last night.
07:24It's going to happen.
07:25Guys make mistakes.
07:26Like, Joe Montana threw a couple picks over the course of his career.
07:29But, damn.
07:31It's just, to lose back-to-back like that is incredibly frustrating.
07:36And Nattstown's got to be grumpy, I would think.
07:41Because the bullpen is something you can fix.
07:46And maybe you can't fix it now.
07:48But, like, when you don't address things in the offseason because you won't spend money,
07:53I just think this is where you land.
07:55And you've got a good team that can rake with two bona fide stars in there.
08:00I hope they have a plan, though, moving forward with that.
08:05B, I think their plan is five years from now.
08:08I think their plan is three or four years from now.
08:10Like, don't you?
08:12Like, if Toboni's going to tell you the absolute truth, competing right now is gravy.
08:17But that wasn't the plan.
08:18They just traded Mackenzie Gore this offseason.
08:21If you were competing this year, you would have kept Gore.
08:25Like, the trade of Gore reset the goalposts.
08:28And now they're hitting at a rate that is significantly faster than where those goalposts were set.
08:34You wonder how sustainable some of these guys hitting like this is.
08:38Maybe it is because they've made real changes to the approach for some of these hitters.
08:43But I just, I don't know, dude.
08:46Like, you lose these two.
08:49They got Baltimore this weekend.
08:51They got another game against Philly tonight.
08:53If you can win that, you split the series.
08:55I don't want to be overly pessimistic.
08:56But you lose back-to-back games like that with your pen just blowing.
09:01It's kind of hard to just forget it, though, dog.
09:03So, right.
09:04What's the state of Nats fans, Stallion?
09:06Is it apoplectic or?
09:10I mean, you're seeing a lot of Nats fans, like, pretty pissed off.
09:14I think a lot of Nats fans actually for the first time last night were really upset with Butera.
09:18Because in the ninth inning, you pull Orlando Robolta.
09:21You go to Dickie Lovelady out there for the third straight night.
09:24And you expect different results.
09:26And, unfortunately, it's kind of the same thing.
09:29So, you saw a lot of Nats fans taking out on Butera.
09:32Overall, they're 41-40 at the halfway mark.
09:34People are thrilled.
09:36And they should be.
09:37Like, they are over-exceeding all expectations at this point.
09:40But people are frustrated because they dangled that carrot in front of them.
09:44They said, we're a good team.
09:45We believe in ourselves.
09:46And now you lose two straight like that in a division opponent?
09:49It's bad.
09:50So, he pulled Robolta and then Lovelady pitched to Hill, right?
09:54Yep.
09:54Dude, Robolta, the Schwarber at bat, like, Robolta pitched it super well.
10:01And I think I wouldn't have pulled him either.
10:04Like, I was watching it in real time.
10:06And I just, I was, I kind of parachuted in, right?
10:10So, I'm just, like, watching Schwarber in this at bat.
10:13But Robolta was hitting corners.
10:16He was throwing gas.
10:18Like, I just, I'm with you on that.
10:20I don't know, at some point, Dick Lovelady, we know who he is.
10:24That's a hell of a name right there.
10:27Golly.
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