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SportsTranscript
00:00Jack McMullen is going to join us on the Toyota of Hollywood hotline.
00:03Shop over 2,000 at Toyotas on set, one location, Toyota of Hollywood on 441
00:08between Hollywood and Sheridan, toyotafollywood.com.
00:10The Marlins, they did drop their series finale in St. Louis yesterday,
00:14but a big but there, the fish have been on a tear.
00:19They continue their road trip in Colorado.
00:21First game of a four-game series is tonight.
00:23Jack McMullen is joining us now.
00:25We'll be on the call right here.
00:26You're home with the Miami Marlins, FM 104.3 WQAM.
00:29Stephen Strong will get you started with Marlins on deck at 8 p.m.
00:32Jack, the Miami Marlins are the hottest team in baseball in the month of June.
00:39True or false?
00:41True. Undeniably true.
00:43I've been popping up all these, I've been popping open all these like power rankings
00:47that I see on all these outlets and like Major League Baseball has the Marlins
00:51as the 11th best team in baseball in the power rankings that came out today.
00:55And then what Bleacher Report had him at four and had the Yankees at five.
00:59I love that.
01:00It's awesome, man.
01:02Opening up all these power rankings.
01:04And, you know, like I disagree with a lot of power rankings,
01:07but every time I see the Marlins push higher and higher, you know,
01:09they might be on to something there.
01:12Jack Mack, Jack Mack, Jack Mack, Jack Mack.
01:14What's up, Jim?
01:15What the hell did I call you Jack Mack?
01:18It's a bat.
01:18Everybody was talking about pitching, man.
01:20But four runs, six runs, six runs, four runs, six runs.
01:23They had a 12-run game a couple weeks ago.
01:27Is that the cheat code?
01:30Like we have to get those bats going, right?
01:32Yeah, it seems like it.
01:34Like, honestly, I could sit here and tell you that the bats haven't done
01:37what they could be doing to their fullest potential in the month of June,
01:40and they're still 18-5 or 18-6 this month.
01:43Like, it's been ridiculous what the pitching has done,
01:46in particular the starting pitching.
01:49Last couple of days of May, you had Uri Perez go down with that hamstring,
01:54like gracilis.
01:55Channing, I'm not sure if you ever heard the term gracilis.
01:57It's like this weird tendon kind of in between your groin and your hamstring,
02:02but that's what happened to Uri Perez.
02:04And then you also had, what, junk go down with a shin issue.
02:08Marlins were effectively working with two-and-a-half starting pitchers.
02:11I qualified Tyler Phillips as half a starter because he was building up,
02:14and they rattle off the best starter ERA in the month of June.
02:18They've been ridiculous.
02:19But to your point about the bats, it seems like there's more meat on the bone there.
02:24You know, Liam Hicks has been out for the last week and a half,
02:27and when you get Hicks back in the fold,
02:29why can't these guys explode for 10 runs in Denver one of these nights
02:33or 10 runs in Sacramento over the weekend?
02:35This is going to be a really fun week of offensive Marlins baseball coming up.
02:40Crowder wanted to talk offense.
02:41I want to talk pitching in a second,
02:43but when this team was eight games under in May
02:46and you get the news at the end of the month
02:48that Uri and Jansen Junk are going down for a bit because of injury,
02:52there's no possible way you could have envisioned 18-6 over the next 24 games.
02:58No, and listen, I like to think in the best possible outcome,
03:03like, okay, you run 1,000 simulations,
03:05how many of which are 18-6 over the next 24 ballgames that you play.
03:09There are very, very few of the 1,000 simulations that you could possibly run
03:13to get to that, especially with those two guys down.
03:17But the way you get there pitching-wise is the bullpen being unbelievable,
03:21and the bullpen has been unbelievable.
03:23You get there by Sandy Alcantara not losing a turn this month,
03:27and Sandy is going for, I think, his sixth win in June.
03:31He's 5-0 in five starts.
03:33And then Meyer, every time I wake up, I go to his baseball reference page,
03:37and I'm like, there's still a zero in the lost column?
03:40They didn't go change that overnight?
03:42It's amazing what Sandy and Meyer have done.
03:45I want to ask you about Max Meyer, though,
03:46because he was never this type of guy.
03:49He always had the potential to be this,
03:51but whether it was injury or just general lack of experience in the big leagues,
03:56we never saw anything really close to this version.
03:59It flashed every now and again.
04:01But what's been the biggest thing for Max Meyer this year
04:04that has allowed him to go on this type of run?
04:07I think mindset is a big one.
04:09I think this guy is a bulldog and a hyper-competitive human being,
04:13and he is able to channel that in the right way.
04:17Starts could have gotten away from him a little bit last year,
04:20where it's like, okay, you see red.
04:22What happens after you start seeing red?
04:24I think with him, he's able to channel that anger or the drive in a positive way.
04:31The other one is just what's coming out of his hand.
04:34It's the most complete version of Max Meyer's pitch mix
04:37that we've ever seen in his baseball life.
04:40When they took him third overall in 2020,
04:43they knew that slider was amazing.
04:45And the slider has been amazing.
04:47It was amazing when he debuted in 22.
04:48It's been amazing over the course of his Marlin career,
04:51but this is the best fastball that Max Meyer has ever had.
04:54It's the best change-up that Max Meyer has ever had.
04:57And honestly, with the sweeper and slider both going,
05:00it's probably the best breaking ball tandem that Max Meyer has ever had.
05:04How much does Joe Mack,
05:07whoa-whack, as I like to call him,
05:08how much can you attribute to what this month has been to his impact on the group?
05:13Now, is it whoa-whack because it's nothing but W's?
05:16Is that the reason?
05:17Yeah, yeah.
05:17You just, so, you know, Bill Zito,
05:22William Hicks, he's William Wicks.
05:24A little better there because he's got the L at the front of his game.
05:26We just ignore it normally, Jack, and we just kind of roll with it.
05:30Yeah, so, listen, I want to apologize to you guys for feeding into it
05:33because that probably brought up hell another week and a half of doing it.
05:36You're right to feed into it.
05:38So, sorry about that.
05:39It sounds a lot like Wumbo, right?
05:40It's sent to M for many when it should be set to W for Wumbo,
05:43the whole SpongeBob thing.
05:44But, yeah, no, listen, I will answer your whoa-whack question.
05:49This guy is...
05:50You're free to use that, by the way, on the air if he does something.
05:52I probably won't, but thank you for the go.
05:58He has been a game-changer defensively.
06:01He really has.
06:02And, you know, yes, you see it in the running game, right?
06:05Nobody is stealing bases against the Miami Marlins since Joe Mack debuted.
06:09The other one is pitchers are confident in literally everything
06:13that they are throwing right now.
06:15They're not afraid to spike a breaking ball in the dirt, to be honest with you,
06:19because they know that Joe Mack is going to block it.
06:22And Mack can pick a ball on the backhand and still fire a back pick to third base
06:27to go get a guy in St. Louis yesterday.
06:29It's so much fun to watch this guy navigate a pitching staff,
06:33navigate the running game, and, like, in his pregame work,
06:36just how he carries himself.
06:38He's been a joy for the pitching staff to get to work with,
06:41and he's been a joy to get to know in this clubhouse.
06:44And, well, McCullough, Jack Mack, what was that, number four, Solana?
06:49Way more.
06:49I think seven.
06:51Go ahead.
06:51Okay, Jack Mack.
06:52Everybody's just working their own bit, Jack.
06:54Everybody on the show just works their own bit the entire time.
06:57Everybody's got a quarter to hit.
06:58Come on.
06:58We're all hitting our quarters.
07:00I got five more.
07:01I need one more question to ask Jack Mack.
07:03Seven.
07:05But McCullough, what he's doing to pitching staff,
07:08because people criticized him.
07:09We talked about this before.
07:10Criticizing him pulling guys and using the bullpen too much.
07:14Is he doing exactly what he needs to do?
07:16This guy pushes all the right buttons,
07:20and, you know, there's always a why attached to why he makes certain decisions.
07:26And that was the case when the Marlins were not winning too many games in May.
07:30It's the case when the Marlins are winning pretty much every game in June.
07:33You could ask him, why this?
07:36Why this guy in this spot?
07:37Why this pinch hitter in this spot?
07:39Why this reliever in this spot?
07:40There's always a good answer.
07:42And if you have the opportunity to ask him why,
07:45he's going to give you a really good answer to it.
07:48So there's a method to the madness at all times.
07:50And it's funny because, you know, like there are some fans out there that are like,
07:54oh, this guy's just picking random dudes to throw in certain spots.
07:57That's never the case.
07:58It's all calculated.
07:59It's all thought about.
08:00And it's kind of running through his head time and time again.
08:04And it has been amazing to watch him work.
08:07What a joy it is to watch, you know, Clayton McCullough do his thing every night in the Marlin dugout.
08:12And the rest of the coaching staff, man, I mean, the complimentary pieces on that coaching staff,
08:18I feel like, don't get enough credit.
08:19Baseball, it's really hard, right?
08:21In the NBA, you have like a Mike Inori.
08:24Everybody knows that in Minnesota, Mike Inori is a really hot name,
08:27and he's going to be a head coach at some point.
08:29Strom, you only know that name because of Strom, I'm assuming.
08:32No, I also know it because his kid is a top 10 prospect in the Philly system.
08:37All right.
08:38That is real baseball sicko stuff for you.
08:40But yeah, I mean, like I think pitching coaches don't get enough credit for the job they do.
08:46And the best in baseball, chances are you may know one or two names of pitching coaches around Major League
08:51Baseball.
08:52Daniel Moskis is very good at his job.
08:55Pedro Guerrero, very good at his job, the hitting coach.
08:58There are so many guys.
08:59Carson Vitale, the bench coach, very good at his job.
09:01It's so much fun to watch these guys go to work every day as a coaching staff.
09:05Carson Vitale, great beard.
09:07Great beard.
09:09Jack, if I told you before the season that the Marlins would give the money that they gave to Pete
09:14Fairbanks,
09:15Pete Fairbanks would have spent time on the IL, away for paternity leave, pitched to an ERA over six, but
09:25the Marlins bullpen will be the best in baseball, what would you say to me?
09:29I would ask you what crazy pills you're taking, but that's why you roll the ball out and play.
09:35I mean, these guys have been awesome.
09:37And Fairbanks, you know, like there are a couple of blow up outings that he has had.
09:41And there were a couple of blips on the radar in the previous homestand, like Peterson got him for a
09:45homer.
09:45Jack Peterson and then the next day, Jack Peterson gets him for another homer.
09:49But he's still like secures wins in both of those games.
09:53So that's going to make the ERA look worse.
09:55But given the situation of the game, like it was OK, you just got to worry about the slug against
10:02Fairbanks right now.
10:03But it does seem like Fairbanks is slowly but surely coming out of it.
10:06You know, six runs from the jump, like the three spot in Atlanta very, very early.
10:11And the three spot is an opener against the Yankees, like the first road trip of the year.
10:15That'll throw a wrench in reliever ERA.
10:18I think reliever ERA is really tough because they just don't throw a lot of innings, to be honest with
10:23you.
10:23So it's like, OK, this guy has a 70 ERA.
10:26What does that mean?
10:2612 earned runs and six of them came in two outings.
10:29Like it's a little misleading to me.
10:32But the guys around him, Bender has been unbelievable.
10:35That Fochette was really good at the beginning of June.
10:39Michael Peterson has been excellent.
10:41John King, who signed for one point five million dollars, is thrown to a two ERA, the bullpen.
10:47And so many guys are throwing it so well.
10:50Jack McMullin, again, listen to him tonight on the call.
10:538.40 p.m. is your first pitch.
10:55Marlins on deck gets started with Stephen Strom at 8 o'clock.
10:58All right, let's get to the serious stuff here, Jack.
11:01You were in St. Louis.
11:03Now you're in Colorado.
11:05What have you eaten at some of these ballparks?
11:08I know, correct me if I'm wrong.
11:09Last time we had you on, you admitted you're not a big like eat before the broadcast kind
11:15of guy, like a big meal before the broadcast.
11:18So I'm not a big eat dairy before the broadcast guy.
11:22We were talking about dairy, like kind of gumming up the throat and all that ice cream
11:26machine.
11:26That's why I came up.
11:28Yeah.
11:28No ice cream machine for me.
11:29But I did do ice cream before the game yesterday.
11:32I took the I took the reactive Tums, you know, it's like ice cream Tums.
11:38We're good to go.
11:38We're better than Tom's the best.
11:40So we're all right.
11:41But no, I went to Pappy's Smokehouse in St. Louis.
11:44All right.
11:45Barbecue.
11:45All right.
11:46Some of the best ribs that you'll have, which is great.
11:48And in Denver, you got some options here.
11:51Like the breweries in Denver are exceptional.
11:55But there is a I'm an acai guy.
11:59Like I do.
12:00I do enjoy my acai.
12:01Oh, Jack Mack.
12:04There's a spot two blocks away from the hotel in Denver that has, I think, the best acai
12:09on the road.
12:10So that's what I ripped for breakfast today.
12:12Really good.
12:13You got to get your chia seeds involved in your diet.
12:15Jack Mack, you a man with a beard.
12:17You don't need acai.
12:19Literally doesn't have a beard.
12:22Literally does not have a beard right now.
12:24But hold on.
12:25Hold on a second.
12:26This is interesting to me.
12:28Acai, of course, a superfood.
12:30We know that.
12:30So you want to get your everything kind of working up top in the morning for the big broadcast
12:36at night.
12:37What do you go?
12:38You go chia seeds.
12:39You go kiwi.
12:41You go mango.
12:42What do you do on top?
12:44A little strawberry.
12:45I love my strawberry.
12:46Like the sliced almonds.
12:47And I'm all about getting back to zero, right?
12:50So it's like you get a good workout in.
12:52Naturally, you got to have a burger after the fact.
12:54So acai, to your point, superfood.
12:57Let's make it moderately unhealthy.
13:00So like peanut butter and honey and cacao nibs, all that stuff.
13:05So I'm all about just like, all right, you have the positive of the acai.
13:08Let's knock it down with some unhealthy stuff.
13:10I'm glad you went peanut butter.
13:12People get real cutie with the almond butter.
13:14Like, all right.
13:15What are we doing with the almond butter?
13:17Peanut butter.
13:18Can you call me one more time?
13:20The almond brother?
13:21No.
13:22Almond butter.
13:22You know, you get a new baseball player named Almond.
13:28Almond.
13:30Almendela in Spanish, Jack.
13:32I mean, come on.
13:33A couple months on Calle Ocho.
13:35You should be hanging with me, bro.
13:38And then what about last week, Flannies Fest?
13:41I saw you rocking your Flannies jersey in the broadcast booth.
13:45I saw the video that you guys posted on the Marlins Radio Network Twitter account.
13:50And the Marlins were really cool.
13:51They sent us all our Flannies jerseys as well.
13:54What was the vibe like in there?
13:56Oh, and the Scottish fans, the Tartan Army takeover.
13:58What were the vibes like for both those games?
14:01Okay.
14:01So I'll tell you the Tartan Army was so cool.
14:04It was 9,000 Scottish people in there.
14:09And it didn't seem like they had any idea what was going on.
14:12But they brought the juice.
14:13And you heard the bag piping.
14:15And you heard the chants.
14:16And it was amazing.
14:17And the West Plaza right outside the ballpark,
14:20for two hours before first pitch, was electric.
14:24You could hardly move out there.
14:26It's just a bunch of sweaty, drunk Scots out there.
14:29It was great.
14:31It was a once-in-a-lifetime baseball environment,
14:34especially with the roof closed and all the sound being trapped.
14:38And credit to the Marlins.
14:40They ordered extra beer, and they did not run out.
14:43It was one of the best food and beverage days of the year for the Marlins.
14:46And they did not run out of beer, which was great.
14:48But Flannies Fest was awesome.
14:50There are two giveaways that I refused to take off for a couple of days.
14:56And it was the Flannies jersey and then the captain's hat that Hawk refused to take off as well.
15:01So I was rocking those pretty much all the time.
15:05And Flannies Fest was awesome.
15:07The crowd was great.
15:08They had a couple of concession stands set up with ribs and the garlic rolls and some wings.
15:16And putting down the ribs before the game, listen, like, did the stomach love that?
15:22Not necessarily.
15:23Did my heart love that?
15:24Absolutely.
15:26And that's what matters.
15:28Got to get through it.
15:29Sometimes, you know, team first, right?
15:32You throw down the ribs, and you get right through the broadcast.
15:37It's Flannies Fest, brother.
15:38Like, you got to do what you got to do.
15:40Yeah.
15:40And I'm always team first, man.
15:42So I figure for the greater good of Flanagan's and the Marlins, I'm going to do this.
15:46I'm going to be a hero this afternoon.
15:48Well, thank you very much.
15:49We appreciate your service, Jack McCollum.
15:51I appreciate you.
15:53Listen to him again on the call.
15:54You guys have been doing great work.
15:56And the Marlins are doing great work on the Diamond as well.
15:59Tonight, 8.40 p.m., right?
16:008.40 p.m. is your first pitch.
16:03Marlins on deck with Stephen Strom at 8 o'clock.
16:06Jack, we appreciate you, man.
16:07Have a great broadcast and safe travels.
16:09I guess not until the end of the week, right?
16:11You guys are still out on the road until next Sunday.
16:13Yeah, we got four in Colorado, then three in Sacramento.
16:16But appreciate you guys.
16:17And maybe Wowack makes it.
16:20Ah, yes.
16:21There we go.
16:22Appreciate you, Jack.
16:22Hey, listen.
16:22Some of those games, of course, feel good crazy.
16:24I mean.
16:27Jack McMullen, appreciate you, man.
16:29I appreciate you guys.
16:30Thanks, Jack.
16:30All right.
16:31There you go.
16:31Jack McMullen.
16:32That was 13 Jack-Macks.
16:34Yeah.
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