Mark Gubicza talks Angels pitching revival, Ron Washington’s absence

00:00:00
Speaker 1: If three guys in their lineup now with seventeen or more home runs, and they got Trout and Netto with twelve. So they got some guys with pop. I just don't think they're going to be a seller. I think they're gonna try maybe.

00:00:10
Speaker 2: Add Hey, we've got former Big League pitcher and current Angels broadcaster, longtime Angels broadcaster Mark Ubaza joining us on FT for the first time. Friend of mine, Gooby.

00:00:24
Speaker 3: Great to have you on.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: Man, How you doing, Todd and Jason?

00:00:28
Speaker 3: What's going on, fellas? How are we doing? We're laughing, Man, you're laughing long time? No see, man, what's going down?

00:00:35
Speaker 1: I know we were hanging out at Yankee Stadium this a few days ago.

00:00:39
Speaker 3: It's eemed to be.

00:00:40
Speaker 4: I was telling these guys. I said, listen, this is the best dressed guy I've ever seen come into a stadium. He's better. He dresses better than all the ballplayers. Mane how many how many top coach do you have? Like do you think sitting in your closet?

00:00:56
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:00:56
Speaker 1: You know what, don I'll be honest, it's probably about fifteen to sixteen of them.

00:00:59
Speaker 3: I think this variety of different colors. You know what, you're doing.

00:01:04
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful nice goovie Blazers, right, goould be blazers.

00:01:07
Speaker 4: That's could be a thing.

00:01:08
Speaker 3: All right, they're sharp. Oh that'd be sick. That'd be sick.

00:01:13
Speaker 4: I want to I want to talk about this Angels team.

00:01:15
Speaker 3: Man.

00:01:16
Speaker 4: You know, from the series with the Yankees, we talk about the bullpen, how they're struggling. All of a sudden, this bullpen came in to Yankees Stadium and absolutely just did what they had to do. Talk of it about where this bullpen is. Now, they're a game out of the wild Card. This Steph has been unbelievable as of now for some reason.

00:01:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell I.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: Mean when you look at it, the first month and a half three Arra was almost eight.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: It was like seven point nine, you know, and they were struggling.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: Kenley Chance, I think has a big influence on these guys because he basically tells them all, you're ready every day. Because he's ready every day and even though he's got four hundred and sixty two career stage, he's got a lot of mileage on his arm. You know, these guys are prepared to pitch every day from you know, Zephyr John.

00:02:01
Speaker 3: But the big guy for me though, is Redebtmor's been unbelievable.

00:02:04
Speaker 1: Brock Berg, you know, guys like that have been great, and you know it brogged in and and Norris has been great cleaning up. He's been unreal coming in with guys on base. But Reed Debtner's right now. You know, he threw a no hitter in his career, yet immaculate ending in his career as a starter. Initially struggled in the bullpen, but now he's ninety seven ninety eight with his fastball and his slider's back to being unbelievably unhittable curveball. So there's so many varieties that they can go down there to the bullpen. And you know, Robert Stevenson came back, threw the ball great, got a little injured again, but he should be back pretty soon. So it's gonna be even deeper bullpen. And and we know in this game now, if you don't have a deep bullpen, you're.

00:02:42
Speaker 3: Not winning, that's right.

00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's there's stuff. They've got stuff in this bullpen, more than they've probably had in a minute. I watch a lot of Angels games, obviously, listen to listen to goofy. So my question, I want to double down on debt Mers because this is a unique career path. He's had a ups and down's former first round pick. You can probably pinpoint this better than there was an outing where he gave up the game. I think it was his first back to back ever in his pro career. How much has he changed from then to now as a former pitcher, and how he had to figure out how to recover like that, You know he was doing all this on the fly right.

00:03:16
Speaker 3: Yes, that's a great question.

00:03:17
Speaker 1: And I remember talking to him after that was like two games in a row which came in in tie games and didn't do well. I mean that would be put in mildly and I saw it on his face and said, how you doing that?

00:03:28
Speaker 3: And he goes, I'm doing good, and I was like, wow, that's.

00:03:30
Speaker 1: Pretty good to see because ever relievers like you know, you're on the PGA Tour, if you miss a putt, you better go right backup back out there and make the next putt. Or if you're in the NFL and you're a kicker, you miss a field goal, you have no time to worry about things. You got to go back and kick that field goal again. I think what the bullpen has done to him because as a starter, we always knew hisself was great, but he did it too much thinking. And I know that doesn't sound right, you know, all you're thinking too much out there. But out of the bullpen, now he literally gets the call and he's ready to throw as hard as he can and doesn't worry about who's in the batter's box. It could be anybody in the batter's box, and he feels he can get him out. So I think in the end it's going to help him when he gets I think he won't. He'll be in this role, I think the whole season. If you know, it's shocking as that sounds, because I think he's going to be a dominant starter. I think this role this year is going to be perfect for him for when we go into the future, I think he'll be back in the rotation. I think it's going to help him have that mentality of you can't go out there and just kind of coosh your way through the first inning or so of a game. It could cost you the ballgame. You got to be in attack mode right away. And I think the bullpen U shoots for him, is going to help him in the future as a starter.

00:04:35
Speaker 2: Okay, So I want to get to the core here Netto. Let's let's go to Zach Netto. First off, is he okay? And then I also wanted to ask you about the little back and forth that he had with Hunter Brown the other day to try and be a neutral observer.

00:04:49
Speaker 3: Where do you.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Stand there as a guy who calls Angels games, but you're a former pitcher and Hunter Brown's like, dude, get out of the way.

00:04:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. I love Zach Nede. I love the way he plays, the energy he plays. Yeah.

00:05:02
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, the MRI showed no structural damage. I won't be surprised to see him in there, whether it's tonight or tomorrow, certainly in the next couple of days back in there. He's so valuable to his team. Defensively, he's one of the best shortstops in the game and offensively. Now going to the subject of Hunter Brown. By the way, he's one of my all time favorite pitches already when he has about two days of the big leagues.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: I love the way he goes out and competes. Between him and Scooble.

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Speaker 1: Remember Scooble and Netto had a little thing too also where nettrow at a home run off and then then Scooble got him out and they kind of exchange some words.

00:05:32
Speaker 3: You know, I hate to take that away from either the pitcher or the hitter.

00:05:36
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, he's right on top of the plate and to get him out, you're gonna have to pitch him inside. He's gonna get hit with a pitch. But I think because of that one got him right in the hand. It's the second time Hunter Brown has hit him already in both their young careers that he felt that he wasn't real happy about it.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm always I'm.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Always for a pitcher, and I know I'm talking with a couple of hitters here they probably hate me too, But.

00:05:58
Speaker 3: I like a guy that pitches inside effectively.

00:06:00
Speaker 1: And Hunter Brown since he went to that sinker, he's been one of the best pitchers in the game. And when you throw a sinker, if you drop your wrist at all, you're gonna run that ball in. On right handed batters, it's a chance you're going to hit him. When you're on top of the plate, you got to expect that pitchers are gonna try to run it in on you.

00:06:15
Speaker 3: I think he'll learn from that eventually.

00:06:17
Speaker 1: But it was fun watching those two guys go at it because, hey, Christian Moore, who just came up the big leagues, he was out there helping his teammate out immediately.

00:06:25
Speaker 3: So that's what I'm seeing from this team right now.

00:06:28
Speaker 1: They're kind of taking the personality of Ron washingt Du although he's not with the team right now, but he has that mentality of we're fighting every single day and even when they've been behind in games, they immediately come back, which is good to see. Last year and the year before that that wasn't the case.

00:06:45
Speaker 5: Yeah. No, it sounds like they're battling.

00:06:46
Speaker 6: It sounds like they're gonna keep competing, and you guys are building something there. I mean, you guys took three or four at Yankee Stadium. You swept the Dodgers last month at their place, Like it's starting to be there. But you're getting on that time of the year where even though you're building something and you're about what you're two out of Otani, here come the trade talks. How reluctant are they the trade pieces? How reluctant are they to kind of not want to move anything because they're starting to build something or who can you see if they are going to be because they're only a game out. I think of the wildcard. Are they going to be are they going to be trying to hold tighter? Are they gonna be moving some pieces?

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Great question. Jason, by the way, been a big fan of your career too, Man. I always look the way you played. They they were rumored to be getting you in a trade a few years ago when you were still playing with Cleveland Levi.

00:07:27
Speaker 3: I heard those rumors like get him, get him because a great Yeah.

00:07:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, it's it's interesting because if you look at what's coming up in the month of July. You know, they go on this next road trip. They go to Atlanta, they go to Toronto, they come home, they play Texas, they play Arizona, open up the second half in Philly against the Mets, and they come home again against the Rangers. So it's a difficult month of July. They got Seattle in there too. Yeah, they played well. You mentioned the teams they played well against. They went to Docter Stadiums, swept and they almost you know, he went three or four in Yankee Stadium. So I think right now is man It is a great question because I think there's some really good young players and there's some veterans in there that certainly teams are gonna be acquiring the Angels about. But I think if they stay the course and continue to play like this against this really tough competition, Like I said, this month of July is going to be extremely difficult. If they can find their way still within a game where two of the wildcers. It has been so long, they haven't been the postseason since fourteen, be hard to believe and to be able to sell the fan base that finally they're behind these young cores. If you get Mike Trout going, he's starting to show some signs he's working walk so he's seen the ball better, which is good. They've been hitting the ball really well on the road. They've p had a lot of road games coming up. Taylor Ward has a nineteen home runs fourteen home on the road. They have three guys in their lineup now with seventeen or more home runs, and they got Trout and Netto with twelve, so they got some guys with pop. I just don't think they're gonna be a seller. I think they're gonna try maybe add but if they get Monkkata back for defense and some solid bat's working counts, which they don't really have a lot of guys at workouts. They're really aggressive and a Solearra is on his way back. So maybe with those guys coming back better balancing lineup, you might see them try to add on rather than sell.

00:09:13
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00:09:29
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00:10:14
Speaker 4: The Angels have been the only team to have the same starting five pitchers pitch for this season. I find that absolutely incredible attest to, you know, how they build their players and how they give them opportunities and the health as well. I want to talk about two guys.

00:10:29
Speaker 3: You got a guy like Jose.

00:10:31
Speaker 4: Soriano, who you know, and Kyle Hendricks, two basically polar opposite guys. Soriano the heavy fastball guy throws harder, and you got a guy like Kyle Hendricks who comes in doesn't reach eighty nine miles an hour ever, and he carved up the Yankees last time they face. Talk a little bit about those starting pitchers and how they're coming into their own and how they've been doing.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, teit. I mean.

00:10:53
Speaker 1: The good thing is Soriano is always next to Kyle Hendrix, which I think is a great decision because he gets people out. You mentioned with eighty six mile hour fastballs break down the harder to plate. I'm thinking whenever I do that, I'm either asking for a new baseball or I'm backing up a base Yeah, he's getting these guys swinging and missing. That's what you're seeing from Soriano because he's not overthrowing his fastball yet it's ninety nine to one hundred with movement down. Early in the season, he was overthrown, was flat going to the barrel of the bat. And you know, you guys know, anything towards a barrel of bat with that kind of loss you make contact, it's got a chance of being hitting hard. So his stelf, his knuckle curve, and a slider right now or absolute whiteout pitches to go along with that power sinker. But he's watching Kyle Henderskoe how he sets up hitters with his change up and he gets him look all speed and then he gets a fastball by him. So now hitters can't sit all the time on Soriano's sinker. They got to be aware of that knuckle curve. They gotta be aware of that slider. He even has a pretty good splitter that he doesn't use a lot, but the hitters have to be aware of that, and that's what's making his fastball better. And when you think about the five starters, I mean, it's pretty amazing. I watched their routines and I got a chance to put on a uniform in spring training to kind of talk with the pictures what I went through and how I learn from different people from Nolan Ryan about the importance of running long distance and sprint work and leg work and you long toss and things like that, and these guys are kind of figuring out the legs in the core are so important to keeping the rest of your body healthy for a pitcher, especially because the guys throw as hard as they can every pitch. But as long as you have your legs and your core strong, it gives you a chance to keep that elbow and shoulder intact. And that's what we're seeing so far from the starting staff.

00:12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where I wanted to double down on. Obviously, pitching injuries are insane in our sport at this point, So do you think there's anything that other organizations can take from the philosophical approach of the Angels and Hey, I'm going to be real here. Angels have been a disappointing team for a while. They haven't been the best team at developing pitchers. But to point to the durability factor is impressive. And I know many teams, Gooby are going to look at a picture and go, well, we're going to maximize the hell out of them, and if it gets hurt, oh well we'll move on to the next guy. But you know, we're as a show really trying to talk through how we can get more of the Marquee matchup starters going deep into outings. And this is a perfect week to ask about it because we have schemes matching up against MISERASKI and it takes over the sport for a day and we are missing that. We need more of that, and the way to do it is to actually have healthy starters should go deep into outings.

00:13:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're exactly right on this guy.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, this team has not developed pitchers, and I'm not gonna say otherwise that's true.

00:13:28
Speaker 3: I mean they haven't.

00:13:29
Speaker 1: They've developed position players over the years, but just watching what they've done, you know, with Perry manasking what he's done with as far as their core for as far as their pitching staff. Even in the minor leagues, a lot of guys that throw hard, but a lot of guys.

00:13:41
Speaker 3: They feel that will take the baseball.

00:13:42
Speaker 1: That's part of their mentality is taking the baseball every five days as far as the starting pitching. And the more you have that mindset, the more I think you're going to learn how to pitch. And it's the philosophy is it's okay to get it out on one or two pitches. I mean, we see so often, we have so many pitchers and their stuff is amazing from the velocity to spin that it's difficult sometimes not to throw four or five pitches every single batter because there's a lot of swinging misses. So the philosophy is going out and attack and when you get a chance, when you get two strikes, go for that punch out. Or if there's a guy in scoring position, a third base less than two outs, yes, go for the punch out. But I think the philosophy now is it's okay to get a quick out. It's that's why you have defenders out there behind you. And that's what the thing I've always been, you know, kind of always scratching my head. We have so many great athletes in the game right now, especially defensively, why aren't pitchers and organizations utilizing that. If they're gonna make the plays and you can throw one or two pitches, you save your best stuff when you need it. That's what the mindset is. That's how you're gonna keep pitchers healthy because I want I want the very best guys going out there. The Scooble going against Skiing say that happens sometimes as a fan I'm watching it. Yeah, we all love offense. We love the you know, the power, we love the home run, we love the defensive plays. But when you have two guys, it's like going to the OK Corral. It's like you know, Doc Holliday going against you know, Johnny Ringo. We want guys going at it there on the pitching side, and I think if you can keep them on the field, fans will love that just as much as a home run ball.

00:15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a marketing play. I mean, we want to be able to follow names, names that we know and names that are shining, and that's easiest to do with starting pitching ledgers. Okay, on the development side of things, do you guys joke like we do about how you'll have to watch the draft this year and see who they pick in the first round because he'll probably be up in August. I mean, they do it so much more aggressively than anyone else. So as someone that's around the team every day, do you guys joke about it? And also how is it playing out in your mind? Because we've seen a lot of these guys now come up and many of them have fared well. It's impossible for us to know if, like, oh, they would have done better if they had another year of seasoning, because we will never have the other case study against, you know, someone like Shanawell not spending any time really in the minor leagues, among many others. And now I bring it up because Christian Moore looks pretty good to start.

00:15:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, again something to everyone.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: Everywhere I go they ask the same question about that and the philosophy. Now for the Angels, they like because of the coaching staff that have up here at the big league level, they feel they can develop the players up at the major league level. Now, I mean the expectations come in the season. Yeah, you want to be competitive and have a chance to get to the postseason. But now you're seeing guys like you know you mentioned Christian More. He ties a game in a thing with home run and wins it on a walk off in a tenth home run, the left home run the right center. What that tells you He's letting that baseball travel pretty well, and he has a pretty good idea. They feel really good about developing their players at the major league level. I know a lot of old school guys, Believe me. I have arguments with them all the time. Oh, you need two thousand and bats or fifteen hundred bats in the minor leagues to figure things out. Yes, there's ups and downs. I was lucky enough to make it up the big leagues as a twenty one year old, and I pitched in rookie ball and a ball and then double A and a ball. I really didn't pitch. I was hurt, so I only had double A and I skipped triple A. Yeah, there's ups and downs. There's doubts in your mind. But if you have the right people around you to say, listen, if you're in the big leagues, you're talented. Now it's the mining thing. You guys know that. Todd and you know and kIPS. You know, these guys are gonna have ups and downs. It's how you bounce back. And you worry about is there a chance that they don't respond back and get bounced back if they do struggle, Yeah, you worry about that. But I think these guys have proven, from the Nettos to SHAWNA Wells and and you know Hoppies and even Joe Adell. When you think about it, who's that hit ten home runs in this month of June alone? There was a lot of ups and downs with Joe. He's seeing the ball well now and he's hitting the ball. There's gonna be Like I said, there's some you know, development issues there. And as far as the draft, I don't have no idea who they're gonna draft. I think it might be a picture. They've been going picture heavy, but they really could use a bat, especially for me in the outfield developing. If that's a possibility, that might happen for the Angels, but it wouldn't surprise.

00:17:52
Speaker 3: Me at all.

00:17:53
Speaker 1: We always joke around again, Oh he's drafted tomorrow, I hope be here the next day and chess the next day.

00:18:00
Speaker 5: You were up at twenty one.

00:18:01
Speaker 6: I could tell you, I was not physically mature enough at twenty one years old, and I know I for a fact, I was not mentally mature enough either at twenty one years old.

00:18:08
Speaker 5: So that's impressive to be up at that time.

00:18:10
Speaker 6: We're talking about the starting rotation health, but we're going to go to the flip side, kind of on the unfortunate side of the unhealthy side. Is there an update on Ron Washington and how has this team been rallying around kind of not having them, especially what you mentioned it, there's a tough schedule coming up where sometimes teams really need to rely on their manager to get them through that. And the personality alone is a great personality to have a round. So what's the update on that end?

00:18:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jays, that's you know, we've been waiting here more and more each day. You know, he's been around as much as possible. We saw him in New York when we're going home. He didn't look real healthy, he wasn't feeling real good, but he was at the ballpark.

00:18:44
Speaker 3: We're like, wosh, you're you're still here. I get a job to do.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing he instills on his players, and he doesn't allow young war veteran players to come in and go, hey, I'm not doing really right away, He's jumping right down and they're girl saying, we need you to be able to go out there before every single day you put on that uniform. So it is difficult not having him on the bench. His presence has been around. We don't really know. I think we're gonna know something by today or tomorrow how long he may be out. Hopefully it won't be long, because I mean, I love my conversations with him every day. If you ask him one question, you got about an hour talk about anything to do with baseball, from the modern player to the player he played against, the guys played before him. He's a wealth of baseball information and his fight is what everyone loves about him. That's why we're all praying for him and pulling for him during this fight he's in right now that we know that he's going to be able to fight through this and be part of this and hopefully something magical happens towards the end of the year. If they can get through this month of July coming up, you know, then maybe this team has something special going on because of Watch.

00:19:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're obviously thinking about Wash it's been on the show. We all know him, covering him for a long time. Goofy last one for you. So the Angels just swept the Red Sox. I watched a decent amount of that series. What did you see on the other side there with Boston? And you know how they've I now think lost five in a row. You've got like Roman Anthony who is supposed to be amazing but getting everything on his shoulders to hit third. Devers is gone. So you know, how do you sum up the way you looked at that team over the last few days. And of course we can get your take on on the Devers trade. For me, I'm curious more on you know, it's forget just the drama. They're supposed to be competing this year. They traded away a top ten bat in the sport. And you've probably met Devers. He's like quiet, he's he's not he's not Manny Ramirez shown up late, you know, pain in the butt.

00:20:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the thing is with Devers. I mean, I know, just talking with the pictures, I know, whenever we went to a team, when we're facing them, who do you who do you avoid in those big moments? Deavors every time. You know, when you don't see his presence in a lineup, it doesn't matter who else is in there. You feel like as a pitcher, you're confident that you can navigate your way. I mean, Durand's a really good player. I love the way he plays the I mean, he's got a lot of speed, he plays good defense in the outfield, He's got some pretty good poweries at triples machine, and they have some young players. They're very similar when you think about some of their young players that are supposed to be able to carry a team like the Angels are right now. But the Angels now would Trout back in there. They have Mike Trout, and they have a tail Awards, you have a veteran round. It's tough for these young guys to look at someone to allow them to relax it to play. They're trying to do too much. You can see if there are swings, they're trying to do too much, and I think that's what's hurting their offense. I know they had to make a decision with Devers. I know things were going awry there as far as how things were working out with the team. But when you have a guy like Crochet. I watched him pitch the other day, I mean against the Angel They're like, wow, this guy's I'm real. So you have a potential of waist and arm like that. Their bullpen's been used a lot and they got some good arms down there. But when you don't have your anchor of your offense endeavors in there, they're a completely different team. Even when we saw them up at Fenway Park a few weeks ago in Boston, he was there and that's the first you could see a picture's action. Believe me, When I was facing guys, you know, and all of a sudden you go, oh, there's the Albert Bell waiting on deck. I'm like, man, can Albert Bell just move on to go somewhere else because that's the one guy, and then you forget about the other hitters in the lineup. Then you start making mistakes. So Dev's not being there is a huge hole for the Red Sox. That be honest with you, I don't know if we're able to overcome that right now, because that's the one bat you need if you're a Red Sox fan.

00:22:26
Speaker 3: Exactly.

00:22:26
Speaker 2: No way they're replacing that mid season, And if they were trying to compete. I'm like, dude, this in the offseason, you can actually sign a different player with that money. So I'm with you. I'm watching them the last few nights and I'm just like, this team is they've lost their impact batt and it like if it affects the rest of the lineup. Gooby, this was awesome, man, Really appreciate it. Great to see you here. Thanks for joining us. And you know we're on for the Angels TV crowd out there every day too, so I know they appreciate it as well.

00:22:52
Speaker 3: Good to see you. You guys are awesome, man. It was also being on there with you guys. You guys rock. Thank you, Grooves