Harper Is Heating Up

00:00:13
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Welcome to the Phillies Show with Rubern Tomorrow Junior Jim Salisbury. I'm todd z a lucky It is Thursday, May ninth, twenty twenty four. The Phillies just snapped an eleven game home winning streak with a five to three loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday. They left the tying run on second They had the tying run on second base with one out in the ninth A couple pop ups ended it. But the Phillies are twenty six and twelve. They still have the best record in baseball. The Dodgers are. The Dodgers are hot now. They swept the Braves over the weekend. They pummeled the Marlins this week, and I think they're a half game back of the Phillies right now. And the Phillies have done most of this so far this season without a really super Bryce Harper. But we might be seeing signs of a hot Bryce Harper. Homer three consecutive games Sunday through Tuesday. Last four games, he's batting four hundred three home runs ten RBIs. This is a guy who never sees pitches in the strike zone. Zach Wheeler was talking about it the other night saying, this guy, I think it's nothing to hit, and you know, a guy like him just wants to hit so badly, so his patience is really impressed. Zach Wheeler and then JT. Real Muto, I thought I had something interesting to say the other night in terms of Bryce getting things turned around. He said, you can tell in his takes how good he feels right now. I thought that was an interesting comment from JT. I And you know, maybe that has something to do with it.

00:01:50
Speaker 2: What is that? Yeah, yeah, I think so.

00:01:53
Speaker 3: The big deal for me was who was going to protect this guy in the lineup, like JT was was protecting him. Early they had him in the four hole and Alec Bohone got super super hot, and you could tell that at some point you just didn't know when Rob Thomas was going to make the move. He made the move, he slid him into the four hole to protect Bryce Harper, and I think from that point on, I think he started at they almost had to start pitching to the guy because if they didn't pitch to him, the next guy was going to pummel him. And I think the fact that I think there's a couple of factors here. I think he made a little minor adjustment with his swing. But additionally, and most importantly.

00:02:34
Speaker 2: He's got some protection.

00:02:35
Speaker 4: Now.

00:02:35
Speaker 3: You know, there's a reason why Trey Turner was doing really well because he's got protection from Bryce Harper. Now, Bryce Harper's got a little protection from Alec Bohm because Alex is legit threat for a pitcher. And you start backing guys up and protecting them, then I think you're going to start to see more pitches, get better pitches, and have more success. I'd like to think that the fact that I said he's going to be the greatest you know, Philly of all time publicly, that that got him going.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: But that is not the truth.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: Bryce Harper's gonna be a great player regardless of who says what about him.

00:03:14
Speaker 2: But I think a lot of it has to do with protection.

00:03:16
Speaker 5: Gym Yeah, and going nut comment that JT said that his takes are good. I actually put some stock in that as well, because you know, a lot of times we judge a hitter by the result or by a good swing. Sometimes just a good watch can tell you a lot about how he's picking up the ball, how he's seeing pitches, how he's seeing spin is he got a good feel for the strike zone at that moment in time. Uh, And it appears that he does because it's led to, you know, three great swings on two three run home runs and a grand Slam. So Bright we talked about it all along that you know, Bright hadn't even begun to fight yet. You know, it was kind of kind of you know, Mosy along getting his hits, but he hadn't gotten hot yet, and he's gotten hot, and no one is surprised. And you know, I often over the years, I like to talk to Larry Anderson about pitching, and he would tell me stories about when he was a young minor leaguer in the seventies that sometimes on the teams he was on, this is how baseball's changed a lot. Sometimes on the minor league teams he was on, there wasn't even a pitching coach. You'd have a rover come in once every two or three weeks and you'd throw a bullpen and he'd make an adjustment. And in the rest of the time, you know, you'd have to self evaluate and try things in the bullpen. You'd have to help yourself get better, and part of the process in helping yourself get better was talking to your teammates. They would notice things, you'd pick up things from them trial and error. Hey try this, see what you know you'd learn by speaking.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: With your peers.

00:05:01
Speaker 5: And I was kind of reminded of those conversations with Larry when I was reading something you wrote Todd this week about Bryce and about his swing and about his production that he kind of feels like this little hot streak could have been the result of a chat, a batting practice chat with Trey Turner. I found it fascinating. What did you learn from that?

00:05:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, so after Bryce homered on Monday, you know, Bryce, everything he says, he says, you know, he knows what he's saying at all times, and he made a point to say, I'm doing a little bit better laying off pitches out of the zone, recognizing pitches in the zone, doing damage. But I did have this little chat with Trey the other day Sunday before I made that first hit, that first home run, and yeah, maybe it helped a little bit. And so that kind of stuck out to me. And it stuck out to me because Johann Rojas had a similar comment about Trey Turner a couple of weeks ago in Cincinnati, talked at length about this just great conversation I had with Trey Turner, and it meant so much to me that he would spend so much time with me, and that Trey was showing me videos of the of the players and himself to get me on track. I went up to Tray yesterday, I said, so, what's with all these players talking about you, uh and these conversations that you are having in the batting cage And he kind of laughed, he said, and he said this probably fifteen times. He said, listen, total luck, total luck. I have nothing to do with their turn around. He's like, but I did have some conversations with these guys over the past, you know, a few weeks, And the one he said he had with Bryce was Bryce felt he was getting frustrated because he felt he was coming, you know, not not able to get to the pitches that he wanted to hit in the strike zone and he couldn't figure out why. And so Trey actually went and watched some twenty twenty one video of Bryce, and because he says, Bryce love was that video of himself, obviously, because he won the MVP that year, so he started watching the video and then he started watching what Bryce is doing this year, and he said he noticed his hands were late, and Ruben, you could speak to that better than me, but I guess that just means either they got started later or they're late firing through the zone. And so he found himself missing some pitches and Tray said, I think maybe your hands are a little late, and Bryce said okay. And so it was funny because Tray says, now, listen, Bryce is such a natural hitter. That part of me was like, oh, man, I hope he doesn't go out here and just sucked tonight because he gave him some advice. But so he said, the first at bat, if you remember on Sunday, he took had like three really good takes and then he hit a rocket up the middle. It wasn't out, but it was like one hundred nine miled hour ground ball up the middle. The next at bat he crushed a home run off of logan web and then Trey was like, wow, that that was it. And then interestingly enough, Trey had a similar another talk with Alec Bohm in Saint Louis in mid April early April, Boom was off the slow start, and Turner knows a couple of mechanical things where he was kind of sliding. I guess his front hip was sliding towards the mound instead of firing his you know, turning as he was swinging, and Alec Boone got hot. So I don't know what's going on, but again, Trey, it was just funny because Trey did say, it's like a bunch. I'm just lucky right now. I'm on a crazy run right now. I don't want to get to I don't want to take any credit for this. It's a crazy run, but it's kind of that's that cool stuff that you hear inside the clubhouse that makes baseball fun.

00:08:34
Speaker 2: So this is the.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: Beauty of what this ball club does and why they're sort of special, and how they really care. There are a lot of ball clubs and there are a lot of players in this day and age who would not care, who would like, let just let the hitting coach do and of assisting hitding coach and the other assistant, let them do the work. These guys really care about each other, are watching and they're observing and they're helping. I got to tell you, I as a player in the minor leagues, I had a good friend named David Escer who worked on hitting. All the time. We talked about hitting. He's now the head coach at Stanford. I actually got sort of lucky that I got sent back to the A lower minor league level and Quad Cities to work with them, because all he did was observe every single one of my at bats, and after every at bat we talked and broke broke it down and it really really helped me. We did the same thing when I was in the big leagues with Kevin Jordan. Kevin Jordan was a benchmate of mine. We talked about are at bats, We threw BP to each other.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: We did it all the time because.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: Frankly, at that time, Hal McRae, who was the hitting coach, Frankly, he was working with Scott Rowland, he was working with Greg Jefferies, he was working with Regoe Brynan.

00:09:49
Speaker 6: He didn't give two craps about Ruben Tomorrow and Kevin Jordan because he wasn't making them the money, and so it was important for us to observe each other, what we did well, what we didn't do well. There wasn't the same video and there wasn't the same stuff that you could break down, but you could watch yourself and you give yourself a good picture.

00:10:07
Speaker 2: And you know, we would do that with each other. I mean I do it with friends on the golf course, now you know.

00:10:11
Speaker 6: And I do it with Paul holmger and stuff on the golf course and good and good friends I work with because you care about each other.

00:10:18
Speaker 2: And that's what the difference. That's like the big difference that you see.

00:10:22
Speaker 5: In this team.

00:10:23
Speaker 2: It's sort of an old school team.

00:10:26
Speaker 3: Where guys actually care about each other and want to help each other have success. And that's a really cool thing and a really cool piece of information that you wrote about, Todd, And it's something that you love about this team and why they really do care about playing with each other and why they seem to gel so well.

00:10:48
Speaker 5: And I also think it shows. I mean the disappointment of twenty twenty two losing in Game six of the World Series, the disappointment of twenty twenty three losing in Game seven of the CS, I mean, those disappointments still smart, and I think they still I think I'm sure they fuel this team and it's strived to end this season with something other than disappointment, end the season with a victorious feeling in a world series. So I don't think they care how they get it done, or where they get advice from, where they get tips from, where they find their success. They're all in it together, and if it leads to where they want to go, then it's going to be They're gonna be all ears and it's going to be worth it. I mean, and it's great that. I mean, Turner's going to have probably five more weeks to make these contributions. It just shows you go on the il, you're still a contributor.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: That's why I tht.

00:11:45
Speaker 3: I mean, it was so important for me that, like when Chase was down and hurt, I want to Chase to be in the dugout. I want to Chase to be around so we could help people, so we could observe and help. And I know he was trying to take care of himself, but that's why it was so important to have him around.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: You talk about the disappointment in two thousand and seven when.

00:12:02
Speaker 3: We got knocked out, Like immediately guys were like, man, that ain't happening again. I saw it happen in Boston when the year that we all got let go. We got to the playoffs two years in a row, got knocked out pretty quickly. We all got let go. I know that those players, the Mookie bets Is and the Ben Attendees of the World and the Jackie Bradley's and all those guys, you know, they wanted to get back to the World Series and win it. And that's you know that that's the kind of stuff that sort of fuels you. If you have a cohesive unit, some of those losses can really help, uh, you know, help propel you to the next level.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: Riberty mentioned Mookie Bets. That was another thing that Johan Rojas mentioned. He didn't he didn't mention it, but he said, yeah, Trey took the time out of his day to like pull up all these videos and show me how his videos. And I asked, Tray, said, so, who were you showing them? He said, I was showing him a lot of Mookie Bets. He's like, I talk about Mookie Bets a lot because he is what is he He's under six foot right, I mean he's he's five nine or five ten, and.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: He's about one hundred and sixty seven pounds.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he hit thirty nine home runs last season, So he said, a guy like him, he does so many things, right, that's a guy I want to show to a guy like Johann Rojas.

00:13:17
Speaker 3: So obviously in the two years, I mean, he's one of my favorite all time players and one of my favorite all time people. But Mookie Bets, I used to marvel at watching him take batting practice because he could generate, because he had great hands. Man, he could generate bat speed as well as anybody great athlete, but you know, fast twitch muscles, all that stuff.

00:13:36
Speaker 2: But his ability to.

00:13:38
Speaker 3: To throw the barrel head was as good as anybody's I've ever seen in that size, honest to god. I mean, Chase Something was phenomenal as well. He's a little bit taller, had a little bit more leverage, and had great, great hands. They're different types of hitters, but their hands were just incredible.

00:13:58
Speaker 2: Jose Al Tuve, who's five five or five six, great hands.

00:14:03
Speaker 3: I mean you talk about, you know, manipulating the barrel. These guys are special. And if Joann Rojas can concentrate, because he's got pretty good hands, he's got pretty good hand action.

00:14:13
Speaker 2: If he can do that and trust it, he's gonna become a better hitter.

00:14:19
Speaker 5: Well, it's just it's really great to hear that. I mean, Trey Turner is a great player, but to hear that his contributions are now transcending the field and impacting others. You know, that's gonna be music to the people who signed that big check. It's gonna be music to their ears.

00:14:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's probably probably not great music to Kevin Long because those guys, because they work every day with those guys.

00:14:42
Speaker 2: But really, I mean, this.

00:14:44
Speaker 5: Is I would I would say that maybe Rob Thompson and the coaching staff have created an environment, an inclusive environment where everybody feels comfortable speaking up. So I would doubt. I would doubt that's frowned upon. But it's an interesting point.

00:15:01
Speaker 2: Well, you know, no question. Well, it's funny.

00:15:03
Speaker 1: Kevin Long had been working so Johann Rojas's thing, I guess was that he was firing everything at the same time, and they were trying to break down his swing, start certain things at different times. And Kevin Long was talking about that in spring training and Trey Turner basically seemed to almost reiterate that same point. But maybe just hearing it from a teammate, which you guys talked about, you know, with the Larry Anderson stories and whatnot, maybe that just resonated more with Johan, you know, just hearing it, I.

00:15:30
Speaker 2: Will tell you that there's no more impact.

00:15:33
Speaker 3: I mean, with all due respect to all the coaches I've had, there's a lot of impact on your peers. Man, if your peer is is caring enough about you to make a comment, and hopefully it's not it's not a comment that is different from from what the coaching staff is giving you, but it's something to help maybe bring something to light that he was working on and to see it or or to verbalize it in a different way so that you accept it better.

00:16:04
Speaker 2: Then what the hell is the difference? As long as it gets it done right right.

00:16:10
Speaker 1: Bryson Stott played some shortstop. It was funny if you hours after we talked about Bryson Scott, when's he gonna play shortstop?

00:16:15
Speaker 2: He started at shortstop on Money Brethren Sooth Shop.

00:16:21
Speaker 1: So the question I'm wondering is, you know, when does he start getting in there a little bit more and he's he is heating up. Wit Mayfield is kind of heating up, you know, Wit Merrifield was last nine games batting three fifty five, a couple doubles, a couple of home runs. Bryson Stott in his last nine games, batting three seventy three doubles, two home runs. You know, Edmundo Sosa a good defensive player, good utility player. I'm thinking Stott's maybe is early. Well, I shouldn't say this weekend because they're going to face three lefties I think in Miami, but maybe next week he starts getting in there a little bit more at shortstop, giving with a little bit more play in right at base. That seems to be the way to go. That seems the way that way it's gonna end up going, isn't that.

00:17:05
Speaker 5: I think they're giving Sosa a little bit of a a little respect here, Yeah, but ultimately I think that's going to provide your best lineup. Now it's up to you know, it's up to especially Merryfield to hit stay in there. But I think that's gonna eventually over this five or six weeks span, get a lot of looks, but we'll see.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think you know Merrifield has played, I mean, just having watched him in a short period of time. He's played a pretty solid second base. Not a liability there. I mean he's that's the place that he has played the most at and I think he feels comfortable there. Yeah, I gotta believe that Stotts could end up being pretty much the every day shortstop. And I think you're right, Jim. I think Rob Thomps has just given you know so so some love and given give him an up to Hey.

00:18:00
Speaker 2: Hey, let's let's face it. When Sosa gets in there, it gets opportunities to play. He always somehow makes an impact. I mean, it's pretty beauty. It's a beautiful thing that the guy is off the bench.

00:18:08
Speaker 3: If actually, you know, continue to provide some such sort of impact every time they get a chance, just needs to be something small. Yeah, Code has been great, And that was one of the things I wanted to talk about too, is the Cody Clements And I think there was a comment that that that that that Topper made. I thought that was really spectacular for a bench player like myself, for the major league manager to tell to say publicly, hey, when when I got sent out, Hey, this guy is.

00:18:42
Speaker 2: A major league player. He should be a major league player.

00:18:46
Speaker 3: The numbers are working out such that he's not, but he's a major league player. When I hear that, as a player, you're going, Wow.

00:18:54
Speaker 2: That's awesome.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: And so when I get a chance to play and I get come back and he puts me in the lineup up, you know, you're feeling pretty damn good about yourself and you're and you and he's contributing, and so I think that hasn't I mean, that's that's just brilliant stuff.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: From Rob Thompson. Man.

00:19:11
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how important that is to hear that as a twenty sixth or twenty seventh man, To hear that from your manager who is making out the lineup every day and then giving you an opportunity, that's great stuff. And it can translate into you know, into w's and it can translate into some production too.

00:19:32
Speaker 5: It's it's it just shows there's more to managing than you know, putting on a sign calling for uh, you know, an infield defense player making out a lineup. You're dealing with human beings and you have to manage personalities and part of that is building confidence, not bsing the guy, but there's ways to build confidence, and you know, sending a guy out the door saying, hey, it's a number scrunch or a big league player. That guy goes to Lehi thinking I'm the next man up when they need me and I'm gonna perform. It gives him. It gives him a little booster shot of adrenaline and feel good, and that stuff works. That stuff works on the mind, and the mind ends up leading the body in a lot of cases.

00:20:15
Speaker 1: You mentioned mentioning managing people, Jim, I mean Rob Thompson's got to manage this Spencer Turmble situation, you know, which is so tricky. The other night, Chris Sanchez comes out, he starts and before the game, Rob's like, we have we have a plan. We have a plan now. A couple of nights earlier, I asked, and I think we talked about this on the last episode when Taiwan Walker went out and pitched. It was starting the seventh inning. I was like, what do you have pitched Turnbull the final two? He's like, no, we when Turnbull comes out and pitches, we got to give him three innings. We need him to get three innings to keep them stretched out.

00:20:49
Speaker 2: Well, then I.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: Figured for sure turn Berle is gonna come out and pitch three innings the other night when Sanchez starts, but then sanchez pitch is so good that, uh Turnble only gets the final too. So you know, I don't know it's it's gonna be. You know, it's a great problem to have, like we've said, but I think it's gonna be so interesting to see how they keep him stretched out. Now Rob has already said, listen, the good news is that we can bring Turmble back earlier than we want, but that probably if he comes back earlier than we want or then you know, in the next few days, he's probably not gonna be able to follow up Sanchez again. And oh, by the way, we have to give him a long look within the next seven to ten days or ten to fourteen days to make to keep him stretched out. Otherwise he's not gonna be stretched out anymore. So, uh, Rob's got to kind of manage that as well, because Turble clearly wants to start. I mean, he clearly wants to start.

00:21:39
Speaker 2: You make plans in baseball and God smiles, brother.

00:21:44
Speaker 3: I mean, Sanchez comes out and just deals and you know, you got to win baseball games, and you got to just let him go because he's a fishing. He's pitching well, and he's throwing one inner or whatever, giving up one run, whatever the heck he was doing. Hey, sometimes you got to make adjustments on your plan. I thought for sure, after the seventh inning or after the sixth inning, he was going to bring a Turnbull in.

00:22:07
Speaker 6: He has a good inning, he throws it back out there like holy smokes, and you think that's awesome.

00:22:14
Speaker 2: I think it's great.

00:22:15
Speaker 6: Man, he was dealing.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: I gotta win this baseball game. Let him pitch. He's stilling a shutout or whatever.

00:22:21
Speaker 5: Do you think Turnbull might not have been ready because as a starter he required a little more time. Maybe I want to I don't know. Maybe he called on and said I'm not ready.

00:22:30
Speaker 1: Well, I think he started getting I think he started warming up. But even before the six he started getting loose. I thought, yeah, yeah, he.

00:22:36
Speaker 5: Was out there early.

00:22:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:22:37
Speaker 5: Right, you're out there twenty five minutes early.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. He says it's gonna take time to get used to it. He says he's not quite used to it. Obviously, there's only something he's only Yeah, he's only done it once the entire life.

00:22:50
Speaker 5: Something, something will present itself.

00:22:53
Speaker 2: Sure, no doubt he'll know that he'll get it. There's gonna be a rain delay or a range, something's gonna happen.

00:22:58
Speaker 3: I know they're going to Miami and or laying in the dome or whatever. But somebody's gonna blow up with somebody. Something's gonna happen where he's gonna get an opportunity in the next ten days to pitch.

00:23:10
Speaker 2: Good problem, good, great problem. You kidding me. I would have died for those problems.

00:23:17
Speaker 1: Going down, going down to Miami. Nick Castillas is from Miami. I remember last year he uh, he was terrible in July, terrible in July, and then they opened uh. I think they had like a three game series in early August, and he went home the night before. He said he hit in the cage till about one thirty in the morning with his brother and one of his buddies, and he went back on a terror in August. So Castianos Is had in last eight games, Nick Castillos betting three thirty three, three doubles, one home run, nine to eight ops all, there's only four extra base hits of the entire season of coming to last eight games. So now he gets to go home, see his wife, see his kids, maybe he gets going against a terrible, terrible Marlins team.

00:24:04
Speaker 2: Terrible funny.

00:24:05
Speaker 5: When we last saw the Marlins, it was here in October. They had just earned their first playoff birth in a full one and sixty two game season since two thousand and three. To put that in perspective, Jack McKeon was managing them, and Miguel Cabert was a rookie, so Philly swept him out quick, and I thought kim Ming did a really great job kind of getting him moving in the right direction, got him in the postseason. Sounds like she wanted to continue to do a little more moving, and ownership said no, no, no, no, no, not open to the wallet. She was moved on from after doing really great work, and they didn't sign George Soler. It didn't even try. Now they've traded Luis right and a two time batting champ, and obviously winning is not even on their radar. It's not a priority. So that's sad, sad situation. They're gonna be in the long rebuild and uh. But nonetheless, the Phillies have to go there and they have two challenges. One is the environment. It's very lifeless down there, especially coming out coming out of Citizens Bank Park, where it's you know, thirty eight to forty three thousand people every night, the four hours of Hell cliche or whatever saying going down there, it's you know, four hours at the library. So you gotta you gotta bring some energy. You gotta conquer that challenge. And you've got to remember that there's kids over there trying to prove themselves as a big leaguer and you don't want them to have their three best days as a big leaguer against you. So to win this division, you know, last year the Braves i think went nine to four against Miami pretty good. Right, If you want to win this division, you gotta clean up, clean up on Miami. What while they're not really trying.

00:26:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let's just let's let's let's look at this. They're gonna throw three left handers at him. Right, some of their best hitters in this lineup for the Phillies, left handers, Shoreber, Harper, marsh Stop. Those are four very very good bats from the left side that maybe neutralized a little bit by the left handers.

00:26:31
Speaker 2: And so that's that's a real issue. So the other you know, the other boys.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: Are gonna have to step up and uh and provide a little thump in that lineup. The guys from the right side, particularly Cassianos. I know he loves home cooking and I know he loves being at all. That's big for him. But you know, it's you have to be able to motivate yourself in these situations. I know they're coming off having lost. I think in some ways that one loss was sort of a good thing because I think that they'll be hungry to get bounced back and get another winning street going. It was a game they probably could have won and didn't. They had opportunities at least to win. But hopefully that their mindset is where it needs to be so that they can play good, solid baseball down in Miami, down in the South Florida.

00:27:24
Speaker 2: Yea.

00:27:24
Speaker 1: Jim has a story on the All City Network all pH l y dot com about that. You can read Jimmy, I Love Jim. Jimmy had a great story last week on Alec Bohm and and the I Love this Place t shirt and just embracing that moment. That's you know, it's good to have Jimmy writing bass.

00:27:42
Speaker 5: He's right right, So go to Miami. We've all spent a lot of time in two ballparks down there. But I'm gonna guess maybe like the high life for maybe all three of us in Miami. What I wasn't there. I was there.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: I was for the for the perfect game.

00:28:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, the Perfect Game was amazing.

00:28:06
Speaker 3: That moment was so spectacular for me because I was right there with my brother watching it. And I was with my brother Ruben, my half brother brother from another mother, and uh and younger brother and he. We sat there for like the last five innings and in the scouts box right behind whole plate, watching Doc go to work, and.

00:28:34
Speaker 2: I swear to you, we could not he talks more than I do.

00:28:39
Speaker 3: And the dude did not say a word from the from like the fifth or sixth inning on. It was pretty funny, pretty cool, and it was an unbelievable moment when he made that when Castro made that one play in the hole, like a really tough play like it.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: In between hopspun and I'm like, oh my god, please make this play and he did.

00:29:00
Speaker 3: I swear to you, I was in tears with my brother, hugging him high five and I'm loving on him.

00:29:06
Speaker 2: It was a spectacular moment.

00:29:08
Speaker 5: So I kept sneaking into the back, one to get ice cream.

00:29:13
Speaker 2: Shock, I remember that, and two to get a burger.

00:29:18
Speaker 5: One to get ice cream, and two to watch the Flyers. They were playing the black Hawks in the final, so I kept going to the back to watch the hockey game and get a little ice cream. And uh, you know, all of a sudden, no twenty minutes of going by, and it's already the fifth inning, and I'm like, oh, I gotta get my game face on and some things happening here. So I you know, I get out on my keyboard and start hacking a little bit. But uh, I mean, you know, it was so surreal, and Joe Biden called him after the game, and I just remember the clubhouse. Everybody was so pumped, and and you know the fact that it was like his tenth or eleventh start with the Phillies, like it seemed like he had just gotten there and then he does this truly amazing. It was. But you know, I've covered two world series down there, a lot of really memorable moments, but that certainly every time I go there, I think.

00:30:15
Speaker 7: Of that, and so so two moments really stick out, like what you know, it was pretty obviously he was sort of my white whale when I got my job.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: As a GM and went to day Montgomery's.

00:30:25
Speaker 8: And I really would love, love, love if I ever got a chance to get a player that'd be the guy, because I've been watching.

00:30:32
Speaker 2: Him beat us up in spring training for the.

00:30:34
Speaker 8: Like the last ten thousand years, and acquiring him and watching him perform, and seeing what he did in his very first game as a professional in a playoff.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: Game, to throw a no hitter ridiculous.

00:30:51
Speaker 7: Throwing a perfect game also ridiculous, and it just made all those efforts to bring him to Philadelphia just so worth it.

00:31:01
Speaker 3: Man.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: I just I think back on those moments man with.

00:31:05
Speaker 7: Great, great pride and a full heart, man, because he was unfreaking believable.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: So good man.

00:31:15
Speaker 5: So you weren't there that night, but you did a pretty darn good job chronicling it all in the shoulder.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that I mean that was Wait.

00:31:27
Speaker 2: Wait that one.

00:31:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go.

00:31:29
Speaker 5: There we go, there you go. I mean that was.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: I mean that that game, just talking all those players getting other recollections of it, you know, it was just amazing, you know, talking. I remember Jason Worth and talking to him about what he remembers of that and all those guys, you know Wan Castro reliving that play. That's a play I made a thousand times as a kid, you know. Then you know, through the minor leagues. I just practiced that play over and over and over and actually have it happened in that moment.

00:31:54
Speaker 2: It was.

00:31:54
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. So yeah, no, I wasn't there that night. I mean, I'll be honest with you, guys. I was at home at my old house in Rocksboro and the Flyers were on upstairs, and I was watching downstairs, and I was I was like borderline nausea, sick to my stomach because I because I'm going like, listen, I probably will never have the opportunity. I covered the Phillies. This is my job, and I am going to miss. I think it was at the twentieth perfect game in baseball history or nineteenth twentieth at the time. Yeah, and I'm going I will probably never see this. And I am here, I'm here in my basement in Rocksboro. Well, roy Hell, it is making history.

00:32:33
Speaker 2: But it was. It was cool. It was cool. Good.

00:32:37
Speaker 1: So So Friday, We've got Ranger Suarez versus Trevor Rodgers on Saturday, it's Taiwan Walker, his use Loszardo is going to come back from the IL. And then on Sunday it's gonna be Zach Wheeler versus Braxton Garrett. So we will be back next week. If you are new to The Philly Show, please follow somebscribe, leave like, leave a like, or leave a review. I'm told that that helps get it. Subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. We are available on YouTube. You can follow us on Instagram, on Twitter, TikTok, all these different places. So do it all. Tell a friend, tell your neighbor, tell them to come listen to Philly Show. Talk to you guys next week The Todd The Todd Pod.

00:33:26
Speaker 5: Will you later, boys?

00:33:28
Speaker 2: Smelling Jimmy