Fair Territory: Dodgers & Brewers 1 win away, Yankees on the brink

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory. I'm Ken Rosenthal, coming from New York City right now getting ready for tonight's broadcast of Game three of the Division series Yankees Blue Jays, Blue Jays leading to nothing. But of course I want to start off with last night's proceedings, and particularly the proceedings in Philadelphia, where the Dodgers took a two games to non lead four to three victory over the Phillies. We are steamrolling toward a potential Dodgers Brewers and LCS, both teams the Dodgers and Brewers leading their respective division series two games to none, and a Dodgers Brewers NLCS would be big market versus small market. It would be in the eyes of some referendum on whether the sport needs a salary cap. But let's not get into all that just yet. We have some more fun to discuss regarding these two series, and of course the two American League Division series going on as well. The Dodgers all regularly season I found to be frustrating. I thought they were coasting. I wondered, like a lot of people, including their manager Dave Roberts, whether they would be able to turn it on at the appropriate time. I guess we have our answer. They've won nine straight games, including the first two of this series, thirteen of fifteen. The starting pitching looks like nothing else in the sport right now, so dominant, and we've seen that in these first two games in Philadelphia. They took those two. They had that frantic bottom of the ninth last night, the hold on, which started with Blake trianon kind of an odd decision by Dave Roberts, then featured the wheel play, of course, but the story of this series so far is what Otani has done, and it's what Snell has done. As Jason Stark wrote this morning in The Athletic, in a span of thirty nine batters at one point, when you look at Otani first and then Snell, they allowed two hits. Two hits in thirty nine batters. And as well as the Phillies have pitched Sanchez and Lozardo, they've been outpitched. And the Phillies again in the postseason, are struggling offensively. Now. I would suggest that a big reason they are struggling offensively in the postseason is because the Dodgers pitching has been so good. But Turner, Schwarber, and Harper right now two for twenty one. You could say the Dodgers are kind of in a similar spot Otani's one for nine, Otani bets and Freeman just four for twenty five combined. But the Dodgers have found a way to win these two games. And as we go forward here, it's almost difficult for me to imagine any team outpitching the Dodgers what they have right now. In addition to three brilliant starters, of course, I'm talking about a Tani Snell and the game three choice, your Shinobu Yamamoto, who will be most likely a top five sal Young finalist, We're also talking about a bullpen that, yes has struggled, continues to struggle, but is currently fortified by four other are starting pitchers, four Glass now Kershaw, Sian and of course Roki Sasaki, who has emerged as a pretty fair closer in recent days. So right now you have a situation where the Phillies are scraping. They're going back to LA It's hard to imagine them winning this series, of course, And then if the series ends at some point and the Phillies end up losing, there are gonna be a whole lot of questions about the future of this team, how they're going to go forward. Schwarber and real Muto are free agents. You would think the Phillies want them back. They don't have obvious internal replacements. Rob Thompson as manager, I would say he has done a good job. He is not the problem. But I would expect if the Phillies go out there to be some kind of change. So that's Philadelphia and La the Brewers. Last night they took it to the Cubs yet again, and we're seeing here a big market, small market matchup, of course, and the small market team yet again Milwaukee prevailing in a big way. They have been the Cubs tormentors for quite some time now and it's just continuing in this series. So last night, a team that is twenty second in the majors in home runs, the Brewers hit three homers, including two three run shots, and that was the difference in the game. The three run shots by Andrew Vaughan and Jackson Curio massive home runs. This is not necessarily what the Brewers do typically. What they did in Game one was more typical, but here they are. They didn't even use Quinn Priester in their bullpen game. Yes, that was a bullpen game in which they prevailed last night. They had hinted in using Priester, but they preserve him for Game three and the miss last night, My goodness, three scoreless innings, hit one hundred and four miles an hour. He was absolutely brilliant and dominant and electric. It was also fired up. It was really cool to see. So the Cubs obviously in deep trouble here. And if your Cubs fan, I'm sure you're wondering, man, if we only had Kate Horton, if we only had Justin Steele going back further, sure that's fair, but the Brewers are without Brandon Woodruff, and the Cubs just have not matched them so far in this series. From a starting pitching or any kind of pitching standpoint, Matt Boyd on three days rest in Game one. Never a good idea to pitch a guy on three days rest in the postseason. The numbers are staggering against it, but the Cubs felt obviously that was their best option, and then Imanaga in Game two. He has allowed a ton of home runs lately, thirty one in the regular season total that is fourth in the Majors and then even more recently twelve home runs in his last six starts allowed. Wasn't a shock last night to see him allow a few more homers. So the Cubs, I don't know how they're going to figure this out with the Brewers over time, but here are the Brewers, and not counting the COVID season, the last time the Cubs finished ahead of them, the last time was twenty seventeen. And for the Brewers, if they do prevail here, and it certainly looks like they will, this will be a huge thing for them because they have lost five straight opening round series, four wildcard series, and division series. They have yet to kind of break through in this new era of Theirs, this era of Council and now Crat Murphy. This would be a big thing. And certainly we've seen them be the best team in the Majors all season long. It seems to me now casual fans who might be watching this are seeing why they do a lot of things really well. Brewers up to nothing in that series. Now the series I am on the Yankees and the Blue Jays. We go to Game three tonight at Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays have outscored the Yankees twenty three to eight in this series, but it has all taken place at Rogers Center, where the Blue Jays were absolutely electric and brilliant in any other great adjective you might want to use. In the first two games. I said this unfair territory yesterday. I'll say it again today. I do see a pathway for the Yankees to get back in this series. Obviously, it starts tonight. Rodin has to beat Shane Bieber, and then Game four, of the Blue Jays are throwing a bullpen game, the Yankees will have Cam Schlitzer that would seemingly favor the Yankees. And then Game five back in the Rogers Center where the Yankees are one and eight, it would be freed In Gossman. And who knows how Ya Savage will be used, if at all, in Games four or five, coming off his brilliant seventy eight pitch performance on Sunday, but he is an option at some point four or five. All hands on deck in a Game five, And yes, the Yankees would have that Rogers stigma hanging over them the one and eight record, But at the same time, when you get to that point, if you get to that point. Again, all bets are off, You've got a shot, So we'll see what happens tonight. It is a huge test for the Yankees, a huge test for Aaron Judge. As I wrote yesterday, Vladimir Guerrero in two days, in those games at Rogers Center in two days produced more electrifying moments in the postseason than I think maybe Aaron Judge ever has the game one homer in the first inning for Guerrero, and of course the Grand Slam in Game two that turned a five to nothing lead into a nine nothing lead. So Yankees obviously in trouble here, but again they're coming home as opposed to the Phillies, and that gives them something of at least a chance. I would say. The other series, the final series we should discuss here, Mariners and Tigers. This has been an interesting series, low scoring, both games decided by scores of three to two. The Mariners finally win a postseason game at home for the first time since two thousand and one. They do that in Game two, a game that the Tigers had tied up late and easily could have won. Didn't work out that way. So now it goes back to Detroit, and we'll see what happens here. I am not convinced one way or the other that either of these teams is going to dominate in the next two games. Tonight, we have Logan Gilbert seemingly with a pitching advantage over Jack Flaherty, who has been at times brilliant and at times inconsistent. So this is a series that it seems like it's gonna go more longer than some of the others. Certainly when you're tied one to one, that would be the obvious conclusion. Ken, But with schoolble looming still and with the Mariners pitching being what it is, I would expect low scoring games to continue, assuming Flowerty tonight is going to be the Jack Flaherty we saw at times in last year's postseason, at times during the regular season, but not always in either case. All right, we'll be right back after this with the inside dish FT fam.

00:09:51
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00:10:51
Speaker 1: Well well, well, time out for the inside. I dished the part of the show where I talk about maybe a story I've written, maybe a trend in the game, maybe something else entirely, And today I want to talk about one of the favorite things that I do in the television part of my job when I work for Fox Sports, and that is interviewing parents. And I believe i've mentioned this before on the show, but I just take such enjoyment out of it, because really, every time you do it, it's in a successful situation for the player and the parents. Most often in major league debuts is when this happens, they are routinely overjoyed. So on Sunday, in Game two, after you Savage pitched five and a third scoreless innings with eleven strikeouts, hitless innings, I interviewed his parents, Dave and Cheryl, up in the stands in Rogers Center, and I just kind of want to share with you guys how this came about, because this one was a little bit different. So again, I've been doing this a long time now. This is my twentieth year at Fox. I remember Daniel Nava, Nava coming up in twenty ten for the Red Sox, first pitch Grand Slam in his first Major league at bat, interviewing his parents. I remember Cole Tucker when he came up for the Pirates in twenty nineteen, hit a home run and interviewed his parents. That was cool. Twenty twenty two NLCS the Nola Showdown between Austin Nola of the Padres Aaron Nola of the Phillies interviewed their parents in the stands. All these things are great. Never interviewed a parent in a postseason game when their son is coming off the performance that trey Y Savage did. And actually, initially this interview was not going to happen. The morning of the game, I contacted the Blue Jays and said, hey, if you Savage pitch as well, I would like to interview the parents. What do you think Can you tell me the seat locations and we'll go from there. And the Jays replied, you know what, this is something where we want to ask the player first, and we do not want to talk to you Savage on the day of his start. The next time, if you just let us know a day in advance, we'll talk to him and we'll see what happens. That answer frustrated me. I will lie At the same time, I did understand it. Now you might say, well, what's the big deal about asking a player if a reporter can talk to his parents, But starting pitchers generally are left alone the day of their starts. And Treya Savage was making his fourth major league start, So I can understand where the Blue Jays were coming from, and I can even understand why they would want his approval, because not all players would be comfortable with their parents being interviewed. And I could speak for myself here. My dad has passed away, but if he was ever interviewed about me, I would not have been happy about it. He would have taken things, probably in directions that I would not have been comfortable with. So I understood the whole thing. But then the game is progressing. The Blue Jays go up nine to nothing, they go up eleven nothing, they go up twelve nothing, and I text an official from MLB who was working the series and on the broadcast sides. He's a sign to really organizing the broadcast interviews and different things, and I said, hey, it would be nice if we can interview Trey Savage's parents, don't you think And he agreed, and he said, you know what, let me ask the Blue Jays and we'll see what they say. And the Blue Jays said, you know what, Okay. They allowed that MLB official to approach the parents in the stands ask their permission if I could come up there and interview them, and everything from there proceeded. The MLB official texted me back and said, we're good, go ahead up there. I did that, and I had a stage manager, a person down on the field with me who knew the ballpark better than I did, got me to the seats and you saw what happened if you were still watching by that point. Dave and Cheryl were great. And what was unusual about this interview different than some of the others. Usually it's conducted with the parents sitting down because the games are I don't know, close, and people are watching and they don't want to be standing up and blocking the view of others. But in this case, Dave, you Savage Tray's dad said, you know what, I want everybody up behind me, because there were family members, a lot of family members, it seemed like, behind him, and other people maybe from other Blue Days families as well. So everybody stood. Dave stood, Cheryl stood, brother Cole stood. He's in college right now, but he was up. They had driven up from Pennsylvania for this, and you could see the excitement of the parents. Hear the excitement of the parents. They gave great answers to the questions. They were regular people, as almost all baseball player parents are, and it was just a fun interview. So it was the kind of thing that kind of makes my job even more fulfilling. It's always fulfilling, it's always great. But again, that is maybe the favorite thing that I do, interviewing parents in joyous moments like that. And when you have parents who were as down home and as cool as Dave and Cheryl were, well, it doesn't get any better than that. So that was it. That was the story behind that interview. I want to thank, obviously Dave and Cheryl for being so accommodating with their time and being willing to do it. I also want to thank the Blue Jays for ultimately deviating from their policy, I guess you would say, And I want to thank the MLB official who helped as well. Worked out great, and who knows, maybe we'll have another moment like that later in the series. Maybe Cam Schlitzler's parents will be the next ones that we interview. But he's already, I don't know, pretty accomplished for a major league pitcher. Anyway. That is the inside dish. We'll be back with grilling Kin right after this. Ft FAM.

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00:17:36
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We'll get to grilling Can in one second, But first I want to address the ongoing situation regarding the managerial merry go round. Rick Groley wrote about it today for The Athletic and brid of course did an outstanding job as always. It's a very interesting situation because there are so many jobs open. We've seen the Texas Rangers fill their position as expected with Skips Drumacher, and now it remains to be seen just where these other ones are going to go. We've got three interims still to be decided Colorado. I would expect that to be a change because a new general manager is coming in to replace Bill Schmidt. Washington still has to decide on Miguel Cairo. Baltimore still has to decide on Tony Mansolino. I wrote last week about David Ross and his interest in becoming a manager again. And there are two jobs in particular that I think are the most appealing, and maybe three the most appealing right now. The ones open is Atlanta. I don't know that there's any question about that. Most everyone in the game expects the Braves to be back and back in a big way next season. They're going to do some things in the offseason, and they're also going to be healthier than they were, so I would expect that job to be one that is highly contested. I don't know and have no feel really for which way Alex Anthopolis wants to go. What Weiss is certainly someone who has managed before. He was on Brian Snicker's staff, but I don't know that they want to have that kind of continuity. They might want to change, and Anthopolis has not hired a manager in Atlanta. He's had Snicker the whole time, so he's going to probably want his own guy with his own stamp. That would be my expectation. Baltimore is another interesting job, and the Orioles, yes, they have work to do this offseason. They have to reconstruct virtually their entire bullpen, and more than anything, they need to find the top of the rotation starter that they didn't get last year. It turns out that Trevor Rodgers kind of emerged as that guy in the second half of the season, and Kyle Bradish is coming back, So you've got two top of the rotation types kind of in place, but at the same time they need one more so that's another interesting job San Francisco as well. The Giants have some holes to fill. They've got to get better in a number of different areas. But it seems like Nick Huntley, the former catcher, is favored for that job. And that job two is appealing because Buster Posey, as President Baseball Operations is going to want to win. So we're gonna see how this all plays out in the next few weeks. I do expect maybe even more movement, especially if the Phillies go out, because then the question of Rob Thompson would come up. And I know Yankee fans are waiting, well, if we get swept, what about Aaron Boone. I don't see it. I don't see it because of the way this is happening. It's not Aaron Boone's fault that his team is getting pounded here. It just happens to be that they've run into a hot club. But we shall see in the days and weeks ahead. All right, with that, let's get to grill and can first question comes from Richard Proctor, who asks what are the chances of any expansion news this offseason? That, Richard, actually is a really good question, and I don't know the answer to it. So Rob Manfren's position as commissioner has been the whole time, Wait till Tampa Bay and Sacramento, it turns out, now gets resolved, Wait till the two franchises, the A's and the Rays have their stadium issues all set. They're not quite there yet, so I would not expect an announcement this off season. Yes, the A's have a plan they're going to Las Vegas. Construction is underway. The Rays have new ownership, but they yet or they do not yet have a stadium plan in place. So once that happens, and I do expect it to happen in relatively short order, then at that point I would expect Manford to proceed, But not before that, and maybe not before the next round of the labor negotiations because that's going to take precedence, and the next agreement does not expire until December one, twenty twenty six. So there's your non answer, but I would not expect it to be this offseason. All right, next question here, This one comes from Bernie Suarez. Us Is Dave Roberts going to finally give in and say Sasaki is the closer in this case? Bernie I would say it really doesn't matter. Actions will speak louder than words, and at some point we're going to see Roki Sasaki continue on the way he is right now as the closer. That's what he is. He came in last night and closed, even though he wasn't the initial choice. So yes, perhaps Dave Roberts says it today on the off day, Perhaps he says it going into the next game. Perhaps he doesn't say it at all but just keeps using Sasaki that way. What matters is that usage, how he actually goes about the late innings, And I would expect from here on out we're going to see a whole lot of Rokie Susaki closing. All right, we've got time for one more. I believe, Okay, is Woodriff going to return for the NLCS? This comes from Drew. I would not expect that. I have not heard much on him lately, but my understanding was that he was problematic for the rest of the postseason. Now not on that series, and I might not have the freshest updated information, but I would be surprised if Brandon Woodriff came back and to shift the conversation a little bit to another injury. Bobaschet I was asked about him on FT yesterday and I said, I don't see him coming back for potential alcs because he's still is limping. When I see him in the dugout during the games, he's not moving all that well. So these questions obviously will be answered as we move forward here. But we will see if we see either of these guys again in the postseason. All right, one more question or no, let's see, yes, one more? Can we put the postseason format criticisms to bed? From foul territory? This comes well, yes, at least in this case. The two teams with the bys actually yeah, two teams with the byes, the Blue Jays and the Brewers have played exceedingly well coming out of those breaks. The Mariners have done okay, The Phillies have not, but they've run into a better club. So I don't know that we can put it to bed. Each team reacts in a different way to that layoff. But with the Blue Jays, Guerrero has talked quite a bit about this. He's benefited from the rest. Other players have as well. The Brewers perhaps were a bigger surprise in that obviously all players need rest, but with the style that they play, weren't sure they could turn it back on again. Yes, they have turned it back on again. So really, at this point, at least looking at this postseason small sample size of that teams seem to have figured out how to rebound from five days off and in some cases clearly it has benefited them. All Right, that is it for today's show. We will be back maybe Thursday, maybe Friday, not exactly sure yet, depends on the postseason schedule that show. The next one will be with Alana Rizzo in all of our usual places, YouTube, Apple, Spotify. Have a great week, everyone, enjoy the rest of the DS and we'll be talking to you soon.

00:24:52
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