Fair Territory: Mets & Tigers CRUMBLE, Guardians & Reds SURGE, Mariners SWEEP Astros

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Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory. I'm Ken Rosenthal, here with you for the next twenty six minutes or so. And it was just a few weeks back I was lamenting I don't know if it was on Foul Territory in print, maybe just to friends, lamenting that the races were all but decided that the playoff field was all but set. Ah, so much for that. We are looking at one of the wilder weeks potentially in recent MLB history. Both wildcards are still in play. The AL Central is big time in play and the AL West seemingly closer to being decided but not over just yet. And actually the NL West is in that category as well. So there was a lot to discuss, But I want to start with the NL wildcard and the question I posed in my column today which would be more embarrassing the Tigers blowing a fifteen and a half game lead to a division opponent that would be the Cleveland Guardians or the Mets missing the playoffs entirely with a three hundred and forty million dollar payroll. Now, the column is an exploration of which is more embarrassing and kind of discusses each team's predicament. But the Mets thing is stunning, to say the least. They were forty five and twenty four on June twelfth. They had a two point seventy nine rotation era on June twelfth that was the best in the majors. The record was the best in the majors. Since then, the Mets are thirty five and thirty and fifty three thirty five and fifty three. That is tied with the Chicago White Sox for the fourth worst record in the majors. Their rotation era also ranks in the bottom five. They have essentially collapsed, and not like they did in two thousand and seven when they lost seven or when they blew a seven game lead with seventeen to play. This has been a slow burn. It's really been three months now of inadequate play. So the Reds are not exactly a team sprinting to the finish, though they've won ten of the last fifteen. It's a team that's basically a sub five hundred club. Since early August, but they've won ten of their last fifteen. The Mets have gone four and eleven, including losing two of three to the Nationals this week, and you see where the wildcard standings are right now, Diamondbacks just one game back. The Reds hold the tiebreaker over the Mets. So as we say, at this time of year, the Reds effectively control their own destiny. Of course, these things can change, and we might as well look at the remaining schedules as well, because they will be telling. For of course, all of these teams. The Reds are in a decent spot as I wrote today, three versus Pittsburgh at home and then three at Milwaukee in a time when Milwaukee probably will be really close to clinching the best overall record in the number one seed, if they haven't done it already by then. They've got a three game lead over the Phillies in that race, the Mets, three at the Cubs, three at the Marlins, who they only lead by four games right now, by the way, And the Diamondbacks, who have had a trying schedule, the most trying schedule of all these teams from the beginning. They host the Dodgers for three, and then they're at San Diego for three. San Diego by that point should have clinched and we'll see what the Dodgers come up with this week as well. So the NL Wildcard Race, as I've written, it is brought to you by the New York Mets. The only reason all of this is happening is because the Mets have stumbled in a way that no one anticipated, and it's a stumble that will be one of the more embarrassing episodes in franchise history if it indeed ends up with this team obviously missing the playoffs, if it ends up with this team getting knocked out early, the Mets are not simply in a good place now the AL Central. This is the other question I had, or the part of the question that I had the Tigers. Where are the Tigers on the embarrassment scale? Pretty high, I would suggest now they still are in a position where they have a one game lead over the Cleveland Guardians, but they're coming off an own six home stand against Cleveland and Atlanta. They're twenty six and thirty seven since July eighth. These three games against Cleveland at Progressive Field will obviously be critical, and you just wonder if the Tigers are going to be able to snap out of it. They're pitching, their rotation and bullpen has essentially fallen apart in September, and their offense has not been very good in this long stretch as well. And here are the Guardians, one of the worst offensive contenders you'll ever see. What I mean by that is they've got one of the worst offenses for a contender you'll ever see. They are tied for twenty seventh in the Majors in runs per game, twenty seventh. And as I wrote, there are only three teams in Major League history, and actually this goes to the start of the Divisional play era that have made the playoffs with an offense that bad, and two of those teams two of the three did it in the twenty twenty season, when there were sixteen playoff teams a shortened sixty game season in all of so it's almost like that doesn't even count. So it's pretty hard to do what the Guardians are doing with an offense of the nature that they have, but they're doing it. The Tigers are letting them back in. So, as I wrote, if the Tigers missed the playoffs after being up on July eighth, they were up fourteen games on both the Royals and Twins at that time and fifteen and a half on the Guardians. If they missed the playoffs after holding a fourteen game lead, it will be the largest blown lead by a team that did not win its division or league in modern ale NL history, an all time collapse. So again, which is more embarrassing, I'm not sure which is more embarrassing, but neither one of them is too good. So we're looking at a crazy AL Central race. We're looking at a crazy NL wildcard race. And in the AL West, quite interesting development over the weekend, the Mariners and Astros go into the season or the weekend series tied tied for the AL West lee and you're thinking this series is in Houston. Maybe in this particular case, the Astros will rise up again and figure out a way to hold down the Mariners. The Astros and we're going to talk about them more in the Inside Dish have been a dominant team really since twenty sixteen, from twenty seventeen on, and yes, I know there was the scandal in there, but they've dominated even after that. So you always have to assume, and we've been talking about this all year, that the Astros are going to figure it out, that you've got to knock them out, and all of this stuff that they have the pedigree well. The Mariners led for twenty six of twenty seven innings in this series. They swept this series. They are a team that right now leads the Ale West by three games with six to play. They are in an absolutely commanding position. Now, is it possible things go amiss? Yeah, it's surely possible. Things can always change, But the Mariners are really looking good. Cal rally number fifty eight last night. His MVP candidacy grow by the day, grows more legitimate by the day, more real by the day. And what we're seeing here is a team that did some good things at the deadline and are benefiting from it, even though he Ajohano Suarez really hasn't been the guy that he was with Arizona. So the Ale West the Astros have another path to get to the playoffs. Of course, the path would be through the wildcard. And let's look at the ale wildcard standing so I can explain exactly where we are. The Red Sox are in this mix too, this jumbled mess of a wildcard race. Now the Red Sox have a game lead over the Guardians and Astros. It is possible the Astros don't get a wildcard either if both the Guardians and Tigers qualify, and that's possible, Let's say the Guardians win the AL Central or the Tigers win the AL Central. The other team could be the Wildcard, and the Red Sox their situation is not exactly precarious, but they have to keep going too because those two teams are right behind them. So again, it's going to be a wacky, crazy end to the season. It's the kind of season or the kind of conclusion we all kind of hope for at the start of the year. Now, if you're a Mets fan, if you're a Tiger's fan, you're not happy right now. I totally get it. But from a broader baseball perspective, you want excitement, And as I said a couple of weeks ago, it did not look like we were going to be anywhere near this kind of excitement. The Mets looked like they were a lock, the Tigers looked like they were a lock, the Astros were in a much better position, and all of these things that have happened, it didn't seem like they were going to happen. So let's look now at the ale remaining schedules. We'll close it out with this Cleveland, three versus Detroit at home. We've talked about that, three versus Texas at home. Also Detroit not such an easy go here. They're on the road for six games at Cleveland and Boston, and then the Astros. They're on the road too in Sacramento, which is not an easy place to play against an offense that is not easy to deal with the Athletics, and then three at the Los Angeles Angels. So there you have it. That's the final week. It's going to be a wild one and I would expect that most fans are pretty excited about what might end up going down.

00:09:16
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00:10:17
Speaker 4: Well, well, well, well.

00:10:23
Speaker 1: Time now for the inside Dish, the part of the show where I talk maybe about a story I've written, about a trend in the game, something going on. And today I want to talk about the Astros, but I want to start off by talking about the Milwaukee Brewers, and I'll explain and try to weave it all together. So back in spring training, I wrote a column basically saying that if the Brewers stumbled this season, it would be the responsibility of owner Marcott Tanasio because he had not spent hardly anything during the off season. Now, after that, they signed Jose Kintana one year, four point twenty five million. But my premise in that column was, Hey, at some point, it's going to catch up with that Tenasio. If people could leaving and you don't replace them with quality people in return, well, obviously the Brewers and Mark at Tanasio are sitting pretty right now. And I approached that Tenacio in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago and I said, listen, man, I'm never writing anything like that again. I'm done. I've given up.

00:11:20
Speaker 3: You win.

00:11:21
Speaker 1: And yet he does win. They've got the best record in the majors and he's done it his way, no question about it. So I was thinking, as I prepare for this segment, maybe I should have written that column about Astros owner Jim Crane, because look at what has happened to the Astros over the last five years. Springer gone to free agency, Korea gone to free agency, Tucker traded, Reregman gone to free agency. Those are four significant players, parts of the Astros core, part of the reason they were so successful in the late twenty tens and early twenty twenties, and now those players were essentially gone. So I thought about that, and I thought about Crane and some of the signings that they've made under him in this time. Josea Bray was not a good signing. Rafael Montero not a good signing. Both were free agents, and you wonder, okay, as the Astros sit here today in this precarious spot, seemingly facing an uphill fight for sure in the ALE West and even threatening to fall out of the playoff picture entirely because their wild card chances are looking bad too. They don't hold any of the tie breakers in these scenarios. And when you consider it all and wonder and ponder the Astros situation, it almost seems amazing that it went on for this long and what happened to the Astros this season. It took like this incredible cavalcade of injuries, an amazing run of injuries that really no team can withstand, and they've withstood it actually pretty well. And as I wrote, or as I said in the first segment, they went into that weekend series with Seattle tied. Now they are no longer tied. They are three games back, and they appear to be ready to be dethroned as ALE West champions in a full season for the first time since twenty sixteen. Think about that, they've won every AO West title in a one hundred and sixty two game season since twenty seventeen. That's really hard to do. And yes, I'll say it again. We can talk all we want about the trash cans, and we have and we will, but not all of this was accomplished in that fashion. So you wonder and you think about this team and where they are right now, with a weekend farm system and with kind of an aging injured corps Altuve and certainly you're don Alvarez. How do they get back and how did this all happen? Well, according to Baseball perspectives, and this was in Chandler Rome's story today, no team has lost more value to injuries season than the Houston Astros. It's not even close. And the Astros at one point had eighteen players on the injured list. This was in late July. At that time, eight starting pitchers were on the injured list. They lost Jordan Alvarez for almost three months, Jeremy Panna out for a significant time. I Zach Parade's the same, and Jeremy Meyer a pretty good I'm not Jerry Meyer. Jake Myers a pretty good center fielder, a guy who emerged this year. He too was out for a long period of time. Josh Hater has been out since August eighth, on and on it has gone. I believe it was last week when I talked about Joe a Spot being the favorite for AL Manager of the Year. Well, he still might win it, but it's not going to look as pretty now if he does. And frankly, right now, Steven Vote in Cleveland, John Schneider in Toronto, there are other candidates who are looking better. AJ Hinch was the popular choice for a while too. That's how topsy turvy this whole thing has become. The Astros. They acquired at the deadline, Carlos Carea, they required him. They brought in Hazus Sanchez, who has not been much of a contributor at all, and Ramon Urdi is the same. He has not done much at all. The biggest issue for this team and it has to do somewhat with the Alvarez injury and with the loss of pain here for a month, but not completely. The offense is the biggest issue, and this has been a perplexing thing with the Astros. Now Parades was brought in, as was Christian Walker, to improve their plate discipline, to make them less of a free swinging operation Paraders is a guy who sees a ton of pitches. Walker had that reputation as well, but it hasn't happened for the Astros, and for whatever reason, their offense all season long with Alvarez without has not really clicked. They are twenty seventh in the Majors in runs per game since the deadline, twenty seventh since adding Carlos Carea and Jesus Sanchez. That's not what they intended when they made those moves. They were trying to bolster their offense and it just hasn't happened. So the Astros, is this the end? Well, we're gonna find out over the next I don't know, a week or so. But it's been an amazing run, and even this year, it's been amazing what they've accomplished considering what they've been up against. And all teams go through this, you guys know this. All teams have years that are off years. It's just been such a long time since the Astros had one of these seasons, and it looks like this is turning out to be one of them. Even if they get in, how far are they going to go from Barvaldez has struggled in the last I don't know month or so, Hunter Brown legitimate Ace, but they don't have much out there beyond those guys. So it's been a tough season for the Astros, no doubt. It's been the kind of season with the Astros that we just haven't seen from them in a long, long time. All right back with grilling Ken right after this tod Father.

00:16:58
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00:17:43
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00:18:04
Speaker 1: Time after grilling Ken the part of the show where I answer your questions, let's get right to them. First question from JS Big One, will Ben Sherrington be back with the Pittsburgh Pirates. I do not know the answer to that, Jay, but after six seasons and six essentially disappointing seasons, the Pirates certainly would be justified if they made a change. Now. That said, they have built a collection of young arms that is really the envy of the sport. They also have played better under Don Kelly than they did under Derek Shelton. They've had their moments since the change in managers. I don't know that it's enough to save Ben Sherrington's job, and I don't know that it should be. Ben Sherrington is one of the most respected people in the game. He's a guy everyone will tell you is an extremely high character. At the same time, the performance is what the performance is, and they have not done enough with limited resources to maybe justify him staying on as GM. You look at Cleveland, you look at Milwaukee, you look at Tampa Bay. In most years, you look at Cincinnati. Right now, these are all teams in similar markets and they're doing better than the Pirates have. So obviously this is question number one for the Pittsburgh Pirates when the season ends, I would not be surprised by a change, and I would also not be surprised if Bob Nuttings stayed the course. He's not exactly the most predictable owner in the sport. Actually, I should correct that. Pirates fans would say he is the most predictable owner in the sport in terms of spending money. I don't know that he's that predictable with regard to what he might do in the GM spot. All right, the next question, this one it's from Armand who asked if the Mets and Tigers don't make it, do you see coaching staff firings with Hinch and Mendoza staying that would probably be armand the way that these teams would go, And certainly with the Mets, I don't know where the the dysfunction or the problem is exactly, and I talked last week about maybe a chemistry issue being there, and that's not on the coaches. But in a situation like this, if the two teams do indeed miss the playoffs or end in the playoffs in a disappointing fashion, I would expect certainly that there would be changes. David Stearns has been pretty public about backing Carlos Mendoza. Joel Sherman had a note today in The New York Post in which Stearns said again that Mendoza has done a very good job. Doesn't mean that others below him will not be held responsible for this. Hinch two would seemingly be one of the more secure managers in the game, but they too could look for coaching changes. I would not expect if these two teams end the season in disappointment, that things are just going to remain status quo. That is rarely the way it works in baseball. All right, next question from rpg Man forty five. If you had to pick who's out in the Astros, Tigers, Red Sox or Guardians. Wow. Now this is an aj Perzinski type question the kid where you just put me on the spot. If I had to guess right now, I'd say the Tigers because they're playing the worst of these teams. Now, you could say the Astros are as well. Yeah, that would be a fair point to make. But my hunch is the Tigers just because they're gonna go into Cleveland and I don't know how that's gonna go for them, and then they're gonna go into Boston needing to win, I would presume at that point, and I don't know how that's gonna go for them, because the Red Sox also will be playing for a playoff berth in that scenario at Fenway Park where they are very good. That's my guests watch. I'll be wrong. I'm usually wrong when I make predictions of this nature. All right, let's go to the next one. Now, this one comes from foul Territory, which asks will the Orioles keep Tony Mansleino. I don't know the answer to this question, and certainly the Orioles have played better under man Seleno than they did under Brandon Hyde. Since late May, they are above five hundred. That's pretty good. Now you can say the young players have stagnated, the young hitters have stagnated, but he stabilized that team. And in addition to that, we've seen in the second half Trevor Rodgers emerge as one of the best pitchers in the entire sport, and Kyle Bradish come back from Tommy John surgery along with Tyler Wells. Not all of that, of course, as Mansollino is doing, but it's the stuff that he inherited. Now, what I like about Mansollino is what he told us in our Fox interview with him last Thursday night when we were Camden Yards. I asked him about being an interim and he said my approach was this, I was going to do the job, not to save my job or not to help myself get an extension. I was going to do the right thing. So what he means by that is do the right thing by players, make the right decisions for players and for the team, and not necessarily make decisions that might help enhance his chances of returning. I love that, and to me, that is the sign of someone who is secure in himself and someone who has a feel and someone who seemingly has the respect to that clubhouse. Now, I expect Michaelias will at least conduct some kind of search, but he might have the guy that he wants right in the dugout at this moment. All right, we'll take one more question and then we'll say bye bye for the day. Let's see what we got here. This one comes from John, who says, which do baseball fans love more? Seeing their team win or laughing at other teams or other fan bases upset with their team losing. Fans should want their teams to win more than other teams to suffer. But back in my days as a fan, I knew that I enjoyed a great deal when other teams are the rivals of the team I was rooting for suffered. So I can see both sides of it. But yeah, let's be positive here. Let's root for the teams that we want to win, and let's not just take extreme joy at other's expense, even those Sometimes that's a lot of fun. All right, that's it for today's show. We will be back Thursday our usual live show twelve thirty Eastern. Myself and Alana Rizzo have a great week everyone, and let's see what the heck Baseball has in store for us. The rest of the.

00:24:14
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