A big Reason to be optimistic baseball will not miss any games in 2027

We have re we are 75% of the way through the season. The postseason picture is really starting to shape up. You're either on the outside looking in, or you're right back in the race if you're the Boston Red Sox. It's this week in baseball. I think it's kind of interesting here as we sit here on August 10th. You know, the Red Sox have lost two games in a row, but they've ripped off what is at one point a 32 and 5 streak, coming screaming. Historic. Historic kind of pace, and we haven't seen this since really. I like the

twenty nineteen Nationals when they ended up winning the po the World Series that year. And it's just so interesting thinking about right now, if you're a fan, would you be rather be a Red Sox fan or a Dodger fan? The Dodgers have lost eight of nine. They're falling. They're in free fall. But do you really believe that? You know, and and but I think that that's funny, I think it's the same thing. I think I'd rather be the Red Sox right now because I've I've come back from what everybody said was the dead. and if I had to pick a t a team that I thought

might best represent the American League at this moment. Mm-hmm, you know, I might pick the Red Sox. Right, right. They're playing better than anybody else right now, at least it feels like. And certainly you're not looking at the American League West thinking the NL ch AL champions coming out. Definitely not coming out of the AL West. Somebody's gonna win that division. Not f we might have a team that has a losing record with that division.

At this point, as we start on Monday. So, but I I don't know that you would think any team from the West has got any chance, you know, to make to the World Series, but you never know. Right, right. And obviously, that's so much of a big part of this season, which is you know, getting to the postseason. It means so much because once you're there, you're in the dance, anything can happen. And that's why we saw a lot of teams go for it at the trade deadline. The Mets just played two of them recently here between the Guardians and the Pirates, and they did not have the results they hoped for against the Mets. And now they're sitting kind of on the outside looking inside.

Saying,

like, okay, we have to play really good baseball the rest of the way if we're gonna challenge for a postseason spot, especially the Pirates. And when 40 games is, you know, if you get off to a good first quarter of the season and you got 40 games and you're, you know, 26 and 14 or 27 and 13 or something like that, that's a good start. We've seen teams with good starts not necessarily make it past, you know, anywhere near the finish line. So it's it's a lot to expect that you're gonna just turn it on in these last 40 games. If the Mets went twenty-six and fourteen the rest of

And and but in the in the American League West, if one of those teams were to go twenty-six and fourteen or over those last forty games, that might be enough to separate them from everybody else and win the division. Certainly, I think so. I mean, that means you know, teams that have basically played at about a five hundred clip all the season all of a sudden start playing better than that. I imagine they pull away. And I keep waiting for the White Sox to trip and fall, but what I didn't count on was the other teams tripping and falling worse than them. Right, right, right.

reminds me of that s speed skating event from at the Olympics a few years ago where everybody falls everybody's falling down and some guy just sort of wins by I think it was like the Australian guy wins by default that he never expected when I kind of feel like the White Sox are that being there they're just gonna end up as the last person standing. They will be the host of a wild card series, you know one with although actually they might actually be the second division champion. They're gonna be the second division champion. And so they'll get they'll get a you a a

carry through to the next round. And you know what? We were wrong. We've been saying all season we expected the Rays were like the Rays are gonna fade. The Rays are gonna fade. The Rays are gonna fade. I don't think the Rays are gonna fade. No, the Rays aren't gonna fade, but I still can't and they've got a little injury to Shea McClanhan I heard this morning. He's got some some back issues and and so the the Rays, you know, will defy you, you know, to you know, as you as you well point out. I it's hard for me to believe in them in a playoff series in in particular. I think they're sort of like the American League version of the Brewers. I I it's so funny because

I was just thinking, I was literally going to say, they kinda remind me of the Brewers where like they need to get to the postseason and beat like if they got to the postseason and beat a Yankees team. Yeah, yeah. All of a sudden I'd be okay, now I'm taking no same way if the Brewers got to the postseason and they beat a Braves team, or really in their case, I feel like you kinda need to beat the Dodgers in the Americ in the NL for you people really take notice of you, but they they need to beat a bigger team that's a big market team that's bigger than them, essentially. And the American League East, you know, was still led by those Rays.

and the Yankees are still hanging on to second and the Red Sox are just a game behind at this point. you know, you've got Toronto that isn't that far behind, that somehow is still not quite. Yeah, I mean that's not dead. You know, you're still you're still in it at this point. So, you know, the it's such is such a truly a wild card in the American League that, you know, until the Yankees in their case get back Aaron Judge, until the Red Sox get back Garrett Rochet and Roman Anthony, I it's really hard to forecast what's gonna happen.

With 40 games, kind of like you're saying, you're not going to be able to tell who's going to win these postseason series spots in the next 10 games, but you're going to have a pretty good idea who's not going to win them. Because if you're a team right now that's on the outside looking in, you're the Cleveland Guardians. If you go two and eight over your next 10, you're not getting that. You can't be being swept by the men. Right. Right. But that but that's going to happen to teams. We're going to see teams. Teams like, you know, the Cincinnati Reds that are just hanging on with the barest, slimmest little margins of hope. The Miami Marlins, the Nashville.

They're all hanging around. They could have a chance at that third wild card spot, but it only takes one bad week of baseball to doom your season at this point. And if you're the Mets, it takes one bad series of baseball to doom your series. And the Mets are in the in the position that they're usually the victim of, as opposed to starting to inflict that kind of pain on teams that are in the playoff hunt to actually lose to a very bad Met team. Yeah, yeah. They are the portent of bad news. I saw a lot of Cleveland Guardian fans and pirate fans saying the season's over. We lost to the Mets. Exactly. There's there's

There's no coming back from that if for some people there. So and and I think you know the the big news that came out if and if you consider it big news is that the postseason schedule actually was released today here on Monday. Yes, we've gotten all of when the games will be in terms of the block out. So that's at least nice kinda having that happening. So we didn't even we're not gonna play a regular season into October, which is interesting right now. But I think I think in some respects, isn't that a good thing the playoffs?

Was trending dangerously close to like now we're seriously getting into November every year. Well, it's still going to be November at the end of this day because they're going to stretch this thing out. Stretch it out. Right, right. It almost feels like we should be stopping in like the second week of September with the regular season. the Yankees we saw earlier this week, they they brought up their heralded rookie who they did not trade at the trade deadline, although he was the subject of some of the conversations for teams talking about trading with the Yankees, and that's George Lombard Jr., whose father.

Is the bench coach or was the bench coach for the Tigers and his brother also had his day debut, Jacob, I think, on on the same night that George Lombard did for the Yankees when George Lombard hit a home run to give the Yankees a two-nothing lead, a solo home run to give them then they won the game two-nothing. And his brother, the same night, was playing shortstop. Can see on the monitor.

That his brother is is up for the Yankees, goes, I think that's my brother up there, and sees his brother hit a home run. Sure enough, his brother gets up and hits a home run also in first time. Jacob and George. I think it's Jacob. I could be wrong on the name, but anyway, great night for the Lombard family. And the big thing was which, you know, the parents gotta go to see one of the kids play. It's his first major league game.

You go to the major league kids game, let's be honest. And the younger kids said, Yeah, yeah, go go see him. He's playing their major leagues for God's sake. Right, exactly. So good on George Lomba who had another junior who had another home run. and looks looks like you know, he could be the guy they've been looking for. And unfortunately for Anthony Volpe, who was that guy just a few years ago, he is back in the minor leagues and trying to find his way back. Trying to find a b yeah, back into the majors at this point. And I think if if you're the Yankee fans you have a lot to be excited with him. I think the same kind of fear has to be lingering

In the back of your mind, we're like, Volpe looked so good at the plate to start, and it wasn't his batting well until it kind of turned into his batting, but it was really his fielding that kept him out of it. So he was like a gold glove candidate. you know, and so let's see what and I I think that we as Met fans probably don't understand how hard it is to be the Yankee shortstop still. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, you know, do you remember who replaced Derek Jeter at shortstop? Didi Grigori. Very good. That's that is that that will be a trivia question. Who was a better major league player probably than people gave him credit? But he's replaced.

And so every guy, especially any homegrown guy that comes in, is immediately put under a brutal microscope to being like, Are you going to be Derek Jeter? Yep. So yeah. you mentioned the Dodgers before and you know losing eight of nine, and they were swept by the Cubs. And you know, we see this kind of stuff happen in the regular season all the time. They did it last year. Right, right. And didn't Milwaukee.

Sweep the dodges during the We watched almost to the exact same thing. Like up until this last series where they got they went two of they lost two out of three to the diamondbacks. They were but they had almost an identical stretch last year before they just went into the postseason. Because we have to remember this is a team that kind of knows they can coast until the postseason. Like they know they're gonna make the the postseason and they're thinking all we have to do is just make sure we're healthy. We're not gonna kill ourselves, we're not gonna get too bent out of shape because we have a bad series. None of this matters.

And the Dodgers if I had to put the Dodgers where are the Dodgers right now, they are bored.

I would say that the only reason the Dodgers would be concerned is like it keeps going a little too long. Like like and we're we're not gonna suddenly suggest the Dodgers are gonna lose sixteen of their next seventeen. If we get to that point where they've lost sixteen of seventeen, now I think you have a real reason to be concerned because great teams that win World Series don't lose that many games in a row. That team is so experienced and and I if any team could just flip a switch, I'd exp it would be the Dodgers. I think there's a certain point when you're losing a little too much where it's like, okay, I can't just expect

You just flip the switch anymore. So and and you know the Red Sox played the White Sox in a first place series last week. This is going back a week, and and they had what some are terming the game of twenty twenty-six. Okay, so it's a thirteen-inning game, which in and of itself these days is an accomplishment. Twenty-three runs, twenty-nine hits, three errors, seventeen pitchers. Boston's finished that sweep when Caleb Durbin hit a a single off of Nick Sogard four hours and twenty.

But what's really interesting is that the Red Sox scored in the ninth inning, in the tenth inning, the eleventh inning, and the twelfth inning, and the thirteenth inning. They are the first team in major league history to score in those five consecutive innings to finish the game. And the thing you gotta remember is that means the White Sox scored in four because they were the away team, so they had to keep scoring to make the Boston Red Sox score. Exactly. So And so that's the kind of extra inning game that validates the structure of

the new of the new po extra innings rule because watching teams continue to pay ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen innings when they're scoring is super interesting and exciting. If all of those innings had been scoreless innings, we would not be talking about how that's game of the year. Yeah, yeah. And and look, it still when it gets to the postseason, we play it straight up, right? So they they don't have the same extra runners and all that, and I am so okay with that. It's the exact compromise hockey made and everybody was happier for it. Hockey players weren't thrilled to get occasionally getting into a

Stupid game where they're we're gonna play like six overtimes tonight. That's dumb. And baseball players were we're gonna play a sixteen inning game tonight, that's dumb. Nobody's really enjoying this. And it's the sort of thing the only people that I really think enjoy that game are the sports writers who didn't go to it, who then get a right like romantically about this game that they probably weren't at about the sixteen innings that these two teams played in. It's cold blood. And it's true too. It's cold blood. I

I guess it's it it's it's said it's not I guess it's sad news. It is sad news. So so Tommy John, who whose name you know, and I was gonna ask you when you think about Tommy John from your perspective and and how you know about

he is what he's done as as a he got surgery. He okay. So as a player, what do you know about him? He's better than I realize. Right, because you know that. I know he's better than I than I would know, but I don't actually really have much of a picture of how good he is So he's not in the Hall of Fame. No. and he has two hundred and eighty eight wins.

It's a lot in his career that that that's a lot of wins. He's as a starting as a pitcher, that's a lot of wins. He he actually was a better pitcher after he had the Aponious No, no,

eponymous procedure that it was was done upon him in the nineteen seventies and he's not well and he he may not last you know the year or or however long we don't know exactly what the situation is and so everybody starts talking about well should he be in the hall of fame and and you it's a knee-jerk reaction to whether or not because you know the guy might pass away thinking well you can't do anything. That's called to me, that's almost cold blooded. No, it I think well I th I think it's just looking at a guy so so my point is that when

you think about Tommy John and his his career on its own, forget about the surgery, is borderline Hall of Famer.

He my take, you know what should go in? The surgery. Not him. Well the doctor's gonna should go in. The doctor and the surgery should go into the Hall of Fame. Everybody says that they should go in together. Like I don't like I guess it's only remarkable because he actually had a pretty good career. Right, right. If he had if he had a hundred career win Is he not famous? If he had a hundred career wins, would anybody seriously be discussing him as a Hall of Fame gang? Well if if he had fifty wins, no one would care. Right. Okay, but if

If it's 288 wins just shy of 300, and he has comparable stats to guys who are in the Hall of Fame, like Jim Cott and things of that. So guys like that. And since we don't necessarily use 300 wins as the barometer anymore anymore, no, that the guy fell 12 short. He's got the everybody, every kid in America who's a baseball player knows what Tommy Jean is. They don't know who he is or what he did. But but as I as I look at him, are we you're gonna really say that a guy who's who was a four-time all-star in a

Twenty six year career for for our all stars never won a Sayat. And and had the procedure that is revolutionized and changed Major League Baseball had it first showed you could do to have that procedure and I don't know. That's famous to me. But but but shouldn't why are we giving him the credit for having the injury? Shouldn't we give the doctor that invented? Right. He didn't do it though. It wasn't like he o wopened up his own shoulder and started messing around in there. He had somebody else come up with that whole idea. Well, it wasn't yeah, it was I know.

was even he just like okay we're gonna do all this stuff and like now we're gonna put me please exactly I don't see why he gets the hall of fame treatment for that. I I think it is still remarkable especially for a guy that kept on pitching and he still had great years and his best seasons after the surgery. So I think that makes him a remarkable person to talk about certainly. Okay well and and I don't know that there'll be any groundswell of support for him posthumously or not.

time

when that really mattered for starting pitchers. He just pitched all the time after his injury too. So he was a guy who took the ball a lot before his injury, had this surgery, then the revolutionary surgery, and then it fixed him enough that he kept pitching like in an amazing amount. So you know he had a lot a lot of his career after all that. Yeah, most of his career. So yes. we had a a major league record set on Sunday. and that was set by one of the Oakland A's, Jacob Wilson, who at one point was

in the running for the rookie of the year award in the American League before he fell off and I think Nick Kurtz ended up winning it. but Jacob Wilson had the longest has now the longest airless speech streak for a shortstop in major league history at 111 games. Kind of surprises only 111. That seems like you'd think there would have been a guy that made a full season, but I guess not. And so the I I of course the the begg the question who the heck has that record, you know, or had that record. And I heard him this morning on on the on

leadoff spot on Sirius with Steve not with Steve Phillips with Xavier Scruggs and and Eduardo Perez that Mike Bordic, who played for the Orioles and later for the Mets actually and the A's, had a hundred and ten and so they asked him, When you set that record, like, you know, were you thinking I had something to protect? He goes, Well

I I kinda knew, you know, that it was going on. At one point they gave a guy a hit that it shouldn't have been a hit. He goes, but I went, Okay, if you're gonna, you know, keep thanks kept the streak going and other goes. But it wasn't like it is today where you count that stuff where you're aware of it to the degree that you know we are now in terms of when a guy has a record like that. And to ha own at the premier position on the field, the all time record for errorless games, that's pretty cool. Right. And we we also had another streak reach as I believe Matt Olson reached nine hundred consecutive games.

This week, which is now he's getting up there into a right category of guys that not a lot of people belong to. There's not a lot of people that have over a thousand eighth all time. He's gonna he's probably gonna get to a I I wonder if he'll stop at a thousand. I'm done. Right, right, right. I'll take a day off here. But only because you got Joe Sewell at eleven hundred, Billy Williams at eleven hundred, Miguel Tejada at eleven hundred, then you got Steve Garvey at twelve hundred, Everett Scott at thirteen hundred. And that's probably where if I had a streak like this.

Right, right. 1308. Be a third all-time behind behind Cal Ripkin and Lou Gehrig. Yeah, be good. Because here's the problem for Matt Olson. It's like, okay, you're at 1300 for Everett Scott. That's only like another couple seasons for Matt Olson. Lou Gehrig, 2100. The ironors. Cal Ripkin, casual 2600. Another ten more years. Right. He's at 900 right now. He could double the amount he has, and he would still need almost another 900. He needs almost 200.

Hundred percent more to catch Cal Ripkin. That's insane when you think about it. And that won't push Matt Olson over the top. Now he is not a Hall of Famer. He's he's on a on a track, though, that if he maintained the level of production he's had over the last few years, he could get there. Right. And I'd say if we talk about most unassailable baseball records, I'm pretty sure it's Cal Ripkins. I don't think that will ever be broken by anyone ever. I just can't imagine there ever being a player that is able to play for that long in that many games.

For like consecutive. It was it wasn't like the you know the way he played left field, right? The the mellow position out there. It doesn't get as much action, you don't run around as much, you're not fielding ground balls and throwing it a million times. No, shortstop. Yeah. So it'd be like a catcher. And then you transition to third base. Right, right. So yeah, I think you know, you're right about that, that you know, Cal Ripkins probably got the record because people don't do that anymore, and giving a guy a day off is more meaningful in a manager or an organization that sees a guy who's on a street going

We should do this now before it gets out of hand. And empirically, it's the kind of thing where we look at the data and guys perform better with rest. So it's actually a really interesting to think about. Cal Ripkin was a ninety-five war player. He put up unbelievable numbers for his career. Imagine if he actually had taken some regular rest in those. Would have he been even better? We will never know. We'll never know. We will never know.

we mentioned the Field the Dreams game is coming up, I think on our last podcast. It's this week on Netflix. Net Netflix is saying that they'd want to try and not do too much to this. Of course, they said that in the same announcement where they announced Kevin Costner will be at the game. So the Cardinals will play the Phillies in a game that is meaningful, right? So that's kind of an interesting game. Too much red sidebar. Too much red in that game. Two teams just too much red. And it's just like could as a Met fan, as a National League fan, could you have picked like the two most insufferable fans?

fan bases in the national league for that game. We wouldn't put the Braves in there with the Well I guess the question, if you're putting the Braves, who are you taking out? Exactly, exactly. So I had read read something this week and I wanted to I know if I call it my story of the week, but it was very interesting when it came to the

Upcoming collective bargaining agreement. so somebody who writes under the baseball nerd substack, and I really like the way that he writes, pointed out that every lockout in the sport's history, okay, which is what we're facing right now, is a potential owner's lockout, nineteen seventy-three, seventy-six, nineteen ninety, and twenty-one twenty twenty-one and twenty-two, has resolved before a single regular season game has disappeared. Four out of four. Of the five strikes, three were resolved with minimal damage in nineteen seventy-two, eighty, and eighty-five, and then two that caused the the real lasting home.

In nineteen eighty one and nineteen ninety four, obviously we know what happened in those situations. They were f fights over a single structural issue neither side would move off of. Free agent compensation in eighty one and a hard salary cap in ninety four. Now this is gonna be Right. This is gonna be interesting. It's sort of straddling the difference. Straddling the lock the salary cap, but it it is a lock out. It's a lockout, not a strike. Right. So that's his his optimistic view, and I and I called him on it, was that that, you know, reason to have hope that they're gonna

resolve something mainly because there's just too much darn money at the right there's too much money to lose any kind of significant time next season and baseball is in in a lot of ways it's at its most popular that it's been in in a long time. And if you can have a really especially if you have a postseason where the Dodgers don't win, the last thing you would want to do is have the evil empire get toppled and then immediately go into a lockout. Mm-hmm

People would be so charged up for next season 'cause yeah, the Dodgers are invincible. We can win too. And now you're gonna take away that in the next season, that would d that would feel you know, th the only thing that would be maybe worse would be the Dodgers win and then you lock out. That's a good point. And I think the you know, the the

There's reason to think that, you know, the there's middle ground here that we're not seeing that could be reached between the two the two sides. and and so I'm I'm I don't I'd say maybe as a result of this I'm a little less pessimistic that we're gonna have we're gonna even miss any time next year that somehow these these yo yo's are gonna find a way to figure it out to not have that. my last my last one and I'll let you go is that I saw that Craig Kimbrell signed a deal with the Royals and this'll be his twelfth

Major league baseball franchise.

Going to the Hall of Fame. So that would be a bizarre old thing for a guy to play for twelve teams and be in the Hall of Fame. which cap does he wear? after he pitches for Kansas City, there'll only be four pitchers throughout history who have pitched for more teams in the major league history. all of them, I I believe we we know them, three of them we know, and th one of them I think pitched in the Negro Leagues, Roosevelt Davis. Edwin Jackson, who is on every Immaculate Grid. If you're playing Immaculate Grid He's been on so many teams. Edwin Edwin Jackson is a guy you always want to know about. Rich Hill, which I didn't realize he pitched also

For fourteen teams like Jackson and

Wow. Former Met and Astro. So yeah, Craig Kimbrell has that distinction and I don't know if that's gonna help or hurt his case. I I'm impressed that he's still trying to trying, because I don't think he's really gonna hit any milestones, although he's trying to get to you know, the Hall of Fame is basically his his effort at this point. And I wanted to talk about how we are witnessing a defense in Chicago that's not just good.

That's not just great. They might be the best of all time.

That's how good Chicago the Chicago Cubs defense has been this year. Right now, they're second overall in the category of runs prevented and outs above average. They have a forty-eight runs prevented and fifty-eight outs above average. Only to the twenty seventeen Twins defense was better with fifty-five runs prevented and sixty-six outs above average. And people would largely attribute that to Pete Crow Armstrong in center field, who's been one of the best defenders. Swanson's too, right? Yeah. Dan's be Danzby Swanson and Nico Horner and Alec Bregman. That is a that is

One of the best and what we people got say a Suzuki was not a great outfielder. He's actually fifth in outfielders this year in terms of outs above average, and he's one of the best guys at getting a jump on a ball. So all of a sudden, this team is elite defensively around the diamond, and that is why a team that doesn't necessarily have, especially with Justin Seal out, dominant starting pitching, is a has been able to be so effective because you really have to get hits against this team because it's hard to make the ball drop in against them. Well, that's a really interesting point that me because they went out and got.

pitching obviously at the trade deadline including clay homes and kevin gaussman they'll get steel back david peterson i would say overall they got him from the Mets a little longer ago looks pretty good for them they have just stockpile pitching and they fit and he and he's the type of pitcher to do that a really good ground ball pitcher that fits a Chicago team a lot better than a Mets team who even though they actually shockingly the Mets are in the top ten and outs above average this year. They have 27 runs prevented

This year. The problem is of those 27 runs prevented, 25 of them are between the catchers and the pitchers, which tells you they're really good. And the rest of the team actually sucks at the defense. Don't let them hit it. Yeah. yeah, and so I I think it bodes well for the Cubs. You mentioned about their defense. I I I talked about the pitching, and I think the hitting is there. I think the Cubs are well positioned, even though they're the second place team in that division. The fear with the Cubs team like that is the defense is amazing, but defense doesn't help you win games when they just hit the ball out of the

Park. And I think that's got to be the most frightening thing about going this Dodger team in the postseason of how do we keep them off of the scoreboard and in the ballpark. And the Cubs do not have a bunch of home run hitters on that team. No, that so that that is something that comes back to bite you in the behind when you're in the playoffs, as we saw happen in Milwaukee last year. Right, right. You know, you so often it seems like postseason baseballs. Where do you get your runs in the postseason that aren't from home runs? And how many runs do you get from home runs? Because it seems

Yeah, and that's why teams like then the Dodgers, who can hit home runs up and down the lineup with guys you know, and the Yankees are are threats in the playoffs because they can, you know, do very little and just do that one thing well and win baseball games. Mm-hmm. So okay, well, we've got

Another interesting week with the Field of Dreams games and stuff going on with forty games to go. let's see who's going to sort of stick their heads out in the divisions that are most contested. Right, right. Who's gonna make the postseason and what teams are gonna have fun playing, spoiler.