Shopify has already taken the cash register online, helping millions sell billions around the world. But did you know that Shopify can do the same thing at your retail store? Give your point of sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify. That's right, Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere, online, in-store, on social media, and beyond. With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. Pack every sale across your business in one place and know exactly what's in stock. With Shopify POS, you can accept credit cards, mobile payments, and every other major payment method all with low fees and transparent pricing. Starting on day one. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/MLB podcast. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/MLB podcast to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com/MLB podcast. America's favorite place to watch football is stadium swim, located at Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Catch all the biggest games and a viewing experience built for sports fans. Chill in one of their six pools on three different levels for a perfect view of their massive screen. Plenty of seating options from cozy daybeds to private temperature controlled cabanas. Stadium swim. Book your spot today at circlelossvegas.com. Let's talk a little baseball things going on right now before we get out of here. The National League. We are all hot and bothered for the National League West, the National Central for a while. Brett, the Dodgers, the Phillies, the Brewers, and the Braves. They are the only teams in the National League that have a plus 500 record. The Yankees have the best record of baseball, 671, and the National League has four teams above 500. What gives them? It seemed like a couple of years ago I was talking about this. Baseball ebb and flows. It's the National League, it's the American League. It goes back and forth who's dominant. Some years are big hitting years. Some years are the year of the pitcher. That's the way baseball is, that's the way it's always has been. A couple of years ago, the National League was dominant. It was just a better league. Well, that's flip-flop to get. The American League is far superior team-wise than the National League. The National League kind of stinks, Rich, and I don't mean that in a brazen way. They kind of stink. I mean, there's two elite teams in the National League. I think there's four elite teams in the game of baseball right now. My opinion. That would be the Yankees, that would be the Baltimore Orioles, that would be the Philadelphia Phillies and the L.A. Dodgers. Now in the National League, Philly and L.A. to me are the two elite, top of the rung, and then you got a Milwaukee Atlanta Braves there in the second tier of not quite elite but pretty good. And then the rest are just kind of average. These are 500 teams. You got St. Louis as of today, who we thought were dead and buried a month ago. Well, St. Louis finished in the basement a year ago, they're going to do it again. They're in the Washington Nationals right now. If play-stop today are in the playoffs, the Washington Nationals, and you have teams like the San Diego Padres, who we've been waiting for them to be good, Arizona, Pittsburgh, the Cubs, who have fallen on terrible times right now. The Cubs are one game out of the wildcard. The San Francisco Giants haven't done much. You haven't heard about the Mets. The Mets were dead and buried. All they were talking about was the Yankees. The Mets, as of today, are one game out of the wildcard. The only teams that have- The Mets went to say that again. The Mets are one game out of the wildcard. And they've won seven in a row. They're hot right now. But they're one game out of the wildcard right now. The only teams that have pretty much eliminated themselves from postseason play in the National League are the Colorado Rockies and the Miami Marlins. Other than that. 10-11-1-2-2. Even if that, everybody's in right now. Everybody's within one game. It's unbelievable. I don't know at this port of the season. I've seen this big of a joke or not. It's great for the game. It's good for the game. Absolutely. How many cities- Cincinnati has been pathetically mediocre all year. And they're sitting a game and a half out. That keeps the city of Cincinnati on the edge of their seat going, "Hey, we got a chance." The Padres have been, since they had this big re-vant and spent all this money and had all this talent come in, they've been a big disappointment last year, especially. But this year they had high expectations. They're 38 and 40 and they're a half a game out. That's crazy. Yeah. They win tonight. They might be in. The Nationals? Who's talked about the Nationals? Who's talking about the St. Louis Cardinals this year? Cardinals, Nationals, and the Atlanta Braves are the wildcard that playoff started tomorrow. So what's crazier? What's crazier than I've got three plus 500 teams in the American League central or I've got everybody except for two still with the shot as we get closer and closer to the all-star game? Yeah. Which is crazier. The American League Central, Cleveland, 634, Minnesota, 554, Kansas City, 547, that's supposed to be the weakest division. Your Seattle Mariners, it's going to look like this. Nominating the game's up. Nine games up. Yeah. Dominating the National League West. Are they dominating or is the rest of the National League West slipped? Definitely the National League West has slipped. Houston, they've been a fixture at the top of that division for years and years now, 45, 6 years. They just ran into some trouble. The pitching staff for Lander came back late. He's 40 years old. Valdez is pitching OK. Javier, big third starter for them, went down. He's having Tommy John, that Hader, Presley combo, Hader coming over from the Padres a year ago with that big contract. He came over, that's been OK. But if you ask them, that's probably a failed experiment to have two closers, Presley's really having a tough time with it, with a ERA north of five. The Texas Rangers, interesting, they've had a ton of injuries. They're young, they're young third baseman, young. He went down. He's been banged up. Seagurs not having the year they had a year ago. I look across the board at the Texas Rangers, a year ago on the offensive side. It was one, one, one, one, one in every offensive category. They're at the bottom of most of the offensive categories right now. They pitch OK. Their bullpen's really, really beat up. The only thing for the Texas Rangers, and I would say at this point in the season, never say never, especially with the current system, they're six spots. So you never say never. It's not too late right now for a lot of these teams. The Texas Rangers, interesting, are starting to get healthy. Young's coming back. They're young third baseman. He'll add some, he'll add a spark to that offense. And you've got Max Scherzer, who I believe is making his debut Saturday. And they're talking about DeGrom, starting to throw, he just threw 50 pitches in a bullpen the other day, looking for him to come back after the all-star break. If you had a healthy Max Scherzer, although he's not going to be Max Scherzer in his prime, and a DeGrom coming back the second half, that changes the dynamic big time for the Texas Rangers. That being said, I think the Seattle Mariners, and this is talking, we're talking Yankees, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Phillies, Atlanta, Braves, put them all in the mix. The Seattle Mariners have the best starting pitching staff in all of baseball. And I don't see anybody that challenges them as the best. Problem is with Seattle, their offense is really mediocre, but they do have a nose for the finish line. I'm going in that phrase, put it on a shirt, do whatever you want, Rich. They've got a nose for the finish line. They're a mediocre offensive team at best. But I know these type of teams in the seventh inning, it's close, they're tied, they kind of look at each other and they know, hey, somebody's going to come through because we've done it so many times. Flair for the dramatic, call it that if you want. But I'll tell you what, the Seattle Mariners team for the first time are in position where you can really say they're probably going to win this division handily, and you haven't been able to say that for 20 plus years. Okay, rapid fire because we're almost done here. Three news items. I want to get to real quick. You ready? Yeah. And reaction, lucky bets out for a while with a broken hand. Take your business further with a smart and flexible American Express business gold card. It offers flexible spending capacity that adapts to your business. You can also earn up to $395 in annual statement credits on eligible purchases at select business merchants. That's the powerful backing of American Express. In terms of supply, learn more at american express.com/business gold card. Dodgers are good enough to kind of take that blow right now. You've got enough great players around them. That's what makes the Dodgers so great is their depth and they can cushion this blow. I think still Dodgers win that division handily. They just got enough talent around to make up for his six week, six weeks absence and we get rapid fire. I said in our quarter point review, I'm buying the Yankees. They haven't played their best baseball yet. Garrett Cole's coming back. Is he going to make me a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant strategist by saying, Hey, the Yankees are just going to keep getting better. I think so. I don't know that they can play better than they have. Giancarlo Stanton's been the juggernaut, the key to that offense for me. Garrett Cole coming back only makes them better. I think this is the Yankee team as long as they stay healthy. I always hit on that. Yankees got to be healthy. If they stay healthy, they're one of the best teams of baseball. My goal is the end of the season, well, the Yankees win the World Series. You ride on the Yankees bus with Aaron back to the hotel. If they do that, absolutely I will. Absolutely I will. I'll tell you that division, Rich talking about weak division nationally, having a lot of weak division. That division's good. What do you talk about the Boston, the Boston Red Sox? They're in the national league. They'd be, they'd be winning the division. They're 40 and 35. They really pitch and they hit, and they hit more than people give them credit to. Not a lot has been paid to the Boston Red Sox, but that's it. That's a tough division. And I don't think it's over because that Baltimore team, man, they're good. I watch them time and time again, try to dismiss them as they're young. They're not ready to win. These guys can break. The only problem is they're going to need some pitching down the stretch. They just got bad news that braddish, their third starter, he's going to have Tommy Johnson. They're going to be on the look. They've lost means and braddish now. Baltimore is going to be on the look, especially at that deadline for some more pitching. By the way, the story was alluding to was if you watched the podcast last time, Uncle Aaron came on Aaron Boone when Brett was at the Braves, Aaron was at the ballpark. They're getting back to the hotel and Brett insisted that Aaron jump on the team bus with the Braves and Aaron said, I don't want to get on your team bus. So that's what I like to see. Aaron win the World Series of Brett right back on the bus next to his brother. Yeah. I would make an exception. Yeah, there you go. All right. Last one. We had a real rapid fire because we're running out of time here. Jose, a Bray, a Bray you former MVP released them $30 million of people. Oh, what a bad contract, bad contract. I mean, he just fell off the face of the earth. That happens. Because when you hit a certain age, it happened to me. It's your legs go. You don't know why. There's no rhyme or reason. I remember talking to Robbie Alomar years prior to, I got to that point. He told me, Booney, I woke up in this spring training. I was just old and it was, and I at the time, you know, I'm 31 32 ago, that'll never happen to me. Well, it happened to me. It happens to all of us. I watched a Bray, you great player, a lot of years MVP. It was his time and I knew that the writing was kind of on the wall. He just didn't have it. All star closer. Kenley Janssen. We have a question. What's the best podcast of all time? This boy isn't boring, baby. I'm Rob Radford and every single day I'm sitting down with the biggest names to show you this great game is the greatest game. It's my podcast. It's my passion. It's a cause. I started more than two years ago and it's now the most prolific national daily baseball pod. There is another fact. So jump aboard the B.I.B. Express, follow and listen to baseball isn't boring presented by Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
