Gwynn & Chris On Demand
Aug. 1st FULL SHOW
you have a microphone. There we go. There we go. What is good? San Diego on your fourth attempt. He's over here. What? What? Welcome in to a Thursday edition of Gwen and Chris Tony Gwen Jr. Chris Essel Chris Elo. Yeah. Special board op guest Adam Klug in the building. People may not recognize him. No, I know. His hair has grown a little bit. We've got all this hair on the top of his head. I don't even think we need to talk about the Padres. I think we just got to start in on Adam today. Well, before it's four hours. Before we know it, let's start with the Padres. I'll get into, I think, Adam's plan to try to get under my skin purposely for a sake of the show. Okay. And I think I'm gonna tell you it worked. It definitely worked. We'll get into that in a bit. Let's start with the Padres. Yes. I don't know if any of you guys have the little small broom at your house. You know, not the, not the regular size. Yeah. This isn't a garden ever. Right. Right. It's your small brooms out. A whisk. Yes. A whisk if you will. We whisked away the Dodgers. They whisked away the Dodgers in, I thought spectacular fashion. We, we've got over Tuesday's game, but Wednesday's game was, was a beat down. They take down the arch nemesis Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw and his second start. You know, my, you know, I might as well get into it right now. Cause this is how Adam got under my skin earlier now. All right. Padres broke a impressive record that Clayton Kershaw had, which is at least one strike out in what 240? No, 400. Excuse me. And 23 had never, it actually never started a game and not had at least one strike out. Okay. So that's, that's, that's pretty good. It's pretty impressive. My man Adam and I, again, I don't know if this was a plan of his. Never said it wasn't impressive. He was like, I don't get it. Like, why are we? Oh, he doesn't think we should make a thing out of that. It shouldn't be a thing. Really? I, I, he kept saying it this way. This was really putting words in my mouth. This is what was really getting under my skin. He said, I don't understand it. I mean, one strike out in a game is just not that impressive. I said, well, Adam, it's, it's with at least one strike out every game for like 12 years. That's a long streak. I mean, look, Cal Ripken only had to step out of the dugout for one at bat. But the fact that he did it 2000, whatever, 632 straight games, and I believe that's the correct number. I think it is. 2,632 games. That's impressive, Adam. What playing in one game is not impressive. Am I allowed to revolve? Absolutely. Of course you're involved. I said, I'm surprised that somebody took the time to keep, keep track of that. Well, you know that nowadays they keep track of everything. He did say that, but even also insinuating that it wasn't that big of a deal. I thought it was a deal. I didn't think getting one strike out in a start was enough to keep track of. Well, of course it is. Well, years it is. I mean, come on, you're talking about a Hall of Fame pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, who of course looked nothing like a Hall of Famer last night and you know, I'm not really, I think a lot of people are like ready to give up and say it's all over for Clayton Kershaw. And I and I just want to, you know, warn you people, this was a second. You guys did this. Oh, are you, are you, you say he's done, Adam too? He thinks he didn't say he's done. I said, it's a topic for today. Yeah. All right. Well, let's bring it up right now because I'm not giving up on Clayton Kershaw. This was the second start of the year. I'm sorry. This guy's had too much greatness in his career to, you know, for me to say that's it after, you know, what was it? The Padres knock him around a little bit. And even when, when Johnson got the two hits, you know, he's lit in line drives all over the ballpark, you know, Kershaw is not right. But hey, this is where Scravey and Matt and Adam have, you know, some similarities. They put the topics in in the same way that the big five is made. Scravey has thoughts about what he thinks it should be. Adam passed these, you know, subjects and partly because this is what he's thinking. I know Adam is an absolutely awful lot about my head, how I think how I should wear my hair. Well, I'm just jealous that you can grow air and you choose to shave it. I'm incredulous. I'm incredulous that any person, and if you look at me, you know why I'm incredulous. Anybody that can have hair and doesn't have shoes like I just make no that makes no sense to me. Me too. Anyway, Padres are looking like a pretty formidable team right now. And despite the success, I remind you that it's a lot of this has been done without Joe Musgrove, without you, Darvish, at different times without bull guards and Fernando Tatis. Yeah. And this team is now pretty good. Two games away from being 10 games over 500. Yeah, that's a, that's a good thing. I think that's a marker to pay close attention to the Padres can get there. And again, we talked about this a little bit on the, on the round table. Right now everybody's keeping pace. This is kind of like that's the issue every. And so a week from now, will that be the same? And I encourage all of our listeners to to watch until we get to September, go week to week. Yeah, it's only August 1st. Yeah. All right. So let's not celebrate quite yet. And you can't celebrate when you look at the wildcard picture and the Braves have 49 losses. They're the, the top wildcard team. Padres Diamondbacks Mets all have 51 Cardinals have 52 pirates who you played two series with here in the next 10 days have 53. So even though the Padres have done all that they have done, yeah, there's not a lot of room for air right now. And that is a little surprising to me because when the second half of this season kicked off, you and I got together and I said, how much will you allow for me to say that this next stretch of 11 games is important? And you said, I'll allow that it's kind of important, but it's still only late July because they were playing the Guardians, you know, the nationals, but then the Orioles and the Dodgers. We thought this is 11 games. Tough story. Are they going to be able to even stay afloat? They went nine and two. What if they hadn't gone nine and two? They'd honestly be sitting three or four games out of the wildcard right now because everybody else has played well. Also, how many times have we said timing matters, right? All season long, the same group of teams we're talking about have one in streaks and lost in streaks literally at the same time, which is why when the Padres have gone in one of those ruts, the farthest they may have fallen out of the race is a game. Yeah, everybody everybody. And so the timing was right. Once again, the Padres go nine and two and perhaps the most difficult portion of their schedule and they need it to because everybody else went around this almost the same type of numbers. Everybody else do the same thing. So there's no room for air. And I know that there's a lot of people that as happy as we all are and they all are, are a little concerned that the other shoe will drop because here comes a quote and I put it in quotations, an easier stretch of the schedule. Yes. With the Rockies, pirates granted, then the Marlins, then the Pirates again, and then the Rockies again. Yeah, that's the next five series. You've got two with the Rockies, one with the Marlins. The first thinking is, Oh, we're going to mop up there. But we know better, don't we? We know because it's been that kind of a season. We certainly know better. And I'll say this, you know, last year, I think I might have used the term, you know, the Padres, I get fat during this time. I'm not going to use that this time. I'm going to say the Padres need to continue to play at a high level that they've been playing well. Let the other team kick the ball all over the field and, you know, misplay buns and run themselves into outs. All of the things that the Dodgers did last night, Gavin Lux with two errors, Clayton Kershaw couldn't handle a simple bunch play. And then the one moment of the game that the Dodgers have a little something going, Lux gets the double, they score a run and Otani runs into the final out of the inning with a really bad decision and gets thrown out easily at home plate. Those are the kind of things that you do when you're not. And let's be honest, if that's the Dodgers, like the rest of the way, then I'm not even worried about catching the Dodgers. They're not going to win any game, you know, very many games playing like that. That's his. And with that lineup, but you know, they're going to get better, but bets will get back. Freeman's definitely going to come back. Muncie's due back soon. So, and they're getting flarity into the rotation. So get them while you can and good on the Padres. They got them. I'll say this. I think, you know, based on what we saw, I mean, a Padres should have won that series quite frankly. They were the better team. They were the healthier team. And Padres aren't even fully healthy, but they were the healthy team. So they should have taken care of business. Mike Shilt talked a little bit post game about winning a series within the division. Like I know that you guys have focused on, you know, one game and all that this was the first time that you guys have the Padres have won a season series against the Dodgers since 2010. Okay, beating a good team like that, taking a season series. Is there anything you can draw from that? Yeah, I mean, listen, we're going to look to win every series against every opponent. So, you know, clearly it's a very good, well established, you know, club over there. We got a lot of respect for them. They do a lot of really good things. They play the game right and they've won a lot of baseball games, you know, but ultimately it's about how we play and we're looking to take care of our business. I don't know if anybody got Kevin's, I know you are looking at it as one at a time, but it is the calendar is about to turn to August. The division race is as close as it's been since May. How do you view kind of where things stand in the nationally? So you know, ultimately, you know, when this is the first time the Padres have been able to win a season series against the Dodgers and that's important now because- Wait a second, say that again. A season series. And I'll say, okay. That's all Shilt said. Well, he didn't know what the question was. I think he was just like, are you giving me information that I know? Okay. So big deal is the way he seemed to think it was. I mean, it's a big deal to the fans. Yeah. And I think it's a big deal to some of the players who have been getting beat by him. It's a big deal because if these two teams end up tied at the end, there's a tiebreaker now. There's no more game, 163 to decide who's the division winner. It goes to head-to-head matchups and that could be something I'm not saying that the Padres are going to track them down. But if they do, they got the tiebreaker. Yeah. Four and a half games. What are you doing to me? Okay. Are you going to just play? Are you going to just play a clip every time I start to talk over them? Okay. Thank you, Mike Shilt. I, you know, four and a half games really doesn't seem like all that much. But if I'm the Padres, I'm not even thinking about it. I'm thinking about the Rockies and getting them back for what they did the last time they came here and making sure that you take care of that business and then go out and have another good road trip and, you know, pile the winds on top of each other and just see where you are. There is one series left against the Dodgers late in September. I think that kind of speaks to something you've talked about a lot and that I've agreed with you on this balanced schedule sucks. Hey, there's absolutely no way that the Padres should be four and a half games out of first place and the team they're chasing in their own division with two months to go. They only have three games left with and for the record, I've been saying this before the Padres were even within range of this. It just to me, it, you know, I don't want to get good. It makes no sense. You know, I don't like it. I understand what they're doing, but I don't like it. And, you know, I would say the same thing. If the Padres were four and a half games ahead, I'm not just saying that because the Padres don't have as many chances head to head. I just think it's bad for baseball to have a divisional race that really isn't going to be decided on the field. It's going to be decided, you know, all over the country and games and other ballparks. But yeah, I'm really excited with what they did last night. I thought Dylan C's pitched mediocre. And that is speaks to just how good he is because the guy gave up three hits. Count them, Tony, three hits. That's more than he had given up in the last three games combined. Uh, this guy's just on fire right now. And I really liked the San Diego crowd too last night when he got taken out of that game. Really a great standing ovation. I think the appreciation for what he's done, the appreciation for his no hitter and what he did last night. And he I watched him all the way into the dugout, Tony. He took a moment to appreciate what the fans were giving him. I mean, he was really, you know, he had his head up and, uh, you know, he was, he was very much, I think appreciative of what the fans response to him. And he deserved it. I think, uh, yesterday, the fan base as a whole, they were locked in. Yes, more so than they usually are. Cause I recall one of the stars, it might have been the start right before break. Dylan sees is coming off and he, you know, had, you know, was throwing the ball well. And I think he was like trying to pump the crowd up as he was coming off. Yeah. This time he didn't need to do that because they were already there and, and seemingly showing them 11. You're right. He did kind of take a second to kind of take it all in. I saw the same thing to your other point, the meat mediocre cease. That's just how good I know he has been like he puts, he threw the ball great yesterday. It wasn't no hit stuff Dylan cease, which he had three previous stars. I mean, he even had a hundred pitches through six innings. So he was the Dodgers made him work a little bit, but I think anytime, um, and this goes for, for Waldron as well, like anytime you're facing the Dodger team, you're going to throw some pitches. They, they're not going to just let you just cruise through they're going to, even if they're not playing well, that is part of who they are. So another terrific pitching performance from another Padres starter. Do we have a good bullpen now? They face 10. I didn't really get to watch my man Adam. He got there out in five six pitches. I'm like that quick, uh, 10, 10 batters faced by the bullpen. 10 batters retired. Just whipped right through everybody. And I am, I thought I was a really good fan of the team when they announced in the seventh inning that Alec Jacob was coming into the game. You didn't know that was. I did not know who that was. I was like, was there another trade that we made that I didn't know who is that came up for a little bit last year? Man hurt. Okay. I honestly didn't know he was. Thank you, Mike. I really didn't know he was on the roster. Come to find out now, Tony and his big league career, he's faced 21 hitters. He struck out 12 of them. Yeah. So that's just another arm to pile on top of everything else. We haven't even seen Tanner Scott's debut yet. Um, that was really, uh, it was impressive. And the way they're hitting the ball and pro far, I mean, I don't know this guy every time he just, you know, whatever you got to have, I mean, a two out single to cap off that rally and bring a third run in another two out single to cap off another rally and bring a fifth run in. Uh, you know, this guy is just, it's been magical to watch and, um, you know, look, I mean, Camp Asano, I was happy to see him, you know, lighted up a little bit. Yeah. A couple of RBIs hit the home run off Kershaw. You know, he's kind of rising a little to the challenge here. He's saying, look, I mean, I lost my job to Higashyoka, but I'm not going to go away. I mean, he wants to win that back. And I think that's good for the team. Kathy's a grinder, man. He's not, he's not going to pack it in. I never, that was never something that crossed my mind. I'm happy that he's starting to feel good. He's made some adjustments a little bit and where he starts his hands and getting some good results. All right. Let's get to break. We are a few minutes past where we should. We got a lot more Padres stuff on the way. Mike Shields discussion with Jake Croninworth about his off day yesterday. I know many folks thinks that could be something Mike Shields had something to say about that. Plus we got plenty more to get into. The Olympics USA continue to do their thing. More Gwen and Chris on the way. All right, 224 is the time. Welcome back. Gwen and Chris together in our Odyssey Palace studios today here in San Diego, California, Adam Kluge in for the vacationing. Mr. Scravey, we've shipped him out to Iowa for the next six days. You don't out of here, players. We'll let him come back in the middle of next week sometime. We got a good one for you. Alden Gonzalez from ESPN. We'll be on the program here in just a little bit. Alden was at the game last night. So I'm in the press box covering the Dodgers and the Padres for ESPN. He's a frequent guest on this show. Always fun to have him on. Not only was Alden Gonzalez in the press box last night, Tony Gwen Jr. And I don't know if you ever make your way over to the writers side. I know you're on the broadcast wing, but I walked in there last night and it was it was jam-packed. Yeah, almost almost playoff level attendance. And then I realized it was the Japanese media that follows show. Hey, I was I was stunned. I mean, it's the middle of the season and evidently these guys just follow him wherever he goes. I did not know that. I maybe thought maybe there was two or three reporters. You were like 20 or 30 reporters. You were around when Dale Nomo was around. That's how long time ago. That's how it really was with him. And that was like un thought of at that point. It feels like it's died down some, but you Darvish had a lot of that too. Not a show. Yeah, I don't. I don't think the amount of show. Hey, but they would be on the zooms and everything with the manager. Oh, Darren. Yeah, Darren was that 20, 20, right? Yeah, they're going to go big. Yeah, yeah. I just in terms of when we've gone to Los Angeles earlier this year, it's it's nuts. It's nuts. There's just so there's a lot of intention on them. And from what I understand, because I really don't follow it that closely, Otani doesn't really spend a whole lot of time talking to these guys. Yeah, no. I mean, I mean, in in in what was that LA? Yes, in LA, there's a sign they had to put up a sign because the the media was moving too far down the third baseline on the Dodger side. So they had to put up a sign saying no media. Really? On this point, that that's never been there. Wow. And so I mean, that's part of, you know, that's what you it's part of what you get when you sign. So hey, Otani rightfully so. With all due respect, though, to the coverage by the Japanese media, what do they need to report back? I mean, we the Japanese fans who are following Otani either can watch the games, they can certainly go online and read the box score. He doesn't talk to any of the media. So I wonder what they said, you know, what do they say? Help. He got up on this top step of the dugout and looked around. Hey, I don't know what he you know, I don't know what they're all reporting, but there was dozens of them. They weren't reporting very many hits. I know that last night, they weren't Padres. He went interested in that whole series. Yeah, eight to one was the final last night. Padres have taken the season series. They're up seven games to three and there are three remaining in September in Los Angeles. More on the Padres here, but quick note, Adam just ducked into us. And I kind of wish gravy were here for this because he'd be apoplectic about it. I'm glad he's not here for this actually. Mike Trout is out for the rest of the season. And apparently, Mr. Trout, who was trying desperately, I guess, to come back and at least play another month and a half, has torn his meniscus again, Tony or torn another meniscus. We don't hasn't been confirmed whether it's the same leg or a new leg, but he tore a meniscus again. Man, I mean, you know, the scraping makes fun of Mike Trout all the time. And I think it's easy for Scrabie to sit here with his shoulder surgery and make fun of people. And here's the thing. Scrabie's not even here and I'm taking shots at him, but you know, I'm to the point now where I really would like to see Mike Trout get back and play some baseball. I mean, it's just, you know, enough's enough. And I feel bad for the guy, but he won't be coming back any time this season. So bad news for baseball to lose Mike Trout. All right. Adam's making a lot of hand gestures. Neither of you are looking at the screen. Look at what I put on the screen. You guys are taking shots at Scrabie. Oh my God. Yeah, I don't look at the screen during the show. So there we go. What screen are you talking about? Oh, our screen. He just put a picture of the Scrabie. Okay. I'm sorry. I don't have a computer in front of me like this, you guys do. He just put the Scrabie just after shoulder surgery photo. You know, the one where his face was all dulled up. He had makeup on. He looked pretty high in that photo right there, by the way. Makeup on it. All right. Thank you, Adam, for that. We're going to get into Jake Croninworth, but we're at the bottom of the hour. He did sit last night and there's some people saying, well, he came in. Solano started. Yeah. And then Jake came in when they took Kershaw out. But with Solano hitting 306 against lefties and Croninworth hitting 193, there's some talk as to whether or not Mike Schultz should make a switch when lefties are on the mound. And Mike Schultz spoke to that. Let's get that in real quick, if we can, Adam. Please, sir. You know, I was actually talking to Crony earlier today, too, you know, and it's like, you know, we're not going to feel the need to do that a lot. But if anybody can say, you know, whatever it takes, I want to win. But when you actually have it happen to you and then you have a good attitude about it, that's what speaks volumes and that's what winning teams do. You know, he came over and stood right beside me yesterday after it happened. And, you know, the competitor obviously wants the opportunity. So what I'm getting at is, you know, Tanner and Jason and all these guys have been tremendous. And our guys that have been in house with certain roles, you know, with Strata and Maury home, they pitched down game last night. You know, Suarez, everybody's been fantastic about, you know, greater good mentality, which it's important. Yeah, Jake, we talked about it yesterday, you know, after he got taken out for the pinch hitter and the bottom of the 10th inning and Solano came up. Croninworth went right to the top step and cheered on his teammate, which is, you know, what you love to see. And but then last night, you know, with Kershaw on the mound, Croninworth does not get the start. I don't think Mike Schiltz is going to do it consistently, Tony. Jake Croninworth is too valuable and too big a part of this ball club. He needs to be in there, quote, every day. And then Mike Schilt has to find a way to get Solano some of bats. And I think that's the way it'll continue. Here's the thing to remember. Jake's defense is is huge. Yeah, Padres defenses. I wouldn't say it's the best defense out there. I think when you remove Jake, it gets noticeably weaker. That being said, the greater good mentality is going to be challenged, I think, down the stretch. They're going to be day, they're going to be games. I don't think it's going to happen often, but they're going to be games that that is going to be the direction in which Mike Schilt goes. Now that's for the regulars and come the the postseason should the Padres get there. He can look at it a little bit differently. I also think it got to remain despite those same numbers from Jake Cronin with Padres still winning a lot of baseball games. And so how does that affect team chemistry? We like to all believe that everybody greater good pushing in the right direction. And Jake is that type of guy. So I don't think it'll be a problem. But you certainly, from a mental standpoint, you got to be careful with that. I said that during the round table yesterday, but I think this is what where this team is special. I think they genuinely enjoy one another. They genuinely want to win. They got a manager that has poured into them in a positive way. I mean, at times it's frustrated, the fan base and some of our some of our guys on our station that he is so positive in public and won't ridicule anybody. And that's by design. And I think that's why these guys play the way they do for them. And so it'll be something we got to keep an eye on as we get down stress. I think Jake will get going again. But when you have an option like Solano, that's playing well, you're going to use them at time. Those are going to be ways that you can spell Craig, Jake and get Solano. Some a B's because he's not going to play third base. It's just unless unless Manny is going to take a day off defensively, which he doesn't really like to. And I my guess is the way he's swinging right now. I don't think he's going to want to not be out there in the fashion that he is. He's he's the I said this during the round table. And I'll continue to say it. Despite how some of y'all may feel about Manny when he goes, this team goes there. It has been that way, honestly, since he's been here. Yeah, he is the straw that stirs the drink, I believe was Reggie Jackson's terminology. Oh, y'all Yankees back in the day. All right, Alden Gonzalez from ESPN to talk more Padres, Dodgers, baseball, trade deadline, everything next to 40 on the clock. Tony Gwen Jr. Chris Elo. Man, I don't know why I'm struggling in the day with that. Chris Elo. Yeah, I was even on a national show the other night. The Adam got me booked me and they pronounced my name right. I was really, really happy about that. It doesn't happen on. I'm sorry, your partner's butchering it today. Adam Clue, a special guest today. All right, I got to bring my man, Alden Gonzalez, ESPN on right now. It sounds like he is in the midst of chasing some breaking news. So we'll make it quick. Alden, how are you? My friend. Alden, you know, oh, he dropped. All right, maybe he's chasing maybe whatever news he had to. He got. Well, we'll find him. Yeah, he's a terrific guy. Chris, hold it down for me. I'm going to text out and real quick, make sure we make sure he's okay. Padres do have the day off if you're wondering. And also, if you're wondering, there's no round table replay today. They're normally is on Thursday. But this week, we did the round table yesterday because of the trade deadline. So we do have a full four hours with you today until six o'clock. And we'll get Alden Gonzalez going here. But a little bit later on the program, Adam Clue has agreed to allow me to bring him in as a contestant in a special edition today of the Fantabulous Sports Game Show. So that's coming up in about an hour. I think we're all tired of Tony beating down Scravey in that contest. I'm enjoying it very much. Today, you're going to have another competitor against you in the Fantabulous Sports Game Show. I told Adam when we were, you know, kind of when he was getting into my skin earlier that I expected this to be a good match up, you know, because he actually didn't just start liking sports like Scravey did. He's actually loved sports for quite some time. So I'm expecting a lot out of him today. Yeah. It'll be interesting, especially if the category is sports, but you guys are just assuming. Let's see what you did there. All right. We do have our guest bag out in Gonzalez, ESPN, Joyce is out. And I know you can't be here long because you're chasing some stuff out there. First, how are you today, my friend? I'm doing great guys. How you doing? We're doing well. You're in town for the short two game series. Well, what were your thoughts after watching those two games? Oh, the Dodgers are nowhere near your hole right now. They didn't have these junior not in there. Just how well balanced that lineup seems to be. They're a team that has claimed Kershaw experienced better than anybody on Wednesday. They're team with the best contact rate in baseball. They put the ball in play. They're dynamic. And what AJ Hunter did with that bullpen, I mean, to add Tanner Scott, Jason Adam into that mix with Roberto Suarez and Adrian Morihone and Jeremiah Strada. Look, there are some concerns there with the rotation. But if you could shorten games with five dominant guys like that, that could put you over the hump in the wild card race. And it might really help you make a deep run into October. You know, Alden, I almost called him Dylan because we have Dylan Hernandez on sometimes. I know I can't do that. That's why I paused, Alden. I apologize for that. I wanted to ask you, we only have a few for a few, but I wanted to ask you because you talked to Jack Flaherty yesterday and I read your story online and Jack Flaherty ended up with the Dodgers. Some of the Padre fans were wondering, and the Padres Preller said that they weren't really close on Flaherty. Was it, if that's the case, was the Padres package not enough for Jack Flaherty? Or is it possible that the Tigers just didn't like what the Padres were offering? Or maybe just the interest level wasn't there. The same as it was for the Dodgers and Yankees. I think it might have been more of the latter. I think, look, the Dodgers came in here with a really clearly stated goal of adding a front line starting picture. And there weren't many front lines available. Terriks Kubele didn't move. Blake Snell didn't move. Garret crochet didn't move. So when you were looking into that market, it was Jack Flaherty and there was, I don't know, Zach Eslyn or you say Kakuchi who cost the Astros quite a bit. I think it was a pretty limited market. And I think, look, I don't know that, I mean, I actually do know, like AJ Preller has no interest in training, like he even saw us in the world in his farm system. Some of the upper echelon prospects, some of the upper echelon pitching prospects that he traded away are promising. They have high ceilings, but they've taken somewhat steps back this year. You know, I'm talking about Robbie Snellie. I'm talking about Dylan Lefko. I think AJ was smart in that he, you guys know this very well. He's always looking for impact type talent. Wherever it is that he could get it. If he has to have a lineup full of short stops and try to figure it out positionally, he'll do it. And as he showed it, this trade that line, if the impact talent isn't available to him from a starting pitching standpoint, then he'll pivot to the bullpen. Even at a time when people thought that maybe the need is not there in the bullpen because he already traded for Jason Adam. He's talked about this a lot that he feels like that's the type of talent that wins in the playoffs. He said this a lot when he got Juan Soto and Josh Hader. And it's very much still an ethos for him. Alden Gonzalez joins his here from ESPN and Alan, we'll get you out of here after a couple more here. AJ Preller, you just brought him up. He's been the topic of conversation here going into the season based on where the year started to where we are now. And I know the full story's not been told yet because ultimately that will have a big part in how the story is told. But from where we were at the beginning year to where we are now, how do you think, what kind of job do you think he's done? I think he's done a really nice job. I really do. He gets a lot of flak for trading away prospects and kind of more getting more between the future in that way. But I think the Padres for an office and rightly operates from their belief that they could continually replenish farm systems. And we've seen them do this already. We've seen them do this basically three different times. And so whenever they, other outsiders think that they gave up too much, they're confident that they could continue to develop that pipeline. Now look, maybe at some point they're not able to, but all we've seen is an ability for them to, at the very least, develop the type of prospects that other teams want for them to get the pieces that they need. And when you look, just take a bigger picture, look at the Padres this year, they were going to limit their budget. It was pretty clear that they wanted to get under the luxury tech threshold. They basically had to trade away Juan Soto. And for him to add the talent that he's added, I mean, look, Jerkson Profar has been a revelation coming over in a $1 million contract and being all-star. But Jackson Merrill has been an impact player in center field, the position that he had never played before to get Luis Arias and Michael King and Dylan Seif. And now to get Tanner Scott and Jason Adam and keeping that payroll down, look, you can criticize him for other missteps in the past. But just looking at these last, they eight, nine months, I don't think you could have expected much more out of AJ Preller. The Padres look, I mean, maybe from a talent perspective, they're a little bit less than last year, but not by that much. Alden, a big question around here. The fans are really excited and you mentioned him because the season that Jackson Merrill has had, I think, has taken everybody a little by surprise, especially playing every day in center field and, you know, not only hitting the home runs, 13 home runs and ceiling bases and a great OPS for a rookie, but hitting impact home runs and winning games with his home runs. Does he have any chance, though, at a national level to beat out Paul Skeens for rookie of the year? You talking Jackson Merrill? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Jackson Merrill, can he beat out Skeens for rookie of the year? Yes, sir. I think Paul Skeens needs to fall off in order for that to happen. For his greatest Jackson Merrill season, it's been for as promising as he is. I think just the hype around Paul Skeens is so big. The type of impact that he's had, the singular impact that he's had in that city. I mean, I think he almost single-handedly made the Padres go for it at the trade dollar in their own way. Like, it's not. They were still pretty conservative in what they did, but they at least took a shot. In a year when it seemed like they were going to be taking a step back, I still got to put the people in San Diego. I'm not going to love this, but I still got to put Paul Skeens ahead of somebody like Jackson Merrill and ahead of everybody, really, because he's been front and center at that. Not to take anything away from Jackson Merrill, but he gets to be on a roster where people are counting on the Manning Machado and the Tatisas, Louisa Rises, and everybody else. Paul Skeens is at the forefront of this already, and it's just too impressive to overlook. Alden, as always, man. Appreciate you coming on. Spend some time with us. Go ahead and chase that news, man. We'll talk to you later. All right. Thanks so much, Alden. Alden and Zalas there, as always. Clutching on it for us. One of our, one of our better guests, for sure. Yeah, in terms of the Jackson Merrill thing, I mean, you would love it to be just based off the merits. And quite frankly, even if it was just based off what they're done on the field, you know, it's Paul. It's, I don't want it to be Paul Skeens, but I want it to be Jackson Merrill, but it's, it's hard to make the argument when every time I turn on a TV and there's a baseball story and Paul Skeens is pitching. He is the first story on Sports Center, or Sports Center on MLB Network on any of them. Secondly, he's on the East Coast and you know, it is what it is. There is a bias, whether it's because the folks who vote on it are sleep by the time Jackson is doing his thing or whatever it may be. Lastly, he has, nobody had the pirates doing anything this year and he's come up and the pie has got off to a good start. They got, what is it, Keller's having a terrific year for them? Yeah. They got a bunch of guys playing well, but the impact this dude has come in and I mean, it's hard to argue. Do you weigh position players and pitchers equally? Like, you give any lean one way or the other? I do, but I get the sense that voters don't, meaning you vote towards the everyday player. Are you kidding me? He's rolling out there every day. If there is, there is no one that convinced me anything as it pertains to an everyday player versus a pitcher, a starting pitcher, and that's not to say clearly starting pitchers have a ton of value, but kidding up and doing that every day and going out performance system and doing it the right way. That is hard. And so I think it should be Jackson Merrill. I just don't see how unless, as he said, Paul Skeens has a fall off. I don't see a 6-1 1.90 0.9 whip. Pretty tough. Started the All-Star game. I thought the other thing that he said there that I hadn't really thought of. Jackson Merrill is allowed to do his things in a quieter stage because there's Manny and all these guys. Paul Skeens is the Pittsburgh Pirates. He's the number one guy. I don't know if you guys remember, beginning of the year, Jackson got off to a great start and everybody was like, move him to the lead-off spot. Move him to the three hole. It's like, no, let this young man just go about his business. He doesn't need to be a carrier. He just needs to be one of the guys. We're at this point in his career. This is a rookie year. Now, two, three years from now, maybe we're having a different discussion. But when you got the likes of a Manny Machado, a Fernando Tatiz, a Zander Bogart, a Louisa Rise, a Jake Croninworth, he can fall back. And it's okay. And I think he's benefited because of the way Mike Schilt has handled him. Can I bring up a fairly recent precedent that perhaps Padres fans can hold on to? Sure. Is that in 2022, the top two finishers in the NL rookie of the year now granted there on the same team was Michael Harris and Spencer Strider. And Spencer Strider was as dominant of a pitcher as we've seen in a long, long time. And Harris, the everyday player of the center fielder, one rookie of the year over Strider two years ago. Yeah, but he wasn't as dominant as King. Let's go look at the numbers. It's a good try. It's a good try, Braves fan. I just, I'm bringing that up because the everyday player of the center fielder went over the pitcher. Yes. And you know, when that happened, I was like Bravo voters. You didn't, you didn't. But Paul Skis, and you know, quite frankly, I know maybe in the ATL, he did. The other point is the first point I made, which Strider, he didn't get the, we weren't waiting on his call up. Like he was, and Skis carries a lot more in his shoulders. I agree with all of us. He does. And I think you, even though it's about what happens on the field, voters are human beings. They, they, they're seeing the same and taking in the same things we all are. And so I think that's why it plays a major factor. Good first hour. Guys, let's go to hour number two, a little daily gambit. We are not that far away from the big showdown. A little fantabulous, me versus Klug. Stay tuned. We're going in Chris. Kicking off hour number two of going in Chris Cressello, Tony Gwen Jr. together in our Odyssey, Palace Studios, Matt Scrabia's idol today. But Adam Klug is filling in. We've got an hour into the books and three to go here coming up in this three o'clock hour. We'll get you a daily gambit. Catch up on the goings on out at the Olympics today. Team USA women now have a 57 game winning streak in basketball. Although it was a little tougher than I think they planned today against Belgium. We'll talk a little bit about that. Also in this hour, Adam Klug steps in to take on Tony Gwen Jr. in a matchup of Chris's fantabulous sports game show. Oftentimes on this show, as good as the show that you hear on the radio is, as good as the show you watch on YouTube is, and you know, let's be honest, it's good. But if I do say so myself, thank you, Mike Schilt. But oftentimes some of the best stuff goes on during the commercial breaks. And in this case, Adam Klug, Tony Gwen Jr. spent the entire break arguing over whether or not Michael Harris should have won the Rookie of the Year two years ago, or Spencer Strider should have won the Rookie of the Year two years ago. I was actually just and I thought it was a really good argument that everybody else should get to hear. I was the only one who got to hear it. Well, he was in Adam's defense. He was trying to give Padre fans throw him a bone basically. That's right. Here is what you can believe in or here's what has happened in the past study that can give you some hope. And I was just making the case that it was just different circumstances and Strider, although he was dominant and he was striking out people at the same rate. He had over 200 punches and he didn't even start a game until May or June, right? He didn't start a game until one started one started May. So he obviously was having a good year, but it's just a lot of times, all schemes is a rock star. I was just saying that's the thing. I was also, I felt like Tony kind of poo-pooed Strider's production on the field as a rookie. And I was just saying, I just said it wasn't as impactful. But I said the narrative surrounding him doesn't match. That's fine. I just said it wasn't as impactful as I lost his name by the schemes and again, it goes right back to the other part. Strider got to hop in a rotation with was the lefty, good lefty, free, max free. Let a load of guys who pit not to mention that the literally the best offense in all of baseball. So, you know, he also isn't carrying the load in the same way that Jackson has not to carry a load, right? He also had Michael Harris who ended up being the rookie of the year on his team as well. So a lot of help there, just like there's a lot of help for Merrill. I don't think anybody can honestly tell me, you know, more than two guys out of that Pittsburgh Pirates lineup, right? Not too many people. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Neil's one of them. Oh, Neil Cruz. You're talking about the shortstop. Brian Reynolds. Brian Reynolds. Can you get another one? They got, they're rowdy to Les playing first. Right now you're going to give us the whole roster. Keep going, rowdy to Les with us. Nick Gonzales, I believe. Stop playing second place. Okay. Sherry Joan, and this is why I think this fan table is a sort of champion. It's going to be good. David Bennar. I said starting lineup is what I said. You gave me five and some buckles, which gave us a few, which is pretty good. You didn't give us Andrew McCutchen, who was brought back to Pittsburgh this year. I will say this for those who want and believe Jackson Merrill should get it over Paul Skins. Jackson is having an amazing year, 768 OPS, but that is a hundred points lower than Michael Harris's OPS two years ago when he won the rookie of the year over Spencer Strider. I think Jackson, you know, along with what Alden said, Skins going to have to fall. Jackson Merrill going to have to have some impact, you know, moments the last two months of the season. He very well could. And Paul's Tuesday, he's going to get his first shot at Paul Skins because the Padres are going to face Paul Skins and Pittsburgh this coming Tuesday. No, I'll do so. No, they change his pitch and Sunday. So we won't wait a second now. When I okay, now I'm going to scramble for my source. Why you scramble, Tony, do you buy into war? This is, yeah, somewhat. Paul Skins so far has 3.5 Ward, Jackson Merrill is 2.2. All right. And you're right, Tony, this is a significant gap. Yeah, they did move Skins up to face Arizona on Sunday. So the Padres are not going to face. They're keeping him on regular day at rest. They have an off day Monday. They could have maybe elected to wait till Tuesday, but they're not going to. All right. So the Padres won't see. Trust me, me and Justin are talking about it for a little bit like I was kind of looking forward to see that matchup, but Padres will. But that's the thing. They miss him this time. We'll have to Adam, can you count the games one when they face the pirates here? Will it line up? No, doesn't look like they'll face him the next time either. Skins, according to this, you know, we'll pitch Sunday against Arizona. His next start will be a week from Saturday in L.A. against the Dodgers. Oh, good. And then they'll face them. And then they'll come to San Diego for three right after that. And he won't pitch here. So let me ask you the question. Would you rather see Skins in person or prefer to miss them? Because it's better for the Padres, right? You'd rather. Well, it doesn't matter what we want. We're going to miss them both times selfishly. I'd like to see him, but I would too. But you know, I'm certainly not upset that he's going to have to face the Dodgers. Doesn't look like, yeah, it doesn't look like Skins will face the Padres. I hope I hope Maximus Freddy Freeman's son gets healthy. But I, you know, I hope he's not. I hope he takes a day off that day too. So it make it make it even better for Skins. Yeah, but you know, I don't hold, you know, I don't bemoan the beating of the Dodgers without mookie bets or without Freddy. No, the Dodgers don't have to tease or no, or you or say like, no, surely. So there's that. All right, Chris, back to you, buddy. All right. Thank you guys. This is welcome to Gwen and Klug here filling in today with Scrabies out. And Adam, by the way, when he comes and fills in for Scrabie, one of the first things he always tells me is, you know, I don't really just keep me out of it. I like to. Yeah, sure, Adam. Pretty much taking the whole show. Come on in here, come on in here. All right, let's get to some stuff in the Daily Gambit. Get some winners and losers for you. Do you like money? I think about money. Do you like money without doing anything? Winning. Do you want to make money while watching sports? I think Washington is immortal luck. Washington. If you answer yes, this is your segment. Just don't blame us when you lose. Nothing is ever your fault. It's your game. Take it. Gwen and Chris go through the top best of the day in the Daily Gambit on 97.3, the fan. Yes, it's called the Daily Gambit, but we asked that all of you gamble responsibly out there. Just don't gamble at all. Make your picks, have some fun, but save your money. It's not easy to win at that game. We had seven picks for you last night on the program. Start with the Padres and Dodgers. Padres are favored by a run and a half. I had faith in the Friars. Scrabby picked the Dodgers. Padres, of course, one eight to one. Over under was seven runs last night. I thought was cease pitching. It would be under, but Kershaw did not hold up his end of the bargain. It went over. The final score was eight to one. I thought this was a really interesting line last night. Dylan sees his over under last night for hits allowed was only three and a half. That's like Nolan Ryan territory right there. I mean, well, you've only given up two hits in your last three stars. No kidding. It might provoke that and he ended up going under because he only gave up three hits. He did not go over. They only got three hits off in last night. Kershaw's over under for strikeouts was three and a half. Didn't get there. We already discussed that earlier. He finished with zero. The first time in his career that that has happened to Kershaw, a span of over 420 starts. A United States women's basketball team was favored by 23 today over Belgium in the Olympic Games. The Americans won 87 74. Much closer game than the 23 point spread would indicate Belgium was within six there in the fourth quarter. So the US had to work for their 57th consecutive Olympic victory. They haven't lost a women's basketball game since 1992. I did notice though today, Tony, because I watched some of the game. The US women struggled from the three point arc today. Maybe they could have used somebody like, say, Caitlin Clark. I was happy to see Don Staley, by the way, come out the other day and say, you know, we probably should have selected her if we had to do it all over again. Yeah. So 165 was the over under for that game in points. It went under at 161 and Germany minus one over Japan. Scravey took Germany. I took the land of the rising sun. Germany won it though. I didn't get the final. I think it was 76 64. So Scravey won that one. I come into today at six and seven. I told you it's tough to pick these games. Tony, when junior is O and O, as we get into our first football game of the year, the national football league is not officially, but it's back tonight. At long last, the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio, the Houston Texans taking on the Chicago Bears or at least facsimiles of the two teams. Houston is favored by two and a half. Tony, start us off today. I love this. Did you analyze this game? I did. Analyze this one. Give me the Texans. You're going to take the Texans. Give me the Texans. Yes. I'm going to take the red hot Matt Everfless from the Chicago Bears. Over under for this game is 32 and a half points. I bring this up because I think that's a gimme. You're going to go under, right? These teams can't. No way they can move the football in the not fall. The fame game that with any that with no starters played. No, no, this is going to run into the line and tackle the guy. This is going to be a sloppy game as it typically is. Should be under. Okay. Into the major league baseball tonight, the LA Angels host the Colorado Rockies. Rockies with a win tonight could win their second road series of the year. Not going to mention what their first road series win was the Angels though are favored by a run and a half to keep the Rockies from doing that. Tony, I don't have the pitching match up. It's two guys. It's in Colorado. No, it's here. The Rockies are just up the road tonight in Anaheim. And then they'll be busing down your eyes. Oh, Rockies is playing decent right now. Give you the Rockies. Rockies are playing decent. Okay. You got them. I'll take the Angels because the Rockies haven't won a road series except for never mind. Cubs and Cardinals tonight, Shokta Eminaga and Sunny Gray. Couple of all star starters going head to head. Both have lines of over under for five and a half strikeouts. So I asked tonight which starter will have more. Eminaga or Gray, I'll go with Eminaga. Although some of the shyness seem to have gone off him just a little. He started to get hit a little bit. A little bit Sunny Gray. Give me Gray. It's had a nice season for the Cardinals. I'd like to see the Cubs win that game though. Germany and France tomorrow. This is men's basketball in the Olympic Games. Germany's favored by three and a half. Tony again, another game that you've scouted closely, I'm sure. Give it to me again. Germany three and a half over France. That means the wimba llama is the underdog in this game. Oh, Germany's got a good squad. Yeah. Give me Germany. You're going to take Germany. All right. I'll take France. I'll take wimby and the French side. That's it. Just got five today. Fair enough. All right. That's your daily gambit. We will step aside and we'll get you ready for some traffic here and then some more chat on the Olympic Games. And some of the other goings on in sports have just tuned in. Mike Trout is out for the season now. Another meniscus tear for the bad luck. Great center fielder for the L.A. Angels of Anaheim. More Gwyn and Chris coming up. 320 on the clock. Tony Gwyn and Jimmy Cressello. Adam Cluke. Matt Scravey out. Where is he at? Iowa. We shipped him off. Got him up out of here. That's Iowa. Right. That's where it is. Iowa. Yeah. The Scravey family reunion is in Iowa. Yeah. I mean, if I was having a family reunion, that's where I'd pick. This is Iowa Dubuque to be more specific. Yeah. Hey, I got an idea, everybody. Let's meet in Dubuque. So there they go. Well, the scrapies are all getting together in Dubuque while we're here in the Odyssey Towers talking some Olympics. I don't know how much of you guys have been able to kind of watch, but trying to get into it. I am too. Today, to this morning and last night, got into it a little bit, started to kind of have it playing on all the TVs. My kids are starting to get into it. So that makes it easier because they tend to control the TVs most of the time. So got a chance to see what's happening. Ledecky continues to her reign in the pool. Katie Ledecky is a machine. She got like 15 of like the top times. I think she has every top time. Yes. Like in the history of that event, top 15, she has the eight, the 1500, which is a distant swim. I mean, she's like blowing the field away. Not really close. You don't even see anybody in the screen when they have it on her. Yes. You just see the USA flag going along. Nothing else in the water. And they put up a thing last night or a lap by lap or whatever it was or every 100 meters. And every 100 meters or whatever it was, every lap was like the exact same time. 31.22 seconds followed by 31.22 seconds followed. I mean, it's just clockwork. She said when she was swimming there near the end, she started thinking about all the people that have helped her win all these gold medals. I'm like, really? Your mind was just wandering away. She's got that kind of time. Nobody else is close to you. So she's just wandering away. And I also, I saw a video Katie Ledecky. I don't know if this is interesting or not. I found it such they put she took a glass. I don't know why this had to be chocolate milk. Maybe it was for an ad. She took a glass of chocolate milk, balanced it on the top of her head and then swam a lap. Say again, I'm sorry. I was reading. I know Adam just sent me. I'm sorry. She took. She took a glass of chocolate milk. She balanced it on the top of her head. And then she went into the pool and swam a lap. Who did Katie Ledecky with the with the chocolate milk not moving? You saw this? I did. I don't know if that was impressive or not, but I thought it was worth a mention. Oh my god. I'm like a drowning child in the pool. Yes, you are. You don't even go. You don't even stick a toe in the pool. No, I get in the pool. I said I don't get in the beach. Yeah, you're from the ocean. That's a mismatch. I'm not interested in right. That was just part of what the USA is doing. They continue to dominate on the gymnastics side too. Simone Biles back at the top once again, the all around title gold medalist. Yeah, I think you could make a case, you know, for who's who's the better, greater, you know, Olympian? Is it Katie Ledecky or Simone Biles? Simone wins her second gold medal in three Olympics. So that means the last time she won was eight years ago. Yeah. So I mean, in eight years, you know, the in your age and the size of your body changing and everything, then your life changing for her to come back and win another one. She's the first ever to do that. But evidently, this was really, really close to. I don't know about. She's like Ledecky. She normally wins easy. This was close. She can think about all the people that are helped her along the way. But evidently, this was really, really close. So I don't know how the gymnastics scoring works, but it was very, very tight. Her teammate, Suni Lee, who won the gold medal in 2020 finished with the bronze this time. I didn't realize this as reading the story. Suni Lee was ecstatic to even win the bronze. She has been suffering from kidney disorders and not just one, but like multiple kidney issues, kidney diseases, career jeopardizing stuff. So she was happy to come in third, but Biles is at the top again. I did see one moment of her floor routine the other night. I want to wipe this out. She jumped in the air. I saw this. It was she spun so many times. I don't even know what she did, but they stopped the picture when she was at the top of her jump. And they can, you know, do this now, obviously. She was 11 feet, eight inches off the floor. That's one foot eight inches above the rim. Like she basically from the floor exercise could have just dunked herself. Now, if I'm not mistaken, the floor, it's got some spring. Okay. No, it's spongy. It's meant to say, but I'm just saying, if you put a rim up there and she was on the floor exercise, she could probably jump through the hoop. I can tell you right now, if I was in a facility like that, or if I owned a facility, there would be a hoop at the edge of every corner. So you could do some dunks. You brought up the point about Simone Biles winning her second gold medal in eight years. Remember her last Olympics, which was, I believe in Tokyo, she had with the twisties and had to pull herself out of those competitions. Oh, that's right. For those in 2020, she didn't compete. Yes. For those who don't know what they gave her a lot of flop. Yes, they did. They basically said she took a spot in and quit. Now, what happened was that, hey, she, we found out later, she was suffering from some mental health issues, but B, she got the twisties and the twisties is something that only happens in gymnastics, I assume. And it's virtually when you go to do your flips and turns, you lose feel of where you are. So that could be dangerous. There's actually clips of her warming up at Tokyo last or four years ago. And you know, they have the little sponge area you can jump into, right? She couldn't. She couldn't find that. She could. I mean, she was landing at it and landing on her back, landing on her head. So she had to pull herself out. She didn't think she would be able to compete ever again. And here she is. It's a great comeback story and another gold medal. So kudos her. Chris has already kind of gone over the fact that the women's basketball team able to get a victory today. USA doing well. I think they lead in gold medals. They lead in total medals right now. I don't know if that's was a China was ahead at one point, but I thought China's got the gold medal lead at the moment with 11 USA nine. Okay. But we have the overall medal lead Tony 37 France, the home country with 27. France has that amazing swimmer who's breaking all of Phelps's records. They showed a shot of Phelps in the studio with my friend Mike Tareko. And they were watching your guy. Yeah, they were watching this French swimmer, Marshawn does his name. He's already broken a bunch of records in these Olympics. And Phelps was watching this guy swim, breaking his records. And Phelps was going crazy pumping his fist, jumping up and he couldn't contain his excitement. I wanted him to be as this guy was breaking his records. I thought that said a lot about Michael Phelps, because I don't know if I felt the same way. You want to hold on to the records for a little guy. Can I can I can I have it for another little day? That's just how swimming goes. Yeah, they break records every time they're in the pool. These guys and gals getting faster and faster. Yeah, no doubt. I'm looking forward to, you know, I don't know, just go over to men's side of things. It's one of the conversations that started to kind of get under my skin a little but I got I have to say every game someone doesn't start and it's like, how how can you how can Steve Kerr not put him out there? Right. Do we really? I mean, there's like all NBA dudes up and down this roster. Someone is not going to play someday. They're not playing. I mean, if your name is if your name is not Steph Curry, LeBron James, they might be the only two that are pretty much guaranteed to play. Yeah, Tatum didn't even play in one of those games and I was listening to some of the pundits. Like, how can a guy who just won a world title? He got a however many many dollar contract not playing? Well, I can tell you how he can't play Steve Curry doesn't any guards anybody or to match up. I mean, it's Steve Kerr is one of the smartest coaches in the NBA. He's certainly picking these lineups versus because of matchup, which is why it's changing all the time. I mean, and be it'll start one day. Then he doesn't play at all. It's just, can we can we let the people who are in the know do their thing? And then and by the way, they're winning all these games. So, it's not like they're losing the South Sudan game. It was so close. They rolled them off the court to following game. So yeah, let's Steve Kerr do his thing, please. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Kerr has the benefit of having played for both Greg Popovich and Phil Jackson. Yeah, if that doesn't make you smart, I don't know what does in the game of basketball. Yeah, I trust him. Yeah. Um, he's got he's he almost can't make the wrong decision. That's what I'm saying. You know, so he's just letting everybody have a piece of it. But you know, I still think they're going to get challenged a little bit. This tournament still got some good teams in there. So, you know, we'll watch. I saw I saw a little posting about how many NBA guys were in the Olympics for the first dream team. I think it was like zero. Now there's like on the other teams on the other teams. Yeah, right? And there's like, I think it was 66 or something like that in the Olympics outside of the 66 now. Yeah. So the dream team opened it all up for the whole world. They did. Didn't they? We watched the documentary. You saw the other players like coming over like getting autographs. Yeah, wanted to take pictures. They weren't interested in necessarily competing with them. They were so excited. But do you think Tony? It's going back 30 years now. Do you think the dream team at its height could wipe the floor with this team? Or would it be the other way? Are these guys so much better athletically and now that even Jordan and bird and magic couldn't keep up with them? I don't necessarily believe that they're more. I don't believe that they're more athletic than those guys. I do think skill wise, they're a little more advanced. There's another level, isn't there? There's a little shooting. That being said, I still think it would be a close game. I don't think either team would blow each other out. I think the shooting would put the 92 team in a bind. It's just hard for me to believe that a team with Jordan and magic or bird could lose. But I know these guys are a lot better. That's true. If you're comparing them to this current team, LeBron James and Steph Curry are not at the height of their powers. That's true too. Pretty much everyone on the 92 team was like, how about the redeem team? Because that had LeBron and all those guys and their prime stuff wasn't on that team, but Cole was there. I don't see anyone. You think the 92 team with all of them in the. I'm not going to argue against it. I those dudes were legit. I will say this. I will say this. You go back to those clips. You hear a lot of the stories from I think it was the young guys. It was like Chris Weber and Anthony Hardaway. They before that famous game that they had against one of those where Jordan officially took the baton away from magic. They got their butts kicked by the young group that was down there. And I think it was like Shaq, Chris Weber, Anthony Hardaway, Bobby Hurley. Not Bobby. You're on the practice. I think man, Bobby Hurley might have been on that squad. I think you're right. And that's what that's what the story goes. I've got to contend within this fantabulous game show coming up here. I said it was going to be a good matchup. So we'll have to we're going to find out here shortly. All right. Let's get to break. Is the fantabulous next? Next. Get your popcorn ready, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to Chris on the way. All right. Here we go at 338. Chris Hello, Tony Gwen Jr. Hold on. Let me turn my mic on. Yeah, because and then make sure you turn it off because Adam Clue's not going to do it for you. Apparently so. Apparently not. We are if the if you build it, they will come. Apparently, that's what Scrabie fell for and going to Iowa. Scrabies in Iowa. We're getting along without them today. We got a fantabulous sports game show coming up, but I may have to rename the game today, guys. As for the first time ever, Tony Gwen Jr. takes on Adam Clue. Let's check traffic and then get to it. Others are open for the fantabulous sports game show, but we'll go without it today. Hey, all you beautiful people out there. It's time to play one of our favorite games of the week. All right. We like to call it. Oh, I'm alone. Chris is fantabulous sports game show. It starts right now on 97 three, the fan. All right. We're not going to go without the open because there it was. I'll call for it. I know he usually plays it right out of the traffic, but no worries. No worries. We got along just fine. Today's fantabulous sports game show should be renamed. Just going to call up that fantabulous game show today. There's your hint. Adam Clue and Tony Gwen Jr. have been at each other since maybe a half an hour before the show even started today. Discussing who was going to come out looking smarter in the world of sports as a result of today's fantabulous sports game show. Unfortunately, for both of them, they're not going to find out because today's fantabulous game show does not have a sports category. Oh, guys, sit back, close your eyes and imagine a map of the United States of America because today's category is to name the 24 states that are situated west of the Mississippi River. All right, that is today's category. There are 24 correct answers. States that are west of the Mississippi River. Now, that's to the right, right? Trying to throw him out in there, trying to throw him on a slough right now is because this is a category where conceivably you guys could run the table. If it finishes 12 12, we do have a tiebreaker category for you, but we'll start off with this, name the 24 states that are west of the Mississippi. You can play along out there. Okay, this may be a little harder, Mike Schilt, than you think we will see. Should we just let Adam go first and seize the guest today, Tony? I think that's fair. All right. I don't want your charity. I will. Well, you're getting gets to go all the time. Scrabby always goes first and doesn't seem to help him any. All right, Adam, Clue, you're a smart guy. Give me a state west of the Mississippi. This could be easy at the beginning, of course, a great state of California. California. All right, very good. Tony, you're up. How about Idaho? Of all the states you started with, that wasn't the one I was expecting. But Idaho is correct. All right, Adam, one, one a piece, stick in the Pacific Northwest. He goes Washington, Washington. All right, very good. Adam has two, Tony has one Tony. How about Oregon? Oregon? I turned down the chat too. So I'm not looking at any Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, because the people in the chat, we'll uh, we'll try to help you out. Oregon is correct. We'll go with Nevada to to Nevada. You guys are I see what you're trying to do. It's gonna go. It's gonna go pretty quickly, right? It's gonna go quickly until we start getting close to that Mississippi. All right, uh, three to two for Adam, uh, Tony, we go southwest. How about Arizona? Arizona. Very good. Do we need a flex a little bit and go Texas? Uh, you can. Did you just, is that your answer? Eastern? Is that your answer? I'll go with Tejas. Texas. All right. So Adam's got four. Tony's got three. The game is moving along. I'll play this game with you about Oklahoma. Oklahoma is west of the Mississippi. That is correct. These guys are trying to name all 24 states that are west of the Mississippi. They have named eight. There are 16 correct answers remaining. No strikes for four. Adam, the state where the newest NHL team resides and they totally messed up the name of their team, Utah. The Utah Hockey Club. Should have been the Yetis. The Utah Hockey Club, at least for now. Yes. They might eventually change it to the Yetis. Utah is correct. Uh, five, four, Tony, you're up. Not Mexico, but new Mexico. New Mexico. New Mexico, New Mexico, New Mexico, New Mexico. Not to be confused with that. New Mexico is correct. Five, five, ten down, 14 to go. Guys are doing well. About Colorado. Can I ride? Okay. Very good. Guys are doing really good. You're going much faster than I expected anticipated. I'm disappointed with the questions. Can I say that? No. He wanted it to be sports. I did. But it can't always be sports. What can I tell you? You'll never know if I would have dominated you or not. How about, uh, it's always tomorrow. Wyoming. Wyoming. That is west of the Mississippi. You guys are doing a good job picture in the, uh, right? The nation's, uh, the state's layout here so far. It is six, six. Adam, we're halfway through. Let's go with Kansas. Kansas? Okay. Very nice. Adam, you're having no problem with this. You're just toying with this category. There's a chance to know geography better than sports. There there is. There's a great chance. We may find that out. Uh, how about where my man Scrave is right now? Little Iowa. Scrave is in Iowa. That is correct. You guys are just racing through. Can we just take a break a little time out? How many correct answers are left? Yeah, I can tell you. It's, uh, it's right now. It's, um, seven to seven, which is 14. So there's 10 left. North Dakota. North Dakota. There's nine left. That's right. Out south south. South Dakota. This South Dakota winner. Uh, there are eight left. This is going to ever slow down here. I see. I'm considering taking a little risk here. Well, go ahead there. How about the great state of Louisiana? Louisiana. That's close to the Mississippi. But it is west of that. That is correct. Very good. You touched the Mississippi with that with that answer. They might go a little touch here. How about Missouri? Missouri. That also touches the Mississippi. That is correct. So it is three, six, eight, eight. No, is that right? Two, four, six, nine, nine, 18 down, six to go. States that are west of the Mississippi. Adam Klub, no strikes yet. You guys are basing your geography test. I'm about to, I'm about to open a can and break the, you know, what, what, what, what, what are we going, uh, continental U S. Are you open? Are you, uh, opening a can of whip? No, whatever. No, a can of words. Uh, the answer, the category is the 24 states west of the Mississippi and Alaska qualifies. That is correct. Tony, your turn. How about Hawaii? I thought you might do that. See, there we go. 10, 10, only four remaining. Does it get dicey here? You guys got it. I see. There's only four left and the question, you know, to me, the hard part of this is, you know, knowing which four you haven't. I don't even know. Let's go with four left. Adam Klug. Let's go Illinois. Illinois. That is a strike. My friend. Strike one. No, you don't get a bell for that. You get a buzzer for Illinois is east of the Mississippi. So we have our first hiccup of the game. It is nine nine. Now Tony Gwen Jr. has a chance to take his first lead 24 states west of the Mississippi, but there are only four remaining in this category. And guys are raced through the first 20. But now maybe it finally gets a little interesting. How about Minnesota? Tony Gwen Jr. Correct. Minnesota does touch the Mississippi, but that is on the western side of things. So Tony takes his first lead 10 nine out of there in that same region. And I'll go with Michigan. You go with Michigan. Tony's waving it off to the right. Carlton fisking it. Strike two. I got to tell you, Adam Klug, Michigan isn't even within touching the distance of the Mississippi. It's way over there. Yeah. No good. That's two strikes for you, Adam Klug. Big trouble here. Now Tony Gwen Jr. looking to kind of seize the savage ground here. How about Ohio? Ohio. Wow. I got to buzz that one as well. Ohio is eastern Michigan. So Tony, there are, let me see. Still four questions. No, still four three left. Three correct answers left. Adam has two strikes when I'm out. Yes. Yes. That's the rules of the game. Tony won't have to get one. You need to get one of the three remaining west of the Mississippi. Adam to stay alive to stay alive. Yes. Arkansas. That is so far in the southeast. But it is west of the Mississippi. Arkansas is correct. Very good. I thought I thought when I looked at this, that Arkansas would be the hardest single hardest one to get. But you got it. You stay alive. And Tony has only one wrong. So he can miss this and still put the pressure on me. Yeah, that's right. But I'm going to try not to miss this one. All right, Tony, if you you got two left, two left, only two states left. Tony and Adam are tied at 11 11. But Adam has two strikes. Tony has one. I just can't think if we were driving east or west. Oh, well, take your time. We got a little time left here. Arkansas is a little intimidating. That one was that's a strong one. Right there. That was a strong one. Let's go. Here we go. How about the great state? The great state of Indiana. That was going to be your next one. Well, it's a good thing Tony took it. Indiana is east of the Mississippi. All right. Now what I'm going to do because I really like the tiebreaker category. We got to go to break right here, right? No, we don't. You guys are dead even again. 11 11 with two correct answers left. You both have to guess if you both miss then we go to the tiebreaker. I think that's fair. And if you both get one, then we go to the tiebreaker. That's the way we're going to work it. It's 11 11. The only way somebody's going to win without the tie breaker is if one of you get it right and one get it wrong. There are two states left that are west of the Mississippi that you haven't thought of yet. Adam for to really put the pressure on. Can you can't remember if this one's been guessed or not, but I'm going to go with it. Okay. Wyoming Wyoming is most certainly west of the Mississippi, but it has already been guessed. Can I give another one? No, you cannot get another one. Tony wins the game here. If you comes up with one of the remaining two, if not, we go to the tiebreaker tiebreaker. Tony for the win. There are two correct answers left. You guys raced through the first 20, but you hit the stop sign here. Two states left west of the Mississippi. Tony gives me a really look like he absolutely is excited. He might have it. Go for it. I don't think it's been guessed yet. Now we'll find out. Illinois. Illinois has absolutely been. It has absolutely been guessed. And it's wrong. So you doubled up there. Can I before we go to the tiebreaker, can I say what I was going to say what you wanted to say? Wisconsin also east of the Mississippi. Oh, it's east. Yeah. The two that you did not name are clearly in the west. You just didn't think of them. Montana and Nebraska. Those are the two that you did not think of. I was thinking up there. I thought Montana was said. No, I said Idaho. Yeah. I said, why was Wyoming? I didn't say Montana. Montana and Nebraska were the two you did not name. So you tie 11 11 three strikes a piece. We're going to go to a tiebreaker, but I think that may take just a tad longer than the one minute we have left. Not much longer, but we'll give you guys a chance to two and a half minutes. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to stretch it out. I want the drama to build a little bit. We are tied in the fantabulous game show. Now, do you still want to complain about the category, sir? Yeah. It's kind of turned into a fun showdown. I wanted to match sports. He thought he thought you might be dominated. So he gave you a shot. There's a slight chance. Somebody gave you a shot. Somebody gave you a shot. I had a lot to learn about baseball before the show. Yeah. Yeah, you did. Well, you were saying what you were saying, Clayton Kershaw's record was just yeah. That's right. I didn't say his record was man. Adam, you will get another chance. I'm sure someday. And I if you the next time you sit in, I will make sure it's a sports category. All right. So you have that. But I will tell you guys this, you don't know what you're thinking of, but it is going to stay geographic in the final tiebreaker to decide today's fantabulous game show. It'll be a geography category. So we'll see how you do. Coming up at the top of the hour is a battle of Chris versus the fans. Guys can start dialing in at 833-288-0973. These guys will finish the fantabulous game show. And then we will get to some Chris versus the fans. So that is coming up in the four o'clock hour, along with the big five. And stretching. He's wishing he went with the tiebreaker right about now. No, because two and a half minutes would not be enough. Yeah, we would have been hemming and high and two and a half minutes would not have been enough. So I need to get, I need to give you a little extra time for the for the tiebreaker. What time do we normally go to break? There it is. Thank goodness. I was like dragon. All right, four o'clock hour should be fun. It'll start with a tiebreaker to decide the fantabulous game show and Chris versus the fans. Next on Gwen and Chris. The four o'clock hour is here. You know, blame that on me too. No, that was me. That was me. I've realized I can't depend on you for that anymore. And I knew better going into that segment. Welcome in Tony Gwen Jr. Chris cello. Adam Kluge on the ones and twos today. We have our Chris versus the fan segment. And Chris, how's this game been going? You've been racking up wins. You've been taking another chin out. How's it going? I took it on the chin until the last game. I think the last one I got a little bit better, but fans are going to have to wait a second because we have to decide the fantabulous game. All right. All right. Before we move on. Well, let's let's get back to that. Like Paul Skeen is dodging the Padres. These two these two guys spent the entire break trying to figure out what the category is going to be for the tiebreaker. They didn't figure it out. Well, you said it's geography still. It is geography related. The first part of the game was to name the 24 states west of the Mississippi. These guys thought they had it. They got 20 of them right away. And then they ran into some problems. I believe I forgot Tony got Minnesota. Adam answered with Arkansas. That was a good was a strong one. That was a strong one. That's a hard song. They both then got three strikes. They left out Montana and Nebraska. So that is forced a tiebreaker. Now the type where you go to the tiebreaker gets a little psychological experiment. I want to get inside your head. How in the world do you come up with this question about naming the state west of the I will tell you here in a moment. Okay. I'll tell you exactly how this happened in a moment. But before we get to the tiebreaker, I'm going to have to roll the die to determine who goes first because there's only seven correct answers in the tiebreaker. There will be a bit of a time limit. Now I'm not going to keep it an official time limit, but you only have a certain amount of time to come up with your answers. So who goes first may have an advantage. Here it is. One, two or three. Adam will go first, four, five or six. Tony will go first. Hey, what? On the die. Oh, okay. And it's a six. So Tony, you go first. Let's do it. You'll get that advantage. Let's do it. Here's the category in the tiebreaker. I was watching who wants to be a millionaire last night. And they asked a question that made me think of the tiebreaker category for you guys. Okay. Their question was, how many states have only one single word in their name? California, Arkansas, Arizona, one word names. That's not your question. That's not my question. Of course not. The answer to that was 40. So on the flip side of that, this is how my mind works, guys. There are 10 states that have two names. Three of them are west of the Mississippi. You already named them, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. Your job in the tiebreaker is to name the seven states east of the Mississippi that are two name states, two word states. Okay. All right. All right. Tony, you're first. Go for it. New York. New York is one. Tony gets one. North Carolina. North Carolina is two. New. You're going to go back down that way. How about New Hampshire? New Hampshire. I had that one in my back pocket for later. Correct. But I'm surprised you didn't jump on South Carolina. South Carolina. All right. There's three left. I could have three left. You guys going to race through them? Then Tony's going to win, but we'll see if there's a roadblock. How many? How does the strike system work here? First one to four. First one to four. Got to get four of them. They're seven correct. First of four, no strike system. If you miss one, the other guy just gets a turn. How about West Virgin? Yeah. Good job, Tony. All right. Two left. Thank you very much. Adam, you need one to put the heat on him. Rhode Island. Rhode Island. There's one left. Tony, you name it. You win it. You don't name it. Adam will get a chance to win it. One state left two names east of the Mississippi. He's already flexing on me right now. You know it is what you're trying to put. You're trying to put the pressure on him as okay, you look silly. Honestly, I understand what you're doing, but I'm just trying to say you're on the chat. People can see this. I need to say you look silly. You looked a little silly. All right, Tony, I'm going to give you a very well might have me here. Got to name the the final state that is two names. It's east of the Mississippi. If you get it, you win. I'm not putting an official time on you, but you know, like 30 seconds, I think is fair. New York, New York, New Hampshire, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina. I was trying to have that. I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to find a stopwatch here, but I can't find one. Here's the stopwatch. Go. You got 29 seconds. Adam, you think you know, or you just kind of claiming to know? No, I know, I know. You know, you know, is it? Is it Washington, D.C.? That would not be a state, my friend. Yeah, it's not a state, but I'm going to give you nine more seconds. Adam's buzzing. He could buzz me up good. I got no more guesses. He's got he doesn't have a clue to finish off as the geography champion of the day. It's a state I used to live in. Oh, that helps you. It's referred to as the arm pit of the United States, New Jersey, New Jersey for the win. Adam Clue. You win today's fantabulous game show. Adam, lasting Tony Gwen Jr. and a match up. I still would have dominated if it was sports. I just want you guys to know that at 3 48 p.m., which is now 24 minutes ago or so, Ben Higgins texted me Montana and Nebraska are all that's left, I believe. Ben Higgins said, I would have destroyed that category. Ben was chiming in. I have no doubt, Ben would have crushed us on that one. Ben was chiming in. All right, congratulations, Adam. Do you want to play your celebration song? If you can find it in there, you're welcome. You're welcome to dance, too. And now you can dance. You get to dance. Not bad. Not bad. Love it. All right, very good, Adam. All right, that was the fantabulous game show today. Normally it's sports related, as you know, but I only have so many sports. Nice work, guys. Come up with about a thousand. That was good. We couldn't have done that in the last two and a half. No, we can't now. No, it was a good, good contest. We will go now to some more trivia this time with you out there getting a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas. If you had one shot, one opportunity to take down the human almanac himself, how would he do? Now is your time. Listen, we this guy, strangers. Now is your opportunity to win a prize. Well, I hope you know Jen for Chris versus the fans. Starts now on 97 three, the fan. All right, a lot at stake today. Sorry. I was going to say you're going to read the blur. Sure. You'll be qualified for the trip to Las Vegas tonight. Stay dinner for two at the Rio day bed at the Rio pool. The Rio Las Vegas is back. They got new ownership, newly remodeled rooms for sparkling new pools, brand new food hall. It's all ready for you. Beyond the expected beyond this trip, beyond your wildest dreams, the Rio Las Vegas is the rhythm of Vegas book. Now at real Las Vegas.com also today. Special edition. You will qualify for the trip to Vegas, but you will actually win a four pack of tickets to the major league rugby championship match, which is being played here in town at snap bragging stadium this Sunday. Understand Tony when Junior is now a big rugby fan after he watched one Olympic match, considers himself an expert. I don't know about that, but I can follow. I can definitely follow. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. The championship at snap dragon stadium this Sunday also features a performance by Marshmallow tickets are on sale now at SD Legion.com. Unfortunately, the Legion, I don't believe are in the championship. They missed out by one point in the semifinals, but you rugby fans will have a chance to go see that. Rules of the game. Want me to give him, Adam? You know, he doesn't write him out. I'm happy. You want to do the rules? I've got it memorized. All right, go ahead and player. We will start with three questions. Each one gets progressively more difficult. If you get it right, you go on to the next round. If you get it wrong, Chris, we'll get a chance to answer the question. If he gets it right, you are eliminated. We go to the next caller. If he gets it wrong, you advance to the next round and you got to get through three rounds to be today's qualifier. What about if you're a first time player? You get the first question around two. Very good. All right. You have to bring the contestants on. I can't see Adam. I think it's kind of fun having you in here today as you won't have any preconceived notions about the callers. You know what? I'll roll a die. Oh, you heard about Cesar? Okay. Good. Cesar. What's going on, brother? Good afternoon, guys. How are you doing? We're good to have you on Cesar. Here we go. First question. Name both team USA flagbearers to open the Olympics. LeBron James and I didn't hear the second one, but I'm going to guess Ledecky. Katie Ledecky is his guess. It was the tennis star Coco Goff along with LeBron James. Sorry about that, Cesar. Next. Do you want to just go down the board, Adam? Is that what you want to do? Or do you want me to roll the die? Sure. Let's do that. We got Eric. Eric, you're next. Hi, Eric. What's up, Eric? Hi, guys. How are you? Very good. Here we go. First question. Good. Who scored the game winning run for the Padres Tuesday night over the Dodgers? Scored, so winning. Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Fantastic. Walk off. Awesome. Look at you. Nice work. By the way, by the way, I was a little concerned. Just a tad. Of all the people I would choose to have as my ghost runner, I would not choose how some can have a choice of his base running skills. They didn't have a choice, but he made it around safely. He did. I was out there. I know you kind of worry about that. All right. Question number two. Okay. I'm going to give you three names and you give me a team that they all played on together. LaShawn Shady McCoy. Terrod Taylor. Reggie Bush. The Sean McCoy. Hyrod Taylor. And Reggie Bush. Yes. Wow. That's a good one. Sounds like. Wow. Let me see. I'm trying to think about McCoy where he went. I know. That's a tough. I'm going to say. I'm going to take any right, but I'm going to take Kansas City. The chiefs chief. Hello? Yes. Reggie Bush. Terrod Taylor and LaShawn McCoy. Word. Yeah. I remember LaShawn McCoy with Philadelphia and Buffalo. That's it. And I don't remember Reggie Bush with either of those teams. Terrod Taylor's been with every team. So. I don't know. Buffalo. He goes Buffalo. Go Buffalo. I got it. Reggie Bush played with Buffalo. Really? I didn't remember that. Did Nicki got hurt in a. I think that whole lawsuit that whatever one of the stadium, I think it was St. Louis's at the time. I'm not remember, but. Oh yes. When he got tackled out of bounds. Yeah. I do remember that, but I didn't remember him ever being with Buffalo. Sorry about that. Eric, I lucked out. Next up is. Let's go with Robert. All right, Robert. Welcome to the show, Robert. Hi, Robert. Good to have you on. As always. Hi, guys. Here we go. Question number one. Who leads baseball in stolen bases right now? Elle de la Cruz. Elle de la Cruz is correct. He's got a lot on him. It's 40 plus. Questions got 50 plus. Does he have 50 now? I think so. He must have got a got on a heater. Yeah, here's some reason over 50. That's crazy. All right, here we go. Question number two. What team did San Diego State play when Snapdragon Stadium officially opened? The Rams. I do remember that day. It was the hottest day in the history of San Diego. Dude, can we go ahead and get your ads at first. Arizona was the opponent. Arizona was the opponent. Sorry about that, Robert. I mean, I thought we were going to have to tear the stadium down and rebuild that like that one day. Yeah, it was it was the hottest day I've ever been around. I don't think anybody's ever been around in San Diego. I think in the moment, it felt like a catastrophe was happening. Yeah, and then like a week later, we realized, all right, maybe we kind of overshot this one. But I do remember everybody. We should have put a dome on the stadium. Should have been sprinklers. I feel like there was articles written because San Diego State too. They handed out water to everybody and they took nothing but crap. And it was the weather. They didn't do anything. It was one of the hottest days out here. Ever. The Aztecs took such a such a beating for that. Every day on the cruise, by the way, 55 stolen bases, 10 caught stealing. So he's running a lot. Good for him. I love that. Well, you know, the year Ricky stole the 130 got caught 42 times. So just keep going. It's part of the deep part of the deal with stealing bases. Who's our next contestant? Mark. Mark, welcome to the show. Mark. Hey, how's it going guys? Good to talk to him. Here we go. First question. This one broke my heart. I'm not even gonna lie. Recently retired Rashad Penny played the majority of his career with what team? Let's go with the Eagles. The Eagles. The Eagles. Bylarck. Seattle. See, ato is correct. You dinged me before. Yeah. I'll do Christmas getting that one. Did I was sad, man? Rashad Penny hung it up. I know. He never really got to get back to health. I assume he got in the camp and they it just he wasn't right. And that's it. It also shows the level you have to be at because I think he was still in pretty good shape. It wasn't like you had a broken leg. Yeah. But if you're just not at 150% efficiency, you can't compete at that level. It's too hard. All right. We probably need to go to a tiebreaker because it's 4 16 and we are. All right. tiebreaker. We need a tiebreaker person for Adam to look up. Adam. Our tiebreaker person. Yes. You want to think of one Tony? Of the day. I got you on this one. Okay. Mickey Morendini. Mickey Morendini. I love it. That's what I love about the tiebreaker. It's just some guy's name that you haven't thought of in 15 years pops up. So you get to pick the pick the category from there. Yeah. Find Mickey Morendini in the I have Mickey Morendini's baseball reference up. All right. So you can come up with a give us a contestant. We were just talking about stolen bases with Ellie Dayla Cruz. Okay. All right. We need a contestant for let's go with Rod. Hi Rod. How are you? Hey guys. Great to be on the show. Adam, thank you and quick quick shout out to the chat band and let's get this tiebreaker going. Fair enough. I'm sure you know how the tiebreaker works at this point. So Adam. Go ahead. I'm just spitting out a number. Correct. No, you're spitting out a question. I'm answering with a number. Go over over under stolen bases. Okay. I'm just throwing a number out. No, you're not throwing a number. You're just saying how many career stolen bases did he have? Right. I'm answering. And then Rod says higher or lower. Is that the question? How many career stolen bases did Morendini have? Very good. How many allowed to give him the years? How many years did he play? 11 season really Mickey Morendini. Nice. 200 stolen bases. I think no, that's way too many. He didn't have 220 per year. 125. What's your thought? 125. Rod, what do you think? Is it the actual answer higher or lower than that? That's a good number. Hello. You put me in the low range right there because he he wasn't really a fast runner. So I'm just going to say low. You say under? He got it. All right. How many did he have? Unbelievable. 123. That's crazy. He does it all the time. Didn't miss by much. That's nice. Go. Congratulations. Hang on the line, Adam. Get the information here. That was pretty good, man. Pretty close. Very good. All right. Let's get to break on the other side. More Gwen and Chris. Here's some traffic. All right. 426 is the time, Chris. Toni and junior together and our Odyssey Palace studios. I should mention that tomorrow on the program, it's fire Friday. And if I'm not mistaken, our guest tomorrow will be Jackson Merrill. The young Prince. Yeah. Coming to the show tomorrow. He'll be making his first appearance on Gwen and Chris. So it has been a legendary season already, only to be topped off by an appearance on this show tomorrow. I must say, I'm actually happy that I'm been on pretty good behavior in between segments. Had a few hot mic issues. Yes, we haven't. Thankfully, I have it, you know, used any foul lane or anything. You shouldn't say anything I shouldn't have said. Yeah, be careful. Yeah. I definitely have to be careful with Adam. I hear Adam. You win this tomorrow too, Adam? Yep. Okay. Definitely. You're just taking shots in here. Just making sure, man. I got to protect myself. Adam, tomorrow. I'm really proud of myself for that. Adam, tomorrow is just for you. Just for you, I'll put together a baseball trivia segment just for you to see how you do. Although Adam did win the fantabulous game show earlier today. Notice you said fantabulous game show as a sports game show today. Speaking of sports, though, the NFL preseason is getting underway at the top of the hour with the Hall of Fame game. That is neither here nor there, but I think we're all going to watch and I'm sure they'll show it over and over tonight on ESPN and other wherever it is you get your sports highlights. We're all going to watch the opening kickoff, right? Because it's the first time most of us are ever going to see this new kickoff alignment and the rules. I really have kind of tried to read up on it, but I don't really understand it. I need to see it before I can really figure it out. But the kicking team or the, I guess the kicker figure it out. I want to see it too, but I think the kicker actually kicks from the 35, but his teammates lined up at the 40. Right. No, nothing changes for the kicker. Right. The kicker still kicks from the 35, but his teammates will not be lined up alongside of him. There'll be five yards ahead of him. And then the other team will be at the 50. So there's only 10 yards between the two front lines and then there'll be a return man way back, I guess. And I guess it's supposed to be safe. So that's what they're thinking. I think an early as no one really knows how this is going to where I'm sure they've been working on it in camp. Oh, I'm sure. But you know how it goes once the game starts and it hasn't been done. There's usually some type of chaos that takes place. Yeah, I'm rooting for that. I'm rooting for a little chaos and then they can, they can get it, they'll get it together at some point one, two weeks in the preseason. But just like I said before, none of us really care whether these guys get hurt or not. We, we speak great lip service to it. I want to protect the players, but we just want football. I want to see collisions out there. 18 games, 19 games. Yeah, right. They're trying to keep them safer, but they're adding weeks to the season. Anyway, make it make sense. Uh, I guess, and the only other big new rule now, there's no hip drop tackle. So which where you grab a guy around the waist and then you, you yourself drop to the ground. You just go for like a carousel ride basically. Yeah, you take your feet off of that ground and you're just on him and that a lot of guys got hurt. Doing that last year or getting tackled in that manner last year. So, uh, anyway, the NFL now the other big news in the football today. And you know, this is just like the chargers to have something like this happen, but the franchise quarterback Justin Herbert has been diagnosed with planar fascia in his right foot. Now he's going to be in a boot, uh, gradual return to play protocol. Remember, the season's now only a month away. Uh, I don't know what, you know, they're not thinking he's going to miss any games, but you know, it could certainly happen with planar fascia. I recall this injury keeping a lot of guys on the, uh, injury list for quite a long time because it's really tough. This is the doctor in me speaking, but it's really tough to fix feet and foot injuries because you have to walk around. Yeah. It's, it's like a, it's like any lower extremity injury. Right. Avoid not using it. If anything, it's your legs. You are going to use now. They say Wednesday, he's sprinted into the end zone for a touchdown during practice, but, uh, he's going, uh, foot's going into the boot and, uh, we'll see, uh, DeAndre Hopkins, another guy hurt out four to six weeks already with a knee injury suffered during practice. He's with the, anybody know? What was it DeAndre Hopkins? He's with the Texan. No, uh, they, they wanted to use, uh, Tennessee Titans. Yep. Yes. He is with the Titans. So many players have changed teams this year. It's going to take a while to figure it out. Oh, for sure. We will begin figuring it out tonight with the beginning of the NFL planner fascia. Is that what you said? That's what they wrote. Yeah. Because I've heard planar fasciaitis in the past, but they let's written here be a body part. It's what you injure. Plantar fasciaitis is what, these, what you have when you're playing. Here we go. The difference between planar fat went ahead and looked this up. I appreciate that. Uh, planar fasciaitis occurs when the planner fascia, a strong band of tissue that supports the arch of the foot becomes irritated and inflamed. So, fasciitis is a symptom of the fascia. It's the diagnosis. I don't want to say disease. Right. It's what happens when your planter fascia is no good. Yeah. No, that's confusing me. It's inflamed. It's irritated. They're going to put him in a boot. So his planter fascia has planter fasciitis. Yeah. Sure. There we go. All right. Justin Herbert out for a while in a boot. Bad news for the chargers, but that's what they're used to. Morgan and Chris comes up with a big five around the corner. Stay tuned. 438 on the clock. Tony, when Jenny Chris, hello Adam Clue. We've had a little bit of everything on the show today. We've had a geography lessons. We've had a medical breakdown of planar fascia and fasciaitis. Fasciitis. Had a few hot mic moments. Had a little bit of everything on this show. This is why you tune in from two to six because you never know what you might get. Did we get enough talk about Adam's hairstyle? You think at the beginning of the show or do we need to bring it up again? I think we glossed over a little bit. I think we did a little glossing as well. Adam, you know, like myself, as a bald man, but for different reasons. I cannot grow hair, Adam, you know, to my surprise, actually can grow a full head of hair, which actually made me not bald. I've said, do I get a ball? You wear a bald look. You choose to look bald, which is ridiculous. It is. I mean, this dude can grow an afro. If I could still grow one, believe it, I might be dreaded up right now if I could do it, but I can't. So I just lived through my son who has a bunch of hair and Adam, you, you like, you like the bald look. Is that just because it's convenient? Oh, you got a good shaped head to the floor. But it's not that convenient. He said he gets his hair shaved like every two days. That's what he said before he was. That doesn't seem convenient at all. Before he was married. Yeah. I don't, I've never liked my hair. I've got the short curly hair. I've never liked my hair. Do you still have the picture? I'm sorry. Do you still have the picture of you in afro? Have people seen that? I mean, it's, I've shared it. Okay. All right. I'm sharing one. It's one of my favorite picks. If you can vent long enough, I could not probably. I want to show in the YouTube chat just to prove that I had hair at one time. Oh, yes, you did. College picture right there. Did I show it? Yeah, that's so good. That's how much hair are you drinking there? I'm sure a beer. It's a toga party. Tony, I'm wearing a toga. What do you think I'd be wearing? I don't know how I got this picture, but somebody sent it to me all these years later. So that's my proof of how much hair I had back then. But no more. Adam, I just find it perplexing. That's all. That a man would choose to be bald. Choosing to be bald. Oh, wait, here's the picture of Adam with hair. Adam looks drunk too in this picture. Wow. That's a lot of hair. Are you a teenager? That would be my sophomore year of college. Oh, yeah, he definitely would. I think it's only fair that Tony find one in my hand. Absolutely. I was absolutely twenty one. Tony, only fair that you get one with as much afro as you can find. Let me see if I can find one. I might have a throwback pick in here. All right. Everybody's sharing throwback picks. God, look how little hair I have now compared to this is why I don't watch the stream during the show. It's ridiculous. It might take me a while. You guys do your thing. All right. Let's get to traffic. Give me one more second here, Chris. Okay, sure. Sure. What do you what do you need? I gave you a second. It's all I had. Whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready. You guys don't like to look at the YouTube stream, but there you go. Oh, here we go. More YouTube. Oh, wow. I think I've seen that picture, actually, somehow, somewhere before. Is that a nanny ice you got there? That would be a Michelob light in the old school mall. Michelob light. You're a much richer college student than I was all that hair and you don't like it in my fraternity house. Yes. Oh, wow. I know one thing we couldn't afford Michelob light back. That's why I thought it was a nanny ice. That's all my roommate. I didn't drink beer in college. All I had was all my roommates got nanny ice and used to call it old Milwaukee. We called it old swill. Blue ribbon. Another one they used to have. Paps. Yeah. Cheap stuff. The cheapest stuff on the market. Where was that? What school was that at him again? Oh, come on. Oh, Georgia. Yeah, I forgot. Bulldog. Crazy bulldog. All right. I believe we better get to traffic in the big five before the spirals further out of control. It's that time of the show when we check on the latest in sports. Only the most important topics and questions are brought to light. Stop what you're doing and listen. These news stories will astound and amaze you. The one. The only. Oh my god. Who the hell cares. The big five starts now on 97th grade of fan. This is where you jump in Adam. Thanks for having me in today guys. Appreciate it. It's been a good times. Always enjoy having you Adam. Let's get started here with number five. Our dear friend Jesse Agler shared a really cool picture today on Twitter. I'm going to put up on the screen for those in the YouTube chat. It says scorecard from the sea snow hitter has a new home thanks to baseball hall at baseball hall for the honor and for taking such hair of the history of the game. Very neat. So Jesse's scorecard from Villainces is no hitter has made it to the baseball hall of fame. I know that both of you gentlemen have visited in the past Tony many many times. My question to you is what is the coolest non hodries related piece of memorabilia or thing that you've seen in Cooperstown Hall of Fame. First I have to say I was quite jealous of Jesse that his scorecard. Of course I am a digital scorecard. Yes, but they couldn't take your scorecard. They couldn't take mine and I couldn't even take a picture to share because the glare from the lights was all messing it up. So I couldn't even post mine. But yours was much neater and his was neat. But his is done by hand. This year's is the neatest thing. Tony's scorecard is a is an art piece of artwork every night. By the way, I enjoy the different colors I get to use. Nevertheless, coolest memorabilia. Again, I'm ruling out pottery stuff father. I think it was like I mean like Babe Ruth's game bat saw in the did we see that we went behind the scenes? We saw a lot of great stuff. We have to like have like white gloves on when we held this stuff. That was, I honestly don't remember anything that was in the actual museum. I totally remember what we got to see. Yeah, when we went in the back. That was the best man. I'm sure if it wasn't that it was whatever memorabilia we got to see in that kind of behind the scenes tour. It was some amazing stuff and it really spanned from like the beginning of baseball to to current different things like that. I'm gonna go with the pretty much the same answer because that's what I remember now. Tony may remember the story a little better than I do but the guy who showed us around was the ultimate baseball historian. Yes, he was. And he showed us a scorecard from the game that Bobby Thompson hit the that's right hit the shot heard around the world. Yeah, when the Giants beat the Dodgers back to win the Giants win the pennant, Giants win the pennant. Willie Mays was on deck but they had he had the actual scorecard and for whatever reason, Tony, if you remember this, I looked at the scorecard that they had and I noticed a mistake in the scoring that only my mind would pick up. You did it. Do you remember that? And he was like, he was like, no way. And he looked at it and there was and he was he was like heartbroken that the score the score keeping that they had from that game and had a mistake in it somewhere. Anyway, that's what I remember. So I'll go with number four. Katie Ledecky did it again yesterday absolutely laying waste to the field in the women's 1500 meter winning her eighth gold medal and 12th medal overall. And again, that was yesterday because today she won a silver medal bringing her medal count to 13. She said after the race yesterday that she isn't retiring after these Olympics and plans to compete in four years in Los Angeles, those shit that could change its four years away. Ledecky's currently 27 years old. What type of competitor do you think we'd see at age 31 if she does compete in four years to start with you this time, Chris? Wow. I don't know. And maybe maybe she gets into her 30s to be able to bring some of the other swimmers back into play. I mean, I would hope that, you know, if she's in her 30s, they can at least be in the camera frame with her. But she's got that 1500 meters. There's nobody can catch her there. Her long distance swimming is going to be, you know, the greatest of all time. But I will say that, you know, in four years, that will be really tough to win a gold medal because even in that event, because of what we talked about before, these records in the swimming keep falling every Olympics, these, these youngsters as they are keep getting faster and faster. So she's going to have to, she's going to have to somehow increase, increase her workouts to keep up this level. They said last night on the telecast that she has actually in her life swam around the world. If you put all of her swimming together, yeah, she swam from San Diego right back around. That's, that's kind of crazy. Ridiculous. Yeah. What do you think age 31 Ledecky? At this point, I mean, I'm gonna have to kind of go with Chris in terms of it might actually help the field make this a more challenging competitive race. Because right now, as I said, you just see an American flag in water, even she's racing. So I won't put it past her that in four years, she could still be at the top of the game. After Jack Flaherty was traded to the Dodgers of the trade deadline, Ken Rosenthal reported that he was nearly traded to the Yankees, but they backed out of the trade over concerns about his medical records. Yesterday, Flaherty spoke at Petco Park and said, quote, all I know is I feel great. I felt great since we got back from the break or even right before that. I felt great and been ready to pitch end quote, considering the price to acquire Flaherty felt pretty low and the fact that he's an impending free agent rather than a long term commitment. Do you think the Yankees placed too much emphasis on Flaherty's medicals, Tony? I mean, they've done this before. I can't remember who the pitcher was, but they basically, I think it was a couple of seasons ago, basically didn't look a pitcher's way because of his medicals. We've seen this. It's not just the Yankees, right? I think the Giants, right? They gave up on Carlos, the Mets also jumpship. Carlos Cray is having a terrific year, by the way, this season. All star. Yeah, maybe they might rent this when it saw it didn't done because when Flaherty is just a rental player, like it was a low cost to acquire him. I hesitate with the low cost to acquire him. It's all in the eye of the beholder, if you know, the Yankees didn't like or who, excuse me, if the Detroit Tigers didn't like some of the other prospects that, you know, everybody else considers good. I mean, that's why they did it. So, yeah, I think they, I think they may end up regretting it because, you know, I think Jack Flaherty is gonna have a good finish of this year. And if he's been healthy all year with the exception of missing, I think his start, his last start. And then it's just a rental. It's not like you're signing him for beyond this year. Why not? Chris, what do you think? I think two things. One, I think the Yankees really did make a mistake because even if Jack Flaherty didn't work out, he's a free agent at the end of the season, he's gone. So, you're renting him for nine or 10 starts anyway. But secondly, I wish that they would have taken him so that the Dodgers didn't get him. Nope, good boy. I'm mad at the Yankees for this whole thing. Give you another reason to be mad at them. Right. The evil dude too. Titan's defensive lineman Jeffrey Simmons made plenty of headlines for all the wrong reasons when he went after a national radio host and called him a derogatory term while he was on the air because he didn't like what the radio host had said about him on social media. Called him a cat. Yes, he did. Yes, we heard it. Something like that. Simmons apologized yesterday saying, quote, damn it. That's not who I am or who I want to be seen as. At the end of the day, I take full accountability of my actions on the field and I promise that won't ever happen again. Simmons and the radio host also spoke with each other since the dust stop. Question is, are you going to ask us the same thing? Here it is. It's you were the radio host and in this same situation. No, you're not. You accept Simmons apology Tony. Yes. I first of all, I don't think the radio host was was in the wrong for expressing his opinion on how he's playing. But I also don't think my man was in the wrong for expressing how he felt about him expressing his opinion. However, what he was apologizing for was the way he went about it. Correct. On live radio that was happening. He called him a cat as he was walking away. Yeah. Probably not something you want to be saying on air. And quite frankly, I thought it was the right thing to do to apologize. And I think it shows his character that he could come back, admit he messed up. And you know, more importantly, he doesn't want to be seen in that light. I also like the fact that him and said host talked about it, whether they hash it or not is really irrelevant. The fact that they had a conversation, I think is good. I think a lot of times, and I explained this the other the other day when we kind of talked about the subject, as long as you show up to the football field, baseball field arena, players generally don't have a problem with you criticizing as long as if something is said that bothers them, they can they can have a conversation with it. Chris, would you accept the apology? He better accept the apology because he started it. Yeah. So, I mean, not that he didn't have the right to start it, but if you start it, and then somebody calls you out on it, and then that person is big enough to say, Hey, I was in the wrong. Yeah, you come back from there and go, yeah, I don't accept your apology. Then I hope Jeffrey Simmons actually does whip you because you're you're really not thinking right. Number one, tomorrow to private ceremony outside of Staples Center. Sorry, I refuse to call it the crypto dot com arena. I don't blame you. I suspect you have coded Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi will be unveiled. It's the second of three planned monuments paying tribute to the late great Kobe Bryant. I'm sorry with you Tony, we're running out of time here. What's your greatest memory of Kobe Bryant? Oh, 80, 80 was 81 82 81 81. That's that's my fondest. That's my, my fondest. That's the memory that sticks out because I watched that game from start to finish. And there's one of the few like crazy historical things that have happened in sports that I have actually can say I watched from start to finish. Chris, that's obviously the biggie. The other one I remember for some reason popped into my mind was the time he tore his Achilles and still walked off the court. I'm like, okay, this is the toughest competitor maybe in the history of sports. Yeah, and that proved it. Kobe was the ultimate gamer. I mean, the only the only person you can compare him is with his Jordan. Like in any sport, maybe one to win any everything. Yep, he did get the break five o'clock, which means the happy hour. I don't know how the show could get any happier, honestly, but you got another hour of it coming up. We're going in Chris and welcome back. We head into the happy hour final hour of going in Chris for this Thursday show. Chris, Elo Tony going junior together in our Odyssey Palace studios, Adam Kluge doing a fantastic job sitting in for a match, scraping today, scraping on vacation again. I mean, well, I don't know the shoulder surgery counted as a vacation, but seems like he's been idle quite often lately. Scravey, you know what? It's okay, though, because Scravey wouldn't take a day off and we like baby. He used to never take like like like pushing him out basically. Yeah, very good point, Tony. We are just having some fun today. Mostly Padres are idle. If you care about the scoreboard, it's August 1st, but Atlanta is leading Miami three nothing in the bottom of the second inning in Atlanta tonight. Braves began to play a half game up on the Padres in the four or five spots for the wild card race. Otherwise, not a whole lot to discuss. Padres obviously coming off the nice series, whisking of the Dodgers. We didn't call it a sweep. We called it a whisk, short broom, small broom, but the two games got it done and win the season series for the first time since 2010. In fact, Tony Gwen Jr., your name made it into the Kevin AC article today in the Union Tribune. How so? He said, how long ago was it that the Padres last beat the Dodgers? That's right. Tony Gwen Jr. was on that team that made it into the article. Dodgers that year. Yes, that was noted. Julie noted in the article today. Of course, after that, the Dodgers won the season series 13 years in a row. But the Padres finally quenched this year's. Rockies are the I took the magic with me when they kicked me out. Yeah, that was it. You left, and they couldn't ever beat the Dodgers again. Rockies are coming in for the weekend starting tomorrow night. Randy Vasquez will start the first game of that series. Martin Perez will make his Padres debut on Saturday in the second game. Third game. No pitcher has been announced, and that has led some to wonder what is going on with Michael King. Michael King pitch Saturday in Baltimore. Last Saturday in Baltimore got the win. Improved his record at nine and six. Go back to that game for a moment, Tony. King threw a hundred and one pitches. Word. Six and a third innings struck out nine. I mean, it was really, you know, a really, really good performance once again from Michael King. But his turn in the rotation would actually be Saturday, but he's not listed. Perez is listed. So if you're giving him an extra day, that would be Sunday, but he's not listed there either. So are the Padres trying to hold off on Michael King, give him a little extra rest, save some innings. Well, or some are surmising that he might be hurt. And that is, I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying some are thinking that because he's not a, he's not currently listed to pitch coming up. Coming into the season, Michael King had thrown a hundred and four point one innings. That has his max. Right. He's already at one 24 point one. My guess is that this is a way to buy him some time, a little extra time, get him closer to the end of the season. They don't have to name him a starter yet. My guess is when, what does this say, Thursday, when tomorrow's around, we'll have a better understanding of, you know, who's going to throw Sunday, if it'll be Michael King, or if they want to push him a little bit. What I do know is a lot of starters don't like the extra rest. It's a rhythm thing for him. This is why guys like to pitch every fifth day. Remember the rotation a few years ago, they all were like pushing back against that extra day. Now they ended up liking it towards the end of the year, but that's right. Because the Padres did the six man rotation a couple of years ago. Yeah. Well, we'll see with Michael King. I don't disagree with that notion, Tony, that they want to give King a little rest. But number one, somebody's going to have to start the game Sunday against Colorado. They've got to put someone out there. And, you know, two, you know, how much time are they going to give King off? Three, King doesn't like time off. If I'm not mistaken. I mean, he's, he basically said to us in our interview with him earlier the year and the fryer Friday that, you know, he's told, he's actually told Mike Schilt before the season, please don't take it personally. If I'm not feeling it when you come to take me out of games. Remember, he said, I think he was filling it the last game that he started. He doesn't, he doesn't like to come out. And he, you know, he's, he's that kind of gamer. So I don't think he'd want to, you know, sit time out. Yeah. Maybe there's a twinge. I hope not. I hope what you're saying. Is it? I hope they're just getting a little extra rest. I hope what I'm saying is it too, because yeah, quite frankly, they can't afford to lose a Michael King right now. The way things are going. I know Joe is going to make his rehab debut here shortly. But you know, I, that's assuming he goes out. He's healthy. He's still a little bit of ways away. I'm sure it's going to be more than just one start. I know he, I know he lobbied to be an opener. So, and my, my guess was that he was trying to avoid having to go down. Yes. I'll be happy to open the game rather than pitching El Paso, but they want a little more controlled environment. And that's, as close to a controlled environment as you get during a season. So he's going to go down there. But yeah, I hope the same because, you know, one of my fears is Padres bullpen is, I think by everybody's account is an elite bullpen, top one or two bowl pins. And they got a lot of them. My concern is that because you don't have a sh, you know, we don't know how Martin Perez is going to throw the boy. I think we're all hopeful that he can eat up some innings. But the, the pool to go to use that bowl pin and kind of go about it the way we've seen the, what was that Tuesday? Was it Tuesday night they had the, what they call chasing a victory when you're behind, but you're using your, your, your best arms out of the bullpen now. There's going to be a pool to go that route. And I, and I just, not 100% sure you want to do it a lot. You know, I know you want the bullpen to be great from about September 28th to November 1st, but only in August, and it's only August 1st, but I also have to get there. Yeah. So there's so many questions, but you know, I will say this, I'll say this Joe being able to come back is a, is a huge deal for the podcast. And I don't have any doubt that he's going to. He's just, he's too much of a gamer. Unless something really goes wrong. I certainly expect Musgrove back out there, you know, mid to late August, taking his turn in the rotation, helping lead the poders of the playoffs. But until then, yeah, they're going to have to make do. And let's be honest about it. You could have a rotation this weekend of Darvish, Musgrove and Cease. Instead, you have Vasquez, Martin Perez and a blank spot. That's a little different, you know, than what you would, would love to have. And I know it's the Rockies, but we've seen what can happen. So yeah, get a little worried about that. In the meantime, now the Padres are four and a half back of the Dodgers. And the Dodgers just did something, Tony, that they had not done in count them 45 months. You have to go back to September of 2017. Nearly seven years ago to find the last time that the Dodgers were outscored by their opponents in a full month. But that happened just this month in July. Yeah, they spot certainly helped. That didn't help last night. They were, they were outscored this month. And it's the first time that they have been since September of 2017. They also finished with a losing record this month. The Dodgers were 11 and 13 in July. The last time that happened, April of 2018, that they had a losing month. So, you know, Padres took advantage of it. I mean, they've closed to within four and a half. We'll see if they can get any. Does that say 13 and nine for the pods? Padres were 13 and nine this month. So, yes, they went 13 and nine. Dodgers went 11 and 14. So, that's about three and a half games they picked up in the standings. So, Padres in a good spot to play some good baseball, not in a bounce. Just got to get hot. Yeah, we were talking earlier about the Freddie Freeman and, you know, when he might come back and oh, yeah, sounding like, you know, I mean, you got to cross your fingers for this. I mean, that his son is going to be okay, but it's, you know, sounds like a pretty serious thing that his son is going through. This is much more important and bigger than baseball. But you want, you know, Freddie Freeman back on the field because you want to know that his son's going to be okay. Yeah, that may be a while. Yeah, his wife released a little update for everybody to kind of say, I'm not sure how to pronounce that syndrome that his son has. Ylaine Barre syndrome. I'm sure I'm butchering that. I'm not familiar with it. It's a it's a it's basically he's been his whole body was like basically in paralysis. So, couldn't breathe well. Good news is over the last 48 hours, they've removed a breathing tube. He's breathing on his own. And he's made a pretty good news, pretty strong a bounce back, at least to that point. But according to to Mrs. Freeman, she said that it's a it's going to be a long road to recovery. So, listen, that has regardless of Freddie when he comes back, he that's going to be on his mind. That's that's such a major. Yeah, that's, you know, that's one of the that if not the most important thing, and you can understand the Dodgers just say to Freddie Freeman, you take care of what you've got to take care of. I mean, this is way more important than baseball, but it's something to keep in mind. If you're thinking of the Dodger Padre race, and now Max Muncie, I believe is due back here in the next couple of weeks, unless he has had a second. I heard that I heard that, you know, at least coordinate Dave Roberts, he spoke to the media, I think first game on Tuesday. And it was said that he all the all of the imaging says there's nothing wrong. And so, I don't know, he take that for what it's worth. Was that Dave Roberts's way of saying Mac should be back now? That's and he's just not. That's how a lot of people took it. So, we'll we'll see what happens there. See what goes there and how about bets? I mean, I think he's another three, three weeks away because it hits a risk. So, he's going to have to get back in the swinging and. I don't think it's impossible. I know this is a, you know, thinking on a high thing, but I don't think it's impossible that, you know, bets isn't going to come back for three weeks. I it's not, you know, Freddie and then you've got Muncie. I don't think it's impossible. The Padres could catch up to them here in this month of August. Another good month like that, you know, whether they'd hold on to the lead, etc. But I think they can really turn it into something at the Padres go thirteen and nine and and they go five hundred. Yeah, that would be two games. Yeah, this. So, it's one of those deals. The Padres, because of the way they play, they they we have in this conversation. Yeah. And the and the way just the Dodgers look right now, I mean, I didn't recognize that team. You know, Kevin Bizio at first base and Ahmed Rosario at shortstop and they said a lot of weird names that, you know, I know they're big league ball players, but it's got it really a patchwork group right now that the Dodgers are putting out there. And as we said earlier, the Padres should have beaten them twice this week. And so they did. All right. Check it traffic. The Hall of Fame game is underway. So the NFL exhibition season has started. By the way, I always call it the exhibition season. You know why? Because the NFL tells journalists not to call it an exhibition. So you're doing it to be side do it. Anyway, thank you. Go ahead. Real quick. Before we go, how are you feeling about your Falcons this year? Are you going to be good? How were you at as an Atlanta Falcons? Cousins. I'm very high. I think they're going to win the division. Wow. Very much come around on the idea behind drafting Michael Pennics. Oh, that's bold talk. I wind the division. The stupidest draft pick in the last 20 years. I recall him saying something along the line. Pretty sure you said that time. Why have you come around? What brought you around? Was everyone in San Diego? Want to hear by D well? If Matt Scravey was sitting in this chair, we'd be talking about the 40. That is right. Because if you know the Falcons quarterback situation, it's been a dumpster fire for years. And I've often said I'm ready to go get the franchise quarterback. And I also believe pretty strongly that when you are seeking that franchise quarterback, it should be a top 10 pick. It's if you're draft outside the top 10, you're not going to be that guy in most likelihood. And the Falcons did what I wanted them to do. I also believe that I also believe that, you know, a lot of teams don't devote enough resources to that position. And the Falcons went and devoted a ton of resources to the most important position in football. So you know what? I've come around. This man has convinced himself in a few months that it was a man. You're pretty good. How many use Tony's favorite word? What's you said what it happened? I'm using Tony's word which is become my favorite word. You're convinced yourself of a fugazee, my friend. Fugazee. That's right. Kirk Cousins has been balling and training. No defense. Light them up. I've been balling. The Falcons haven't lit anybody up since Steve Bartkowski. I actually I actually like Kirk Cousins now after watching a little bit of the quarterback show. Yeah. Yeah. He's a little bit of a nut. He's definitely different. He's like a pitcher. And I love their head coach Raheem Morris. Yeah. I like the way he's been talking to porn in the Falcons talk. All right. Well, it's just as good or better than 49er talk on Gwen and Chris back after traffic. Just finished up a great finish to a table tennis match up. That was a match up, man. Japan. And they went back and forth. They went down to the deciding seventh. Oh, man. Set game or whatever. Three three and then 11 11. They were in both exchanged match points. That's not the same table tennis we play. I mean, there's that's a different sport. They were they were really good, man. They were really good. And then the the gal from Japan, she lost at the match points too. She had two match points. Couldn't convert ends up losing. The Korea girl who won it kind of went over to put her arm around the Japan girl because it was such a great, you know, they've been battling for two, three hours. Japan girl wanted none of it. She just barely like slapped her hand and walked off. It's like, sorry. When I beat I'm not happy when I beat Tony and Chris's fantastic game. So I said good game. I did. I said, man, that was a good one. My point is she wasn't having she wasn't having. I respect it. There's certain, you know, opponents. They don't they don't do the whole egg. Yeah, congratulations. You beat me. No, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. She wasn't doing it. She was not doing it right now in her defense. She's she's in tears. The other girl who won is in tears. Yeah, no kidding. That was the reason I'm not a big table tennis guy, but that was one of the better matches you're going to see or not see. What haven't we covered today? Gentlemen, we've pretty much hit it all the day. I will say that, you know, typically this time of year you start to get your rankings in terms of MLB power rankings, how Padres have surged to seven. All of a sudden, they're previous ranking 13. They jump six way up. Yeah, not only MLB.com, but ESPN as well. So Padres move all the way up to the seventh spot. It means absolutely nothing. It means no, but it's something I noticed on Twitter that a lot of Padres fans are, you know, very proud of themselves. You see this were number seven. So what? Yeah, that doesn't win you any games, but it is interesting that in the minds of people evidently trade deadline, you know, for the people like myself who called into question how much they were giving up. The people who follow baseball don't think they gave up too much because they really love what AJ Preller did. Yeah, the way he's changed his team. I did go through another article that listed the rankings of all of the players that were acquired in the trade deadline action. Tanner's up there top top, no, but not. Oh, the pro as far as the prospects are given away. Yeah, according to this list, the best prospect that was traded by anybody was a center fielder Aiden Smith, traded by the Mariners to the Rays. I guess I was in the Erosarana trade. Jake Bloss, a pitcher, was traded by the Astros to the Blue Jays and he barely he's a plug in right away starter right now. Right. For Kakuchi. And then Dylan Lasko got the five spot as in he was the fifth best player traded. According to this, Robbie Snelling was 10 and Adam Masier was 11. So Padres gave up according to, you know, whatever, who have put this list together, three of the better pitchers that were traded at the deadline. But we'll see how it all turns out. As we've said many times, Tony, you give me a parade in November. I don't care what you can trade anybody. You can trade Salas and DeFries tomorrow. If somebody says we get a parade without question, without hesitation. I think the other thing is, and AJ said this the other day, they expect the guys they trade will end up in the big leagues and pretty good in the big leagues. That's an expectation that the Padres have. So, you know, I think with that being said, I think goes back to what I would also say that they know are confident that no matter what they do, they can restake and restock. But I would also say this, and I don't know if this is true in baseball. But if you trade somebody that turns out to be terrible, you know, and a bunch of guys that are just turned out to not be very good, our team's less hesitant to trade for you in the future. As opposed to, you know, you're giving good solid players, they know they're well schooled, well prepared in the minors, they come to your team, you say, Hey, I don't mind trading with the body. I don't know if that enters into it or not. We joked a little bit on the round table the other day that we were giving away AJ's secrets. But the reality is these teams are sending like their best scouts to go see these guys before they make deals. That's how here's this how this goes. So they don't have to, they don't have to take AJ Proler's worth it. Let's go as good. No, they find out for themselves come June, beginning of June. And for some teams, even before then, you start seeing at the minor league game, you'll start seeing more scouts showing up. And the more scouts are showing up or the more, and you start seeing different types of scouts, as opposed to maybe your normal mileage, you start seeing some of the top tier major league scouts come in to evaluate. And from June through July, there's a lot of information that gets back to the teams. They have everybody has seen everybody that is on their list, or they think could move. So they don't just look at like analytics, like a lot of these people on Twitter do. No, no, they actually see these guys pitch. Okay, I didn't realize that. One other part of this article was a couple of questions to some of the experts. Here was this question. Real or not, the Padres are now a legitimate threat to win the national league after their reliever spree at the deadline, said one writer, Alden Gonzalez, he said that's real. He said, one of San Diego, general manager, AJ Prella's motto is that you need high end players. It's what drove them to get anyway. It's what he told us. So I don't need to read it all again. But he said it's real. Also, Kylie McDaniel, who's more of a prospects guy, but he said real as well. Yeah, he said, look, Jason Adam, Tanner Scott, lesser degree, Martin Perez, Martin Perez and Brian Hoeing, they added a winner too to their expected record. That might not seem like a lot, but they're at a high leverage part of the wind curve and in the thick of the playoff race now. The Brian Hoeing move is something that AJ Prella has highlighted. He likes that one. Yeah. People didn't even look there. And he had a good showing in his first appearance in yesterday's game. So this is the Padres. They did it differently this year. We've seen them. It seemed like in most of the deadline deals, it's been a major position player hole and some starting pitching kind of or starting pitcher or relievers kind of sprinkled in. This is the first time there's been player, and it's been all locked in on the pitching in terms of what they want right now. You can make the argument they made their position player move when they got Louisa rise and all the way back in May, which by the way, was is the deal that put them in position to be able to make some of these deals right because they gained money in terms of staying under that luxury tax threshold because they got the Miami Marlins to pay for all of arises. I also don't think you should be overlooked. When you look at the price of starting pitching right now at the deadline, they didn't have to give up nearly that much receipts when they traded for him. He would have been a thousand percent. The thousand percent. Shout out to Steven Wilson, man. I'm sorry, man. I really am. We had to sacrifice him to the White Sox. He was about 500 feet from getting on that bus when it happened. Yeah. And he's had to go live through this season, which, by the way, could pause is on pace to be the worst team ever ever. Yeah, they're below the 250 win percentage right now and 250 is the worst winning percentage in a baseball season. The Mets of 62 or 40 and 120 White Sox are below that. At this point, one last thing on the Seastrade and the Arise trade that bears mentioning as well, I think, not only did you trade, you got them to play on your team for months and months and months, whereas other, but he else who just made trades hasn't got to use any of those players yet. Padres got to use their two guys all season long. They won't get close to the full return at this point like the Padres did because they moved so early. Yeah, I don't know. I wonder if more teams might think of doing that in the future because I think AJ Preller schooled some people there and it's about timing and right place, right time. Louisa rise is the type of hitter the Padres specifically needed and you know that a lot of teams don't necessarily value and we talked about it. You know, the average and all that is not something that most teams are coveting. However, the Padres, he's like the perfect fit at the top of the lineup for the Padres and by the way, he's playing through a pretty tough thumb injury right now, still finding a way to get two hits almost daily. And if it's up to me, the Padres need to re up him. They need to re up pro far. They need to re up. Pretty much everybody would be good. I know they can't, but I'm definitely a fan of them. Re up. Those are the two that I want the most. Those are the two I want the most. All right. I don't know whose turn it is. Let's get a break. When we return, we have Alden a little bit and some more going in Chris before. Here's some, no, not traffic. Here's a break. All right. Welcome back. When in Chris, rapid things up here. Five thirty eight is the time. Chris, all Tony going junior. Adam Klug sitting in for Scrabby today on the ones and twos. As Tony likes to say, seven nothing into the first quarter Texans over the bears in the hall of fame game. We talked all that trash about kickoffs and we all wanted to look at the new kickoffs. They had two kickoffs. I missed them both. So I don't know what happened. So hopefully we'll see it soon enough. I did notice this though. According to pro football talk, the national football league has made another rule change this year designed as a direct response to limit something that Mike McDaniel invented with the dolphins. Trying to slow down the dolphins offense. Now what they call it is cheat motion. And you're no longer going to be able to do it. Was called what cheat? CHEAT like you're cheating. Cheat motion. It is something that McDaniel used often last year, including seven times in the opening game of the season against the Chargers. Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan later in the season copied it. It gives the wide receiver a running start into his route. Oh, yeah, yeah, they use that a lot. They use it all the time. And what it does is what they do instead of going in motion all the way across behind the line of scrimmage, the receiver starts close into the tight end. Then sprints toward the sideline and at the snap of the ball turns up field. So Tyree killed a guy like that. He's already at full speed before he starts running. And the dolphins use that with him all season long. If you watched a clip of it, you'd know exactly what I'm referring to. Anyway, the NFL says no more. That will now be called a false start. They're not going to allow that. I'm not gonna lie that after watching it for almost a whole season. He's to be halfway down the field. I was like, it's unguardable. Unguardable. You have somebody who can run like a Tyree kills. You can't do anything with that. The interesting thing here is that you and I talk about this a lot. This is the first thing that I can think of in the last 10, 15 years. That's something to get the office. That has been yes against the offense. Mike McDaniel came up with something that they hadn't really legislated against. Then it was giving his team an advantage. And as you say, I would have given any team an advantage with a really fast wide receiver like Tyree kill. But you can't do that anymore apparently this year. Yeah, go figure. You know, we finally do something well. NFL says no. Won't be able to take it. It says a direct personal shot. Well, it says right here in the article. This was in direct response to what the dolphins did last year. So take it for what it's worth. But if you're used to seeing that little motion that the wide receivers were doing, Tyree kill mostly. Cheat motion will not be allowed this year in the national football league. Oh, my man. Adam sent me a video of the kickoff from the first. I can definitely see some touchdowns happening with the way this is lined up. And did we describe it remotely well earlier? I think we described it well. But in my mind, I saw it differently. So the kicker is he's wave. He's about 20 yards away back. The kicker is 20 yards back. Yeah, compared to where his, compared to where his rest of his line is basically. And the defense and offense line up, I think, five yards apart. And so the off the the receiving team, they start back like you're going to block, but they got no time. So they immediately got to turn and block. So the collisions are less. Yeah. And I can see a missed tackle. And I think this is her debo talking about this the other day. If you can make one guy miss, you can go you got a chance because there's only going to be one wave. You're right, Tony. I'm reading about it here. The kicker still is at the 35. But the his, his teammates line up at the opposing team's 40 yard lines. So it's more than so they are 25 yards away from where the kicker is the receiving team lines up at the 35 yard line. So they're only five yards apart. Like you said, so the collisions are nowhere near the same. And then, yeah, the hardest collision that's probably going to happen is the guy running the football and whoever the tackler is. But I could definitely see it's the the kickoff is back in play again. Because it seemed like it pretty much vanished was was not even worth watching for a while. The one, you know, you can almost see remember the Chiefs were the first to come out and say, we may not even use our kicker to kick off. I said they wanted out of safety back there to help stop have a have a legit tackler to have to help stop somebody that gets through the first line. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, still, kickers can't tackle, you know, Deebos, Samuel. Yeah, nobody really can tackle him. I was one of the things about football that I that I actually do find to be really, really excellent. That doesn't get a whole lot of play. And that's just these guys in general ability to tackle in the open field. It's not just I don't know how you bring these guys down and they bring them down all the time. It's not just tackling. It's wanting to do that. The next play and the next play and the next, I mean, like four quarters, like eventually, the mental part of you is like, man, I that's what Derek Henry's thinking when he's running at you in the fourth quarter. Do you still want to tackle me? Yeah. All right, being signaled. So I know, um, yeah, there's really it's not the, you know, Alden is we don't have anything else to talk about. So, you know, the Padres played the Dodgers. Alden Gonzalez for me. SPN was there. He smart. He shared his thoughts with Tony and I. Yeah, I think it's us. He enjoys his out and I know you can't be here long because you're chasing some stuff out there. First, how are you today, my friend? I'm doing great guys. How are you doing? We're doing well. You're in town for the short two game series. Well, what were your thoughts after watching those two games? Oof. The Dodgers are nowhere near your hole right now. They didn't have Boogie Batcha Freddie Freeman in that line. They didn't have any of the new guys in there, but I mean, that's really no excuse. I think the Padres are just like in a really good group right now. And I mean, we've talked about this before this season, but I think it's further emphasized now, even with Fernando with at the junior night in there, just how well balanced that lineup seems to be. There are teams that has claimed Kershaw experienced better than anybody on Wednesday. They're teamed with the best contact rate in baseball. They put the ball in play. They're dynamic. And what AJ Prunter did with that bullpen, I mean, to add Tanner Scott, Jason Adam, into that mix with Roberto Suarez and Adrian Morihone, and Jeremiah Strada. Look, there's some concerns there with the rotation, but if you could shorten games with five dominant guys like that, that could put you over the hump in the wildcard race. And it might really help you make a deep run into October. You know, Alden, I almost called him Dylan because we have Dylan Hernandez. I know I can't do that. That's why I paused, Alden. I apologize for that. I wanted to ask you, we only have a few for a few, but I wanted to ask you because you talked to Jack Flaherty yesterday, and I read your story online. And Jack Flaherty ended up with the Dodgers. Some of the Padre fans were wondering, and the Padres, Preller said that they weren't really close on Flaherty. Was it, if that's the case, was the Padres package not enough for Jack Flaherty? Or is it possible that the Tigers just didn't like what the Padres were offering? Or maybe just the interest level wasn't there, the same as it was for the Dodgers and Yankees? I think it might have been more the latter. I think, look, the Dodgers came in here with a really clearly stated goal of adding a front line starter pitcher. And there weren't many front lines available. Tariq's kubil didn't move. Blake Snell didn't move. Garrett Crochet didn't move. So when you were looking into that market, it was Jack Flaherty, and there was, I don't know Zach Eflin or you say Kakuchi who cost the Astros quite a bit. I think it was a pretty limited market. And I think, look, I don't know that, I mean, I actually do know. Like, AJ Preller has no interest in training. Like, he even saw this in the world in his farm system. Some of the upper echelon prospects, some of the upper echelon pitching prospects that he traded away are promising. They have high ceilings, but they've taken somewhat steps back this year. You know, I'm talking about Robbie Snellie. I'm talking about Dylan Lusco. I think AJ was smart in that he, you guys know this very well. He's always looking for impact type talent, wherever it is that he could get it. If he has to have a lineup full of short stops and try to figure it out positionally, he'll do it. And as he showed it, this trade deadline, if the impact talent isn't available to him from a starting pitching standpoint, then you'll pivot to the bullpen. Even at a time when people thought that maybe the need is not there in the bullpen because you already traded for Jason Adam. He's talked about this a lot that he feels like that's the type of talent that wins in the playoffs. He said this a lot when he got Juan Soto and Josh Hader. And it's very much still an ethos for him. Alden Gonzalez joins his here from ESPN and Alden, we'll get you out of here after a couple more here. AJ Preller, you just brought him up. He's been the topic of conversation here going into the season based on where the year started to where we are now. And I know the full story's not been told yet because ultimately that will have a big part in how the story is told. But from where we were at the beginning year to where we are now, how do you think, what kind of job do you think he's done? I think he's done a really nice job. I really do. He gets a lot of flak for trading away prospects and kind of more getting more between the future in that way. But I think the Padres for an office and rightly operates from their belief that they could continually replenish farm systems. And we've seen them do this already. We've seen them do this basically three different times. And so whenever they, other outsiders think that they gave up too much, they're confident that they could continue to develop that pipeline. Now look, maybe at some point they're not able to. But all we've seen is an ability for them to at the very least develop the type of prospects that other teams want for them to get the pieces that they need. And when you look, just take a bigger picture, look at the Padres this year, they were going to limit their budget. It was pretty clear that they wanted to get under the luxury tax threshold. They basically had to trade away Juan Soto. And for him to add the talent that he's added, I mean, look, Jerks and Profar has been a revelation coming over in a $1 million contract and being all-star. But Jackson Merrill has been an impact player in center field, the position that he had never played before to get Luis Arayas and Michael King and Dylan Seath. And now to get Tanner Scott and Jason Adam and keeping that cable down. Look, you can criticize him for other missteps in the past. But just looking at these last, say, eight, nine months, I don't think you could have expected much more out of AJ Preller. The Padres look, I mean, maybe from a talent perspective, they're a little bit less than last year, but not by that much. Alden, a big question around here. The fans are really excited and you mentioned him because the season that Jackson Merrill has had, I think, has taken everybody a little by surprise, especially playing every day in center field and, you know, not only hitting the home runs, 13 home runs and ceiling bases and a great OPS for a rookie, but hitting impact home runs and winning games with his home runs. Does he have any chance though at a national level to beat out Paul Skeens for rookie of the year? You talking Jackson Merrill? I'm sorry. Yes, sorry. Jackson Merrill, can he beat out Skeens for rookie of the year? Yes, sir. I think Paul Skeens needs to fall off in order for that to happen. For as great as Jackson Merrill's season had been, for as promising as he is, I think just the hype around Paul Skeens is so big, the type of impact that he's had, the singular impact that he's had in that city. I mean, I think he almost single-handedly made the Padres go for it at the trade dollar in their own way. Like it's not, they were still pretty conservative in what they did, but they at least took a shot in a year when it seemed like they were going to be taking a step back. I still got to put, people in San Diego are not going to love this, but I still got to put Paul Skeens ahead of somebody like Jackson Merrill and ahead of everybody really, because he's been front and center at that. Not to take anything away from Jackson Merrill, but you know, he gets to be on a roster where people are counting on the Manny Machado and the Santices, Louisa Rises and everybody else. Paul Skeens is at the forefront of this already. And it's just, it's just too impressive to overlook. Alden, as always, man. Appreciate you coming on, spend some time with us. Go ahead and chase that news, man. We'll talk to you later. All right. Thanks so much, Alden. Alden Gonzalez with us a little earlier, and here's the news he was chasing, guys. He was immediately on the phone with the general manager of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Perry Menossean. The reason he was is because of the news that came down earlier today, that Mike Trout is unfortunately lost for the rest of the season now, officially out the rest of the way. He has another meniscus tear. Same knee. It is the same knee. That's what Alden was able to gather. But this was an interesting quote he got from the general manager, Perry Menossean said, Perry, about Mike Trout. I believe it's going to turn. He's going to play. My call is he hits 70 homers and wins the MVP. I believe it. Looking at the look on his face, he might have the best year he's ever had next year. If he can stay healthy, we'll save that for further analysis. All right, Adam Klug. Well done. Real quick. This just came down the, yeah, you guys remember that Sunday ticket deal? It just got overturned. Oh, so we have to give the money back that the NFL was going to have to give me. Apparently the jury, the jurors did not follow the directions, calculated something on their own, and that has overturned it. Oh, no. The NFL does it again. The NFL saves $140 billion based on one judge saying something. Four point seven would be that overturned. God, the NFL. All right. Trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yet again with North sides and bullion as you're not so secret ingredient, you can skip the drive through and do dinner at home. Nor taste combos provide a menu of delicious, affordable, and well-balanced meals that you can prepare in 30 minutes or less. Visit nor.com to get quick and easy recipe ideas for your home cooked weeknight dinners. It's not fast food, but it's so good.