Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
9am Hour - Italian Paul Report
We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature, whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to, or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With all trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently. With offline maps and on-trail navigation, download the free app today and make the most of your summer with all trails. Worried about letting someone else pick out the perfect avocado for your perfect and press them on the third date guacamole? Well, good thing Instacart shoppers are as picky as you are. They find ripe avocados like it's their guac on the line. They are milk expiration date detectives. They bag eggs like the 12 precious pieces of cargo they are. So let Instacart shoppers overthink your groceries so that you can overthink what you'll wear on that third date. Download the Instacart app to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order additional term supply. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep. And when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the restore hybrid collection that combines gel flex grid with coils and the rejuvenate lux collection, the height of luxury with over 112,000 five star reviews to prove it. Visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast 10 to get 10% off. This podcast on 97.3 the fan is presented by Hamel Casino fun above all else. [Music] Watch a lot of preseason NFL football this weekend. So much my wife was like dude already with the football. You're already starting. Oh my god. No, I didn't watch one second of preseason football. What kind of lunatic do you have to be to watch preseason football? I have people who you know want to get some insight into their fantasy football roster. I'm out on fantasy this year. I'm out. Oh yeah, you're out. I did it last year and I was terrible as I'm honest. I know they've got the Odyssey League with Gwen and Chris back to it. Never been asked to go. Never been asked to just know if you were. Would you say yes or no? Well, I mean if my colleagues asked me then I guess I probably would then you'd have to pay attention then I have to pay attention and then I have to get made fun of. It would be like it would be fun to beat like all the football heads on the station. That would be fun like me going. I don't know. Give me I'll take so-and-so in the first time. So apparently Scravey won last year and it is driving L.O. and Tony Gwenjin. See that's what would be fun. Who take fantasy football let's be honest a little too seriously. Both of them. It's driving them insane that Scravey won it last year and now like their entire mission is just to make sure that they beat Scravey this year. I mean would you want to hear it if Paul won something? Paul's boss beat. No so many times that stuff. Paul would not. Would you hear it everything? But they seem very bothered that Scravey beat them in fantasy football. Paul we've had a bunch of bets and Paul's won them. He's been around like here's 40 but I'm like he smoked this for sure. So it's not yeah he's not it doesn't bother me at all. That wouldn't bother me at all if we did a fantasy league and Paul he won I'd be like hell yeah. The only two things they saw is they had Sean McVay actually miked up during the game while he was coaching. That's good. The Rams game. It was actually good. Okay that'd be interesting. It was like Andrew Siciliano and Mina Kimes were doing a game and they were like chatting with Sean McVay on the sideline. He was getting his reaction to every play. That was kind of cool. Rams beat the Cowboys in the last second touchdown by Stetson Bennett the fourth to someone named Forestall. Don't all run to your fantasy football drafts at once to try to pick up those guys and then I did happen to see that Jim Harbaugh's team put up three points in there in his first game in a loss to the Seahawks. I'm getting these jobs. They're gonna be focusing on defense. I'm sure that I'm sure that you know they didn't play many starters. I'm sure they did Herbert. Well yeah he's heard. He's heard. But that's all I saw. So that's that's the extent of my preseason football takes for you. I'll let Italian Paul take over now with with his report for the day and get things started here with our addition today's edition of the Rindle Report. Welcome to the Rindle Report with Paul Rindle. Hi Paul. All right. Two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet. We'll start off in Major League Baseball and one story that you didn't know you needed. Are you laughing beyond? It's the Rindle Report. Hey Paul how you doing? Okay how are you? On 97-3 the fan. Are you ready to bless the mood? I need some help please. That was good. Can I get a whole year? Oh yeah. All right. We do need a Italian Paul Open for the right. We have a clue open. We have the clue report. Well Italian Paul likes to add his own godfather. Oh it's just in the background. It's so good. Thank you guys for giving me time to get that up by the way. There's a lot of there's mouses. It's me. I got I got a bunch of stuff I had to press in order to do this properly. All right. So I truly truly love it when my worlds collide. Last weekend in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina my favorite minor league baseball team the Rocket City trash pandas sponsored Landon Huffman's car's tour super late model car for a race and now baseball and motor sports are colliding again. I've been waiting for a week to get his take on the major league baseball playing there. I've been waiting. So I'm glad you delivered. Late last week major league baseball announced that it will be holding a game between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds in the infield of Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. What did you call them? The fans of the Reds and the Braves the red neckiest the red neckiest fan bases in baseball. Perhaps he said this was this this wouldn't work if it was the Yankees Marlins playing there. It shows these teams carefully for this game. Yes. Very very I mean Cincinnati is literally on the border of Kentucky. Georgia is Georgia. These teams were chosen for a reason. Oh yeah. The red neckiest thing came has been dubbed the MLB Speedway Classic and will take place on August 2nd, 2025. This is not the first time a non racing sporting event has taken place at Bristol Motor Speedway. In 2016, the Tennessee Volunteers football team hosted the Virginia Tech Hokies at Bristol in the highest attended college football game in history at 156,990 spectators. That is absolutely badass crazy. The track itself has a lot of history and has been on the NASCAR calendar since it opened back in 1961. And next year the last great Colosseum adds another chapter to its storied history. You're excited for this. I am going to be glued to the TV. If you want to make it interesting, make bases like on the concrete. That would be interesting. They have it. They've already like laid out where the field is going to be. How's it going to look? The first baseline is going to be down the front stretch pit road. And then it's going to it's going to wrap around. See now I love it when they can incorporate elements like the Western Metal Building into the field. I love that they're a way that they could have like some of the track actually on the field. Yeah. Like it in the corner. The warning track. Yeah, the warning track is actually the track. It's concrete. It doesn't it doesn't help when the track is banked at like 20 degrees on the straight line. It's like that hill out in in Houston. Yeah, the hill track up there is the outfield. That would be great. They could use they could probably use turns one and two. And I want cars to be going around. Yeah, me too. In the middle of the game. During the game as well. You just can't call it. That's a patient. Have you been? Have you been there before? I have not been to Bristol. I've only been to one race ever. And that was at Auto Club Speedway in Montana. I was at Texas Motor Speedway one time. I didn't realize they're they're raising the Auto Club Speedway to the house. They have completely they've completely destroyed it. Yeah, they were supposedly going to take just the front stretch part and make a short track out of it. But that apparently is is not as it was intended to be someone out on their porch going, you know, this is where Jimmy Johnson is now right here on the front porch. See, it's funny and it's going it's happening right now with Laguna Seica up north that people build a racetrack out the middle of nowhere. Right. And then people move next to the racetrack and try to get the racetrack shut down because it's too loud. Correct. Don't live next to a racetrack. And then don't expect if you don't want noise that won't happen. People are stupid. Yeah, they can be they can be. I live next to a pickleball course. What's we got? I would I would absolutely not. I don't mind. It doesn't bother me. All day long I just lose my mind. I live next door to a leaf blower that runs 24 hours. And they never blow it steadily. It's always start and stop. All right. I mean, it's all effing day long. I'm already getting a twitch with that one. I'm gonna bring it. I'm gonna bring mine in because we have one at home. We never use it. I'm gonna bring mine in and do it for you guys tomorrow to lose your mind. We do the whole show. And then you'll know what it's like to live in my house. I already want to move. I don't live anywhere near you and I already want to move on. All right. Sticking with racing, NASCAR returned last night from its Olympic break with a bang at the three saw the end of the three quarter mile Richmond Raceway in Richmond, Virginia. Even as a NASCAR fan, there wasn't much buzz around this race after NASCAR's two week layoff. But it's definitely in the spotlight now. On the last turn of the last lap, Joey Logano was leading with Austin Dillon running in second. Logano drove hard, drove deep in the turn three as you would trying to protect the lead, but he made the corner. Austin Dillard on the other hand, decided to use Joey Logano as a break, spinning the 22 from the lead. As Dylan was gathering up his car, Denny Hamlin tried to sneak below him for the race win. Now as someone who has played racing games his entire life at this moment, you have two choices. You can either accept defeat and just admit you're going to finish second now or possibly third, or you can gun it and try to most likely wreck yourself trying to get the lead back. Austin Dillard chose option C, which was turned dead left and wrecked any Hamlin for the win, with his spotter clearly saying wreck him on the radio. So yeah, for the layman here, he essentially crashed two other cars so he could go buy them and win the race. Yes. And people are up in arms about this because, okay, should they be? Isn't that what racing is? As the non NASCAR people, that was like the coolest ending I've ever seen. I agree. I thought what brilliant strategy. There is a difference between nudging a guy out of the way, okay, called a bump and run. You give them a shot and they slide up the race track, they don't wreck. They just, okay, but if it's illegal then why don't they just, you know, say, oh penalty and you have to go, but then they let him win the race. As of now, they are reviewing it and most likely during the week, they'll probably really hopefully take the win away from it. Now I saw Days of Thunder many, many times. That's also a movie and I saw cars and Pixar's cars and also a movie and Rowdy, that's something Rowdy would have done to call Trickle. Yes, it was okay in that. Rubbin's racing as they said movie in a movie you don't have to worry about the guy you wrecked spinning you the next week because it's not in the script. But now he's got to worry about two people wrecking him every chance that they get for the rest of the year, probably the rest of his career. At least it says Days of Thunder, great documentary, absolutely phenomenal documentary, the story of Cole Trickle. But the other side of this is that with the win, Dylan is now locked into NASCAR's playoffs moving from 32nd to 13th in the point. I'd say that that was a risk worth taking. Yes, if it gets taken away from him, it wasn't. It was. He made an enemy of two people and doesn't get the reward for the win. Chick Hicks definitely would have done it in cars. Yeah, he did actually. He did do exactly that. When I saw this, I go, people are mad about that? I said, oh, I thought he did a good job at winning the race, which is ultimately the goal. But I guess I don't know anything. There's a difference between Robin's racing. It's just racing. Boys have at it. There's a difference between that and and just straight up dumping to my mind. I thought, wow, what a quite a competitor just took him right out and won the race. He's a he's a I guess to his point, to his point. Imagine if you're running in a running race around lanes and you get close and you just let someone know. Now I would be watching the Olympic track and field. I was thinking they're holding each other at the end. What was the the famous was the the marathon Zola Bud where she tripped Mary Decker, Slaney and Zola Bud. I didn't know this. She tripped her right at the end and she went tumbling on purpose. No, I mean, she just kind of like flat topped like hit the back and knocked her over. Yeah, I guess you're right because I'm thinking about I watched that Lance Armstrong documentary recently and watching those dudes. 400 bikes compressed into a space of 10 feet. One guy. One guy like one guy like veers over and it's just toast. You're right. Okay. All right. Now I kind of it's starting to make sense in my head. Matt's battle track sounds awesome. Now that is now that's demolition derby essentially. Yeah, where you're just trying to wreck the other cars. I don't know. Maybe they have those up at Barona. I don't know. I know they have dirt racing up at Barona every Saturday night. Yeah, the motorcycle game Adam says that you could punch people to the left of you. That was awesome. That was really cool. That's called GTA. Yeah, that was great. All right. Moving to college football now and more specifically Boulder, Colorado. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Dion Sanders opened up the season with a news conference for the ages. The presser started innocently enough as it was Prime's birthday and he had just become a grandfather. But then questions started coming in as usual at a press conference. When the topic turned to his team, you know, his team. He took offense to that. Yeah. Things did not go well. Damn it. When asked whether his bolstered offensive line could protect his son who got sacked 52 times last year. Dion responded by saying, I don't know what all that bolstered. I don't know all that bolstered stuff. I've never used it in a sentence. Let's say that we improved our offensive line. Fair enough. When asked about the chemistry of his new offensive line, he responded with what's chemistry? Oh God, he's just being obstinate right now. He's doing really good. He then refused to answer a question from a local CBS affiliate without going into details. That was massively massively because the guy picked him to finish more near the bottom or eighth in the big 12. From what Dion had said, he said, I respect you. He has a beef with national CBS. He does. So he's not going to respond to any. Any CBS, but there's no connection really between national like where I work. Other than we carry their programming, right? I don't get to say what goes on there. They don't get to say what goes on with us. That has nothing to do with anything, Dion. That's a really dumb reason not to answer someone's question. That's because what affiliate they happen to be at. That's what he even said. The reporter was like, I'm local. I'm not national. He goes, I don't carry your CBS. You know what you are. Yeah, you had a rough one. That was a rough one. I've really liked the on last year. I thought he did some some good when he took over that program and it's it's slowly eroding. Yep. The good that he did. By the way, the initial top 25 AP is out this morning. No Colorado in the top 25. Oh, really? Number one though, Adam Klugel will be very happy. The Georgia Bulldogs with 46 first place votes. Your number one team to start to see. Well, all of their players be out of prison before the season starts. They've had about 46 arrests before the season started. Like the drag racing Georgia Bulldogs. Good God. So Georgia one, SEC Ohio State Big 10 to Oregon. Big 10 three Texas SEC four Alabama SEC five Ole Miss SEC six and then your Notre Dame fighting Irish woods by too high coming at number seven. The two high then Penn State Michigan Big 10 and then Florida State finally representing the ACC at number 10 in your top 10 seven is way too high. Just everyone's like Big 10 or SCC. Oh, yeah, that's how it is. College football, the new world. Now you you're making fun of me for not watching preseason football. I am giddy for college football. I cannot wait and your team Penn State. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. One more incredible quote from this presser was his son Shiloh, I guess that's how you pronounce it. I think so. Shiloh and Shidor. Yeah. Yeah. Try to lighten up the mood with a what do you plan on doing for your birthday? Dad. Softball question. Right. Dion swung and missed at said softball by saying his sons probably didn't get him anything as usual. That's actually a pretty good line. It's a pretty good line. It's all right. Yeah. Rose having a hard time. He is. He's having a ruffle rod or he's having a ruffled right now. And he the target is just squarely on his back and his entire team's back. So we'll see how it shakes out this year for Dion and hand the buffaloes. But there's a lot of buzz last year and I I liked what I heard from him early. And like I said, it's quickly eroded. It's gotten it's gotten to real paranoid states. It's very strange. Time Paul. Very nicely done. Thank you, sir. The report glad to have you in today. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we had a lot of discussion last week about Jackson Merrill's rookie of the year chances. Certainly didn't do anything to hurt those chances this weekend. Want to give you an update and why all of a sudden I do care a lot more than I did last week about whether Jackson Merrill wins the rookie of the year because it's kind of important in something that I forgot about wood. So we'll get to that coming up next after traffic here with Bennett Woods, a 97-3 the fan. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature. Whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes, nature makes all of our lives well better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With all trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently. With offline maps and on trail navigation, download the free app today and make the most of your summer with all trails. This season Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first, call your parents to say I'm sorry. And then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order additional term supply. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep. And when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the restore hybrid collection that combines gel flex grid with coils and the rejuvenate lux collection, the height of luxury with over 112,000 to five star reviews to prove it. Visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast 10 to get 10% off. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Ready to expand your financial game? Nerd Wallet can coach you on smart strategies like choosing investments, finding your next credit card, and setting a budget that works for you. Score major points towards your summer vacation by learning expert tips for choosing a high yield savings account and how to build wealth by investing in index funds. Slide into summer with smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Future you will thank you. Hey fantasy football fans. Do you want to be the owner who was doing a cram session the night before the draft? I didn't think so. You need to start your prep now. This is Faraz from upper hand fantasy. Zach and I are here to get you ready for your fantasy football drafts with insights and advice from sleepers to bust. We've got you covered and give it the upper hand on your friends. Today is the day to start getting ready for the draft. So join us and stay ahead of the competition. Follow and listen to upper hand fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. What is the PPI rewards program? Oh that is a performance plan incentive. It's not bad. Sounds like like an app you download at a local PPI store and then if you spend enough you get like a $10 off coupon. What is a PPI store? I'm just saying a PPI rewards program doesn't sound like it has anything to do with baseball. But yeah you're close. It's called the prospect promotion incentive. And it actually was in play last year. I totally forgot about it until someone reminded me over the weekend after we had our discussion last week about Jackson Merrill not given an S about whether he wins an S or an F. I think it was an S. Oh okay. I thought it was an F. It's just where my brain goes. It was one of the two about winning the rookie of the year award versus Paul Skeens. Well over the weekend obviously Merrill hit two more gigantic clutch home runs. He's in the top you know top 10 and batting now in the National League and Paul Skeens took an L against the Dodgers gave up a few runs. So you know the equation has changed a little bit over the weekend. But the reason why Padres fans at least should given an S or an F about whether Jackson Merrill wins the rookie of the year is because of the prospect promotion incentive rewards program which is what Major League Baseball instituted to try to get teams to stop manipulating service times of top prospects which the Padres don't do and didn't do with Jackson Merrill. Yep. He debuted with the team to start the year and because he was a top prospect he is eligible for the PPI program which means if he wins rookie of the year or in any of his arbitration pre eligible years finishes in the top three and MVP voting. Padres get an extra first round pick. I like that at the end of the first round of the draft and we know what AJ Preller can do with those extra draft picks. So it actually is quite valuable for the Padres organization if Jackson Merrill does win the rookie of the year award. Now you know who's not eligible for the PPI rewards program. That would be Paul Skeens because the Pirates of course manipulated his service time by waiting until interesting to bring him up and not giving him that full year accrual in his rookie season. So I can't get the extra pick on the Padres between those two could win the extra draft pick if Jackson Merrill wins the rookie of the year award. So I don't care if Jackson doesn't care about it. I really want him to win the award because it helps the Padres going forward. It'd be awesome. I you know my words I think were taken out of context. He doesn't care. So I'm not I'm what I'm not going to do is work myself into a tizzy and I will say this my fellow Padres fans actively some of you actively rooting for the Dodgers to rough up Paul Skeens the other day actually made me sick to my stomach legitimately. You know who you are. I mean if he was ever going to have a good start that would be the one that I wanted him to have a really good start and then he didn't didn't. So mission accomplished guys the Dodgers won congratulations to all of you rooting for Jackson Merrill's but because they did rough him up maybe it maybe it will help Jackson Merrill and his rookie of your candidacy which actually does have a a direct benefit for the San Diego Padres if he does win that award. So yeah it I now care more than I did last week because I was reminded about the PPI rewards program. You have to be on the brain. I do now PPI rewards on the brain at all time PPI the more you shop the more you say that makes that PPI rewards in Major League Baseball got a DM from from Adam in the chat here and said don't know if you guys are doing shout outs. Your families are not was wondering if you guys could shout out to his family for coach Ed Olson. I did not know coach Olson but I have I have friends that played for him. He passed away yesterday at the age of 89 San Diego legend the sports community is baseball coach coach at Morse El Cap finished at Grossmont. Padres employees for school. Yeah yeah Padres employees for Jones. Yeah absolutely. Coach Olson was a founding member of the legendary San Diego school of baseball with guys like Bob Cluck known by so many people in San Diego will be sorely missed. I would greatly appreciate it if this is possible. It's absolutely possible. Italian Paul do you have a shout out to your family the the the clip. I do not. You do not. Yeah you probably shout out to his family. That'll work. That'll work. We'll take it. We'll take the shortened version of that. Coach Ed Olson. Okay. That was nice. Thank you. Oh it was at Grossmont College not high school. Grossmont College. Nobody tweets in the chat which is someone's name. Yeah nobody tweeted someone put it into the chat Morse though is a high school where Adam Jones went. Yes I don't know if he was there when Adam Jones was there but we could find that out tomorrow when we're actually playing round of golf with the A.J. it's going to be in town. Is he coming in studio or what? I do not know if he's coming in studio on Wednesday yet tomorrow. I have no idea. I was trying in San Diego and we got them after our show. I've already canceled a dentist appointment for this. Then I remembered that I may have child care duty. No. So is the answer to your question. To the ninth caller 833 288. You can't bring Taylor to the ground of golf. No no. I was going to give Taylor to a tier one for the day. Oh 833 288. What do we want? Third caller. Third caller. Nothing could go wrong. You have Taylor from call it 10 a.m. till about 5 p.m. All right. So third caller. Now are they getting compensated as a babysitter? Is this a free surprise? It's a free yes. I don't give people prizes and also pay them. We just give them a prize. You get Taylor tomorrow. Why is the phone lighting up? Stop. Stop calling. Do not fall on this. It's not a real giveaway. Stop. Nobody said it. Hannah will love this. She actually, she has to work tomorrow. She has office hours. So it's either him at her office all day long or me skipping golf or finding a sitter. But our sitter also starting about another camp this week. You can't find another camp to put him in. I think all camps are done. Nothing left. I mean, if I had to, I'd have to find it today, junior lifeguard for a day. Three. I just don't know. I don't know. So if any tear one wants to watch the kid tomorrow. So, so his old man can go play golf with a baseball legend. That would be great. I want to try. Ah, fine. If you want to bring him, he can be the caddy. Not bringing him to the golf course. She's a nightmare. Are you kidding? Do it be the worst. He would be the worst. You would not be a good fifth wheel. He is not. He's not. He's not. Oh, I'd say he's the worst. He would be the worst. He would be the worst. He runs. He's just very. He's just very active. Yeah, he's very insane. He's bully. Now there are tier ones who said they'll gladly take your spot in the round. Of course you will. So you can watch Taylor. Of course you will. But that's not what you want. You want to be able to play golf, correct? All right. All right. So why am I a summer camp still available? Etky Y shameless plug. All right. We'll make that call today. Thank you very much, Adrian. All right. We're going to take a timeout. Time to look ahead. Pottery's pirates again. Can the Padres do what they did last week with the Dodgers just did and sweep the pirates three more games? Is it possible? We'll find out. And Joe Musgrove's return as well. Talk about all of that coming up before Annie and Elston at the top of the hour with Ben Woods here on 97 3 the fan. My wife in the chat. Ben hates Taylor. Hello, Elle. Don't hate Taylor. I wouldn't want to be in charge of Taylor. Just definitely would not. Bo would be hard and I think I could do Bo. I don't think I could handle Taylor. Taylor would walk right all over me. And I would I would not survive the experience. You know that's true. I let my own kids walk over the most of the time. Certainly you'll let Taylor do it. I cannot put my I'm not good at putting my foot down. I'm really not. And it sounds like you need to put your foot down sometimes. I'm dead. 97 3. All right, we've got one segment left. We can look ahead to the upcoming series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Although we just we just saw this team for three days. One of those bounce back series. Yeah, sick of them. And especially the way that it went. Yeah, I did not want it to go as stressfully as it did in Pittsburgh. No, they want all three games. You can't get better results than that. But yeah, it was a mess with the rain rain delay and everything involved. It was kind of a mess. We'll see what happens starting tonight. We will discuss the upcoming series right after our last check of traffic here on 97 3 the fam. Well, the first thing is I don't even know what tonight's matchup is. I know Joe Musgrove is returning for the Padres. We discussed that a little bit earlier. And you know, he did throw well in his brief return. Remember between, you know, his rest and then they brought him back and then they had to shut him down again. He actually threw well in those in those games, but the elbow started barking and bothering him. So after the long rest May 26 with his last start, he's got his last three starts. 14 and a third innings pitch, 251 ERA, 233 F F and 10.7 strikeouts per nine with a whip of 1.05. Yeah, bro. You take that all day long. Absolutely. Now he's going to be on you know, they're going to be watching them. Everyone what has there been an official number release? I probably not 60 ish 60 ish. Yeah, which, you know, you could go for more or less. Yeah, but you could go. Yeah, I mean, for innings, I think, you know, you want to agree if you're I mean, if they tax you and you go 2020, three, if you're efficient, you go 14, 14, 14, you know, you four the nightmare of going out and throwing a 30 pitch first inning though is certainly a real one and Mike Schultz thinking about it. And as you probably are thinking about it, Joe Musgrove thinking about it, you know, and it's just a reality of what can happen when you're a little bit limited right now, probably why we will see another move I would think before the game today. And it probably would be Sean Reynolds since he pitched yesterday. Carl Edwards probably gets to stick around to be the guy that wears it in case Joe does. So, you know, 45 pitches in the first couple innings and they need extra help out of the bullpen, which is a little worrisome, but hopefully that doesn't occur. Now, the pirates still have, as far as their list, they have TVD and that's on pirates.com. ESPN has Marco Gonzalez, who the Padres faced in Pittsburgh, but apparently he's not pitching tonight. Or if he is, they are not ready to name him as the starting pitcher tonight. So, they still have a 2B determined listed for the first game of the series here. And then tomorrow, game two of the series, Michael King, will pitch against Luis L. Ortiz, who we also saw in Pittsburgh in the series from last week. And then on Wednesday, which is a day game, the series finale, Martin Perez will go for the Padres and it'll be Mitch Keller, who we didn't see in that series going for the Pirates. And he's actually been pretty good. He's 10 and 6 with a 3.56 ER. I watched him his start the other day against Dodgers. He did not look good. So, we'll see what happens. But yeah, man, you know, again, keep winning those series. A sweep would be great, but I'd like just a dub tonight with Joe Musgrove on the mound, a pretty taxable pen. You know, this team continues to show a lot of resolve, a lot of resiliency. Don't get upset if they get down a couple runs early with Joe in there trying to, you know, get his feel. You know, that's not sustainable to live that the way that they've been living Ben. It's not. It's not. But, you know, as I tweeted yesterday, I love the grid squad. I do. I love the grid squad so much. I would like the blowout squad to show up, you know, give me a nice good solid 10-3 victory, you know, that you never have to get your heart rate up watching, you know, score a few early. Hopefully Joe has a nice Chris clean first inning. I think that will go a long way for him, his confidence, the team's confidence, the fans confidence. But yeah, man, it's baseball, literally anything can happen. So, you know, kind of reserve your expectations and just hope the boys continue to play good baseball. If not kiss the rally roach today, we need to. It's done on my end. Yeah, this team, they are roaches. They are roaches. They don't go away. Even even when you think you get them, then they just come back the next day. Italian Paul, would you like to kiss the rally roach? He's a met fan. So probably not. Okay. We'll just come over here, man. I will forcibly rub it on his lips later. You're right, though. I mean, since we are not expecting it since the all-star break, Padres have only lost four times. And the only time they really weren't ever in it was that first game in Cleveland. On July 19, when they lost seven nothing, the other three losses like yesterday, an eight six loss in Baltimore and that five two loss at home to Colorado weren't blowouts, but like not a lot of the wins have been blowouts either. I know, you know, that one 12, three in Washington, one seven nothing in Cleveland and eight one against the Dodgers was pretty nice. A 10 two in Colorado in the last game of the series. But for the most part, every like 75, 80% of the game since the all-star break have all been close one way or another. And it's great. If you're not getting blown out, you're giving yourself a chance to win and the Padres are winning a lot of close games. But at some point, you're right. Blowout squad for at least one of these games, a couple of these games will be good. A couple would be even better. And then take your chances with a close game on the third one and hopefully pull it out for the suite. But yeah, it's it's been difficult. And you know, it's we're at the point with 43 games left. I don't mind doing a little scoreboard watching, especially with the teams that are ahead of the Padres and the standings right now, the Dodgers open a series against the Milwaukee Brewers tonight on the road, a Brewers team that did lose yesterday, but otherwise has been playing pretty good baseball the last week plus Clayton Kershaw against Freddie Peralta in that one. So an interesting match up there. The Diamondbacks, they're at home against the Colorado Rockies. So, you know, you just kind of hope the Rockies can get one of those in this series. The way the Diamondbacks are playing though, they're probably licking their chops and thinking sweep. It'll be Brandon fought against Cal Quantrell in game one of that series as well. And then some of the other wildcard teams that are behind the Padres, the Braves are in San Francisco. So you've got two teams that are both battling for that last wildcard spot are playing each other and what a match up tonight, Chris sale, Blake Snell, your scheduled starters for game one of that series at Oracle Park in San Francisco, a lot of Ks of that. New York Mets finally get an off day. They had a they had a gnarly road trip. Didn't they Frank? They were there in six on the trip. Where did they go? Because they had to go one one game to St. Louis. They went from New York to Anaheim to play the angels. Then they had a make up game. They lost two or three. Yeah, lost two at three. They won the make up game in St. Louis. One, two out of three in Colorado and then just got swept in Seattle where they didn't score any in the first two games and they scored one in a 12 one loss yesterday, 22 to one in three games. And then so they don't play today. They do have an off day. They're back tomorrow. Who they've got next Oakland Oakland, Oakland, Miami, Baltimore is the homestand Oakland. And I saw it this morning. Oakland and Kansas City have the best record in the A.L. since the break. Those Oakland guys have tied with it. We're oils. Red rocker has 29 home runs, by the way, 29 rocker and Mitch or Jake burger. Yeah, you're hot as cities and baseball beasts since the all-star break and Jackson barrel. I'm going to throw him in. Yeah, I'd say he's probably worthy clutch wise for sure. So those are some of the games to watch this week as some new series take place. And yeah, I'm doing some scoreboard watching at this point. Me too, man. I was as soon as the game was over, but soon I got home yesterday, I'm like, Oh, the Mets rock. I'm like, Oh, well, I mean, the Mets are there. So I watched Luis Castillo just dominate nasty, nasty stuff. Mariners are those teams. One of those teams where like they get in the dance. We said this before about the Mariners. The offense needs to show up, obviously, but their pitching is so ungodly good. Brett Boone said it last week, they've got basically five interchangeable number ones that they can throw out there at you at any time. They're pretty nasty. I will say too about the game tonight. It's going to feel like midnight watching a 640 game again. Because the boys have been gone. You know, a lot of East Coast games. I'm like 640. I'm like, what is it? I'm going to be up till nine o'clock tonight. This is crazy. But it's good that they're home. I wish they were home a little bit longer, but off to Colorado after this little short one with with the pirates couple other baseball notes. I don't know if you saw this, but the LA Dodgers after, you know, going through pitching injuries for much of their season. And you know, one of the actual good stories for them was the former Padres prospect, River Ryan. Yeah, we got Matt Beatty. Yeah. But and he's pitched well for the contributor. Apparently, he's going to be out for the rest of the season with an elbow injury as well. So another blow to the Dodgers pitching rotation with an injury to River Ryan. Now I don't know if they're counting on him like as a playoff guy, but he's actually pitched well for them. So that's bad news for them. And I've also seen a Padres in the minor leagues. Louis, Leo Dallas, DeVries continues to swing and really well right now. U S D S D is it like three home runs in three days? Is he at the Arizona? I think complex league? They've assigned all their draft picks to like most of them to the either complex league, but some have already started at single A and other places. So you can follow some of those new players around. But yeah, good start for Jack Castello, the USD kid with three home runs over the weekend and like his first three games. Pretty decent way to start your professional baseball career. I would say as a guy that was kind of picked towards the lower, you know, the lower rounds and it's pretty solid. And I meant to mention it last week. But when the Padres finalized all their draft agreements with their players, yeah, it was reported that once again, the Padres went 4.9% over on their signing pool bonuses, which as long as you stay under 5%, you avoid penalties. Padres go 4.9% over every single year. AJ Preller spends every dollar that he can on putting together the best draft class and international signing class possible. Did I see 20? There's not a penny that doesn't go spent by AJ Preller on his minor leagues to try to now rebuild it up after he's traded all those guys away. Did I see 21 of 22 guys signed? Is that right? Yeah, I just had the one guy that was a long shot to sign and they probably didn't have enough money for him anyway, but but yeah, they signed every bit about one guy. That's amazing. I mean, 21 new fresh pieces in your system, just like that, all the consternation about emptying the farm. Okay, like, we'll see what happens, but we've got some really good players back for those guys that they traded. So will it be enough? Who knows, man? Who knows? If this team stays healthy, though, nobody wants to face the San Diego Padres team. They just don't, they don't want to face them. And I think you can say the same for Arizona right now. Nobody wants to face these guys. They are on a different planet. And yeah, it's going to be that last series in Arizona could be the craziest, gnarliest thing we've ever seen. And I hope to be there with the crew. Yeah, a lot of things still have to kind of fall into place. There's a lot of games in between. You'll have that series against the Dodgers beforehand, but it could, it could be a three way race coming down the wire. Mama. And that might not just be for a division title, but it could be for a buy in the first round of the playoffs could even be for the number one. See, the Phillies not exactly lighting up the world right now. You keep thinking they're going to turn it around. But the Diamondbacks body body three straight games after they took the first game. Diamondbacks came back and won the next three and the Phillies have not really been able to stabilize. They're not tied with the Dodgers for the best record in the national league and been slipping consistently since the All-Star break. So they've brought everyone back into the picture, the Brewers, the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks and the Padres are all, all really alive for not just a division title, but the one seed in the national league, potentially home field advantage throughout the playoffs is still in play. And something that I think the Padres should be going after and pursuing. I know, you know, people say, well, that that teams that have the buy in the first round, they come out slow and they lose in the division series. If you can get a buy and you can get home field, I don't care how good the Padres are on the road and how much you don't want to get rusty in the five days between the series. Give me the buy. Give me the home field. I'll take my chances. Reset my pitching. Get my guys healthy. You know, this team's banged up, man, and they play hard. And you know, you think about guys like David Peralta, Donovan Solano, 36, 37 years old. Every time David Peralta catches a ball in the outfield, he's grabbing at an ankle or a knee, just gets its wings and I'm watching these guys. And again, somebody just in the chat, he's catching up. He said, why are we not playing Solano every day? You guys insane? And look, the, I think the only answer is that he's just he's he's older. He's an older guy. He's also so valuable with what he's doing. Correct. You don't have a place to play. That's right. That's right. That's right. I just, I'm I'm amazed that we're even having this discussion at this point in the season. Yeah, after our thing started more than one scene, one scene, more Donovan Solano, more David Peralta TV Tyler Wade, Andy and Elston are coming up next Frank Italian Paul. Thank you for sitting in today. Our polly should be back tomorrow for woodsy. I've been have a great rest of your Monday from all of us here at San Diego's number one sports station 97 three the fans. So long everybody. 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