Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

6am Hour - Michael King Dominant As Padres Beat The Pirates

Ben, Woods, and Paul are here for you on a Wednesday morning! We start the show with some foreplay as the guys talk about their round of golf yesterday which includes a special cameo from "Ben Scully"... Then Ben sets the menu for today's show before we get to our Padres Wrap-Up and discuss last night's 3-0 win over the Pirates as Michael King was, once again, dominant! And we get to the audio of Mike Shildt and Kevin Acee's awkward exchange after the game. Listen here!

Duration:: 43m
Broadcast on:: 14 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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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. Hey, fantasy football fans. Do you want to be the owner who was doing a crime 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 your cover 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. Look at that. We're back. Ben and Woods, 97.3, the fan. And man, it's good to be here with you guys this morning. I'm going to go ahead and start the show by kissing our beloved. Ooh, rally roach, you did it again for us last night. This team is unbelievable. Can't wait to talk about it. Break it all down. A lot of interesting things happen around baseball last night, but we get our heads right in the first segment of the day and we call it four play just a way for us to get loose. I'll tell you right now. I'm dragging ass and I don't really know why I have a theory, but got plenty of sleep. You know, went to bed at a decent time, slept really well. Are they slept too well? I'm dragging ass this morning, so I'm trying to summon something out of my belly to get it going. And it's just been a long week already, man, but a good week, a good week indeed. I'm Woodsy. That's Paul Reindel. He's the executive producer. Good morning, Paulie. Have these 640 starts felt like 10 minutes starts after the East Coast trip. Yeah, I said that the other day before you got back. It was like, it feels late and I got to get a lot done before. I mean, it wasn't anything crazy last night. No, the post game show ended at like 9.30. Yeah, well, and we'll talk about that. The post game show is kind of part of the reason that I wasn't able to fall right asleep. And that's kind of exactly right, exactly why. And so I was up, I was up to like 10.15, which is not that bad, but I woke up to the alarm this morning. And that never happens. Ever. I'm like, oh, oh, for 12, but I'm like, I have no idea where I was crazy to my left is your friendly neighborhood sports anchor Benjamin Higgins. Good morning, Benjamin. Good morning, Woodsy. Good morning, Paul. Missed you yesterday. We did miss you, Paulie. Yep. I missed you guys. We had a great time. Paulie has a bum ankle and heard it playing basketball. Now we had originally, we were scheduled to play golf with Adam Jones. It's going to be the four of us and Paulie had already said, I mean, I want to hang out with A.J. is the best. I want to hang out with A.J. I probably won't hit many shots. I'll just kind of hang and maybe if it feels good, I'll swing a little bit, puddle a little bit. I'll pay. I'll ride along. Yeah, I'll ride along. But I, that's not a smart idea. It's not fun. Thank you, bum ankle too is one of those. There's a couple of different things. You're not going to be able to get your way through around a golf with. You know, when my wrists were really hurt, I would hit the ball and the club would fall out of my hands. This is not fun. So we talked to our buddies, Matt Janellah and John Ashworth, who owns and runs Goat Hill. And we talked to them and they said, we'd love to play with you guys. Neither of them had ever played Encinitas Ranch. I think Ash had. Oh, Ash had. It had been a long time. But Janellah had never even played Encinitas Ranch. So we go out to Encinitas Ranch yesterday and it's this dude on my left here, Benjamin. Now I'm a, not a good golfer. I'm like a 15 handicap, maybe more. And Ben says, no, we'll play you guys straight up. And I'm like, why would you play straight? That's like going to a casino. And they're like, yeah, I'll give you $5,000 credit and you're like, I don't want it. I'm good. I'll win plenty. I'm like, what are you doing? Take the money. Take the credit that the casino is giving you and let's go out with some more money. You're like, I'm a PGA tour when you're playing real golf and playing straight up on. There's a reason they're handicaps. I trusted you. Oh my God. I knew you'd come through. Yeah. John's like a three, I think. And Matty's like an eight. Like a five and I'm a 15, so we were definitely at a bit of a disadvantage, but I felt confident in your abilities and my abilities to take them on. Oh my God, man. Well, so we had our match and it was actually really fun for a while. And we played straight up for a while and, but something happened that I had to, I have got to share. I have to share this with the audience and you know what it is. We had played six holes, six. And as Ben has been known to do from time to time, he gets very into the round, right? And I feel like you put your Jim Nance hat on and you start just calling the action. If this show goes south, literally go quit TV, quit and this doesn't work. Go to the golf network and be like, I'll start at the bottom. Look me. You act as though I haven't thought about that. Put me. I'll call the amateur tournament in Wichita. Give me the mic. There's no one better than me at this. This dude starts commentating. In fact, I'm on his team. I'm about to hit a drive. He's still commentating. I shake my drive and I go, God, Ben. Now it's not like he's not just sitting off to the side and he's like, Steve, what's for? No, no, no, no. He's not calling the match, but it's like this reek. Like how would you describe? Yeah, it's more of a big picture overview of everything that's going on. We've talked about in the past how, you know, you have, remember we talked, we did like two days worth of shows on the internal monologue. The internal monologue. Ben has an external. Yeah, I'm laying out the, you know, like the fly over of each hole because Matt hasn't played it. So I'm like describing, okay, here's what you're facing here coming up on the seventh hole. You've got a blind tee shot right over the top of the hill where you're gonna want to play it up to about 215 yards that'll leave you with about a seven iron into a downhill green on the second shots. And I just like to make sure that everyone knows where we're at and I feel like I'm help. I'm trying to be helpful. Did I was I a little too helpful and may have impacted that one swing of yours? Fine. Yes, I did. I apologize. There's Matt Janela said something that I wish so I'm, I thought up, that's why I didn't sleep well. I sat up all night thinking about how mad I am at myself for not coming up with this nickname. When I shank my drive, that Janela called Ben, Ben Scully and I almost died. I was convulsing with laughter and I go, I go, you have got to be kidding me. You know, he did a lot of golf announcing. Did he? Outside of baseball season. Yeah. He called some of the like the grand slam of golf and some of the big events. Absolutely. It was a golf announcer. It's been, it's been, it's been Scully who, again, you would have listened to him read the encyclopedia. It wouldn't have mattered. He was a legend, certainly. And I had no idea he called golf. I bet. I bet he was phenomenal. He was outstanding when Matt Janela goes, hey, all right, Ben Scully, I was like, well, that's it for me. And I, I go, Maddie. That's one of the greatest lines I've ever heard. So I, I texted Paulie that immediately and I said, Paulie, get to work immediately. Ben has no idea that I even did this. I go, this is what just happened. I almost crap my pants from laughing. Get to work. He wrote back was on it and it was so good. So I, I haven't heard this. I have no idea. We live in a brave new world of artificial intelligence and ladies and gentlemen. Here he is. Hi, this is Ben Scully. It's time to play some golf. Did you cross our voices together? How did that work? I mean, it's, it's kind of a magician. Never reveals his secrets, Ben. Hi, this is Ben Scully. It's time to play some golf. I good afternoon everybody and welcome to Encinitas Ranch for today's four ball match between Stephen Woods and Ben Higgins versus John Ashworth and Matt Janela. Hi, this is Ben Scully. It's time for Ben and Woods. Brought to you by Fama John, so I ended up taking it another step further and I thought, okay, well, our favorite thing, Ben and his golf monologue and take us back to that round that you played two and a half months ago and go through. How was the first hole for you and give us a shot by shot recast? This is identical. So I asked Ben Scully about his first hole yesterday at Encinitas Ranch. Hi. Ben Scully, it's time to play some golf. Yesterday we played at Encinitas Ranch. It was a beautiful San Diego day with highs in the upper 70s. The first hole was a par four dog leg right. I struck my driver pretty well, hitting it about 250 yards. That left me with about 100 yards to play with. My approach shot felt great when I hit it, but it rolled off the green. Dang it. I chipped onto the green and gave myself about a 10 foot putt. It was a left-toe right puck with the sun in my face. As soon as my putter hit the ball, I knew I was short, and this would be my first bobby in the round. That's pretty much accurate actually. Well done. The dang it got me in there. I heard a, again, I heard a live one yesterday and when I hear, I heard two. When I hear a Ben drop live in the flesh, it's my favorite. I heard a dang it and then I heard a yes after like I made a putt or something. It was absolutely dang it. My approach shot felt great when I hit it, but it rolled off the green. Dang it. Dang it. My stomach hurts, bro. Ben Scully, I was like, Janela, you son of a bitch. That's the greatest. I go, how do I never thought of that? The second hole was much better. As I pulled my seven iron out of my Callaway bag, I very much wanted to get back to even par with a birdie. I struck a high, soaring shot into the cloudless and cenita sky. The ball hit the green and had a perfect amount of backspin thanks to my chrome to our triple track ball. Why, Callaway, simply the best. I was about four feet from the hole and putted my way to a birdie. I'm going to pass out. Maddie, Janela, thank you for that, thank you for that, that, I'll never forget it. As long as I live the line, it was just great. Maddie, it's cold as ice. We had a really fun day. It was a beautiful day. I played, look, I had one arm tied behind my back. I lost the time there for a little bit, but got it back on my nemesis hole 17, where I always hit it in the water, and I stuck this thing 10 feet. We made par. We needed it, and we needed it, and we won the match. No, I never, I never got paid. Did you get paid? That's like a running tag. It's just hanging out there, because they requested a rematch, so we will wait until we're able to schedule the rematch. All right. But I had a great time, man. We had a blast driving around and getting some time, and I was a little bummed. I missed, you know, I missed drop off for my first grader yesterday, and well, I missed pick up as well, because I was playing golf my friends, but my first grader, Bo, started yesterday. You call, I heard you call him on the course and get an update sounded like it went pretty well. Couldn't have gone bad. It just couldn't have gone better, and he came home now that the funny part is, you know, he's back in school for one day. Stays up till about 745, eight now, 705, dude is sacked. So I'm going to thumb, sacked, and I go, welcome back to the school year, baby. So put him right to bed. Everything was great. It was a great day. Always fun playing with those guys. They are just just, just a fun, it was just a fun group. We had a really good time and we did win. So congratulations. Nice job. Thank you very much. It was a lot of fun, but Ben Scully, Ben Scully is one of my favorite things ever. Are you, that's a, that's a good one. That is, yeah. That's a good one. Even I had to acknowledge, even though it was at my expense, it was, yeah, but you're like, damn it. That's right. That's right. Coming from Janela or me, Janela, because Janela was like, he's like the coolest. So like, you know what, you know, if Janela gets you, you're like, uh, he hears it from me all the time. I hear it from you all the time. But like Janela, when he gets you, you're like, damn. That's supposed to be my safe space. That's your safe space. That's like, uh oh. No trouble. He came up with it. He came up with it. I tripped onto the green and gave myself about a 10 foot putt. It was a left to right putt with the sun in my face. As soon as my putter hit the ball, I knew I was short and this would be my first bobby of the round. It's not like a hundred percent, but you know what, pretty close and then the game comes on. So again, the San Diego Padres grit squad shows up once again, and then the fireworks post game. We'll have all of it for you. I can't wait to talk about all of it for you today here on Ben and Woods. We'll set the menu when we come back a bit of a modified big league Wednesday. We'll explain what that means and get you ready for our midweek version of Ben and Woods. Kelly Danics got our check of traffic and then I don't go away. Should be a really good one this morning as the Padres continue on their roll on San Diego's number one sports station, 97 3, the fan. Worried about letting someone else pick out the perfect avocado for your perfect impress 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. 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. Hey Fantasy Football fans, this is Faraz from Upper Hand Fantasy. We're here five times a week to get you ready for your fantasy football drafts with top notch insights. Get the upper hand on your fantasy football season. Follow and listen to Upper Hand Fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wednesday morning here on Ben & Woods, you said you had one more thing you wanted to include in our foreplay. I'd like to wish my mother, Marsha Woods, a very, very happy 70th birthday. Talked to her on the way in this morning. Yeah. She's doing really good. Good. No, she had the lumpectomy surgery a couple of weeks ago, had to go back in to get a couple of more things taken care of, a little bit more painful this time, but she is such a, she's so strong, man. She's always been so strong. So happy birthday, mama. Love you very, very much. Happy birthday. Would not be here without you, obviously, but like literally and metaphorically, like I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for her and her support and she's just the best. So happy birthday, mama. Love you very much. You're a great, great mom, great grandmother, great friend. She's, I was talking this morning, she's got like 40 groups of friends that she has to like everybody wants to do something for. She's like, I'm just, I'm kind of running down right now. I go, my, I get it. Like you get the book club, the bridge group, all the church group, all of her old friends, she's her best friends are still from elementary school and high school, you know, so she's just a very special person. So happy birthday, mama. Love you so much and have a great, great day. Wish we were there. All right. Outstanding. Thank you for today's show. Hand it out. Yeah. I would like to hear, I would like to hear Ben Scully read the menu actually for today since we have him here and we're going to, you know, abuse it as we do. So what does Ben Scully think we're going to do today? Welcome back to Ben and Woods. It's time to set the menu for today's show. We will get to our Padres wrap up in our next segment. After that, it's time for take on Woods. Well, if don't do this at 720 today and chat with our beloved Brett Boone at 835, then at nine o'clock, we will get Paulie's top stories of the morning before we turn our sights to this afternoon's series finale between the Padres and the Pirates. There you go. I'm feeling kind of, um, you feel like replaceable at your point. Yeah. You can say like when you have a chance to get Ben Scully instead of Ben Higgins, I think you take it. I mean, it's pretty good. It's pretty, pretty good. Yeah. That is, uh, that's essentially too many for today's show. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Because why has Ben even there, maybe start his vacation early right now? We're supposed to start at this afternoon, but maybe I just leave now and get going on staycation. Um, uh, if you are wondering about Adam Jones, he will join us tomorrow. Paulie said he's doing some traveling today. I just saw his tweet on his way to Milwaukee who wants to play around a golf tomorrow in Milwaukee. So why are you going to stand them up to? So that's cool, but he will join us. What time is he going to be on tomorrow? Same time. 735 tomorrow. But we do have a, as Ben Scully said, Brett Boone will join us at 835 on a big league Wednesday. And of course we'll be talking a lot about, uh, Padres baseball and I think got to bring up right away 18 and three in the last 21 games now. It's the best stint in franchise history again. Uh, Padres have never won 18 of 21 games ever. And uh, that's over 55 plus seasons of, you know, thousands and thousands of Padres games. This is as good as it's ever gotten. I, it's hard to believe that, yeah, in that many years, this is as good as it's ever gotten. You just sit down and you expect a win to happen as you're watching these games. That had all been blowouts last night wasn't one either. They've been close, but they found a way to win, uh, much more often than not since the all-star break. Well, what's been so encouraging is how many times have we set over the last four years, call it? Hey, you got a stretch here where you really got to get some wins on your belt. Yeah. You know, hey, yeah. And they don't, they don't do it. They don't do it. Yeah. And while yes, the Dodgers keep winning and the Diamondbacks keep winning and you're not, you're not sliding. Right. Because we said at the end of July, hey, coming up in August, you have a lot, I mean, a lot of winnable games. Yeah. You're playing like 19 and 20 days or whatever that stretch is, but a lot of winnable games and they have played so well. You got to stack dubs in this part of the year. Now again, I do see a lot of people talking still about man and this Italian Paul did some long diet tribe about, well, see, this is why it sucks that you're winning because the Dodgers were broken. The Diamondbacks were dead and buried and you didn't make up any ground. You never, it never sucks to win. It never sucks to win. You can't do anything about what is his past. All you can control is if you win that day and the Padres have really taken that mentality of saying, let's win today's game, find a way, scratch claw, whatever we got to do to do it. Is it the most ideal way to do it? No, it's not, it's not, but it counts. Those are wins every single time. We don't complain about wins in here and I'm just, I'm very impressed, very impressed not after night. It's a different person that steps up. Well, while you can focus on the fact that they haven't really picked up ground the last week on the Diamondbacks or Dodgers or any ground on the Diamondbacks in the last three weeks because they've been just as hot quietly though. Now they've started to put some separation between themselves and other teams. Correct. You know, I was listening to Sammy's post game show and he put, he pointed out accurately. The Padres are, are still four games up on the Braves who have the final wild card spot, but that's not really the, that's not really the number you want to pay attention to. The number you pay attention to is how far up are you on the first team out of a playoff because if the Braves pass you, you're still in the playoffs because they're not, they're a playoff team. So you're one of the, you're only really are worried about the team that's out of the playoffs passing you. And they're now six games ahead of the New York Mets who are the first team out to you. There are two games behind the Braves, six game cushion with 41 to play is a significant margin. Now, not, not insurmountable, no, no, nothing's guaranteed, but the Padres have put themselves in a position that they simply have to play moderately decent baseball the rest of the way and they should be comfortably into the postseason. They don't have to go on any runs, no winning streaks necessary. In fact, 500 ball probably gets it done fairly comfortably at this point. You don't see them taking it easy. You know, you really don't. You don't see them being comfortable at all right now. In fact, I feel like the guys are still really intense and playing really, really hard. And that's all you can ask for from your baseball team. Then on the top end while the Dodgers are winning, the Brewers are losing and the Padres yesterday caught the Brewers. They're now tied, virtually tied with overall national league standings, which doesn't matter unless you catch the Dodgers and win the division, but it could, it could factor into a first round by in the playoffs that the Padres do get there. And how about this? Remember, oh, about two months ago when the Phillies were clearly the class of baseball and were running away with the national league, Padres are now just two games behind the Philadelphia Phillies. That team that was probably, I don't know, 13, 14 games clear, the Padres at one point. They're now 69 and 50. The Padres are 68 and 53. This is wide open right now. Absolutely wide open Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers, Diamondbacks, Padres. It's wild how things have changed from, hey man, just hang around, you know, it couldn't get above 500. It was hang around and just get into the dance. They literally took that a couple of weeks ago is, you know, the division's like a possibility. And now it's like you could finish the best record in the national league. The tractor beam that was pulling them back to 500 smashed. They smashed it. They took it in the backyard, took a hammer to it. It's gone. And that's, that's been really cool. And just kind of, I don't want to say sneakily obviously because we cover them every single day. But you just, you look up and go, these SOBs just went 18 out of 21. Is that right? 14, 15 games above 500. It's just bananas. It's bananas. What they've been able to do. All credit goes to those guys, man. Very, very cool. But there's a, there's no dominant team anymore. Even in the American league, the Yankees and the Guardians and the Orioles, they're all at 70, 71 wins. So the Dodgers, 71, 49, Guardian, 71 and 49. Those are the best records in baseball. That's three and a half games where the Padres are right now. And early in the season, I think I, I read there were three or four teams that were on pace to win over a hundred games. No one's on pace to win even a hundred games now at this point, which hasn't happened in baseball very rarely in, you know, in the, in the recent versions of Major League Baseball where you've got some of the haves and have nots. We've seen a lot of hundred plus win seasons. We may not get a single 100 win season. In fact, we're probably not going to get one this year. Wow. Fan graphs for whatever weight you give them and their approach to the mathematical side of things. They've got projected wins. The Yankees and the Dodgers at about 95 wins. That's the most in baseball. That is the most. So it's, and that's within, by the way, that is within striking distance for the Padres if they finish the season strongly 90 and 72. Yeah. And that's, that's projected. That's like you're not going to be as hot as you are right now, but you still, you just play a two games over 500. I think the rest of the way gets you to 90 at this point if you're the Padres. You barely have to beat 500 to get to 90 wins now. If you keep playing close to what you're playing right now, you keep winning series 91, 92, 93, even 95 is within reach for the San Diego Padres. So sky's the limit right now and the World Series race, I think, is as wide open as it has been in baseball in several years. It's pretty awesome. I mean, there are, I want to say eight or nine teams and I don't even know which one. So we'll, we'll talk about that coming up. We'll get to our Padres wrap up, get you Jesse's calls of yesterday's three nothing win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, another dominant outing from Michael King was outstanding. We'll talk about all of it coming up next on San Diego's number one sports station 97 three the fan is our 97 tennis brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. If your supply chain demands a flexible workforce higher with Express Employment Professionals with contract and full time workers from Express Employment, you get the staff you need and manage contingent labor costs, learn more at express pros.com. That's express pros.com. All right, it was a great, another low scoring game. The offense is not quite as on fire as it was last week with pitching has picked up the slack. My God. We will, we will go through the highlights of yesterday's three nothing win over the Pittsburgh Pirates right after this check of traffic on 97 three the fan. I love winning, man. I love, I love when you know what I'm saying, it's like better than losing. Oh my God, I'm so stiff. Miss any of the Padres win yesterday, Ben and Woods didn't. What up crew? Catch you covered with all of the highlights. I like it with the Padres. Wait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the Padres wrap up presented by Hamoul Casino with thrilling slots and tables in all the best rewards. Hamoul Casino has all the fun you're looking for. Hamoul Casino fun above all else. Yeah. Give me a do damage. Do damage. Hamicato hits you to the air to center field bait charging in dives forward. Did he make the catch? It appears that he did. The throw will go in his second, throw far back safely, a rise will tag in score, a sacrifice fly from the chateau and a 1-0 Padres lead. 3-1 hit hard in the air to de-graint center field, Baylock Crew's long run looking up. Gonna go. David Peralta, his fifth of the year and the freight train on the tracks here at Petco Park gets 2-0. 3-2 again to Les Swings and misses Sprank 3 on pitch 10. Swings got him to go fishing. That is strikeout 10. 6-shotout innings for Michael King and after 5-1/2, Padres lead the Pirates 2-0. Scott ready. Here's the pitch. Part swings and misses Sprank 3, came back with a fastball that'll do. Couple of K's and a scoreless eighth inning for Tanner Scott. After 7-1/2, still the Padres 2 and the Pirates nothing, a 1 to Machado hit on the ground up the middle. Crew's to his left. Can't make the play. Ricochet off his flop. Goes to the center. A rise scores and the Padres lead is 3-0. Hayes will take second base. The pitch swung on. Grounded up the middle. Long way to go. Bogart's on the left side of the infield. Has it? Off-balanced throw to first. He's in time and the ball game is over. For this second consecutive night, a stellar defensive play to end it. The Pirates are shutout 3-0 by King, Adam, Scott and Suarez as the Padres have won an eighth straight series. First time they have done that since 2007 and here tomorrow afternoon they will go for the sweep. You know, Ruben showed him to me right after the... his outing, 83 pitch, 83% first pitch strikes and 100% 1-1 counts strikes. That's the control of counts and that's what allows you to throw up zeros and you know he did have some light traffic, you know, and fair amount innings and just made a lot of quality pitches at two double play ball drops in usually. Michael King is a delight to watch pitch. That's what I kept thinking last night. He is a delight to watch pitch when he is on and he has been really, really on as of late. Ben, he may be my favorite pitcher in the rotation to watch. Mattie Waldron throwing those knuckle balls up there. Yeah, it's pretty cool and you see them and they're always on pitching ninja but Michael King's two-seamer that starts at a left-hander's hip and ends up down the middle or on the inside corner may be my favorite pitching baseball. His change up was filthy and again he's getting those guys, they're behind. Everyone goes up there, they're 0-2-1-2 and he's just pounding the zone. Now he's so good though and effective that he's not giving up much hard contact at all either. It's the total package right now with Michael King. What a delight he is. Yeah, some pretty amazing stats if you're watching the broadcast and I was actually listening a lot to Jesse last night and by the way, I did hear him incorporate his song lyrics and I will get to that at some point. He nailed it last night so looking forward to that but they had the graphic up with Michael King and he is among the league leaders with Chris Sale. Least hard contact allowed this season and that's really been the turnaround for Michael King. His first month and a half or so, home run dispenser. Really gave up like 10 of them in his first. 10 or 13. Yeah, a bunch in his first handful of starts. Since then I think he's only given up two and really the hard hit rate is extremely low. Even yesterday the pirates were getting a bunch of blue bleeder type hits. In fact, it created the weird situation of looking up at the line score after like the third inning and the pirates were like no runs, five hits, two errors. The positive is where one run, no hits, no errors because of the way that first inning played out with Perez walking and then hitting pro far and then getting the error and then the sacrifice fly to score without a hit. Pottery's offense really wasn't doing much but they got gifted a run and Michael King protected it by not giving up hard contact. Getting out of the jams with strikeouts once those guys were on on the bleaters ended up as you heard striking out 10 but how about that stat that Mike Schilt pointed out after the game. I knew from Jesse they were talking about how consistently Michael King was getting the first pitch over but that one one stat blew my mind. Ruben showed him to me right after the, his outing, 83 pitch, 83 percent first pitch strikes and 100 percent one count strike. 83 percent of the time he got ahead 0 and 1 but then when he was 1 and 1 100 percent of the time that pitch was a strike he never fell behind 2 and 1 to that a single batter that was 1-1. So I think there was a couple 2-0s but the 1-1 pitch was in there every time. That is such a, it's such a pivotal pitch in and at batwoods you know this. The difference between 2 and 1 for a batter who can then go up and really like be aggressive and hunt versus 1 and 2 right now you're just trying to protect and trying to make some contact and you're probably going to strike out honestly against Michael King. Such a huge difference and to go 100 percent on the 1-1s to go to 1-2 you just don't have a lot of hope against Michael King and that's how it played out with the pirates unable to score again against guys I mean fantastic he'll be back next season you know knock on wood with Dylan Sees really the the nucleus already of a great rotation and then hopefully you finally add you know Joe Musgrove's back and you Darvis at some point you know really does seem like it could be a great rotation with guys next year as well but of course we're still on this year and I got a lot of baseball left to play here. So I mean outstanding pitching again the the offense yeah took a I mean never really totally got going but it's I was so bummed in the first inning you know I mean you're probably you're thinking oh four or five runs here we go this is the this is the blowout squad that we needed tonight and and you know with crony hit that ball up the middle and oh no and as soon as it ticked off his glove I said all right floodgates are about to open and they didn't open many had I mean again there's a lot of hat tipping going on but you got a tip your hat to bay you made a phenomenal catch in center field that that probably scores a couple if it drops yeah man they they ended up with just one there and you know though I didn't feel as deflated as I thought I would after having bases loaded nobody out only coming away with one again there is a confidence that that's built in me as a fan because of how hard those guys play and how badly they want to win so I wasn't super bummed I was not mad I'd also just watched Michael King dominate you know like I I know he had a couple bleaters there but you saw the movement you saw how it was coming out of his hand you saw how nasty he had the potential to be last night I also know we have a back end of the bullpen that is currently disgusting you know what they call it you heard this ass article sound system article sound system is the name of the back end of the pottery it's uh it's uh Adam and then it is Scott and then it is Suarez a s s now you now you what do you say what is that called a s s s s s yes that's our back of our mind some people will say man our bullpen is ass our bullpen is literally ass and they're amazing that's what you want that's what you want yes exactly right so I mean David Peralta incredible I mean just incredible just just absolutely yanks one out you know and then you get the insurance run late through Manny Manny gets a knock after hustle played by Luis Arise this is they're they're scratching they're clawing they're fighting they're dying to win baseball games it is so fun to watch you could add more a home in a strata in there would be like me ass me ass is not a real word I don't know I'm just trying to just add it all right I want I want to feel I want everyone to feel included okay we'll work on that oh yeah we can work on that yeah um me me ass me ass yes i don't get it um so we well because you know listen we're talking about talking about usage yeah okay and the first question of the uh press conference last night was about Michael King from Bob Scanlon and again if you watch Michael King throw last night does he look tired does he look worn down no he's seemingly getting stronger and that's what um that's what Bob Scanlon wanted to talk about and you know I know there's a lot of communication between Mike Shilton as players well so I'm about to wrap it up about to hit the sack and I just like oh I'll watch the presser well I watch the presser I went holy smokes what just what just happened we just what what's going on why why is everyone mad you have the uh the audio I sure do no this is this is unbelievable I mean clearly you're using them because you feel comfortable you know they're pre-game whatever the can you take us through kind of like because it is a lot of work especially for Suarez and and and Tanner why you're comfortable with is you're talking to them they've done this before why you're comfortable these guys having gone as much as they have in the past week um well they've not gone three in a row we've had days away um Scott's been the guy that's been more of the day off pitch you know he's going four out of five um again efficient you know Robert's had a couple days before that it's really no different than we've done with anybody all year so I don't you know we've had more it's run together more so it's more obvious to people but it's not like it hasn't been done that that helps end your question but to further explain your question um I think is yeah it's constant communication how do you feel you need a day you need a day we see you how it's coming out again these guys take care of himself or explain a little bit about the efficiency um but we've got a chance to win ball games we got guys in there capable and unable to pitch they they pitch how much would it help to have a five run leave of course he would help me I don't know what you want me to say to that of course it would help Mike this is a lot like it's a lot these high leverage guys having to go night and and night out and you're kind of like saying that it's not I've didn't say it or ace you're putting words in my mouth okay I'm pitching them accordingly to my experience in a communication with him if you have exception with that then the course if it's a five note I don't come here to argue with you oh god I've already answered it very clearly for a minute I don't know what more you want me to tell you that you're not hearing from me I really don't I've realized they pitched a lot I've recognized it I've I've given you the usage obviously if it was five to nothing that would be better it wasn't we're winning games I don't know what I don't I really have no idea what how to answer a question any any better clear I I I was I just couldn't I remember I was physically uncomfortable I was physically uncomfortable listening to that lesson I think I know obviously I think I know what Kevin was trying to say and sometimes we in the media don't articulate it as as good as we can I think you know I was looking at the usage too nothing nothing screams at me like these guys are going to be hanging I think about all the data that we have the the comments from Tanner Scott's former manager that said give him the ball he wants a ball he's not he's not he's there are certain guys they're like I'll take it I'll take it and then there are certain guys they're like I need a day and I what I don't think it's happening up there is Mike Schilt is calling down to the bullpen and the guy's going me oh dude I told him I needed I don't think that's happening at all and so but I understand I understand in this modern baseball you're so careful you have to be so careful because there is a huge stretch of games coming up and you can I don't know much but I do know this if Mike Schilt had a five nothing five run lead in the ninth inning he's elated when's the last time that's happened it's been a while and he had you know he had used Suarez I feel like there I actually feel like they're managing the arms pretty well right now I was looking at some usage last three three days Tanner Scott's thrown 29 pitches Jason Adams thrown 28 Suarez has thrown 28 Yuki's thrown 25 Brian Holings from 24 Astralis thrown 20 Sean Reynolds it's thrown 16 again this is the last three three days and Adrian Moore hone is down with the flu he's thrown none I um yeah I'm not going to put any words in Mike Schilt's mouth because he doesn't like that but I think clearly he knows that all right I'm gonna probably use those three guys either last night or today yeah one of the two not both and I've got them available so you know what this is a good situation I'm gonna use them tonight yeah I would be surprised if we saw any of them today that's what I tomorrow's an off day correct so he knows they're getting at least two who knows maybe Friday they don't need them they're getting some time off coming up here you weren't going to not use them both of those days so you got Yuki you got yeah Astrata you got Sean Reynolds and hopefully more home back you should be we'll continue this discussion top of the hour back with more next year on 97.3 the fan trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yet again with north sides and bullion is your 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 hey fantasy football fans this is Zach from uppercand fantasy you don't want an embarrassing tattoo just because you lost a bet in your fantasy football league right if you do I suggest I'm remade holding a football but let's avoid that all together bros and I are here to get you ready for your fantasy football drafts with insights and advice from sleepers to busts we've got you covered to give you the upper hand on your friends start your fantasy football prep now 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