Gwynn & Chris On Demand
Aug. 15th Hour 1: Padres on a historic roll
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Linked in. The place to be. To be. No matter what you're going through, you are never alone. Join me on my podcast, From the Heart with Rachel Braithin, every Friday. Each episode is like sitting down with your best friend for a cup of coffee. From self-care tips to inspiration for healing, this podcast offers the chance to return to nature, return to community, and return to who you are at your core. Straight from my heart to yours. Listen to and follow From the Heart with Rachel Braithin on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, San Diego? Welcome in to Gwen and Chris on this Thursday afternoon. Tony Gwen, Jr. Chris Ello, Adam Klug, Infirmat Scravey. He needs a vacation after what happened yesterday. Last night ended in a fiasco. We'll get to that later. Chris and I had a great laugh before the show listening to the Scravey show as it kind of went to the end there. It unraveled. It unraveled in and only a way that can unravel for Matthew Scravey. We'll share it with you guys later for those who didn't hear it. But Chris, we must start off with the sizzling San Diego Padres 16 games, over 500. They complete the sweep of the poor pirates that when they started this whole thing with against the Padres, they're only two and a half games out of a wild car spot. Now they leave this sizzling Padres squad. Losers of 10 straight and kind of out of it, right? I only have one thing to say, Tony, and to Tony Gwen, Jr. Fashion about the Padres right now. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what else you get. I don't know what other superlatives are left. I mean, they've gone from a record of 50 and 50 after 100 games to a record of 69 and 53. According to those people who keep these kinds of calculations, Tony, they now have a 95% chance of making the playoffs. And that just increased a little bit a moment ago because the Mets just lost to the A's. So the Padres now are six and a half games clear of the wild card, which we thought and it still might, but we thought that the whole wild card was just going to be a mad dash with like nine teams right down to the final week of the season. Right now, the Padres have a ton of breathing room there and the Dodgers lost today. So click on an updated standings in the National League lesson. It says two games, two thin games is all that separates the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks and the Padres. It's, uh, I don't know what else you say about the greatest streak in franchise history. Tony, you've been playing for 55 years. You've never gone 19 and three before. So it's kind of new for all of us. That's what you say is that it's the greatest streak. That's how you explain it. And, uh, listen, the Padres are just doing a lot of things. If not everything well right now. And when they don't do something well, it doesn't hurt them. And, you know, when the other team doesn't do something well, they take advantage. Yeah, that's, that's been like clockwork for, for the Padres in this, in this street, the ground ball and the Padres are going to put three runs on the board. Yeah, that's the way it's been going. And, uh, you know, like I said, because we talked about it all season that they were, the Padres played the first couple of months of the season with very little room for error. When they didn't play well, they didn't win. When they made base running mistakes or, you know, fielding errors or missed cut off guys, you know, they couldn't overcome it. Now it's almost like they laugh at it and just go, okay, what do we have to do? I mean, you know, they've come from five runs down, four runs down, six runs down, even when they lost, I mean, one of their three losses in this streak was the Oreo game on a Sunday when they almost pulled it out down six, nothing. Another one of the losses was the Hassan Kim home run game that they almost rallied from way behind to beat the Marlins. The only legit loss, when I first gave it a second half was that, well, that, but in the 19 and three streak, with the only legit loss was to the Rockies of all teams. And that's where they got to go tomorrow. And I know everybody's worried about it because the Rockies have given them a bad time. But I think the Padres are past that now. I mean, you look at the, you look at their record right now, Tony, they're two games over 500 against winning teams, which is, this is typical for a good team. But the Padres are crushing the bad teams now. And all of a sudden, there are 14 games over 500 against teams with a losing record. Yeah. And that's where the Rockies fall. So, you know, listen, it is Colorado. So, yeah, crazy things happen. Crazy things happen. And that place all the time. And I think, I think we said this the last time they went, you got to have to put these specific games in its own category because it's Colorado. And that's just what it is. Outside of that, I mean, the Padres are rolling right now. They went on that road trip where they didn't have great starting pitching. It was that a few good starts on that road trip, but it was largely the offense carrying the load. They come home. And when they got home, everybody called us on Monday and said, I'm so worried about our pitching, there is no way we can sustain this. Okay, sorry. So, they just went out and allowed only three runs in the next three games. Exactly. And the chill, everyone, the game that, I don't want to call it a blowout, but yesterday's game is big because they were able to to rest some of those bullpen arms that had pitched in some tight games there. So, Padres are moving in the right right direction. Now, things can get a little tough from this point, right? Because the Padres will now embark on 18 games in 18 days. No days off for three weeks. This is an in that time frame. The Padres will play the Rockies. We know that they'll have the twins. Good ball club. Good team. That's the twins are followed by the Mets who are the team right now, sitting two and a half out of the last wild card spot. So there and by the way, they swept the Padres back when we went to New York. So different team, no doubt, different team really both ways. Because, you know, quite frankly, the Mets weren't playing great when they swept the Padres. Padres were doing in the midst of their up and downness. They had just had a terrific home stand for the first time, I believe. And then they went on the road and they went one and six. That was during the stretch when the Padres couldn't touch a left-handed pitcher. Right. Quintana or Quintana shut them down followed by Menaya. Then they went to Philadelphia and they couldn't touch Suarez or Sanchez. And I never thought the Padres are going to score a run against a left handed pitcher again for a while. But they've seen the straight and all of that out. The thing that I'm most amazed at. I mean, a 19 and three stretch is really, really good in baseball. I think somebody said that it's only happened like 10 times in the last five years in all of baseball for any team to go 19 and three. So it doesn't happen very often. Maybe twice a year a team gets on a streak like this. So that's rare enough. But the thing that has just amazed me Tony day after day after day is who's getting the job done. And it's never the same person. Different guy. It is. And yesterday, Peralta had the big one on his birthday, by the way. Congratulations and a great way to celebrate. But you know, Croninworth came up big. One day it's Solano. One day it went, maybe more than one day it's Jackson Merrill. But everybody contributing. Everyone contributing. I don't want to leave him out. The only guy that hasn't had a major impact, you know, at bat or an RBI in the last, you know, 15 games is Hassan Cameron. He nearly had one of the big ones in Miami. That wasn't really his fault. So, you know, he gosh, Yoka's come through so many times. And, you know, Manny's, you know, picked it up and lit it up and haven't even got the pro far yet or any of the starting pictures. And everything that AJ Preller has done has been magical this year, including what he did at the trade deadline. He picked up Hoeing who hasn't given up a run. He picked up Jason Adam, who hasn't given up a run, picked up Martin Perez, who everybody thought was the next coming of Rich Hill. Instead, he's the next coming of, you know, Bob Feller. I don't know. I mean, 18 innings, four runs for Martin Perez. I mean, it's just been great. And, you know, you can't wait to see what's going to happen next. What was everybody? I thought that was just a you thing with Rich Hill. Was that everybody thinking it was going to be a right? I didn't come up with the Rich Hill idea. That was our Twitter and all over the place, man. Everybody was thought, oh, we got another left handed picture from Pittsburgh with a terrible record. Right. Rich did come from. So, you know, everyone, everyone else brought that one up. I just passed along the bad news. The crazy part is, he's been, I think, better than you could, than we could have ever imagined in our best case scenario. No, even, you know, I mean, so three games from him, they've won all three games that he's pitched. And nobody's concerned about, you know, about there. And he's throwing, well, Ruben Niebla is the pitching whisperer. Everybody he gets ahold of, it seems as if he's able to figure something out, straighten them out. Martin Perez was interviewed prior to the game yesterday and said, you know, this guy took one look at me and he said, you know, making little adjustment here with the lower part of your body. Do a little, try this, try that. The thing with Ruben Niebla, though, is he's a guy that says, try this. He doesn't say, do this. Yes. He says, try this. Do what you do, but try this. And that's what Martin Perez was saying. And it's helped him, obviously. And, you know, we don't mention him enough, but you and I have started to throw out the name of Victor Gonzalez, because the Padres, even in the days of your dad with his great batting averages, the Padres have never, ever led Major League Baseball in batting average. Well, they're leading right now, 265, and they're doing a Tony by making contact. They also lead the league in the fewest times striking out. And these are two things that the analytic people say, do not matter. Well, sorry, analytic people. Apparently it matters some because the Padres are having great success with putting the ball in play. And you know what? I may not have been mentioning in his name on our show and shame on me for not doing so. I've certainly made his name as loud as I could on the broadcast. I remember walking into spring training the first day, getting a chance to meet Victor Victor was a young player on my dad. And one of the other teammates in Puerto Rico, when he, when my dad was really young, and he, his him and his wife got to know my dad and my mom very well. So much so that, you know, I was hearing stories about Victor's wife holding me as a baby. And so I got a chance to like kind of pick his brain on this very early in spring training. And he laid out how he's basically, once he got the job, he reached out to, to every, all the guys, he had got a chance to work with him and talk to him and just kind of discuss the game plan that they were going to try to achieve. And I promise you, this is exactly, we want to be hard up the middle when you use the middle of the field, right when it hit things on the line. We want to put the ball in play. We want to put the ball in play hard, but we want to put it in play. And I'll tell you what, they have, it took, and really the, the signs were there early. The Padres have been leading the league and hitting for most of the most of the year, very close to it. And the only thing it was, it just hadn't, it wasn't easy to see because the Padres were losing games. They'd have a few games where they wouldn't score any runs or they wouldn't get very many hits, but the process had already started. And I think what we're seeing now here in the middle of August is that, that game plan, that team concept is starting to come into full maturity right now. But it's a team wide thing that they've done this year, right? And that's why everybody's contributed up and down the order. Everyone's bought into it, it seems like this off. You think Manny's cut his swing down a little this year? Yes. I don't know if he's cut his swing down, but his intent and what he's trying to do certainly seems to be different. I think the other thing, and I was listening to Yonder talk about this, having Bogey back and playing well and hitting behind Manny, all of a sudden, Manny's getting a few more pitches to attack now. I think that's important, but it all goes back to which that word you just said, and that's buying. Everybody is bought in on this offense. I mean, no, just think about the times that Padres have capitalized on an air. That's them putting the ball in play, forcing the defense to do their job, do something. And when they don't do something, you can't do that. If you're popping up or you're striking out, those, those are like empty outs that you can't do anything with. Nothing can happen in your favor. And all of a sudden, this team is the hardest to strike out in baseball, or at least in the national league. No, in baseball. It's a wide margin. I think they have eight or 10 fewer strikeouts than anybody. It's a hard team to punch out, and that plays well for this style of play that the Padres plays. A very old school way of playing. Count me in on something that's old school, Tony, you know that, especially from innings six through nine. They really start to, that's when you see the sack bunch, you can see the, the, the, the kind of small ball game that I think has given the Padres a lot of success. You know, I watched the Pirates yesterday, Tony, and I'm not a hitting coach, but you may have noticed this. Perez was throwing nothing but off speed, or not, you know, 90% off speed, curve balls on the outside, backdoor stuff, change ups on the outside at the knees. And to a man, I watched it. Almost every pirate batter tried to pull the ball, and it was six to three pop fly to center, easy ground ball, even the home run that Joey Bart hit was an outside pitch that he pulled over the left field fence. Change up. And I thought to myself, that's the wrong approach. That's a team that's doing things wrong. And what the Padres have been doing is doing things right. I think you could just see the difference in that game yesterday. Yeah, I mean, that's a pirate team. That's, that's a talent, but they're still learning how to win games. I mean, how many games did they blow in Pittsburgh for the Padres? And then they turned around in the first two games of this series. They basically handed the Padres insurance runs to make those games out of reach for them. And that's a, that's the difference. You know, go back to last year's offense and we got to get to break here. A much more prolific offense last year. But when you got everybody trying to hit the ball out of the country, you didn't quite line up the way we thought. No, I love in what I see this year. And to me, Louisa rise kind of sets the tone because he's that kind of hitter right off the bat. No, it's going to make contact. He's not going to strike out. He's going to the line drive somewhere. And it seems like everybody follows his lead. So yeah, I'm loving it. No doubt about it. All right, we got a good show for you guys. We're growing till five. You got a round table coming up after our show. But meantime, we'll have Bryce Miller in the two o'clock hour or have Rob Bradford host of Odyssey's baseball. Is it boring podcast? Get a little East Coast flavor of the game of baseball in a three o'clock hour. We got a Chris versus the fans day, the gambit, a big five all coming up more winning Chris on the other side. One and natural way to produce fine lines and wrinkles. 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My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply linkedin. The place to be to be. No matter what you're going through you are never alone. Join me on my podcast from the heart with Rachel Grayton every Friday. Each episode is like sitting down with your best friend for a cup of coffee. From self-care tips to inspiration for healing. This podcast offers the chance to return to nature return to community and return to who you are at your home. Straight from my heart to yours. Listen to and follow from the heart with Rachel Grayton on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. First bit swinging. Peralta sends one in the ear to deep right. Dailon crews is back at the wall looking up. Pina go. How about a birthday blast for David Peralta. His second home run of the series. And now eight to nothing here in the third. The last Padre to Homer on his birthday before yesterday. Do you know? Do you know? How about hedgy? Austin Hedges was the last Padre to Homer on his birthday. But now it is David Peralta. We welcome you back to going in Chris. 223 is the time. If you just tuned in we've already got good news for you even though the Padres are idle today. The Dodgers let a lead get away in Milwaukee and the brew crew beat him six to four. So the lead is down to two games in the national league West. Not only that the Padres are only two games out of the number one seed in the national league and want to get too carried away. But why not? I can only three and a half out of the first best record in all the baseball. You know, it's funny Chris is we had a hard time on our roundtable coming up with topics. Yeah. That topic right there. I have a feeling would set a firestorm off. Do we want the first seed or do we want to buy? Do we want to rest? We see how the other teams have done. I can already hear it. Yeah, it'll probably be on next week's roundtable. But if you want to hear this week's roundtable stay tuned after this show. It'll be coming up at five o'clock today. It was then said it on the roundtable itself. It was tougher to come up with topics because there's nothing to complain about right now. If you are the Padres and they've got the good streak going. All right. A couple of quick things. I wanted to mention that we do have the baseball isn't boring podcast guy Rob Bradford. He's coming up in the three o'clock hour and Bryce Miller in the two o'clock hour. We're also going to give you a chance today to win a pair of tickets to see Def Leppard and to see Journey at Petco Park on August 30th tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com. If you're interested in those tickets stay close by. All right. We have five minutes here. Sure. The debacle that was Scrappy yesterday. Oh, let's get it. He is not here to defend himself and he was even better. Maybe Tony says he was he was dude. He had he actually is not on vacation. He's off to attend his grandfather's funeral for the next couple of days. So we wish he and the family well. But he had a tough send off yesterday during the Scrappy Chronicles. Adam, why don't you since you're kind of a you know a production type guy. Can you help explain to us what went wrong for him here before we play the clip of him trying to fix it. Come on in production type guy. Come on production type guy. Yeah. Yeah. In Scrappy's defense from the Scrappy show I put him in this position where he's the only person in here. So he's kind of running the board on his own while also hosting his show. Yeah. And so when you're it's it's real simple. When you guys are done talking with it when you're segment over we go to break and play commercials. We have a computer system that plays the commercials. So Scrappy did his opening segment. He was ready to go to break and when he clicked a button to go to break which is a break for when you're hosting and you could gather your thoughts and get ready for the next segment. The commercials didn't fire and the entire system shut down and he's just sitting there like oh my god now there are silence. I have to keep talking when I wasn't prepared to keep talking. Yeah. Only Matthew Scrappy. Yeah. There was a classic moment in a movie and I think I don't remember which crazy movie was way back in the day where a weather guy is doing the way it's a short piece but the weather guy's doing the weather on the local TV news and he goes that's it. Let's go to break and the TV camera won't go off and it won't go off of the guy and he's like trying to figure out where to go. He's trying to get off off the off the stage but the camera keeps following him and he's this is what happened to Scrappy yesterday. So here's how he handled it. There's some classic moments in here. All of that is next. You're listening to the Scrappy show. I'm Matt Scrappy. Thank you for listening to 97.3. The fan be back shortly. I would be back shortly if the thing will click. See I'm clicking. I'm clicking. I have no idea what's happening. It's not playing any commercials right now. Well this is just great everybody. Let me see if I could try to start another one. Okay. Well this is awesome. On the air right now with no help and there are no commercials to be played. I'm going to text Adam on the air and I'll just keep talking because yeah here's the text. Adam I tried to go to break and the commercials didn't work. Actually you know what I'm going to do everybody. You're getting a real live thing right here. This is this is real live Matt Scrappy. I'm going to have to restart White Orbit real quick. So goodbye White Orbit. We're going to continue talking. Let's talk about uh let's see here. All right let's go into the eudarist. I think it's enough pain for him right there. That's enough pain. Oh poor guy. Well this goes on for quite a bit longer. It took two minutes plus for that to finally fix itself and that's a long time if you don't have anything to say. But I think the classic line there is well this is just great. We're going to hear that drop as long as this show exists. We are creating a drop for that and he's going to have to play it in the future. That's a tough one man. I mean I don't know what you do when you're prepared to not talk and then all of a sudden you're the bright light is still on you. That's a tough one. Scrappy. Oh this is just great. It's crazy as a jewel man. I love that guy. He is the best. He is just great everybody. Yeah we're going to hear that a few times in the next few weeks. Oh my goodness poor guy. Uh by the way uh we do have Adam in here today and he's lucky that I'm talking to him Tony at all. Why is that? After his son uh oh yeah called me out the other night in a beautiful moment of uh I heard about a young of a of a young child just being honest and what happened was I got to the game Monday night Tuesday night. It goes Monday night. Yeah Monday night and I was checking in there at the media gate and they're scanning my credential and I hear from behind me. Hey look it's Chris Ello and I turn around to see who this is and it was Adam Klug our our boss and he's standing there with his young son Ethan who is seven eight seven seven and Ethan's got his pottery hat on. He's ready to go and I get finished checking my credential and Adam says yeah this is uh this is Chris. Well he's a big time guy and uh Ethan looks up at me and goes are you on the Gwen and Chris show? That will put you in your place right away. Wait where where's the well he didn't know who I was. I mean he knew I was somebody but he didn't he didn't make the connection that I was the Chris. He didn't make the connection that I was the Chris from the Gwen and Chris. Oh he didn't make the connection. He didn't make the connection. Yeah he uh he missed the connection. I didn't tell the story very good. So I knew that we worked together. I sent Chris Ello. He knows your name and he goes are you on Gwen and Chris? Yeah to which Chris is I am the Chris. I am the guy. I am the guy but that that that reminds you very quickly you know you are just a guy and especially in the mind of a nine of a young seven year old uh but uh yeah so that was good. Adam but I also see Adam that you uh didn't take Tony and I's advice from the last time you work the show with us. You've shaved your head. I have shaved my hair. Can we can we get the college fro back back. We're asking for the college. We're asking just for some hair at all since you're capable of growing it. You did not follow our advice. I mean I see it I actually play off fro man what was what we do. I'd like to ask my wife if she thought she'd grow my hair out. Oh boy. She said no. That was the end of that I do. Do we do we do the playoff haircut thing? Did she say it was up to you? Did she really say it was up to you or did she say it was up to you but I wouldn't do it if I were you. Well I told I told my wife that I was thinking of growing out the fro again and her response was well this is just great everybody. Good call. Understand how you arrived at the decision you arrived at. Yeah me too. All right Bryce Miller the uh outstanding columnist from the San Diego Union Tribune to try to make some sense of this incredible Padre hot streak. We'll talk about that. Another thing San Diego with him when we come back on Gwen and Chris. 237 on the clock kind of nerding out here right now MLB network is on and I don't know if you guys have caught that clip that they put out of Greg Maddox and Barry Bonds they handed them separate iPads and different destinations and they're looking at the same at bat and it just it just gives me chills like thinking about it. It just goes into. Barry Bonds is talking about what he thinks Maddox is thinking and Maddox is talking about what he thinks Barry Bonds is thinking and poor Greg Maddox who is one of the best pitchers of all time. It's almost as if Barry is in his head even how what this is 2003 I think it was our 2002 so however many years it is my math is 22 years later. Yeah they can both remember the at bat. They both remember it at bat and Barry is almost is in Greg's head. It is amazing in the sequence and Barry ends up taking him deep in that I gotta say Maddox is a hell of a guy for agreeing to do this when the at bat is with a home run off of him. Those very nice of him to do doubt about it. All right Bryce Miller is ready and available of the UT Bryce. Welcome to Gwen and Chris once again. Thanks for coming on. Yeah that's me ready and available. Well hey Mike Shilt may call on you you know you say ready and available. Bryce. Yeah I am not I am not available for high leverage situations. Fair enough. Fair enough. Padres playing perhaps the best baseball of the season sitting atop the wild card standings. Now only two games out of the National League West. They're getting ready to take on 18 games in 18 days but let's put that aside for a sec. I mean what has you know opened your eyes in this run the Padres have been on? I think it's just how they've gotten everything in the engine to fire at the same time. I think the issue last year there is disappointing as last season was for Padres fans. There were moments when the offense was there. There were moments when the pitching was there but it was never at the same time. At least never for a sustained period and now they've shown that both those things can be true. They can get pitching. They can create enough offense when they do and now we finally get a glimpse of what this might look like when all those things happen at once. I mean it's silly to try to try to say somebody waved a magic wand over it. You know Dylan Sees is part of that magic wand. Luis arrives as part of that magic wand. The pickups Donovan Solano has been a fantastic pickup by AJ Peller. You know you can go down the list of the things that you might call like catalysts that have helped trigger or maybe sustained things but just the fact that this is what this team can look like when all those things happen at the same time. Bryce Miller, San Diego Union Tribune columnist, has been writing about mediocre baseball for years. Now all of a sudden we're writing about a team that is on an incredible run right now. Who do you or who do you think we should give most of the credit to right now? I mean is it an AJ Peller thing where everything he's done is magical or is this the same team that Mike Shilt had all year but he just did a great job of setting them up for this run. I guess I'm going to assume that it's a little of everybody when you're going this good. Yeah I don't know that's a good column. I should steal that from you and go and just write that but you know what if you were forced to pick somebody but but it's some of all of it. I don't think there's any doubt. I mean not only I mean we rattle off a couple of the moves AJ Peller made but we're not even talking about the outfield they put together that we'll be honest at the beginning of the season in spring training. Nobody thought this would be an outfield that would carry a team to the playoffs. I mean jerks and pro-farts at that point in his career was not an especially getting older. The math didn't add up that this is your everyday left fielder if you're going to make a big run and all he does is becomes an all star for the first time in his 10 or 11 seasons in the big leagues. Everybody thought you can't put a 20 year old in a premium position like center fielder you know Jackson Merrill a guy that's never played triple-a baseball barely played double-a baseball and expect a win and you can't wind up those two guys next to each other. But he went out and got pro-fart who was out of the market and available very late in the cycle. Lots of teams could have picked up jerks and pro-fart and they found you know lightning in a bottle there in both those cases and then as we talked about you had to see you had a rise. The the pieces that he's assembled you know somebody asked me the other day and I had to say all those criticisms over the years and I was in that line too and I if you think those were deserved I think the credit for AJ Preller is deserved right now too you can't have it one where or the other. This is a finish line business so they still have to do something in the post season they got to get there which map now because of the post all star break run it looks like that's that's going to happen and you still got to do something but you also can't ignore to your point Chris what Mike Shilt has done we've all made fun of the or most of us have made fun of and I'm grouping myself in the everything's rosy the sky is blue and you're in the right city for that if you're going to have the sky is always blue mentality because it generally is but he has been so even keeled and not allowed this team to get too low when they seem just stuck at 500 the needle was stuck there but the way he's managed this team is got to be a part of it and then what jerks and pro far has done what Jackson Merrill has done so I don't think you can pinpoint one person and that's the way you become a team that's playing like this it's not one person who does it. Bryce Miller joins us here going and Chris and Bryce that's AJ let's talk about the manager because he walked into a unique situation right he was a part of the organization but wasn't necessarily on the staff he filled in at certain times I mean that had to be kind of a cheat code in some ways as opposed to what Bob Melvin walked into not really knowing anybody in the organization Mike Shields kind of had a little bit of a head start in that situation what about the job that he's done not only on the field but kind of managing within that clubhouse as well. You raised a really good point that I don't think a lot of people have raised he had momentum Mike showed that you know Bob Melvin didn't I'm still not convinced Bob known as a bad manager his track record says he's not his track record that says the opposite especially in some of the markets he wanted but the value of you know we learned later that he worked you know away from the spotlight with Todd TV says he was going through surgeries and things so he had a relationship with Fernando before before he got this job and you know that extends across the organization in all kinds of places but people forget too all he did in St. Louis was win I mean historically in some moments that win streak they had at the end of the season that that was a front office dust stuff that led to that separation it wasn't because my chip wasn't winning baseball games they were in the playoffs every season you know so look at that track record too but I think it's an excellent point that he had momentum unique momentum that not a lot of managers have when they take a position like this. Bryce you talked about Jack Jackson Merrill and it's pretty hard not to talk about him almost to the point of where we could be over doing it here you know it's the middle of August and we're trying to give him the award but I thought you had an interesting sit down with Fred Lynn I mean this guy's a one of the great center fielders one rookie of the year was an MVP that same year and I think he had a pretty good perspective on Jackson Merrill but he seemed as amazed as everybody that Jackson Merrill has been able to do what he's done and then on top of it put together this incredible streak over the last week of game time home runs and defensive saving catches. Yeah one of my takeaways one it was just great to sit down for an hour and a half and talk baseball he just grabbed breakfast stuff and Carl's bad and and talked a lot about Merrill but baseball in general he was more impressed easily by what he's done defensively and you know the offensive numbers are what people talk about with Jackson Merrill and comparing OPS and and you know there's a million ways to slice and vice his offensive numbers and be impressed by that but he's like I played center field across this league and we've played more division games so we're playing in places we're more familiar with he's a rookie every part he's going to his new every bounce off the wall is new every way the wind is swirling you know in this park or that park is new the guys he's playing next to her new he goes he's drinking out of a fire hose defensively he goes I was a great defender I could write a book about playing center field and to see what he has done and the confidence and the skill level and not playing that position ever before that's that's what blows his mind and and he's absolutely right that's the trickiest part of that if a guy can hit that can translate across moves you know it's still impressive that he comes up the big leaves without playing triple A and hits like he's hitting but that can happen but what he's done to just you know crash course I'm playing center field at the big league level is what Fred Lynn told me is one that he scratches his head the head about it and most impressed by him and I get his point because it's pretty incredible it starts with his confidence as you mentioned Bryce and believe it or not is as good as he's been he's got like a a big gap in terms of how good he can actually be in that spot so it will wait have to wait and see in terms of if that's going to be his permanent position moving forward Bryce Miller joins a series of the Union Tribune and Bryce we're they're doing all of this without a guy named Fernando Tati's Jew who has been on the IEL we starting to see him his head peek out a little more which I believe means he's probably starting to ramp up a little bit do you have anything on where Tati is right now nothing more than all of us are hearing that you know he got into baseball activities I think the one thing that's clear is they're just they're going to take it slow they're going to be patient they're going to take their time one thing that doesn't get talked about a ton is the more this team wins the more leash that gives them to be patient they're not they don't have to panic that they need his bat and he's glugging the lineup to try to make the playoffs they just need him to arrive when he's ready to arrive and the best shape he can be in to get him through into October and through October but there's no doubt you add him back in the lineup it's not just that you put a platinum glove guy in right field but his ability to lengthen the lineup hit for power but now look at the depth of that bench now David puts a bench piece more consistently you talk about Solano you start going down the list Tyler Wade has been enough of what you need him to be Bryce Johnson has shown class use they now that's a really good playoff level bench because you just got deeper not just offensively one through nine but you got deeper in all kinds of ways in terms of holes and plugging in pieces and if guys get hurt so he does a lot more than just putting him back in the lineup he does something broader for this team and so yeah whenever he's ready to play that's going to be a huge addition I don't think there's any doubt about that Bryce Tonya and I were talking a little bit ago and Tony said I shouldn't open this can of worms but now I'm going to the Padres are now only two games behind the Dodgers we've seen what has happened to the Dodgers every year they win the division and then have to rest should we honestly be thinking about trying not to win this division price I mean I mean we've been trying to beat the Dodgers we've been trying to beat the Dodgers for you know 30 years it seems like now they've got a chance to beat him please don't have people call me and say oh we got to not win the division right that is one of the most insane things I've ever heard good thank you most the most classic overthink that I could come up with you know of course of course you want to win the division because of what it says what it means one of the narratives is yeah the player you know Padres might make the playoffs but you know they don't win the division the Dodgers win the division well that doesn't change until you change it and then not only that but you give yourself a little bit of rest I know some have argued that rest doesn't help teams some teams want to keep playing some players like to have the momentum you know stay in rhythm but there yeah I don't I don't get that thinking at all there's a chance to win the this division you do it because it's meaningful price last one for me I mean obviously this bullpen has has been short up pretty strong Joe Musgrove made his start back there's kind of been some at least reports that you know you Darvish is starting to throw and then the thing that has is being talked about a little bit in Ken Rosenthal's article is this waiver wired there's going to be some teams it sounds like that are going to dump some players onto the waiver wire the Rangers are the team that I think a lot of people are circling they got some pieces there I mean this is something that's been going on in the game of baseball for a very very long time but some people now are saying maybe there's a rule change in order with what your thoughts yeah it's hard to know with the waiver wire I've heard I've heard the of all the things too you know you I think the part one of the things the Padres have done such a good job is just pay attention your own business pay attention to what you deal with what you have under your control every day don't worry if a team if they were going to worry about pickups they could have folded the tent when the Dodgers got a tawny I mean the whole league could have I mean if that's how that thinking you know it's supposed to go if you start to worry about what other teams are doing I think the biggest most powerful thing about this team is that they are a team they have a bench they have varying pieces they have you know they much much better bullpen relief staff in terms of you know what they can do from the sixth inning on it's about creating the type of team that can consistently win in the playoffs it's not about what other teams are doing like you're right if you get you know you get Fernando back you get a Joe Musgrove that looks like Joe Musgrove looked the other night this team is this team's playoff ready it's more than playoff ready well Bryce as always you sound like your playoff ready and we appreciate you coming on and spending some time with us we'll catch up again soon yeah anytime guys thanks Bryce Bryce Miller Union Tribune things look pretty good for the pods right now I must say it's kind of hard to argue against it Giants up six nothing over the Braves sorry Adam Brewers took down the Dodgers yeah and the Mets go down to the Oakland Athletics even the scoreboard has been kind now shout out to to Mark Kotzek he's manager getting it done all right I mean any games man that guy should be manager of the year no kidding let's get to break Daily Gambit on the other side tired of fine lines and wrinkles Durham McLaren has the solution our 100% medical grade silicone patches are designed to naturally reduce wrinkles and improve skin texture safe effective and reusable these patches deliver visible results in as little as 20 minutes and lasting results in just 30 days our customers rave about their transformations plus with our satisfaction guarantee you can try derma care risk free discovered the power of natural skincare at derma clara.com and say hello to 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