[MUSIC] It's a fan morning shows 4.7.5.9 to fan, Ben and his friend gunning. Panthers have two nothing in the Stanley Cup final after a 4-1 win over the Oilers. Good morning, Brad. No more goalying for the Oilers. They were just thoroughly outplayed start to finish. How do one nothing lead? It was like a complete reversal of fortune you thought. Like they were getting pounded in in the first period. And Tia Zekwom done a two-on-one, but not exactly a laser beam to the bag in the net. And it's won nothing on their first shot of the game. Unfortunately for them though, the Panthers are quite good and looked the part the rest of the way. Good morning to you as well. Yeah, whatever the opposite of a laser beam is, that was like a slinky going towards the net just like, well, I'll get there. Hold on. I'm making my way over there slowly is what that shot felt like from back home. But hey, like they all go in. They all count. How is the only one though? That's the problem. I was playing a little game with myself through two periods. I was wondering what the tenor of conversation was going to be about the Oilers. And I was happy to, you know, I'm reading specs, post-game piece this morning. I'm looking and I'm happy to realize that it is these guys need to be better because I I'll be honest after the first game. It wasn't that I didn't mostly agree with what everyone had said, but I was thinking to myself, how bad can the Oilers play? And we still fall over ourselves to give them a lot of credit. We found the floor. Apparently we were not given credit for for that game last night because they quite frankly don't deserve any. They weren't generating the ton of looks that they did in the first game. And yeah, it wasn't just a case of Bob being great because guess what Bob stunk on the goal that he gave up. You certainly could have found a way to squeak another one or two like that past him. So this is far from a series being over. I don't think we're at that point yet far, far from it, but yeah, concerning if you're the Oilers. Absolutely. Yeah. Game one not concerning, but like now in retrospect, game one was kind of concerning like you had it at your fingertips, the ability to escape Florida with a series split. It's the old. Now you have to beat them five times kind of, right, that you played so well in that game. You feel like you deserved a win. And now, okay, win five out of seven, surely that won't be harder. We've got one goal now in two games and again, it was a bad goal, but as Kelly Rudy readily pointed out, it was like 30 minutes between shots of real time for Sir Gabe Abrovsky. He's now made 19 starts in the postseason as a 15th time he's allowed to a fewer goals against supposed to be absurd how good he's been. Was that an entertaining game from your perspective? Because the Panthers don't like the Rangers Panthers series, they have played them and there are a lot of close games, not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing series. I would say, I don't know if the Panthers play like a brand of hockey that you would, if you were trying to get like an alien into the sport hockey, like a alien, I mean, I guess you'd have to, I don't know, maybe a translator would translate between the two languages and less like by circumstance, they both, they'd speak English during us. >> I'm going to give the aliens credit that they can understand us and I feel like they'd have a way to talk to us. We have nothing to do with this equation just so we're clear. They're smart, maybe they can read your mind. >> Maybe. >> I hope not. >> Anyways, I don't think Panthers games, even in the postseason would be what I would show them to turn them into hockey fans and all the other games, for sure, and even game won in a loss. But like the fact that the Oilers created opportunities and the Panthers were bad enough to allow those opportunities to happen, a little more entertaining. Yesterday, more of the prototypical Florida Panthers game where they're like, oh, you know all that offensive skill and all the talent that you have and all the power play goals that you score. And eventually the Oilers figured things out on the power play and created some opportunities hits and posts. But like even the early power plays for the Oilers in that game, snuffed out. Not a lot going on. The Panthers were at their peak selves for basically the whole 60 minutes yesterday. >> I think the Panthers can be a very entertaining hockey team, but they are very much a fighter or what's, I'm going to butcher the old boxing saying, but like styles make fights or whatever it is. >> I did. Look at me. I nailed it. Someone out there is now disgusted that I'm so happy with myself for doing it, but was once proud of me for for nailing it. The Panthers need the right type of foil for it to be an entertaining series. I understand where everyone was coming from during the Rangers Panther series and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that was overly stylistically entertaining, but Rangers are big and nasty and mean and I kind of wanted to be that to the Panthers and that to me is entertaining. The Oilers aren't that. The Oilers are a team that can play entertaining hockey against anybody because that's kind of all they got. Yes, they have an ability to lock it down at times and yes, they can be a little more physical than they've been in the past, but the Oilers still for the most part kind of play this game this thing one way. It's incredibly exciting. It's incredibly high octane, whereas with the Panthers, they're also going to do it. But if it's against a team that is going to be match the physicality and match the meanness that we're just selling a very different version of the sport, but I think if you want to like look forward to what would grab most people's attention, I would say that it's an Oilers game where they're allowed to just run free and open. But when I think of the NFL games and you know, maybe this is not that I'm, you know, so aged here, but maybe I'm showing my age that I don't think of a Chiefs Patriots shootout or something or, you know, Chiefs bills or whatever it is, shoot out as a most entertaining game. I remember watching for football are the Steelers Panthers, sorry, the Steelers, Ravens and Steelers, Bengals games that got violence legislated out of the sport. That was very entertaining to me. So I still think this Panthers team given the right foil and it didn't really exist for them out of any of the teams that were going to come out of the West. That's not Colorado unless it was Vegas. That was really the only one. So Florida needs the right kind of dance partner to be entertaining, but I think they can be the Oilers if given the space can be that against anybody. That's kind of the way I look at it. They had no space yesterday. What are you though? Like, do you see a, do you, how much mileage do you take out of the Panthers? And I'm with you, not in this series, not visually entertaining. I just think like this is, listen, it's not the 90s. It's not the devil's. It's not Marty Broder right over there, right? Like it's not Scott Stevens. Oh, no. It was entertaining. Oh God. I mean, unless you were Paul Korea, I don't know if you found the ad. I know he and I know he like wore it, but the call we got. No, they're amazing. The Panthers are on the floor. God was so good. The Panthers are a very, very good. And I think, boy, would anybody one be shocked that the Panthers are in the Cup final at the outset of the postseason? No, or two up two games to none, even against the Edmunds and Oilers? No, nobody would be shocked. They were there a season ago, I think, during the course of the regular season. Well, they didn't win the president's trophy. They finished at the top of a very good. Atlantic division. Yeah. So this is all credit to them, but I got to say, like watching them, it doesn't really get the juices flowing. Their whole MO is great for check, great for check, chip it out. You make a mistake. We capitalize on that. And yeah, kudos to them. They're probably going to win a Stanley Cup that way. I'm glad you brought up the discourse around the Oilers because, yeah, it's all I think about too, because now we got, here we are, we're through 120 minutes of action in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the first in the career of Conor McDavid and Leon Dreyseidel. McDavid, with the one assist. Yep. And that's it. This was paid to do. That's it. That's all she wrote over two games. Leon Dreyseidel, of course, zero points through two games, power plays over in the series against a very good penalty kill, but the Oilers have the best and Panthers managed to get one yesterday. Leon Dreyseidel getting frustrated, getting the hands up into the face where I guess the elbow, like forearm shiver, I go, yeah, it's still looked innocuous. But yeah, obviously, like Sasha Barkoff's not faking it. No, I don't think so, no, but they're kind of leasing through two, two games of this postseason series, you know, there's, there's, this is the most talented Oilers team ever. And they don't score in game one, they get goal lead, have a lot of chances. And I, again, I do believe that and the, the Oilers getting goal lead looks a lot different than when the Leafs get goal lead, but yeah, here we are through two games and, and they're all saying the right things. I do want to play some Conor McDavid and post game from yesterday too, which is like, that's the real differentiating factor between what the Oilers are doing and what the Leafs are doing. Also, this is happening in the Stanley Cup finals. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, where are the stars, Brett? Where are the stars? Probably the exact place when we were, we were not asking the question. We were merely preparing our weaponry to ask the question about where they were in that bad Cooper series. And then Conor McDavid had four point night and they went on to win the series. Much like we had times in the Dallas series said, Hey, Conor been a little quiet here. And then the big game is, is lurking. He has, despite not having the ultimate success yet, showing an ability to bounce back when put in a, actually, you know what, I'm going to phrase it a different way. I don't think it's an ability to bounce back. I think he's Connor free coming David and it's impossible to keep him quiet for that long. Now that doesn't mean I think a four point game is coming in game three. I could see it, but there's a reason the Panthers have been able to stifle him. But we have had many versions of this crisis all along the road here with McDavid, the, you know, the King series went pretty smoothly, but we have had a moment in each of the last two series. We go, where are these guys relatively speaking as they are third and fourth all time in playoff points per game? So, you know, it's grating on a bit of a curve here, but we have had this mini conversation twice already. And guess what's happened? They figured out new Oilers won the series. So it's pretty hard to sit here and say that that's not going to happen to some extent. I don't know that it'll be enough, but I highly doubt those guys are just quiet the, for the entirety of this thing, even if it is only five or six games. Okay. What would buoy me if I was an Oilers fan as one that those guys exist? Yeah. Thank you, I've seen proof of concept this entire postseason run very good. Also though, like the words from the captain post game yesterday, it is again, compare some of the stuff that we've heard from leaf significant core four players at the conclusion of disappointing postseason games to this. Looking forward to people doubt this again, you know, we're, you know, we're good with the backs against the wall. Oh my God. I would just absolutely love that if I was an Oilers fan. That's his. And I guess this is maybe not the greatest example to use here, but I got. Demar de Rosen. I got us. Oh, well, if we could reach, if the Oilers could only reach those heights. He did have us right in some games that I just, I actually feel disgusting even making that joke about tomorrow, I love to murder Rosen, but yeah, there's some of that vibe to it. I, this is where I have to get off the train that I think everyone is taking with this. We've, we've all gone on the nice journey of saying nice things about the Oilers and this is where I have to depart literally down to the our group. We hear that from the Leafs all the time. It is maybe not said in his stoic away. If we heard I'm looking forward to the challenge out of Mitch Marner after he was pointless through two games of a playoff series, you know what we said? Where have you been in the first two games of the challenge? So I am not sitting here saying, oh, that's all lip service from, I think he means it. I think that's very similar to what we hear from the Leafs. We just hear it in a series that they ultimately end up losing. So we sit there and go loser, don't want to hear it. Don't want to hear about process. We want to hear about results. We hear that all the time. Now John Cabar is the same mentality. You don't, you don't think there's a different mentality that exists between Connor McDavid and here's the differences that Connor McDavid, there is no version of a successful season for Connor McDavid. And this is maybe him putting this on himself, but this is us putting it on him. When you are not one of the guys of your generation, he's not, oh, maybe he'll be the greatest American of all time. No, he's Connor McDavid, from the moment he puts skates on and was skating around as a Marlboro, it was, hey, multiple heart trophies, the floor is a hundred point season and you better go win some cups. And not to say that John Tavares probably didn't have similarly lofty expectations put on him. But then he got to the NHL and we said, oh, okay, you're not actually that guy. And that's not a knock on John Tavares to not be Connor McDavid. But I think that that is the difference when you are, and if you want to say that that's the knock on Matthews that he doesn't look at himself that way, I don't know that he does or doesn't. I felt like he took a ton of ownership over the team and then no one wants to hear me say this, then he got hurt in the playoffs and couldn't really take ownership of the series any further. So I don't look at this as a just lip service or I think McDavid's just saying the right things, but I don't look at that as proof. I think we feel that way because they're there, but he could have easily said those things at any other point in time and guess what, the Leafs have said those things. We want the challenge. I guarantee you we have heard that from the Leafs when they're down in the series. He's looking forward to people doubting him. I think if the Leafs have said that in the past, if you all have doubted us and we said, of course we have country losers. This is where I get so frustrated of the oil, like this is why the Leafs will truly never be a regular team. If I would have if I would have read you that transcript and said game six in Boston, game two of the cup final for the Oilers, there's no way any, I don't even talk to you right now. There's no way any of you out there would be it would be able to tell me the difference. There's no way. I just there's more screw you and Conor McDavid than I see in the Leafs best players. And that's fine. I'm not saying that you can't you definitively can't win. You don't think Austin Matthews has that in a make? I I I think I see that from Matthews. It's very I don't know. I see him in a scrum with with Matthew Kachok and like he's trying not to take a penalty and then like the line's been turned his head for a second. He'd sucker punch right into the head of Matthew Kachok. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. Let's not talk about him coming into the world's most boilerplate. Okay. Sorry. Okay. It's all of it though. Okay. Because I'm taking the quote and I'm applying it to what I see in the ice. Come on. There's a clear difference. So they got again like I am only if we're if we're having a McDavid conversation, I actually think you have to remove every leaf of the Matthews because I think he's the only one that you can even do a coat a closed apples to apples and it's like it's like a royal gala. Nice apple versus like I don't know. I don't want to piss off big apple but like I don't what royal gala is the best apple. No, that's what I'm saying. He's the McDavid. It's like like Fuji. I don't know. I feel like that's another good granny Smith is too sour. It's very hard. Yeah. Maybe that's Matthews. Like he does it. Granny Smith is the best of all the tart apples. Right. So maybe that's Austin Matthews in this analogy. Yeah. I'm going to try to remember where I was going with this rather not have a granny Smith. What I'm what I'm getting at here is that I think that you have seen that this is the problem again. I made this point a million times and I'm going to a million more of having these points of demarcation or this being the year where you've said enough is enough when I do think you saw Austin Matthews again. He took a weird hit. He had a not concussion concussion, whatever it was that kept him out in the playoffs and he still came back well, clearly lesser than himself. That's a lot of F you to me. I'm not saying it is the fight of all fights, but Sky got tangled up with Sam Coast last year. Like you see her two years ago, you see the baby steps that he has taken and guess what? Because the team can't meet his level and tell me if you think he has a running mate anywhere close to dry side along this team. Do you? No, I don't. Oh, was that you know, who was kind of close this year was William Knee Lander. What happened to him in the playoffs? Okay. Right. So the got full of excuses. I am sick and tired of people going out of their way to look with a microscope to find every single flaw out of this core. When it comes down to two things, goalie, which no one consider arguing with me and frozen puck are frozen rubber on ice. You cannot tell me that this leaves core like they have not got a sec. Yes, man. The bouncy. Yes. If they get one bounce, if they they got one bounce, any of those years against Stanley Cup, we're having no, no, no, no, no, no, not winning a Stanley Cup, but they're having a goal. That's completely theirs. Who cares? Who cares? So they went another round this year. And then what? How many of their friends came in against the Panthers? It's not just. Okay. You're looking at this year. Is this the best version of the Leafs? We go back to, I don't know, last year, but now, but like, we're not related to getting past seasons. I, if you're talking about Austin Matthews and who he is, then you have to lump it all in. So circumstances this year were certainly conspiring against the Toronto Maple. Yes. Agreed. Very ill-timed injuries. I mean, one of those ill-timed injuries by their best players, resulting in a bunch of victories that push them to a game seven, right? Like, they won a bunch of games without Austin Matthews. Then he returned and won a bunch of games, though, John Tavares too. Guess what? It's hard to do it when you're missing your best players. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. But this season, even if they win a game seven in overtime against the Boston Bruins, which is clearly like, yeah, that is ultimate, like, coin flip of coin flip, right? Like, that's the one where it's like, what do you have frozen, fuck on? I said, blah, bleep, blah. No question. Here's the reality. We're the idea that it's chipping a chair in the Stanley Cup playoffs anymore. I think it's stupid. And I think that's what we're learning here in an era of parity and everybody, you know, it seems to have the same record going into the post season. When you get there, I mean, we're going to talk to Frank Cervelo later on in the program in the middle of the season. What did he say? And we all kind of agreed with, like, do the Leafs look like one of those upper echelon Stanley Cup contenders? No, they didn't. Yeah. At no point, even at their best. Agreed. During the seven games. This year's version of the Leafs, not this. But that's what we're talking about. Like, you can talk about the three years. Well, you're really talking about the stars, though, and to have a referendum on, let's be honest, the Leafs one star player in a playoff series where again, he played what was it? Three and a half games. And he won one. And then he had it. No, I don't think the awesome Matthews has, like, some fatal flaw that won't allow him to win. I would say, man, it's hard to compare him. Well, it's just generally hard to compare anyone to the greatest player. Agreed. I've ever seen. Agreed. Right? The whole career of that player. And when it's all said and done, like, all the counting stats are going to be on them. And also, like, the mentality of that player is just, man, it's more gushing about Conor McDavid than it is denigrating awesome Matthew. My wife's name out your mouth. You just get so personally offended, I actually do. And there's criticism lobbied towards the most, if, like, if not the most, like, the second most disappointing franchise over the last decade. Yeah. No, but of that, there is no debate. Sure. I'm not going to sit here and tell you the Leafs have had some glowing success in this Austin Matthews area. Guess what? I watch all the games. I guarantee you, I'm more upset about it than all of you out there, okay? So I'm not sitting here trying to overstate what they have done. What I am trying to do is stop people from overstating. And I'll be honest. It's like, I can't- How much better Conor McDavid is than anybody? No. And anybody on the Leafs core and how different his mentality is than anybody on that Leafs core. The Conor McDavid, you're disagreeing with no, I am not disagreeing, I would never disagree with Kipper. Well, actually he's not here. I could disagree. But that's not where I'm going. If you're just making me off, okay, geez, that is terrifying. I retract everything. No, and I look at the point I'm trying to make with the Matthews or anybody to McDavid conversation is if this is just a guss-fetched about McDavid and he is one of three guys in the world wired that way, I'll hear that. It's like you combine the other worldly skill with that. But because you were- Ooh, doggy, because- He had me believing that they're going to come back. Not that I wasn't. Okay. Already? Oh, I don't believe. I think the Panthers are going to walk in this series. Oh, I don't. Well, so- No, no, there's a- There's one or two big- There's a big Oilers. There's two big Oilers offensive outputs. They're going to win those games. Yes. And then the Panthers are going to win the other two in a six game series. That's what's going to happen. I believe the Oilers' power play is going to win them a game. Well, Gary, you've done this before. Get- Tell them to put those whistles away. Like, we've seen this before. I mean, to this point, it's been a pretty loose whistle. Quite loose. In fact, with Warren Fogle getting a five and a game for a kneeing penalty, that like- I've never in the brief moments that we've had reviews of major penalties because you call them just so that you can go to the review. Which I hate. I've never seen one as quick as that. And at the very least, I was like, "Oh, they're going to look at this one for a long period of time now." To me, it looked like a minor. Yeah, I didn't think, though. I thought that was an egregious overreaction, quite honestly. You mentioned that there's also the puck over the glass that would have given the Oilers a five on three and that was a tick-eat-tack. Like, was it in? Was it out? And like, I saw differing opinions as to what the rule is. Is it like when you first touch the puck or where the puck leaves your stick? Yeah, I don't know, but that one I'm not sure. The place I always get confused is when they try to do the math of, "Well, what angle did it cross?" Oh, yeah. Like, when you lose a golf ball into a hazard and it's like point of entry, they try to do that with the bench. Yeah, I can go over the corner. I can go over the corner. The glass should be or whatnot. Yeah. Even if it goes over the bench area, it can cross over the corner where it did not the bench area. And that's the most guys who play golf and fed to the rule and hockey sport of all time. Like, just do point of entry. Anyways, I will say that in general, despite the call I disagreed with when it came to Warren Fogle, I don't think the officiating has been a concern to this point in the series. I don't think it's cost the Oilers a game. I think they've gotten their fair share of power play opportunities. I mean, even in killing off the five-minute major, they got to lop off two minutes of it with a very similar knee penalty for the Panthers. I mean, I have to stay consistent here in that if that puck over the glass penalty was not called in a leaf game and they didn't get the five on three, I would just, I would not, we would not have stopped talking about it for at least another 20 minutes on this show. So I can't review, though, that would have been a tough one to would you to get in. You know, I can't sit here, though, and say that that didn't cost, it's hard to say it costs the others the game because the power play has had been the massive difference maker, but I don't know. I'd be hard pressed to find anything that could get the Oilers power play more right than basically a two minute five on three, which is what they would have had or something close to it. And I, again, it's like it's one of these wishy-washy rules to me. I just look at spirit of the rule. That's penalty. What are we talking about here? We've been having a conversation about this for one second, let alone 30, let alone a minute and a half or whatever it is. It's spirit of the rule. Flicked it over. I don't understand why it was even a point. And I would be blood curdlingly mad if that happened in a leaf game. So I have to bring it up, not that I, not that I care particularly one way or another, but that sucks for the Oilers and it would have bet it would have been a massive swing point in the game, potentially and the series potentially. So I don't think you can just paper over it either. I do believe that the Oilers are very much alive in this series because they employ Conor McDavid and Leon Drey's title and those guys haven't even scored yet. They haven't scored a goal on the power play. And Stuart Skinner's looked fine. Like I haven't had an issue when you score one goal in two games, you can't blame the goalie. Boy, don't we know that then. But I would say that history would indicate that the Panthers are in a pretty good spot because they're in the finals already and history would show that it usually take one kick of the can before those teams end up breaking through. I mean, you got Crosby's Penguins lost in six games to the Red Wings before they won in seven games. Was that the next season? The very next season. Yeah. Again, said Red Wings. Yeah. Awesome. Marion Hosea on the wrong side of both here. Yeah. Yeah. And you mark on right floor with the huge save. Dying seconds of game seven on the strip. Yeah. I remember the Vegas Golden Knights in the first year of their existence did get to a cup final and it's not not an identical team. Yeah. That's a weird one because there are some holdovers. Yeah. That's the there's like that old like philosophical experiment. If you slowly replace the boards of a ship, it's like, is it the same ship? The Golden Knights are truly trying to find that answer because the marshes out was there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple guys. There are a few guys. Anyways, the guy who owns the team. Yeah. Definitely still there. That lightning team that lost the Blackhawks and then eventually broke through and became one of the defining franchises of a generation and it looks like this Celtics core making it to a final for the second time for finally going to punch their ticket would make sense that a panthers team not looking the part last year. Part of that was Matthew Kuchok having the corpse in chest cavity. Yeah, that they would break through in their second kick of the can even like if we go to baseball, there's a Kansas City Royals example, right? Couldn't couldn't break through against the San Francisco Giants and then did break through in 2015 against the Blue Jays. You just met your Matthew Kuchok's chest and now I can't. I'm just thinking of Luca Donchich when he like what would Matthew Kuchok have thought if you just told him like, Hey, it's got a bit of a Bruce rib or something. He played. I mean, come on. No, it's no. You can't put a bandage on just only for the anthem is just like, look at me. Please. Everyone know how hurt I am as Luca's emo and okay, I guess, but I can never not point it up. You are really appealing to Western Canadian hockey fans, right? I not even, well, I should call it shooty hoops. Oh, okay. The guy that plays the shooty hoops, yeah, Bruce, as I, as I sit here and say, yeah, Oilers ain't that special Matthews in the Leafs close. Yeah, no, they're, they're loving me out there this morning. And I think I said they're going to have two good offensive games and then lose the rest of the series handily. Yeah. I don't think they're loving me so much out there. It will be exciting in Edmonton, no doubt, and Rogers has announced an exciting new national contest brings Stanley home to send Rogers customers and hockey fans from across Canada to the Stanley Cup final in Edmonton, Rogers customers have the chance to win 10 VIP trips for two to attend game four in Edmonton this Saturday. Prize also includes travel and accommodation plus premium viewing at a game day concert featuring Shania Twain outside Rogers plays visit rogers.com slash Stanley Cup to enter for your chance to win and for more details, certainly more on the line in Sunrise Florida yesterday than there was in Milwaukee where like the most entertaining and most energy was spent trying to retrieve Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s bat from the netting. We'll get into that. Did they get it? Well, we'll tell you. Yeah, we'll let you know in case you weren't too screening that and more next is the fan morning show continues. And it's Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590 the fan. Diving deep into leaps, rafters, J's and NFL, the JD Buncke's podcast, subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Enter Horowitz on first base, two down top of the nine, three won the lead for the Brewers. No hold on Horowitz who takes a big lead and the pitch to Guerrero is bounced up the middle off the second base back, building it second by Torang throws back to first and ends the game. One pitch for Miguel to retire Guerrero and save the game for the Brewers. They win three won relying on some solo shots and walking down the Blue Jays bats in game one of the series. I think we had some balls to hit, you know, Kirkie with the home run obviously and had some other pitches to hit. Just in game and going. You know, you look up and his pitch counts really low and you know, just couldn't game and going really. It was kind of one of those nights and you know, frustrating as it is, you're in it till the end. You get a flat up as a tying run in the ninth but just couldn't really get much going against him. Yeah, I'll say Blue Jays four base runners and a three won loss to the Brewers in game one of the series. This is a fan morning show sports and five 90 the fan Ben and his friend gunning back to our regularly scheduled programming for the Blue Jays play a good team. Yeah. So it must be said, this is not your father's Oakland A's who actually hit a bunch of home runs and have some pretty good pitching, especially the back end of that bullpen. Anyways, you're talking about the current A's or my father's because I feel like that could be true for both. No, the current A's like yeah, there's Lee and the bash bros and yeah, it's Blue Jays took care of business took X ratings in the rubber match of that series in Oakland, but they want it to put them a game under 500 headed into game one of that series looking to get back to 500 for the first time in April or since April. How did it go? Not so good. Like I said, four or four base runners as the Brewers win three to one. Yeah, Spencer Horowitz with a couple of base hits. That was 50% of the offensive output Alejandro Kirk with his second home run of the season. Our beloved Alejandro Kirk, I guess. Yeah, sure. I think I'm of the belief that whatever offensive abilities he showed early in his career, it's been long enough now that it feels like that's it would be a bonus to get it, but I'm not expecting it. He's more of a backup catcher type can give you a close to average offensive player output, although like his last 10 games, I guess, you know, he's been good, but he doesn't play enough, right? And I think now again, the sample is growing that I think I know what Alejandro Kirk is. But yeah, this is this is a team that hasn't shown the ability to score and despite winning some series recently, hasn't looked much different from the team that was six games under 500, no blowing the series in Detroit and losing three of four. Yeah. And again, despite the fact that they're right there in the murky middle and and within shouting distance and have a better record than the World Series champions and they're not out of it record wise, they're just like we're still waiting on the moment and it's not just one game. No. And even though they just split a series against the vaunted Baltimore Orioles who just swept the rays in a four game series, the rays for people that haven't been paying attention to the big fly factor pretty clearly are one of the worst teams in baseball. Like the rays are just like straight up bad despite their record being similar to the Blue Jays. But yeah, no, we're still the same place the Blue Jays are not very good. They just don't score enough runs. The starting pitching now in an overall sense like the counting stats are back up there. Like they're I think they're now 10th or they're in the top 10 when it comes to starters ERAs this season, which was not the case despite the fact that the Jose burials has been pretty consistent all season long Kevin Gossman had the rough start and Alec Minow has been up and down and yadda yadda and now they don't have to start up anyways. The point remains still waiting for that stretch of games where you get close to turning me into a believer and obviously that was not part of that yesterday. No, no, you had to hold strong again. Like they said, they had the, I guess it'd be six game dalliance with it of the split in the four game set against the O's and then you take care of business against the nays team. But then you have a night like that. There are so many ways to talk about how anemic the offense was. I liked your, your flourish on it of Spencer Horowitz providing 50% of the offense. I like it this way. They did not bring more than four batters to the plate once in a single inning. They had six different innings that was just three up, three down, not a sniff, not a lick, not a base runner, not a hope and not worse or lick, neither or of a chance at offense. There was not a hope. There was not a prayer. This is what it looks like when it's bad and it's not always going to look like this, but there are going to be the hand, not there's going to be handful of games like this a week. It feels like with this Blue Jays team and this is just a return to what we were talking about seven days ago before that or in the middle of that series against the Orioles when it looked like it was trending a certain way. The thing about baseball teams and especially one that's kind of in this position is they'll have the two week stretch where they can fool you or trick you and you have to remain vigilant in how you feel about this team because generally speaking they will prove to you who they are. And this is a lot closer to who they are than what you saw against Baltimore. Okay. So I got a couple of things takeaways, a larger picture from this game. Do you want to do the fun bat stuff first? Sure. Let's say the bat stuff. Nah, why not? I saved the fun. How silly was it that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lost a handle of his bat got stuck way up in the net and then for a couple innings we got distracted with Chris Bassett trying to jury rate like a pool skimmer or like a ball retriever. Where did that come from? By the way, I was wondering if that was like some type of animal like animal patrol dog catching. Oh, interesting. That's what that actually looked most like to me. And I don't even know that that's a real thing. I've never encountered in the wild dog catcher. This seems like a thing on sitcoms or movies, but I didn't apparent they must exist. Well, why else would that tool exist? But that was what it looked like to me. It looked like they got somebody from the humane society or something. No, that would have been the perfect thing because like, yeah, the rope at the end does change size. Yeah. I don't know. No, he seemed to create his own dog catcher thing, which is like this is of course Chris Bassett. Of course. Honestly, I think this is a feature, not a bug of regular season baseball 1000% that and especially now where it's like, you missed the playoffs. You just got awful and who cares if one game kept you out of the playoffs, like you don't deserve to be in the playoffs. Right. Like it used to be when there were fewer playoff teams is like these regular season games. There were like funny moments like that. But like when it came down to it back to business, this game, despite it being one of one 62 could be the difference between you and the playoffs and not. So get your head on strike because hey, you screw this thing up. You're not and Chris Bassett, starting pitchers is not going to participate in the game. So he's kind of immune to this. But like if you blow this at the end of the season, we could be looking back to this game as the reason we're not in the playoffs. You missed the playoffs again, the 84 when Diamondbacks got there, got all the way to the World Series, that horrible Blue Jays team 189 games, one game is the difference between you making and missing the playoffs in major league baseball in 2024. You stink. You don't deserve to be in the playoffs anyways. Get what you deserve. Actually. I think like the hot foot stuff that we got to bring hot foot back. It feels like it's too dangerous now that that one you'd be canceled if you tried the hot foot people with the uninitiated used to be there's like a myriad of highlights of guys. I think you like a book of matches is what you do and go and go and go and go and guess what? And then you light the guy's foot is on fire. Nothing better. I think Justin Verlander is the last guy we have who has participated in this. I was once talking to Tim Lieper on a show asking about this and he unfortunately, it's not even the danger thing because, I mean, like their professional athletes, they would gladly do something dangerous. If it was funny, like gladly or just dudes in general, I think there's a lot of us out there like that. It's that the jokes at somebody's expense are no fun. It's like the joke should be how great I am or like the joke should be a given my home run jacket or something like that. This is, and this is not like a baseball thing. This is like a 20, 22, 20 year old thing or sorry, 20, 24, 20 year old thing. If I don't want the joke at my expense, but God, I love the hot flip. We don't even, I shouldn't say we don't get this because I'm not as definitive about it. But remember when you used to get guys putting a big bubble on somebody's hat and do that. I feel like we don't see that stuff anymore in game and sunflower seeds, you get chucked at your head, generally that occurs and it's viewed in more glowing terms when it's a team that is very good in a winning mode, which I guess the Blue Jays have actually been recently. Who on the Blue Jays would you feel would be most likely to pull off a hot foot? It feels like Chris Bassett running away. Does it not? It's funny because he was part of the, the levity yesterday, but he like kind of went about it in a serious way. I don't, he doesn't feel like that big of a joker man, right? Okay. I do feel like George Springer. Oh, this is a good one. This is a good one. George Springer might be a part of that. Anyways, yeah, like I said, I think it's a feature, not a bug of regular season baseball that you get. You get moments like that. It's just like also a math equation. You get more games, more time on camera and more guys with idle time also, right? Because you do have four starting pitchers that will in no way, shape, or form impact the game. During the regular season and then four bench players as well who are not in the game and Kevin Kiermaier was a day off yesterday. So he, he and Bassett coming together. Yeah, it's I think it's hilarious. Yeah, it's a hilarious moment. Ha, ha, ha. Blue Jason is going to miss playoffs and GM's going to be fired and they're going to try to weigh two of the franchise icons. Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun with that. I occurred. Yeah. Okay. Just making sure. I didn't want anyone to take that inference any other way. Oh, okay. We've got, we've got audio from the TV broadcast of yesterday's bat retrieval attempt. We have a developing situation. It appears as if Phil Rosowitz in the visiting clubhouse has come up with an apparatus that may be able to jar that bat loose. They have added a ring to try and dislodge this bat. They have it secured right now. It's a fish on a line. And it's down redemption. It's down. And now the hook is stuck. You can't make it up, folks, the bat is free. I know everybody was on the edge of their seats and it appears the bat has been returned to its right. I'm glad he is happy about that. Come to Papa. Yeah, good stuff. The best thing about it is that both of those broadcast booths are looking at that in completely inverse ways. The Brewers booth is going. Yeah. This is a nice little dalliance. Then we'll get back to the business of very serious baseball for a club that wants to win the division and, you know, Dan and Joe are like, thank God. This is nice. Yeah, diversion. Because God forbid the Blue Jays look like they're capable of throwing three runs in a baseball game. They would laugh. Colin Ray isn't like the worst pitcher in baseball. So like he's untouchable. No, you can't. For this group. You know what you should do? You should take your thumb and your index finger, place it on the brim of your cap. You should give it a nice big tip to it because he was so good. I've noticed that John Schneider is very much avoided that phraseology recently. I wonder if that's going to go down like if that's going to live past him of we joke still about Charlie Montoya, like every time a Victoria game comes up. I don't know. Maybe this is just me of like, yeah, better make sure so and so is the line up. Better make sure, you know, disrespect Queen Victoria. And that is live past him. I do wonder if the tipping of the cap, if that's like the first thing they put in the packet when they on board the new manager, it's like, Hey, here's your corporate email. Here's your passcard. Don't ever tip the cap to anybody. Correct. I don't care. All right. Here's the negative Nancy stuff to talk about the game. Yeah. We got to do it. Remember when like Boba Shett and Ross Atkins said this is like, those guys are coming around and Vlad has actually come around not with a ton of home runs. You don't have to always include that. You're going to be mad at other players on the team. That's true. Boba Shett hasn't like he had a decent May where he had an OBS of 731 including hitting 280 June has been somehow worse than April so far. This is not updated to include yesterday's over for going into yesterday's over for 515 OBS granted only 10 games in June, but hitting 184. And I had on top of that, man, it's not just your eye test that's telling you Boba Shett's defense at shortstop hasn't been what it was previously, which was not, this is not Andrewton Simmons at the position in previous years, but it was a guy that considering the offensive output that he had was more than possible to be an average defender at the most premium defensive position and to provide the offense that Boba Shett has for his entire majorly career at the end of the season. He's always had an OBS North 300 unbelievable. He's been one of the worst defenders of that position all season long. Every metric would tell you the eyeball test will also tell you this. This is now so like if 2022 is the proof of concept of him having a slow start and salvaging the season by the end of it and it is and it's why I'm so low to say that Holy cow, what's happened to Boba Shett, this is now to a place where it will be more impressive if he's able to salvage this season than it was in 2022 where he set franchise records with his offensive output in August and September that that season just to get it north of 800, the OBS, he's going to have to do more than that now this season considering that this month has not been a continuation of what we saw even in May, which was okay, it was fine, but it wasn't Boba Shett. It's been worse in small say about half the month of June. It's been worse than that God awful April for Boba Shett. So let me, let me ask you a question about that. Let's extrapolate this forward and I don't know, let's say it's this, whatever his season has been to this point, that's the year he has with the track record that he has. How does that change your opinion on what Boa is going forward? Because this isn't, this isn't flat who had one year and you go, okay, well, what's that in the past? This isn't even a no kind of burst on the scene. Boa has had the longest track record of success of these guys and we've seen guys have outlier seasons when shouldn't say all the time, but it happens in this sport. How would, and because you got to make a decision on this guy, right? Whether it's extended them or trade them or whatever, how would this year continuing for the rest of the season change your opinion on the player, your willingness to want to build around? Well, I mean, if he continues at this pace, he'll be quite literally one of the worst everyday players in Major League Baseball because he will, at that point, have provided you with nothing, like below, well below average defense at shortstop and even well below average offense, even at that position where the offensive bar isn't so high, although we got some pretty good offensive shortstop. Yeah, we do. In Major League Baseball, I mean, you'd be stuck between a rock and a hard place because no one's a trade value would be next to Nail with only one year of team control remaining. And you're not likely to sign up for another 10 years of a player that you don't know what the hell he is. Yep. You'd have to go into the final year. Just you'd have no choice. No, I don't. I don't disagree. It's just, I think you, I think we got to like kind of start to that warm is the wrong term because I don't think anyone wants it, but you have to start to be open to the possibility of that being a very real conversation. And even if, even if he turns it around, it's just a, a merely good Boboshette season as opposed to the transcendent turnaround he had that year, you're still asking yourself some of those questions, I think. Sure. Yeah. If he, if he doesn't quite get to an 800 OPS, now the offensive environment in 2024 is, is it's much tougher to come up with base hits and score runs. Yeah. Maybe it'll look similar when it comes to OPS plus, but no, it's been a horrible. And even in that 2022 season, like April was horrible, horrible, horrible, May and June and July were not great, but they were like 700 is 700 ish OPS is got 500 OPS in the month of June. Secondarily, and there's two things that are interconnected. It is hilarious that the Blue Jays not only employ Daniel Vogelbach, but that they have no backup plan for him, like it's like, not only are they like committed to Daniel Vogelbach and their load to cut the court on him, but it's like, oh, for who? Like, there's no obvious answer behind him. This man, imagine pining for 40 year old Joey Votto. Like if Joey Votto was in Dunedin, hitting Dingers in the Florida Complex League, at least you could, you know, you could get yourself to a place mentally where like, oh, well, let's see it. What a moment that'll be when he triumphantly walks out of that dugout for the first time wearing a Blue Jays uniform in a regular season game. His story, like we need a 30 for 30 on what's happened to him this season, where he is. It almost feels like they're just keeping him on ice for the darkest day of the year to be like, yeah, you want them? How much does it cause to hire a private detective? Like, and it's tough when you got professional athletes who are very private and it's like hard to get close to them, although like on the go train, I think you can be found in Dunedin. Joey Votto, like, can, could we not hire a private detective and find out what his day to day is like? And I guarantee you there are a lot of guys with the very least consider themselves private detectives in Florida that you could get on the cheap. Anyways, yeah, Daniel Volgabock down there. Daniel Volgabock has to remain, you have to see what you got in Daniel Volgabock because, I mean, like what's your backup like you have Spencer Horwitz is already like hitting second on this team. It's nuts. It's nuts. And also, last thing I guess, it's like, Brewers hit more home runs than Blue Jays, but they don't hit like a myriad of home runs. They had more home runs than Blue Jays yesterday, but they still score runs because they have speed like they're bad bit as high because they have a bunch of infield hits. They're one of the best. They actually, I mean, according to fan graphs and base running metric, they're the best base running team in Major League Baseball. They're one of the fastest and we saw it to rang with like the speed. Part of that was like David Schneider not a great throw from left field. He's not an outfielder. Anyways, it's like not only you can win base, it's harder to win baseball games without hitting home runs. You can do it. But usually when you're the team that doesn't hit a home runs, you have a bunch of like slap hitter athletic dudes who just don't have that, they have slow guys that don't hit home runs. Yeah. It's the worst of all world. Imagine having a team of Alejandro Kirk who hit his second home run. Daniel Volgabock still sitting on one. Danny Janssen's hit some home runs. But like, yeah, and he's a catcher, so I mean, you just, Justin Turner, that you just got nothing but concrete leg people on a team that doesn't hit home runs. So not only are you not the slap hitting, you know, we're moving first to third, we're scoring from second on singles all the time, like you're the slow hulking team that doesn't hit home runs. Really, you couldn't be in a worse spot. It's like Dalton Varshos, kind of the only guy that fits that emo of players that get regular time like a cure mire you feel that way about it's like, but he strikes out too much. That's the thing, right? Yeah. Exactly. Both of those guys did big strikeout. Yep. Anyways, good stuff. Maybe the win the series. Maybe looking back to 500. Santana coming to Budweiser stage this summer on June 26 with counting crows as part of their oneness tour. And we have tickets to give away to enter. Listen daily to the fan morning show for the codeword, then text that codeword to 59590 to enter today. Text the codeword. Welcome to 59590 again. That's welcome to 59590 if you don't win with us tickets on sale at ticketmaster.ca. When we come back, we'll talk to Frank Siravelli later on today, but yesterday on his podcast, we talked about a potential pushing of Mitch Marner to the wall in regards to him waving is no move clause. We'll talk about that in more next as the fan morning show continued, Ben and his friend gunning sports at 59590 the fan. [Music] (upbeat music) (dramatic music)
