Mark Shapiro

you know, listen, they've got a long journey ahead.

It's not going to be easy.

Things are going to come up that no one is expecting or no one is prepared for at this moment.

And how we handle that adversity when it hits, how we handle that first six games in a row we lose skid is more determinant of who we are as a team and how far we'll go than how we handle going 3-0 out of the blocks and kind of celebrating last year's championship.

So there's a big respect

for the schedule, which is the toughest one in all professional sports.

And there's a big respect for our division, which is the toughest division in Major League Baseball.

Yeah, I mean, he's authentic.

I think that's why, you know, it's easy to fall in love with him.

It's not an act.

Yeah.

And like everybody else I mentioned, there's a good story there, right, where his third organization, he was, you know, designated and kind of given up on by two teams, two major league teams before us, good teams, you know, in Cleveland and Chicago.

and Oakland when he was in Oakland and came here, kind of went up and down in the minor leagues and embraced who he was.

And the floor for Ernie is that he's an elite defender and a very good base runner.

That's a really good floor.

And then he has started to bring his bat to ball skills, you know, in line with the other.

And that's that's a ceiling.

And he's been a guy that's come through with some clutch hits because

He can hit just about anywhere the ball is pitched.

You've seen him hit home runs on balls over his head.