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Blair & Barker

Odd Ends Against the O's + State of the AL with Jayson Stark

01 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What happened during the Blue Jays' weekend series against the Orioles?

6.106 - 27.69 Jeff Blair

Oh, boy, he's back. I thought you'd be wearing your tuxedo for us today. Oh, funny, funny, funny. Don't be that way. I'm not. You are. It is Blair and Barker. Kevin Barker is back. Big shout-out, by the way, to friend of the show, Hazel May, for her Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Excellence yesterday. I was a little disappointed.

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27.71 - 31.754 Jeff Blair

I thought they'd take you up on the red carpet, but... It's my wife's day.

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31.834 - 43.915 Kevin Barker

Yeah, but you're her better half. She's the half that's better. I'm just half. You know, it was a great time. She did a heck of a job with the speech.

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44.095 - 46.858 Jeff Blair

You'd almost get the impression that Hazel's spoken in public before.

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46.878 - 61.814 Kevin Barker

Oh, boy. I mean, she had me teared up. She had my son tearing up. She had the family members, her mother tearing up. You know, people were cheering. It was, you know, Hazel's a rock star when it comes to doing things like that. Everything she gets, she deserves.

62.134 - 74.99 Jeff Blair

Absolutely. It's a cool deal. Congratulations, sir. It is a hugely, hugely, hugely significant award, the Gordon Sinclair Award for broadcast excellence. And it's really well-deserved. We're very proud of Hazel.

75.27 - 90.198 Kevin Barker

Yeah. Ron McClain did a heck of a job, too, introducing it. There's another guy who's used to speaking about it. Boy, just getting the ball rolling in the right direction. Boy, it's not the easiest thing to do all the time, but he nailed it, too. It was a lot of fun. No, it was a great night.

90.358 - 100.6 Jeff Blair

Really well done to everybody. All right, well, that's the upbeat part of the show. Oh, boy. Parker, what the hell are they going to do with Jeff Hoffman?

101.762 - 119.931 Kevin Barker

That's a tremendous question. Well, as of right now, they're going to keep running him out there. It's just, when do you run him out there? You know, he's... You know, I would think that John felt pretty comfortable after sort of the six outings leading up to the ninth inning, the lead that they had, where Jeff was throwing in that inning.

Chapter 2: How did Jeff Hoffman perform in the ninth inning meltdown?

285.336 - 292.729 Jeff Blair

I think given where the Jays are right now with their pitching, to me, anyhow, Kevin, at some point, John had to see. They had to see.

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293.19 - 310.563 Kevin Barker

Could this guy act as a traditional starter? Yeah, see, I don't think that's it. I think if Braden Fisher would have been available, Braden Fisher is going to start the game. I don't think it had anything to do with it. I think it's because the other guys weren't available because of the way they've had to use their pen.

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310.704 - 330.69 Kevin Barker

Basically, the way Jeff had looked like he just sort of kind of a combination of everything sort of added up to, well, we really don't have a choice, and he's been really good. Does it matter if he starts an inning earlier? Yeah, again, I don't know. The way his second inning looked, you know, the second time through was in the third inning.

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330.71 - 345.406 Kevin Barker

That's kind of when the brakes fell, you know, just sort of fell apart in the third inning. But he kind of didn't look the same in the second inning. He got through it. But he didn't look the same either. And just, again, he's a Rule 5 guy. It's his first year in the show.

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345.426 - 362.702 Kevin Barker

Like, you could just tell every once in a while you're going to have one of those where, Coach, I'm giving it everything I got. It just ain't working, Coach. Just get me out of the game as soon as you can. Please, before I kill myself. There's nothing wrong with that. Well, Kiel's a bit strong. But there's nothing wrong with every once in a while having to grind through it.

362.722 - 384.227 Kevin Barker

He'll be better for it. I know optically it didn't look good. Everybody's expecting the kid to run out there and just be dynamite all the time because of the way he's been looking. But just big leagues don't work that way. He'll be better for it going forward. He'll know how to calm it down next time it starts to go some way he doesn't want it to go. It's a good learning experience for him.

384.207 - 390.117 Kevin Barker

He'll build off of that. He'll be better sort of the next time. He's the least of their worries. How's that?

390.718 - 397.669 Jeff Blair

Yeah. No. I mean, I think the one thing this series showed, you know, captain obvious here. American League stinks.

397.789 - 401.856 Kevin Barker

American League stinks. That's what this shows. The Jays are in a playoff spot.

Chapter 3: What were the highlights of Spencer Miles' first road start?

674.243 - 680.991 Jeff Blair

They'll figure it out. Oh, boy. And more to the point, it's easy to address bullpen. Well, they need to hurry.

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681.123 - 698.001 Kevin Barker

You're two games under .500. You could have been above .500 if some guys in your bullpen might have been a little bit better. You could have went to an arm that you wanted to go to in a certain spot. That's all I'm saying. Every once in a while, you'd like to be able to do that. So, yeah. I mean, there is some good things, though.

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698.2 - 705.807 Kevin Barker

You know, Sanchez getting hit, that's never a good thing, but it's kind of a weird thing. Have you ever seen a guy get hit from something thrown out of a stance?

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706.087 - 722.461 Jeff Blair

This is what we... Well, we're going to talk about this. I'm sure you probably know by now, Jesus Sanchez left the game yesterday after being hit on the wrist by a ball thrown from the stands. This is what John Schneider had to say about it after the game.

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723.261 - 750.853 John Schneider

Yeah, never know what you're going to see at the ballpark. He was kind of... Talking with, I think it was a 12-year-old kid, I was just told, talking with a kid, kind of going back and forth, and I think in a playful manner, like almost like, hey, let's play catch. And I think that the kid took it literally and hit Sanch with the ball. So not ideal, first time I've seen that.

750.833 - 762.448 John Schneider

X-rays were negative on his wrist, his right wrist, so we'll check him out. But he was pretty sore and surprised, and as were we. Yeah, balls shouldn't be coming into the field of play anywhere.

762.468 - 777.988 Jeff Blair

There you go. I mean, they got a hard enough time with balls in the field of play hit by batters, let alone 12-year-old kids tossing them. I got to ask you, man, because you've played a crap ton of minor league games. You've played winter ball. You may have had knives thrown at you. I don't know. Have you ever seen anything like that?

778.289 - 797.614 Kevin Barker

Yeah, I've seen things thrown at people. I've seen people getting hit on the field. Absolutely. Bottletops, rocks, baseballs. Absolutely. I play water ball forever. I mean, it's rare that it will happen in a big league game. And it is rare that you see a guy kind of act that way with a baseball being thrown from a 12-year-old.

797.948 - 815.074 Kevin Barker

Yeah, look, I'm not trying to be negative or anything, but that's, you know, if you're... I'd sign that kid up, man. Well, look, I'm sure there's some, you know, some things that you're thinking about when you're running out there to your player when the player's getting thrown at from baseballs and you got to be careful and, you know, you're protecting yourself.

Chapter 4: What caused Jesús Sánchez to leave the game?

2077.688 - 2107.754 Unknown

Yeah, again, the National League has beat up on the American League, and as I asked people for a comment a couple weeks ago, what's up with that? I was basically told, follow the money. If you look at not just the payrolls, but where the big free agents have gone over the last three, four winters, two-thirds of them have gone to National League teams, and I think that's showing up.

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2107.774 - 2111.399 Kevin Barker

Jason, forget about the records. Who in your mind is the best team in the American League?

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2113.462 - 2144.458 Unknown

I think it's the Yankees. You can tell me if you think I'm wrong, but they're going to have the – Assuming that everybody holds up and Cole and Rodon are pretty much themselves, they've got at least three number one type starters going out there in a playoff series and four, assuming Max Freed comes back and he's right. And I don't know who can combat that.

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2145.282 - 2151.761 Unknown

They've got some issues in the pen, but that's a really dangerous lineup with a monster rotation.

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2152.002 - 2175.147 Jeff Blair

Yeah, and their run differential is plus 98. I mean, it is just behind... just behind the Braves and a little bit more behind the Dodgers. So, yeah, listen, I keep – you know, I've got my eye on the Mariners now. They won six in a row. They did their last ten. I kind of expected the Mariners to be the team, you know, that might be that team. But I am with you.

2175.227 - 2188.62 Jeff Blair

I just look at the Yankees, and the Yankees are getting better. You know, they're going to get better. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's... It feels, Jason, like it's just a matter of time before they leapfrog over the Rays.

2189.275 - 2195.945 Unknown

I mean, you would think so. The Rays never like to cooperate. No. And people like us jump to these conclusions.

2196.245 - 2198.008 Jeff Blair

They enjoy making our life miserable.

2199.19 - 2219.165 Unknown

You know, I saw the Rays a lot in spring training. I did not see this coming, but what do I know? And if you told me that there would only be five teams in the American League over 500 on June 1st, and one of them would have been the White Sox, I don't know. I don't know how long I would have laughed, but I would have been way wrong about that, too.

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