OverDrive
Phillips on Scherzer landing on the IL, Yesavage's return and the Red Sox' massive changes
27 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What insights does Steve Phillips share about team dynamics after a loss?
Here's Steve Phillips, our TSM Baseball Insider. What's that like? Baseball is a different game in a different world. We were just talking about getting on a team bus after a bad loss. How does that work for a GM or a manager in baseball in terms of just staring at players as they get on the bus?
Yeah, I think that 162 games in 187 days, they try to keep an even keel with it, right? Not too high, not too low. But there is an etiquette. Right.
Chapter 2: How does the length of the MLB season affect player performance?
When you lose and it's no music on in the clubhouse, it's quiet voices, no real chatter. Guys quietly get on the bus and, you know, I know what they do once they get back to the hotel. You know, I mean, generally, my sense was that, you know, the season is such a grind that, you know, guys, if they went out, they went out as a team. But it was more team building than I think not caring.
And so I never really experienced, both from a player's perspective and being in the front office, teams that didn't care, that would goof around and have fun after losses and act inappropriately. And so I have to say that I've done pretty well respect in what baseball players have done after losses. Steve, wasn't it tough, though?
There's a fine line, and the competitor in you and the competitor in all of us, where say you've had a tough loss. I get it. You've got 162 games. I knew a lot of baseball players where the minute the game was over, regardless, win or lose, they were fine. Their attitude was fine.
But just didn't you feel like in a tough loss, you didn't want to see a guy who had a tough game laughing it up or yucking it up? I get when there's family. Oh, yeah. You know, there's that line of, like, professionalism where it's like, just don't let anybody see you do that. Jamie, I have the worst one ever for you. In Vancouver, we got pumped, and I know I've told you guys this story before.
We got pumped, ate nothing, and the bus was, like, a little bit, like, we were just waiting around for everybody. We were waiting for somebody in the locker room, and I usually gave the locker room attendant $100 to put a case of beer in the back of the bus, and it wasn't back there. Just as the bus turns away, we're pulling out. He hammers on the front of the door.
He comes on the bus after an 8-0 drubbing, and he goes, oh, dog, I got the beers. And I'm like, oh, my God, dude. Like in front of Jimmy Rutherford and Paul Maurice, and I wanted to kill myself. Myself and then him. Just you let us go. You don't have to put the beer on the bus. That's it. Have the beers and the 100 and go away. I was so mortified.
I will say it reminds me of the one time that it was a big issue. We were in the playoffs playing the Atlanta Braves in the league championship series and We ended up losing. Kenny Rogers walked in the game-winning run that night, and we lost the series. And in the clubhouse, Bobby Bonilla and Ricky Henderson were playing cards. They had both been in the game and out of the game.
They were in the clubhouse playing cards when the game ended and the season ended, and they weren't any part of the team or anything else, and guys were ticked. They were ticked. And so somebody actually leaked it to the media. It became a story.
And so that winter, whenever I was going to the banquets and everything else, and I got up to speak, I always got up and said, listen, I said, I've got a lot to say, but I'll keep it brief tonight because it's card night. Bobby Bow and Ricky are waiting for me. And so I've got to get there in time to play cards with them that night. But it was a big deal.
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