Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball. A couple teams are smoking hot. A couple teams are ice cold. Either way, blaze it, baby. 420. Let's talk ball. Come on. Come on. Um, who am I? Uh, Gavin Williams. J.P. Crawford. Nice. Two-run homer. Why not? Oh. Oh. Oh. Hello and welcome to Talkin' Baseball, presented by Fanatics Markets, where fans trade on sports.
Fanatics Markets available now on the App Store. I'm Jake Storielli. That is Trevor Plouffe. Rob Scirocco's producing. Dalton Feely putting together the stats, info, and love. Hope your team had a good weekend. For some of you, you did. We got a couple five-game win streaks on the board. We also have...
A very bad losing streak that will probably be talked about in the National League that has hit almost must-watch levels in the worst way. And just a ton of guys who balled out or didn't ball out this weekend. Speaking of one guy who did, Trevor Plouffe. How are you?
Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. It's great to be back in my seat, taking back my throne from Jolly. Thank you, Jolly. for filling in for me on Friday. I did win over the weekend as well. I am a fan of one of those teams that's on a losing streak right now. So, you know, I don't really appreciate you starting the show off like that.
Hey, man.
But I can't wait to talk about your Yanks and some of the other teams doing really well. The Diamondbacks doing Diamondbacks things. JP Crawford on 420. What are we doing here, people?
You know, new segment, a little live producing by me. This segment's called Comments from Last Episode. Movies rule 2011. Trev was never a 162 guy. JP and Danny, they're managing Trev's load. That one, the comments did good. The comments are good. I'm glad you're back, Jolly. You know, Jollywood's just a lot these days. Jollywood is good. Jollywood's pretty good. That's stolen from the office.
And yeah, he joined at what he thought would be the low point of the Mets season, but who knows... Who knows right now because it's entered an area we haven't seen a lot, especially with the expectations that team had for them. Anything before we get into it, Coach?
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Chapter 2: Which teams are on winning and losing streaks?
It was like a fuck. Yeah. Pressure.
I think everyone needs to get the competitive juices going in some aspect of their life. Um, Yeah, we were joking before about our warehouse games where sometimes you get a good version of that, sometimes you don't. But happy for you. And, you know, you an MVP. And now you're the MVP.
Let's just say he took another MVP last year and they couldn't get the job done.
Oh.
Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Matthew. I'll let you guys figure out who that is. But we did.
It was Stafford and Vic last year? Close. Not too far off. Congratulations. It's, yeah, pretty good.
It's a win for the Talking Baseball family.
One of our social – because I kind of teed it up because I didn't know how much you wanted to reveal – Put the picture up, Rob. I don't care. I, uh, I told our, our socials guy reached out and he was like, Hey, what the fuck is Trev doing? And I was like, I told him and he was half excited. And I was like, dude, it's with MVP one hoisting, hoisting trophies. That's special.
Um, yeah, a lot of interesting people there in the world. Um, let's talk ball.
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Chapter 3: What standout performances were highlighted this weekend?
Congrats. There it is. Um, A couple Vesper martinis in the trophy? Is that what I'm seeing right now?
Yeah, that's classy right there. That's classy.
Kyle's going to be so happy we have that up. That will be on social media very soon. All right. Today's episode is sponsored by Shady Rays. Shady Rays are built for real sports fans. No more squinting through the sun to track a fly ball when you already have sunglasses on.
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And it starts with an ALCS preview, question mark? Guardians and the Orioles teed it up for four. A game that happened but didn't exist yet, Parker Messick. No-no into the ninth. Gets broken up. And then the Orioles almost spoil it. They did the same thing to Yamamoto last year. Impressive start by Messick. He's had an impressive start to the season. Want to talk about him a little bit.
Orioles won that second game. Bybee and Bassett both needed bounce backs, and they did. And then it was guards ball the rest of the way. Juan Burritos diving all over the field. Guardians jumped out to a big lead in that final game. Playoff Rokio in April. Cleveland takes three out of four. The Mariners take two out of three from the Texas Rangers.
The Rangers have some demons with these Mariners, but they did it on game one when they won a 5-0. Brandon Nimmo lead off Homer. There's a little cop's joke. Jacob deGrom, we've talked about him a good amount, and we're going to talk about him more because he's been great. Mariners, they snap a four-game losing streak, and then they win the series. Luke Raley is destroying baseballs.
Rob Refsnyder was not destroying baseballs and then destroyed his first one of the season. Randy Rosarena, feeling a little slutty. He went pole dancing. Mariners take two out of three. The Yankees, they sweep the Kansas City Royals. Snaps for my Yanks. Couple young studs here. Cam Schlittler, Ben Rice, Will Warren, Ryan Weathers. How are you?
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Chapter 4: How do the current standings reflect team performances?
Like you mentioned, it is Gallo-esque. I think it's 200 on the nose, but eight home runs has him as one of the leaders in baseball on that. Man, when he gets it, that's a 98-mile-per-hour fastball, by the way, which we were told the VLO was going to be the problem with this guy. He's a fun story that A's walk-off win was fun.
Dallas Braden with some interesting, like, the pitcher was in the lineup. Why didn't they walk to him?
I'm also a Dallas. How does that even happen?
Yeah.
How does that happen? I'm sure they had someone on the bench. They would have had to pinch hit, but then you lose your pitch. There's all sorts of things that could go there, but at least make them make that decision and then load the bases and have force outs everywhere. Instead, you just pitch to Max Muncy, who's a younger, better version of me, and you lose the game. Weird.
Colson Montgomery, by the way, sneaky. I think five homers already. He's just going to be a 30-homer shortstop, and we don't even talk about this guy? The power's ridiculous. I think we're talking about him. I want to make sure we do because we got a lot of young, fun players, and I feel like he doesn't get lumped into them.
Yeah, I think there's just a little bit of, I don't want to say fear.
We're talking McGonigal. We're talking Weatherholt, all these guys, and I think Colson deserves to be put with them.
You're not wrong. I think there's a little – yeah, I'm not going to say fear at all. I think it's a stud. It's just what level of stud he is. And, yeah, he's in that boat. He kind of did it last year.
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Chapter 5: What challenges are the Mets facing this season?
It's become a very, very tough watch for the Mets. It's just nothing is going their way whatsoever. You mentioned – I mean, Devin Williams hasn't got to pitch a ton in this losing streak, but when he does have the – the opportunity to close went out and it doesn't get the job done.
It's just like, that's to me, that's one of the rougher things too, is we know it hasn't been happening for them, but when you're in, you're ready to win a game and you have your guy in and it just, it doesn't happen.
I mean, to me that like, that means it's going to continue to happen that game right there on Sunday when they had a chance to win it and they don't, I feel like it starts to snowball. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw 15 in a row.
Michael Conforto with the hit. Yeah, that's true. That's a little twist of the knife. Yeah, I'm not going to take a victory lap yet. It's a long season. And, hey, maybe you're getting it out of the way. Four teams in MLB history have lost 10 or more games in a row and made the playoffs the last 2025 guard dog. So, hey, it's...
Crazier things have happened, but at one point you need to win a game, and then you've got to figure it out from there, and you've got to get Soto back, and you need Lindor to play better, and you need all of it to be better. I think in the last 11 games, 62-19. Jeez. It's not competitive. So on the other side of this, the Cubs do deserve some snaps.
Again, baseball can lead you down a good path and a bad path when you're getting a Carson Kelly pinch hit home run to kind of open up that second game. That matters. And, yeah, it's a lot of impressive guys on the field that, This NL Central has become a ton of fun, and we dreamt of days like this. It feels kind of real as the Cubs and the Brewers are tied for last place at 12-9.
Basically, you get three quality starts out of these Cubs starting pitchers. Cabrera gets one, Tyone gets one, and then Javier Assad is one out away from getting one, so you've got to love that. You mentioned Ian Happ kind of finding the power stroke, which is great. Say Suzuki's still doing it. We were talking a little bit of smack-up by Asteros before the show. Oh. Just being slow. That's fine.
Yeah.
There's a lot of slow guys. Was that during the show?
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Chapter 6: How are the Cubs performing in the NL Central?
No, we're just him, him and Basayo. Like both of them can hit and they're going to need to hit a lot because they're not fleet of foot.
No, not at all. Actually, Dalton brought that one up. You said Basayo. I said the twins as a team.
You said the whole twins team outside of boxing.
Well, that's how it started. Yeah. But yeah, man, the Cubs looking good in a very tough division. apparently, which I didn't really have. The Cardinals being as good as they've been. Some people had the Pirates. I wasn't a super believer. I'm still iffy on the Pirates, but it's looking, Jake, like we're going to have a hell of a race there in the Central.
If you're into Fangraph's percentages, which a lot of you probably are, right now it has the Pirates with the highest odds to make the playoffs in the NL Central. It's a lot of ball to go, and that can change quickly, and it's very close to the Cubbies. But just interesting to think about, big stretch for the Cubbies coming up. They host the Phillies.
who we mentioned there in a tough place right now. And then they do a West Coast road trip Dodgers Padres. So we'll find out a little bit more about these Cubbies in the next couple weeks. And they've had the injury bug, man. No Matthew Boyd, obviously Horton Steele, Daniel Palencia on the all-story LA team out of that bullpen right now. But they find a way. They find a way.
They're a deep, good team.
The Mets infield right now. Mm-hmm. Let's just put Beatty at first, okay? 483 OPS. Marcus Simeon at second base, 606 OPS. Francisco Lindor, 600 OPS. Bo Bichette, 538 OPS. That can change. It can change. It needs to change, coach. It has to.
Sheesh, man. It has to, I think.
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Chapter 7: What standout performances occurred during the weekend games?
Um, Phillies, it's interesting, man. I think their pitching should be better. Like, they're not walking guys. They are striking guys out, but the ERA and WIP are not there. I think the offense has to go, which we've probably said. We've said that a couple times now, but it's what this team was built on. But we've also mentioned that middle of the lineup, it can be a little –
Not what we remember it being with the Phillies that, I don't know, I feel like two years ago they got off to a slow start and then they kind of kicked into gear, but they're waiting for the good things to happen. Felix Reyes, hello.
I want to see something real quick.
Chapter 8: Which players are struggling and what are the implications?
Perfect. I'm looking it up. Bryce Harper, decent start to the year. Had a couple chances on Sunday's game. Didn't really come through. I want to look runners in scoring position. Getting it up right now. Where is it, guys? Scoring position, and we're looking for OPS, and we're looking, and where are the Phillies at? All right, you know what? They're doing better than I thought they were.
They're actually 10th in the league, 755 OPS. Maybe batting average is a better stat for runners in this winning position. Right? It's an argument. Interesting. They're 20th in. Seems to me like they need to do a better job of that. Shelfie put out a video saying that he thinks every single game goes the same with them. They get out to a lead or...
score early on and then just get blanked the rest of the game. So something needs to change with the Phillies in that regard. Yeah, the offense has kind of been the Achilles heel for them, which I don't think will be a season-long problem.
Man, they've lost four of their five home series this year. Worst run differential in baseball, so it's bad. They are getting covered up by the Mets, the Giants, Astros, but it's starting to get threat-level midnight. They've got to kick into gear, especially if the Braves are going to be the best at scoring runs and ERA.
Tywon Walker needs to get it going. He's had some first-inning stuff. They've changed his routine to try to figure out how to make him better in the first inning. Opener is obviously an option here. We'll see how it goes.
The Boo Birds were getting loud.
They should. They should be.
Nice, Trev. Look at you. Hell yeah, dude. Okay, enough of that East Coast-ish. Although, the Tambay Rays and the Pittsburgh Pirates. I... I hit this on the way through with a lot of my thoughts. Again, if the Pirates sweep that middle game, which I think if a little mini hurricane doesn't come through, it'd probably be a little more Pirates love. No, the Pirates continue.
There's a Spencer Horwitz fun fact. And then I think Connor Griffin's defense is a topic.
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