Speaker 1: Eleven o three Sports Talk seven Audien, It's time for
us to spend ten quality minutes with our friend buying
Bogus Sevic working the last couple of games for Space
City home networking joints us here every Wednesday on the
radio program So Brian, when you hear the stats about
that ball would only have left one ballpark, does that go?
Does that irritate you? Does that make it go? Well,
that's what dyke in park is or are you completely
indifferent to hearing things like that?
Speaker 2: You get pretty numb to it when it's your home park, right.
You know, when you go into different stadiums as a
visitor and the quirks of a stadium kind of play
themselves out, it'll drive you crazy a little bit. But
when you see it on a day and day out
basis and you kind of get a feel that you
know every you know, sometimes you get burned on it
and sometimes it helps you out. You just kind of
get numb to it and it is what it is.
You know, it stinks when a game gets decided on
something like that, but you know it could have just
as easily been a ball that went in the Astrospace Brian, it.
Speaker 1: Was a rare off night for Hunter Brown. I mean,
everything was hit hard. It felt like the guardians were
seeing the ball very, very well, and that always comes
up with the well is he tipping pitches? You have
been out of the game for a while, but you
were obviously in the game for much of your adult
life and childhood life. When do you, as an analyst
see that there's something peculiar going on? And was it
different than if you were watching and playing the game
itself in terms of, Oh, I see something going on
that helps me figure out what this guy is throwing.
Speaker 2: So here's here's what I look at. Like, it's always
on your radar, right, especially when you're throwing the ball
as well as Hunter has been, and then all of
a sudden, guys are on everything. But I think you know,
the first thing you have to look at is what
what are the pitches that they were hitting? You know,
where were those pitches located. That pitch that Jose Ramirez hit,
that was a change that that got yanked right down
the middle. The pitch that Rokio hit for the home run,
the ninth hole hitter, it was a cutter that landed
right in the middle of the zone. So I think,
you know, first and foremost, you got to look at
quality of pitch, and that will tell you a lot. Now,
if you're just dotting up your pitches, and if you're
throwing nasty thinkers that guys are staying on and if
you know you're you know, bats are beating you to
the top of the zone on well located, foreseen fastballs
that guys don't usually hit, then you might look a
little bit deeper and say, oh, man, am I tipping something?
Do they have something on me? I think it's just
one of those nights where you know, there wasn't really
a consistent amount of well located pitches, especially with the
off speed stuff, and you know you chuck it up
more to that, then I'm doing something that's given it away.
Speaker 1: Staying with pitching for a second, what did you think
of Kate Smith intentionally balking to get Dubon off a
second base last night?
Speaker 2: Uh? Interesting, I understand the logic of it. If you
think somebody is able to pull something out of your glove,
then you know you don't want to risk that being relayed.
At the same time, I mean he threw a wild
pitch that following inning out. Know that I'd be too,
you know, quick to put guys on third base when
I'm you know, spraying ninety eight and bouncing sliders in there.
But you know what, I would have to imagine that's
something that they discussed before the series and before the game,
certainly of the certain guys that we think might be
able to pick stuff up, or or maybe he thinks
that people have been picking it up on them in
the past. So it's it's it's a different strategy, but
you know, you know, whatever makes the pitcher feel comfortable,
I guess, you know.
Speaker 3: And on both of those things, the tipping and the
kind of picking trying to pick up grips, what exactly
are are you looking for? What's some some examples you
can think of in your career that you saw. I mean,
we've seen people talking about the way the glove is
held or certain cadences, or if you could just give
us like specific examples and then also kind of explain
the looking for the grip thing as well.
Speaker 2: Right, So, it used to be when you were at
second base, you used to be able to pick up
signs and see if you could decode the signs. That
doesn't exist anymore with the pitchcomp So really what you're
doing is is you're focusing on the glove and the
set position the pitcher, and first first thing you're looking
for is do they do something different on say fastball
versus off speed. Is the glove turned a little bit differently,
Is it a higher set or a lower set, something
that you could pick up that maybe the hitter can't see.
The Other thing that you can look for is if
a pitcher's glove is open to you right, they don't
have it closed tightly to their chest. You can sometimes
pick up the hand positioning on the ball and specifically
a change up where they'll throw three fingers on there,
or if a guy throws a split finger, or if
they have a distinct curveball grip where maybe they spike
their finger or something. You can pick those things up
in the glove as they set the grip, and if
you can get it early enough, you can then relay
that to the hitter. So you know, a lot of
times you'll see pictures as they come set. They'll be
turned around looking at the runner, seeing if the runner's
peeking in. They'll be trying to really close their glove
off and keep it tight to the body. But there's
a lot of guys who are really good at peeking
in there, and they might not be every pitchure that
they get, but there might be one particular pitch that
every once in a while will give away, and you know,
sometimes that's all it takes.
Speaker 3: Brian bogos Sevik with us here on Sports Talk seven
ninety three hits yesterday for Cam Smith. We've been kind
of talking about his progression throughout the season with you.
So what have you been seeing from him lately as
he just continues to get better and better, well.
Speaker 2: A real understanding of what his strengths are, a real
understanding of what he needs to do to continue to progress.
We've talked about the adjustments that he's made, but you know,
one of the things that is the most difficult thing
to get better at is how quickly you can adjust,
how quickly on the fly you can make adjustments to
what either pitchers are trying to do to you or
what he did wrong the day before and try to,
you know, take an OH for four and not turn
it into an OH for ten. And you know what
he did yesterday was making an adjustment day to day,
which sometimes it takes hitters, you know, a week to
make an adjustment. He got owned it in with sinkers
in the first game against Cleveland, and a lot of
times a young hitter, you start to feel that fastball
in on your hands. What are you gonna do. You're
gonna try to get quicker. You're gonna try to get
the head out. Okay, I need to pull that ball.
You need to get around on it. But he immediately
went back to what do I do well, and that's
stay inside the baseball, hit it the other way. His
first at bat, he got that fastball in, but he
really kept his hands in tight, got the barrel inside
of it, shoots the line drive to right field. Then
he does the same thing with the breaking ball, shoots
it to right field. And you know, how quickly you
can get back to your baseline of what makes me good,
minimizes the downs of the ups and downs of the season.
And you know, that's that's the key to hitting that,
that is the key to being consistent over you know,
a six hundred plate appearance season is how often can
I be either good or great and not be in
a slump?
Speaker 1: From your eyes to what you've seen the last couple
of days, and that's obviously the Guardian's putting up a
lot of runs. The lineup card has been an interesting
one to see the very least, especially back half of it.
A lot of it's because of paternity, a lot of
it's because of Jake's ailments and pain. You still, if
I was his surmise for have you summarized the last
two games, was it, you know what, you're coming off
a huge series winning in Los Angeles, natural letdown. Is
it that maybe the back third of the lineup is
kind of acting as advertised? Or is it a case
where maybe you've got some guys that are just trying
to crawl to the All Star break to get some
time off. What do you think it is? It could
be a combination of things, or could all be none
of those things.
Speaker 2: Honestly, what I think it is is it's baseball. You know,
one day you can be a world beater, and the
next day a team on a ten game losing streak
can come in and beat you. And you know, every
team throughout the course of the season is going to
have to find through some injuries, They're going to have to,
you know, dip into the depth of the organization and
you know, fortunately the Astors have gotten themselves to a
spot to where they don't have to force the issue,
they don't have to try to rush guys back. They
can be cautious with Jake Myers and you know, if
it's calf is feeling tight, give them a couple of days.
You know, the back half of the lineup, they've actually
gotten production out of there. You know, Taylor Tremel has
had a couple of big games. You know, not everybody's
killing the ball down there, but that is rarely the case.
I think it's just, you know, it's it's just the
natural course of the season that things can turn very quickly.
And you know, you look at the game yesterday. The
Guardians put up ten runs on Hunter Brown and Josh Hader.
You know, if those two guys are going to get beat,
you know the Askers are probably going to get beat.
And that's just the way it was yesterday, and you
move on. I don't think that you can you can
really point to the lineup as being an issue for
any of these last couple of games. It's just the
way it is. And you know, sometimes you take your
lumps and move on.
Speaker 1: Well, Bolgy, final game of the series and Texas comes in,
are could you be thinking? Should you be thinking? Look,
you know, Seattle's not going away, cal Rawley's having a
great season, Mariners have good pitching, never going to be
killing it with the bats. So can you put away
a team in late July if you were to take
two out of three or do you not even think
about it as you get ready for the All Star break?
Speaker 2: No, it's too early to say, you know, putting a
team away. But you can put a lot of pressure
on them. You can force them to kind of play
out the rest of the season in a way that
a team doesn't want to, which is, you know, pedal
to the medal for the last essentially two and a
half three months of the season. That is a long
time to be full go. And the Astros were in
that situation last year where they got behind it and
you know, from basically mid May on and it takes
a lot out of a team and it's not easy
to do. So, so no, you can't put them away
and say, Okay, these guys are going to be out
of it, especially a team that has the quality of
pitching that they have, where they can just rip off
a bunch of really good starts every day, but you
can really force them into a spot to where they're
having to go out there and execute and be good
day in and day out, which is difficult to do.
Speaker 3: And the All Star break coming up, and it's just
four days off, Brian, what do you think about that?
Do you think that's enough as far as your complications
with getting pictures in and out of rhythm and stuff
like that, or do you think it should be a
little bit longer?
Speaker 2: No, four days is Honestly, four days feels like a lot.
When you're used to playing every day and maybe having
one day here or there, four days off is a lot.
And honestly, by the time you get back and you
have that, you know, I think it's an optional workout day.
Now it's it's needed. You know, you need a day
to get back into it. So now four days, four
days is plenty, thank.
Speaker 1: You very much. And we're gonna give you next week off.
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I don't know nothing. That's my typical All
Star break plan is I do nothing.
Speaker 1: Well, then we're calling you next Wednesday. Then if you
know nothing, the new we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna call you. We'll talk about talk about the home
run derby.
Speaker 1: Yes, and how many astro pitchers get to pitch in
the game. Next Tuesday night, we'll have a game, well
you know we'll do. We're gonna ask you to break
down the All Star Game like no one's ever broken
down an All Star game in the history. So we're
calling you next Wednesday. You're not off the hook, then.
Speaker 2: I'll have to do something that I don't often do.
Speaker 1: Just watch deal, just watch the ratings and you can
you can go to MLB dot com and watch it
on speed. Thank your friend who's always we'll see the
ballpark tonight. Thank you for the time you got. Brian Bogasivik.
We just put him on assignment.