Speaker 1: It's going to be me and Bogey for the next
ten right here on Sports Talk seven ninety Bogie is
We've talked about for nine million times. The baseball season
can be a roller coaster ride. You go up to Boston,
you watch them lose three games. You go to Miami
and the Marlins beat the Yankees three straight in their
home field, draw huge crowds. The next two nights the
Astros come in town and the Astors are beating them
up pretty good. This season has not made a lot
of sense for many reasons, and I think this last
five days is a great.
Speaker 2: Example of that.
Speaker 3: No, I totally agree. You know, My first kind of
thought and reaction to you know, the last week, week
and a half is kind of like, let's not get
too high on, you know, beating up on the Nationals
and the Marlins. But if you look at what the
Marlins have been over the course of you know, a
good chunk of six to eight weeks, and what they
were doing coming in to this series, you know, yeahs
it looked pretty good against a team that's been playing
really well. And I think it's the way that they've looked.
It's the offense, it's you know, kind of a different
looking team post trade deadline than we had seen throughout
the course of much of the season. You know, some
of that is additioned, some of that is you know,
Paya coming back healthy. But I think it's kind of
rounding into form. It's certainly not the team that you
think of when you say, okay, what's our best, But
it's definitely a team that is different for the better
than it was maybe three or four weeks ago.
Speaker 2: It is amazing to me.
Speaker 1: Look, this team, I would say more times than not
has been offensively challenged. But there were a night in
particular in Boston we get fourteen hits, and so that's
supposed to win you baseball games, and that just didn't happen.
There's one thing about getting on bas another one getting
into scoring. There's really no rhyme or reason to why
that is except for, you know, sometimes your heard of
the lineup guys don't come through, and sometimes your seventh,
eight nine guys come up with the worst possible times.
What is your take on how this team at least
getsophrenically the last sixty days has been so up and
down offensively.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when you look at the runners in
scoring position numbers, whether it be for an individual player
or a team or whatever. I, for one, I do not.
I try as hard as I can to not diminish
hitting with runners in scoring position, because it's not the
same as every other at that right A pitcher is
not going to pick you the same with runners in
second and third and one out as they are with
two outs and nobody on. That's that's a given. You
have to be a better hitter to hit with runners
in scoring position. However, when you're looking at over the
course of time, over the course of the season, the
greatest predictor of can you hit with runners in scoring
position is just can you hit? In general? Are you
a contact oriented hitter or team do you hit for
average as a team or as an individual hitter? And
when you have situations where you know you're racking up
a ton of hits, you're racking up a ton of
base runners, and maybe for a game or a couple
of games, you don't drive those runners in, that can
just be attributed to it's just baseball. Sometimes you hit
a line drive at somebody with two outs and you
know you don't score. But over time, if you're doing
the right things, eventually you will hit with runners in
scoring position and therefore score a lot of runs. So
when I look at a team, this team post trade
deadline and what the lineup has been doing in terms
of just volume of quality at bats, volume of guys
on base, I think it's a better option, a better
chance of scoring a lot of runs consistently than it was.
You know, not that too far in the past.
Speaker 1: Ryan Bogasovich with us here on seven hunty for his
regular Wednesday visit Bogie. You played with Helse for a
very short time, very young part of his career towards
the end of yours, and then you've watched him as
a broadcaster and as a guy that goes to the
ballparking season first hand. He's still racking up hits. I
think he's going to get to three thousand hits. It's
gonna take a lot of work, but I think he's
going to get there. But just when people want to
all of a sudden, say all right, here comes a
significant downturn and maybe Jose has had that defensively, but
his OPS is above eight hundred. Yet again, he's hitting
home runs. He walks into the ballpark with two hits
per night. Have you noticed anything about his swing changing now?
Obviously it's probably slower than it was as a rookie,
but he's still getting on base, he's still making solid contact.
Is there any noticeable difference than maybe even seven or
eight years ago, the wholesale two V swing that you
see now?
Speaker 3: I think maybe the one thing you could say is
that when he's, you know, hunting for power, he has
to become much a little bit more pull dominant than
he was in the past, and in order to do so,
maybe have to have to guess or cheat a little
bit more. But that's I mean, that's a very negligible thing.
Nothing with the swing, nothing with the approach, you know.
I think at some point, especially when you're talking about
this lineup functioning as as it should, you know, with
everybody back where it should, and he doesn't have to
be a power hitter type of guy, or maybe later
in his career when he doesn't have to be that,
he still has the ability to rack up a ton
of hits. He can still if he wanted to just
spray balls the other way and get base hits, he
could he could easily do that. But he's trying to
be more of a complete hitter, trying to trying to
hit for power, trying to be a middle of the
lineup guy. So maybe he has to sacrifice a little
bit of risk of swing and miss in order to
do that. But I mean that's just hitting. Sometimes you
got to give a little bit to it, a little bit,
and I think that in terms of just pure hitting ability,
he's still every bit as good as he ever was.
Speaker 2: Bullgey.
Speaker 1: We saw the Astros go with an opener yesterday and
then we saw aj blue Ball get his second appearance
in a major league uniform, and I mean, he was
hitting ninety seven ninety eight of the gun and I
don't know if that's.
Speaker 2: Going to be a regular thing for him.
Speaker 1: But for a guy that goes from his first start
many months ago to.
Speaker 2: A guy who got passed up by at least two.
Speaker 1: Pitchers, if not more, to get this opportunity again, it
looked like he was just very comfortable that the way
the world was off his shoulders and he can just
rear back and get people out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, a lot can happen over the course
of whatever it's been three three months down in the
minor leagues and getting working and he's pitched a lot
of innings down there, and there have been, you know,
tweaks made and adjustments made. And you know, if you're
sitting when you're sitting down in triple A and you're
seeing guys get called up, get called up, get called up,
and it's not you, and it's not you, and it's
not you, it'll create a sense of urgency and it'll
it'll you know, kind of push you to get better
and kind of push you to when you do get
that opportunity, try to make a good impression. And I
think he certainly did that. From a stuff standpoint, I mean,
you can, you can go a long way with high
end stuff and when you's you know, there's a lot
of room for error when you're pitching when it's ninety
seven ninety eight miles an hour, and it's certainly different
than a lot you know, a lot of guys that
we've seen come up. It's been lesser stuff, but more
of a plan, more of an approach for pitching, you know,
having a guy who can come up and say, hey,
we need you know, two, three, four innings, where somebody
can just go out there and try to blow guys away.
Here's our option and differentiate yourself a little bit.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that you knew that.
Speaker 1: You probably in the back of your mind thought the
transition for Cardlos going from short to third base would
be a piece of cake, and it feels like it
certainly has been.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're that talented a shortstop, I mean there
are some nuances to third base. It's a little bit
different footwork, maybe a couple of different arm angles on throws.
But I mean, if you can play shortstop at the
level that he plays shortstop, you can slide right over
to third base and honestly, probably pretty much anywhere else
in the Diamonds.
Speaker 1: Urius gets an opportunity, makes the most of it. You've
got now, I think, another additional utility guy. Not so
much pressure on Dubond to play every single day. It
feels it's like the lineup is coming together clearly because
guys are back, and noticely Jerby would be the first
one on that list. Ross and I want to do
this in a few minutes, and we may have time
to do so. We're hoping that at some point Jordon
gets into play on this and if he does, that's
the missing piece to this lineup being filthy.
Speaker 2: One to seven. Right at this.
Speaker 3: Point you think, oh, absolutely, I mean he as good
as other guys have been, as nice as the additions are,
Jordon coming back healthy and being the hitter that he is.
Everything then revolves around him. You build your lineup around him.
You know, team's game plan around him. It's also you know,
another left handed bat that has to be accounted for,
and now you're looking at the top half of the
batting order being righty lefty, righty lefty. So you know,
looking down the road to a seventh, eight ninth inning,
playing matchups, it makes it really difficult for opposing managers.
So yeah, I mean you're looking at a lineup that
really at some point is going to be you know,
one through eight, one through No. Nine really solid because
you know you've got guys who, for a good chunk
of time were hitting you know, Tel Schmell hit a
bunch of leadoff. He's going to be maybe your ninth
hole hitter. You got you know, Cam Smith sliding in
the seventh hole when he was hitting fourth for a
good chunk of time. Victor Carrottini when he's in the lineup,
he was their best hitter for you know, nearly a
month during the course of the season. So yeah, you're
looking at some real lengths and you know yiners getting
it going, So all of a sudden, you're looking at
a lineup that's really deep and really dangerous in every spot.
Speaker 1: Last question, Bogie, last night, it happened in back to
back innings, once for the Astros and once for the Marlins.
There was massive miscommunication between the two teams centerfielders and
the right fielders. You have played outfield. Take us to
the protocol on that, and why was it strange to
you that had happened in back to back innings.
Speaker 3: I think that's just a flukey thing. Look, I've played
down there in Miami. I don't think it was a
function of the crowd being too loud and guys not
being able to hear it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So here, here's the protocol. Right centerfielder has priority over
everybody on the field, and then outfielders have priority over infielders.
And when you get into that little Bermuda triangle where
there's a center field or a right fielder and an
infielder going out, you've got to, you know, you've got
to be loud so that you know the other players
can hear you, but also you've got to know who's
calling it right. If you're the right fielder coming in
and you hear I got it, you've got to know
if that's your second basement or if that's your center fielder,
and whether you need to call him off or lay back.
And you know, you've got some guys in there who
you know, Doobie hasn't played a ton of center field,
or you've got Urias who's not used to playing with
other guys. So you've just got a little bit going
on to where guys aren't totally comfortable. But yeah, it's
one of those things where it's difficult, especially on a
ball that's just on the edge of range where you're
not going to be camped underneath it and you're comfortable
to take your eyes off the ball and look down
and say, okay, is my second basement camp or is
that my center fielder coming over? When everybody's looking up
and you just have to listen and know the voices
of who's calling it. You kind of need some guys
who you know their voices, and it's just one of
those things where they haven't worked together a whole lot.
Speaker 1: Last question, I don't know how many times you played
the Yankee Stadium over your career because you were a
nationally guy primarily.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you this. You've got a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of young men that'll be going there for the
very first time, and it feels like to me, especially
if the Rangers continue to beat up on the Yankees,
that the crowd may be more angry at the Yankees
and they are at the Astros because they are in
a massive slump. What advice would you give when you
go to a hostle facility like that for some young
men that may not be at Yankee Stadium but maybe
for the very first time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first of all, I think you hit it on
the head like that. That team is really right now,
So know that there's a heck of a lot more
pressure on them to perform in front of that crowd
than there is on you to perform in front of
that crowd. But anytime you're going to you know, one
of those historical stadiums, or you know, guys who are
in the big leagues for the first time going to
a new stadium, I always get out there early first
day that you're there. Go out even if you're not
doing early work, walk around the stadium. Just get comfortable,
look up into the stand, see how high the third
deck is, take a look at the lights. Just get
familiar with your surroundings. You know, be in awe at
two o'clock in the afternoon, so that at seven o'clock,
you know, it can turn into somewhat of just baseball,
even though you know first time at Yankee Stadium, first
time at Fenway Wrigley, it is a little bit different.
But try to get all of that out before the game.
Speaker 2: Great Steff, as always friend, talk to you next week.
Thank you for the time.
Speaker 3: All right, cool? See yet.
Speaker 2: Brian Bogusivik with us every Wednesday at eleven o'clock