Dodger Talk (5-29-24) - podcast episode cover

Dodger Talk (5-29-24)

May 30, 202427 min
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Episode description

Tim Cates takes your calls after the Dodgers trounce the Mets, 10-3. Will Smith talks to the media after hitting his 100th career HR.

Transcript

Dodger Talk is sponsored by La Care Health Plan, providing affordable healthcare insurance to millions of Angelinos for over twenty five years, and now your voice for Dodger Talk. Like the back damn Cats, Oh, always fun to go to New York and beat up on the New York Mets. And that's exactly what the Dodgers did. They needed wins. They were riding a five game losings

trick. They were fresh off getting swept by the Cincinnati Rents, the last place team in the NL Central. And then the rains came on Memorial Day and washed away the game between the Dodgers and Mets, setting up a doubleheader yesterday and the getaway game today. And what happened yesterday? The Dodgers for seven plus innings offense was sluggish, couldn't get something going, and boom in the eighth inning, they get on the board. They get on the board

again in the ninth. They went it in the tenth thanks to a three run tenth inning and Freddie Freeman hitting the two run home run. Dodgers get the sweep yesterday in the doubleheader, exploding for three runs in the second game and a three to nothing shutout. And they come back today and the Dodgers put up a ten spot and beat the New York Mets ten to three on sixteen hits. They had four home runs, two of which came from Will

Smith in a winning effort. As the Dodgers are thirty six and twenty two, and as we said in the postgame show, Hose Motive mentioned it, you leave on a road trip in which you go five hundred three and three, and you come back and you're still exactly where you were atop the standings in the NL West and exactly where you were six and a half games up

on the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres. The Dodgers will take that anytime to go to Cincinnati and get swept, turn around and sweep the New York Mets, and come back home for a three game series and still be six and a half games up right where you were. Absolutely the Dodgers will take that. Eight sixty six nine eighty seven two five seventy is a

number. Eight sixty six nine eight seven to two five seventy will be here until the top of the hour before we turn things over to the Petros and Money Show, Pee and Money getting ready for a one hour sprint from six until seven. They'll be joined by James Worthy on the show. Obviously a lot to talk about in the world of basketball, with the conference finals going on, the Celtius advancing to the NBA Finals, and of course the sudden

loss of Bill Walton earlier this week at the age of seventy one. James Worthy, having played against him and friends with them for so many years battle it out in the NBA. So I'll be great to hear from big game James coming up. And just over an hour when petros some money start at six o'clock, but plenty of time for your phone calls. Eight sixty six, nine eighty seven, two five seventy. It's funny how a little winning will cure things. The mood around the team we heard from Kirsten and Davess

on the pregame show mentioned how yesterday before the head guys were salty. Guys were not feeling it. You know, you're riding a five game losy streak. What do you expect. I wouldn't want it the other way. Guys to be upset about the way they're playing and hitting and lack of production on the offense. And then you win a doubleheader, and you come back to

the yard today and it smiles. It's feeling good about things. You got the confidence and the swag back with your offense, good pitching again today, and you get the sweep over the New York Mets. Well, in the last twenty four hours before the Dodgers started getting these wins against the Mets,

you started to see some national publications. Ken Rosenthal was the big one from the Athletic talking about the Dodger woes and he mentioned the five game losing streak and oh no sky is falling for the Dodgers, the lack of production from the bottom of the lineup. What are the Dodgers gonna do? They need help in the outfield. They've tried Micky Vargas, They've tried James Altman, They've tried Andy Pajis, who's cooled off. Keiky Hernandez isn't getting Chris Taylor's

had a miserable start to this season. They can't find the right combination in the outfield to surround ti Oscar Hernandez and Jason Hayward are winning righties on the mount. What are the Dodgers gonna do in the back end of the bullpen. With all the injuries to their high leverage relievers, guys are starting to trickle back. Evan Phillips is gonna be back this weekend, hopefully if he

checks out okay after pitching in Rancho Cucamonga yesterday. But funny to see National Riders baseball insiders start hitting the panic button and what Dodger moves can be made to help get this team back on track. I didn't have any doubt Dodger fans that the offense was going to turn things around. It's rare in baseball that you see a team this talented all get into a rut offensively. Sure,

you'll see one or two guys stay hot and carry a team. You'll see three or four guys stay high and the rest of the team need to be dragged through a series. Need to figure it out at the play offensively, need to get out of a one for fourteen skid that they're in. But we saw Dodgers team go five hundred over the course of ten games, lose five in a row after that, and really struggle offensively for any kind of production. Consistently won through nine. Now it's been three games in the

last twenty four hours. But I like the way that they have trended back and the offense has gotten back on track at least over these three games in New York, and you hope it can carry out moving forward to this weekend in Colorado. But the national perspective that, oh no, what is wrong with the Dodgers. How are they going to fix it via trade? They've

tried bringing up guys from the miners. They've tried using guys who have been platoon players, starters, contributors, playoff performers like Chris Taylor and keyk Hernandez and just nothing his works. And so already national pundits wondering about possible trade for Kenley Jansen. Could the Dodgers go out and get William Thomas from the Brewers to help out a short and move Mookie over to second base and that frees up the second base spot for Gavin Lux not I had to play every

day. Let's just pump the brakes on this a mini skid for the Dodgers, And that's what I think. It really was a mini loll for the Dodgers here in May, and everybody wants to panic about what has happened with this team. Now, if the lull continues, which I don't believe it has, I think this team figured it out yesterday late in that first game of the doubleheader. Certainly they got it going. In the second game. Will Smith provided the power. And sometimes that's all it takes is one guy

to get it going. That's all it takes sometime is maybe a guy to carry you out of a game, get a big hit late in a game and get a victory, get something positive happening for a team, and that momentum will start to rub off on other players, and all of a sudden, you look up and you've won six to seven, You've won two series in a row. Then all of a sudden, you have won three straight

series on the road. It can happen just as quickly as you can start going into a rut and lose five in a row and get swept by a last place team in like the Cincinnati Reds. You can quickly turn things around and it's still May. Look at the clock, look at the scoreboard, look at the calendar. It's still May. We haven't flipped until June yet.

Let's just pump the brakes on the fact that it's panic time for the Dodgers because, as I mentioned at the outset, they left on this road trip up six and a half games and they come back home to Dodger Stadium up six and a half games in the NL West. If they had lost five in a row and the lead was down to a game and a half, and they're coming back home clinging to a lead as we get ready to get to June, and the way the Giants and the Padres have turned things

up and the Dodgers just can't find themselves. Okay, I'd be panicking a little bit, but the fact is they've gone through their roughest stretch of this young season. Hopefully it come out the other side of this rough patch, and they've still got a six and a half game lead on the Division. Eight sixty six nine eight seven two five seventy. Coming up, we'll hear from Will Smith, who said it milestone today with his two home runs.

But let's head back out to Cincinnati. Dave Robbers, the Dodger manager, talking with Kirson and the media. I'm Dave. I know he talked about just salvaging this series, going home five hundred to see your team do just that picking back kind of you guys left off after Cincinnati. How good did it feel to see your team take this week? It was great? Obviously

a great series results wise. For us to catch the lead early was great, and then to relinquish that lead and you know that fifth inning, and then to bounce back and have that big inning in the seventh of the eighth inning, A lot of good things happened, a lot of good situation on bats to strike hitting, and we put together a lot of the bats, and so to be able to have Yards finish that game off and save Hudson,

who's the last guy available, and the pen was big. James is telling us just about the plan for his outing to be a little bit shorter on regular rest. How valuable do you see that being when he is on regular especially long term, with looking to keep him healthy and keeping him ready

for October. I think that's the whole deal. You know, when he signed up, the thought was he was best when given a little bit of extra rest in between starts, and so kind of this circumstance lined up where we needed him to go on regular rest, and so with that we wanted to make sure that we shortened it and I felt that, you know, where he was at close to sixty pitch or something like that. He gave

us what we needed, knowing we had some length behind us. So it was really good to see him, you know, pick us up right. There is that something you I guess kind of see continuing, especially with him when he's on regular rest or you think there will be time, just different situations might call for different things. I think different things might call for different

situations, but I don't see it happening very often. I mean, it might happen a couple more times this year, but it's it's certainly not going to be commonplace. Your offense is back after the last couple of days, I think, so, you know, there's been a lot of talk obviously at the bottom of the order, and today you know, you can see when they're taking productive at bats, getting hits, taking big walks, that

good things happen. And so you know, even say Mookie didn't get any hits, Freddie, I don't know, I got to hit, and so we still put up a lot of runs. So a lot of credit go to those guys. Miguel Rojas is, you know, playing great baseball right now. He really is He's just adding a lot of energy, focus,

intensity to our club on both sides of the baseball. And you know, I can't say enough about Jason coming in off the bench last night, comes in, makes a big play that could have you know, done a different Gavins inning, could have looked different. And then today comes in pinch it triple off Attavino to kind of trigger that inning and Will Smith, you know, kind of doing what Will does so just across the board, up and

down the line was really good to see. All right, there's Dave Roberts talking about the pitching and talking about the thinking process of James Paxson coming out after three innings and only fifty pitches going on normal rest, and you got to think of this. You don't need to build these guys up to go seven innings over the course of six months. It's a marathon. And you hear that expression all the time. But again, we're still in the month

of May and he's getting to double digit starts now in ten. You don't need to start burning up these guys arms just because you need him to pitch on regular rest. If that's the case, have him go out throw like he did today, somewhere between fifty and sixty pitches. He did exactly that in three innings. Now, he could have gone longer if he wouldn't have had a twenty five pitch third inning. He could have gone longer if he

didn't have a seventeen pitch first inning. So just so happens he win three innings because he hit the fifty pitch mark, and that's where they wanted to keep him at on short rest again, don't need to go out there and start putting a lot of mileage on these pitcher's arms. And it's not even June yet. As it is, the Dodgers' bullpen comes in well rested. Thanks to the previous two starters in this series, Tyler glass Now and Gavin

Stone. The Dodgers' bullpen was rested and fresh and ready to go. Think about what this Dodgers' bullpen did in these first two games. Alex Vesia two innings pitch in the second game, Michael Grove, Daniel Hudson, Blake trining

in the first game. Yeah, that was it as far as bullpen use yesterday in the double hitter, You'll take that every time to get that kind of outing from your two starters, limited bullpen usage, and a double hitter, and you've basically got a rested bullpen outside of a trinan who still came in in pitch today and pitched him back to back days. Now, Michael Grove pitched him back to back days. He looked good at his one inning

today outside the double that he gave him. But this was a Dodger bullpen rested and ready to go, and it was right on time for James Paxton, who was going on shorter rests to get the fifty pitches three innings. And then Tanner turned it over to the bullpen where six different relievers came out and pitch for the Dodgers, and they go on and beat the Mets ten

to three. A six run eighth inning for the Dodgers. Ten batters went to the plate two home runs, booking by Will Smith's solo home run, and then show Heyotani a two run home run to give the Dodgers a nine to three lead for Showyotani. By the way, a fun fact for show Hao Tani because he's hit a lot of home runs this season. He's hit a lot of home runs in new ballparks that he had never hit a home run before. I know he's played six years in Anaheim, but he has

never homered in all the parks. Sho Hao Tani this year has hit a home run for the first time in these four ballparks. And again, we haven't gotten to June yet. He's hit a home run for the first time at Ridley Field. Did back on April fifth. He's hit a home run for the first time in his career this year at Nationals Park. Did that

back on April twenty third, for the first time in his career. Shoey Otani went deep in San Francisco just two weeks ago May fourteenth, hit the home run at Oracle Park, one of the longest home runs ever hit at that stadium. And then today the home run opposite way to less center field in the eighth inning. That was the first time show Heyo Tani has hit a home run in his career at City Field. So we think of shoey

Otani. He's been in the league six years and we haven't got to Junie yet, and already he's hit four home runs in four parks that he's never done so at ridley Field, Nationals Park, Oracle Park, and then today gets it done at City Field. We'll take a break, come back here on Dodger Talk. Don't forget Petro some money coming up at the top of the hour. They're stretching, ready to go for a one hour sprint until seven o'clock before we have things over to Jason Smith. But the Dodgers get

to win this afternoon. A happy flight home for Dave Roberts and his team, a ten to three victory over the New York metsas City Field. More of your phone calls, we'll hear from Will Smith, who set a milestone today at Cityfield as well. When we come back, Tim Kates, Colliny and you, it's postgame Dodger Talk. You're on your home of the Dodgers. AM five seventy LA. Spurs Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio AUS AM five seventy LA Sports be anywhere at any time, and you can hear past episodes

of Dodger Talk all of those things. Search AM five seventy on the iHeartRadio app. We're streaming online. We stream every game too. Come find it. Back to Dodger Talk on AM five seventy LA Sports Ball No Strikes. Ton Alvino gets ready to face one Smith again, was a curveball swung on hit well in the left field. It is going back to the wall Don home run for Smith and the Dodgers leading in the eighth, four to three, the second home run of the game for Will Smith, and the Dodger

catcher has scored three of the four Dodger runs this afternoon. Will Smith one of his two home runs in a Dodgers ten to three win, his eighth home run and ninth home run of this season, and he joins three other Dodger greats for hitting one hundred home runs in Dodger history. So congratulations to Will Smith, who's now tied by the way in home runs with Steve Jeger at one hundred in his career eight six six, eight six six nine eight

seven two five seventy eight sixty six nine eight seven two five seventy. Daniels Jewelers, the official sponsor of the Trip around the Diamond. Stop by any Daniel's Jeweler's location, say home run for your free team bracelet and a fifty dollars gift card towards any purchase of ninety nine dollars or more. Daniels Jewelers own the Dream in fact I did that. Over the weekend. I was out shopping with my daughter and my wife and went into Daniels Jewelers and said,

home run. And what did they give me? A free team bracelet? That's right, a free team bracelet just for walking into Daniels Jewelers at the Glendale Galleria. I said, home run. She said, I got a bracelet coming your way, sir, And that's exactly what happened. It's that easy. Plus, you can get a fifty dollars gift card towards any purchase of ninety nine dollars or more at Daniels Jeweler's own the Dream eight sixty

six, nine eighty seven, two five seven. Right, let's go out to the phones, Petro, some money coming up at the top of the hour. Edgar in Norwalk start things off here on postgame Dodge Talk after the Dodgers sweep the Mets with a ten to three win. Yeah, I just want to say, I mean, these guys have the best line up in the National League. Oh no, do we lose. Hey, you're there, buddy, A ball home run. But now the way they're playing,

it's smart baseball. Yeah, they had better at bats today. There's no doubt about it. I appreciate it. Edgar Jose talked about it on the Clubout Show, and I'm glad you brought that up because you did see better quality of bats. You saw guys going the other way, Guys passing the batons boats, so to speak, Guys driving the balls to the outfield to

move a runner over or to bring in a run. As especially part of that six run eighth inning, Will Smith gets a home run, but then running on Miguel Rojas an RBI single, Miguel Vargas a two run double, doesn't do anything special, just puts it in play down the right field line. Sho Hao Tani then a two run home run, And for shoey Otani, as great of a hitter as he is, he's just looked a little different to play. I don't know if he's over compensating for his hamstring that's

been tight on him or what. But Rick Monday's talked about it and is pulling the ball, pulling off on inside pitches. I don't know if he thinks that teams are just going to continue to try to pepper him inside, which they had been doing. And the Cincinnati Redis did a very good job of that going in, especially with the fastball on shoey Otani, and he hasn't caught up to it, and he's pulling off the ball, trying to pull everything. But in that final bat in the eighth inning where he hit

the home run today, fastball lowing away in the strike zone. Instead of pulling off on the ball and popping it out or hitting off the end of the bat or trying to pull out the right field, he goes with it and with his power he hits out of the ballpark nearly four hundred feet to left center field at City Field. So again just doing what the pitchers are going to give you. A bunt yesterday that brought in a run. You saw today, was it Miguel Vargas, Miguel Rojas who was up and a

runner on first and third and Miguel Rojas attempts a bunt. He wasn't going to, but he just squared to bunt, moving the infielders around and Gavin lux was going on the pitch, and what happened. You get guys in motion, you attempt to bunt, at least you show it. First baseman crashes, second basement's got to go over towards first, the shortstops covering second, guys are moving around on defense, and you got a guy in motion

and Gavin Lux stealing second base without even a throw. That's smart heads up baseball right there. And the Dodgers did that in this series. I'm telling you, the day off in New York is going to prove to be a big moment for this Dodgers team. Thank goodness for mother Nature in the rain on Memorial Day. Freddie Freeman needed today off. Rick Monday's been through this. He's talked about he's seen more baseball than we can ever think of,

and he even said it multiple times yesterday and today. Eric Carrolls mentioned it on the TV broadcast on Sports and at la same thing, been around baseball's entire life. Knows more baseball than I'll ever know. And he talked about getting off your feet, rain out game, going out and eating dinner, stay in the hotel, just not thinking about baseball, watching a movie, doing anything besides baseball for a day, and then coming back and feeling better

at the plate. Confidence is back. You get some positive results and all of a sudden, you're Freddie Freeman again and you're hitting the ball over the ballpark and you're hitting it out of the ballpark. It's funny thing how baseball. You can be up one day, down another day, and all of a sudden a rain out, and you can come back and you can get out of whatever funk you're in offensively. If you're a pitcher, you can get ret, reset and back mentally ready for your next start the next time

out. I mean, it's funny to give him baseball eight six six, nine, eight seven, two five seventy. It's go out to Montrose and Jason is next up on Dodger Talk. Hi doing, Jason doing great, love the show Man. Thanks appreciated. A question for you, you know, Otani or should we call him with her, you know, calling him

in the clubhouse. Somebody calls himself baseball boy. We know how devastating is when he's either two way player, he's a pitcher and he can hit, and he's a presumptive MVP every year, but this year he's the front runner and he's a DH. Has anyone ever won the MVP just I mean, no position in the field, just straight up DH? Or is he doing like unprecedented stuff his baseball boy? You know kind of study records are going to be really hard to chase. Yeah, I mean he's a unicorm as

they say, Junior Jason. I appreciate the phone call and h Colin, he just looked it up real quickly, and I appreciate this. Uh. Nobody has ever won Most Valuable Player solely playing designated hitter. Don Baylor was the closest to do it when he was with the Angels in forty percent of the games when he won al MVP back in nineteen seventy nine. But again, he wasn't solely a designated hitter forty percent of the games. He was a DH, so it wasn't like Shoey O'tani solely a designated hit. Now

that could change. Who knows Otani's throwing now what happened if we get to September October. I'm just I don't know anything. I'm just throwing it out there and the Dodgers, you know, one Otawni out there and Will Smith

the DHA game and Otani goes out and plays the outfield. I'm just saying, what if we get to that point again, he is primarily going to be a designated hit this year, And with that being said, no nobody has ever won Most Valuable Player in Major League Baseball solely as a designated hitter. Thanks to Colin e for backing me up and finding that stat and that information right there. Eight sixty six nine eighty seven two five seventy is the

number Dodgers win at ten to three over the New York Mets. They have his six run eighth inning. The ten batters went to the plate two home runs in the inning. Blake Trying gets the win, Ada Bodovino gets the loss. How about the performers today? From Will Smith, the Dodger catcher yesterday is a designated hitter had a home run, comes back today hits home runs and back to back or two of his four at bats eighth and ninth of the season and number one hundred of his career. Let's hear from the

Dodger catcher with David Vessell. Uh, with those two home runs, you now have one hundred as a Dodger catcher. You're among names like Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza. But what does that mean to you? Yeah, that's uh, it's really cool. You know those are you know, Hall of famers, So yeah, I mean, I'm sure they hit a few more than one hundred, but uh yeah, it's cool. It's cool, comp

cool milestone for me. But right now I'm just focused on winning. Turey get one on one on Friday, and uh yeah, how big of a sweep was this considering the way things went in Cincinnati for you guys, Yeah, it was huge. Just to get that first game yesterday, it was huge. How do you shut the door on that ending? Get off to a good start after those three games, then you know, go back out win another ballgame, and then you know, get out there today and when

it's huge, it'll be a happy flight home. So yeah, it's good. I don't know if you guys have talking about it on the Monday, that starts us a little bit of a reset. They kind of went good to work today, but you kind of feel the same way that they help you personal. Uh yeah, I think we made most out of it. Yeah, yes, you can talk about it that way. You know, we just kind of got our normal routine, pregame routine, and then they

canceled the game on us. But yeah, you're ready to go. On Tuesday, came out one two Paul games, so it's good for us. Three homework. That's two games for you. For you like how overall U feeding other played here over the last week or so. So decent, not great the past a couple of weeks, but not bad either. Just continue to work in the cage with the Haiti coaches, continue to try to stick my approach, and I go out there and execute it and nah, yeah,

a couple of balls go over the instead. All right, there's Will Smith who hits home run number one hundred of his career, and he does so in twenty and seventy six played appearances. Steve Yeager, he joins the company with Jaggs with one hundred career home runs as a Dodger catcher. Mike Piazza is number two on the list with one hundred and seventy seven. Roy Campanella the all time Dodger catcher leader with home runs two hundred and forty two.

So Will Smith certainly a long ways away from Roy Campanella's record, but he is now tied for third with Steve Jeger with one hundred career home runs with the Dodgers. That's gonna do it for postgame Dodger talk. Coming up next, it's the Petros and money show. I know the guys literally have been chomping at the bit coming in here and tell me to hurry up because they want to get at it. It's gonna be a sprint, a one

hour sprint for the boys till seven o'clock in the Jason Smith Show. Thanks to Colony as always, names for you for listening being a part of the show. Hopefully Major drive home a little bit better on this Wednesday afternoon. Your podcasting the show, we certainly appreciate it. On the iHeart or radio app. You can listen to anything Dodgers on the iHeartRadio app, all the pregame interviews, pregame show, this is Morongo Casino, Dodgers on Deck,

and of course the postgame as well. Dodgers Off Tomorrow. I'll be back with off Night Dodger Talk, and then they'll start a three game homestand a quick one three game series against the Colorado Rockies to get in on Friday night, Morongo Casino Dodgers on Deck at six, first pitch at seven to ten. Walker Vieler scheduled to get the start on Friday with a big one for the Dodgers. See the Mets beat the Mets sweep the Mets, and that's exactly what they did with a ten to three win today in New York.

Until next time, so everybody, PMS is next

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