We give you our three-

I was, I was, a- again, I knew this coming into it, because it's been a while b- since the Cubs and Sox were both relevant.

And I knew going into that series with the White Sox at, at Wrigley Field, that there was gonna be problems.

'Cause they were ready to talk some shit.

They were ready to start some fights.

And you saw it happen in the bleachers on the, in that first game I was at, and I got video of it.

But Joe, you and I have talked about this at length, and I wonder how much of this has to do with when you were born, uh, the Gen X versus the Millennials.

Oh.

Like, why is he out there? Why is he out there? It just doesn't make any sense.

And it was, you know, it's not just being eliminated.

It was being out of it for so long.

And then Graham's rehabbing for the past two months with like a slightly sprained UCL.

If you're going to continue to pitch through it, it's not like it's just going to get better.

It's not like you're adding more miles to the tires.

So it didn't make any sense for him.

Start your bitching.

So I'm going to Billy, how do you feel about Ellie Dela Cruz and what he's been doing since the all-star break?

Me, personally, I'm loving it, dude.

Like, it's about time that he's finally put it together to be, like, the statistics matching his superstar title that he was given so early on and living up to it.

I think a lot of the walks and his patience can be accredited to ABS because he's not losing strikes low.

He would get pounded for stuff below the knees.

Like, it was the same thing that Judge had.

So, like...

Burns, Lodolo, and Louder, who looks like a human poodle.

I'm just saying that there needs to be something different than what we're doing now because they fucking ruined how we look at these teams at the end of the year because you can have a great team you can have the best team in baseball and then it's a crap shoot as they all say it i mean the commissioner called the trophy just a piece of tin Like, fucking eight years ago.

Now, if you want to go real chaos, because, like, my soccer buddies have been talking about this, it's like if you, like, they cover soccer.

So if you were to say, like, you really want to call it World Series if you need to do what the Champions League does, and then the top two, three teams from each professional baseball org say MLB.

Japan, Korea, Australia.

And then you have a post-season tournament.

Mexico.

Mexico, Dominican Republic, all of them, dude.

It's where he's

right,

Billy? Dude, they're down what it was like.

They were down 6-1, and I'm sitting on the couch, and Alicia, my wife, who's getting up, she's like, I'm done.

I'm just going to go cut the grass.

And I looked at her and I went, hey, anything can happen.

And she's like, sure.

And then goes out and it happened.

yeah.

And he did that.

Yeah.

And he, he did that clearly.

I mean, I'm looking at his chart right now from Baseball Savant.

I mean, he threw 41 strikes.

He threw just ...

He knew what he had today, that day after, well, especially after the rough first inning, which was I only have my sinker, and I only have my slider That's it.

[laughs] Yes.

Yeah, it's longer now.

Yeah.

[laughs] Well, that's, that's Pierce about it.

Okay, so that, and then you didn't keep up with the Joneses on that.

So you expected Matt McClain to bounce back and, and be the Matt McClain of 2023 when we, when we had enough information to say that he was not going to be that guy again.

And you also expected for Connor Phillips to remain as good as he was in the back half of the second season.

He didn't do that.

I was like, "Well, I'll just have-"

It's obviously caught up to him.

Yeah.

He's a big boy.

That's got to be tough.

Yeah.

I mean, the dump's going to dump.

And so he's in the dumps right now.

You guys, you guys started the pod together, correct?

No, we pierced our Johnson many times with Pierce.

And then Caleb Ferguson.

All of those dudes hurt at one point, so it was just like, okay, we got to move guys that we were hoping would get a little bit more seasoning in Louisville and move them up.

But all of those dudes' problems, Chase Petty, Zach Maxwell, Luis May, just walking, dude.

They were just walking, dude.

So I was like, this is a 5K at a mall because we're walking.

And it was hard to do.

It's it's a chip is not as tight as you might like.

It was, it was.

Um, but I think you have people that are angry because of that.

And they, they think of, they look at it that way and they have expectations, especially after making the playoffs last year.

So they're ready to pick up their pitchforks and be angry no matter what.

I'm looking through it as the lens of when they were 31 and 33 last year, they were 31 and 33 at the same time this year.

And they made the playoffs.

There's still so much positive that can happen.

Than what last year was.

I need to listen to it still, yeah

... it's great, dude.

Talking about him just going to sushi school, going to sushi college in Japan 'cause he wanted to.

Like, and then talked about the ABS, and the big thing that he said about ABS was, like, "I don't wanna think about it because I didn't have it," you know? And the zone would've been different because, like, you know, you get your up come- up and comings when you're making it through the league where certain players have certain zones and they expand because of-

Maybe the greatest single game ever played at Great American Ballpark.

I'll tell you what, I have to get into a car and drive out to Chicago because when that happened, I was at a music festival and I had my phone down like this and I'm streaming and watching and I'm like, "That's a single.

No, wait, that's a homer.

Oh, my God." And th- I was like, "He's about to do it." And I was like, "Guys." And we all just huddled around while Steve Lacy's on stage and we're watching Ellie hit for the cycle.

shit out of the Cubs.

Yeah.

I mean, he had that lefty on lefty homer that was just belted in the right center field.

That was a thing of beauty.

His OPS for the week, one point.

Always good to say that.

0-7-1.

are your favorite pitchers there, Billy? Who do you got?

Right.

But I think that getting that confidence back, getting the focus of just being, instead of just...

Maybe, this is me just talking out my, my, my pockets here, maybe it was he saw the bobblehead, he had the catch.

It was getting to his head.

He's like, "I got this.

I'm good.

I'm, you know me, I saved the Reds' season.

Ooh, okay.