Listen to Whatever It Takes with Carli Lloyd and Jenny Taft on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You're not incurable.

You're not broken.

You're having a normal human experience, and we have a solution for that.

I mean-

I'd imagine there's a good number of guys, Darren, that are probably gonna have incentive to sign their deals before the lockout, right? Who wants to wait? Who wants to wait for this new whatever it's like-

What did you think of Michael King's performance? And what did you think of the Cubs approach to Michael

King? I think Michael King went out there and just pitched his game.

And the guys were kind of going after pitches that were not really strikes.

And they consistently went after that.

So Michael King expanded the zone.

And I think King did really well.

And I, during the third, fourth inning, I was like, is this going to be a Roy holiday playoff? And I think by the fifth or sixth inning, he had like 80 pitches and I'm like, well, I don't think they're going to let him go 140 pitches, but, um, he did awesome last night.

Heath, as somebody who's strapped it on, your perspective is obviously different than ours.

Hmm

... you know, two.

You just have to be honest with that, and you have to look at your relievers.

I mean, here I have to look at my relievers, and I've got some guys that literally are like, "I could pitch today." And I'm like, "Same way." It's like you pitched three of the last four days, man.

You're, you know, where as a coach, I have to see, make sure is, is this stuff as good as it once was? Is it as sharp when he's throwing his bullpen, when he's warming up in the game, um, during warmups? Is it sharp when he plays catch before the game? Um, is he throwing normal long toss like he does, or normal playing catch? Those are all the little things that I look at that I'm hoping Craig's looking at when the guys go out there.

And it kinda tells your reliever, 'cause most relievers will be like, "Yeah, give me the ball," even if they're at like, you know, 80%, where-

Mm-hmm

...

How important is it that you have to give those guys specifically some physical, mental time off considering all the things you just, you just talked about, how tired they were to end last season going into the playoffs against the Cubs?

Well, here's the thing.

You have to realize you're only as good as your weakest link in the roster.

So if your bench guys are never playing and your main guys are playing all the time, there's gonna come a time that you need a day off, you know, say Tatis, and if your bench guy can't step up to the challenge, then it's like, geez, okay, I gotta play all the time, or I c- everybody's, you know, it's like, oh, Tatis is not playing.

Then the other guys are like, "Oh, are we even trying today? Is that gonna be just one of those losses?" So you gotta have everybody, you know, basically en- emotionally energized and feeling like, "Okay, Tatis is not in there, don't worry, I'll step up and I'll do it.

You know, even though I play once a week," or whoever it is, "I'm gonna carry the team today even if our main guy's not there." And that's where you have a good baseball team, and the best teams win because your bench guys, the guys you're unexpected, come up big.

I mean, look at last year in the World Series.

Should the Padres consider bringing this 20-year-old up to play him sometime in September?

But from your experience, what's it like? Like, is just bringing players in, is that always a good thing, or sometimes can it, you know, disrupt the apple cart?

Well, here's the thing.

We were excited to get Mi- Tejada and Ryan Ludwick 'cause we were like, "Okay, we got some guys with some bats." Well, they just produced horribly, and I know they felt bad 'cause they just didn't do well.

But then it just turned into, yeah, they're playing six days a week, and the other guys, doesn't matter what you do, you're not gonna play.

So that team's a little different as in the, this year's Padres, because we were kinda overachieving.

We were a good nucleus team.

Yeah, we needed some more bats, but, um, maybe that, maybe that's teams like, "Look, we're overachieving.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm

... with our lead...

The manager is the leader of the team.

I mean, doesn't matter what you say, it's always the manager.

The manager is the one who says, "This is the direction we're going.

Hey, guys, we're gonna police ourselves," or, "Hey, we're gonna do it," or talks to the, you know, main guy, the leader of the clubhouse, "Hey, you need to do, you need to step up.

You need to say this." They're basically the voice of the, the team.

But, but how do you find a sense of urgency when you're playing in the middle of a season that's 162 games long, you're not going well, so shouldn't there be a little bit more urgency than, "Eh, you know, I can't manage these games like it's game seven of the World Series"?

Baseball's this long season where you kind of get lost series by series, week by week, right? Um, did, did, did you look at, how did you view the sport? Like, did you view it like on a monthly basis? Like, would you know what your record was in May and in June? Like, like how did you approach just trying to break up where you were on the schedule over 162?

I mean, honestly, I think every reliever, definitely speaking about myself, is we were just thinking about one inning, put up an egg shell, put up a zero, you know, one batter at a time, and I think that's why I had success.

I've seen other guys, "Oh man, you know, my ERA this month or last month's better," and I had no clue by month by month what was my ERA.

And it was just because I was going out there trying to help the team win that day.

And then when that game was over, win or loss, it was over.

The next day I tried to help them out.

What, what could I do to help that team out that day? Like in college, I didn't do it in the big leagues.

I mean, a lot of self-inflicted wounds-

Like, what are we supposed to believe here, Heath? I don't know.

know.Well, I, what the Rays do is they go out and try to get the best, and they figure out the numbers, the best way for you to have success.

So let's just say me, I had a great curve ball.

We need you to throw, your curve ball's only 33%, but the best years you had is when you threw it 40%.

So we need you to throw it more.

So that's how they do it.

Or hitters, "Hey, you hit lefties really well," or, "You hit righties really well." Don't worry about, like, if you're a left-handed hitter and they say, "You only hit righties, you don't hit lefties," don't take offense that saying you can't hit a lefty.

Yeah

Is that now the new title for Fernando Tatis Jr.? Is that how we should look at him going forward? Or is that just Craig Stamman, you know, just saying the right thing?

That's just Craig saying the right thing because here's a simple fact is, you know, David Gastis, I think was, you know, not a power hitter, but he had home runs.

And he said he always tried at the bottom half of the ball.

And I think right now Tatis is literally just squaring up the ball right in the middle of it, where if he had, you know, a quarter inch, those balls would be home runs and stuff.

But he's been so focused on probably because the last two years hasn't really, you know, the batting average has kind of dropped, hard hitting the ball, you know, home runs here and there.

But he wants to be more of a baseball, you know, have your batting average up, hitting the ball hard, you know, coming into the big situations like he did when he first came up.

And I do believe the home runs are going to show up.

Do you have one of those stories from your time, either on the big league side or on the minor league side?