Roman, I'll throw it to you.

Well, uh, first and foremost, thank you again for always having me.

Uh, congratulations on your Yankees for a amazing season.

Um, you know, iron sharpens iron, uh, if you will.

And you know, I, I wish you and your fans and, uh, all the Yankee fandom the best sincerely, um, uh, on that.

I have alternative focuses on that, um, from a Rays perspective, and I know I'm on Yankees podcast, so I'm just thinking about each one of the games, how could it have been better.

Um, and you, you and I, we, we talked, so we have a, a text group chat that we exchange ideas, uh, before we do the show, folks, for those out there.

Bedard, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that always got me to think that the Rays had a, had more than a chance is the fact during this whole season, the, uh, Yankees' DRS has not been exactly strong.

They've been middle of the road in many different factors and ways.

Um, so the Rays, and one of the reasons why they were so strong, especially early on in the head-to-head series against them is, against the Yankees, is their team speed.

They put a lot of pressure on you in multiple ways, to Scott's point.

Uh, so the Yankees, when they had the first three, uh, errors, the Rays should have been up four nothing.

They should have knocked, um, uh, uh, Schitler, Schlitter out, excuse me, uh, they should have.

I'll just come out of the bull- I'll just come out and, just come out and throw two of my three, my two innings and just get, get my work in and just keep it going." But-

... doesn't mean that it's gonna happen again.

No, no further questions, Your Honor.

No, it's not.

But again, i- if, if you're a Yankee fan, it, it's good to kinda keep that in perspective.

Do I think that Cam Schlitter's doing great? 100%.

Uh, you know, you gotta tip your cap to him.

Um, you know, this is his year.

It's just feast or famine with this offense, man.

freaking lights out for you all year long only making $2 million, I don't see it happening.

I mean, it, it, it depends on your perspective how you think that you're going to win this five-game set.

I mean, to me, if I'm coaching or if I'm in the o- the front office, I'm trying to exhaust every, every weakness that I can identify.

And one of the things that I would do is because we are so left-handed strong, you have a Ronda, you have, um, Victor Mesa Jr., you have Chandler Simpson, you got Cedric Mullins, you got Palacios.

Those guys can be squirrely against right-handed hit, uh, pitching.

Now, against lefties, they've been a lot better because people have thrown them.

Uh, there was one time in September when they had, I think, faced five straight left-handers.

So what do you think? Who do you think the Rays are gonna line up? Do you really wanna see Freddy Peralta starting a, a five-game short series?

with over there in georgia um and taj bradley You know, I was

sad to see him go, but he was inconsistent.

And we got Griffin Jackson was even worse as a reliever.

Now, as a starter, he's been a godsend.

He's been very competitive.

He has a mid three ERA just off the top of my head.

He got injured recently, but he is a number four, number three starter easy.

So tell us, what are your predictions? Who's going to make the World Series? And if you don't make the World Series, who's going to beat you in the American League to get there?

So your thoughts on last night's game, because I was about ready to throw a baseball at my television set.

Short answer is the Yankees got ambushed.

You see this time and time again.

Coming from a guy who struggled or watched a lot of losing baseball for the first 10 years, essentially, of the Rays' inception.

The Angels are playing spoiler and that's precisely what they did.

So the Angels, the A's, the Mets, from the Rays perspective, you know, they're all playing spoiler.

You got guys who are trying to put on a good show for the GM who's trying to really make a statement, let them know that, hey, you can build around me.

Like if I was a fan of like the Mets, for example, for crying out loud with the payroll they have, I'd be pretty pissed.

Who are some, is there anything that you think an asset that can help the Tampa Bay Rays who are already one of the juggernauts of the American league? Is there anything that you think that can help your team make a nice – obviously you guys are probably going to make the playoffs, but help you make a deep playoff run? Is there any weaknesses in that roster? And who is one of the – some player or any player around the league that you guys want to target?

Yeah, so when looking on this and actually I covered this on a raised midseason review for baseball banter broadcast on our YouTube channel.

Check it out.

I believe that's hitting tomorrow.

It's in the editors lounge now.

So big shout out to Jeremy Letta Quinta, who is the founder and also the editor there.

He does amazing things.

Him and Junior Caminero together on that left side of the infield, that is a dangerous left side of the infield.

marlins get the victory again today but we're heading out east and we have a friend on the pod here roman we're heading out from uh miami straight up the coast there to tampa what's going on in tampa this has been a wild year and and you mentioned something while we were off air about uh last year might have been the uh anomaly talk to me what's going on with this raise and how you feeling

Well, the Rays' short answer is it's a continued saga of the Rays being overlooked and forgotten about until they are relevant and then people discount them.

That's been basically the story since 2008.

Long story short.

And the Rays themselves have a lot of consistency.

If you go down If you're a casual fan, if you're not paying attention to the raise, which I know your guys' market right now, you guys are on the West Coast, of course, you may kind of be befuddled by a lot of the success that we have.

However, if you take a look year by year, they've been very consistent.

So,

Yeah

... that are coming off of injuries, specifically pitchers, that are going to fortify that team, provided that they pitch well.

Um, in terms of, in terms of the offense, their offense is a bit of a mess.

Um, I said at the beginning of the year, um, a couple things.

Number one, I wasn't completely on to the Red Sox.

I wasn't drinking their Kool-Aid for them to win.

I, I liked your core, but because of what happened to the Orioles the year before, I was very cautious.

Let everybody know where they can find you on social media or anywhere that they can still find you.