Week One Is In The Books

Theme music — full brassy opener. Seven seconds, fades under.

CARLAWelcome back to Foul Territory. I'm Carla Streich. He is Razor Shines. And Razor — we have actual baseball to talk about.

RAZORWe have ACTUAL baseball to talk about. Real games. Real scores. Real statistics that have actually happened in the physical universe.

CARLASeventeen games. Four series. Five days.

RAZORFive beautiful days.

CARLAWeek one of the 2026 World League Baseball season is in the books. It did not go exactly the way the pre-season predictions suggested.

RAZORNo. No, it did not.

CARLAYou texted me at six-fifteen Wednesday morning.

RAZORThe Honey Badgers scored twenty-one runs. In one game. I had to tell someone.

CARLAIt was six-fifteen.

RAZORBaseball doesn't have office hours.

CARLAFour series ran simultaneously to open the season. First: Huanca on the road at the Rick Astleys. Four games. The Astleys took the series three to one. Game one went thirteen innings —

RAZORFirst game of the entire season.

CARLAFirst game of the entire season, thirteen innings, before Eric Davis walked it off with a two-run homer in the bottom of the thirteenth.

RAZOREric Davis. Two-run walk-off homer. In the thirteenth inning. Of game one. There are subtler ways to introduce yourself to a league and Eric Davis chose not to use any of them.

CARLASecond series: PC Beach at the Fugging Honey Badgers. Three games. The Honey Badgers won all three. Three to two, fourteen to two, and —

RAZOR

Already starting to grin.

CARLA— twenty-one to five.

RAZORTwenty-one runs. In one baseball game. Against a professional baseball team. I keep doing the math hoping it changes.

CARLAThird series: Nicaragua at the Knockemstiff Slap Daddys. Three games. The Slap Daddys took it two to one. Nicaragua lost game one six to one —

RAZORThe number one overall pick's opening start.

CARLA— lost game two, then won game three with Langston, eight to four. Then on April fourth, traveled to face the Astleys and lost eight to one. Welch gave up four runs before the Astleys were done batting in the first inning.

RAZORWe'll come back to Nicaragua.

CARLAFourth series: Iron Knob at the Oak Ridge Nukes. Three games. Iron Knob swept. Then on April fourth visited the Honey Badgers and won again, six to nothing.

CARLAYour Week One standings. Iron Knob Explosions, four and oh. Rick Astleys, four and one. Fugging Honey Badgers, four and one. Knockemstiff, two and one. Huanca Wankers, one and three. Nicaragua, one and three. Oak Ridge Nukes, one and three. PC Beach Hurricanes, zero and five.

RAZORThe Hurricanes are going to figure some things out. I believe in them.

CARLAThere's a lot of season left.

RAZORThere is so much season left.

CARLAIron Knob first. What are you seeing?

RAZORBert Blyleven threw a complete game shutout. Greg Maddux threw a complete game shutout. Finley went seven and gave up one run. Iron Knob's combined pitching ERA through four games? Zero. Near enough to zero that the difference is rounding error. And I want to point out — Blyleven is thirty-eight years old historically. Maddux is twenty-three. One of them has been doing this forever and one of them is just getting started, and right now they look exactly the same.

CARLAThe Astleys at four and one — I think that surprised some people.

RAZORShould not have surprised anyone who looked at Scott Garrelts. Their round-seven pick went out and held the Wankers to three runs over seven innings in his first start. Jeff Burris found something nobody else was looking at.

CARLAGene Nelson leads the league in saves through week one.

RAZORGene Nelson. Who has, historically, three career saves.

CARLAThree.

RAZORI'm going to let that one breathe for a week. Burris has Jay Howell sitting in that bullpen with a 1.58 ERA and twenty-eight career saves. Whatever deployment logic is happening over there, it's working.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers at four and one. I said on the preseason episode that the Honey Badgers would be the story of the season by week three.

RAZOROn the preseason episode of this podcast, I said: do not sleep on the Fugging Honey Badgers. I said the bullpen was going to be a story. And I was right. I was correct. And I want to sit with that for just a moment.

CARLA

A beat.

RAZORAlright. Lonnie Smith is hitting .474. They outscored opponents forty-five to eighteen. His OPS last year was nearly .950. Garth drafted him because the profile said to draft him, and everyone laughed at the name, and here we are.

CARLANicaragua. The pre-season championship favorite. One and three after week one.

RAZORI want to be fair. It's five games into a hundred-and-sixty-two game season.

CARLABe fair.

RAZORSaberhagen's first start — five innings, seven hits, four earned runs. His command was off from the first inning. Historically he walks fewer than one-and-a-half batters per nine — he walked three in five innings on opening day. And then he ran directly into McGriff and Mitchell, the two hitters on that roster most dangerous to a right-handed pitcher. On opening day. That's a brutal draw.

CARLAAnd Tony Pena at catcher — .599 OPS against right-handers. That's essentially a free out every time he comes up against the majority of pitchers he'll face.

RAZORPena behind the plate is genuinely good. The question is whether at some point the offensive hole gets big enough that the glove can't fill it. Carp is a smart manager. But they're one and three, and the catcher is hitting .236 with almost no power. That's the quiet part of this story.

CARLAManager shout-outs. Andrew Harris, Iron Knob — four and oh. Your pitching staff is a legitimately historic unit right now.

A slight pause, a half-beat longer than usual.

RAZORAlso — we saw the injury report. Heard you had a little something going on this week. One day, back the next, all is well. We want you to know we saw that. And we genuinely hope you're feeling better, Andrew. Take care of yourself out there.

CARLA...Yes. Take care of yourself, Andrew. Jeff Burris and the Astleys — four and one. Quietly dangerous. Garth Graham and the Honey Badgers — four and one. Your bullpen ERA is approaching the temperature of deep space. I was wrong to hesitate in the preseason. Brett Houlberg and the Slap Daddys — two and one. Eyes on Ryan's walk total as the months go on. Chris Broyles and the Wankers — one and three. Your rotation has real questions. And Carp — Nicaragua, one and three. You have Saberhagen and Clemens and Langston. The talent is there. But there are conversations to have, and one of them involves your catcher's offensive profile against right-handed pitching.

CARLAThe only DL entry this week: Andrew Harris, Iron Knob. Listed cause: general. Duration: one day. Back April fifth.

RAZOR"General" is what you file when you don't want to say what it is. From the available footage, when Harris came up the dugout steps in the seventh inning of the April third game, there was something in how he was moving that suggested, possibly, a mild hamstring strain. The kind of thing you get when you're in a cold dugout for three hours and step wrong coming up the stairs. I've had it myself.

CARLAHe was back the very next day.

RAZORBack the next day. Iron Knob won. All is well.

CARLAThat is extremely specific for someone who is not a doctor.

RAZORI have watched a lot of baseball, Carla.

CARLABold predictions for week two.

RAZORNicaragua wins their next series. I'm going on record: they bounce back this week. The rotation is too good and Carp is too smart for one-and-three to be the story all season.

CARLAMy prediction: the Honey Badgers are the story of this season by week three. What Garth Graham built is real, and by week three everyone will be talking about it like they saw it coming all along.

RAZORSome of us did.

CARLASome of us did.

Phone rings. Old landline, too loud.

RAZORThere he is.

CARLAWe have a caller. You're on Foul Territory.

MELCarla! Razor! It's Mel — Mel Kowalski — okay listen, last time I called I was about thirty seconds away from making a very important point about Alvin Davis, his on-base numbers against right-handed pitching, and I have my notes right here —

CARLAMel. Quick question first. You watched the games this week?

MELEvery single one. I have the box scores printed out, Donna thought I'd gone around the bend —

RAZORWhat did you think of the Honey Badgers, Mel?

MELThe — well. WELL.

Papers shuffling with renewed purpose.

MELOkay. YES. Because — Lonnie Smith this week was six for eleven against right-handed pitching, which is great, fine, but his numbers against LEFTIES historically are nearly one-thousand OPS —

RAZORNearly a thousand.

MELNEARLY A THOUSAND. And it's not just Smith — Lansford against lefties is .968, Alvin Davis against lefties is .942 — if you put a left-handed starter against the middle of that lineup, three of the top four hitters have an OPS above .940. Three of four. That is a structural problem for every other manager in this league.

RAZORGenuinely excellent.

MELAnd the bullpen — this connects back to my Alvin Davis point from the preseason, because his OBP against right-handers is .427, which means that even when the matchup is less favorable, he's still getting on base at an elite rate —

RAZORMel. The Alvin Davis point is not going anywhere. It is written on our board right now, in permanent marker. We will get there.

MELYou haven't lost it?

CARLAIt is locked in for next week. We promise.

MEL...Okay. Fine. But I need at least two minutes on Alvin Davis next week —

CARLATwo minutes. Guaranteed.

Click. Dial tone. Complete silence.

RAZORHe's going to call back.

CARLAWithin the hour. That is going to do it for Episode Two of Foul Territory. I'm Carla Streich. He is Razor Shines. Week one is in the books. The Iron Knob Explosions are four and oh. The championship favorite is one and three. And somewhere out there, Mel Kowalski is sitting down with a fresh piece of paper and writing the number .427 at the top of it.

RAZORGod bless him.

CARLAGod bless him. Foul Territory — zero credentials, zero apologies.