The Unbeaten Giant Blinked

Cold open — pre-theme, mid-argument.

RAZORI'm just saying — you want to mock the team names? Fine. But when you sit there and say the whole thing doesn't matter — that these players, this competition, none of it is worth serious attention —

CARLARazor —

RAZORThat's a conversation about what this sport actually is.

CARLARazor. We're not on yet.

RAZORWe're not?

CARLAWe are now.

Theme music.

CARLAWelcome back to Foul Territory. I'm Carla Streich alongside Razor Shines, and no perspectives are out of bounds.

CARLAThere is a piece making the rounds. I'm not going to name it. The gist — the WLB doesn't matter. These teams, this season, the whole enterprise is somehow beneath serious attention. The author takes aim at a few of our managers by name. Mocks the team names. And closes by announcing he's going to go wait for the "real" version of the sport to start.

RAZORThe real version.

CARLAThat's the quote.

RAZORI have been in clubhouses in April when the stands were half empty and nobody outside that city cared. I have played in September games that meant nothing in the standings. And I never — not once — thought it didn't matter. Because the guy next to me was working. He was competing. He was trying to be excellent at something. That's not nothing. The piece is lazy. We're done with it.

CARLAIrresponsible is the word I'd use. What have we got this week.

CARLAThe Iron Knob Explosions are no longer undefeated. Seven and one through April eleventh, and the loss that ended the streak came courtesy of the Oak Ridge Nukes.

RAZORSomething is off down there. Philosophically.

CARLAApril eleventh. Nukes six, Explosions two. Bert Blyleven on the mound for IKE.

RAZORBlyleven had been dominant. Two starts, seventeen innings, a complete game shutout. The man was dealing. And then Saturday happens. I'm not panicking on Bert Blyleven. But I am noting it. Because thirty-eight is thirty-eight.

CARLAAt the same time — same rotation, same team — Greg Maddux. Twenty-three years old. Zero ERA. Zero walks in nineteen innings.

RAZORYou've got the old warhorse and the kid phenom and right now they are moving in opposite directions. At some point those arcs are going to cross somewhere in the middle of this season, and when they do — that is going to be a real conversation.

CARLARick Astleys — nine and three. This team is flying under the radar in a way that is starting to become conspicuous.

RAZORNine wins. That matches the Honey Badgers. People aren't talking about the Astleys the same way and I don't fully understand why.

CARLAEric Davis in center. .317 average, five home runs, RC27 of 12.1 — best mark in the league. Bryn Smith threw a complete game shutout. DeLeon has been equally dominant — zero walks in sixteen innings.

RAZORDeLeon is a quiet assassin. Nobody talked about DeLeon before this season. I talked about DeLeon.

CARLAThe concern is Jim Deshaies — 8.59 ERA, WHIP of 2.59 —

RAZORThe WHIP of a man having a medical event on the mound.

CARLARazor.

RAZORIs it wrong?

CARLAIt's not wrong. Fugging Honey Badgers — nine and one. I said on this show two weeks ago that the Honey Badgers would be the story of the season by week three. So. Here we are.

RAZORHere we are, Carla.

CARLASeven of those nine wins have come against the bottom two teams in this league. An asterisk I feel obligated to attach.

RAZORFair. But Jeff Montgomery. Five save opportunities, five saves. 1.50 ERA. That is a closer operating at a level that makes the rest of this league look like they're trying to close games with a garden hose. And right now that bullpen is airtight.

CARLAKnockemstiff — five and four. Bobby Bonilla is hitting .435. Nolan Ryan leading the league with eighteen strikeouts through two weeks. Dickie Thon at short — five errors on the season, batting .179.

RAZORI root for Dickie Thon. Genuinely. But rooting for a guy and running him out there every day are two different conversations.

CARLAAnd Pascual Perez is out about sixteen days. The rotation just lost its number three starter. Huanca Wankers — four and seven. Razor, what is happening over there?

RAZORTalent is there. Howard Johnson, Ryne Sandberg, Kent Hrbek — these are legitimate players. They're cold. And when your closer is also cold at the same time, the math compounds. Lee Smith, two blown saves, 4.50 ERA — a closer losing confidence, the whole team feels it.

CARLABo Jackson, seven plate appearances all season. Jesse Barfield — zero.

RAZORZero plate appearances for Barfield.

CARLAZero.

RAZORI don't have a framework for that. I'll move on.

CARLANicaragua. Three and seven. Bret Saberhagen. Zero and two. 6.75 ERA. Rain delay removal in his last start.

RAZORI want to be careful here because I have enormous respect for what Saberhagen has done. Twenty-three wins. 2.16 ERA. That is a generational season. But right now — something is disconnected. When a pitcher of that caliber struggles it can spiral quickly. His next start is the most important outing of the young season. For him personally.

CARLATom Henke — three blown saves, zero saves, 11.25 ERA.

RAZOREleven twenty-five.

CARLATony Pena — .167 average, no walks, no extra base hits. Still starting. Roberto Alomar — twenty-one years old, on the roster, hasn't started. Barry Bonds — six plate appearances. Van Slyke — zero. Carpenter has options he hasn't opened.

RAZORThere are conversations happening in that dugout that I suspect are not comfortable ones.

CARLAFUG nine and one. IKE seven and one. RIC nine and three. KES five and four. HUW four and seven. NCW three and seven. PCB and ORN at the bottom.

RAZORThey're working through some things.

CARLAPascual Perez, Knockemstiff, out approximately sixteen days. "Discomfort in the posterior shoulder area, being monitored on a day-to-day basis." Which is a lot of words for sixteen days.

RAZORI've seen pitchers come back from "posterior shoulder discomfort" and they come back a little different. Arm slot, release point. It can be subtle. And Houlberg's already thin behind Ryan.

CARLARick Reuschel, Fugging — game-only. Kevin Mitchell, Knockemstiff — game-only, back tomorrow. And for the record — Orel Hershiser is healthy.

RAZORHe deserves every run they give him.

CARLARazor — you called Nicaragua bouncing back last week.

RAZORI did say that.

CARLAThey went two and four in week two.

RAZORI'm calling it an incomplete. Saberhagen's next start will tell us something definitive. I'm standing by the bounce-back.

CARLAMine — Eric Davis will be the first player this season to hit for the cycle. I'm watching him and it feels inevitable.

RAZORThat is a genuinely bold prediction, Carla.

CARLAI contain multitudes.

Phone rings. Old landline, too loud, three full rings.

CARLAAnd we have — I believe that is Mel. Mel Kowalski! Mel, are you there?

MELCarla. Razor. Thank you. I want to start by saying I've been putting in the hours since we last spoke. So Alvin Davis — Fugging first base — is sitting at .465 on-base overall. Against left-handers, that number is .667. But against right-handers — he's at .387. Now .387 is still good. But when you run the platoon differential against his historical comps at age twenty-eight, his true talent against right-handed pitching is probably tracking somewhere between twelve and fifteen points of OBP above the raw number.

CARLAMel. Bottom line?

MELThe bottom line is that what we are seeing from Alvin Davis right now is not a hot start. It is a correctly calibrated performance from a hitter who is doing exactly what the data suggested he would do.

Silence.

RAZORSo — he's... good?

MELHe's correctly calibrated, Razor.

RAZORI think Mel just said he's good.

MELNow — I do have one more thing. I've been tracking Bert Blyleven's pitch counts across his last four starts and indexing them against comparable workloads for pitchers of his profile at age thirty-eight, and when you run that against the historical velocity degradation curve for —

A second line rings. Too loud, cutting him off.

MEL— wait — wait wait wait — the degradation curve is the whole point, Carla —

CARLAKevin Marsh! Kevin, welcome to Foul Territory.

KEVINHi yes okay so I've been watching literally every game and I have four things — Greg Maddux. Zero walks in nineteen innings. WHIP of 0.56. I ran the numbers three times because I thought I made an error and I did not make an error. That is genuinely historically absurd for two weeks of work.

RAZORKid knows his WHIP.

KEVINSecond — Rickey Henderson. Four stolen bases, four for five on attempts — his career steal rate is seventy-nine percent and he's currently at eighty so he is performing exactly at his historical mean which I find weirdly satisfying —

CARLAThat is a very specific thing to find satisfying, Kevin.

KEVINThird — I went through every closer in the league and Montgomery is five for five and the next best is Eckersley at two for two and then it just kind of falls off a cliff and I think the cliff is Tom Henke —

RAZORThe cliff is absolutely Tom Henke —

KEVIN— and fourth — Steve Sax has one hit in twenty-seven at-bats and I just wanted to make sure someone said that out loud.

RAZORThank you, Kevin. Someone needed to say that. How old are you?

KEVINFourteen.

RAZORHe's going to be okay.

Line clicks. Somewhere faintly, possibly Mel is still on hold.

MEL...the degradation curve is very clear if you just —

CARLAThat is going to do it for this week on Foul Territory. IKE takes their first loss, Saberhagen's next start looms large, Mel has done more work than any one person should reasonably do, and Kevin Marsh is fourteen going on thirty-seven.

RAZORThe WLB is alive and well. Whatever anyone says.

CARLAWhatever anyone says. No statistics were harmed in the making of this program.

Theme out.