Postgame Show: The Pitch Clock (feat. Michael Schur)

Speaker 1 All right, Smirnoff, official vodka of the NFL, world's number one vodka. Chris Cody, you're with me here.

Speaker 2 Smirnoff!

Speaker 1 Wow, you're on the money with Smirnoff. Spinoff.
I'm gonna ask you, Chris, what's your favorite game day food? Smirnoff. Not your favorite game day drink.
What's your favorite game day food? Smirnoff.

Speaker 1 All right, here's the deal: game day is everything. The noise, the rituals, the passion, the dip, the wings, the dip again.
Spirit off.

Speaker 1 Smirnoff off belongs in that mix because if you're tailgating or hosting or just sitting there checking your fantasy lineup every 30 seconds, you need Smirnoff! Otherwise, it's not a real game day.

Speaker 1 They've been doing it since 1864, which is, I don't even want to do the math. It's a long time.
It's like when Greg Cody was born. They're award-winning.

Speaker 1 They make cocktails super easy and they're all about bringing fans together. So yeah, we do game days.
That's their thing. And if you're over 21, you should too.

Speaker 2 Why, Chris? Smearing off.

Speaker 1 Grab a bottle of Smearinoff at your local retailer and head to Smearinoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for game day. Smearing off.
Please drink responsibly. Smearing off.

Speaker 1 Number 21, vodka distilled from grain, 40% alcohol by volume. The Smearin' Off Company.
New York, New York. Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age.
Smearing off.

Speaker 4 Can I tell you that I wore my glasses on purpose just to show the proof that there's nothing reflecting in my glasses off of my computer screen.

Speaker 4 That's the type of trustworthy I want to be here on the pitch clock. What a man you are.
Man of honor.

Speaker 4 Love you too. Nope, there it is.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the pitch clock. Here's the pitch, a two-part baseball segment combining a nostalgic baseball trivia game and an interview with an expert.

Speaker 6 This is the pitch clock.

Speaker 4 Hey, it's another episode of the pitch clock, but I'm not in the studio with that guy. Hi, everybody.

Speaker 4 We're cheating on Taylor with Ethan. Ethan's here.
He's going to be dishing out the trivia today. That's before we get to, hey, Mike Schur's back on the pitch clock.
So that's pretty exciting.

Speaker 4 He'll be our expert on 2025 Major League Baseball. But Ethan, what is our trivia game going to be today?

Speaker 8 The hot topic in Major League Baseball right now is the AL MVP race.

Speaker 7 Cal Rowley just crossed 50 homers. First catcher to ever do so is he sneaking up on Aaron Judge.
So we thought we'd test your guys' trivia on MVPs from back in the day.

Speaker 7 So it's going to be a three strikes in your out format, alternate guesses. We're going to start with Chris since he actually decided to come to work today.

Speaker 7 And in front of you is a list of AL and ML MVPs from 1990 to the year I was born, 1999.

Speaker 4 Oh, it's all about Ethan.

Speaker 6 It's all about me.

Speaker 9 I am telling you, I might really struggle with this, but here we go.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 3 Take a pitch.

Speaker 6 Take an easy one.

Speaker 9 Okay, so there is an easy one on here. All right, no, I'm kidding.
I'll go 97 ALMVP.

Speaker 3 I'm going to go. There's one or two guys.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go

Speaker 5 Ken Groovy Jr.

Speaker 7 That would be correct, sir.

Speaker 8 If you had guessed Ichiro, you would have

Speaker 6 the other one.

Speaker 3 Okay,

Speaker 8 okay, fair enough. I know Ichiro did it.

Speaker 7 The non-position player.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Okay. No, that's actually not who I was gonna go with, also.

Speaker 3 So, Cody is on the board.

Speaker 4 Are you gonna go with Edgar Martinez?

Speaker 9 I'm gonna go with a shortstop, guys. A young shortstop.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I know the shortstop.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he might pop up somewhere.

Speaker 6 That's what I was debating between. Got it, got it, got it.

Speaker 4 All right, so I'm gonna go, I'll go with a cupcake as well. Then I'll go 1998 Chicago Cubs.
That's Sammy Sosa.

Speaker 7 That is Jeremy's favorite year of baseball of all time.

Speaker 8 Yep, and that is correct.

Speaker 4 It is.

Speaker 4 It is my favorite year of baseball.

Speaker 7 Cody, it's back over to you. I mean, who else could

Speaker 3 it be?

Speaker 9 96 Padres, Tony Gwynn?

Speaker 7 That is incorrect.

Speaker 7 Jeremy. I told you I'm going to be bad at this.
Would you, so Cody has his first strike.

Speaker 4 This is going to be a slightly risky one. I'm going to go 1992 Pittsburgh Pirates Barry Bonds.

Speaker 3 That is correct, sir.

Speaker 5 Jeremy,

Speaker 7 Bonds is on the board.

Speaker 4 It has been too long since we've had this 2025 MLB baseball expert with us. Mike Scher is back.
Hey, I don't like to be referred to as an MLB expert. That's ridiculous.
I know you don't.

Speaker 4 You give me the same

Speaker 4 time. Yeah, just a guy who likes baseball, man.
Don't you get to under-promise and over-deliver. All right.
So we're going to dive into actually a couple of fun stats here, real quick.

Speaker 4 And this is going to give you another insight into Chris Cody because basically for two or three weeks in a row, I think on Against the Spread, one of the segments that we do on the main show, Chris said, hey, pick against Trevor Rodgers.

Speaker 4 That guy stinks. And I'm going to read you this stat, which is that pitchers in the integration era with an ERA below 150, so 1.5, 70Ks,

Speaker 4 and two or less home runs allowed in their first 13 starts of the season. 81 Nolan Ryan, 94 Greg Maddox, 2025 Trevor Rogers.

Speaker 4 The other stat I want to bring you amongst pitchers is that Paul Skeens has thrown 50 games where he started. He's allowed 66 earned runs.

Speaker 4 His ERA is 0.01 worse than Vita Blue for the best live ball ERA

Speaker 4 amongst your first 50 starts. That's at 2.02.
Which one of these stats impresses you more? And what do you think about

Speaker 4 these two pitchers and the way that they're throwing the ball this year? Trevor Rodgers' stat is more impressive.

Speaker 4 And the reason that Trevor Rogers' stat is more impressive is that Paul Skeens is 6'6 to 55 and was the number one overall draft choice. Everyone knew that guy was what he is.

Speaker 4 Trevor Rodgers did stink for a while as a pitcher. Like he straight up stunk.
And I have watched him annoyingly absolutely shut down the Boston Red Sox twice in the last month and a half.

Speaker 4 You know, look, both of those stats are insane and incredibly impressive. And Trevor Rogers has a long way to go

Speaker 4 before you consider him to be in that upper echelon of elite starters.

Speaker 4 But given that he has the skills he has to work with, I think he is putting together a more impressive run than anyone else in the league right now.

Speaker 4 Let's talk about something else that I know I'm happy to see, and I imagine you're happy to see. The Field of Dreams game is coming back.
It's 2020.

Speaker 4 Yeah, fun stuff. Obviously, if anyone also watches or listens to Pablo Torre finds out, they know your relationship with Field of Dreams.
But how exciting is this for Major League Baseball?

Speaker 4 Like to get that game back and something that can pull on that nostalgia? It's a great event, and it's wonderful.

Speaker 4 And frankly, they shouldn't have stopped doing it even when they added these other, you know, they played a game in Birmingham. They played the Speedway game, which was kind of a mess, a literal mess.

Speaker 4 But in general, let's give it up to MLB for finally, after 100 and something years, realizing that the product that they have could be improved upon with a tiny bit of ingenuity. And

Speaker 4 the all-star game, no one cares about the all-star game anymore. And if you put it at the Field of Dreams field, suddenly you're like, well, this is special and everyone's going to want to be there.

Speaker 4 And I don't know. They should just, I just want them to innovate more because every innovation that they've come up with in the last call it 10 years has been pretty good.

Speaker 4 The Field of Dreams game and these neutral site games and the playing game at a Negro League stadium and the pitch clock and the bigger bases that allowed more stolen bases.

Speaker 4 Like all of this stuff is working. My so right.
The pitch clock is working.

Speaker 7 Chris, it's back over to you, my friend.

Speaker 9 I hate this. Larry Walker, Rockies, 97.

Speaker 3 Absolutely correct, sir.

Speaker 4 Nice job.

Speaker 5 That's my boy, Larry Walker.

Speaker 7 Took him way too long to get into the line.

Speaker 8 I should have, you know what? Unreal baseball player.

Speaker 4 That's absolutely one that I should have.

Speaker 4 I should have knocked that out.

Speaker 4 I'm trying to think.

Speaker 4 There are a few potential options for all of these in a way that's... Yeah.

Speaker 7 Some of these are going to trip you up.

Speaker 4 And like picking the year

Speaker 4 for certain ones is really tough.

Speaker 8 You might get get the right note with the wrong year.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm gonna go

Speaker 4 all right. I'm gonna go to the name we were thinking about.
I'm gonna go 1999 Texas Rangers Alex Rodriguez.

Speaker 7 That is incorrect.

Speaker 4 Damn. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Damn it, damn it.

Speaker 5 Now you'd think Chris would be like, oh,

Speaker 9 J-Rod, it has to be this guy.

Speaker 7 You might think so, Cody.

Speaker 9 1992

Speaker 6 Oakland A's, Jose Conseco.

Speaker 7 That is incorrect. Your second strike, sir.

Speaker 7 For sure.

Speaker 4 You know what? I'm going to go...

Speaker 5 It might be...

Speaker 10 No, I don't.

Speaker 5 Oh, I'm an idiot.

Speaker 4 I don't think it's too early. I'm going to go 91, Baltimore Orioles, Cal Rookin Jr.

Speaker 3 That is correct, sir.

Speaker 4 It's time for us to move to the real topic and the reason why you're here. It's the Boston Red Sox.

Speaker 4 The Red Sox, well, they dominated the Yankees this year.

Speaker 4 But between that,

Speaker 4 there's a half a game between them at the time of this recording, which is pretty unbelievable to think about that swing.

Speaker 4 And you've got those two teams and the Seattle Mariners in the thick of this AL wildcard race as Seattle's also nipping on Houston's heels.

Speaker 4 So for you, an opportunity to sort of brag about your Red Sox, but what do you think of the way that this race is shaping out? It's very interesting.

Speaker 4 It's arguably more interesting than any of the individual division races uh for sure um that the if you look at the schedules for the rest of the year the yankees play a bunch of cream puffs like it's a very very easy schedule the red sock half cream puffs and half decent teams um

Speaker 4 so i i it would not be surprising to me if the yankees recovered and ended up taking that first slot the red socks uh when they ended that series in new york with a better run differential than the yankees which is pretty amazing and because the yankees have have like eight guys with 20 homers, it's like everyone on their team needs homers.

Speaker 4 So there's a lot of variables.

Speaker 4 I think you're like the romantic choice here is the Mariners because never won the World Series and Rowley's having the year he's having.

Speaker 4 And very quietly, Julio Rodriguez, which most people think of, most people think of him as like a weird bust, and yet you look at his stats every year and he's got five war or six war or whatever.

Speaker 4 Like, because he doesn't, he hasn't quite turned into Willie Mays offensively, but he's he's such a good defensive outfielder that he's just insanely valuable. It's going to be a wild race.

Speaker 4 I think, given the Yankees' opponents, you would be foolish to bet against them.

Speaker 4 You know, if you look at their playoff odds, the Yankees, even though the Red Sox are half a game in front, Yankees play off higher. And I think it's because of their strength of schedule remaining.

Speaker 4 Cal Raleigh and Aaron Judge. You brought both of these guys up.
They're competing for the AL MVP. Cal Raleigh gets to 50 home runs.
It's insane.

Speaker 4 Look, we're going to start doing it. Let's talk about the MVP conversation.
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Cow Raleigh, Aaron Judge, what do you think? It's right now it's still Judge, unfortunately.

Speaker 4 He just was so, he's so important to that team. And his numbers are

Speaker 4 otherworldly. Again, though, post-injury, he has not been the same hitter.
And if he continues to

Speaker 4 merely be one of the best hitters in baseball as opposed to one of the greatest hitters of all time, which is what he was in the first half, and Raleigh keeps doing what he's doing.

Speaker 4 It's possible that Raleigh steals it from him. There's a lot going.

Speaker 4 People still love narratives in baseball. And the narrative of being the first catcher to hit 50, being a switch hitter,

Speaker 4 let me say this. If the Mariners make the playoffs and/or he gets 60, I think he steals it.
Now, he's only hitting, his batting average is like 249.

Speaker 4 Like he, he doesn't have some of the things you need to be like automatic red, you know, like

Speaker 4 stamp of approval. But I think to beat Judge in the year he's had the Mariners need to get into the playoffs.

Speaker 4 And I think it's possible that Rally needs to get all the way to 60, and then it'll sort of be like, you know what? Screw it.

Speaker 4 This is the Jokic situation where he's gotten the MVP a couple times before. Let's give it to this other guy who had an incredible year.
It's sick. And he

Speaker 4 leads us right to our little bonus question because this is a pretty quick game going on between me and Chris.

Speaker 4 He has arguably the best nickname in baseball. Sure.
A couple guys have recently come up to challenge him in

Speaker 4 Jostinson Garcia, the password. The password.
What do you believe is the best nickname in Major League Baseball as a man who truly, truly loves names? Password is pretty great for Jostinson Garcia.

Speaker 4 Also, it should be noted, he has a younger brother named Johan Fran, whose nickname is the username. I just found that out, and I'm so excited about it.

Speaker 4 If you combine those two into one nickname, I think that's your winner. There is a

Speaker 4 first baseman in AA, I think he plays for the Blue Jays AA affiliate in New Hampshire,

Speaker 4 whose name is Peyton Williams, and he's 6'5 ⁇ , 255, and his nickname is the Iowa Meat Truck. Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 I think that's kind of amazing. And so if the Iowa Meat Truck ever makes the majors, I'm going to vote for Iowa Meat Truck as the best nickname in the game.

Speaker 4 Mike Scher, thank you so much for joining us on this episode. And let's get back to the end of this game with Chris.

Speaker 9 92 Oakland A's, Mark McGuire.

Speaker 7 Cody,

Speaker 3 you got to slow your roll here, bud. You're out.

Speaker 5 Strike three.

Speaker 7 Strike three.

Speaker 9 Was it 90?

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 4 that's why I avoided the A's because

Speaker 4 I didn't think Maguire had won an MVP. He won Rookie of the Year, I think, was at 89, 87.

Speaker 7 McGuire is not on this list. McGuire did not win an MVP unless he won one in the 80s.
So what is Jeremy have to get this night to technically win?

Speaker 7 Yeah, he's got to avoid getting two wrong here.

Speaker 4 Two wrong in one guess.

Speaker 4 94 Houston Astros.

Speaker 7 Is that Bagwell? That is Bagwell.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, that's just a fish.

Speaker 3 And Jeremy

Speaker 8 special win.

Speaker 9 That's just my favorite baseball player, like non-Marlin of all time.

Speaker 2 Like ever.

Speaker 5 Cool. Casual.

Speaker 4 Yeah, when I go ahead and guess, can we guess some other ones?

Speaker 7 96 Padres Trevor Hoffman? No, it was Ken Kamanidi.

Speaker 6 Oh.

Speaker 7 That was the Ken Kamanidi.

Speaker 4 Classic steroid.

Speaker 9 Yeah. Giants 93 Bonds again.
Yes.

Speaker 7 And so is 90

Speaker 5 Pirates. Right, he won seven MVPs.

Speaker 8 Yeah, you guessed that one, didn't you?

Speaker 3 He won seven.

Speaker 4 I guess 92 Pirates.

Speaker 9 Was 99 Chipper Jones?

Speaker 6 99 was Chipper Jones. Damn it, yes.

Speaker 7 By the way, the 99 Rangers was Pudge.

Speaker 7 The 96 and 98 Rangers, do you guys have any idea?

Speaker 8 Not Pudge, not

Speaker 3 Juan Gonzalez.

Speaker 5 One of them or both of them?

Speaker 7 Juan Gonzalez.

Speaker 2 Both of them?

Speaker 6 Both of them. 96 and 98.

Speaker 7 Was it Movon in 95 or was it 95?

Speaker 6 Yes, right. Movon was 95.

Speaker 7 The Pedro year was 99. Okay.

Speaker 6 But Pudge beat him out.

Speaker 4 And Frank Thomas.

Speaker 7 One both in 93 and 95.

Speaker 5 That's the one we should, like, the fact that's the one you should have gone with.

Speaker 8 That's the one.

Speaker 9 You're like, I didn't get any wrong.

Speaker 5 Legendary.

Speaker 2 I I got one wrong.

Speaker 4 I got one wrong. I got my

Speaker 4 A-rod one wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 7 The 92A's.

Speaker 5 Okay, I'll do it in this order.

Speaker 7 The 90A's was Ricky Henderson, which I think we all could have expected. The 92A's was Dennis Eckersley.

Speaker 5 Really? Yes. Wow.

Speaker 4 And then to finish up the NL,

Speaker 7 the only one we have left is 95 was Barry Larkins, MVP, and

Speaker 7 91 was Terry Pendleton.

Speaker 3 Wow. Yeah, that never would have have gotten away.

Speaker 6 Terry Pendleton.

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 4 what

Speaker 4 really

Speaker 4 tells a story in all of that is you get Bonds being the best player in baseball, 90, 91, 93.

Speaker 4 And then guys start taking steroids.

Speaker 4 So Ken Kamanitti wins a couple.

Speaker 3 Juan Gonzalez wins a couple of

Speaker 4 couple Gonzalez wins a couple. Let's be real, Larry Walker wins one.

Speaker 5 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Bagwell? What are we doing? Whoa.

Speaker 4 Bagwell wins one.

Speaker 3 We're throwing that accusation at Larry Walker.

Speaker 4 Sammy Sosa wins one. And so, by the late 90s and early 2000s, Barry Bond goes, all right, I'm going to go ahead and start doing this too, and becomes the greatest thing that's ever happened to us.

Speaker 4 And also,

Speaker 9 Chipper doesn't get any of that, huh?

Speaker 7 And Larry Walker has no connections either.

Speaker 6 I don't know why Jeremy threw Larry Walker out there under the bus, which, I mean, it's fine.

Speaker 3 Look, he's still in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 3 And all these guys should be in the middle of the fight.

Speaker 6 All his teammates, though, like

Speaker 6 Lake Street Bombers, Dante Bachette, Galaraga.

Speaker 4 There are several guys already in the Hall of Fame who absolutely

Speaker 4 one of my favorites, Yvonne Rodriguez. Pudge failed the test.
That said, hey, fun steroid era MVP conversation.

Speaker 4 Glad we talked a little bit after because otherwise, there would have been no show today.

Speaker 1 So, great work.

Speaker 4 I get a win. That's very exciting.

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