Three Kings at Third Base

No music. Carla, mid-thought, like we walked in on her.

CARLAFor 5 weeks, the Iron Knob Explosions have been carrying something around in their back pocket. A little card. The season series against the Rick Astleys. They hadn't played the Astleys since the tenth of June — but the card was still in the wallet, and every week it just sort of... sat there.

RAZORGettin' heavier.

CARLAGetting heavier. And meanwhile, the Astleys went and won a baseball game. And then another one. And then seventeen more.

RAZORNineteen in a row, Carla. Nineteen. You don't see nineteen.

CARLAYou don't. It's the longest streak anybody's run all year. And it ended on the tenth of July, at home, in the Astleys' own ballpark — because the wallet finally came out.

RAZORIron Knob walks into your house, after a month of you not seeing 'em, and the first thing they do is end the best month of your season. That's not a road trip. That's a collection agency.

CARLAAnd the man they sent to do the collecting was 38 years old.

RAZOR[low whistle] Bert "be home" Blyleven. 7 and a third.

CARLASame afternoon, the Astleys' starter took the mound having not lost a game all season. Bryan Garrelts. Perfect. Twelve and oh. He left that game twelve and one.

RAZORThe zero's gone, man. You carry a zero around that long, you start to think it's yours. It is not yours. It's a loaner.

CARLA[beat] And then there's the gentleman running the Astleys.

RAZORMm. Here we go.

CARLABecause for about a month now, every time we've sat here and said "well, the Astleys probably can't keep this up," they kept it up. To the point where you start to wonder if the man's just... calling them. Like he's got the week written down somewhere and he's reading it to the rest of us.

RAZORAnd I want to say — lovingly —

CARLALovingly.

RAZOR— lovingly, that the call did not miss. The streak ending wasn't him being wrong. The schedule just finally handed him a team that doesn't read his notes. Iron Knob doesn't care what you've got written down.

CARLAStill in first place, by the way.

RAZORFirst place by 2! Whole thing ends, the lead's still sittin' right there. That's the part nobody's gonna say out loud.

CARLAWe just did.

RAZORWe just did.

[Theme hits.]

CARLAThis is Foul Territory.

CARLAWelcome in. Episode 13, coverage through the sixteenth of July. I'm Carla Streich.

RAZORAnd I'm Razor Shines, and I'm tellin' you, there is a wallet on this desk and it is OPEN.

CARLABarely affiliated. Lightly sanctioned. Not stopping.

RAZORNever stopping.

CARLAWe've got the streak that died at home. We've got a team in third place that won seven in a row and we're going to gently ask who they beat. We've got the Honey Badgers and a team they apparently cannot solve if you spotted them a glove. And later, a phone call I have been told to expect for about a month.

RAZOROh, it's coming?

CARLAIt's coming. Let's get into it.

CARLATop of the standings first, because the top of the standings did something this fortnight that it has not done in a while, which is: change shape, without changing leaders.

RAZORExplain that.

CARLAThe Astleys are still in first. 61-27. They lost the streak, they got swept in feeling if not in record, and they are still sitting in first place by 2 games. The Iron Knob Explosions are right behind them at 59-29 — and Iron Knob is the team that just took 2 of 3 off them in their own park.

RAZORSo the team chasing you is the team that owns you. That's a weird place to lead a league from.

CARLAIt is. The Explosions are now 10-4 against the Astleys on the year. That's the wallet. Third place is where it gets loud — the Knockemstiff Slap Daddies, 58-34, and they come in on a seven-game winning streak.

RAZORSeven straight! Slap Daddies are rolling.

CARLAWe'll come back to that streak. There's an asterisk and the asterisk is fun. Fourth place flipped — the Huanca Wankers climbed back up to 51-40, 7 of their last 10, and the team they passed on the way up is the Fugging Honey Badgers, who slid to fifth at 48-40. And the Nicaragua Crepe Wrappers are still hanging around sixth, 47-40, which matters for a reason we'll get to with a certain prediction.

RAZORThe Crepe Wrappers were supposed to be falling through the floor.

CARLAThey were. They didn't. Shoutouts, quickly. To Bert Blyleven, who at 38 leads this entire league in shutouts — 4 — and walks the fewest people per 9 innings of any starter alive.

RAZORThe old man's got 4 shutouts. I've got knees that don't have 4 good innings.

CARLATo Bobby Bonilla — who we'll get to, at length. And to whoever in the Crepe Wrappers' clubhouse is holding the closer's spot together, because their actual closer hasn't thrown in over a week. The injury list is short and merciful this time. Wade Boggs banged up for the Astleys, back any day. Gregg Olson, the Crepe Wrappers' closer, due back the seventeenth. And an Iron Knob arm down for a couple. That's the whole list.

RAZORQuiet week in the trainer's room. After last episode, I'll take quiet.

CARLALet's stay on the Explosions, because I think they're the most interesting team in the league and almost nobody's saying so.

RAZORBecause they're in second.

CARLABecause they're in second. But look at who they beat. The Astleys ran nineteen straight, and we're going to find out in a minute that a good chunk of that came against the bottom of the league. Iron Knob doesn't have that luxury, because Iron Knob's signature win this month was against the best team in baseball. Twice.

RAZORAnd here's what I love about how they did it. The rotation. 4 starters, and every one of 'em is good. Their fourth-best guy would be the ace just about anywhere else in this league.

CARLAThat's the detail. Greg Maddux — 3.45, winning two of every three decisions — and he's the fourth-best starter on his own team.

RAZORAnd the BEST one is the 38-year-old. That's the thing, Carla. Blyleven's the old man and he's also the ace. 4 shutouts. He gives up a walk like it costs him money. The young guy on that staff is good, and the old guy is the reason they end win streaks.

CARLAThere's a version of this story where the veteran is a charity case, a fifth starter you run out there to eat innings. This is the opposite. He's the one they hand the ball to when it matters most. He's the one they handed it to on the tenth.

RAZORFather Time's on the disabled list and Blyleven put him there.

CARLAAnd it isn't all pitching over there. Their leadoff man is stealing everything that isn't nailed down, and walking his way on base when he isn't.

RAZORRickey. [fond] 51 bags already. You don't manage Rickey, Carla — you accommodate him. And he'd tell you himself it oughta be more.

CARLA[beat] One more from that clubhouse, quietly. Darryl Strawberry's up to 16 home runs. We spent a chunk of this season watching him hit .209 and look lost. He's not lost anymore.

RAZORThe Straw is stirring.

CARLAIt's a trend, not a story yet. But it's a trend.

CARLAOkay. The seven-game winning streak. Knockemstiff. Third place. Surging. Let's talk about who they beat.

RAZOR[laughing] You've been waiting all show.

CARLAAll seven of those wins came against the two teams at the very bottom of the league. 3 against one, 4 against the other. Seven cupcakes in a row.

RAZORNow hold on, hold on. Be fair to those clubs.

CARLAI'm being fair. I'm not knocking the bottom two — those rosters are doing the best they can with what they've got, and a sweep is a sweep, you can only play who's in front of you. I'm saying the Slap Daddies feasted on a soft stretch of schedule, and the week before that stretch, against actual contenders — the Honey Badgers and Iron Knob — they went 1-3.

RAZORSo the streak's real but the competition was... gentle.

CARLAGentle. Somebody in the league office drew that week up with a real soft heart.

RAZOROr a sense of humor.

CARLAHere's why it might not matter, though, and this is the part that should scare the rest of the league. The Slap Daddies have the two best bats in the sport. Not a top-five bat. The two best.

RAZORBonilla.

CARLABobby Bonilla is hitting .375, and slugging over .700, and he leads the league in basically every way you can measure a hitter creating runs. If we handed out the trophy today, it's his, and it isn't especially close.

RAZORAnd the OTHER guy hits the ball into orbit.

CARLAKevin Mitchell leads the league in home runs with 38 and in runs batted in with 95. So one clubhouse has the best all-around hitter and the best slugger, and they happen to be teammates.

RAZORSo the schedule did some of the heavy lifting on the streak. Fine. But you don't out-talent these guys. The bats are the bats.

CARLAWhich makes the one thing they DON'T have stand out. They still don't have a back-end arm they trust. It's a committee back there — a little of this guy, a little of that guy, nobody's grabbed the ninth inning.

RAZOREverybody said the gentleman running that club needed to go get a closer. Whole league said it.

CARLAHe didn't.

RAZORHe didn't. He got... other things. And he's in third place winning seven in a row, so.

CARLASo maybe the lesson is, when you score 8 runs a night, the ninth inning takes care of itself.

RAZORFor now.

CARLAFor now.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers. And I'm going to do this one straight, because we ask everybody else to take their medicine, so.

RAZORTake the medicine.

CARLAThey got swept by the Huanca Wankers. Three games, all on the road, and they weren't close — 14-5 was the worst of them. And with that sweep, the season series against the Wankers is now 3-12.

RAZORThree and TWELVE.

CARLAThe Honey Badgers cannot solve this team. They can solve most of the league — they own the Slap Daddies, 10-5 — but they get on the bus to Huanca and they forget how to play baseball.

RAZOREvery clubhouse has that one team. The one that's just in your head. Doesn't matter what the standings say, you see those uniforms and your bats turn to driftwood.

CARLAAnd then — this is the part I enjoy — right after getting swept, the Honey Badgers go visit the first-place Astleys, the day after their streak died, and they hang 12 runs on them.

RAZORThey poked the bear!

CARLAThey poked the bear. And the bear woke up and beat them 16-2 the next day, and then shut them out 4-0 the day after that. Which, by the way, was Garrelts getting to his 13th win.

RAZORYou poke the bear, the bear sends an invoice. And that's how the perfect-record guy answers losing his zero — 7 innings, gives up nothing, beats the team that poked him.

CARLA[flat] Thirteen. And one.

RAZORWe're still walking.

CARLAHere's the cruel thing about the Honey Badgers, though, because it's the same cruel thing as last episode. Their bullpen is immaculate. Jeff Montgomery has the most reliable closing line in the entire league — he converts over 95 percent of his chances, nobody's better.

RAZORAnd the team's sliding.

CARLAThe team's sliding. Best closer in the league, going backwards in the standings. The bullpen's been the season all year, and right now it's the only part working.

RAZORThat's baseball telling you a true thing in the cruelest possible way.

CARLAQuickly, the two clubs we passed over. The Huanca Wankers reversed their slide — 7 of their last 10, back up to fourth. And they did it, somehow, with the least reliable closer in the league.

RAZORLee Smith's blowin' saves left and right and they're WINNING.

CARLAWorst conversion rate of any closer in the sport, most blown saves in the league, and his team is climbing. It's the exact mirror of the Honey Badgers. Best closer, sinking. Worst closer, rising.

RAZORThe bullpen's the season, and this week the bullpen is a liar.

CARLARazor, you locked something in a few weeks back. I want to give you the chance to address it.

RAZOR[wary] Which thing?

CARLAYou said — on this program — that Howard Johnson was your most valuable player, and that the Wankers were going to miss the playoffs. Howard Johnson plays for the Wankers.

RAZORYeah, okay...?

CARLAHe's got 27 home runs, which is excellent, and which is third — behind the two gentlemen in Knockemstiff we just spent ten minutes on. And the Wankers are in fourth place and 6 of these 8 teams are reportedly making the playoffs.

RAZORSo you're telling me my guy might not win the award, and his team might not miss the dance.

CARLAI'm telling you both halves of your prediction are aging like milk.

RAZORI'm doubling down. Both halves. Hojo finishes strong, the Wankers find a way to break my heart in the end, and when it happens you're gonna say "Razor saw it." Write THAT down.

CARLAIt's written.

CARLAAnd the Crepe Wrappers — one line, because of another prediction. Earlier this season I floated that one of our top 6 teams would fall below .500 by the All-Star break. The Crepe Wrappers were the candidate. They were the ones cratering. They went and won 6 of 10 and climbed to .540.

RAZORSo your prediction's aging like milk too.

CARLAMine has time on the clock. Yours doesn't.

RAZORThat's cold.

CARLAIt's the gap between what the standings say and what they mean. The Crepe Wrappers are alive.

CARLATrade Watch. Three rooms worth watching. Room one is in Knockemstiff. We just said it — the Slap Daddies are in third, surging, and they still don't trust the ninth inning. The deadline's coming. Does the gentleman running that club finally go get the arm everybody's been telling him to get? Or does he look at 38 home runs and .375 and decide the offense is the answer?

RAZORI think he rides it. I think a man who got told to buy a closer and didn't, and then won seven in a row, is not in a listening mood.

CARLARoom two is Nicaragua. The Crepe Wrappers are a half-game out of fifth, their closer's hurt, and they have to decide what they are. A team that climbed back to .540 is not a team that sells. But a team in sixth, 11 games out, isn't obviously a buyer either.

RAZORThat's the hardest chair to sit in. Not good enough to go for it, too good to tear it down.

CARLACarpenter knows what they are. We don't. Room three, the Honey Badgers — best bullpen in the league, a rotation running an earned run average north of 4. If you're going to add, you add a starter. The arm in front of Montgomery, not behind him.

RAZORThey don't need help locking the door at night. They need a good bartender to get the party to last call in one piece.

CARLAThat's the watch. Nobody's moved yet. Everybody's looking.

[Phone line. The faint, specific hum of a landline.]

CARLAAnd we've got a call. This is the one I told you was coming. Mel, you're on Foul Territory.

MELCarla! Razor! You can hear me alright? Donna, am I — is the phone — okay, she says I'm fine.

RAZORWe hear you great, Mel.

MELGood, good. Now listen, I don't want to take your whole show. I got a thing here. I wrote it down. Hang on — [paper] — Donna, where's the — it was on the — okay. Okay. I got it.

CARLATake your time, Mel.

MELSo here's my thing. Everybody this year wants to talk about pitching, pitching, pitching. The streak, the old fella with the shutouts, all of it. And I says to Donna, I says, nobody's talking about third base. And third base this year is the best it's been in my LIFE.

RAZORTell me about the hot corner, Mel.

MELSo I got three names. Just three. The fella in Knockemstiff — Bonilla — he's hitting .375. Best average in the league, plays third. Then you got the fella on the Astleys, Boggs, he doesn't hit it as far but he will NOT make an out — gets on base 45 percent of the time, leads everybody, plays third. And then Howard Johnson over in Huanca, 27 home runs, plays third.

RAZOR[genuinely into it] So you've got the best average, the best on-base, and one of the best power bats — and they're all third basemen.

MELThree crowns! Three different fellas, three different clubs, all standin' on the same bag! When does that happen? I been watching this game 60 years, Razor, when does that HAPPEN?

CARLA[warm] It doesn't, Mel. That's the whole point. That's a genuinely strange and wonderful thing and nobody's said it out loud until right now.

MELThat's what I told Donna! I says Donna, somebody's gotta say it. And she says — Donna, what'd you say? — she says, "so say it, Mel, call the show." So here I am.

RAZORDonna's a closer.

MELShe's somethin'. Now I'm not sayin' who's best, I don't do that, that's your job. I'm just sayin', when your grandkids ask you about the year there was three kings at third base —

CARLA— you tell them you saw it.

MELYou tell 'em you SAW it. That's all I got. Thank you for the time. Donna says hello.

CARLAHello back to Donna. Thank you, Mel. Genuinely. That's the best thing anybody's said on this show all week.

MELAw. Okay. Bye now. Bye.

[Click. The hum cuts out.]

RAZORI love that man.

CARLAThree kings at third base. He's right. We've been so busy watching arms we missed it.

RAZOR60 years of watching and he calls in to make sure WE caught it. That's a fan.

CARLAThat's the program. The longest streak of the year is over, the wallet's empty, and the Astleys are still in first place — all true at the same time, which is the kind of week we live for.

RAZOROld man ends the streak. Best closer's team is sinking, worst closer's team is climbing, and there's three kings standin' on third base. Baseball doesn't make sense and I wouldn't change a thing.

CARLAWe'll see you next time. We've been Foul Territory.

RAZORBeyond the box score, beneath the radar, behind the mic.

CARLALovingly.

RAZORLovingly.

[Theme out.]