The Wall Comes Fast

COLD OPEN — No theme music yet. Ambient bar/press box atmosphere.

RAZORYou know what's worse than losing to the worst team in baseball?

CARLAI imagine you're going to tell me.

RAZORLosing to the worst team in baseball twice. On back-to-back nights. In their building.

CARLAKnockemstiff dropped two to PC Beach.

RAZORMay eighth. Slap Daddies leading five-two going into the bottom of the ninth. Four runs. Walk-off. Six-five, Hurricanes.

CARLAAnd the next night?

RAZORThirteen hits. Thirteen. Two errors, eleven men stranded, and they lose six-seven to a team that can barely field nine warm bodies. The Hurricanes. Five and thirty-three on the season.

CARLAThat's... a rough stretch.

RAZOR(a beat) Some folks around the park have started calling them something.

CARLAOh no.

RAZORThe Surrenderdaddies.

CARLAThat's — no. That's not — we're not doing that.

RAZORHey, I didn't come up with it. I'm just reporting what I've heard.

CARLAFrom whom?

RAZORFrom... more than one person; it's in the general vicinity of people who watch baseball.

CARLARazor....

RAZORWhen the ninth inning comes in Knockemstiff, that team holds its breath. And lately, they've kinda needed to.

CARLAWe're going to move on.

RAZOROh yes, we should.

CARLAAnd we're not using that name again.

RAZOR...we'll see.

THEME MUSIC — FULL INTRO

CARLAWelcome back to Foul Territory, where no perspectives are out of bounds. I'm Carla Streich.

RAZORAnd I'm Razor Shines.

CARLAWe've got a lot to cover. Some teams figured something out over the last couple of weeks. Some teams lost whatever they had. The standings have shifted. The race is tightening at the top and coming apart in the middle.

RAZORAnd one man's bullpen is keeping the whole league on notice.

CARLALet's start with our prediction check from last episode. Razor, you said the Wankers would hit ten straight wins.

RAZORI did say that.

CARLANicaragua is nineteen and nineteen. They are one and seven in their last eight games.

RAZOR(pause) That's a factual statement.

CARLAThey never hit ten straight.

RAZORThey did not.

CARLAThey didn't even stay above .500 for very long.

RAZORCarla, I want to be clear — I stand by the reasoning.

CARLAOf course you do.

RAZORThe reasoning was sound. The team did not cooperate with the reasoning.

CARLAMeanwhile, I believed Iron Knob would right the ship. And they're sitting at twenty-three and fourteen, third in the league, with the best pitching staff in baseball. I called that.

RAZOR(graciously) You did. Credit where it's due. The Explosions look like a real team again.

CARLAThank you, Razor.

RAZOR(playfully) Don't get used to it.

CARLAHere's where we stand through May sixteenth. The Fugging Honey Badgers lead the league at twenty-seven and twelve, a six-ninety-two winning percentage. The Rick Astleys are right behind at twenty-eight and fourteen — more wins, but half a game back in the standings. The Huanca Wankers are two back at twenty-five and fourteen after a three-game losing streak. Iron Knob at twenty-three and fourteen, three games back. The Knockemstiff Slap Daddies at twenty-two and eighteen, five and a half out. And Nicaragua at nineteen and nineteen, seven and a half games back and sinking.

RAZORSix teams. Three playing like contenders. Two trying to figure out what happened. And one sitting right on the line between relevance and gone.

CARLALet's start in Nicaragua, because what happened to this team is one of the bigger stories in the league right now. As recently as May fifth, the Wrappers were eighteen and twelve. They were rolling. Carpenter's team looked like it had turned a corner.

RAZORAnd then they turned it right into a wall.

CARLAOne and seven in the last eight games. Got swept by Huanca in three straight — outscored twenty to ten in that series. Lost both games to Fugging. Then dropped one to Knockemstiff and another to the Astleys. The only win in that stretch was at Knockemstiff on May fourteenth, six-two.

RAZORYou look at a skid like that and you want to find the thing. The one thing that broke. And usually it's pitching. And in this case... yeah. It's pitching.

CARLAMark Langston. Five-ninety-one ERA. One and four on the season. Twenty walks in forty-five and two-thirds innings. He started the May sixteenth loss to the Astleys — five-ten, wasn't close.

RAZORLangston's always been a guy who walks the ballpark when he's off. And right now he is very, very off. You can see it in his body language. The deep breaths between pitches. He knows.

CARLAAnd it's not just the rotation. Tom Henke — five-nineteen ERA out of the bullpen. One save in four opportunities. Opponents are slugging eight-oh-one against him.

RAZOREight-oh-one.

CARLAEight-oh-one. Gregg Olson has been picking up the pieces — five for six in save chances, two-sixty-three ERA — but when your setup-to-close pipeline has that kind of leak in it, the wins just drain out.

RAZORCarpenter's got that look. Like a man who locked his keys in the car and can see them sitting right there on the seat.

CARLAEd Whitson is still on the injured list, not due back until May twenty-third. That's another arm they can't use.

RAZORYou know what's strange? The offense isn't even bad. Mattingly is hitting three-oh-nine with fifty-one hits. Puckett's at two-eighty-nine with forty-eight. Baines is getting on base at a four-oh-three clip. There are pieces here.

CARLAAnd yet .500. Carpenter — the player — has actually been coming through lately. Had the game-winning hit against the Nukes and again against Fugging.

RAZORSometimes the last guy still swinging is the one with his name on the building.

CARLA...sure.

CARLAAll right, we touched on this in the open, but let's put some numbers around the Knockemstiff situation. Because this is a team with a genuine identity crisis.

RAZORThey've got the best hitter in the league and they just lost two games to the worst team in the league. That's not a slump. That's a philosophical problem.

CARLABobby Bonilla. Let's just — let's sit with this for a second. Four-oh-four batting average. Four-fifty-eight on-base. Seven-sixty-three slugging. One-point-two-two-one OPS. He leads the league in batting average, slugging, OPS, runs created, runs created per twenty-seven outs, isolated power, and total average.

RAZORThat's not a hot streak. That's a man playing a different sport than everyone else.

CARLAFive triples. Nine home runs. Twenty-six RBI. And Kevin Mitchell right behind him — twenty home runs, league leader. Forty-seven RBI. Three-thirteen average. Sierra with seven triples — seven. These three in the middle of that lineup...

RAZORAnd they're twenty-two and eighteen. With all of that.

CARLATodd Burns — three for six in save opportunities this year. Fifty percent. You flip a coin when that man trots in from the pen. The blown save against the Astleys on May eleventh cost them. And Kipper took the loss in that walk-off against the Hurricanes.

RAZORHere's the thing with a fifty-percent save rate. It's not that he's bad. His ERA is two-thirty-five. He's getting outs. He's just not getting them when it counts. And that's the worst kind of problem because you can't point to the numbers and say bench him. You just... feel it.

CARLAHoulberg — the player — went oh-for-five in the walk-off loss and oh-for-three the next night. Hitless in both of those Hurricanes games.

RAZORWhen even Houlberg can't buy a hit, you know the moment's gotten to everybody.

CARLAThis is a team with a top-five offense in runs scored — two hundred thirty on the year — and a pitching staff that gives just enough of it back.

RAZORLike filling a bathtub with the drain half open.

CARLAThe Wankers went on an absolute tear. From April twenty-first through May thirteenth, Broyles' team won fourteen of fifteen games.

RAZORFourteen of fifteen.

CARLAThat stretch included a seven-game winning streak, a sweep of Nicaragua — that's the three-game set that broke the Wrappers — and wins over Fugging, Iron Knob, PC Beach, and the Nukes. Robin Yount hit everything in sight. Howard Johnson was launching balls out of every park they visited.

RAZORYount right now — fifty-seven hits, league leader. Three-forty-one average. Twelve doubles. The man is a hitting machine. He's not flashy about it. He just shows up and gets two hits.

CARLAJohnson at six-forty-four slugging, thirteen homers, thirteen doubles, six stolen bases. That's power and speed. That's a franchise-caliber middle-of-the-order bat.

RAZORBroyles put together a lineup that just grinds. Gruber at three-twenty. Hrbek with thirteen bombs. Bell hitting three-forty in a platoon role. Broyles — the player — had the game-winner against the Hurricanes.

CARLAAnd then... the wall.

RAZORThe wall.

CARLAThree straight losses to end the period. Lost at the Astleys twice, then fell at Knockemstiff. And the timing is terrible because David Cone just went down.

RAZOROne-seventy-two ERA. Five quality starts in seven outings. Their best pitcher, and he's on the shelf until May twentieth at the earliest.

CARLAThey can absorb it — Gubicza is at three-twenty-four, Bosio at three-even, Viola and Belcher are solid. But Cone was the ace by every measure.

RAZORYou want to know if the losing streak is a blip or a crack. And the honest answer is I don't know. Fourteen of fifteen was never sustainable. You lose your ace and drop three straight, and the whisper starts. Are the Wankers real, or were they just playing a soft stretch?

CARLATwo games back.

RAZOR...fair. But I'm watching.

CARLATwenty-eight wins. Most in the league. Five-game winning streak. And somehow, half a game out of first.

RAZORThe Astleys are eating faster than everyone at the table and still finishing second.

CARLAThey've played forty-two games to Fugging's thirty-nine. More games, more wins, less percentage. Twenty-eight victories and you're still chasing someone.

RAZOR(something shifts) ...you know what that does to a man?

CARLAWhat's that?

RAZORI think about Burris and I think about a man standing in a room full of trophies wondering if they're really his.

CARLAHe's got twenty-eight wins.

RAZORHe does. Most in the league. And somehow you get the feeling he'd trade ten of them to not be looking up at Graham in the standings.

CARLA...that's oddly specific.

RAZOR(recovering) I'm a complicated man, Carla. I pick up on things.

CARLARight. Well. Scott Garrelts — one-sixty-four ERA, five and oh. Six quality starts. Second-best ERA in the league behind Hershiser and nobody is talking about it.

RAZORBecause he plays for the Astleys. Garrelts is one of those guys who's so consistent that he becomes invisible. You don't notice him because he never gives you a reason to panic.

CARLABryn Smith at three-thirteen with six wins — most on the staff. Dennis Eckersley — ten for ten in save opportunities. Perfect.

RAZORTen for ten. That man is a vending machine. You put him in, and the save comes out.

CARLAEric Davis leading the league in runs scored with thirty-five. Fourteen homers. But also league leader in strikeouts with fifty-two.

RAZORDavis is either hitting it four hundred feet or swinging through air. There is no in-between with that man. He lives at the extremes and he is completely fine with it.

CARLAAstley — the player — has come through with game-winning hits multiple times this stretch. Against Knockemstiff, against Huanca, against the Astleys' own division rivals.

RAZORAstley. Never gonna let you down.

CARLA...apparently not.

CARLAFirst place. Twenty-seven and twelve. Best winning percentage in baseball. And the commissioner's office has been very busy.

RAZORThe commissioner's office is always busy when Graham's involved.

CARLALet's do the math on roster transactions. Released: Kruk, Cerutti, Jacoby, Magrane, Reuschel. Signed as free agents: Bip Roberts, Scott Bankhead, Mike Bielecki, Ramon Martinez, Dave Stewart. That's five free agent signings in — what, a month?

RAZORThe paperwork alone. Someone at league headquarters is earning overtime.

CARLAHere's the interesting part. Bankhead, Bielecki, and Martinez are all still sitting on the reserve roster. Stewart has pitched once. April twenty-seventh. One start. Graham signed four pitching arms and three of them haven't thrown a competitive pitch.

RAZORHe's stockpiling. Like a man filling the basement with canned goods before a storm that may or may not come.

CARLAMeanwhile, the cupboard upstairs is bare. He released Jacoby — that's his third baseman depth. Released Kruk. McGwire is on the farm team. If you look at the bench right now, it's Oquendo, Roberts, and the catchers. That's it.

RAZORIt's working. I want to be clear — it's working. Twenty-seven and twelve. Jeff Montgomery is thirteen for fourteen in save chances, two-forty-five ERA, twenty-nine strikeouts in twenty-two innings. The best closer in the league. Alvin Davis is hitting three-seventy-nine with a four-sixty-nine on-base percentage.

CARLABip Roberts — the latest signing — is hitting four-forty-eight with a one-point-one-four-two OPS. That pickup is already paying off.

RAZORBut here's the thing. Graham is playing like a man who doesn't believe in insurance. He's put everything into pitching depth and the guys on the field right now. If Lonnie Smith goes down — and Smith has been bumped around a few times already this year — there is almost nobody behind him.

CARLAThe WLB's official site named Fugging's win over Iron Knob on May twelfth the Game of the Week. Moore pitched eight innings, Davis and Evans both homered in the first. Five-one, and the Honey Badgers took two of three at Yankee Stadium.

RAZORThat's a statement series. You go into someone's building and take two of three from a team with Hershiser and Maddux? That's not luck. That's a team that believes it belongs at the top.

CARLAGraham — the player — was in that game, actually. Went oh-for-two as a pinch hitter.

RAZORThe bat'll come around.

CARLAHarris, on the other side, came in as a pinch hitter and went one-for-one. Actually, Harris has been — well, we'll get to Iron Knob in a moment.

CARLALet's talk about the best pitching staff in the WLB. And specifically about a man who might be having the best season any pitcher has had in this league.

RAZOROrel Hershiser.

CARLAOne-point-one-one ERA. Six and oh. Eight quality starts in eight outings. Thirty-eight strikeouts, seventeen walks. He has not lost a game. He might not lose a game.

RAZORThere's a thing that happens with a pitcher like that. The rest of the staff starts to relax. Not in a lazy way — in a "we've got a safety net" way. And you can see it in how Iron Knob pitches as a unit.

CARLABut here's the story I want to tell. Last time we talked about Greg Maddux, his ERA was six-oh-seven. That was the number. We flagged it as a concern.

RAZORI remember. Vividly.

CARLAMaddux is now at three-thirty-two. Four and oh. Five quality starts in seven outings. A seven-fourteen quality start percentage. He shut out Fugging on May thirteenth — four-nothing.

RAZOR(a beat) Kid went from looking lost to looking like he owns the place. That's not mechanics. That's between the ears. Something clicked. Whatever was eating at him in April — the doubt, the overthinking, whatever it was — he figured it out.

CARLAThe contrast is something. A twenty-three-year-old finding himself while a thirty-eight-year-old is heading the other direction.

RAZORBlyleven.

CARLATen-day injured list. Due back May twenty-third. He was two and three with a three-fifty ERA before he went down — still useful, still competitive. But at thirty-eight, a ten-day stint raises questions.

RAZORThe body doesn't lie at thirty-eight. It starts making suggestions. And then the suggestions become demands.

CARLAKevin Brown is quietly putting together a very strong season at two-ninety-six, five and one. So the depth is there even without Blyleven. But you add Gwynn going down for four days —

RAZORGwynn's four days, he'll be fine.

CARLA— and Strawberry still sitting at two-sixteen —

RAZORStrawberry's a different conversation.

CARLATwo-sixteen, two-eighty-seven on-base, six homers. There's power. There's just... not much else.

RAZORHe'll get hot or he won't. That's always been the deal with Strawberry. You take the whole package or you don't take him at all.

CARLAOne more note — Harris. The player. He's hitting six hundred.

RAZORExcuse me?

CARLAYou heard me right, six hundred. Fifty-five at-bats on the season, thirty-three hits. A one-point-six-one-seven OPS. He doesn't play every day — mostly pinch-hitting, spot starts in left — but when he's in the box, he is not missing.

RAZORHarris just keeps showing up.

CARLAHe does.

CARLAInjury report. A few names to note.

CARLAFirst: Bert Blyleven, Iron Knob. Ten days, due back May twenty-third. As we discussed, the age factor is real. The team says he's being evaluated, day-to-day, with some general discomfort in the area.

RAZORHate to speculate, but when you're thirty-eight and they're telling you ten days... that's not a tweak. That's a conversation.

CARLADavid Cone, Huanca Wankers. Five-day stint, due back May twentieth. One-seventy-two ERA, their best pitcher.

RAZORBrutal timing. Right in the middle of a slide.

CARLATony Gwynn, Iron Knob. Four days. Due May twentieth.

RAZORMinor. He'll be back.

CARLAEd Whitson, Nicaragua. Thirteen days total. Due May twenty-third. Still working his way back.

RAZORThat's an arm the Wrappers could really use right about now.

CARLAAnd we have a caller. Mel? Mel, are you there?

SFX: Old landline connecting. Too loud.

MELCarla. Razor. Thank you for having me.

RAZORAlways a pleasure, Mel.

MELI want to talk about Orel Hershiser.

CARLAOf course you do.

MELI have been trying to make this point for — and I know we've had some scheduling difficulties —

RAZORYou've been very patient, Mel.

MELI have been patient. I've been very patient. And I've had time to refine the data. Donna will confirm I have been at this kitchen table every evening with my notes.

CARLAWe're all ears. Go ahead.

MELAll right. Hershiser. One-eleven ERA. Six and oh. We all know this. What people are NOT looking at is the run support context. He's getting six runs per start in support. Six. That's eighth among qualified starters in the league. Eighth. Not first. Not second. Eighth.

RAZORThat's lower than I would've guessed.

MELLower than anyone would guess. Now, here's the interesting layer. His quality start rate is one hundred percent. Eight for eight. Which means in every single outing, he's given his team a chance to win. The offense has held up its end — six runs — but that's not elite support. That's adequate support. The wins are happening because Hershiser is —

CARLA— Mel, hold on one second. I'm being told we have another caller — our producer is saying someone's on the line with a point on this exact topic. Do you mind if we —

MELI — well, I was just getting to the —

CARLAWe'll come right back to you. Go ahead, caller?

SFX: Different phone line — cleaner, modern.

PATTYHi. Hello? Am I on?

CARLAYou're on. Welcome to Foul Territory.

PATTYOh, wonderful. My name is Patty Roarke. I've never called before, but my husband keeps this show on all the time and I feel like I know you both. Razor, my husband thinks you're the best thing on the 'net.

RAZOR(charmed) Well, tell your husband he's got excellent taste.

PATTYI will. Now, I was listening to what your caller — Mel, is it? — was saying about Hershiser, and I have a question. Or maybe it's a point, I'm not sure.

CARLAGo ahead.

PATTYIf Hershiser is getting six runs of support per start, and his ERA is one-eleven, doesn't that mean his team is basically winning every game by about five runs? I mean — isn't the real story not that the run support is low, but that it almost doesn't matter? You could give that man two runs a game and he'd still win most of them.

(silence)

RAZOR...huh.

CARLAThat's — actually, that's a really good point.

PATTYBecause it seems like your Mel is looking for a problem where there isn't one. The support could be two, could be eight — with that ERA, the result is the same. The run support is a footnote. The pitcher is the story.

MEL(in the background, audibly deflating) Well — if you look at

CARLAPatty, thank you so much for calling in. That's a terrific observation.

RAZORTell your husband we said hello.

PATTYI will! He's going to be so jealous. Mel, I hope I didn't step on anything — I'm sure your numbers are wonderful.

MEL(barely audible) ...the distribution model clearly shows —

CARLAMel, we'll get you more time next week. I promise.

MEL(quietly) I had a chart.

SFX: Phones disconnect.

RAZORI liked her.

CARLAShe made a very sharp point.

RAZORShe did. Mel's not going to sleep tonight.

CARLAAll right. Before we go — bold predictions. Razor, you're up.

RAZORBobby Bonilla cools off. Nobody — nobody — stays at four-oh-four. The league adjusts. Pitchers start going away from him. The book gets out. He finishes above three hundred, sure. But four-oh-four? That's not a season. That's a month.

CARLAYou're betting against a four-oh-four hitter?

RAZORI'm betting against math. Math always wins.

CARLAMy prediction: Huanca overtakes Fugging for first place by Memorial Day.

RAZORThat's bold.

CARLAThey're two games back. Cone comes back May twentieth. They've got the lineup depth — Yount, Johnson, Hrbek, Gruber. And Fugging is one injury away from a very thin bench. If the Wankers get healthy and the Badgers catch a bad break...

RAZORNoted. We'll check back.

CARLAWe'll check back.

CARLAThat's going to do it for this edition of Foul Territory. Standings tightening at the top, questions multiplying in the middle, and somewhere in Nicaragua, a man is staring at a pitching chart wondering where it all went wrong.

RAZORAnd somewhere in Knockemstiff, a man with a four-oh-four batting average is wondering why it doesn't feel like enough.

CARLAFor Razor Shines, I'm Carla Streich. Thanks for listening. Remember —

RAZORNot affiliated. Not accredited.

CARLANot stopping.

THEME MUSIC OUT