The 6-1-1 Podcast: Reacting to the 2025 Wild Card Series
Big piece. Big piece. Big piece. Young James. What it is? We’re going to hit you with the 611 wild card edition. We’ve had some good wild card series. [Music] You said it in the intro. Wild card, right, man? Wild indeed. Wild indeed. Look, the first things first though, let’s let’s talk about the Guardians and the Tigers, right? Yes. First things first, there’s no surprises there because those two teams, division rivals, they know each other. They played against each other all year long. One game, one like one game left, right. I love the fact that Flity was out there. Yeah. Right. Flity is one of those guys to me to where as the the Tigers can continue to try to go deep. He reminds me of Annabal Sanchez when Annabal Sanchez was with the Nats because you had Sherzer. We talked about this. You had Sherzer. Sherzer was gonna do Sherzer. Strawber was going to do Strawber. Yeah. Annie Ball just sitting right there in the wings. Annabal Sanchez. It was like, “All right, which way are we going to go?” Because if I’m the opposing team, we’re supposed to win that game, right? And Annabal was going in there shutting people down. Like, yes, he was. Jay Flity was out there giving he’s been giving these dudes the opportunity and he did what he needed to do today because he went what five six innings today and AJ went to the bullpin and then what happens my man dirty dirt Digler Dylan Digler comes in with the big Dler Johnson with the big fly to go put him up and then they have that big big what was it five run seventh inning. Yep. Exactly. just out of nowhere just just it it was it went from everything that didn’t happen in the month of September for Detroit happened in what was that the sixth or seventh inning um of the playoff game all month long they couldn’t get the big hit they couldn’t string together hits they weren’t putting up runs and we saw Cleveland come back and actually win the division but all that can be put to rest now this is a step in the right direction this is who we’ve been all season long with the month of September I think every team has a bad month. And I and I’ve said this, if you’re going to have a bad month, let it be August rather than September. There are no games to make up in September. When you’re losing in September, it’s worse. And August, if you’re losing, you saying I have at least 28 more games to to write this ship. It didn’t happen that way. But today, they got it right. Uh they’re moving on. Heck of a season by Cleveland coming out of nowhere. 15 and a half games uh back to start the month and win a division. That’s kind of expected though with Cleveland because Cleveland’s been one of those teams where they’ve got enough guys where they’ve got the experience, man. You can’t count out Jos Ramirez, man. He’s one of the most I think underrated players in the league. I mean, dude’s like little he like a little mini Latino Popeye. Like that dude just hitting homers left and right, bro. You know what I’m saying? But for real, you got to give kudos, like you said, you got to give kudos to to to Cleveland what they’ve been able to do. I mean, year in and year out, you know, they’re always right there towards the end. And u you know, you got to give credit where credit’s due. Now, you got to hope that for Detroit, they take that that seventh inning, they bottle it up and take it into Seattle cuz they going to have their hands full with the Mariners up there. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Short rest, turning around, flying to the uh great Northwest way up there. But now, let’s let’s let’s get to my favorite side. My favorite league. We may be biased. We may be biased, but naturally so. The NL. Oh man. 1983, 2008. Yeah. 2009. Mhm. When we’ve faced the Dodgers, we somehow going to the World Series. Yeah. And if you’re the Phillies, you have to be thinking that. Yeah. And if you’re the Dodgers, you’re saying it’s time to buck that trend. I mean, they had black we we had black Friday, you know, they got us there, but we got him twice right after that. Uh, not let me let me not let me rephrase that. It wasn’t right after. It was way later, but the two times we faced them after that, no, no 08 and no, we were able to beat him. Tell me what you got on this series. It’s going to be a good one. Number one. Yes, it is. Show opening up in Philly after throwing five no hit innings against last time they play face each other. Yeah. Yeah. Both teams match up well. They match up evenly. I mean, look, you got Show starting off against Christopher Sanchez. And as we’ve had these conversations before, like these guys are electric. Like, Christopher Sanchez has been pitching out of his mind this year. He’s got to go out. He’s got to do it against the Dodgers. Now, here’s the thing. The Dodgers are the reigning world champions, right? So, if you’re the Phillies, in order to be the best, you got to beat the best. And so, now you get the opportunity to be able to put that to the test. Now, I wasn’t trying to rhyme, you know what I’m saying? if we was making records, but it just happened like that. It just happened like that sometime. But I will say this, I love the matchups. I love the pitching. I think pitching wise, both teams match up. Dodgers bullpen’s been struggling lately. Phillies did the reverse. They actually got the end piece to their bullpen. They’ve got the end piece to their bullpen. The key is is going to be in the trenches, man. It’s going to be the bottom of that lineup like we’ve seen. Like if the Phillies bottom of the lineup can come through and do what they did towards the middle end of September, then I could see the Phillies getting above because you got to have at this point your stars have got to shine. And the biggest thing to me, we’ve been talking about this before in all these series when you get to the divisional series, if you’re the team that’s had the time off, because all everybody talks about is, hey, the team with the time off comes out looking rusty, right? Matching their energy. energy, no doubt. Now, you you talked about lineups and you said the bottom half of the lineup. Let me let me ask you a question and it may be rhetorical. Do the Dodgers actually have a bottom half of their lineup? Yeah. I don’t even There are no holes. There are no holes. The way uh Pahz and Tioscar and Babe and Babe Kik Ruth uh the way they play in the playoffs, they’re they’re no holes. There is no bottom. They just continue to apply pressure. And as a fan, you have to appreciate that. as an opponent, you have to respect it because where do you go to get the outs? You have to be smart. You can’t give them extra outs. They’re they’re putting up runs and and yes, normally the postseason is not a place where you where you expect guys to come out and just bop, but the Dodgers are scoring all their runs basically via home run. They showed that against Cincinnati. It was like five home runs and 10 runs later and they’re off in two games. Um so yes, the Phillies, they have to definitely come out and match that energy. And if you knock them off, if you beat the Dodgers, you have to say there’s no one else in front of us, right? The Xander Bogarts at bat in the Cubs and Padres’s uh series. Um, you know, and people wonder why, you know, why we want this ABS system. And for those that don’t get it, it isn’t Robo. It is not Robo Ump. The umpire is still going to be there, but it’s going to be for that call right there. You’re the road team in Chicago. Yeah. Um down by two runs at that. Get to the ninth inning. Lead off batter hits a home run. You’re Xander Bogart. You’re battling your butt off and you take a 3-2 pitch. That was a ball the entire way. It wasn’t borderline. It was clearly a ball. That umpire is a human being. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. He has 50,000 crazy Chicago Cub fans right there on his neck. You think he doesn’t feel that pressure that if it’s anything close or if he deems close, the call is going to go the way of the home team. Next year, you have that ABS. Xander, he taps that. Now he’s on first base. The tying run is at the plate. And what happened? Hit batter. Hit batter. Now you have bases loaded. No outs. No outs. No outs. Top of nine. That changes the outcome of the game. that changes, you know, how relaxed the pitcher is, what he’s trying to do. There’s no margin for error. There’s no balls in the dirt. And on the offensive side, you’re saying this is our time. This is we we’ve pressed him before. We didn’t get the big hit. We have replays and we can challenge everything else. A guy came off the bat. We think he uh beat the play. We think he blocked the plate, but we yet to have it at the plate. And that right there changes, in my opinion. Yeah, I don’t know if it changed the outcome of the series, but that at bat and the momentum of that inning stays with San Diego. Like, yeah, that ABS comes in, it it takes all that out of the out of the equation. So, and as offensive player especially, we know how it is when this dude’s throwing 99 100 and you’re battling your butt off and you win. You win but you lose. But you kind of battle you, man, man. We and we we’ve seen what happen when you have to battle an umpire. You end up at third base trying to ring his neck, you know. So, [Music] but nonetheless though, bro, the stars have to shine. I was like, PCA got to show up cuz he’s got that energy, right? He’s got the energy. And then Dansby, Danby showing out with that leather, bro. Came out there doing his thing. So, again, like the leaders have to lead on there. and they went out. The Cubs did their thing. So, peace. I’m going to be covering the NL the NLDS on TNT Sports. We’re going to be in studio starting in Atlanta. Uh I’m looking forward to the series, the Midwest Classic versus the East West Battle and we’re going to bring it to you. Trust me. You know, we we’re opinionated. We going to let you know what it is. Pedro going to be talking. Curtis is going to say something. I’m just going to be the ring master with left car. You know, I’m stirring it up. You know what I mean? Ra, you know, I got that big wooden paddle right here stirring it up. So, we’re gonna have a lot of fun. Gonna have a lot of fun. And the beautiful thing about us this year is that we’re actually going to be traveling for the championship series. I cannot absolutely wait to get back on the road, get in that crowd, get that energy. But in the meantime, if something happens, tune to 611. Me and Peace, we going to bring it to you. We going to let you know. We going to let you all know what it is. That’s it. That’s what we do. That is what we do. 611 JRO. Big peace. We’ll catch y’all. [Music]
Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard break down the Wild Card slate and look ahead to the upcoming Division Series.
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