Episode 8

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Published on:

17th Mar 2026

S3E8 - Troy Recap with Tyler Zedalis

We recap a 1-3 week against ECU and Troy then look ahead to Norfolk State and App State. Outfielder Tyler Zedalis joins to talk about his hot start to the season and growing up in a baseball family.

Transcript
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This episode is brought to you by the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation.

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Because of you, we create winners in the classroom, in athletic

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competition, and in life.

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Become a member today.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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Hello, Monarch fans.

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Welcome to the Hudson Homers podcast.

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CB is here, as always, coach Finwood, even after a long night of

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driving back from Alabama is here.

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How's it going fellas?

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Good to be here.

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Good to be, uh, inside where it's not raining cats and dogs.

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There you go.

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I have a You drive.

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Gary, when are we gonna get our, uh.

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Our Hudson Homer's Monarchist podcast hats printed.

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Ah,

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yes.

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We need to get that rolling for summer, uh, recruiting, you know?

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Yes, we are.

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Mike and I were actually having discussion about that the other day.

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We gotta figure out the provider now that we can make our own merch again.

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Yeah.

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Uh, but that's the top of the list.

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He was joking about adding something else to what we were doing and I said, as long

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as Finny gets his hats first, that's fine.

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I like it.

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I like that.

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See if he could attest to that.

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Yeah.

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That's what matters.

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Hook coach up.

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Yeah.

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So you, you guys, uh, y'all drive like halfway last night

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and then the rest today?

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Yeah, we drove to Columbia.

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We did that on the way down as well.

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Okay.

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Mm-hmm.

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You know, the guys were on spring break this week, so

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Oh, nice.

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We were able to save some money and not have to fly.

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Um, you know, and not, we didn't have anything we needed to get

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back early for today in terms of class or anything like that.

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So we figured it was worth, worth doing this.

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So we really only have one.

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Um.

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Flight trip this year, which is nice and saves you a lot of money in the long run.

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Um,

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yeah,

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the two weeks.

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Two weeks we're going, when we go to South Owl, we're gonna fly into Pensacola, drive

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over, and then fly back outta mobile.

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So just worked out price wise that way.

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And Pensacola's not far, so, and mobile's 10 minutes from

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campus, they're airport, so.

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Mm-hmm.

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It'll be nice, you know, getting back and, um, we, and that

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one's kind of unavoidable.

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That's a even a longer trip than Troy.

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So Troy and, you know, like Atlanta, you can break that up and it's not terrible.

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Um, and I, I would always much rather be on a bus with a baseball team than

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flying man with the gear and, and, and,

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yeah.

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You know, the thing about some of the places in our league, by the time you fly

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and then get on a bus and drive two and a half more hours, I mean, you have Yeah.

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You know, it's, it's exhausting.

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Uh, and then you're trying to go practice and all that.

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You know, there are, are this way, you know, I think you guys

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are actually as crazy as it sounds, jet lag is a real deal.

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Yeah.

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And I think you guys are less tired, um, doing it this way.

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So I really do.

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Um, we didn't, you know, we're able to push that game against

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Norfolk State, uh, to Wednesday.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, and on that note, we're gonna play that game at three o'clock instead of six.

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Oh, okay.

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'cause of the cooler temperature.

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So, um, we thought moving that up would be smart.

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Um, Wednesday, so.

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Okay.

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Uh, we're gonna do that and then, um, glad I know I can, sure.

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I gotta work now.

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It's warming up after that for the weekend.

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So the weekend looks, looks better.

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So

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good.

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Yeah, I was gonna say, you know very well the travel costs and

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the impacts after last year being on the road the entire time.

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I don't think you had that luxury last year to take a bus

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everywhere you wanted to go.

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No, no.

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We had some longer, longer trips and uh, although the one, the one, you know,

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spring break trip, you know, when we went, um, to Auburn and then, uh mm-hmm.

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Played Southern miss, we were able to, you know, have the

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bus for that and break it up.

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So that wasn't, wasn't too bad, um, doing it that way.

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So, but we had some flights on top of that as well.

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Um, you know, but uh, yeah, so the guys, uh, we got back about

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four 30 and unloaded everything.

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I'm sure guys are sleeping or something right now.

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I'm sure they're eating or sleeping and, um,

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yeah,

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we'll, we'll lift weights tomorrow in the morning and then work out

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tomorrow afternoon, you know, hopefully feel will dry out.

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I think it will.

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And, um, I'm, I'm really, I, I didn't get a chance to, 'cause it was

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pouring down rain, but the things.

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Gets you excited, you know, uh, that are a little bit on the periphery

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is our, our, our Bermuda grass had started to turn green already with

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the, so we're excited to see it when we, uh, get out there tomorrow.

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It's starting to green up the mode it, I think, for the first time last week.

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So, uh, I don't think you're cutting a lot of grass right now, but it only

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takes a little to get it growing.

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And, um, you know, we, we, as, as we talked about earlier, we didn't

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oversee this year, we just painted it.

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And so now it'll come into its own and, um, should be a nice, nice look.

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Nice.

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That's awesome.

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Yeah.

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Well, we can talk about the games over the last, uh, couple days.

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One in three, I mean, played four tough road games.

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I think it, you know, I hardly say it was a disaster by any means.

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'cause you got the one at Troy and that's kind of the thing.

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Just don't get swept on the road.

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Uh, but do we even wanna, we wanna talk about East Carolina.

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I,

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yeah, absolutely.

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We should.

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Um, yeah, we gotta own that stuff, man.

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We, we, we didn't play well.

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They, they played very well and we didn't play well.

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And, you know, and our, our three losses this week and, and in some respects, even

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in our win, like it's the same problem.

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We're walking too many guys hitting too many, too many free bases.

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I don't, on the week, I don't know what we were.

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I'll find that out tomorrow.

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But, you know, strikeouts to free bases, uh, against the pitching staff.

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But it wasn't good.

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And that's something that we, you know, gotta get fixed 'cause you can't win.

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You know, we gave up 11 free bases yesterday and

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Yeah, they

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gotta gave up seven of them in two inex.

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Yeah.

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You know, they were beating us four to one at one point and all

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they had was an infield single.

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Uh, we made, we'd made an error on the mound.

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Uh, and had seven, three bases.

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So you can't win it at this level, you know, pitching like that.

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And, you know, the guys don't know that we've, we've gotta

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do a better job with 'em.

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We've gotta coach 'em better.

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We've gotta demand more.

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It's, uh, it's, it's unacceptable.

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Uh, that's just as easiest way to say.

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So having said that, we, we had a couple young guys come in and throw the ball.

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Well, you know, this weekend, and that's something we can

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build on, um, coal land for.

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I think that was as good as I've seen him throw few those as good as I've

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seen him throw since he's been here, you know, was 91 on the fastball.

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He was cutting it.

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The, the slider was good.

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He was moving faster than I've, I've ever seen him.

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And you know, unfortunately it was in a game where, you know, we were, we were

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kind of out there before we were in it.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, uh, and, and you know, in the Friday game.

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Uh, you know, I mean in, in, in all essence, guys, like you gotta

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think we're fortunate to have one one of those this weekend because

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Yeah,

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we did, we averaged under two innings for our starters for the weekend, you

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know, not, not even one, one, and two.

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And so to, to win one of those, and especially Friday,

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you started going out hurt.

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Right.

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Speed did something in his chest and I thought Pat Johnson came in in that game.

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That's, that's, that's an incredibly hard thing to do.

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Yeah.

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You sitting on the hole and then have to go down and no matter how

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long you tell 'em they can take.

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Mm-hmm.

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I don't think

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ever take long enough.

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No.

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Everybody waiting.

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You're, you're not mentally ready in the first inning.

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I mean, you might be thinking, okay, maybe the second or third I gotta

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start getting thinking, but there's no way you're mentally ready and Yeah.

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There you're, you're, I guarantee they're rushing 'cause they're

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like, everybody's waiting on me.

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Well, yeah, and I mean.

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What it should be on Friday is, you ain't even thinking about getting

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out there till six or seventh.

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But we haven't had that, uh, luxury yet.

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But a hundred percent the old rule used to be it.

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It's an interesting deal because the old rule used to be you had to warm up

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on the field and then you never took enough 'cause everybody's watching you.

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Now the new rule is you can pick, um, if you come out on the field,

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you can take as long as you want or you can stay down in the bullpen.

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But when you come on the field, you got the normal two and a half minutes,

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just like any reliever come in.

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And I choose that one because I told, you know, Mike go down there

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with him just like he's starting and make sure they're ready to go.

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And then when they come out on the field, two and a half minutes, there's plenty.

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Yeah,

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like the InBetween innings.

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So, you know, pat gave up the home run, but after that he gave

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him zeros and allowed us to take the lead, which we never gave up.

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Um, and then I thought.

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Um, Tanton came in, you know, yeah.

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Ben, Ben's been throwing the ball.

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Good man.

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He had another three, you know, and a couple walks, got gave up, you know,

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and, and park, you know, gave up a run.

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'cause he walked three guys, I think the one inning.

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But he did had a clean second inning.

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Um, and, and then, uh, Davis, you know, we were up 10 to four or 10 to six,

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and Davis gave up a single in the, in the eighth and ninth, but it, it

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wasn't, you know, enough to hurt us.

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Um, so we just battled.

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I was really proud.

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We sw the bat really well, you know?

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Mm-hmm.

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Uh, had a bunch of big hits.

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The Dallas had a big day with four rbis or, or three, and then

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Johnson had four rbis and, you know, big two out bases loaded double.

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And so we got a lot of big hits of Good Friday Night Road wind,

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and a tough place to play.

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Um, and you know, when, when you get that on Friday, uh, everybody relaxes

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a little bit, but man, we just were awful in the first two innings, you

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know, three innings this weekend.

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It's easy to say you take those three innings, but we caused them all like,

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yeah.

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Two strikes, not making pitches, like throwing, throwing

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balls right down the middle.

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Um, walks hit batters and then yesterday we made two errors on the mound and

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gave them three or four more runs.

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So just not a good enough performance man.

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And I, and I'm not, I'm not like publicly bashing these kids 'cause we've already

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talked about it, but they gotta own it.

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Um, yeah.

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And, and, and I think the thing is, yeah, we only scored four

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runs in each of those games.

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We made that a seven, four game in the six yesterday.

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Mm-hmm.

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Uh, got two or two outs to climb within three, and then we go out and walk the

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lead off guy in the, in the bottom of the.

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We just keep doing that and it just shoots you in the foot

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every time you get some momentum.

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Um, and we gotta find a way to get shutdowns, whether you're up and

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trying to expand the lead or you're down and trying to climb back in it.

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When we've been in the games offensively, I think we've done a pretty good job.

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We can play some offense.

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The guys have been competitive back and, and, and look, they

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had their best guy going Saturday with a, you know, 13 to one lead.

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I mean, they're not losing that game.

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That's a, that's a boat race at that point.

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Because

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I mean, that, that game was phenomenal.

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The fact that six scoreless innings after giving up a billion runs in the first two

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Yeah.

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Kept, kept it from being runner.

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That was impressive.

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Yeah.

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Uh.

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We need to be able to do that earlier so we can

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Right.

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Yeah.

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Not give up the 13 runs

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for

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us and then

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do

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it.

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Yeah.

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So, um,

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yeah, 23 of the runs allowed this weekend came in the first three innings.

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Yeah.

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And that's, that's tough.

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But I, I mean, you talked about on Friday where, you know, nothing

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you can do with Ryan Sheehy getting hurt coming outta the game.

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Right.

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You know, Patrick gives up the home run, but like you were talking

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about, he settled in and Ben Tanton settled in, was like a stabilizing

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force the rest of the game.

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That's mm-hmm.

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Not the first time he's done something like that.

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I was gonna ask you, like, is there a thought of potentially moving Ben

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into a starter role, even if it's only a two or three inning outing?

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Well, I, I think so.

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Certainly.

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Um, you know, uh, he's, I mean, look, you, you earn, you earn what you

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get in this world, in my opinion.

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This is a performance based industry man.

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And that kid's pitching great.

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I'd love to see somebody go out there and.

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He's got a little bit of smoke coming out of his ears.

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He's a true freshman, so he is gonna make some mistakes, you know, that.

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But you know, he is got that fastball, that's got the carry on it that gets up

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on guys and he's got a developing off speed arsenal that's getting better.

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Um, you know, he, he, he certainly deserves that opportunity and,

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and it could come as, as early as this weekend for sure.

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Um, so, and, and you know, something to be said about, um,

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I think, uh, Cole Lanford Yeah.

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Throw us some stuff in there too.

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I mean, if he can replicate that, then he should be able to, you know, be another

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guy that can do some of those things.

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You know, we gotta get Kuskie back on track because mm-hmm.

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Um, you know, hopefully that's just a stinker.

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Uh, and everybody has him once in a while, but yeah, a little bit scary.

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'cause he's had two out of his last three.

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And, you know, it's just, that's, we need him to be better than that.

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I mean, he's supposed to be the guy that's anchoring his pitching staff and mm-hmm.

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Um, you know, Gatti, there's no mystery, just, he's just gotta throw strikes.

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Like,

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yeah.

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He's not getting hit.

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He just walked everybody.

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Um, and that's a guy that didn't walk anybody in the whole fall.

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Like, or spring.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh, and now he's walking everybody and shit, two guys in the head

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with change ups this year.

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Um, so I think he, uh, just gotta look in the mirror and decide I'm gonna be better.

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'cause he's capable.

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Yeah.

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I'm, you

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know, without a doubt,

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I'm, I'm not in the dugout, wasn't on the field for any of these, but it just look

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from watching it that he was trying to be too fine and too pinpoint with where

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those balls were landing rather than in the zone or a quadrant of the zone.

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He was looking for the single pixel to put the center of that baseball.

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Yeah.

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That, that never works, does it?

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No, no.

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A lot of pros have that problem.

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Yeah.

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I, I'd much rather guys just get the crap knocked out of.

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And figure out how to throw better strikes.

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Jackson Okonkwo is going through a little bit of that right now.

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Kid saw 93, 94.

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He is just throwing too many balls down the middle, but

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he ain't scared of contact.

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Mm-hmm.

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And he's not trying to be perfect.

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And guys like that, you can always help because you can figure out

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how to throw better strikes.

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Mm-hmm.

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But if you're afraid to throw strikes because you're trying to

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be perfect and you just are afraid of contact, you're never gonna be

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successful pitching forever and ever.

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You know?

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And, and that's the thing.

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I mean, I, I watch some of these guys like just relax and let it rip.

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And then they start like, why are you pressing like it?

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It's just go out and throw.

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You know, and, um, he's gotta move better.

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I think there's some things delivery wise, he can, he can get

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helped with, uh, on that note.

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But, you know, it was good to see Okonkwo back out there.

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The stuff was good, his results weren't great.

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I mean, the guy inside Outer one, just inside the right field

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line, the first pitch it was 94.

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He,

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that

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was, that was brutal.

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Just kind of the way it was going.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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Uh, Finn, going back to, to Tanton and Lanford and then maybe even adding like

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Jace Park into this question during the season, do you guys ever think

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about or work on stretching a guy out?

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Or do you kind of look at guys and say, well, no, they're kind of two, maybe

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three inning guys and that's kind of what they're gonna be for this year?

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No, I, I would love to stretch 'em out.

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The issue with, uh, and I was wanting one of those guys to be able to stretch out,

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the issue was 50 pitches and two innings,

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right?

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Yeah.

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They were ridiculous 'cause they were throwing so many balls and I'm like.

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I know what happens at that rate.

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You know the,

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see if they're more economical, that's four innings right there.

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Right,

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exactly.

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You send 'em out, you and I know what happens after that.

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Either they get hurt or

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mm-hmm.

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Um, you know, the stuff is diminished and, you know, after park second, he

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had a short second inning, but he threw

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mm-hmm.

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You know, almost 40 pitches in his first day.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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And I told Mikey Davis in, and he was like, well, it's a good thing.

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I go, yeah, it's 50 pitches and two innings.

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Yeah.

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We, we could run 'em back outta it, but, but Davison is coming in

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anyway, so why not get him in fresh?

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Like we, Parkway wasn't gonna go two more inning.

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Right.

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So yeah.

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I, I love guys, I'd love to be able to use two guys instead of five.

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Yeah.

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Without a doubt.

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But, but

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like you said, it, it all comes down to they, they gotta show you they can do it.

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It's up to them

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a hundred percent.

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And right now we throw so many balls that we just waste pitches.

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And it's not like Mike's calling them to waste a bunch of pitches.

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Right.

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They're just doing it.

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We gotta be better.

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You know?

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We gotta be better.

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Yeah.

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I can hear

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their

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conversation

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sometime, him and Ryan and they're never like, oh, let's waste this one.

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It's like, yeah, let's attack it.

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Let's get after it.

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Let's,

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let's make this pitch.

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It's, it's one.

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Oh, it's two.

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Oh, too much.

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Look man, I'm not just bearing our pitches staff, but these are

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all things we've talked about.

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It.

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It's gotta be, oh, one more.

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It's gotta be oh two more, 71, 2 more.

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And then when it gets one, two, or O2, we gotta make 'em hit instead.

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It can be, can't always be one, two, and then it's three, two.

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And, you know, you gotta make 'em hit, uh, make 'em be defense.

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Make 'em take more defensive swings.

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Like if you give up a few more hits because of that, so be it.

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But whenever you play a team that just floods the strike zone with good stuff,

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and it's not a stuff thing for most of our guys, it's a command thing.

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Like you're putting these guys in hitters counts instead of pitchers counts.

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I mean, there's a lot of pressure on the hitters when

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guys just flood the strike zone.

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And look, we, we sw the bats good on Friday.

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Uh, I mean, we got out hit by one or two on Saturday and one

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or two one yesterday I think.

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Mm-hmm.

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And got beat by nine and five.

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Um, and so it wasn't like they were hitting that much better than we were.

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We were just giving 'em too many freebies, you know?

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So

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Yeah.

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I was, you

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say that many hits plus twice as many walks and free bases

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adds up, right?

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Yeah.

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They didn't walk anybody.

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We, you know, that was the difference.

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They didn't walk anybody.

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They, they threw a lot of strikes.

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Yeah, I, I thought there was a mistake in the box score from Saturday.

Speaker:

'cause Troy did not walk anyone.

Speaker:

And granted part of that is because when you're up 13 to one, you

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can just throw fastballs down the middle like you're talking about.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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Um, but I mean that's, that's big compared to, you know, seven walks.

Speaker:

Well, and that's the frustrating thing for Friday.

Speaker:

We're up 10 to four, um,

Speaker:

and the sixth and Jace goes out and walks the first two guys Yeah.

Speaker:

On like nine pitches.

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And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker:

Like, make 'em hit it.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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And he gave up one, fortunately.

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Um, actually two.

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Uh, but then he had a better, better second.

Speaker:

But it's like, man, we gotta, you gotta make 'em hit when you're up multiple runs.

Speaker:

Like it's, it's much harder to hit.

Speaker:

Um, and, and there's a needle to thread there.

Speaker:

We're not saying throw right down the middle, you know, like a Coke machine.

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But we're saying make pitches.

Speaker:

You're division one pitcher.

Speaker:

You should be able to make and, and look that it, we're all frustrated with that.

Speaker:

Mike is, we all are.

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Um, you know, and you know, we played pretty good defense on, we, we made one

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error on the field all, all weekend.

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That was,

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yeah.

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You know, a late, late on Saturday, backhand play with will, but two

Speaker:

errors on the mound yesterday.

Speaker:

But we played pretty good defense down there overall and especially on,

Speaker:

I've always felt like an error on the pitcher should count towards their era.

Speaker:

RAI

Speaker:

agree.

Speaker:

Like throwing away people and stuff like that.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, it's, it's, it's kind of absurd, like

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Runner on third, nobody out.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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You just do a pickoff move to third and throw it in the dugout and

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be like, oh, darn un earned run.

Speaker:

Sorry.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

My bad.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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Well, one other name, one other name I want to call out

Speaker:

from Saturday, uh, Madox Jack.

Speaker:

Two innings pitch.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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No runs, no hits, no walks.

Speaker:

Three strikeouts.

Speaker:

He looked great on Saturday.

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I think Maddox is, you know, he's another Tommy John Guy,

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like he registered last year.

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Um, at Tommy John his senior year.

Speaker:

So just got the pitching in the second half of the fall.

Speaker:

He's incrementally getting a little better.

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Right.

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Um, learning to trust his fastball.

Speaker:

I think he's gonna have a big time fastball at some point.

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Um, max gotta get a little meaner.

Speaker:

Like he, he's, he's a nice kid.

Speaker:

He is too nice.

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Yeah, he is a really

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nice kid.

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Like you gotta have some smoke coming outta your ears

Speaker:

when you're out there, man.

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He's a big

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boy too.

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He's not small as like 6

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14, 14, 15.

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Gotta get

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on.

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And he's developed a pretty good breaking ball so, um, he can help us down.

Speaker:

Stretch.

Speaker:

Look, these young guys, Chris Ante is still in nine four yesterday.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Like, and he, he's gonna be fine.

Speaker:

These young guys are gonna have to throw, um, we're gonna have to

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take some lumps with 'em 'cause I really think they're gonna be good.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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And.

Speaker:

This

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is the kind of the thing that has a potential like two years

Speaker:

from now being like an insanely dominating pitching staff.

Speaker:

Well, you hope so.

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And, but you gotta get 'em out there.

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Hope so.

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If the other guys aren't better than like, let's just throw the young guys and let

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'em grow up and learn and get better.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

You know, you're talking about Okonkwo and Jack and Tanton

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and Cavalconte and Lanford.

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I mean, that's five freshmen right there and, and, uh, park is a sophomore.

Speaker:

Um, so, you know, we've lost some arms that were, you know, we thought were gonna

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be pretty good bullpen arms for the year.

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Uh, and Van Alstein and, Baynes.

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Um, and now Sheehy going down.

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I don't know what his status will be, but he, um, so the young guys

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are gonna have to throw and uh, Pearce has been, you know, Okonkwo

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was shut down for a couple weeks.

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He had just a little bit underwater with his arm, and Pierce has

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been that way for a couple weeks.

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We gotta get him back up on the board and throw in a little bit.

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Maybe Jackson Runyon can give us some, you know, some, some innings right there too.

Speaker:

And so piece it together, but we gotta get better starting pitchers.

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No doubt about that.

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And, and by that I don't mean seven innings, I just mean get

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you into the game, you know?

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Um,

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get out of the third, not down double digits, right?

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Like, there you go,

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yourself a chance.

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And I think offensively.

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You know, some guys are, are trending in the right direction.

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I thought Mac Dye Swung the bat really well this weekend.

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Yeah.

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Um, he's moving in the right direction.

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You know, Leite didn't have a great weekend.

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Uh, he was pulling off the ball, which is uncharacteristic of him,

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and I don't know if that wall had something to do with it or, or what, but

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he heard me on the podcast last week talking about he needs

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to pull more balls to Right.

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That's my fault.

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Uh, but Zedalis had a good weekend.

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Yeah.

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Um, you know, Mav had a home run double Saturday.

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We need him to, to keep going.

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Like I, I mean, Mavs hitting 250 points higher than he is ever hit him.

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February, March Uhhuh.

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I'm good with it.

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When the heat, when the,

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I mean, cash J was three for nine for the whole week.

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So I mean, you, which isn't anything like amazing, but coming from

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under 200 and now he's over it.

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Yeah.

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He got, he'd get over the.

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The Mendoza line

Speaker:

He did.

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He is up, he's up to maybe, might, might be bad and higher his weight now.

Speaker:

Yeah, that would be good.

Speaker:

Um,

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the, the home run, the Mac die hit on Sunday.

Speaker:

They were reading out some of the data on it, on the broadcast.

Speaker:

Uh, 112 miles an hour off the bat.

Speaker:

427 feet.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

He hit it.

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He hit it.

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Good.

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I mean, crushed

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for sure.

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Crush.

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Um, tj you know, TJ didn't have a great day yesterday, but he,

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you know, he's, he's been a guy that's been in the mix for us.

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You know, he's having a good, he's off to a good start.

Speaker:

So I think offensively, you know, and, and Grayson Spar had

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a couple big at bats for us.

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He's been swinging the bat.

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Fine.

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Um, you know, we gotta get Scotty Young going, uh, a little bit better.

Speaker:

Um, he had a double on Friday, you know, at the time it was a big

Speaker:

hit, but we gotta get him going.

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He's, he dove again and you know, like jammed his knee up.

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That's why he didn't play Saturday.

Speaker:

But he's, we gotta get him like a basketball knee pad.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So that bur sack thing, it just gets irritated every time he hit it.

Speaker:

So, um, he's gonna need to be in there with us.

Speaker:

And then, you know, we had Morales got in that bat yesterday.

Speaker:

He is gonna be a really important guy to get back in there.

Speaker:

He is not, he's not quite ready all the way yet, but, um, hopefully we can get him

Speaker:

back, you know, uh, swinging the bat for us gives us another right handed bat and

Speaker:

the lineup, especially against lefties.

Speaker:

I think we need that.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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Yeah.

Speaker:

And I'll, I'll, you know, give some, give credit to Troy too.

Speaker:

Like their pitching was really, really good.

Speaker:

Especially I think the guy that threw on, uh.

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On Saturday.

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I mean, he, he was unhittable then he could fill the zone.

Speaker:

Uh, then their starter on Sunday, uh, Dylan Alonzo, I mean, I

Speaker:

think he had seven strikeouts.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Through five innings.

Speaker:

He, his breaking ball was nasty.

Speaker:

I mean, he was getting very good hitters to look silly at the plate.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

We finally started, started just stop swinging at it.

Speaker:

Just nobody, and we'd hit every fastball and, you know, I, and,

Speaker:

and I thought on, uh, Stubbs their, their, their Saturday the lefty.

Speaker:

I thought we actually hit him.

Speaker:

Okay man.

Speaker:

He, he got out of some, worked out of some jams and

Speaker:

mm-hmm.

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You know, he had a big lead.

Speaker:

So he is, there was no stress on him, uh, in there.

Speaker:

So, but, you know, uh, I mean, we, we, we, we hit him harder.

Speaker:

Their coaches actually said they hit him harder than, than he's been hit.

Speaker:

So, um, you know, there's no, uh, moral victories than that.

Speaker:

Certainly.

Speaker:

So, so look, we're one to two and we're nine and nine.

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And.

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Um, you know, I, uh, my dad used to all say, you're right where you're

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supposed to be, uh, whether you like it or not, that's the truth.

Speaker:

Yeah.

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You are who you are.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So that's who we are right now.

Speaker:

And we just doesn't mean we're terrible, we're not great, certainly, but we gotta

Speaker:

fix some things, especially on the mound.

Speaker:

And, you know, we have to, uh, we gotta keep working there, man.

Speaker:

'cause I, I think if we can do that, then we'll have, we'll have

Speaker:

a shot at most of these games.

Speaker:

And you look around the league and, you know, like, uh, JMU had been scuffling.

Speaker:

They beat, they swept, uh, Georgia Southern at home, um, Louisiana,

Speaker:

Monroe swept Texas stayed at home.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Uh.

Speaker:

Arkansas State beat Southern Miss two out of three at home.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker:

They're in the top 25 now.

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They're ranked.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That's great.

Speaker:

So 1970, last time

Speaker:

Louisiana beat, beat, uh, south out, two outta three at home.

Speaker:

Um, you know, coastal swept Appalachian on the road.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Uh, and so we got Appalachian coming in this weekend.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Um, and so it's a big series.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I mean, they're all big.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

You can say that every weekend.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

But it's a big series 'cause you need to win and

Speaker:

we'll

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series and, you know, make sure you don't get swept on the road.

Speaker:

Try to sneak a road series

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Somewhere.

Speaker:

And if you do that, you'll, you'll be in the tournament,

Speaker:

um, and in some form or fashion.

Speaker:

So, uh, we just gotta get this, this thing figured out on the mound.

Speaker:

And I, I think as I think about most things, it's a mindset as much as

Speaker:

anything, you know, uh, you're not gonna find it in numbers or spreadsheets

Speaker:

or, you know, any of the metrics.

Speaker:

It's gonna be like.

Speaker:

Who's going to trust themselves enough and be tough enough to battle guys

Speaker:

and compete and throw it in there.

Speaker:

Um, coach Zo used to always say his dad would stand back behind home

Speaker:

plate, and he'd always here and his dad would say, come on, throw it in there.

Speaker:

Challenge him.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, and that's just the old school stuff, man.

Speaker:

Uh, and we need some guys to,

Speaker:

it's funny how that part doesn't go away.

Speaker:

You can't analytics your way around just being tough.

Speaker:

No.

Speaker:

And you can't survive pitching behind all the time.

Speaker:

It's just not gonna work.

Speaker:

No.

Speaker:

Like it doesn't work.

Speaker:

College hitters are, you don't

Speaker:

see a lot successful leaguers who are always down two Oh.

Speaker:

As a pitcher.

Speaker:

Paul s skis isn't doing that every, every at bat, right?

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

I remember years ago, we were in the conference tournament, might have

Speaker:

been our first year in conference, USA, and we're playing rice.

Speaker:

We had just beaten them.

Speaker:

So we were playing them to go to the finals.

Speaker:

I think it was 14 the year we'd gotten that large.

Speaker:

And, um, the kid, they had a big right-handed kid was a freshman.

Speaker:

This was deep in the tournament, you know, and, um, it was probably the third

Speaker:

or fourth inning and he was kind of struggling a little bit, throwing strikes.

Speaker:

It was still a good ball game.

Speaker:

He was early in the game.

Speaker:

And, um, I can remember listening to Wayne Graham, you know,

Speaker:

who won a gazillion games.

Speaker:

He had 'em in the corner of the dugout and he was going, why is it always

Speaker:

one and oh, when is it ever gonna be?

Speaker:

Oh, in one

Speaker:

point his finger at him like that.

Speaker:

I'm never gonna forget that.

Speaker:

But yeah, we feel that way sometimes the way, the way it's going right now.

Speaker:

Like the guy's got a attack earlier and, you know, I, I just think that's,

Speaker:

that's the way we need to get them, get them wired and get 'em back in, in

Speaker:

there and, and so hopefully we can work on that this week and, um, you know,

Speaker:

got, we got Norfolk State on Wednesday.

Speaker:

It's gonna be a little cooler next.

Speaker:

Oh hey.

Speaker:

Speaking of that year, I saw Tim Levine's team the other day.

Speaker:

Norfolk Academy.

Speaker:

Saw those guys were out there.

Speaker:

Green Bar Christians, couple

Speaker:

good guys.

Speaker:

Yeah, they had a good little, little team.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I played Green Bar.

Speaker:

Cri another, another Odu U guy.

Speaker:

Pat Nichols team.

Speaker:

Yeah, it's good.

Speaker:

High school ball game.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I'm glad the, the guys are starting around here.

Speaker:

Give us some, some games to go.

Speaker:

Watch here.

Speaker:

Some there.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Warm up.

Speaker:

And there's a couple kids in the air that are underclassmen that we're recruiting.

Speaker:

Um, pretty, pretty solid.

Speaker:

So

Speaker:

we love it.

Speaker:

I always like to see those guys, um, you know, when they get rolling.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

One

Speaker:

benefit of Yeah.

Speaker:

Nor State on Wednesday.

Speaker:

I'm sorry, I think I cut you off.

Speaker:

I'm sorry.

Speaker:

No, that's all right.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Nor State on Wednesday.

Speaker:

And um, you know, it's, uh, it's just a chance that you gotta play anybody.

Speaker:

You can, you can, we can, we've shown we can beat anybody.

Speaker:

We can lose anybody.

Speaker:

You gotta show 'em to play and we Yeah.

Speaker:

You gotta beat 'em.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I mean, you

Speaker:

gotta show, you can

Speaker:

do it,

Speaker:

play good and, um, and beat 'em up pretty good.

Speaker:

I'm sure they'll be coming up trying to, you know, get us back and, uh,

Speaker:

you just gotta show up and play and we gotta, we gotta like rehearse

Speaker:

having some good things happen to us.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, and, and look man, on top of everything else.

Speaker:

I mean, we were lucky down there.

Speaker:

The weather was great ball.

Speaker:

It's a cool ballpark.

Speaker:

It's quirky.

Speaker:

I love it actually.

Speaker:

Like yeah, it's got, it is cool.

Speaker:

Its own unique things to it.

Speaker:

Um, I don't think it's a hard, other than them being good, I don't think

Speaker:

it's necessarily a hard place to play.

Speaker:

It's not like Southern miss from a fan standpoint.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Any means, but I think, um, you know, it's, it's definitely

Speaker:

a home field advantage there.

Speaker:

'cause then how to play that wall.

Speaker:

And I don't think that really came into play and hurt us at any point.

Speaker:

But, you know, you're gonna have some balls that maybe would've

Speaker:

been home runs that are single.

Speaker:

Um, yeah.

Speaker:

Uh, and then you'll have some balls that, you know, should

Speaker:

have been outs that are doubles.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, and it's just that the way that wall is.

Speaker:

So, I like it.

Speaker:

It's cool.

Speaker:

They, they've done a nice job with their, their renovation they did,

Speaker:

you know, four or five years ago.

Speaker:

It's, it's pretty, that's, uh, you know, just makes you realize,

Speaker:

I mean, how far behind we've been facility wise and mm-hmm.

Speaker:

You know, catching up now.

Speaker:

So that's exciting.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And you know, app State rolling in this weekend, uh, the advantage of

Speaker:

you all being on the road and me not being at the ballpark is I had

Speaker:

to watch a ton of college baseball this weekend and I watched the end

Speaker:

of all three Coastal app state games.

Speaker:

They were all good games, right?

Speaker:

Oh yeah.

Speaker:

Coastal had to come back with multiple runs in the ninth inning of the

Speaker:

first two games to win, and then they had to score the go ahead run

Speaker:

in the eighth to win the third game.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

So app was right there with them.

Speaker:

I think game one, they gave up like a three spot in the eighth and a

Speaker:

four spot in the ninth and lost, but that was all Coastal's run.

Speaker:

So APP is scrappy.

Speaker:

They will stay in it for sure.

Speaker:

Uh, don't, that's what I remember about in the last couple

Speaker:

years they hit.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

There's a thorn in your side, man.

Speaker:

Like they're, yeah.

Speaker:

There a lot of similarities in terms of uh, you know,

Speaker:

never being out of the fight.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker:

Well, they're well coached.

Speaker:

They got good players and you know, I'm sure they're, you know, the kid

Speaker:

that started at shortstop for him last year was a true freshman, was

Speaker:

the freshman of the year starting shortstop for Clemson this year.

Speaker:

Yeah, I saw he was a Clemson.

Speaker:

I saw the fly the other day.

Speaker:

I was looking these guys up

Speaker:

and he is hitting about two.

Speaker:

200

Speaker:

probably should have stayed, right?

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Uhhuh.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But that's the way college athletics is now.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

You know, I, I, I don't want belabor it.

Speaker:

I, I, I'm, I've, I've heard we're not really supposed to say much about it,

Speaker:

but I, I just wanted to say, you know, our, our, our hearts and prayers are all

Speaker:

out to, um, you know, everyone affected with the, the tragedy from last week.

Speaker:

We were on the road when it happened, and fortunately didn't have to deal with

Speaker:

the, you know, the, the repercussions of, of the physical parts of it.

Speaker:

Um, the, um, the, the hotel actually gave us a real nice, uh, plant in the

Speaker:

card and, and some things like that.

Speaker:

And they had a moment of silence on Friday for the victims and Colonel Shah

Speaker:

And, um, so, you know, sad that that's what we're going through in this world.

Speaker:

Tragic, sad, it just stuff, I feel bad about it for everybody.

Speaker:

And, you know, it's, um, two motivations in this world.

Speaker:

Love and hate, and you gotta decide which one you're gonna choose.

Speaker:

And unfortunately there's just a lot of people choosing hate and

Speaker:

that's, uh, that, that saddens me.

Speaker:

So we look for the, the bright spots and.

Speaker:

Um, I think sports can give us some of that, you know, driving back last

Speaker:

night watching that USA Dominican Republic World Baseball Classic game.

Speaker:

I mean, what a, what a amazing game that was.

Speaker:

You could cut the tension in that game with a knife from the first inning

Speaker:

to the ninth and just superstar out there, just getting after it, you know?

Speaker:

Uh,

Speaker:

I got to go to the First World Baseball Classic back in like oh six

Speaker:

down in Orlando, and we had Dominican Republic, Italy, Venezuela, and

Speaker:

I can't remember the fourth team.

Speaker:

Maybe a Panama maybe.

Speaker:

But I, I'm the energy you talk about love the energy of like, uh, Dominican

Speaker:

Venezuela game is still one of the coolest things I've ever seen in person.

Speaker:

Just sitting there on the lawn, I became an honorary Venezuelan, uh, that day.

Speaker:

Like they were like, yeah, oh man, it was, it was.

Speaker:

Amazing.

Speaker:

Yeah, it was so, it was so great.

Speaker:

And so yeah, you talk about love, I mean, seeing those, those things where you

Speaker:

get those big world events where people get to represent and love their country.

Speaker:

I mean, that very cool event, I'm glad that, that they've found a

Speaker:

way to allow the players to play in it and make it such a big deal.

Speaker:

Yeah, me too.

Speaker:

And then we got another great game tonight, man.

Speaker:

You got Italy and, uh,

Speaker:

ven

Speaker:

Vinny.

Speaker:

Yeah, Vinny Vinny's got Team Italy rolling and

Speaker:

yeah,

Speaker:

so I mean, uh, that, that comes on at eight I think.

Speaker:

So we'll be watching that and hopefully we'll get, get the

Speaker:

espresso machine fired up again.

Speaker:

There you go.

Speaker:

It'd be great to see USA and Italy in the finals.

Speaker:

I think that'd be fun.

Speaker:

Uh, so you know that, that, that was cool.

Speaker:

I mean, it just makes you realize like.

Speaker:

You're not gonna see those guys play that hard again until the

Speaker:

World Series or the playoffs.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Like, but

Speaker:

I saw somebody made a joke about, uh, Pauline's pitch count and said,

Speaker:

don't worry, he won't be pitching an important, uh, pitch until 2030.

Speaker:

World Baseball Classic.

Speaker:

Oof.

Speaker:

O rough.

Speaker:

Ouch.

Speaker:

Yeah,

Speaker:

ouch.

Speaker:

You know, and just the plays like watching Bobby Wit Junior Push.

Speaker:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker:

Wow.

Speaker:

Unbelievable

Speaker:

is a gift, man.

Speaker:

Like that dude.

Speaker:

Oh my gosh.

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I remember I saw him playing when he was 16.

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I was like, this kid is something.

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Yeah, he's in broke.

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So

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that's, he's

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something else.

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And then, and then Roman, uh, hitting the home run and, and, um.

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Henderson hitting the home run mean you got some young dudes that are Whew.

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From a Norfolk tide.

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Gunner

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Henderson.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And the bullpen.

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I mean, what a job the bullpen did for us too.

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Like just guy after guy after guy after guy.

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You know, it was big time.

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So, um, yeah, it was, that was fun to watch.

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That's like I told our guys, watch his games, man, this is, yeah.

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As good as it gets, you know?

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Yeah.

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Every guy the Dominican Republic brought out there was throwing 98.

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Yeah.

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It's an all star team.

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Yeah, yeah,

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yeah.

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But I'm, I was surprised to see Japan out already.

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Uh, I thought, you know, the fighting Shhe os would be there in the finals, but

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Yeah.

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Uh, it's, it's been, it's been fun.

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I mean, team Italy, like, who, who would've thought with all those guys?

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But I guess they got Cagle and PAs, Patino.

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They got a bunch of dudes.

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Yeah.

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They can do some damage.

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They got some good, they got some good players other than those guys too, man.

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Yeah,

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they got some dudes, uh.

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I hate that, uh, the catcher, uh, teal's hurt because he was, he

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was doing really well for him.

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The kid from UVA.

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Yeah.

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Um,

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Kyle Teal.

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So, well, guys, thank you again.

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He always too much.

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But I know you got, uh, of Dallas coming on and Yeah, I wanted to say this.

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I'm, I'm really happy for Tyler.

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Um, he should be really proud of himself.

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Like he really struggled last year and, you know, made a point of just, he was

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a guy that just didn't quite believe in himself enough, I don't think.

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Um, he's super talented.

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He is very strong.

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He's a fantastic athlete.

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He can run, he can throw, can hit, hit with power and he just needed to figure

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out what his thing was gonna be, how to simplify his approach, how to look for

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certain pitches and things like that.

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Sometimes it takes a little while and he, he, you know, is off to a.

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Clearly a much better start, you know, than, than a year ago.

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And he is having, you know, he is right in the middle of all the

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good things that are happening for us when they happen offensively.

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He's got something to do with that.

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Um, and he is become a much tougher out and, you know, he, he is getting, but,

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and one of the reasons for that is he is he is swinging at better pitches.

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You know, he is taking balls, swinging at strikes.

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That's this oversimplification.

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But that's what he is doing.

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Um, and he is not missing them because he is on time for 'em and he

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understands what he is looking for and, you know, he is, he's transitioning

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into playing in the outfield more.

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Um, I'm not sold that he can't come back in and play third base.

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Someday we wanted him to just focus on the offense and I think the face

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thing maybe added a little bit of stress to him and they didn't need,

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and now he's ving playing outfield.

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I think it's just a little easier to focus on hitting and you know,

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that's just my, my, my take on it.

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But, um, just super proud of Tali.

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He is a wonderful kid, does everything right?

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Yes.

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Super hard worker, leader by example.

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You want your daughter to marry this guy.

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So I think, um, comes from a really good family and I'm

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glad he is off to a good start.

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Like, so that bugs wall for us, I think.

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Yeah.

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Awesome.

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We're we're excited to have him on and, and chat with him.

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But Finny, thank you as always after your crazy travel for hopping on here.

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Got it guys.

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We appreciate it.

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Y'all appreciate y'all's support and um, come on out and see

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us people, uh, this weekend.

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If you don't wanna come out Wednesday.

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I understand 'cause might be chilly, but, uh, uh, this weekend looks like

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pretty nice and nice, nice weather.

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We'll play Friday night at six, uh, Saturday at three and Sunday at one.

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All right.

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Alright, well we will see you out there Finny.

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Hope to see all the fans as well.

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Thank you.

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Alright, thanks guys.

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Go Monarch.

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All

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right, thanks buddy.

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Go.

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Go.

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Monarchs,

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the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation are commonly referred to as the

Speaker:

ODAF was established in 1964 as a nonprofit organization.

Speaker:

The mission of the ODAF is to raise financial support for ODU Athletics

Speaker:

to ensure that our coaches and student athletes have the resources

Speaker:

necessary to compete for championships.

Speaker:

The ODAF is integral to the success of ODU Athletics and is the channel through

Speaker:

which our fans and alumni can partner with our coaches and student athletes for

Speaker:

the advancement of the athletics program.

Speaker:

Through the generous efforts of our donors loyal fan base and community,

Speaker:

the ODU alumni from around the globe, the OD DAF raises money for student

Speaker:

athletic scholarship support and endowments, capital projects, program

Speaker:

specific support and athletic department operations Funds are raised through

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annual giving, multi-year pledges, events, premium seating, and plan giving.

Speaker:

With questions about how to get involved in one or more of these initiatives,

Speaker:

reach out to an OD DA representative Give to the ODAF are investments in

Speaker:

the lives of our student athletes.

Speaker:

OD DA members receive exclusive benefits such as priority points for postseason

Speaker:

and away games, seating, parking, VIP, and hospitality experiences and more.

Speaker:

Because of you, we create winners in the classroom, in

Speaker:

athletic competition and in life.

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Contact the ODAF and become a member today.

Speaker:

All right, welcome back.

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Monarch fans really appreciate as always the time with Finny and

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him not sugarcoating anything, especially when it comes

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to, I was gonna say, yeah, I was just thinking, man, what,

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what you gotta love about this?

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And when Finny talks to you, he is, he's not gonna beat around the

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bush, he's not gonna play around.

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He is gonna tell you like, this is it.

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Some of our guys, I mean he, he, without saying it, basically saying, some of

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our guys suck right now and they gotta get better and they gotta toughen up.

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And I think anybody watching could say the exact same thing

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and say, well, there you go.

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And then his job as a coach obviously is how do you make that happen?

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I feel like a lot of the issues in the starting pitching, it's not physical

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limitations or skill or ability, it's much more between the ears and

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just simplifying some things down.

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'cause we know these guys can throw, well, we've seen them throw well all year.

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They've got a history of throwing.

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Well, they're not, you know, an unknown quantity coming off the streets.

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So,

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yeah,

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I would rather find these things out now in the middle of March,

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then later in April, and definitely towards the end of May when we

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start heading down to Montgomery.

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Uh, but there's some young guys that are hungry that are showing up pretty well.

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Yeah, so, uh, we'll, uh, we'll keep an eye on that, see what changes

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are made throughout this week.

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And then of course, the home series with App State.

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Uh, but one person who is having a fantastic start to their season.

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Who will be our player guest today?

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Tyler Zedalis.

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Tyler, welcome to Hudson Homers.

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Thank you guys for having me.

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It's good to, good to be on this.

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Yeah, you are off to glad.

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Pretty incredible start.

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Uh, yeah.

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Now leading the team at batting average at 4 0 7, you got OPS, you

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got four home runs, which I did not realize you already had four home

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runs this year until I looked it up.

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Uh, but man, what, how are you feeling so far about, you know, your performance

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at least to, uh, to start the, the year?

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Yeah, I mean obviously it's, it's awesome to get, get off to a hot

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start, but, uh, I mean, it's just kind of naming the game in baseball

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is just not getting too high, too low.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, especially starting conference play now.

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Uh, it's just kind of staying, you know, here.

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Um, especially like going on the road during series and stuff like that.

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Um, just trying to stay as kinda level and consistent as possible.

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What do you think has been the biggest difference?

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Because, I mean, I, I think we all know you had, you, you actually started

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a little bit hot last year and then just kind of, it became a struggle.

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I mean, you already have, I think your numbers, you already have more hits

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as many doubles, many homers, almost many rbis as you had in about twice

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as many of bats last, all last season.

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Mm-hmm.

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So what do you think the biggest difference is between

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this year and last year?

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Yeah.

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I mean, without a doubt it's just been staying present

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in kind of any given moment.

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That's something that, I mean, through a lot of, you know, tough conversations

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with like, with the coaches and even some of the guys, like, like, I mean,

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coach Hara has all, has been awesome.

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Like, not being shy, any, like Coach Finny, I mean all the

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coaches not being shy to, um, have that difficult conversation.

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Uh, you know, whether no matter how uncomfortable it may be,

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like to really just kind of.

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Get you back on the right track.

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Um, and that, I mean, that's been definitely one of the biggest

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things just personally, uh, that has helped me and I know helps all

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the other guys on the squad too.

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Um, yeah, it's been the biggest adjustment, just kind of staying

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present in the moment and enjoying just being on the field every day and, uh,

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literally just kind of getting back to being a kid and just having fun.

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Yeah.

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'cause I, I mean, it really, it's been kind of a multi-year kind of path for

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you because, I mean, you went from talking about being fun as a kid.

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You were a really, really good high school player.

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I think you were like player of your region, uh, in high school.

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And then, you know, you go to South Carolina, you know, it's

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a big SEC school and then just.

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Don't get to play, which happens to a lot of guys as freshmen.

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So then you go from really well in high school, not getting to play

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at, you know, the big SEC school.

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Then you come here playing, but not having a success and, oh,

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sorry.

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That's okay.

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That's

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movie.

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Alright.

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Uh, roommate cooking dinner down there.

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It's, uh,

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is it Zach or Scotty Burning something?

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Which one?

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Oh no, I, I live with Evan, so.

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Oh, okay.

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Oh, okay.

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He, he's a, a really good cook.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off,

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but No, Evan.

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Evan Evan's.

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Awesome.

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No, you're good.

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No, but I was just saying it, it is, I mean, it's gotta be, I, I'm sure

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you've had, you talked about it, having conversations, it, this is a multi-year

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process where you kind of had to like, I, I like the way you just said, get

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back to just having fun because I have to imagine for a little while there,

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it probably wasn't very much fun.

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Yeah.

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I mean that's, that's kind of the, the genesis of it all.

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Um, what kind of ha talks to me about a bunch and, and stuff like that.

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Is it, it just kind of realizing that it comes down to.

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Like, they can tell me all they want, like

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mm-hmm.

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Have as many of these difficult conversations with me as they want.

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But at the end of the day, it comes down to kind of me and

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applying these things and really like actually committing to them.

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Um, and that's been kind of the biggest, just, I guess, jump in maturity is,

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uh, just realizing kind of that I don't know that it's up to me in the

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most like unselfish way possible.

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Wow.

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Tell me if you wanna change as a person, you have to like accept it yourself.

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Anything else can make you do it.

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That's crazy.

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That's, I don't like that.

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Frankly.

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I'm not into that.

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I don't personally, I'm not gonna do it.

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But good for you that you're doing it

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well.

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What are some of the biggest differences you've seen between the, the team

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last year and the team this year?

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Whether it's personalities, skill sets, anything like that?

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Any major differences year to year that you've noticed?

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I mean, honestly, if anything, there's.

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This year it felt like the guys coming in.

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I mean obviously last year I didn't really get a taste of seeing like

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the new guys coming in from a program 'cause I was a transfer, but

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mm-hmm.

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This year being able to see the new guys coming in, just seeing how

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quickly, like the older guys like Luke Mav, like all the older guys,

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just kind of welcome them in and then it kind of starts from the top down.

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Like they see like all the younger guys, see the older guys kind of like welcoming

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them with open arms and they're able to just kind of like instantly be themselves

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and be kind of like unapologetically themselves around everybody.

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Um, and how quickly that happened was something that was just really

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impressive that, I mean, again, in my two years of college baseball,

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prior to that I just hadn't seen.

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Um, yeah.

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And again, I mean in terms of skillset, it's like you see it and everybody from

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on both sides of the ball, like the, the.

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Tools are there and everything like that.

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So it's also, that's something really impressive to see as well.

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So you come from a baseball family, right?

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I mean, like your dad played baseball, your dad act.

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Actually, I, my mom went and dug this out.

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Lemme see if I can pull this up.

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I actually have a, uh,

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wow.

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Craig the Dallas.

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Yeah, man, that was the night before.

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Yeah, I was gonna say next time he is at the ballpark, I gotta

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get him to sign that for me.

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That was, yeah.

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That's awesome.

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He played with, uh, Andrew Jones that year.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, so you got, and then, and your brother Zach was a pitcher.

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He played at, um, several schools, including also South Carolina.

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And I, I was looking up, he only played, he played at UNC Charlotte.

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Um, he made three appearances for Charlotte and two of them were at ODU.

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Yes.

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Which I thought was fa like back to back games.

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So that, that was kind of fascinating.

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So what, um.

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What have you, I guess, learned from your family about baseball?

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Like what is, I have to imagine you guys just love it as a family.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, definitely.

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Um, I mean, if I, if I had to pick one thing that I've learned

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mainly from my dad is just kind of, which, I mean, we just got done

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talking about this, uh, last year.

Speaker:

I didn't do it at all, but literally just not taking anything as serious.

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Like, I mean, at the end of the day, like again, it's a game.

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And like even just life in general, like, it's not just kind of having

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f like, I don't know how to put this without it kind of sounding bad.

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Like it is not that you're not caring, but

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yeah.

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It's just not taking everything so serious.

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Like it's, it's life or death.

Speaker:

You know what I mean?

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Um,

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saying like holding, holding the egg, right?

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Yeah.

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Like if you're holding an egg, if you squeeze it too tight 'cause you

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care about it so much, you wanna protect it, you're gonna crush it.

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Right.

Speaker:

Exactly.

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All too loose, it's gonna fall outta your hand.

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You gotta find like the exact right way.

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Exactly.

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Hold the egg.

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Exactly.

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That's.

Speaker:

Awesome analogy.

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Um, it's literally, I mean, exactly how it is and I mean, yeah, like

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not only a baseball standpoint, but just a life standpoint as well.

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And then, uh, I mean from Zach, my brother, just seeing him like he was

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not the most physically gifted athlete.

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He was like five nine, but through just kind of, I mean, he worked the

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hardest out of anybody I've ever seen played with, like, experienced.

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I mean, just his dedication and seeing that was something that, again, not

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only baseball, just being able to take it into just life in general.

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Did you guys get to play together at any points?

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No, we didn't.

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Well, when we were like really young, I would like play up with

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his team sometimes, but no, he, he had another year of eligibility.

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At South Carolina, we could have played together, but he was like, mm-hmm.

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He had just gotten married at that time.

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Okay.

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And was like, I just kind of want to get on with my life.

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So,

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yeah.

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And then the high school didn't overlap either.

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I guess he, maybe he was He was four years outta you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I was a freshman when he was a freshman in college.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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He did what some of these, uh, 29, 30-year-old guys that are still

Speaker:

somehow playing college athletics should, should do like, go get a job.

Speaker:

I'm, I'm on the opposite end.

Speaker:

Keep playing ball man.

Speaker:

If they, they'll let you put a uniform on.

Speaker:

Sure.

Speaker:

Keep, keep playing ball, whatever.

Speaker:

Like I

Speaker:

say that about those guys, guys, not Scotty or anyone else on

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our team who's getting the free

Speaker:

extra year.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker:

Whatever, man.

Speaker:

You can pay taxes anytime.

Speaker:

Play ball now.

Speaker:

Like somebody, someone will let you have a uniform.

Speaker:

Keep doing it.

Speaker:

I, I don't care if they ever change the rule to where it's

Speaker:

like, as long as you're getting a degree, be like 39, like whatever.

Speaker:

There's some D four, uh, JUCO that will take you and let you play ball.

Speaker:

Go do it.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

That, I mean, that's kind of, that's kind of how I, I mean he, he always

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said that he was gonna, even before all the COVID stuff and when getting

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to just all the crazy years back became a thing, he always, he was

Speaker:

always like, I'm gonna give it.

Speaker:

Four years, and then if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out.

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Uh, I'm not like that.

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I'm trying to play for as long as I can.

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Uh, no matter what that looks like.

Speaker:

And my, I mean, my dad's the same way.

Speaker:

He still shows up to the 50 plus year old men's league

Speaker:

and, and Throws is blowing 78.

Speaker:

By all

Speaker:

I say, he probably shoves, doesn't he?

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah, he does.

Speaker:

He throws, well, he, he'll be like leaving to go to a game and then he will come

Speaker:

back later that night and he'll like, show me a picture of like the pocket radar.

Speaker:

It's like, bro, look at this eight.

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I'm like 80.

Speaker:

I'm like, oh my gosh.

Speaker:

It's actually kind of crazy, but No.

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Yeah, it's, it's awesome.

Speaker:

It's

Speaker:

nuts.

Speaker:

That's great.

Speaker:

That is awesome.

Speaker:

Well, I'm 39 now.

Speaker:

I'm pretty sure.

Speaker:

I cannot not play any, any baseball.

Speaker:

It's been at least 16 years since I played something organized.

Speaker:

So I'm gonna have to find like one of those schools that has bowling.

Speaker:

I think I might be all right with that.

Speaker:

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker:

Mook, you could join with Mookie bets and, uh, there's some good athletes bowling.

Speaker:

Yeah, there.

Speaker:

See, I'm, I'm all set.

Speaker:

Oh, yeah.

Speaker:

All right.

Speaker:

Well, you, you may not know this 'cause you were playing in the games

Speaker:

and not listening to the broadcast, but I think the Troy announcers were a

Speaker:

little obsessed with your arms because every time you came to the plate, they

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saw you gripping the bat and they're like, well, you know, he's strong.

Speaker:

Look at his forearms.

Speaker:

So I didn't want screen record it and put it out and let more people

Speaker:

see it, but I figured I would bring it up on the podcast instead.

Speaker:

So, uh, have you done anything different with your workout, uh, that could maybe

Speaker:

give some tips for those broadcasters?

Speaker:

No.

Speaker:

Well, first of all, it's actually funny you mentioned that because I, I, we get on

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the bus after the game and then I kind of try to hold off getting on my phone for a

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while after and we get back to the hotel.

Speaker:

Get on my phone that's like, I have like 10 messages from my family group

Speaker:

chat, and they're all talking about the announcers, talking about my forearms.

Speaker:

They're like, Ty, like what in the world is going on?

Speaker:

But no, I mean, nothing really.

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I mean, Cade, our strength guy is awesome with just kind of the end season,

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off season, just kind of everything.

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Uh, he, he is, he is awesome on and off the field with, with kind

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of everything weightlifting wise.

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So I kind of trust everything to him and, uh, I mean, he is

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been doing a good job with, with everybody just kind of always on us.

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Eat food.

Speaker:

Eat food, and gain late, especially in season.

Speaker:

So, no.

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Yeah, it's,

Speaker:

I'm gonna be honest, like I, you know me, I take pictures all the time, but that

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angle looking kind of behind the picture at you, like, I was like, yo was yoked.

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Like, honestly,

Speaker:

that's awesome.

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That just made my day,

Speaker:

like

Speaker:

yeah, I, I can definitely tell that the, the workout programs are showing up

Speaker:

and maybe it's just because I'm getting older now and I've watched like three

Speaker:

years of TJ Aiken, like how much bigger he is and like Zach Le or Zach LE's

Speaker:

trimmed up, like he's looking strong now.

Speaker:

So obviously something in that strength and conditioning and

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nutrition plan is working really, really well for the team this year.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And it's, it's, you know, not, you ask us that in the fall and stuff and it's gonna

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be like, oh my gosh, like, we're tired.

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But no, it's, it's, it's awesome.

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Like, in retrospect and even now, it's, it's, I mean, he, he does everything

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to get us better and that's all.

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Well, you

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guys are Beachbody ready.

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You're thanking Cade, right?

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It's exactly,

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exactly.

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So, um, had you played outfield before this year?

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I played it growing up and then my freshman year of high school,

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it was just kind of the same deal, like, just get me in the lineup.

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Okay.

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Any way possible.

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And it was, I was playing left field my freshman year of high school and,

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uh, I hadn't played it since then.

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So it's definitely fun being back out there.

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Mm-hmm.

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Being in the grass and running around and stuff.

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You look like, just, just so far it looks to me like you're a little bit

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better in left field than right field.

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Do you think that's the case or do you just kind of think it's about the same?

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Yeah, I mean, I, I feel I'm getting definitely more

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comfortable at, at both spots.

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It was kind of something like just kind of getting used to being out there and like

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the different kind of angles that the, and like the different kind of spins that the

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ball takes off the, the bats and stuff.

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Uh, just kind of learning that.

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But no, I feel, I feel.

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Good and comfortable in both spots.

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Um, I just like being out on the field to be honest.

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I

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say you're just like, yeah, wherever.

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Put me somewhere.

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Right.

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And it's looked like this season.

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I know everyone's kind of getting back used to how the wind operates at the

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stadium for not playing there for a year.

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But I feel like every game we've had, it's been some sort of just ridiculous

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wind for people in the outfit, whether it's our team, other teams.

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And it's been nuts.

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Are are you seeing that when you're out there and right.

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Of just the wind carrying everything all over the place?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's, I mean, that's probably one of the main things that we're

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paying attention to out there.

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Um, I mean, TJ does a great job in center field, just kind of communicating

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with anybody that's out there, uh, about the wind, about the player that's

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hitting about, you know, all these things that, that play a part in it.

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And then he is like, Hey, like look at the flag and it's howling straight in.

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It's like, you better.

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Get your butt in on a fly ball and play it kind of where in front of

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where you think it's gonna land.

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And then same thing, wind blowing straight out, like just kind of booking it

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straight back whenever ball's in the air.

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So yeah, it, it, it definitely plays a pretty big factor.

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Uh, well, tell us about how you ended up at ODU UI said we, we know you started out

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at South Carolina, you know, obviously you didn't get a chance to play a ton there.

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Um, I know you went and played in the, um, the API League

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mm-hmm.

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Uh, was for Bristol, right?

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Isn't that who you're with?

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The uh, yeah, which I, and all those, those former, uh, minor league parks.

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Um, so were you already committed to ODU at that point, or was it, you kind

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of were playing there and you're in the portal and just kind of trying

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to figure out where you wanna be?

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Yeah, it was, I, I started there.

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I hadn't talked, started talking to ODU until probably towards the

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tail end of the, the portal kind of.

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Mm-hmm.

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Process.

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Um, and it was kind of kind of interesting because I do remember my older brother

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when he did play for Charlotte and he was pitching here, he always kind of, the,

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the two things I remember is him talking about like how he liked the campus and

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just the wind, how crazy it was there, and uh, and him talking about how it was

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a just crazy good like hitters ballpark.

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And then, uh, yeah, they, it was Coach Fineman at the time called me and

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I was like, oh yeah, this is good.

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I this.

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And then, yeah, just kind of getting, I mean, it had already kind of been in

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my head and then getting to know them and, and Coach Hara and Coach Finny

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obviously, and I mean, kind of everything.

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It was just kind of, I was like, I mean, I took my visit and it was

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actually Coach Marin that took me on around campus and everything and I was

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like, yeah, this is, this is awesome.

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So.

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Yeah, and not too far from home either, so that's nice.

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Right.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Yeah.

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Well, what have you enjoyed most about being on campus at

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ODU U over your couple years?

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I'd say just definitely the size of it.

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I like it being kind of much more like compact and then obviously like you

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can't beat having all the guys on 43rd street and then you got Scotty and Zach

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and Will, uh, a little further down.

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But I mean, all, you have all the guys together on one

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street, basically neighbors.

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I mean, that's kind of like, or just a, like automatically a recipe for

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success to, in terms of just kind of the team chemistry aspect of it.

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You don't have to just like a short walk down to, you know.

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Whoever's house and then all the guys are hanging out there like, we got the

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world ba you guys were just talking about the World Baseball Classic.

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We got that on.

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We'll probably have that on at our house tonight and there'll be a

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good amount of guys coming over to watch and uh, we'll play cards and

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just kind of, just kinda chop it up.

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Uh, and it's nice being around them off the field too, 'cause you spend so much

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time with them on the field, but then getting to know them as human beings and

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actually getting to like, be their friends is something that's, that's awesome.

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Uh, you were saying to us right before we started talking with you that you, you

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got the window there and you said you like the, the ballpark is right out the window.

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I mean, you're literally looking at it and construction waking

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you up at seven in the morning.

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Yeah, it's a good, good alarm clock of, uh, of progress on the stadium.

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So yeah.

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Good.

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Uh,

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positive spin.

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Yes.

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How it being, uh, roommates with Evan?

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'cause I mean, I gotta imagine Evan's pretty quiet guy.

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I, I imagine he's clean.

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Is Evan Evan's gotta be a clean roommate?

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Very clean, yes.

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Yeah.

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Very king.

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Okay.

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Uh, him and him and Hubble both.

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Are

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Oh yeah.

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Very, very clean.

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And like, uh, we have Cam and, and Chuck two freshmen in our house too.

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And it's kind of like us.

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They don't seem

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clean at all.

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Well, they're,

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they're getting there.

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They're getting there.

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Uh, it, it took a little while, uh, just kind of, I mean, they're freshman

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first time living on their own.

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It's kind of, yeah.

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To be expected, but no, they're getting there.

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We keep a pretty tidy house.

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Um, yeah.

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You just

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had to pretend to be a Mariners fan.

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Oh my goodness, yes.

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Oh, and the, I, I felt like, I mean, during that whole playoff run, I'm down

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there, like literally just sitting in the corner, like praying, like the Mariners

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win or something good happens because if not, they're gonna be in a horrible mood

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at time.

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And I'm like, oh goodness.

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So,

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uh, who's your team?

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I like the Cubs.

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I'm a big Cubs fan because Cubs my dad.

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My dad is from, uh, born and raised in Chicago.

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So we like grew up just kind of visiting family out there and going to Cubs games

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and I mean, one of my best, like baseball memories in general is the 2016 run

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they had and the, the game seven staying up the rain delay, it was like 2:00 AM

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crazy our time, and me and my dad both stayed up the entire time I had school.

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The next day he was like, oh, you're good.

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You don't have to go.

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Like, you're good.

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I think he stayed home from work the next day too.

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That's awesome.

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So it was, yeah, it was, it was awesome.

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See, I was, you're from Charlotte.

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I was hoping that we had another Braves fan, but that's all right.

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Yeah, Cubs.

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Cub's a good pick.

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I don't mind the Cubs.

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Yeah.

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Well he, yeah, I mean my dad, I mean him playing in the

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Braves organization definitely,

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yeah.

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Was like, he has a good amount of stories about like Chipper Jones and like Andrew

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Jones and kinda all those guys in the.

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Just kinda like spring training time that he spent with them.

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So that was definitely interesting.

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Like I have kind of that connection to the Braves and I like following them.

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Yeah, definitely.

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I mean, he's a diehard Cubs fan, so I was kind of

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That's good.

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Just kind of like inherited it, I guess.

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Yeah.

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We're not mad at the Cubs.

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The Cubs have signed many, uh, ODU player over the years.

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Mm-hmm.

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We are not mad at the cubbies.

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We're, we're all for the Cubs fans, so that's a good pick.

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I think that was when I was a kid.

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You'd come home and you watch the Cubs on TV when you got home from those mm-hmm.

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That you would do from school.

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Yeah, yeah,

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yeah.

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Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS.

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Like that was, those was the games you could always, always watch.

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I think PJ's still in the Cubs organization.

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He's been bouncing back and forth, right?

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He is with the Reds actually last couple years.

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Oh wow.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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But he's still got like Andy Ola still with him.

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Um, somebody else, I think, uh, Carter Rice still playing for him.

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We had two guys on the Pelican stuff in their minor league

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system for, for a little bit.

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So yeah, it used to be a joke like, you know, you're either gonna the Cubs or

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the Red Sox, if you play for ODU U and get drafted, that's where you're going.

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Yeah.

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That's funny.

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Yeah.

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That was one of the thing I, I mentioned to Marin on, on my recruiting visit that

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I was a Cubs fan and he was like, yeah, he like mentioned that Stab the man.

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I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Good, good pipeline set up there.

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Well, I, I didn't know that you were living with Chuck, but

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he's quickly becoming one of my favorite people on the team.

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Uh, mainly for his athleticism, getting over that brick wall

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for foul balls down there.

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Is he like, just kind of, is he just like that off the field as he is on the field?

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Yeah, he is awesome.

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I mean, he, he is like.

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Uh, you never kind of know what you're gonna get from him.

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Uh, he is just kind of like you walk in from the house after a long

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day of practice, he is just there chilling on the couch, like so, and

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he is always got a smile on his face.

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Like he's kind of always there to brighten up the house with, uh, you

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know, whatever he is got going on.

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So, no, he, he is, he is awesome on and off the field.

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And he's, I mean, talented arm too, uh, hurts that he kind of

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went down with a little arm injury, but, um, yeah, he is, he is.

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Awesome.

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Well, you're a little bit of a ridiculous guy too.

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I mean, I know you, you're coming off like very put together and serious.

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You're, you're a little bit of a, a silly Billy yourself.

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You, you and Scotty do some, some nonsense.

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Uh,

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listen, yeah, it, I'm not gonna throw any guys under the bus, but I'm not

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the only one on the, on the squad that

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Oh yeah.

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I'm all for it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You'd be shocked to, to be like, oh, they're pretty, they're pretty weird.

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But

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it's,

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yeah, it's nice being able to.

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Be yourself around a bunch of guys.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh, I mean, everybody is just kind of themselves no matter what.

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It's a good, like, it's a good, uh, I don't know, kind of vibe I guess,

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of, uh, kinda everybody can Yeah.

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Just be themselves.

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Yeah.

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A lot of meows from the dugout.

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Good.

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Of those, we have a, we have a cat calendar up in the, up in the

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locker room, and we had, um, we had like a, for Maverick's birthday,

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I think it was in the fall.

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Scotty got him a big like.

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Kind of like happy birthday sign with a bunch of cats on it, and it's

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still hanging up in the locker room.

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So it's like one of those things you get back after a long day of practice and

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you just greeted with a bunch of cats.

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It's like, oh,

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nice, nice.

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Oh, cat Club.

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Love it.

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Yeah.

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Well, awesome.

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CB you got anything else?

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No, I mean, Tyler, uh, like Finny pointed out, man, it's excited for you.

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I, I love seeing the, uh, like, I think the way you put it, the

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maturity just growing as a human.

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That's, that's just very cool to see.

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And, and obviously I think that always that, that ends up showing

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results everywhere in your life.

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So man, that's excited for it, man.

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You're, you're, you're a great kid.

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I'm glad we got to have you on here to talk to you a little bit and

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thank

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you.

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Looking forward to getting out to watching you play some more baseball, man.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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I love being on it.

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Thank you guys.

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Yeah, thank you Tyler.

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We appreciate it.

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Um, we will be back in just a second with players of the weekend.

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Wrap up the rest.

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Thanks again, Tyler.

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Yep.

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Thanks you very much Tyler.

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Appreciate man.

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All right.

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Well, the time has come here for Yeah.

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Layers of the week.

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I'll give you a second to get your STAs ready.

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Uh, we did go one to three this week, but we have players of the week and you

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just gotta to listen to one of them.

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Well, yeah, we just talked, I mean, and Tyler has been off to such

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a good start that he, it's, it's about time that he won the award.

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Um, had a great week, seven for 16, had a double a homer, three rbis, three runs

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scored, um, just continued to play well.

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I mean, I say he is hitting over 400 for the season.

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So just off to a great start.

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Um, Mac dye had a nice week.

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He didn't play in.

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One of the games, I can't remember which one.

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It might have been the, the Win the Wednesday game against, um,

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ECU, but he was five for 10.

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Um, Homer that hadn't landed yet.

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Uh, three, three rbis a walk, three runs scored.

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Um, will Johnson had a nice again, again, some guys, it's a nice week, you know,

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four outta 12, uh, a double four rbis, a walk, a sacrifice, a stolen base.

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And I think I mentioned this earlier, cash J you know, again, not like

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the most amazing week, but three for nine, A double RBI three walks a hit

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by pitch, two runs stolen base, kind of fill up the stat sheet for a guy

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who, until this weekend was hitting under, under a hundred or under 200.

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Um, so it's nice to see him hopefully moving in the right direction.

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'cause we know he's a good ball player.

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We know the guy can play.

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It's just sometimes, you know, it's, I always think when a guy is struggling

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when you first start the season.

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It looks so much worse because it's like the batting average

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is just like, you know, oh, 91.

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It's like, okay, but if you do that, you do that for a two week

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stretch in the middle of the season, you don't really notice a good,

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gives a go from two 70 to 2 58.

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You know, it's like, that's just how it works.

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Yeah.

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I think at one point they flashed a graphic.

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He was hitting 1 68 and immediately ripped a double down the line.

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And I was like, well that's probably close to 200 now, so,

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yeah, exactly.

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And that's the thing.

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It doesn't take a lot to get it, get it higher.

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Um, so yeah.

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So again, uh, and some of our guys who had been having kind of

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amazing weeks, they were fine.

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There wasn't, you know, none of the guys really had terrible weeks.

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It wasn't like TJ Aiken and Zach late, and Maverick Stallings, you

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know, had horrible, bad weeks.

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They just, you know, they weren't.

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Top of the top of the world weeks, they were just kinda like, they're

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kinda like what normal guys do.

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And they'd been superhuman for the first four weeks.

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Um, so hopefully they get back to being superhuman next week.

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Um, you know, we love 'em as normal guys, but we wanna be superhuman

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when they're out there on the field.

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Um, and then, you know, and we'll be honest, there, there were not a, this

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might be one where you won because you were the only guy that really stepped up.

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Uh, there were not a ton of great pitching performances this week.

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Yeah, I think that's, you know, we know that.

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Um, but Ben Tanton again, Ben Tanton came back.

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So he's now two weeks in a row.

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The, the reigning, uh, pitcher of the week for us.

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Um, he had two scoreless innings in that game when we needed them.

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If he didn't throw those two scoreless innings, we probably don't

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win on Friday because we needed it.

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Um, so he came in, uh, three strikeouts in that one walk, one hit.

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Um, so that's, lemme see.

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Look.

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So that's now in the last two weeks, three games, seven innings, no runs.

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Four strikeouts, one walk, one hit.

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I mean, that's pretty, pretty good.

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Outstanding run for a freshman.

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Yeah.

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So like I said, hopefully you start seeing that.

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If you can find a way to stretch it out again, then that's, it's up to these guys.

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Like I said, be more economical and then you can make it happen.

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Um, you know, 50 pitches should be like three or four innings.

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Um, don't make it two.

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Uh, yeah, my dad's always, my dad's big on pitch count.

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He's always like, he wants to see 13 every inning.

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I'm like, that's, you know, Greg Maddox does that.

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I think like 15, 16 might be more reasonable for guys, but you, again,

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if you throw strikes, it happens.

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Um, but also Cole Lanford, as you pointed out, another good outing, um,

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you know, again, kind of a losing effort, but three scoreless innings, um, gave

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him a hit, did walk three, but also struck out four, so he looked good.

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Um, Ezio had a scoreless inning, max Jack.

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Um, he actually pitched two games this week, two and two thirds innings.

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Did give up a run in the, in the game at ECU.

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Um, the three hits, three Ks, and then I, I forgot to write it down, but

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Patrick Johnson, uh, he did have another, uh, a good up here, especially for

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having to come in in the first inning.

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Yeah.

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Um, I think he pitched two and two third, gave up like what two runs, two runs

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that home run, almost immediately gave up that home run, but then got right down

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to it and, and really got him in a place where they were able to win that game

Speaker:

because of what he did, followed by Ben.

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Yeah.

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And, uh, Patrick got, it was his first collegiate win as a

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pitcher, two on Friday to get that.

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And

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is it really, he's, he's played at Middle Tennessee and Texas Tech, or

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the Tennessee Tech, and he is never,

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I should say first at ODU UI don't know about Oh, okay.

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All I It could true.

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I mean, I have, yeah, okay.

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All right.

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I was like, that's, sometimes it happens.

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Uh,

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yeah.

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But that was, I mean, that's a tough situation to come in,

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you know, starter goes down.

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No, it's tough.

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There's guys on base already that that's gonna be difficult.

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But once he, you know, came back out for the next inning, man, he looked,

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he looked pretty dialed in, uh, and more importantly, just put up a couple

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zeros, uh, and, and kept us in that game.

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And then of course, the offense helped out too by, you know,

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seeing that in the bottom half.

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They put up four in the second, and then we were, we were in good shape from there.

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Uh, yeah.

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Congrats to, to Tyler and Ben.

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Yeah.

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Um, you know, I, I asked the question, you know, when does Ben become a starter?

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And I, I didn't get a no answer there.

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It sure sounded like that was, that was not the first time that idea

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popped into Finny's brain this weekend.

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I think, and I think we've talked about this before, but you know,

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he's, as he said, he's always looking for someone to prove themselves.

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Um, and if the guys can go out there and stack zeros and throw strikes,

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they're gonna get those opportunities.

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You're gonna be able to run as long as you can run.

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If you can go out and, you know, yeah.

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You might hit, you're gonna hit a certain point where they're gonna

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say, Hey, we can't have him throw this many pitches just because he

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hasn't thrown this many before.

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But you keep doing it.

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Keep, yeah.

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I mean, I think he would, we again, you'd, you'd love if every single guy

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on the staff is amazing, you were having to fight to get some guy's innings.

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Um, but right now we got the opposite where it's like, no,

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we need some guys to step up.

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We need somebody to show up and say, Hey, I should be the one

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to be getting these innings.

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So, yeah, I don't think, I don't think anything's off the table right now.

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When you're, when you're nine and nine and one and two in conference and you're,

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you're getting like, I mean we got, I think if you look at the team stats, we

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have like two guys with like 18 and 19 innings and then a bunch of other guys

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with like eight, yeah, like 18 and 16.

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18 for KY is 16 for Gatty, and then there's like a stretch of like seven,

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eight guys between eight and six innings.

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And actually it might be more like 12 guys between eight and four innings.

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So you're, you're wanting somebody to step up and earn those

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innings and show they can do it.

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Yeah, and, and I'll call this out too.

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We've had some fantastic starting pitching come through du in the last two years.

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A lot of 'em are in minor league systems now.

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I mean, if you, Blake, Dylan.

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And John Holle bets are all basically right there together on the west

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coast of Ford in Springfield.

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Sam

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Armstrong's in double O. Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, Noah ine is not that, that far removed.

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Like we've had some really great trip.

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You

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can and had a good year.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean there's, there's a ton of 'em and on paper I think it's easy

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to say, oh, well, you know, we got this transfer from here, this

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transfer from here, plug and play.

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It's not always that simple.

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Like the Sunbelt is not an easy conference and you just, you got a reminder

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of that, of Troy's not running for

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Arkansas state's in the top 25.

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Like what?

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Uh, I mean, Louisiana looks good.

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Of course you got Southern Miss.

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I mean, Coastal's missing two of the best starters in the country and they

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just went to App State and got a suite.

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Yeah.

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Like this is not like some of our other sports that are in the sun.

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I think I saw something today that was pointing out like how

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many, I guess four taught in the top 25 right now for the Sunbelt.

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Yeah.

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I

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mean, which is like, we are, it's a powerful conference.

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Yeah.

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I mean, no, no doubt about it.

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I mean, we're, there's no debate if we're the best mid-major

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conference that's already decided.

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Yeah.

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It's our, I think we're better than maybe the Big 10 and possibly

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some teams in the Big 12 too.

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Right.

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So it, it's tough to go and replace really good arms like that, that

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you've kind of like, I know I've gotten spoiled watching those guys.

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'cause, you know, they come in, they're, you know, they might have one bad

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ending and they give up a run or two.

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Uh, so there's still a lot to figure out there, but we do have

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to start figuring out, which

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is funny because I, I feel like last year going into the year, we weren't,

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we were like, is this gonna work?

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I mean, at that point, you know, Blake had been coming off

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kind of a down year, Dylan too.

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Um, Dylan had never really, I mean, he'd shown a lot of flashes.

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He'd never really shown an ability to kind of stay in games and stay long.

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Uh, and Ben Moore, you know, he still had some struggles throughout the

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year, but he, he really the same thing.

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He had really kinda shown flashes as a reliever.

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Um, so even coming into the year, it wasn't like we were like, oh, this is

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gonna be amazing, and it kind of had to organically appear during the season.

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Um, and, you know, we're still, there's still what, nine

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weeks of conference play left.

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Like there's still a lot of season left and there's a lot of time for these

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guys to show up and say, Hey, I am that dude and I'm gonna be that guy.

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I mean, you could, you could theoretically, very easily become

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the conference pitcher of the year.

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In the last nine weeks of the year because there's, there's

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nine weeks of conference left.

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You go out and shove for nine weeks, you could be the guy.

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Um, I don't need you to be a conference pitcher of the year.

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I just need you to go out and, and play really well.

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But you know, you, you, some of these guys, somebody, it,

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the opportunity is there.

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I think that's the one thing you could say is no matter who you are, there's

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a lot of pitchers on the staff and there's a lot of innings available

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to whoever is going to throw well.

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Mm-hmm.

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So that's a nice thing.

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Yeah.

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Mean, I still got 27 more conference games to go.

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Like we, we play 30 of them.

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Uh, it doesn't get easier.

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Like Troy's a tough team.

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Like we get App State at home, but like we're talking about when Finny

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was on, I mean, they were leading those game, every single one of those games.

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What I remember about them is they just hit, they just

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like hit, hit, hit, hit, hit

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nonstop.

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Oh yeah.

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Especially when we're down there in Boone where elevation

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is a little bit of a factor.

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Yeah, they got a little smaller park.

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It's a fun place to watch baseball.

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A beautiful place.

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But

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yeah, it looks beautiful.

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Um, I, I, I don't know what the weather looks like yet this weekend.

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I don't think anyone has got it right.

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I mean, they canceled all the schools in Richmond today and I didn't hear a

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single bit of thunder all day long, but

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Right.

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Um, you know, if you get some wind blowing out, especially with no real backing

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behind home plate, like it's all open.

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You get guys that just wanna swing at everything.

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You could, you could see some serious runs this weekend, but this is one of

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those, all right, we got one on the road that kind of just checks the box.

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It's not great, but it's not a disaster.

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Because of that, you gotta go and win this series against App state at home.

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Yeah, well, you got an opportunity.

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You got five games in a row at home coming up.

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You got Norfolk State, who again, Norfolk State is, they're

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much better than they were.

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Um, they won their series this weekend.

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They're, they've got four wins.

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That's amazing.

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Hell, last season.

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Yeah.

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So they're not, you know, you can't go in that game thinking,

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oh, they're a pushover.

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Like, yeah.

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Should we go in there and win that game?

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Absolutely, absolutely.

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A hundred percent.

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Can you just go and win that game if you walk a million guys?

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Mm-hmm.

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Nope.

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You could lose a game to them.

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Um, but it's a game you should win.

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Um, you got, you know, the series at home, I, against a team, it's Down Again.

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Played hard but did Lose 'em all again.

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You got opportunity there to win games and then you get, get come back

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with, uh, was it William and Mary?

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William and Mary, yeah.

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William and Mary the next Tuesday.

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Uh, which again, William and Mary, if you look at right now,

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they're kind of scuffling a little bit, kinda the same thing, you

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know, home game against in state.

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You should be, and you're gonna go to Richmond.

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Again, uh, not, not a very far trip.

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The next thing now that's gonna be, we'll have to talk about

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that next week, about the Yeah.

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You know, having a back to back midweeks for the first time.

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It's gonna be interesting when you've been taxing your pitching staff.

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So that's another reason where you're gonna really need some guys to, to

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show up and, and save some innings.

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Yeah.

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But.

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At the end of the day, you've got five straight home games that you could

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theoretically get yourself right here.

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You really could go out and, you know, win a win a conference series for sure.

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Make hopefully sweep sweeping is, we know how hard it's to sweep a conference

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series, but it just happened to them.

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Why not?

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Let's make 'em oh and six, right?

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Yeah.

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Um, but.

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You've got a chance to get yourself going the right direction, feeling

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a lot better about yourselves by going out and hitting the way you've

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been hitting, keeping that going and pitching a lot tougher and a lot better.

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Putting yourself in better situations.

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Yeah.

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Pitch more efficiently.

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And I'll remind people, I know it's, it's next week, but, uh, we went

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to William and Mary last year and they absolutely whipped our ass.

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They were not.

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And they, that was not like a, you know, the best William and Mary

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team in 10 years whipped our ass.

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No, that was a team that swung.

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They put the ball in play.

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They let us walk 'em and hit 'em and all that stuff.

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And they, they blasted us in Williamsburg last year.

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So yeah.

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Take care of business against Norfolk State.

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Take it seriously.

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Try to get the run rule in effect.

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Get save, save a couple innings and then big, big series against App State.

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Would love to have, uh, you know, a huge fan turnout,

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especially if the weather is nice.

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Yeah.

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Um, I'm pretty sure they're doing live music again, uh,

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before the Saturday games.

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That's gonna be a good time.

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Should be great.

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This weekend it should be in like the, like the low sixties, mid, I

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mean, last week it said low sixties and ended up being almost 70.

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I was sweating at that high school game.

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I had a sweatshirt on.

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I was like, this is, I actually didn't drink enough water.

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I was feeling kind of bad there in the third inning.

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I had to sit down for a minute, uh, because I didn't prepare

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myself well because it was warmer than I thought it was gonna be.

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Uh, so you know, I think, yeah, I think it's gonna be great.

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Um, so yeah, come on out and uh, be gummy like me and go on Wednesday

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anyway and freeze my butt off at least.

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We'll have a little bit of sunlight, hopefully.

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Yeah, you'll have some longer sunlight and, uh, you know, first night game

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in conference play too at that app state game on Friday being at six.

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So I know those 3:00 PM starts and one earlier starts that we've had

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this year on Friday's been tough for people to get to, but mm-hmm.

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Uh, six o'clock and we go ahead after glow for a beer.

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Come on over the ballpark.

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Get, enjoy some more beers there.

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Yeah.

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Uh, and, and you know, make that outfield seating a little bit rowdy.

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Uh, let those app eight guys hear it.

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'cause I can tell you anywhere we go on the road, um, I, I thought it was

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funny at Troy, you know, in right field, they've got the big, basically,

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I, I don't know if it's like the black monster or whatever they call it.

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It's a huge Yeah, yeah.

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Where they're called huge wall, but over in left you can drive your golf

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cart right up to the back of the fence, have yourself a little picnic.

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Uh, and I definitely saw some guys chirping al in left field

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when some balls left the ballpark.

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So we can definitely do the same.

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You know, be smart about it.

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Don't say anything dumb, but let 'em know you're there and that you're watching

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them because it makes it a little bit more difficult to catch those flyballs.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Come on out, man.

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It's gonna be great.

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Mm-hmm.

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It's always a good, it's baseball season.

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Got high school baseball starting up.

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Get out to some of that if you can.

Speaker:

There's always some good high school games and, uh, come out CO to U baseball is fun.

Speaker:

It's just super cool thing to do.

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Thanks.

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It's

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a great way to spend some time.

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Absolutely.

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I love it.

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All right, cb, I think that is it for us.

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We appreciate all of you listening in.

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Hope to see you at the ballpark this week or weekend.

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Go Monarchs.

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Monarchs.

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Oh, you almost got me.

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About the Podcast

Hudson Homers
Covering Old Dominion Baseball
Co-Hosts CB and Gary cover all things in the world of Old Dominion Baseball. Join us for this weekly podcast keeping you up to date on the Monarchs, Dollars for Dingers and Sun Belt Baseball. We will be joined by current and former ODU players, coaches and even a few of you from Monarch Nation. As always, The Monarchists Podcast Network is By Fans, For Fans. www.odumonarchists.com

About your host

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Gary Williams

ODU alumn and diehard Monarch sports fan.