00:00But I don't trust any of these wildcard teams,
00:02certainly in the National League moving forward.
00:05Yeah.
00:06I mean, you look at the American League, Joe, we'll start there.
00:08I mean, you know, just doing some preview, right?
00:10I mean, I got the Cleveland Guardians four games under .500.
00:14I got the Detroit Tigers five games under .500.
00:18Baltimore six games under .500, right?
00:21They're only two back, the Orioles, for the final wildcard spot in the American League.
00:25Two back and six under .500.
00:28I mean, just awful.
00:30And it doesn't look like it's changing, Joe.
00:32I kept on waiting for a couple of these teams to separate themselves,
00:36and that would be the end of it.
00:37But you play .500 baseball in the American League especially,
00:40you're going to get in.
00:41And the National League is not that far off.
00:43They're not that much better.
00:45No.
00:46And listen, Atlanta, we're at a run.
00:49Atlanta's had some problems here, as good as they were early in the season.
00:53Scott, you know that really it isn't the teams that are great in May
00:58or June, that matter.
00:59It's the teams that get really good right around this time of year
01:03and ride the momentum into the postseason.
01:07Milwaukee has been the best team in Major League Baseball from a record standpoint,
01:11and I could argue maybe they've been the best team in baseball for a while now,
01:15not named the Dodgers.
01:18They are going to be very interesting in the postseason.
01:20But right now, Atlanta shows me nothing.
01:24I'm waiting for that one team, Scott, that's going to rattle off seven wins in a row,
01:28get really hot, and ride that momentum into the postseason.
01:32But the problem is I have no idea what – I don't have a feel as to what that team
01:36looks like right now.
01:38Maybe the Phillies, Joe.
01:40You're right about the Braves, right?
01:41You know, they just got swept by Minnesota.
01:43They lost six in their last ten.
01:45They did win that make-up game yesterday in Chicago.
01:47But they're four and six in their last ten.
01:49Maybe the Phillies, you know, they've won six in a row.
01:52They started the second half of the season playing awful baseball after having that great,
01:56you know, first half after the manager got fired and manually took over.
02:00But maybe they turned it around where they would be that hot team.
02:04I mean, it just – we've talked about this all the time, Joe.
02:07I mean, we've still got another month and almost a month and a half of the regular season.
02:11I mean, this regular season is so freaking long.
02:16I mean, so you could have a team right now that – like the Braves that are playing bad baseball
02:21or like the Padres or like, you know, pick a team that, you know, is not playing great,
02:24but they still got a full month and a half to turn things around.
02:28Man, you just don't need regular season baseball in September.
02:30You really don't.
02:32No.
02:33Well, yeah.
02:34And while that will all be worked out rather quickly by December 1st here, or maybe not,
02:39we just won't have any baseball come March there, fingers crossed.
02:44But, yeah, listen, 162 games.
02:47I get what they were trying to do by adding more teams able to make the wild card
02:52and be part of the postseason.
02:54But the reality is, and this was my fear, is that all you did was give us more mediocre baseball
03:00teams.
03:02Outside of – who is it going to be?
03:04Arizona?
03:05Is it going to be – who, to me, the only race left is trying to figure out in the
03:09National League
03:09which one of the – is it going to be the Arizona Diamondbacks?
03:14Is it going to be the Padres?
03:15Who's the other team that could actually leapfrog outside of those two?
03:19You know the Cubs are in.
03:21You know the Phillies are going to occupy one of those.
03:23Who's the third team in the National League, Scott?
03:25Yeah, that might – I'm thinking the Padres have the best team.
03:30But, again, you know, I keep on waiting for them to turn it on.
03:33They've dumped themselves a little bit eight games over .500.
03:35I think on paper, you know, they've hit the ball a lot better over the last couple of weeks
03:39that they are better than Arizona, better than St. Louis and Miami,
03:43the other teams that realistically have a shot.
03:45So I would say right now the Padres.
03:47But do I think they could really beat the Dodgers or even, you know, the Brewers in the opening round?
03:52I don't – you know, I don't think so.
