- 7/7/2025
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00:00So you're concerned about Justin Verlander?
00:02I am very concerned.
00:03So am I.
00:04And, you know, 0-6, who cares?
00:07Winning and losing as a pitcher is not always indicative of how you're doing,
00:11but just watching Friday when he's just having trouble fooling people,
00:16he's having trouble getting people out,
00:18and the A's, they're, I think, a league average hitting team,
00:22a lot of loud contact,
00:24and the thing that really troubled me is what you were talking about,
00:26the Verlander comments after the game where he sounds to me like
00:30somebody who's not a 21-year veteran,
00:33sounds to me like somebody who is struggling
00:35and isn't sure that they can rediscover it.
00:38Let me throw some of these quotes at everybody.
00:40And you tell me, because this is, like,
00:42my takeaway after watching this series against the A's
00:45is that the Giants, Buster Posey said it's time to go, right?
00:50He said it twice, and then he went and got Devers,
00:53and the Giants were playing really well,
00:55and then he got Devers, and then they stopped playing really well.
00:58I don't know if that was directly because of Devers.
01:00I don't think that it was.
01:01Now they're playing a little bit better.
01:02Okay, they've won four or five.
01:04That makes everyone feel a little bit better in this moment.
01:07But if it's time to go, listen,
01:10I don't think that the loss of Kyle Harrison
01:13and Jordan Hicks, for that matter, changes this at all.
01:16But I'd like to think that if you're going to go to the postseason,
01:21you need to have what I always call three-and-a-half starters
01:24in order to do that.
01:26And right now, your third starter is Landon Roop.
01:29He's pitching well enough to where I think you could give him game three.
01:34Right now, you'd have to.
01:35Right.
01:36Birdsong has no idea where the ball's going.
01:38And Verlander, look, we can say whatever we want about
01:41he hasn't been that bad.
01:44Like, this start and that start.
01:46But an ERA tells the story, and it's almost five.
01:51I don't know how you, like,
01:52if you're supportive of Justin Verlander right now,
01:55how do you wiggle out of that stat?
01:57Your ERA is 4-8-4.
01:59Yeah.
02:00That's too high.
02:01It's way too high.
02:02And this is supposed to be a guy who's going to come in
02:04and give you reliable starting pitching,
02:07and he has been anything but that.
02:09Even in his good outings,
02:11and I go back to the one against the White Sox,
02:13where he was good.
02:15He got you five innings.
02:16He's not getting you even deep enough in games.
02:18The pitch count always seems to be really high,
02:21and, you know, just the comments from the game on Friday
02:24indicate to me that he doesn't really have a lot of confidence.
02:28I mean, how could he right now, right, with an ERA almost five?
02:31But it's showing out there.
02:33Quote,
02:33Guys are able to execute their game plan against me too easily.
02:38I can't quite get fastballs by guys when I should be able to.
02:42I can't quite get them to chase the good off-speed pitch.
02:47When I do throw a bad one, they're on it.
02:51Yeah.
02:51Wow.
02:52So the fastball isn't fast enough,
02:55and the off-speed stuff isn't fooling them enough to where they're going to fish it.
03:00And so when you throw one of those over the middle of the plate,
03:02it's a meatball, and they're lighting him up.
03:04I mean, what I heard four weeks ago before the injury was,
03:09well, he's had some tough luck.
03:10Giants haven't been able to score, and he runs for them,
03:13which is true for everybody.
03:14Yep.
03:15Right?
03:15Now I'm hearing, well, when I throw my fastball, they hit it.
03:20And when I throw a good off-speed pitch out of the zone, they don't chase it.
03:25And then when I make a mistake, they really, really hit it.
03:27And then here's the money quote.
03:29This is the one that makes me go, hey, Buster, pick up your phone and start making calls.
03:36Quote, you test something, and then you go out there and try it to see if it works or not.
03:44And if it's not working, you find something else.
03:47I'm already on to the next thing.
03:49I threw some balls against the wall and felt some different mechanics that I've been thinking about.
03:55I'm optimistic that's going to be the next thing that works.
03:59What?
04:00So now you're 20 or so years into your career, and now we're tinkering with mechanics,
04:05and we're throwing the ball against the wall trying to figure out what might work better.
04:10At this point in your career, that's troubling.
04:12He literally said, I've had two or three instances in my career where everything I've known
04:17to try to fix something doesn't work, and I've kind of had to reinvent the wheel.
04:22So I feel I'm kind of there where it's like, all right, well, it's time to just throw bleep
04:28against the wall and see what works.
04:32Man.
04:33I don't know about, like, that's not my mood about Giants baseball.
04:38Throw a bleep against the wall and see what works.
04:40You know what I mean?
04:41Yeah.
04:41Like, it's the one thing, like, Steine and I, and I think Steine and all of us, we kind
04:44of disagree on this.
04:46He's kind of like, eh, you know, it's Buster's first year, whatever.
04:50Like, you know, try to make the postseason, but if you don't, there's no consequences.
04:56And it's like, well, that's true, but it doesn't mean that you're not going to try to make the
04:59postseason, right?
05:00Yeah, nobody's losing a job, but that does not mean that you just, like, lose all of your
05:04intensity and focus for this.
05:06I think it's very important that the Giants make the playoffs because they should.
05:11Agreed.
05:12They're one of the best six teams.
05:13They should.
05:14They've got an unbelievable bullpen.
05:16They have a lineup that actually matters now.
05:19There's no reason that they should not be able to make the playoffs, and so I'm not
05:25of the mind of, let's put starters out there that are literally saying into microphones,
05:29well, let's just throw a bleep against the wall.
05:32What?
05:33Yeah, we can't do that.
05:34No.
05:34Especially in a year where the Dodgers appear vulnerable based on their number of injuries
05:40and their pitching staff.
05:41So it doesn't mean that next year, if they're all healthy, that you give up and say, oh,
05:45we can't beat L.A., but this year you've done well enough.
05:48Your lineup is the best lineup we've seen here in a long, long time.
05:52Chappie's now back healthy.
05:54That whole stretch of games, you shouldn't have lost as many games as you did when you
05:59had the White Sox and you had the Marlins and you had the A's.
06:02And so, yeah, you've got six more before the break.
06:05Go out there, and if you're Verlander and you're trying to throw some bleep against the
06:09wall and see what sticks, go ahead and do it, but pitch well this week.
06:13Well, do you remember the John Shea comment about Birdsong where he said, man, I was walking
06:19away from the stadium thinking to myself, I don't know how Birdsong can make his next
06:23start.
06:24Never mind the fact that he did.
06:26Yep.
06:26Although he looked for two and a half innings like John Shea was all over it because you're
06:31like, this guy, he can't even hit the catcher, let alone the strike zone.
06:36He's missing the entire catcher.
06:39If I was the umpire, I'd have left last night.
06:41I'm like, this is dangerous.
06:43Totally.
06:43Just hucking fastballs at my head.
06:46So, but he did make the next start.
06:48But if you're going to feel that way about Birdsong, why wouldn't you feel that way about
06:51Verlander?
06:52Why?
06:53Like if you're going to publicly say, well, I'm just throwing crap against the wall.
06:57Well, how are they going to put you out there?
06:59Well, they don't really have many other options, right?
07:01Well, Mason Black came in on Friday and he immediately got lit up himself.
07:05And, you know, you've got Wizenhunt, who's not on the 40 man roster.
07:09So you'd have to make a move to bring him up and get him to start.
07:13And so you could, I just think long-term you're right about them needing another arm and
07:19the, you know, the trade deadline, you still got about three or four weeks to go, but time
07:23to start kicking some tires.
07:25Well, I'm with you.
07:25And I also like, never forget, what about an injury?
07:29Now, where are you?
07:31I wonder if they feel that Carson Wizenhunt this year could play the Bumgarner role from
07:412010.
07:42And I don't mean he's going to be that dominant, but I wonder if right now, for example, remember
07:47what Bumgarner was that year?
07:49He was the game four starter.
07:51I wonder if they feel like he could be their fourth starter when you get to the end of
07:58the year.
07:58Yeah.
07:58I wonder.
07:59Yeah.
08:00I think if you're going to have that mindset, you need to start thinking about getting him
08:04up here and give him, you know, eight starts before that.
08:06You're probably right.
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