9-8-22 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

It's true, your host barely made it to work. And not because of traffic.

It's actually fairly light. Tonight and last night. What? I come back from vacation and even traffic has eased. Or maybe I'm just not nearly as uptight about it.

No, that's not the case. During the pandemic when I didn't drive on the highway for three months. Okay, it wasn't quite that long. It was two months. But I didn't drive on the highway for two months and I swore when I got back out there on the highway that I was so happy to be driving again and have someplace to go that I would never get road rage as long as I lived.

I mean it maybe lasted for like 10 days and then I was back to road raging. However, that's not what happened tonight when I barely survived the trek into our building. It was a close encounter with a rat. And I can't help it when I see them and they're standing between me and the door to the building.

I involuntarily go, ah! So I think that scared him. Actually it did scare him. Or her. Can you tell the difference with rats?

I can't because I'm not getting that close. But the rat freaked out because I freaked out. We both freaked out. And the ah! Scared the rat.

Next time I'll try that actually. Those things freak me out. I understand that they're very intelligent animals or so people say.

And they are test subjects for many experiments and other types of science and research. But just gross. I can't. I can't see one without going ah! And like I said, it pretty much cleared the path so that I could scurry like a rat into the building. Yeah, not quite like that. Not quite like that. Ah!

Maybe I'll try that next time. In case you were trying to sleep. Sorry! It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You will never hear me say that sleep is overrated or that I can sleep when I'm dead because after doing graveyard shift overnight work for, oh my gosh, the last 10 years, even before I joined CBS Sports Radio. But dedicated late nights and overnights, the last 8 years here in After Hours. Right. I will never be so cliche or so dismissive as to indicate that sleep is for the week or that sleep is not necessary or that I can sleep when I'm dead because if I don't sleep I will die early.

That's what I've come to understand about this shift is that sleep is more valuable than ever, especially on those days when you don't have it, which happened to be Wednesday. So I cannot be held responsible for anything ridiculous that I say or words that I make up. I'm going to blame producer Jay because I have to blame someone. I'm just kidding. I'm totally fine.

It's my fault. It just happens when I'm tired. But my friends tell me that I'm funnier on the radio when I'm tired. What? I'm funny all the time. I don't know what you're talking about.

We are live from the Rocket Mortgage Studios. Do you need to know what it takes bro? That's not fair. I get derailed much more easily when I'm tired.

So why don't we start that again? Also, I dropped this a drop of something in my nose is this was a liquid. And it's like making me sneeze and making me I don't know if anybody else out there uses essential oils.

But there's this one called breathe and it's great. It opens up your nasal passages and it helps you to breathe deeply. And so I went to smell it to make sure it was the because it was dark in my room.

And so I went to smell it to make sure it was the right essential oil that I wasn't putting something else under my nose. And then I somehow a drop dropped into my nose, and I almost died. So almost died a close encounter with a rat, or he almost died. And I mean, I have no problems punting a rat like I get it PETA and people love animals.

But if the if it comes to me versus the rat, like the rest is gonna have to get punted. Anyway, now I have for those really awful thoughts for which I should apologize. I now have a drop of something in my nose. I can't stop sneezing. And and I feel like it's making me cough too. So I'm essentially a big hot mess and drop the hot. I'm just a mess. There's nothing hot about this. Let me just tell you.

So let me try that again. No Mike Tomlin interruptions. We are live from the rocket mortgage studios. Do you need to know what it takes for a home to fit your budget and your family rocket can also I've worn producer Jay if he yawns even one time in my general direction. A young man named Jack did that once had never worked on the show again. So I would advise against yawning in my general direction. I remember telling you that story Jay and you got really mad at the fact that he yawned at me while we were on the air to remember this. So if that is the case, let's not be hypocritical and yawn. Not right now you're not.

How long ago did you we were having a conversation about the show in the span of maybe 90 seconds Jay stifled seven yawns. I got him out of the way. That's how it works. You're looking a little bit like a hot mess in there too. So anyway, the two of us maybe together make up one brain or one person. But here's the thing. You are actually going to be the driving force behind this show because it's time to get serious about the 2022 NFL season.

I feel like we can all agree on that. So as you join us here on After Hours on CBS Sports Radio, we need you to be serious with us. As serious as I ever get.

When do I get serious? Okay, I get serious about some things. I get serious when it comes to alleged crimes when it comes to discrimination and prejudice and mental health. I get serious about those things. I get serious about accidents and injuries. Certainly there are times to be serious, but we generally don't spend much time on the serious here during the show when we have to when we have to be journalists. Yes, but a lot of times my approach to sports and sports radio is relatively irreverent. And so when I tell you it's time to get serious about the 2022 NFL season, you should of course take that word with a grain of salt. But we have what we think is a fun, wide open, fill in the blank to carry us through the next four hours. And here's the deal. We want to hear from every single fan base.

So if your tweet or Facebook post is the first to come in from a particular fan base, it will guarantee either it's read on the air or it's retweeted. One or the other. Ha! I just created more work for Jay.

So if he doesn't yawn, he's going to roll his eyes. He already knows the fill in the blank and the phrasing and everything, so it should be up soon on our show Twitter, on our Facebook page. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Our phone number 855-212-4227. That's 855-212-4CBS. By the way, we need a guinea pig, not a rat please. Although I guess if you want to be a lab rat, you certainly can in this particular scenerio yo. So if you would like to help us, we are in need of some assistance. We need a lab rat to try to join Survivor Island and let us know what happens when you do.

Okay, so Jay, I need you to hop on the mic here. So we've gone through multiple iterations of Survivor Island links and locales. We've got multiple islands. We've got multiple links on Facebook and Twitter and we're hearing from some of you that there are still kinks.

So what's the latest? We know people who have logins can get in. If you have a previous login all you have to do is go use the link on Twitter. Again, ALawRadio or our show Twitter. It's pinned to the top of our show Twitter, After Hours, CBS. Or it's pinned to the top of our Facebook page. It's super easy to find.

People are still complaining. So all you have to do is go to either site. If you have a login, use the link, login, boom. I already did that. I know it works. The issue is if you're joining us and you're brand new and you haven't done it before.

So then what happens, Jay? Ready, go! If you haven't joined in before, that new link that I put up, I had opened a second pool. Did you?

After Hours. Are you cheating? A bonus pool it was called. So if you hadn't gotten that email, apparently it was full our last Survivor Island. So I opened a new island. I thought, I guess, but now I'm on the site now trying to... Wait, we have a third island or we're on the second island? Second island. It's open for both returnees and newbies? It should be open to everybody, yeah. Okay, because I haven't actually made my... I don't think I've...

I tried logging in just to be sure it worked, but I didn't make my pick yet or anything. So I need some space on said island as well. Should we name them?

Can we name them after Jurassic Park in Jurassic World? Isla Nuba? Isla Nuba? I like that. Wait, was it Isla?

Am I getting that wrong? Isla Nuba. Hold on. Isla Nova something? Jurassic... What's the Costa Rica one?

That's what we're talking about. World Island. There's only one island.

No, there's two. Jurassic Park 2. Isla Nublar. Isla Nublar. Of course.

Yeah, I like that. Okay, so Isla and Nublar are our two islands. Volcanic island located 120 miles west of Costa Rica and 87 miles east of the La Cinco Muertes Archipelago. The island was the site of both the original Jurassic Park and the second incarnation, Jurassic World. Is that for the, like, just where they filmed it or... Because I thought that in the second Jurassic Park, the whole idea was they had another island. I don't know.

Maybe I'm forgetting the movie or thinking of the third one, which wasn't good. Want to hear something, though? They totally, like, just messed with us because people want to know if... This is what happens when you go on Google.

You find out what questions other people are asking about the particular subject matter. So people are asking, is the Jurassic World island real? Yes, it's so real and it's covered by... Well, now it would be dinosaur bones. Isla Nublar, the setting for much of the Jurassic Park series, is unfortunately not a real Costa Rican island.

That's upsetting. But there's more. Cocos Island, though, is very much real. Located some 350 miles from Costa Rica's mainland, it's widely believed to be the inspiration for Isla Nublar. So we have Isla Nublar and Cocos Island.

All right? We've got two. We've got the real and we've got the fake. The real and the faux.

Which one is which? Our bonus pool will be the, uh... Well, if you're bonus, you're on Isla Nublar. I was just looking at the bonus pool, and there seems to be a good amount of people in there, so... Number.

A good number of people. Sorry, pet peeve. Oh, all right.

Thank you. The amount of things you can't count. Like, amount of time. You can't count time, necessarily.

You can number the minutes, you can number the hours, but you can't count time as a quantity that can't be counted. Are you sure? I am positive. Trust me.

There are some things that I have, I'm anal retentive about, and the use of number versus amount. Yes. I'm just, I'm telling you.

No, no, I appreciate it. So, we've got Isla Nublar. Which one are you on?

Isla Nublar or Cocos Island? I'm on, well, I guess both, because I'm the admin, but I'll make my pick on Isla Nublar. Have we yet joined the other survivor pool where we're going to be working together?

No, not yet. But by the way, who gets final say if we don't agree? That's the question. Are we gonna... How about rock, paper, scissors? Are you sure you wanna do that? Yes.

I don't know. I'm not afraid of you. Alright, then we'll do rock, paper, scissors. How about a putting contest? Just kidding, we're not gonna do it every week.

I don't know, I was pretty on on Sunday, so. That would be pretty funny if we had, like, a putting contest for every single thing we didn't agree on. We would spend our entire, like, life on the putting green. We could just buy one of those, you know, office mats and just throw it out in the news room. Oh, I'm sure somebody here has got one and never used it because they've been working from home for two and a half years. Yeah, collecting dust, gotta go find it. Here we go. It's already up on, wait, is it up?

No? Okay, sorry, I'm, like, bombarding producer Jay. So what would you like me to ask people? Do we need some volunteers to join Isla Nubar Survivor Island? I'm asking you, do we need volunteers? Yeah, that'd be great if someone can do it right now and just report back to what happens because it seems to me that it's functional. It's fairly functional. So what we need you to do, someone, if you could just try it, please.

Both having a pre-existing login, which I'm pretty sure works, and starting from scratch, can you please someone go and report back to us? We're asking if you would please go to either our show Twitter, after our CBS, it's pinned to the top, or go to our Facebook page, also pinned to the top, and all we're asking is if you would just try it and report back and let us know if there are still snags, still snags and kinks, please. We really appreciate you helping us out. So that's a little bit of business. The other piece of business is the show question that will come in the form of fill in the blank. I love these. These are my favorite NFL tweets and posts to put out there is asking you to fill in the blank. Producer J is working on this as well as a bazillion other things.

Did you know that producer J can juggle? Hey, what happened to the garlic knots? I haven't gotten to them yet. Wait, you warmed them or you didn't warm them?

No, I haven't. I had to print all the things. I'll get to them. I'm dying to get to them. They're sitting right here.

They look great. This is actually going to be like a cat and mouse game for me. Not a rat because it's not the same because producer J looks so tired and I want to see if I can get him to do like so many things that he starts yawning again and then he breaks his promise not to yawn through the entire show. Just give me more energy if anything.

Well then let's effing go. I'm not doing nine things right now. I don't know how many things are you doing J? He's like stop talking to me. Are you talking on the air? Oh, well pardon me for asking you to talk on a radio show. This is too easy. When he's tired, it's too easy.

I can toy with him but I'll end up saying something stupid too and then I'll look like a dodo so maybe I should stop. So anyway, we're asking for a couple volunteers. Please let us know if you can get on to Isla Nubar Survivor Island by using our social media and starting fresh so brand new email and in addition to that very soon we'll have a post up on our social because J's working on it. We're asking you to fill in the blank. In 2022, the key to success for my team is what? And I'm telling you, if all of you list your quarterbacks, I'm going to blow my top. No, I'm not. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ignore you because it's not just about your quarterbacks.

It's really not. In some cases it may be about your quarterbacks but let's be creative. Let's be a little original, shall we? So the post is up on Twitter, A Law Radio and After Hours CBS and the post will soon be up on our Facebook page. By the way, thank you all for your kind words about the selfies that mom and I took that I posted on social. They've been up on Twitter for a while but we just put them up on Facebook in the last 24 hours and it is really funny to me that people think I'm short in these photos.

How can you tell? People, I don't know where you're coming from or why but you crack me up. So yes, lots of you commenting about how my mom and I look like twins. She's got a smile that lights up a room and the teenagers love her. In fact, when we were at church on Sunday, one of her juniors in high school came up and gave her a hug. Kids love her. Teenagers do not love me. I don't, teenagers and I do not get along. In fact, I keep telling my mom that whenever I am a mom and I have teenagers, I'm going to send them to her for like four years. So they all, I like younger kids.

I speak the same language as 10 and 11 year olds. They seem to love me. I don't know about teenagers. Anyway, mom is great with teenagers. They absolutely adore her and I think they keep her young as well.

So she continues to teach and she continues to take no crap from them but also they love her because she makes jokes and she's sarcastic and she has a big old smile. So if you didn't see those photos, they're up on Facebook and also on Twitter. We got a lot to get to tonight in the world of sports, especially diamond drama. What is it this week with all the walk offs? I got to admit, even though I was still listening to John Rooney and Cardinals radio in the bottom of the ninth, I was getting ready for work and Cardinals were trailing the Nationals in St. Louis by four runs in the bottom of the ninth and wouldn't you know, they found a way to stir the pot and make it a lot more interesting than it maybe should have been.

Also, both the Mets and the Yankees trying to protect their leads or get a lead in their division, both in double headers on Wednesday. It was Wednesday, right? Oh my gosh, the days are all blending together. Jane, I actually had this, I would say it lasted more than 60 seconds conversation about which day it was on the phone Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. It happens.

It does. One of those days, whatever day. And so we're going to look at the double headers plus the Houston Astros.

They're right now not locked in any kind of a playoff race unless you're talking about best record in the American League, but they still are working on making sure they're in playoff form and we got to see it a little bit on Wednesday. So fill in the blank. We're looking for you to hang out with us. Show question of the night in 2022. The key to success for my NFL team is what?

And also we need some guinea pigs, some lab rats, if you will, for Survivor Island because we need to know if it works and what the kinks are and what the problems are. So find us on Twitter and Facebook and we're just getting started. By the way, 40 minutes from now, we're going to spend some time in LA with our friend Sal Cappaccio, who is out there hanging with Bill's Mafia in advance of, you guys, Thursday's kickoff tomorrow. Tonight we'll be talking about Bills and Rams week one NFL kickoff game one.

Exactly. Are you kidding me? It's here. It's actually here tomorrow. It's here. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Tommy Evans, the batter. He swings and he rifles at deep left field.

Call. He reaches and can't catch it. The ball goes off his glove off the wall. Two run score. DiMaggio scores. The winner, a Redbird winner.

Call couldn't make the play. First pitch swinging again. Tommy Evans is the hero. Light up the night. Light it up in downtown St. Louis as the Cardinals have come all the way back in the ninth inning. A stunning turnaround and a six to five victory.

Oh my. It's easy to check out of that game just the way it's going early. You're not putting anything together, not stringing together quality at bats. You give up that big homer to Voigt and to stay locked in. I do think that speaks to the culture of that club and the overall mentality for them to stay locked in and figure out a way in the ninth there against a tough guy.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Ollie Marmol, manager of the Cardinals. And this team enjoys a major home field advantage. I know a lot of people debate in baseball whether or not home field matters, but it does for these Cardinals. They have won 20 of their last 23 games at home and it did not matter that against the Nationals, they were trailing by four runs going into the bottom of the ninth.

So here are the deets. Here are the digits, if you will, for these redbirds as you hear with John Rooney on Cardinals radio. They are a season high 25 games over 500. They're playing their best baseball of the year. In fact, they're some kind of wonderful in the second half and they are now nine and a half games ahead of Milwaukee in the NL Bowl. When did that turn into a lead that's almost as large as what the Astros have atop the AL West? That's double essentially what the Yankees have atop the AL East. Tommy Edmond with the RBI double to drive home the game winner, but this was an all out assault in the ninth inning.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Speaking of wild rallies and well, wild pitches, the Astros come up with crazy ways to win too. Infield back, three of them on the left side. Outfield shallow, first pitch.

In the dirt and that hops to the left of Huff. Here comes Altuve. He scores. Astros win it. 4-3 at 10. A wild pitch by Hernandez. When we played good defense and we've been pitching well all year, they've done a phenomenal job and they kept us in games, but if we just continue to put together good ABs back to back to back and make it tougher on their staff, it puts us in a better position to win and we'll win more games and keep it going. Kyle Tucker smoked the game tying home run for the Astros against the Rangers in the sixth inning and it was a stalemate if you will. It was toe to toe and belly to belly until then, until the bottom of the 10th with the walk-off wild pitch. All right.

Double your pleasure. Immaculate. Robert Ford and Steve Sparks on Astros Radio and then Kyle on AT&T Sportsnet Southwest. The Astros, while they have this comfortable lead atop the American League West, it's 11 games still over Seattle who is incidentally fighting for a playoff spot. The fact that they have been able to withstand some injuries and come up with ways to win is impressive and so we're not paying as much attention to them just like we're not paying as much attention to the Dodgers on a national level because they're already essentially locked in.

They've got magic numbers for heaven's sakes, but these teams want to be in that form where there's edge, there's intensity, there's a sense of urgency because we are in the last month and they want to be playing some of their best baseball as we hit the postseason. October is coming. That becomes one of my favorite hashtags in September. It's already September 7th for heaven's sakes. I just, I can't even wrap my brain around how fast September is going and that in mere days I will be headed to Wisconsin.

Just holy cow. I want football to be here and I'm excited for football, but it causes the world to spin a whole lot faster when we finally get into the season and the weeks then just, they're fast and furious. So to that end, we've got a brand new football question, our first of this NFL season and we love fill in the blanks and we also love dancing GIFs.

We'll consider this to be lawful under NFL rules because he's not using any props. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're gonna have to check out our show, Twitter After Hours, CBS. In 2022, the key to success for my NFL team is what?

We're already hearing from fan bases all over the country. We've got dozens of responses already and I promise you either your tweet will be read or retweeted and then on Facebook we'll go through those as well and I love, love, love the ones that have nothing to do with quarterbacks. I get it. Quarterback is impactful. Okay. Just we get it. We do QB news almost every night during the season, but there's more to life and there's more to your football team than just your quarterback, which is why when I did my fantasy football draft on Wednesday evening, I managed to hold off on drafting a quarterback until the seventh round.

I just want you to know I've never done that before. I always, always jump the gun on quarterbacks. I mean, I don't necessarily draft as early as producer Jay did with Josh Allen, but I do jump the gun when it comes to quarterbacks because I get, I get like, I get itchy trigger finger or whatever. I know I just mix my, my analogies, but I can't, I just can't sometimes sit back and wait. Here's the problem though. I wait till the seventh round. I get what is a great quarterback and I hate him. So I got a problem.

Pro blame. Anyway, we'll get to fantasy football. Patrick Mahomes has a message for those of you who are big into fantasy football. We got a very extensive version of QB news from the AFC to the NFC and back again, also the latest at the U S open and a little history being made for the Americans, which is awesome though, Jessica Pagula losing in the quarterfinals.

So the daughter of the bills owners will not advance any farther. There's so much to get to, as I say, including the New York baseball teams who both of them are facing fights now through the course of September, but find us on Twitter after our CBS, has anyone responded to our invite to help us figure out survivor Island Isla new bar new bar. Curtis has volunteered and he has helped us and he said he got in no problem. So that's one person.

He started fresh. Yeah. He says, I just, he says, he says just logged in no issues. So what are the chances that the people who are complaining just they're a day late and a dollar short or they're, they're just don't, the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.

That might be it. Cause right here from Curtis just create a new account for survivor Island. No issues. Okay. So on Facebook, we need someone, Oh, Trey says on Facebook, just let me sign up a few minutes ago. Lori and Robert said the same, just did this while you're asking for a Guinea pig clicked on this leak, logged into the CBS app, made my pick, saved it easy peasy, but there's other people who are like no link to pick.

Won't let me open the app. What I don't understand people. Thank you. Thank you, Lori and Robert. Thank you, Trey.

Thank you, Curtis. We appreciate you being our lab rats for survivor Island. We're rebranding Isla new bar. Watch out for the, the dinosaurs is all I'm saying. You better watch your back. Watch your six.

Okay. Coming up next, we're going to get to a little more of the baseball and there's a big piece of news coming for one ACE who hits the IL and then top of the hour, Sal Capaccio, our friend who we think is having a real good time hanging out with Bill's mafia in LA before tomorrow's kickoff. We'll ask him the question. We'll ask him to fill in the blank. The key to success for my NFL team in 2022 is what it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS sports radio. You are listening to the after hours podcast.

The two, one swung on it in the air to deep left. That ball is high. That is far. It's amazing.

And I mean that absolutely. He's done it again. How does he do it? And the pitches line to left field is a base hit coming down to score is kind of Philippa. He scores ball game over Yankees win Yankees. Oh, and the pitch swung on and hit deep to left field. That ball is high.

That was far gone. It's a grand slam. Here's a one two to garlic cut on a miss and there's one away. Here's the O2 to cave and he struck him out swing and that's eight strikeouts for Cole. The pitch to Celestino the one to cut out a miss. So Cole struck out the side. Littke will deal one one swung on a high fly to shallow center. Perot's out called off and Florial makes the catch ball game over. Yankees win the Yankees win. This is after hours with Amy Lawrence.

That is the voice of John Sterling. He was actually keeping me company while I was exercising because it was a long first game of the doubleheader between Yankees and twins and the Yankees like the twins had multiple opportunities that were squandered in that first game. In fact, the Yankees had the bases loaded and nobody out in the 11th and could not push a runner across the plate.

But they do walk off in the 12th inning of the opener, a game that also features home run number 55 for one Aaron Judge. And then in the second game, it was Garrett Cole, who gave up an initial run, just one run on five hits for him. Fourteen strikeouts were Garrett Cole.

Wowzers. There's no sticky tack on those. Well, I can't say that unequivocally, but I'm assuming there's no sticky tack on those 14 strikeouts. Fourteen strikeouts through not even seven full innings. And he gives the team a chance to win.

He hangs in there, hangs in there, hangs in there. And by the time he has settled into his groove and he strikes out the side here or there, as you hear with Sterling, throws 118 pitches, the offense for the Yankees comes up with enough, generates enough. And this time it's a three run home run.

Was it for Isaiah Connerfalefa? And so the Yankees are able to win a couple of different ways on Wednesday and sweep this doubleheader from the twins, which is infinitely frustrating for their manager Rocco Baldelli. I want to beat those teams. I don't want to be sitting here talking about how good the Yankees are anymore or the Astros or the Dodgers or any of those teams. I want to talk about our guys and how we find ways to win ball games any which way is fine with me.

But that's what I'd like to do. I don't want to be sitting here talking about how good the Yankees are. I love that.

I feel like that's probably something that I would say. I don't want to be sitting here and talking about how good the Yankees are. There are people all over the country who don't love it when the Yankees are the Astros.

Nice. Rocco Baldelli actually played when I was first breaking into sports radio. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. So thank you Rocco. But back to the Yankees who take this doubleheader, by the way, thank you producer Jay for the correction. Connor Valefa hit a grand slam in the second game.

I don't want to slight him by a run. Grand slam is pretty impressive. So the Yankees have now won four in a row. Still way below 500 since the All-Star break. But they've now won four in a row and Garrett Cole gets a yeoman's share of the credit for that second game after everybody was exhausted from what was a four-hour marathon in the first half of this doubleheader.

It just makes for a great day. I mean it would have been a really tough one if we were on the other end of this. I thought that the first game, Glaiber getting us back in was obviously a big swing. I think what impressed me though is he got into the 60s there in the third inning.

They really made him work in that third inning and to be able to almost complete seven for us obviously in a game that were thin back there, it was just what we needed. Aaron Boone talking about Garrett Cole. Garrett Cole talking about the doubleheader and for the moment it has given the Yankees a bit more breathing room now leading the Tampa Bay Rays by five games in the A.L. East.

It's right in front of us. Guess what's coming up this weekend at Yankee Stadium? A series against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Oi. I cannot wait. I actually scored some tickets for Saturday and I'm all about it. The opportunity to go to not just one but two baseball games in the span of a couple of weeks as a fan and just get to enjoy the atmosphere. I tell you all the time that baseball, being in the stadium is one of my favorite ways. Just kick back and relax and enjoy sports.

If I'm going to go to a game, baseball is probably my favorite of any of the games to go to when I just want to relax and have a good time. And so I'm really looking forward to Yankees and Rays and the atmosphere at the stadium. I'm sure it's going to be total insanity. So that will be fun on Saturday.

Of course I'll have pictures and a full report. For the Yankees though, it's not cruise control anymore as we get through the final three, three plus weeks of the regular season. In fact we're looking at now 127 games down with still 35 to go. Okay so 35 games, wait 35 is that right? 127 yes with 35 games to go.

Yeah that's it. Okay that seems like a lot though to cram in between now and the first week of October. It's going to all work out to 162 regardless of whether or not my math is accurate. So the Yankees have a five game lead on the Rays but the Rays are hot to trot. They sweep the Red Sox, they get their eighth win in nine games and it seems like right now nothing can interrupt their flow. They're on some kind of a roll and they just kind of check off the boxes. A sweep here, a series win there and they keep on cruising. Every win's big so and especially against a good team like them. We know they don't come easy.

They're not going to come easy you know down the stretch here so all we can do is just kind of try to come in day in day out and do what we've been doing the past two three weeks. Tyler Walls about the Rays over the Red Sox and yeah they've carved themselves quite a spot there. If you think about the wild card whether or not they catch the Yankees that still remains to be seen but they do have the game and a half lead over of the Mariners in the AO wild card and then the Blue Jays right now are sitting in that number three spot though the Orioles are still a force to be reckoned with. So it's gonna be fun. I know football becomes this bully in the center ring of the circus and takes so much space and a lot of hot air let's be honest. Mine and everyone else's in sports radio and TV when it comes to football but it's a it's a big deal to these final few weeks of the baseball play well the playoff run and then to get into the postseason in October it's just it's so good it gives you that tingle I'm sure that's what Mike Tomlin would say.

It gives you that tingle. As for the National League East when we last checked on the Braves and the Mets they were in a dead heat atop the division standings Spencer Strider picks up his tenth win on Wednesday as the Braves win in Oakland it's a day game now he allows two runs in the first inning and then pitches five more scoreless innings for his tenth victory of the season as the Braves are taking care of their bidness. It's probably the one I'm gonna be most proud of so far just yeah I just came out in the first and had no command and kind of each pitch I was backing off a little bit searching a little bit came in and just reset and then by the third inning I thought you know hey my fastballs been great last few innings and why am I why am I being passive and so just kind of stepped on the gas and made it work. So the Braves do what they're supposed to do in the Bay Area that means it's your serve New York Mets. Naquin it's a high fly left center field pretty deep Sawinski's going back near the fence Sawinski at the wall it is gone a home run Tyler Naquin sends one into the Mets bullpen two and to the count Lugo deals swing on a high fly ball the left center that should end the game moving under it and then oh he makes the one hand catch put it in the box that's driven in the air that's deep to center Reynolds going back still going near the wall he leaps it's off his glove and it falls in for a base hit the cans being waved around third he will score Alonzo ends up at third it's an RBI double hitter for Francisco Lindor to to pitch to Sawinski swinging a ground ball into the shift right side McNeil's got it takes a step throws to first for the out and Jacob the Grom is through seven shutout innings the one to pitch breaking ball hit on the ground the first grab by rough cross to the bag in time put it in the box it's a day night double header sweep for the New York Mets who will leave Pittsburgh back by themselves in first place in the National League East by a half game huge you know coming here and win two games you know after losing a tough one the first night so it was big to come in here and get to got an off day tomorrow regroup and you know go and try to win a series in Miami Jacob de Grom now five and one and he pitches in the second half of this Mets sweep over the Pirates so great part PNC right now though the Pirates don't really show off instead you go there because you want to watch the visiting team and enjoy great atmosphere in Pittsburgh seven innings for Jacob de Grom 90 I think it was 91 pitches when I looked at the box score he gives up just three hits no runs strikes out eight so it seems as though the training wheels have been taken off for de Grom and he is full speed ahead the calls there on Mets radio so with the double header wins they've got the half game lead over the Mets in the NL East update on the US Open Carlos Alcaraz moves into the semi finals on the men's side a five set victory over Yannick Sinner five hours and 15 minutes and he will face American Francis Tiafoe in that semi finals coming up later in the weekend with CBS Sports Radio.