After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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For home loan solutions that fit your life, Rocket can. It was an emotional weekend. It was an unexpected final preseason weekend for the Buffalo Bills. After their last preseason game, the head coach, Sean McDermott, barely spoke about football. He was obviously upset, uncomfortable, as most of us are, talking about the types of allegations that have been leveled at his now former punter, Matt Ariza, a rookie who was making all kinds of waves with his leg, with his foot, with his personality in training camp. We'd heard Sean McDermott rave about him even before they got to this weekend, even before they heard about the allegations. But what did the team know? What did the team know when they drafted him? And what did the team know at any point before this lawsuit was released? And Sean McDermott, in the uncomfortable situation of being asked if he believes what his punter is indicated, former punter, when he says that he's innocent and he did not do what he's accused of. Yeah, I'm not going to get into that.

I'm not going to go down that road right now. Again, we've got some work to do here and we've got to figure this thing out. You can hear it in his voice. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We are pleased to welcome Bills insider Matt Perino of Syracuse.com and the Shout podcast. Matt, this is obviously a situation that no team relishes and it's uncomfortable no matter how long you've been a coach or a general manager or even someone who, like us, covers football.

So going back to Thursday, what have these few days been like emotionally? They're being around the team or just as someone who covers the team. The real first glimpse that we got at it was in Carolina on Friday and I was there and in the press conference room when Sean McDermott made his walk from the locker room after the game to the room and it just felt a little bit different. Like you could just feel the stress that I think that he was going through. Brandon Bean mentioned it yesterday when they announced the release that he didn't really even know how Sean McDermott coached the game. I think they knew the severity of the situation. But the problem with that is, too, at the same time, you appreciate the fact that they were doing their due diligence trying to make sure that they heard every side. But they had known about this since the end of July when Jane Doe's attorney approached the team, talked to their assistant general counsel and gave them what Brandon Bean called the boulders of the story.

The only way to take that is they knew enough that there should have been some real concern. And then over the course of the next few weeks during training camp and into the preseason, Matt Ariza remained on the team. He played.

He was in a competition at punter with veteran Matt Hawk. Sean McDermott went on part of my take after the first preseason game when Matt Ariza had that big punt and he was kind of joking about him and saying how great of a kid he was. And how Bill Sands were just big fans.

And it's like you sit there on the outside and you wonder how do you say these things, knowing what you're learning from him. Now, Matt Ariza gave them his side of the story and Brandon Bean and Sean McDermott said that that didn't change throughout the entire process. And so they were trying to gather as many facts as they could. What Brandon Bean said yesterday was we're not detectives, we're a GM and a head football coach and we just couldn't get enough answers to make a decision. But they thought it was best to move forward and have Ariza go away from football, figure this whole situation out. They kind of wished him the best and made a decision and released him. You mentioned the attorney for Jane Doe calling lead counsel for the team and them having boulders. So at that point it hadn't become public. Nobody had heard about it really outside of the few people who were involved with the lawsuit and then the couple people in the front office.

But they released him after it blows up. What do they have to say about the timing? Yeah, and there's definitely some questions about the timing.

Brandon Bean couldn't say if they learned about this first. He couldn't remember the timing of it, whether it was from Ariza or if it was from that call to the counsel from Jane Doe's attorney. So the timeline of it is it's still a little bit hazy and it felt like the fact that he came to the stadium on Friday night and they still hadn't wanted to make a definitive decision on that even as they were learning some of the more graphic details.

And Sean McDermott said he learned more things about this case after they saw the 11-page court civil suit document. So I can understand that to a degree, but it does feel like they weren't really willing to move on until everybody really knew the scope of it. And that's the part that I think doesn't sit well with people because whether it's just the graphic details of what was in that civil suit doc, and of course that's one side of the story, but I'm not going to sit here and assume innocence for Matt Ariza.

I think everybody knows somebody in their life that's been affected by this kind of behavior, this kind of incident, and it turns your stomach and it's sickening and any type of involvement in it. And you see the direct quotes of Ariza in the filing and it just, with all that being the case, maybe just even having him be away from the team would have probably been a better approach. But at the end of the day, with all that said, and the fact that this could have been done better, no doubt about it, on the bill's end, I think at the very least they made the right decision in the end, which was moving on from him. Just to clarify, Matt, there's no indication that the team knew anything about this when they drafted him in April? They did not know. Brandon Bean said if they had known, it would have taken Matt Ariza off their draft board. Since they got the court document on Thursday, he's reached out to over 10 other NFL teams, other executives that he knows, to ask if they knew. He said all of the teams he talked to said they didn't know either and the NFL didn't know when the draft was happening. So then it brings up the question, if you're the Bills, do you feel lied to by Matt Ariza? He's claiming that he didn't apparently, or his attorneys are claiming that he didn't learn about the fact that he was going to face charges in the civil suit until July-ish, early or maybe June.

I'm missing that right now, but that's the part of this that also doesn't sit well. That timeline and understanding Matt Ariza came out during the game when the Bills wouldn't allow him to go on the field. He put out a statement through his agent and said, I'm looking forward to clearing this up. The picture that's been painted is false. He basically said that he was innocent.

He's like, alright, prove it. There hasn't been anything since. It's just an awful situation all around. You get to this part of the season and NFL fans are gearing up for the regular season for something like this to happen. Especially for a Bills fan base that's been waiting for this season for 25 to 30 years since the Super Bowl era to have a team that was the favorite to win it.

This kind of puts a damper on all of that. They've moved on from him and are hoping to put it behind him. Matt Perino is with us after hours on CBS Sports Radio covers the Bills for Syracuse.com. This happened Thursday when the lawsuit put more of this information out there and the public got a hold of it. He obviously wasn't with the team. Have players answered any questions about Matt or have you had access to players and asked them about this? Well, it's interesting. Tomorrow is actually going to be the first time that we'll have open locker room after a practice since before the COVID pandemic.

We've had three games now of open locker room, but this will be the first practice environment where you can really spend 20-ish minutes moving around. We talked to Case Keenum and Matt Barkley after the game on Friday. They were both very short with their answers. Case Keenum said he didn't really know a lot about it.

Neither of them had talked to Ariza. Micah High was asked in the locker room about this whole situation and how he felt about it. He said, listen, he's been here since 2017. He was one of the first free agents that Sean McDermott signed to come here and Brandon Bean to kind of set this culture. He said, when you build a culture like this that's been so successful, you rely on the guys that built it.

He basically said he was putting his trust in Bean and McDermott to do the right thing, which I think in the end, like I said, I think that they did. Despite the fact that they probably could have been a little bit better. To their credit, they have come out and said, are we perfect? No. Could this have been better?

Probably. They wanted to err on the side of letting everybody get due process and whether that was right or wrong or not. They said that they're going to try to go back and learn from this situation. But I think this will also be a relief for players. I don't want to talk for any of them, but to go into this week and not have that be something that they have to continue to answer for with him still on the roster, I think will be kind of like a relief. Considering that the Bills' General Counsel or Assistant General Counsel did have some indication that this was swirling around Matt, have we heard anything from the Pegula family who owns the team?

No. And I'm not surprised about that. I don't think we've heard from Terry Pegula on the Bills side of things since I think the 2019 owners meetings. They don't do a lot of media. Kim usually did a lot of that and she's been kind of out of the picture since going through some health issues here earlier this year. The status of all that outside of a few statements from the Bills is pretty unclear, actually.

She wasn't consulted in this. Terry was, Brandon Bean said, but we haven't heard from them. When you think about everything that happened with Deshaun Watson, and I know these are completely different allegations, but everything that happened with Deshaun Watson in a civil lawsuit or a group of civil lawsuits wasn't criminal charges. And yet it blew up, first for the Texans and then obviously for the Cleveland Browns. I know that they didn't move maybe the way they should have in July. But knowing what you know of this general manager and head coach, it seems like they want to do the right thing. Do you think the fan base will support them in that as opposed to what it's been like with the Brown situation?

Oh, yeah. I think today you've seen a lot of members of the media locally have been rightfully hard on how the Bills have handled this. I wrote a story last night just pointing out all of the things that we know about the timeline.

And it just does not look pretty. But I think that the majority of the fan base, they were hoping for the bottom line decision from the team. Once that happened, it felt like in their minds a lot of them were able to move on. I think the majority has been positive today from the fan base, so much so that some of the columns that came out of yesterday have been very testy on Twitter. People have been defending Brandon Bean and Sean McDermott. And I think I've covered this team now.

This is my fifth year on the beat throughout almost the entirety of this regime. And I think generally speaking, Brandon Bean specifically is a pretty genuine guy. I've had really good interactions with him. The piece of this that kind of really stands out in all of this is that podcast hit with Sean McDermott. Again, he didn't want to go into how much he really knew about this, but to call him a great kid, just knowing the boulders, which you'd think that the head coach would know.

That's the part of it that doesn't sit super well. And I'm wondering at some point, maybe this week, if maybe he'll, with a rise in now off the roster, if he'll maybe go into that a little bit, I'm sure he'll be asked. But I think from the fan base, just the decision juxtaposed to what's happening in Cleveland with Sean Watson and the steadfast nature of that regime to stick with what's been an absolute PR nightmare, I think Bill's fans are like, phew, this guy's out of here. We wanted him out of here. They did it. And even if it took this long, they did it. It was interesting to hear Brandon Bean say something along the lines of, I can lay my head down at night believing that we've tried to do the right thing here.

I thought, hey, this is not easy, but we have arrived at the right conclusion. Did that strike you in any way? Yeah, it's a funny thing, too, because there's so many little nuanced elements of this, like the way that these guys really dive into the lives of their players, right? Like I think Sean McDermott, his players love him.

There are people that have left the team that were a part of this early on. Lorenzo Alexander is a perfect example of him. I have a good relationship with Lorenzo. When I talk to him about Sean, it's nothing but great things.

Luke Kuechly, who played for him in Carolina, comes back every training camp, it seems, or sometime in the year to come back and just work with the linebackers. Their players love them. And so I think that there's a part of that, that when you have that culture and that atmosphere, that you try to maybe give the benefit of the doubt. I'm trying to just think of why maybe this transpired the way that it did. Matt Ariza was telling them a version of this story that didn't match up with the version that they saw in the civil documents that they examined for 48 hours. From their perspective, it seems they had to make a hard decision with a player that has been in their building for two and a half, three months.

And that could be tough, I get it. There's a very family-oriented approach in the locker room. But they did make the decision and I think it was the right one. Matt Perino is with us from Syracuse.com covering what was a tumultuous weekend for the Buffalo Bills, their front office. As Matt Ariza's career abruptly comes to an end, at least in western New York. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. I know these last couple of days have taken a different turn, but how would you describe the atmosphere around the team as we get close to the season kicking off? Oh man, before this, and what I'm sure will return by the time the Bills take off for LA here in a little over a week, is just an unmatched buzz. It is Bills season every day of the year. They're as hyped about the Bills in May when many camps are about to kick off as they are in the playoffs.

It's the identity of the community, and more so than any other city in the NFL. And so now with these expectations, and even aside from the expectations, knowing that you have your franchise quarterback in place for the next maybe ten years, who I think the NFL just put out their top 100, voted by the players, he ended up being 13. I'd probably argue that he's higher than that. But he's one of the best players in the league.

And this is a guy that came in with a lot of questions, a lot of experts saying that it was not going to work. And so now you have that guy, he's coming off of eight quarters in the playoffs, where he just went absolutely scorched earth. And I think he finished with 14, or what was it, eight touchdowns in two games. And the NFL record is, or no, he had nine passing touchdowns, and the NFL record is 13 in a playoff run. So he was four away from tying the NFL record in a playoff run by a quarterback. And so I think that just gets them jacked up, and just knowing that they're going to be in it as long as he's healthy. And Von Miller has been an absolutely exciting addition. That's been one of the bugaboos for the Bills the last few years, is rushing the passer, and now they have one of the best to ever do it. Can't believe it's almost here, we're talking about not even two weeks now, essentially a week and a half until the season kicks off.

And kind of cool that they get to be part of the first game too. You can find Matt on Twitter at Matt Parino, P-A-R-R-I-N-O, covers the Bills for Syracuse.com, and also has the Shout podcast devoted to, I would call them crazy, but in a good way. Crazy Bills fan, Crazy Bills nation, I remember them well from my time in Syracuse and Rochester. Matt, it's good to catch up with you, I appreciate your thoughtfulness on the subject matter, and we hope to catch up with you again soon.

Sounds good, thanks so much for having me, have a great week. It's a tough situation, it's a tough call. I do not envy Brandon Bean or Sean McDermott for having to make this decision. I believe they did the right thing, considering all the promise of the season, considering everything they have riding on the start of the season. Considering, as he just talked about, the unmatched buzz around the Bills, this is the last thing they need.

Over a punter, I get it, he's apparently got a pretty strong leg. And according to Sean McDermott, he was a punt god and a pretty good kid. But, knowing what they know now, and recognizing the firestorm, and that's why I brought up the Cleveland Browns situation. What Deshaun Watson is accused of is not rape, so I'm not saying it's the same thing, but the magnitude of the allegations, the number of women, the lawsuits, the settlements, the discipline, all of those things have kept it in the news, and really have been a dark cloud over the course of the Browns entire offseason and now preseason.

And that's something that they brought on themselves. I'm not saying it's too bad, so sad that they actually signed into that huge deal and knew this would be part of the territory. But the Browns do not have the aspirations that the Bills have. And whether or not Matt Ariza is guilty of what he's accused of, the Bills don't have time for this, nor do they have room for this. And I do actually believe beyond football that Sean McDermott has compassion for this young woman who filed this lawsuit after reading the details. I do believe that Brandon Bean, while he didn't apologize, recognizes that the Bills have not handled this perfectly, and that they can only now pick up from this point and try to do things the right way moving forward.

So I actually really appreciate their thoughtfulness and the way they've responded to this. And I don't agree with the way they've handled it. However, I appreciate that they seem to have compassion and care for the alleged victim, whereas it doesn't seem that way with the Browns. It has not seemed that way the entire time. Again, Deshaun's not accused of rape. But the fact that the Bills are being somewhat transparent now, the fact that they're clearly struggling in this situation, I can identify with that.

I can relate to that. Now, there is the cynic in me that says, well, yeah, they waited till it went public. They knew about it over a month ago, and they waited till it went public before they did anything.

So yeah, there's that element to it. And some of you suggest that more than one of you is suggesting on my social media that if it was Josh Allen, there's no way they cut him. There's always going to be a bit of cynicism when it comes to the money and the power of professional sports, especially the NFL, which has bought so many of these situations in the past that it's hard to believe anyone might be sincere or really be struggling in a situation like this. The Bills cut him, and they're going to move forward. In 48 hours time, they did what they believed is the right thing. And now we'll see whether or not there were actual criminal charges filed and what happens with Matt or Isa.

It sounds like according to Brendan Bean's phone calls that he made to other teams that there are no other teams, at least right now, that will pick him up. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page after hours with Amy Lawrence. There is QB news that we'll get to at the top of next hour, a lot of it actually. We'll try to wade through what happened on the baseball diamond over the weekend and also Rory McIlroy storming back from, not out of nowhere, but storming back from a pretty steep deficit to win the tour championship on Saturday.

A red hot putter fire. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. And in an extraordinary PGA Tour season, it is Rory McIlroy with his extraordinary talents that wins a third FedEx Cup title. Comes back from six shots back to win it all.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. It means an awful lot. I believe in the game of golf. I believe in this tour in particular. I believe in the players on this tour. It's the greatest place in the world to play golf, bar none.

And I've played all over the world. From Atlanta and East Lake Golf Club, Rory McIlroy puts on a putting clinic, especially down the stretch as he not only reels in Scottie Scheffler, but then passes him. Scheffler birdied 16, I believe 16 or 17. But Rory was six strokes behind when this tour championship started. He was 10 shots back after two holes. And then he ends up rallying in this final round against the top player in the world, Scottie Scheffler. And becomes the first three time winner of the FedEx Cup, as you hear on was that NBC? PGA Tour's Twitter is where I got that. So I think that's the NBC call.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Rory did mention that it's been a tumultuous time for the world of men's golf. He admits he's been right there in the thick of everything.

And he's trying to defend. And I've said this before, he's the not only self-described, but self-appointed defender of the PGA Tour in its battle with Liv. But he says it's because he feels it's the best place to play elite professional golf in the world. I like this quote from Rory. It's in some ways fitting that I was able to get this done today to sort of round off a year that has been very, very challenging and different. So when he says it means a lot, it's not just about winning.

It's not just about the money. It's not just about the confidence that you build when you come back from a deficit like he had to begin the day. Sheffler did not have a strong performance, the kind that we're used to seeing from him as the top player in the world. He started missing fairways. He started missing greens. Then he started missing putts. And in his closing round only had a single birdie. And this is a dubious mark.

There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is he ties the PGA Tour record for losing a six-shot lead in the final round. It's hard to do at this level. And generally guys who do it or have done it are paired with Tiger Woods on a Sunday. Remember how many times the leaders would collapse when Tiger was around on a Sunday? But the good news is he's put himself in position to compete. He's put himself in position where he had a six-stroke lead to begin the final day. And that's huge. So no, he doesn't hang on for the win and Rory McIlroy reels him in and is the one fist-pumping at the end.

Still, Sheffler is the force to be reckoned with. Playing professional golf for a living is such a gift. And for me, I don't play golf for money. I play to win tournaments and I play to have fun and do my best. You know, see where the game can take me.

Today, the money definitely didn't creep into my mind. I wanted to win the season-long title. I've had a really great year and I wanted to finish it off with a win here.

And unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that. But at the end of the day, it's such a gift to be out here playing golf for money. I'm just so thankful to be out here.

There's one thing I want to say. I feel like Scotty deserves at least half of this today. He has had an unbelievable season. I feel sort of bad that I pipped him to the post, but he's a hell of a competitor.

He's an even better guy. It was an honour and a privilege to battle with him today and I'm sure we'll have many more. You know, this is an incredibly proud moment for me, but it should also be an incredibly proud moment for the PGA Tour. They've had some hard times this year, but we're getting through it and that was a spectacle out there today. Two of the best players in the world going head-to-head for the biggest prize on the PGA Tour and I hope everyone at home enjoyed that. I think a lot of people at home did enjoy it and now the Live Tour will take over a golf course in Boston coming up later this week. It will, for the first time, include new members who've defected from the PGA Tour, including the number two player in the world, Cameron Smith, who won the Open Championship. But golf is in good hands. I've never been one of those people who thinks that golf can only support one of these tours and not both.

I enjoy seeing some of the golfers who've bolted to live and I enjoy certainly watching the PGA. I just hope they can all come together still for the majors, but that remains to be seen. We're going to, oh, we're going to pull out the gloves. I got my glove right here, actually. Softball to baseball.

Can you hear them? And Jay always wants to play catch with the baseball. I prefer the softball. He squints when anything is, what, two feet in front of his nose? So I get worried about throwing a baseball at Jay because he can't see very well. For some reason, he prefers it that way. Like, why would you want to see Jay?

I don't know. Vision's not important. It's the shadows in the hallway, too. It's whenever I see you looking at anything that's far away, you're squinting.

Yeah, I got like six feet of range in my eyes. That's about as far as they go. Why not do something about that? Yeah. That's not an answer.

Okay. Anyway, so Jay has trouble seeing long range. So I worry about playing with the baseball because not only are we playing in a shadowy hallway, but the baseball is smaller. I feel like if the softball's coming at his face, he should see it.

I see them both. It's just a muscle memory. That makes no sense whatsoever. You don't know where the ball's coming from. I just sense it.

It's like a sonar kind of thing. Or you're like a Jedi. And even with your eyes closed, you know where the ball's coming from? Right. Exactly. Great.

Sounds tremendous. We'll use the softball. Okay. Anyway, so my whole point was we've got the glove.

I don't have cleats on, but whatevs. We can get out there and sling it with the best of them. We can shag five balls. And so all that to say we're going to talk baseball next. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. And the first pitch is high and inside for a ball. Astros have Seth Martinez loosening in the bullpen. It's been a laborious game for Verlander. Sixty pitches through three, so Verlander could be done.

Working on four days rest. The one-oh. Swing and a foul. That looked like it got maybe the right foot of Chirinos. He gets up. He's hopping around for a second.

Appears to be okay. And it's a one-one count. Yes, Seth Martinez warming in the Astros bullpen. Might be the end of the day for Verlander. You hope it's just a result of pitch count and nothing else.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The voice of Robert Ford on Houston Astros radio. And this is the exact opposite of what the Astros wanted to see. Now, of course, they ended up winning this game against Baltimore on Sunday. But when Verlander left, he had allowed just three hits and a walk. He had six strikeouts. He had thrown only 60 pitches. And presumably, there was a long way to go for the Cy Young candidate. He's going in for some imaging tomorrow.

And I think it's already been reported that it was, he felt that when he covered first base, it was his calf. And that's, you know, the best of bad news. I mean, you know, we were glad it wasn't anything to do with his elbow or arm or anything like that.

So we'll just have to wait. I like how Dusty Baker says that. It's the best of bad news.

True. It's nothing to do with his arm. And that would be far worse considering what he has just come back from this season. Alex Bregman has his 20th home run in support of Verlander and the rest of the Astros staff. And so even after they lose him, and he apparently stumbled and his knee buckled a little bit in the top of the third when he was running to first base. But the offense is able to pick him up and the Astros win yet again. Though right now, you obviously want to wait and see to know for sure.

I'm obviously extremely concerned. I feel like he's been the best pitcher in baseball year long. And we were very fortunate to have him.

And, you know, I don't know any of the details. That's Alex Bregman. The Astros, interestingly enough, I saw this on Sunday evening as I was doing some prep for the show. The Astros and the Mets have the exact same record.

Now at 82 and 47. And yet because of how divisions in baseball go and competition that rises and falls. Credit to the Mariners.

They are now at 12 games above 500. But they are almost 12 games back of the Astros in the AL West. In the NL East, the Mets, again, same exact record as the Astros, 82 and 47, and yet their lead over the World Series champions is just three games.

The Braves lose to the Cardinals after a rain delay on Sunday evening. The Mets were trying to close out the Rockies. The 1-0 pitch. Swing and a bouncing ball to second.

Rogers plays a knee high hop. Throws to first in time. The ball game is over. A rare road win for the Colorado Rockies. A tough loss for Max Scherzer.

And the Mets settle for taking three out of four against Colorado this weekend. You're in a nothing ball game. You know, anything, any little thing can beat you in those situations. And for me, I was just focused on trying to keep the ball in the ballpark.

I was able to do that today. And unfortunately, they got a couple infield hits there in the seventh. And that kind of set the stage for them to be able to scratch one across. The Mets end up with just three total hits on this day game that followed a late night game. And actually, we know it was late night because Jay and I were at Citi Field on Saturday evening. The game was scheduled to start at 710 Eastern. It didn't start until after 730.

And I'm not kidding about this. We were watching the time. I kept checking on my phone to see the time. The first two innings. So it was David Peterson for the Mets.

It was Kyle Freeland for the Rockies. The first two innings took an hour. And then from that point forward, because nobody was getting any hits and there really wasn't much traffic on the base paths, the pitchers started to dominate. So the first two innings take an hour. The next six and a half innings take not even two hours. It was very strange. The game ended up being under three hours, even though the first two innings took a full 60 minutes.

Have you ever heard of anything crazier? We thought we were going to be there until Sunday morning at 4 a.m. We thought we were there for the long haul. I mean, it was a long day because we were there for the ceremony and stuff there. And then that first inning took an hour after it already started later. We started checking train times.

Like, when are we going to get out of here? Well, I know. I was a little bit nervous about getting stuck with no late trains back home. But anyway, thankfully it was a victory for the home team so they could go home happy from Citi Field.

But yeah, weird and long day. And wondering if maybe that created a bit of a malaise when they had to get back to the field early on Sunday. So it's now a 9-4 record for Max Scherzer.

It was a loss for Mad Max. The only run in the entire game is the Rockies on the sacrifice fly in the seventh after he talks about giving up those couple infield hits. But the big battle is coming up starting on Tuesday.

Mets hosting the Dodgers. They've had a great season so far in what they've been able to do. And you play this game to face the best. Obviously, they've been one of the best teams in all of baseball. So for them to come into town, you want to beat them. So it's a great opportunity for us, a great challenge for us to go out there and face them.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. It's a battle of playoff teams with Cleveland in Seattle this weekend. Here's the stretch. And the 2-2 to Dylan Moore. Swing and a high drive deep to left field. Quandt going back in the corner to the track to the wall. Goodbye baseball.

Out by Edgar's cantina. Dylan Moore with his sixth home run of the season with two on. And the Mariners have a 3-0 lead over the Guardians here in the bottom of the fifth.

That's Rick Rizz on Mariners radio. They actually take three of four from the visiting Guardians. So as I say, they get to 70 wins. They're 12 games above.500 but they're still significantly back in the AL West.

I would say it's probably out of reach at this point. Not officially but just logistically. Meanwhile, it's the Tampa Bay Rays with the top AL wildcard spot. The Mariners are a game back of them and they are a game up on the Blue Jays for the three AL wildcards. It was also a big weekend for the Seattle Mariners giving Julio Rodriguez, their 21-year-old all-star, a huge extension. What's up guys? This is Julio.

I couldn't be happier to call Seattle home for a long time and be able to play in front of you Mariners fans. Seals rise. Let's get it.

I mean a long time. There are multiple layers to this contract. It's interesting. They got creative to be sure. 26th contract in baseball valued at $200 million or more.

Most of them coming in the last few years. So he is the star upon which they are hitching their wagon. Let's get it.

Let's get it, baby. He's from the Dominican Republic. He's already become a huge hit there in Seattle. He's got a megawatt smile.

Remember he was part of, was that first round where he's blasting games out of the park in the home run derby? A 12-year guaranteed deal worth $209 million plus. That kicks in next season following his rookie year. But then the deal could be worth upwards of $470 million over 17 years. So there's a five-year player option that he will have the opportunity to pick up in 2034. Whoa. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.