After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

Arizona, Glendale to be exact is the home of our next Super Bowl and on Sunday night it was also the debut of the NFL on Fox in 2022.

Brand new team by the way with Kevin Burkhart and Greg Olson as the number one crew along with Aaron Andrews used to work with Joe and Troy who have moved on themselves. A shuffling of the deck but there was a lot of love and a lot of excitement and a lot of attention paid to the fact that this same stadium that was on national TV on Sunday night will also host the Super Bowl in what, six months, seven months? Our lives are about to belong to the NFL yet again. It's almost that time of the year.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. If you guys care about preseason, scores I mean. It's important to survive preseason without major injuries. It's important to get your roster set and also if you've got major competition at particular positions well that's what preseason is for. But the Ravens actually take pride in having this exorbitantly long preseason winning streak. It's now 22 games.

Again, it doesn't matter to me. Using preseason scores is against my religion but the Ravens take this thing seriously. So they were there in the desert on Sunday night and that's where we find Tyler Drake who is fresh off another preseason podcast. I'm not sure if he even has time for us. Tyler welcome to After Hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Are you done with your podcast?

Yes, yes. My co-host is putting the final touches on it right now so it will be up probably after we get off. Well, thank you for squeezing us in on what is a busy Sunday. I guess a precursor preseason for the media as well just to be there and kind of be going through game day progressions. What was the atmosphere like for this preseason game against Baltimore? Yeah, you know I think there was obviously a little bit of juice just given the fact that it was the first time the Cardinals rocked their black helmets so that definitely got a lot of eyes popping. I hear they're only going to use them a few times this season. How come?

Yeah, I really don't know. I think that should be a primary helmet to be honest. It's really, really clean. I think with the color rush uniforms it will pop even more. I think throw the black pants on and yeah for sure. But definitely one of those changes that I think everyone in Arizona was waiting for and now just overhaul of the uniforms and I think a lot of people will be happy. Yes, if the product improves as well or if they can start out 8-0 and actually maintain that through the course of the rest of the season. So Tyler, it's been interesting offseason for Kyler Murray, Cliff Kingsbury to say the least. He was once again calling plays in street clothes there for this preseason game but how happy is QB1 for the Cardinals now?

Yeah, you can tell that it feels like he's not necessarily thinking about all the outside stuff. It's more about football and yeah I think it's one of those things of hey we'll give you a little bit of another chance to do something. We'll keep you involved in the offense and still have you not play but do something worthwhile while you're sitting on the sideline and honestly it paid off pretty good. They had two scores with him running the show and Cliff came away impressed and even said that if he could have it his way he'd not call the plays but that would be the way that he would not get paid so that just can't happen. So this has absolutely nothing to do with that language that was in his contract mandating film study and wanting him to see the game a little differently and pay more attention to it? Well okay so that's the funny thing is I think people you could maybe take it that way. I think with the whole study clause and it being in the contract and then being out of the contract and kind of everybody's questioning of you know is he that leader?

Is he the guy studying film? And I think this is a way to kind of show out that he is ingrained and doesn't know what's going on. He's understanding more than just you know I got to go out and throw and try to win the game. He's seeing more of the formations he wants to run or just talking with the guys and Cliff even talked about it after the game. It's just him taking over more of a leadership role with these guys that are trying to come up and trying to fight for a roster spot. He's taking more of that and I think you can see it. I mean if he really didn't want to do it he wouldn't be as emotional as he was on the sideline today.

He was pumped when they ended up finally scoring and things didn't work out to the end but like you said it's preseason nothing counts but don't tell that to the Ravens. I kind of felt like I don't want to say much ado about nothing but that so much more was made of that language in this contract when it became public. But what was your perspective on initially anyway the Cardinals mandating a particular number of hours watching film? I mean from my perspective my thing was another just another thing to talk about this offseason for this team which wasn't necessarily the greatest thing but I you know it's one of the things that it's it's pretty much an unprecedented thing. It's one of those that's just the language of it was just very bizarre and at the end of the day it got taken out but still doesn't take away from the fact that it was in there.

I think maybe this is a way to show like hey he is doing what he should be doing but we're not we're doing a little bit more of a subtle way than saying hey you need to go spend four hours of film studies. So it was a very very very very weird very weird part of the offseason but honestly Arizona as a whole this offseason has just been bizarre. Tyler Drake is with us from 98-7 AZ Sports Arizona Sports following the Cardinals preseason game under the lights against the Baltimore Ravens. Yes the Ravens did extend their winning streak to now 22 games. I wonder if they're going to curl up in a fetal position and cry when the streak is over.

I have no idea but I wouldn't put it past them. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio other than Kyler now that that appears to be settled and he seems so happy. What are the major questions about the Cardinals as they kick off the season? You know I think one of the biggest ones is who's going to be the pass rusher opposite of Marcus Golden when the season starts and I don't really think it's going to be one guy. I think it's going to be a collective of guys but who out of the you know the rookies Cameron Thomas, Mijay Sanders, even Jesse Lakeda is in there.

And then you've got Victor DiMaccage, Dennis Gardick, and Devon Canard so there's a lot of candidates for it. I think it's going to come down to like maybe three guys getting a rotation more so than just one guy taking over. But who knows maybe somebody shines and it looks like Mijay Sanders has the traits to be that guy. I think he just has to get up to NFL speed. Cameron Thomas can bulldoze people but I think about the same thing with Mijay. Victor DiMaccage though he's really standing out to me this preseason and he just looks fast. And I think he's really taking it upon himself to take the offseason and get as you know physically where he needs to be as he can. And it's starting to show for sure and it's just another he didn't jump out on the stat line tonight but he you know he still played well and I thought he stacked another good game. J.J. Watt has had a pretty eventful couple weeks.

A snake in his bathroom. Then he tests positive for COVID so he was unable to be with the team tonight. Wasn't on the sidelines. Not traveling to Tennessee for next week's practices or the game against the Titans. When is he going to rejoin the team? Yeah yeah you would think I mean with Kyler I believe they waited they had five days before he came back. So I would assume he would be clear if he doesn't have any symptoms or anything like that I would assume he'd be cleared to be good.

In five days maybe but also who knows and but at the same time I mean they're going to be in Tennessee they're going to be doing joint practices with the Titans. So there was really no point of him going up there you know really in my opinion to begin with. Obviously you want to be there with your team but yeah at the same time it's if you're dealing with baby snakes and then you got COVID that's a series of events. No thank you.

No thank you to either. Well I think I'd rather have COVID than baby snake in my bathroom. Well and the funniest thing the funniest thing was is that the next day I found a giant scorpion in my house so I kind of blamed JJ for that yeah. Wait how when you say giant how big are we talking about? Oh like size?

Probably no okay not that giant but for one that I found in my house it's pretty big like half of it like maybe a little over half a cellphone. What no what did you do Tyler? Besides scream? No I had to I had to collect myself a little bit and then yeah I just got it out of the house.

By doing what? I covered it with a cup and then found a piece of paper put that underneath the cup and went from there I'm very glad it did not escape while I was carrying it outside. That is impressive I'll tell you once I found a snake in my basement not my bathroom but in my basement and my mom after I started screaming involuntarily called my mom still screaming I suppose and she said you grab the broom and a dustpan and you sweep it into the dustpan and then flip it outside. So that's what I did but yeah the first time I went to flip it outside I didn't throw it hard enough I was just so freaked out that it only landed like two feet from my back door. So I had to go sweep it up again and throw it even farther out outside because I didn't want to come right back in.

Oh yeah I've done that with a scorpion. Gross yeah absolutely gross Tyler Drake is with us from the desert it's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. I know that James Connor is not only is a pro bowler but he's the top running back who do you think has the edge in that spot behind him then someone to spell him and be the number two guy? You know for me at this point I would have to say you know Benjamin the guy has been talked up a ton I think it's between him and Darryl Williams but out of the two it's been a lot of conversation of Eno and really unprompted from Cliff.

I mean we'd ask him who's the standout today and more times than not it'd be an Eno Benjamin so you know he's definitely taken that next step. I think they want to see a little bit more in these preseason games you know he didn't do a ton. I think we had a couple couple carries tonight but Darryl Williams only had one so I think that competition is definitely something to watch. Then behind them even Jonathan Ward and Keontae Ingram I mean the running back room is stacked for the Cardinals this year and it's going to be interesting to see who stays on and who doesn't.

I think it really comes down to special teams at the end of the day between Ward and Ingram but right now yeah I'd say James Connor and then 2A, Eno, 2B, Darryl, Jonathan Ward, Keontae Ingram would be my five right there. I was looking at the Cardinals schedule and the NFL did not do Arizona any favors in kicking off this season so this for people who don't have it memorized I didn't either but I'm sure Tyler does. They start off with the Kansas City Cardinals the Kansas City Chiefs at home then they're on the road at Vegas against the Raiders the New Look Raiders then they're home to the Super Bowl champion Rams. They go on the road at Carolina which obviously not a playoff team last year but then back home to take on a team that was a wild card out of the NFC East last season the Eagles before hitting the road and a tough place to play a division game at Seattle.

Wowzers what do you make of those first six games? It's a murderer's row of competition for sure. I mean you've got Patrick Mahomes just that alone like that's that's big name there. Then you go to the Raiders and guess who's going to be trying to sack Tyler every play his name's Chandler Jones they know him pretty well so that's that's going to be a very interesting one and then yeah it's just and then you got the Rams.

And we saw what happened the last time they played each other and that was really really rough. And again I mean Carolina yeah like you said might not have been the best team last year but they for some reason have the Cardinals number the last couple of games so that's another game that you really can't just circle as a win right now. But I think if they can get through the first six games three and three four and two that's going to be that's going to be pretty good with it and then they get the hot back I mean I think that's the kind of jolt that they might that could help them in the second half of the season. Whereas the last couple years we've seen them just fall apart so three and three four and two they can do that I think the season is very much in the in in their hands and then you get the hotback.

I actually I don't want to say I forgot about him but I haven't heard his name mentioned a lot since obviously the Cardinals have known they were going to be without him for this stretch while he's suspended. How much did his injury have to do with their limping to the finish line last season? Oh massive amount that's anybody you ask from you know general manager Steve come owner Michael Bidwell head coach Cliff Kingsbury at one point or another they all said DeAndre Hopkins injury was one of the biggest reasons why they fell apart. I think you can throw JJ Watson's re in there too just the leadership from both sides that also picked it too so definitely definitely definitely it's going to be really interesting to see how Cliff manages everything without him there because I mean that was the biggest kind of what are you doing when every game it just seemed like they were falling apart even more and it really didn't seem like anything changing so much in the offense.

So I think Cliff saw a couple things he liked though the other day where he actually got a four wide receiver set of Rhonda Moore AJ Green DeAndre Hopkins Marquis Hollywood Brown and he said that looked like they could have some fun with that and so week seven will be the earliest we could see that. Considering the money they gave to Kyler Murray and the amount of faith that they've put behind him with the finances what are the expectations for him personally but also for the team after last year making the postseason as a wild card but really fizzling once they got to that point. Yeah I think the biggest expectation now is you know ending on a high note getting to the playoffs not just saying you made the playoffs and falling apart but getting in the playoffs winning at least the game. You just need to see constant progression I think and I think that'll that'll eventually you know help them move along and especially with that with that contract. I know a lot of people aren't so thrilled with the number of the numbers and the dollars and cents but at the end of the day they weren't going to get anybody else that could win them games like Kyler Murray can.

I mean he has the ability to you know kind of go off script and win games when other quarterbacks can't do that. So I think it was something that needed to be done. I think they probably could have saved some money if they would have got it done earlier in the offseason but that's the end of the business and it went how it went.

And it was awkward it was weird but at the end of the day it got done and it seems like all sides have moved on and you know I believe even Steve time went on recently and said you know he seems like a different player different person so maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we're seeing a new more leader oriented Kyler Murray. Do you think the expectations are realistic the contract notwithstanding. Yeah yeah I think for sure. I think after seeing the last couple of years I mean they had a historical downfall. I mean just a terrible downfall and I think if maybe Hopkins doesn't get hurt or JJ Watt doesn't get hurt they might be able to get into the playoffs with a little more momentum and actually make some noise.

I just yeah I think it's very much very possible that they could definitely build off of last year's just getting through really the beginning of the year until you could be out back which sounds bizarre to say for the card. Is your phone blowing up my no it's not. It might be I don't know I can't I have not checked it all right well that's good I feel like we can hear the vibrations because you are extremely popular and busy right now and probably oh no I'm sorry no it doesn't matter it's just vibrations it's not beeping or anything. And I know you have got other stuff going on your podcast too so we appreciate a couple of minutes. You can find Tyler on Twitter at T Drake for sports the number for sports with 98 7 AZ sports and not only on the air but also with the podcast and the web as well and covering the Cardinals as they kick off 2022. It's great to catch up with you. Thanks for making time for us on the show live Tyler. Yeah no problem. Yeah.

Long time no talk. Cardinals Corner if you want to catch it that's their podcast. We're getting it off the ground but yeah love it. It's doing great and we're having fun doing it.

So yeah definitely check it out. That is the name of the game. Thanks Tyler. We'll talk soon.

All right definitely. It's good to be able to pick his brain a little bit because obviously with the contract that Kyler Murray signed and then the whole flap over mandated video and film watching there are a lot of eyeballs on him and maybe the expectations have been twisted a little bit into something they shouldn't be. Can the Cardinals start out 8 0. I don't know. But what's far more important is how they finish. It's not how you start. It's how you finish.

And they finished with a fizzle last season. All right. You can find me on Twitter a law radio on our Facebook page to about to post some new photos from the last few days just so you can see what I was doing when I was away from you.

And we'll continue to look at the football preseason weekend number two haven't had a chance yet to react to the Deshaun Watson settlement with the NFL so that as well. And our phone number is 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 2 2 7. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. We welcome all kinds here on After Hours.

Thank you so much for having us. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Actually, Tom's not listening. He's talking.

He's talking about a lot. Go ahead. Okay. So, okay. Time out. Do you have a written down or are you practicing in the mirror? Of course.

Yeah. Practice makes makes that work more successful. And thank you for having me on the air.

No, thank you, Tom. I appreciate that. I've never had someone get caught practicing before. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

In some cases, practice does not make perfect. Pictures are up on our Facebook page. Pictures are now posted. While I was away from you, I was busy gazing. I do enjoy gazing at all types of scenery and any time I could spend outdoors. Someone asked me recently as part of Ask Amy, what's your perfect idea?

That's maybe not how it was phrased. What's your idea of a perfect first date? I guess was the question. Anything that's outdoors. I don't care what it is. If it's hiking, if it's on a boat, if it's on a golf course. Anything outdoors. Horseback riding. That's my idea of a perfect first date is outdoors because there's always more joy.

Unless you're getting baked by the heat or unless you're in the pouring down rain. But actually right now I would take the pouring down rain and would be happy with it. So I love to be outside and spend some time walking around New York City with my family. Actually my brother and I played catch for a while too. On Thursday it was great.

We went to a field near my house and we were able to throw the ball for quite a while. It was fun even though it was super hot. And then my nieces had a concert that they desperately wanted to see at Radio City on Thursday evening.

And so we all took the train into New York and we walked around Midtown, Times Square, wall to wall bodies. Not a whole lot of fun for me but the girls were so excited about this particular composer they wanted to see. And it was a full symphony orchestra.

If you know Japanese anime you then know about this music. But I knew none of the music and I was still blown away by the brilliance of the musicians. So it was a really awesome event and it was five nights sold out. So my niece Deanna, this is her thing, she's the one that got all the tickets. She said that they had sold out four shows.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And they added a fifth show and that's the only way she was able to get tickets. So she was thrilled. And the looks on their faces, my nieces Deanna and Lauren, the entire time they were mesmerized by the show. And the reaction of the audience there at Radio City was really cool.

Plus if you've never been to Radio City Music Hall it's iconic. So that was awesome to be able to hang out there. And then on Saturday I did something I've never done before. I joined a group of people that I did not know. None of them.

I had never met any of them. I found this group online and I joined them for a rafting trip down a portion of the Delaware River. Now the river is the border essentially between Pennsylvania and New York. And the part of the river that we were rafting has some actual whitewater rafting opportunities. It's got rapids. And we were in a beautiful section of the mountains too.

And so it was just amazing. I did not take my phone on our raft for obvious reasons. One woman who was in the group took her phone on the raft and promptly dropped it in the river and never found it again. So that's not what I was doing.

I actually locked my phone in Princess Leia and the phone was on airplane mode and I just left it. So I didn't get to take any photos while I was on the raft. And I was the one who was in the back with the kayak paddle. So I was steering us for most of the time. And then we ended up the final 30 minutes of our rafting trip. We were going into a headwind so I really had to paddle a lot then too. I've actually got some pretty sore muscles now here.

I guess it's been about 36 hours or so. It was an awesome opportunity to get to know some people but to also play in the water. There was this one stretch where the river was fairly calm and deep. So I was the first one to get in the water.

I just jumped over the side of our raft and swimming around and it was so much fun. The water was beautiful. And it was deep enough that I couldn't touch at that point. But there was a current. There is a current in the Delaware River.

Even as low as the water was because a lot of the northeast is in a supreme drought. So we continued to float and swim and have a good old time. And all of a sudden the current is really starting to pick up.

And in addition to that, it's becoming more and more shallow. So all of a sudden if you don't have your legs up and you're essentially floating or doing a backstroke, which is what I was doing, your legs and your feet are banging off rocks underneath you because it became really shallow really quickly. So the current starts to pick up as we approach this set of rapids. And we had to get a bunch of people back into these two rafts. So we had two rafts that were connected.

Mine, which is a smaller raft, and then a larger raft that had about eight people in it. And most of them were in the water. So we're with a greater sense of urgency trying to get some older women out of the water and onto the raft again as the current is getting stronger and we're picking up speed. And most of them couldn't jump or give a big old kick and land in the boat. They had to be pulled in or pushed in. Some of these women are in their 60s.

I give them credit for doing this. And so as we're with a greater sense of urgency pushing and pulling and jamming people into these boats, there's two of us left in the water, me and the woman that I was partnered with in our raft. And so we're trying to get in everybody else into the boats before we get in. But again, the water is moving faster and faster and it's really shallow. So you can't really hang your legs down or you're in danger of breaking something, getting a nasty bruise.

Some of the women did end up with bruises because their legs were banging off rocks. So here I am trying to run, kind of run in place, well not run in place, but run in the water next to our raft. And I wait for a relatively prominent rock and as soon as I feel it with my foot, I jump off it.

I push off it as hard as I can and I just leap into the boat. It might have been the most athletic thing I've done in maybe the last like ten years. My effort level was outstanding. It was outstanding. It was phenomenal. In fact, the rest of the people in these two rafts gawked at me. What did you just do? That was amazing.

So I felt pretty proud of myself. But then we had one more woman to get in the boat and by this time, she's in danger of getting sucked underneath the boat because the current is so much stronger and we're maybe 50 yards from the rapids by now. And so after I get in the boat, we immediately turn to her and we just tell her give a big kick and we will pull you. So there's three of us just grabbing her and yanking her onto the boat. She's laying sideways on the raft. I grab a paddle and I have to get us down these rapids even as she's completely out of place and laying sideways across our raft. So the other raft went down the rapids backwards.

We were able to go forwards, but she was not in place. So that was actually, I mean it was adrenaline filled. It was a fun experience and I really enjoyed just being out on the water. I didn't get in the water again, but we got splashed and wet every single time. We went down a set of rapids and actually we had a bucket, an old Folgers coffee container we were using to bail because the raft would fill up with water.

There was one section of rapids where a group of four kayakers were going down. Now there was a rock in the middle of these rapids that I didn't see in time, so I didn't get us around them in time. And we're sideways and our butt, the butt of the raft, which is where I was, gets stuck on this rock. Now you know, for those of you who have ever done this kind of rafting before, you've got to be careful because it can snag a hole right in the bottom of your raft. And so you have to rock gently back and forth, but also you have to get off that rock before another boat hits you or before you get flipped upside down.

And so there was another kind of harrowing stretch there where we're rocking back and forth to get the boat off this rock. And even as we're doing it, so we finally come free, we don't flip thankfully, we get moving again and this kayaker comes through, bangs into the rock, flips over and falls out of her kayak. Oh my gosh, and she was a young woman who looked like she didn't have a ton of experience in these situations. She comes up, thankfully she could stand up, but she's in the middle of the rapids, she comes up spluttering water, poor thing.

She was freaked out and really nervous. Thankfully she did not end up banging her head, but she had to get picked up by another boat because her kayak went careening down the rapids and came out at the bottom. So yeah, it was an interesting day.

I hadn't done any rafting, whitewater rafting in quite a while, probably not since I was in Alaska and did some rafting in Juneau actually coming off of a glacier. So it was an awesome experience. I met some cool people, but I also was really proud of myself for being bold and brave and joining a group of about 30 people that I didn't know.

So it was good. I made some new friends and will likely do some more fun outdoor activities with them moving forward. The two pictures that I took that I posted on Twitter, ALawRadio, but also that are now on Facebook, I hope you'll check them out, Producer J helped me to post them. Thereafter we were done and Princess Leia and I were driving, we were climbing up into the mountains to go down the other side after we left this Delaware River Gap and the sunset was absolutely glorious. So I was trying to find some beauty in the evening and stopped to take some pictures.

I didn't have my phone with me all day long, but I had my phone when it counted. So in a couple of the pictures, you'll see not only the cloud formations are gorgeous and the golden glow purple and pink and yellow from the sunset, but also you can see the sun and over the mountains down behind the Delaware River. And that's a stretch where we rafted so we could look up and see those scenic viewpoints, the overlooks, which are really cool.

And also on Facebook, as well as on Twitter, you'll see this. I just that's a brilliant photo. I just happen to be looking right place, right time. How often are we looking but not really seeing? And that's something that I've tried to do more often the last couple of years is not just look around me, but actually see what it is that I'm looking at. And I was walking toward this skyscraper with blue windows in New York City.

This is when I was with my family on Thursday. And I look up at this building and realize the Empire State Building is behind me. But its reflection is captured perfectly in these blue windows of the skyscraper that was down the block from me. So I snapped a couple of photos. I actually think I want to enter this photo in a contest, some type of an amateur contest, because it's pretty amazing. I also caught one with my brother in the reflection, which was kind of fun.

But I shared one of those photos as well as two from the Delaware River and the sunset. And I hope you'll check it out on either Twitter or on Facebook after hours with Amy Lawrence. So I, of course, got to sleep at night, which I will never, ever, ever take for granted because it's been 10 years of not really sleeping at night.

And I loved it. But I also love my job, and we are getting close to football season so there's a lot to do on this Sunday night. And yes, my schedule is normal this week.

I can't speak to next week, but it's normal this week. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Out at the plate, what a throw on the fly from Joey Gallo. Wendell D.O.A. and the inning is over.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Joey Gallo, like many others, has found new life with the Dodgers. It's amazing what happens when guys get inserted into the Dodgers lineup. Think about Justin Turner would be another great example.

But he's not the only one. These guys, when surrounded by other competent hitters and a lineup that is dangerous from top to bottom, of course, even if you're the 8 or 9 hitters, and it was Joey Gallo. And then Cody Bellinger, who's back in that 9 spot, doing damage for the Dodgers against the Miami Marlins on Sunday. It's easier to see good pitches. It's more likely that you will see quality pitches when there's so many other guys around you who can smoke the baseball.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. 10-3 the final for the Dodgers over the Marlins. They actually didn't sweep this series. But to see Gallo go 2 for 3 with a couple of runs scored and then Bellinger, who had a home run. I remember he got benched by Dave Roberts not that long ago. And the way that Gallo had been booed and really blamed by a lot of Yankees fans for how poorly he was hitting, the ineptitude in their lineup.

And then to see him now with the Dodgers and to hear Roberts rave about him on a pretty regular basis. I think that with Joey there's continued growth and comfort in what he's doing in the batter's box. He and the hitting coaches, they've been relentless in trying to do this in real time during the season and kind of tighten up the swing mechanics. And he's bought in and every day it seems like it's getting more and more consistent. He's taking better bats. He's taking better swings. And so, yeah, to get a triple, it could have been a double, but to square it up and take a walk in there. I certainly believe that it just kind of validates and gives them more confidence.

And, you know, just to get them down there and feeling good, it just makes us more dangerous. That's the voice of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts in LA now at 84 wins. One listener to the show and follower of our Facebook page chastised me for talking about football when his Dodgers are playing so well and it's still baseball season. So if you think about what the Dodgers can do with that lineup and the way Trey Turner is hitting and how Freddie Freeman has been on fire this summer. And as I say, Cody Bellinger getting benched, but even a former NL MVP being in that nine spot, they really tack starting pitchers for their opponents. And Sandy Alcantara, who is an All-Star, actually threw a scoreless inning at Dodger Stadium in the All-Star game going back a month ago. He gets worked by the Dodgers.

No match for this lineup, really. His three and two thirds innings were the shortest performance of the season for him. Six runs on 10 hits, both season highs for any team against him. He has one walk and five strikeouts, but the Dodgers were able to hit him early and often. This is what the Dodgers are capable of.

I'm not telling you anything about anything about anything in October. Only that these Dodgers have stacked that lineup and they're once again sporting the best record in baseball. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio, so the Dodgers in the National League West have an 18 game lead over a team that's 12 games above 500.

Isn't that crazy? I know the Padres went through a major swoon and so now they're lost in the dust, the Dodgers dust. But they are 12 games above 500.

It's not like they're a terrible team. They're likely to end up as a wild card, at least be in the mix until the end of the regular season. Right now they are a half game up on the Phillies for the second wild card. That's the pace the Dodgers are setting now in the second half.

It's similar to what the Yankees were doing in the first half. The Mets are sitting on 79 wins, so they're five back of the pace set by the Dodgers and the Braves have 75 wins. All of that is ahead of the pace with the Cardinals, though they are the hottest team in baseball right now with seven consecutive wins and eight of their last ten. I want to see Albert Pujols and these Cardinals on the postseason stage. If you missed it, he hit three home runs over the weekend, including a pair of them on Saturday.

And he's now sitting on 692. Four to tie A-Rod, five to pass him for fourth place on baseball's all-time home run list, and then eight to reach baseball immortality. But if you've noticed, well, winning is fun, winning is contagious, and as much as the Albert Pujols storyline will become bigger and bigger in these final six weeks of the season, especially if he continues his assault on.700, what's really noticed about the Cardinals is they're just having a good time. The group's enjoying competing together. They're embracing competition, but they're having fun while they do that, and it's a perfect mix of veteran guys, young guys, and at the end of the day, they're super prepared. And once they go out there, they're focused on executing and having a good time, and it's fun to be in that dugout right now. It is a dream come true as a manager, especially Oliver Marmol, who's a first-time manager in the major leagues, when you've got veterans who can set the tone in the clubhouse, and these veterans, some of them are older than he is. I think he's in his early 30s. I don't remember exactly how old Marmol is, but we know that Albert Pujols is 42, Adam Wainwright is 40, Yadier Molina is in his 40s, Marmol is 36.

Thank you, Producer J. So this is a guy who can even take his cue from what the elder statesmen are doing in the Cardinals' clubhouse, and then you do have guys like Nolan Arenado, of course, other guys who can hit the snot out of the baseball, and a good mix of experience and wisdom versus the youth and the power and the explosiveness. That's the type of mix that can be formidable in the postseason. A Redbird winner!

A Redbird winner! Plus John Rooney on Cardinals radio. It always helps.

It does. I love listening to his home run calls, and you can tell that the Cardinals right now are along for the ride. I read this column that was written after a sit-down interview with Albert Pujols in which he talked about how he left a lot of money on the table. There were other teams that called and offered more money for what he knew would be his last Major League Baseball season at 42 years old. He said that he was still contemplating what he wanted to do until the Cardinals called, and that's it.

He never gave it another thought. He knew that going back to St. Louis was the perfect way to wrap up his Hall of Fame career. And he doesn't care about the numbers, he says, but there will be more and more attention, and the numbers will become more and more of a focus and a storyline the closer he gets, even now, with six weeks to go in the regular season. If he stays healthy, even if he cools off a little bit but continues to hit the ball the way that he is right now, he'll get 700.

I want to see it so badly. There is definitely a chance. I know Barry Bonds, there's more than just a chance. In fact, Marmole says he's going to get it.

No doubt he's going to get it. The way that the Cardinals fans respond, they lift him up, his teammates, they're along for the ride. I know we got to see Barry Bonds ascend to the top of baseball's record books. I get it. 762 home runs. But it was always tainted. It was always with a black cloud. This with Albert Pujols is different, and I'm also along for the ride. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.