After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 3

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That's BetterHelpHELP.com slash positive. I'm joined by Hall of Famer John Smoltz. Smoltz, tell me this. What's harder, winning a Cy Young or an Emmy Award? Oh man, winning a Cy Young takes a lot longer to happen. You know, it's funny when you mention something like that, I just go back to all those years of being predicted to win and just feeling like a failure.

But in 96, fortunately, I was able to at least get that off my back because that was starting to bother me. Download the Brett Boone Podcast, available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. If you are waking up and it's your Friday, happy weekend or almost happy almost weekend. Whenever people want to know why I keep the schedule and why I stay on this after-hours schedule, which begins with a Sunday night show and runs through Friday morning, that's what I tell them. Well, there are two major reasons. Number one, we get done with our work week on Friday morning.

It's actually really nice. Now I do generally go home and sleep sometimes. Sometimes I travel, but mostly sleep, but still get a head start on the weekend early.

I actually feel really bad for the sad saps who work late here on Friday evenings. So David Shepherd, who was with us last night, amazing, amazing gesture by David because he had already worked. So his own show was the one before ours. And then he stayed and he worked all the way through our show, my show.

And so to have him pull a double just because we had a foul up with someone who bagged the shift at the last second, I was very grateful. And I've told him about a bazillion times, poor guy, so tired, still hasn't slept. His dog had to deal without him and all that. But as much as I love David Shepherd and I appreciate him, I would not, for the sake of argument, take one of his shifts to pay him back because that's what happens. You get stuck working until, in his case, 11 o'clock pacific time on a Friday night. And that's rough.

Nope. I'd rather come back Sunday night, especially during football season, or really any Sunday in which there are big events going on. For instance, next weekend, not only will there be baseball again, but we'll have the final round of the Open Championship.

This weekend, actually, on Sundays is the championship at Wimbledon, the men's final. So I do love the fact that I get to work on Sunday nights. That's one part of the equation, but the other part of the equation is being done on Friday morning and being home and in my house with the zoo by seven o'clock eastern time on Friday mornings. That is the start of the weekend. Now, Fridays I'm not always productive. I don't always do super fun stuff on Fridays. In fact, a lot of times I don't. Last week I went out to a nice dinner with some friends.

I've got a friend showing up from Maine on this Friday. I still have a little cleaning to do. I managed to clean the bathrooms, but I haven't done the floors yet. I always wait till the last second when you have pets, especially pets that shed.

You wait till the last second to do the floors because they'll get dirty again or they'll have hair again on them in the in the hour after you clean them. So I will do the floors before she shows up on early Friday afternoon. But yeah, looking forward to the weekend and we'll be in weekend mode. Not now, not now, don't you worry, but we'll be in weekend mode coming up in two hours.

That's it. Count them two hours. So happy almost weekend. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

I've kind of been teasing you with the idea and getting you to maybe get used to hearing it. We are mere days away from the start of NFL training camps. A lot of the teams, in fact I'd say more than half the teams, have their rookies reporting Tuesday, Wednesday of next week. Uh-huh, it's coming. The Jets will be the subject of hard knocks and Aaron Rodgers is complaining.

What else is new? We'll hear from him a little bit later on. Also Breece Hall, as we were talking about, Kyler Murray's return from an ACL. And he does play a position, the position, and uses his legs as much as he uses his arms. So Kyler Murray needs to be completely healthy so that he can, he can pivot, he can thrust off that that leg, that foot, so he can go back to the style of play. He can plant and go back to the style of play that has gotten him through to this point in his career.

One of my Heisman at Oklahoma and then made him the number one overall draft pick. But a running back, it's not really an option where you can stand back in the pocket instead of taking off. Nah, Breece Hall's got to be completely healthy and probably know that defenders may, may attempt to tackle him around those knees. And so his torn ACL was done in mid- October after he was well on pace for a thousand yard season for the Jets, had four touchdowns, was one of the great revelations of that offense. Really, really, at that time, helping out Zach Wilson. Now Zach has his own issues, but it did not help when Breece Hall got hurt.

Did not help at all. In fact, it really put a lot more pressure on his shoulders. So even as we hear more from Kyler Murray, as we head through the rest of the show from Cardinals Flight Plan, extensive comments from Kyler, really for the first time since he got hurt. Kind of explaining what this process has been like and being honest about year four with the Cardinals. Breece Hall gave us a bit of an update himself as much as he can about his torn ACL and the recovery. And while we're talking running backs, I suppose we should just dive into it now.

Breece Hall has a home. He's on his rookie contract. He's with the Jets, but there are a few running backs out there that do not yet have homes. And that is going to be one of the stories of the training camp season that begins next week. How quickly will these running backs find homes?

Right? And I guess even in addition to that, DeAndre Hopkins, but while we're talking running backs, how quickly will some of these guys find homes? And Dalvin Cook is one.

Oh gosh, I wonder if Damian Lillard is paying attention to how it's going with Dalvin Cook. They both want to go to Miami. There's a lot of reasons why pro athletes want to go to Florida or Miami. Yes, South Beach is part of the reason and it's got a great nightlife if you're what your 20s, even your early 30s, especially if you're single and you enjoy going out and hanging out with friends and the nightlife and all that jazz. But also because Florida doesn't have the state tax and so it's it's a it doesn't take as much of your money away when you are playing in Florida.

So there are reasons. But the Miami teams, if you think about it, Dolphins and Heat, now the Heat had a better run than the Dolphins did, of course. As the eighth seed in the East, their regular season was a lot more helter skelter than was their postseason. Dame has really put the Portland Trail Blazers in a bind because he only wants to go to Miami and is talking about how he'll make life miserable if he doesn't end up with the Miami Heat. He's he's bound to determine that's where he's going. Well, Dalvin Cook, while he has no control over it now, was hoping that he would be a Miami Dolphin by now. I actually have heard that the Vikings still have an offer out there for him. That they would be willing to take him back just not at the money that he wanted.

And if you believe some of the reports, now take everything with a grain of salt. Certainly he'll have a home by the time we get to the start of the season, whether it's the Vikings or another team. But he didn't want the Dolphins' current contract offer. He does want to go to the Dolphins, but doesn't want what they offered him. And then you hear what he has to say about the whole free agent process. And this was, these were comments that he made to Fox 9. And you recognize he's got an additional agenda.

He's got an agenda still. If you don't want to be wanted by people, then something's wrong. As long as people want me, I'm good. I know I'm in the right spot. But going through this process has been fun. It's been different every day, waking up with a different schedule, just enjoying it. And I think when it comes down to it, I'm going to just make the right decision.

I've been doing it all my life. So Dalvin Cook says, if you don't want to be wanted, well, something's wrong with you. Meaning I want to be wanted. And very often when it comes to professional athletes, and I would say men too, it's at least in my experience, human nature, the fact that I am a female and I got a lot of female friends, but also work with a lot of men, very often the respect is tied to the money or if not the money in terms of the dollar signs, the money in terms of the raise or in terms of being appreciated for what you feel like you've done over the course of your career. And again, there have been reports of multiple contract offers and that he's actually got the entire AFC East interested in bringing him on board, not just the Miami Dolphins. He's a pro bowler each of the last four seasons. We've talked about that going back to when he was released 1100 yards rushing in each of the last four years.

He's the only guy in the NFL to do that. And also last fall was healthy the entire career. I'm sorry, the entire season is what I meant to say for the first time in his career, really, right? Because he dealt with injuries, spot injuries on and off, but not last year.

He was able to play through some of the injuries. So the Dolphins have made him an offer, but it's not what he wanted. And maybe they don't need him either.

I kind of was thinking about it. It would explain why they didn't give him an offer that he that he felt was indicative of how much they desired him because maybe they don't actually desire him. Do you remember last year Raheem Mostert had a first half in which he was he was one of the best running backs in the NFL and then they traded for Jeff Wilson from San Francisco, well and Raheem came from there too, to follow Mike McDaniel to Miami and all of a sudden Mostert was no longer the top option.

Instead it became Jeff Wilson. So there might be an opportunity there, but I don't know that they need Dalvin Cook. They got a pretty extensive list of running backs, but those two at the top. Now the Bills intrigue me. They do have a few running backs on their roster, obviously. Naim Hines, who they traded for last year.

Latavius Murray, Damian Harris, but Dalvin would be an upgrade. So those are two of the teams that have been out there. For him, he wants to be wanted.

Don't we all want to be wanted? It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. He does have a message for Minnesota fans because that was his home. Man, like I said, Minnesota, you know, they hold a special place in my heart. The people, the city, everybody. The way they embraced me and my family, you know, these past six years, you know, I can't thank them enough. So, you know, just finishing off strong is just, you know, just being Dalvin Cook.

That's what it is. Just being Dalvin Cook. So if it's true and the Vikings still have an offer on the table for him, a standing offer on the table for him, huh, I guess he'd have to take back those goodbyes or just underscore the fact that he really loves Minnesota. I did even see a report that he might potentially be considering Chicago and that the Bears could be interested. So, uh-oh, inside the NFC North, I bet there'd be a little extra chip on the shoulder to prove it to the Vikings that he was not the man they should have bid farewell to. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. All right, so I promised you a little Rory conversation.

Cracks me up. And I don't think that Dalvin Cook is salty. I mean, we heard him there on Fox 9, so I don't think he's salty, but I do think he's more than happy to wait until there's maybe a team that has a greater need. Let's just say for the sake of argument, there's a team out there that loses a running back in training camp, which always stinks, but it does happen.

He turned down the Dolphins offer, decided that he could get more if he waited. And so we'll see if there's a greater sense of urgency, but he's not in a huge hurry. And we talked with Mike Pritchard, former NFL wide receiver from Vegas, going back to the beginning of last hour, and I asked him for reals, how do veterans feel about training camp?

Now, his experience was different because they had two-a-days and there was contact and they had to wear pads a lot. So it's not quite the same thing, but we know veterans don't love training camp. They kind of prefer to, if they could, a lot of them would skip the first two weeks and go right to the week before they start preseason games because many of them don't play in at least the first two preseason games if they play at all.

So I can imagine there's no real sense of urgency. All right, so I guess I can wait on Rory until next segment only because I kind of talked about it a little bit, but if you don't mind Ryan, since we're talking about running backs and like when Dalvin might be on a field, we can pivot to Breece Hall and his timetable. He was a guest on NFL Network on Total Access about his timetable returning from his ACL.

I'm doing pretty good right now. Like I said, I've been saying I'll be ready for the first game, so right now I'm just focusing on getting my knee as strong as possible and just getting that confidence back, but it's been going well so far. That's good to hear because he was real dynamic initially and the way that he complemented the passing attack was huge. So Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, who did have a nice connection with Zach Wilson at least at the beginning and then had a better connection with Mike White, but whatevs. And then on the defensive side, Sals Gardner, you're talking about three guys.

They're already like the three musketeers and really enjoying their time together. So yeah, there's a potential for an explosive offense there with Aaron Rogers too as the quarterback. And yeah, every time you talk to any one of these guys, that's what they're talking about is how they can be really dangerous as a team. With the offense we have right now, I think we have an answer for everything. You know, if you don't want to load the box, Aaron's finally handing me off the ball all day. If you do, you know, we got the RPOs, we got him to take notes, we got him to take shots. We have the receivers that are gonna, you know, make plays for us as well.

And if the offense is struggling, we have the backbone which is our defense to rely on. So we're excited for that for sure. I'm excited for that too. It's gonna be a lot of fun. That's also why Hard Knocks is following the Jets around because they're excited about it as well.

I actually just googled it because I want to make sure I didn't miss anybody because I could think of a few. But yeah, it's been a theme of this off season, running backs not getting paid, maybe hoping that they would get paid the way that wide receivers were collecting contracts last time. So this time last year, what do we hear over and over about the massive deals that wide receivers were getting? It has not panned out that way for running backs.

And that's a fairly steady element of the position. They absorbed so much contact and they're so vulnerable and granted they're extremely valuable. Last year we actually saw running yards up and passing yards down and scoring down too for that matter. You run the ball, you stop the run. Those are the main principles of football.

At any level, run the ball and stop the run. But teams are afraid to pay them big time bucks, kind of like what Ezekiel Elliott got with the Cowboys going back a few years because the pounding and the mileage on their bodies. It's why Le'Veon Bell gambled and lost. I mean essentially uprooted the rest of his career.

He vandalized the rest of his career. He sabotaged himself when he decided to hold out for the Pittsburgh Steelers, believing that he had the upper hand or he had leverage. And that's just not the way teams view this position.

I'm not saying it's fair, but you know life is not fair. You capitalize on the time that you're in the league and what you can do. And yeah, Christian McCaffrey got paid. Certainly there are some running backs that did get paid, but it's not the norm to give your, well first of all, it's not the norm to draft a running back super high, which is what the Lions did and kind of took some flag for it.

So it's not, it's not, that's not what teams prefer to do. They prefer to wait and find a running back later in the draft because you don't want to end up paying them a ton of money. But yes, McCaffrey with his 16 million dollars for next season, Alvin Kamara, he makes a bunch of money. Derrick Henry also makes a lot of money. So there are running backs who have been paid. Nick Chubb makes a sizable amount, but they're not going to get paid like wide receivers generally and they're really not going to get paid like quarterbacks.

And so when you think about the guys that are out there, it's almost a waiting game with the teams. Dalvin Cook, Kareem Hunt, still available. He was part of that one-two punch with Nick Chubb in Cleveland for a couple of years.

Man, best running back tandem in the NFL. Ezekiel Elliott, still no takers there. Leonard Fournette, I'd forgotten about that. Now he's a little older. I'm trying to think how old he is.

I like to look that up. Kenyon Drake too, didn't realize he was still available. So yeah, you've got some pretty impressive running backs that, at least over the course of their career, have been great assets for their teams. But right now, I mean Leonard Fournette's a Super Bowl champ, right? Didn't he join the Bucks?

Yeah, they joined the Bucks before that Super Bowl. And he got drafted the same year as Dalvin Cook, so. All right, so see, same age, 28 years old, but this is where teams start to get all willy-nilly about running backs and paying running backs.

When they get to 28, 29, man, 30 is considered over the hill for a running back, depending on how much mileage. So yeah, there's some impressive names and resumes that are out there. We'll see which dominoes drop first, plus the whole DeAndre Hopkins thing, which is also really interesting.

Okay, on Twitter, A-Law Radio on our Facebook page too. I'm pretty sure Rory McIlroy would rather die than play in the live tour. Okay, he's not that melodramatic, but it's pretty darn close. From the Scottish Open, you'll hear him next. And then a little more from Kyler Murray, a second of a baseball is nearly upon us in just about two and a half weeks until the trade deadline. One of the big, well actually, you look at the NL Central, two of the biggest surprises in the first half come from the NL Central alone.

So a little bit on that division too. Happy almost Friday, or if it is your Friday, eek! We're glad to have you with us here After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. We are not yet at the Open Championship, one of golf's majors that comes up next week, but boy, golf has been right in the spotlight again, and for a couple of different reasons. Number one, we've had the PGA Tour on Capitol Hill explaining, kind of explaining, this merger between Liv and the PGA and what it means and having to answer questions in a Senate committee hearing. And now you've got US Department of Justice regulations that are being investigated, antitrust regulations that are coming into play. And so apparently this is, it's pretty complicated, so I'm not going to go into all the complicated aspects of it because I don't really want to and it would make for bad radio.

The PIF, that's what they call it, sorry, the PIF, it's so stupid. The Public Investment Fund for Saudi Arabia, which is where the money comes to fund not just the Liv Tour, but they've got a stake in other sporting events and leagues as well as they have a real high stake in Uber. So it's this, it's the Saudi Prince and their public investment money, and it's the source of Liv. It's the source of the funding for Liv, and now that money is going to be shared with the PGA Tour. But get this, apparently the Justice Department believed that it violated antitrust laws for this clause in their agreement.

Okay, so they're going to merge and they've got the paperwork all drafted up, but they have to take it in front of, you know, not just the Department of Justice, but Congress taking on Capitol Hill to make sure that it doesn't violate any laws. They had a clause in their agreement that would not allow the respective tours, Liv and the PGA, to poach players from one another. So remember last year how many times we had breaking news where Liv had recruited or golfers from Liv had recruited golfers from the PGA Tour to leave and go play on the Liv Tour for the money, for the schedule, the team aspect.

Essentially it'd be like tampering in other sports, right? But in golf, the Liv Tour was using its golfers and of course the money and the attraction of the money up front to poach golfers from PGA. So as part of their agreement, I didn't even know this until I read it, as part of their agreement, they had it written into their merger language that the two tours could not poach golfers, meaning PGA couldn't go to Brooks Koepka and say, hey, you want to come back here?

We'll pay you to come back over here. And Liv wasn't going to be able to recruit golfers from the PGA anymore. Now they could leave on their own, I suppose, but they weren't going to be allowed to poach them. Well, it's like recruiting violations in college football, but they actually had to take that out. So the justice department said, no, that's violating our antitrust regulations.

So they had to take it out. It was called non-solicitation. That sounds too much like prostitution. So I didn't want to use that word, but that's what it sounds like. They're not allowed to have this like non-compete element, essentially. You are in fact allowed to recruit and poach, just love the word poach, except I hate poached eggs. So sometimes it's when I think of poaching, like, no, it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

So yeah, the DOJ is going through the paperwork and is actually raising some concerns, some red flags, if you will. Rory McIlroy doesn't care because he would rather drive Uber for a living than play for the Liv tour. Rory McIlroy is not going to let this go. Liv golf was the last place to play golf on earth. I would retire.

That's how I feel about it. So seriously, yeah, I'd play the majors and then, but yeah, I'd be pretty comfortable. He would actually walk away from golf, except for the majors, because yes, the Liv golfers are a goal.

I think I just said golfals. The Liv golfers are allowed to participate in the majors. He would walk away if the PGA tours all of a sudden, poof, disappeared or a hole opened up in the earth and swallowed it. If the PGA tour disappeared and Liv golf was the last tour left on earth, I need to hear him say it again, he would rather not play golf for a living than to play for Liv. If Liv golf was the last place to play golf on earth, I would retire.

That's how I feel about it. I'd play the majors and then, but yeah, I'd be pretty comfortable. Well, you wouldn't win any majors if that's all you were playing because it doesn't work that way and no one's worried about your finances. Could you imagine that's how much he hates Liv? And I don't even know why really, but he's been on this rampage for a year now. He thinks that it's a slap in the face, it's the money up front, it takes away from the PGA, its history and its traditions, all of that.

But my goodness, he's only 34 years old. He's really going to walk away from golf if Liv, what if they just renamed the whole kit and Kabuto Liv? It's still the PGA, but it's also Liv.

Could you imagine if the Saudis paid for the naming rights and they called the whole thing Liv? Uh oh. He's burning all of his gear. That's right, he's going to burn jerseys. Let's say he's going to hold a party and just burn everything.

Burn it down, I tell you. Well, yeah. So then if that's the case, are you still upset, still frustrated, still feel deceived by the PGA after this secret merger with Liv? They were trying to do what was right for the tour, which in turn means what's right for the players on that tour.

So I don't, I don't feel, you know, they were, you know, I think I read a quote, they were negotiating their survival. It sounds like he's backpedaling a bit because he did not say that specifically. He tried to be somewhat diplomatic.

I think it broke at the, before the Canadian Open. So he was there and everyone wanted to hear from Rory because he had been the self appointed defender. He'd essentially been like Thor, the self appointed defender with the sword of the PGA tour. And he was made a fool of. He really was hung out to dry when Jay Monahan didn't give him a heads up or really anybody a heads up other than the board that was negotiating this merger with Liv. And the general consensus, now I haven't heard this from anybody inside the PGA yet, other than just golfers and the people who are talking about it, is that, and you heard Rory use the word survival, is that this was about money, which we know, but it was because the PGA tour was hemorrhaging money and maybe wasn't going to be able to stay afloat. So I'm just saying Rory, if as part of the condition of the merger, it's all going to be renamed Liv.

Maybe, maybe since it's the Saudi money, maybe the Saudis have that stipulation. It's all going to be called Liv. That'll be our victory. Yes, you'll have your own tour. It can be called Liv in the US or Liv one, Liv A. We'll have Liv B.

You could be Liv individual. We'll have Liv team golf. We already know there are going to be some aspects absorbed. In some cases, we don't actually know what it's going to look like, but this Liv team concept, I mean, we heard Jay Monahan say they were going to incorporate the team concept.

What if for the sake of argument, that's their condition. We'll give you the money you need to keep your tour afloat, but it's got to be renamed the PGA Liv or the Liv PGA tour. And Rory, that's it. He's done. He's walking away. He's going to walk away without a US open. He's out. See ya.

Peace out. Wouldn't want to be ya. Do you think he would die on that hill? Ryan, would you die on that hill if you're Rory? Well, it depends.

Okay. If he has enough money saved, like he's trying to flex, then potentially he's trying to flex you, but you wouldn't get to play golf except for four times a year competitively. He can golf whenever he wants. Well, true, but don't you think these guys love the competition?

They have to have ice water in their veins when it comes to the, you know, the actual competitions, the actual tournaments. I think he doesn't really care at this point. Well, if Liv were the last tour, I mean, that's an ultimatum. He better be careful. That'd be me like, like me saying to my bosses when my next contract, when this contract is up, my next contract is being negotiated. If CBS Sports Radio were the last network on earth, I would rather retire.

Better be careful what you wish for there, Rory. End me. All right. Coming up, the baseball trade deadline is upon us. Basketball, not so much, but there is this looming possible trade that the Portland Trailblazers are trying to get done, though it could take months. I like the trade theme for our next segment.

It's different times for different sports, but man, it seems to shake up every sport every year. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. It is, it is! One hour and 15 minutes to the weekend. Our weekend. But I hope your weekend, too. I hope it's your weekend, too. Soon.

Very soon. Maybe you're already on weekend. You're already out of town. A lot of people do the long weekends, the extended weekends. It's interesting, too, when you live in a particular neighborhood and you walk around as much as I do with my dog, you can tell based on where cars are parked and the fact that they haven't moved and what's in them hasn't changed that people are on vacation as well.

Yeah, you gotta trust your neighbors because they can tell when you're there and when you're not there. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio. John just did and wants to know my honest opinion on the Cincinnati Reds, which I'll give you here in a sec.

And then also on our Facebook page After Hours with Amy Lawrence. So trades are kind of the rage right now as we get closer and closer to baseball's trade deadline. There will be more and more conversation about it. How many teams will be buyers? How many teams will be sellers? How many guys will actually be on the move? Now, I've seen guys like Ken Rosenthal, for instance, the Fox baseball insider, predict that this is going to be an explosive trade deadline.

But not everybody shares that opinion. In fact, Kim Ng, who's with the Marlins and will actually be part of the movement and shaken if the Marlins choose to make any moves, she's a little hesitant about how it might play out at the end of the month. We probably have about a handful of sellers at this point.

I think they're all just taking down names and figuring out what the best deal for them is going to be. For all we know, you might see a market that just doesn't unfold very quickly or much at all. We're thinking that the next couple of weeks, maybe someone pulls away in one of the central divisions, but you never know. I mean, they could all stay the same and everyone just decides to ride it out.

So it's really, I've not seen a market like this before. I think that a lot of it has to do with the playoff format as well as those central divisions. No one's really stepped out big time in either of them. That's Kim Ng from the Marlins and she makes a great point. Problem is there are very few teams that are out of it completely and the teams that are theoretically out of it in the National League Central and the American League Central, meaning they're not part of the wildcard races. So that's what she's talking about, the format where there's three teams that are wildcards in each league, so six total. The problem is the Central's are so upside down that they may not be part of the wildcard chases, but in the Central, you still have teams that could make a run for the division titles.

Like this is crazy, but it's an example. The Detroit Tigers are 10 games out of the third wildcard in the American League. Do you know they're only five and a half games out in their own division?

I mean, that's doable. I don't know if it's doable by the Tigers, but it's doable. Now let's look at the NL Central. The Reds are sitting on top of the division. They won seven of the last 10 before the break.

They are a great story. The Brewers are a game back. The Cubs are below 500, but only seven games out of the division lead, right? So seven games out right now. Well, the Cubs are six and a half games out in the wildcard, but there's a lot more teams, right, that are kind of involved in that race. So that's what she's saying. If the leaders at the top don't distance themselves from the rest of the teams in the Central divisions, well then you've got even more teams involved who would be less likely to sell at the deadline.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I love what we've seen from the Reds. I called them one of the best stories of the first half, if not the best story. Again, leading the NL Central by a game. They're in first place. And you know, at the All-Star break last year, last year they were 23 games below 500.

How about that? Last year at this time, 23 games below 500. This is remarkable. And a lot of it is because of their rookies. Elie De La Cruz just got to the majors permanently about five weeks ago, a month ago.

Matt McLean, Spencer Steer. He's got 14 home runs and leads the team. De La Cruz is the energy. And he and Joey Votto are BFFs.

Here's the number that should blow you away. Since De La Cruz arrived in early June, the Reds are 23 and 8. He's got speed, obviously can hit. Loves to steal bases too when he gets on base. And the Reds are running. They're called the, they should be called the running Reds. Third most runs in the National League and fifth most in Major League Baseball, which is helping their pitching staff, of course. So that, that's kind of the weak spot is their pitching staff. So they're aggressive. They're aggressive under David Bell.

And that's a big part of what makes them so exciting. So they're at the top of the division. At the bottom of that division, stunningly, is the St. Louis Cardinals, who are almost always a contender because of the system, because of the culture, because of their leadership and Jamos Aylak. And yet, here they are. They're 14 games below 500.

As I say, the basement of what is one of the worst divisions in baseball. So what about Oliver Marmel? Is his job as manager safe? I don't think the coaches have any fault on this. You know, they're handed the players.

It's, it's, you know, unfortunately it didn't work. But I think Ali and his group do a really good job. They work really hard and, you know, they continue to do that.

But I think, you know, their level of frustration is probably as real as a fan base. That's Jamos Aylak. He's the one that ultimately, when he says they were handed the players, it's not Marmel's fault. It's not Ali's fault. We gave them the players.

He's the one who's making the moves. And so the question on KTVI Fox Channel 2, so Fox 2 and St. Louis, the question, the follow-up would be, well, you know, why should people trust him to fix what has become an unmitigated disaster? I have a pretty good resume. I think the history of our decision-making overall has been pretty good. And I think, you know, the best way to approach this is, you know, recognize that you do have a problem, admit it, and then try to find a solution. And, you know, we understand that. And I'm not trying to sit here with you right now and try to defend what we did and blame other people. I know that we made mistakes and we're going to try to get it right.

He's humble about it at least. I mean, I do have a pretty good track record, he says, but yeah, they're a mess. And their pitching is largely the major issue. Not that anything is great, but to be 12 games below 500. They've tried to make some changes.

It's just, it's not worked. They lost their outfield to the IL, if you remember that. And then, yeah, the rotation, while they've got some guys in name that should be pitching, and maybe they do pitch better, Michaelis and Jack Flaherty.

Adam Wainwright, he's 70 years old, but obviously still out there. It's just, it's not played out the way that they expect it on paper. And so, for that reason, they're a mess. But Moseloch says that he's the guy, he's got a track record, they can fix it.

KTVI, Fox number two. Now, it's interesting to think about the trades in Major League Baseball that might or might not happen. And then the Damian Lillard trade situation, not the same sense of urgency. What did we hear from the Blazers, which they're happy to sit around and wait for months. But you know what, David Griffin, who's with the Pelicans, actually has some experience with this. Remember when the Pelicans had Anthony Davis, and he wanted to go to Los Angeles.

If there's actually a chance that you would trade him somewhere other than Miami, you get a much better deal. And we were blessed that the deal we made with LA, in large part, was fueled by all of the noise around other teams. Boston is one of them that was out there as a potential landing spot.

And it gave us leverage that we probably didn't deserve. And I think in this situation, they're going to need to create a landing spot that's not just Miami, because it could be difficult to make that. So he and I love that from David Griffin, that perspective, because Dame has really put the Blazers in a pinch here. He's saying the only place I'll go is Miami. And because there's no other market, at least at this point, why would the Heat give up a ton when they know that Dame only wants to play there?

And yet the Blazers are trying to get as much as they possibly can for him, because you only trade Damian Lillard once. So can they maybe fake it? They fake a market so they can get the bidding war going. It's after our CBS Sports Radio.