8-8-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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That's ShipStation.com slash audio. At least for a few hours today, we were, well still are, talking about Kevin Brown and this Orioles ludicrous suspension of one of their top broadcasters on Mathen. Also talking about suspensions that are actually warranted in the case of the White Sox and the Guardians. But the top story in sports right now, at least in my opinion, is the ever changing landscape in college sports in the form of drastic realignment.

Why is all of this happening? What is the Pac-12 going to do from now if there's still even a Pac-12? The various athletic directors and school presidents, they're starting to speak out a little more, of course, wanting to get their perspective and their story out there, really to control the narrative as much as possible because the reaction, as you can imagine, is drastic. Arizona is one of those schools departing from the Pac-12 and making plans beyond the Pac-12. The athletic director kind of tells it like it is.

There's one reason, one big reason for the mass defection from the conference. Our intention all along was to see what the Pac-12 could pull together, what that deal might be. Ultimately, though, the environment in college athletics is moving quickly, it's changing.

We've got to be able to adapt. We need to make sure that we can put the university and our athletics program in a position to be nationally recognized, nationally competitive, to allow our student-athletes to compete at the highest level. Those are critical to our athletic program.

When I look at it, it's about sustainability, it's about stability, it's about guaranteed revenue planning. Those are critical for having a balanced and an appropriate athletic program. And I think this grows our ability nationally. We have opportunities to be exposed in all the different time zones across the country.

We compete, you know, in a way coast to coast. I think it can really help our program grow. Arizona athletic director Dave Heek, as he and the president of the school made their first public comments about Arizona joining the Big 12 Conference. So conference realignment is crushing the Pac-12. Arizona just one of the schools that will depart for greener pastures. And he essentially says it is about our exposure, it's about our ability to recruit, it's about growing our programs, it's about the money, it's about the bottom line. We waited on the Pac-12.

We didn't feel like there was a great broadcast deal that would give us the resources that we need and that we desire for our program. So yeah, that's what you're hearing from presidents and athletic directors now in the wake of what has been an historic few days in college sports. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We're pleased to welcome Brian Fisher from Salt Lake. Late night, lot of riding, lot of reacting as he is a national college football writer for Fox Sports. Well Brian, what's your reaction to everything we've seen right as we get set to kick off the college football season?

Yeah, my reaction is it's just one of disbelief. And I think that's honestly what a lot of people around college athletics are feeling right now. Just how did we kind of get to this point? And there are a lot of missteps along the way and a lot of turning points throughout the history of college athletics and especially so in the last two years. But it's just kind of wild to fathom really these last two weeks and especially last Friday when everything with the Pac-12 certainly went down. And for this to happen right after media days when everybody was talking about all the on-field events and maybe we had gotten past kind of focusing on a lot of those off-the-field moves, realignment reared its ugly head.

And I think that's what everybody's been knee deep in certainly these last couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of hours and hopefully it will subside a little bit. But this is groundbreaking stuff in college athletics and it'll be interesting because I don't think that the waves are done shaking necessarily in the sport. Well let's talk about the Pac-12 first then because that is one that's been real stunning. Where does this leave the conference overall?

In a very precarious situation. I think obviously they only have the four members left moving forward and that is not enough to technically be a conference. And this is not just for the existing period, it's for next year. And I think when you talk with a lot of the administrators that are involved in things like compliance and things like fundraising, putting schedules together, that sort of stuff is done so far in advance.

And you've got to think about it and you've got to have all these meetings. Well the Pac-12 is in a precarious situation just to get a schedule out for 2024, much less find the teams that they need to even get and remain a Division I conference. And that's not even getting into things like how are they going to get their NCAA tournament unit revenue and disperse that to schools and some of these minor points that really kind of underscores just how dangerous and on a nice edge the Pac-12 really is.

And they don't have many options. You look at the four remaining schools, they're doing their best to look out for themselves. They're not looking out for the conference. As much as they want to preach unity, and really that's all been what the Pac-12 has done these last couple of weeks, all four of the remaining schools are still looking out for themselves.

So this is a very dangerous situation for George Galavkov to navigate. There's certainly some possibilities where they can either merge or have those schools join the Mountain West in some sort of West Coast type of conference merger and I think those discussions are probably going to pick up steam after the Mountain West met on Monday night. But this is an ever evolving and very fluid situation. As we've seen, things can change in a matter of hours and that's simply where the Pac-12 finds itself right now.

Why, Brian? What brought us to this point where one of the Power 5 conferences is on the verge of being defunct or at least collapsing in terms of its stature in college sports? Well, I think you got to look, turn yourself on in terms of the Pac-12 and look at its most recent history and then really was just a series of bad mismanagement and bad leadership from the conference office. You know, I think a lot of people are going to point their finger at Larry Scott and certainly he deserves a fair share of the blame in terms of some of the missteps. You go back a couple of years, ESPN had offered to kind of take over distribution for the Pac-12 network, sign another long-term rights agreement that would have kept the league together, would have kept USC and UCLA in the fold, but the conference office and conference leadership said no.

And I think he kind of traced things from a moment like that. You need to go back to just kind of the whole concept of the Pac-12 network and how vastly they kind of underperformed in terms of the expectations and the amount of money that those networks had driven back towards the schools. And, you know, and honestly, it's just a lot of recent decisions. I mean, you look at just what George Kudavka has done this past year, you know, I mean, he continually thought that the Pac-12 would have a good media deal that never materialized. You look at, you know, things like USC and UCLA leaving, that's on the current commissioner for not keeping those schools happy enough and not keeping those schools in the fold long enough to get a media deal run. And, you know, the last couple of years, you know, when you decide to wait and wait and wait so long, there were market forces, you know, with a lot of these media companies that were bidding on Pac-12 rights, their economics and their outlook changed significantly in the past year. And that's what the Pac-12 got caught up in. And so with no media deal, with a very subpar, I guess, media deal to present from Apple, a lot of these schools said, we're not going to go through what we've been doing.

Let's try to find a better home. And that's what a lot of these schools that are either going to the Big 12 or the Big 10 have finding themselves in. And it's frankly still a little bit hard to believe that this is kind of where we're at right now. Brian Fisher is with us from Fox Sports. And as he points out, this is happening daily and the landscape is changing so quickly, so drastically that it's a lot to keep up with.

So we're pleased to have him with us here after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. It's interesting to me, Brian, that it was the Big 12 that appeared to be in this position not that long ago. And now the Big 12 has been able to gobble up some of these other schools to strengthen its position. So then thinking about where the Big 10 and the Big 12 are now, what's your reaction to what they're doing? Yeah, I mean, you know, you think back to the times, I mean, really the Big 12 is kind of like a cat with nine lives. You know, the way it's just been able to survive and reform itself is kind of wild to think about. You know, this was a league that began, you know, 25 odd years ago and really out of the remits of a dying conference.

And it just, you know, kept on ticking. And, you know, you got to give a lot of credit to Brett Normark, I think, in terms of his vision for the league since he took over as commissioner. You know, he's been aggressive and, you know, that has paid off, you know, and handsomely for the members, not just in terms of surviving as a league.

But, you know, really kind of starting to thrive and really starting to play offense instead of playing defense like they have for so many years. Teams have left or been picked off or gone elsewhere. And it really is a testament to really the conference kind of rallying around itself. It's kind of crazy to think, you know, I was talking with the Pac-12 AD just not too long ago. And, you know, he kind of said, look, we had a chance to put an end to the Big 12. You know, there were some significant discussions of whether you want to term it a merger or were the Pac-12 acquiring, you know, a couple of the Big 12 schools that were looking for new homes at the time. You know, the Pac-12 could have been in this reverse situation. And we could have been talking about the Big 12 kind of going through this as the Pac-12 was going for a couple of years ago.

And just kind of wild to think how the tables have turned. And certainly the Big 12 has found itself playing that upper hand. Is this now the new model where the power conferences, bloated conferences want to have schools and want to have a fingerprint in every single time zone in the continental U.S.? Well, I know that's been a big emphasis for Brett Yarmark is kind of spanning across four time zones. And they certainly will for a good portion of the fall with those Arizona schools kind of being in Pacific time zone there. I think that's more of an advantage for their network partners, having late windows, having early windows, being able to really have football from kind of before noon all the way down to late at night.

That's a tremendous inventory for a lot of those television networks and why they're paying handsomely. And it's a strategy that has certainly paid off. If you're looking at the Big 10, you know, they obviously added USC and UCLA to kind of get into additional time zones. You have the same happening with the Big 12. I think it's going to set up an interesting next couple of years in terms of who is taking advantage of a lot of those time slots, because, you know, I would say that the Big 10 ultimately will still have the upper hand just because they can have more brand name, more key names that can play in a lot of those time slots and they can offer an over broadcast television. But, you know, this is definitely a concerted strategy on behalf of the Big 10 and the Big 12. And certainly it's paid off handsomely in terms of those media rights revenue payoffs and the difference of the situation they find themselves in compared to the Pac-12. Is that really the bottom line, Brian, the actual bottom line, the student athletes, the college's academics, does any of that factor into this or is this really just become about as much money as possible for these conferences through the lens of football and basketball? Oh, it is the almighty dollar that is certainly driving a lot of these decisions.

And I always kind of get a chuckle out, you know, when you hear, you know, either ADs or presidents kind of talk about, you know, being like with like minded institutions and finding fits and all that. And, you know, just look at the position that Cal and Stamps would find themselves in right now. You know, if that were really honestly the case, they would be in the Big 10. They would be in some of these other leagues.

They would have media companies jumping over, you know, to pay up and televise Stanford and Cal Games. But that is not the case. It is all about ultimately what can you bring in terms of that dollar figure? It's already a modern business, but it's certainly becoming an even more ruthless business that is really underpinned by that pursuit of the almighty dollar. And that's really kind of what led to a lot of these decisions that has led us to this moment. I like that word. You're right.

It does seem ruthless. It doesn't really matter who is affected, who is in the way of it. These conferences are just moving forward regardless. Brian Fisher is with us from Fox Sports National College Football writer. It's after our CBS Sports Radio. Are there any of these conference alignments, realignments that you think make zero sense whatsoever and you kind of wonder how it's going to work out?

I think kind of all of them. When you get away from being a West Coast league spanning multiple time zones and you're talking about cross country travel. And look, I travel a lot in both my current job and as well as personally. And, you know, it can add up. Those miles can add up.

And I can't even imagine even even being young kids, you know, just having some extra energy that I might have. That travel just adds up. And I just it's going to be hard to comprehend when we're talking about, you know, big teams. Even before the Washington and Oregon moves were announced, you're talking about the Big Ten was thinking, well, you know, we can maybe have a UCLA soccer team charter with a USC lacrosse team if they need to go play in Illinois. Like the fact that we're talking about that or talking about going to play literally from coast to coast, you know, for a lot of the non-revenue sports in particular.

That's that's where I scratch my head. And, you know, it's one thing for it to be in football. But the fact that we're the Big Ten is going to have 500 plus teams.

You know, when you're talking about ice hockey and you're talking about lacrosse and you're talking about soccer, not even getting into the high profile men and women's basketball games. I think it's going to cause a lot of late nights for a lot of administrators out there. I know it's already causing issues with it with the coaches and I can only imagine where we're going to be in a couple of years when everybody is probably going to pinch themselves and say, why did we do this? I think we're ultimately going to get to that kind of moment because it is it is crazy when you pull out that map and you look at a school in L.A. going to go to Piscataway to play a conference game.

It's wild to kind of comprehend and probably going to be even wilder when we actually see it in front of our eyes. What, if anything, does the NCAA have to do with this, Brian? Well, nothing.

You know, that is the thing. And, you know, I mean, Mark Emmert, you go back to the former NCAA president. He would not touch this topic with a 10 foot pole, like would not provide any leadership, would not return. You know, he might return some calls, but really just kind of kind of to be a sounding board, not really to provide any leadership.

Charlie Baker, you know, he issued a statement to Fox Fort Worth and a few other outlets today. I do get the sense that he's not happy with the current situation. You know, he's somebody that has talked quite a bit about since taking over as president about that student athlete experience, about making sure that that is kind of the focus.

And these moves really run counter to that. And that said, you know, he's really powerless to kind of do anything about it. You know, he can issue a sternly worded statement.

He can call up, you know, Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti and, you know, Brett Yarmark and all these others and maybe two of them out on the phone a little bit. But it's not going to change anything because ultimately the NCAA is still a member run organization. They can take their cues from the schools themselves and the schools are right now.

They're also saying, you know what, this is what we want, essentially. And so the NCAA kind of finds itself between a rock and a hard place, as they typically do on a whole multitude of issues, but especially on this one. For a second, can you imagine what this means for the college football playoff and it expanding with these conferences that are so huge, they're so bloated. It just seems like an overwhelming task to keep college football on a plane where it's still not completely dominated by two or three conferences. Yeah, I mean, I was talking to somebody, you know, this afternoon just in terms of how this really throws a lot of the stuff that the commissioners have been working with. They're supposed to meet in a couple of weeks in late August to kind of continue to go over some of those issues for 2024 and 2025. And you kind of got to throw a lot of the work that's already been done in terms of expanding that playoffs kind of out the window. You know, things like revenue sharing and what those revenue payouts will be. You know, it's going to change vastly depending on whether or not there are 10 SBS conferences or there are nine, whether there's four Power Five conferences or there's five.

And ultimately, what is the kind of the level? Will the commissioners kind of push back? If you're Greg Sankey, I would certainly be pushing back on including a Pac-12 or whatever the newly formed conference could end up being. You know, if it's just the existing four schools and some Mountain West leftovers, is that really a Power Five conference?

You know, if I were Greg Sankey, I'd be saying that same thing, especially when it came to paying out revenues. And especially because a lot of those conferences now, you're talking about more mounts to feed. You know, the Big 12 now has 16 teams.

Like, how is that pie getting split a certain number of ways? You look at the automatic qualifiers, especially after 2026 when there is a new college football playoff contract where they can really kind of start from scratch and do whatever they want. This whole concept of six top six conference champions and six autobids, that's definitely probably on the chopping block with moves like this. So, you know, there's a lot that still needs to happen from a really dollars and cents standpoint, from a crossing T's and dotting I's standpoint when it comes to the expansion just the next two years on playoff. But really the larger question that looms across the rest of the industry is what happens after 2026 when there is a fresh new contract?

Because there is right now, we have no concept. And while we think we have a good idea in terms of what will ultimately happen with the sports postseason, the events of the last two weeks could certainly have a huge impact in terms of changing ultimately how we determine a national champion in college football. Between the NIL and the transfer portal, which had already really changed the landscape of big-time college sports, especially football and basketball, and now throwing in conference realignment, it feels like a free-for-all. So then, Brian, what brings it to a stop?

What causes it to slow down or to find some resolution? Well, I think ultimately if we can get to a position where there is some at least long-term certaintude in terms of where the college football playoff is going to be, where kind of that postseason structure is, I think that will help. But at the end of the day, this is really a conference realignment wave that I think is going to keep reverberating. And you look at down the road, this is probably a prelude to the ultimate realignment in terms of consolidation. We're already seeing it in terms of really kind of five Power Five conferences going to four. But what happens when ESPN and Fox and CBS and NBC and all the major players in terms of television coverage, or an Apple or an Amazon, kind of say, you know what, we'll give you a lot of money to televise these games, but we don't want an Indiana. We don't want a Northwestern.

We don't want a Washington State included in those major payouts. And that is going to really kind of change things even more. So that I think people kind of put that aside and thought it was a concept that, you know what, maybe that's decades down the line. I think this latest round of realignment has really kind of fled.

You know what, maybe that's actually sooner happening than we even thought four or five years ago. And that to me is kind of where we're ultimately heading. And that I don't think is good for anybody involved in college athletics.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to figure out how this is good really for anyone except for the schools in terms of the money. All right, Brian's got a column up on his Twitter on FoxSports.com, the link on Twitter, about where college athletics go from here. You want to find him on Twitter at Brian D. Fisher, B-R-Y-A-N-D-F-I-S-C-H-E-R.

Covers National College Football, the scene for Fox Sports. And your head must be spinning. My head's spinning. Man, what a few days. But Brian, we thank you so much for a couple of minutes. Absolutely great to be on with you. I like the word.

Well, I don't like the word, but I think the word is appropriate, ruthless. That's how it feels right now. Take no prisoner's approach to conference realignment. And what does the NCAA have to do about it, have to say about it? Absolutely nothing, according to Brian.

And probably has no power or jurisdiction anyway. And then, what do the athletes or academics have to do with it? It doesn't seem to matter what's best for them. What's best for their education.

Nah, this is all about the rich getting richer, the greedy getting greedier. It's about broadcast money, and the more markets, the more regions, the more time zones, the more product you can guarantee, the more widespread your reach that you can guarantee to a broadcast partner, the more money those broadcast outlets are willing to pay. And so if you can say you have a presence in four time zones, you have schools in four time zones, you've got schools in all the major metros, west of the Mississippi or east of the Mississippi, you've got them in the north and the south, you've got them east and west, well then you can go to a broadcast partner potentially and say, look, look at all the places where we're guaranteeing you a presence with our games. But are you kidding me?

I didn't realize the number. Brian said the Big Ten will have 500 plus teams. How can one athletic department attend to the needs of 500 plus teams that run the gamut from major revenue producing college football with all of its pomp, its circumstance, its rivalries, its impact, obviously its presence in the college football playoff, but then also attend to the same needs of the field hockey team, the swimming team, the diving team, the javelin throwers, the lacrosse team. It's nearly impossible to be able to treat all of those athletes equally. It's so bloated that people, athletes, will get lost in the shuffle.

And so that's why it feels as though this is an effort to steamroll anything and anyone that gets in its way. And it's not just the Big Ten, it's also the Big Twelve who is not that far removed from nearly collapsing itself, being in the same position the Pac-12 is in right now. So give the Big Twelve credit, and he said it's like a cap nine lives, manage to rally from a near death experience. But it's not good for college sports. I'm not sure it's good for college football, but it's definitely not good for some of the smaller sports that matter too. They may not produce revenue, but they matter, the athletes matter. Forget amateur sports.

Forget the college experience. It's just changed so much. On Twitter, Alal Radio, love to get your reaction, whether it's to the changing landscape in college sports, or maybe it's what we talked about before the top of the hour, the Kevin Brown clip on Massen, the offensive, I'm using air quotations, Kevin Brown clip on Massen.

Also on our Facebook page. And coming up next, speaking of offensive, Aaron Boone does not care. He wants to offend as many umpires as possible. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Now the pitch to Bowlby, strike three is called one away. And Lasdee has again given it to the Yankee bench, and here comes Boone. And I would say he either has or will be thrown out. Well, he has to already because you can't argue balls and strikes.

Well, they're really arguing. And Boone's now going to go draw on the plate where the strike zone is. There's Mendy coming out. That's the enforcer. He's going to show you where. Aaron Boone is now showing, making a line of where the ball was. And then he just imitated it. I'm sorry, Lasdee. Boone drew a line where the strike was called, which is way off the plate. And then he gave the pump out sign that the umpire uses to throw a guy out.

I can't read lipstick, but I do understand. No, no, no, no. He's really given it to him. Wow.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Aaron Boone gives zero you-know-whats anymore. He does not care.

The man does not care. He's had it. He's had it with umpires. He's had it with baseball. He's had it with the media. He's had it with his own team. He's done. He is coming apart at the seams.

And I actually find it highly entertaining. I hope he doesn't take the stress home with him. But can you imagine what he does at home?

How does he ever sleep? It's right in front of us. So much anger. So much anger.

He's so animated all the time. And going back now to, I don't know, a couple months ago, it feels like he absolutely has not met a pitch. Cannot find an umpire who makes the right calls anywhere.

Nowhere. Argues with every single umpire. All the umpires are completely incompetent and have no idea what they're doing.

And furthermore, he believes they should all be replaced by AI. Through a line. It's like one of the most disrespectful things you could possibly do to an umpire. Like tennis. Where tennis players, they feel like they see where a ball lands in or out.

In the clay, especially, they'll do this. And so they go over and they circle the mark on the ground. Or an umpire, a chair umpire, will get down and point out where the mark is to a player who's challenging a call. In this case, Aaron Boone, he's so angry about a called strike three for his rookie, Anthony Volpe, that he comes racing out of the dugout. He draws the line in the dirt after getting in the umpire's face. And the umpire is Las Diaz. After getting in his face, he goes over to the plate. Diaz was giving it back to him, by the way.

The two of them were swap and spit. So he draws the line next to the plate as to show where, like how far outside the ball was. And then he imitates Diaz with this overly dramatic, you're out! If you have not seen the still photos, oh my gosh, Aaron Boone, as I say, he's done. He gives zero bleeps and I'm not sure I've seen a manager imitate an umpire like that ever. He just did this totally dramatic, exaggerated strikeout call after drawing a line in the dirt.

It's unbelievable. I'm not advocating for it, but I'm wondering if he might get suspended for that. He really showed up at umpires. His sixth ejection of the year. He already got suspended once for too many ejections. What are you, Draymond Green?

Knock it off! Oh my goodness, who's the other guy? Oh, don't tell me.

Dylan Brooks, who kept getting suspended and kicked out. So Aaron Boone, he would like to explain himself, if you don't mind. I just thought there were a ton of pitches all night. And culminating with DJ a couple pitches and his at bat where he struck out with first and third there. I'm not going to get into that. We had our chances tonight and just couldn't capitalize.

Well that's for sure. How do you blame the home plate umpire when your team is 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position? I think they left 13 men on base without looking. I think that's what I remember, 13 men on base.

Garrett Cole, he does allow four runs on a handful of hits, but the Yankees only give him a single run of support. The offense is on life support. And Aaron Boone can do nothing but improv at home plate. And it was so theatrical. It was so over-exaggerated and theatrical.

If you haven't seen it, definitely check it out. Maybe producer Jake can retweet it from our show account. Yeah, they can't get runs. Their pitching staff is not that bad, but they just can't find enough run support. And now they're five and a half games back of the AL wild card. Now their basement of the American League East, but still in their division, looking up at the Orioles, every team is above.500. The wild card is where they're going to find their entryway, their pathway to the playoffs.

But right now they're five and a half back. The Mariners, the Red Sox are in front of them. It's Rays, Astros, Blue Jays sitting in those wild card spots right now. And the Mariners are on fire. They've won five in a row, eight of their last ten. The Angels, though, they can't buy a win. I can't believe it. Actually, I shouldn't say that.

Of course I can believe it. This is what they do. What are the chances Mike Trout even bothers to return this season now? They've lost seven in a row. They're eight back of the third wild card spot. Seven losses in a row after the moves they made at the trade deadline. Mike Trout was supposed to be back at some point, but are they a lost cause?

They might be. Apparently, as of this article was written a few hours ago on Los Angeles Daily News, that Trout has been in the cage recently. And Phil Nevins says that he feels good. So I don't know what that means for when he's going to return, but at least he looks like he is trying to. Great.

How much difference does it make now? Oh, man. I don't know if Phil Nevins survives this one. You can always point to injuries with the Angels. It feels like they always accumulate injuries. But after the moves they made at the deadline, if I'm the Angels' management, the front office, I'm pretty salty.

Maybe not as salty as Aaron Boone, but salty nonetheless. On Twitter, ALawRadio, our Facebook page too, coming up top of the hour, we will pivot to the NFL. So we've done some college football. We're going to stick with baseball for a little bit longer. We've got two versions at least.

Just kidding. We've got two versions of QB news. AFC NFC. Coming up on Thursday, first preseason games that would constitute preseason week one. And we've actually got some teams that plan to have their starters out there on the field for preseason week one. Wait till you hear from some of these coaches. Yeah, lots of good stuff.

We barely got to any NFL last night because it was a lot of the Women's World Cup in the fallout. And speaking of that, our friend Jesse Bradley, former professional goalkeeper, who's now in Seattle. He's joined us, even going back to the Men's World Cup, and we've had a lot of fun picking his brain about different topics. He'll join us coming up tomorrow night from Seattle.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Runners in scoring position. And a fly ball into shallow center field. And it's going to drop in for a base hit.

The runners all take a base. Hayward comes in to score. Hernandez goes to third. Outman goes to second. Lugo on 3-0 to Mookie Betts with the bases loaded and a fly ball to left center field. It's deep.

It's on its way. And it's a grand slam home run for Mookie Betts. And the Dodgers have scored eight runs here in the fourth. Down five to nothing. They lead eight to five. Mookie Betts.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Charlie Steiner on Dodgers radio. The Padres thought they were on their way to another win against the arch rival Dodgers. And they had a 5-0 lead until Mookie Betts completes what was this incredible fourth inning surge with eight runs. He's got the grand slam. His 31st home run of the season. And then another five spot that was put up by the Dodgers in the sixth inning. And so old friend Seth Lugo greeted very rudely eight runs on eight hits.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Apparently it was a special occasion for Mookie Betts as we find out on Sportsnet LA. At that point I was just trying to put it in play.

Especially in a situation like that. We had some momentum and I just was able to get a good pitch. And 3-0 I think it's like one of the first time I've swung 3-0.

So I was kind of proud of myself. Yeah I mean it also happened to be on your wife's birthday. Was that a grand slam for wifey by any chance? Yeah she was here and she ended up leaving. She had to get back to the kids. So shout out to you honey that was for you.

Oh sweet happy birthday Mrs. Betts. So for Dave Roberts and his team it really is evident that regardless of what they do in the offseason. Regardless of how many injuries they have. They may not be a World Series contender.

I'm not telling you they're going to win the championship again. But what we see from these Dodgers over and over again. First of all Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman at the top of the lineup.

Oh my gosh is there a more potent one-two punch in Major League Baseball? But then beyond that because of the number of veterans and the experience they have on their roster. And let's give Dave Roberts the credit for the leadership too. They've won seven of their last ten. They're now four up on the Giants in the NL West. The Diamondbacks have lost six in a row so they're barely above.500. Remember how people said the Dodgers were going to take a major step back in 23?

They weren't going to compete. Probably not win the NL West because they made no moves and lost Trey Turner. Partly it's because the rest of the division has not mounted a challenge. But they're 19 games above.500. This is despite having every single one of their starting pitchers to begin the season on the IL at different stretches. Their pitching has been a big mess this year and yet they still find ways to win. And Dave Roberts kind of looks at their track record.

It's an experience in the sense that at-bat every pitch matters and other teams could have just kind of conceded and split the series. But to our credit we kept a scratching claw and putting together good at-bats. And I think we snuck up on Lugo.

He was sort of cruising and we kind of fought back and again that big blow. Yeah, snuck up on him as if Seth Lugo doesn't know that the Dodgers have this capability. And so for Bob Melvin, you had to watch his starter get rocked in the fourth inning. Watch the Dodgers put 13 runs on the board between those two big innings. And still Sandy Ebb could not get above.500.

They're now 55 and 58. We were on the verge of.500 a couple games ago and then we have two tough ones again. So we continue to take some blows.

But another challenge to get off the mat tomorrow. I do not believe in jinxes or curses. I don't believe that our conversation with Sammy Levitt from San Diego, 97.3, the fan. Also the pre and post game host for the Padres flagship. I don't believe we had anything to do with that.

But when I posted the link to our conversation from our Sunday night show. He joined us from San Diego on Sunday night. I got much derision in return because big picture the Padres are closer to.500. And they have done a lot of work to erase most of the deficit that they were in in the wild card race. But then they take back to back tough losses against the Dodgers. And now as Bob Melvin points out they were so close but they faded backwards.

One step forward, two steps back. I still do believe with the lineup they've got and the pitching staff they've got. There's a lot of potential there to be able to salvage a wild card spot.

And maybe just maybe have another late season surge. But of course my timing was impeccable. Our timing was impeccable with our Sammy Levitt conversation. If you miss any of our show here on CBS Sports Radio while it's airing live.

We do have a podcast. I was in the mall doing an errand last Saturday or Saturday morning. And as I'm dropping off an item that needs to be repaired.

I was just filling out a form from the clerk inside the store. And he asked me what I do for a living. And it ensued into this big conversation. He starts jawing my ear off about baseball and about sports. And how he was going to the Yankees game on Sunday. Then his assistant looks me up and shows me on her phone. Is this you?

She's got a photo of me on her phone. It's after hours CBS Sports Radio. The official Winning Time podcast from HBO is back.

I'm Rodney Barnes, executive producer on the show. Magic and the Lakers are back to defend their title. Join me as I break down each new episode with sportswriter Jeff Pearlman. And the actors, directors, and key collaborators who brought the 1980s Showtime Lakers to life. It's not about basketball. It's about winning. Listen to HBO's official Winning Time podcast on Sundays after the show airs on Max.