After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

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For important information, visit principal.com slash disclosures. Well, that should wake you up on a Thursday morning, except the reason producer Jay chooses that particular production, that particular music and open to start our final hour is actually because the Angels and their star from Tokyo are in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Man, it's going from bad to worse for the Angels. I thought this could be the year that they finally ended their playoff drought and instead it's imploding. They're imploding.

It's become a rite of passage with them. They go all in or close to all in at the trade deadline. The injuries have derailed them. Mike Trout is back on the IL after one day in the lineup.

One day he's back on the IL. And you know what? That news got buried. Producer Jay, last night when we were prepping for the show, the Shohei Ohtani news broke, which we'll get to momentarily. You and I are kind of perusing some other information about the Angels. We're looking up to make sure we've got all the bases covered. And there's this little bitty line that would have been completely missed if we weren't going through everything we could find. Oh yeah, Mike Trout back on the IL.

That was quick. Yeah, but also, yeah, it doesn't even matter apparently in light of what we now know about Shohei Ohtani and that what we don't know about Shohei Ohtani. And I think the uncertainty is the frustrating part for him, for the Angels, and what about from the rest of Major League Baseball.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We're going to give this to you in chronological order because the way that things played out, it's pretty, it, I mean it was pretty crazy, unexpected, but also it took a very drastic turn. It's a double header in Anaheim between the Reds and the Angels. Ohtani pitching for the first time since early August. So it would have been, what, 15 days since he'd pitched. He missed multiple starts because of what they called arm fatigue. And that made sense.

Deep into the season, the weather, the temperatures, the travel. He's managing both pitching and hitting. Likely an MVP campaign. Maybe even if he doesn't appear again the rest of the way, he's still the MVP in the American League. And as he gets out there for his first at bat, everything looks great. Here's the pitch and Shohei drives the ball deep into right center. It's way out of here.

Right out of the blocks here on this Wednesday. It's Showtime. Two nothing Angels. For Shohei, home run number 44 of the season.

We talked about Andrew Abbott and his command of the fastball. He didn't want to command it in this spot. This is center cut.

Shohei makes him pay for it. This is a screaming line drive out into right field. And here's the next pitch. That's fouled back on the right side, back to the club level.

Still 2-2. Last fastball from Shohei at 94. And now the Angels are headed out to the mound. So there seems to be some concern about Otani. You just mentioned the velocity appeared to be down.

Bill Nevin has his hand on Shohei's shoulder. And we'll just have to wait and see what plays out here. Yeah, velocity's been down. We're seeing sweepers and splitters. Yeah. He's not throwing a fastball above 94.

And that's going to end the day for Shohei. Yeah, he is going to leave. You're still evaluating right now. It just seems to take some time, as you know, he told me he didn't feel any pain. It was just more of the same thing he's been feeling for the last couple weeks ago he had that just returned right after the first inning.

So that's really all I can tell you. He's still being evaluated. Obviously, Shohei left the game today.

We did imaging in between games. He does have a tear. And he won't pay for it. He's still going to be he does have a tear. You know, and he won't pitch the rest of the year. So we're gonna get a second opinion, go from there.

But it's basically day to day, obviously he had. So, you know, that's, that's where we're at. That's a UCL tear? Yes. Yeah. So, again, I don't have as far as plans and details.

I don't have those yet. You know, he's going to have been in contact with his representation. Obviously, he hit the second game.

He's played with this in 18. So, you know, but with that being said, we'll take it day by day and, and we'll see where it goes. Well, there's a lot there. But as I say, it went from bad to worse. And for Shohei Ohtani, it's supposed to be his return to the mound. He hits major league leading 44th home run. But then, minutes later, it's obvious that something's wrong. His velocity is down. You hear Phil Nevin talk about the fact that even the trajectory of his pitches was off. And if you watch the video, whether it's highlights or whether it's the actual game, you see that Ohtani himself knew something was wrong. He was frustrated too. The calls there on the Angels radio network from the opening game of the doubleheader won by the Reds.

Elie De La Cruz was fantastic. Only 26 pitches for Shohei. They do imaging in between games. Perry Menashen, the general manager, he gives you the info that he's got, which is right now it's a torn UCL in his right elbow, so a torn elbow ligament. He will not pitch the rest of the way.

And at this point, a lot of the different options are on the table. Generally, with a torn UCL comes a surgery. But will he have a full Tommy John like he did in 2018?

Did not pitch the 19th season, though he did serve as the DH and was an MVP two years later? Or will he not have a surgery, try rehab? I mean, we know that Brock Purdy had a surgery and is already back. Now his was a sprained, sprained, right? His was a, I'm pretty sure his was a sprain.

So there's a lot of different ways that you can handle this type of an injury. But since he already went through one Tommy John surgery, would Shohei do it again? Would he maybe not remain a two-way player?

And that was a question that was posed to Perry afterwards, once the news had been disclosed. I would never put any limitations on players in general, and especially him. So I think he's shown, you know, it's obviously possible that it's obviously possible to do and excel at it. I think injuries happen. We've gone through, you know, an abnormal amount of injuries this season. There's no excuses. Injuries are part of the game. And, you know, professional athletes, and especially the guys in this room, there's quality makeup and they're workers. And I expect him to bounce back and do what he needs to do to get back to where he was. This stinks though. And while the money is not the most important thing, I've already heard people speculating about the money.

What does this mean for Shohei? Was he about to become a 500 million dollar man? Really though, how many teams can afford that? The Mets?

Is that it? Steve Cohen? The only the only team owner likely willing to pay that? Well, I guess I shouldn't speak for the Dodgers. I mean, they have handed out a lot of money and they make a lot of money, so they're good for it.

I mean, the Dodgers are one of the most popular teams in baseball, so they do make a lot of money. But would they be willing to shell out a half a bill with a B on one player? Well, if it's Shohei and it puts butts in the seats and he can do both, yes. But the challenge is if he can't. And you don't know if he'll ever return to the mound. But it depends upon the extensive nature of the tear. So he just looked it up, Jay did, and Brock Purdy did have a tear.

So forgive me for not remembering that correctly. He had a surgery, he's already back. Depending upon the nature of the tear for Shohei, could he miss a year? I mean, generally, that's what Tommy John surgery requires, is a year plus.

So then the question becomes, when? If you need surgery, wouldn't you do it now? Why would you continue to trot him out as your DH? It makes no sense whatsoever unless he's insistent. But even then, the Angels are still, at this point, the team that owns his the team that owns his rights or the team that pays his checks. So why would you put him out there?

Here's a devil's advocate point of view, though. If you're the Angels and you don't think you have a chance of re-signing him, why not? Set him out there every day in the lineup if that's what he wants to do, because why?

Because people want to see him play. And now he's potentially going to be hitting with a torn UCL. But if he still wants to, and the doctors say there's no danger of him doing further damage to his elbow, well then, does the team take advantage? Does the team say, all right, well, we'll milk this, this Shohei ride, this Showtime, as long as we possibly can, because we're looking at the end of Showtime in Anaheim? Or do they do what's best for their player, still believing they might have a chance to re-sign him?

Which, maybe this changes things, right? So Jay, do you think this potentially levels the playing field for teams that can afford him? So, not joking, there had been talk that he could sign for up to $500 million as the guy who leads the majors in home runs. He did double in the second game after the torn UCL, and he actually knew the torn ligament because Perry Minashin said he asked if he could still play.

After finding out, that was his reaction. So if, if he cannot pitch next year, and there's a question about whether or not he could pitch again at the highest level, doesn't that stand to reason then there are more teams that think they can afford him as just a hitter, and I'm using my air quotations, just a hitter. But there would be more teams that might potentially put in bids if they don't feel like they have to offer $500 million to get him. Yeah, if he can't pitch, I feel like his price tag almost literally gets cut in half, because you're paying him essentially $300 million to be the MVP hitter and $300 million or whatever to be a Cy Young pitcher. So combine those, that's where I think that that $500 million plus number comes from, but if he can't pitch, that's the point of what you're paying him $500 million to do. If he's not going to pitch, he just becomes, you know, a great player. He's still going to get 300, but he's like, you know, he's Harper, he's Machado, he's just a great hitter.

He doesn't do that extra. You're not adding an ace to your staff also. I mean, you know, that's, that's where, that's why his dollar value is so high because he is an ace. So then maybe there are another handful of teams that would offer the Padres, although they're, they're already strapped for, for cash.

And this season has been a disaster for them. So maybe not the Padres, but certainly the Dodgers. If the, and, and maybe the Dodgers, even if they pay him for both, but maybe the Dodgers then overbid thinking, all right, what do we have to lose?

Let's get him here. And then we'll worry about whether or not he pitches after the fact. So the, and they desperately need pitching. Now they have plenty of stars, but to keep him in LA or in the LA area in LA County, that would be phenomenal.

Yeah. I feel honestly like this injury helps the Angels the most, like not even just because of now, like if his price tag comes down and they can compete, I feel like they were going to spend whatever it took anyway. Cause I mean, that's, they've been playing this entire time from the deadline until now that Shohei is our guy. We're not, we're going to keep them. We're going to do whatever it takes to keep them.

So I don't see why they would flip that now, just because he's hurt and say, Oh, whatever, we're going to waste them. Let's just expend them. If I was the Angels, I shut them down. I say, we're the only ones who are going to be meeting with you for this time. We're the only ones who can with our doctors. We know exactly what we're going to do with you. We're still going to offer you a nice contract.

I think it could help. They could play in their favor. And maybe there's a comfort zone there because of the fact that he's already gone through injuries with this medical staff, with his training staff and wouldn't have to move and could rehab there. So yeah, there's something to be said, but also because of the money. If you're paying him to be a two-way player at the highest level, there are only two, three teams, maybe, that can afford him. Or if they can't afford him, that are willing to pay that kind of money for one guy. I don't even know if the Angels could because of the Mike Trout situation. That contract is mammoth.

And now he's been shut down again. I just feel like they have to, like if Shohei Otani says, I'm coming back to the Angels, but you have to meet this this dollar amount. You have no choice. You didn't trade him. You invested all everything in him.

You have to. And I hope that he stays for the Angels' sake, although it also stinks that we won't see him in October this year. Of course, he would be available as a hitter, but not as a pitcher.

Jay looked it up. When Mike Trout got hurt 38, well, it's now 39, it's now 41 games ago. When he got hurt, they were above 500 and very much in the AO wildcard race. Now they're so far out, we can't even say they're on life support. There's nothing keeping them alive. And without Shohei and Mike Trout, you might as well call the whole thing off.

And so what does this mean? Way more questions than answers. We don't have any answers. We just found out last night that Shohei will not pitch the rest of the year, that he has a torn UCL, and that's all we know. Though he did serve as the DH in the second game of the doubleheader after finding out, and he did have a double. I think he scored a run too. He's out there running bases.

It's just a torn elbow ligament. Who cares, really? This is the way.

It's not how we do things in Japan. All right, so we got a couple of things going on our page, our Facebook page as well as our Twitter after our CBS and then my Twitter too. We're asking you, first of all, who's hotter right now, Tay-Tay or Messi?

Tay-Tay or Leo? Lionel Messi with two more assists last night and a penalty kick that helped Miami advance to the championship or the final, I should say, of the US Open Cup. I don't even know if this counts and they're regulars. I can't keep up with the MLS cups going on. There's so many cups, but he is yet again, I was going to say pretty in pink, but that's mean. He's yet again scorching in pink and all the Bengals are in town to watch him, right? They're all on the sidelines in their Messi's jerseys, including Joe Burrow. Crazy stuff. So they rally from 0-2 down against Cincinnati.

They win in PKs. Messi, Messi, Messi, Messi, Messi. Or is it Taylor Swift? It's two different questions, but I guess you can consider them both as you take the poll on Twitter.

Whose ticket is more expensive right now? Is it Taylor Swift or is it Messi in Miami? We've got Messi mania. All right, so take the poll and then in light of Messi's impact on Miami, the club has not lost since he was introduced.

What other single athlete, what other solo athlete, male or female, has had the same type of immediate impact as in changed the entire trajectory of a franchise and a team? Just like that, just by showing up. Again, find us on Twitter.

You can use my Twitter A-law. This receiver trio is just scary and it does start with Scary Terry himself there. He's good, man. And it's just, can we get normal quarterback play for this guy for once in his career? Because you're right.

I mean, no shade to ODU's finest Taylor Heinecky, but he was literally a backup quarterback in the XFL and he's probably the best player that Washington has rolled out at quarterback in Terry's career. Subscribe to Reception Perception available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. Radio and then our Facebook page too. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Good morning to you from CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Good to have Zeke. Yeah, we had a good visit with him and I look forward to working with him. How does he bring to the team? Well, we'll see. Yeah, I've never coached Zeke before, but glad we have him and we'll start, you know, spend time with him the last, you know, last night and on the trip to, you know, terminology and plays and protections, things like that. So we'll work him in there when he's ready and see how that goes.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Bill Belichick, non-committal and non-informatory. I don't think that's a word. He is not inflammatory. No, he's definitely inflammatory. You know me.

I like to try on new words for size, but the end result is the same. Ezekiel Elliott is now a New England Patriot. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. I see a lot of your answers coming in. One player, one athlete who changed the entire trajectory of a franchise and made an immediate impact upon his or her arrival.

Had a few of them earlier. Certainly messy with Inter Miami CF. I went WNBA with Brianna Stewart and the New York Liberty. Now, we're not saying that the one athlete did everything alone because that's not team sports, but just that everything changed. The culture changed. The field changed.

The expectations changed. Not to mention the wins and losses and maybe the rings were accumulated after this athlete arrived on the scene. And we know Miami was the worst team in MLS when Messi showed up.

Well, that's not the case anymore. They're the hottest ticket in MLS too. So lots of great answers on Twitter, ALawRadio or After Hours, CBS and then our Facebook page too.

We'll get to those before the top of the hour. Ezekiel Elliott, first comment since he joined the New England Patriots and he's loving it. It's kind of at home for a long time, so I got a lot of energy.

I think I missed the first, what, 17 practices at camp. So, you know, I thought I definitely should come in and be kind of a little energizer boost, but I mean the transmission has been good. I've been getting along with the team.

I love the coaches, you know, love this atmosphere, love this program and, you know, just having fun. If you missed my conversation with longtime Patriots insider Karen Garigi and she joined us on our last show and I asked her about the role for Zeke and she made the point that Zeke is very similar to Ramondre Stevenson and they want to use them in the same way. Now, Zeke has had a lot of injuries. He's had a lot of miles and a lot of pounding on his body, but the role is the same and the idea is to keep Ramondre from wearing down and having tired legs the way that he did late last season. She actually went so far as to say that the Patriots are leaning more toward run game, defense, old school football, taking some of the pressure off Mac Jones, though you should definitely hear what she said about a renewed and confident Mac Jones. So that's part of our podcast from 24 hours ago, though I did share the link with you on both Twitter and Facebook, so you can check it out there for those of you who are Patriots fans or AFC East fans and you want to scout the competition.

You hear Zeke say he spent a long time at home. He's just ready to get out there and do what he loves. I'm definitely fired up, you know. I'm definitely fired up just to be out here and play football, you know, just, you know, not being signed off season, kind of leading it to camp. You know, I've been anxious so, you know, I'm ready to get out there and ball. I think when you look at my play style and the culture of this team, I think, you know, it's a good match and so, you know, I think I'm a good fit. Can't wait to see how this plays out, plus Dalvin Cook as well.

Looking forward to seeing how that works. The Jets, I know a lot of people want to believe in them. I need to see it on the field, but we will at least see Aaron Rodgers in the preseason coming up. Isn't it tonight? Don't they play tonight?

No, not tonight. Who plays tonight? Falcons and there's two games tonight.

There are two games tonight. Eagles, someone. It's Eagles. Yeah, it's Eagles that play tonight.

Okay, let me look. Not that it matters because, okay, I'm sorry. John Harbaugh gets really upset when you say it doesn't matter.

They're not meaningless, but they don't count. That's the point, but we are going to see a fair number of starters because there's only three preseason games. So, it's Pittsburgh and Atlanta tonight and then it's Indy and Philadelphia and that's a fun tie, of course, because of Shane Steichen leaving the Eagles to go coach the Colts. Speaking of the Colts, apparently there are teams that are making offers for Jonathan Taylor, but will the Colts be happy with one of the ones that they hear? Six teams.

That's the latest report. Six teams have called up and inquired about Jonathan Taylor. Two of them have actually made offers.

So, that latest piece comes from ESPN. One of those is the Miami Dolphins. Wow, talk about stockpiling assets in the AFC East. The Bills, the Jets, the Dolphins.

Could they be trying to steal the moniker of Beast from the NFC East? I'm here too, okay? Mo, Mike McDaniel. It's After Hours here on CBS Sports Radio. So, take our poll.

Who's hotter, Messi or Tay-Tay? That's on Twitter. Only on Twitter, sorry. And then our Facebook page. You can also play when we're talking about athletes who single-handedly changed the trajectory and the impact was indelible right away as they joined a franchise.

And I don't care what time period we're talking about. Last show, in fact this hour, so about 24 hours ago, we had told you about the tragedy for Caleb Farley's family and how he's now trying to process, deal with, navigate the loss of his dad, just 61 years old, in a home explosion. So, according to authorities, the gas leak was building up, building up, and eventually came into contact with something that was flammable and there was a massive explosion and his father did not make it out of the home in North Carolina.

Caleb is with the team and he did speak to reporters. It's really difficult for him to talk and to to stand there in front of the microphones, but he did it remembering his dad. My father was a stand-up guy. He was a stand-up guy.

He raised me to be a stand-up guy. I just lean on my faith. That's all I can do. That's all I got.

That's what I've been doing, you know, had a pretty wild five, six years, last five, six years. I'm a fighter though. Caleb's a big believer. He has a lot of faith and I just kind of told him to lean into his faith as hard as he's ever been. He's a great leader. He's a great leader.

He's leaning to his faith as hard as he's ever done before. I know he lost his mother at a young age as well, so he's dealt with a lot of adversity as well. It's just very tragic and, you know, as a team and as a brother, you know, all we can do and all I can do is just try to be there for him.

It's going to be, you know, it's going to be tough. I mean, like I said, it's unimaginable tragedy. You hear Kevin Bayard supporting his teammate.

You have the emotion of Caleb Farley. I can't imagine being in his shoes and then the fact that it's his second parent that he's had to bury, second parent that he's lost, just makes it that much more painful, adds to the grief. So I'm glad that he has his team and that's one of the benefits of being on a team, whether we're talking high school, college, pro, but when it is a pro team and you're together so much of the time, pre-season, in-season, you have this built-in support system and these guys will take it personally. We've seen various tragedies in the past affect pro teams and what happens, it's like the entire team shows up for the funeral, the service. They'll lift him up.

They'll make sure that he's getting whatever he needs and that he's not alone. So I'm glad he's with the team as hard as this is. Now the audio coming from Queen City News.

On Twitter, ALawRadio and our Facebook page too. Man, we've jammed a lot into this edition of the show and we're still not done, but the breaking news from just before we took the air last night, Shohei Ohtani has a torn UCL and will not pitch the rest of this season. Everything else is questions.

That's the statement. It spawns a whole bunch of questions moving forward and we'll get to your answers too about athletes with single-handed impacts on the teams, the franchises that they joined, like Messi, Messi, Messi, Messi, Messi. You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Here's the pitch now. Swing, line drive in the center field, base hit. Coming in to score is Schmidt rounding third right behind him, also scoring Bailey and Meckler goes to third. What a game for Paul DeJong, his first game as a giant.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Well could you have a more perfect example? I don't know what Paul DeJong does moving forward, but he literally just signed with the Giants on Tuesday. He plays his first game with San Francisco and goes three for five with four RBI, including the go-ahead single in the 10th inning. John Miller with the call on San Francisco Giants radio. This is after Bryce Harper ties it for the Phillies with a three-run blast in the ninth inning, only to see Paul DeJong usurp his glory.

Yeah, brand new. So if you haven't been following Paul's career path lately, let me update you. You may know him from the St. Louis Cardinals, spent the majority of his seven years with the Cardinals. He got traded to Toronto. He was released there once, was it Boboshet, who he was filling in for? Yeah, so Boboshet gets healthy, so that means Paul is expendable.

Paul gets released after traded to Toronto and playing for, I don't know, six weeks or something. Not even, I guess it's been three, four weeks, and then he gets signed by the Giants and promptly delivers a win. It was almost like a reset for me even joining this team and, you know, that's how I kind of felt going in today. That's been a few days since I was even on a field, so for me to be able to go out there and have a clean slate really, really did great for my mental approach as far as this game goes. The defense will probably go less talked about because there's a home run in there and there was a huge base hit late in the game, but the defense was equally important and he just kind of solidified things out there and it was fun to see him go deep in the hole and make a play for us. Yeah, Gabe Kapler raving about the defense as well as the offense too, so the Paul DeYoung game, first one, there's an immediate impact, but what other athletes showed up and instantly not just impacted the team, the franchise in that moment, in that season, but you can look back and notice a completely different arc change the trajectory of the entire franchise.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Facebook, also asking you on our Twitter page, After Hours CBS, you can find that and our Messi versus Taylor Swift poll on my Twitter too, A Law Radio. We've got a lot of good answers. We're going to get to these here momentarily. A lot of games that went down to the final at bats or needed extra innings. I just mentioned the Giants with their big extra inning blast from Paul DeYoung. I like the fact that it wasn't a home run too, so wide variety of ways, especially with that cheap runner on second base in extra innings, but you know it helped the Red Sox, not sure Adam Duvall needed it. Here's the 2-2 pitch and it is swung on and crushed. It is back.

It is gone. Adam Duvall, a three-run homer in extra innings, his third of the series and it's 7-4 Red Sox. 1-1 set and pitch is on the ground to the right side. Reyes ranges to his left. He gloves. He throws in time.

Ball game over. Duvall's three-run homer. The big swing when Kowski escapes.

A base is loaded. Jam. A little tight there for the Boston Red Sox against the Houston Astros, but Red Sox get a massive hit from Duvall. Jay and I, we can't hear his name without going Duvall. The call for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Actually, here's the crazy part. Adam fouled a ball off his foot and was in some kind of pain the pitch right before he hit the three-run shot. It was, man, I honestly don't know how I hit it after what I did. You know, I was joking with the guys and said I'm not going to take my shoe off tonight because, I mean, it got me, it squared me up.

So, but yeah, I mean, I don't know. I put a good swing on it. All right, so we have the Red Sox and extras, the Giants and extras. Just for fun, how about the Brewers in extras? The 2-2 pitch. Jops softly towards third. This is a tough play. Charging Lewis. Jops throws on the run.

It's not in time. Brewers win. Bryce Terang put the ball in play. He hit it softly to third and he beats out a walk-off infield single. 8-7.

Milwaukee completes the sweep in the 10th. It was a seeing eye single. He barely gets it into play. That's not the same impact.

Well, you know what, not the same optics as Adam Duvall, but definitely the same impact. Brewers radio, Red Sox radio, mentioned John Miller and Giants radio earlier. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio.

So let's get to some of your answers. By the way, Taylor has a healthy lead right now over Leo. I don't know what that means about Leo Messi. I think he's crushing it in pink. Joshua on Twitter goes with Kawhi Leonard for the Raptors.

Here's the crazy part. He was there for not even one full year, not even one full calendar year, and yet the Raptors win the only NBA title in their franchise history before he departs for the Clippers. At this rate, considering what's happened since, maybe he should have stayed in Toronto. Lynn on Twitter. Earl Campbell changed the Oilers into contenders immediately. John goes with Stefan Diggs to the Buffalo, helping Josh Allen become elite and make the Bills a contender. I love this answer.

This might be my favorite one so far. Tristan on Twitter. Sidney Crosby. Yeah, you think he changed pretty much everything about the Pittsburgh Penguins. It's just weird not to have them in the playoffs last year too.

It feels like forever since we've seen them. Let's see. Eli, love this answer as well. Drew Brees to the New Orleans Saints. Remember a couple years before the NFL was going to move the Saints after Katrina. Not only does Brees have success out of the gate. Remember they gave him a shot too because he'd had shoulder surgery, right?

But he leads them to a Super Bowl a couple years after signing. Eli loves the show. Boom.

That's a good one. Great answer, Eli. Let's talk to Matt who's in Baltimore. Matt, welcome to After Hours, CBS Sports Radio. Hey, good morning, Amy. Long time lifter, first time caller. Boom.

Great topic and I'm not comparing him to Lionel Messi by any stretch because not many people you can. But Adlai Rutschman, since he came up from my beloved Orioles, we have not been swept. I believe that I'm pretty sure it's 79 straight now with the win last night. I mean he changed it to strike you this franchise like I have not seen anybody do in this with the Orioles. Even Ripken.

I mean one guy to come up and just solidify the team the way he has been amazing. So I thought it was not just that they hadn't been swept but they hadn't lost a series or am I, is that wrong of me? I believe we've lost some series in that time. Okay. Gotcha.

All right. Well, I certainly know that I've heard his name a ton tonight. I've seen his name a ton. So a lot of Orioles fans believe exactly the way that you do, Matt. That he has been a catalyst and that he's changing the entire direction of the O's.

100%. Well, thanks for taking my call, Amy, and go O's. World Series 23, baby.

All right, Matt. Good to talk to you in Baltimore. Yeah, we've got a really active Orioles fan base now and I know many of you listed on 105.7, The Fan. That's one of our favorite affiliates, mostly because of Rob Long with the Big Bad Morning Show.

Now he's going to get a big head to go along with his Big Bad Morning Show. Now, I just know you all are very active and you're very passionate about your teams. So let's see if I can run through some of these on our Facebook page.

I'm gearing up here. Rick also goes with Adley for the Orioles and he says Don Shula changed the Dolphins when he left the Colts in 1970. Yeah, you can really tell people's perspective in their eras, if you will. Oh, speaking of eras, isn't that the name of Tay Tay's tour?

The eras tour. Toby goes with Reggie White to the Packers. Kevin Allen Iverson for Philly. Let's see, Sean, Tom Brady in Tampa. Couldn't you say the same thing about Tom Brady in New England? Though, maybe not because he was backing up.

He was backing up. Drew Bledsoe. Drew Bledsoe, thank you. Drew, Drew. All I could think was Drew Breeze because we just talked about Drew Breeze. Remember, until Bledsoe got hurt and then forever the question, until Brady made that job his own, the question was can you lose your job to injury?

Can you lose your job to injury? I was in New England at the time and just remember that debate over and over and over again. So yes, Bledsoe, he had the job still until he got hurt. Brady took over. Now, remember going to that, it was the AOC Championship where Bledsoe had to come back in, actually. So that whole season was kind of crazy, but Brady for sure in Tampa, immediate impact with a Super Bowl in his first year.

Derek on Facebook. Rashid Wallace to the Pistons. We don't want a championship without him. Paul goes with Big Poppy, the Red Sox. Yeah, I mean they certainly got contributions all over the place when they ended the drought in 2004. I mean that was Manny Ramirez. It was Pedro Martinez. It was Cowboy Up. It was all that jazz, but Big Poppy played a major role. They don't even get to the World Series if not for Big Poppy in the ALCS, right?

Actually, Roland goes with Drew Bledsoe for New England and he's going farther back. Says die-hard Patriots fan. I cried in 85, lol. That was the Super Bowl against the Bears in which they got annihilated.

Yeah, I was also a kid in New England and I don't remember much about the game, only that people were so grumpy. I was too young to remember. I'm not even sure I watched the game. I don't remember. Let's see. Dawn goes with Cody Bellinger on Fire for the Cubs. All right, I like that one.

That's unique. Corey says Aaron Rodgers to the Jets without stepping on the field. Nah.

Michael Jordan. That's Allen's answer. Love it. Warren and Brad go Wayne Gretzky when he got to LA and then Raymond Shaq to the Miami Heat. All right, talk to you tonight. It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio. Boom!