2 Burst results for "Hanshin Tigers"
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"hanshin tigers" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Always by Ben Lindbergh of the ringer, Ben. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I am not an extremely tall catcher for the Minnesota Twins, but other than that I am well. Have you seen everyone discovering the miracle that is Grayson grinder grinder? Yes. Yes, yes I have. He's actually a former effectively wild guest. Yeah. Yeah, he was on a podcast that we did with just tall catchers, just all the tallest catchers in history. Join us on the podcast, the league of extraordinary 6 foot 6 catchers. Yeah. We're on the show altogether talking about how hard it is on their knees. So I will link to that on the show page for anyone who missed it. But yeah, I guess any time grace of grinder goes somewhere else, everyone discovers that there is in fact a tall catcher. Yeah, he's still tall. And you know, I get it. Maybe you aren't. Hanging out thinking, what are our former backups for the Detroit tigers doing with their careers? But he's like a big league time since like 2018. Yeah. So I don't want to say that I'm like a hipster 'cause I was temporarily not confident that I knew how to say his last name. So who am I? Who am I to be fussy, but yeah, big tall guy still saw. Yep, I have watched his career with great interest after he was an effectively wild guess. I mean, at that point, he had made it, I think, when he was on the show, anything after that is gravy, really, but I'm sure he's happy that he has continued to accrue major league service time in addition to his effectively wild appearance and now effectively wild mentioned, just it's all coming up, Grayson these days. Anyway, we have a busy packed exciting week for you well, I think. Our usual complement of four team previews. So today we will be previewing the Toronto Blue Jays with Caitlyn McGrath of the athletic and the Kansas City Royals with Annie Rogers of MLB dot com and then at the end of the week, we will have two more previews, the rays and the pirates, and then sandwiched in between in the middle of the week. We will discuss the WBC, which will be starting this week, and also, I don't know if you noticed this, but our friend Sam Miller started a sub stack, and we were talking to Sam Miller about that a little later this week, too. So what to be excited about and to look forward to. But just before we get to any of that, just the one important thing that we all have to discuss right now, did you see the second home run that Shohei Ohtani hit? His exhibition, the samurai, Japan, WBC team, has played an exhibition game or multiple exhibition games against NPV teams, they played the hanshin tigers and Shohei Ohtani hit two bombs and they were both bombs, but the first of the bombs was a particularly explosive one and I'll just send you the link just in case you hadn't seen it and of course I will include it on the show page for everyone. But some home runs are impressive because they are hit so solidly and co so far and others are impressive because they are not hit so solidly. And still they go so far. So I should preface this by saying that Shohei Ohtani warned everyone as my physical condition isn't a 100% because of jet lag. I feel a bit worried about missing a pitch over the plate. I wouldn't worry. This home run, which was off a real picture. This was hiroto psyche of the tigers who in his return from Tommy John surgery last season in the MPP had a 1.5 ERA and he's a fairly hard thrower by the standards of the league, although this was not one of his harder throws. This was just a Titanic blast by Shohei Ohtani that if anyone else swung like that, I think you would say that's a pop up to second or short write or something, right? Like this ball got out to set her fields. A 122 meters or 400 feet away and it was not exactly a wall scraper. No. And he was down on one knee. Now I guess it's not accurate to say that he hit it from one knee because he went to one knee just after he made contact. He was in the process of sinking to one knee and then but he was totally off balance like leaning forward and just did the atrium belt tray basically down to one knee and somehow this got out easily to just a little bit right of center, just I'm looking forward to watching Shohei Ohtani in this tournament and in the season, which will not be a surprise to anyone, but it's nice to be reminded you know like every time this season starts and we all marvel at how tall Greece and griner is and then we also remember that Shohei Ohtani exists and does things like this. So pretty pumped. So I appreciate that you decided to watch this and draw from it like you know actually baseball insight like look at the marvel that is Otani 'cause I thought that the thing that you might focus on was his celebration as he rounds third because that was fun too. I think that Lara's new bar is making his presence felt because we have. We have a pepper grinder. We have a and here's a question for you. Your large new bar pretend, okay? You're presenting your large new park. Okay. Are you stoked to CO2? Do the pepper grinder? Because it's like, wow, you know, arguably the best player in baseball has adopted this thing that I do and we have camaraderie and, you know, he is my colleague now and we are of the same team or Ben. Do you think? Well, now no one's going to remember that. They're going to think oh tani is the originator of the pepper grinder, which I don't say to knock the, you know, the good people of St. Louis who certainly make their presence felt online and probably have let a lot of people know that this is a large new bar joint if only because it's fun to say Lars, new bar
Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney
"hanshin tigers" Discussed on Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney
"I'm doing great. I'm going to be better after I ask you this first question. I need you to translate this. Damn. What was that? What did you think? What language was that in? Am I supposed to understand that? I told you most of the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life is taking French in high school and college and status managed now 33% of our players to be expanded. And now that Eric gagne is out of the league, I don't have anyone to speak French to anymore. What was that? Was that Japanese? I can't even understand it. That was Japanese that was Shohei Ohtani hitting one of his two home runs in Japan's X have been win over the hanshin tigers today. He had a monster game. So that was the call of one of those home runs at three run shot. By the way, hot ticket is brought to you by vivid seats where you earn rewards with every purchase vivid seats rewards is your ticket to more tickets. Vivid seats, life happens live, the best seat in that house would have been where that ball landed. So Tim, yeah, we figured you'd be the one to be able to tell us exactly what was going on there. No, I don't know any Japanese, but I will tell you that when I covered the Orioles buster and John Miller was the play by play guy. We go out for pizza and beer after occasional game. And John did in impersonation of Vince Scully one night speaking in Japan. In Japanese. It was the funniest thing I've ever heard. The inflection was perfect. The impersonation was perfect. I had no idea what he was saying, but he was speaking Japanese in Vince Scully's voice. It was just priceless. So in my rounds, this spring, I found myself time and again having conversations with players about the contract that Shohei Ohtani is going to get in the future because Tim, last year, last fall, I made the statement that I thought what we saw from Aaron judge last year was the greatest season by any player ever because of the pressure because of how great he was because of how difficult the pitching is now. And I feel like that might last one year. Like it feels like what we're going to see from Otani this year is going to be absurd. What do you think? Yeah. He's like no one we've ever seen. And I believe and I'm in the vast minority on this that if there was a DH in 1927 or 23, Babe Ruth would have pitched and been the DH and done similar things to ohtani. That's how great Babe Ruth was. But it's a different time now and to be this Apple headache to throw this hard to hit the ball this hard to run up these offensive numbers and absurd pitching numbers and still as I've told you many times watching him run out of triple is my favorite part of his game because of how fast he is, he's going to break all the records for salaried contract. He's going to do things. He's still not even close to being done doing spectacular things and for baseball say we need him to have another sensational year and we get to watch him even more. So you famously last week asked hind bloom on our exhibition broadcast, whether he can dunk, which, you know, for high and bloom being like a 6 one guy, maybe that he's right on the fringe of whether or not he can do that. I don't think people realize how big Shohei Ohtani is. Like when you stand next to him, it's shocking that an athlete is that good and maybe it's appropriate he's playing with Mike Trout because trout's the same way. Like you don't get this. I don't think truly understand the trout could be transitioned into a strong safety role right away. That's how big he is. And here's Otani, he was actually bigger than trout. Right. And a little context. You challenge me to ask Klein bloom if you've ever dunked it because you know I'm a dope and you know how much I love basketball and it's always an intriguing question to me when you ask a baseball player if he can dunk or wins the last time he dunks, you know? And high bloom said I can't dunk. I've never done, but when I do dunk for the first time, you'll be the first one to know. So it was a stupid question, but I did it because you challenged me and I hate to lose to buster. So, but you're right about ohtani and I've said this a million times buster. The average fan has no comprehension. How big these guys are until they stand right next to them. That's why we missed all those years, those two years in COVID because there's no substitute for walking through a Clubhouse, seeing a guy maybe for the first time in the first thing that you routinely say is he's bigger than I thought he was. And that's Shohei Ohtani. He is a graceful athlete and to remove like that to run like that at that size it is just breathtaking to watch. Is it possible that Otani could win the sighing award and the MVP this year? Anything is possible with him, I will say he won't win the Cy Young award because I don't as great as he is. He's good enough to win, but they're going to protect him and when in doubt they're going to give him another day, so he might not get 32 stars. He might not strike out 240 guys. He might not win 20 games, but yes, he's good enough to win both and even if we're just discussing whether he's good enough to win both. Just proves how remarkable he really is. Didn't it feel like last year that he just went next level when it came to his command as a pitcher? Like it felt like in his first few years that he would have those days when he'd sprayed the ball around. And if you had a team that was patient, you could wear them down, make them throw a lot of pitches, get them out, you know, a 105 pitches and four innings. It doesn't feel like that guy's around anymore. No, and that's again, that's why he's so great. Is he's made these adjustments.