Monday Morning Cubs Show
A show every Monday morning about the Chicago Cubs from Carl and Mahoney.
Monday Morning Cubs Show
Sweep The Rockies Or We Riot Politely
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The Cubs just did something that changes the whole feel of a season: they won a series on the road, then shrugged off a Sunday loss like a team that expects to bounce back. We’re still honest about the flaws, but the tone is different because the baseball is different. Logan Webb shuts the door, sure, but taking the first two games in San Francisco is exactly how you survive ace-day and stack momentum.
We dig into the mindset piece through Alex Bregman, because the most convincing part of his recent stretch isn’t a box score. It’s accountability. We connect that to real life work habits, then bring it back to Chicago Cubs baseball: who sets the standard, who drags the room upward, and why “back to basics” is more than a cliché when the offense needs to wake up. From there it’s Ball Or Strike time, with a big focus on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s breakout, the walk rate jump, and why his ceiling might be higher than we even know.
On the pitching side, we talk Ben Brown’s All Star resume, Javier Assad’s value as a plug-and-play weapon, and what “competitive pitches” actually look like when you’re watching closely. Then we look ahead to the Colorado Rockies series and the Toronto Blue Jays at Wrigley Field, including the atmosphere, the urgency, and the uncomfortable roster questions like whether Dansby Swanson needs a reset on the bench and why Matt Shaw’s usage still doesn’t add up.
If you’re feeling the Cubs turning a corner, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more Cubs fans can find the show. What’s the one move you’d make this week to keep the momentum going?
Thanks for tuning in!
- Carl & Mahoney
A New Mood After The Series Win
SPEAKER_01And we're clear.
SPEAKER_00Good morning, good afternoon, and evening, Chicago Cubs fans. Welcome back to the Monday morning Cubs Show. Today is Monday, June 15th. It's your host, Carl. As always, joined by my close pal Mahoney. Start here is are we good? Mahoney, are we back? Are we are is it is the tone of the show positive? I'm so excited to do the show.
SPEAKER_01I'm positive. I got a smile on my face. You wouldn't think so, you know, coming off loss against this uh, you know, ace pitcher against Logan Webb on the Sunday, but I've seen what I need to see, Carl, and I'm feeling pretty good about this team where they're at again.
SPEAKER_00Now, I've gone through the numbers. I understand a lot of people listen to this show, have listened to Friday's show, but there's a couple stragglers out there that haven't. And the guys are going to be stunned if you go back, you look at the Friday show, where you would have thought I'd be jumping off a fucking bridge. We were super positive on Friday. I mean, just nothing but energy looking for reasons that the Cubs would turn it around this weekend against the Giants, go out, win the first two games of the series, first series victory in six weeks. We can bullshit and joke around and say, ha ha ha, we suck. We haven't done it since May 6th. May was miserable, this and that. No, I told you on Friday, Mahoney, we were gonna turn a page. I told people on Friday we were turning a page. It started Friday night. We win the series. Like, let's just keep it rolling.
SPEAKER_01We turned a page and it was it's a brand new chapter, Carl. Like the season starts now for the Chicago Cubs and our push for October baseball. And a few just a few Mahoney noodles from your Friday show. The correct
Bregman And The Work Ethic Blueprint
SPEAKER_01console objection is the type of thing that a team needs from a manager, and how he went about it was a thing of beauty. Um, you know, beautifully broken down. Go live in that Friday show, a listen. But what I did resonate with was Alex Bregman just being dead honest in that post-game interview. I know you covered it, we're not going to go in depth here, but I equate it to a lot of any profession out there, and my job, sales, always ebbs and flows. You always have a pipeline, then you know, and then you're coming back down the roller coaster. And what all you can do is be accountable and say, hey, here's what I need to do to sustain and get back to where I and we need to be. He also called it was a collective talking about the squad as a whole. If you're on a team, you have to use your teammates and have to pick their brain, see what's working for who, and and do everything, get back to the drawing board. You know, I'm struggling right now with some sales, you know, but I know I'm gonna get back on it and get back to the basics, make more cold calls, you know, send a couple more emails, leave the voicemail you didn't want to leave. So that's the type of work that Alex Pragman and the Cubs, I think, are starting to put in. And we're starting to see some of that um, you know, take shape finally again with what we'd seen earlier in the year. So that's where I'm I'm in a good mood. And you know, scoring runs, extra base hits, some dingers. I'm feeling good on this Monday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nothing wrong with two out of three. And I want to go back, thank you for opening the door to just regular Joe talk. That's the best way to compare Major League Baseball is just everybody's had a job before. Whether it's a sales call or you're doing a report you don't want to do, or you have to go meet with someone you don't want to meet. Maybe you're in real estate, you gotta show a house to somebody. You know, they're not gonna fucking buy the house, and I gotta watch the F-words, and I will, I promise. But what I'm just saying is like, you know, we have these experiences. One where like you gotta do stuff you don't want to do, and it's just a question of like, are you willing to do it? The other thing I think is much easier to relate is like we all know successful people. We don't I don't care if you're the third baseman for the Cubs or if you're a wholesale broker at RT specialty or if you're a restaurateur in River North. I like there's just a whole scope of successful people. Don't think that those traits aren't transferable. Like the guy who's good at this and that is good at this and that. Like the guy, like Alex Bregman is and I'm getting passionate about this because I'm thinking about how easy this is to relate to regular people. But like, listen, I've worked with some extremely high performers, you know, guys that have made millions of dollars a year running books of business and stuff and having teams underneath them. And those fucking guys are in the office at 5, 5:30 in the morning looking through bulletins, looking for stuff to send clients. Those guys are so geared when they get in front of prospects, they're so ready to network, they're so ready to say yes, I'll go do the talk, I'll go give the speech, I'll go meet with the nonprofit, I'll go do just the guys that are go, go, go non-stop. And it's like, go ahead and just take those experiences, audience maniacs, and people you work with that are excellent, people you've gone to school with that are excellent, people, whether it's a student, it's a whoever the fuck it is that you look at and you're like, that person's excellent, they're committed, they're devoted, they're successful. And that's what you want to see from Bregman, and that's that's that Bregman character because when you put that guy in the sales room, when he's the one making cold calls, doing sales meetings, he's in that culture, kind of brings you like gets more out of you, it gets more out of those around him to live to that level. So, you know, that's that's where I get so wrapped up in Bregman. Is he supposed to be the guy that makes you want to send the email you don't want to send and make the cold calls, you're like, fuck it, I don't have time to do it. Then you look over, you see him. You're like, Well, I better, it's I'm fucking working with Bregman.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it sounds like he is that guy, you know, based off of based off of just that interview and the breakdown. Um, you know, make 10 extra cold calls, you know, make 10 extra call cold calls. Go visit drop off a flyer at one more place that you're not dropping off a flyer to. It's sometimes it's you gotta go back to the basics.
Sponsor Pour And Listener Support
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SPEAKER_01That's a fact, Jack, not a cracker, Jack. And Carl, I mean, run out, get yourself a vigilante pack. You can sample all three flavors. I'm talking Mango Mirte, Sangria Salvaje. It trips me up every time. But it trips my tongue up even more because it's so damn delicious. And then get get your old yourself an old classic Limon Godrone. Perfect for a Sunday evening right now, with the sun just about to to peak behind the clouds a bit and start its setting process. It's actually the sun doesn't go down for a couple more hours.
SPEAKER_00We're recording this on Sunday night, but it's not on no one knows, Mahoney.
SPEAKER_01You don't know you guys know what I mean. The first it's we're not. I'm just telling you, man, I'm licking my lips right now, thinking about a Lamona drone with the sun setting behind me.
SPEAKER_00It's just not there's you could tell people you're on a beach right now, you could tell people anything you want to tell them, Mahoney. You don't have to say is that we're we are we're recording the show at 6 15 p.m. So I mean, technically, yeah, there's like another three hours of sunlight, but like heaven forbid you just keep the ad read rolling. One, two, can you get the flavor profile down? Can you at least like practice those names? I'm not asking you, you know, to be able to tell me what team Jack Sikowski plays for, number 66 on the pirates. What I'm looking for, Moni, is can you get these three bold flavors?
SPEAKER_01You can get these three bold flavors, you can get them on Amazon.com.
SPEAKER_00It's the Monday morning cub show. Hey, share the show, review the show if you get a chance. Five stars, cook daddy, love to see you. You know, we're we're we have we have significantly increased chatter on the Spotify chat, which I think would be kind of funny if that turned into like the master uh the forum, the Monday morning cup show instead of a subreddit, it's the only the Spotify threads where people go back and forth. Just completely take this thing off offline almost entirely. No Twitter, no Instagram. It's like you gotta go and find it. Where is it? It's like the action's hot and heavy on the Spotify mobile. Can't search it, don't worry, can hardly copy and paste. There's a character limit, and they do have good community guidelines on that. So uh some chase, a lot, I should say a lot more. I think four comments this past episode, six the week before that. So, like, I love that shit, dude. I'm in it, I'm in it. So thanks to the maniacs for tuning in. Now,
Why Losing To Logan Webb Isn’t Doom
SPEAKER_00I don't want to take a victory lap or any of this bullshit just because it's been three games and we did get shut out today by Logan Webb. But you also have to understand Logan Webb's one of the best pitchers in the world. He's been one of the best pitchers in the world for the last couple of years. He's a tough matchup for us because he pitches guys inside, upstairs, can bury a change up in any account. Like Logan Logan Webb's is sensational. Now, I did say during the game, he's kind of 85-90% of what he typically is because you can see Logan Webb comfortably sit 96-97 with that two seam today. 93-94, but sometimes, like, you know, I've preached this before you don't need 96, 97. Like, you can live night, you can you can live in that area if you're competitive. And Logan Webb was a great template today for Cubs fans to see. Like, when I'm talking about competitive, you know, runners in scoring position, he comes right at you inside, you know, and he has you two strikes, he throws a fastball over the like up on top of the plate.
SPEAKER_01The plate, a competitive pitch, the things that you've been talking about and have kind of baked into my mind, throwing those competitive pitches, living on the corner allows him to execute, of course, his other stuff, which is gonna continually fool hitters, and he's one of the better pitchers in baseball to in doing so. So his velocity might not be right there. I think this was his first start off the aisle, but it's you're gonna run into a dude like this, and he's just he's had a great day, a very nice Sunday in San Francisco for Logan Webb.
SPEAKER_00All the more reason we love those first two games because it's like, well, the last thing I want to do is be on Sunday getaway day in San Francisco, needing one against Logan Webb, whereas opposed to be nice to get it if we got it. But then we've run into these before. We talked about we won that Chris Sale game 2-0. There was something else around there where we faced an ace, won that Paul ski, we won a Paul. Yeah, it was the game we won a Chris Sale game. So, like, you're not gonna win them all, like you lose the Logan Webb game, and like that's the category you know, pitcher Logan Webb is in. Here's another interesting little tidbit. Um, I like the fact that we're in a good mood, even though we lost today, which I think is a representation of the weekend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. That's how I felt exactly. One, I mean, your episode was uplifting on Friday. You know, it was nice to take one in Colorado, but just just seeing the glimpse, seeing the boys back, it makes it a Sunday much a softer landing, you know, when you already have a series in the bag. I had based off of those initial games to start last week at Colorado, you should have seen the outline. I was preparing for this show. It was so negative. And I mean, just is this the worst Cubs collapse ever? Is this I had scouting report for the emotional state of a Cubs fan, the hope, sarcasm, alcohol tolerance at a 70. Twitter patience is at a five. So, like, that's where I was. I was just trying to make things somewhat funny, but we don't have to do that anymore, and that's what I'm so happy about.
SPEAKER_00I'm getting excited. You and I talked, I think it was like Thursday night, and I didn't tell you. I'm hey, I'm sitting down on a Friday with a big smile on my face, and I'm gonna figure this out. Yeah, but we we were bullshitting, and I you were telling me you're like, hey, I've got scoundering report on how much things are falling apart. Like, we did put together a negative show. I think the breaking point for me though, was the way Alex Bregman has treated this, and the way he is like, if he went five for five tomorrow with five home runs, then they were like, Alex, how's it feel to hit five home runs in a game? He would be like, Well, I've been terrible. Yeah, like it would all start there. He would say, The offense has been awful. They said, You just hit five home runs, you hit five grand slams, you're the first player in the history of baseball at any level to hit five grand slams in a game. Alex, what do you think about that? And he'd say, I'm not very good right now. And that is that's the shit that wins me over. And I was obviously super high on him when we signed him. He's one of my favorite players ever. I didn't know he could struggle the way he struggled with the bat. So now you're seeing him struggle, and it's like, fuck, do I hate you? Because we're paying you 35 million, and you're replacing Matt Shaw. We could have put that 35 million into the pitch. We could put that 35 million, and you could, oh god, what you could do for 35 million.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's a lot of meal piecing there.
SPEAKER_00So then just to see him like now he's owning it, and I'm gonna get I'm reopening my heart. It's like the girl in high school who cheats on you, and and then she, you know, and then she get and then she goes starts dating a Saint Rita guy. You know, it turns out he she don't like that as much as she thought she would. Now she comes by, she's like, Hey, can we get together? So you know what? Yeah, of course I gotta of course I got an open heart. You know, I'm going to Gaelic Fest. I'm looking to put my fingers somewhere. Of course, of course, send me an instant message, babe. Like that didn't happen for all, like, come on, if you grew up on a and you're not going to Gaelic Fest, just hitting up the zipper, see what you can see what you could do there. Well, yeah, drinking warm Miller lights at John Fletcher's house, getting a ride from his cousin who's like not the old cousin that's cool, where it's like 19 home from college, is like the 27-year-old cousin that's giving rides to 17-year-olds. Like, I think you should be. I don't know, man. That's it. You should be you should be at work right now. You should be hanging out with your own friends. It's a Saturday night. What are you doing driving meat at Gaelic Fest? That's a different story, guys. Mahoney has a couple baller strikes. I think it'd just be good for us to kind of have some general subset of conversation about the obvious things Mahoney take it away. Gaelic
Ball Or Strike On PCA’s Breakout
SPEAKER_00Fest not included.
SPEAKER_01All right, Carl. I have ball or strike. Uh PCA, it's not just a hot streak anymore.
SPEAKER_00Well, he leads the National League and wins above replacement, which is such an easily like talked about thing.
SPEAKER_01First pitch lead off Homer on Saturday. He's impacting games everywhere. I saw something along the lines of he has the most five-star catches in like 27 fewer games or whatever, whoever the guy had that had that record before. Um, it's just all the national broadcasts love him. His stars shining again, and uh, it's just PCA. That's a strike down the middle for me, Carl. I'm sorry if I just put your pitch.
SPEAKER_00No, I think that I think that's perfect. T up soft toss. I'm flipping it right back to you. I think it's a strike. Interesting thing about PCA though is I don't how do I say he is clearly our best player? He's the only reason if we have a reason to be positive towards like a play, like people think I'm nuts for doing this for a playoff run. Yeah, it's gonna be because of him. He's obviously the best player on the team, and it's not even worth debate. So the interesting thing though is why did he suck at the start of the year? And why did he suck at the end of last year? And what do you mean he's his walk rates double now? What do you mean? Just in the middle of season, he does it. You're telling me just like a three-week stretch, he just all of a sudden he just stops swinging at balls. So there's obviously that what I'm trying to say is this guy's so talented. We don't, I don't even think we know the scope of how talented he is. It's just I want to see the best from this guy because you so rarely get this much talent in one ball player. So, like, excuse me if I may in the future, now and forever, be extremely hard on Pico Armstrong or may not enjoy his success as you would expect me to. Because when we're talking about a guy this good, it's like the ceiling is so high, the standards have to be as high as possible. I'm just curious, Mahoney, why don't you think he was just like this good start of the year? Why do you see why do you think we have a history of seeing a horrendous version of Pete Cromstrom, or is this just him being a young ball player? What is it?
SPEAKER_01Uh maybe a little bit of both young ball player, but there was a lot of attention and heat on him coming into the season, whether it was the Dodgers' comments that spread in Chicago magazine, the contract coming in hot, he probably knew that there were negotiations going on. So those are all excuses that typically don't affect, I think, many baseball players. But maybe Pete is that type of guy where it could have gotten to his head a little bit. And if he can adjust the way he has, I think that speaks more, you know, the the walk rate and all that stuff. So I think that speaks more to who he is as a baseball player than any of the other distractions. And now that he's in the season and he's away from all that and he's into his routines and he's going, you know, he's not going to the Bears games. There's not a lot of the other stuff, obviously, during an offseason. But um, I think that that's where he's coming in and really hitting his stride, just getting that you know, consistency and routine and being PCA that that we want and need him to be.
SPEAKER_00See, I'll I'll take some of that that you said that I like. Like, I'm not gonna take all everything you just put on my plate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I'm speculative, I'm shoot shooting the breeze here, you know. Who knows?
SPEAKER_00No, no, this is like a you just served me a wedding dinner. Like I'm just 70 is on my plate. There's no way I'm touching these vegetables. The sauce is a little suspect, but for the most part, you just put down a nice beef medallion. Yeah, does it make sense? Yeah, absolutely. A little cookie cutter, you know what you're getting. But what I am gonna add to this is I think there's also this emotional sense of like when people talk shit to Pete doesn't like it when people talk, like he needs people to talk shit to him, but I feel like he doesn't like it. I feel like he's surprised when people talk shit to him. I feel like the fact that Dodger's comments got blown up, I think kind of caught him off guard. Or the fact he told this white sex girl to suck his dick and he got fined. I think he kind of is like, Well, fuck her, you know, and it's like, no, dude, it doesn't actually work like that. Like, you actually can't do that. I think there's enough people being negative about him, negative about the team, then he takes it personally. I think he does have that psycho gene, and then that brings out the best in him is when people sincerely hate on him. I'm not talking about talking shit to him. The White Sox girl talking shit to him actually does a bad thing to him. What the good thing is, is that the world collapses on PCA, and then he's like, Oh fuck you guys, man. Now it's really explodes out, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So comic of hero style.
SPEAKER_00Almost to the extent, and we'll talk about this guy. I would imagine you've got this guy lined up in ball or stripe, but Ben Brown, where you have that back into a corner concept. That's where I think Ben Brown's success has really thrived. Is you just in the there's only way out is you punching your way out of this corner. Same thing where I think PCA, maybe not to the extent of like Ben Brown, where like your career, you know, you're not gonna have a career if you don't punch your way out, but you just look at where you know PCA's at, and it's like, buddy, if you're gonna talk shit, you're gonna be the guy, you're gonna sign 120 million dollars, blah blah blah blah blah. You better get that bat going. So in June, 810 slug. We did a whole episode about slugging percentage. All right, we did a whole episode. Rizzo, the year he won the uh we won the World Series 540, Chris Bryant 560. You want your anything over 500 is Chef's Kiss.
SPEAKER_01DC10 is incredible Hulk, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what else we got?
SPEAKER_01So I
Ben Brown Buzz And Assad’s Role
SPEAKER_01mean, well, uh Ben Brown was baller strike, all-star resume real. Ben Brown, all-star resume real.
SPEAKER_00I think obviously that's a strike, but I think a better baller cycle may say this is baller strike. Do you want Ben Brown to be an all-star? Yes, those guys are expensive too. Keep in mind, we're gonna have him on arbitration.
SPEAKER_01Ball, ball, ball. Yeah, we got to keep Ben Brown cheap. We can always go back to the you know last year and hang our hat on that without anything on the resume. Um, I I'd love for him to be an all-star, truth be told. And you know, he's carried the rotation a bit, he's helped carry the bullpen at times this season. He's had a lot asked of him, and he's executed, dominated again on Saturday. Uh, he's our most reliable guy right now. I'd love to see Ben Brown be an all-star. I would hate to see it so that we don't have to pay him.
SPEAKER_00Well, and then the other thing too, I'll this a guarantee that the Cubs are gonna manipulate it behind the scenes so that he isn't an all-star. They don't want him to go spend time around the they don't want it's too much. Then he he's he's better off people Cubs fans that are mad at me just hear me out. Like, I cheer for our guys.
SPEAKER_01This thing you'll see who Marquis pushing, you're gonna see who they're pushing on the broadcasts. Nico, like they like really they go hard for him a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_00They love Marky Network, loves Nico. He must be so nice to the staff people behind the scenes, or like, I don't know. I we'll get into that later. I gotta closer to the votes. But here's what I'm saying about Ben Brown. Uh people don't like this, that's okay. But I'm just thinking the long-term health of the of the pitching staff in the organization. One, I like Ben Brown getting jobbed out of an all star nod. And I like just give me more chips on the shoulder, chips all over the place. Yes, I want him broken and mad and frustrated and like, oh, this wasn't good enough, huh? And The more we do that, the better the version of Ben Brown that we will get in the long run, I think. That hey, and then there's gonna be a day you do reward him, you do pay him, he does get to the all-star game, he is that guy. But I do like the idea of him walking around going, I'm not good enough. I need to be better. Perfect, be better then hanging his yeah, hanging his head. I know I'm sick, man.
SPEAKER_01That's that's well, I know the angle it's coming from. You you needed Ben Brown to face some extreme things in order to get to see where he is today, and maybe that that's what's happened. So just a little bit more of that leading into the end of October, and we're we're solid.
SPEAKER_00And 60 innings isn't like it's a good 60 innings. This is what we do as baseball fans. We get a good 60 innings from him. We're like all-star game extension, he's here.
SPEAKER_0160 innings, but then you plant the seed in my head that hey man, we're not gonna want to spend this money in the offseason.
SPEAKER_00No, we don't. We in arbitration, he goes to an all-star game, he finishes top ten inside of young voting. This all this stuff. His agent starts bitching at Jed. What about a deal? You know, then his elbow gets blown out. Fuck that. Play it through, but my friend.
SPEAKER_01And remember, folks, my baller strikes, they don't showcase any numbers, so I don't have his ERA, K rate, whip, none of that in front of me.
SPEAKER_00It's one point, it's 1.74, or it's 1.8, it's one point, it's nine. His ERA isn't giving up a home run in 61 innings. He's been sensational. He's awesome, he's awesome. He absolutely should be an all-star. He's one of the best starting pitchers in the National League right now. No questions asked. Everything I'm saying about him is that just purely from a management standpoint, I don't want this, I don't want to risk the fact Ben Brown comes back from the All-Star game, isn't good. If we don't send him to the All-Star game, I'll guarantee you he won't get worse. I will guarantee he won't get worse if we don't send the all-star game. If he goes to the all-star game, now we're rolling that fucking dice. No, thank you. Put it back in your pocket, and I gotta watch the offwards, lizard kid.
SPEAKER_01All right, fair ball. Juan, the starting pitching staff is how ball or strike almost said is ball or strike. Javier Assad is solving a massive problem right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, that's just a strike, and I think you can rely on him to solve problems, but we can't rely on him to be a mainstay in the rotation. How that was my fault.
SPEAKER_01That's thank you, sir, because that was a follow-up question I had within this pitch. Is how Assad is going to be a long-term solution for us?
SPEAKER_00As a as a as the long emergency reliever in the bullpen, is his long-term get that's what that's his like long-term ceiling, I think, with the Cubs. But here's what I like about Asad is he doesn't, it's like he's like Matt Stairs, or he's like the you don't you don't need any warning at all. Just roll him out. I'm not saying he's gonna hit the pinch, hit the home run. But if you're gonna ask me for a guy who isn't making regular starts to go out and give you six on a random day, six innings, you know, one earn two or something like that. I say Javier Assad does that all the time, but I don't think he is capable of making 13 good, you know. Now people are gonna he has done this. I don't think he's capable of making that long stretch of good starts in a row, which is why I don't want him in the rotation. I want him as this like mild usage guy when needed, dangerous emergency guy. And I think he's like one of the best dangerous emergency guys I've seen wear a cub's uniform. Can you remember a just good guy? How many times has he done this?
SPEAKER_01He looks so comfortable, it's like he's pitching off of a sofa on the mound, like he's just chilling. Yes, like he really is, he looks very comfortable, and that's what I I like to see. You know, he's never he doesn't seem to get rattled at all.
SPEAKER_00No, it's an in it's actually an enjoyable experience watching him pitch. I was thinking about that today with Colin Ray while he was going. Like, obviously, the difference between the high end of Major League Baseball, like Logan Webb's high end, Chris Ale's high end, right? Paul Skeen's high end of Major League Baseball, that's very enjoyable. But if you don't have that, like I thoroughly enjoy watching Colin Ray pitch. I thoroughly enjoy a hobby or a side game. It's got rhythm, it's got tempo, pacing. The thing I can't stand is when pitchers are overthrowing, not locating, not like we've talked before, not throwing competitive sequencing.
SPEAKER_01So, like when you when you throw a ball way outside, it's like doesn't even blink the banner, doesn't leave a shoulder at all.
SPEAKER_00Like they're just like perfect, dude. Now, and I have a good look at you too now, and I get to see it and track it and all that shit. It's like you're just like rub. I mean, that's just warming up the fucking clit, buddy. Like you are about to get absolutely stuffed, there's no doubt about it. So sod and ray, and I was just thinking, like, we had it's enjoyable because these guys are like, you know, it's like it's like not people when you say video game, it's a video game from the standpoint of you get to pick where it's being thrown. You know, it's not a video game that's like 102. It's a video game in that like you know, you you get to pick the location. And I think Kyle Ray, Javier Assad, that's there's one little small silver lining as a fan when you're watching as a cub fan. Like those guys are they're throwing it to the catchers. Now, is it the best stuff coming in? Absolutely not. That's why those guys kind of get hit hard around a little bit, but yeah, you know, and if you need any a comparison, just turn on the college world series, and you'll see college teams right now. And I mean, there might be one guy on each team that can pitch the glove. Maybe. You know, catchers are just sitting down the middle, guys just throw breaking balls and fastballs as hard as they can. So, you know, we the the the quality that we have, not necessarily the highest, but I enjoy watching Javier Assad pitch is my long-winded, long, long, long-winded way to say this, Mahoney, especially with respect to modern baseball. Now, guys just fucking pump and dump. Like uh Assad's out there trying to make pitches, trying to sequence you, trying to get you in and out. So, but we're we just need to hang on. Here's the other big thing, dude. We got
Rockies Sweep Talk And Blue Jays Weekend
SPEAKER_00three against Colorado. We gotta take. I'm not I'm pulling the sweep card. We gotta sweep Colorado. We gotta be putting ourselves back in that position to go trade for starting pitching.
SPEAKER_01You know what? Funny. I have ball or strike. We gotta get on a roll against Colorado and Toronto heading into another series with our divisional opponent, Milwaukee. That's what we're facing at home, three night games against Colorado, a couple day games against Toronto, all at Wrigley. This is the time we're starting to click, so let's go. Gotta get momentum before we you know get back at Milwaukee strike too easy.
SPEAKER_00And to be clear, we we don't we're in Milwaukee not for another 13 games or not for another 10 games. So we have to do that.
SPEAKER_01And I might my thing is we need to get on a roll against these right now before we could be competitive against Milwaukee. And like the end of the day, we're not playing them tomorrow. I'm glad we're who we're playing and when we're playing them.
SPEAKER_00And like I like that we lost that series of the Giants at home. We got we got spanked. Then we went out and took the series on their turf. And I like the fact that we're gonna have this opportunity against Colorado. We're like, they're so bad. They're awful. You know, we blew this the game two against them, won decisively in game three. Um, there's no way that we don't have a little bit of like urgency right now as a squad as a squad, looking at the roster and being like, all right, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot here in call. Like, I do think there's that urgency. I do think we should we take it to him. Hey, just a quick note you you bring up Toronto, and I'll talk about this on the Friday show. Do you know Blue Jay fans travel as well, if not better, than any fan base in any professional sport? No, I did not know that. That's because there's only one baseball team in Canada. Right. And the Canadians, like, by and large, very much support their sports teams. And a lot of Canadians, you know, and a lot of spend their time in the United States, you know, whether it's in Florida or whatever, uh, you know, they winter in the United States and all that shit. It makes sense now. So you have a big population of like Canadians that love going to spring training, that love following the blue jays, and then in the summer, we'll like the Grateful Dead is probably the easiest comparison I can make. So if you haven't been to a blue blue jays, have come to Wrigley. I try to go to it when they do because Blue Jays fans take over wherever they go. Uh, similar to Cubs fans. Like you'd say, obviously, Cubs do that. Cubs fans do that. We go to Colorado, San Diego, whatever. You can always count on like you can always count on Cubs fans showing up, but I don't think people understand Blue Jays fans show up like fucking crazy. And the other thing, Blue Jays fans are Canadians, ha like like like blowout alcoholic. I mean, the craziest motherfucker. I mean, if you've ever partied with Canadians, you know what I'm talking about. These people are out of their fucking minds. So if you're going to be able to do that, some of the backwards guys, too.
SPEAKER_01It's not just the people that are living in the city limits of Toronto. We're talking across all of Canada, tapping maple syrup, taking a flight, some of them straight down on the latitude-longitude lines, because they can get to anywhere.
SPEAKER_00It's the they are some of the greatest fans, people, blah blah blah. I've been a little long-winded this episode, but if you're going to be in Wrigley this weekend, we have three 120s against the Blue Jays. It'll be awesome. It'll be awesome. The this will be by far, in a way, the best weekend of baseball that Wrigley has hosted, or the best series of baseball Wrigley's hosted from the perspective of energy in the stadium and all the stuff. And there's no further evidence. I think bleacher tickets are going for because this is what the Canadians do. This is what Blue Jays fans do. They come in, they just destroy your secondary ticket market. So, like a bleacher ticket on Friday or Saturday is gonna run you after tip and tax 200 something.
SPEAKER_01Oh, dude, imagine the World Cup going on two at the same time. Canada will be playing during the course of that weekend in their group stage. Their fans are thrilled about that too. So what an atmosphere international flair at Wrigley this coming weekend.
SPEAKER_00Now we we do see Kevin Gossman, who's a two-pitch pitcher on Friday, and we do see Dylan Cease on Sunday. So those are two very good matchups for us. Um, I think if I'm if I remember this correctly, Patrick Corbin is pitching for him on Saturday. If we can't hit 10 home runs off Patrick Corbin, you know, then we're fucked. We're absolutely then we're totally toast. He's he's batting practice, but let's stay on this Colorado series for a second here. Imanaga versus Michael Lorenzen Monday. Michael Lorenzen is the worst pitcher in the National League by numbers and statistics. And so ball or strike, do we ball or strike? We absolutely smash Michael Lorenzen on Monday, June 15th, home against the Colorado Rockies tonight.
SPEAKER_01Carl, it's a strike heavy episode. It's got to be a strike. I mean, if we're gonna be aggressive like we're seeing the team lately, we have to be aggressive against one of the worst pitchers, if not the worst pitcher in the league. Yeah. I want to see PCA leading off. I want to see him ambush, I want to see aggressive base running. Just put pressure on these dudes that don't belong with our team.
SPEAKER_00To be fair, shouldn't say don't belong, but you can't. I know that's gonna get me to start talking about how Michael Lorenz and Captain Team is. So they would they would be like, Hey, can you come in and close? Because he's a center fielder for Cal State Fullerton.
SPEAKER_01He throws like a kind of badass dude. You're walking in from center field.
SPEAKER_00Yes, cool. In Cal Cal State, they have a a tradition, like the best player, I think you wear 55 or 59. It's some weird number like that. And so he he was their center fielder. He got to wear number 55 when he was like a sophomore or something, like pretty which is pretty it's pretty crazy, pretty intense. They've had some real like Mark Kate's a good example. I mean, they've just had some legends through the United States national team play for him. Jarrett Clark, Christian Romero, just like awesome players, right? Christian Cologne and Michael Lorenzen, I think is a fascinating player. He got he gets a raw deal when when he shuts us out, we go to Colorado. Yeah, we should beat him. But then people are like, This guy fucking sticks, he's the worst player in Major League Baseball. I'm like, I remember a day when Michael Lorenzo would be jogging him from center field and handing off his center fielder's glove and then be pumping a hundred miles an hour, then the sits somebody drafted him in the first round, and they didn't know this is before two-way players, they were just like, Whatever you just figure it out. So he played in the minors as an outfielder for like three, four years, and then got on the mound and you know, and then figured it out. Now he's like 36 years old and still throws 100 miles an hour and all this. Yeah, he's a unicorn, he's absolutely a unicorn, but he's gonna be pitching against us on Monday, and then we're gonna see Feltner again. Feltner pitched against us. We we tag Ryan Feltner, so I do like what I'm trying to say again. That's a long-winded episode from him, only I'm sorry, let's be more conversational. Do you like ball or strike? You love the fact that we're gonna see two starting pitchers we saw last week.
SPEAKER_01I I love it, dude. It's gonna be the fifth, sixth, and seventh time through the lineups. You know, these guys have seen it before, they're not gonna have as much juice. So let's go. Yeah, this is we're primed right now. If we're gonna be seeing the same pitchers we saw, you know, not even a fortnight ago.
SPEAKER_00Why did I enjoy that so much? And we know from watching the Rockies that they're trash, like Ezekiel Tozar, their Tovar, their shortstop, is is about as good defensively as you can get. Like, that's basically the guy we want from Danzby Swanson is to just be this electric lights out reliever, or I mean this electric lights out defender. Um, he can't really hit, and he's like significantly better hitter than Danby Swanson. So
Bench Swanson And Other Tough Calls
SPEAKER_00this brings me to this like baller strike. You'd bench Danzby Swanson in favor of Nico Horner at short, Patrick Mirrors at second.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a strike, man. I think it's a strike for me too. It is, it's a hard one. It's a tough one for me to say, but it it's just the truth.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm getting excited. I didn't mean to cut you off there or try to, but I'm I'll be brief on my explanation is not saying long term, but just right now. If I don't care if Swanee sits for a week and watches Pedro Ramirez play second and Nico slide over his short, and we just say to Swanee, like, you're you're put him on a phantom IL or just get him out of the he to continuously put him into major league against major league pitching, it's just making it significantly worse. He looks awful. He looks as bad, he looks as bad as anyone I have ever seen play regularly every day for the Cubs. How's that as bad as anyone I've ever seen?
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's fair. And that was like I'm you're gonna hear a lot of like the is this the Jason Hayward territory stuff, and I'm not talking about contract, but and then let me phrase it a little bit differently. Is it a bigger deal that it's our shortstop?
SPEAKER_00No, it's a bigger deal that it's it's so bad. You know, the shortstop is if anything, it's like a guy on the plug them in there. Okay, if there's one guy on the field who can hit 180, it's a shortstop. If if you're elite defensively, if you're Ezekiel Tovar, you're Andre Alton Simmons, like I talked about Mark Belanger before. Go look him up. He was a shortstop in the 70s with the Orioles under Earl Weaver, 45 wins above replacement for his career, never hit double-digit home runs in a season, finished as like a career 218 hitter. Yeah, finished with 45 wins above replacement as a shortstop. And one time someone asks Earl Weaver, they go, Hey, would you consider moving Belanger out of the lineup now that he's firmly hitting under 200 in July? And Earl Weaver looked at the guy and he looked at the reporter, and he was like, I don't give a fucking rat's ass if Mark Belanger doesn't get another fucking hit for the rest of the season. That's the most important player in the American League. And you can put my fucking name on that quote.
SPEAKER_01There you go, Earl. And that said, I think I knew that too, that shortstops could be kind of the the lower end of you know the power. Lowest, etc.
SPEAKER_00Lowest. Not lower, lowest for sure. And so that's where we're at with Danzby to say, are you willing to bench him? Yes. I don't care that because it isn't he's at no uh the Langers putting the ball on play. Simmons, it's not like Dancy Swanson's just hopeless strikeout. I mean, he looks he looks like he couldn't hit 250 for Vanderbilt right now, you know, and he did 370 as he his junior year. So I'm I'm disgusted with him, but what I do the way I think he comes out of it, Mahoney, is I think you make him sit there this weekend against the Blue Jays and sit there and watch Nico Horner play shortstop and Pedro Maris play second base again and just for a weekend. Packed house at Wrigley Field. Then we go on the road to New York City, start him against the Mets, sit his ass Friday, Saturday, Sunday, give him a pinch hit on Sunday, and he'll be livid. He'll be his met head council. Don't give you, don't, don't give him an explanation. Just say, hey, we're we're just gonna we're gonna have Nico play short this weekend. We want to give you a break. Dave will say, I don't want to break, I don't want to break, I don't want to break. I'm fine, I'm fine. And counsel's gonna be like, that's just the way it is, kid. You're that's what we need to do.
SPEAKER_01That could fill in it short with the blink of an eye, you know. So he's been bad.
SPEAKER_00Ball ball or strike, Nico Horner's been bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's not he hasn't licked 300, I think, since we said he was never gonna dip below it earlier on in the year, Carl. But yeah, not great. Um you know the contact rate I think has slightly gone down.
SPEAKER_00Did you see him get hit in the head? People talk about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember I remember it exactly.
SPEAKER_00Ball or strike, you're gonna start putting some credence into that.
SPEAKER_01Ball or strike, let's look back and run the numbers since he got hit in the head. That was like a legit shot to this direct to his helmet.
SPEAKER_00Fastball. Like he was he was hitting three third, you know, whatever, three. He was when I there's a time I believe it's equidistant. It was like 32 games in the season, 31 games in the season he gets hit in the head. So how many what are we at now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like I remember when he just kind of like took the base and was like shaking it off. And sometimes that's a little bit worse. Like you might have just got jarred. And who knows what it does to vision, and anything with the brain can be tricky.
SPEAKER_00Hey, ball or strike, I think Alex Bregman is about to get on a heater. Strike, man. Ever since those comments.
SPEAKER_01No, I've got two hits today.
SPEAKER_00And he's getting pitched like he's not Alex Bregman. I've just seen so many 0-1-1-0 just flippers in there. Logan did it to him like twice today. 1-0, like just throwing spinners, one-one, just spinners over the middle of the plate. Now, obviously, these are tight competitive pitches from Logan Webb. He's got the kitchen sink, but like the the quality he's gonna see from Lorenzo is gonna be much lower from Logan Webb. The quality he'll see from Feltner, you know, these next 10 games, I don't think we're running into very good pitching at all. Oh, I just said Kevin Gossman's obviously good, but he's a two-pitch guy, fastball splitty. Sunday Dylan Sees is he's he's been good. That'll be tough. So, anyways, just more urgency here. But uh Bregman Heater, like I feel that I feel a Bregman heater.
SPEAKER_01He's I think he's primed and poised to do so. This is the week for Bregman to light it up.
SPEAKER_00Hey, can you give me one more ball or strike? I'm about to jump into the mailbag.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um, I got Michael Bush is making noise, ball or strike.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you'd strike. Yeah, I mean, huge strike. 178 weighted run created plus and geo just been awesome.
SPEAKER_01He has been. He's producing just you know, he's had a lot of well, I think a couple of those bloop walk-off hits too. So he's even just getting like in those lucky spots, which I think is telling to a player who's just seeing the ball well and things are going his way. You know, he's the fifth cub. This is the whole reason I have this bar strike, by the way. Fifth cub ever to hit it into McCovey Cove. Um, which is uh it was kind of surprising to me hearing that he was only the fifth, but you know, you gotta have some power to put it into that that little uh peninsula, whatever it actually is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I Michael Bush hit one today, Boog. I post, I go, there's literally no Boo got so excited at the end of at the at for that play.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00And he was there's no reason at the end. There's just that guy is such a piece of that guy is such a piece of work. Um who signs his paychecks? Dude, you know, it's like he's he's here's the thing he's loyal, he's loyal to the national broadcaster.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. Shapeshifter. Anytime his tone completely changes. I mean, I guess I could see why you want to be as you know, call it like you see it for both teams in those situations. But it's really odd. It's almost like too excited.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And like I obviously dislike his call on Marquee. Okay? It's not a good, it's just not a good experience. So then to go give me a good call on ESPN is insane to me. Because the call for the call for the Giants when Lee catches the ball up against a right field wall today for Michael Bush was a stronger call than anything he's ever given for the Chicago Cubs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's a strike. And it's not the first time. I don't have the examples off the top of my head, but I've seen this every time the Cubs have played on a national broadcast, and Boog happens to be the one calling the game. Yeah. It bothers her. You don't want that guy as your every as your everyday guy in the booth. It's just it's not the flavor I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_00I just think that when his time is done with Marquis, I would be shocked if people missed him.
SPEAKER_01Same.
SPEAKER_00So that's where I'm at with Boog. It just really pissed me off. You're asking me about Bush. I'm going back to this Boog call. You know, because here's the thing is we're trying to turn vibes. Like I sat through 22 and I sat through the seven and twenty-two.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I don't want my call, I don't want my guy celebrating any other team winning. Then I have to get away. Come right.
SPEAKER_00This is the game start telling me about Michael Lorenzo. You were just so pumped on ESPN for the fucking play against the Giants.
SPEAKER_01Weren't you just talking shit to me? That's how I feel.
SPEAKER_00And the fact he goes, oh baby, that's the call. Oh baby. It the call isn't like on a spectacular catch. It's a way baby. Oh you know, and and and there's I'll call him out right now, Jacob Zanola. You know, just the just a there's people I really like on Cubs Twitter. There are people that just make me fucking anxious from seeing their content. He's one of them because it's like, you know, Carl, it's in Espn broadcast, it's literally his job. Buddy, shut the shut your fucking mouth. We we know that. I fucking know what do you fucking think? I don't know what his job is, Jacob. I didn't know it's his job. Like, you're just such a fucking wiener stick. And and that's how I feel when when it that's the guy that's gonna come out of me when I'm sitting here, it's his job. Did you not know it's Boo's job? No, Boo's job is to call Cubs games, he does national games. Joe Davis's job is to call Dodgers games. If you talk to Joe Davis, Joe Davis would say, I'm the Dodgers broadcaster who gets to call postseason games. He's the number one baseball broadcaster, he does the World Series. It's Joe fucking Davis, guys. But if you ask Joe Davis and you said, Joe Davis, what's your job? Joe Davis would say, I'm the Dodgers broadcaster, I'm the Dodgers broadcaster, I get to do postseason games. Then when he does the postseason games and you get a taste of Joe Davis on a national broadcast, you'll get him at the all-star game. Yeah, his his Dodgers love rides deeper than whatever the hell else is going on in the field, and it's always in it. That's when he can't help it when he says he's the Dodgers have been the last two World Series that he's called, so obviously there's a little bit of juice.
SPEAKER_01Well, I like people being authentic when they're calling a game or presenting anything in any facet of life, and that's not very authentic to me when Bouge is celebrating out his ass, and then we get a half-assed. He doesn't comb his hair for the Cubs games. You see him on ABC perfectly, he did his hair, he threw some gel in there.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's he doesn't look presentable on marquee. Oh, the marquee presentation is I'm not asking for suit and tie, and we're not gonna turn this into a boog broadcast, you know, a boog show just because you know, just because I'm annoyed. But I'm asking, I'm trying to get into the I'm trying to get into the DMs. Because we have we have a couple, we have a couple good ones here. Um how about this? What
Suzuki’s Knee And The Matt Shaw Mystery
SPEAKER_00do you make of say of being out and how long and banged up in the knee? And and are you taking that?
SPEAKER_01So I make of it is you hate to see it. It's the same knee that he had tweaked in the world baseball classic. It sounds like it's a minor issue based off he was uh in the lineup this morning. They they took him out just to be safe. So I think it's a good sign that it's nothing too serious, but a bad sign it happened again to his knee, and these sorts of things happen to Saya quite often.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, he's always banged up. The problem is he's actually hitting the ball well in June, which is what we need. You know, he's their second bet, he's their second best slugger behind PCA in June. You know, he seems like he's finally catching, you know, like he's catching heat. And it I just don't like it. But then, you know, did you bring up Matt Shaw? Where's Matt Shaw? Do I get to see Matt Shaw at all? Matt Shaw's a good baseball player. Where's Matt Shaw?
SPEAKER_01I'm not sure where Matt Shaw is right now. I don't think he saw the any playing time today, did he?
SPEAKER_00No, but Matt Matt Shaw. If say is out, then it's like this is a problem. And now Matt Shaw's at right field. How does that work?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. You know, I don't think Suzuki's gonna be out for an extended period of time, and hopefully not, because this is the would be horrible timing for where he's at right now with his swing and what he's bringing to this team.
SPEAKER_00Well, here's what pisses me off is that you know we've we get Matt Shaw's out, Matt Shaw's out, finally comes back, and when I say finally comes back, it's like with when Matt Shaw's on the roster, the team. I don't know if you've seen the records, it's substantially different. Like the team is very good when Matt Shaw's on the roster, and the team is very bad when Matt Shaw's not in the lineup and playing. Now, I'm not saying that's because of Matt.
SPEAKER_01It's just like it's just no it's his yes, his utilization that has been causing me a bit, you know, of a riddle. It's a riddle to me. I don't understand Matt Shaw's utilization with this team and why he's not used more.
SPEAKER_00After he was good last year in the second half. So I'll just go through this. He's out, he's out on May 19th, back issue, triple A, goes to triple A, roasts minor league pitching, then gets called back. Okay, gets called back in Colorado, gets a pinch hit. Okay. Now we go to San Francisco, doesn't play. Uh you know, doesn't he doesn't play to Colorado on the 10th, gets a pinch hit on the 11th, doesn't play on the 12th, gets a pinch hit on the 13th. So on Monday, when we play Michael Lorenzen, will Matt Shaw be in the lineup if say Suzuki isn't? Okay, so are we gonna go another day we don't play Matt Shaw? And then we're gonna get what and then what we're gonna get to Tuesday against Ryan Feltner, then are we gonna play Matt Shaw? At what point does Matt get back into the regular mix of playing time? One two, what standards are we allowed to hold him to based on how they've used him? I mean, you you would think that they're intentionally trying to uh fuck with his career.
SPEAKER_01It's it's a it's strange. I I I don't understand it. I really don't. I don't have a ton of words to be quite honest. It's it hasn't made a lot of sense to me. I mean, I knew he was hurt, but when he came back, and I thought for sure he would get a start today, you know, in right field. I don't know why he's not being used. Who did he piss off? I I don't think that's really it, it just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, I mean, we'll see this week. I think maybe they wanted to give him a little more time and get readjusted. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know either. You got anything else we want to talk about before the end of the show here?
SPEAKER_01None. It was nice to take two or three in Oracle Park. You know, typically we don't play all that well out in San Francisco. Uh, we're swinging the bat wall again. It was a softer landing today, just seeing the Cubs putting runs on the board and being aggressive again. So I think that we're gonna have a very solid week here come Monday against Colorado Rockies. We'll be watching with all you folks. We're with you as always, and yeah, three night games in a row Wrigley against the Rockies, prime position to turn it on.
SPEAKER_00I think that I've been saying it. I I said it before anybody else is the last thing I want to leave with. When we have a great week this week, I was there before we had the great week. I was there before before we won the series against the Giants. The Monday Morning Cup show has been maniacs. We've been in front of this, so there is good baseball coming. You will enjoy it. We will have moment now. I don't know what's gonna happen when we play the Brewers in 10 games. We have a couple shows to cover that, but we should have momentum going in that. That's how I feel. So, and obviously, dude, it's great to see you. We have a couple minutes here. I want to sneak
Goose Talk And A Friendly Sign-Off
SPEAKER_00this in with you. Shoot, I've been I've been listening to so much goose lately. So, guys, it so maniacs. This is the point now where Tim and I will have a personal, this is just a personal thing. You guys, there's there should be no more Cubs talk on the table here. This is just a couple buddies who've been meaning to catch up. Big modern. How about it? I haven't gotten into the new C D new release. Oh my god, that's all right. Go ahead. Because I have been listening to a lot of goose lately, and I have put a playlist together of my favorite. I've been into goose covers, and so I have this. I have this encyclop. I think I shared the playlist with you.
SPEAKER_01You did, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I follow it, I added it to my and now that people are like they're like, who gives a fuck about this stuff? Mahoney and I like this band so much we traveled out to New York together when we had very little to our names, right? You know, I mean Capitol Theater.
SPEAKER_01We made a pilgrimage to go to the Capitol Theater because we just knew the history of the we had to go see this show.
SPEAKER_00My wife's like, What are you doing? I'm like, Hey, um Thursday, just so you know, me and Mahoney are you know, I'm like, what do you think follows that? It's like we're going to Wrigley, or we're gonna go whatever. There's we're going to the New York Mahoney and I my wife and Nicole is like, You're going with Tim to New York. I'm like, Yeah, he's got a sales conference out there, we've got a hotel booked, and uh, good thing I checked where you booked that hotel. We would have been taking the ferry, my friend. But that's a different point. So we obviously Mahoney and I really like this band. We'll travel to go see him. I'll travel for music and all this stuff. And so I was listening to him, and I think I've listened to him too much. Like, I I think I've listened to him. I don't know if I'm ready for the new album because I don't I'm I'm not saying they're wearing off. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm nervous to listen to the new album because I demand that they reinvent themselves. Then Big Modern is for you, Carl.
SPEAKER_01Is it it is a production from start to finish. It is just it came out on 11 on Spotify on Thursday, and I was like, fuck yeah, let's roll. Um, it's very much a you know a comprehensive piece, and it everything flows together. It does tell a bit of a story. It is they had came out, you know, and made it sound like there was gonna be this big commercial album. They were doing PR work at Nick's Games, you know, dressing up in these neon pink and all that. They were putting stickers all over the country in Chicago, New York, wherever they had these big modern stickers. They had a video come out that was like, We're gonna be big and modern. It was really weird, but it was very much like, oh, we're at a in a boardroom of a Sony type, you know, record executives. And then now the album comes out, and you realize it's just basically, you know, saying F all that noise. And it's it's just a it's a beautiful composition from start to finish. It's one of those albums that's meant to be listened to every track through. Lastly, they've given us just completely three different flavors with three new albums in the past 14 months for our jam band. That is in the way that they're actually in the studio and the quality that they're putting forth is is just awesome, especially being that they're like my favorite thing in the world besides the Cubs.
SPEAKER_00I challenge their definition as a jam band. I really do challenge their definition as a jam band after it's more indie rock, yes. And now here's the other thing I want to. I I was gonna FaceTime you about this. Now, no surprise here. I play the piano. Okay, I am competent, I'm intermediate, I'm not advanced. There's advanced, I'm not advanced, but scenes from an Italian restaurant, Billy Joel, I can play that baby start to finish. I can do that whole solo with eyes closed, up and down, all that shit. That's intermediate. Training my hands and stuff, where like I don't, you know, the theory I can piece together. And if you ask me to add lib that solo, like it's a little bit difficult. Um their jamming is like it's basically Rick up front, you know. It's basically it's just Rick. It's like here's Rick will now shred the guitar. Now, Peter's good, I think the bass player's good. Trevor, I would like to see him add another person to the band. I don't, you know, I just I would like to see another guy. I don't know what he does. A horn player, a multi-instrumentalist, somebody.
SPEAKER_01Well, the boys were in Toronto yesterday, and Carl, I don't know if you had seen, but a certain Julian Lang joined them for the entire show. No, so I think that that I mean, if that ever happened or something, if he joined, I mean it he's almost he's just too good, but he is too good. We saw him live in Chicago. Yes, he did. I saw him. We were like, who is this dude? And he was a virtuoso. I went and read all about him afterwards. So he did like the whole show with Goose yesterday.
SPEAKER_00Julian Lang is what is one of the best stringed and living stringed instruments, uh, in stringed instrumentalism, yeah, under the age of 50 in the world.
SPEAKER_01Like I think I think he was like that when he was 15, too. But he's like one of those way far ahead of anything, like absolute savant, you know, probably went you know to some crazy music school because he was a genius, you know, at an at a young age, but yeah, phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's now I do like that. They bring up Corey Wong in 03 or in 2023, they do the Hey Joe Jimi Hendrix cover, absolutely brings the fucking house down. You know, a couple weeks ago they do moving out with uh the Billy Joel cover. Great, great, great song. So, like a horn set. Like, can we get a horn? What about a multi-hornist, the guy who does horns, or are is it like you want to bring the horns in when you need the horns? You don't want the horns all the time, right?
SPEAKER_01No, you want to bring horns in, especially as this band. They did so at Madison Square Garden after Everything Must Go came out, and they had the horn section who worked on that album, play those songs, and it hits so much harder. I feel like when it's an uh uh you know, more of a special occasion, or if they do something with you know, at their festival in Mexico, they had a harp player during the acoustic set, and it sounded so cool. So they're just doing cool shit, man. I love to love other things and just have be so into something, and and I'm just privileged that I I align my like that a band came around that I happen to like and have get to follow for as long as they're around and as long as I'm around.
SPEAKER_00For the record, you know, we've we're closing the show, but Mahoney's passion for this band got kicked off. Your brother-in-law likes him, but we were hanging out with our old Miller Light rep when I worked at Barclays, yeah, George, who's a very good friend of mine.
SPEAKER_01You have to see this video. I was trying to convince you to watch it, and you're like, I don't want to watch it right now. And then we got we did see it, and that's when they sat with Trey. That was like the first week I started figuring out goose.
SPEAKER_00And then yeah, Trey at Trey at Radio City Music Hall, they do hunger sight with Trey. That was just absolute just incredible.
Final Positivity And Go Cubs
SPEAKER_00So, hey guys, this is the Monday morning cub show. If you get a chance, do me a favor, subscribe to it, review it, leave you know, share with a friend. A lot of Cubs talk this week. We're maintaining our positivity going into Colorado. We are gonna get a sweep, we are playing good baseball. Until next time, Mahoney. It's great to see you, my friend.
SPEAKER_01Yep, ditto, and great to see and talk to you all Monday morning, May. We're working on the outro, and I muted myself earlier. Go, Cubs. All right, good show.