The Bobby Valentine Sport Show: Episode 13

The Bobby Valentine Sport Show: Episode 13

A lot of teams that are still alive with about a week and a half left, tons of crazy things can happen, who even knows. Hello everybody and welcome back to another week of the Bobby Valentine Sport show, and I’m your host Frank Ramppen like always, and we’re going to get into one of the last couple of weeks of the MLB season, which means that there’s only a couple more episodes of the MLB regular season, only to be a couple more episodes before the playoffs start. So, less about a week and a half until the playoffs start, and both of these Wild Card races are getting absolutely insane.

The American League, the top of the American League right now is the Rays. The two-seed right now by a game is the Toronto Blue Jays, excuse me, and right behind them tied for the third seed is the two teams in the American League West fighting for that division as well, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers, who are a half game behind Houston. So, a lot of crazy things happening in the American League, and the National League Wild Card race might be even crazier.

The top of the National League Wild Card right now is the Philadelphia Phillies, who have been going on a little bit of a skid lately. They have been—they played very well over the course of, I mean, July and August, really mid-September. They’ve kind of hit a little bit of a lull. They haven’t been as good as they have been, something to look at there, but they still have that one seed in the National League. The two-seed in the National League Wild Card, the two-seed over there as of right now is the Chicago Cubs. They had that blistering start to start the second half, they still are riding that high, they’re flying that W, they’re in second place in the National League Wild Card. And then at the end of that, there are two teams tied again, the Miami Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks, both tied for that last spot with the Cincinnati Reds on the outside looking at by half a game and the San Francisco Giants who have been struggling, struggling lately, three games out now. So, a lot of things, a lot of teams that are still alive with about a week and a half left, tons of crazy things can happen, who even knows? The Yankees are still alive at this point, not a good chance but they’re still technically alive, less than two weeks left of the season.

So this is really it, and we’re going to get into our Outfield play of the week here, and tell me if you heard this on the show before, Cedric Mullins made our Outfield play of the week fourth time that Cedric Mullins has made the Outfield play of the week. This guy is unbelievable in center field, and I love watching him make plays. So, we’re going to jump into a huge series they just had at Camden Yards against the Tampa Bay Rays. Rays were down in the division by, I believe, it was three games going into this four-game set, so the Rays had a chance to leap over the Orioles as the division leaders in the American League East, and they took the first two games. Well, the first two games were won by Tampa Bay, which shrunk that division lead to just one, but the Orioles were able to win the last two, split the series and extend that division lead back up to three. But in one of these games, I believe this was game three, Taylor Walls comes up to the plate in the top of the second inning—excuse me, rips one into the right-center field gap. Cedric Mullins on the run and full extension lays out just in front of the warning track to make a ridiculous play, and oh my gosh, Cedric Mullins. There’s been three times he’s been on the show for robbing a home run. This time it’s finally finally not robbing a home run, but what an incredible play. We’re gonna go back and watch that again, and there are just some plays that you watch further and you watch them run, and you know he’s gonna make that catch. Look at Cedric halfway through this. Taylor Wall smokes it and he’s tracking it down, and then there’s just a third gear by Cedric Mullins there. He’s like, I’m catching this ball. There’s no chance. He picks it up into third gear, lays out, makes an unbelievable catch to end the inning. Cedric Mullins. He has been so unbelievably helpful and clutch for this Orioles team when he’s healthy, and we’re going to get into that.

Now we’re going to move into our game of the week segment, and I mean this Orioles team, they’ve been playing very well. I’ve talked about it a lot since Adley Richmond got called up, actually since last year but this season especially, they’ve been playing very well. They’re on pace to win 100 games, have their best season since 1973. A bunch of records in Orioles history, great team, bunch of young stars as well. But this week has been tough for them. They played two tough teams, teams that are gaining on them in the division, the Tampa Bay Rays and I mean the team that’s been the juggernaut in the AL for the past eight years, the Houston Astros. And in this Astros series, we find our game of the week.

For more on the updated MLB playoff race click the video below!