Larry Jewell

3, 2, 1. You get to talk with Mike Smith this time prior to a ballgame. And that was an excellent, excellent game that you threw on the last game before coming down here. Yeah, I felt pretty comfortable. I've kind of changed the way I've, I guess, approached a game. Now. Once I go out, you know, I was struggling a little bit early and trying to find something because I was giving up, you know, my runs and early innings. You know, I bet my ERA in the first two innings right now is probably about nine, and in the last five or six, it's probably about one. So I had to find some way where I could go out and, you know, get through my first inning before I actually got through my first inning. So I've decided to go out, you know, about an hour before game time and do my stretching and actually warm up like I normally did before, but then actually throw an inning and inning and a half in the pen before I actually go out. And I've done that my last two, two or three starts, and it felt pretty comfortable to me. You know, I don't get much tired. In fact, I take a little bit more time in the dugout before the game to prepare myself. So, you know, if that's what it's going to take for me to be successful this year and help this team, you know, win another championship, that that's what it's going to take. And, you know, I just was fortunate enough to throw well and be able to hit spots. And, you know, J Cuff called a great ball game, and we had some offense behind us, and we got a W. Looks like you're a concentrated, but not paralyzed, looking at being the start at that time. More relaxed. Yeah, I was relaxed, you know. You know, people were kind of saying, hey, you know, Smitty, we're gonna have over 4,000 people here tonight. You know, don't get nervous, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you know what, guys? I'm a veteran in this league. I've pitched with big crowds. I've pitched with small crowds. It didn't matter. I was. But I was. I was real relaxed. I got out there early. In fact, I kind of mingled with some of the fans down in the. Down in their barbecue area, and it just kind of got me relaxed and going and not real tense. And, you know, I've been pitching too long to get real tense. You know, I'm going to get butterflies before I go out there. It's just part of being a competitor. But I was relaxed and comfortable and got into A groove early and it was successful. Still fun being a pitcher, isn't it? Yeah, it is. The four days in between aren't fun, but, you know, it's all worth it once you get a W. And, you know, now that we've won this first half, you know, we get a chance to hopefully try for another ring again. So I'm looking forward to that. Now, I know there haven't been as many wins with the starting pitchers as you would like, but there have been a lot of close losses. The starting pitchers had a good shot. Yeah, we've had a lot of close ones. You know, we've had a lot of games where we've had the lead, we've given it up, we've gotten it back, and, you know, our starters have done, for the most part, a pretty decent job. And even our relievers have done a pretty decent job. There's just one or two bad innings, like in most games, that have hurt us this year. And if we can get away with giving up the big inning, we're going to do some damage later on down the road. I know yesterday was a struggle for a while. First four or five innings, but settled right down. Yeah, Gabe pitched a good ball game. You know, he didn't have his best stuff yesterday. He kept us in there. A couple of not so good breaks for him and a couple long balls. They're 3, 4, 5 hitters now with Monahan and Sanchez and now Williams. Boy, those guys can swing the bat. And if you can get through that lineup without giving any runs, you have a pretty good shot at throwing a decent ball game. But you gotta tip your hats to them. They swung the bats and we swung them, too. And we just were fortunate, unfortunate enough to not score more runs than them to get the W, but we'll take it. One of the threats is their leading home run hitter has more than half of what it needs to set a new record. But last year, the top two hitters finished with 19. Yeah, he's. Boy, he's on a tear. You know, I've been teasing some of the guys from their other team. I said, what's he still doing here? You know, you would think he might have a shot with an organization somewhere. He swings the bat, he's swinging for a decent average. He's a good catcher. He's got a pretty good arm. You know, again, you gotta tip your hat to a guy like that and, you know, hopefully he doesn't get the best of you when you go out and face him on the mound. I know They've hit a lot of home runs, but your team still has an edge, even if it's just a little. He seems to hit us pretty good. I know when he came to our park, he hit the ball pretty well. And when we were here last time, you know, he hit us pretty good. In fact, I know, I think I won that last time here, 7:1. And the only run I gave up was the home run by Sanchez in that game. So again, you got to tip your hat to a guy like that and just hopefully he gets on a cold streak when we play him. Back to you, Justin, a little bit. It looks very much like you're pitching like you did most of last season. Yeah, I don't know if I'm there yet. I'm getting pretty close again. I'm feeling comfortable. I'm finally starting to get a groove. Starting to feel like I'm getting my mechanics. You know, the tough thing with being the pitching coach is you don't have somebody to really watch you and watch your mechanics. So you kind of have to rely on other guys, you know, in the dugout and as well as your catcher and just things that you've learned throughout your career to get you back on track. And I've told some guys, hey, watch this for me, watch this for me. And I've kind of felt some things and I'm finally starting to now feel it again. You know, it's nice that we clinch the first half now and hopefully I can just kind of set myself on cruise control in the second half to get ready for the playoffs. Let's talk about the guys you'll be working with. The starter tonight is going to be potentially a very good pitcher. Yeah, Buckles throws the ball well. You know, he's had success in the past with an organization and he's threw some pretty good ball games for us. You know, again, he's been one of those guys unfortunate to have some bad luck, but you know, the key here is if you keep the ball down and get through there, three, four, five hitters, you know, you have a good chance of having some success. I know he's given up some home runs, but he doesn't seem to be emotionally torn apart for that. No, he has very good composure on the mound. Like I said, he's been with an organization, he's been through the system, he's pitched a big time college, Oklahoma. So, you know, he knows what it's like to pitch under pressure and to have composure and poise on the mound. And he's a Gamer, and he's going to go out and give you a good quality six or seven innings. This particular field seems to carry baseballs a lot better than it did last year. Yeah, it's nowhere. Nothing like Bruce Hurst Field, aka Coors Field Jr. But yeah, the ball seems to be jumping a little bit here. I mean, to center field. It's the graveyard is what they're calling it. But, boy, everywhere else, the ball seems to be jumping right now. The matchup that you're going to be having tomorrow is a new guy that's just come off the disabled list for you guys. Oh, yeah. Matt Noe. Matt Noe should. I think he's ready. You know, he's one of those guys that could be a spot starter, long relief. You know, Matt's going to do again. He's one of those guys that's going to do a good job for us, give us some quality innings and. And get us through the end of this first half and, you know, good possibility he can stay in the rotation. One of the things that brings him up is you released one of your veterans. Yeah, we released Nate Yeske today. He's been having some back problems and been struggling a little bit. And, you know, he understood, you know, the reasoning behind it. And, you know, we weren't sure how long he was going to be out, but could a possibility of, you know, seven days to two weeks. You know, he has a back problem. I mean, he had a tough time even throwing from 10ft out there. In fact, when he was laughing or coughing, it was really hurting him. So, you know, we need to leave a spot open so we can get some guys to come in here and help us out. And maybe down the road, if he's still throwing well, there's a good chance, you know, we might be able to get him back later on. So this isn't a totally total, you're gone forever situation. I'm not fully sure about that. You know, maybe, maybe not. It just depends on really Nate and what he wants to do. If he stays in shape, there's a possibility later on, but, you know, right now he just needs to get himself healthy. We're going to talk about this particular game again a little bit. What's coming up in the second half with the hitters after this timeout? 3, 2, 1. We're visiting with Mike Smith and I know we've talked almost entirely pitching this time. Let's talk about the bats and how good a team this is or how shaky a team this is. Are you referring to Solano Both. Both. Solano's a good hitting team. You know, they've got a pretty good lineup. You know, like I've already talked about, they're 3, 4, 5 hitters. Our offense right now, we're just trying to gain some consistency here. We haven't been getting a lot of support lately from our four, five hitters, and I think they're just trying to work out some kinks in their swings that in the long run, they're going to come around and do the job for us. Actually been getting a good bat from a rookie, Mike Kolbach. Mike's been swinging the bat well. You know, he's. We call him Mr. Doubles because he seems to be hitting the ball down that left field line and getting on base for us. And, you know, Trippie's always going to be consistent. You know, he kind of swings the bat real well in this ballpark. And, you know, we got some guys struggling, but, you know, they're going to come around, they're going to be consistent. You know, it's not time to hit the panic button. We've won the first half and now, not that we're going to set ourselves on cruise control, but we're going to try to get ourselves ready for postseason play as well as try to be consistent in the second half, too. That really worked out well for you last year and you ended up with a second half victory. Yeah, you know, it's always nice to win the first half first and anytime you can win the first half, you don't have to worry about anything else. So you can just get yourself ready for postseason play. But you know, us as competitors and professionals, we're going to go out on a day to day basis and go out to win a ball game each and every day. And you know, if we win, we win, you know, and if we lose and it's things that we can do better, then we're going to, you know, we're going to try to make changes. But if the other team beat us, we're going to tip our caps to them and show up the next day and play them. One of the questions a lot of people have is the newest batter on this team is the outfielder turned second baseman tonight. How good is Scott? Ed's a pretty decent hitter. You know, he's still kind of raw right now. He's a young hitter, he's very fast. You know, if he puts the ball in play, he has a good chance of beating the thing out. He covers a lot of ground. We haven't really Had a chance to see him a whole bunch, but from what we've seen, you know, I think he's going to be a guy down the road that could really, you know, be one of those sleeper type guys that comes through for us in the big time. Your backup catcher is getting a start tonight. At times, he swung the bat very well. Yeah, Romos swings the bat pretty good. He's got a little bit of pop. He calls a pretty decent game for a young guy, you know, his asset. He's got a very good strong arm and he can throw runners out. And with a team, you know, like this that runs a little bit, not a whole bunch, you know, we have a good shot at keeping guys close. And, you know, now it's the time where we can start giving some guys some day off. Days off that are. That are a little bit sore and, you know, get us ready for, like I said, for, for later on in the second half. I know Frank has been shifted to third base, but this is an unusual shift this time. He gets to go back to second base, of all places. Yeah, you know, we're just gonna, again, we're trying some things and see what happened and we'll just go, you know, from day to day and try to try to see what's up and give again. Give some guys some days off. I know Trippy's been in a little bit of a slump, but it looks like he's swinging the bat well again. Yeah, he had three hits last night and he swing. Like I said, he swings a bat in this ballpark pretty well. So, you know, again, Tripp's going to be consistent and do what he has to do to get on base and make things happen for us in the leadoff spot. It hurts when you lose Martinez, a guy that's hitting almost.500, and, you know, it's tough to find a guy to fill a role, but, you know, Trippie's done a pretty good job in doing that. And, you know, Trippie's bass is the best spot in the lineups probably too. But, you know, for a leadoff guy, he's swinging the bat pretty well. I know two weeks on the road, you take a week off to play, not off. But you had to go back home for a week and now you have another nine days on the. This is quite a. Quite a challenge. Yeah, this is a crazy schedule. You know, 14 days on the road, playing 12 day, 12 games and going home for six and then back on the road for nine. It's. It's a little Grueling, but you know, might as well get it out early. And the good thing is, you know, we've, we've clinched the first half title so you know, we've got it over early and we have a little bit more home games when we get back. So, you know, we'll take them when we get them. And again, being professionals, we've got to come out and do our job on a day to day basis and, you know, win some ball games. I've got to ask you about your boss, the manager. He gets a day off way back when, early in the season. He didn't have a number before the point, whatever. Now he's been battling with.300 as an average. What's the secret? He needs to stay in the ball game. No, he's. Brian just had a slow start, you know, he's taken a day off. He's played quite a few days without managing and being able to just manage from the dugout and you know, I know he was, we've been talking and he's looking forward to a little day off and you know, if it's one or two, you know, deserving for him and get some other guys some time in there to swing the bats and get some playing time. Do you see anything special about the batting order today about your starting pitcher that we should emphasize? I don't think there's anything special. Again, it's, you know, just go out and hopefully one through nine, be consistent and do the job. You know, fundamentals usually win ball games. You know, that's what I tell, you know, my teams when I'm, when I'm the head guy, you know, fundamentals wins you games and if you get quality pitching, you know you're going to be right in ball games to have a chance to win. And that's what we need to do today. Again, keeping away from the beginning and getting a quality start and swinging the bats and be consistent and do the little things to score runs and you know, score more runs than the other team. Mike Smith, congratulations on your victory the other night. Good luck tonight. Thank you for being with us. Thanks Larry. Appreciate it. His main thing is that one or two pitches in an inning where he makes mistakes, he's gotta just go out there and trust his stuff and, and not have any mental lapses. He's got the stuff to be successful. He's been battling. He's just gotta get rid of those one or two mistakes he makes every inning and he'll be just fine. I know pitching top to bottom on almost Every team seems to be settling in now. It's a mid season. Yeah, we're starting to see a lot of the same pitchers and hitters when they come, when they come to the field, they know who they're facing and what they have. So that's good for the hitters and it's good for the pitchers too. When they face a team for the second and third time, it kind of helps them. So we're settling into this season. What's the key about this field and what's the key about your team tonight to come up with a victory? I think it's the first three innings are going to be important that we are in the game. I'd like to be tied or up a run after three innings at the worst and we'll just take it from there. The team will blossom, I think so. This is going to be interesting to be out here on a night. It's warm when you start, it's cold when you finish. Yeah, this place is, you know, it's known for getting a little cool at night with the breeze coming in and our players know that and we'll just have to deal with that when the sun goes down. Should stay warm today though, on an afternoon. Yeah, it's a beautiful day out today, so we're looking forward to playing here pretty soon. Brian Crabeck, thank you for being with us. Good luck tonight. Thanks, Larry. Thank you. All down. We stopped it, so that was all we needed over there. I know you practice here at this field a lot. Now that you play the game, what's the reaction of the team? Oh, they're happy. I mean, everybody was thrilled after the game yesterday and you know, I think all the butterflies in the first game jitters, beginning of the season, that's all biased now and we can really relax and start playing ball. So kind of excited for tonight too to see how they play with all the pressures of opening day on their backs. So. Should be fun. It's always nice to get a win in the game. Number one of the year too. Definitely, definitely. I mean, you know, we had the big parade, we had all kinds of pre game festivities and you lose your home opener, that kind of is a sour note and leaves a sour taste in your, in the back of your throat. So it's good that we got off to a good start and hey, we're in first place. Let's talk about some pitching. Mike Smith, you know, is good, but it looked like he dominated yesterday. He did, he did. He pitched really well and I was pleasantly surprised that he went as me. We had to set him at an 80 pitch pitch count and I think he ended up going probably about 90 somewhere around there. And I was very happy with the way he pitched through strikes and that's, that's all we get, we could ask for. And he was, he made good pitches when they, when we needed him to and he got outs when they had guys in scoring position and, and from that point on we, you know, he got the win. So we talked prior, I was asking him every, are you ready to come out? Is that good? I told him I was going to take him out in the fourth inning but after we, you know, when we had the lead but, and then we brought in Mesa and he got in a little bit of trouble his second inning. But he was, you know, he was also very dominant the first inning. He was out there and brought in Davison and who struggled his first inning out there and came back to pitch a, you know, he pitched a great ninth inning. So you know, a couple of these guys, they just need to get out there and work out the butterflies and all the jitters and they calm down and throw strikes and get guys out. We got a lot, our pitchers have really good stuff and we just need to take advantage of that. And you know Mike, who could ask? I mean he did a great job yesterday. A lot of people I don't think realized how dominating he can be at a time like that. It's true. I mean I didn't, I don't know any, didn't know anything about him. I know that he was coming here, that he was a clutch pitcher. He's a big game pitcher and opening season, opening day, he's the big game pitcher of the day. We'll be back with the second part of this pre game after this timeout. 3, 2, 1, we're back with the manager. And that's a title you get to keep. Now that's not too bad. That's all right, I'll take it for right now. Let's talk about the matchup on game number two. Talk about the pitcher you're sending out. Caruso. Gene Caruso, left handed pitcher, kind of a junk ball pitcher. He throws curveball, change up sometimes a fastball. He works inside and outside the plate and just crafty, crafty lefty, crafty lefty that goes out there, throws strikes, keeps you off balance and he'll pitch forever. I mean he does want to come out of the game and hopefully I won't have to take him out of the game. But he's a good pitcher and he'll definitely keep them on their toes tonight. I know a lot of the recruiting major league is. Let's look for early to mid to late 90 mile per hour fastballs. But still, some of the best major leaguers are those change up, different speed sort of pitchers. What about the matchup with this young? I think that he fits right in that category. I mean, he doesn't have an overpowering fastball, but what he does, he changes speeds and he pitches, you know, inside and out and you know, he's got a curveball that comes out of, you know, out of right field, you know that he could throw for a strike. So it's. You don't always have to throw hard to get people out. I think that if you have good location and change speeds that you can be just as effective as a player, as a hitter. What are some of the pitchers that have been the toughest for any good hitter to get a bat on those balls? Those are the guys that do it. I mean, the guys that change speeds. When you have a few guys that are, you know, that can just blow you away. Guys like Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. But now Pedro's a classic example of a freak of nature. He changes speeds, throws extremely hard, has good control, and he pitches around the plate. So he's got everything that a pitcher would want and more. And he's probably your toughest pitcher to face. I mean, to go out there, you don't know what to count. He throws everything the same way. Every pitch is the same speed, arm speed, so. So it's hard to pick up his changeup and his slider. So it makes it more difficult. Guys that throw hard, you know what you're getting from them. Everything's going to be hard. So you can pretty much sit back and if you see a wrinkle in it, pretty good chance it's not going to be a strike because it's going to be darting away from you or into you or whatever. But you know you're going to get that fastball sometime in the count. You can just sit back and quick hands and drive it. I know your experience as a major leaguer. A lot of those pitchers are consistently near or in the strike zone. That must be a challenge for you for any good hitter because they're consistently in the strike zone. That's better. I mean, it's. The guys that get consistently 6 inches outside are the guys that you have problems with. I mean, the biggest difference in going up through minor league baseball to the big leagues is that the pitching gets more around the plate, each level you go up. And for me, it became easier to hit because I didn't have to worry about balls coming at my head or balls going out there and, you know, doing all this stuff at the plate. The ball was going to be somewhere in this area. Now, whether or not I put the bat on the ball was what I had to work on. But I knew I was going to get a ball that I can hit every at bat. I didn't, you know, coming up early in my career, I knew I was going to get a ball at my head every at bat. So that made a big difference. And, you know, getting to the big leagues, it's. After your first year, you see everybody. And it's not like in the minor leagues where when you go to a different league or a different team, you move up, you see a whole bunch of different pitchers and all that stuff. You see the same guys for, you know, 10 years. So, you know, it's a constant game of adjustments. And they're going to make adjustments to you, and you have to make adjustments to them, but you know that they're going to be around the plate, and the only adjustments that you're going to have to make are the ones that he forces you to do. If he consistently thinks he can get you out with a curve ball, then, well, then you better think about hitting that curveball one time. So are you finding that the pitchers in this league are similar to those double entries? Believe. Not yet. I mean, I haven't seen. I saw the one guy yesterday, I think it was Mike Sape. Looked like he had pretty good control, threw hard, had a nasty slider, threw me a couple of splits, too. So he did have a split finger fastball. And I believe he was a top prospect for the Rockies organization, if I'm not mistaken. Although the other guys, I didn't. I think they probably need a couple more innings or something under their belt before they get in tune with the season because they seem like they ran out of gas a little soon. But I haven't seen enough of the league to say that it's competitive in one way or another. Other than that guy yesterday. Our pitchers. Our pitchers are of double A or better caliber, all of them. Today. What's going to be the key for you? Keep doing what we did yesterday. Get guys on base, get them moving and drive them in. I mean, that's. I think the biggest thing is, especially for our pitchers, is pitchers have to throw strikes. I mean, they can't. We can't afford in this ballpark, the wind blowing out to get guys a free pass on base. So we got to make them work for their at bats and keep them off base. But on the flip side for the offense, go up there with the same approach we had yesterday. Take what we can get from them. Work the pitchers. Obviously, we worked them enough yesterday where they got tired early, get guys on base and let our big hitters drive them in. And our top of our lineup is pretty speedy, so they're off and running no matter what. I guess I can say manager again. Outstanding player, too. Manager. Ashley, thank you for being with us. Good luck today. Thank you. I'll talk to you later.