Hour 1: Wild Card Roster is set

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And good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Tuesday, September 29th, 2026 It's me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It's the fastest moving two hours in Sports Talk Radio. And of course, it's fast moving because I have great co-hosts, and that would be you. The listeners are the co-hosts. When you call in and the membership number is 1-800-919-3776.

Regular season is over. Baseball now gets really, really serious. The postseason begins today. All four wild cards begin today. I'll give you the times. At 2 p.m., the Braves host the Phillies. At 5 p.m., the Astros host the White Sox. At 8 p.m., the Yankees host the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. I'm going to have the call with Eduardo Perez and Tim Kirchen on Espn Radio. You can listen on 1050 Espn AM and also SiriusXM Channel 81 will have the call as well. And at 10 p.m., the Padres will host the Cubs. All games can be heard on 1050 Espn and of course, the Espn New York app. So what you care about here in this footprint of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Yankees and the Red Sox, we get it for the second straight year. Last year, it ended with the Yankees winning in three games. And game one is tonight in 2026 It's going to be the left-hander Peyton Tolley against the right-hander Cam Schlitler. The Yankees made some waves earlier in the day during Carlin and Dan's show where they selected their roster. And Giancarlo Stanton is on the roster. Trent Grisham is on the roster.

Aaron Judge is not on the roster. The Yankees are carrying 16 position players, and they are carrying 10 pitchers. The Red Sox are carrying 14 position players, and they are carrying 12 pitchers with a truckload of left-handers. So if the series goes three games, they'll start two lefties. It'll be Toley today. And then in game three, it would be Ranger Suarez. Game two tomorrow, it'll be Max Fried for the Yankees, and for the Red Sox, it will be Sonny Gray. So let's talk about the decision to include Giancarlo Stanton. Giancarlo Stanton has not had an at-bat in the big leagues since April, the end of April. He has suffered through a calf injury on one leg, then a re-aggravation of that said injury, and then coming back, he injured the other calf where he fell down when he was running around second base, practicing to get back to the active roster. He seems to be okay in the calf situation, and they've had him take a lot of live BP against pitchers, not just throwing BP at 70 miles an hour. They had Elmer Rodriguez on the mound yesterday. They had Ryan Weathers on the mound as well, and they felt that Giancarlo Stanton could give them an at-bat against all the left-handers that the Red Sox have lined up. Now, not only do the Red Sox have two left-handers out of three starting, in the bullpen, they have a Garrick Crochet who was activated. He has not pitched since the end of April, so he has something in common with Giancarlo, Jake Bennett, Alec Gamboa, Eric Miller, and Araldis Chattin. So they have five lefties in the bullpen, and they have four right-handers in the bullpen. So there will be an opportunity to match up Giancarlo Chattin against one of those left-handers. It's a very interesting decision, and I think the reason why it works in this case is simply this fact.

The Yankees are carrying 16 position players, so there are a lot of guys on the bench, because you know that when you pull the plug or push the button to send up Giancarlo Chattin in the game, you're going to have to use another player, because he can't be on the bases. Now anybody who thinks he's going to get a start as a DH, you're wrong. He's not going to get a start as a DH. He is going to be a weapon off the bench against all these lefties they have in the bullpen. That's his job. He might pinch hit for Austin Wells tomorrow. He might pinch hit for Ryan McMahon. He might pinch hit tomorrow for Luis Garcia. I don't see him pinch hitting for Ben Rice. And the thing that makes him a bit of a threat is that he's not only effective against left-handed pitching, he happens to be effective against right-handed pitching as well. So even if the Red Sox bring in a right-hander, when John Carlos Stanton is announced as a pinch hitter, it doesn't neutralize him all that much. Now, early in his career, he was an abysmal pinch hitter, abysmal. We used to give the stats on yes. I mean, they were eye-openingly bad. But he has not been a bad pinch hitter the last couple of years. And I think part of that is the advent, at least at Yankee Stadium, of the trajectory machine where he is facing live 100 mile an hour serves from a video of the picture that he's about to face. And also, by the fact he's gotten comfortable as a DH, which essentially is four pinch hit at bats anyway. So he's not a bad pinch hitter. That must be a pretty good pinch hitter.