Hour 2: Mike Lupica

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Hockey on ESPN is blowing up.

Mike Lupica (0:03)

Hockey is back.

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

So, what does it look like now? The kids, Hughes, Celebrany, Schaeffer. That's hockey. Ovi and Crosby, that's hockey. And with access to over a thousand out of market games, you can watch them and the rest of the league. Holy hockey, that's more hockey to love for more fans who love it.

SPEAKER_3 (0:21)

The NHL's best on ESPN.

SPEAKER_1 (0:23)

Watch all season long on ABC, ESPN, ESPN Plus and the ESPN app.

SPEAKER_3 (0:31)

This is The Michael Kay Show podcast.

Michael Kay (0:34)

I gotta get more Kay.

SPEAKER_3 (0:35)

Listen live weekdays at 1 on the ESPN New York app and your smart speaker.

Michael Kay (0:41)

Welcome back to The Michael Kay Show. We're talking Yankees, 9, Red Sox, nothing. They take a one game to nothing lead in the wild card round. And as I mentioned earlier, 16 previous wild card series. The winner of game one has gone on to win 15 of the 16 series. And the only one that didn't was last year when the Yankees lost game one and came back to win games two and three. And game three was Cam Schlitler's masterpiece, 12 strikeouts in eight innings without a walk. He was great. And the Yankees rode that into the series against the Blue Jays. But they didn't fare that well against the Blue Jays. One of the reasons is that the series went three games. Think about it. If it hadn't gone three games, then the start of game one probably was going to be Cam Schlitler. But it did go three games, and the Yankees want to avoid that at all costs. So they'll have to beat Sonny Gray to avoid that, and they'll have to ride Max Fried to avoid that tonight. So let me give you some good and bad for both, and you can decide which way you fall. So Sonny Gray has had a great season, 18 and 5, ERA in the 2s. When he pitches his 29 starts, the Red Sox are 21 and 8 All right, so that's positive stuff. Another positive, on June 28th against the Yankees, he had probably his best game of the year, 7 in the third inning, just one hit. No runs, 9 strikeouts, did not get a decision. Didn't get a decision. Now some of the negative on Gray. Gray, his ERA at Yankee Stadium, remember he pitched for the Yankees for a couple of years, didn't do well, so it kind of skews it a bit. But his ERA at Yankee Stadium is 5.95. And that's the highest ever for any pitcher with at least 100 innings pitched.

Again, 5.95. Now, I think he's as good now today at this age as he's ever been, so he's improved as a pitcher. But over the course of his career, he's pitched to a 5.95 ERA at Yankee Stadium. So that's a negative. Now let's look at Freed.

Freed's record career-wise is 97 and 46 That's a 678 career-winning percentage. That's the highest amongst any active pitcher. So this guy's a dude.

He's pitched in three career postseason putaway games, where you could end the series, right?

One and two with a 4.15 ERA. So that gets you a little nervous, right? But the one was game six of the 2021 World Series, where he closed the series for the Atlanta Braves. He pitched great. Now his career ERA in the postseason is 5.31.

5.31. And that's the highest in Major League history among any pitchers with 75 or more innings pitched. So he has the highest career ERA in the postseason. Against Boston, as a Yankee, in 6 games, he's 2-1 with a 1.24 ERA. And in his last 6 games, or last 8 games this year, when he came off the IL, he's pitched to a 1-2 record with a 2.09 ERA, and opponents hit 1.99 against him. So how do you feel about what I just told you? Do you feel buoyed and do you feel positive? If you're a Red Sox fan, do you like riding gray here, who's been your best pitcher all year? If you're a Yankee fan, do you feel comfortable with Fried? Now, the Yankees obviously think that Fried matches up very, very well with this team, because they were very, very close to starting him in game one. Very close.

So Schlitler got the job done the way I assumed that he was going to, and he wins game one in a big, inspiring fashion, throwing 117 pitches. Now it's time for Fried to do his job. So if Fried doesn't get the job done tonight, well, then you got a situation where Garrett Cole is pitching to save the season tomorrow. You want to avoid that. Not that I don't believe Cole could do a good job, but Cole has bad numbers in his career against the Red Sox. And I'd much rather have Cole start the first game in Tampa and have Schlitler start game two. If you get a series over quickly, right, then you have the ability to set things the way you want. If the series goes to full length, you're in scramble mode.