Speaker 1: And now an exclusive interview with David Bassey for Dodger Talk.
Speaker 1: It's Schooble Day in Chicago. Trek Schouoble getting set to
Speaker 1: make his Dodger debut, and we're in the manager's office
Speaker 1: for the manager's meeting presented by Downy hun Day with
Speaker 1: Dave Roberts. Dave, thanks a lot for the time, and
Speaker 1: how excited are you for today?
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: I'm excited like all Dodger fans, and obviously coming off
Speaker 3: losing four in a row, you know, to have a
Speaker 3: guy like Terrek take the mound and be our stopper,
Speaker 3: that's what we're looking for.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is what I just learned is
Speaker 2: this is his first.
Speaker 3: Time pitching at Wrigley Field, So I think it's gonna
Speaker 3: be something special for him, not only just to don
Speaker 3: the Dodger uniform, but to also pitch on Wiggley Field.
Speaker 2: So it's gonna be an exciting one.
Speaker 1: On Sunday Night Baseball, it was not a great game.
Speaker 1: You had just removed Emma sheehan from the game, but
Speaker 1: when you got back to the dugout, he was waiting
Speaker 1: for you. What's been the interactions like so far with
Speaker 1: Dave Roberts and Trek Scuoble.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was quite the juxtaposition. You know, you're giving
Speaker 3: up Homers and you're not feeling good about the game,
Speaker 3: but then you turn around then.
Speaker 2: You see Trek Scooble. So that certainly put a.
Speaker 3: Smile on my face, and you know, we were starting
Speaker 3: to build slowly. I think that him getting into town
Speaker 3: early to do his Day three lift, to meet the
Speaker 3: guys in the dugout, spent a couple of days with them,
Speaker 3: and then get on the player plane, I think was
Speaker 3: great for his kind of assimilation with the guys, and
Speaker 3: I think for me just little chats here there and
Speaker 3: obviously gearing up for today, so you sort of leave
Speaker 3: him alone. But he is a lot more talkative and
Speaker 3: present than you know other starting pitchers. Not name Clayton Kershaw,
Speaker 3: named Clayton Kershaw, but no, he's great, excited to be here.
Speaker 3: But I think for me, he just wants to get
Speaker 3: this first one out of the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. I just asked Max Munsey if Scooble
Speaker 1: is Krushaw like on start day. He said he couldn't
Speaker 1: be from the further of Kershaw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's The funny thing is that even Clayton
Speaker 3: admitted that he like and you guys are gonna love him, Doc,
Speaker 3: You're gonna love him. And he's more normal on his
Speaker 3: start days than I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was worried to look at Kershaw on the eye.
Speaker 1: So I've been traumatized. I don't look at anybody in
Speaker 1: the eye on start day.
Speaker 2: No, I hear. You never know.
Speaker 3: And these starters, it's it's once every five six days,
Speaker 3: and so they get this adrenaline, this emotion, this focus
Speaker 3: and get pretty irritable. And you know, Clayton was one
Speaker 3: of those guys that I remember playing with Kevin Brown
Speaker 3: when I played with the Dodge, and he was that
Speaker 3: way where you just you know, you want to get
Speaker 3: that kind of five foot radius and stand clear.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how certain guys get ready for start days
Speaker 1: that are really good pictures like Yamamoto, like a school
Speaker 1: bl You've seen so many. Like you said, is there
Speaker 1: at a certain point in time a switch that flips
Speaker 1: before the game begins.
Speaker 3: It does, But I think that some guys it starts,
Speaker 3: you know, right when they get into the parking lot.
Speaker 2: You know, at the ballpark.
Speaker 3: It's that intensity and some guys, it's a slower burn
Speaker 3: as you lead up to the game. When they get
Speaker 3: their stretch, they start playing catch. And I think the
Speaker 3: thing is, though, is that it's just got to be
Speaker 3: natural and organic, because what happens is that if you
Speaker 3: try to manufacture that focus, that intensity too early, that
Speaker 3: expends energy. And that's something that I have seen with
Speaker 3: young pitchers that you've got to be who you are.
Speaker 3: You can't have it too contrived. There's certainly got to
Speaker 3: be a level of focus, but I think that you've
Speaker 3: got to be mindful of expending too much energy.
Speaker 1: Dave Roberts is our guest the Manager's Meeting, presented by
Speaker 1: Downey Hyundai. All right, you got Trek Skouoble on the
Speaker 1: mound and you got Ben Rhtvit catching. Ben Rurtvitt is back,
Speaker 1: so is Hunter Fiducca. Where is the Dodgers catching situation
Speaker 1: right now? Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, obviously with the news of a Dalton having
Speaker 3: a slightly torn UCL, I think it is. So we're
Speaker 3: going to keep the hitting going. You know, he's gonna
Speaker 3: have a slow pro with a throwing don't know what
Speaker 3: that looks like, you know, for the rest of the
Speaker 3: season and throughout the postseason. Fortunately it happened the day
Speaker 3: before the trade deadline, so you know, here we are
Speaker 3: a day after we had two catchers on our roster,
Speaker 3: and the day today we're looking at two new catchers.
Speaker 3: And thankfully, you know, we had rt Vett last year
Speaker 3: caught in some postseason games, we had Fidusha last year
Speaker 3: in the years prior, so there's a lot of familiarity
Speaker 3: and so we certainly raised the floor on the catching.
Speaker 1: Why did everybody love Ben rurt Fitz so much?
Speaker 3: I think rort Is is a good teammate, doesn't take
Speaker 3: himself too seriously, and he's a servant, and I think
Speaker 3: a catching a catcher has to be a servant. And
Speaker 3: I really think that last year him being here really
Speaker 3: helped Dalton's growth as a servant, and so I think
Speaker 3: getting him back, he does a lot of things right.
Speaker 3: He's in it with the catchers and I think the pitchers.
Speaker 3: And that's why tonight I really kind of flipping a coin.
Speaker 3: Fidusha roared vet. I went with the energy the servant,
Speaker 3: wrote Vet today. But Fidusha's going to catch a lot
Speaker 3: with this too.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like until Will Smith or Dalton rushing returns.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a shared situation, or do you
Speaker 1: feel like there's one guy that you may lean on
Speaker 1: more than another.
Speaker 3: It's going to be shared, but I think it'll probably
Speaker 3: be three to five Fidusha over rared Vet, but it's again,
Speaker 3: it's essentially shared.
Speaker 1: Going back to Will Smith, I know we ask you
Speaker 1: about this every week, but are you encouraged that you're
Speaker 1: going to get him back?
Speaker 3: Very much? So, don't know the timeline. He's more active,
Speaker 3: he's swinging, he's throwing, he's lifting, moving around, so that's encouraging.
Speaker 3: Just don't know the timeline, but I do think that
Speaker 3: you know, the expectation to get him back we feel
Speaker 3: really good about. But again the trade deadline covering our
Speaker 3: downside getting two new catches is great. But you know,
Speaker 3: once we get Will back, we're certainly going to be
Speaker 3: a much better ball club.
Speaker 1: Before we were back out of here. I know you had
Speaker 1: mentioned that you found out right around game time on
Speaker 1: Friday or Saturday that you guys acquired school it was Saturday.
Speaker 1: What was your initial reaction? Did you feel like Andrew
Speaker 1: would pull this off? What was Dave Roberts thinking going
Speaker 1: into Friday and Saturday?
Speaker 3: You know so Friday, I had really no expectations. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we were kicking at tires and as Andrew says, we're
Speaker 3: on the backboard. And then Sunday when he told me
Speaker 3: we got him, or it was Saturday when we got him,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. When we got him Saturday, I was really
Speaker 3: taken aback because I didn't expect something like that to
Speaker 3: go down two days before the deadline.
Speaker 2: And so once you told.
Speaker 3: Me we got him pending physicals, I was a little
Speaker 3: shell shocked, and I didn't really know it was happening.
Speaker 3: And even that night, my wife goes, Dave, you're not
Speaker 3: even that happy. You don't see that happen, and I go,
Speaker 3: I am, I just it hasn't hit me yet. But
Speaker 3: then when I saw him the next day in the dugout,
Speaker 3: it certainly hit me.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Before I let you go, everybody's talking about the Dodgers,
Speaker 1: So what's your reaction to you guys being the topic
Speaker 1: of conversations on national debate shows that usually focuses on
Speaker 1: the NBA and NFL. I feel like this is a
Speaker 1: great example of how the Dodgers have brought baseball to
Speaker 1: the forefront of the conversations.
Speaker 3: I think It's fantastic. And I think that you and
Speaker 3: I have known each other for a long time. We
Speaker 3: talk a lot about different things, and you know, for me,
Speaker 3: I love the game at baseball, and so if people
Speaker 3: are debating baseball, talking about baseball, talking about the Dodgers,
Speaker 3: we all win. And so I'm excited about it and
Speaker 3: the Dodgers, what we're doing, what we have done, what
Speaker 3: we plan on doing. Obviously the superstar players that we have.
Speaker 3: So keep talking ball.
Speaker 2: Love it, Dave.
Speaker 1: Can't wait for first pitch Trek Scouoble taking the Mount
Speaker 1: tonight at Wrigley Field. Thanks as always for the time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Dave, love it. Can't wait till next week.