The full crew is back together. Eric gives us a quick rundown of what it was like having his dad in town for a couple of weeks, then we get straight into it.

First, we address the elephant in the room: Rolsey and Spoon have been carrying some serious bad juju lately. It feels like everyone we’ve talked up has immediately met their demise. Eric tries to weaponise the curse because he’d love nothing more than to see the Rays fall apart as a Blue Jays fan, but Rolsey and Spoon aren’t convinced it’ll work this time. We also talk early AL East vibes, including being very happy to take the field against the Yankees in the race… even if it’s still early.

Then we deep dive the Cardinals’ start to the season and the bigger question: if they’re winning in the middle of a “rebuild,” are they actually buyers at the deadline? Especially with Chaim Bloom saying they’ll stay the course no matter what.

After that, it’s time for Part 2 of our three-part Alphabet Theme Team series. We’re trying to build a roster from Q through Z (and yes, Ryan Zeferjahn and Ángel Zerpa might make an appearance) and see if we can beat the 97-win monster we built with A through I. It’s a fun one. Stay locked in.

It’s a longer episode, but we think it’s worth it. And Spoon finishes with tips, he went 2-for-2 on Friday’s Weekend Pickoff, so you may want to keep listening.

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Eric’s still out, so it’s full-time podcasters only this week: Rolsey and Spoon.

Rolsey takes Spoon through a stack of wild stats from the past week, record-breaking stuff, weird April heaters.

Then Spoon runs a quick temperature check on his futures plays: what’s been hot, what hasn’t, and a tease for a full monthly review landing soon on baseballexpats.com.

We finish with Spoon’s best tips for the weekend slate. There are a ton of great matchups on the board, but we lock in on Phillies vs Marlins and Brewers vs Nationals for the plays we like most.

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It’s a rare Wednesday episode because Eric couldn’t join us yesterday, and even rarer, we’re recording while games are live. And somehow it turns into a full rookie-themed special.

We start with the big-league debut of Travis Bazzana, how we remember watching him coming up, and why Cleveland feels like the “must-watch” team if you follow Australian baseball talent. Weirdly, the other one might be Washington (Curtis Mead), which is not a sentence I expected to say either.

We also get the season debut of Trey Yesavage, and the boys dig into what we wanted to see from his first start. Then we hit Munetaka Murakami and the early-season tear he’s been on with the White Sox, including some rookie records he’s already managed to snap.

Spoon then apologises for briefly letting the Mets off life support and is forced to plug the machine straight back in. We wrap with some winners and losers from the ABS system so far, put the Theme Team on ice until the next episode, and finish with Spoon’s picks for the Wednesday slate in the US (Thursday in Australia), two overs he really likes. If you like runs and you like a wager, stay until the end.

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