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Defectively, wild, bio, bio. Wild, High-O-W-W-Y-O-W-E-Fat in me.

Hi-O-W-W-W-W-W-W-EW-W-E.

Hello and welcome to episode 23-52 of Effectively Wild.

FanGraphs Baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Raleigh-FanGas, and I am joined once again by Ben Lindbergh of the ringer. Ben, how are you? Are you rested? Did you miss us? Did you think about the pod constantly? Did you answer a bunch of emails? All of the above. Yes, I am rested, but also did answer a bunch of emails. And listen to you and Michael, you and Bowman, didn't miss a beat, enjoyed it very much as a listener.

And I mean, you covered all the big stories, like communism, mustard, tour de France.

You know, you touched on it all pretty much what I would have brought up had I been here.

Yeah.

So, you know, that was good to hear, of course. And so many things

happened while I was away that had not happened while I was here. I was almost miffed about it.

I go away for a few days. And suddenly, Justin Verlander gets credited with a win.

Raphael Devers starts at first base.

Yeah.

But most notably, of course, Rich Hill arrives, and you considerably didn't discuss that without me.

You waited for me to arrive and celebrate with you.

Oh, yeah.

I had an inkling that he might come up just based on

roster moves and rumors and reporting and everything, but then it finally happened, and he

drew a pretty tough assignment in the Cubs, one of the best hitting teams in baseball. And I would

say he turned in a pretty credible performance for any age, let alone a 45-year-olds.

...