The Best Defensive Game Ever & Pocket Tortoises, It's Baseball Season Alright!
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and DVR return from the weekend and wonder if Jo Adell's three home-run saving catches in the Angels' 1-0 win against the Mariners on Saturday night might be the best defensive game ever played. Plus, they discuss a cluster of starting pitchers on the fringes of rosters in many leagues, searching for early-season sources of stability, before taking a spin around the league after several impactful injuries piled up.
Rundown
0:29 Three Home-Run Robbies in One Game! Did Jo Adell Play the Best Defensive Game Ever?
9:26 The Starting Pitchers Were Good Too! Emerson Hancock and Jack Kochanowicz Deal
11:16 Choosing Your Favorite Two: Starting Pitchers on the Rise
21:39 Injuries Galore: Updates on Horton, Betts, Soto & Others
32:23 Feeling Better After Start No. 2? Tatsuya Imai Rolls Against the A’s
36:49 A Defensive Slump? Are the Giants’ Fielding Woes Fixable?
41:20 Context in Small Samples: Rain, Sleet, Snow & Other Variables That Matter
46:48 October is Behind Him: Andy Pages Is Hitting Well Again
49:28 Great Starts at Coors Field: Where Does Jesús Luzardo’s Weekend Start Rank?
58:32 What’s in Pat Murphy’s Pocket? How About a Tortoise Named ‘Bobby Jr.’?!
1:04:21 Keeping An Eye on Anthony Kay: Is It ‘Good’ Weird, or ‘Bad’ Weird?
1:08:38 Pirates Sweep the Orioles: Undefeated in Konnor Griffin Era
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
Editor: Jason Potere
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Barrels was Joe Adel's three homer robbery game the best defensive game ever played. |
| 0:06.5 | The Pirates are 3 in the Connor Griffin era, and can someone please turn off the injuries? |
| 0:11.6 | Let's go. |
| 0:23.3 | Welcome to Rates and Barrels. |
| 0:25.4 | It's Monday, April 6th. |
| 0:27.8 | Derek Van Riper here with Enoseres. |
| 0:33.9 | On this episode, we look back at a very improbable game on Saturday night. |
| 0:39.8 | Joe Adele pulled back three home runs and a one-nothing win for the Angels, |
| 0:45.7 | which has led some to say, that may have been the best defensive performance ever. And, you know, |
| 0:52.6 | part of the challenge is that it's hard to actually parse that out on a per game sort of basis. This seems more like a true open question than many things |
| 0:56.3 | that actually happen on a baseball field in 2026. Yeah, I mean, the problem with defensive |
| 1:04.2 | stats early on is actually there's a corollary there with even something like Stuff Plus, |
| 1:09.4 | which is that you have to have this idea of zero |
| 1:12.5 | that is or, you know, average across in order to compare people to average. And so depending on |
| 1:20.9 | what plays have happened, how many balls have gone to Pete Crowe Armstrong could matter, right? |
| 1:26.5 | Like how many balls have gone to him? |
| 1:27.8 | Or has he had a relatively quiet first week of play where they've all been easy balls |
| 1:32.5 | to Pete Crow Armstrong? |
| 1:33.8 | Then that might change the whole shape of what is an average fielder in the early going. |
| 1:40.0 | In the same way, Stuff Plus has had some massive revisions in the first couple days because |
| 1:45.0 | on the first day, everyone was an ace, you know? And so the average ace might have had their |
| 1:50.8 | stuff be down, but as soon as the second and third best starters pitched, you know, we got a true |
... |
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