Orel Hershiser (9-16-24)

Orel talks to DV on his birthday before the Dodgers series finale in Atlanta. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's always our pleasure to celebrate one of the greatest
Dodgers in franchise history. World Series MVP Cy Young Award,
a man that certainly left his shoulder on the mound
for the Dodgers, and today we are celebrating the Bulldog
for his sixty sixth birthday. Oral, Happy birthday from all
of us. You know how much La and Dodger fans

(00:20):
love you, so I hope you're having a great day.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You know. You know the reason they love me is
we got to go back to eighty eight, right, and
that was the year that changed everybody's life and the
memory of the Dodgers and everything that happened all the
way from being drafted in the seventeenth round in nineteen
seventy nine to here. I am still talking to Dodger
fans and loving the fact that they love me. So
thank you for the birthday wishes.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Speaking of nineteen eighty eight, obviously you were in the
middle of your record setting consecutive scoreless inning streak on
September sixteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Do you remember that birthday
more than others?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
I guess so.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I guess I remember it more, not because of the streak.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Of course, the streak is there.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Baseball fans in my mind. But September fifteenth was my
second son was born, Jordan, So Jordan Douglas Herscheizer was
born September fifteenth, and then my birthday September sixteenth. So
it's always a special time of year. And here we
are on the road in Atlanta on when Jordan's birthday
was yesterday and mine is today. We will celebrate when

(01:20):
we get home to La So we're already playning a
special dinner and every year it's a special celebration where
he gets presents and I get cards.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
At this stage, right, oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
You know he might even get a check in his card,
and I just get a nice card and maybe a
new tie for broadcasting.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Well, I guess now that you're a broadcaster, you find
yourself in these weird cities like Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Were you able to celebrate last night?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I really just stayed in my room, cocooning, watching football,
watching the Dodgers, hanging out. So it's one of those
days that you know, when you have a busy life,
sometimes that hotel room gets to be a nice oasis
you get away. You get to sleep in you don't
have to do anything, and with an off day. It
has been an odd road trip for me because we
had Apple TV do the first game. We had ESPN

(02:06):
do the game last night, so of the four days,
we're only broadcasting too. But we're back at it tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Orl Herscheiser, the birthday Boy, is our guest here in Atlanta.
You mentioned you watched the game last night. I know
you're extremely close to Walker Buehler. How optimistic are the
Dodgers after that type of start?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I think we continue to see him grow and
this is a different guy coming back from rehab because
he's coming back with different tools and the fastballs back
down maybe you know, three mile an hour or so.
The stuff is not as quite as sharp and as
much break, but he's learning to pitch with it, and
I think that's the good thing. And once he learns
to pitch with it, I think then the stuff is
going to go up. And I think we saw that

(02:46):
last night. It's you know, it's about counts, it's about
learning to pitch, it's about learning who you are again.
And for Walker, I think it's a bigger step because
he had such amazing stuff before, and he had such
a big ego when he was out there, and sometimes
now with enough embarrassment and failure, his ego has kind
of checked at the door, and now he's using his intelligence.

(03:08):
We're talking about a kid who went to Vanderbilt, right,
and he could argue with you about almost any subject
and be right probably about any subject. So he's learning
through this process and it was really nice for him
to get results because I think those results are going
to not only be analyzed and he's going to see
what he did well and what he did poorly, but
I think it's going to all of a sudden create

(03:29):
a better path for him to know where success is.
And that's important for the Dodgers right now. There is
no silver lining to these injuries. I know, maybe some
of the silver that we're finding, like with Walker Buehler
or Flaherty or Yamamoto tonight, maybe that silver can turn
into gold in a World Series championship. But boy, we're
getting we're walking on thin ice now. As far as injuries.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Going back to Walker Buehler, ooral, does it all of
a sudden click for him, because last night we did
see what you were describing more of a pitcher. He
used seven different pitches and was able to not just
try to bully with the fastball.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, I don't think you're going to see him bully
with the fastball. I think he needs to locate and
get ahead. It's about counts, it's about fundamentals of baseball
and using the stuff that he has. And I think
the stuff will get better once he gets the rhythm,
once he gets that, this is who I am and
not over trying. You can see sometimes when the effort,
all of a sudden takes him away from some rhythm,

(04:24):
which then takes you away from location, which then takes
you into bad counts, which then leads to walks and
leads to crooked numbers and bad innings. And so you know,
you give up two runs in the third inning last
night without having the ball leave the infield. Gavin Lux
gets the ball out of his glove. Maybe it's a
different inning. And I don't understand why that's called an
infield hit and on an error, because when you drop

(04:44):
a ball as an infielder or an outfielder, that's an error.
If you can't get it out of your glove, that's
an error. Also, it's kind of like hesitating on a
throw or bobbling. So I'm not against Gavin and the
play as much as thinking about Walker and what that
out could have been for his confidence.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Oral Herscheizer is our guest.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
He's back in the saddle tonight with Joe Davis on Sportsnet,
La Yamamoto might be the most important pitcher to the
Dodgers in October. Like you said, with all these injuries,
what was the biggest takeaway you saw from him at
Dodgers Stadium the last time?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, the swing and miss is just there. It's immaculate.
And for him to come back, there are guys that
can hit falling out of bed and not have to
go on rehab. He looked like the kind of pitcher
that didn't need rehab, even though the two rehab starts
were really just exercise, not good stats at all, you know,
and he dominated in that outing, and I just think
that he's a tremendous talent. We've got to keep him healthy.

(05:38):
It's going to be interesting on the usage as we
go forward. I mean, you get him up to seventy
five pitches, maybe you get him up to one hundred
or just ninety in the next outing. But the key
is Otani is the headline.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
With the fifty to fifty Chase.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
The Dodgers are a secondary headline with the National League
West Chase. Each time, each day, those headlines can shift.
But every time Flaherty takes the mount, takes the mound,
Yamamoto takes the mount, and even knack Now takes the mound,
it becomes the headline.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
For this team.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So this is a different year for the Dodgers and
a different year as a broadcaster for us because there's
storylines right now. Before it was like fifteen games up,
they've already clinched. What do we talk about Now We've
got headlines and stories and everything that we can talk about,
and it's an exciting time of year.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
We've talked about it the last two years, where the
five days of rest may have worked against the Dodgers,
How vital is it for them to get five days
of rest considering where their pitching staff is.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, they got to stay in front of a Milwaukee.
They've got the tiebreaker with Milwaukee, so that gives them
a little bit of cushion. Every game that we win
or every game that they lose makes it even better.
It's got to stay in front of San Diego you've
got two races there, three and a half.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Games with San Diego.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
If you get to only three or two and a
half with them, they own the tiebreaker there, and you've
got three games head to head. Could be very, very exciting.
So there's a lot of baseball, a lot of stories left.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Or thanks a lot for the time.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Today's story is Yamamoto and also the bulldog Oral Hersheiser's birthday.
Hope you celebrate it with a Dodger win on the
way to Miami. I'll take you out once we land
in South Beach tonight.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, thank you so much for you. I think at
one o'clock in the morning we'll go to bed O.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Thanks a lot for the time.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Okay, I can get the senior discount when you take
me out at five o'clock.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, no doubt, let's do it.