Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Hopscast hosted by Jen Ellis, co hosted and produced by Sonny Fono.
Each week we'll take you behind the scenes during the 2026 Hillsborough Hops baseball season.
Anything can happen in minor league baseball and we'll bring it all to you. From exclusive interviews with players and coaches to roster updates, player call ups and even the craziest plays of the week. It's all right here on Hopscast.
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We are back with another episode of Hopscast and that was our wonderful in in park correspondent Toasty for a recap of AAPI night she was out and about and we will have a wonderful episode with much more from Toasty. That was pretty awesome. I'm so glad that she was there that night. It was, it was really cool. What's going on? This is my co host so Sunny Fono and I am Jen Ellis and we are here for another episode of Hopscast.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: It's episode. It's episode. It's episode seven. I'm all excited. It's episode seven. We're back with Hopscast. Big thanks to Toasty, our correspondent on the field around the park. She really has a lot of personality and is out there getting it. She's going to be coming around. She covered a lot of the AAPI night fans that were in the stadium and she's got a ton of great interviews and content that I'm going to edit together as a little special episode that's going to come up in a couple of days here. So big shout out to Toasty.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it was so great and it was such a beautiful night too. Like all of the performances, all of the on field activities that were going on and some of the, you know, some of the costumes and everything that they wear were so elaborate. It was just really beautiful. And if you haven't seen any of the photos, go to the Hillsboro Hops Instagram. There's some cool videos and photos from that night. It's really beautiful.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it was an eventful week from all of the theme nights in park promotional stuff and with the product on the field which turned out with a 4 and 2 homestand.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Against the Spokane Indians. There was some, some really good baseball being played by the guys. It seemed like.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, lots of good pitching. Lots of good pitching. I think that was probably the story from the home stand because there were two nights where they highlighted the pitching and the, you know, the, the recaps of the games and everything. But yeah, I mean like on Sunday I feel like I was hitting the strikeout button a lot. Because I was filling in for you on music.
I feel like I was hitting that. You know, the sound effects for the strikeout a lot. But it was. Yeah, four pitchers combined for 16 strikeouts at the end of that game. That was pretty awesome.
And then on Friday night, Yassel, Solaire, Yas King drove in four runs and yeah, that was a 5, 5, 4 win over the Indians on Friday night as well. But, yeah, lots of cool stuff going on last week.
Yeah. What else?
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yes. King is. Is going up soon. We're not gonna.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: I think he.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he's doing so well. Maybe they're gonna keep him around. Cause he's. He's producing. Mm.
He's doing really, really well.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And Bariga, the catcher. Oh, my gosh. He's. Every time he's catching, I. I always, you know, notice when, like, the catchers are, like, encouraging their pitchers when they throw the right pitch or like, if it's some. If it's a little bit off, you know, just the hand motions or the signals that they're giving them. And I think it's so cool how they encourage each other. It's. It's. You know, and he's been. He's been producing at the plate as well. He went 3 for 4 on Sunday as well. So. Yeah, man, those guys are doing really well. I think they'll probably keep Barriga around a little while because. Need a catcher.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: They did call out deleon from the injured list, which was what Seth let us know.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: So we are carrying three catchers right now. And.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah, because Kenny Castillo can catch, but lately he's been in the dh, so.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: And he's also been making some clutch hits, you know, that got us.
Got us some wins. So. Yeah, it was. It was super fun week. Yeah, I was there for the first four. And then you took it. You took it home on the music seat.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: So we had a couple high school takeovers, which are always.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah, those are always fun. Yeah.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: The high school kids are. Are making their own games up.
And then they bring an athlete to race on the warning track.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: In the outfield. And it's always like their D1 recruit, track star, just smoking a bunch of other kids.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
I think next week when there's a. There's going to be a high school takeover next week, and one of the. Instead of one of the high school kids doing the pa, one of the teachers is going to be doing the pa. So he was sitting in last week kind of, you know, Looking over our shoulder, figuring out how to. How to do it. So. But he'll be there with swag, so. So he'll be able to, you know, jump on PA and do whatever. Whatever they need him to do. But, yeah.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah, his name was funny. Yeah, he was a nice guy. We were having a. We were having some good conversations. So.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah, he's a good guy.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Those are the first two games are High school takeover.
And then we did the AAPI Night.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I was on Thursday.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: On Thursday. And that's where Toasty came in. And that's where the interviews that you're hearing from is from AAPI night.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: And then Friday was a drone show in. In the rain. And the game was kind of messy and.
And gross, but they pulled out a 54 win.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: In the rain. And I didn't realize it because our windows are closed in the press box where we handle the music. Penn announcing scorekeeper. Everybody's in the. I call it the aquarium.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: But it's not like a fishbowl aquarium. It's more like a lizard aquarium.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: So you can kind of see the rain if you're looking at the lights.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah. But that's it.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: With the turf, you can't really tell. And you could tell it was a little muddy in the batter circle in the mound was getting a little sticky. But when I walked to my car, the.
The drones were finishing up, and I was like, it's raining. Raining. It's raining.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Rain. Yeah, it was hella rain. Yeah, for sure. It was raining a lot. But, yeah, my God, we've had so many crazy, weird, funky delays so far at the New Ballpark. And I think each homestand, we've experienced something new that we didn't know was ever gonna happen. It's kind of those things where you don't know stuff's gonna be weird until it happens at the New Ballpark. And we had, like, in the first series, we had a lighting delay because of the. The light show. It was like the flashing lights and everything. And I guess the. The opposing pitcher couldn't see the catcher, so they had to. They had to hold while he couldn't warm up while the light show was going on. So then we had to wait for that. That was a weird delay. And then the next home stand, there was a delay because the lights were not on at the beginning of the game.
So we had two light delays. And then this past one, we had a funky delay with the.
The opposing pitcher's glove. The umpire took exception to his glove as he was warming up. He had like a shamrock on the outside of his glove. So it was, you know, kind of weird for. He couldn't look at it. Right. So he made him change out his glove and then he got another glove that didn't work either because it was the same color as his shirt. Then he finally found another glove and it literally took the entire walk up song for Slade Caldwell, which I think is like three and a half minutes long. So that was a fun, weird, funky delay as well. So I'm always on. On the lookout for crazy things that are happening and all the weird stuff that we don't know is going to happen.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: I've just been astounded by how the weather's so nice when they're on the road.
And then pretty much the Tuesday that we're getting ready to fire up and get the home stand going, the clouds come over and it's just been raining and cold. So I'm definitely looking forward to some more summer baseball as we get closer to Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, the guys are on the road to Eugene this week.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, that's always an uphill climb for any team right now because I think it's so stupid to even say this this early in the season, but it's like, well, Eugene's already kind of run away with the first half. You know, it's like, I don't think anybody's going to catch him. So now it's kind of like who's going to win the second half.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Right. And for listeners that don't know the. The high A and most of minor league baseball, I believe their seasons are split into two halves.
So is it up until the draft and then after the draft? It's. It's pretty close to the draft, but,
[00:12:22] Speaker A: yeah, I think so. Yeah. I have to look that up. I'm not sure. But yeah, they. And, you know, whichever team wins the first half or whoever. Yeah. And then whoever wins the second half, they both play each other in the Northwest League championship game, so. Or series, I guess, in September.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: But yeah, very cool. I mean, I would love. I would love to see it. I'm just going to keep the faith. It's a long season.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Still, you know, we're not. I guess we're maybe a quarter of the way through.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Or maybe after this.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it feels like it.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: So.
Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Well. And then. Yeah, when we. When the hops get back home, when we go back into the ballpark, the next home stand is. Starts on Tuesday, the 26th against Everett. They're coming into town.
And then we got Indigenous Culture Night, which is really cool.
Same kind of thing with, like, aapi, all the really awesome, you know, performers that we have before the game and all that stuff. And in between innings, they're really cool.
And then Drone show, of course, on that Friday the 29th. And Sonia Doors, another Sonia Doors game coming up on the 30th of May. So that'll be fun.
Looking forward to all that cool stuff.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And then it looks like that Sunday is going to be Healthy Hillsboro Day.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Healthy Hillsboro night. That's right.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Or Healthy Hillsborough Day, Sunday day game. So, yeah, we'll. We'll have Seth in and next week,
[00:13:53] Speaker A: yeah, we'll track down Yvonne and have him give us a rundown of the next Sonia Roy's game and all that good stuff. So, yeah, we'll have a lot of stuff, fun stuff coming up. And later this week, we'll also, like Sunny Phono said, we'll have a cool mini episode with all of Toasty's interviews from Aapi Night.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Right. And then she'll be back out there maybe on Indigenous Cultures Night. Yeah, she's nodding at me right now. For, for the listeners that don't know, Toasty is my wife. So if I'm ever talking about how pretty she is or how cool she is a little bit too much, it's. It's not an inappropriate workplace thing.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: No, it's not.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: It's more of a nepotism, get the wife on the podcast thing. So, yes, but no, she's really, she's really talented and I'm super stoked to have that extra element. So I know, listen. Listen out for that. And then we will see you guys next week.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Make sure to like and subscribe and all the fun things and follow us at Hopscast on Instagram and Spotify and Apple.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: All right, well, sounds great. And I'll see you next week. Let's go, Hops.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Sounds good. Let's go, Hops.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Hopscast, hosted by Jen Ellis and co hosted and produced by Sunny Fono. Join us again next week and as we take you inside the 2026 Hillsborough Hopps clubhouse, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe.
