Tie game in the bottom of the second, Lou Merloni faces a 3-2 count against Jose Rosado of the Royals. It’s the first Major League at-bat for the Framingham, Massachusetts native, and he makes the most of it, crushing his first hit, and home run, over the “Green Monster.” From hitting dingers for his hometown team to being a host of one of the most successful sports radio shows in not only Boston but the country, Merloni has never strayed far from where it all started.

After a Major League career spanning eight years, Merloni didn’t take too long of a break before embarking on his next endeavor. Merloni first appeared on WEEI, America’s number one ranked sports talk station, in 2008, appearing as a co-host on “The Big Show” alongside Glenn Ordway, a staple in Boston sports talk.

After his time with “The Big Show,” Merloni began his own show on the station “Mut and Merloni.” After the departure of his co-host Mike Mutnansky, former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria was brought in. Lou’s former co-hosts, Ordway and Fauria, would soon come together to form a “wolfpack” and create a new show, “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria,” featured in the prime time of talk radio, 2-6 p.m.

Running a show four hours, five days week can be a hard task, but per Merloni, the trio “tries to have fun every day.”

Though the show is entertaining and its hosts are certainly having a good time, there is a lot of work that goes into every day, the biggest being organization.

“We try to find out which one of us or all of us are opinionated on certain subjects and hit those,” Merloni said. “It’s trying to figure out what the big story is, what people are talking about and picking the story we feel like we can have the best discussion on.”

The plan has seemingly worked to perfection so far for the group, who finished with a 9.8 rating in the Boston market, according to spring Nielsen Audio ratings, and played a huge part in WEEI winning its fifth Marconi award for Sports Station of the Year.

In the era of “hot takes,” many figures in sports media have been criticized for spewing takes without believing it themselves. Blindly throwing outtakes does not lead to success, according to Merloni.

“You really can’t manufacture things. In radio, if you continually manufacture things and say things you don’t believe, you’re going to get exposed. If you feel one way, then say it, just have some information to back it up. If you don’t, then it’s going to come across as ‘he doesn’t believe that, he’s just saying it.’ so you’ve always got to believe what you say.”

Merloni’s observations about manufacturing take and general knowledge of sports media should come as no surprise: apart from his radio show, “Sweet Lou,” is also an analyst for NBCSports Boston and has even commentated numerous Red Sox games.

Working in three different environments has been “a nice change of pace” for Merloni.

“In the booth, you’re keeping it to what you see in this game. I wake up the next day and do the show and the first caller will say ‘David Ortiz is only hitting home runs ’cause he’s back on steroids’ or ‘David Price might have thrown a good game but he’ll blow it in the postseason.’ It’s the opinion of sports radio that you still try to bring in the booth, but just what you see on the field. On radio it’s completely different, sometimes it’ll be more about the story outside the game,” Merloni said.

Merloni notes Boston sports fans have a niche for negativity.

“Sox fans can find a negative spin in a World Series win, and their opinions are voiced often on WEEI,” he said.

The fans negativity can be a positive for Merloni and OMF, however.

“The bottom line is, on radio, unfortunately for the team, negativity does sell. When you’re happy about something, you just go about your business. When things aren’t going well, people are going to react about it and voice their opinions. If it’s a real concern you’re there, but if it’s an overreaction, then you try to respond to that.”

OMF is not the only time Merloni interacts with the fans. During most games, you can find him debating on Twitter.

“The more you interact with a fan they like, laugh, agree or disagree with what you’re saying, that might actually bring them in to listen so you can further get into the debate,” he said.

“It’s informational, everything comes on Twitter first,” Merloni noted. “During the show or throughout the day, you’re following Twitter, trying to see what’s been going on, stories that are breaking. In this day and age, that’s where information comes first.”

Merloni, along with Fauria and Ordway, continues to raise the bar for sports talk radio today. Their show can be heard Monday-Friday on WEEI and the Radio.com app from 2 to 6 p.m.