June 21, 2024 • 45 mins
Former Astro turned Space City Home Network analyst Geoff Blum joins The A-Team for his weekly visit. He talks about the Astros coming into a tough home series with the Baltimore Orioles. Yordan Alvarez continues to be HIM. Jake Bloss needs to do one thing in particular tonight against the Orioles. He also gives his own thoughts on the whole Kelly/Matt Stafford situation... It gets weird.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You look at it, look atit, look at us. Oh yeah,
this is radio. You listen toit on Sports Talk seven ninety Astros
broadcaster Jeff Blaum on seven ninety isbrought to you by low D Center.
Absolutely impossible not to be in thegreatest mood ever. You're at the ballpark
(00:25):
with your besties, Wex and AChere with you. It's three o'clock on
a Friday on the A team,So Jeff Blum is here with us as
well, live and alive and readyfor some Astros Orioles baseball and some pleasant
looks back at least in the lasttwo games for the Astros. A major
league debut comes tonights with Jake Blossand everything else that goes with the next
(00:48):
hour of fun. Is a handfulof players already milling around on the field.
The new number thirty nine is Bloss. He will be with them.
A couple other roster moves have alsobeen made, so plenty to discuss.
It is great to see you inperson for the first time on our show
in what seems like forever. Canyou please turn my headset down? It
(01:08):
feels like you're yelling at He's yellingat me too. Geez. Who's the
engineer racket. Yeah, No,he's also excited to be back together.
We got the band back together.It's been a very long time. You
guys have been on this world tourof downtown and establishments, and meanwhile,
I haven't been in town for anyof these Fridays, so it's about time.
I'm glad to be back. Youguys look really good. Well,
(01:30):
we're trying to keep up with you. Yeah, the romance is real.
Tom's watch bar is amazing, bythe way, you know what. I
had the chance to walk past thereas they were constructing that particular spot right
there next to the what do wecall now Space City Home Network studios,
and it looked very cool, looklike I liked that they did, like
a massive patio or garage doors couldopen up and you can kind of have
(01:53):
it free for all. But theamount of TVs in there is ridiculous.
The most impressive thing to me isthat we have now done two shows in
a row where the windows were openin June and I didn't even break a
sweat. They have like because that'sfunny because technically with us, we are
broadcasting from right on the other sideof those windows, so basically we're outside.
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Feel great. We are broadcasting insideright now, and it's muggy as
bleep. I mean, come on, crane, turn on the ac in
this place. I know you've gotit. It's Houston. He's just trying
to help John Singleton the others alreadyin the cage getting some work, and
helped me break a sweat. SoI travel with a portable fan in my
backpackage, and we were in wewere in Chicago ninety degrees at first game,
(02:38):
eighty eight degrees the next day,eighty of the next didn't use it
once. The only reason I haveit is for right here at minute May
Park. You know, I havea massive bag that I take wherever I'm
going, however long I'm going.So we could be going for the weekend
over what's that question. No,I'm talking about an actual piece of luggage.
(03:00):
And the reason it's that size,no matter how long or how short
a trip is, is because Ihave not a portable fan, a whole
ass fan. Oh it's like inthe box and everything so won't get busted.
Wow. And I take it whereverI go because whatever bathroom we're staying
in at whatever hotel, and nomatter how nice. It is, and
it's always nice because my wife doesthat part of the booking. It's never
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ever cool enough in the real JasonKelsey, you are gotta have that fan
with you totally understand it. Sodoes everybody else we are here in the
ballpark. The Astros have had alittle bit of an odd scheduling with a
couple of short either home or roadtrips. It seems like they came in
and out of town on what waspart of a road trip. Even this
one is a five game home stand, relatively rare over the course of a
major league season. Kind of catchtwo ends of it. One of the
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best teams in the American League withthe first team in it's the Orioles for
three, and then one of theteams that kind of got the Astros started
on maybe a reboot to their season. Their second time to see the Colorado
Rockies will now be here for apair of games. The Orioles come to
town off of massacring the New YorkYankees. Their offense absolutely clicking. It
has been all year, but thisis about as hot as they've ever been.
(04:05):
And that's what Jake Loss gets toface. We'll get to that because
it always seems like something's happened overthe week's time that makes your eyes pop
out, makes you say wow.And it was the first contact bat to
ball of Jordan Alvarez upon his returnafter two days away from the team,
a deal with the family matter,which is taking care of it. Everything
(04:26):
is fine. He steps into thebatter's box bottom of the first inning,
second swinging the game for him fourhundred and thirty nine feet because that's just
what he does. Yeah, Imean, if I didn't love him so
much, i'd be so mad athim, because it's just not normal to
be able to take that time offand step in and take in the first
contact you make, it goes fourhundred and thirty nine freaking feet. The
guy's unbelievable, and it obviously isa huge talent. He's obviously necessary in
(04:51):
this lineup for the Astros, butit's amazing that we've seen him now since
what twenty nineteen, and he canstill do stuff that makes me go,
wow, this guy's pretty damn good. And you start to do it over
the length amount of time that he'sstarting to do it, and you start
to wonder and you start to projectand see what he's able to do in
his career, and if he's ableto stay healthy for you know, the
(05:13):
next seven or eight years, you'regonna see somebody who's probably gonna put up
Hall of Fame type numbers because heis that consistent. And all the complaining
that we did about him for Apriland May, the dude was still hitting
two seventy, two eighty and hewas gonna run into ninety RBIs just because
that's how this lineup is constructed.But at the same time, he figured
out June that's his month, andhe's gonna go out and he's gonna hit
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you thirty five this year, ifnot more, and he's gonna drive in
one hundred plus. So the guy'sa freak. And if he's able to
maintain that kind of greatness and consistency, you're gonna be talking about him for
a very very long time. Isin the lineup of course tonight al Tuve,
Bregman, Alvarez, Diaz, Myers, and then four first baseman will
bat after that Singleton will actually playfirst base, Dubon will play shortstop.
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Paying you getting the night off.Joey Lo Perfido, who is one of
those roster moved as I mentioned,is now back with the team. He'll
start in left field and Tray Cabbagewill start in right field. J Lo
perffdo back do you think? Sorry? And I don't know if Joe Spott
will comment on this, It's okay, you think maybe this is the time
for it. Jas McCormick obviously isyet to get clicking. Jake Myers is
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actually in a fairly sizable slump.Tray Cabbage is Dray Cabbage. Do you
think this is the beginning of seeingJoey Lo Perfito a lot more often in
this Astros lineup? No, Ireally do. I think? You know,
the second time he got called up, I'm not exactly sure what that
was entirely for or you know whothat benefited, other than the fact that
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it was another weapon off the benchfor Joe as spotted during that short time
that he was here. But thenwe all had to hit the pause button
for ten days to be able toget him back to the big leagues.
But I think that this time around, considering what's going on, was the
move Karattini going on the injury list, Carotini went to the Endurine had that
bad quad, So you've got Salazarhere, So everything you had to fit
together to be able to get Kartiniright, and now you've got low perfido
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here. And I think that becauseof what you just mentioned with I actually
like Trey Cabbage. I think he'sa possible, you know, third,
if not a very firm fourth outfielderfor me on my roster, just because
I like the speed, I likethe defense, I like the at bats.
He's got sneaky pop every once ina while, so he's a little
bit of a thread off the bench. But I think the fact that you've
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got Tucker on the edge list Cabbageis a right fielder, chas McCormick is
not performing as well, why shouldn'tit open it up for low perfito.
You you said go to the youperformed well in spring training, you said,
go to triple A. Dazzle me. He absolutely dazzled everybody with what
he was able to do down there. And now you have an opportunity,
with some of the injuries and maybesome of the lack of performance, to
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throw them out there. So Iexpect this go around maybe to be a
little low perfito heavy is the onlyreason that he didn't just stay put Jose
Ray, I mean simplifying everything,well, I think it is. I
think we can talk about that now. At the time, you know,
you were kind of saying, wegot a massage this guy back in.
We've got to give low Perfiedo withbats, and that was the biggest thing
for me and just you know,in watching young players over the years,
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you've got to give them consistent atbats, whether it be in the big
leagues or whether it be in theminor leagues, just to keep them sharp.
You don't want them, you don'twant them to have that lull in
their season because then all of asudden they have to start building back up.
And that's kind of what you hadto do with little Berfeto. But
at the same time, you know, they they they chose to try and
figure out what was going on withJose Abreu and they came to the same
(08:26):
conclusion I think we had even beforewe brought a breeding back. We haven't
done a show in person together sincethat happened. Energizing one, I mean,
I hate it because of feeding offWex. I tried to bring the
heat right out of the game soI could bring it back down. The
energizer no I should have worn shortsand not sure. Well there's time.
(08:46):
Yeah, there's absolutely time. It'sonly three h nine. Man. A
game then starts all after I sata peaking way too soon. Hey,
And speaking of which, this isa series that it could get ugly or
it could get like be pleasantly surprising. But here's with you, Like,
does this feel like the Jeff LunoRevenge series? It's like his lieutenants down
(09:09):
and his old team just walked in. No. Yeah, the twenty fifteen
Astros, actually twenty seventeen Astros justwalked in you that. Yeah. I
mean they're really really good. Iknow, the initial like Luno, I
don't know what you want to callhim, you know, I don't want
to say they were acolytes, becauseI think they were actually like guys that
were learning under him for the purposeof moving on and making other organizations good.
(09:31):
Because that's what happens when same thingwith the manager, the head coach
effect in the NFL, where youjust have these guys working as coordinators under
you and eventually they move on touh, you know, head coaching jobs,
and you're trying to create that sustainability, that's that legacy and kind of
had that idea of how to runa team kind of spread throughout the league,
and the initial shot was to theBaltimore Orioles with Michaelias and sig Midel.
(09:56):
I think that those guys were reallykind of I don't want to say
that were the absolute brains, butthey were definitely the core structure of Like,
do you think they were too cold? Do you think if they're too
cold? No, it's the dumbestthing ever. Isn't there a certain coldness
to running an organization? Though?I mean, you were to be emotional.
I get that because you want towin so bad, so there's got
(10:16):
to be a little bit of soulin that. But if you're going to
make some very tough, you know, economical and you know, uh,
personnel decisions, I think you haveto have a certain edge to it.
Among all the things that were writtenin the aftermath of the scandal that made
me laugh the most, it wasthat Jeff Luno and his lieutenants were too
cold and calculated and not personable enough. I'm like, excuse me, I
(10:39):
would like that cutthroat running my team. Jeff Luno can go run the rockets
if he wants, and he cango run the Texans while he's at it
too. Well, if they winlike that, But isn't that The idea,
though, is to create that modelthat can play in different sports,
and I think that was something theownership group for the Cleveland Browns. I
believe in the Miami Dolphins, thoseare all ex baseball guys have moved into
(11:00):
the NFL. But I think itwas because of what you're talking about is
that they had an algorithm, theyhad a program, they had an idea,
and there was a little bit ofan edge to it. And I
think that we started to see maybea little bit of that, maybe a
little bit of the humility and alittle bit of the emotion after that twenty
seventeen World Series run where they said, Okay, we've got the data that
put a team together, but therewere some factors that are missing that we
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can't actually put a number two.So you've got to go down and meet
the person. You've got to talkto the guy, you've got to bring
in the right free agent. You'vegot to be able to consider certain moves
to create a culture. And that'swhere you lose the numbers is when you
say you want to create a winningculture. Then you've got to start putting
personnel in that clubhouse that will nurturethat a lot of vibes from the Astros
for all the reasons you said insidethat Orioles management team, believe the only
(11:48):
oriole that the Astros would know that'shere is cnl Perez because I think he
just walked across the field that hadto be him. He shook hands and
hugged about fifteen people on his wayto the Orioles dugout. The Astros early
be crew is out there, andthere's a couple of guys we'll need to
talk about in the next segment.One of them is now their current backup
catcher. Say sorry Salazar taking hacksand making the most of them in his
(12:09):
early work in game activity. JoeyLo Braffito out there with this early group,
John Singleton Cabbage among others. Therehabbing pitchers as per usual during the
early portion of our Friday program orgoing through their rehab program. Among them,
Lanceo mccullors talk about what has recentlybeen said about the timeline for both
Luis Garcia and Lanceo McCullers, andof course NonStop fun. Jeff Plum is
(12:33):
here with us on the eighteen.Yeah, buddy, absolutely. You know
what Jeff loves to do. Heloves to well, actually I don't know
this. Do you binge shows moreor do you stream movies more? It's
been shows recently, and a lotof it has to do with travel,
and that's why the Wallda wall WiFi. So I can kind of sneak
off into my little pocket office upstairsand while Mama's not paying attention, I
(12:54):
can figure out what shows I wantto watch while I get on the road,
so I download them all onto mycomputer and my iPad. That's awesome.
Well, that's the type of stuffthat's available to you with the stream
Saver package with Exfinity. They're sayingX marks the spot, right. We've
heard that before, but it reallydoes when you're talking about Exfinity and you're
talking about the fact that now throughSeptember twenty first, you're going to be
able to get that one hundred andfifty megabit Exfinity Internet for twelve months with
(13:18):
a one year contract, and thenfor just fifteen dollars a month you add
the new stream Saver, so thatgives you Peacock, Apple TV Plus and
Netflix. There's a lot of streamingcapability with those three names right there.
Yeah, that's outstanding it. Youknow, obviously more is better and that's
exactly what Exfinity wants us. Morefor you to be able to work with
those streaming services being included with theprice is outstanding. And of course once
(13:39):
you are able to stream inside yourhouse, that's what makes the entire Infinity
experience that much better. Is becauseyou've got multiple devices, you've got multiple
people, and you've got multiple personalitiestrying to download and watch in stream shows.
And that's exactly why we went withXfinity. Yeah, you want to
binge, you want to stream,you want to save money doing it all
at the same time. Exfinity iswhere it's at x marks the spot for
(14:01):
more watching and less spending. Switchto Infinity, the network made for streaming,
and bring on the good stuff bygoing to Infinity dot com, calling
one hundred Infinity, or visiting astore today. Exfinity proud sponsor of your
Houston astros. Back to Adam Clintonand Adam Wexler the eighty. I don't
know about you, Jeff, Idon't always know about to AC either,
(14:24):
So I'll just ask you. Eitherof you guys seen a long cane Polly.
Oh yeah, Okay, so I'mgetting I'm getting a little bit of
a vibe today because it feels like, you know, one of us I
won't say, who has hired somebodyto do a true E Hollywood story on
their own life. That's what thevibe I'm getting today. You know I
was friended that that. Yeah,probably not I gotta go to generally more
(14:45):
of a bathroom scene, but justdon't eat with your fingers. It is
good to be out here at theballpark, and we do always appreciate some
of our good friends Ram Shirts helpingkeeping us geared up and helping a lot
of you guys continue your endless blummer. No, we put them back to
work man Tuttle. Tuttle was alittle aggressive and I finally caved in.
(15:07):
And fortunately Mark Ramos and Ramshirts isalong for the ride. The new stuff
out there, like we were kindof spitballing. And if I have to
take total credit, Mark, whowas it? Yeah, this guy.
If you have to say total credit, I mean it makes perfect sense.
A little bit of a callie vibeto everything, and yeah, and why
(15:28):
not a little more blummer is goodfor the soul and and and it was
kind of funny because I threw itout there and I just kind of like
threw, you know, the pukeemoji next to it. I'm like,
hey, just throwing something out there, and I put endless Blummer and uh,
Tuttle kind of came back and said, it kind of makes sense because
baseball feels like it endless summer whenyou're playing it. You should use Richard
Marx for your theme song. Therewe go, There you go, even
(15:52):
around. So I have to dothis and he fights with people on social
media. It's really weird. What'swhat these old rockers that like fight hesitates
calling him a rock well you knowpop rock, hot rocker. Yeah,
more like it. But hey,just to sum up this season, you
don't even know what I'm about tosay, because I haven't told you this
yet. I have refrained from sendingyou on average. I have strusted.
(16:14):
I mean, the rage texting hasgone down, gone down, it's not
existent. You know, you knowwho gets it more than anybody. He
sits two people down from you rightnow. He gets it more because I
refuse to do that to you,because I know you've got to be getting
it from like said to you normallywould have been as you guys, brilliantly
(16:38):
captured with your crew jose Al Tuovemaking his way back out onto the field.
Yes he was, he was.He was embodying me. Yes,
over the past seven or eight yearswhere you just take that strong inhale and
then just blurt out like the bestword, Well, it's it has everything.
It's the most versatile word in theEnglish language. I mean, it
(16:59):
has everything confirmed. Yeah, andit's one we almost never see from him
in that manner on the field.I mean, it's one thing. The
one thing if you if you've playedon teams with guys from Latin America and
it doesn't mean you know Colombians orVenezuelans or cue, all of them all
encompassing. You know, if theydon't speak the English language as their first
language, yet they know the Englishlanguage. If they're cussing in Spanish,
(17:23):
you know they're pissed. But ifthey start cussing in English, then you're
like, holy cow, we've reachingon another level of I am so mad
at the world right now, andI an't to be honest. We've been
covering Tuov for the last twelve yearsand I don't think I've seen him that
mad, but you guys made ita point to show them to because it's
(17:44):
out of character for him. Yes, but you know what, and I'm
not even this isn't even missing this. It was warranted. He's gregiously bad
strike zone. It was one hundredpercent and it happened because he punched out
on a pitch. It was aboutsix inches up out of the zone.
If he's not swinging at the toppart of the zone, that means it's
way too far out of the zone. Because he loves hammering at the top.
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He throws home runs out of thepark his neck every time. Yeah,
so if it's above that and hedoesn't swing, it's out of his
zone completely. So he gets wrungup. He probably said a couple of
things walked away. He gets asecond base and he watches his picture go
out there and have a pitch thatactually catches the top part of the zone
not get called. That's why thesecond base umpire was getting an earfull,
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and that's why Joe had to comeout and say, hey, look at
me. Don't look at my allstar second basement, look at me.
He took one and and he gotejected so he had to go out there
and kind of divert the attention andallow two way to calm down, because
he had every right to be pissed. And uh he and he. I
would I wouldn't mind seeing a littlemore fire like that. Who had the
itchiest trigger finger when you were playingthat they're still unfiring today. Oh As
(18:51):
far as umpires, yeah, likelike oh man, because we were,
you know, I was in theearly days of like James Hoy, I
was in the first decade of AngelHernandez, so Stee Buckner, Tim Timmins
was a quick trigger. But it'sfunny how those guys have kind of become
like the calmer version of what wehave now. But these young guys that
are coming up, these umpires,these guys, man, you say one
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word about their strike zone and allof a sudden, that's the hot button.
And I don't understand it because Ican't remember. The guy who was
behind home play was like Brennan Milleror somebody, and in that situation,
all Brennan, all these umpires,if they're listening at which none of them
probably are, but if they werelistening, if you started to hear that
from the dugout. You could justlook over and go, look, I
(19:33):
f'd up. I missed a call. They gotta do. I just admit
the failure and say I'm gonna doa better job the rest of the game.
And guess what happens in that dugout. They're gonna say, yeah,
damn right, you better, andthen we're gonna move on. And then
you move on. But like whenyou have this condescending lack of accountability,
then you're riling up everybody involved becausethen you're on the radar of the other
dugout. I'm sure they're happy theygot the benefit of that call, but
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they also know you're the same jackassthe could do that to them. Yeah,
it could. It could quickly turnaround. And the other thing is
too, is don't be condescending whenthey actually have immediate proof on whether or
not that ball was anywhere in thevicinity of the strikes on these iPads.
Well, they're gonna have to haveit soon anyways, because we're gonna get
our compromise. Yeah, yeah,we're almost headed to that system. Yeah,
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minor leagues have gone to a fullchallenge system rather than splitting up between
the weeks. So that's what they'lldo the remainder of the season, continue
to gather the data on that.The challenge system where you're each team's allowed
to three challenges a game, theycontinue to get them if they get them
right. So many teams have hadfour or five, six more challenges in
a game. And they keep tellingthey haven't really told us who really has
(20:38):
been surveyed and what group of people, But they keep telling us that the
majority of team personnel, the majorityof players, and the majority of fans
are giving them whoever them is feedbackthat they're not in favor of the full
ABS, not in favor of thefull automatic ball strike calls that would not
(21:00):
include to challenge to this and becausethey simply would use an automatic ball strike
on every pitch. Why do youthink I'll take them at their word that
more people, all those groups they'retelling them were not in favor of that.
What Why would you think that is? Why would players not be in
favor of a full ABS? Ithink, and it goes both ways.
It goes for the for the pitcherand the hitter. I think it's because
(21:21):
they haven't devised a suitable strike zonethat will appropriately accommodate both the pitcher and
the hitter, because you know aswell as I do that the pitchers are
good enough now with the spin thatthey have, they could spin a breaking
ball at the front edge of theplate, have it catch the front edge
and literally bounce on the plate.So how is a hitter supposed to hit
that? So now you figure outwhere is the front of the plate,
(21:44):
and I've heard it's going to moveback to that back triangle of the plate
and maybe use that back point.But now what happens when a curveball is
thrown at the back part of thezone and catches the back part of the
plate and it crosses where the hitter'schin is. So I think there's going
to be a serious, uh conversationabout what exactly that strike zone is.
And that might be why they're goingto that automated challenge system to try and
(22:07):
use the system yet still try andperfect the system. And of course there's
obviously you know, if al twoVA's hitting in front of yord On Alvarez,
is that zone going to be ableto be adjusted quickly enough with the
pitch clock in this era to beable to show what a strike is to
yord On Alvarez? It's six footsix five and move down to a five
foot seven to six hitter like JoselTwove. I think that's probably gonna be
(22:30):
the biggest issue. But also atthe same time, those three challenges.
That's over the course of a game, right if it's a three to one
count, it's a borderline strike thatgets called on me. I mean,
do I raise my hand and say, hey, let's nobody on right now?
I want to contest this or dowe move on and hopefully we don't
need it later in the game whenit's a three to two count, bases
loaded and it's obviously a ball calleda strike. Yeah. I think one
(22:51):
thing you said there, I hopepeople were listening closely, because I think
that is exactly what the data hasshown on the games where they're using the
ABS versus the games where they're usingthe challenge system. You guys have seen
the graphics. You guys use themon TV all the time. The spray
chart of what has been called astrike and where it fits in the zone
when you're using the ABS is smallerthan the strikes they're getting called for the
(23:15):
games that only use a challenge system, basically meaning a higher percentage of the
pitches that are close, that areborderline, that are a little bit questionable,
they are being called strikes more oftenthan they are in the abs.
And that's more to the human elementof what every single current player at any
level has been used to their entirelife and likely thinks that's what they should
(23:37):
continue doing. That that really isit isn't the same strike zone. Well,
I mean one thing we didn't talkabout either is the umpire. I
mean, you're still going to needa home plate on fire for check swings
and plays, the plate and whateverto and recoup a lot. So everybody,
yeah, right end of it,you be like, I think that
was a ball, and they're likenope, and then you just call them
a sudden reverse it. But atthe same time, I think it's both
(24:00):
with peas. You know, you'retrying to figure out what the hitter and
picture can work with, but atthe same time you're not saying, look,
we're not trying to totally eliminate yourjob just yet, so stay back
there, stay focused, and we'llwork on it. It's like a McDonald's
worker these days, they automated.I'm not jacking around with that guy behind
the counter when I could put itin exactly how I want it, and
if you screw it up, Ican say, hey, I put it
(24:21):
in here. It isn't writing,yep, don't They ask you very politely,
is that your order? Correct?I try not to make eye contact
in as many scenarios as possible inmy day to day life. You talk
for a living, and you don'twant any human one. I'm looking at
me, stop leering at any weirdreason. We're on radio? Yeah,
TV? Was that was? You'reon TV? Though? Like five seconds
(24:41):
every night I start blankly into acamera. Let's be honest. My son
happened to watch the other night andjust happen to see, like the one
out of like five seconds you're onTV. He goes, hey, it's
uncle Blummer. There he is,so found him. All right. We
have plenty more to get to withBlummer over the next half hour or so.
As we are out here minute madepark and feeling good because I can
(25:02):
tell you that made my pit stop. If you will over at Men's Tea
clinic yesterday, as I do eachand every week, and it's good to
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today. That's Men's Teaclinic dot ComHouston. It's you're a home team man,
lifelong as fan here anytime anywhere.I love your hole team. We'll
go to Rocking Go. Just tellyour smart device splice Sports Talk seven ninety
on iHeart Radio playing Sports Talk sevenninety on iHeartRadio. We are back here
with you live from Minute Made Parkabout halfway through the three o'clock hour.
(26:33):
Here Jeff Blum here with us forthe duration of this first hour. Back
into what we're gonna see here tonight. We'll get to the Oriols momentarily.
Jake Bloss makes his major league debut. Joey Loo Perfido not only returns to
the team, but returns to thelineup. I know you guys will get
into a lot of the specifics asthat first inning is unfolding with Jake on
the mound for the first time withthis team. At this time a year
(26:55):
ago, he was not a memberof the organization. The twenty twenty three
draft not yet taken place. They'rea handful of players from that draft class,
couple in the first round, couplein the second round, and he
is now a third round pick that'sgoing to be making his major league debut
again. Less than a year withthe organization, started an A ball,
moved up to Double A this season, pitch very well there, part of
(27:18):
a no hitter with the hooks hereand now is going to be pitching for
the Astros, and Dana Brown's beenvery pretty effusive in his praise for him
the last couple of weeks. Anyidea of what we have to expect from
maybe an arsenal standpoint, I imaginehe probably has a pretty good makeup and
that he's kind of handled his businessvery well coming from a college pitcher to
a quick assent to the majors.I mean, we can, you know,
(27:41):
speculate on several things, just becausehe's been elevated through the organization so
quickly and pitching well at Corpus Christyis a great thing. Every reason why
didn't to go to Triple A?Well, sometimes bringing a very good pitcher
and a young pitcher at that toTriple A where you play in the Pacific
Coast League, where it's lends itselfto a lot of home runs and some
(28:02):
high batting averages against. I thinkthey may be opted for the for the
jump over Triple A and just getthem to the big leagues. But at
the same time, I think italso speaks to the organizational depth and how
they feel who's in triple A.No offense to those guys, but we've
got to be brutally honest with thesituation. With Justin Verlander on the injured
list and basically a very good startingrotation on that injured list, the depth
(28:23):
in the organization is now hurt orhere, and the problem is where do
you find that? Where do youfind that guy to fill the gap until
you get everybody healthy? And Jakebloss is that guy. He's pitching well,
like Wex said, part of thatcombined no hitter for the Corpus Christy
hooks. He's got a sub toera the limited video that I have seen
of them, and I don't knowexactly what it looks like on a radar
(28:45):
gun, but I mean we canall assume it's mid mid to low nineties
with the fastball. Fastball command isgoing to be key. I think he
has that in some of the outingsthat I've seen. Maybe the strikeout numbers
aren't as high as you would likethem to see in the organization because they
love the swing and many but atthe same time, there was there were
cutters, there were sliders. I'msure there's a sweeper mixed in there.
I'm sure he's got a change up. So I mean, it looks like
(29:07):
a guy that could go out theretwo seemed four seing fastball and then split
the plate with that cutter, slider, sweeper moving to the outside corner.
But uh, there's gonna be somevery good left handed hitters in this lineup
for the Baltimore Orioles. So maybehe's got a change up mixed in there,
or a slower breaking ball that canget to the outside corner. And
I think that's where you're gonna kindof test Jake bloss a little bit,
is bringing him here to the showand then saying congratulations. And oh,
(29:32):
by the way, you've got toface one of the top five offenses in
all of baseball. I mean runas they put up yesterday, just seventeen
and against Louis Heel, Yeah,who had an ERA that was, you
know, off the charts good.They did keep them from scoring in one
of the nine innings. One oneof the nine innings, No, that
was it was I think it wasthe fourth inning, kind of in the
middle of the game. Every otherpitcher. I do think every pitcher allowed
(29:55):
something obviously heel that was very muchout of the ordinary, and they won
the game that Garrett Cole started theday before, and they absolutely have had
a tremendous offense. I think weknew they would, maybe not quite to
this extent, because we keep lookingat the Orioles and we know how young
they are and it just doesn't seemto really face them at all, and
that they don't look like it whenyou face them. Yeah, and you
(30:18):
know, we'll get a good testand a good, really good test of
anybody's makeup when they're facing a teamlike the Baltimore Orioles. But we'll get
a really good idea about Jake Bloss. I would actually implore him to get
ahead as early and as often aspossible, because if I'm a Baltimore Oriole
facing a guy that I've never seenexcept on video, I want to see
how the ball comes out of thehand. I want to see the shape
of the pitches. I want tosee the timing of the delivery. And
(30:40):
if he can ambush them with earlystrikes, it's going to force those guys
to swing a little bit earlier incounts instead of sitting back and going there
was a fastball, there's a cutter, what's he gonna do? What's his
go to in a two strike count? Instead, I'm gonna you know,
if you could put them on theirheels a little bit, I think it
would benefit them. So there's oneother thing that just because Spencer Areghetti happened
to mention it when on a gamehe had faced the A's, he had
(31:00):
seen those guys before, they hadactually traveled up through the system so much.
And that's not the case at all. I mean, first of all,
these Orioles kids would never they've neverseen him because they were already here
and he wasn't even an astro yet. There's nobody here that's seen him pitch
before. No, that's good,That's what I mean. It's going to
be very tough because everything that theBaltimore Orioles are doing right now is going
to be printed out on a pieceof paper or it's going to be seen
(31:21):
on a TV screen until you actuallyget on the field and realize how yours,
how your batting stance in preparation toget ready to hit times up with
the opposing pitchers wind up or outof the set you really don't know,
and then you've got to be ableto pick the ball up out of the
hand early enough to recognize the pitchand make a decision on that. So
there's there's several key factors in goingout there and getting the experience against those
(31:42):
guys, and the same thing forthe opposing pitcher, like errig Getty having
faced some of those guys in TripleA, like you're saying with the Oakland,
A's then he knows he's got abook on them as well as far
as what their weaknesses and strengths are. That's I mean, that's what I
was gonna say. That is byfar Bloss's big weapon coming into this one
is the unknown, because yes,you've got some film or whatever you've got,
(32:05):
and you'll have, you know,the first couple of times through the
order, that's it. The nexttime out there'll be more of a book
on you, and the next timeand the next time, and I think
you know, with like for example, Hunter Brown, I think that might
have been part of why he kindof took a step back, But it's
kind of a natural transition, eventhough I know that he's not gonna be
pitching this series whoa that guy isBA act, Yeah, that guy and
(32:28):
he's he's angry. Yeah, Ilike him angry there. I mean,
it's not quite to the Garrett Coleanger, which we all thoroughly enjoyed as
a Beard, but there there isthere's something. There's something changing in Hunter
a little bit, I think,and uh, I constantly go back to
that outing he had out of thebullpen with against Detroit when he came in
relief of Christian Javier through five innings, you know, struck out eight or
(32:51):
something crazy like that, through seventyfive pitches and was just throwing this this
fu fastball. I've got a heater, I'm gonna throw it as hard as
I can. And oh, bythe way, I figured out how to
hold a two steamer and run thatbastard in on your hands. And all
of a sudden you're seeing these swingsand these broken bats and the hitters going,
oh, dear God, I gotto protect the inside now, I
(33:12):
think, And tell me if youagree with this. At one point there,
when the rotation was much healthier,Hunter Brown was pitching for his job
literally, and I agree that's aboutthe time that the light switch got flipped
on. Yeah, and sometimes you, I mean, you know, sometimes
you've got to you know, you'vegot to be tested a little bit to
see how you're going to react.And he got tested several times and he
(33:34):
reacted in the appropriate way because afterthat outing in Detroit, I kind of
pulled him off for the side andI said, man, that was a
great job. He did a greatjob with the fastball. It made the
cutter that much better. And hetalked to that point, he goes,
I had to get back onto theownership of the inside corner so that I
could throw my cutters and sweepers andsliders and everything on the outside corner.
But I had to stand the righthanded hitter back up. And I thought
he did a very good job withthat, and he basically, well I
(33:58):
don't even know if he knew hesaid it. But I had to get
back to being me. And Ithink that angry downhill fastball is who Hunter
Brown can be. And he's provedit over the last eight outings. It's
been tremendous. I just need tobe me. I need to get back
to being me. I do likethe book on Hunter Brown. Now,
the latest chapter that's being written.When the opponents open it up. It
says chapter nine. Good luck,Yeah, good luck, and he will
(34:21):
pitch in the next series. Hereat home, they've got the Colorado Rockies
coming in for two. Blosco's tonight, Renel Blanco and fromber Valdez we get
the other two starts in this series. Putting bloss in on Friday allows for
the additional day of rest for RenelBlanco, who has been tremendous this year
as it continues to push towards theeagerly anticipated, always desired trip to Arlington
(34:43):
in the middle of July. Butin this case it would be for an
All Star appearance. I'm sure he'dbe down. We got much more with
Jeff Blum here on the A teamon a Friday afternoon from the ballpark.
First, I want to tell youone more time about Exfinity in the fact
that X marks the spot right nowthrough September twenty First, you're gonna be
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(35:04):
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(35:51):
calling their number one eight hundred Exfinity, or visiting a store today Exfinity proud
sponsor of your Houston Astros. There'sa space City Home Network's Todd Kallis,
there's the A team. You gothim. It's Adam Clinton and Adam Webfler.
Clinton stop impersonating me on Sports Talkseven nine. Let me see if
(36:14):
I can do this. I'm justgonna give you a preview of tonight's booth
Oh boy, does a strikeout byJake Blouse? Do it? Jake?
How's that? That's good? Yougotta you gotta do it? Caesar in
there, did you not? Yeah, yep, they're in the second game
of the series. Cesar whatever hewants to be called. Yeah, Salazar
(36:35):
obviously needed when the Salad Czar andthe Victor Carrattini and the contact play was
put on at a fairly odd timein the game situationally, Yeah, I
need to get behind that. Idon't even to figure out what happened there,
because that was I saw your tweetand I completely agree. That's what
I was trying to get across it. In my fury, I was like,
why what are we doing that for? There's no need. It's not
(36:57):
that you're not a burner at thirdbase. There's nobody out, and the
runner at second base didn't budge.That's what kind of indicates to me that
that wasn't on. Yeah, thehitter is Cooper Hummel. That also means
you're about to flip the order overto Altuve, et cetera. So a
little bit questionable on Unfortunately, I'mnot sure Victor really knew kind of what
to do when he got to theplay because I don't think his first choice
is how hard can I slam mylegs into Corey Lee's leg protectors? And
(37:22):
now it's on that violation that says, you know what, in this situation,
going full blast into the catcher isnot the best idea. By the
way, I know you were wayup there, but a lot of times
this is possible. Were you ableto get your eyeballs on the blowhard that
kept screaming cheater at al tuo veNo? I kept looking at our field
Mike's trying to figure it out.No, I forget that that's a field.
Mic things sometimes and it's not justyou. I was trying to figure
(37:44):
out where they were because more oftenthan not, mean you guys know this,
but maybe everybody at home doesn't,but they're more often than not they're
nearly on deck circles or directly behindhome plates. So I was trying to
like figure it out. But everytime I heard it, I couldn't see.
You know, but aren't there likecertain organizations that they just can't You
can't do that. You were theblack Socks. You can't say that,
well, you legitimately have Hall ofFame guys that can't go into the Hall
(38:06):
of Fame from that era that havebeen blacklisted. So yeah, I mean
it's like, yeah, hey Cheeter, whoa shoot. Uh yeah, maybe
we did that too. I don'tknow. I mean, just a little
awareness. By the way, Idon't think we've ever asked you this.
Bonds and Clemens should absolutely be inright, Yeah, how do you feel
about that? Uh? I thinkthat you. I think that you need
(38:27):
to get creative to put them inthere, because if you talk about that,
and I mean, everybody's gonna callit the steroid era. And I
mean there's a there's a wing inthe Hall of Fame that could be called
or just have a huge asterisk nextto it, next to it and say,
look, these guys, I know, maybe they did what they did.
And I mean, and it painsme because it's gonna include some nozzle
that I do not like and AlexRodriguez getting attention. But at the same
(38:52):
time, there were some dudes puttingup some big time numbers and not recognizing
the all time leader hits Pete Rose, not recognizing the all time leader in
home runs, Barry Bonds, andsome of the things that he did because
he basically revolutionized this moneyball aspect andidea of being an on base slug guy.
(39:12):
That you have to recognize them somehow. We can't wait for a game,
you know, in Birmingham, Alabama, to have the conversation and have
them all. I mean, weneed to have the conversation. We need
to take the cover off it,recognize it for what it was. And
it wasn't just Barry Bonds and RogerClements that. Now, for every one
of those guys, there were thirtyguys in the minor leagues doing the same
thing that ended up blowing out orweren't good enough to actually enhance what they
(39:37):
were trying to do. But forme, maybe I would have had one
hundred and five home runs if I'dhave done a cycle. Who knows,
But you don't know until you actuallythrow the ball or hit the ball.
And those guys were extremely good atdoing that. And baseball is an extremely
hard sport that you can you canoverwhelm with muscle, but at the same
(39:58):
time, you still have to havea legitimate skill set to play this game.
You brought up Barry Bonds, youbrought up Birmingham. Obviously this week
very special for it would have beenregardless, clearly for what Major League Baseball
has done getting the game played thereand Willie May's being such a huge part
of it, his passing coming justprior to the festivities taking place, he
was obviously not going to be there, But you know, Dusty Baker is
(40:21):
all a part of this, andthe notes that Willie had, and you
know, his career in San Franciscocame to a conclusion in the early seventies.
Obviously you spent a good portion ofyour life out there in California,
and you know your baseball and itjust feels like everybody you guys. Also
Julian Mauricio. Mauricio shared and throwsa phenomenal story because he was a giant
(40:42):
and because Willie Mays was there,and Willy saying I know who you are
to Mauricio early early in his baseballcareer, just your your thoughts on Willie
Mays, the man, what hemeant to the game and obviously the player
who's at the arguably the very topof the list. Yeah, whenever you
were a kid growing up in thegame. And I hope that this perpetuates
now that he has passed away,because sometimes you guys know as well as
(41:06):
I do that we you know,we hold on to legacy more than maybe
the young athlete. And I thinkthat it's you know, the impetus is
on us to be able to havethose conversations to say, no, did
you hear about this guy? Andthen thank god for Baseball Reference that you
can pull up these numbers and justgawk at him and go, what the
hell are you kidding me? Butthe amount of time that he spent on
the field and what he was ableto do was remarkable. What he meant
(41:29):
for the game. I mean,you talk we talked about Barry Bonds being
that first like ops slug guy.How about Barry Bonds being the first power
speed guy that was going out therehitting bombs and stealing three hundred plus bases.
He was unheard of gold gloves.You know. He was one of
those guys that was a multi talentedathlete when he was on the field,
wasn't huge in stature, but figuredout a way to go out there and
(41:50):
compete and be the best in thegame. And you know, I never
had a chance to meet him.Every story I've heard about him has been
fantastic. He seems like the typeof guy that pays close enough attention to
the game to be able to recognizeguys like Maracio Dubon and respect them.
And that's another aspect of being alegacy type athlete, is recognizing that there's
people after you that are trying toattain the same level and they work just
(42:13):
as hard. So he respected that. But the one thing, you know,
my wife is is a novice,even after twenty five years in the
game with me at understanding who peopleare. But there was a point about
fifteen years ago, we're at agala, you know, the auctions going
on, and she specifically went outof her way and spent a reasonable amount
(42:34):
of money to buy a picture ofthe catch. And the only reason she
bought it is because it was autographedby Willie Mays himself. And for her
to be able to recognize that asa novice, you know, or an
early lover of the game and understandingwhat Willie Mays meant to the game,
spoke a lot about Willy Mays andso I greatly appreciated that. And I,
(42:57):
you know, Mickey Mantle was oneof my guys. I never had
a chance to watch these guys play, but I appreciated what they did.
And Willie May's I don't know inthis day and age, if you're never
not going to be able to talkabout him because his numbers are going to
become unattainable across the board on ahole, nobody's ever going to compete with
what he did. Was a keeper, definitely, No. And you know
(43:19):
what, she did that on purposereally because she understood who Willie Mays was,
but she also understood what he notwhat he meant to me, but
he what he meant to the game, and she understood that having that on
the wall gives you a little morestreet credit than most. Since we're on
a subject. When you guys weredating, was it moving fast enough for
her? Just out of curiosity?What do you mean? Well, do
you think like fast enough for her? Or maybe say Kelly Stafford, oh
(43:44):
man, did he get serious fastenough? No? Yeah, no I
didn't. I was the one thatwas behind the Yeah I was moving a
little slow. Yeah she was.She was ahead of the game, but
she didn't have to go to greatlengths to convince me otherwise. That's good.
No reason she's a keeper. I'mnot gonna say what I mean.
No, I mean I'm not Ispit on pitches in my life. That
(44:07):
was it? Okay, all right, wex you want to take it from
here, Well, the roof isclosed. There be any hawks flying in
here to sit. They got realhot near man. I'm here because I'm
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(44:30):
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They take most major insurance and they'reall over Greater Houston. I go.
(44:53):
We're glad that you came. Youmade that incredibly awkward, by the way,
me, congrats, I didn't doit, Kelly staff or did.
And we'll discuss that
You look at it, look atit, look at us. Oh yeah,
this is radio. You listen toit on Sports Talk seven ninety Astros
broadcaster Jeff Blaum on seven ninety isbrought to you by low D Center.
Absolutely impossible not to be in thegreatest mood ever. You're at the ballpark
(00:25):
with your besties, Wex and AChere with you. It's three o'clock on
a Friday on the A team,So Jeff Blum is here with us as
well, live and alive and readyfor some Astros Orioles baseball and some pleasant
looks back at least in the lasttwo games for the Astros. A major
league debut comes tonights with Jake Blossand everything else that goes with the next
(00:48):
hour of fun. Is a handfulof players already milling around on the field.
The new number thirty nine is Bloss. He will be with them.
A couple other roster moves have alsobeen made, so plenty to discuss.
It is great to see you inperson for the first time on our show
in what seems like forever. Canyou please turn my headset down? It
(01:08):
feels like you're yelling at He's yellingat me too. Geez. Who's the
engineer racket. Yeah, No,he's also excited to be back together.
We got the band back together.It's been a very long time. You
guys have been on this world tourof downtown and establishments, and meanwhile,
I haven't been in town for anyof these Fridays, so it's about time.
I'm glad to be back. Youguys look really good. Well,
(01:30):
we're trying to keep up with you. Yeah, the romance is real.
Tom's watch bar is amazing, bythe way, you know what. I
had the chance to walk past thereas they were constructing that particular spot right
there next to the what do wecall now Space City Home Network studios,
and it looked very cool, looklike I liked that they did, like
a massive patio or garage doors couldopen up and you can kind of have
(01:53):
it free for all. But theamount of TVs in there is ridiculous.
The most impressive thing to me isthat we have now done two shows in
a row where the windows were openin June and I didn't even break a
sweat. They have like because that'sfunny because technically with us, we are
broadcasting from right on the other sideof those windows, so basically we're outside.
(02:15):
Feel great. We are broadcasting insideright now, and it's muggy as
bleep. I mean, come on, crane, turn on the ac in
this place. I know you've gotit. It's Houston. He's just trying
to help John Singleton the others alreadyin the cage getting some work, and
helped me break a sweat. SoI travel with a portable fan in my
backpackage, and we were in wewere in Chicago ninety degrees at first game,
(02:38):
eighty eight degrees the next day,eighty of the next didn't use it
once. The only reason I haveit is for right here at minute May
Park. You know, I havea massive bag that I take wherever I'm
going, however long I'm going.So we could be going for the weekend
over what's that question. No,I'm talking about an actual piece of luggage.
(03:00):
And the reason it's that size,no matter how long or how short
a trip is, is because Ihave not a portable fan, a whole
ass fan. Oh it's like inthe box and everything so won't get busted.
Wow. And I take it whereverI go because whatever bathroom we're staying
in at whatever hotel, and nomatter how nice. It is, and
it's always nice because my wife doesthat part of the booking. It's never
(03:20):
ever cool enough in the real JasonKelsey, you are gotta have that fan
with you totally understand it. Sodoes everybody else we are here in the
ballpark. The Astros have had alittle bit of an odd scheduling with a
couple of short either home or roadtrips. It seems like they came in
and out of town on what waspart of a road trip. Even this
one is a five game home stand, relatively rare over the course of a
major league season. Kind of catchtwo ends of it. One of the
(03:43):
best teams in the American League withthe first team in it's the Orioles for
three, and then one of theteams that kind of got the Astros started
on maybe a reboot to their season. Their second time to see the Colorado
Rockies will now be here for apair of games. The Orioles come to
town off of massacring the New YorkYankees. Their offense absolutely clicking. It
has been all year, but thisis about as hot as they've ever been.
(04:05):
And that's what Jake Loss gets toface. We'll get to that because
it always seems like something's happened overthe week's time that makes your eyes pop
out, makes you say wow.And it was the first contact bat to
ball of Jordan Alvarez upon his returnafter two days away from the team,
a deal with the family matter,which is taking care of it. Everything
(04:26):
is fine. He steps into thebatter's box bottom of the first inning,
second swinging the game for him fourhundred and thirty nine feet because that's just
what he does. Yeah, Imean, if I didn't love him so
much, i'd be so mad athim, because it's just not normal to
be able to take that time offand step in and take in the first
contact you make, it goes fourhundred and thirty nine freaking feet. The
guy's unbelievable, and it obviously isa huge talent. He's obviously necessary in
(04:51):
this lineup for the Astros, butit's amazing that we've seen him now since
what twenty nineteen, and he canstill do stuff that makes me go,
wow, this guy's pretty damn good. And you start to do it over
the length amount of time that he'sstarting to do it, and you start
to wonder and you start to projectand see what he's able to do in
his career, and if he's ableto stay healthy for you know, the
(05:13):
next seven or eight years, you'regonna see somebody who's probably gonna put up
Hall of Fame type numbers because heis that consistent. And all the complaining
that we did about him for Apriland May, the dude was still hitting
two seventy, two eighty and hewas gonna run into ninety RBIs just because
that's how this lineup is constructed.But at the same time, he figured
out June that's his month, andhe's gonna go out and he's gonna hit
(05:34):
you thirty five this year, ifnot more, and he's gonna drive in
one hundred plus. So the guy'sa freak. And if he's able to
maintain that kind of greatness and consistency, you're gonna be talking about him for
a very very long time. Isin the lineup of course tonight al Tuve,
Bregman, Alvarez, Diaz, Myers, and then four first baseman will
bat after that Singleton will actually playfirst base, Dubon will play shortstop.
(05:56):
Paying you getting the night off.Joey Lo Perfido, who is one of
those roster moved as I mentioned,is now back with the team. He'll
start in left field and Tray Cabbagewill start in right field. J Lo
perffdo back do you think? Sorry? And I don't know if Joe Spott
will comment on this, It's okay, you think maybe this is the time
for it. Jas McCormick obviously isyet to get clicking. Jake Myers is
(06:20):
actually in a fairly sizable slump.Tray Cabbage is Dray Cabbage. Do you
think this is the beginning of seeingJoey Lo Perfito a lot more often in
this Astros lineup? No, Ireally do. I think? You know,
the second time he got called up, I'm not exactly sure what that
was entirely for or you know whothat benefited, other than the fact that
(06:40):
it was another weapon off the benchfor Joe as spotted during that short time
that he was here. But thenwe all had to hit the pause button
for ten days to be able toget him back to the big leagues.
But I think that this time around, considering what's going on, was the
move Karattini going on the injury list, Carotini went to the Endurine had that
bad quad, So you've got Salazarhere, So everything you had to fit
together to be able to get Kartiniright, and now you've got low perfido
(07:01):
here. And I think that becauseof what you just mentioned with I actually
like Trey Cabbage. I think he'sa possible, you know, third,
if not a very firm fourth outfielderfor me on my roster, just because
I like the speed, I likethe defense, I like the at bats.
He's got sneaky pop every once ina while, so he's a little
bit of a thread off the bench. But I think the fact that you've
(07:21):
got Tucker on the edge list Cabbageis a right fielder, chas McCormick is
not performing as well, why shouldn'tit open it up for low perfito.
You you said go to the youperformed well in spring training, you said,
go to triple A. Dazzle me. He absolutely dazzled everybody with what
he was able to do down there. And now you have an opportunity,
with some of the injuries and maybesome of the lack of performance, to
(07:44):
throw them out there. So Iexpect this go around maybe to be a
little low perfito heavy is the onlyreason that he didn't just stay put Jose
Ray, I mean simplifying everything,well, I think it is. I
think we can talk about that now. At the time, you know,
you were kind of saying, wegot a massage this guy back in.
We've got to give low Perfiedo withbats, and that was the biggest thing
for me and just you know,in watching young players over the years,
(08:05):
you've got to give them consistent atbats, whether it be in the big
leagues or whether it be in theminor leagues, just to keep them sharp.
You don't want them, you don'twant them to have that lull in
their season because then all of asudden they have to start building back up.
And that's kind of what you hadto do with little Berfeto. But
at the same time, you know, they they they chose to try and
figure out what was going on withJose Abreu and they came to the same
(08:26):
conclusion I think we had even beforewe brought a breeding back. We haven't
done a show in person together sincethat happened. Energizing one, I mean,
I hate it because of feeding offWex. I tried to bring the
heat right out of the game soI could bring it back down. The
energizer no I should have worn shortsand not sure. Well there's time.
(08:46):
Yeah, there's absolutely time. It'sonly three h nine. Man. A
game then starts all after I sata peaking way too soon. Hey,
And speaking of which, this isa series that it could get ugly or
it could get like be pleasantly surprising. But here's with you, Like,
does this feel like the Jeff LunoRevenge series? It's like his lieutenants down
(09:09):
and his old team just walked in. No. Yeah, the twenty fifteen
Astros, actually twenty seventeen Astros justwalked in you that. Yeah. I
mean they're really really good. Iknow, the initial like Luno, I
don't know what you want to callhim, you know, I don't want
to say they were acolytes, becauseI think they were actually like guys that
were learning under him for the purposeof moving on and making other organizations good.
(09:31):
Because that's what happens when same thingwith the manager, the head coach
effect in the NFL, where youjust have these guys working as coordinators under
you and eventually they move on touh, you know, head coaching jobs,
and you're trying to create that sustainability, that's that legacy and kind of
had that idea of how to runa team kind of spread throughout the league,
and the initial shot was to theBaltimore Orioles with Michaelias and sig Midel.
(09:56):
I think that those guys were reallykind of I don't want to say
that were the absolute brains, butthey were definitely the core structure of Like,
do you think they were too cold? Do you think if they're too
cold? No, it's the dumbestthing ever. Isn't there a certain coldness
to running an organization? Though?I mean, you were to be emotional.
I get that because you want towin so bad, so there's got
(10:16):
to be a little bit of soulin that. But if you're going to
make some very tough, you know, economical and you know, uh,
personnel decisions, I think you haveto have a certain edge to it.
Among all the things that were writtenin the aftermath of the scandal that made
me laugh the most, it wasthat Jeff Luno and his lieutenants were too
cold and calculated and not personable enough. I'm like, excuse me, I
(10:39):
would like that cutthroat running my team. Jeff Luno can go run the rockets
if he wants, and he cango run the Texans while he's at it
too. Well, if they winlike that, But isn't that The idea,
though, is to create that modelthat can play in different sports,
and I think that was something theownership group for the Cleveland Browns. I
believe in the Miami Dolphins, thoseare all ex baseball guys have moved into
(11:00):
the NFL. But I think itwas because of what you're talking about is
that they had an algorithm, theyhad a program, they had an idea,
and there was a little bit ofan edge to it. And I
think that we started to see maybea little bit of that, maybe a
little bit of the humility and alittle bit of the emotion after that twenty
seventeen World Series run where they said, Okay, we've got the data that
put a team together, but therewere some factors that are missing that we
(11:24):
can't actually put a number two.So you've got to go down and meet
the person. You've got to talkto the guy, you've got to bring
in the right free agent. You'vegot to be able to consider certain moves
to create a culture. And that'swhere you lose the numbers is when you
say you want to create a winningculture. Then you've got to start putting
personnel in that clubhouse that will nurturethat a lot of vibes from the Astros
for all the reasons you said insidethat Orioles management team, believe the only
(11:48):
oriole that the Astros would know that'shere is cnl Perez because I think he
just walked across the field that hadto be him. He shook hands and
hugged about fifteen people on his wayto the Orioles dugout. The Astros early
be crew is out there, andthere's a couple of guys we'll need to
talk about in the next segment.One of them is now their current backup
catcher. Say sorry Salazar taking hacksand making the most of them in his
(12:09):
early work in game activity. JoeyLo Braffito out there with this early group,
John Singleton Cabbage among others. Therehabbing pitchers as per usual during the
early portion of our Friday program orgoing through their rehab program. Among them,
Lanceo mccullors talk about what has recentlybeen said about the timeline for both
Luis Garcia and Lanceo McCullers, andof course NonStop fun. Jeff Plum is
(12:33):
here with us on the eighteen.Yeah, buddy, absolutely. You know
what Jeff loves to do. Heloves to well, actually I don't know
this. Do you binge shows moreor do you stream movies more? It's
been shows recently, and a lotof it has to do with travel,
and that's why the Wallda wall WiFi. So I can kind of sneak
off into my little pocket office upstairsand while Mama's not paying attention, I
(12:54):
can figure out what shows I wantto watch while I get on the road,
so I download them all onto mycomputer and my iPad. That's awesome.
Well, that's the type of stuffthat's available to you with the stream
Saver package with Exfinity. They're sayingX marks the spot, right. We've
heard that before, but it reallydoes when you're talking about Exfinity and you're
talking about the fact that now throughSeptember twenty first, you're going to be
able to get that one hundred andfifty megabit Exfinity Internet for twelve months with
(13:18):
a one year contract, and thenfor just fifteen dollars a month you add
the new stream Saver, so thatgives you Peacock, Apple TV Plus and
Netflix. There's a lot of streamingcapability with those three names right there.
Yeah, that's outstanding it. Youknow, obviously more is better and that's
exactly what Exfinity wants us. Morefor you to be able to work with
those streaming services being included with theprice is outstanding. And of course once
(13:39):
you are able to stream inside yourhouse, that's what makes the entire Infinity
experience that much better. Is becauseyou've got multiple devices, you've got multiple
people, and you've got multiple personalitiestrying to download and watch in stream shows.
And that's exactly why we went withXfinity. Yeah, you want to
binge, you want to stream,you want to save money doing it all
at the same time. Exfinity iswhere it's at x marks the spot for
(14:01):
more watching and less spending. Switchto Infinity, the network made for streaming,
and bring on the good stuff bygoing to Infinity dot com, calling
one hundred Infinity, or visiting astore today. Exfinity proud sponsor of your
Houston astros. Back to Adam Clintonand Adam Wexler the eighty. I don't
know about you, Jeff, Idon't always know about to AC either,
(14:24):
So I'll just ask you. Eitherof you guys seen a long cane Polly.
Oh yeah, Okay, so I'mgetting I'm getting a little bit of
a vibe today because it feels like, you know, one of us I
won't say, who has hired somebodyto do a true E Hollywood story on
their own life. That's what thevibe I'm getting today. You know I
was friended that that. Yeah,probably not I gotta go to generally more
(14:45):
of a bathroom scene, but justdon't eat with your fingers. It is
good to be out here at theballpark, and we do always appreciate some
of our good friends Ram Shirts helpingkeeping us geared up and helping a lot
of you guys continue your endless blummer. No, we put them back to
work man Tuttle. Tuttle was alittle aggressive and I finally caved in.
(15:07):
And fortunately Mark Ramos and Ramshirts isalong for the ride. The new stuff
out there, like we were kindof spitballing. And if I have to
take total credit, Mark, whowas it? Yeah, this guy.
If you have to say total credit, I mean it makes perfect sense.
A little bit of a callie vibeto everything, and yeah, and why
(15:28):
not a little more blummer is goodfor the soul and and and it was
kind of funny because I threw itout there and I just kind of like
threw, you know, the pukeemoji next to it. I'm like,
hey, just throwing something out there, and I put endless Blummer and uh,
Tuttle kind of came back and said, it kind of makes sense because
baseball feels like it endless summer whenyou're playing it. You should use Richard
Marx for your theme song. Therewe go, There you go, even
(15:52):
around. So I have to dothis and he fights with people on social
media. It's really weird. What'swhat these old rockers that like fight hesitates
calling him a rock well you knowpop rock, hot rocker. Yeah,
more like it. But hey,just to sum up this season, you
don't even know what I'm about tosay, because I haven't told you this
yet. I have refrained from sendingyou on average. I have strusted.
(16:14):
I mean, the rage texting hasgone down, gone down, it's not
existent. You know, you knowwho gets it more than anybody. He
sits two people down from you rightnow. He gets it more because I
refuse to do that to you,because I know you've got to be getting
it from like said to you normallywould have been as you guys, brilliantly
(16:38):
captured with your crew jose Al Tuovemaking his way back out onto the field.
Yes he was, he was.He was embodying me. Yes,
over the past seven or eight yearswhere you just take that strong inhale and
then just blurt out like the bestword, Well, it's it has everything.
It's the most versatile word in theEnglish language. I mean, it
(16:59):
has everything confirmed. Yeah, andit's one we almost never see from him
in that manner on the field.I mean, it's one thing. The
one thing if you if you've playedon teams with guys from Latin America and
it doesn't mean you know Colombians orVenezuelans or cue, all of them all
encompassing. You know, if theydon't speak the English language as their first
language, yet they know the Englishlanguage. If they're cussing in Spanish,
(17:23):
you know they're pissed. But ifthey start cussing in English, then you're
like, holy cow, we've reachingon another level of I am so mad
at the world right now, andI an't to be honest. We've been
covering Tuov for the last twelve yearsand I don't think I've seen him that
mad, but you guys made ita point to show them to because it's
(17:44):
out of character for him. Yes, but you know what, and I'm
not even this isn't even missing this. It was warranted. He's gregiously bad
strike zone. It was one hundredpercent and it happened because he punched out
on a pitch. It was aboutsix inches up out of the zone.
If he's not swinging at the toppart of the zone, that means it's
way too far out of the zone. Because he loves hammering at the top.
(18:06):
He throws home runs out of thepark his neck every time. Yeah,
so if it's above that and hedoesn't swing, it's out of his
zone completely. So he gets wrungup. He probably said a couple of
things walked away. He gets asecond base and he watches his picture go
out there and have a pitch thatactually catches the top part of the zone
not get called. That's why thesecond base umpire was getting an earfull,
(18:27):
and that's why Joe had to comeout and say, hey, look at
me. Don't look at my allstar second basement, look at me.
He took one and and he gotejected so he had to go out there
and kind of divert the attention andallow two way to calm down, because
he had every right to be pissed. And uh he and he. I
would I wouldn't mind seeing a littlemore fire like that. Who had the
itchiest trigger finger when you were playingthat they're still unfiring today. Oh As
(18:51):
far as umpires, yeah, likelike oh man, because we were,
you know, I was in theearly days of like James Hoy, I
was in the first decade of AngelHernandez, so Stee Buckner, Tim Timmins
was a quick trigger. But it'sfunny how those guys have kind of become
like the calmer version of what wehave now. But these young guys that
are coming up, these umpires,these guys, man, you say one
(19:12):
word about their strike zone and allof a sudden, that's the hot button.
And I don't understand it because Ican't remember. The guy who was
behind home play was like Brennan Milleror somebody, and in that situation,
all Brennan, all these umpires,if they're listening at which none of them
probably are, but if they werelistening, if you started to hear that
from the dugout. You could justlook over and go, look, I
(19:33):
f'd up. I missed a call. They gotta do. I just admit
the failure and say I'm gonna doa better job the rest of the game.
And guess what happens in that dugout. They're gonna say, yeah,
damn right, you better, andthen we're gonna move on. And then
you move on. But like whenyou have this condescending lack of accountability,
then you're riling up everybody involved becausethen you're on the radar of the other
dugout. I'm sure they're happy theygot the benefit of that call, but
(19:57):
they also know you're the same jackassthe could do that to them. Yeah,
it could. It could quickly turnaround. And the other thing is
too, is don't be condescending whenthey actually have immediate proof on whether or
not that ball was anywhere in thevicinity of the strikes on these iPads.
Well, they're gonna have to haveit soon anyways, because we're gonna get
our compromise. Yeah, yeah,we're almost headed to that system. Yeah,
(20:18):
minor leagues have gone to a fullchallenge system rather than splitting up between
the weeks. So that's what they'lldo the remainder of the season, continue
to gather the data on that.The challenge system where you're each team's allowed
to three challenges a game, theycontinue to get them if they get them
right. So many teams have hadfour or five, six more challenges in
a game. And they keep tellingthey haven't really told us who really has
(20:38):
been surveyed and what group of people, But they keep telling us that the
majority of team personnel, the majorityof players, and the majority of fans
are giving them whoever them is feedbackthat they're not in favor of the full
ABS, not in favor of thefull automatic ball strike calls that would not
(21:00):
include to challenge to this and becausethey simply would use an automatic ball strike
on every pitch. Why do youthink I'll take them at their word that
more people, all those groups they'retelling them were not in favor of that.
What Why would you think that is? Why would players not be in
favor of a full ABS? Ithink, and it goes both ways.
It goes for the for the pitcherand the hitter. I think it's because
(21:21):
they haven't devised a suitable strike zonethat will appropriately accommodate both the pitcher and
the hitter, because you know aswell as I do that the pitchers are
good enough now with the spin thatthey have, they could spin a breaking
ball at the front edge of theplate, have it catch the front edge
and literally bounce on the plate.So how is a hitter supposed to hit
that? So now you figure outwhere is the front of the plate,
(21:44):
and I've heard it's going to moveback to that back triangle of the plate
and maybe use that back point.But now what happens when a curveball is
thrown at the back part of thezone and catches the back part of the
plate and it crosses where the hitter'schin is. So I think there's going
to be a serious, uh conversationabout what exactly that strike zone is.
And that might be why they're goingto that automated challenge system to try and
(22:07):
use the system yet still try andperfect the system. And of course there's
obviously you know, if al twoVA's hitting in front of yord On Alvarez,
is that zone going to be ableto be adjusted quickly enough with the
pitch clock in this era to beable to show what a strike is to
yord On Alvarez? It's six footsix five and move down to a five
foot seven to six hitter like JoselTwove. I think that's probably gonna be
(22:30):
the biggest issue. But also atthe same time, those three challenges.
That's over the course of a game, right if it's a three to one
count, it's a borderline strike thatgets called on me. I mean,
do I raise my hand and say, hey, let's nobody on right now?
I want to contest this or dowe move on and hopefully we don't
need it later in the game whenit's a three to two count, bases
loaded and it's obviously a ball calleda strike. Yeah. I think one
(22:51):
thing you said there, I hopepeople were listening closely, because I think
that is exactly what the data hasshown on the games where they're using the
ABS versus the games where they're usingthe challenge system. You guys have seen
the graphics. You guys use themon TV all the time. The spray
chart of what has been called astrike and where it fits in the zone
when you're using the ABS is smallerthan the strikes they're getting called for the
(23:15):
games that only use a challenge system, basically meaning a higher percentage of the
pitches that are close, that areborderline, that are a little bit questionable,
they are being called strikes more oftenthan they are in the abs.
And that's more to the human elementof what every single current player at any
level has been used to their entirelife and likely thinks that's what they should
(23:37):
continue doing. That that really isit isn't the same strike zone. Well,
I mean one thing we didn't talkabout either is the umpire. I
mean, you're still going to needa home plate on fire for check swings
and plays, the plate and whateverto and recoup a lot. So everybody,
yeah, right end of it,you be like, I think that
was a ball, and they're likenope, and then you just call them
a sudden reverse it. But atthe same time, I think it's both
(24:00):
with peas. You know, you'retrying to figure out what the hitter and
picture can work with, but atthe same time you're not saying, look,
we're not trying to totally eliminate yourjob just yet, so stay back
there, stay focused, and we'llwork on it. It's like a McDonald's
worker these days, they automated.I'm not jacking around with that guy behind
the counter when I could put itin exactly how I want it, and
if you screw it up, Ican say, hey, I put it
(24:21):
in here. It isn't writing,yep, don't They ask you very politely,
is that your order? Correct?I try not to make eye contact
in as many scenarios as possible inmy day to day life. You talk
for a living, and you don'twant any human one. I'm looking at
me, stop leering at any weirdreason. We're on radio? Yeah,
TV? Was that was? You'reon TV? Though? Like five seconds
(24:41):
every night I start blankly into acamera. Let's be honest. My son
happened to watch the other night andjust happen to see, like the one
out of like five seconds you're onTV. He goes, hey, it's
uncle Blummer. There he is,so found him. All right. We
have plenty more to get to withBlummer over the next half hour or so.
As we are out here minute madepark and feeling good because I can
(25:02):
tell you that made my pit stop. If you will over at Men's Tea
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(25:25):
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(25:48):
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(26:10):
today. That's Men's Teaclinic dot ComHouston. It's you're a home team man,
lifelong as fan here anytime anywhere.I love your hole team. We'll
go to Rocking Go. Just tellyour smart device splice Sports Talk seven ninety
on iHeart Radio playing Sports Talk sevenninety on iHeartRadio. We are back here
with you live from Minute Made Parkabout halfway through the three o'clock hour.
(26:33):
Here Jeff Blum here with us forthe duration of this first hour. Back
into what we're gonna see here tonight. We'll get to the Oriols momentarily.
Jake Bloss makes his major league debut. Joey Loo Perfido not only returns to
the team, but returns to thelineup. I know you guys will get
into a lot of the specifics asthat first inning is unfolding with Jake on
the mound for the first time withthis team. At this time a year
(26:55):
ago, he was not a memberof the organization. The twenty twenty three
draft not yet taken place. They'rea handful of players from that draft class,
couple in the first round, couplein the second round, and he
is now a third round pick that'sgoing to be making his major league debut
again. Less than a year withthe organization, started an A ball,
moved up to Double A this season, pitch very well there, part of
(27:18):
a no hitter with the hooks hereand now is going to be pitching for
the Astros, and Dana Brown's beenvery pretty effusive in his praise for him
the last couple of weeks. Anyidea of what we have to expect from
maybe an arsenal standpoint, I imaginehe probably has a pretty good makeup and
that he's kind of handled his businessvery well coming from a college pitcher to
a quick assent to the majors.I mean, we can, you know,
(27:41):
speculate on several things, just becausehe's been elevated through the organization so
quickly and pitching well at Corpus Christyis a great thing. Every reason why
didn't to go to Triple A?Well, sometimes bringing a very good pitcher
and a young pitcher at that toTriple A where you play in the Pacific
Coast League, where it's lends itselfto a lot of home runs and some
(28:02):
high batting averages against. I thinkthey may be opted for the for the
jump over Triple A and just getthem to the big leagues. But at
the same time, I think italso speaks to the organizational depth and how
they feel who's in triple A.No offense to those guys, but we've
got to be brutally honest with thesituation. With Justin Verlander on the injured
list and basically a very good startingrotation on that injured list, the depth
(28:23):
in the organization is now hurt orhere, and the problem is where do
you find that? Where do youfind that guy to fill the gap until
you get everybody healthy? And Jakebloss is that guy. He's pitching well,
like Wex said, part of thatcombined no hitter for the Corpus Christy
hooks. He's got a sub toera the limited video that I have seen
of them, and I don't knowexactly what it looks like on a radar
(28:45):
gun, but I mean we canall assume it's mid mid to low nineties
with the fastball. Fastball command isgoing to be key. I think he
has that in some of the outingsthat I've seen. Maybe the strikeout numbers
aren't as high as you would likethem to see in the organization because they
love the swing and many but atthe same time, there was there were
cutters, there were sliders. I'msure there's a sweeper mixed in there.
I'm sure he's got a change up. So I mean, it looks like
(29:07):
a guy that could go out theretwo seemed four seing fastball and then split
the plate with that cutter, slider, sweeper moving to the outside corner.
But uh, there's gonna be somevery good left handed hitters in this lineup
for the Baltimore Orioles. So maybehe's got a change up mixed in there,
or a slower breaking ball that canget to the outside corner. And
I think that's where you're gonna kindof test Jake bloss a little bit,
is bringing him here to the showand then saying congratulations. And oh,
(29:32):
by the way, you've got toface one of the top five offenses in
all of baseball. I mean runas they put up yesterday, just seventeen
and against Louis Heel, Yeah,who had an ERA that was, you
know, off the charts good.They did keep them from scoring in one
of the nine innings. One oneof the nine innings, No, that
was it was I think it wasthe fourth inning, kind of in the
middle of the game. Every otherpitcher. I do think every pitcher allowed
(29:55):
something obviously heel that was very muchout of the ordinary, and they won
the game that Garrett Cole started theday before, and they absolutely have had
a tremendous offense. I think weknew they would, maybe not quite to
this extent, because we keep lookingat the Orioles and we know how young
they are and it just doesn't seemto really face them at all, and
that they don't look like it whenyou face them. Yeah, and you
(30:18):
know, we'll get a good testand a good, really good test of
anybody's makeup when they're facing a teamlike the Baltimore Orioles. But we'll get
a really good idea about Jake Bloss. I would actually implore him to get
ahead as early and as often aspossible, because if I'm a Baltimore Oriole
facing a guy that I've never seenexcept on video, I want to see
how the ball comes out of thehand. I want to see the shape
of the pitches. I want tosee the timing of the delivery. And
(30:40):
if he can ambush them with earlystrikes, it's going to force those guys
to swing a little bit earlier incounts instead of sitting back and going there
was a fastball, there's a cutter, what's he gonna do? What's his
go to in a two strike count? Instead, I'm gonna you know,
if you could put them on theirheels a little bit, I think it
would benefit them. So there's oneother thing that just because Spencer Areghetti happened
to mention it when on a gamehe had faced the A's, he had
(31:00):
seen those guys before, they hadactually traveled up through the system so much.
And that's not the case at all. I mean, first of all,
these Orioles kids would never they've neverseen him because they were already here
and he wasn't even an astro yet. There's nobody here that's seen him pitch
before. No, that's good,That's what I mean. It's going to
be very tough because everything that theBaltimore Orioles are doing right now is going
to be printed out on a pieceof paper or it's going to be seen
(31:21):
on a TV screen until you actuallyget on the field and realize how yours,
how your batting stance in preparation toget ready to hit times up with
the opposing pitchers wind up or outof the set you really don't know,
and then you've got to be ableto pick the ball up out of the
hand early enough to recognize the pitchand make a decision on that. So
there's there's several key factors in goingout there and getting the experience against those
(31:42):
guys, and the same thing forthe opposing pitcher, like errig Getty having
faced some of those guys in TripleA, like you're saying with the Oakland,
A's then he knows he's got abook on them as well as far
as what their weaknesses and strengths are. That's I mean, that's what I
was gonna say. That is byfar Bloss's big weapon coming into this one
is the unknown, because yes,you've got some film or whatever you've got,
(32:05):
and you'll have, you know,the first couple of times through the
order, that's it. The nexttime out there'll be more of a book
on you, and the next timeand the next time, and I think
you know, with like for example, Hunter Brown, I think that might
have been part of why he kindof took a step back, But it's
kind of a natural transition, eventhough I know that he's not gonna be
pitching this series whoa that guy isBA act, Yeah, that guy and
(32:28):
he's he's angry. Yeah, Ilike him angry there. I mean,
it's not quite to the Garrett Coleanger, which we all thoroughly enjoyed as
a Beard, but there there isthere's something. There's something changing in Hunter
a little bit, I think,and uh, I constantly go back to
that outing he had out of thebullpen with against Detroit when he came in
relief of Christian Javier through five innings, you know, struck out eight or
(32:51):
something crazy like that, through seventyfive pitches and was just throwing this this
fu fastball. I've got a heater, I'm gonna throw it as hard as
I can. And oh, bythe way, I figured out how to
hold a two steamer and run thatbastard in on your hands. And all
of a sudden you're seeing these swingsand these broken bats and the hitters going,
oh, dear God, I gotto protect the inside now, I
(33:12):
think, And tell me if youagree with this. At one point there,
when the rotation was much healthier,Hunter Brown was pitching for his job
literally, and I agree that's aboutthe time that the light switch got flipped
on. Yeah, and sometimes you, I mean, you know, sometimes
you've got to you know, you'vegot to be tested a little bit to
see how you're going to react.And he got tested several times and he
(33:34):
reacted in the appropriate way because afterthat outing in Detroit, I kind of
pulled him off for the side andI said, man, that was a
great job. He did a greatjob with the fastball. It made the
cutter that much better. And hetalked to that point, he goes,
I had to get back onto theownership of the inside corner so that I
could throw my cutters and sweepers andsliders and everything on the outside corner.
But I had to stand the righthanded hitter back up. And I thought
he did a very good job withthat, and he basically, well I
(33:58):
don't even know if he knew hesaid it. But I had to get
back to being me. And Ithink that angry downhill fastball is who Hunter
Brown can be. And he's provedit over the last eight outings. It's
been tremendous. I just need tobe me. I need to get back
to being me. I do likethe book on Hunter Brown. Now,
the latest chapter that's being written.When the opponents open it up. It
says chapter nine. Good luck,Yeah, good luck, and he will
(34:21):
pitch in the next series. Hereat home, they've got the Colorado Rockies
coming in for two. Blosco's tonight, Renel Blanco and fromber Valdez we get
the other two starts in this series. Putting bloss in on Friday allows for
the additional day of rest for RenelBlanco, who has been tremendous this year
as it continues to push towards theeagerly anticipated, always desired trip to Arlington
(34:43):
in the middle of July. Butin this case it would be for an
All Star appearance. I'm sure he'dbe down. We got much more with
Jeff Blum here on the A teamon a Friday afternoon from the ballpark.
First, I want to tell youone more time about Exfinity in the fact
that X marks the spot right nowthrough September twenty First, you're gonna be
be able to get one hundred andfifty megabit Exfinity Internet for an entire year
(35:04):
twelve months with a one year contract, and then for just an additional fifteen
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all in one place only from Exfinity, allowing you to binge those shows you've
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and bring on the good stuff bygoing to their website Exfinity dot com,
(35:51):
calling their number one eight hundred Exfinity, or visiting a store today Exfinity proud
sponsor of your Houston Astros. There'sa space City Home Network's Todd Kallis,
there's the A team. You gothim. It's Adam Clinton and Adam Webfler.
Clinton stop impersonating me on Sports Talkseven nine. Let me see if
(36:14):
I can do this. I'm justgonna give you a preview of tonight's booth
Oh boy, does a strikeout byJake Blouse? Do it? Jake?
How's that? That's good? Yougotta you gotta do it? Caesar in
there, did you not? Yeah, yep, they're in the second game
of the series. Cesar whatever hewants to be called. Yeah, Salazar
(36:35):
obviously needed when the Salad Czar andthe Victor Carrattini and the contact play was
put on at a fairly odd timein the game situationally, Yeah, I
need to get behind that. Idon't even to figure out what happened there,
because that was I saw your tweetand I completely agree. That's what
I was trying to get across it. In my fury, I was like,
why what are we doing that for? There's no need. It's not
(36:57):
that you're not a burner at thirdbase. There's nobody out, and the
runner at second base didn't budge.That's what kind of indicates to me that
that wasn't on. Yeah, thehitter is Cooper Hummel. That also means
you're about to flip the order overto Altuve, et cetera. So a
little bit questionable on Unfortunately, I'mnot sure Victor really knew kind of what
to do when he got to theplay because I don't think his first choice
is how hard can I slam mylegs into Corey Lee's leg protectors? And
(37:22):
now it's on that violation that says, you know what, in this situation,
going full blast into the catcher isnot the best idea. By the
way, I know you were wayup there, but a lot of times
this is possible. Were you ableto get your eyeballs on the blowhard that
kept screaming cheater at al tuo veNo? I kept looking at our field
Mike's trying to figure it out.No, I forget that that's a field.
Mic things sometimes and it's not justyou. I was trying to figure
(37:44):
out where they were because more oftenthan not, mean you guys know this,
but maybe everybody at home doesn't,but they're more often than not they're
nearly on deck circles or directly behindhome plates. So I was trying to
like figure it out. But everytime I heard it, I couldn't see.
You know, but aren't there likecertain organizations that they just can't You
can't do that. You were theblack Socks. You can't say that,
well, you legitimately have Hall ofFame guys that can't go into the Hall
(38:06):
of Fame from that era that havebeen blacklisted. So yeah, I mean
it's like, yeah, hey Cheeter, whoa shoot. Uh yeah, maybe
we did that too. I don'tknow. I mean, just a little
awareness. By the way, Idon't think we've ever asked you this.
Bonds and Clemens should absolutely be inright, Yeah, how do you feel
about that? Uh? I thinkthat you. I think that you need
(38:27):
to get creative to put them inthere, because if you talk about that,
and I mean, everybody's gonna callit the steroid era. And I
mean there's a there's a wing inthe Hall of Fame that could be called
or just have a huge asterisk nextto it, next to it and say,
look, these guys, I know, maybe they did what they did.
And I mean, and it painsme because it's gonna include some nozzle
that I do not like and AlexRodriguez getting attention. But at the same
(38:52):
time, there were some dudes puttingup some big time numbers and not recognizing
the all time leader hits Pete Rose, not recognizing the all time leader in
home runs, Barry Bonds, andsome of the things that he did because
he basically revolutionized this moneyball aspect andidea of being an on base slug guy.
(39:12):
That you have to recognize them somehow. We can't wait for a game,
you know, in Birmingham, Alabama, to have the conversation and have
them all. I mean, weneed to have the conversation. We need
to take the cover off it,recognize it for what it was. And
it wasn't just Barry Bonds and RogerClements that. Now, for every one
of those guys, there were thirtyguys in the minor leagues doing the same
thing that ended up blowing out orweren't good enough to actually enhance what they
(39:37):
were trying to do. But forme, maybe I would have had one
hundred and five home runs if I'dhave done a cycle. Who knows,
But you don't know until you actuallythrow the ball or hit the ball.
And those guys were extremely good atdoing that. And baseball is an extremely
hard sport that you can you canoverwhelm with muscle, but at the same
(39:58):
time, you still have to havea legitimate skill set to play this game.
You brought up Barry Bonds, youbrought up Birmingham. Obviously this week
very special for it would have beenregardless, clearly for what Major League Baseball
has done getting the game played thereand Willie May's being such a huge part
of it, his passing coming justprior to the festivities taking place, he
was obviously not going to be there, But you know, Dusty Baker is
(40:21):
all a part of this, andthe notes that Willie had, and you
know, his career in San Franciscocame to a conclusion in the early seventies.
Obviously you spent a good portion ofyour life out there in California,
and you know your baseball and itjust feels like everybody you guys. Also
Julian Mauricio. Mauricio shared and throwsa phenomenal story because he was a giant
(40:42):
and because Willie Mays was there,and Willy saying I know who you are
to Mauricio early early in his baseballcareer, just your your thoughts on Willie
Mays, the man, what hemeant to the game and obviously the player
who's at the arguably the very topof the list. Yeah, whenever you
were a kid growing up in thegame. And I hope that this perpetuates
now that he has passed away,because sometimes you guys know as well as
(41:06):
I do that we you know,we hold on to legacy more than maybe
the young athlete. And I thinkthat it's you know, the impetus is
on us to be able to havethose conversations to say, no, did
you hear about this guy? Andthen thank god for Baseball Reference that you
can pull up these numbers and justgawk at him and go, what the
hell are you kidding me? Butthe amount of time that he spent on
the field and what he was ableto do was remarkable. What he meant
(41:29):
for the game. I mean,you talk we talked about Barry Bonds being
that first like ops slug guy.How about Barry Bonds being the first power
speed guy that was going out therehitting bombs and stealing three hundred plus bases.
He was unheard of gold gloves.You know. He was one of
those guys that was a multi talentedathlete when he was on the field,
wasn't huge in stature, but figuredout a way to go out there and
(41:50):
compete and be the best in thegame. And you know, I never
had a chance to meet him.Every story I've heard about him has been
fantastic. He seems like the typeof guy that pays close enough attention to
the game to be able to recognizeguys like Maracio Dubon and respect them.
And that's another aspect of being alegacy type athlete, is recognizing that there's
people after you that are trying toattain the same level and they work just
(42:13):
as hard. So he respected that. But the one thing, you know,
my wife is is a novice,even after twenty five years in the
game with me at understanding who peopleare. But there was a point about
fifteen years ago, we're at agala, you know, the auctions going
on, and she specifically went outof her way and spent a reasonable amount
(42:34):
of money to buy a picture ofthe catch. And the only reason she
bought it is because it was autographedby Willie Mays himself. And for her
to be able to recognize that asa novice, you know, or an
early lover of the game and understandingwhat Willie Mays meant to the game,
spoke a lot about Willy Mays andso I greatly appreciated that. And I,
(42:57):
you know, Mickey Mantle was oneof my guys. I never had
a chance to watch these guys play, but I appreciated what they did.
And Willie May's I don't know inthis day and age, if you're never
not going to be able to talkabout him because his numbers are going to
become unattainable across the board on ahole, nobody's ever going to compete with
what he did. Was a keeper, definitely, No. And you know
(43:19):
what, she did that on purposereally because she understood who Willie Mays was,
but she also understood what he notwhat he meant to me, but
he what he meant to the game, and she understood that having that on
the wall gives you a little morestreet credit than most. Since we're on
a subject. When you guys weredating, was it moving fast enough for
her? Just out of curiosity?What do you mean? Well, do
you think like fast enough for her? Or maybe say Kelly Stafford, oh
(43:44):
man, did he get serious fastenough? No? Yeah, no I
didn't. I was the one thatwas behind the Yeah I was moving a
little slow. Yeah she was.She was ahead of the game, but
she didn't have to go to greatlengths to convince me otherwise. That's good.
No reason she's a keeper. I'mnot gonna say what I mean.
No, I mean I'm not Ispit on pitches in my life. That
(44:07):
was it? Okay, all right, wex you want to take it from
here, Well, the roof isclosed. There be any hawks flying in
here to sit. They got realhot near man. I'm here because I'm
here because of the Jeff Witz atVision Group fantastic. We don't know where
to go with this thing. Butif your vision is lacking and you want
to see what's going wrong and correctit, go ahead and get a consultation
(44:30):
with Jeff Witz in his Vision Group. You're gonna sit down right across from
doctor Jeff and figure out what's goingon, and he's gonna give you the
best advice moving forward. And ofcourse low TIS Center in case you do
find yourself in that compromising situation,you want to be ready for it.
Low T Center might be able tohelp you out if your testosterone levels are
low, So go to low Tcenter dot com. Check them out.
They take most major insurance and they'reall over Greater Houston. I go.
(44:53):
We're glad that you came. Youmade that incredibly awkward, by the way,
me, congrats, I didn't doit, Kelly staff or did.
And we'll discuss that
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