May 17, 2024 • 41 mins
Former Astro turned analyst for Space City Home Network, Geoff Blum joins The A-Team every week. He talks about the Astros recent string of winning baseball, Yordan Alvarez's continued struggles, Ronel Blanco's suspension and Kyle Tucker deserving more national attention.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
You look at it, look atus. Oh yeah, this is radio.
You listened to it on Sports Talkseven ninety Astros broadcaster Jeff Blom on
seven ninety is brought to you bylow T Center. Hopefully a very pleasant
Friday afternoon for one and all.We are back at the ballpark. The
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Astros welcome in a new opponent,their last opponent unable to beat them a
five game winning streak and four gamesinto this ten game homestand we say hello
to Astros broadcasters from Say City HomeNetwork there, analyst Jeff Blom. Great
to have you in here with usafter what took place these first four games,
probably most notably what took place lastnight in and around our city and
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inside this ballpark, among other things. But that was that was interesting as
things got underway last night with peoplearriving with water joining us inside the ballpark
and talked to some people around here, as I'm sure you have as well,
and we've both been in ballpark manymany times over the last couple of
decades. It's not crazy that waterfinds its way in here. But it
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was a little bit windier than usuallast night. It was really bizarre,
to be honest with you because Iwas you know, I live out in
Katie's, so you know, wegot a little bit of the storm to
begin with, and I felt likeI kind of chased it as it came
here through Houston, and all ofa sudden things started to develop a little
bit, and right about six thirtysix forty five started to see that the
flags in center field were just halling. They were stiff as a board,
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straight shooting right towards the left fieldfoul pole. And then you started to
see the mist of the rain comingthrough, and that's a first for me.
I've never seen the rain come throughlike that. And then, of
course, yet we know if there'senough rain, there's gonna be some leaks
in the roof, just part ofthe game and how the roof is is
constructed. But at the same time, watching poor Vanessa Richardson do the pregame
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as the water is literally pouring ontoher right arm, I was like,
she's way better than I am,number one, number two. How can
we can't move her out of theway, Let her stand up and kind
of scoot towards Michael Bourne, whowasn't getting a drop. Can you have
Vanessa stay on her mark, please? Well, that's all I thought about,
dude. I was thinking about thatpiece of tape. It's on the
desk, and it was like,don't move, like the camera will move
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in that situation if you have to. But yeah, she was a trooper
through that. But it's the Thebizarre thing to me is we set in
that booth, had a great timecalling the game, cracking jokes like we
normally do, watching the astros goto work, and meanwhile, outside of
this particular dome, life was inthreat. It was crazy to me.
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Yeah, downtown obviously was the centerof a lot of activity because of the
wind whipping through the buildings and windowsand other things that took place. This
was one of the areas that obviouslytook some damaged schools, many of them
out today, including the schools thatmy kid goes to. So you had
a three day weekend out of it. That's because so many other schools aren't
even sure when their power and setup will be back to normal, hopefully
by Monday, as they start towind down their school year, which usually
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does coincide with Okay, well it'ssummertime, it's baseball. The kids can
now come to the ballpark all thetime, and the Astros are in the
midst of this ten game homestand they'vewon five in a row, as I've
been calling it since they played Gameone in Colorado, the Mexico reboot for
the Astros this season. If yourecall, Jordan Alvarez was among the players
that said, well, we godown to Mexico City and they introduce us
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and to all the fans there,and it's like kind of felt weird,
like the beginning of the season.So I've absolutely taken that and run with
it. They're twelve and six sincethe Mexico reboots, starting with those two
wins, and now five consecutive wins. And I was talking with somebody with
the Astros earlier today, the waythey're getting some of these wins, finding
runs, getting hits seven, eight, nine in the order last night,
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bing bang boom and it's six nothingso good scoring early and off. And
I really liked the way that thatseries against the A's went. I was
going to take full credit for thebird being the one that turned the sambird
on that was sitting on the windowssell when we were calling games in Detroit,
but that series against Oakland was alot of fun. To watch.
It's just because we knew they hadto go out there and beat them.
At that time, the A's werethe better team technically record geez liluiz need
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a drink. But they went outand blow them out, you know,
nine to two in the first game, and then they went three to nothing
the next game, the Renel Blancomadness, and then you had to go
through your bullpen. Your bullpen shutout the rest of the way, allowed
you to go out there and winthat game. Then they want to tight
when the next day with Steth Martinezpicking up the w or the save,
and then you go out there andblow them out again. I thought it
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was great because the pitching is whatneeds to come around for the Astros.
We know the offense is going tobe there all year long. They started
to drive the ball out of theballpark with runners on, so you started
to see some of those big homeruns. But they were also driving guys
in from third less than two outs, and that's probably one of the biggest
things for me because anytime you cantack on a run or get a run
back, if you're trying to comeback in the game in an easy RBI
situation like that you need to takeadvantage of it. But for me,
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the pitching staff has been the storyturning things around. Probably not too many
games this year back to back,probably none where the Astros needed only four
arms to get fifty four outs.They needed two arms obviously in the Framberg
game you mentioned the Martinez say theyneeded two arms. Yesterday with Calvier getting
the first eighteen outs on just eightypitches, and then Sean Dubin in what
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has become an ongoing story for theAstros this year, we really need you
today and he got nine outs forthem, and then we really need you
or a roster spot the next day, as things go for this team.
But he was a huge effort forhim to get them out of that game
and give everybody that had been spentprior to the Framber start the rest they
needed to reset things up for aseries against a first place team. Yeah,
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that's probably the biggest thing about whatDubin and what Seth Martinez have done
is the fact that they've actually setup this bullpen for this game because we
were looking at a possibility where JoshHader threw two innings in a previous game,
and that was looking to come backout and possibly get a save in
a situation where they needed it witha three run lead against the Oakland A's,
but Seth Martinez was able to workthrough that and allow him night off.
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So the Astros are in a verygood situation with Hunter Brown coming into
this game against the Milwaukee Brewers.Should be a really good matchup because the
pitching is good for the Milwaukee Brewers, but you've got two of the top
five offenses in all of baseball.Are gonna go at it right here and
hopefully the pitching holds up. Pitchingis held up well these last two games.
Again, that's part of the reasonwhy the Astros are in such good
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shape. We know the situation withRenel Blanco allowed to continue working as he
has. Jeff stepped onto the fieldright here, getting ready to go out
there and get some throws in forhis return, which is still nine days
away as he serves his ten gamesuspension. This around the time each and
every Friday when the Astros are athome, we get to witness basically the
rehab crew go through their stuff.Penn Murphy, Lance McCullers, Junior Luis
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Garcia and Jose Erkeaty or Keaty isgetting close to no longer being a part
of this quartet. He'll have anotherrehab appearance this weekend and could possibly be
ready to rejoin this team after that. Chas McCormick set to play against today
for the core Christy Hooks and thenhe could make his return. I wouldn't
have thought this when the season began, but before Jose Abreu homerd, before
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Chas McCormick homered Joey low Perfido homerun number one. Isn't that crazy think
about that. Chas McCormick is basicallygiven that leftfield job. It just wasn't
able to adjust to what pitchers weredoing to him, and then the hamstring
issue. He was trying to playthrough that entire situation before eventually he figured
out that it was probably a littlebit better to go on the shelf and
make sure that that thing gets healthybefore he tries to work through all that
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situation. But in the meantime,it gave the opportunity to call up you
know that the Astros arguably best prospect. We know Spencer Aarrigetty's already here,
but the best prospect in as faras position players concerned for the Astros.
Finally got his home run yesterday.I liked how he carried himself up until
that point, because the expectation was, you hit thirteen home runs in the
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month of April, you're just gonnashow up here in the big leagues,
start raking balls out of the ballpark. But he got some hits, put
together some good at bats, andfinally got that home run. Okay,
so the ball comes in, heleans down and he smacks. It doesn't
go fifty rows deep, but hefeels like it's going out. What's the
best part of that homer? Thereaction you can see behind him because the
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dugouts behind him, they almost immediatelyjump in the air. He gets to
give a little bit of a batflip, he gets to look into the
dugout as he's running down the firstbase line. When he gets back into
the dugout, there's so many options. What's the best part. I think
the best part was waking up today. I don't follow too many guys on
Instagram, but I followed Kyle Tuckerand he posted the video of the home
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run special. That was kind ofcool, you know, I mean for
a rookie. I mean I don'tknow how it works in the social media
world having never played. I mean, I played through it, but it
wasn't like there was an expectation thatall, my boy better post that video.
Think Morgan Ensburg was posting Jeff Blumthrilling plays down at third base,
and I don't think he was expectingme to do the same for him,
you know. So, but thata scene that kind of told me a
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little bit about the relationship that lowBerfido's actually created in this situation. And
we know how welcoming this clubhouse isanyways, so to have that happen,
I thought that was pretty cool.But it was really kind of funny to
watch the reaction. They were allsuper stoked about it, and they tried
to back it down to play thesilent treatment right, and it didn't go
as well as probably the hope becausethey were so happy about it. Yeah,
Alex Bregnant did the same thing thatyou were talking about with Kyle Tucker
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on social media, and he wasone of the players that was that spoke
after the game was pretty clear thatit is just more than he's a guy
on the team. There really isa good feeling for how he fits in
how he can clearly help this team. I was bringing it up yesterday in
conversation. The batting average with ballsin play is pretty much unsustainable. It's
at five hundred, and then yesterdayit went up because his only ball in
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play was that home run, orone of the two balls in play struck
out twice, So it actually wentup when he has found the baseball with
his bat basically fifty percent of thetime he's gotten a hit. Yeah,
there's gonna be swinging mess. We'veseen too many rookies come up here in
strikeout. So I'm not really andthe swing and miss because he's still learning.
I want to see him make adjustmentsand he doesn't get flustered by the
situation either when he does have astrikeout or two, he's still going up
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there and putting grade at bats together. I just thought it was kind of
ironic too that he hit it offa guy that he already had a home
run off of in the minor leagues, So it was kind of the perfect
storm, pardon the pun, whereyou actually had a chance to get to
the big league's face, a guythat you're comfortable a getst already have a
home run against, and he wentdown and took that change up into the
right field seat. So now he'skind of broken the seal. I'm curious
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to see what happens now, movingon that he finally has a feel for
that home run swing the back inthe lineup tonight. He will actually be
in a left field tonight. Spinningsome days off started to become a thing
for Joe. A spotted with someof the players that had been out there
every single day. Got one forAltuve last week, Cal Tucker got one.
Your on Alvarez will get one today. I would assume he's available,
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but he's not in the lineup tonight. As you noted with your pun,
I actually did text Vanessa last nightand was able to use literally, good
job weathering this storm out there,and a couple of things about what you
said on that home run, thatlow Perfido hit. If you recall earlier
in the week after Spencer again hegot his first his first major league win,
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he kind of noted that same philosophy. Well, I've seen these guys
for the last two or three yearsand the miners, so I had a
little bit of knowledge about these hitters, and I feel like low Perfido similarly
has seen obviously Estes in particular,but some of the players that he'll now
see for a team that's spinning throughtheir young players just trying to make it
through till they get to Sacramento,at Las Vega, wherever they're going to
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play. This is that, Imean, the whole situation's insane. I
give Mark Cootz. I went downthere and told him because I know him
relatively well, but I just said, hey, man, you're doing a
good job considering the chaos that's literallyright behind you. But one of the
things that shocked me about that hesaid, he goes, we're still trying
to find in everyday lineup, andit's just amazing to me that, you
know, with the situation off thefield being uncertain, there's still a lot
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of uncertainty as well as well asthey've played, there's still a ton of
uncertainty on the field. For noquestion about a few players that they probably
would like to keep. A oneplayer in particular, everybody else would like
to have. May have to talka little bit about what we saw from
him, luckily in just one appearanceduring this series, and I can go
reek havoc on the rest of themajors, as the A's arguably have the
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nastiest National League pitcher, maybe notAmerican League pitcher. Yes, we may
be watching the nastiest National League pitcherdo his thing right now. We'll touch
on that as well. Just gettingstarted here with full hour with Jeff Blum
here on a Friday from the ballparkhere on the eight team. Back to
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler, theeighty, the brew Crew and the Astros
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National League friends. Again. It'sbeen a while since the Brewers have here
been here to Minute May Park,twenty nineteen the last time they played here,
though the teams did play last year. Obviously, with the new schedule
they play everybody, so one ofthe National League foes they don't see very
often they will get to see afirst place in the National League Central.
We continue our conversation with Jeff Blum, the analyst on Space City Home Network.
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Throughout the last several seasons of Astrosexcellence, which certainly looks like it
might rapidly be reappearing here in twentytwenty four, found themselves behind everybody in
the division not that long ago.They and everybody else in baseball will probably
fly by the Los Angeles Angels asthey continue to play very bad baseball,
they'll be here next. And theOakland A's, who got off to a
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pretty reasonably good start all things considered, but now they're in the midst of
a long losing streak thanks to theAstros, who have now passed them.
The Mariners and the Rangers, theonly two left in front of them.
They've obviously closed the gap on them. During that twelve and six stretch.
For the Astros, They've made upat least two games on everybody in the
division, three or more on everybodybut the Mariners, and they'll obviously have
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three more series with them, twomore series with the Rangers, but the
Milwaukee Brewers in town tonight. HunterBrown gets the ball. Should the Astros
have given any thought to handing theball to somebody else first in an opener
situation in front of Hunter Brown?I actually I didn't ask it on air,
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but I internally and maybe in betweencommercial breaks when the season started and
the Astros are giving up, youknow, three runs every first inning of
every single game. I kind ofleaned over to TK at one point and
I was like, should we notmaybe try to get like hater in the
first hitting and just close out thefirst inning and then move on. But
I you're saying that because Hunter Brownas a starter has gotten roughed up a
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little bit. He's got a hugeRRA he's trying to work down from and
he actually worked down from it lasttime out when he did come in relief
and pitched a brilliant five innings.He went out there five innings, What
do you strike out seven or eightor something like that. It was crazy.
And now to that he gave upthe home run, but was really
never in a whole lot of trouble. Either he was striking out guys with
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different stuff or the same stuff he'shad all year, just properly or better
executed. I think it was betterexecuted. But at the same time,
I'm trying to think about how tosay this on air without getting us in
a lot of trouble. There's acertain name for a fastball. When you
feel that you've got a good oneand you don't think the other guy has
a chance of hitting it, soyou go out there and you just kind
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of say, you know what,can I say? Screw you, screw
you fastball. I'm gonna come afteryou and say, I don't think you
have a chance. And that's whatI kind of saw from Hunter Brown was
a little more, a little moreanger behind some of those pitches. So
he was hyper aggressive with the fastball, and I know it was a relief
outing, but he still went outthere and threw He went five innings,
he threw eighty five pitches, buthe was throwing the ball in the mid
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to upper nineties. He was backto kind of that old Hunter Brown that
we saw when we first broke intothe league in twenty twenty two, and
we saw some of that electricity.But to your point, the slider was
located much better, The curveball wasgetting down on the zone. We even
saw some splits mixed in there,which I thoroughly enjoyed because he was thrown
into the appropriate hitters on the lefthand side of the plate. But the
fastball for me, elevated started toblow the doors off some guys. It
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was fun to watch. It's prettyobvious the confidence was there, and that's
a lot of the mind game ofbeing a great pitcher or a successful pitcher
on any given afternoon, is there. He felt like they're not going to
hit my stuff. We have agood plan here there is a ton of
deception, and again going to themountain tonight with some confidence. The Astros,
despite not having Renault Blanco until thetwenty sixth, are able to now
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hopefully put together a string of starts. Good bounce back start from Justin Verlander
off of his only blow up thisyear. Obviously, last night was a
tremendous bounce back start for Christian Javierafter his lone blow up start. And
you mentioned that first inning. TheAstros have given up twenty eight runs or
fewer in every inning but one.Obviously it's that first inning. They've given
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up forty runs in the first they'reeighteen and twenty five and a majority of
them on the road too, unfortunately. So back here at Minute May Park,
where unoter Brown will throw the veryfirst pitch of the game. He's
got Victor Karattini behind him tonight he'lldo the catching as they continue to mix
him in quite a bit. Allit's a tough call for the manager when
he's so good off the bench.I know, seriously, when you know
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he's going to come in ramped up, but Joe's spot I recognizing and maybe
had that conversation with Hunter Brown saying, you know what, we're kind of
on the bubble. We don't knowwhat to do with a rotation. That's
and again this conversation was had beforethe issue with Renel Blanco. Now,
obviously you need Hunter Brown in thatrotation to cover that Renel Blanco start and
kind of give this rotation a legitfive starters because it might have been a
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situation where you move Hunter Brown tothe bullpen or you go to that six
man rotation and you have a plethoraof arms in that rotation to be able
to do it. But he's kindof being forced in there. But I
think that the conversation with Hunter Brownis we need to see you kind of
turn the corner a little bit andget back to who you are, because
if you can't figure it out here, we may have to make a very
tough decision on where you go,if not to the bullpen or to Triple
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A and try and figure it out. But Hunter Brown, you know I
had a chance. I kind ofI walked past him after that start,
and you just kind of gave himlike a little friendly shove, like,
good job, dude, way toturn it around. You looked great last
night. And he kind of turnedaround and he goes, he goes.
At some point I had to getback to me. And I think that
fastball and that aggressiveness and some ofthat, some of that mentality was great.
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And how about the fact he gotto do it in at home basically
where he went to school in WayneState, just down the street from that
Tiger stadium. He had friends andfamily in the stand, so it was
kind of a very comfortable, veryvery conducive environment to have him succeed.
So hopefully that carries over today.Yeah, helping the team, I'm sure
is a lot of part of itin what he had not been able to
do much of the year, justin the continuing that the options that this
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team might have. Let's say JoseArchidi goes through the next couple of steps,
which probably won't take much longer thanmaybe just this weekend, with a
right forearm strand that he's coming backfrom, with limitations on pitch count,
which I'm sure he'll still be onwhen he gets here. Would you think
a team would want him just tobe in the rotation because of that,
as in, we're going to putour kidy in the rotation to keep him
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on a proper set of rest daysand pitches versus he's a guy who will
just put in the bullpen to start, which might ultimately make the decision on
what you do with Hunter Brown maybeon the short term. Yeah, I
mean that's kind of tough because Ithink, you know, I agree with
the point I think you're getting tois like the routine coming back from an
injury for a starter might be thebest way to go because he knows how
to work through it instead of goingout to the bullpen and kind of being
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that question mark when am I gonnaplay? When am I going to pitch?
But at the same time, youcould also maybe piggyback those situations.
If you are going to limit apitch count on a guy like Jose Rakety,
just say, hey, you're gonnagive me five and sixty to seventy
pitches and after that we're going tobring in a Hunter Brown, or we're
going to bring in somebody who cangive us some length. But there are
some you know, they're gonna haveto be very creative with this rotation to
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protect, you know, protect Ronellewhen he comes back, because maybe he
won't be out to be able togo one hundred pitches, one hundred and
ten pitches when he comes back,and Rakeedy will have to ramp up depending
on how many rehabs starts he has, So you are gonna have to get
pretty creative if you're Josh Miller andJoe a spotted. But I like what
they're doing, and I like theway that this pitching staff is trending.
Because you're starting to get some ofthose lengthy starts. You would hate to
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throw a wrench into that and haveto use some of those other bridge guys
to find a way to get tothe back end of the bullpen. But
at the same time, you kindof dealt with some situations where you had
to stretch these guys out in thebullpen, And I know Joe appreciates the
effort, but he doesn't want toput that on every time they come out
and expect two innings out of everyguy that comes out of the bullpen.
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Yeah, getting seven innings out ofthe starter now twice in the last handful
of starts is obviously a huge thing. The work that Javier gave them not
seven innings, but man six sharpinnings. The kind of even without a
top flight fastball for him maybe alittle bit off what he normally throws.
He's still only two starts back,but extremely deceptive, tons of swings and
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misses. And to me, that'sbasically if that's what Javier is getting,
then that's the hobvier that the Astrosare gonna win with. Yeah, no,
absolutely, I agree with you.It is kind of interesting to see,
and I was really curious to watchthis. The velocity in that start
against Detroit was not good. Waseighty eight eighty nine. There wasn't much
life, the spin rates were waydown on that pitch. And then he
showed up here and pitched well.He pitches well in this ballpark to begin
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with, but he did get someof that swing and miss I think fourteen
swings and misses that night, andgave them some length. He was so
much more efficient. I think throughthirty or thirty five pitches, he had
twenty one strikes. It took himfifty pitches in that start in Detroit to
get to twenty one strikes. Soit just gives you an idea of how
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important it is to get in thezone, throw strikes and force that hitter
to react to your pitches and takecontrol of those at bats. And he
did just that and gave him length. I think it's encouraging for Javier to
know that he can be very efficientif necessary. Pitching coaches man, they
look good when the pitchers are doinggreat things. The manager, man,
he looks good when the players aregoing out there and doing what's expected.
It does the souch so many differentthings now, it's crazy. It's amazing.
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One season, a whole season ofthings already, and still roughly three
quarters of the season still left togo. Here at minute, Made Park,
game five of the ten game homestandthree against Milwaukee begin tonight, three
more against the Angels beginning on Monday, and the Astros are trying to extend
their winning streak from five to six. Jeff Blum here with us for the
hour, this first hour of theFriday Show here on the eighteen, Hey
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is coach Udoka Dear every Rockets gameon Sports Talk seven ninety and on the
iHeartRadio app home of your Rockets AppreciateAfter three thirty here on the eighteen,
Wexen. Jeff Blum here with you. I guess thirty three minutes into the
show. If you haven't figured itout, AC couldn't hack it. All
week took Friday Austin. You know, it's only it's one thing for MPT
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to make fun of them for notworking full shows, myself included. But
this week we had five full shows, all five leading into seven to ten
first pitches out here at Minute MayPark, which is pretty rare. No
Wednesday day game and five straight gamesat home throughout the week. We've given
you an Astros video every single goodmorning of the week, and that they're
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on a five game winning streak andback into National League Baseball with the Milwaukee
Brewers. Also, a familiar facewill hopefully not get a lot of use
out of his right arm. He'sthe third base coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Should be a familiar name to everybodyhere and yourself included. Jason Lane
returning to Yeah, pretty good spotfor him to be. I believe the
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pitcher is coaching third base. Now, do you regard him as a former
major league pitcher? No, Ionly remember him as a hitter. I
mean I've played with him and wealways made fun of him, like why
do you throw left handed? Hitright handed? But now we have Jake
Myers and Chas McCormick, so I'vegot to be a little more sensitive to
the situation just because it's a littlebit of an abnormality. But at the
same time, he always had agood arm from the outfield, put it
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on the mound, did some stuff, extended his career a little bit.
But now getting a chance to coachthird base, and he's really kind of
worked. You know, watching himwork his way through the ranks to earn
the opportunity to coach third base hasbeen a lot of fun to watch.
But he's one of the better teammates. He's one of the better dudes in
baseball, and it'll be fun tokind of catch up with him too.
Yeah, nine years into coaching,now fourth year here with the Brewers.
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They come to town again leading theway in the Central I mentioned the nastiest
pitcher in both leagues. Maybe anopportunity here to actually talk about them.
Saw Mason Miller of the Oakland A'spitch against the Astros for two games.
His numbers are insane, and theystill don't do justice to just sitting back
and watching him throw the baseball.You're exactly right, And that was one
of the things with the A's cominginto town is you know, Mason Miller,
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you know, Pops on the scenefor throwing one hundred and three miles
an hour. He abused a coupleof hitters up in Texas, and you're
starting to go, Wow, thisguy might have something, but the consistency
is what kind of blew you away. And then you're saying, Okay,
I've got to see this thing inperson. But to see how short of
time the ball is from the handto the glove is ridiculous. And then
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to see him throw strikes with it, throw dotted sliders down and away looks
fantastic. And the fact that hewas you know, he's out there for
two winnings kind of ridiculous. ButI think the number that that you try
to use to explain is he isstriking out I think fifty five percent of
the hitters he sees. That's unheardof. I think like the next closest
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guys like thirty five, forty percent. Maybe to be that far ahead and
strike out that many guys that yousee, that's insane. Yeah, I
mean there's thirty percent, man,this guy's good. Forty percent. This
guy's really good. It's out ofcontrol what he's been able to do.
And earlier today game's not over yet, but the Cubs are playing the Pirates.
(25:33):
The game's over for Paul Skeins,the former number one overall pick from
LSU. His second start in themajors. He's pitching at Wrigley Field.
He strikes out the first seven batters, takes a perfect game into the fifth,
finishes six innings with eleven strikeouts,and does not allow a hit on
his one hundred pitches, a handfulof which were into the triple digits.
(25:55):
Yep, this is it's definitely notbecoming the norm. But there are so
many guys who are just out ofcontrol. No, it's out of control
with the firepower. It's ridiculous.I don't know where the stat is.
I would love to look it up, but they you know, they start
when they started to track actual guysthat were throwing a hundred plus miles an
hour, or right at one hundredand then a little bit more, you
(26:18):
know, right around that Billy Wagnererow where you started to see maybe Billy
and one or two other guys startto get to the ninety six is ninety
sevens eventually touching one hundred. Butthe amount of pitch is thrown at one
hundred plus miles an hour this dayand age is absolutely incredible. But then
you have a starting pitcher come outand do that, throwing one hundred miles
an hour, it's even more ridiculousthe consistency. But then they have secondary
(26:41):
pitches. I think Schemes is throwinga secondary or split fingered fastball in ninety
four ninety five miles an hour,And I sit in the booth in my
seat, and I'm like, dude, this is the best seat in the
house to watch these guys go dothat, because I can talk about how
I would probably never touch it,and how impressed I am if guys even
fouled off. But it's pretty amazingto watch what some of this young talent
is doing. I wonder, youknow, you've got Hagen Smith out in
(27:03):
Arkansas, who's an upper nineties lefthanded pitcher, striking out fourteen aggies last
night. I wonder how you knowwith that, Paul skeens idea. I
wonder how closely these organizations are ingetting these guys to the big leagues as
quick as they possibly can to maximizetheir opportunities to use them before they blow
out twelve pitches at one hundred milesan hour or more. Twenty two swings
(27:26):
and misses and six innings of work. What the heck that sounds fun?
So that relates. That makes youthink of what right handed pitcher that you
faced any fun. Both of theseguys we talked about are thrown from the
right side. There's a good tenmiles an hour difference between those pitches you
were talking about from Schens today andthroughout his two major league starts. But
(27:49):
pitchers in as starters, like Iknow, the one hundred mile an hour
threshold from a starter is something youknow. Number thirty five here for the
Astros did quite a bit of duringhis career, and we marveled at it
when he'd be throwing pitch number ninetyone and tipping one hundred. But it
still doesn't It doesn't remind me ofthis vice versa. Yeah, the ability
to be able to do that,and if we did see a guy like
(28:11):
that back in the day, hedisappeared because he was unable to throw strikes.
That's what I remember about guys whowere high octane guys is they didn't
have the command that we're seeing froma Mason Miller or from a Paul skeins.
They're out there pounding the zone andyou have to out of the bullpen,
which is very tough and as astarter, to be consistently in the
zone with that kind of velocity isincredible to me. And you have to
have secondary pitches to be able toland, because big leagu hitters are good
(28:33):
enough to get to that if theysee it often enough. But at the
same time, the consistency is ridiculous. I think you're gonna see a lot
more of these guys if they dohave that kind of stuff in minor league
ball or high school or college.They're going to see them rushed up just
because you know that there's an injurygoing to happen. Because a lot of
the correlation between the Tommy John surgeriesis max effort, and these guys are
(28:59):
all max effort. I'm sure wecould probably find some video of many of
these pitchers that we know or don'tknow. Yeah, I face it through
a lot, That's what I askedyou. As I'm asking thinking, who
could this Kevin Brown was like inthe mid nineties, right, you know,
uh, guy a pitched from theCubs Carrie would He had high octane
and a nasty slider from hell.So that May sixth game that unfortunately every
(29:22):
May sixth we badly reminisce about,especially with the Astros first base coach here
in town. But he was throwingthe ball past Jack Howell and Derek Bell
and Ricky Gutierres, but more oftenthan not they were waving at it and
missing by five feet because it washis curve ball. That was insane.
No, it was insane, Andthat's exactly how Dave Clark describes it too.
(29:44):
He's just like there's guys that you'llfaith throughout the course of your career.
If you play long enough, you'regoing to face guys who have a
plus stuff and they're on and it. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily end up in
a no hitter or twenty strikeout game, but there are days where you go
up there and you're like, dude, I've got no chance against this guy.
I'm gonna sit on one pitch.I got to face Pedro Martinez in
his prime, and I tried togo up there with the approach of I'm
(30:04):
gonna sit fastball away and adjust.Dear god, I had no chance because
he had four legitimate pitches that movedall over the place in high velocities,
different shapes, and I didn't Ididn't have a fighting chance. I had
to sit on one pitch and hopehe threw it in the at back because
if he didn't, I was done. Some of that also is in the
pitcher's mind as well. He feelsthat way about if not all the hitters,
(30:25):
many of the hitters, they haveno chance. Yeah, Oh,
there's got to be moments like that. There were moments Royal's waalt would go
out there. I played behind JakePeeve and some of these guys where you
just kind of sat there and youjust waited for the You waited for the
throw around the diamond, just becausethe way that roy would get the ball
back for me throwing it to himfrom third base, he would just grab
it and just give you that littlehead nod and he would immediately get on
the mount and go because he knewthe way the ball was coming out of
(30:48):
his hand that the opposing team hadno chance, and if they did put
it in play, it wasn't gonnabe hit hard enough. It was gonna
be a tough play for any ofus. Just a couple of Savannah bananas
doing there right. How crazy.Is that still got it? How do
they still do it? I talkedto Josh Reddick about that another one.
He's like, I stood in thereand he got walked. But I'm like,
man, I go if they anduh, Roger Clemens came out there,
(31:10):
I guess he gave up a fourhundred foot bomb or whatever. He
gave up a pretty good chat.But who cares. The guy's what fifty
somethings. Yeah. I could barelyget my shoulder above my you know,
my arm above my shoulder to beable to do a workout, and they're
throwing. They're up there throwing andcompeting. Roy That was That was actually,
I know, a great time forthe fans that were in attendance.
I had a chance to watch thatas was happening as well. It's amazing.
(31:33):
Uh. But ye, the wayhe was as an astro, he's
this little spindly guy. He hewas one of the few power pitchers,
certainly in that body, but alsoone of the few power pitchers like Nolan
and for most of his career likeJustin that really never ran into the injuries
either because everything mechanically with what hedid was so repeatable and he was so
good at it. He managed tostay away from all that. No,
(31:56):
it was really amazing. It's actuallyan incredible point to bring up those three
guys. We know Justin Verlander hadthe Tommy John surgery, but that was,
you know, later in his careerat thirty seven, thirty eight years
old. Roy the only issues Ireally feel like he had was with that
groin because he got so much pushgoing downhill that he created so much separation
between his feet that had put alot of stress and eventually he was having
(32:19):
issues with that. But to armwise, you talk about guys that were Abe
Nolan, the repeatable delivery and consistencyin the delivery is what is amazing.
And I feel like when you're tryingto throw one hundred miles an hour every
time, you might have a littlebit of a breakdown in that delivery just
because you're trying to be so violentdownhill. Those guys were violent, but
it was a controlled violence. Somuch fun talking about some of these guys,
(32:40):
and obviously some of these current playerswill be in that position many years
down the road. Another great opportunityhere for the astros at home. Great
opportunity for you, the kids whenthey're at home. Your wife AC's talking
about it all the time here.The Astros obviously a big part of the
Exfinity family, and I know youare as well and enjoy everything that they
(33:00):
help provide you as you prefer allthese ball games. Yeah, thankfully.
Yes, it's always nice to haveit's on turbo speed when the girls are
at school because it's just my wifeand I. But at the same time,
I will be prepping for a game, watching golf, and I've got
Exfinity just kind of being a littlebit overused, and we've got walla wall
WiFi. My wife can be upstairsor downstairs in her office. I'll be
(33:20):
upstairs in the theater watching everything,and everything's streaming smooth. I'm able to
download all the notes that I'm ableto get to. But now even more,
having six people in that house justgrinding away on the Internet. I'm
grateful that Exfinity is there with theirwall to wall WiFi. Exfinity doing it
for them, they can do itfor you as well. Much more.
With Jeff Plum here on the Ateam still to come, the unauthorized Teuston
(33:43):
sports hake down continues because every timeyou say something that's not true You're gonna
get hit. We now return toAdam Clinton and Adam Wexwerth the A team
on Sports Talk seven nineteen. That'sright, Wexy. Every every time I
come on, that song should beplaying to roll out, And I know
(34:04):
you appreciate that because you love walkup songs. Well, that's like in
the fact that you are giving aperformance nearly every single night all year on
TV. Why right before TK,you know, throws it to you for
your analysis in that opening sepment,why is there no walk up music?
There should be and you can evenslide in. Well, you know there's
a certain entity that's not gonna paythe money to play that song. Uh
(34:29):
yeah, but no, you knowwhat instead? You know, I remember
that movie Gone in six Gone insixty seconds with Nicholas Cage and they play
the Lowrider and then he goes,let's ride. That's a little more typical
of our start to the game.That makes more sense. That's certainly something
that could be executed. I needto just play it right before we come
out of break and just hype everybodyup. How you like that? Time?
(34:51):
You like that? TK? Youready, Let's have one were going
tonight. Let's start pushing them aroundand match bit in the booth, Hunter
Brown, Freddy Parol on the mountain, and I Freddy Peralta kind of to
me at least tail two seasons.First four starts he was insanely effective ERA
under two. Last four starts inERA in the mid fives, he's hit
(35:13):
five batters this season. I reallyonly bring that up A because it's near
the top of the league. There'sonly a couple of pitchers, two pitchers
that have hit more, and Bbecause one of the hit batters came and
probably the game. He had hisbest stuff when he threw that one hitter
against the Rays, but got ejectedfor plunking our guy, Jose Siri.
And I say plunking, and Iuse that word specifically because that's what you
(35:36):
say when you throw at someone intentionally, and that's what Paralta did. I
thought it was great. I mean, he threw it with purpose. He
did it. You didn't. Imean the umpires took it upon themselves.
They were probably right that they werethrowing at Jose Siri after pimping that home
run, but the two individuals thatwere involved also didn't do anything about it.
At you know, Yeah, itwas going to they were just gonna
(35:58):
move on. Yeah, and thenother people helped to escalate the situation.
Yes, it definitely was a lotmore going on. That was a ground
I thought it was appropriate, ButI mean that's how you kind of police
yourself. At the same time,the umpires don't want it to escalate and
become more. But what I thinka lot of people don't understand is that
it won't become more because you gotit out of the way. And I
think if you're on a team withJose Siri, you're like, this is
(36:21):
our guy. This is what he'sgonna do, and as long as they
hit him and not me or WEX, we're good. Yeah. I mean
he's clearly I wish he's having somuch fun. If he doesn't know if
you're Freddy Peralta or John Jones orBiff Johnson, he doesn't know who you
are. He's not doing it toyou or to your team. He's doing
(36:43):
it for himself and for his team, and he's always done it that way.
Most of me. John Singleton ispretty emphatic with some of the things
he does at the plate for thevery same reason and the very same thought
behind. This has nothing to dowith the other team. He's not showing
them up. They don't need tostare him down when he's very slowly beginning
his job down to first base.Yeah, there's something for consistency, right
(37:05):
like that, like certain guys docertain things. You know, it is
what it is. I mean,we're in a day and age now where
you know, you don't have theRicky Henderson's where he bat flipped his walks
and go down there. But it'sall a part of the show. And
everybody has their own show. Youknow. Kyle Tucker's got his bat flip.
You know it's just But if you'regonna smoke a guy, I think
he did it right. He hithim right in the rib cage. Didn't
(37:28):
go up and in towards the heador the shoulder and scare anybody. He
didn't hit him in the foot orin the ankle trying to break anything.
He just hit him and said,you know what, we recognize you got
that ball. We recognize a littlepimp job. We didn't appreciate it.
So I'm just gonna let you.I'm gonna leave this little black and blue
on your on your hip and we'llmove on. But like you said,
other other players got involved and expresstheir displeasure with Jose Siri. You brought
(37:51):
up Kyle Tucker is a very good, purposeful bat, flipper when warranted,
also hitting the ball over the fencequite a bit this year. Do you
did you forecast this would happen atsome point in his career because he seems
his swing seemed destined, especially withthis park and the park still playing,
he was gonna be much more ofa home run hitter than quite honestly,
he's shown to be. And thisyear maybe is the year it manifests.
(38:15):
I guess it really could, becauseI think we're kind of seeing the both
sides of Kyle Tucker. He's reallycommanded the zone. He's got more walks
than strikeouts this season, and he'sproviding the power, which is kind of
a unique combination to be able tohave a guy driving the ball out of
the ballpark and still being able tocommand that zone and not strike out.
But we saw in this series too, I don't know if you recognize,
(38:37):
but the first couple of games he'dgot base hits going the other way,
So it kind of told me thathe's like, Okay, I might be
opening up a little bit too much. I've got five extra base hits in
a row or whatever. That wasAlex bragmant, but he had that string
of all of his six hits wereall home runs, and he might have
said, I got to dial itback a little bit and stay under control
and pick my spots when I startto go into launch mode. But that
(38:59):
dude is his long as I've everseen. And yeah, I've expected this
from Kyle Tucker, but I wantto see a little more national attention brought
to Kyle Tucker. That's the onething that I've always been frustrated with Kyle
Tucker. Everybody's like, Wow,Kyle Tucker's having a year. I'm like,
go back and look at the numbers. I'm like, We've seen months
of this from Kyle Tucker. It'sno shock to us. Maybe the fact
that he's driving the ball out ofthe ballpark a little bit more, but
(39:21):
at the same time, we've knownthat that talent is a part of who
Kyle Tucker is. He's now justcommanding the zone that much better to put
up bigger numbers. There is oneplayer in the American League with an OPS
of one thousand or better. Iknow him it's Kyle Tucker. It is
a man on an island in thatstratosphere right now in the American League.
(39:42):
He has had a great start tothe season. Obviously, will be out
there again tonight or Alvarez has theday off. We've got more to discuss
here, Jeff. Always great foryou to spend the hour with our listeners
here on Sports Talk seven to nine, and great for the people that make
it possible. Yeah, it's JeffWitz. It's Vision Group. They are
fantastic. Obviously, they will takecare of all of your I needs cataract
surgery, LASIK. They are thestate of the art facility. And the
(40:05):
best part about Jeff Witz at DoctorJeff wits It is the fact that if
you make an appointment to go inand see how he can help, he
will visit with you personally. Soit's a very personal Jeff Witze to be
able to take care of your eyesight. And then, of course low T
Center. Huge fan of lo TCenter, just in the fact that they
take care of my health post careerand they want to make sure that men
are performing at their best both onand off the field, whatever it may
(40:28):
be. And the beauty of thatis the convenience. Fifteen minute ten to
fifteen minutes you're gonna go in.You can get a blood test done.
They have testing on site and thenif not, they will just give you
a shot and make sure that yourlevels are appropriate. Go to low tcenter
dot com. Always good being onwith you. Wex great stuff. To
get our weekend underway, the Brewersin town for three, the Angels will
close out a ten game homestand inthe Astros so far, well they've won
(40:51):
them all. We got the gamefor you tonight. They've got it of
course on Space City Home Network aswell. And we will continue here into
our number two from the ballpark ona Friday
You look at it, look atus. Oh yeah, this is radio.
You listened to it on Sports Talkseven ninety Astros broadcaster Jeff Blom on
seven ninety is brought to you bylow T Center. Hopefully a very pleasant
Friday afternoon for one and all.We are back at the ballpark. The
(00:24):
Astros welcome in a new opponent,their last opponent unable to beat them a
five game winning streak and four gamesinto this ten game homestand we say hello
to Astros broadcasters from Say City HomeNetwork there, analyst Jeff Blom. Great
to have you in here with usafter what took place these first four games,
probably most notably what took place lastnight in and around our city and
(00:46):
inside this ballpark, among other things. But that was that was interesting as
things got underway last night with peoplearriving with water joining us inside the ballpark
and talked to some people around here, as I'm sure you have as well,
and we've both been in ballpark manymany times over the last couple of
decades. It's not crazy that waterfinds its way in here. But it
(01:07):
was a little bit windier than usuallast night. It was really bizarre,
to be honest with you because Iwas you know, I live out in
Katie's, so you know, wegot a little bit of the storm to
begin with, and I felt likeI kind of chased it as it came
here through Houston, and all ofa sudden things started to develop a little
bit, and right about six thirtysix forty five started to see that the
flags in center field were just halling. They were stiff as a board,
(01:29):
straight shooting right towards the left fieldfoul pole. And then you started to
see the mist of the rain comingthrough, and that's a first for me.
I've never seen the rain come throughlike that. And then, of
course, yet we know if there'senough rain, there's gonna be some leaks
in the roof, just part ofthe game and how the roof is is
constructed. But at the same time, watching poor Vanessa Richardson do the pregame
(01:49):
as the water is literally pouring ontoher right arm, I was like,
she's way better than I am,number one, number two. How can
we can't move her out of theway, Let her stand up and kind
of scoot towards Michael Bourne, whowasn't getting a drop. Can you have
Vanessa stay on her mark, please? Well, that's all I thought about,
dude. I was thinking about thatpiece of tape. It's on the
desk, and it was like,don't move, like the camera will move
(02:12):
in that situation if you have to. But yeah, she was a trooper
through that. But it's the Thebizarre thing to me is we set in
that booth, had a great timecalling the game, cracking jokes like we
normally do, watching the astros goto work, and meanwhile, outside of
this particular dome, life was inthreat. It was crazy to me.
(02:34):
Yeah, downtown obviously was the centerof a lot of activity because of the
wind whipping through the buildings and windowsand other things that took place. This
was one of the areas that obviouslytook some damaged schools, many of them
out today, including the schools thatmy kid goes to. So you had
a three day weekend out of it. That's because so many other schools aren't
even sure when their power and setup will be back to normal, hopefully
by Monday, as they start towind down their school year, which usually
(02:58):
does coincide with Okay, well it'ssummertime, it's baseball. The kids can
now come to the ballpark all thetime, and the Astros are in the
midst of this ten game homestand they'vewon five in a row, as I've
been calling it since they played Gameone in Colorado, the Mexico reboot for
the Astros this season. If yourecall, Jordan Alvarez was among the players
that said, well, we godown to Mexico City and they introduce us
(03:21):
and to all the fans there,and it's like kind of felt weird,
like the beginning of the season.So I've absolutely taken that and run with
it. They're twelve and six sincethe Mexico reboots, starting with those two
wins, and now five consecutive wins. And I was talking with somebody with
the Astros earlier today, the waythey're getting some of these wins, finding
runs, getting hits seven, eight, nine in the order last night,
(03:43):
bing bang boom and it's six nothingso good scoring early and off. And
I really liked the way that thatseries against the A's went. I was
going to take full credit for thebird being the one that turned the sambird
on that was sitting on the windowssell when we were calling games in Detroit,
but that series against Oakland was alot of fun. To watch.
It's just because we knew they hadto go out there and beat them.
At that time, the A's werethe better team technically record geez liluiz need
(04:11):
a drink. But they went outand blow them out, you know,
nine to two in the first game, and then they went three to nothing
the next game, the Renel Blancomadness, and then you had to go
through your bullpen. Your bullpen shutout the rest of the way, allowed
you to go out there and winthat game. Then they want to tight
when the next day with Steth Martinezpicking up the w or the save,
and then you go out there andblow them out again. I thought it
(04:31):
was great because the pitching is whatneeds to come around for the Astros.
We know the offense is going tobe there all year long. They started
to drive the ball out of theballpark with runners on, so you started
to see some of those big homeruns. But they were also driving guys
in from third less than two outs, and that's probably one of the biggest
things for me because anytime you cantack on a run or get a run
back, if you're trying to comeback in the game in an easy RBI
situation like that you need to takeadvantage of it. But for me,
(04:54):
the pitching staff has been the storyturning things around. Probably not too many
games this year back to back,probably none where the Astros needed only four
arms to get fifty four outs.They needed two arms obviously in the Framberg
game you mentioned the Martinez say theyneeded two arms. Yesterday with Calvier getting
the first eighteen outs on just eightypitches, and then Sean Dubin in what
(05:15):
has become an ongoing story for theAstros this year, we really need you
today and he got nine outs forthem, and then we really need you
or a roster spot the next day, as things go for this team.
But he was a huge effort forhim to get them out of that game
and give everybody that had been spentprior to the Framber start the rest they
needed to reset things up for aseries against a first place team. Yeah,
(05:38):
that's probably the biggest thing about whatDubin and what Seth Martinez have done
is the fact that they've actually setup this bullpen for this game because we
were looking at a possibility where JoshHader threw two innings in a previous game,
and that was looking to come backout and possibly get a save in
a situation where they needed it witha three run lead against the Oakland A's,
but Seth Martinez was able to workthrough that and allow him night off.
(06:00):
So the Astros are in a verygood situation with Hunter Brown coming into
this game against the Milwaukee Brewers.Should be a really good matchup because the
pitching is good for the Milwaukee Brewers, but you've got two of the top
five offenses in all of baseball.Are gonna go at it right here and
hopefully the pitching holds up. Pitchingis held up well these last two games.
Again, that's part of the reasonwhy the Astros are in such good
(06:21):
shape. We know the situation withRenel Blanco allowed to continue working as he
has. Jeff stepped onto the fieldright here, getting ready to go out
there and get some throws in forhis return, which is still nine days
away as he serves his ten gamesuspension. This around the time each and
every Friday when the Astros are athome, we get to witness basically the
rehab crew go through their stuff.Penn Murphy, Lance McCullers, Junior Luis
(06:45):
Garcia and Jose Erkeaty or Keaty isgetting close to no longer being a part
of this quartet. He'll have anotherrehab appearance this weekend and could possibly be
ready to rejoin this team after that. Chas McCormick set to play against today
for the core Christy Hooks and thenhe could make his return. I wouldn't
have thought this when the season began, but before Jose Abreu homerd, before
(07:09):
Chas McCormick homered Joey low Perfido homerun number one. Isn't that crazy think
about that. Chas McCormick is basicallygiven that leftfield job. It just wasn't
able to adjust to what pitchers weredoing to him, and then the hamstring
issue. He was trying to playthrough that entire situation before eventually he figured
out that it was probably a littlebit better to go on the shelf and
make sure that that thing gets healthybefore he tries to work through all that
(07:30):
situation. But in the meantime,it gave the opportunity to call up you
know that the Astros arguably best prospect. We know Spencer Aarrigetty's already here,
but the best prospect in as faras position players concerned for the Astros.
Finally got his home run yesterday.I liked how he carried himself up until
that point, because the expectation was, you hit thirteen home runs in the
(07:50):
month of April, you're just gonnashow up here in the big leagues,
start raking balls out of the ballpark. But he got some hits, put
together some good at bats, andfinally got that home run. Okay,
so the ball comes in, heleans down and he smacks. It doesn't
go fifty rows deep, but hefeels like it's going out. What's the
best part of that homer? Thereaction you can see behind him because the
(08:11):
dugouts behind him, they almost immediatelyjump in the air. He gets to
give a little bit of a batflip, he gets to look into the
dugout as he's running down the firstbase line. When he gets back into
the dugout, there's so many options. What's the best part. I think
the best part was waking up today. I don't follow too many guys on
Instagram, but I followed Kyle Tuckerand he posted the video of the home
(08:33):
run special. That was kind ofcool, you know, I mean for
a rookie. I mean I don'tknow how it works in the social media
world having never played. I mean, I played through it, but it
wasn't like there was an expectation thatall, my boy better post that video.
Think Morgan Ensburg was posting Jeff Blumthrilling plays down at third base,
and I don't think he was expectingme to do the same for him,
you know. So, but thata scene that kind of told me a
(08:56):
little bit about the relationship that lowBerfido's actually created in this situation. And
we know how welcoming this clubhouse isanyways, so to have that happen,
I thought that was pretty cool.But it was really kind of funny to
watch the reaction. They were allsuper stoked about it, and they tried
to back it down to play thesilent treatment right, and it didn't go
as well as probably the hope becausethey were so happy about it. Yeah,
Alex Bregnant did the same thing thatyou were talking about with Kyle Tucker
(09:20):
on social media, and he wasone of the players that was that spoke
after the game was pretty clear thatit is just more than he's a guy
on the team. There really isa good feeling for how he fits in
how he can clearly help this team. I was bringing it up yesterday in
conversation. The batting average with ballsin play is pretty much unsustainable. It's
at five hundred, and then yesterdayit went up because his only ball in
(09:43):
play was that home run, orone of the two balls in play struck
out twice, So it actually wentup when he has found the baseball with
his bat basically fifty percent of thetime he's gotten a hit. Yeah,
there's gonna be swinging mess. We'veseen too many rookies come up here in
strikeout. So I'm not really andthe swing and miss because he's still learning.
I want to see him make adjustmentsand he doesn't get flustered by the
situation either when he does have astrikeout or two, he's still going up
(10:07):
there and putting grade at bats together. I just thought it was kind of
ironic too that he hit it offa guy that he already had a home
run off of in the minor leagues, So it was kind of the perfect
storm, pardon the pun, whereyou actually had a chance to get to
the big league's face, a guythat you're comfortable a getst already have a
home run against, and he wentdown and took that change up into the
right field seat. So now he'skind of broken the seal. I'm curious
(10:28):
to see what happens now, movingon that he finally has a feel for
that home run swing the back inthe lineup tonight. He will actually be
in a left field tonight. Spinningsome days off started to become a thing
for Joe. A spotted with someof the players that had been out there
every single day. Got one forAltuve last week, Cal Tucker got one.
Your on Alvarez will get one today. I would assume he's available,
(10:50):
but he's not in the lineup tonight. As you noted with your pun,
I actually did text Vanessa last nightand was able to use literally, good
job weathering this storm out there,and a couple of things about what you
said on that home run, thatlow Perfido hit. If you recall earlier
in the week after Spencer again hegot his first his first major league win,
(11:11):
he kind of noted that same philosophy. Well, I've seen these guys
for the last two or three yearsand the miners, so I had a
little bit of knowledge about these hitters, and I feel like low Perfido similarly
has seen obviously Estes in particular,but some of the players that he'll now
see for a team that's spinning throughtheir young players just trying to make it
through till they get to Sacramento,at Las Vega, wherever they're going to
(11:33):
play. This is that, Imean, the whole situation's insane. I
give Mark Cootz. I went downthere and told him because I know him
relatively well, but I just said, hey, man, you're doing a
good job considering the chaos that's literallyright behind you. But one of the
things that shocked me about that hesaid, he goes, we're still trying
to find in everyday lineup, andit's just amazing to me that, you
know, with the situation off thefield being uncertain, there's still a lot
(11:54):
of uncertainty as well as well asthey've played, there's still a ton of
uncertainty on the field. For noquestion about a few players that they probably
would like to keep. A oneplayer in particular, everybody else would like
to have. May have to talka little bit about what we saw from
him, luckily in just one appearanceduring this series, and I can go
reek havoc on the rest of themajors, as the A's arguably have the
(12:16):
nastiest National League pitcher, maybe notAmerican League pitcher. Yes, we may
be watching the nastiest National League pitcherdo his thing right now. We'll touch
on that as well. Just gettingstarted here with full hour with Jeff Blum
here on a Friday from the ballparkhere on the eight team. Back to
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler, theeighty, the brew Crew and the Astros
(12:43):
National League friends. Again. It'sbeen a while since the Brewers have here
been here to Minute May Park,twenty nineteen the last time they played here,
though the teams did play last year. Obviously, with the new schedule
they play everybody, so one ofthe National League foes they don't see very
often they will get to see afirst place in the National League Central.
We continue our conversation with Jeff Blum, the analyst on Space City Home Network.
(13:05):
Throughout the last several seasons of Astrosexcellence, which certainly looks like it
might rapidly be reappearing here in twentytwenty four, found themselves behind everybody in
the division not that long ago.They and everybody else in baseball will probably
fly by the Los Angeles Angels asthey continue to play very bad baseball,
they'll be here next. And theOakland A's, who got off to a
(13:28):
pretty reasonably good start all things considered, but now they're in the midst of
a long losing streak thanks to theAstros, who have now passed them.
The Mariners and the Rangers, theonly two left in front of them.
They've obviously closed the gap on them. During that twelve and six stretch.
For the Astros, They've made upat least two games on everybody in the
division, three or more on everybodybut the Mariners, and they'll obviously have
(13:48):
three more series with them, twomore series with the Rangers, but the
Milwaukee Brewers in town tonight. HunterBrown gets the ball. Should the Astros
have given any thought to handing theball to somebody else first in an opener
situation in front of Hunter Brown?I actually I didn't ask it on air,
(14:09):
but I internally and maybe in betweencommercial breaks when the season started and
the Astros are giving up, youknow, three runs every first inning of
every single game. I kind ofleaned over to TK at one point and
I was like, should we notmaybe try to get like hater in the
first hitting and just close out thefirst inning and then move on. But
I you're saying that because Hunter Brownas a starter has gotten roughed up a
(14:31):
little bit. He's got a hugeRRA he's trying to work down from and
he actually worked down from it lasttime out when he did come in relief
and pitched a brilliant five innings.He went out there five innings, What
do you strike out seven or eightor something like that. It was crazy.
And now to that he gave upthe home run, but was really
never in a whole lot of trouble. Either he was striking out guys with
(14:52):
different stuff or the same stuff he'shad all year, just properly or better
executed. I think it was betterexecuted. But at the same time,
I'm trying to think about how tosay this on air without getting us in
a lot of trouble. There's acertain name for a fastball. When you
feel that you've got a good oneand you don't think the other guy has
a chance of hitting it, soyou go out there and you just kind
(15:13):
of say, you know what,can I say? Screw you, screw
you fastball. I'm gonna come afteryou and say, I don't think you
have a chance. And that's whatI kind of saw from Hunter Brown was
a little more, a little moreanger behind some of those pitches. So
he was hyper aggressive with the fastball, and I know it was a relief
outing, but he still went outthere and threw He went five innings,
he threw eighty five pitches, buthe was throwing the ball in the mid
(15:35):
to upper nineties. He was backto kind of that old Hunter Brown that
we saw when we first broke intothe league in twenty twenty two, and
we saw some of that electricity.But to your point, the slider was
located much better, The curveball wasgetting down on the zone. We even
saw some splits mixed in there,which I thoroughly enjoyed because he was thrown
into the appropriate hitters on the lefthand side of the plate. But the
fastball for me, elevated started toblow the doors off some guys. It
(15:58):
was fun to watch. It's prettyobvious the confidence was there, and that's
a lot of the mind game ofbeing a great pitcher or a successful pitcher
on any given afternoon, is there. He felt like they're not going to
hit my stuff. We have agood plan here there is a ton of
deception, and again going to themountain tonight with some confidence. The Astros,
despite not having Renault Blanco until thetwenty sixth, are able to now
(16:19):
hopefully put together a string of starts. Good bounce back start from Justin Verlander
off of his only blow up thisyear. Obviously, last night was a
tremendous bounce back start for Christian Javierafter his lone blow up start. And
you mentioned that first inning. TheAstros have given up twenty eight runs or
fewer in every inning but one.Obviously it's that first inning. They've given
(16:40):
up forty runs in the first they'reeighteen and twenty five and a majority of
them on the road too, unfortunately. So back here at Minute May Park,
where unoter Brown will throw the veryfirst pitch of the game. He's
got Victor Karattini behind him tonight he'lldo the catching as they continue to mix
him in quite a bit. Allit's a tough call for the manager when
he's so good off the bench.I know, seriously, when you know
(17:03):
he's going to come in ramped up, but Joe's spot I recognizing and maybe
had that conversation with Hunter Brown saying, you know what, we're kind of
on the bubble. We don't knowwhat to do with a rotation. That's
and again this conversation was had beforethe issue with Renel Blanco. Now,
obviously you need Hunter Brown in thatrotation to cover that Renel Blanco start and
kind of give this rotation a legitfive starters because it might have been a
(17:26):
situation where you move Hunter Brown tothe bullpen or you go to that six
man rotation and you have a plethoraof arms in that rotation to be able
to do it. But he's kindof being forced in there. But I
think that the conversation with Hunter Brownis we need to see you kind of
turn the corner a little bit andget back to who you are, because
if you can't figure it out here, we may have to make a very
tough decision on where you go,if not to the bullpen or to Triple
(17:49):
A and try and figure it out. But Hunter Brown, you know I
had a chance. I kind ofI walked past him after that start,
and you just kind of gave himlike a little friendly shove, like,
good job, dude, way toturn it around. You looked great last
night. And he kind of turnedaround and he goes, he goes.
At some point I had to getback to me. And I think that
fastball and that aggressiveness and some ofthat, some of that mentality was great.
(18:11):
And how about the fact he gotto do it in at home basically
where he went to school in WayneState, just down the street from that
Tiger stadium. He had friends andfamily in the stand, so it was
kind of a very comfortable, veryvery conducive environment to have him succeed.
So hopefully that carries over today.Yeah, helping the team, I'm sure
is a lot of part of itin what he had not been able to
do much of the year, justin the continuing that the options that this
(18:34):
team might have. Let's say JoseArchidi goes through the next couple of steps,
which probably won't take much longer thanmaybe just this weekend, with a
right forearm strand that he's coming backfrom, with limitations on pitch count,
which I'm sure he'll still be onwhen he gets here. Would you think
a team would want him just tobe in the rotation because of that,
as in, we're going to putour kidy in the rotation to keep him
(18:56):
on a proper set of rest daysand pitches versus he's a guy who will
just put in the bullpen to start, which might ultimately make the decision on
what you do with Hunter Brown maybeon the short term. Yeah, I
mean that's kind of tough because Ithink, you know, I agree with
the point I think you're getting tois like the routine coming back from an
injury for a starter might be thebest way to go because he knows how
to work through it instead of goingout to the bullpen and kind of being
(19:18):
that question mark when am I gonnaplay? When am I going to pitch?
But at the same time, youcould also maybe piggyback those situations.
If you are going to limit apitch count on a guy like Jose Rakety,
just say, hey, you're gonnagive me five and sixty to seventy
pitches and after that we're going tobring in a Hunter Brown, or we're
going to bring in somebody who cangive us some length. But there are
some you know, they're gonna haveto be very creative with this rotation to
(19:41):
protect, you know, protect Ronellewhen he comes back, because maybe he
won't be out to be able togo one hundred pitches, one hundred and
ten pitches when he comes back,and Rakeedy will have to ramp up depending
on how many rehabs starts he has, So you are gonna have to get
pretty creative if you're Josh Miller andJoe a spotted. But I like what
they're doing, and I like theway that this pitching staff is trending.
Because you're starting to get some ofthose lengthy starts. You would hate to
(20:03):
throw a wrench into that and haveto use some of those other bridge guys
to find a way to get tothe back end of the bullpen. But
at the same time, you kindof dealt with some situations where you had
to stretch these guys out in thebullpen, And I know Joe appreciates the
effort, but he doesn't want toput that on every time they come out
and expect two innings out of everyguy that comes out of the bullpen.
(20:25):
Yeah, getting seven innings out ofthe starter now twice in the last handful
of starts is obviously a huge thing. The work that Javier gave them not
seven innings, but man six sharpinnings. The kind of even without a
top flight fastball for him maybe alittle bit off what he normally throws.
He's still only two starts back,but extremely deceptive, tons of swings and
(20:45):
misses. And to me, that'sbasically if that's what Javier is getting,
then that's the hobvier that the Astrosare gonna win with. Yeah, no,
absolutely, I agree with you.It is kind of interesting to see,
and I was really curious to watchthis. The velocity in that start
against Detroit was not good. Waseighty eight eighty nine. There wasn't much
life, the spin rates were waydown on that pitch. And then he
showed up here and pitched well.He pitches well in this ballpark to begin
(21:07):
with, but he did get someof that swing and miss I think fourteen
swings and misses that night, andgave them some length. He was so
much more efficient. I think throughthirty or thirty five pitches, he had
twenty one strikes. It took himfifty pitches in that start in Detroit to
get to twenty one strikes. Soit just gives you an idea of how
(21:29):
important it is to get in thezone, throw strikes and force that hitter
to react to your pitches and takecontrol of those at bats. And he
did just that and gave him length. I think it's encouraging for Javier to
know that he can be very efficientif necessary. Pitching coaches man, they
look good when the pitchers are doinggreat things. The manager, man,
he looks good when the players aregoing out there and doing what's expected.
It does the souch so many differentthings now, it's crazy. It's amazing.
(21:52):
One season, a whole season ofthings already, and still roughly three
quarters of the season still left togo. Here at minute, Made Park,
game five of the ten game homestandthree against Milwaukee begin tonight, three
more against the Angels beginning on Monday, and the Astros are trying to extend
their winning streak from five to six. Jeff Blum here with us for the
hour, this first hour of theFriday Show here on the eighteen, Hey
(22:15):
is coach Udoka Dear every Rockets gameon Sports Talk seven ninety and on the
iHeartRadio app home of your Rockets AppreciateAfter three thirty here on the eighteen,
Wexen. Jeff Blum here with you. I guess thirty three minutes into the
show. If you haven't figured itout, AC couldn't hack it. All
week took Friday Austin. You know, it's only it's one thing for MPT
(22:38):
to make fun of them for notworking full shows, myself included. But
this week we had five full shows, all five leading into seven to ten
first pitches out here at Minute MayPark, which is pretty rare. No
Wednesday day game and five straight gamesat home throughout the week. We've given
you an Astros video every single goodmorning of the week, and that they're
(23:00):
on a five game winning streak andback into National League Baseball with the Milwaukee
Brewers. Also, a familiar facewill hopefully not get a lot of use
out of his right arm. He'sthe third base coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Should be a familiar name to everybodyhere and yourself included. Jason Lane
returning to Yeah, pretty good spotfor him to be. I believe the
(23:22):
pitcher is coaching third base. Now, do you regard him as a former
major league pitcher? No, Ionly remember him as a hitter. I
mean I've played with him and wealways made fun of him, like why
do you throw left handed? Hitright handed? But now we have Jake
Myers and Chas McCormick, so I'vegot to be a little more sensitive to
the situation just because it's a littlebit of an abnormality. But at the
same time, he always had agood arm from the outfield, put it
(23:44):
on the mound, did some stuff, extended his career a little bit.
But now getting a chance to coachthird base, and he's really kind of
worked. You know, watching himwork his way through the ranks to earn
the opportunity to coach third base hasbeen a lot of fun to watch.
But he's one of the better teammates. He's one of the better dudes in
baseball, and it'll be fun tokind of catch up with him too.
Yeah, nine years into coaching,now fourth year here with the Brewers.
(24:06):
They come to town again leading theway in the Central I mentioned the nastiest
pitcher in both leagues. Maybe anopportunity here to actually talk about them.
Saw Mason Miller of the Oakland A'spitch against the Astros for two games.
His numbers are insane, and theystill don't do justice to just sitting back
and watching him throw the baseball.You're exactly right, And that was one
of the things with the A's cominginto town is you know, Mason Miller,
(24:30):
you know, Pops on the scenefor throwing one hundred and three miles
an hour. He abused a coupleof hitters up in Texas, and you're
starting to go, Wow, thisguy might have something, but the consistency
is what kind of blew you away. And then you're saying, Okay,
I've got to see this thing inperson. But to see how short of
time the ball is from the handto the glove is ridiculous. And then
(24:51):
to see him throw strikes with it, throw dotted sliders down and away looks
fantastic. And the fact that hewas you know, he's out there for
two winnings kind of ridiculous. ButI think the number that that you try
to use to explain is he isstriking out I think fifty five percent of
the hitters he sees. That's unheardof. I think like the next closest
(25:12):
guys like thirty five, forty percent. Maybe to be that far ahead and
strike out that many guys that yousee, that's insane. Yeah, I
mean there's thirty percent, man,this guy's good. Forty percent. This
guy's really good. It's out ofcontrol what he's been able to do.
And earlier today game's not over yet, but the Cubs are playing the Pirates.
(25:33):
The game's over for Paul Skeins,the former number one overall pick from
LSU. His second start in themajors. He's pitching at Wrigley Field.
He strikes out the first seven batters, takes a perfect game into the fifth,
finishes six innings with eleven strikeouts,and does not allow a hit on
his one hundred pitches, a handfulof which were into the triple digits.
(25:55):
Yep, this is it's definitely notbecoming the norm. But there are so
many guys who are just out ofcontrol. No, it's out of control
with the firepower. It's ridiculous.I don't know where the stat is.
I would love to look it up, but they you know, they start
when they started to track actual guysthat were throwing a hundred plus miles an
hour, or right at one hundredand then a little bit more, you
(26:18):
know, right around that Billy Wagnererow where you started to see maybe Billy
and one or two other guys startto get to the ninety six is ninety
sevens eventually touching one hundred. Butthe amount of pitch is thrown at one
hundred plus miles an hour this dayand age is absolutely incredible. But then
you have a starting pitcher come outand do that, throwing one hundred miles
an hour, it's even more ridiculousthe consistency. But then they have secondary
(26:41):
pitches. I think Schemes is throwinga secondary or split fingered fastball in ninety
four ninety five miles an hour,And I sit in the booth in my
seat, and I'm like, dude, this is the best seat in the
house to watch these guys go dothat, because I can talk about how
I would probably never touch it,and how impressed I am if guys even
fouled off. But it's pretty amazingto watch what some of this young talent
is doing. I wonder, youknow, you've got Hagen Smith out in
(27:03):
Arkansas, who's an upper nineties lefthanded pitcher, striking out fourteen aggies last
night. I wonder how you knowwith that, Paul skeens idea. I
wonder how closely these organizations are ingetting these guys to the big leagues as
quick as they possibly can to maximizetheir opportunities to use them before they blow
out twelve pitches at one hundred milesan hour or more. Twenty two swings
(27:26):
and misses and six innings of work. What the heck that sounds fun?
So that relates. That makes youthink of what right handed pitcher that you
faced any fun. Both of theseguys we talked about are thrown from the
right side. There's a good tenmiles an hour difference between those pitches you
were talking about from Schens today andthroughout his two major league starts. But
(27:49):
pitchers in as starters, like Iknow, the one hundred mile an hour
threshold from a starter is something youknow. Number thirty five here for the
Astros did quite a bit of duringhis career, and we marveled at it
when he'd be throwing pitch number ninetyone and tipping one hundred. But it
still doesn't It doesn't remind me ofthis vice versa. Yeah, the ability
to be able to do that,and if we did see a guy like
(28:11):
that back in the day, hedisappeared because he was unable to throw strikes.
That's what I remember about guys whowere high octane guys is they didn't
have the command that we're seeing froma Mason Miller or from a Paul skeins.
They're out there pounding the zone andyou have to out of the bullpen,
which is very tough and as astarter, to be consistently in the
zone with that kind of velocity isincredible to me. And you have to
have secondary pitches to be able toland, because big leagu hitters are good
(28:33):
enough to get to that if theysee it often enough. But at the
same time, the consistency is ridiculous. I think you're gonna see a lot
more of these guys if they dohave that kind of stuff in minor league
ball or high school or college.They're going to see them rushed up just
because you know that there's an injurygoing to happen. Because a lot of
the correlation between the Tommy John surgeriesis max effort, and these guys are
(28:59):
all max effort. I'm sure wecould probably find some video of many of
these pitchers that we know or don'tknow. Yeah, I face it through
a lot, That's what I askedyou. As I'm asking thinking, who
could this Kevin Brown was like inthe mid nineties, right, you know,
uh, guy a pitched from theCubs Carrie would He had high octane
and a nasty slider from hell.So that May sixth game that unfortunately every
(29:22):
May sixth we badly reminisce about,especially with the Astros first base coach here
in town. But he was throwingthe ball past Jack Howell and Derek Bell
and Ricky Gutierres, but more oftenthan not they were waving at it and
missing by five feet because it washis curve ball. That was insane.
No, it was insane, Andthat's exactly how Dave Clark describes it too.
(29:44):
He's just like there's guys that you'llfaith throughout the course of your career.
If you play long enough, you'regoing to face guys who have a
plus stuff and they're on and it. Sometimes it doesn't necessarily end up in
a no hitter or twenty strikeout game, but there are days where you go
up there and you're like, dude, I've got no chance against this guy.
I'm gonna sit on one pitch.I got to face Pedro Martinez in
his prime, and I tried togo up there with the approach of I'm
(30:04):
gonna sit fastball away and adjust.Dear god, I had no chance because
he had four legitimate pitches that movedall over the place in high velocities,
different shapes, and I didn't Ididn't have a fighting chance. I had
to sit on one pitch and hopehe threw it in the at back because
if he didn't, I was done. Some of that also is in the
pitcher's mind as well. He feelsthat way about if not all the hitters,
(30:25):
many of the hitters, they haveno chance. Yeah, Oh,
there's got to be moments like that. There were moments Royal's waalt would go
out there. I played behind JakePeeve and some of these guys where you
just kind of sat there and youjust waited for the You waited for the
throw around the diamond, just becausethe way that roy would get the ball
back for me throwing it to himfrom third base, he would just grab
it and just give you that littlehead nod and he would immediately get on
the mount and go because he knewthe way the ball was coming out of
(30:48):
his hand that the opposing team hadno chance, and if they did put
it in play, it wasn't gonnabe hit hard enough. It was gonna
be a tough play for any ofus. Just a couple of Savannah bananas
doing there right. How crazy.Is that still got it? How do
they still do it? I talkedto Josh Reddick about that another one.
He's like, I stood in thereand he got walked. But I'm like,
man, I go if they anduh, Roger Clemens came out there,
(31:10):
I guess he gave up a fourhundred foot bomb or whatever. He
gave up a pretty good chat.But who cares. The guy's what fifty
somethings. Yeah. I could barelyget my shoulder above my you know,
my arm above my shoulder to beable to do a workout, and they're
throwing. They're up there throwing andcompeting. Roy That was That was actually,
I know, a great time forthe fans that were in attendance.
I had a chance to watch thatas was happening as well. It's amazing.
(31:33):
Uh. But ye, the wayhe was as an astro, he's
this little spindly guy. He hewas one of the few power pitchers,
certainly in that body, but alsoone of the few power pitchers like Nolan
and for most of his career likeJustin that really never ran into the injuries
either because everything mechanically with what hedid was so repeatable and he was so
good at it. He managed tostay away from all that. No,
(31:56):
it was really amazing. It's actuallyan incredible point to bring up those three
guys. We know Justin Verlander hadthe Tommy John surgery, but that was,
you know, later in his careerat thirty seven, thirty eight years
old. Roy the only issues Ireally feel like he had was with that
groin because he got so much pushgoing downhill that he created so much separation
between his feet that had put alot of stress and eventually he was having
(32:19):
issues with that. But to armwise, you talk about guys that were Abe
Nolan, the repeatable delivery and consistencyin the delivery is what is amazing.
And I feel like when you're tryingto throw one hundred miles an hour every
time, you might have a littlebit of a breakdown in that delivery just
because you're trying to be so violentdownhill. Those guys were violent, but
it was a controlled violence. Somuch fun talking about some of these guys,
(32:40):
and obviously some of these current playerswill be in that position many years
down the road. Another great opportunityhere for the astros at home. Great
opportunity for you, the kids whenthey're at home. Your wife AC's talking
about it all the time here.The Astros obviously a big part of the
Exfinity family, and I know youare as well and enjoy everything that they
(33:00):
help provide you as you prefer allthese ball games. Yeah, thankfully.
Yes, it's always nice to haveit's on turbo speed when the girls are
at school because it's just my wifeand I. But at the same time,
I will be prepping for a game, watching golf, and I've got
Exfinity just kind of being a littlebit overused, and we've got walla wall
WiFi. My wife can be upstairsor downstairs in her office. I'll be
(33:20):
upstairs in the theater watching everything,and everything's streaming smooth. I'm able to
download all the notes that I'm ableto get to. But now even more,
having six people in that house justgrinding away on the Internet. I'm
grateful that Exfinity is there with theirwall to wall WiFi. Exfinity doing it
for them, they can do itfor you as well. Much more.
With Jeff Plum here on the Ateam still to come, the unauthorized Teuston
(33:43):
sports hake down continues because every timeyou say something that's not true You're gonna
get hit. We now return toAdam Clinton and Adam Wexwerth the A team
on Sports Talk seven nineteen. That'sright, Wexy. Every every time I
come on, that song should beplaying to roll out, And I know
(34:04):
you appreciate that because you love walkup songs. Well, that's like in
the fact that you are giving aperformance nearly every single night all year on
TV. Why right before TK,you know, throws it to you for
your analysis in that opening sepment,why is there no walk up music?
There should be and you can evenslide in. Well, you know there's
a certain entity that's not gonna paythe money to play that song. Uh
(34:29):
yeah, but no, you knowwhat instead? You know, I remember
that movie Gone in six Gone insixty seconds with Nicholas Cage and they play
the Lowrider and then he goes,let's ride. That's a little more typical
of our start to the game.That makes more sense. That's certainly something
that could be executed. I needto just play it right before we come
out of break and just hype everybodyup. How you like that? Time?
(34:51):
You like that? TK? Youready, Let's have one were going
tonight. Let's start pushing them aroundand match bit in the booth, Hunter
Brown, Freddy Parol on the mountain, and I Freddy Peralta kind of to
me at least tail two seasons.First four starts he was insanely effective ERA
under two. Last four starts inERA in the mid fives, he's hit
(35:13):
five batters this season. I reallyonly bring that up A because it's near
the top of the league. There'sonly a couple of pitchers, two pitchers
that have hit more, and Bbecause one of the hit batters came and
probably the game. He had hisbest stuff when he threw that one hitter
against the Rays, but got ejectedfor plunking our guy, Jose Siri.
And I say plunking, and Iuse that word specifically because that's what you
(35:36):
say when you throw at someone intentionally, and that's what Paralta did. I
thought it was great. I mean, he threw it with purpose. He
did it. You didn't. Imean the umpires took it upon themselves.
They were probably right that they werethrowing at Jose Siri after pimping that home
run, but the two individuals thatwere involved also didn't do anything about it.
At you know, Yeah, itwas going to they were just gonna
(35:58):
move on. Yeah, and thenother people helped to escalate the situation.
Yes, it definitely was a lotmore going on. That was a ground
I thought it was appropriate, ButI mean that's how you kind of police
yourself. At the same time,the umpires don't want it to escalate and
become more. But what I thinka lot of people don't understand is that
it won't become more because you gotit out of the way. And I
think if you're on a team withJose Siri, you're like, this is
(36:21):
our guy. This is what he'sgonna do, and as long as they
hit him and not me or WEX, we're good. Yeah. I mean
he's clearly I wish he's having somuch fun. If he doesn't know if
you're Freddy Peralta or John Jones orBiff Johnson, he doesn't know who you
are. He's not doing it toyou or to your team. He's doing
(36:43):
it for himself and for his team, and he's always done it that way.
Most of me. John Singleton ispretty emphatic with some of the things
he does at the plate for thevery same reason and the very same thought
behind. This has nothing to dowith the other team. He's not showing
them up. They don't need tostare him down when he's very slowly beginning
his job down to first base.Yeah, there's something for consistency, right
(37:05):
like that, like certain guys docertain things. You know, it is
what it is. I mean,we're in a day and age now where
you know, you don't have theRicky Henderson's where he bat flipped his walks
and go down there. But it'sall a part of the show. And
everybody has their own show. Youknow. Kyle Tucker's got his bat flip.
You know it's just But if you'regonna smoke a guy, I think
he did it right. He hithim right in the rib cage. Didn't
(37:28):
go up and in towards the heador the shoulder and scare anybody. He
didn't hit him in the foot orin the ankle trying to break anything.
He just hit him and said,you know what, we recognize you got
that ball. We recognize a littlepimp job. We didn't appreciate it.
So I'm just gonna let you.I'm gonna leave this little black and blue
on your on your hip and we'llmove on. But like you said,
other other players got involved and expresstheir displeasure with Jose Siri. You brought
(37:51):
up Kyle Tucker is a very good, purposeful bat, flipper when warranted,
also hitting the ball over the fencequite a bit this year. Do you
did you forecast this would happen atsome point in his career because he seems
his swing seemed destined, especially withthis park and the park still playing,
he was gonna be much more ofa home run hitter than quite honestly,
he's shown to be. And thisyear maybe is the year it manifests.
(38:15):
I guess it really could, becauseI think we're kind of seeing the both
sides of Kyle Tucker. He's reallycommanded the zone. He's got more walks
than strikeouts this season, and he'sproviding the power, which is kind of
a unique combination to be able tohave a guy driving the ball out of
the ballpark and still being able tocommand that zone and not strike out.
But we saw in this series too, I don't know if you recognize,
(38:37):
but the first couple of games he'dgot base hits going the other way,
So it kind of told me thathe's like, Okay, I might be
opening up a little bit too much. I've got five extra base hits in
a row or whatever. That wasAlex bragmant, but he had that string
of all of his six hits wereall home runs, and he might have
said, I got to dial itback a little bit and stay under control
and pick my spots when I startto go into launch mode. But that
(38:59):
dude is his long as I've everseen. And yeah, I've expected this
from Kyle Tucker, but I wantto see a little more national attention brought
to Kyle Tucker. That's the onething that I've always been frustrated with Kyle
Tucker. Everybody's like, Wow,Kyle Tucker's having a year. I'm like,
go back and look at the numbers. I'm like, We've seen months
of this from Kyle Tucker. It'sno shock to us. Maybe the fact
that he's driving the ball out ofthe ballpark a little bit more, but
(39:21):
at the same time, we've knownthat that talent is a part of who
Kyle Tucker is. He's now justcommanding the zone that much better to put
up bigger numbers. There is oneplayer in the American League with an OPS
of one thousand or better. Iknow him it's Kyle Tucker. It is
a man on an island in thatstratosphere right now in the American League.
(39:42):
He has had a great start tothe season. Obviously, will be out
there again tonight or Alvarez has theday off. We've got more to discuss
here, Jeff. Always great foryou to spend the hour with our listeners
here on Sports Talk seven to nine, and great for the people that make
it possible. Yeah, it's JeffWitz. It's Vision Group. They are
fantastic. Obviously, they will takecare of all of your I needs cataract
surgery, LASIK. They are thestate of the art facility. And the
(40:05):
best part about Jeff Witz at DoctorJeff wits It is the fact that if
you make an appointment to go inand see how he can help, he
will visit with you personally. Soit's a very personal Jeff Witze to be
able to take care of your eyesight. And then, of course low T
Center. Huge fan of lo TCenter, just in the fact that they
take care of my health post careerand they want to make sure that men
are performing at their best both onand off the field, whatever it may
(40:28):
be. And the beauty of thatis the convenience. Fifteen minute ten to
fifteen minutes you're gonna go in.You can get a blood test done.
They have testing on site and thenif not, they will just give you
a shot and make sure that yourlevels are appropriate. Go to low tcenter
dot com. Always good being onwith you. Wex great stuff. To
get our weekend underway, the Brewersin town for three, the Angels will
close out a ten game homestand inthe Astros so far, well they've won
(40:51):
them all. We got the gamefor you tonight. They've got it of
course on Space City Home Network aswell. And we will continue here into
our number two from the ballpark ona Friday
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