February 23, 2026 • 3 mins
Friday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler take a closer look at how pressure could impact Tatsuya Imai in his first Major League Baseball season, as he adjusts to new teammates and heightened expectations.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taylor Tremmell was was there during this portion of the
day and he commented on EMI's splitter. Per Brian McTaggart,
who will once again grace the airways here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety is baseball season has arrived, and
we appreciate that. The quote from Taylor was, to be
honest with you, I played this game twenty four years now,
eleven of them professionally, and I've never seen a pitch
(00:21):
like that before in my life.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now, those two things we just mentioned, that's a lot
I think of pressure on a guy who's, let's face it,
you can sugarcoat it or you can be real. After
Hunter Brown, the Astros are kind of expecting him to
replace from ber Valdez.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
They are, but I do think they did a pretty
good job of honestly, I think taking the pressure off
of him by acknowledging it shouldn't all be on him
because we have problems all over this place. We hope
that Christian Xavier is great. We hope that Spencer Raghetty
is great. But we also went out to get Mike Burrows.
We also went out to sign Ryan Wise. We also
(01:03):
went out to get Nate Pierson and we spent pretty
good free agent money. If you rank the free agent
pitchers that contracts well, em I got one of the
four best free agent contracts Fromberts was better. Obviously Dylan
ces same, And yeah, the money says clearly he should
replace him. Keep this in mind. If he in fact
is on a one year deal with the Astros, it
is a three year contract, but he's got options after
(01:25):
this first season and after season number two. If he
stays through season number one, the plans kind of already
in place. If the number two starter in twenty twenty six,
Tatsuya em is pitching somewhere else in twenty twenty seven.
So I do think there's a tremendous amount of pressure
on him, but it's for a number of different reasons
(01:45):
reasons and maybe not one more important than the other.
The success of the Astros may or may not rest
on his shoulders. I kind of don't think it does.
There's so many other pieces to this puzzle, especially from
a starting pitching standpoint and your closer, that it shouldn't
be all on him, and he shouldn't perceive it that way.
The pressure on him is also different, kind of like
we talked about in the opening segment, it's all new, like,
(02:09):
what about the other five days of his life. He's
gonna pitch on March twenty seventh, probably day two of
the Major League Baseball season. Then they're gonna play five
games and he's not gonna pitch in any of them.
And he's gonna live in a foreign country, and he's
gonna be living with presumably a bunch of people he
doesn't know, and traveling with people he's getting to know them.
And Chandler wrote a really nice article about how Ryan
(02:32):
Weiss reached out to him and he and Mike Burrows
took him out to dinner because the very honest quote
that Chandler had from Emai was he's bored sitting in
the hotel and they're trying to learn a little bit
more about how they can help with the language barrier,
and he's trying to do the same. Obviously, his translator
has been a part of all this and was there
with them at dinner, and Joe Spott is trying to
(02:54):
do more. They also added Tang, the pitcher from the Giants.
He's been in Major League Baseball before and been in
the Giants organization before. But also there is a language
difference there. It's there's a lot more going into this,
and I think with all those other concerns, if they're
too much for him, it could affect his pitching or
(03:15):
on the days he pitches, all those things go away. Ah,
this is great. I'm go out there and get major
league hitters out. This is fun. This is fun. Well, Wow,
whatever Sally throws down, I'm throwing whatever Yaner wants, We're
getting it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
This is gonna be awesome.
Taylor Tremmell was was there during this portion of the
day and he commented on EMI's splitter. Per Brian McTaggart,
who will once again grace the airways here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety is baseball season has arrived, and
we appreciate that. The quote from Taylor was, to be
honest with you, I played this game twenty four years now,
eleven of them professionally, and I've never seen a pitch
(00:21):
like that before in my life.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now, those two things we just mentioned, that's a lot
I think of pressure on a guy who's, let's face it,
you can sugarcoat it or you can be real. After
Hunter Brown, the Astros are kind of expecting him to
replace from ber Valdez.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
They are, but I do think they did a pretty
good job of honestly, I think taking the pressure off
of him by acknowledging it shouldn't all be on him
because we have problems all over this place. We hope
that Christian Xavier is great. We hope that Spencer Raghetty
is great. But we also went out to get Mike Burrows.
We also went out to sign Ryan Wise. We also
(01:03):
went out to get Nate Pierson and we spent pretty
good free agent money. If you rank the free agent
pitchers that contracts well, em I got one of the
four best free agent contracts Fromberts was better. Obviously Dylan
ces same, And yeah, the money says clearly he should
replace him. Keep this in mind. If he in fact
is on a one year deal with the Astros, it
is a three year contract, but he's got options after
(01:25):
this first season and after season number two. If he
stays through season number one, the plans kind of already
in place. If the number two starter in twenty twenty six,
Tatsuya em is pitching somewhere else in twenty twenty seven.
So I do think there's a tremendous amount of pressure
on him, but it's for a number of different reasons
(01:45):
reasons and maybe not one more important than the other.
The success of the Astros may or may not rest
on his shoulders. I kind of don't think it does.
There's so many other pieces to this puzzle, especially from
a starting pitching standpoint and your closer, that it shouldn't
be all on him, and he shouldn't perceive it that way.
The pressure on him is also different, kind of like
we talked about in the opening segment, it's all new, like,
(02:09):
what about the other five days of his life. He's
gonna pitch on March twenty seventh, probably day two of
the Major League Baseball season. Then they're gonna play five
games and he's not gonna pitch in any of them.
And he's gonna live in a foreign country, and he's
gonna be living with presumably a bunch of people he
doesn't know, and traveling with people he's getting to know them.
And Chandler wrote a really nice article about how Ryan
(02:32):
Weiss reached out to him and he and Mike Burrows
took him out to dinner because the very honest quote
that Chandler had from Emai was he's bored sitting in
the hotel and they're trying to learn a little bit
more about how they can help with the language barrier,
and he's trying to do the same. Obviously, his translator
has been a part of all this and was there
with them at dinner, and Joe Spott is trying to
(02:54):
do more. They also added Tang, the pitcher from the Giants.
He's been in Major League Baseball before and been in
the Giants organization before. But also there is a language
difference there. It's there's a lot more going into this,
and I think with all those other concerns, if they're
too much for him, it could affect his pitching or
(03:15):
on the days he pitches, all those things go away. Ah,
this is great. I'm go out there and get major
league hitters out. This is fun. This is fun. Well, Wow,
whatever Sally throws down, I'm throwing whatever Yaner wants, We're
getting it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
This is gonna be awesome.
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