September 24, 2025 • 9 mins
After a 5-1 loss to the Atheltics on Tuesday night and falling out of the playoff picture, is it time for the Astors to pack it in for 2025? Wex and AC discuss the status of the clubhouse entering what feels like a must-win game on Wednesday to save the series in West Sacramento
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, let's do this. Let's fight X and AC.
Here on a Wednesday edition of the eighteen Sports Talk
seven to ninety, we'll have the simulcast at the top
of the hour. The way I look at this, only
five more games of misery, and I'm seeing it last
night from like the most tried and true, die hard
(00:26):
people on social media that are just the reality is
setting in. You're even seeing was it? Ah, geez, bow
tie guy? Why am I drawing a blank?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Ken Rosenthal, I believe was the one. Yeah, I believe
he was the one that said this. It makes you
if it is coming to an end, this run and
the division run is definitely coming to an end. They're
not winning this division.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the magic number for the Mariners is one. So
if the Astros won all five remaining games while the
Mariners lose all five remaining games, then you can keep
the division title here in Houston. Every single other scenario
you cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And it's listen, it is. It's something because it's just
been penciled in for so long. We knew that it
was going to come to an end sooner or later.
I think a lot of us shot last year.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But the streak comes to an end, Yeah, are we?
I mean, I the baseball you've seen this year and
last year definitely suggests the answer is, yes, this is
the end of it. But when late March rolls around
in twenty twenty six and we know what the schedule
is already, So when they play their first game and
Altuve and Alvarez and Correa and Perettas and on and
(01:36):
on and on and painting it and they're all in
the lineup and they're all healthy, and Hunter Brown's starting,
and we know what the rest of the rotation looks like,
and Josh Hater is healthy and Brian Orbray is back, Like,
are we sure that it's over?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That team is way better on paper then the team
that played the entire year because they were never together.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You're what's the word, I'm looking for your sample size? No,
you're when you're doing an experiment. It's not the constant,
but it kind of is is the twenty sixteen season,
because we remember, those of us who've been around, what
a coming out party twenty fifteen was. But one of
(02:21):
your stars, especially even during that postseason run, if you
want to call it that, because it was a heartbreaking
series against the Royals was Kolby Rasmus. You know, like
they weren't quite there yet, but you got that taste
for the first time since the early two third of
the mid two thousands, and so you were like, Okay,
Astros baseball, after these hundred lost seasons, feels like it's back.
(02:42):
Then twenty sixteen happened and just nothing went according to plan.
They weren't bad, but they were a lot like this year.
They were mediocre. They were finding ways to lose one
run games to the Rangers. Still, the Rangers were still
your daddy at that point, and it sucked because you
had to hear it all the time. And believe me,
I was. I had people that were just appalled that
I was making JFK references on Twitter at the time. Hey,
(03:05):
just who is this guy? Oh he's a radio host
in Houston. How unprofect? Yeah whatever, And then twenty seventeen,
I still can't believe looking back, with what they built
in all of the talent, particularly from the pitching standpoint,
you were basically riding the best record in the American
(03:27):
League on the back of Dallas Kikeel until you got Verlander.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And keep this in mind about those years that go together.
They had those hundred lost seasons. Then they had one
bad season where they lost ninety two games. Then was
twenty fifteen season you just mentioned, they made the playoffs.
It looked like, okay, something is brewing here. They're about
to be really good. Then they had two games fewer
on the in their win calumn. The following year they
missed the playoffs. That next year, the year you're just
(03:51):
mentioning twenty seventeen, they had a bigger win improvement from
twenty sixteen to twenty seventeen than they did that first
year they made the playoffs. From twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen.
That's hard, much harder to do. They took a good team,
an eighty four and seventy eight team team that finished
in third place, the team you thought was going back
to the playoffs two years in a row, and they
(04:11):
turned that team into a one hundred and one win team.
The great teams that followed a to win improvement, a
four win improvement, they still winning one hundred and six
games five years after it started. What they did from
that year to the other, that's what really was the jump.
And then obviously the Golden Era just never went away,
but they also dropped from one zh six to ninety
(04:33):
after they won their most recent World Series. They have
not won more than ninety games. This will be the
third consecutive year they've won the division in back to
back years. They're not going to win the division this year,
but they're gonna finish second, but with a team that's
much closer to everybody else that's in the playoffs or worse.
Last year we were looking at I'm like, there's twelve
(04:54):
teams here, Are they the tenth best team the eleventh
best team?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
This year?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
If they make the playoffs, I'm pretty sure that we
looked at it the eleventh or twelfth best team, and
they'll probably be seated accordingly this year as a sixth
seed rather than a three seed a year ago, So
that I can't argue with the true Golden era of
Astros baseball.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
It is over.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, Can they still win and make the playoffs? Can
magic still happen?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But this roster is gonna have to go through a major, major,
major overhaul at some point in the near future to
keep them from going from ninety to eighty eight to
eighty six to whatever it is next year.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, and you say, and that's the reason I brought
all that up is because when you said, when we
get here to late March and it's time to start
playing games for real, And those names on the back
of the jerseys are there, everyone's a year older, and
a lot of these guys you just mentioned they were
together this year. I know Alvarez is an outlier because
of the injury, but you got him back and he
(05:51):
did awesome for what individual names. Yeah, he had his
individual statistics. We're like, wow, you would have loved that
prediction production all season long. It didn't help the team
all right, Right.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That was the portion of the season where he was
playing without Perettis. Yeah, and they were playing without perett
He hasn't played Perettis has until these last five games,
four games. He hadn't played any games with Korea. Kray
obviously wouldn't even be here had he not gotten hurt. Like,
it's simple enough in these terms, the three best offensive
astros have been the guys that have missed the most time.
(06:23):
The worst offensive astros have been healthy all season. And
that's what you get when this happens. You know, Christian
Walker and joaner Diez are obviously the biggest whipping boys
for this offense this year, fair or unfair, and they've
been available pretty much every day all season long, a
couple of days off for each of them. You had
a few days where Yaner had the he got hit
with his own pitchers pitch and needed some days off.
(06:43):
But that's pretty much it. And these are your least
productive I can't believe that he didn't come through again.
At some point you start believing it. But Paenia miss
time significant time, Perettis miss significant time, and Jordan missed
one hundred games and now all the games he's missing
again made one runners on base. You've still done nothing offensively,
But then Jordon Homer's in two runs scored. It just
(07:06):
never unfolded this year in that way because they didn't
put it all together. And I would agree expecting something
different better next year from Korea, different or better from Altuve.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Do not expect that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'll tell you Walker well, Walker is a different category
because he's not a part of this. Jose Altuve is
one of the best postseason players ever, saying with Korea,
they're part of the Golden era. You bring him back,
Oh this that's not who they are anymore. Christian Walker.
I don't know how he's gonna have a worst season
next year. And it is much more than just his
batting average and his ops. And we can get into
(07:39):
that because we always end up doing that. But their
their issue is they need the next guys they've at.
They've needed that a few times. They've needed Jordan's influx
of power and just excellence, obviously Kyle Tucker. And then
each year, well, somebody's in the Rookie of the Year race,
some pitcher or Jeremy Payinier, Luis Garcia or Hunter Brown,
and unless that's Zach Cole or Cam Smith, next year
(08:02):
they're really going to be searching for something. And we've
already talked about the likelihood that they're going to be
making moves to figure out where everybody actually goes to
play next year if they're healthy when spring training begins.
And then the pitching staff is a whole totally different
story all on its own. From an injury standpoint, Well,
we're not even there yet, five games remaining this season. Yesterday,
(08:22):
you would have liked the Detroit Tigers to get it
figured out and win and push the team that was
actually closest to you keep them with you. But now
that the Guardians won the first game, it doesn't matter
at all who wins today in my opinion. But whoever
wins today between the Guardians and Tigers, you want them
to win again, and then you want them to win again,
and then you want them to win it. Keep on winning,
(08:43):
and hopefully that team is Cleveland, because if Detroit loses
again today and they lose again in the series finale
and then they go to Boston, where those are two
more teams you're trying to catch Boston and Detroit, well
you're in much better position because clearly they can't both
win during those five three days. Guess what, none of
it matters if you get three singles off of the a's.
(09:05):
That's what the Astros did last night
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The AG on Sports Talk seven ninety
All right, let's do this. Let's fight X and AC.
Here on a Wednesday edition of the eighteen Sports Talk
seven to ninety, we'll have the simulcast at the top
of the hour. The way I look at this, only
five more games of misery, and I'm seeing it last
night from like the most tried and true, die hard
(00:26):
people on social media that are just the reality is
setting in. You're even seeing was it? Ah, geez, bow
tie guy? Why am I drawing a blank?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Ken Rosenthal, I believe was the one. Yeah, I believe
he was the one that said this. It makes you
if it is coming to an end, this run and
the division run is definitely coming to an end. They're
not winning this division.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the magic number for the Mariners is one. So
if the Astros won all five remaining games while the
Mariners lose all five remaining games, then you can keep
the division title here in Houston. Every single other scenario
you cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And it's listen, it is. It's something because it's just
been penciled in for so long. We knew that it
was going to come to an end sooner or later.
I think a lot of us shot last year.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But the streak comes to an end, Yeah, are we?
I mean, I the baseball you've seen this year and
last year definitely suggests the answer is, yes, this is
the end of it. But when late March rolls around
in twenty twenty six and we know what the schedule
is already, So when they play their first game and
Altuve and Alvarez and Correa and Perettas and on and
(01:36):
on and on and painting it and they're all in
the lineup and they're all healthy, and Hunter Brown's starting,
and we know what the rest of the rotation looks like,
and Josh Hater is healthy and Brian Orbray is back, Like,
are we sure that it's over?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
That team is way better on paper then the team
that played the entire year because they were never together.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You're what's the word, I'm looking for your sample size? No,
you're when you're doing an experiment. It's not the constant,
but it kind of is is the twenty sixteen season,
because we remember, those of us who've been around, what
a coming out party twenty fifteen was. But one of
(02:21):
your stars, especially even during that postseason run, if you
want to call it that, because it was a heartbreaking
series against the Royals was Kolby Rasmus. You know, like
they weren't quite there yet, but you got that taste
for the first time since the early two third of
the mid two thousands, and so you were like, Okay,
Astros baseball, after these hundred lost seasons, feels like it's back.
(02:42):
Then twenty sixteen happened and just nothing went according to plan.
They weren't bad, but they were a lot like this year.
They were mediocre. They were finding ways to lose one
run games to the Rangers. Still, the Rangers were still
your daddy at that point, and it sucked because you
had to hear it all the time. And believe me,
I was. I had people that were just appalled that
I was making JFK references on Twitter at the time. Hey,
(03:05):
just who is this guy? Oh he's a radio host
in Houston. How unprofect? Yeah whatever, And then twenty seventeen,
I still can't believe looking back, with what they built
in all of the talent, particularly from the pitching standpoint,
you were basically riding the best record in the American
(03:27):
League on the back of Dallas Kikeel until you got Verlander.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And keep this in mind about those years that go together.
They had those hundred lost seasons. Then they had one
bad season where they lost ninety two games. Then was
twenty fifteen season you just mentioned, they made the playoffs.
It looked like, okay, something is brewing here. They're about
to be really good. Then they had two games fewer
on the in their win calumn. The following year they
missed the playoffs. That next year, the year you're just
(03:51):
mentioning twenty seventeen, they had a bigger win improvement from
twenty sixteen to twenty seventeen than they did that first
year they made the playoffs. From twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen.
That's hard, much harder to do. They took a good team,
an eighty four and seventy eight team team that finished
in third place, the team you thought was going back
to the playoffs two years in a row, and they
(04:11):
turned that team into a one hundred and one win team.
The great teams that followed a to win improvement, a
four win improvement, they still winning one hundred and six
games five years after it started. What they did from
that year to the other, that's what really was the jump.
And then obviously the Golden Era just never went away,
but they also dropped from one zh six to ninety
(04:33):
after they won their most recent World Series. They have
not won more than ninety games. This will be the
third consecutive year they've won the division in back to
back years. They're not going to win the division this year,
but they're gonna finish second, but with a team that's
much closer to everybody else that's in the playoffs or worse.
Last year we were looking at I'm like, there's twelve
(04:54):
teams here, Are they the tenth best team the eleventh
best team?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
This year?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
If they make the playoffs, I'm pretty sure that we
looked at it the eleventh or twelfth best team, and
they'll probably be seated accordingly this year as a sixth
seed rather than a three seed a year ago, So
that I can't argue with the true Golden era of
Astros baseball.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
It is over.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, Can they still win and make the playoffs? Can
magic still happen?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
But this roster is gonna have to go through a major, major,
major overhaul at some point in the near future to
keep them from going from ninety to eighty eight to
eighty six to whatever it is next year.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, and you say, and that's the reason I brought
all that up is because when you said, when we
get here to late March and it's time to start
playing games for real, And those names on the back
of the jerseys are there, everyone's a year older, and
a lot of these guys you just mentioned they were
together this year. I know Alvarez is an outlier because
of the injury, but you got him back and he
(05:51):
did awesome for what individual names. Yeah, he had his
individual statistics. We're like, wow, you would have loved that
prediction production all season long. It didn't help the team
all right, Right.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That was the portion of the season where he was
playing without Perettis. Yeah, and they were playing without perett
He hasn't played Perettis has until these last five games,
four games. He hadn't played any games with Korea. Kray
obviously wouldn't even be here had he not gotten hurt. Like,
it's simple enough in these terms, the three best offensive
astros have been the guys that have missed the most time.
(06:23):
The worst offensive astros have been healthy all season. And
that's what you get when this happens. You know, Christian
Walker and joaner Diez are obviously the biggest whipping boys
for this offense this year, fair or unfair, and they've
been available pretty much every day all season long, a
couple of days off for each of them. You had
a few days where Yaner had the he got hit
with his own pitchers pitch and needed some days off.
(06:43):
But that's pretty much it. And these are your least
productive I can't believe that he didn't come through again.
At some point you start believing it. But Paenia miss
time significant time, Perettis miss significant time, and Jordan missed
one hundred games and now all the games he's missing
again made one runners on base. You've still done nothing offensively,
But then Jordon Homer's in two runs scored. It just
(07:06):
never unfolded this year in that way because they didn't
put it all together. And I would agree expecting something
different better next year from Korea, different or better from Altuve.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Do not expect that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'll tell you Walker well, Walker is a different category
because he's not a part of this. Jose Altuve is
one of the best postseason players ever, saying with Korea,
they're part of the Golden era. You bring him back,
Oh this that's not who they are anymore. Christian Walker.
I don't know how he's gonna have a worst season
next year. And it is much more than just his
batting average and his ops. And we can get into
(07:39):
that because we always end up doing that. But their
their issue is they need the next guys they've at.
They've needed that a few times. They've needed Jordan's influx
of power and just excellence, obviously Kyle Tucker. And then
each year, well, somebody's in the Rookie of the Year race,
some pitcher or Jeremy Payinier, Luis Garcia or Hunter Brown,
and unless that's Zach Cole or Cam Smith, next year
(08:02):
they're really going to be searching for something. And we've
already talked about the likelihood that they're going to be
making moves to figure out where everybody actually goes to
play next year if they're healthy when spring training begins.
And then the pitching staff is a whole totally different
story all on its own. From an injury standpoint, Well,
we're not even there yet, five games remaining this season. Yesterday,
(08:22):
you would have liked the Detroit Tigers to get it
figured out and win and push the team that was
actually closest to you keep them with you. But now
that the Guardians won the first game, it doesn't matter
at all who wins today in my opinion. But whoever
wins today between the Guardians and Tigers, you want them
to win again, and then you want them to win again,
and then you want them to win it. Keep on winning,
(08:43):
and hopefully that team is Cleveland, because if Detroit loses
again today and they lose again in the series finale
and then they go to Boston, where those are two
more teams you're trying to catch Boston and Detroit, well
you're in much better position because clearly they can't both
win during those five three days. Guess what, none of
it matters if you get three singles off of the a's.
(09:05):
That's what the Astros did last night
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The AG on Sports Talk seven ninety
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