Steve Sparks Recaps Astros Turnaround Weekend

Finishing their series over the weekend against the World Series champs, the Astros win with a 2-1 finish over the Rangers with two back-to-back huge victories. Steve Sparks joins and assesses the Astros weekend along with a few things to note as some of the starters itch to make their return.    

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Why you're back. This is theSean Salisbury Show. Get back at it.
Welcome back to the Sean Salisbury Showhere on Sports Talks seven. I
ain't Sean Salisbury, Brian Lolima,Emanuel Elmore. It's that time of the
week every Monday at eight point thirtyin the morning, ASTROS broadcaster Steve Sparks,
welcome into the show. Indeed,bring him in and we always look

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forward to Monday. As I saidearlier, I love when somebody comes in
and teaches her on a broadcast.Steve teaches us every week and we have
a lot of laughs along the wayand inform. Steve joins us. Now,
Steve, let me start with thisAl Tuvey boys, I mean just
leading the way doing what he does, not only a table setter, but
the energy guys coming off the benchto get starts like Keratini obviously du Bond

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and then doing what Christian Havier yousaid that you believed he was going to
do this year, looking like anace type of pitcher, a lot of
energy in those last two wins thatlooked more like the team we expected to
see when the season started. Andwelcome in, brother, that's right.
I appreciate it. Hey, I'mgonna teach you a few things. How
about that? And you know whatyou do every single week, my man,
about things I never knew. Ididn't know. So well, let's

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start without two vy. I mean, he's leading the charge. He wasn't
with the team the first two monthsof last season, so to see him
so twitchy and ability to hit everytype of pitcher fastballs at ninety six ninety
seven miles rier, he's turning themaround. It's great to watch. I
mean, the offense and I toldyou this, Sean, I'm not worried

(01:34):
about this offense at all. Right, they weren't hitting with runners in scoring
position the last two games much better. But when you give yourself chances after
chances, eventually they're going to comearound and do what they've been doing for
a long time. And I toldyou, I think this offense is as
good as it's been in a while, maybe a few years now. So

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I like the length of it.And you know, you could hide some
guys time to time if you needto, because they've got a lot of
guys that are banging pretty well rightnow and gotten off to good start.
So that's the good news, youknow. And the bad news is still
waiting on a couple of guys,And I think you'll know what this team
is really all about. Once youget Berlander and farmber Back in the rotation.

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You feel like it's a baseball teamwhen a starter goes six innings like
they have the last couple of days, and you can match up and manage
the way joas Spatto has been hopingto since the start of the season.
So it starts with starting pitching.Hey, Steve, let me get to
you know the way that you approachout Tovey. I mean, you're prepare

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for your job and a broadcast asa picture. You did the same thing.
I know as a quarterback. Ifthey play man eighty five percent of
the time in the red zone,I'm going to call a man beater.
Does that make sense? You knowwhat I mean? And then you come
up, I still don't understand.I see it every year all the time,
and maybe it's pride and ego.Why even if you're a good pitcher,

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why and we saw it over theweek and we we know the guy
can throw from from Sunday. Imean, why do you why? Why
do you that is that? What? Why throw him fastballs that you know,
fastballs that are in areas he's goingto hammer away out of it.
I still don't understand why you throwhim. I see it every year on

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a regular basis. Why I'd ratherbounce forward the dirt and make him swing
there? Because if one of ourtwo of them, with his aggressiveness he
is why do we keep seeing peoplethrow the ball there? Because of Right
now, it's because of your down. I mean, in the corner of
your eye, you know who's ondata. You don't want to put somebody
on base, and probably, Imean, that's the easy answer right now.

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And that's the beautiful thing about protection. And that's why you have all
your best players crammed at the topof the lineup because you want them to
bat the most. And plus theygive each other protection, so they all
get better because of it. Whata miserable feeling for a pitcher, right,
Steve, What a miserable feeling fora picture? The exhaust Exhaustion's got
to suck, right it does.And you're trying to get a feel for

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what you have that day, youknow, and to to start the ballgame
off with a guy with what's outto b with the twelve hundred oh,
ps already and you're done. AndTucker or getting off the great starts too.
So it's a really difficult way tomanage how you feel, what kind
of stuff you have to get intothe ball game, because it's always a

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little bit different. I mean nota little, you know, always a
ton, but it's always a littlebit different when you go from that bullpen
mound to the major league man.Because you're adrenaline, you know, he
just keeps up a little bit andyou're never exactly sure what you're gonna have.
And ivold he's going to challenge you, and just challenge the wrong guy
and the wrong Yeah, but you'reright. Do you see that in your
periphery vision that dude's stand on theon deck cir circle so small? Ye,

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he was thinking he could get ahe could get a easy foul ball
strike maybe on the first pitch rightand come inside. And now two Day
whips on it and turns and hegets a strike, and he tries to
come in there again, and forwhatever reason, it cut back towards the
inner third of the plate. Nowtwo Day's all over it, so hammered
it. That's the thing is thatthe margin for error is so small right
now, Steve with the end.I mean, Jordan is is good good.

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I mean, he's one of thosefive players in baseball that every pitcher
fears and you know that you can'tyou don't want to play a season without
him. But I still contest thatthe energy the go to the way this
team goes al to a forget justseting the table al two. Vay's energy
drives this team. Yeah, hedoes. You know, he's the igniter

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and he's gonna set the tone.And when he when he does something special
first and bat of the game,he has a double end of the corner,
he goes deep or something like that. You feel it, you know,
I think everybody feels it watching TVor at the ballpark. We feel
it, of course as broadcasters onthe radios, that he sets the tone.

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You're exactly right. So that's whyhe's at the top. You know,
he kind of boked it at beingthe leadoff hitter for a little while
there, but I think he's embracedit now. He understands what an impact
he can make to this sea.Well, if he hasn't embraced it,
he doesn't have a choice. He'stoo good not to be there, so
it looks like he's embracing for awhile now. Steve Sparks Astro's broadcaster for

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his weekly visit here on Sports Talkseven ninety Sean Salisbury Show. Steve,
why wouldn't And I don't even knowif you're allowed to talk about it,
but I got to ask it.Why wouldn't from er Valdez get an MRI
when we ever, especially this year, when you hear the word elbow soreness,
why no MRI because of where itwas? I would imagine because I

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asked Joe even the next day afterhe said that Fromber was going to go
back to Custon and he pointed towardthe top of his elbow rather than the
inside of his elbow. And thenext day I said, Hey, were
you being specific when you were pointingto the elbow that it was at the
top of the elbow because that's morefleshy and that's more of the muscle stuff

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rather than the inside stuff where youstart to so one more muscle, the
other one more structure, right,Steve, that's what the concern was,
I mean the variation between the two, right, Yeah, it's the location,
right. So that's the easy answeris it's where they were putting to
and I asked him specifically the nextday he said, yes, it's on
the top. It's not it's notunderneath. We're probably going to be much

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more worried. So he's going toplay catch tomorrow and he might throw a
live VP right after that. He'sgoing to be back in this rotation.
There's no stepbacks. He'll be backon the rotation on this next road trip.
I think. Yeah, when theyplayed the open well with Washington,
right, that's the first one outof this homestand against Atlanta, I think
Washington Chicago Cubs, and then toMexico to play the Rockets for two games

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in Mexico City. Yeah, we'rea pop fly to shortstop ends up a
four hundred and fifty foot home run. That'll be a blast to watch.
Can't wait for that one. Butlet's not get ahead of ourselves. Steve,
what when when do you expect,I mean Verlander to be ready to
roll? I think I think you'llpitch on this next road trip if everything
goes well in the next two days. Sean Uh, I think he'll pitch

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on this next road trip. Somaybe it's d C. You probably want
to keep him from pitching in MexicoCity, Right, So one of those
games in d C. And thenand then the next time rolls around,
we'll be back at Mini May Parkafter the road. Especially a fly that
fly ball pitcher to right, Steve, in Mexico City is a fly ball

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pitcher, right, yeah, Andyou and you recover uh less quickly after
you know, altitudes and things likethat. You get more stores. So
you want to keep your guy outof that, right, That makes sense,
all right, And the fly ballswill be flying, but you're right
that that altitude will get you anybodythat's pitched in Denver anywhere else. All
right, Steve, let me getback to to talk me. I mean,

(09:01):
I think, do you know theobvious answer? But this Kartini,
I don't know. Every time hecomes to the player in a game,
I feel good about him. Heis really there's a moxie about him that
did I like when he's in thelineup. Yeah, I mean it's somebody
that they they pointed to, youknow, when they when they knew that
Jiner was going to be the startingcatcher, they were looking around the league

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and they probably did it toward theend of last season. Started to look
around. Okay, he's thirty yearsold, he's a switch hitter, he
could play a little bit of firstbase, but he can also mentor he's
very smart. They probably did theirdue diligence or what type of guy he
was. You know, it's interesting. You know what GM's do, Sean,
and you probably know this. They'llcall around visiting clubhouse guys just to

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figure out what type of a guy. Oh yeah, I think you have
to make somebody. Yeah, yeah, you start, you start to figure
out, all right, what dowe want to bring into our clubhouse and
how's he going to fit in withour team. You don't want to mess
things up in your clubhouse. Thisteam's been to the LCS in the last
seven years for goodness sake. Souh, they found out what type of

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guy he was. He was atthe very top of their list, so
priority wise, they got the guythey wanted. Now, Sean, you're
starting to see somebody puts together somepretty good abs too, And don't don't
sleep on you know, the matchupstoo. You know, they're pretty good
at figured out you know who matchesup well. Dubam was having some good
abs that game, sure, butyeah, yeah, Urania was pitching against

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the Astros who had the ninety fiveninety six mile an hour sinker probably didn't
match up well for Dubond that pitchrunning in on him. Uh, two
seamers for Kartini is a good matchup. So putting him in in a situation
where he could have a better chanceto get on base and make an impact.
I think the Astros did a goodjob at that. So you're right,
Karten, he looks pretty good outthere and steve to validate what you're

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saying. I found out in mydouble digits and all your years you played
that. If I want to knowreally what goes on about a guy and
how he fits in are equipment people. It's like it's like going to get
your haircut, you know, likeyou know love man do you're just kind
of talking to the guy. It'swith some of the greatest stories right here
at the barbershop. Whatever it is. Those guys no, because you see

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the true personality. There's nothing fakeabout it. So you are spot on,
one hundred percent correct, and I'mwith you. I think guys doing
their due diligence get out in frontof that all right, you talk about
all the good stuff and there's stillthings. Hey, it's two two game
winning streaks, winning at home,which is huge. But I ask you
every week and I'll continue to yourbiggest concern this week? Now, what
you haven't seen yet? Well,it's it's just the anticipation of getting the

(11:41):
guy's healthy and back into the rotationand seeing what you're gonna do. Ronel
Blanco is staying in the rotation,by the way, right, what are
you gonna do with that? Yeah? Exactly, He's earned a spot.
So I guess my biggest concern isHunter Brown, if I'm being honest,
Yeah, what's wrong? What's wrong? Steve? What's wrong? There's he
looks like he belongs in the minorleagues to get something fixed. I don't
mean to be cold blooded, butthe way he's pitching in twenty twenty four,

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what are we missing here? Look, he's gotten off to a rough
start. He's got great stuff,and we've seen him be brilliant at times,
but to pitch four or five gamesin a row at a very high
level, we haven't seen that yet. So we're still waiting for him to
take that next step. And weanticipated that it would be this year,
and he was excited about the depthof his slider that would give him more

(12:28):
separation from his fastball velocity and thingslike that. This is what I see.
He's a supernator, so he can'tget inside the baseball, and it's
really hard for him to pitch rightiesinside. His fastball cuts naturally right,
it just goes away. So toget inside on a riding, he's got

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to start it way in off theplate to have it right back to the
you know, entire part of theplate right because of that, you know,
and you're afraid to hit eyes whenyou when you're starting the ball in
off the plate anyway, Rieties havea one to fifty ops better than they
do than lefties do, so whichis which is which is a good you

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know, most teams have more rietiestypically so, but it's it's because everything's
going towards the barrel and everybody's leaningout over the plate because he's one sided
right now, he pitches to thefirst base side of the plate ninety percent
of the time because that's just theway his hand and everything reacts. So
I think he's got to figure outhow to get to the inner third of

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the plate against riotings. That's That'sjust the bottom line for me is this.
When he can do that, hecan command the inner third, get
guys from leaning out over the plate. I think he becomes the guy we
hope, hope that he can become. And keeping the ball off the barrel
is a great point, phenomenal information. Brother. We got a hell of
a series against this team because they'rea world Series type team too. As
we've seen, this will be Thiswill be a blast to watch and a

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blast to listen to you broadcast,So thank you and look forward to doing
it with you again next week.Brother. Thank you all right, Sean
having right with you too. That'sa great Steve Sparks always great information.
Something people don't talk about did beingable to pitch inside with Hunter Brown,
and it makes perfect sense as Stevestudies it like he's pitching himself. Sports
Talk seven ninety coming right back todiscuss what Steve said little fromber maybe his

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location of the elbow and the HunterBrown because we know one thing, Renelle
Blanco is not leaving the rotation.Sports Talk seven ninety