How Important Is The Health Of The Pitching Staff?

Following last nights loss, the Astros have now loss three straight to the Mariners. Circling the loss, the Astros played a phenomenal game far as pitching wise with Verlander on the mound. However, still unaware of Javier and Urquidy's status how much should the Astros worry about the bullpen? 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Saulisbury, Oldbury, Salisbury, Houston. Okay, let's do this. Sean
Salisbury to usc truths, longtime friend, Shawn Salisbury, brianl Lima, go
Lobos. This is the Sean SalisburyShow. Is when the on deck show

(00:23):
starts right here on seven hiney yourhome four Astros Baseball Mavericks te Wolves,
Game five of the Western Conference Finalstonight in the NBA. Scottie Scheffler,
number one golfer in the world,has charges against him dismissed in the incident
at Vahlla Golf Club two weeks ago. Full phone boards seven one, three,
two, two, five, sevenninety. Let's get back out and
talk to you the Astro fan Sena, you are up first, Good morning,

(00:47):
Hi, good morning. So yeah, calling in about this offense or
lack thereof right now. You know, the last caller she mentioned about our
pitching, and really I feel likeour offense could take you know, some
tips from our pitching. Our watchinghas really had to grind through, not
had the rotation we expected this year. They've made adjustments, They've had to

(01:11):
really kind of push through injuries.You know, Hunter Brown getting better every
game, Urghetti getting better every game, and you know, I feel like
that's offense. Start finding my grindthrough this. It's just been anemic lately.
And I know that Mariners, youknow, they're at the top of
the vision because of their pitching.But I feel like we're starting to look

(01:32):
a little desperate. Players expanding thezone that don't usually you know, Singleton,
yord On, even Bregmann swinging outonce they are fair off the plate.
And you know, last night,I didn't watch the whole game,
but I got to right before Iwent to bed. I saw al To
a leadoff single. I'm like,all right, let me see if Tucker
gets on. If he does,I'll keep watching if he doesn't. You

(01:55):
know, I don't think with howwe're doing lately, that we're going to
score a run with one out anda runnerund first. We can barely score
a run with one out and arunner on third. Right now, We've
got teams coming up that we canwin against that we are better then,
despite their record being better than us. We've got the Twins, We've got
the Cardinals, which have I'm abig Cardinals fan. They have taken their

(02:15):
last five series. But we arebetter than the Cardinals, and I love
the Cardinals, but we are abetter team, and then I think we
have the Angels, so we needto find a way to start, you
know, grinding and getting some runsup on the scoreboard and showing what our
actual potential is. That's all Ihave to say. Thank you. Sheina,

(02:37):
great point, ghena real quick yeah, and I think that our starting
pitching is starting to excel a littlemore considering and I'm with her on that.
I think with Lisa it was theoverall moving forward because of the injuries.
Vernader is going to be a yearolder. Where's from we're gonna I
mean, when when's elevation? Youknow, is he going to get to

(02:57):
the next level of where we expecthim? So I think concerned a long
distance with she and I think,hell, in this series, the strength
has been pitching and a bullpen dida nice shot until the tenth and listen
ruined a great performance by Verlander.And that's back to back dominant performances by
Verlander. Correct he had what wasin Oakland with nine strikeouts, right,
yeah, so real quick for Lisathose three concerns. I do think the

(03:23):
jury's out on Joe's body. It'searly and he deserved it. They're going
to play it through the year andunless they hit complete rock bottom, whatever
you consider rock bottom, I'm withher. I don't think that they'd move
on from him after one year,to you, right, I don't think
they. I don't think they wantto if there was a mistake, I
don't think they'd want to admit itafter you. They think they'd want to
play it through and say, Okay, let's get healthy and see how this

(03:43):
works. All right. That's onethe pitching I think moving forward concerned because
you're concerned about the If you're notconcerned about Lance mccullor's long term health,
and we haven't been paying attention,Garcia is young enough. Hopefully it's not
a long thing. The Aikidi thingstarts to concern you, right, especially
if it's Seri. And then obviouslythe bvier stuff Frombert. It's not a
physical thing with him, I wouldn'tthink. And Verlander's age, but he's

(04:06):
still dominant. The guy is stillpitching at a high level at this point,
and the bummer to let something likethat go as he moves towards three
hundred wins, which is not thegoal team wise, but it is his
goal. Part of his goal,and why wouldn't it be right he may
be the last one to get therethree hundred wins. So I get it,
and and I to answer it,Brian, and I'm curious what you

(04:27):
think. I don't think this isthe beginning of the end. Even let's
say Bregman doesn't sign back here,you trade him at the deadline. I
think the core of the team nowtwo days not going anywhere. Pain is
here, Jordan's here now. Ican tell you this, If all of
a sudden we knew Kyle Tucker wasmoving on at this time next year,
it would start to concern me withwho's replacing him? Are you now listen?

(04:49):
I read something else too yesterday thatin a baseball and I can't remember
what the baseball site was, thatthere's even that there was talk again of
if the Fronto Blue Jays are tradingvlad Guerrero, that the Astros are the
first team in line. Yeah.I did see that as well. Okay,
so we'll see. So at least, I don't think this is the

(05:09):
beginning of the end. I dothink that this is a pretty good sized
speed bump during this year. Ithink the team's talented enough to get back
at it. As long as thecore for the most part, and even
if it's not, Bregman stays heremakes sense, Yeah, definitely, I
know. I think they're too talented, right, It's not like they're losing
five players. I don't the helpof the pitching staff is important. I

(05:30):
don't think this at the beginning ofthe end. There are some concerns,
obviously, and then there's gonna besome decisions that are gonna have to be
made. Obviously Jose Bray is oneof them, which Dana Brown spoke about
yesterday, And and then you haveto so that's the extra loyal to too
loyal to, loyalty to a fault. And then you have to think about
Alex Bregman. If it continues towhere he struggles. He had to hit
last night. But if he continuesto struggle and you get to a point

(05:51):
where you're getting closer to the tradedeadline and you know you're not going to
sign him, do you move him? You have to and and if you're
out of contention, do you movehim? Okay, so Jose Bray,
you off the books. Alex Bregman, obviously you'd move him. And then
there's there's some other things. Butstill you have a pretty talented young core.
You've been You've been dealt a bunchof issuy injuries with your pitching staff.

(06:15):
Still don't have any results on ChristianJavier or Jose Rikity for whatever reason.
Chandler Rome. One thing I wantto point out real quick, Chandler
Rome is on UH with our guysin the afternoon, Adam and Adam on
the A team yep. And oneof the things that he mentioned yesterday was
think about it this way. Ronaldo'cuonia junior when he tore his ACL he
was on the road, got hurtin the game that got him an MRI.

(06:41):
Five hours later, while they wereon the road, the team announced
that he had a torn ACL.Well, let me tell you how I
feel about that. And for whateverreason, here we are and all we
got yesterday is at forty eight hours. Yeah, getting second opinions from doctors.
Joe Spot said the same thing lastnight. Well they have this descript
of I mean, I get,but why Here's what I'll tell you.

(07:02):
They already know. They know one. I agree completely. They already know
and I've told you and I'm gonnastand by this if I'm wrong. I
don't have problem admitting that I'm wrong. My gut feeling in the way I
look at this is the longer ittakes if you got to get a second
opinion because you didn't like the firstopinion, I'm just telling you it's it's
it's it's gonna come back on theside of bad not good. If,

(07:25):
in fact, the longer it takesthey know trying to delay the inevitable.
That that's my opinion, not thatthey're lying, they're just staying close to
the vest I get it. Butfact of the matters you think they don't
know the answer, they know theanswer. They knew that answer the second
the doctor looked at the MRI fiveminutes after. They don't like you and
I like us Mere mortals have towait till doctor get back to you tomorrow

(07:46):
on the m I they know immediatelywhy because they get the specialists looking at
it for them, so they getif it's got to have surgery soon after
swelling goes down, they can jumpall over it. They know the answer.
So for me, the frustration ofthe we're talking about moving forward and
with the beginning of the end.I do think that this team they can

(08:07):
get right because the core of theirteam. But you're not getting seven more
alcs is at this rate in arow. It's not going to roll to
fourteen in a row. It's goingto be a tough time getting to eight.
It's been a hell, it's been. It's it's I don't want to
say unprecent, but it's one ofthe rare runs. At some point it's
going to come to a close,but it doesn't mean it has to stay

(08:28):
there. It can be a onerun close and reopen again. Yeah,
because the core of this team's reallygood, with or without Bregman. Yeah,
seven seven ninety read Thanks for holding. What's going on? Hey?
What's going on? Guys? SoI have a couple of questions that I
would like to ask, one beingthat jose Bray you is we went from

(08:50):
to no no timetable for him toreturn now to him coming back and we
you know, come back. Hegave spend no time in minors, just
comes right back to the big leaguesand you know, has not particularly looks
good. He did have one singleand has made a couple of errors,
but they weren't they didn't go downas errors on the score book. At

(09:13):
first base what do you guys thinkabout that? As well as the team
went from playing well above five hundredthe day that he left to immediately coming
back and have lost three in arow against arguably the best team in the
in the division, and you knowwhat, what do we how do they
move forward with the break? Youawesome, Thank you Reid. We will

(09:37):
get to uh, let's anterst forthose as we come back from break,
because it's kind of something that's beenbeen uh hovering over the team, if
you will, since he's gotten back. I mean, it's it's they're not
playing their best nine players when they'rewhen they were. That's just the fact.
That's just the hard fact. Sevenone three, seven to ninety,
Brian Rake, you will also getto you guys next well, we'll answer

(09:58):
uh reads questions as we continue totalk about this astro struggles. That's an
next on Sports Talk seveninety