April 14, 2025 • 14 mins
Concluding their three game series against the Anaheim Angels here at Daikin Park over the weekend, the Astros look to be stepping in stride as the season rolls on closing their series against the Angels 2-1 securing yet another series win. From Yainer Diaz obtaining his first career grand slam Friday evening springing the Astros into their Game 1 victory to Hayden Wesneski closing out the series yesterday afternoon following 10 K's and only allowing 3 runs, Steve joins and shares a few of his thoughts following the Astros explosive weekend against the Angels and what this says about the organization as the team continues to move forward in their schedule.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Salisbury, Old Salisbury.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Okay, let's do this Sewn Salisbury to USC Troupes, longtime
friend Shawn Salisbury, Dan Matthews. This is the Sean Salisbury Show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Sports Talk seven ninety for our weekly eight o'clock visit
on Mondays with Steve Sparks has always Astros broadcaster. Great
to have him in and they win a series before
they get on a road now and they took care
of the Halos. Steve, welcome in. Let me start here production.
We needed to see Cam smith Yiner Diaz look like
(00:44):
a few guys Parades took it to another level. So
some guys that are new on this team and guys
that have been here, those are the bats that look
like it needed to erupt.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The ball looked a little bigger this weekend, Steve.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It did twenty one runs in the three games, and
you mentioned the Angel They were in first place in
the division, so I had to win two out of three.
Was good pitching, it continues to be solid, but the bats,
as you mentioned, I think it was the wake up
call that the Astros are starting to pour it on
a little bit have big innings. They had a six
run inning, a five run inning, and a four run inning,
(01:17):
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Things, Hey, Steve.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, at times we sit back and try to,
like with a fine toothcomb, was sitting at home and
watching it. You're there watching the games all the time
of why a guy may be struggling, and you know,
five games and eight games and it's like, well, this
is wrong, this is wrong, when it could simply just
be they just started slow, or I didn't seeing the ball, whatever,
No major adjustment needed. So with the ideas was there
(01:42):
and you talked about him a little bit last week,
but was there a major adjustment needed or was it
just as simple as getting locked in?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Because it's early.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think a lot of times hitters will tell you
I know what I'm doing wrong, and I'm doing the
drills and I'm trying to correct. What's going wrong is
just flying open with the front shoulder, front hip, and
then you lose coverage of the whole half of the
outer half of the plate. So you know, sometimes it
(02:11):
might just be as simple as the Angels came in town.
And if you look at the ainers numbers against the Angels,
he's got an ops of almost nine to fifty in
his career. For some reason, guys get confidence when another
team comes in down because of past success. And I
think he just came in, got a big hit, and
hopefully now he's on a pretty good role.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Steve, I want to get to the psychological part of
that and just not just him, but anybody. And you
haven't covered it and played it for a long time,
you know when you're going good, like you know Jiner
was last year and how he earned this gig, and
you know where he's hitting in the lineup, and think, okay,
you got a star in the making. What changes when
they've had success with something? Why fly your front shoulder
(02:52):
open and try to pull the ball? I mean, what
goes on? Do you just get tempting? Why change success?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What gets into somebody's mind that says, let me try
something different even though I've had success at it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I know from a pitching standpoint, you know, bad habits
can creep in just playing catch in the outfield.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Like a lazy warm up, right, Steve, Like when you're
not focused, when you get to a little lazy warm
up right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yep, yeap. And sometimes you may not even know it.
Maybe maybe your mind's on something else and you're you're
playing catch and you're not really throwing every baseball with intent.
Garrett Cole used to talk about that a lot like
you gotta you gotta play catch with intent. You got
to make sure those habits don't creep in. And I
think a lot of times, guy, it's harder probably to
(03:38):
get out of a hitting slump at the beginning of
the season, because your numbers are flashing on the scoreboard, right, and.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You know, it goes up, it goes up and down
extreme as opposed to after like two hundred and fifty
at bats, right.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Steve, it does and everybody hits one thirty six for
a period of seven or ten games at some point
during the season. But when it's at the beginning of
the season, that'll probably lead you to try to do
too much. And flying Oapman is usually a symptom of
trying to hit home runs, right, you know, we're trying
to pull the ball and get the ball in the air.
(04:13):
And I think Jiner is probably heard then he's got
the potential to hit twenty five thirty home runs as
hard as he hits the baseball, and he probably would
like to get off to a better start in that department.
So that probably led to some of the things that
robbed him of his power early on, but you know,
the Grand Slam can fix a lot of things, and
he looked like he was really confident in those nextit bats, Steve.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
When you came out of this weekend, if somebody that's
listening did not watch any of the games and they said,
give me one monster takeaway, it's huge for them as
they come out of it. And it's early and it's
three games, but one takeaway that said, Okay, that looks different.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What was that, Oh man, that looks different.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I mean like Cam Swift is to look like
he's locked in ors Nesky's performance. Was there something you said, oh,
this is going to be a great I mean, this
was a good get or the way he's playing, that's
what we expect, all you something that like opened your
eyes to like, oh okay, and that now I say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
All right. There's a couple So on the last road trip,
Joe sat Cam Smith for a couple of games and
he let him work on some stuff. And one of
the things that they figured out was he was standing
further away from the plate than he had been, so
they got him a little closer just three or four
inches got him a little closer, and he's got six
(05:37):
RBIs in his last five games. That's one. The other
is wes Nesky continues. Yeah, he was doing it in
spring training too, but he continues to impress me with
just stuff. And he's coming out there, no walks, ten strikeouts.
You do that against a team in Williams Sport. I
don't care who it is. That's that's legit. But his
(05:57):
stuff is loud, he elevates, he's got a two ed
of four seiver. He can pitch to a game plan,
but he attacks guys. I love it. I mean, he
looks very aggressive on the mound, but he's going up
there for somebody who started the season fourth or fifth
in the rotation. He's going to be a good piece man.
(06:20):
Keep him healthy and I expect a pretty pretty good
year from west Nesky. In a big get in that
Tucker trade.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, Steve, we you know Tucker player of the week, right,
we said to Tucker, bregnit.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The everybody made a deal of it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
But when you talk about the return and what Paratus
is doing, and you mentioned we was Nesky, which is
huge for a guy the back end of your starting
rotation and that performance was awesome. And you keep getting
six innings from guys in Ronel Blanc or him or
at the front with fromber his life's good. And then
you add Cam Smith and his ability as a young
player to adjust and have, you know, understand at bats
(06:57):
while it's Kyle Tucker the return and this is pretty
damn good with your ROI right, Steve, so far.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
It really is. I mean, hey, listen, Kyle Tucker is
a great player. Kyle Tucker's also going to make four
or five hundred million dollars right in about it in
a year, right, I mean, He's going to make a
lot of money. And do you really want to handicap
your payroll with that on your books? And it just
does it work out usually? And I'm not saying all
(07:25):
these players aren't great. Soto's great, Vladimir Guerrero Junior is great,
Kyle Tucker's great. But the way the Astros have done
these things for the last ten years and been able
to sustain this great run, I love the way they
do it. They've stayed disciplined, they get thirteen years of
returning the three players they got back for Kyle's one year.
(07:46):
I think They've done a very good job, very solid
trade for the Astros, one that they're going to look
back on it and smile.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Steve Sparks, Astro's broadcaster, for a couple more minutes on
a Monday road trip ahead, take two of three? Do
the Astros and the Bats woke up with a big
twenty plus runs over the weekend, win two out of three.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Steve, was there.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Anything that came out of this weekend that you're like
that's a concern or not alarming, but a little bit
of a concern or something that needs just I know
that we're waiting for pay to do erupt and do
all that, but is there something in your mind that
says could be a weakness if it doesn't get addressed immediately.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Holding runners on, you know, the stolen bases against the
Astros is a concern. And I watched wes Netsky really
change his times and vary his times going to home
plate and hold them ball a little bit longer. It's
throw over with less predictability in things of that. They've
(08:48):
got to get better at that. The road trip was
ridiculous in that regard. They gave up so many stolen bases.
The backup catcher for Seattle stolen base, his first stolen
base in years. They have to pay attention to that.
That's just you're in the big leagues. You got to
button up that area as a pitcher. So I think
they're going to get better at that. May realize that
(09:09):
if they started losing games because of it, and they
will because they play a lot of one run games
in Major League Baseball. So you got to get better
at that. But the one takeaway that I take this
from this, you know, this weekend, is that Lance mcculler's
pitching trip a four innings.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He was my next question, Oh yeah, please.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
He pitched really well, you know, and to get extended
and you know, we know how unfortunate it was that
Arraghetty went down with the broken thumb. But to have
Lance pitching the way he is and to be able
to put him back into the rotation, and not to
say Gusto, I thought he did a great job, you know,
(09:49):
in his spots start and gave him four innings and
I think he'll probably get another start. But to have
Lance in the wings, I think is really important for
the Steam.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Hey Steve, do you think there's a legitimate shot of
that's what we see in from mccullor's continues, that he
slides into the starting rotation and you put Gusto for now,
who's versatile and can start where he's been and he's
been in the bullpen and done a great job before
they gave him the start. That that's the natural transition.
Get him back in the bullpen and Lance mccullor's were
he wants to be as this as one of the
(10:18):
five guys. Is that kind of what you envision in
the next month.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's what I envisioned, you know. And we haven't really
gotten that far with talking about with Joe and Josh Miller,
the pitching coach, what their plans are, but I know
they viewed Lance as a starting pitcher, yep. And he's
been a very good starting pitcher in the past, and
I think they'll be able to get him back in there.
We've seen too. I mean, Gusto's it's a thankless job,
(10:44):
but it's a hard job as a long reliever, right,
Gusto is great at it. Gusto comes in and pounds
his zone. The other day he threw three innings in
only thirty nine pitches. You get a guy to be
able to do valuable what that could do for your
team in the next two days, whether you win or lose.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So, Uh, the collateral damage, the collateral damage of the
or the collateral good work. Part of it is Gusto
in the long relief is really really good.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Outside of just one game that he pitched.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
In right right, that that bleeds into the next game,
two or three games. Uh, the job that he's been
able to do. So I love him in that role,
you know, to his detriment. Probably at some point, uh,
they're gonna say, maybe he's so good at it. Every
guy wants to be a starting pitcher, but he's shown
that he can be a very good reliever. He's going
(11:34):
to come in and be a command guy, and I
love it. He comes in with good stuff, but he
can execute and throw the ball where he wants to
and he's going to be good. Man. He's a good pitcher.
He's going to be a good piece of this Astros team.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You see one last thing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I want to get back to holden runners on or
you know, putting them in a situation where teams where
the fattest guy on the team's gonna do what's what's
the bag? What's the catcher's name in Toronto? The little dude?
What's his name? Steve the You know.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
He's a Kirk.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, yeah, I love Alejandro Kirk. He's going to start
stealing on him. You're going to lead the league. And
if he played against the Astros every day and he
moves around for a big guy in truth, though, Steve,
is it fixable during the rag?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You know how you work on covering first all those
mechanical things in spring training, So how do you get
in their mental psyching? Say, got a hold runners on better?
We got to make sure that we're not putting our
catcher in the mind and putting our defense in the
mind and our offense because of collateral damage. How do
you fix that during the regular season?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know what, you have a meeting before every time
a guy starts again, before every series, all the relievers
will get together and they'll go over kind of general
idea of what certain guys like to do. But that's
just something that they just got to continue to talk about.
It's almost it's almost one of those things where if
you don't talk about it, you forget about it, and
(12:50):
then before you know it, you never have a double
play in order and there's a guy in scoring position.
Every time you walk a guy or hit a guy
when it's unnecessary, you know you can do a better
job of it. You know, Major League Baseball has encouraged
guys to run more with the bigger bases without being
able to only throw over a couple of times. I
get that part of it, and it hamstrings guys. I
(13:12):
understand it. But you still have to make an effort
if you still have to use that pitch clock to
your advantage and maybe hold it a little longer or
quick pitch guys. Here's another thing, show them a slide
step real early in the ballgame. Let everybody on the
bitch know that you have that in your back pocket
when you want to. So at least it's in the
(13:32):
back of their head. But show it early. You know,
if they know that you have a pretty good slide step,
even though you don't like to use it very often,
at least it's in the back of their minds. So
little things like that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Steve real quick. This team, I mean, I know the manager,
they recognize it. The pitchers are well aware. This is
a glaring weakness. Correct, it's not an I confess it's
the catcher's fault. They realize this has got to be
fixed or they're going to be in a bind themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Correct well about it a couple of days ago, and
yeah it has been addressed recently. So yeah, it's it's
something that's on their mind, and I think they're talking
about more. So that's that's where it starts. And I was,
I was paying pretty close attention yesterday with Wes Natsky,
and I thought he did a great job. No stolen bases,
and he did a great job of it. So I
(14:20):
think it starts with the intent, you know, and just
make sure you do the little things, because one run
games count just as much as anything else, and they
can win those games that they can keep guys out
of scoring position and a little closer to first base.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, it was Nescy is dynamic yesterday, Steve and precise
and precise Steve.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Have a great road trip, brother.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
We'll look forward to talking to you next Monday, and
we sure appreciate the great insight that we wouldn't be
able to give.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So thank you, my man, all right, Sean, thank you
for having me too, Buddy,
Salisbury, Old Salisbury.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Okay, let's do this Sewn Salisbury to USC Troupes, longtime
friend Shawn Salisbury, Dan Matthews. This is the Sean Salisbury Show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Sports Talk seven ninety for our weekly eight o'clock visit
on Mondays with Steve Sparks has always Astros broadcaster. Great
to have him in and they win a series before
they get on a road now and they took care
of the Halos. Steve, welcome in. Let me start here production.
We needed to see Cam smith Yiner Diaz look like
(00:44):
a few guys Parades took it to another level. So
some guys that are new on this team and guys
that have been here, those are the bats that look
like it needed to erupt.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
The ball looked a little bigger this weekend, Steve.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It did twenty one runs in the three games, and
you mentioned the Angel They were in first place in
the division, so I had to win two out of three.
Was good pitching, it continues to be solid, but the bats,
as you mentioned, I think it was the wake up
call that the Astros are starting to pour it on
a little bit have big innings. They had a six
run inning, a five run inning, and a four run inning,
(01:17):
So that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Things, Hey, Steve.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, at times we sit back and try to,
like with a fine toothcomb, was sitting at home and
watching it. You're there watching the games all the time
of why a guy may be struggling, and you know,
five games and eight games and it's like, well, this
is wrong, this is wrong, when it could simply just
be they just started slow, or I didn't seeing the ball, whatever,
No major adjustment needed. So with the ideas was there
(01:42):
and you talked about him a little bit last week,
but was there a major adjustment needed or was it
just as simple as getting locked in?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Because it's early.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think a lot of times hitters will tell you
I know what I'm doing wrong, and I'm doing the
drills and I'm trying to correct. What's going wrong is
just flying open with the front shoulder, front hip, and
then you lose coverage of the whole half of the
outer half of the plate. So you know, sometimes it
(02:11):
might just be as simple as the Angels came in town.
And if you look at the ainers numbers against the Angels,
he's got an ops of almost nine to fifty in
his career. For some reason, guys get confidence when another
team comes in down because of past success. And I
think he just came in, got a big hit, and
hopefully now he's on a pretty good role.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Steve, I want to get to the psychological part of
that and just not just him, but anybody. And you
haven't covered it and played it for a long time,
you know when you're going good, like you know Jiner
was last year and how he earned this gig, and
you know where he's hitting in the lineup, and think, okay,
you got a star in the making. What changes when
they've had success with something? Why fly your front shoulder
(02:52):
open and try to pull the ball? I mean, what
goes on? Do you just get tempting? Why change success?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What gets into somebody's mind that says, let me try
something different even though I've had success at it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I know from a pitching standpoint, you know, bad habits
can creep in just playing catch in the outfield.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Like a lazy warm up, right, Steve, Like when you're
not focused, when you get to a little lazy warm
up right.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yep, yeap. And sometimes you may not even know it.
Maybe maybe your mind's on something else and you're you're
playing catch and you're not really throwing every baseball with intent.
Garrett Cole used to talk about that a lot like
you gotta you gotta play catch with intent. You got
to make sure those habits don't creep in. And I
think a lot of times, guy, it's harder probably to
(03:38):
get out of a hitting slump at the beginning of
the season, because your numbers are flashing on the scoreboard, right, and.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You know, it goes up, it goes up and down
extreme as opposed to after like two hundred and fifty
at bats, right.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Steve, it does and everybody hits one thirty six for
a period of seven or ten games at some point
during the season. But when it's at the beginning of
the season, that'll probably lead you to try to do
too much. And flying Oapman is usually a symptom of
trying to hit home runs, right, you know, we're trying
to pull the ball and get the ball in the air.
(04:13):
And I think Jiner is probably heard then he's got
the potential to hit twenty five thirty home runs as
hard as he hits the baseball, and he probably would
like to get off to a better start in that department.
So that probably led to some of the things that
robbed him of his power early on, but you know,
the Grand Slam can fix a lot of things, and
he looked like he was really confident in those nextit bats, Steve.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
When you came out of this weekend, if somebody that's
listening did not watch any of the games and they said,
give me one monster takeaway, it's huge for them as
they come out of it. And it's early and it's
three games, but one takeaway that said, Okay, that looks different.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
What was that, Oh man, that looks different.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I mean like Cam Swift is to look like
he's locked in ors Nesky's performance. Was there something you said, oh,
this is going to be a great I mean, this
was a good get or the way he's playing, that's
what we expect, all you something that like opened your
eyes to like, oh okay, and that now I say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
All right. There's a couple So on the last road trip,
Joe sat Cam Smith for a couple of games and
he let him work on some stuff. And one of
the things that they figured out was he was standing
further away from the plate than he had been, so
they got him a little closer just three or four
inches got him a little closer, and he's got six
(05:37):
RBIs in his last five games. That's one. The other
is wes Nesky continues. Yeah, he was doing it in
spring training too, but he continues to impress me with
just stuff. And he's coming out there, no walks, ten strikeouts.
You do that against a team in Williams Sport. I
don't care who it is. That's that's legit. But his
(05:57):
stuff is loud, he elevates, he's got a two ed
of four seiver. He can pitch to a game plan,
but he attacks guys. I love it. I mean, he
looks very aggressive on the mound, but he's going up
there for somebody who started the season fourth or fifth
in the rotation. He's going to be a good piece man.
(06:20):
Keep him healthy and I expect a pretty pretty good
year from west Nesky. In a big get in that
Tucker trade.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, Steve, we you know Tucker player of the week, right,
we said to Tucker, bregnit.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The everybody made a deal of it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
But when you talk about the return and what Paratus
is doing, and you mentioned we was Nesky, which is
huge for a guy the back end of your starting
rotation and that performance was awesome. And you keep getting
six innings from guys in Ronel Blanc or him or
at the front with fromber his life's good. And then
you add Cam Smith and his ability as a young
player to adjust and have, you know, understand at bats
(06:57):
while it's Kyle Tucker the return and this is pretty
damn good with your ROI right, Steve, so far.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
It really is. I mean, hey, listen, Kyle Tucker is
a great player. Kyle Tucker's also going to make four
or five hundred million dollars right in about it in
a year, right, I mean, He's going to make a
lot of money. And do you really want to handicap
your payroll with that on your books? And it just
does it work out usually? And I'm not saying all
(07:25):
these players aren't great. Soto's great, Vladimir Guerrero Junior is great,
Kyle Tucker's great. But the way the Astros have done
these things for the last ten years and been able
to sustain this great run, I love the way they
do it. They've stayed disciplined, they get thirteen years of
returning the three players they got back for Kyle's one year.
(07:46):
I think They've done a very good job, very solid
trade for the Astros, one that they're going to look
back on it and smile.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Steve Sparks, Astro's broadcaster, for a couple more minutes on
a Monday road trip ahead, take two of three? Do
the Astros and the Bats woke up with a big
twenty plus runs over the weekend, win two out of three.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Steve, was there.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Anything that came out of this weekend that you're like
that's a concern or not alarming, but a little bit
of a concern or something that needs just I know
that we're waiting for pay to do erupt and do
all that, but is there something in your mind that
says could be a weakness if it doesn't get addressed immediately.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Holding runners on, you know, the stolen bases against the
Astros is a concern. And I watched wes Netsky really
change his times and vary his times going to home
plate and hold them ball a little bit longer. It's
throw over with less predictability in things of that. They've
(08:48):
got to get better at that. The road trip was
ridiculous in that regard. They gave up so many stolen bases.
The backup catcher for Seattle stolen base, his first stolen
base in years. They have to pay attention to that.
That's just you're in the big leagues. You got to
button up that area as a pitcher. So I think
they're going to get better at that. May realize that
(09:09):
if they started losing games because of it, and they
will because they play a lot of one run games
in Major League Baseball. So you got to get better
at that. But the one takeaway that I take this
from this, you know, this weekend, is that Lance mcculler's
pitching trip a four innings.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He was my next question, Oh yeah, please.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
He pitched really well, you know, and to get extended
and you know, we know how unfortunate it was that
Arraghetty went down with the broken thumb. But to have
Lance pitching the way he is and to be able
to put him back into the rotation, and not to
say Gusto, I thought he did a great job, you know,
(09:49):
in his spots start and gave him four innings and
I think he'll probably get another start. But to have
Lance in the wings, I think is really important for
the Steam.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Hey Steve, do you think there's a legitimate shot of
that's what we see in from mccullor's continues, that he
slides into the starting rotation and you put Gusto for now,
who's versatile and can start where he's been and he's
been in the bullpen and done a great job before
they gave him the start. That that's the natural transition.
Get him back in the bullpen and Lance mccullor's were
he wants to be as this as one of the
(10:18):
five guys. Is that kind of what you envision in
the next month.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's what I envisioned, you know. And we haven't really
gotten that far with talking about with Joe and Josh Miller,
the pitching coach, what their plans are, but I know
they viewed Lance as a starting pitcher, yep. And he's
been a very good starting pitcher in the past, and
I think they'll be able to get him back in there.
We've seen too. I mean, Gusto's it's a thankless job,
(10:44):
but it's a hard job as a long reliever, right,
Gusto is great at it. Gusto comes in and pounds
his zone. The other day he threw three innings in
only thirty nine pitches. You get a guy to be
able to do valuable what that could do for your
team in the next two days, whether you win or lose.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So, Uh, the collateral damage, the collateral damage of the
or the collateral good work. Part of it is Gusto
in the long relief is really really good.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Outside of just one game that he pitched.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
In right right, that that bleeds into the next game,
two or three games. Uh, the job that he's been
able to do. So I love him in that role,
you know, to his detriment. Probably at some point, uh,
they're gonna say, maybe he's so good at it. Every
guy wants to be a starting pitcher, but he's shown
that he can be a very good reliever. He's going
(11:34):
to come in and be a command guy, and I
love it. He comes in with good stuff, but he
can execute and throw the ball where he wants to
and he's going to be good. Man. He's a good pitcher.
He's going to be a good piece of this Astros team.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You see one last thing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I want to get back to holden runners on or
you know, putting them in a situation where teams where
the fattest guy on the team's gonna do what's what's
the bag? What's the catcher's name in Toronto? The little dude?
What's his name? Steve the You know.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
He's a Kirk.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, yeah, I love Alejandro Kirk. He's going to start
stealing on him. You're going to lead the league. And
if he played against the Astros every day and he
moves around for a big guy in truth, though, Steve,
is it fixable during the rag?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You know how you work on covering first all those
mechanical things in spring training, So how do you get
in their mental psyching? Say, got a hold runners on better?
We got to make sure that we're not putting our
catcher in the mind and putting our defense in the
mind and our offense because of collateral damage. How do
you fix that during the regular season?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know what, you have a meeting before every time
a guy starts again, before every series, all the relievers
will get together and they'll go over kind of general
idea of what certain guys like to do. But that's
just something that they just got to continue to talk about.
It's almost it's almost one of those things where if
you don't talk about it, you forget about it, and
(12:50):
then before you know it, you never have a double
play in order and there's a guy in scoring position.
Every time you walk a guy or hit a guy
when it's unnecessary, you know you can do a better
job of it. You know, Major League Baseball has encouraged
guys to run more with the bigger bases without being
able to only throw over a couple of times. I
get that part of it, and it hamstrings guys. I
(13:12):
understand it. But you still have to make an effort
if you still have to use that pitch clock to
your advantage and maybe hold it a little longer or
quick pitch guys. Here's another thing, show them a slide
step real early in the ballgame. Let everybody on the
bitch know that you have that in your back pocket
when you want to. So at least it's in the
(13:32):
back of their head. But show it early. You know,
if they know that you have a pretty good slide step,
even though you don't like to use it very often,
at least it's in the back of their minds. So
little things like that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Steve real quick. This team, I mean, I know the manager,
they recognize it. The pitchers are well aware. This is
a glaring weakness. Correct, it's not an I confess it's
the catcher's fault. They realize this has got to be
fixed or they're going to be in a bind themselves.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Correct well about it a couple of days ago, and
yeah it has been addressed recently. So yeah, it's it's
something that's on their mind, and I think they're talking
about more. So that's that's where it starts. And I was,
I was paying pretty close attention yesterday with Wes Natsky,
and I thought he did a great job. No stolen bases,
and he did a great job of it. So I
(14:20):
think it starts with the intent, you know, and just
make sure you do the little things, because one run
games count just as much as anything else, and they
can win those games that they can keep guys out
of scoring position and a little closer to first base.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, it was Nescy is dynamic yesterday, Steve and precise
and precise Steve.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Have a great road trip, brother.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
We'll look forward to talking to you next Monday, and
we sure appreciate the great insight that we wouldn't be
able to give.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So thank you, my man, all right, Sean, thank you
for having me too, Buddy,
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