April 4, 2024 • 42 mins
Former Astro turned Space City Home Network analyst Geoff Blum joins The A-Team for his weekly visit. He talks about the up and down seven games that were at Minute Maid Park. He also talks about the history of the Astros heading up to Arlington and how they've fared against division opponents.
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(00:01):
You look at it. Look atit. Oh yeah, this is radio.
You listened to it on Sports Talkseven ninety Astro's broadcaster Jem Blom on
seven ninety is brought to you bylow T Center. You know what that
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music means. You know what thatintro means. It means the greatest color
analyst in the history of Astros baseball, joins us. Right now, who's
catching straight? Wait? Suck atJim dese Wow, jeez, hey,
you know what out of the gates. You know what, I didn't have
Jim Desches on a radio show thatI hosted for years and years and years,
(00:43):
or a personal relationship with him,and so until that happens, Blum's
number one. Suck it everyone whodisagrees. Hey, Jeff, Hey,
Jeff day you guys, I wasn'tready for that. I should have taken
an extra greeting. I had mycoffee right before the show, so I'm
a little fired up. Oh andby the way, the Astros hit like
five hundred home runs last night,so that's another reason I was just say,
an extra shot at Jordan was nicelast night too. I may or
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may not be wearing a Jordan AlvarezT shirt right now, Jeff, does
that surprise you not at all?I mean, I just probably just came
down to wish one you were gonnawear. Well. I here's the deal,
how feast or famine is the startto this year because they're either no
hitting and scoring ten or eight orwhatever, or they're just it's excruciating losses.
And I I'm not gonna lie toyou. I'm so glad that they
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won the way they did last nightbefore you came on for your sake,
because I know you guys have beenwell when you have worked. That's a
joke. Would you have been onhim when you have been on I know
it's not on him. I hateit. I hate these stupid Apple games
right off the bat. I hateNational games right off the bat. Another
two this weekend that you're not gonnabe able to work of the biggest series
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of the season so far. ButI'm just glad that you're coming in off
of that, because man, itwas rough last week talking about how that
series had started. Little did weknow we were going to have a sweep
at the hands of the Yankees totalk about. So I never thought that
the Astros were a bad team oranything, but that's the team that we
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kind of expected to see at thispoint in the year versus what we've seen
the majority of this very very shortseason so far. Yeah, I mean
we came out of camp and wesaid, with this bullpen, if you
were giving them a lead from theseventh thing on, it would be shut
down all We'd win every single oneof those games. I know, the
first two games of the season wedidn't have Brian A. Brady, but
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still at the same time, youfigured coming out of spring that they would
be able to shut down games,you know, the last three innings and
be able to win them, especiallywith Hayter at the back end of the
bullpen. But with things not goingtheir way and allowing some of these comebacks,
losing some tough one run games,you know, they're two runs away
from having, you know, havingthree more wins on the ledger, maybe
having five total wins. But atthe same time, it's still easy to
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think that they're two and five witha plus seven as far as the run
differential is concerned. And that's obviouslybecause when they did bounce back, they
had the no hitter and they wentout and scored ten runs, and then
we saw that game, the secondgame of that Toronto series, where we
saw some of the worst base runningwe've ever seen in our lives. We
still saw a good pitching, butthey couldn't score a run to overcome a
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late Toronto home run against Josh hadAnd then lo and behold, we show
up the last game, the thirdgame of that series, and they go
out there and pound more home runs, score eight runs, and hold the
opposing team to one run. Imean hold them to one hit. It's
a little exhausting to be honest callingthese games, because you get the enthusiasm
of Todd Kallis calling a no hitter, and then you have the lack of
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enthusiasm on my part when I don'tknow how to explain what they're doing on
the base pads. By the way, can you not ever stop making videos
of no hitters that you guys callwell what you know what? That might
be a whole like thirty for thirtyor document entry On the side, the
fact that since Todd has been here, we've got two World Series championships and
find damn no hitterers. No,are you kidding? It's unbelievable. I
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mean we uh, I mean Iknow the history of the Astros now with
seventeen eighteen no hitters and that kindof thing. But I had no idea,
you know, as nerve wracking asit's been to be on the field,
you know, fielding a no hitter, but to be in the booth
calling a no hitter and desiring itso much, not just you know,
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not for us. I mean,we want it for the team because that
means the team's being successful and wehave a lot of fun calling the game.
But I mean we we feel themomentum of each inning building towards the
end, and that's why, youknow, I put up the video I'm
glad I remembered. I put upthe video camera for Frombers and then I
put up my camera for this one. And both of them have been absolutely
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incredible as far as fans watching it. And yeah, I'll try and do
that a little bit more often becausethe response was great and obviously the moment
was even greater. All right,Well, tying the possible return of Justin
Verlander together with what you were justtalking about with the no no maybe he
comes back middle of the month,pitches against Atlanta. When you guys are
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getting into the broadcast, will youI don't know very nicely call out JP
Franz and Hunter Brown for being theonly pitchers in the Astros rotation who haven't
thrown a no hitter. Yeah,I mean we can gently massage that.
I mean, it feels like itfeels like you should be a little more
compassionate to those guys. But atthe same time, with the ease at
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which some of these guys have goneout there and thrown these no hitters,
and maybe they're trying to line uptheir starts against the Toronto Blue Jays to
be able to go out there anddo that. Because you know, you
had Renel Blanco with the no hitteragainst the Toronto Blue Jays. Then we
went back a couple of years andyou had Justin Burlanders no hitter against the
Blue Jays. Maybe that's the teamto pick on, and guys might be
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trying to time up their starts whenwe go to Toronto to be able to
have their opportunity. But yeah,they're definitely the two odd men out in
the fact that they don't have ano hitter. It's kind of crazy to
think about. But the other thingthat we brought up the other day is
that the fact that You've got RenaulBlanco, Christian Xavier, and fromber Valdez.
Their signing bonuses were only twenty fivethousand total for three guys, and
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all of them have been involved inno hitters. It's incredible and I wouldn't
imagine it, just kind of thinkingback as it it falls into place last
night, when you get the fourrelievers to finish off a one hitter that
Christian Xavier started. You know,the second inning, Varshow just kind of
flips one out beyond third base,down the line and left fielder has no
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chance to get it. Was itwas a super clean hit, but it
was not very well hit. Thatwas it that turned out to be the
only hit of the game. Imean, at any point over the course
of the night, do you thinkback and say, you know, this
pitch slides a little bit more overthe plate, maybe he pulls it a
little bit or pokes it right towhere the left fielder is, then we
have something special again. Yeah.No, you definitely think about that,
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because once you get to those laterinnings, you look back and you're like,
who got the hit? And youhave to remind yourself by look at
your score book, and then you'relike, oh yeah, it was just
a little duck fart to you know, left field off the end of the
bat. But that's, you knowwhat truth be told. You're not as
a player, broadcast or fan.You're not worried about the ball that's rocketed.
If the guy gets it breaks upa no hitter with a base it
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that goes one hundred and ten milesan hour, all you say is that
dude put a good swing on abad pitch and I paid the price for
it. But if you go outthere and make a good pitch and the
guy gets a base hit on youknow, seventy five mile an hour exit
velocity, that's when you're pissed becauseyou know you made the pitch. The
dude just got lucky you hit itoff the end of the bat and found
a soft spot in the defense.Those are the most frustrating. The only
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thing that happened last night was fivehard hit balls from Yard on Olivarez,
he easily could have had a thirdor fourth home run. The one down
the line that Altuve was gassed onrunning from first to third like fifty times
before, he ended up going firstto home, The one where Gary pett
had to throw his body in frontof him for a stop sign, and
that was the one on Tucker andhe's a good thing he did that.
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But you know, he mashed oneoff the wall, straight down the line
in right field. He hit oneto the warning track late in the game.
That elicited even more chuckles from theBlue Jays as it did throughout the
night with he and Chris Bassett Jordanfor one night as he always does,
which usually sets off a streak ofgames like that that's over the course of
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a game. You can't be anymore locked in than that. It's just
rocket after rocket. Yeah, andyou know, I think the Astros it
sounds weird that you need to seea guy get a ball hard, and
I'm talking about Jordan Alvarez, Butwe know that there's so many other guys
in that lineup that can compensate forwhen Jordon isn't going well. You've got
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Kyle Temper getting behind him, who'sdone a good job. He had,
you know, a multi home rungame already this season himself. You've got
guynar Diez out of the shoot swingingthe bat well, Jeremy Payin, you
looks great to start the season.So you're kind of going, okay,
we can get by and let yourdon try and figure it out. But
it felt like once he hit thathole, he got the base hit in
his first at bat, you're going, okay, he got the barrel to
it. Finally he's got a hit. Maybe it'll loosenhim up a little bit
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and he can breathe a little biteasier. And then he proceeds to go
out and hit one about four hundredand thirty feet at one hundred and nine
and a half miles an hour,and then you saw the entire dugout,
including the booth where we were justgoing, oh, dear God, here
he comes. The man is back, and sure enough, that third at
bat he smashes one in the samespot. So it's invigorating when you see
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Jordan go out there and do whathe does, because all of a sudden,
you say, I don't have todo that much because this guy is
going to carry us the rest ofthe way. And I'm sure that's what
Ordna expects of himself too. That'swhat's impressive is he has the expectation and
he fulfills it every single time.Well, and he's not the only one
that is getting the job done.Now, we expected that from him,
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but I think we were cautiously optimisticafter you know, when I said this
the other day, We've had conversationswith you, We've had conversations with Chandler
Rome, We've had conversations probably witha bunch of people about this subject.
The fact that Jeremy Pania made legitphysical adjustments just to his batting stance.
I don't know if that's why he'shaving the success he is, but he
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sure looks like the guy we sawin twenty twenty two, particularly in a
postseason. Yeah, I think theyjust simplified the swing, because you know
what, in twenty twenty two,you know, he had a phenomenal year
ALCS MVP, World Series MVP.You know, he's putting up the you
know, the hand heart everywhere.We all fell in love with him again.
And twenty twenty three he wasn't drivingthe ball well. So he started
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to make some mechanical adjustments in season, and that's really tough to do,
especially when the league is adjusting toyou. And you kind of saw that
drop off in power production even thoughhe was still going out and getting base
hits, and he actually amassed similarops that he did in the season before,
but he didn't have the power togo out to go with the on
base percentage. So over the offseasonthe best time to go out there and
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try and figure things out. Sohe went to a couple of you know,
hitting guys, talking with Alex Sintron, trying to figure out what's going
to work for him. He reallysimplified his load and what his hands are
doing pre pitch so that he's muchquieter and simplify that swing. So he's
taken a very direct route to getinto the zone and he's starting to barrew
the ball up. His exit velocitywas up to start the first you know,
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four or five games, and herein the last two or three games,
we're starting to see him get somehanging sliders out over the middle of
the plate, and with that steamcoming through the zone, he's able to
clip a couple of these baseballs andhit him well out of the ballpark.
So I would imagine confidence is prettyhigh, and it's nice when you make
an adjustment that you see the successthat way, you can kind of cement
that swing and hopefully throughout the courseof the season, if he does have
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some slumps, this swing will beeasier to adjust than the one in the
past. Well, that is justone of the topics we will get to
over the remainder of forty five minutesor so we have with Jeff Blum here
on the EIGHTEAM Sports Talk seven ninetyReal quick, Jeff, as you know,
you've been speaking for Exfinity for along time. I spoke for them
in the past. I'm speaking forthem again, and it's one of the
(12:05):
biggest ways that we're able to keeptrack of everything astro is related. But
we're able to do it at thesame time as our family doing everything else
they do with the Wi Fi becauseExfinity is so fantastic with its Wi Fi
in both of our homes. Youknow what I've learned my lesson in the
last couple of years having five womenat home and trying to be able to
prep for games. Having Exfinity WiFihas given me the opportunity, you know,
(12:28):
the wall to wall Wi Fi they'vegot going on, the expensive I
can hide in my little tiny pocketoffice and get my work done, upload
all the notes that I need andsee the video that I need to see
for that day's picture. So I'mextremely grateful for the opportunity to be working
with Expinity because they're working for me, now, they're working for you,
They're working for everyone that has them. And right now you can get that
(12:50):
wall to wall Wi Fi from Exfinityfor a reliable connection throughout your home as
well. Now through April twenty first, new customers can get started with a
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gotta do well three things you cando. Go to Infinity dot com,
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call one eight hundred Exfinity, orvisit a store today. Infinity proud sponsor
of your Houston Astros. Back toAdam Clinton and Adam Wexler. Now here's
Adam. No, no, theother Adam On second thought, No Adam,
you take it? No, no, no, no, Adam.
Wait wait Adam. Guys, guys, the AE continue the fun here on
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Sports Talk seven to ninety special Thursdayvisit from an astros analyst from Space City
Home Network, Jeff Blum, asthe astros have a day off and we're
talking about it. In the openingsegment, there are a lot of numbers
that absolutely positively do not match upwith Yeah, they're two and five,
very very much not matching up withthem. So the pitching numbers before they
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hand it off to the bullpen aretremendous, league best type stuff. A
lot of their offensive number are literallyleague best stuff. Number one in batting
average, number one in ops,number one in homers, all American League
best numbers for the Houston Astros,and even the you know, the overall
staff era is among the top sevenin baseball, and yet they fell from
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two. Well, they're the onlyteam that doesn't have a winning record,
and they're not even close, rightbecause they're two and five. And Jeff,
you mentioned at the opening segment alot of this is, you know,
I was talking to somebody else andit's the same thing you said.
It's kind of why baseball is whatit is. There's so many different things
on any given night. Was listeningto Brian boga Sevic this morning. He
made his weekly appearance on Next Up, and he said, you kind of
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you take the good with the badin two senses, the good and the
bad with what how the season started, what didn't go well, who didn't
play well? And then specifically tothe Altuve base running situations earlier in this
series. He's going to hit homers, he's going to lead this team.
This team's going to be back ofthe playoffs. He's going to be all
time great. And this many yearsinto his career, those things they just
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happen. Yeah, it's funny youtalk about the Astros organization and obviously we
still have Jeff Bagwell part of theorganization. And when everybody says, how's
bagg you're doing, and you getpast the pleasant trees, everybody says,
man was one of the best baserunners I've ever seen in my life.
They're going to continue to talk aboutJose Al too. They as one of
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the great ballplayers, if not aHall of Famer by the time his career
is over. But they are notgoing to say anything about his base running.
They're going to say he is agreat bitter who could hit the high
fastball. He was an energizer,bunny. He could do a lot of
things. But for some reason,there's some mental laps or there's just you
know, an indecision that gets themin trouble. But man, the dude,
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the dude is a lot of funto watch, and there are moments
where you just can't take your eyesoff because you don't know what's going to
happen next. But it's to hiscredit. He has a postgame interview and
he's you know, he said whatwe were all thinking out loud. He
said, sometimes you wonder what arewe thinking? It couldn't have been much
better, and that's really like,that's probably all that needs to be said,
because he took care of it.I don't know that he literally takes
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care of it over the final oneto fifty five, but that's how you
handle it again in a situation likethat. By no means was that even
in that game the only base runningblunder obviously the stolen base attempt and other
things that took place, and littlebits and pieces of a one run loss
three times over in their first sevengames, three to one run losses,
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two lop sided victories, and reallymore honestly outside of the record, which
is yes, I know it's theonly thing that matters, but so many
more positives than otherwise. Why don'twe start with the lineup. The one,
two, three four is pretty wellset. I'm ready to say the
one two, three, four fiveis now set because it didn't take Joe
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a Spot along to say, maybewe're better off if Janer Diaz, who's
absolutely on fire, is in thefive hole rather than any of the other
options. But you know, howhow do you think things have played out
with the kind of new construction ofal two, Alvarez, Tucker, Bregman,
Diaz. I think it's worked outgreat. And I actually want to
go back to the conversation we hadto begin the year. I think it
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was, you know, after acouple of games against the New York Yankees,
and you guys actually asked the question, you know, would Joe A
spotted be open to kind of adjustingthat lineup behind Alex Fragman to see what
works best? And I think weall came to the consensus that, yeah,
you might want to try and manipulatethat line up a little bit and
play whoever's hot to kind of getup there and protect Alex Bragman or be
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up there when Alex does get onbase, because he's a high on base
percentage guy. And the way thatJanner Diaz has kind of broken out of
the gate in the season, he'searned the right to be in that fifth
spot, and I think he looksextremely comfortable in that spot. I mean,
he can be a little bit ofa free swinger at times, but
I've actually, I've actually enjoyed someof his bats because he's laying off some
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tough sliders on the outside corner.He had some great at bats against Jose
Barrios in that in that game againsthim, who's a very good right handed
pitcher, ended up beating the Astros. But I like where he's at.
I like his mentality. I alsolike his aggressiveness with guys in scoring position
because he'll actually go the other waywith some pitches. But the fact that
Joe is a little pliable I thinkbuilds confidence in a guy like Jiner Diaz
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and he feels like he's a partof this ball club hitting that high in
the order and it's paying off andhe catches no hitters. Yeah, I
mean, what can't he do?I just, I mean, this subject
has been beaten to death at thispoint. I'm glad he's in the lineup
every day. I'm glad he's upin the lineup every day relatively speaking,
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but it's just it is insane tosee. Probably, I mean, if
we're looking at this lineup, theleast experienced guy probably be the most consistent
best hitter out of the gates herein twenty twenty four. And that's a
testament to what, you know,not only what he had already been able
to do last year in his limitedplay, but you know, obviously he's
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worked to be this good all offseason like they all have. But for
him to be doing this, it'sit's pretty incredible, it is, and
you know that the hitting part mightmight be the least surprising of it,
just because we had a chance towatch him in what sixty games that he
caught, you know, hitting twentythree home runs and hitting better while playing
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catcher. It was just how washe going to move? You know,
how are they going to mix himinto that lineup last season? And he
didn't get the opportunity down the stretchor in the postseason. But here he
is. You know, Martin Maldonado'smoved on, new manager and you get
the opportunity and it's almost you know, it's one of those confidence builders where
you know that the manager, probablyJoe probably sat it down and said,
look, we're not going to bringback Martin Maldonado because we want you to
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catch games so we know you canhit the work on the defensive side,
and I think that's where he's kindof made some improvements in calling some of
these games. You're starting to hearsome of these pictures say, I'm more
comfortable with Jainer back there. He'scalling a good game. We're insane.
So I just hope that that continuesto perpetuate itself throughout the course of the
year, where he really kind ofgrinds out some of the studying, pregame
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or the preparation to get ready forthe game to work with these pictures.
Because if you I mean, ifyou take out the bullpen numbers and look
what the starters have done who he'sspent the most time catching, those numbers
are absolutely incredible as far as beinga receiver of a you know, we
didn't anticipate this particular rotation being topof the line, but they are one
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of the best in baseball right nowif you go statistically, and a lot
of the credit needs to go tothe ideas because you've been putting a lot
of those fingers or at least sendingthe message to the picture through pitch pomp
on what to throw, and theywork very well together. And then on
top of that, he's going outthere dropping bombs and driving in RBIs man,
it's been awesome. Yeah, itis kind of as you said it
there. I'm sure you're thinking it. I can't say he put the right
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fingers down anymore because they don't dothat anymore. So silly, but it
does have its purpose. It clearlyis something that for for some people's sanity,
it may have taken some element outof the game of baseball. But
for the numbers, since we dolike to measure thing with numbers, the
Astros starting pitchers in their seven startsone point twenty nine era, it is
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the best in baseball forty two innings, also the most in baseball. They've
been incredible. They clearly lead themajors and no hitters. The one complete
game is also something that no otherteam has done, so credit to Renel
Blanco. And last thing on thecatching with that aspect of it, you
know the number of games he's caughtfrom Renelle and Hunter and the number is
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so low considering how little he wasout there behind any given pitcher we're talking
about, and he does appear comfortablewith them, and in that no hitter
specifically, while Renel was on.He said he shook him off twice maybe,
And you could see in the ninthinning as he was walking Springer,
and then after he walked Springer,you know, Jiner took his steps out
to the mound, you know,basically told him take a breath, take
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it easy, relax for a second. You just need to make a couple
more pitches and we're going to celebrate. And those are the things that a
more experienced catcher kind of does naturally, and it looks like those are the
things that he's now doing. No, I completely agree. Those are those
intangible things that you really can't Youcan't sit down in a room and you
can't go on to the field andteach those things. Those are just things
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that you feel during the momentum ofa game or in your experience, Like
you're talking about what's in catching thesegames and working with personalities, and you
can kind of watch that last thingthe pitches day through the George Springer after
getting the first out, you know, he ganked a couple of fastballs and
I think that's probably what sent theantennas up on jan your Diaz and said,
Okay, he's starting to feel thegravity of the situation. I need
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to go out there and step outand tell them, Hey, slow things
down. Trust me, you've beendoing a great job the entire time.
Let's just continue to do what you'vebeen doing. Take a deep breath,
and let's finish this thing off.And that's exactly what it did. But
you're right, you're watching you're basicallywatching a young catcher mature right before our
eyes. Well, one thing we'lldo over the next half hour we have
with you, Jeff, is we'llhelp our listeners help you out and see
(23:07):
if they can come up with alist of best things to do in Sacramento
from twenty twenty five through twenty twentyseven and beyond. We'll talk about that,
among other things. Here with JeffBlum. Here on the A Team,
there's a space City Home Network's ToddKallis, there's the A Team.
You got him. It's Adam Clintonand Adam Webfler. Clinton stop impersonating me
(23:30):
on Sports Talk seven ninety back atit. Here on the A Team with
Jeff Blummer. Hey, Bum,would you like that? Liner? Yes?
I love it. He's such aHe's such a doll for doing that.
Man, he's such a Teddy Bearfor doing that and playing along?
Has he all right? You knowthis? Is he aware of my impression
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of him? He has to be, now, doesn't he. I was
curious if you asked him to dothat spot in his voice, like did
you talk to him? As Ididn't. I was like made aware of
this after he was already had recordedit by the time I found out about
it, Like I think Dan senthim a script and Boltsy got him to
record it when when TK was doingradio in Florida, so we got the
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finished product. Yeah, and I'mjust like, man, he's the best.
But it's serious though you know itwas a ready stop it stop doing
that impression of me. No,he's uh. It's the sincerest form of
flattery and it absolutely applies in thiscase. I love Todd Kallis and it
was great. Like like mentioned inthe first segment, it's just there's so
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many no hitters that he's been apart of. It's just crazy. But
he really does and you do aswell. They a fantastic job when you're
calling those things and not jinxing it, by the way, which we talked
about. So so let me askyou this, how did you feel about
how that went for the final callbecause everybody's heard it, because every entity
has been using it, because clearlythey liked it. I thought it was
(25:02):
phenomenal what Todd said, and obviouslywhat you added to the moment. No,
it's phenomenal what Todd is able todo. And you know, being
fortunate enough to work with him sincetwenty seventeen, and I had a relationship
with him when I played with TampaBay. I met him for the first
time in two thousand and four,so we have a relationship. But now
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that we've been working together, andyou guys know this from being on radio
with each other for so many years, is that you start to get it
becomes second nature to know when he'sgoing to talk, what he's going to
say, how he's going to sayit, when he's going to leave it
open for me to come in andhave an opportunity to say something. But
when we get in those big moments, I know that they are not my
(25:44):
moments. You know it's his momentbecause he is. There's a reason he
is, and the CD's in becausehe's very very good at what he does,
and he has the voice, hehas the inflection, he has the
passion, and to be brutally honest, you if you're watching that video,
I kind of sit back because I'mwatching the ground ball, and obviously I'm
(26:06):
in anticipation of the play being made. But at the same time, I'm
just sitting back and joining the showlike everybody else, because I know TK
is going to take this thing andjust absolutely launch it into the stratosphere with
his voice over the top of it. So I just sit back and enjoy.
Then when here gets a little bitof a moment of silence, you
know, or you hear the crowdroar a little bit, you recognize that,
and then he'll he'll kind of giveme a look, and I'll know
(26:29):
that it's okay for me to jumpin there and add a little bit of
flavor to it. But man,I love sitting back and just letting TK
run with this thing because he isso good at it. It's nice to
be around a group that continues providingthese opportunities. So we could go on
and on about all the no hitters, and that doesn't even scratch the surface
on the fact that it's one longpostseason run after another championship calls, clinch
(26:49):
series clinching calls, Division clinching calls. It's it's been unbelievable, and clearly
there are other things that happen,and this year is kind of pointing those
out. And I'm curious as you'vewatched Joe deploy Brian Abrave for his two
games, Ryan Presley over the courseof the seven and same for Josh Hater.
Maybe starting with Hater, you know, what have you seen from him
(27:11):
these first seven games of the season, his first few appearances, And obviously,
with a nod to the fact thatit's so early in the season,
this probably isn't the hardest throwing versionof Josh Hater that Astro's opponents will see
over the course of the one fiftyfive that still remain. But what have
you seen from him and how he'sthrown? Well, first of all,
(27:34):
I think you know relievers are they'rehard to ramp up, especially back into
the bullten type guys, because howdo you ramp them up in spring training
when those games are meaningless. BrianObray, Ryan Presley and Josh Hater,
those guys they pitch on adrenaline andit's hard to replicate that in spring training.
So it's just basically getting their workin and then they've got to adapt
(27:55):
to the regular season. But soly, you know, so early in the
season, they had so many,you know, magnified opportunities to close out
some tight games. So it waskind of escalated with the tight game situation.
It's the New York Yankee, sothere's added emotion. First home stand
of the year, so you've gotextra fans going crazy, and everybody with
the expectations. Josh has the expectationof a big contract, so there's a
(28:18):
lot of exterior things involved there.But the first three outings that I saw
from Josh Hader, I was blownaway. I'm like, this is going
to be the guy the rest ofthe year. It's going to be really
easy top to call his games becausehe's so electric. But you know,
a flat slider got hit out theother day. I don't anticipate that happening
too often throughout the course of theseason because I feel like relievers, once
(28:40):
they get in that rhythm and theyget that strength and they start to adapt
to the adrenaline that they're dealing with, the numbers tick up a little bit,
the break on the spin ticks up, and the break on their pitches
becomes a little more drastic Brian andBrady is going to be fine just because
he's pitched in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth,
so he's kind of accustomed to beingall over the place. I think Ryan
(29:00):
Pressy might it might take him alittle bit to understand what his role is.
But I think Joe's kind of givingan idea that Ryan Presley is going
to be that, you know,that incredibly high leverage guy leading into Josh
Shader. What I mean by thatis he's probably going to face more of
the middle part of the order orsome of these big right handed hitters in
some key situations for the Astros.So he's going to adapt to that.
(29:23):
But it's too early in the season. A really passed judgment on these guys
for making one batch one bad pitchhere or another bad pitch there. I
think that these guys are going tomold into something that's going to be kind
of nice and a lot of funto watch, and you're gonna start to
see some of these close games reallystart turning the Astros away. You know,
it's just because we didn't have theentire series to talk about the last
(29:44):
time we spoke with you last weekafter seeing that Yankee series, and again
it's the first series of the year, and notwithstanding what's happened against Toronto,
do you agree with me or doyou disagree with me when I say I
don't think the Astros were that badobviously, which I think you agree with,
But I don't know if the Yankeesare that good either. What do
you think of the Yankees, especiallynow having seen them and playing in a
(30:06):
second series as well? Well.The funny thing is is that we were
watching a couple of games that wegot a chance to watch. It was
the Yankees were spitting on pitches thatwere on the edges, and I'm going,
who in the heck of these guys. These guys don't spit on anything,
and they're out there trying to,you know, swing it out of
their ass, trying to hit everything, you know, nine hundred feet they'll
(30:26):
chase way off the plate. Wedid see that from Aaron Judge. I
know, and I understand Juan Soto'snot that type of guy, but the
Oswaldo, Cabreras, the Voltfees andsome of these other guys, I'm going,
man, they must be seeing theball really well because they've never done
this, and I'm kind of waitingfor them to kind of, you know,
for that that that team to youknow, kind of rear its ugly
(30:48):
head again, because I think it'sin there. The Astros just taught them
at a very good time when theywere seeing the ball well. They were
spinning on pitches, they were hittingpitches out over the plate, and it
was just really odd to see themmake that much contact against the team that
creates so much swing and miss,and that's not something we've seen in the
past. But I would imagine throughoutthe course of the season those numbers might
(31:10):
come back to reality a little bitquicker. Maybe it was the batters I
had meant it made exactly they sawit that much better. Oh boy,
do you think, though, doyou think the Yankees will ever catch the
Tigers and the American League standings?The Tigers won again today. They're five
and zero AJ. But are youare you telling me you didn't pick the
(31:33):
the the what alds first round beingbetween the Yankees and Tigers. I think
it probably will be, provided theTigers schedule only includes the White Sox and
Mets like it has so far thisseason. I was gonna say that in
the American League Central. What agood place to be, right, Yes,
it's gonna be awesome. When theybeat the Yankees in the DS.
(31:53):
Oh Man, how about that?Yeah, welcome back AJ. When they
go to the ALCS against the Astrothat would be wild. And when they
clinch and send them home. AJwill be talking to the team in the
clubhouse and he'll defer, saying,I'll wait for the next series. Martin,
you got this one. You wantedus, you got us. Oh
(32:14):
my gosh. All right, speakingof the playoffs, we know how it
went the last time the Astros werein a series. They're gonna get reunited
with that team, and we'll discussthat in the final segment with Blummer.
As we are just a few hoursaway, well technically a day away from
the first of a four game wraparound the weekend type series against the our
(32:37):
rivals from Southern Oklahoma. We'll talkto Blumber about that when we come back
here on Sports Talk seven ninety.Well down the thunder, Well, now
you got it, Adam Clinton,Adam Wexworth, all right, let's go.
The eight team continues on Sports Talkseven ninety final segment with Blummer here
(32:59):
for his weekly is It on theeighteen. So I'm reading a tweet from
your good friends over at Saint Arnold. Peds are a no go in baseball,
but when it comes to cornhole,Jeff Blum endorses them. Now,
having said that, I just wantyou to just tell me the first thing
that comes to mind when you thinkof Adulas Garcia start to the season.
(33:22):
That's all. I'm just gonna getother the way. Now. Well,
I've actually heard your rants have gaineda little steam around the ballpark, and
you're being talked about a little bit. You know, obviously there's there's no
I don't know, I don't know. I mean, the dude's massive,
and he's jacked out of his mind. And I got to be careful because
I got to be on the field, you know, wandering around every once
(33:43):
in a while. If that dudeambush me, he'd break me in a
half. Wait, we would hangon a second. I have to stop
you right there. I have tostop you right there. My rants on
Adulus Garcia are making their rounds atthe ballpark. Yeah. Oh I love
that. I love that. Yeah. Good, you know what, and
in a roundabout way, I meanit kind of maybe you said the quiet
(34:06):
part out loud. Well, I'vebeen saying it for a year now.
Like that guy. I was therewhen Barry Bonds came to talent during the
chase for what it was a seventythree when that was happening. I remember
it very well, being at minat May Park and seeing him being interviewed
by all of the media there andthinking to myself, a human head does
not expand that way unless there's somethingelse going on. And I look,
(34:30):
it's not to say that he doesn'thave talent. Barry Bonds had talent.
The astros knew what pitches were coming, but they still had to have talent
to hit those baseballs. I'm tellingyou right now that guy's doing something that's
not on the up and up.I have no doubt in my mind.
Okay, I mean, I can'tjump on that bandwagon just because I'm trying
(34:50):
to try to maintain a little bitof what integrity I have left. But
the dude, the dude is I'mjust gonna say that he went from you
know, a marginal waiver guy withSaint Louis to an absolute destructive force in
the middle of the Rangers lineup.And he's got mad pop. He's maybe
he's made a swing adjustments, maybehe got after it in the gym,
(35:12):
whatever it may be. He's he'sfigured something out to be good. But
you know, it's just crazy.I mean, I know there's late bloomers,
isn't it. He's like thirty one, thirty two years old. I
mean, it's just you know,he's kind of it's he's he's at the
other end of that algorithm that says, you know, you should be in
your peak performance, but you can'targue with the results. He's been swinging
(35:34):
the bat well. He plays,you know, a relatively decent right field,
but he's got some freak pop.And I mean he's only in that
lineup to do one thing, andthat's just to bash baseballs. But to
go back to the Saint Arnold artcar I Pap, they'll talk. The
one thing I will tell everybody isthat they don't test in the booth.
I hesitate to ask you the question, but it's like it's killing at me.
(35:59):
Have you ever I don't ask him. I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it. Well, you have no I have no.
Wex has not for a game.Wex has done. Wex has done shows
not clean yet, these shows.I don't do Rockets games with all little
extra help. Yeah, I thinkit was an inappropriate question. And I
(36:20):
know at the ball game that thatis technically a place that sells quite a
large amount of alcohol. And wedo a lot of remotes at sports bars
and restaurants and they also have abock. They also have a brewery or
a bar, and they sell alcohol. I mean, I'm just trying to
make sure I know what it's allabout when we're out there, and I'll
leave it up to the fans toknow what the ballparks are all about.
Well, they can handle that themselves. Saint Arnolds does have a nice little
(36:42):
setup out there at the yard.Yeah, and it's not as if Blummer
didn't, you know, play tothe crowd over the weekend. So it's
it's that's proof right there. I'mnot throwing him under the bus. No,
you can't. I'm too big tobe thrown under a bus under too
many buses to begin with. Soit's okay, all right, But yeah,
(37:04):
in all seriousness, you've got aRangers team that sent you packing,
and everybody's gonna make entirely too muchof this series regardless of what happens on
both sides, they just will tearall that aside, the drama and when
it comes down to it, whatdo you foresee happening this weekend in Arlington,
a place, by the way,where if we're going to keep talking
(37:25):
about how the Astros can't win athome, they are very comfortable in that
ballpark. Yeah, I'm glad youbring that up, because you know,
Jordne. We had Giordne on apostgame obviously for the game that he had
that mess game in the homestand becausehe swung the bat so well, but
he kind of, you know,kind of had a little smirk or a
(37:45):
little twinkle in his eye when hesaid, yeah, it's good that we
get to go on the road inDallas. And I mean, these guys
understand that they love hitting in Arlington, whether it be because of the pitching,
whether it be because of the newballpark. It's a huge ballpark,
but they may it looks so smallwith the way that they swing the bats,
and they've got great history up there. I know that the Rangers could
(38:06):
probably say that last year about beingon the road a minute made park and
putting up big numbers. But atthe same time, it's nice to have
a little bit of momentum at theback end, you know, that last
series against Toronto heading into Arlington.And it's also kind of nice knowing that
you're not going to face Nathan Ivaldibecause of all these gotten out to a
great start. You know, he'sgot eleven strikeouts in thirteen innings and he's
(38:27):
usually pitched pretty well against the Astros. So the Astros have a pretty good
matchup as far as what their startersare going to look like and who they're
going to face up there. Butthey are pretty comfortable in Arling. Ten.
They love getting on the road.They know they're going to get booed
again like they do everywhere else,and for whatever reason, it just seems
to fuel them. It's a lotof fun to watch. Okay, two
things on all that stuff there.One is I'll stick with the Rangers.
(38:51):
Ten days from now, more thanhalf the season series against the Rangers will
be over. Four games against Texasthis weekend, they three more here next
Friday through Sunday. Won't see eachother again until July, but one series
in Houston in July, one seriesin Arlington in August. And even saying
that their season series will be overon August seventh, with you know,
(39:14):
forty to fifty some odd games stillleft to play to figure out how things
will all shake out. Is thereany added magnitude to these games and light
of the fact you're going to seethem seven times in the next basically ten
games ten days. Yeah. Youknow what, as a player, you
really don't take that into account becauseyou're just kind of playing day to day.
And you know, when you startto look at the schedule mapped out
(39:35):
over five months and realizing you're barelyhalfway through the first month, it becomes
a little daunting and you get tiredof just thinking about it. So if
you have a tendency just to kindof look at from series to series,
the series. But I think nowwith this balanced schedule, and you understand
you only go to their place twice, they come to your place twice,
and you're already, like you said, West, you're knocking out a road
(39:57):
trip and a home stand within amatter of two. So I think you
do start to understand that this mightbe our only opportunity against these guys.
And I think something the Astros havedone a very good job of in the
past is playing well within their division, and I would imagine Joe Spot is
going to bring that up or bringit to their attention, saying, this
is an indivision series. We've gotto continue to play well. It's our
(40:19):
rival. They tied us for thatwell, they lost to us in the
division last year. We need towin this season series just in case we
get to the end of the seasonand we need a tiebreaker. This will
break our way if we play wellenough against these guys. So I think
the understanding of that they're not goingto play them that much. They're playing
them early, and how the tiebreakeraffected them and winning the division last season
(40:40):
in twenty twenty three might kind ofchange their mentality a little bit and maybe
may play some of these games witha little bit of urgency when they start
playing against the Texas Rangers here sixtimes on what the next ten or twelve
days, Hunter Brown and Liam andRemy's Dade Blanco on Franber Valdez will be
(41:00):
the four Astros starters go on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Of
course, that's JP France now expectedto make his start on Saturday after Remy
Grace joined us all here on PlanetEarth earlier this week, So congrats to
the France three now a France fourand Jeff If Jeff, the time goes
so so quickly. We appreciate yourvisit as always, and we certainly appreciate
(41:23):
those that make it possible for youto join us and really enjoy life.
Yeah, no, you guys areenjoyable. I appreciate the enjoyment that you
bring me, so thank you forhaving me on. And of course it
goes without saying that Jeff Witztt andthe Witsit Vision Group are a proud sponsor
of getting me onto this broadcast.They are at the leading edge of all
(41:43):
of your vision needs. And oneof the things I like about Jeff Witzett
is the fact that if you havea consultation, you are going to sit
down with the doctor Jeff Witchett tohave that consultation, obviously taking care of
your vision. And then, fellasif you are lacking any kind of energy,
motivation, drive, trust me,get to Low T Center and get
in there and let them treat youand boost that testosterone to give yourself more
(42:07):
energy, more motivation. You'll sleepbetter, you'll recover better, and you'll
have a lot more fun. Trustme. Lowtcenter dot com is where it's
at and I appreciate them, andI appreciate you fellas well. We got
a text during the last break fromsomeone we all know and respect in the
biz who said, heads up,Blum is the best radio guest in the
city, period and I could notagree more. Just another week's worth of
(42:30):
proof to show you right there.So Blum, we appreciate the time and
we'll talk to you next week.Man, that's good to hear. Thanks.
Hillis absolutely have fun in southern Oklahoma.
You look at it. Look atit. Oh yeah, this is radio.
You listened to it on Sports Talkseven ninety Astro's broadcaster Jem Blom on
seven ninety is brought to you bylow T Center. You know what that
(00:23):
music means. You know what thatintro means. It means the greatest color
analyst in the history of Astros baseball, joins us. Right now, who's
catching straight? Wait? Suck atJim dese Wow, jeez, hey,
you know what out of the gates. You know what, I didn't have
Jim Desches on a radio show thatI hosted for years and years and years,
(00:43):
or a personal relationship with him,and so until that happens, Blum's
number one. Suck it everyone whodisagrees. Hey, Jeff, Hey,
Jeff day you guys, I wasn'tready for that. I should have taken
an extra greeting. I had mycoffee right before the show, so I'm
a little fired up. Oh andby the way, the Astros hit like
five hundred home runs last night,so that's another reason I was just say,
an extra shot at Jordan was nicelast night too. I may or
(01:07):
may not be wearing a Jordan AlvarezT shirt right now, Jeff, does
that surprise you not at all?I mean, I just probably just came
down to wish one you were gonnawear. Well. I here's the deal,
how feast or famine is the startto this year because they're either no
hitting and scoring ten or eight orwhatever, or they're just it's excruciating losses.
And I I'm not gonna lie toyou. I'm so glad that they
(01:30):
won the way they did last nightbefore you came on for your sake,
because I know you guys have beenwell when you have worked. That's a
joke. Would you have been onhim when you have been on I know
it's not on him. I hateit. I hate these stupid Apple games
right off the bat. I hateNational games right off the bat. Another
two this weekend that you're not gonnabe able to work of the biggest series
(01:53):
of the season so far. ButI'm just glad that you're coming in off
of that, because man, itwas rough last week talking about how that
series had started. Little did weknow we were going to have a sweep
at the hands of the Yankees totalk about. So I never thought that
the Astros were a bad team oranything, but that's the team that we
(02:15):
kind of expected to see at thispoint in the year versus what we've seen
the majority of this very very shortseason so far. Yeah, I mean
we came out of camp and wesaid, with this bullpen, if you
were giving them a lead from theseventh thing on, it would be shut
down all We'd win every single oneof those games. I know, the
first two games of the season wedidn't have Brian A. Brady, but
(02:36):
still at the same time, youfigured coming out of spring that they would
be able to shut down games,you know, the last three innings and
be able to win them, especiallywith Hayter at the back end of the
bullpen. But with things not goingtheir way and allowing some of these comebacks,
losing some tough one run games,you know, they're two runs away
from having, you know, havingthree more wins on the ledger, maybe
having five total wins. But atthe same time, it's still easy to
(03:00):
think that they're two and five witha plus seven as far as the run
differential is concerned. And that's obviouslybecause when they did bounce back, they
had the no hitter and they wentout and scored ten runs, and then
we saw that game, the secondgame of that Toronto series, where we
saw some of the worst base runningwe've ever seen in our lives. We
still saw a good pitching, butthey couldn't score a run to overcome a
(03:21):
late Toronto home run against Josh hadAnd then lo and behold, we show
up the last game, the thirdgame of that series, and they go
out there and pound more home runs, score eight runs, and hold the
opposing team to one run. Imean hold them to one hit. It's
a little exhausting to be honest callingthese games, because you get the enthusiasm
of Todd Kallis calling a no hitter, and then you have the lack of
(03:44):
enthusiasm on my part when I don'tknow how to explain what they're doing on
the base pads. By the way, can you not ever stop making videos
of no hitters that you guys callwell what you know what? That might
be a whole like thirty for thirtyor document entry On the side, the
fact that since Todd has been here, we've got two World Series championships and
find damn no hitterers. No,are you kidding? It's unbelievable. I
(04:10):
mean we uh, I mean Iknow the history of the Astros now with
seventeen eighteen no hitters and that kindof thing. But I had no idea,
you know, as nerve wracking asit's been to be on the field,
you know, fielding a no hitter, but to be in the booth
calling a no hitter and desiring itso much, not just you know,
(04:30):
not for us. I mean,we want it for the team because that
means the team's being successful and wehave a lot of fun calling the game.
But I mean we we feel themomentum of each inning building towards the
end, and that's why, youknow, I put up the video I'm
glad I remembered. I put upthe video camera for Frombers and then I
put up my camera for this one. And both of them have been absolutely
(04:53):
incredible as far as fans watching it. And yeah, I'll try and do
that a little bit more often becausethe response was great and obviously the moment
was even greater. All right,Well, tying the possible return of Justin
Verlander together with what you were justtalking about with the no no maybe he
comes back middle of the month,pitches against Atlanta. When you guys are
(05:13):
getting into the broadcast, will youI don't know very nicely call out JP
Franz and Hunter Brown for being theonly pitchers in the Astros rotation who haven't
thrown a no hitter. Yeah,I mean we can gently massage that.
I mean, it feels like itfeels like you should be a little more
compassionate to those guys. But atthe same time, with the ease at
(05:34):
which some of these guys have goneout there and thrown these no hitters,
and maybe they're trying to line uptheir starts against the Toronto Blue Jays to
be able to go out there anddo that. Because you know, you
had Renel Blanco with the no hitteragainst the Toronto Blue Jays. Then we
went back a couple of years andyou had Justin Burlanders no hitter against the
Blue Jays. Maybe that's the teamto pick on, and guys might be
(05:55):
trying to time up their starts whenwe go to Toronto to be able to
have their opportunity. But yeah,they're definitely the two odd men out in
the fact that they don't have ano hitter. It's kind of crazy to
think about. But the other thingthat we brought up the other day is
that the fact that You've got RenaulBlanco, Christian Xavier, and fromber Valdez.
Their signing bonuses were only twenty fivethousand total for three guys, and
(06:18):
all of them have been involved inno hitters. It's incredible and I wouldn't
imagine it, just kind of thinkingback as it it falls into place last
night, when you get the fourrelievers to finish off a one hitter that
Christian Xavier started. You know,the second inning, Varshow just kind of
flips one out beyond third base,down the line and left fielder has no
(06:40):
chance to get it. Was itwas a super clean hit, but it
was not very well hit. Thatwas it that turned out to be the
only hit of the game. Imean, at any point over the course
of the night, do you thinkback and say, you know, this
pitch slides a little bit more overthe plate, maybe he pulls it a
little bit or pokes it right towhere the left fielder is, then we
have something special again. Yeah.No, you definitely think about that,
(07:01):
because once you get to those laterinnings, you look back and you're like,
who got the hit? And youhave to remind yourself by look at
your score book, and then you'relike, oh yeah, it was just
a little duck fart to you know, left field off the end of the
bat. But that's, you knowwhat truth be told. You're not as
a player, broadcast or fan.You're not worried about the ball that's rocketed.
If the guy gets it breaks upa no hitter with a base it
(07:23):
that goes one hundred and ten milesan hour, all you say is that
dude put a good swing on abad pitch and I paid the price for
it. But if you go outthere and make a good pitch and the
guy gets a base hit on youknow, seventy five mile an hour exit
velocity, that's when you're pissed becauseyou know you made the pitch. The
dude just got lucky you hit itoff the end of the bat and found
a soft spot in the defense.Those are the most frustrating. The only
(07:44):
thing that happened last night was fivehard hit balls from Yard on Olivarez,
he easily could have had a thirdor fourth home run. The one down
the line that Altuve was gassed onrunning from first to third like fifty times
before, he ended up going firstto home, The one where Gary pett
had to throw his body in frontof him for a stop sign, and
that was the one on Tucker andhe's a good thing he did that.
(08:05):
But you know, he mashed oneoff the wall, straight down the line
in right field. He hit oneto the warning track late in the game.
That elicited even more chuckles from theBlue Jays as it did throughout the
night with he and Chris Bassett Jordanfor one night as he always does,
which usually sets off a streak ofgames like that that's over the course of
(08:26):
a game. You can't be anymore locked in than that. It's just
rocket after rocket. Yeah, andyou know, I think the Astros it
sounds weird that you need to seea guy get a ball hard, and
I'm talking about Jordan Alvarez, Butwe know that there's so many other guys
in that lineup that can compensate forwhen Jordon isn't going well. You've got
(08:46):
Kyle Temper getting behind him, who'sdone a good job. He had,
you know, a multi home rungame already this season himself. You've got
guynar Diez out of the shoot swingingthe bat well, Jeremy Payin, you
looks great to start the season.So you're kind of going, okay,
we can get by and let yourdon try and figure it out. But
it felt like once he hit thathole, he got the base hit in
his first at bat, you're going, okay, he got the barrel to
it. Finally he's got a hit. Maybe it'll loosenhim up a little bit
(09:09):
and he can breathe a little biteasier. And then he proceeds to go
out and hit one about four hundredand thirty feet at one hundred and nine
and a half miles an hour,and then you saw the entire dugout,
including the booth where we were justgoing, oh, dear God, here
he comes. The man is back, and sure enough, that third at
bat he smashes one in the samespot. So it's invigorating when you see
(09:30):
Jordan go out there and do whathe does, because all of a sudden,
you say, I don't have todo that much because this guy is
going to carry us the rest ofthe way. And I'm sure that's what
Ordna expects of himself too. That'swhat's impressive is he has the expectation and
he fulfills it every single time.Well, and he's not the only one
that is getting the job done.Now, we expected that from him,
(09:50):
but I think we were cautiously optimisticafter you know, when I said this
the other day, We've had conversationswith you, We've had conversations with Chandler
Rome, We've had conversations probably witha bunch of people about this subject.
The fact that Jeremy Pania made legitphysical adjustments just to his batting stance.
I don't know if that's why he'shaving the success he is, but he
(10:13):
sure looks like the guy we sawin twenty twenty two, particularly in a
postseason. Yeah, I think theyjust simplified the swing, because you know
what, in twenty twenty two,you know, he had a phenomenal year
ALCS MVP, World Series MVP.You know, he's putting up the you
know, the hand heart everywhere.We all fell in love with him again.
And twenty twenty three he wasn't drivingthe ball well. So he started
(10:35):
to make some mechanical adjustments in season, and that's really tough to do,
especially when the league is adjusting toyou. And you kind of saw that
drop off in power production even thoughhe was still going out and getting base
hits, and he actually amassed similarops that he did in the season before,
but he didn't have the power togo out to go with the on
base percentage. So over the offseasonthe best time to go out there and
(10:58):
try and figure things out. Sohe went to a couple of you know,
hitting guys, talking with Alex Sintron, trying to figure out what's going
to work for him. He reallysimplified his load and what his hands are
doing pre pitch so that he's muchquieter and simplify that swing. So he's
taken a very direct route to getinto the zone and he's starting to barrew
the ball up. His exit velocitywas up to start the first you know,
(11:20):
four or five games, and herein the last two or three games,
we're starting to see him get somehanging sliders out over the middle of
the plate, and with that steamcoming through the zone, he's able to
clip a couple of these baseballs andhit him well out of the ballpark.
So I would imagine confidence is prettyhigh, and it's nice when you make
an adjustment that you see the successthat way, you can kind of cement
that swing and hopefully throughout the courseof the season, if he does have
(11:41):
some slumps, this swing will beeasier to adjust than the one in the
past. Well, that is justone of the topics we will get to
over the remainder of forty five minutesor so we have with Jeff Blum here
on the EIGHTEAM Sports Talk seven ninetyReal quick, Jeff, as you know,
you've been speaking for Exfinity for along time. I spoke for them
in the past. I'm speaking forthem again, and it's one of the
(12:05):
biggest ways that we're able to keeptrack of everything astro is related. But
we're able to do it at thesame time as our family doing everything else
they do with the Wi Fi becauseExfinity is so fantastic with its Wi Fi
in both of our homes. Youknow what I've learned my lesson in the
last couple of years having five womenat home and trying to be able to
prep for games. Having Exfinity WiFihas given me the opportunity, you know,
(12:28):
the wall to wall Wi Fi they'vegot going on, the expensive I
can hide in my little tiny pocketoffice and get my work done, upload
all the notes that I need andsee the video that I need to see
for that day's picture. So I'mextremely grateful for the opportunity to be working
with Expinity because they're working for me, now, they're working for you,
They're working for everyone that has them. And right now you can get that
(12:50):
wall to wall Wi Fi from Exfinityfor a reliable connection throughout your home as
well. Now through April twenty first, new customers can get started with a
gig speed intern for twenty five dollarsa month for two years with no annual
contract and free Wi Fi equipment includedwhen you add unlimited mobile. All you
gotta do well three things you cando. Go to Infinity dot com,
(13:11):
call one eight hundred Exfinity, orvisit a store today. Infinity proud sponsor
of your Houston Astros. Back toAdam Clinton and Adam Wexler. Now here's
Adam. No, no, theother Adam On second thought, No Adam,
you take it? No, no, no, no, Adam.
Wait wait Adam. Guys, guys, the AE continue the fun here on
(13:33):
Sports Talk seven to ninety special Thursdayvisit from an astros analyst from Space City
Home Network, Jeff Blum, asthe astros have a day off and we're
talking about it. In the openingsegment, there are a lot of numbers
that absolutely positively do not match upwith Yeah, they're two and five,
very very much not matching up withthem. So the pitching numbers before they
(13:56):
hand it off to the bullpen aretremendous, league best type stuff. A
lot of their offensive number are literallyleague best stuff. Number one in batting
average, number one in ops,number one in homers, all American League
best numbers for the Houston Astros,and even the you know, the overall
staff era is among the top sevenin baseball, and yet they fell from
(14:18):
two. Well, they're the onlyteam that doesn't have a winning record,
and they're not even close, rightbecause they're two and five. And Jeff,
you mentioned at the opening segment alot of this is, you know,
I was talking to somebody else andit's the same thing you said.
It's kind of why baseball is whatit is. There's so many different things
on any given night. Was listeningto Brian boga Sevic this morning. He
made his weekly appearance on Next Up, and he said, you kind of
(14:41):
you take the good with the badin two senses, the good and the
bad with what how the season started, what didn't go well, who didn't
play well? And then specifically tothe Altuve base running situations earlier in this
series. He's going to hit homers, he's going to lead this team.
This team's going to be back ofthe playoffs. He's going to be all
time great. And this many yearsinto his career, those things they just
(15:03):
happen. Yeah, it's funny youtalk about the Astros organization and obviously we
still have Jeff Bagwell part of theorganization. And when everybody says, how's
bagg you're doing, and you getpast the pleasant trees, everybody says,
man was one of the best baserunners I've ever seen in my life.
They're going to continue to talk aboutJose Al too. They as one of
(15:24):
the great ballplayers, if not aHall of Famer by the time his career
is over. But they are notgoing to say anything about his base running.
They're going to say he is agreat bitter who could hit the high
fastball. He was an energizer,bunny. He could do a lot of
things. But for some reason,there's some mental laps or there's just you
know, an indecision that gets themin trouble. But man, the dude,
(15:46):
the dude is a lot of funto watch, and there are moments
where you just can't take your eyesoff because you don't know what's going to
happen next. But it's to hiscredit. He has a postgame interview and
he's you know, he said whatwe were all thinking out loud. He
said, sometimes you wonder what arewe thinking? It couldn't have been much
better, and that's really like,that's probably all that needs to be said,
because he took care of it.I don't know that he literally takes
(16:06):
care of it over the final oneto fifty five, but that's how you
handle it again in a situation likethat. By no means was that even
in that game the only base runningblunder obviously the stolen base attempt and other
things that took place, and littlebits and pieces of a one run loss
three times over in their first sevengames, three to one run losses,
(16:26):
two lop sided victories, and reallymore honestly outside of the record, which
is yes, I know it's theonly thing that matters, but so many
more positives than otherwise. Why don'twe start with the lineup. The one,
two, three four is pretty wellset. I'm ready to say the
one two, three, four fiveis now set because it didn't take Joe
(16:47):
a Spot along to say, maybewe're better off if Janer Diaz, who's
absolutely on fire, is in thefive hole rather than any of the other
options. But you know, howhow do you think things have played out
with the kind of new construction ofal two, Alvarez, Tucker, Bregman,
Diaz. I think it's worked outgreat. And I actually want to
go back to the conversation we hadto begin the year. I think it
(17:08):
was, you know, after acouple of games against the New York Yankees,
and you guys actually asked the question, you know, would Joe A
spotted be open to kind of adjustingthat lineup behind Alex Fragman to see what
works best? And I think weall came to the consensus that, yeah,
you might want to try and manipulatethat line up a little bit and
play whoever's hot to kind of getup there and protect Alex Bragman or be
(17:30):
up there when Alex does get onbase, because he's a high on base
percentage guy. And the way thatJanner Diaz has kind of broken out of
the gate in the season, he'searned the right to be in that fifth
spot, and I think he looksextremely comfortable in that spot. I mean,
he can be a little bit ofa free swinger at times, but
I've actually, I've actually enjoyed someof his bats because he's laying off some
(17:52):
tough sliders on the outside corner.He had some great at bats against Jose
Barrios in that in that game againsthim, who's a very good right handed
pitcher, ended up beating the Astros. But I like where he's at.
I like his mentality. I alsolike his aggressiveness with guys in scoring position
because he'll actually go the other waywith some pitches. But the fact that
Joe is a little pliable I thinkbuilds confidence in a guy like Jiner Diaz
(18:15):
and he feels like he's a partof this ball club hitting that high in
the order and it's paying off andhe catches no hitters. Yeah, I
mean, what can't he do?I just, I mean, this subject
has been beaten to death at thispoint. I'm glad he's in the lineup
every day. I'm glad he's upin the lineup every day relatively speaking,
(18:38):
but it's just it is insane tosee. Probably, I mean, if
we're looking at this lineup, theleast experienced guy probably be the most consistent
best hitter out of the gates herein twenty twenty four. And that's a
testament to what, you know,not only what he had already been able
to do last year in his limitedplay, but you know, obviously he's
(19:00):
worked to be this good all offseason like they all have. But for
him to be doing this, it'sit's pretty incredible, it is, and
you know that the hitting part mightmight be the least surprising of it,
just because we had a chance towatch him in what sixty games that he
caught, you know, hitting twentythree home runs and hitting better while playing
(19:21):
catcher. It was just how washe going to move? You know,
how are they going to mix himinto that lineup last season? And he
didn't get the opportunity down the stretchor in the postseason. But here he
is. You know, Martin Maldonado'smoved on, new manager and you get
the opportunity and it's almost you know, it's one of those confidence builders where
you know that the manager, probablyJoe probably sat it down and said,
look, we're not going to bringback Martin Maldonado because we want you to
(19:45):
catch games so we know you canhit the work on the defensive side,
and I think that's where he's kindof made some improvements in calling some of
these games. You're starting to hearsome of these pictures say, I'm more
comfortable with Jainer back there. He'scalling a good game. We're insane.
So I just hope that that continuesto perpetuate itself throughout the course of the
year, where he really kind ofgrinds out some of the studying, pregame
(20:07):
or the preparation to get ready forthe game to work with these pictures.
Because if you I mean, ifyou take out the bullpen numbers and look
what the starters have done who he'sspent the most time catching, those numbers
are absolutely incredible as far as beinga receiver of a you know, we
didn't anticipate this particular rotation being topof the line, but they are one
(20:30):
of the best in baseball right nowif you go statistically, and a lot
of the credit needs to go tothe ideas because you've been putting a lot
of those fingers or at least sendingthe message to the picture through pitch pomp
on what to throw, and theywork very well together. And then on
top of that, he's going outthere dropping bombs and driving in RBIs man,
it's been awesome. Yeah, itis kind of as you said it
there. I'm sure you're thinking it. I can't say he put the right
(20:52):
fingers down anymore because they don't dothat anymore. So silly, but it
does have its purpose. It clearlyis something that for for some people's sanity,
it may have taken some element outof the game of baseball. But
for the numbers, since we dolike to measure thing with numbers, the
Astros starting pitchers in their seven startsone point twenty nine era, it is
(21:14):
the best in baseball forty two innings, also the most in baseball. They've
been incredible. They clearly lead themajors and no hitters. The one complete
game is also something that no otherteam has done, so credit to Renel
Blanco. And last thing on thecatching with that aspect of it, you
know the number of games he's caughtfrom Renelle and Hunter and the number is
(21:37):
so low considering how little he wasout there behind any given pitcher we're talking
about, and he does appear comfortablewith them, and in that no hitter
specifically, while Renel was on.He said he shook him off twice maybe,
And you could see in the ninthinning as he was walking Springer,
and then after he walked Springer,you know, Jiner took his steps out
to the mound, you know,basically told him take a breath, take
(21:59):
it easy, relax for a second. You just need to make a couple
more pitches and we're going to celebrate. And those are the things that a
more experienced catcher kind of does naturally, and it looks like those are the
things that he's now doing. No, I completely agree. Those are those
intangible things that you really can't Youcan't sit down in a room and you
can't go on to the field andteach those things. Those are just things
(22:21):
that you feel during the momentum ofa game or in your experience, Like
you're talking about what's in catching thesegames and working with personalities, and you
can kind of watch that last thingthe pitches day through the George Springer after
getting the first out, you know, he ganked a couple of fastballs and
I think that's probably what sent theantennas up on jan your Diaz and said,
Okay, he's starting to feel thegravity of the situation. I need
(22:44):
to go out there and step outand tell them, Hey, slow things
down. Trust me, you've beendoing a great job the entire time.
Let's just continue to do what you'vebeen doing. Take a deep breath,
and let's finish this thing off.And that's exactly what it did. But
you're right, you're watching you're basicallywatching a young catcher mature right before our
eyes. Well, one thing we'lldo over the next half hour we have
with you, Jeff, is we'llhelp our listeners help you out and see
(23:07):
if they can come up with alist of best things to do in Sacramento
from twenty twenty five through twenty twentyseven and beyond. We'll talk about that,
among other things. Here with JeffBlum. Here on the A Team,
there's a space City Home Network's ToddKallis, there's the A Team.
You got him. It's Adam Clintonand Adam Webfler. Clinton stop impersonating me
(23:30):
on Sports Talk seven ninety back atit. Here on the A Team with
Jeff Blummer. Hey, Bum,would you like that? Liner? Yes?
I love it. He's such aHe's such a doll for doing that.
Man, he's such a Teddy Bearfor doing that and playing along?
Has he all right? You knowthis? Is he aware of my impression
(23:52):
of him? He has to be, now, doesn't he. I was
curious if you asked him to dothat spot in his voice, like did
you talk to him? As Ididn't. I was like made aware of
this after he was already had recordedit by the time I found out about
it, Like I think Dan senthim a script and Boltsy got him to
record it when when TK was doingradio in Florida, so we got the
(24:17):
finished product. Yeah, and I'mjust like, man, he's the best.
But it's serious though you know itwas a ready stop it stop doing
that impression of me. No,he's uh. It's the sincerest form of
flattery and it absolutely applies in thiscase. I love Todd Kallis and it
was great. Like like mentioned inthe first segment, it's just there's so
(24:40):
many no hitters that he's been apart of. It's just crazy. But
he really does and you do aswell. They a fantastic job when you're
calling those things and not jinxing it, by the way, which we talked
about. So so let me askyou this, how did you feel about
how that went for the final callbecause everybody's heard it, because every entity
has been using it, because clearlythey liked it. I thought it was
(25:02):
phenomenal what Todd said, and obviouslywhat you added to the moment. No,
it's phenomenal what Todd is able todo. And you know, being
fortunate enough to work with him sincetwenty seventeen, and I had a relationship
with him when I played with TampaBay. I met him for the first
time in two thousand and four,so we have a relationship. But now
(25:22):
that we've been working together, andyou guys know this from being on radio
with each other for so many years, is that you start to get it
becomes second nature to know when he'sgoing to talk, what he's going to
say, how he's going to sayit, when he's going to leave it
open for me to come in andhave an opportunity to say something. But
when we get in those big moments, I know that they are not my
(25:44):
moments. You know it's his momentbecause he is. There's a reason he
is, and the CD's in becausehe's very very good at what he does,
and he has the voice, hehas the inflection, he has the
passion, and to be brutally honest, you if you're watching that video,
I kind of sit back because I'mwatching the ground ball, and obviously I'm
(26:06):
in anticipation of the play being made. But at the same time, I'm
just sitting back and joining the showlike everybody else, because I know TK
is going to take this thing andjust absolutely launch it into the stratosphere with
his voice over the top of it. So I just sit back and enjoy.
Then when here gets a little bitof a moment of silence, you
know, or you hear the crowdroar a little bit, you recognize that,
and then he'll he'll kind of giveme a look, and I'll know
(26:29):
that it's okay for me to jumpin there and add a little bit of
flavor to it. But man,I love sitting back and just letting TK
run with this thing because he isso good at it. It's nice to
be around a group that continues providingthese opportunities. So we could go on
and on about all the no hitters, and that doesn't even scratch the surface
on the fact that it's one longpostseason run after another championship calls, clinch
(26:49):
series clinching calls, Division clinching calls. It's it's been unbelievable, and clearly
there are other things that happen,and this year is kind of pointing those
out. And I'm curious as you'vewatched Joe deploy Brian Abrave for his two
games, Ryan Presley over the courseof the seven and same for Josh Hater.
Maybe starting with Hater, you know, what have you seen from him
(27:11):
these first seven games of the season, his first few appearances, And obviously,
with a nod to the fact thatit's so early in the season,
this probably isn't the hardest throwing versionof Josh Hater that Astro's opponents will see
over the course of the one fiftyfive that still remain. But what have
you seen from him and how he'sthrown? Well, first of all,
(27:34):
I think you know relievers are they'rehard to ramp up, especially back into
the bullten type guys, because howdo you ramp them up in spring training
when those games are meaningless. BrianObray, Ryan Presley and Josh Hater,
those guys they pitch on adrenaline andit's hard to replicate that in spring training.
So it's just basically getting their workin and then they've got to adapt
(27:55):
to the regular season. But soly, you know, so early in the
season, they had so many,you know, magnified opportunities to close out
some tight games. So it waskind of escalated with the tight game situation.
It's the New York Yankee, sothere's added emotion. First home stand
of the year, so you've gotextra fans going crazy, and everybody with
the expectations. Josh has the expectationof a big contract, so there's a
(28:18):
lot of exterior things involved there.But the first three outings that I saw
from Josh Hader, I was blownaway. I'm like, this is going
to be the guy the rest ofthe year. It's going to be really
easy top to call his games becausehe's so electric. But you know,
a flat slider got hit out theother day. I don't anticipate that happening
too often throughout the course of theseason because I feel like relievers, once
(28:40):
they get in that rhythm and theyget that strength and they start to adapt
to the adrenaline that they're dealing with, the numbers tick up a little bit,
the break on the spin ticks up, and the break on their pitches
becomes a little more drastic Brian andBrady is going to be fine just because
he's pitched in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth,
so he's kind of accustomed to beingall over the place. I think Ryan
(29:00):
Pressy might it might take him alittle bit to understand what his role is.
But I think Joe's kind of givingan idea that Ryan Presley is going
to be that, you know,that incredibly high leverage guy leading into Josh
Shader. What I mean by thatis he's probably going to face more of
the middle part of the order orsome of these big right handed hitters in
some key situations for the Astros.So he's going to adapt to that.
(29:23):
But it's too early in the season. A really passed judgment on these guys
for making one batch one bad pitchhere or another bad pitch there. I
think that these guys are going tomold into something that's going to be kind
of nice and a lot of funto watch, and you're gonna start to
see some of these close games reallystart turning the Astros away. You know,
it's just because we didn't have theentire series to talk about the last
(29:44):
time we spoke with you last weekafter seeing that Yankee series, and again
it's the first series of the year, and notwithstanding what's happened against Toronto,
do you agree with me or doyou disagree with me when I say I
don't think the Astros were that badobviously, which I think you agree with,
But I don't know if the Yankeesare that good either. What do
you think of the Yankees, especiallynow having seen them and playing in a
(30:06):
second series as well? Well.The funny thing is is that we were
watching a couple of games that wegot a chance to watch. It was
the Yankees were spitting on pitches thatwere on the edges, and I'm going,
who in the heck of these guys. These guys don't spit on anything,
and they're out there trying to,you know, swing it out of
their ass, trying to hit everything, you know, nine hundred feet they'll
(30:26):
chase way off the plate. Wedid see that from Aaron Judge. I
know, and I understand Juan Soto'snot that type of guy, but the
Oswaldo, Cabreras, the Voltfees andsome of these other guys, I'm going,
man, they must be seeing theball really well because they've never done
this, and I'm kind of waitingfor them to kind of, you know,
for that that that team to youknow, kind of rear its ugly
(30:48):
head again, because I think it'sin there. The Astros just taught them
at a very good time when theywere seeing the ball well. They were
spinning on pitches, they were hittingpitches out over the plate, and it
was just really odd to see themmake that much contact against the team that
creates so much swing and miss,and that's not something we've seen in the
past. But I would imagine throughoutthe course of the season those numbers might
(31:10):
come back to reality a little bitquicker. Maybe it was the batters I
had meant it made exactly they sawit that much better. Oh boy,
do you think, though, doyou think the Yankees will ever catch the
Tigers and the American League standings?The Tigers won again today. They're five
and zero AJ. But are youare you telling me you didn't pick the
(31:33):
the the what alds first round beingbetween the Yankees and Tigers. I think
it probably will be, provided theTigers schedule only includes the White Sox and
Mets like it has so far thisseason. I was gonna say that in
the American League Central. What agood place to be, right, Yes,
it's gonna be awesome. When theybeat the Yankees in the DS.
(31:53):
Oh Man, how about that?Yeah, welcome back AJ. When they
go to the ALCS against the Astrothat would be wild. And when they
clinch and send them home. AJwill be talking to the team in the
clubhouse and he'll defer, saying,I'll wait for the next series. Martin,
you got this one. You wantedus, you got us. Oh
(32:14):
my gosh. All right, speakingof the playoffs, we know how it
went the last time the Astros werein a series. They're gonna get reunited
with that team, and we'll discussthat in the final segment with Blummer.
As we are just a few hoursaway, well technically a day away from
the first of a four game wraparound the weekend type series against the our
(32:37):
rivals from Southern Oklahoma. We'll talkto Blumber about that when we come back
here on Sports Talk seven ninety.Well down the thunder, Well, now
you got it, Adam Clinton,Adam Wexworth, all right, let's go.
The eight team continues on Sports Talkseven ninety final segment with Blummer here
(32:59):
for his weekly is It on theeighteen. So I'm reading a tweet from
your good friends over at Saint Arnold. Peds are a no go in baseball,
but when it comes to cornhole,Jeff Blum endorses them. Now,
having said that, I just wantyou to just tell me the first thing
that comes to mind when you thinkof Adulas Garcia start to the season.
(33:22):
That's all. I'm just gonna getother the way. Now. Well,
I've actually heard your rants have gaineda little steam around the ballpark, and
you're being talked about a little bit. You know, obviously there's there's no
I don't know, I don't know. I mean, the dude's massive,
and he's jacked out of his mind. And I got to be careful because
I got to be on the field, you know, wandering around every once
(33:43):
in a while. If that dudeambush me, he'd break me in a
half. Wait, we would hangon a second. I have to stop
you right there. I have tostop you right there. My rants on
Adulus Garcia are making their rounds atthe ballpark. Yeah. Oh I love
that. I love that. Yeah. Good, you know what, and
in a roundabout way, I meanit kind of maybe you said the quiet
(34:06):
part out loud. Well, I'vebeen saying it for a year now.
Like that guy. I was therewhen Barry Bonds came to talent during the
chase for what it was a seventythree when that was happening. I remember
it very well, being at minat May Park and seeing him being interviewed
by all of the media there andthinking to myself, a human head does
not expand that way unless there's somethingelse going on. And I look,
(34:30):
it's not to say that he doesn'thave talent. Barry Bonds had talent.
The astros knew what pitches were coming, but they still had to have talent
to hit those baseballs. I'm tellingyou right now that guy's doing something that's
not on the up and up.I have no doubt in my mind.
Okay, I mean, I can'tjump on that bandwagon just because I'm trying
(34:50):
to try to maintain a little bitof what integrity I have left. But
the dude, the dude is I'mjust gonna say that he went from you
know, a marginal waiver guy withSaint Louis to an absolute destructive force in
the middle of the Rangers lineup.And he's got mad pop. He's maybe
he's made a swing adjustments, maybehe got after it in the gym,
(35:12):
whatever it may be. He's he'sfigured something out to be good. But
you know, it's just crazy.I mean, I know there's late bloomers,
isn't it. He's like thirty one, thirty two years old. I
mean, it's just you know,he's kind of it's he's he's at the
other end of that algorithm that says, you know, you should be in
your peak performance, but you can'targue with the results. He's been swinging
(35:34):
the bat well. He plays,you know, a relatively decent right field,
but he's got some freak pop.And I mean he's only in that
lineup to do one thing, andthat's just to bash baseballs. But to
go back to the Saint Arnold artcar I Pap, they'll talk. The
one thing I will tell everybody isthat they don't test in the booth.
I hesitate to ask you the question, but it's like it's killing at me.
(35:59):
Have you ever I don't ask him. I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it. Well, you have no I have no.
Wex has not for a game.Wex has done. Wex has done shows
not clean yet, these shows.I don't do Rockets games with all little
extra help. Yeah, I thinkit was an inappropriate question. And I
(36:20):
know at the ball game that thatis technically a place that sells quite a
large amount of alcohol. And wedo a lot of remotes at sports bars
and restaurants and they also have abock. They also have a brewery or
a bar, and they sell alcohol. I mean, I'm just trying to
make sure I know what it's allabout when we're out there, and I'll
leave it up to the fans toknow what the ballparks are all about.
Well, they can handle that themselves. Saint Arnolds does have a nice little
(36:42):
setup out there at the yard.Yeah, and it's not as if Blummer
didn't, you know, play tothe crowd over the weekend. So it's
it's that's proof right there. I'mnot throwing him under the bus. No,
you can't. I'm too big tobe thrown under a bus under too
many buses to begin with. Soit's okay, all right, But yeah,
(37:04):
in all seriousness, you've got aRangers team that sent you packing,
and everybody's gonna make entirely too muchof this series regardless of what happens on
both sides, they just will tearall that aside, the drama and when
it comes down to it, whatdo you foresee happening this weekend in Arlington,
a place, by the way,where if we're going to keep talking
(37:25):
about how the Astros can't win athome, they are very comfortable in that
ballpark. Yeah, I'm glad youbring that up, because you know,
Jordne. We had Giordne on apostgame obviously for the game that he had
that mess game in the homestand becausehe swung the bat so well, but
he kind of, you know,kind of had a little smirk or a
(37:45):
little twinkle in his eye when hesaid, yeah, it's good that we
get to go on the road inDallas. And I mean, these guys
understand that they love hitting in Arlington, whether it be because of the pitching,
whether it be because of the newballpark. It's a huge ballpark,
but they may it looks so smallwith the way that they swing the bats,
and they've got great history up there. I know that the Rangers could
(38:06):
probably say that last year about beingon the road a minute made park and
putting up big numbers. But atthe same time, it's nice to have
a little bit of momentum at theback end, you know, that last
series against Toronto heading into Arlington.And it's also kind of nice knowing that
you're not going to face Nathan Ivaldibecause of all these gotten out to a
great start. You know, he'sgot eleven strikeouts in thirteen innings and he's
(38:27):
usually pitched pretty well against the Astros. So the Astros have a pretty good
matchup as far as what their startersare going to look like and who they're
going to face up there. Butthey are pretty comfortable in Arling. Ten.
They love getting on the road.They know they're going to get booed
again like they do everywhere else,and for whatever reason, it just seems
to fuel them. It's a lotof fun to watch. Okay, two
things on all that stuff there.One is I'll stick with the Rangers.
(38:51):
Ten days from now, more thanhalf the season series against the Rangers will
be over. Four games against Texasthis weekend, they three more here next
Friday through Sunday. Won't see eachother again until July, but one series
in Houston in July, one seriesin Arlington in August. And even saying
that their season series will be overon August seventh, with you know,
(39:14):
forty to fifty some odd games stillleft to play to figure out how things
will all shake out. Is thereany added magnitude to these games and light
of the fact you're going to seethem seven times in the next basically ten
games ten days. Yeah. Youknow what, as a player, you
really don't take that into account becauseyou're just kind of playing day to day.
And you know, when you startto look at the schedule mapped out
(39:35):
over five months and realizing you're barelyhalfway through the first month, it becomes
a little daunting and you get tiredof just thinking about it. So if
you have a tendency just to kindof look at from series to series,
the series. But I think nowwith this balanced schedule, and you understand
you only go to their place twice, they come to your place twice,
and you're already, like you said, West, you're knocking out a road
(39:57):
trip and a home stand within amatter of two. So I think you
do start to understand that this mightbe our only opportunity against these guys.
And I think something the Astros havedone a very good job of in the
past is playing well within their division, and I would imagine Joe Spot is
going to bring that up or bringit to their attention, saying, this
is an indivision series. We've gotto continue to play well. It's our
(40:19):
rival. They tied us for thatwell, they lost to us in the
division last year. We need towin this season series just in case we
get to the end of the seasonand we need a tiebreaker. This will
break our way if we play wellenough against these guys. So I think
the understanding of that they're not goingto play them that much. They're playing
them early, and how the tiebreakeraffected them and winning the division last season
(40:40):
in twenty twenty three might kind ofchange their mentality a little bit and maybe
may play some of these games witha little bit of urgency when they start
playing against the Texas Rangers here sixtimes on what the next ten or twelve
days, Hunter Brown and Liam andRemy's Dade Blanco on Franber Valdez will be
(41:00):
the four Astros starters go on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Of
course, that's JP France now expectedto make his start on Saturday after Remy
Grace joined us all here on PlanetEarth earlier this week, So congrats to
the France three now a France fourand Jeff If Jeff, the time goes
so so quickly. We appreciate yourvisit as always, and we certainly appreciate
(41:23):
those that make it possible for youto join us and really enjoy life.
Yeah, no, you guys areenjoyable. I appreciate the enjoyment that you
bring me, so thank you forhaving me on. And of course it
goes without saying that Jeff Witztt andthe Witsit Vision Group are a proud sponsor
of getting me onto this broadcast.They are at the leading edge of all
(41:43):
of your vision needs. And oneof the things I like about Jeff Witzett
is the fact that if you havea consultation, you are going to sit
down with the doctor Jeff Witchett tohave that consultation, obviously taking care of
your vision. And then, fellasif you are lacking any kind of energy,
motivation, drive, trust me,get to Low T Center and get
in there and let them treat youand boost that testosterone to give yourself more
(42:07):
energy, more motivation. You'll sleepbetter, you'll recover better, and you'll
have a lot more fun. Trustme. Lowtcenter dot com is where it's
at and I appreciate them, andI appreciate you fellas well. We got
a text during the last break fromsomeone we all know and respect in the
biz who said, heads up,Blum is the best radio guest in the
city, period and I could notagree more. Just another week's worth of
(42:30):
proof to show you right there.So Blum, we appreciate the time and
we'll talk to you next week.Man, that's good to hear. Thanks.
Hillis absolutely have fun in southern Oklahoma.
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