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July 20, 2024 21 mins
On this edition of the Crawford Boxcast, Gordy recaps the Astros' huge 3-0 Friday night win over the Seattle Mariners as the Astros start off the second half of the season on the right foot, grabbing their first AL West lead of the entire 2024 season.

Also, Ross catches up with GM Dana Brown as they discuss the approaching MLB Trade Deadline and discuss some of the possible position targets for the Astros as they look to make a strong push down the stretch of the season. 

And as always, the Crawford Boxcast is presented by Karbach Brewing and the Crawford Bock, it's a homerun every time! 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Astros fans cheers, Wacky Lucky,Welcome to the Crawford Box Casts. Astros
proud leapord for you by Crawford Bachfrom Carbach Brewy you're getting da bear.
Oh my goodness, the Crawford BoxCast starts. Now here we go.

(00:30):
Here's Chris Gordy and Ross via Realand what's happening? Everybody. Welcome into
an all new edition of the AstrosCrawford box Cast presented by the Crawford Bach
And hopefully you guys are loaded upon plenty of Crawford Bach for the second
half stretch of the Astros season.As he got underway in Seattle on Friday,

(00:53):
and the Astros, Uh, theyhave done it. They have taken
back first place in the America West. We're gonna get into that. Ross
caught up with GM Dana Brown justa couple of days ago during the All
Star breaks. We'll let you hearwhat he had to say. So plenty
of action to jump into. Butfirst running mind, you guys to like

(01:14):
we said, load up on theCrawford Boch. Plenty of great stuff going
on over there at Carbock Brewing.Of course, they weathered the storm and
came back strong and had a greatevent just last weekend for seven to one
to three day and had a niceconcert out there with a little flip and
a lot of cool stuff going onthere with the small markets with local vendors

(01:36):
they always have going on. Ofcourse, plenty of great specials going on
all the time over at Carbock Brewingwith great food and great drinks, and
of course the Crawford Bach. We'llbe back at Minimay Park before you know
it and be enjoying some ice coolCrawford bod christ perfectly with Astros baseball bird
right here in Houston, Texas.Get yourself some Crawford bok. It's a
home run every time, all right. Houston beats the Mariners on Friday Night

(01:59):
three to nothing, and the Astrosare in first place in the American League
West. The Astros wipe out aten game deficit in only a month capped
by Friday nights. Three ninhing wentover the Mariners. The Asters lead to
ALE West by percentage points over Seattleand six games over the third place Mariners.
You got to love where the Astrosare now. The morning of June

(02:20):
nineteenth, the Astros trailed the firstplace Mariners by ten games, and a
month later, they now lead theAL West. Here was Joe a Spada
after Friday night's game. Yes,it was a very important win. And
you know, I want to startby just how proudly I am. You
know from this group. You know, we have plugged our ways through through

(02:44):
a very difficult stretch early in theseason and find our you know, find
ourselves tyme first place. Just proutof that group. You know, they
had never stopped fighting, they neverstopped believing, and you know this is
far from over. But just tofind ourselves in this position, is it
feel? It feels great. Weyou're ten games out a month ago.
I know you have faith in theteam, but could you imagine would only

(03:05):
be a month you would you'd beback in first place? Shut Yeah,
because these guys are really this isa really good team and this guy's they're
being in this position before, andI keep saying that over and over again,
but they they find ways to staytogether. They don't lose faith.
They you know, they they stayin a position where they can strike back

(03:27):
anytime. They do small things sowell are pitching Hunter Brown today? You
know we have we needed these guysto turn the corner and help us,
you know, turn our season around. And they've done that, you know,
you know, a bad bite thebottom my order, while all the
guys at health you know, they'renot healthy, and and just you know,
finding ways to you know, toput wins together. It's it's pretty

(03:50):
pretty exciting that again, our buddyBrian mctagger catching up with Joe A.
Spota after the win. And accordingto Elias, since nineteen sixty nine,
the fastest the team had ever losta ten game lead in the division was
thirty three games. It was donetwice, both by the Angels. In
nineteen ninety five, the the Marinerslost a ten game lead in twenty four

(04:11):
games. A few other stats here. On June eighteenth, the Astros for
thirty three and forty ten games out. Now they're in first of the second
team in MLB history to go frombeing five or more games under five hundred
and ten or more games back offirst place in few of the twenty five
games, along with the Miracle Bravesof nineteen fourteenth. So you know,
it's just crazy to keep talking aboutthe history is McTaggart wrote, the inevitable

(04:35):
Astros are back in first place.You know, they just never stopped fighting.
And from the other side of things, with Seattle the story for a
month now, the Mariners see thatten game division lead disappear at a historic
rate and they're just not scoring runsand they're not able to get runners in
at scoring position. And hey forthe Astros, who cares Seattle take advantage

(04:58):
of their woes as the Astros playgreat baseball and their twenty four games are
tied for third few us by ateam to e RaSE a division deficit of
ten or more games as divisions began, behind only the nineteen eighty two Dodgers
and the nineteen ninety three Red Sox. So again, can't stay enough about
what the Astros have been able todo here. It has been absolutely phenomenal.
And kudos to Hunter Brown who hasjust been the story, one of

(05:24):
the stories of this season in howawful he was earlier in the year to
turn this thing around. And Imean, look at what he does Friday
night, six shutout innings, fourhits, no runs, three walks,
five strikeouts, all on one hundredand two pitches. He has lowered his
season ERA down to four to fourteen. And that's saying something because Hunter Brown

(05:46):
back in you know, going intoMay, coming out of April, going
into May, his ERA was upwardsof nine. You know, it was
nine to seventy eight going into themonth of May, and all he's done
since then is lower it. Hegot it down to six thirty nine coming
out of May, he got itdown to four thirty seven coming out of
June, and now since at fourfourteen within the area of just three thirty

(06:10):
eight in the month of July sofar as June was absolutely phenomenal, one
to sixteen era that month, butreally just unbelievable what Hunter Brown has been
able to do. And it's funnyrecord wise, you know, going into
around mid May he got his firstwin of the season, he was zero
and four record wise, and gothis first win on May seventeenth to get

(06:31):
to one and four, and nowrecord wise he is eight and six.
So just tells you how good HunterBrown has been for this team and just
absolutely fantastic. And he's been abig reason along with you know, the
likes of Runolt Blanco doing he's doing. And then you know, fromber has
been pretty steady for you He's notbeen the dominant fromber Valdez, but he

(06:54):
has been steady for you and beenable to weather the storm. And then
you've gotten some nice outings from SpencerEarreghetti as well and kind of piecing this
thing together, and we'll see whathappens with Justin Verlander and Kyle Tucker and
if they can get those guys backhealthy soon, you'll certainly be feeling pretty
good about it. But of course, if you missed it the other day

(07:16):
injury updates, the Astros did sendVictor Karattini to the minor league level to
go start his rehabs, so youknow he's on his path to coming back.
Just a couple days ago, Verlanderthrough a bullpen session, so you
know, still coming back from thatneck injury. Kyle Tucker's doing some things
on the field, playing catch andso on and so forth, so we're

(07:36):
hoping for a minor league rehab startssoon for him. And then the news
on Luist Garcia being pulled off hisminor league rehab assignment just a couple of
days ago, so a little bitof a setback there for him and a
little bit of a setback for LansmaColors. But it's okay. Astro's been
you know, you'd like to getall those guys back healthy. But look
at what they have been able todo here has been absolutely phenomenal. And

(08:00):
look, you want to at leastgo one and one in these next two
against Seattle. So you come outof this series with a lead. You
know, if you lose Saturday,okay, so be it. But then
you kind of put some pressure onyourself because you want to win Sunday.
You gotta split this split these nexttwo at least in Seattle. Sweep would
be fantastic. Don't want to gettoo greedy, but you do know you
have from Ervaldez going Saturday and runout Blanco going Sunday. And then you

(08:20):
head out to Oakland for three gamesagainst the Oakland A's before you come back
to Minute May Park three against theDodgers, who are gonna be tough.
We know how lethal that offense is. And then you get to see the
Pittsburgh Pirates, who you're probably gonnasee Paul Skeins in that series, who
started the All Star Game for theNL and he is very very good.
So the schedule we'll get a littlebit tougher here. You know, Tampa's

(08:43):
is still a team that has alot of talent and can battle you.
Then you go to Arlington, thenyou go to Boston. So some series
coming up where you're gonna see somegood talents. So you want to take
advantage here of beating Seattle, andagain you feel good about yourself. But
how about the bullpen too, Yougot to give some credit. On Friday,
Brian A Bray You pitches a scorelessinning, doesn't give up a hit

(09:03):
with two strikeouts all on eleven pitches. Love that through ten of them for
strikes. Then Ryan Presley pitched ascoreless eighth, no hits for him,
no walks, all on thirteen pitches. That's big for Presley man, he's
he needs more of those scoreless outingsto keep getting his confidence level up.
And then Josh Hater, who's hadthe you know, propensity to throw the

(09:24):
long ball or give up the longball this year, he goes one inning
with a strikeout, no hits forhim, all on eleven pitches. So
you know the Astros to do thiseconomically in nine innings with Hunter Brown to
Bray You, Presley and Hater giveup just the four hits from Hunter Brown
eight strikeouts all on one hundred andthirty seven pitches on the night, ninety
of those thrown for strikes, absolutelyfantastic. And look at some of those

(09:48):
eras out of your bullpen now.Brian A. Braw sees an R now
down to three zero four, RyanPresley's R down to three fifty eight and
Josh Hater's ERA down to three seventyseven, picking up his nineteenth save of
the season. So again, itwas just it was an outstanding night at
the ballpark. Four the Astros outthere in Seattle. But do not want
to slip up and lose these nexttwo. You want to, at least,

(10:09):
like I said, when one ofthese next two have not win both
of them and come out of Seattlefeeling really, really good about yourself with
a division lead. All Right,our co host here on the Crawford Box
cast our Buddy Ross Vireal, caughtup with Dana Brown here just Thursday morning
on Sports Talk seven ninety figure.We'll let you hear a little bit of
what the GM data Brown had tosay coming out of the All Star Break

(10:31):
Astros GM Dana Brown for the weeklyvisit. You got me Ross here,
Dana. Unfortunately, Sean having tostep out, but we still of course
have to the show goes on,and we'll discuss a number of things here
coming back from the All Star breaknow a little bit different from a general
for a general manager, you know, the players like the off time,

(10:52):
the coaches as well. Is itbusiness as usual for you? You don't
get to kick up your feet andget a little bit of that naple wine
or what what's the All Star breaklike for you? Yeah? All start
breaking? You know. We stillof course, we had the draft Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, so right towardthe end of the you know,
the last game we had with Sunday, so we went right until day one

(11:13):
of the draft, Day two,day three on Monday and Tuesday, and
uh, you know there's you know, trade conversations starting up, you know
on Wednesday. So and then herewe are on Thursday. So we you
know, we stayed pretty busy.Yeah, what is it like for you
just as the calendar goes on withthe draft and is do you think that's
when the focus turns As far asif conversations let's just say one to ten

(11:39):
right before the deadline, maybe conversationsare heating up close to a ten.
Where would you put them right now? Yeah, I mean Uh, it
fluctuates, to be honest. Youknow, you know Sundays you feel like,
oh, yeah, we're we're makingprogress. The other day it's like,
you know, we're not making asmuch progress. So I think the

(12:01):
key is with its trade deadline isyou have to keep discussions going and you
have to talk to other gms andyou know, try to work out something
that makes sense for your club andtheir club. You keep the ball moving,
and of course conversations can fluctuate dependingon team needs. Do you do
you feel like there's more of anurgency for starting pitching with the squad,

(12:24):
with the Luis Garcia and Lance mccullor'sjunior news. Yeah, I mean,
well, like I said before,we're always in the market of pitching.
It's all about pitching, pitching,pitching. But you know, we definitely
want to do something at the deadlinewith pitching. So you know, one
of the problems is other teams arealso looking for pitching, and so there's

(12:46):
probably gonna be a lot of peoplein the market for pitching, but there's
not enough pitching that are around,and so you know, we'll try to
be aggressive and we're in conversations,you know, every day so pitching is
very important. Yeah, pitching,of course very important. I mentioned those
two guys, do you have someupdates on them? And then also justin
Verlander. Yeah, I mean Verlanderis starting to throw sides. You know,

(13:07):
that's a good thing with no issues. So that's a you know,
like I said, that's a reallythat's a good thing. Mccullor's has had
somewhat of a setback, so he'snot throwing that right now. He's being
evaluated each day. And Garcia isyou know, he's throwing seventy five feet
and you know he's going to getback on the uh throw it back on

(13:30):
the mount in a couple of dayshere, So he's back to making some
more progress. So you know,I was looking at the light, the
lights looking a little brighter for Verlanderand Garcia. We're still, you know,
sort of day to day trying tofigure out mccollors. Astro's general manager
Dana Brown with us here on theSean Salisbury Show. Do we have a
clear time timeline on Kyle Tucker?No, not a clear timeline, but

(13:56):
I would say that you know,he's playing catch and hitting in the cage.
Uh, so he's playing catch onthe field, hitting in the indoor
cage and outside. He's doing alittle bit of light baseball activity as far
as baseball movements. Uh, Sohe's getting there, not not feeling as
much of the issue as before,and so, uh, you know,

(14:18):
hopefully we can get him back heresoon. We're definitely gonna need him here
for this stretch run on the secondhalf. So, uh, he is
making progress. Joe spot had mentionedat some point, depending on how much
time Kyle missed, possibly a rehabassignment. But also we've seen you guys
just plug people back into the lineup. Do you do you have any as
far as discussions about that. Yeah, it's probably gonna be a rehab assignment

(14:43):
so he can get his timing right, you know that that's that's probably you
know, he's been out for awhile since the beginning of the June,
so it's gonna it's gonna require youknow, some some some rehab games,
maybe in sugar Land. But yeah, I would definitely for see, uh,
you know, a few games atleast if to get his timing back.
All right. We we've of coursetalked about the starting pitching, and

(15:07):
as you said, pitching pitching,pitching, you can never have too much
pitching. The bullpen has been verygood lately, but you've also got some
guys high usage as far as youknow, Taylor Scott throwing more than he
has, Brian Bray going out therea lot, Josh Hater, Brian Presley.
What is that for you, like, as far as monitoring those guys
and their usage, and then alsomaybe wanting to add a bullpen arm if

(15:28):
you can. Yeah, we canadd a bullpen arm. That would be
gravy. Uh, you know,help out some of the workload of those
guys that've been carrying us in thatfirst half. We're hoping to get you
know, some uh, some goodinnings out of Dubin, some good innings
out of King, who we calledup you know, Seth Martinez has been
steady all year, so you knowwe've been getting you know, some got

(15:52):
some some help from you know,calling up King and uh, you know,
getting Dubin back in the in thepen. So, but if we
can add something there that would bethat would be nice, maybe take off
the workload of some of the otherguys. Yeah, what what is that?
By the way, what kind ofa magical lickser you guys got up
there? I mean you got runout Blanco having the season that he's had.

(16:14):
You mentioned Brian King, He's beeneffective. Taylor Scott, I mean
has just been straight up lights out. What is it about the the the
pitching, the gurus that you guyshave that it just seems like people that
we maybe haven't heard of or weren'ton a radar performing so well this year.
Yeah, I mean it starts withMatt Hogan. I mean, Matt
Hogan runs our pro department. He'llreceives, he'll player personnel. You know,

(16:38):
he puts some of these guys ona radar for us, you know,
and you know we and then weyou know, of course try to
go after him. You know,I think he was one or ones that
really you know, put the highlighton Scott. You know, actually our
you know, big league booking coach, you know, put the highlight on
King. I think we acquired Kingon that Rule five draft. So I

(17:00):
mean we have you know, wewe were working constantly, you know,
to find some edges just based onour information, and you know, we
take a look from a scouting standpoint, we put the data in there and
then we do a check on themakeup. You know, those three checklist
things that we always do and theseguys check off. You know, we

(17:22):
go after them, so I thinkthey're doing a good job. Astros general
manager Dana Brown with us on theSean Salisbury Show, mentioned some we have
talked about pitching, and also youhave some guys who I haven't you know,
they're not necessarily in this day andage of baseball going to go out
there and just throw you two hundredinnings easily. What is it like for
you as far as if you couldplan things out perfectly, Renel Blanco,

(17:45):
Hunter Brown Orrighetti, those types ofguys watching their innings and in a perfect
world, would you like to goto a six man rotation? Yeah,
at some point, you know,we may have to go to a six
man even without know JV being back, you know, just to monitor the
workload. That may mean calling upif you don't make the trade sooner,

(18:07):
may mean calling up you know aJ. Bouball, maybe Ryan Gusto one
of those guys. Uh, youknow, just to get into a six
man, to get these guys abreather, or even if it means skipping
a start. Uh, you know, just sometimes you you know, you
just have to give these guys abreather because we're going to need them down
the stretch and that second half isgoing to be a grind. You know,

(18:30):
it's going to be a grind.You know, where four games over,
we're one game back, and soit's it's it's going to be a
grind, and we're going to startright out of the gate playing Seattle.
Uh So, you know, wewe we want to definitely give these guys
a breather so they could be readyall the way down the stretch because it
will definitely be a grind in Septemberas we race for the division. All

(18:52):
right, Dana, And then beforewe get you out a first base.
Of course, we've talked about alot this season with the Jose Bray you
saying, and then now, howare you feeling about the John Singleton,
what he's been able to do andpossibly exploring other options either internally or externally.
Yeah, Singleton's had a nice littlestretch, you know. Yeah,

(19:12):
he's had a stretch of hitting overthree hundred with an eight hundred opens.
You know, we give him abreather every nine and every now and then
versus the lefties, you know,whether we put dubon over there, you
know, so right now, youknow, he's really stepped it up for
us. You know, we hopehe can continue to play well, but

(19:33):
he really has stepped it up sincehe's been getting some everyday playing times very
difficult. This sport's very difficult tohit right, and so sometimes when you're
playing off the bench, it's reallyreally difficult. It gets more difficult.
So ultimately, you know, he'she's had a little bit of a runway
where he's been playing mostly every dayand he's you know, he's answered the

(19:56):
call and so we hope that hecan keep that up and you know,
we'll continue to rest them, probablyagainst lefties at times, but we've been
very excited about what he's done atfirst base and he played played played a
really good defense too as well.Yeah, yeah, he's definitely been making
some plays over there. That's Astrosmanager General manager Dana Brown. Dana,

(20:17):
we understand it's very very busy timesaround this time of year, so really
appreciate you joining us and thanks forthe time. Absolutely absolutely we're coming to
Astro fans hanging there with us.All right, there we go, one
game back, That's what I'm talkingabout. Big series this weekend against Seattle.
Thanks to Dana Brown, the conversationsheating up after the draft. We'll
see what happens next couple of weeksunder two weeks now before the trade deadline

(20:42):
here on the MLB calendar. Allright, that again, Ross Virial with
Dana Brown. That is going todo it for this edition of the Crawford
Box Cast. Appreciate you guys forlistening. Hopefully you guys load up on
plenty of Crawford bock as we continueto watch your astros over the next couple
of weeks, as they get intothe meet of the second half of the
season, as we get closer andcloser to ending July and into August,

(21:03):
and as we know, you getinto August and September, that's when you
really got to start making your runand really got to start, uh,
you know, getting this division leadand maybe hopefully run away with it or
you know, at least create somesome separation between you and some of these
other teams. And then the astroswill have done what maybe we didn't think
they could do, and let's getinto the uh, get into playoffs,

(21:27):
and you'll get back to where they'resupposed to be. After an abysmal start
to the season. This thing isstarting to point up. Ord appreciate you
guys for listening. I'm Chris GordyRuss will be back with us on our
next edition of the Crawford box Cast, presented by Carbock Brewing and the Crawford boch
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