10th Inning Show Following Astros ALCS Game 7 Loss

Adam Wexler and Ross Villarreal take your calls reacting to the end of the Astros 2023 season.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The first pitch to dolus Garcia hita mile high and deep to left back
on it as Brantley in front ofthe out of town scoreboard and that's into
the first row of the Landry S. Crawford boxes. Well. The dolus
Garcia well on his way to theALCS MVP Award with his fourth hit today
his second home run. He hasdriven in five runs in this ballgame and

(00:25):
fifteen runs in this series for theRangers, who now lead eleven to three.
Well, the good news is theAstros don't have to face the doles
Garcia anymore this season. The badnews is that's because he was a huger
part of the reason why they weresent home today. In Game number seven

(00:48):
at Minute May Park, four hitstwo home runs, five runs driven in,
and he gets the last laugh inthe ALCS in twenty twenty three as
he was part of a Rangers offensethat went off for eleven runs. Christian
Javier gets chased off before recording morethan one out and an absolute disaster at

(01:14):
Minute Made on Monday night, asthe Astros have lost the game, they
have lost the series and their seasonis over for twenty twenty three and we
are here to talk about it hereon the Astros tenth Inning Show here on
Sports Talk seven ninety presented by Xfinity. And by we, I mean meet
Ros Virial and Adam Wexer to myright. Phone lines open for you.

(01:38):
Actually they're not open for you.We're jammed right now, but they'll open
as we take them at seven onethree two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five sevenninety as let's go Rangers, Chance ring
out here in minute may park,I mean absolute disaster from the word go
here, Adam. I don't knowhow this could have possibly gone much worse

(02:01):
for the Astros. Javier chased offearly a Doulas Garcia is crushing you.
Let's go Rangers, Chance ringing outat minute made where you just haven't gotten
it done all year? I mean, how could it possibly have gone worse?
Okay, I don't hear you?Huh? Are you on? Two?

(02:23):
Oh? There we go? Hey, buddy. So it's really really
difficult when you fall behind like thatin the end of a series because everybody
you're gonna send out there essentially issomebody they've seen before once, twice,
the three four times, and you'reneeding twenty six outs to get you through
the rest of the game, andthey already have three runs. It's a
little bit of how Dusty described ithe's talking right now in his post season

(02:46):
media session, but that's essentially whathappened because the Rangers played add on the
rest of the night. Christian Xavierwas terrible, obviously, gave up three
runs. The bullpen gave up eightruns, and it's very, very difficult.
This is a really good off offensiveteam. I didn't want to say
it only seemed like a matter oftime before they'd really break out, but
it felt like that's what happened inthe ninth inning of last night's game.

(03:07):
They scored twenty runs in two gameshere, needing to win both, and
that's essentially how they did it.Astros did squander some offensive opportunities with all
the hits and base runners they had. Tonight, did score four runs,
got massive production out of the topof the order as Dusty switched it up
with Altu, Vey, Bregman,Alvarez a Brave and all four of them

(03:27):
had multi hit games. The problemwas five through nine had three hits and
the Astros couldn't really extend innings theyscored four single runs in four separate innings
and for the most part, playingfrom behind against the team so good offensively
this late in the series was asyou described, that's a recipe for a
disaster, and that's essentially what tonight'sgame was. They just flat out got

(03:49):
beat by a team that is reallygood offensively, and for two nights,
or really ten innings ninth inning lastnight and tonight, they just really couldn't
slow them down. Yeah, Andat the end of the day, I
definitely just want to say the Rangersare better than Astros. Rangers, I
mean, they played close to theseason. The Astros did beat them nine
out of thirteen in the regular season. Both had ninety wins, though Rangers

(04:09):
with a superior run differential, Andyou just look at this series and the
way they played out the Astros honestly, I mean, if they don't get
one pulled out by Jose al Tuve, this could have been gone done even
sooner. So the Rangers are betterthan the Astros. You went to eight
pitchers, five of them gave upruns today. Where your bullpen had been
so reliable, that wasn't the casetoday. And at the end of the

(04:32):
day, The Rangers were just flatout better than you. This isn't some
sort of robbery, This isn't somesort of you know, any other things
we can point to. They camein here with their backs against the wall,
need to win two, and kickedyour ass with a combined twenty to
six. Basically, if you didn'tget the better starting pitching performance, or
you had the worst starting pitching performance, you lost. That's how the whole

(04:55):
series played out. And that was, to me, the one reason I
felt like this team should have someconfidence going into today's game, and it
blew up in their face. Imean, Christian Javier is gonna pitch the
rest of his major league career andhe's never gonna start a game where he
has one out. It will never, literally never without injury. Right,
It's never gonna happen again and andagain. In the playoffs, it's different.
This is a regular season game.I imagine Dusty might have said,

(05:16):
let's see if he can get outof this inning, and maybe I can
get three four innings. So it'snot apples to apples, granted, and
it was the right move to moveon. Maybe you could have done it
even sooner, but that's really outsideof the norm. And that's where to
me everything flipped. Mack Scherzer wasgoing to be hitable. I told you
that. Everybody told you that.Everybody knew that. That was just a
fact. And the Astros did hithim, but probably should have done more

(05:39):
damage. The issue is Christian Javierwas supposed to not be hitable. He
gave up five hits and four startsin his major league postseason career before tonight,
and gave up four hits of thefirst inning and only got one out.
Really flipped the tenor of the game, flipped the momentum of this game.
And if there was any thought fromthe Rangers that, you know,

(05:59):
the ass have been here and theyknow what they're doing, and then well
it's all out the window when you'vegot three runs on the board before anything's
even happened. And the Astros hada chance to answer a little bit more
strongly in the first inning and managedjust the one run. Yeah, they
just had. I mean it alsoboils down to this runners in scoring position.
Texas Rangers six of ten, HoustonAstros two of fourteen. Yeah,

(06:23):
the Astros have four more at bats, so many opportunity positions, so many
opportunities, and that's I mean,we can point to every single loss I
think that they have. What itwas it one for eight yesterday or whatever
it was, it was one foreight, one for eight yesterday, two
for fourteen today. There's some otherlosses. I think there were like two
for thirteen in another game. Wecan go pull it up. Well,
look at the hits their they got. Also that they had two doubles from
Seger and Carter, and they hitfour long balls. I mean, the

(06:46):
Astros did get that late homer,they got a solo shot, and they
got another solo shot. Most oftheir hits aren't doing that kind of damage.
I mentioned all those multi hit gamesfor the Astros at the top of
the order, all four of them, each one of them had a single
RBI and in Bregman and Al Twovey'scase, they drove themselves in. Yeah.
Just I mean, this is soit's frustrating in a way that you

(07:11):
there's just not even like a singlething we can point to or like they
did this better today, like oryou got something for me. No.
I was gonna say, this iswhere I actually disagree in a baseball sense
about what Game seven's are all aboutand in the NBA, I'm down for
it, But in baseball, thiscrap happens all the time. Yeah,
the game was over in ten minutes, and it's just so ridiculous that that's

(07:33):
just sometimes how it goes. It'sreally an entertaining series. There wasn't really
a back and forth nature to alot of the individual games. But you
know, one team was up twogames to none, and then the other
team was up three games to twoon a miracle home run in the ninth
thinning. So you had all thatdrama coming to Houston, and then you
have this Game seven where they're throwingMax Scherzer, who's likely headed to the
Hall of Fame, and you're throwingChristian Havir, who's clearly been your best

(07:56):
postseason pitcher. That's what you thinkyou have going in and nothing even close
to that played out in this game. Both starting pitchers combined they got nine
outs. There's fifty four outs inthe game, they got nine of them.
It's yeah, it's I mean,it's just a disaster, absolute unmitigated
disaster these last two games. Imean, it's so disappointing to come home

(08:20):
to pull that out with with Josel Tuvey to come home think, okay,
yeah from rival does had been shakyso far in the playoff, sure,
but then you have l repteel coldblooded Martin Maldonado's checking his pulse.
He's got no pulse, He's deadalready, He's as cool as you like.
And the dude gets one out.So deflating, so deflating, so

(08:41):
disappointing, and it just man abitter endto this season where, honestly,
I mean, coming into the endof September, I'd thrown all my expectations
for them out of the window,and you could maybe even argue there was
a miracle they made it as faras they did with the way that they
had been playing all season long andeverything that they've dealt with. But just

(09:03):
a bitter end to happen to thisteam on your field, hearing let's go
Rangers and then getting presented the ALCSChampionship trophy at second base at Mini May
Park. It hurts, man,it stinks. There's just no other way
to put it. Nope, andthe Astros again, it was an issue
from the jump here at this ballpark. Whatever the answers are, they don't

(09:24):
know what they are and it lastedall the way through this postseason. Played
six games at home four in thisseries, lost all four of them.
Here in this series only won oneof the two against the Minnesota Twins thirty
nine and forty two. In theregular season, they played eighty seven games
at Minute May Park. This yearthey won forty of them. They won
forty games and their home ballpark,where the advantage is inherent in how it's

(09:48):
set up, and should be evenmore so when you have as talented a
team as the Astros did. Butit proved to be the issue. And
I don't know if ironic is quitethe word, but heading into the last
weekend of this season, it appearedthe Astros were destined to enter the playoffs
as a wild card, which likelywould have had him on a path not
with home field advantage in any AmericanLeague series they might have played in.

(10:11):
And ultimately, on the last dayof the season they won the division,
which I do think still it wouldnever say against that, knowing how bad
they are at home. You getfive days off. There's no greater gift
than that, and I think itpays off. You're not in a short
series, you're not potentially in anelimination game after one game. All good,
but again it did play out wherethey just simply couldn't win a lot

(10:31):
of games here, and it playedout in this postseason, playing from behind
in the postseason against a good offense. Bad news. KB and me Houston
Sports Talk seven to ninety with youhere. It is the Astros tenth Inning
Show presented by Xfinity. We gota lot to get to. We're gonna
hear some postgame clubhouse audio awards tohandout as well, but most importantly you
guys on the phone line, Solet's go ahead and get after it at

(10:52):
seven one three, two, onetwo five, seven ninety full phones now,
but they will open as we takethe lines. Jason in the Woodland,
first up, go ahead. Thefloor is yours, hi, guys,
just with my son here, Owen. And we've been to five ALCS

(11:13):
finals at Mini Made and uh,you know, we've seen the Astros win
three of them and we've seen themlose two. So uh, you know,
so we're we're still happy that wegot to to see three wins and
such a great team a dynasty here. I also am happy that I think

(11:37):
we've seen uh the you know,the last of Dusty Baker, as much
as I liked him, I thinkthat's probably the last we're gonna see.
And uh, you know, Ihear you guys talking about while winning at
home, and you know, tome, I don't think it came down
to winning at home. It camedown to where was Penya, Where was
Tucker you know? And where theas really because he wasn't playing. So

(12:03):
you know, if we have theseplayers that are that should have been playing
at the level that they should be, you know, we win. And
one last thing, I can't waitto watch the Rangers do what they do
best, and that's losing the WorldSeries. So having good I guys,
all right, thanks a lot,Jason hopefully. Yeah, that is the

(12:24):
case. Understandably so that even ourfirst caller wondered aloud if this would be
the end of the line for DustyBaker, as asked that manager, which
I think many of us anticipated,mainly from a contractual standpoint. Plus,
you had a lot of instances thisyear where the general manager at the New
One, Dana Brown, I wouldsay things with us here on Sports Talk
seven ninety during his weekly visit onthe Sean Salisbury Show, and they didn't

(12:48):
always seem to mesh there and nowreport from Ken Rosenthal that Dusty Baker has
expressed to multiple people inside and outsidethe organization that twenty twenty three will be
his final season Astros manager. Yeah. Not a surprise at all, Dustin
Baker. I mean, I feellike even if they won the World Series,
it might have been time for themto part ways with the Astros.

(13:11):
And I mean respect to him andhis career and everything that he's done,
and a really if there's a misterbaseball as far as the longevity as a
player, nineteen hundred plus hits,World Series champion, as a player,
World Series champion, as a manager, one of the winning this and losing
this managers of all time to thetip of the cap to him and is

(13:31):
his Hall of Fame career. Butyeah, I mean it's no surprise,
I'd imagine, and people have beenasking this kind of as we've been going
along. Is Dusty Baker going tobe back? I think tonight I got
asked it probably ten times on Twitter. I don't know about you Wex,
but yeah, the answer every timeis no, I don't think so.
So sounds like he's not going tobe back. If you had to guess

(13:52):
Joe was spot us slides in there. It's somebody that's interviewed a lot of
places and hasn't gotten a job thelast couple of offseasons. The players do
love him here, and he's beenhere a while, paid his dues and
stuff like that. Would that be, I guess you would say, the
leader in the clubhouse. I don'tsee what I did there. Yeah,
very good stuff. He is literallyin their clubhouse, and he did manage
here in this world series. Yes, he did, has done. He

(14:13):
I thought he had a master strugglea couple moves there. Honestly. No,
He's been on, as you mentioned, many interviews, and I think
it's very well thought of. Buthe also has not been the choice on
each of those occasions elsewhere and nowhere in Houston. Yes, I absolutely
think he would be at the frontof the line, certainly in line to
get a strong case made via theinterview. I'm sure he will get one.

(14:33):
I'm sure it will go well,and I'm sure the people in the
organization, including Dana who's new tothe organization and Joe to a certain aspect.
Yes, I think it will govery very well for him. There
are openings currently and this one isnot yet open openings with the Giants,
the Guardians, the Mets, theAngels. I would tell you that either
Joe Aspota is the manager of theAstros next year, or he is not

(14:54):
a part of this organization, asI think he will be one of those
staffs. If not, in didn'tcharge there. Otherwise it would simply just
be time to move on if hesay, passed over for this job.
But probably if you were paying attentionelsewhere, Stephen Vote is somebody who apparently
is very high on the list withthe Giants. Craig Council's situation with the
Brewers still seems a little bit unsettled, though maybe the Mets, with their

(15:18):
new leadership and David Stearns are lookingin that direction since they obviously worked together
with the Brewers. Bob Melvin isbeing given permission to interview elsewhere again,
just like he was with the A'sand then he moved on. I think
he's an excellent manager. We obviouslyas Astros, the flagship of the Astros,

(15:39):
went head to head with them forso many years when they were actually
good. I think he's an excellentmanager. I don't think it was his
fault that the Padres fell apart thisseason. So just a handful of names
I bet you will hear if infact, as Dusty apparently, as indicated
to those close to him and insideand outside the organization, this will be
his final season as Astro's manager,and honestly, since it was brought up

(16:00):
by him and with us before twentytwenty began, he already felt like his
managerial career was over before the Astrosgave him another opportunity, and now the
first World Series championship, I wouldimagine it's very unlikely there is another managerial
job out there for someone who's literallydone it all in baseball. Yeah,

(16:22):
I don't imagine it's going to beback to pruning grape trees for Dusty Baker
in the offseason. How about thisone, though, I think I've kind
of seen this floated out, veryvery very unconfirmed. Rover, how shocked
would you be one to ten ifI said the next manager for the Houston
Astros is Martin Maldonado. Yeah,I would think that's totally outrageous personally.

(16:45):
Now, I think we promisely sawit on the Twitter streets, That's all
I'm saying. Well, that's abig talking point for this game, A
that you have a hitter who's gonnaget a hit about fifteen percent of the
time and doesn't do much offensively,and he plays every single game, so
he obviously takes all those important atbats over the course of the game.
Yes, and knowledge of the gameis unparallel. Yeah, you know.

(17:06):
You hear other teams players that haveplayed here Carlos career, most notably talking
about his value to the Astros.You know, ten to fifteen wins a
year. Well, you know,I don't know that he's worth that in
a postseason game with so much chessplaying going on. I do know that
it did seem rather foolish to notpinch hit for him. You can only

(17:26):
pinch hit when the opportunities come,and that means every time his the bat
comes up. So you don't knowwhat the situation is going to be in
the sixth, seventh, eighth,ninth inning. Is he gonna come up
with nobody on and two outs?Is gonna lead off an inning? Well,
you do know that he's gonna beat the plate with two runners on
and one out, because that's literallywhat happened. So why not use and
it didn't even have to be Yiner. Yeah, that's what makes sense to

(17:48):
have him be Diaz, but hechose to let Maldonado hit, and he
weekly flew out to a dolar scars. I knew this was gonna come up,
of course, because it was oneof the kind of tipping points of
this game. So I know thatyou have Martin Maldonado's ops this season against
lefties is eight sixteen and Youngardez issix twenty. But also I believe the

(18:10):
expected numbers are a little bit closer. I just couldn't I actually spend a
little bit of time trying to trackthose down. But the numbers as they
are against left handers only this year, it's six twenty for Diaz in the
regular season and eight sixteen, SoI mean, I guess you're going with
that if you're Dusty Baker. Thatthe numbers. Now, who's a more
talented hitter, who has more pop? Who is Vingo? I mean absolutely,

(18:30):
it's the second hardest all in thisgame. Came off the bat of
Jynar diez Well and he only hadtwo at bats. It was not a
hit. Yeah, oh hit wentabout three hundred and they both went over
to the final numbers for them thispostseason as a unit obviously are awful.
Janar Diaz one for fourteen and MartinMaldonado went four for twenty eight. So
five of forty two from your catchingposition, five of twenty eight from Michael

(18:53):
Brantley, six for forty for KyleTucker. That's a one fifty batting average
for this entire postseason. And JeremyPayne, you who added a couple of
hits tonight eight one hit tonight,eight for forty. He hit two hundred
this postseason, one year removed fromclaiming the American League Championship Series MVP Award.

(19:15):
Yeah, I don't even know what'sgoing on with that guy. Kyle
Tucker and Jeremy Payne both. It'sjust unbelievable what you've gotten. And it
just feels like almost in a sense, the twenty twenty one World Series were
in Game six. I mean theylost that seven to nothing and it was
just over at the very beginning.And also that playoffs you couldn't get any

(19:38):
sort of starting pitching, and youcome home with Frombert and you come home
with Christian Javier as well, andhow many outs did you say they got
combined nine eight from Scherzer and onefrom Christian Hivier Frobert. Oh wait what
I mean? I meant fromber Andand well what did he get too?

(20:00):
Uh? And it's got five yesterday? This bad bad? Yeah, he
wasn't that bad yesday. You're right, they had to. I need some
rest. Okay, I've been I'vebeen doing these games for too long.
A right, let's go to thephone. Lines seven one three two one
two five seven ninety is the phonenumber, uh for the Xfinity listener lines.
Gabe in Spring has been holding alongest. What's up, Gabriel, say,

(20:23):
thanks for taking my call. Guys. Well, first of all,
we're in Houston. We're classy.We have to give congratulations to the ranger.
No, we don't, but Ido think, uh, something contaminated
with the dugout. I mean theclub house because you can see them the
faces of Tucker. You know,the coach is supposed to get them guys

(20:45):
out of the slump. If they'renot doing performing, he needs to go
out swinging, make changes. Don'tjust go by the stats. You need
to go by who's hot, especiallyin this situation. Also about the home,
you know, when at home well, maybe it's the roof. Maybe

(21:06):
the next year they need open theroof and an excuse. But the fans
do. If it ain't a homerun, the fans are gonna sit on
their hands. And I think theycould do. I mean, they do
show up, but you have tohave noise and you know, a little
bit rowdiness. But as far asDusty, I don't think he he went

(21:30):
out swinging. He could have putsome players that were hot at this time,
you know, like Bradley. Heprobably kept him out there too long.
You had do Bond, you hadanother couple other players. If you're
gonna go out like that, goout swinging, and I don't think he
did that. Maybe he was onpurpose. I don't know. But when

(21:55):
already what are you talking about?I did my best. I really did.
I really tried to let you.Oh, but you're just going off
the rails here. You don't youthink he did it on purpose because it
was because we told you that healready knew it was his last season,
so he tanked it on purpose.That guy was trying to win a second
World Series, who finally got hisfirst one a year ago after two to
three decades of managing that's just totalout of nonsense. You can dislike Dusty's

(22:18):
managerial skills all you want, that'sperfectly fair game. Most of that stuff
you had to say it was absolutenonsense, Not to mention the fact,
who are these hot hitters? Heshould be going with the Mauricio duvad who
couldn't buy a hit yesterday, Thathot hitter. It's ridiculous. His bench
is made up of Great Kessinger,John Singleton and the catcher that he won't
play. You want to focus onthat matchup, fine, we all know

(22:40):
who should be out there when it'stime for some offense, which is almost
immediately in tonight's game. But allthat other stuff is nonsense. He played
the right guys, especially tonight.This is the best lineup other than the
catching position, and in the rightorder that he possibly could put out there.
It's not his fault that you havefive guys in your nine man lineup
that cannot hit the ball. Rightnow, there's nothing Dusty can do about

(23:02):
that because now you're asking him tostart John Singleton play Greykessinger. Yeah,
it might work, but it doesn'tmake any sense. Yeah, I mean,
and at the end of the day, I mean this game was over
basically in the in the first inningwhen Christian you have Christian Javier only get
one out, one out, Youhad the advantage in the starting pitching matchup

(23:23):
when the game began, and fiveminutes into the game, it was all
gone. You had a better pitcheron the mound tonight to start. Didn't
work out that way. Not onDusty. I've been obviously, I've been
consistent, Yeah, on this allseason long. Yes, we can quibble
about lineups and all this type ofstuff. This lineup out here that that
was here today needed to produce,and the starting pitcher needed to produce.

(23:44):
And then you have, I mean, Hunter Brown came in and gave up
a run JP France, absolute disaster. Brian A Bray, You're you go
with Christian Xavier and then your bestreliever all season long gives up a couple
of runs as well. I mean, it's just I tried to mention something
along those lines earlier during the OnDeck Show. Not like I felt people
were disrespecting Ryan Presley, because BrianObra came into this postseason absolutely on fire.

(24:08):
His postseason career has been absolutely incredible. But this was not the first
time he allowed runs. Ryan Presleywas basically perfect again in this postseason.
He was unbelievable. He obviously wasnot needed tonight because there was no opportunity
to bring him in unless you're gonnabring him in just to get a shutout
inning in a game that was gettingout of hand. I really don't even
think Dusty made mistakes with the staff. Those you know, that's who probably

(24:33):
needs to pitch. When you stillneed twenty six outs. You gotta have
Maton out there to finish an inning. Do you leave him out there for
a seconding? Yeah, maybe youdo, depending on the matchup. You
also pitched yesterday, and the matchupsright, and you still need seven more
innings after that, you're still gonnaneed Brown for a couple. You're still
going to France to me, isnot ridiculous. It did not work.
France could not find the strike zone. Leaving him in as long as as

(24:56):
he did I think was a mistake. But it's also very difficult because you're
warming up a starting pitcher to pitchmultiple innings. It's it's not normal to
have somebody else also ready to gowhen he starts, and he had had
two outs I think multiple time there'sa lot of those runs scored with two
outs correct against JP France. Soyou're like, can you just get one
more guy for me? One moreguy, and then you probably do pull

(25:18):
JP France or at least have ashort least for him. France's inning was
single k walk, single double single. He had one out with four runs
having already crossed, finally got thepop out from Garber, then gave up
another single. I believe that waswhen Jonah Him's ball was ruled fair and
then overruled by the home plate onmpiresaying it was actually foul before it hit

(25:41):
the bat got to the bag,thus it was his call. He gave
up the single to Hime and theypulled him for an air. Okay,
then it was the one out,not two Okay, Well either way.
Yeah, you threw a guy thatcouldn't get people out, two of them.
Javier couldn't get outs, France couldn'tget outs. They gave up seven
runs, You lost, and youlose the game. All right, Let's
keep it going phone line seven onethree seven ninety. Let's go to Nathan

(26:04):
in Paerland. What's up, hey, guys? So today was obviously a
mess. So was Lavier, andyou know, Game five was a great
game and I thought we had achance, and these last two games were
just not good to watch. They'renot good at all. And I don't

(26:26):
know what happened, you know,Avier, only not one out. You're
terrible today, And it was justnot not a great, not a great
end of the series for the Astros. I'm just gonna say it, all
right, Yeah, thanks a lot, Nathan. You know one thing we
don't mention often when we're so focusedon the Astros not winning at home,
there's an element of that that playsin the other dugout. Also, they

(26:49):
know you don't win at home.They have confidence coming to your ballpark.
Uh. They they hit well here. Uh this team obviously scoring the nineteen
runs in these two games. Astrosdid a decent in the first two games
of the series, only allowing theseven runs in two games, which is
absolutely manageable for even this offense.But I do think there's an element of
confidence. Even after losing the waythey did in Game five. They were

(27:11):
coming to Houston where they were alreadytwo to zero in this series. They
won three of the six games hereduring the regular season. I think they
had a lot of confidence, andit definitely showed with the way they swung
the bat most of yesterday, clearlyin the ninth inning and then obviously throughout
the ball game. Today had runnerson base all night. Hunter Brown's two
winnings where he gave up just theone run he also was getting. It

(27:33):
was just like his last outing gamewas getting. It was rockets all over
the place, but it wasn't producinga lot of opera. Again, he
gave up a one home run andlike five other rockets, just like he
did the other day in Arlington,where he gave this team shut out baseball.
Yeah, I mean, at theend of the day, this it's
funny to say it could have beenworse. It could have been worse.
For through nine, the Astros arevery good offensively. The Braves are very

(27:55):
good offensively. As the Rangers areconstructed for the postseason because of the emergence
of Evan Carter. The one LeotaTaveries is their nine hole hitter. Josh
Young was probably gonna be Rookie ofthe Year had he not been hurt.
He's their eight hole hitter. NathanielLow hit three or four almost the entire
season. He batted seventh in thisseries, and Marcus Simeon was an absolute
total zero offensively in this series.They were incredible against him in this series.

(28:21):
He had six hits. They wereall singles in a seven game series,
and it just wasn't enough to slowdown their offense. And Corey Seger
had not had a very good seriesuntil his first two at bats tonight,
four hundred and forty foot homer tothe second batter of the game. That's
when I was like, all right, feels like it could be a long

(28:42):
night here at minute made and well, unfortunately it was a long night,
and our long night continues with youfolks on the phone lines at seven one
three, two one two five atseven ninety, the ex Affinity listener lines,
you know what, we were justgoing over all the pitchers that gave
up all these runs and didn't performwell, So I'm gonna put you on
the spot. Wex who's the Rudy'sBarbecue relief pitcher of the night, who

(29:07):
actually went out there and got somethingdone. Well, there's only three options
because they were the three that putup zeros. It's Mayton because while it
seems obvious now that they gave upeleven runs, The Astros scored three runs
in Arlington in Game four in thetop of the first inning, and the
game was tied three innings later.That easily could have happened tonight because Phil
Maton went out there phase two batterswith runners on, struck them both out

(29:32):
and got the Astros out of aworld of hurt. Would have been much
much worse. It was only threeto nothing after the first I think absolutely
he's the guy that afforded them theopportunity of things played out differently to stay
in this game. Yeah, Rudy'sbarbecue relief picture of the game, philm
Maton. That's when I was stillholding out a little bit of hope for
this game, and then well,unfortunately that unraveled within the next couple of

(29:55):
innings. Cohen in Cyprus next upon the Xfinity listening lines, what's up
Coin? Yeah, okay, sojust kind of flash back to Game six
when the Astros kind of punted,I would say, almost like punted away
the game in the ninth inning tokind of like, you know, because
could see the loss. I don'twant to say necessarily that, but to
save bullets for game seven, andyou know, it's an ugly tactic,
but you know, I understood itwas like, okay, we're we're gonna

(30:17):
hold on to Presley, you know, because we're already losing the game.
Fine, fast forward to game seven, Dusky makes the move to pool our
starter Javier right, you know,after he's faced six batters, right move,
you know clearly didn't have it.What I don't understand is the fourth
inning when JP France, I understandthere's a pre batter minimum. You could
tell he didn't have it after MarcusSuming gets on base because he's done so

(30:41):
awful this whole series that wyn Earth, do we not have Bulkan in action
already going and he's allowed to standto face eight batters. The game was
fully over at that point, andI was I was sore. All right,
thank you guys, all right,thanks that winning got away from France
pretty I think it'd be fairly easyto say how first batter he faces three

(31:03):
straight balls, next batter two andzero count, next batter four, pitch
walk. Six of the seven battershe faced in his outing, he let
him off with the ball. Theonly one he didn't was Corey Seeger,
who then reached on that infield singlewhen he ripped it down the first base
and Jose Bray gloved it but didn'tsnag it, and everybody was safe.
He was behind every hitter. Hewas pitching from behind in each count,

(31:26):
and they were just waiting for thepitches that they could tattoo, and they
did. And yes, I agree, even though nobody else is likely to
be warming up when that inning starts, because he is out there, I
would probably amend that a little bit. It's the postseason. Somebody should be
warming up. You don't when you'rein a situation where you're needing that many
outs and you can only go thatmany pitches with any one guy, you

(31:47):
probably should have somebody else getting readyor close to ready whenever you put anybody
in the game, because if theydon't have it, you cannot wait.
Just like Javier, you could notwait, and ultimately you were able to
save the city situation there. Andin France's case, you know, after
the first couple of batters have reached, you know Young is on base and
Simeon's on base, and the basesare loaded for left hander Evan Carter,
who is That's an unbelievably good matchupfor the Rangers. I would probably have

(32:13):
already gotten somebody about ready to comein. Maybe there's a stall tactic you
doing it in advance of that,because then who's on who's going to be
at the plate? Next you geta pitch to a Doulas Garcia, which
is exactly what they did, andthree pitches later, two more runs came
home. Yeah, I'm just tryingto do a little bit of like a
sleuthing. Here, Hector, ourgood friend Chandler Rome putting. Hector Narris

(32:35):
is warming at eight point thirty oneGP. France has the first came at
eight nineteen, and usually that meansthat's when he kind of walks out of
the dugout. So, I meanI was watching all that as well.
He had gotten up in the bullpen, stood up. He wasn't yet throwing
as France was going through the firstseven to ten pitches, and he was
on his second batter by then becauseit was a long bat for Josh Young.

(32:57):
And as the third batter was upand reached, that's when Nars,
I think, really started getting ready. Because you remember there were there were
obviously two visits, and after thefirst visit is one, I thought,
well, the leash has gotta begone and it just wasn't well. And
then that's when the game completely cameundone. And then as far as the
Montero, I still will stand.I had no issue with Montero, and

(33:19):
not no issue, but you're gonnago ahead. And Montero had been good
the second half of the season.Montero hadn't given up a run all postseason
as well. You're hoping he canhold a two run lead. Obviously that
didn't happen. It came unrivaled.But at the time I wasn't super mad
about the Montero before then, Butof course doesn't matter. Now Rangers went

(33:39):
eleven to fourth to day and clincha World Series birth at Minute Made Park
and we're talking about it with folkson the phone lines at seven one three,
two one two five seven ninety Johnin Brenham, next up, what's
up? John? What's up?Guys? Man? I have so much
to like really go through. Imean, I understand the game was pretty

(34:00):
much over at the beginning. Imean they did a zoom in on Huger's
face and you could just see itlike the reptile was gone, like it
was just really gone. You couldsee it in his eyes. You can
see it on his cheeks. Imean, there's a lot of there's just
a lot of questions left out fromthis game, like it really is,

(34:22):
and you know, and why,I mean, I know it's kind of
stupid to ask, but why couldn'tBerland or just come in and do sunking?
You know, it was an allstop kind of game and like they
just needed something to stop the bleedingand it just yeah, all right,

(34:42):
we're losing there a little bit.John. But Dusty was asked about Verlander's
availability before the game. He saidthat it would pretty much said it would
have to be an extra ending typeof situation for him to go to Justin
Verlander on two days rest. Yeah, I don't, I don't really the
problem with it. I mean,it is worthwhile to ask. It's absolutely

(35:04):
a talking point, and I thinkit becomes even more so when the pitcher
he pitched against through two and athird in tonight's game, Jordan Montgomery,
did come back from pitching on Fridayin Game five and Justin Verlander. Different
situation, different age, different stageof recovery following both the Tommy John that
he's had. He's obviously pitched onea Cy Young since, but he also
had the injury at the beginning ofthis season which costs him a month for

(35:28):
the Mets. I think all thosethings were considerations, and again Dusty brought
those things up. I don't knowif I would say it like he did.
He said possible, I'd like notto unless we have unless you go
into extra innings. I mean,he's coming off his Tommy John is a
risk worth a gain of his careernext year. So I believe in winning
games, but not necessarily at apossible all cost of a big man's health.

(35:52):
And he's an astro next year.Also, remember that he traded for
him with the two years plus theoption year. So next year's year two
year three is that option year.He's going to be at the front end
of the rotation next year. Clearlythat's on Dusty's mind. I'm sure there
was a conversation between the two andand like I said, I don't know
if i'd say he's coming off TommyJohn. He has had Tommy John surgery.

(36:13):
That injury occurred in the beginning ofthe twenty twenty season, which cost
him one Yeah, I mean comingoff is again. I mean it's happened
something that's happened that it was weirdthat Dusty Berger kind of brought that up.
But I guess he's trying to say, we got a forty year old
guy right on two days. Iunderstand it's a forty year old on two

(36:34):
days rest. So I mean,if you don't go with a forty year
old on two days rest, it'sit's hard for me to really be upset.
JP France needed to pitch better.I mean, that's that's the bottom
line. And he didn't, andhe got lit up, and he probably
should have been pulled a couple ofbatters earlier. But I don't know what

(36:54):
to tell you. Everything just wentoff course with with Christian Xavier getting one
out tonight and I must win Gameseven at Minute May Park. All right,
seven one, three, two,two five, seven ninety is the
phone number John in Fresno? What'sup, John? Hey, what's going

(37:15):
on? Bud? It's the factof the matter is, let me break
it down. They come out ofTexas, they won three games, all
of them minimals in their favorite theywere coming in in Houston. But the
fact of the matter is, Ihate to use the word, but the
fact of the matter is they quit, and I'm gonna tell you why,
because see the thing about it isis that quit. I'm just yeah,

(37:36):
they quit. They quit the team. The only person, the only consistent
per the only consistent person on thatteam was u uh, you're dune,
your dumb was consistent. Everybody elsethey let the team down, They let
the fans down, they let themselfdown, and let Dusty down. And
I'm just being real. I loveto ask bro y'all know that, cause
y'all hear me talk about matter.They Well, I'm gonna tell you that

(38:00):
quit the John No, not whoquit? So did Frumberveld has quit?
Yeah? Yeah he quit? Hehad fives a three run ball he quit.
No, No, I'm gonna tellyou who quit? Okay, tell
me who quit? The playoffs?All right, we had runners on the
base, right, we had runnerson the base back and driving. No,
boy, we got a few.We got a few runs in there

(38:22):
with nobody with nobody you know,wasn't what significant cause wasn't No, they
wouldn't drin John. I need youto name me some names. Who quit?
Did Michael Browley went over five?I guess he quit. He wasn't
trying. Tucker quit number one.Actually quit you that number after the bun
He can't quit number Kyle Tucker wasn'tpretty well today actually too. But you

(38:44):
know but you know Tuck better thanthat. He doesn't want to play like
he's thinking, like his mind wassomewhere else. He was one, two,
three, can't cooning it. Hedidn't want to try it all.
But I tell you what thing,I will tell you what that ain't now
with if Jim Crane been this allthe business, we know it's a business.
Now he's a business man. Youthink he's gonna run this up.
I mean it's one thing to losewinning and loses part of the game.

(39:06):
We know winning loose the part ofthe game. But the way you lose,
you lose. Just go six runsin two games. You only have
to win one to go to whereelse die? They go twice the man
did you hit in the side?Kid? Night? So when's the exact
Just one more thing, John,before I let you go. When's the
exact moment the Astros quit like I'mstill on the way back. Was it

(39:28):
on the plane? Was it whenthey warmed up before Game six? Like,
what's the moment where they're like,you know what? I two,
but I don't want to play anymore. I'm gonna shock you. The moment
they let, the moment they quits, the moment they wanted dust to bake
out their locker room. So theygot up three to two after our two
Vay's home run, and then atsome moment they're like, you know what,

(39:49):
we want Dusty out. It's timeto quit, and they quit.
Okay, all right, thank you, John, appreciate you getting in and
thank you for making the call.We're here for you. Anything else,
So we're letting you events. Uh, you can say what you like.
We will react to it. Idon't wanna go crazy here. You're trying
to make me and I'm not gonnafall for it. Not gonna happen,

(40:10):
not gonna do it. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead,
you know what. On that note, we're gonna take a break. Phone
lines are open, actually none ofthem are open right now, but they
will open as we take them.If you want to get in seven one
three two one two five seven ninetythe phone number seven one three two one
two five seven ninety on the xFinity the listener lines. We're gonna have
to regroup and figure out who thehell would even be the play of the

(40:31):
game, and some other things here, but we're gonna get out some awards.
We're gonna hear from Dusty Baker.Most importantly, though, we want
to hear from you. Astros loseeleven to four to the Rangers. They
are out of the playoffs. Theirseason is over, and we're talking about
it with you myself, Ross Vrialand Adam Wexer on the Tenenning Show presented
by Exfinity on Sports Talk seven ninety, your Home for Your Stros one d

(40:54):
tenth inning show, drawn to youby Exfinity ten G made for streaming live
sports on nump crowd Home of YourAstros Sports Talk seven ninety. Jose Altuvey
stands in and le Clerk's first pitchand Altuve hits it high in the air,
deep to left field. If it'sdays fair, it's gone, and

(41:15):
it is gone into the Landry's Crawfordboxes for Jose Altuve his second home run
of the series off Jose Leclert andit is eleven to four. Rangers has
twenty seven homers in the postseason nowfor Altuve, just two behind Manny Ramirez
for the most ever. Four combinedhome runs for Jose Altuve in the last

(41:37):
postseason, with all four of themcoming in this postseason. As he makes
his way up the all time chart, Steve Sparks mentioned it Altuve only has
nineteen more postseason at bats than MannyRamirez. Ramirez has twenty nine homers.
Altuve has twenty seven. Alex Bregmanhit his nineteenth and he is in sixth
place all time. Altuve twenty sevenpostseason homers is still a number that is

(42:01):
just unbelievable. And now he's like, what, uh, what's again?
One hundred and two hundred three games, one hundred and three post season games
played, eight fewer than Manny.Wow. All right, well, eventually
he will overtake him, I imaginewith the Astros and that home run.
Your extreme performance of the game,brought to you by Synergenics to fixmlow te

(42:22):
dot Com for Houston's premiere Low TestosteroneSolution. Ross Villa, Reale, Adam
Wexer with you back here on theAstros tenth Inning Show. We will go
out to those Xfinity listening lines injust a second. But speaking of Jose
al Tuove, he spoke to themedia after the Astros eleven to four loss
game over series over season over.Here is some postgame clubhouse audio brought to

(42:45):
you by Academy Sports and Outdoors withjose Al TV Motion. Yeah those you
know, what was was it aboutthese last two days? What was the
difference? Basically? You know,sometimes you'ren win, some times not.
I think that's will happen. Theyplay better than us. Are you going

(43:07):
into this game today? Yeah?We always got things playing, Uh,
run out there and taking our chancesbecause the supporting isn't a lot of the
home that you guys couldn't win here. That's basically do you win sometimes from
to this extreme at home though evenduring the regular season you don't have issues

(43:29):
and carry out over. Yeah,we start of you know, we start
we start the play out of thepressure name you thinking about anything but win
in tying one day at a timeand we lost you who can you tell
us about the messages shared in theclubhouse afterwards? Yeah? Good? We
got good people here, a goodchemistry and start with we lost, we

(43:51):
kind of have like a little meetingand you know, just some incoding on
motivation wars for from everyone there yougo some jose L twove him saying it's
something we've been kind of saying,this is this whole year when there's been
disappointment from this Astro squad at them. That's just baseball, That's what it's

(44:12):
chalking it up too. That's justbaseball. It happens. Sometimes you win,
sometimes you don't. It is againfor the billionth time in my many
many years on air here, itis a different animal. Baseball is not
like the other sports. You goup there, you're one of the best
hitters in baseball, and it's adifferent You're facing somebody different. Almost every
time, you're facing somebody different.Every day they're gonna win. Sometimes they're

(44:36):
gonna win seventy percent of the time. Most of the time, if you're
a three hundred hitter, that's seventypercent of the time you're not gonna get
a hit. If a cheim Olajuanand Michael Jordan shot thirty percent, that
would be kind of a bad productto watch. It's just not like that.
But anyways, it's just unlike that. You can't just go out there,
yeah and give everything you have andsuccess follows. It does more often

(44:59):
than not in the other sports.It just won't in this game of baseball.
It's hard, very hard, verydifficult. Then well, unfortunately it
looked a little bit easier for theRangers the last couple of games. How
about a quick note on I stilldon't think people realize that, whether it's
fans in Houston or nationally, whatthe Astros are still doing, because I
don't think they're done going to theALCS seven consecutive times, never losing their

(45:22):
opening postseason series during that seven yearstretch, winning the DS all seven times,
It's probably not going to be duplicatedby anybody that's currently playing Major League
Baseball. I mean, it mighthappen at some point, I don't know,
but I don't know that it's goingto be anytime soon. With the
way teams are built, and howI mean the Yankees and Dodgers have had
comparable talent to the Astros during thisentire time. They can't even sniff what

(45:49):
the Astros are accomplishing. Certainly withfewer World Series titles the Yankees have none
in that stretch. The Dodgers atleast have the kind of title, But
losing early in the playoffs happens toliterally every single team except Houston for seven
straight years. Well, there's theluckiest of a lot. It's luck some
of it all right, seven,let's go out to those X meny The

(46:12):
listener lines Raymond and the Woodlands holdingalongest. What's up Raymond? Hey,
what's up? Guys? Depressing night? You know? Mon Beer thinks three
right now, but trying to keepit below five. We'll see if that
works out. But hey, Chad, Hey, Chad, you don't know.
You don't watch the Astros, andyou don't know anything about the psyche

(46:36):
of this team. It's you thinkthey quit. Ridiculous comment by you,
and you should be ashamed and shouldnever call a show again. I didn't
agree with the Hobb Yeah, atleast not until the next year. Correct.
I did not like the Hobby airpool, to be honest, I know
he. I did not. Howmany how many games this year have we

(46:57):
pulled a picture that early in game? I would bet you can count on
one on one hand, on ahand with no fingers, you could count
it. Because it's never happened thatyou're You're right, they've not pitched in
a game seven before. Whether there'sno tomorrow where everybody in the bullpen is
available, it is a little bitdifferent animal. For managers, first in
the postseason, the second in thisgame seven there there's it's something different is

(47:22):
on the line, and you're gonnamanage it different. I agree, and
that's what he did. I agree, But at the same time, I
feel like our best pitchers settle intogames right mighty like Berlander that people attack
him early. He settles in Promberfor the most part. Uh, you
know, might have a rough start, but settles in. I'm not saying

(47:43):
howbiers like that, but give theguy, give the guy at any air
or two, because then then you'repulling guys like JP France or rookie God
and in the worst situation you couldyou could be in. I feel like
as a rookie especially you know he'she's anyway, I'm not going to get
into that. I think this isthe worst game we've played all season.
I think Dusty, I love ourbullpen. Our bullpen is the best in

(48:07):
baseball. I totally agree. ButI but that's why I disagree with the
Hovey air pool. I feel likehe relied on it. He turned to
them way too early. Where thatthat hasn't happened all it hasn't happened.
It doesn't happen to us. Towin a World Series, the back of
your line up has to produce McCormick. Uh, you know Tucker who ended

(48:28):
up in the back of the lineup. I guess, uh, Maldonado
did not produce this year. Thatthat that has to happen. It has
happened all over series didn't happen thisyear. The Rangers their bullpen is trash.
I've said it all all week.They are they are garbage bullpen.
Max Scherzer. We I feel likewe were hitting well against him, but
I, you know, going thatmakes me go back to the Hovey airpool.

(48:51):
I feel like we could bull someoffense. He gets him, get
him out early, and once weget to that bullpen would be successful.
But didn't expect to see Jordan Montgomeryfor for one. And it's disappointing and
all our hitters could not capitalize onthis garbage of a bullpen. Yeah,
all right, Raymond, thanks alot, appreciate it. First thing,
on the Javier thing, he wasalready at thirty two pitches in the first

(49:14):
inning. He had only GotY threepitches. I'm sorry, why do I
have thirty two? What am Ilooking at? Oh, that's why game
pitch twenty three for him, Sorry, twenty three pitches. I'll flip it
around twenty three pitches. And itjust didn't seem like I was saying this
to Adam Clanton, who's sitting betweenus during the games, like he's getting
hit a lot of his fastball.He's not locating his fastball, and he's
getting hit off his fastball. Andwe know as goes Christian Javier in his

(49:37):
starts, he goes with his fastball. So that to me is why I
was a little touch surprised that Dustycame and got him right when he did,
but I was on board with itbecause Javier just didn't seem to have
any feel for his fastball, andthat's his money pitch. Yep. Not
a very good start, was locatingtoo many again, like France later in

(49:58):
the game, pitching for a behinda little confidence in any of his pitches,
and the Rangers kind of got thatsense very quickly, so they were
able to wait for pitches they couldhandle. And some of those weren't strikes
either. Some of those were stillup and out of the zone, which
is where most of his pitches weremissing. And it to me it's just
you might not like the results fromwho he turned to. You can't you

(50:22):
can't let him continue. You justcan't. In any other game, even
earlier in the series, in agame four, in a game two,
in a game one, you probablycan do that and hope that he settles
in. I mean, you lookat what Bruce Bochi did. Then he
did it to Max Scherzer two andtwo thirds into the game. He said,
get out of here. What didBruce Bochie do in Game four to
Andrew Heeney one inning? Oh,you're not even gonna finish this inning.

(50:44):
You're you're the game is about toget away from us. You gotta go.
And he went to Dane Dunning andyou know, by the end of
the game, you know that theAstros had played add On and it didn't
much matter, which is a lotof what happened today. It's totally normal.
All managers do that come the postseason, and that's they have opportunity to
second guess if even if it wasjust France, Let's say France gave you

(51:06):
three outs, no runs instead oftwo outs and four runs. Yea,
the selection of the game changes becauseof how, you know, how is
he going to use Montgomery in agame that's much tighter. How are the
Astros going to deploy their relievers ina game that's much tighter. You know,
Jose Rakety went out there in theseventh inning through six pitches and got
three outs, and because of that, people were saying, why did he

(51:28):
go to Urkety earlier? Arkety's pitchingin a lopsided game where the other team
is trying to get to the endas fast as they can, and he
still ended up giving a home runup in the next inning because that's what
he does. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know, it's just
just what to add to that.But on the the fastball thing, the
home run by Corey Seeger was offthe fastball. The single from a Doulas

(51:52):
Garcia was off the fastball, aswas the jonah Heim single. So and
Marcus Simeon started the game off witha hard hit ball. It was a
ground out, but it was hardhit, also off the fastball. So
I think that's where Dusty decided,you know what, we got to go
into a different direction. Which directionhe went into, of course, well
after Mayton, who who came ingot the got the the job done.

(52:14):
Uh, it is what it is. Dusty had his reasons and and five
different pictures, gave up runs andm maiton to Brown. It was fine,
absolutely fine. That that's that's calledhaving a plan. That's called if
this happens, this disaster start happens, here's how we're gonna, you know,
adapt, And they did. Youwent to Maton in a messy inning,
which is what you normally do.And in the post. By the

(52:36):
way, Phil Maton is the bestpostseason pitcher not named Ryan Presley on the
Astros. He's given up one runin two years he in the postseason.
Granted he missed last year because hepunched his life. He was a little
bit shaky and they gave me hegot hit that comebacker and then they put
him in, uh, they puthim on the I L. And since
he's come back from the I L. I don't have the numbers in front
of me, but he's been nails. Yeah, and again he had a
He had a good postseason debut acouple of years back with the with Cleveland

(52:59):
and has been unbelieved. Give upone run in the twenty twenty one postseason
and give up no runs in thispostseason. His postseason career ERA is zero
point eight after his work. Thetwo outs he got tonight, he's unbelievable,
got them to the second inning,got them a fresh start. It
was three to one when Hunter Brownstarted pitching. And while Hunter Brown clearly
did not have a very good regularseason five ERA of above five, the

(53:22):
complaints about turning to him and youdon't know what you're gonna get with any
reliever, his postseason numbers are alsoexcellent. He was very good in his
earlier appearance this year. He wasexceptional last year when he had even less
experience. He's been extremely trustworthy asa postseason pitcher in his ten plus innings
of work in two seasons. It'snot a I can't tell you it's the

(53:44):
wrong move. Results notwithstanding, thatis a totally reasonable move for Dusty to
have made. And you're through thefirst three innings and now there's four runs
on the board, three of whichcame from the starter, who should have
given you the advantage even facing atougher offense. And what the astros are
here at mine A Park. Well, now I'm depressed because I see that
the Rangers are singing creed as they'repooring. That should not depress you one

(54:07):
thing about what we're witnessing out here. By the way, the fans,
the players' families for the most part, are still out here on the field.
Probably a good evening for the familyof Robbie Grossman, and I did
see his family on the field here. The one of the players, obviously
native Aldi has some local ties withwhere he grew up, but a Sifair

(54:27):
High school product. He did starttwo games in this series, both against
Ramber Valdez before Evan Carter replaced him, and now he is on the team
headed to the World Series. Andfor Robbie Grossman in his postseason career,
it'll be his first trip to thepost or to the World Series, after
playoff trips with Minnesota, Oakland,Atlanta and now this is the fourth team

(54:49):
he's made it to the postseason withfirst trip to the World Series for Robbie.
Wow, all praise Astros, legend, Robbie Grossman, a Christian in
Lamark so on and only next uphere on the Exendy Neals and the lines
what's up Christian good even Ross,Hillary Real and Adam Wexler. I mean,
I don't want to say too muchabout the Astros. You know,

(55:14):
messing up this game. I hada whole week posted about it and it
really displayed my dissatisfaction with it.But still though, if anything, I
want to thank not only everybody elsewho are considered Astros fans who stuck out
through dickon then for this team,myself included, but I want to also

(55:35):
thank you Ross Vhiller, Reale,when you Adam Wexler for basically helping us
fans get through the tough times ofthis season with your respective co host Ross
with Matt Thomas of course, Wexlerwith AC and you know, thank the
station obviously, Sports Talk seven ninetywho's been there in Astros game since twenty

(55:57):
eleven when they had back to backto back one hundred lost seasons. And
you know, hopefully, and youcan use this as a sound bite for
whatever reason, I hope this teamcan get better rest of the years go
on, because we do want tosee multiple championships come through the h O
ust O N. But other thanthat, thanks for having me on and

(56:19):
I will talk to y'all respectively onsocial media at Adam J. Wetler and
at Sports R and V. It'sbeen fun. Thank you. Christian appreciate
it, Christian, I appreciate it. Should note that you can tip your
cap to me all you want fora couple of Astros over the course of
there couldn't have been more than fiveto ten, probably closer to five than

(56:43):
ten. Ross a much bigger tipof the cap as you handle a boatload
of these games, a lot ofthem, especially here in the postseason,
where the fans are pretty riled upone way or another and the good side
are on the not so good side, and uh, it's it's always fun
again earlier tonight with some to thenegativity right out of the gate, still
fun. Still, what do youhave to take the good with the bad?

(57:05):
Like if you're going to be onpostgame shows and they're winning and post
game five, which I was,and it was an honor and a privilege
to be there, you got totake the bad ones too, And that's
what we're getting tonight with the HoustonAstros. But something we kind of haven't
having really broach. We've been talkinga lot about the game and well Dusty
Baker's decisions and now we know thathe's not going to be here next year,
Adam. As far as improving theteam, I mean, what even

(57:30):
do you see this team going afterMichael Brantley of course is probably gone,
so outfield or I think becomes definitelya need that's going to be addressed.
So you're starting pitching. Do yousay, did you make it as simple
as Luis Garci and Lance mcullor's junior. Well, Luis Garci is gonna miss
a lot of next season, butLance mccullor's junior is back. You do

(57:52):
have Justin Verlander, you have Fromber, JP France, Hunter Brown, options
as well, jose Erkeaty I believestill under team control. Or do you
try to go out and sign somebodyI mean early or early early early of
course as far as the offseason talk, But how much do you think the
complexion of this team changes for twentytwenty four. The only way it changes

(58:12):
dramatically is if they make a majortrade, and that would involve trading a
lot of the group that you justmentioned would have to be in those conversations.
If they make a big decision decideto move on from say Framber,
who is probably somebody they could getsomething in return for. Though if you're
trading Fromberg, you're opening a holeup in your starting pitching staff, so
you would have to get something alongthose lines in return. Michael Brantley signed

(58:35):
the one year free agent deal,and you mentioned that he will very very
unlikely that he returns to this team. I would expect they would be in
pursuit of retaining Film Maton, whobecomes a free agent this offseason. It's
like he's going to be like oneof your top priorities. FilmOn and Nectar
airs right, both sent to befree agents this offseason, and then they
were part of why you felt sogood every time you got fifteen or sixteen

(58:59):
or seventeen or eighteen outs from yourstartups, because you felt like they were
gonna slam the door and you've gotyourself a win on the nights that they
do that. Nearly everybody else andthat includes Jose Orkeaty is under club control
or already under a long term contract. There are very few players on this
team that are moving out. Andeven if Michael Brantley's not on the team
like he wasn't for four months thisyear. Is Alvarez starting and left,

(59:23):
is Chaz starting in center? IsTucker starting and right? The added outfielder
is not going to be a majorad unless you're committing to him playing one
hundred and thirty five or forty gamesat either DH or in the outfield,
probably in left field. So Idon't know who that player is and how
much they're willing to spend after whatthey spent this offseason this passed offseason.

(59:45):
Two of the players they signed thispast offseason are coming back at thirty million
dollars Jose Abrau and Rafael Montero.The sixteen or twelve ish million you spent
on Michael Brantley as obviously not comingback the pro rated figure from what you
got from the Mets versus what you'repaying to Justin Verlander. They're already a
top ten spender. They're already pushingnear limited flexibility regarding the CBT. I

(01:00:10):
don't think this team is going tochange a whole lot heading in the next
next year. Quite honestly, youjust have to hope at some point one
of your two hurt starters mccullors orGarcia, is a firm part of your
rotation. Hope that Hunter Brown pitchesbetter next year. I wouldn't be surprised
if anybody else among that group thatpitched tonight, Brown or I mean France

(01:00:30):
or Katy. Is there anything withsome sort of package deal you can move
on from them and try You know, they do lack prospects, so it
might not impact the twenty twenty fourAstros, but they're going to if they're
going to be in any way differentnext year of any significance. To me,
that's the only way it can happen. Uh, opening day catcher yan

(01:00:52):
your ideas or the field? Ohyeah, percent, okay, why we
again? If you're signing it,you probably are signing a catcher in the
off season. Now, granted thatcould be Martin Maldonado, but stop,
don't you say that. The Astrosfans don't want to hear you saying that
right now. It doesn't. Itshould not matter who it is. That

(01:01:12):
catcher cannot be your opening day starter, and with Dana Brown as the general
manager, that player will not.He said it this year, this is
our catcher of the future. Thefuture should have begun in a larger degree.
He didn't. I again, Idon't think anybody was calling for him
to start every single day or everysingle game. They did get his you
know, let's be real instead ofpretending it didn't happen. Janer Diaz got

(01:01:35):
a ton of it bats the lasttwo and a half months of the season.
It took a long time, butby the end of the you know,
the last two months, he wasin the lineup nearly every day.
It changed dramatically in the postseason becauseyou now had a healthy roster. So
you're deciding between Diaz or Brantley,or Brantley or you know, there's too
many players that you now want inthe lineup at that spot, and he
has only one position. He's notgonna play first base in the playoffs,

(01:01:57):
so it obviously to me, wasnot an option. Yeah. Yes,
Janner Diaz is easily easily one ofthe five most talented offensive catchers in baseball,
And to me, you're stealing offensewhen your catcher is that good,
and you should take advantage of it. Pie playing him one hundred and thirty
five times one hundred and twenty fivetimes behind the plate. Well, I
hope he can learn how to calla game, because it was a masterclass

(01:02:19):
tonight for Martin Maldonado. It's notthat he doesn't know how. They just
think he can't do it. Iknow. It's just it's so it's so
maddening to hear, even when it'singest. Yeah, but I mean,
oh, look, because we don'thave to do this, do we.
If Justin Verlander wants him, andFrober and Christian Javier and Dusty Baker all
want him, That's how it was. Jav's under contract for next year.
He's pitching here. He's gonna pitchIke Martin demand that Martin Maldonado is his

(01:02:44):
teammate, and then somebody in theorganization, if they disagree with him,
should say no. You can't sayno to Justin Verlander. He's Justin Verlander
had a magical season in twenty twentytwo pitching to Martin Maldonado. He didn't
have a magical two months here.He was good. He was good.
He wasn't unbelievable, He wasn't acy young candidate. He was the best

(01:03:06):
pictures picture in playoffs, their bestpicture in the playoffs. Sure, but
that's again, it's all relative,all right. Joe and clear Lake.
Next up here on the ex Infinitylistener lines, what's up, Joe,
Well, let's take our had toJim Crane in the organization that he built,
He built a great organization twenty fifteen. Own up. He got a

(01:03:27):
lot of players for real cheap.He won a lot of championships. So
I'm gonna take my hats off toJim Crane in the Houston Astros. They
had a phenomenal season even though theyhad a lot of adversity at the beginning
of the year. And uh,you got to realize that the Texas Rangers
had a lot of categories. Theywere number one through the offensive categories.

(01:03:49):
So you know, as long aswe go through the national stage where the
Texas across our jerseys, I thinkwe're all good shape. So that's all
I got to say. All Right, thanks a lot, Joe well Worth
it. You're right. They've puttogether something I think has brought a lot
of fans to every event surrounding thisteam. You know, put fans in
the seats for road games here inthe postseason in the last several years at

(01:04:12):
Minute Made Park, as they didfor the three games in Arlington this past
series. And they've got a reasonto be behind this team. They obviously
have tremedious support. It's obviously helpedto funnel that into spending money on the
baseball team and the other ancillary partsof how you put together a franchise.
They're one of the bigger spending teamsin Major League Baseball. They add players
at the deadline every single year whenthey're in it, and they're in it

(01:04:35):
every single year. That's what youwould what you would I would think that's
what fans would want in an owner. And that's what he's done. And
we'll see what happens this offseason.A. Right, we're gonna go ahead
and take a top of the hourbreak here on the Tenth Inning Show presented
by Exfinity here on Sports Talk sevenninety uh X. Are you prepared to

(01:04:56):
go into Tuesday? Of course,because we are going into Tuesday. Those
of you on I promise we willget to you as we continue talking about
the Rangers beating the Astros eleven tofour, but we're also talking about the
offseason at large, the series thatwas the game that was at seven one
three two one two five seven ninetyseven to one three two one two five
seven ninety Back in a minute afterthis midnight break here on Sports Talk seven

(01:05:19):
ninety, Bragman goes deep. It'smore to two fourth home ron for Bregman
this postseason and the nineteenth home bunof his postseason career that ties them for
six all time with his former teenageerGeorge Springer and Albert Poolholz. Three one

(01:05:43):
hundred and ninety three feet to leftcenter the bottom of the third inning,
off the bat of Alex Bregman.Your play of the game presented by Marrow
Mechanical and a moment there wex whereyou felt like, okay, down only
a couple of runs. Things havebeen in disaster so far, but you
inch a little closer. Maybe MaxSchurzer is gonna start giving up some runs

(01:06:08):
than Jordan Alvarez followed that up witha triple, and then unfortunately you couldn't
get anything else done with a Brayyou grounding out, and then Jordan Montgomery
comes in and Brantley lines out shortsoftly to shortstop. Yeah. Just think
about the numbers of how this gamesupposedly was over when Christian Haavier left the
game the first inning down three nothing. Bottom of the first inning, you

(01:06:29):
brought the tying run to the platebecause you scored the first run. Brantley
was up there with two guys on. For that matter, Jose Oh Bray
was up with two players on ittook your four whole batters to bring the
tying run to the plate, andafter Alex Bregman hits that home or two
batters later, you again bring thetying run to the plate. Following the
Alvarez triple, you had jose ABrayh up as the tying run. You
then had Brantley up as the tyingrunner at the very least the third run

(01:06:53):
of the game. To make ita one run game is standing ninety feet
away with one out. Game wasfar from over at that point in time.
The problem was the Astros did notcapitalize on a bunch of situations like
that, And as Dusty Baker saidin a postgame interview with Tom Verducci after
the game, the main difference wasin his mind was well they couldn't keep
them in the ballpark. And forthe most part that was true. They

(01:07:15):
hit four long balls, obviously theone the back to back two run hits
off of France for one thing.But then you know, Garcia added another
one later and they just kept playingadd on in. The Astros obviously could
not keep up, couldn't keep upjust two fourteen with runers in scoring position,
but that Bregman home run and thenthe Altuve home run which we played
earlier at the end. That makestwo home runs in this game, I

(01:07:36):
believe ten in this series for theAstros. That's your postgame home run counter,
presented by al Bama Furniture on NorthShepherd. And right now we are
pleased to be joined by Dan Matthewsthe Clubhouse Report. Dan, you've been
down there for a lot of thesegames. Throughout the playoffs. We've seen
an elated clubhouse, we've seen adown clubhouse. I imagine it was more

(01:07:57):
of the latter tonight. Yeah,it definitely was. I mean, this
is very much the handshakes, hugs, certain guys signing jerseys for others.
I think you can probably guess whothat one was. But yeah, it's
not a great mood because it's thelast time this collection of twenty six plus,
because you had a lot of differentguys cycling throughout the year, and

(01:08:19):
of course still with them with thetaxi squad. But you know, that's
the reality that immediately sets in thatthis is the last time this group's going
to be together in that clubhouse.And that was definitely the prevailing sentiment in
there. Of course, as thenews came out of the report from the
Athletic about Dusty. We started askingplayers about that that looks like he is

(01:08:41):
not going to return as manager ofthe Astros. So all those different things
kind of baked into it. It'snot a very good cake that anybody wants
to eat. Sure, and weplayed earlier the Jose al Tuo by audio
he said, you know what,it's just baseball. One of those things
you can throw your hands up andsay, it's baseball. It's baseball.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I imagine that was a sentiment of

(01:09:03):
a lot of the players. Yeah, it was. I mean, because
I think that there probably was alittle bit of two different you know,
emotions and feelings in there. Thefeeling being exhausted. I mean, I
think that there is a little bitof that that people, you know,
don't want to want to want tonecessarily hear that about a team, but
I think this is probably a teamthat just was spent. The other part

(01:09:24):
of it as well, is,yeah, the missed opportunities. I mean,
that's something that most of these guysare going to take in the offseason.
We just talked about it, meand Clanton and the video that we're
gonna post up on seven to ninetysocial about you know, just thinking about
the what could have been. Imean, you know that Game two,
you come through with that basis loadedsituation and you get just two runs in

(01:09:45):
right there, you very well mightwin that game, and then you go
to Arlington and do what you justdid. We're talking about right now.
We're not even standing here right now. We're we're getting ready for a World
Series at that point. But Imean it just shows you what baseball and
look, I mean a lot ofthem too, said the same thing.
Tip your hats to the Rangers ascame out here and they took care of
business, and that's why they're representingthe American League in the Yeal World Series.

(01:10:09):
Yeah, bitter pill to swallow,but yeah, they are the headed
to the World Series and the rightfulteam and the rightful winner of this one.
You had something wexer no, Ijust the idea of what's going on.
What was the general sentiment. Imean, we talked so much about
the future of this team, knowingat some point it's not that the Golden
Era is going to come to aconclusion. But I think we all were

(01:10:29):
in agreement that they're probably going tohave a new manager next year. I
think Dusty Baker probably wants to getout in front and make it his decision,
which it appears that's what he's doing. This Cores is not going anywhere.
That the people that were hugging andsaying goodbye, well they're saying goodbye
to the people that won't be here, and the majority of them will be
here. Whoever the next manager isis going to have a chance to win
with this team. Is that notpart of the sentiment from this group that

(01:10:54):
they're not done just because this seasonis done very much? I mean,
you know that was asked to doyou know Dana Brown and you know Jim
Crane's gonna spend the money, andthey said, yeah, absolutely, we
know that's gonna be the case.We know that, you know, this
is a group that's used to winningand that they're going to do everything they
can to be able to try toput this team in position that when they

(01:11:15):
break camp out of West Palm Beachhere coming up this coming spring, that
they have every opportunity to be backin this spot next year with a chance
to possibly be able to make arun even further. Kind Of like what
we just saw last year, soit's not a good feeling. You know.
The good news about going through sevenstraight years of this is that they
have experienced this sum but they've alsoexperienced being able to move past this point

(01:11:39):
and having a chance to win anotherCommissioner's Trophy. And I think they're going
to try to do everything they canto try to put themselves in that position.
I think starting pitching is obviously atthe top of that list. I
mean, who's back, who's not. It's gonna be interesting to see if
Michael Brantley is back next year.I mean, you know, just kind
of the good byes in there wouldlead you to believe that that's going to
be it for him here. Andyou know, Hector Nerris is another question.

(01:12:02):
I mean, there's there's a lotof different questions. Probably though,
you know, even to take ita step further is that I think there
is going to be a literal passingof the baton from Martine Maldonado to Jainer
Diaz to have him come out ofspring training as your every day catcher next
year. All right, there yougo. Dan Matthews is the postgame clubhouse
support. Dan, thanks for thisis the off season this sucks. Yeah,

(01:12:25):
it's not good. We're on theRocket season. I guess here there
is Sports Talk seven hours Rockets,and I of course am battle Red Ross,
so it's c J Stroud season two. As we go along, All
right, let's go back out tothose Exfinity listener lines here on Sports Talk
seven ninety seven on three two onetwo five seven ninety the phone number Breon
and Katie hold on longest. What'sup man? How you doing? Uh?

(01:12:46):
I think you guys hit it onthe head. Earlier in the show
we talked about the Rangers. Theythey just were the better team, and
I think, uh, during theregular season, you know, we battled
injuries. So to make get thisfar as pretty impressive. And I think
it's just one of those things inthe postseason, especially for the Astros,

(01:13:06):
that really doesn't rarely happen. Butwhen half your lineup isn't hidden, and
then you have almost an MVP seasonfrom Justin Tucker and he just can't give
you anything, and then Pinya aswell, I think it's hard for everybody
to sit there and say, youknow, you know, it's disappointing.

(01:13:27):
And so I don't think it hadnothing really to do with the pitching.
So I think I think the onlyproblem I had was probably pitching to Garcia
knowing that he was head hunting forthe ball to go deep in this game.
But at that point, you know, they had men on base,
but it was already we were facinga comeback. But I think the ash

(01:13:49):
Of did pretty well for what theyhad, and you know, suit it
up next season and see what wecould do. All right, thanks a
lot, Brionna, appreciate it.I just first of all, I mean,
to an extent, pitching was notthe problem, but to an extent,
pitching was the problem, and itwas your problem today. That's that's

(01:14:10):
why you lost. And then thegame completely fell apart and got away.
Yesterday that's a different story for adifferent time because Montero just couldn't get it
out there in the ninth when itwas close. But today it's just I
mean, it was both. Bothof those situations were the same. It
was a four to two game,just with more game to play. When
Montero came in, it was fourto two game. When France came in,
it was a four to two game. Yeah, I just don't know.

(01:14:30):
Yeah, when exactly what how manyof those Batters, was hector nus
up and like ready to go,like ready to comment. I don't know
any question for Dusty Baker the situationabout Garcia. I thought it was pretty
interesting. Dusty was presented with that, why why I continue to pitch to
him? He basically said, youknow, at some point you have to
you have to try to get guysout, And then they were also pitching

(01:14:54):
to Jordon. It was basically ahit festival for both of those guys.
And while the Rangers twice in intentionallywalked him, they only intentionally walked him
after they fell behind in the count. They did it once yesterday and then
they did it once today. Itprobably would have been the right move.
And again I don't think anybody's sayingthis in hindsight. In that fourth inning
with France out there, to intentionallywalk Garcia after Evan Carter had made it

(01:15:17):
six to two, he was onsecond, Seger was on third, first
base was open. It would haveloaded the bases. And I think that's
the point in time you issue theintentional walk and you have somebody else pitch
to Mitch Garver, and that's whereI think maybe you Again, I don't
know that it works. It's aterrible place to be bringing I hate bringing
in relievers with the bases loaded becauseyou already want them to throw strikes,

(01:15:39):
and now they have to throw strikes. So it's an awful place. Ryan
Stane came in with the bases loadedyesterday. What do you do to the
first battle? He hit him?He hit him? Yeah, I mean,
you just that's just twenty twenty threebase balls. You don't give free
bases. You don't intentionally walk guysbecause nobody hits, or you're giving it
an all base percentage of a thousand, and Barry Bonds in his absolute prime
didn't have it on percentage of athousand. You're just great, you give

(01:16:01):
it to him. But then youget to face Mitch Garver, who's half
the hitter. I mean literally,some of the numbers say he's half the
hitter. Series. Yeah, hehad a good game yesterday. That was
pretty much it. I mean,he wasn't awful, he wasn't an automatic
out. I don't mean to saythat, but there's a big difference in
facing him. That's why you walked. You You intentionally walked yord On Alvarez

(01:16:25):
to get to the cleanup hitter.Who is the astros second most productive hitter
in the postseason. And if,of course I think it's the right move,
I'm gonna wanna face Jose Abrew onehundred times out of one hundred as
opposed to Jose or a yord OnAlvarez, and it's not an insult to
him. He's just not the samehitter. And to me, that's the
same situation when it's a Doulas Garciaabsolutely locked in versus Mitch Garver, and

(01:16:46):
again, Mitch Garver becomes a betterhitter when he's batting with the bases loaded.
Still something I probably would have entertainedand seen how the cards played after
that, I guess. I mean, it's just to me that you said
it's not a hindsight thing, butI think it is. With the walking
of Adulas Garcia, because yeah,he was obviously hot and he hit,
but he struck out his first fourtimes at the bat yesterday, it's and

(01:17:08):
it's there's a reason why they youjust don't see intentional walks in the stage
and Dan Age's, well, youliterally do in the postseason, like you're
right down, who got? Whogot? Like that was after they pitched
him, correct, they didn't justyes, they were two oh in the

(01:17:29):
count, which is exactly what Franceto Adulas Garcia before grooving him with a
fastball that he belted for a tworuns at that point in two oh.
I suppose, but but it's alsoyou're trying to get You also have JP
Frantz on the mount and he's notthrowing well. So that's the matchup you
want to attack. I think not. Yeah, I understand, like I

(01:17:50):
said, but there's a reason,Like I said, there's a reason they
don't. You just don't see it. The last thing I'll say, that's
the book. That's Oh. Ihate those books. You can't take a
book and put it into an individualscenario that the factors are. This is
a Dolars Garcia, not the generalplayer in the book. This is JP
Frantz, not the general picture inthe book. It's specific to the game

(01:18:13):
situation. I hate intentional walks almostas much as I hate bunting, but
I think that situation called for it. Okay, seven one three, two
one two five seven ninety is thephone number Rudy and Alvin. What's up?
Hello? Hey, what's up Hey? Ross? Hey, Adam?
Good morning? Hey, I haven'tcalled in a long time. I don't

(01:18:38):
know if Ross would have remembered me, but uh, I never was.
I wasn't an apologist about twenty seventeen. I'm pretty I was pretty outspoken for
a long time about my feelings aboutthat. But knowing that, I just
wanted you to take this observation fromtonight. I could call in and gloat,
but that's that's low that's just minorleague bush lead stuff. But I

(01:19:00):
wanted to. I wanted you togo back and look at this because you
guys, most astro fans probably wouldhave missed this too. I'm just a
baseball fan across the board. Butthis is when it bray. You was
in at the top of the sixthand Garcia. It was right after the
Garcia bat tonight. Ken Rosenthal,I could just see him. He was

(01:19:25):
a Fox as you know, thatone of the commentators tonight, so he
you know, he had this storykeyed up ready, and so as soon
as Garcia, I guess went outbecause the stage was set. Okay,
nothing happened there, so let's hitthe story. And this is what I
hate about some of it, becauseit's too much marketing and they think they're

(01:19:46):
slick so this was a total marketingcampaign. Rosenthal starts talking about all the
reasons why this was a great decisionto not have him suspended tonight, and
know what he said, and thenhe said the art He cited the arbitrator's
reasons as he didn't want it,didn't think he although he thought it was

(01:20:10):
warnted to suspend him today that itwould you know, he thought it would
be unreasonable to UH to remove orsuspend him would affect the game. Well,
it also affects the game if youif you don't suspend him. But
this is my point. My pointis, well, I'm trying to get
to it, but if you goback and listen to it, it's very

(01:20:32):
important because then Joe Davis right beforethat hit to Garber the pitch right if
you go back and look at rightbefore he hits Garb, he goes and
I feel like, I feel likethat was a good decision, plunk,
And I thought, you know,there's some karma to that one right there,
because all they tried to do isput lipstick on a pig. That's

(01:20:56):
a bad decision because you should suspendany player immediately. What does that what
kind of I'm sorry, So I'myeah. I mean this is we're you're
saying that you think that Brian A. Bray you should have been suspended,
and the reasoning by the arbit traderwas ridiculous to say, well, we

(01:21:16):
got a lot of people to getto I appreciate you, and we gave
you a long leash there. No, it was absolutely the right decision to
not suspend a Brian Bray because hedidn't hit a dose car set on purpose.
If you ask me, and ifyou asked justin Verlander, if you
asked Ussy Baker, if you askuh, the general thinking of that in
that situation. So I don't evenknow I'm with you on that note.

(01:21:39):
Let's just move on Alan and Conroenext up. Oh my gosh, boy,
I think a lot of folks aredrinking their Crawford bark tonight or something.
Uh, Crawford Box, the bigcans, right, the really big
one. You know. I thinkhistory can help a little bit sometimes a
little bit of context. Okay,I was sitting in the Crawford boxes speaking

(01:22:00):
of Crawford in two thousand and five, October seventeenth. You might remember this.
I'm sure you probably do. Theninth inning we're winning against the Cardinals
all right four to two. Atthat time, Brad Lidge man, he
couldn't you know, he was thebest we thought at the time, right
lights out Lydge had the great youknow, entrance and everything, and Albert

(01:22:24):
Poohol's stripes a three run home runright over our heads, and the whole
stadium went silently thought, oh mygosh, it's two thousand and four again.
And of course we ended up winningthe next game and going to the
series and then getting shut out.I was in Chicago when bagwell, you
know, Pinch hit that was theend of his career. Vigio's ending was
soon after that, couple of seasonslater. And what was the difference of

(01:22:46):
that time? And now, youknow, the team was kind of in
the beginning of a rebuilding phase andeverything was shutting down. There weren't a
lot of young players that were goingto stick around. It was about to
be transferred to Jim. Now we'vegot as you said earlier, you said,
the core is not going anywhere.We've got franchise players. We've got
Berlander for a couple more seasons.We've got Altuve, We've got Jordan,

(01:23:10):
we've got DZ we've got great youngplayers that are gonna stick around, and
we've got a really fantastic franchise thatseven Alcs consecutive appearances is incredible. I
mean, it's like the Yankees ofthe early Auts in late nineties. So
I think that, you know,this idea that these guys are quitting and
oh my gosh, it's the endof the world and all this stuff,

(01:23:33):
it's really kind of ridiculous because youknow, you've got a Hall of Fame
manager in Dusty Baker, he's goingto move on. We've got a bunch
of Hall of Fame players that arestill going to be their next season.
And honestly, it's like what thisteam has accomplished is incredible, and so
I just think it's really worth puttingit in context and like, yeah,
it sucks to lose. We wouldhave loved to have gone to another series,

(01:23:55):
but what a time to be anAstros fan. I mean, honestly,
this is like the best ever tobe an Astros Sam Yeah, thank
you Allan, Yeah, it's beenit's been a great run. I will
definitely it's just a feel like thismoment, at least for me personally,
it's not the time for a perspective, and I understand the forest. It's
been fantastic, but the tree tonightwas horrible. And you had an opportunity
in these last two games to justwin one at home, and you're going

(01:24:18):
to a fifth World Series in sevenyears, which have been an incredible So
yeah, it's been great. Thisrun has been fun. And I'm with
you as far as as we getinto the offseason about this perspective and how
much we should appreciate it. Butthese games, uh, well the final
scores don't look like it, butthere were moments where these could have turned
into winnable games for the Astros,and well they didn't. And now the

(01:24:42):
Rangers are onto the World Series.Yeah, and you know kind of the
big picture nutshell that different parts ofthe show of we've been talking about.
Ye know, they're gonna play theYankees to open up the season next year,
end of March, the home opener, and the Yankees are in town.
Brian Obray was gonna be suspended forthat game, so it will be
unavailable. You're gonna go out two, Bregman, Alvarez, A Bray,
You, Tucker Diaz, McCormick,pain, you know, one through eight,

(01:25:04):
or whoever's the d H will bemixed in there somewhere. That's how
good this team is and not howmuch of what if they're gonna win next
year. It's gonna be because ofthose guys, all a part of this
year's team, almost all of thema part of last year's team, all
of them except for a Brew andDiaz. That that's who this team is

(01:25:24):
next year, and they absolutely aregoing to be in the mix. I
think the Rangers are the best favoritethe division. I said it about two
months ago. The Rangers are gonnabe the favorites next year in the American
League West. You have to grondback. I mean, Josh Young could
get better, Tarries could get better, Evan Carter could play of a harder,
could play the whole season. Yeah, that's the Rangers are scary.
And the Mariners were right there withboth of you into the last weekend of

(01:25:46):
the season. The third place.They're but they're they're players, their playoff
caliber teams. It's gonna be thesame three team race it was this year.
Are The only difference is you're notthe favorite. I don't believe.
I wouldn't believe. You also arelikely on the manager search unlike those two
teams. Yeah, that's true,all right, seven one three, two
one two five, seven ninety.Speaking of the Rangers being on the way

(01:26:08):
to the World Series, who willthey face? I suppose we'll find out
your post game scoreboard presented by MarshallStevenson, Elevator. Diamondbacks get the Phillies,
wex five to one. They winto tie the series up. Game
number seven tomorrow, Ranger Suarez versusBrendan fought seven oh seven first pitch.

(01:26:29):
Very unheralded pitchers, both of them, and both of them have been awesome.
Uh Suarez for more than just thispostseason, and obviously on the d
Backs side at Citizens Bank Park wherethey just won, pretty important. It
doesn't matter to the Rangers. Theyknow they're opening at home on Friday night
in the World Series. Whomever winsthat game in advances. But back to
Baca, Game sevens on back toback nights, both CS's go the full

(01:26:53):
distance. That's pretty good for baseTBS and Fox. I'm sure are pretty
happy about that. And there yougo, your post game scoreboard, presented
by Marshall Stevenson, Ella Vader.Before we go back to the phone lines,
I'm gonna put you on the spotagainst us the Astros Player of the
Game, brought to you by TwinPeaks. Who was the finest Astro this

(01:27:15):
evening. I think it's pretty easy. Yeah, it's the same player that
was the Astro of the postseason.There was one Astro that had a three
hit night tonight. It was JordanAlvarez. The triple he hit off the
wall was about two feet off theplate and he smashed it the opposite way,
knocked a panel out of the scoreboardand was able to get all the
way around on that. And hejust guy was an animal this postseason.

(01:27:39):
It's possibly the best postseason we willsee from any player, let alone just
an Astro. He was incredible andhe certainly provided them every opportunity in tonight's
game and this postseason. Twenty hitsthis postseason in eleven games, he hit
four to sixty five what two seriesand his his OPS was fourteen eighty seven.

(01:28:02):
That's pretty good, I would haveto say. And he is your
Player of the Game, and let'sgo ahead and give him Player of the
Playoffs for the Astros, also presentedby Twin Peaks. Let's keep it going
now on the phone lines as youcontinuing to hold. We appreciate you.
Everyone on right now. We willget to you, I promise, starting
with Steve in Arizona. What's up? Wow? Hi, thanks for putting
me on. Okay, so youknow, I don't really think the Rangers

(01:28:27):
are really that good. I mean, they're okay, but they're basically about
the level that the Phillies were lastyear in the in the World Series and
we beat them, and we basicallyhave basically the same team, the same
guys, except we got Michael Branleyback. So on Pinion's not hitting as
well, Kyle Tucker's not hitting aswell, and You're pitching is weaker.

(01:28:47):
Well, that's my point. Sowe have the same players, but they're
not playing well. And the reasonfor that other than this whole you know,
they're good on the road, butthey can't win at home, which
is just bizarre. I don't knowwhat that's about. But they're tired,
and they and they seem tired theentire season, sort of like this World

(01:29:08):
Series hangover just never wore off.And I think the thing is is that
you know, year after year they'vebeen in the postseason, in the World
Series, and I think that they'rejust tired. Like they you know,
they just don't have that kind ofintensity that you need to go all the
way. They want to go outthere and do their job, but they
just don't have it because they're justburnt. And you know, it's it's

(01:29:30):
kind of thinking, hey, youknow, I make a lot of money.
I could just go home and spendtime with my family as opposed to
spend in October, you know,playing all the way till November. You
know. So I think it's ait's a mental weakness, and maybe something's
going on with management. You know, I really don't know. I mean,
instead of maybe getting a new manager, they can get a hypnotherapist or

(01:29:51):
a psychotherapist and try to work outthis home field problem. You know,
I really don't know what's going onthere. That's pretty spooky. But that's
what I think is the problem.I've been watching it all year, you
know that they just they just theypick it up, they get intense,
they get pretty good, and thenthey get slogish. All right, thanks
a lot, Steve Yea, Iappreciate it. Yeah, I mean that's

(01:30:12):
that's something we can't necessarily, youknow, quantify how much of it is
how much cumulative fatigue is there froma team that did go to seven straight
alcs's. You also have the WorldBaseball Classic in this offseason, wex for
a hand. How much do youthink that's a factor. Ninety seven games

(01:30:33):
for the Astros since twenty seventeen inthe postseason, jeez, that's a lot.
That is a lot of baseball.Although that's you know, fifteen to
eighteen games roughly for a month,you know, playing a whole month of
just fifteen or eighteen games. Ithink, actually think it's much more of
a mental issue because it is agrind. And I keep wanting to disagree

(01:30:55):
with the idea that they were theywere tired this year, and yet it
really did. I think you say, well, how tired were they when
Altuve hit the game five home runand they're up three games to two and
they're coming back to Well, thesegames were such grinds because they aren't quite
as good. It was much moredifficult for them to win. They only
they lost, you know, theywon ninety games this year. They had

(01:31:15):
a seventeen win drop off. Thatis massive. I mean that that is
a long way down from what youonce were. So I do think it
was a grind through all those postseasons, through this regular season, and each
of these wins, even these postseasonwins, you'll grinding out the game one
win when justin Verlanders started, You'llworking your way through those games, three
and four wins in Minnesota. Youdid not play well enough to win either

(01:31:39):
of the games here to start,and then, you know, I think
he's probably got a point. Idon't think it's an excuse. I do
think it's a fact. I don'tthink it's what prevented them from winning,
because what prevented them from winning isall that grind and all that stuff.
Well, you still had Altuve,Abray Bregman, and Jordan Alvarez. All
of them had a nine hundred opsor better in the postseason. The problem

(01:31:59):
was the other five guys didn't.Ha not seven hundred. Well, maybe
Jeremy Payne is not used to thegrind. How about how about a seven
hundred ops or seven to fifty.These guys were in the five hundreds.
Yeah, and four hundreds. Theywere literally like automatic out is a pretty
negative connotation, and they were sodangerously close to that being almost really literally
accurate. I didn't get quite therewith Kyle Tucker, I was getting there,

(01:32:20):
but I had Honestly, this issad to say I had about the
same level of expectation with Jeremy Paniacoming to BAT as you do with Martin
Maldonado, Like this is just notgonna go. Well, let's go on
to the next Guy's a gut feelingtype of you know, Maldonado's OPS in
the playoffs was for sixteen. Payena'sOPS in the playoffs was for sixty three.

(01:32:41):
I mean, it's these are theseare unbelievab literally impossible numbers to post.
You would think for players, evenfor Maldonado, that's way below what
he normally is, which is awful. He was even below that, And
clearly Jeremy Payna is not gonna bean everyday player if he's posting a four
to sixty three OPS again, tinysample size eleven games, even his poor

(01:33:01):
regular season, he was significantly betterthan that. And now I'm upset again.
Willa in Manville, what's up?Hey? What's going on? Fellas?
Good morning? Hey? I justwanted to I just wanted to keep
it real. You know, I'mon Facebook, on Twitter. A lot
of people are blaming Dusty Baker andI think and I think we all agree.

(01:33:26):
You know, Paanya has been trashedall year, so I wasn't worried.
I wasn't expecting anything from Paya.We're talking about Painia just now.
We weren't expecting anything from Alzinado.They do what they do. They haven't
been doing anything. But Tucker.Tucker is the reason we lost. If
Tucker backs two fifty, we winthe series. If Tucker gets five hits,

(01:33:47):
four hits this series, we winthe series. We have to bet,
bet, bet our best guy orone of our best guys. I
think Ross at one point was saying, you know, he's close with Alvarez
for our best guy during the season. He might be our number one guy
and might not be Alvarez, itmight be Tucker. We had to bet

(01:34:08):
him at seven or see he wasbad. Let's six to seven one?
Yeah, yeah, I mean Ilisten every day. Man, you said
it before, right, it wasclose, right, it was close.
Maybe this was ear right, Sowe had to bat him. We had
a brand you at number four,right, This is why we lost because

(01:34:30):
Tucker just didn't show up at all. We could blame everybody, the pitching,
you know, Tucker's missing easy robs. You, I want to say
easy rob but he's missing. It'slike Tucker, I want to blame it
all on him. If this washardening, we would be killing him,
right, If this was a hardenedstinking it up in game against the Spurs,
we'd be killing him. Two forseventeen, Oh yeah, one for

(01:34:51):
eleven. I think in that oneis something like that. But Alvarez is
hardened. Tucker's not hardened, ChrisPaul. And that's the thing. The
thing they really really really got mewex was the two on I believe it
was no out and he tries toflails and tries to bunt on the first

(01:35:13):
pitch. That was really like ared alert, red flagged me, Like,
Okay, guys go through slumps.Okay, have we seen this baseball,
As we always say, have weseen a guy slump for eleven games?
Of course, we've seen guys slump. We've seen guys slump for thirty
or forty games. Even Kyle Tuckerhimself going to deep elongated funks, but
like to where he's pressing so hardthat he's out there trying to bunt.

(01:35:36):
That to me was just one ofthem. Probably as far as in a
negative way, most unbelievable moments ofthis whole postseason. Yeah, I'll be
hard pressed to put the Wexler researchteam on this, but I don't believe
Kyle Tucker had a stretch the entireseason where he only had six hits over
an eleven games span, and notonly just six hits, they didn't drive

(01:35:58):
the ball at all this postseason.He had to off of Chapman, which
was really the only really significant knockhe had this whole series. Knock Chackman
out of the game, put theclerk in there, and obviously that kind
of set the table for the drama, the Abraviu drama with Adulus, and
then obviously the three run homer forjose Al tub when clerk had to come
in and then sit down. Butback then or that was back in Game

(01:36:20):
five. Yes, Kyle Tucker tooimportant to this team to be a total
zero. Interestingly, they had aplayer that was monumentally important to their offense
a year ago and he turned intoa total zero through the first two rounds
so through the American League portion ofthe playoffs last year, and that was
jose Al Tuve, and they stillmanaged to win their two American League series.

(01:36:42):
This year, they tried to makeit back to back years where one
of the most important players was absolutelydreadful offensively, and they made it all
the way to Game seven this year. Last year they were able to.
Not only did they make it,they didn't even lose a game in the
American League playoffs last year with AlTuve totally lost at the plate. Yeah,
it's more difficult this year. Theteams they faced were more capable of

(01:37:05):
battling them. The Rangers are waybetter than the Yankees were last year.
You had more guys slumping this yeartoo, I mean, or at least
at certain times, especially and justevery what happened to Jeremy Peney And I
only know oh year, like thesecond half of the season what he had.
I think he had ten home runsat the All Star break, right,
Yes, that's what he ended with. Yes, what happened? Is

(01:37:28):
he okay? Like? Are weif we just get a press release tomorrow?
Like Jeremy Pania has a broken backand he's been playing with it,
and then Kyle Tucker both of hisarms are broken. Like why remember back
in twenty eighteen when the day afterthe season jose L two. They had
surgery on his knee. Yes,yes, like something like that, Like
that's what I need to hear inorder to believe these slumps that we just

(01:37:49):
saw from these two guys. It'sjust unbelievable. I mean, it made
it difficult to put together beginnings thetop four in the order or the guys
who batted one through which you guypassed and maybe you get something from Bray
you are Brawley here given there.But then it was like it's over right.
We're like, okay, when's thenext inning because this is over terrible
all right. It's a couple ofyou left before we get out. Lewis

(01:38:14):
Lewis in Pasadena, what's up?Yes, hello guys. Actually I was
at worked at it. That wasone of the security officers up for the
last time. The twenty twenty threeseason. Thank you had to March store
and thank you AC and one finalAstro season shout out to the illustrious Mama
Tee and L's beautiful family. Nowunder the game just uh today. At

(01:38:39):
some points, I mean looking back, maybe you know with uh when we
lost to Aseel two B to thewhat Baseball Classic, which you know that
really did hurt us, but youknow, we overcame and uh, you
know, but then again it's likewe hit August and then we started slumping
and losing to the bottom Peter teamsOakland, Kansas City, and uh,
it almost came back to bite uswhen you know, we went a month

(01:39:00):
ago it didn't even look like wewere going to make the playoffs, and
then we rallied, we slept Arizona, and the Rangers lost year for to
Seattle. Now, ironically, ifArizona and I think that the Beets can
do it, if Arizona, youknow, dispatches the Phillies tonight, then
the two teams that figured into theAstros directly and indirectly, you know,

(01:39:20):
making the postseason and almost taking itback to the World Series are going to
be facing each other. So butI think we have a lot to be
proud of. But for starters,I just think, you know, number
one, quick question, if JessBaker would have come back, how much
would it take to keep him?Number Two, I think that you know,
Kyle Tucker and Jimmy Penny could doto stand a good place and running

(01:39:42):
ball and learn how to you know, work the walk and take pictures instead
of trying to hit Grandstamps with nobodyon base, and thirdly, just lands
for Colors. I mean, ifand when is he ever going to stay
healthy for one entire season, I'mpitch again because you know, when we
don't have them, we don't haveone hundred percent of Colors and the rotation
it has hurt us. But thanksguys, and the go Texans, go
Rockets, and the go d Becks. All right, well there you go.

(01:40:06):
I feel like the Phillies have abetter shot. And look, I
just at all costs anybody there theRangers is the way I'm feeling right now,
anyone but the Rangers. And itfeels like overall the Phillies have the
stronger team. But whatever happens,I guess it's out of our hands.
I just don't I just don't wantRangers World Series champion. Actually is making
me physically ill just thinking about that, But I keep saying this, Wax.

(01:40:29):
The good news with Lancer Colors Junioris this is the same injury from
twenty one that he continued to havecontinue to try to rehab. Now it's
surgically repaired, and he always alreadyhad Tommy John So maybe there is some
glimmer of hope that he will beable to stay healthy long term for the
Astros, he had a hope.You wonder if they do at some point
consider using him differently, basically,not as a starter. I wonder if
that is something they would ever consider, if that's something they think makes sense

(01:40:54):
with his arm injury history. Maybeit doesn't. Garcia, Lance McCullers,
Junior Forever Valdez, Justin Verlander,Hunter Brown, JP Franz, Jose Orketi,
Renel Blanco. They're not all goingto start. They're not all going
to be in the rotation next year. It just simply will not happen if
they are. You know, yousay you need six or seven starters,

(01:41:15):
Well that's true. There's is areal possibility the Astros don't even go to
camp with all of those players becausethey're looking to maybe put together the roster
a little bit differently. Well,you know what else you have this offseason?
You have a general manager in placethat's good. Last offseason, you
did not. James click Was waslet go not long after the parade,

(01:41:36):
And you're gonna have one that's notjust reading the back of baseball cards.
You're you have somebody that's continuing hispart in the organization rather than coming in
cold like Dana was this year,although I think he had an exceptional handle
on what this franchise has from topto bottom with the all the years he's
spent in Major League Baseball scouting inpersonnel. Uh, looking forward to him

(01:41:57):
really probably more so than ever beforegetting hands involved, and what this team's
gonna look like moving forward. Yeah, we'll something that. Of course,
we'll continue to keep an eye onhere on Sports Talk seven ninety as well.
We are your home for the Astros. All right, final tenth inning
call of the year. We'll goback to the Xfinity listener lines for the
last time. Donald in a hobbywhat's up? Donald? Hey, great

(01:42:21):
job by you. Ross with thatback of the baseball card reference anyway,
My question, my question is this, if the if the Astros have,
you know, have a consensus pickon who they want for a manager,
do they have to go through theformality of a of a interview process.

(01:42:43):
For instance, if Joe, ifJoe has spotted is the consensus pick.
Can't they just say this is theguy who we want, or do they
have to go through the formality ofgoing through an interview process. Well,
to me, it's kind of likethe NFL draft when you're at the top
of the draft and you already knowwho you want, but you have interviews,
you host players, you get asmuch intel as you can because that's

(01:43:03):
your opportunity to do so, andmaybe down the road you have that information
and it helps you make a personnelmove. Even if Joe Aspotta is the
top choice, and I think heis at this stage of the game,
which is ground zero, because again, the position is not open. Dusty
Baker did not retire or resign tonight, and he certainly was not let go
by the team tonight, although hiscontract will help dictate that and that it

(01:43:23):
doesn't move forward. There isn't acontract for the upcoming season. So you
interview Joe Aspota, you learn moreabout any of the other candidates that are
out there. You know, doesWill Venable come to town, Does Mark
de Rosa get an interview? Youknow, Craig Council situation. I mentioned
that earlier in the show. There'sa bunch of other names that we'll start
hearing a lot more of. SandyAlomar Junior is somebody who's been in the

(01:43:44):
game, and on major league staffsfor several years. As he's somebody that
starts to get interest there. There'splenty of nimes, he's one of them.
The Astros will one hundred percent interviewmore than Joe Aspota for their potential
open managerial Yeah, I would imaginethey would. But he's probably the leader
right now for the Astros, andwe will see what happens because Dusty Baker

(01:44:06):
reports coming out that in all likelihoodhe will not be back for another season
as the manager of your Houston Astros, whose season has ended tonight at the
hands of the Texas Rangers. Andwith that that will do it for the
Tenth Inning Show presented by Exfinity fornot only tonight, but for the rest

(01:44:27):
of the season. Wex any finalparting words. Rangers beat the Astros in
seven and they're onto the World Series. Yeah. Always a hat tip to
everybody that's involved in being so passionateabout everything, you know, the Astros
for their part in all this.I mentioned the players had ninety seven games
in the postseason since twenty seventeen.That's an extra month every year for us

(01:44:50):
to get the additional baseball you gotto. You'll go on the road with
the Astros this year. The SportsTalk seven ninety always goes on the road
with them during the postseason. It'sit's fun. It's fun when you win.
It's a great thing to cover becauseyou get that much closer to the
fans and their interests in all thisour position for these games. For those
that don't know, we're basically sittingwith the fans. That's our press box

(01:45:11):
spot in the auxiliary area during thesepostseason games. And again, for those
of you that have been long timeAstro fans, and even the ones that
have been fans for about ten orfifteen years, you know what it's like
when the team is winning fifty,winning seventy. Not competitive. The last
month of the season is not aboutwhether you're winning or losing. It's well,
let's see who we have that canplay well for us next year.

(01:45:33):
Maybe it's a totally different ballgame withwhat this team has provided. I have
no reasona believe it'll be any differentnext year. Highly competitive division, and
this roster will be ready to competeonce again. Yeah, I think we're
gonna have another Al West race thatcould come down to the final couple of
weeks of the season. Next year, we shall see and yes, do

(01:45:54):
you want to say thank you toall of you who listen and call.
I mean, look, this isa postgame call in show without the callers.
Without you guys listening and interacting withus, there is no show.
So thank you so much for beingwith us throughout the season. It has
been fun. It is a ground. We are tired, it is twelve
forty five in the morning, butwe do it because we love it and

(01:46:14):
we can't do it without you,folks. So thank all of you so
much for listening and participating in thesetenth inning shows throughout the years. Here
at Sports Talk seven nine, Edwarrewe the proud, proud, proud flagship
of your Houston Astros and with thatthat will do it for the final tenth
inning show of the season. Alsohuge, and I'm sure you echo this,

(01:46:34):
wex huge thanks to Josh C backof the station. Does a great
job as always, astro stuff,rocket stuff, postgame audio, all that
type of stuff. You can alwayscount on Josh C to do a great
job, and so thank you verymuch, Josh. To you, my
name is ros Viria for Adam Wexer. Once again, you're unhappy. Final
eleven to four Astros season over,but the coverage doesn't stop. Will continue

(01:46:59):
talking about tomorrow, I'm sure withAdam and Adam on the A Team and
three Matt Thomas Show twelve to threeas well. Next up to twelve with
Gordy and Northfleet and a course startingat six am with the Shawn Salisbury Show
with Brian Lilima. Right here onSports Talk seven ninety your home for your
shows. Talk to you folks tomorrowor actually today